Has anyone played Battlemasters?

[benvoliothefirst]

Little bit of thread necromancy here, but I just joined the boards and wanted to pitch in. I believe boardgamegeek has a link to the instruction booklet from BattleMasters from Hasbro's web site, if other versions on here are unavailable. I have a second copy of BM I inherited from a friend whose dad built him a custom 10'x10' Battle Mat for their copy in his basement, it was epic. I started basing my BM figs on Warhammer bases so they'd be cross-compatible before I knew it was cool, haha.

Here's my Ogre in case you need some visual proof, this is from my plog, wickedmetal.blogspot.com:

[The Admiral]

Yep, and I enjoyed it. It is worth it just for the figures and dice. It was an early version of the Command and Colours system.

[Cael Darkhollow]

I love Battlemasters and played it with my twin brother and friends for many years growing up.
Now I still play somewhat regularly with my brother but now mostly with his two sons. I even talked three of my coworkers into some Battlemasters game night sessions.
Battlemasters is a simplified version of Warhammer Fantasy Battle the same way HeroQuest is basically Dungeons & Dragons lite. I play all four games.
I like playing the bad guys as it is a challenge to win consistently. It takes a wise deployment strategy and combat tactics combined with a little luck on the dice but it can be done.
I still have my original set of Battlemasters. Over the years I acquired several other sets (seven or eight games I think) mostly complete from EBay or local yard sales and conscripted them all into my Warhammer armies, as at the time it was a tremendously cheap option to get a ton of plastic minis. I also did the same with several extra sets of HeroQuest purchased before the Ebay prices skyrocketed (I've owned six I think. so I have a lot of extra tiles, furniture, etc. so I have a painted and unpainted set of everything) and even a few extra Darkworld and Dragonstrike boardgames for the minis.

Later I tracked down a good condition complete BattleMasters set as a gift for my brother, then I tracked down the slightly different European version of BattleMasters (different unit names, flag designs, stickers and green unit trays instead of tan and dark brown) and the two Europe only rare Battlemasters reinforcement expansions for my collection: Chaos Warband and Imperial Lords.

Sometimes I play with double army size (US version and the Europe version) and with the reinforcements expansions for a truly huge battle on two mats (I still have at least half a dozen mats) with 4 ogre champions and 3 mighty cannons and as many towers as I want. I have even played Battlemasters on hotel beds (1 set usually fits) but larger games of multiple sets must be moved from the table or bed to the floor.


old pictures of my HeroQuest, Battlemasters, D&D and Warhammer collection (it has grown since!)