What is Warmaster?
Warmaster is a games engine designed by Rick Priestly and marketed by Games Workshop. Warmaster uses 10 mm (or ‘grand scale’) miniatures, and as such allows very large battles to be simulated on the tabletop. To help achieve this Warmaster has a significant “command and control” element which sets it apart from games such as Warhammer Fantasy Battles. In other words, units do not always do what you want them to! On the other hand, the cost of this large scale simulation means that much of the detail of games such as WFB is lost. Units have only have a maximum of 5 stats, plus occasional special rules, and usually cannot be upgraded or altered in any way. But even though game play is fast and the rules quite straightforward, Warmaster offers surprisingly tough tactical and strategic challenges for wargamers.
The Warmaster rulebook was first released in 2000 by GW, closely followed by miniature ranges for the armies found in the core rules: Empire, Dwarfs, High Elves, Undead, Orcs and Chaos. Rules and miniatures for most of the other races in the Warhammer world followed over the next few years. The good news is that much of this material, including the entire original core rulebook, can now be downloaded for free from the GW Specialist Games website (see link below).
In 2004, the Warmaster system was revised with the release of Battle of the Five Armies, a stand alone game that probably rates as one of the best value GW products of all time. As well as a rulebook containing a full revised version of Warmaster, this big box also has 26 units of goblins, wargs, dwarfs, eagles, elves and men in 10 mm scale, a dozen characters, plastic ruins, a superb plastic hill, a cardboard river and dice. The game allows the battle featured at the end of The Hobbit to be recreated in full, and also provides rules for additional units to be added for further games in Middle Earth. It is rumoured that other great Tolkien battles will also see release in this format in the future.
The latest chapter in the Warmaster story is the very recent release of Warmaster Ancients, which is an even further revised version of the rules. It also contains army lists for 18 armies up to the 11 th century AD, including Imperial Roman, Barabarian, Saxon, Norse, Norman, Assyrian, Macedonian and Persian armies. Unlike the previous 2 incarnations, there has been no specialist miniature game released for this latest version. When talking about rules in this article, I generally am referring to these most recent rules contained in this particular supplement, which are subtly different to previous versions.
As has been mentioned, Warmaster is based on 10mm scale miniatures mounted on 40 x 20 mm bases. This is the same base frontage that is used for 6 mm and 15 mm DBM armies, and so most DBM armies can readily be used for Warmaster. As with any wargames, it is this base size that matters the most, so theoretically any scale miniatures can be used. However, one of the major attractions of Warmaster is the epic feel that it creates, and 10mm scale miniatures are a significant component of this.
Units in Warmaster generally consist of three 40 x 20 mm stands, each of which has a set number of hits, attacks etc. Characters are based individually, usually on round bases to make them stand out. The main reason for doing this is that unlike WFB, characters cannot initiate combat - all they can do is join a friendly unit already involved in combat. Because characters run the risk of being destroyed with the unit that they have joined, this is not that common. The main use of characters in Warmaster is to giver orders.
There are three main phases in a Warmaster game turn: Command, Shooting and Combat.
The Command phase is when units are moved. However, they can usually only be successfully moved if they are given an order by one of the armies characters. To do this, the character giving the order must test against his leadership, applying any modifiers (negatives include distance to the unit, proximity of enemy units and the number of orders already given to that unit). An exception to this is if an enemy unit is within 20 cm. In this case, a unit can choose to charge or avoid that enemy without being given an order. A unit can be given up to three orders in a command phase, although this is quite unlikely to come off. Once a character fails to give an order, he can give no more orders that turn. As most armies are limited to 3 characters per 1,000 points, this is undoubtedly the most important phase of the game.
Shooting in Warmaster has two effects. The first and most obvious is that it may result in casualties and cause stands of troops to be removed. As most shooting attacks in Warmaster aren’t that effective, this doesn’t happen too often. The other effect of shooting is that it causes units to be driven back, which disrupts the enemy battle line and may result in a unit becoming confused. Confused units cannot be given orders and are therefore practically useless until they recover. In Fantasy Warmaster, most magic takes place in this round as well.
Combat is a simple and simultaneous affair, with all units hitting on a 4+. Extra attacks are gained for doing things such as charging and pursuing. Armour saves are taken as per usual. Potentially up to 2 rounds of combat can be fought in a single Combat phase. In the original Warmaster rules there was actually no limit on the number of rounds that could be fought in a phase, which although entertaining, tended to unbalance games.
Army lists
Warmaster army lists are straightforward affairs that can usually be easily contained on a single A4 page. A really diverse army, such as Alexander’s Sucessors or Orcs & Goblins, might have 10 or 12 unit types to choose from, but the average is 6 to 8. Each army also usually has 2 to 4 character types to choose from, and may be lucky enough to have 1 or 2 upgrades or special characters to add flavour.
With most armies, 1,000 points will put eight to a dozen units and a couple of characters on the table, and such a game can be played in around an hour.
There are a variety of miniature sources for Warmaster, depending on the army type you are looking for. As previously discussed, you can theoretically use any scale miniatures as long as the bases are of the right scale, but I’ll just focus on the availability of 10mm minis for the time being.
Fantasy Warmaster
The Battle of the Five Armies box gives you a very good starting point, and provides most of the miniatures you need for a Tolkien army. Actual GW Warmaster armies are sometimes available from GW mail order, or you can also pick them up second hand. Finally, Irregular Miniatures, who are available in Australia through Eureka, have a good range of fantasy minis that fit easily with the Warmaster army lists.
Historical Warmaster
Proxies are always on option, and as an example the GW Brettonian army actually substitute quite well for an historical Norman army. Orcs and Goblins also make great Barbarians, and so on. If you want the real deal, there are a range of manufacturers, though distressingly few are available in Australia. Old Glory produces a very wide range of historical armies in 10mm which are actually far cheaper than their GW equivalents and are available through Area 52. Irregular Miniatures also produce small range of historical armies.
Conclusion
The simple and elegant nature of the Warmaster system mean that you really focus on what is at the heart of wargaming – deployment, tactics, decision making – rather than the superfluous stuff like monsters, magic, characters and so on. In fact, Warmaster is almost closer to traditional games such as chess and backgammon than it is to Warhammer Fantasy Battles. With a little thought, it is also possible to have very entertaining cross genre games – Imperial Romans vs the Goblins of the Misty Mountains, or Undead vs Anglo-Saxons. If you haven’t tried Warmaster, then you’re missing out on one of the better wargames going round.