Lockdown Teeny Tiny Oldhammer - Before the Battle

I thought maybe in order to avoid confusion in what is happening in this battle report, I thought it might be helpful to as succinctly as possible outline how the rule mechanics differ from other rulesets you may be used to.

As Mr Priestley wrote while introducing the game back in March 2000:

“Warmaster is a game about the ability of the general to lead, rather than the warriors’ ability to fight.

Right from the start I set out to create a game about huge armies fighting over vast landscapes; a game in which snaking columns of warriors might march along dusty roads towards a vista of farms, villages and towns. Where flanking forces can gallop out of their general’s sight and reappear (perhaps) at the enemy’s back. And where artillery pieces must be laboriously dragged to within range of their targets.

Big tabletop landscapes: roaring rivers rather than piddly little streams, fortified towns rather than pokey houses, and enclosed valleys and rolling hills rather than the usual flattish field punctuated by a lonely tree.”

For my ACW battles I’d been using the Fire and Fury ruleset from about 1991 or 1992, basically (ahem) before I was even born. So the concept of my army not doing exactly what I wanted (point and click as I call it) was not alien to me. I’d even tried to adapt Fire and Fury to play fantasy games with my 6mm Irregular miniatures armies. In Warmaster a stand represents 200 to 250 man-sized troops. So a unit represents maybe 750 warriors.

A reminder of the table

My Battle report map!

The Mechanics

Like many modern rulesets Warmaster is divided into 3 main phases. Rick would usually describe these simply as “move, shoot, fight”.

An overview of the phases can be summarised thus:

Movement

Initiative moves – troops within 20cm of an enemy may either evade (move directly away from) or charge their nearest enemy

Command phase – The general, heroes and wizards can order any troops that did not move by initiative within a certain range up to a maximum of 3 times by rolling under their command rating on 2D6. The order range of the general is the battlefield, heroes 60cm and wizards 20cm. Distance and other factors cause penalties and ordering a unit 3 times in a phase is difficult and rare and not often risked. Like Blood Bowl there is jeopardy to failure. Any commander failing to issue an order is spent for the phase and a failure by the general causes the command phase to end.

Character movement – characters move, join units etc. Flying units up to 100cm. All other characters 60cm.

Shooting

Missile troops, artillery and magic. Missile troops must fire at their closest enemy. Armies usually have access to only four spells. Magic users are not death stars in this game but available spells do give each army a bit of fluff. Missile fire is underpowered in Warmaster, primarily being used to drive back and disrupt the enemy and strategically control areas of the battlefield rather than being particularly effective at destroying enemy units.

Combat

Melee – Up to two rounds of combat can be fought in the combat round depending on melee results. The winner of a combat is based on wounds inflicted and supporting troops (the equivalent of a rank bonus) and the winner can choose whether to pursue, stand or fall back.

The Role of Characters

Although very important to the game, characters are not able to fight on their own and take on whole units, even if mounted on a dragon or similar. But by joining a unit a character can add attacks and/or terror to a unit it fights with. Very useful if you are prepared to take the risk, as a unit that is destroyed in combat takes its character with it!

Most players base their characters on round bases in order to make them visually differential from standard troops on their 20mm x 40mm stands.

House Rules

As I pointed out in my last post. My table is significantly smaller than the 6ft x 4ft recommended size. As such I have made some adjustments to movement, command and shooting distances. Halving movement and command distances and cutting shooting distance by a third. To summarise:

Initiative distance is 10cm

Artillery in regular formation moves 5cm per order

Infantry in regular order moves 10cm per order

Cavalry in regular order moves 15cm per order

Wizards maximum order distance is 10cm

Heroes and Runesmith order distance is 30cm

Order distance penalty is -1 per 10cm.

Artillery range is 40cm

Missile troops and flame cannon range is 20cm

Goblin infantry and Wolfboyz range is 10cm.



In addition I am using the “slow” rule from Warmaster Ancients. Any troops with a 4+ save has a -1 penalty to any subsequent order after the first per command phase.

Deployment

There was a point where I was determined to make this a scenario based game. I even got out some wagons to make it a version of Spring Hill from the Franklin/Nashville campaign. But something (cider) made me forget, and this turned into what Andy Atom Taylor would call: “A focking nahstee tare-oop”.

So It’s just get all the toys on the table and kick off right? Wrong.

So we have something awesome called the “Scouting phase”. A one off event at the start of the game which decides on deployment and first turn etc.

Normally this would involve secretly writing down units which you were prepared to deploy in your scouting force. Units such as flying units, light cavalry and rangers being worth more and other troops being worth less on a sliding scale. When revealed the scouting value is added to a dice roll (usually 2D6) and the highest score “outscouts” the enemy.

The winner of the scouting phase chooses the table edge to deploy on and then must deploy their scouting force (usually 20cm from the table edge but in this case 10cm). The loser of the scouting phase must then deploy their entire army for the opposition to survey, before deploying the remainder of their force.

Brilliant isn’t it?



In this case, I couldn’t keep the scouting secret from myself. There was the option of committing the orc scouts and then drinking a bottle of brandy. Then committing the dwarf scouts the next day with my memory wiped. But I decided to randomising the scouting force with some Excel (RAND) trickery and a D6 number of scouting units.

The results of this were that the orcs and gobbos committed 5 units and the dwarfs 4.

The Orc vanguard consisted of: Goblin Infantry (0.5); Black Orcs (0); Boar Riders (1); Wulfboyz (2); Shamanka on Wyvern (3) = 6.5 + dice roll of 7 = 13.5

The Dwarf vanguard consisted of: Dwarf Warriors (0); Rangers (2); Cannon (0); Gyrocopter Squadron (3) = 5 + dice roll of 8 = 13.

The orcs win the scouting.

I now try to put myself in the head of the orc general. I don’t want the dwarfs to have the northern table edge. I don’t want the dwarf commander to gain the hills for his artillery with his left shielded by the river and forest, nor to be able to anchor his right flank on the village. So the orcs select this table edge.

So the orcs set up their vanguard units.

Apologies if the maps are hard to read. If you click on the maps you should be able to zoom in and read the troop descriptions!

"W" is Graterak on her Wyvern!

Having won the scouting the Orc Vanguard deploys first.

Gorin's dwarfs now need to deploy their entire army. I deploy the artillery in the centre hoping to move it onto the ridge to dominate the battlefield. Frode is tasked with advancing into the farm and using it as an anchor for the dwarf right flank.

Although it should be totally obvious what all dwarf units are, please note that "X" is the gyrocopter squadron, "G" is the general King Gorin, "R" is the Runesmith Ozrim and "H" is the hero Frode.

The Dwarfs Deploy

And now once they can observe the dwarf deployment the Orcs deploy the rest of their army. A unit of orcs and the Giant "Wee Jock Poo-Plop McPlopp" deploy on the flank on the East side of the river.

The labels on the characters are "GH" Goblin hero (Grom the fatbastard); "GS" Goblin Shaman (Skidmarkz); "Gen" (General - Gratnakers) and "OH" (Orc Hero - Boriz)

The rest of the Orc and Goblin army deploys

LET BATTLE COMMENCE!

Here. Shortly.

See you soon.