Warmaster

Warmaster is another from Games Workshop's stable of table top war games. Whilst the others can be classed as skirmish games with usually less than 100 models per side, Warmaster attempts to depict battles between huge armies. It does this by reducing the scale from 30mm to 10mm and each "stand" represents hundreds of troops rather than a single miniature representing a single soldier.

The game is set in the Warhammer world and as usual with a Games Workshop game there is a wide choice of armies to choose from each with it's own strengths and weaknesses. Magic plays an important part with each army having unique spells and with various magical weapons and other items being available. The emphasis however is very much on melee combat (except possibly in respect of the Elves) and manoeuvring your troops into the right position to maximise their strengths is key to victory.

Each army consists of several troop types including basic infantry, missile troops, flyers, cannon, cavalry and chariots. Most armies also have some unusual monster types to choose from and some have strange vehicles like the Empire Steam Tank. Troops are mounted on 20mm x 40mm stands and usually 3 stands make up a unit which moves and fights as one.

Units have to be given orders by generals, heroes and wizards with successful orders being determined by dice rolls. Each armys' commanders have different leadership values making their units more difficult to order around. This gives a much more fluid feel and recreates more of the fog of war to the game rather than the normal GW turn based method where every unit can always move. In Warmaster it is quite possible that the entire army could fail to move at all one turn and then in the next several troops could move great distances. Thus there is an unpredictability to the game and players have to take account of possible failed orders meaning careful thought needs to be given to tactics.

The command rules are at the heart of the game but melee will determine the winner. Melee can get very complex but a single well constructed assault can have a devastating and decisive effect on the enemy. It pays to attack from the side or the rear for example and account is taken of supporting troops. With the complexity of some of the rules and the need for careful manoeuvre this is a game for the more experienced gamer rather than GW's usual target of 12-16 year olds.

Possibly the biggest challenge in Warmaster is painting the miniatures due to their tiny size. However the trick is not to try and paint all the detail (which is considerable) on every miniature, but rather to pick out certain obvious features. After all once such a small model is placed on the table top the detail simply disappears. What you want is a uniform feel to the army using a simple colour scheme. Undercoating in black (spray) is also in my view essential. I think it safe to say that I learned more about light and shade and how to create such effects painting Warmaster miniatures than any other armies I have painted.

Altogether I really like Warmaster. It presents challenges on several fronts and winning is much more satisfactory than some of the others that GW produce