My Reintroduction to Warmaster

I had my reintroduction battle to Warmaster over the weekend with my friend Aron and his wonderfully painted armies. As we sat to choose our armies, he asked, "What do you want to play?" "What do you have," I asked. "All of them" was the response :)  Gotta love it.

We ended up choosing his High Elves vs my Dark Elves, 2000 points. This isnt a full battle report, but a few pics of the action and some comments.

The formation of 3 melee units in column with a ranged unit spread across their front made for a nice brigade. Dark Elf shooting is brutal up close, but surprisingly the crossbowmen actually fought well in hand to hand!

 The forced drive back of ranged is a little much, I think. It seems like something that units should be able to defend against instead of automatically going back if they suffer even a single hit. This ranged battle between his elves in the barn yard and my line of crossbows by the church went back and forth. Invariably the unit that fell back would just march back forward to their former position, but I guess that's part of the game, right? It takes an order to do so, which is a potential fail...

Once the Hydra got in battle, Oh Lord...however, this photo illustrates my core problem with the command mechanic of Warmaster.

In the top left, you can see a Dragon Rider escorting a brigade of Silver Helms, and in the left forefront you can see my Dark Riders. My riders got one order and advanced to this position; they then took one hit and the right column was driven back 2cm...there they stayed the rest of the game. The High Elves had it worse, though. Those knights NEVER MOVED. Aron even swapped out commanders towards the end, trying to do anything to get them into the fight.

I guess that's the game, though, right? Things dont go the way you want...but it rankles a bit still. Oh well. Here you can see the Cold Ones tearing up some archers on the hill to the right flank - good fun and eats!

 This is mostly where we ended it. You can see the High Elf dead pile in the top left, while mine was significantly shorter.

I blame this video on my win :)  Aron had purchased some new dice specifically because of this balance video, and his new dice arrived in the mail as we were setting up the game - and they rolled horribly!

 So over all, I had a really enjoyable time. I am buying 10mm armies for Mayhem, but might as well make them Warmaster-legal, right? I also bought a copy of the Battle of Five Armies rules, as Aron informed me that they are pretty much the Warmaster Ancients + Magic, etc combined.

I really didnt like that both of us had units sitting around doing nothing for the entire game. A "standing order" or "guaranteed first turn order" house rule that I've read about might fix this - but I'll try to get over it. Until next time!