Warcraft Rumble Devs Spend a Lot of Time Talking About Tiny, Angry Chickens

When thinking of iconic and powerful figures in Warcraft that developers might consider when working on content for titles like Warcraft Rumble, a lot of names might come to mind. Rumble is introducing Ragnaros the Firelord in its new season six update, for instance, while figures like Tirion are among the best leaders in Warcraft Rumble. But one of the biggest concerns developers have when thinking about and testing content for Rumble is far more humble.

Warcraft Rumble producer Elhora Davis and senior designer Brendan Farrell shared that one of the game’s minis that most often gets discussed in terms of design and balance is, in fact, nine angry chickens. In a recent interview with Game Rant, they said that using the chickens is a surprisingly serious strategy in the game.

“Let’s Deploy the Chickens!”

Davis explained that one of seven bosses in the new Molten Core raid–Lucifron–makes use of Dominators in the fight. The Dominators were a major challenge for the team while conducting playtests, requiring trial and error to puzzle out a strategy to take on the challenge Lucifron provides. That’s when she stumbled on a surprisingly effective strategy: chickens.

Angry chickens are practically iconic in gaming in general, in no small part due to their depiction as the peaceful but powerful Cucco in the Legend of Zelda franchise. In classic titles like Ocarina of Time and Windwaker, the Cuccos will respond with a wave of extreme violence if attacked by Link, swarming the hero with the chicken-inspired critters and dealing death by a thousand pecks. Warcraft Rumble’s chickens follow close to that mold, as nine little balls of fury and violence in the form of a mini.

I appreciate that’s something that you can say in
Rumble
that actually is impactful and has a lot of meaning: “Let’s deploy the chickens!” We had some success actually trying angry chickens in that situation, because the mind control would pick a chicken, for example, but one chicken in a flock of chickens is not as consequential as if the mind control applied to a tank or more expensive units.

The chickens proved a successful distraction for her, allowing movement forward against Lucifron. However, she stressed this wasn’t the “one way” to take on Lucifron’s challenge. Like most of the puzzle-solving combat in the mobile action strategy game, many roads lead to victory, but a mini that may go underappreciated, like Chickens, can actually be valuable in situations like this.

Chickens actually act as something of an edge case for testing things in Rumble, explained Farrell. With nine chickens, the mini represents the largest squad in Warcraft Rumble and that represents something that needs to be considered in encounter and mini design, which is something he finds deeply amusing.

Chickens come up in our design discussions a lot because they’re our biggest squad, so they’re a design edge when we’re thinking about other minis and interactions. Often we stop and reflect, and we’re like, “We’re really getting paid to have a discussion about nine very tiny angry chickens on the map right now.” It’s a very real thing that needs to be discussed. It comes up so often, and it brings us a lot of joy.

Davis and Farrell agreed that “deploy the chickens” is actually a surprisingly effective and viable strategy in Warcraft Rumble. Still, they didn’t make the cut for the pair’s favorite minis. That honor goes to Bandits for Farrell and Prowler for Davis.

Season 6 Screenshots

The Minis Warcraft Rumble Devs Love

Bandits, Farrell explained, are able to Cycle. At a cost of only one gold, they make an amazing mini to play cheaply and cycle faster through the deck. On top of that, he explained, the cheap mini can stun and kill a lot of enemies, like solo Huntresses or Ogre Mages. Beyond that utility, though, there’s a personal reason as well.

I also just love that they are going back to my first time playing
World of Warcraft.
I rolled an Alliance character and
have since converted to Horde
, but like leveling up in Elwynn Forest and you see these bandits, you know, they’re just such an iconic part of that experience to me. Having them and just deploying them over and over–it’s just fun.

Meanwhile, Davis loves the way Prowler works as a “fast tank” able to protect quick units like Harpies. He also has a talent called Predatory Instinct (which Davis and Farrell say should’ve just been named “Nyeah!”) that deals double damage to units at high health.

Both devs agreed that the iconic armored healer Tirion is one of their favorite leaders, loving his ability to heal. Using the death ball strategy to keep minis sustained and swell an army’s deployed ranks can lead to three deployed Tirions, all healing one another. That’s an aspect Davis loves as well, and one that ties into more minis on the way in the game’s future.

Healing, Farrell says, is often overlooked in Warcraft Rumble, as it can be easy to steamroll a lot of content with the right deck. But the kind of mileage he and Davis get out of Tirion will get highlighted by new minis in season seven, the pair teased.

Cenarion has this sort of a more defensive playstyle, and we saw an opportunity for there to be kind of more healing potentially in the game; that was a space that we hadn’t really explored too much. With this, we’ve wanted to leverage this Cenarion family as an opportunity to really kind of jump in on that. If you’re the kind of player that you want to invest in your minis and have them be really persistent on the battlefield, I think Cenarion will be a really, really great fit.

Members of the Cenarion family already exist in Rumble, with Fairy Dragon and Earth and Moon available now, but the bulk of the focus on the Cenarions will be in the upcoming season seven, the developers teased. Cenarion minis will capture the inherent duality of Warcraft druids by having the ability to present themselves in different ways. For instance, Earth and Moon have two different forms. Starfall does heavy damage to an area, while the cheaper Entangling Roots immobilizes and poisons enemies.