Christmas Day Battle on the Road to Grunberg (Battlemasters)

[Kurgan]

Over thanksgiving my father and I played our first ever game of Battlemasters (for both of us). His Imperial Army wiped out my Chaos Army in the first and the streak continued in the second campaign.

On Christmas day night we played again in the third campaign mission and I was able to defeat his army, mainly thanks to his cannon being placed too far from the action (trying to get my Chaos Champions, who were able to get out quickly). Although I was reduced to Chaos Warriors, Orcs and the Champions, I was able to wipe out his forces, focusing attacks on his elite units and finally driving his last unit of knights and cannon to the edge of the map.

He had several opportunities to wipe out my stronger units with his cannon but unlucky tile outcomes limited its effectiveness.

Pretty fun game, although table space is a pain, units die very quickly (defense is hard with 1/6 chance on each die), and there is a lot of randomness with the cards and dice. For instance WHEN the map falls off the edge, so we agreed that was an "impassable ravine" and moved everything slightly closer at the starting points.

[Gold Bearer]

Never played Battlemasters, a friend had it and we used the models for HQ and later for Warhammer. I stuck that chaos lord on a griffon, he was a cool general.

Don't know what you meant with the last bit, impassable ravine, what's supposed to happen at the edge?

[HispaZargon]

Wooow, congratulations Kurgan for having and opportunity to play the game... I think it may be a better game with minor fanmade adjustments, especially those ones which reduce randomness. The most I like is allow holding three or four cards in hand each player so they can choose which one of them to use on each turn, after that, they draw a new card from the deck and so on... that allows more strategy decissions.

[Kurgan]

So with this houserule you're taking turns drawing three cards or what? Draw 3 cards for each army to be in each players hand THEN draw randoms but have up to 3 in the hand at a time? Hope I'm understanding that correctly.

One of my men-at-arms is damaged (missing the top of his axe). My sculpting abilities were far below what I was hoping for and I am not sure it's even worth trying to 3d print the axe head and trying to glue it on... the alternative would be to convert him into a hearquest guy (maybe a spearman) and buy a new figure, but I hate to do that...


Normally whatever the card drawn is, that is who goes (so in theory one person could move their entire army before the other person got a chance to... and initiative is a huge advantage because of the weak overall defense).


By "ravine" I mean we're playing on a table, not on the floor or a bed, but while the table is long enough it's not wide enough. I used some sheets of foam core board to try to add extra length but it's precarious, so part of the battle map just kind of hangs freely off the edge of the table. So we can't use those squares (otherwise your pieces would be all over the floor). The mat is huge, so you either need to have a really big and wide table, make one yourself (as war-gamers do with two-by fours to make saw horses and sheets of plyhood or particle board) or else find a big area of floor space (easier for kids, less for adults with old knees/back, etc).

[HispaZargon]

So with this houserule you're taking turns drawing three cards or what? Draw 3 cards for each army to be in each players hand THEN draw randoms but have up to 3 in the hand at a time? Hope I'm understanding that correctly.

I forgot saying you must first separate the battle cards in two decks, one for each player only with the cards showing units from their respective army. Then, the players start with 3, 4 or 5 cards eachin hand, depending on how randomness do you want... and they play one card per turn and draw another one. When the deck is finished, each player suffle the discrded cards to make a new deck. You can also made variants. If a card only showing units that have already been destroyed is drawn you can decide a rule that allows you to discard and draw another card or simply miss your turn without activating any unit... I played around 25 years ago hahaha but there should be ideas in internet.

Other people replace the dice by HeroScape ones to improve combats, and so ones . I think in BGG website would be more improvement ideas.

[Kurgan]

Okay that makes sense, but how do you determine who goes first? I'm interested in what BM fans (I never got into the game before, never had it until this year and never played it until last month!) think is the most "fair" or "balanced."

[SirRick]

Battlemasters is a fun game, but the Imperial Army is heavily favored to win. The knights seem to have so many cards in the deck.

I can't tell you how many times both armies started to clash, and I just sit there as the knights go over and over again destroying half my army before I even get to retaliate.

That being said, I love playing Chaos the most, mainly because my lousy goblins often get extremely lucky and perform great feats before getting destroyed.

[StratosVX]

That being said, I love playing Chaos the most, mainly because my lousy goblins often get extremely lucky and perform great feats before getting destroyed.

I don't know what it is about the goblins but every time I have played they seem to do massive damage for being such weak units.

I loved Battlemasters but there were two things that made it difficult to play: the size of the map and the setup/teardown time. These two things made me want to make a smaller scale Battlemasters, but I haven't had time to do that yet. Hopefully one day...

[Kurgan]

Yeah I think it was 2.5 hours the first time I setup... now I'm down to 40 mins. I've got sticky tack where it's needed for the ones that are too loose, I kind of am starting to learn what flags go with what bases and I've repaired about all I can (with proper replacement stickers for shields and banners that help and missing pieces replaced).

This compared to HeroQuest, which I consider a game with a lot of setup time (not so much as Risk, as I remember it), and always best to have it done before your player(s) show up.

I may have the advantage in the next battle because I'll finally have some elite units (all my orcs, archers and if I recall correctly my champions of chaos).

[SirRick]

I always store the units on their side while still attached to the bases, this works well for the most part.

At least until you realize the box doesn't close all the way, and worse you suddenly remember the large tower pieces sitting off to the side you forgot about.

I just put the tower pieces in a one gallon ziploc bag that sits on top on the box. It's not pretty but I had no choice.