"Warmaster again - Lizardmen vs Bretonians" Topic

Our group started playing Warmaster, over twenty years ago and it was one of the most enjoyable gaming systems for us. It had the excitement of Warhammer, but included a command system, which was lacking in Warhammer. Also, being 10mm, you had the ability to field very large armies, for a fraction of the cost of 28mm Warhammer figures.

However, we had stopped playing for various reasons, the group broke up, players moved and as many gaming systems do, it fell by the wayside.

Well, I decided recently, that I wanted to start playing the system again, so after contacting a couple of friends, we have played twice and I can't tell you how much fun the system is and as a added bonus, the rules and army lists have expanded and have been updated, for the better.

Last week, two of us met to play a large game, 2500 points per side, for a one vs one game, is a sizable force.

I fielded Lizardmen and my friend fielded a Bretonian force, under the premise that the Lizardmen have invaded the lands of Bretonia.

My army consisted of the following units;
1 x Slann-Mage
1 x Saurus Hero w/Carnasor w/Sword
2 x Skink Heros
2 x Skink Shamans
5 x Skink
5 x Saurus
2 x Temple Guard
2 x Kroxigor
2 x Terradons
4 x Cold One Riders
1 x Stegadon
Various magic items

The Bretonian forces were as follows;
1 x General
1 x Hero w/Griffon
2 x Wizards
8 x Halberdiers
4 x Crossbowmen
4 x Peasants
1 x Catapult
3 x Squires1 x grail Knights
8 x Knights

The battlefield had a road running diagonally from my left rear corner to the Bretonina rear left corner. Along the road were three villages, with one on my left center, close to the rear of the battlefield and one on the Bretonian left center, closer to his rear table edge. The largest of the three, was right in the center of the battlefield. There were also four hills, with two on each side, as well as a few wooded areas. None of these were in the center, but were of importance.

We deployed in groups of four units, alternating between sides, with me deploying the first group of units. I placed my good infantry in the center with the Temple Guard and Kroxigors up front, backed by the Saurus units.
My Cold One Riders were on my right, along with the Stegadon and two units of supporting Skinks. On my left, were 3 x units of Skinks backed by a Saurus unit.

The Bretonians placed 12 x Infantry units in the
center, in three brgades of four units. Another 4 x units were on his right, in a wooded area, for flank protection. His 8 x Knight units were in reserve, on his center right and his grail Knights and 3 x Squire units were in reserve in left center position. His Catapult was on a hill, behind the center of his army.

Those not familiar with Warmaster, has an army breaking when 50% or more units are destroyed. However, with the Bretonians, only Knightly units are considered in this equation, so since my opponent had 9 total knightly units, I needed to destroy 5 of them. We rolled for length of battle, which was seven turns.

After deployment, it was obvious that the Bretonians wanted to see how and where I advanced and as I looked at his deployment, there was nothing opposite my Cold One Riders, so I advanced twice. My Infantry advanced, but my command rolls were not good and my line became very disjointed. I refused my left somewhat, but didn't make it into the left hand village.

In his turn, the Bretonians advanced, just into shooting range and during fire, shot up my Kroxigor units, destroying one entirely, when my drive back roll total exceeded my movement.

As the turns continued, my command rolls were not so good and I wasn't able to get my battle line in order until turn four, when my infantry crashed into his infantry line, where my superior troops cut up his.

I destroyed eight infantry units, but none counted towards the break point of his army. I was also able to fly a Terradon unit into his Catapult and destroy it, but not before it did a total if 16 hits on my units.

At this time, the Bretonians committed their Grail Knights and Squires and destroyed several of my units, with my losses being at six units. five more and my army breaks.

Meanwhile, once our lines clashed, the Bretonians finally moved their knights to his right flank and started to attack my left. Here, I couldn't make a command roll and when he charged my Skinks, I was in the open and he destroyed three of them.

A new rule is if a unit has lost two of the three stands, it counts as 1/2 a destroyed unit and the Bretonians did this to four of my units, making my army break, on the sixth turn.

We counted up points destroyed and it was very close, so the Bretonians won the battle, but not nearly as decisive as we thought they did.

Some observations, my Cold One Riders on the right, were poorly deployed and of the four units, only two were able to make it into battle. The Stegadon only fought once and was also deployed poorly. All of these units should have been deployed more centrally, so that they could have moved either to the left or right.

A great battle and I will be posting pictures soon, but we are looking forward to playing again.

Lou

Our group started playing Warmaster, over twenty years ago and it was one of the most enjoyable gaming systems for us. It had the excitement of Warhammer, but included a command system, which was lacking in Warhammer. Also, being 10mm, you had the ability to field very large armies, for a fraction of the cost of 28mm Warhammer figures.

However, we had stopped playing for various reasons, the group broke up, players moved and as many gaming systems do, it fell by the wayside.

Well, I decided recently, that I wanted to start playing the system again, so after contacting a couple of friends, we have played twice and I can't tell you how much fun the system is and as a added bonus, the rules and army lists have expanded and have been updated, for the better.

Last week, two of us met to play a large game, 2500 points per side, for a one vs one game, is a sizable force.

I fielded Lizardmen and my friend fielded a Bretonian force, under the premise that the Lizardmen have invaded the lands of Bretonia.

My army consisted of the following units;
1 x Slann-Mage
1 x Saurus Hero w/Carnasor w/Sword
2 x Skink Heros
2 x Skink Shamans
5 x Skink
5 x Saurus
2 x Temple Guard
2 x Kroxigor
2 x Terradons
4 x Cold One Riders
1 x Stegadon
Various magic items

The Bretonian forces were as follows;
1 x General
1 x Hero w/Griffon
2 x Wizards
8 x Halberdiers
4 x Crossbowmen
4 x Peasants
1 x Catapult
3 x Squires1 x grail Knights
8 x Knights

The battlefield had a road running diagonally from my left rear corner to the Bretonina rear left corner. Along the road were three villages, with one on my left center, close to the rear of the battlefield and one on the Bretonian left center, closer to his rear table edge. The largest of the three, was right in the center of the battlefield. There were also four hills, with two on each side, as well as a few wooded areas. None of these were in the center, but were of importance.

We deployed in groups of four units, alternating between sides, with me deploying the first group of units. I placed my good infantry in the center with the Temple Guard and Kroxigors up front, backed by the Saurus units.
My Cold One Riders were on my right, along with the Stegadon and two units of supporting Skinks. On my left, were 3 x units of Skinks backed by a Saurus unit.

The Bretonians placed 12 x Infantry units in the
center, in three brgades of four units. Another 4 x units were on his right, in a wooded area, for flank protection. His 8 x Knight units were in reserve, on his center right and his grail Knights and 3 x Squire units were in reserve in left center position. His Catapult was on a hill, behind the center of his army.

Those not familiar with Warmaster, has an army breaking when 50% or more units are destroyed. However, with the Bretonians, only Knightly units are considered in this equation, so since my opponent had 9 total knightly units, I needed to destroy 5 of them. We rolled for length of battle, which was seven turns.

After deployment, it was obvious that the Bretonians wanted to see how and where I advanced and as I looked at his deployment, there was nothing opposite my Cold One Riders, so I advanced twice. My Infantry advanced, but my command rolls were not good and my line became very disjointed. I refused my left somewhat, but didn't make it into the left hand village.

In his turn, the Bretonians advanced, just into shooting range and during fire, shot up my Kroxigor units, destroying one entirely, when my drive back roll total exceeded my movement.

As the turns continued, my command rolls were not so good and I wasn't able to get my battle line in order until turn four, when my infantry crashed into his infantry line, where my superior troops cut up his.

I destroyed eight infantry units, but none counted towards the break point of his army. I was also able to fly a Terradon unit into his Catapult and destroy it, but not before it did a total if 16 hits on my units.

At this time, the Bretonians committed their Grail Knights and Squires and destroyed several of my units, with my losses being at six units. five more and my army breaks.

Meanwhile, once our lines clashed, the Bretonians finally moved their knights to his right flank and started to attack my left. Here, I couldn't make a command roll and when he charged my Skinks, I was in the open and he destroyed three of them.

A new rule is if a unit has lost two of the three stands, it counts as 1/2 a destroyed unit and the Bretonians did this to four of my units, making my army break, on the sixth turn.

We counted up points destroyed and it was very close, so the Bretonians won the battle, but not nearly as decisive as we thought they did.

Some observations, my Cold One Riders on the right, were poorly deployed and of the four units, only two were able to make it into battle. The Stegadon only fought once and was also deployed poorly. All of these units should have been deployed more centrally, so that they could have moved either to the left or right.

A great battle and I will be posting pictures soon, but we are looking forward to playing again.

Lou

wow, I think I hit submit a few to many times. lol

Nice write up! Warmaster is a great game. I'd been tempted by the Bretonnians back in the day, but had already gone with Dwarfs and Orcs and couldn't justify the expense. Alas, time has not lessened that problem!

I did spring for the Battle of Five Armies boxed set variant, and have boosted that with Copplestone's fantasy figs, especially his Horse Tribe Not-Rohan line, which has gone a long way to satisfy my thirst for knightly cavalry!

Look forward to your pics!

I plan on running a Warmaster tournament at Cold Wars convention in March of 2018. I will be posting details and it will be in the P.E.L. as well.

When we played more, we used the Historical rules combat system with the rest of the rules for Fantasy. Seemed to work better. In general, I liked the rules my beef was the simplified conversions for when your army was based without narrow bases; the suggested +1 for shock and pike underpowed these units with the historical rules. Still don't care for the shooting rules as much as it was too DBA like for me. But, if based properly, I can live with the shooting rules. The historical rules are underrated IMO. I have so many 15mm already based that the narrow basing provision was a sticking point. In retrospect, I should have split some bases or used some other mechanism for my 15mm. As I use my 15mm for other systems, rebasing just for WM was problematic. Again, really like the rules overall quite a bit despite my quibbles.

Ancientgamer, I completely agree, as I am an avid 15mm gamer, playing DBA, DBMM and ADLG. I refuse to rebase my figures to the Warmaster Historical parameters, so our group stopped playing Warmaster Historical.

However, our collection of Warmaster Fantasy 10mm figures is extensive and with the excellent rules changes, it has made for a much better and exciting game.

I will be playing in the 25mm ADLG ancinets tournament at Fall In, in Lancaster, later this week as well.

If you can find a copy of the Bo5A rules, they effectively update the fantasy rules to WA combat, though without the pike rules (easy to graft on). The narrow frontage cavalry remains, but the combat rules are corrected to reflect errata and the updated limitations on pursuit.