Recently, I got together with a friend of  mine and pulled out Warmaster (those of you not familiar with that rules system… It is a Games Workshop Specialist Games publication that was written by Rick Priestly and released in the 1990’s). Warmaster focuses on large scale battle strategy and command and control and less on tactical squad level decisions.

For this battle we used an Undead army and a human army known as the Empire. Now we didn’t focus as much on the armies or the fantasy genre as much as we did the objectives. We were trying a new Warmaster scenario. I’ve been working on balancing a scenarion that has been on my mind for a bit. Here are the details of the scenario:

Theme:

A war is going on and there is a large invading force moving into a province that has its local military force returning from battle but mostly unpresent.

Forces:

Invasion force –

Should be a large complete force that contains 50% or more of infantry (I prefer 2/3 melee and 1/3 ranged troops)

I usually add a remainder variety of calvary, artillery (and specialty troops if playing alternate genres – fantasy or sci-fi)

I use

60% infamtry

10% command/specialty

10% artillery

20% calvary/chariots

Unprepared defending force –

Should be half the size of the invasion force. Now, the idea here is that this force is returning from battle so it should be made up mostly of hardier troop types that were more probable to survive a recent engagement. And, forces that would have been left to safeguard the local lands while the greater force was away fighting for the defense of the nation.

I use

20% infamtry

10% command/specialty

10% artillery

60% heavy calvary/calvary/chariots

Victory Conditions:

invading forces must occupy the courtyard or central defensive asset for 1 full turn (be there when a turn starts and be there when the turn ends)

or

the defensive force must keep the invasion force from occupying the central defensive asset for a full turn

Special Rules for the scenario:

I play a 6 turn game

Terrain – should use bridges or rough terrain to make the approach to the scenario victory objective slow and specific as if the terrain is planned for defense

Invasion force can be deployed as desired within close proximity of its table edge (you decide based on the scale of your miniatures, I deploy mine within 6 inches of the table edge)

Defensive special rules are a bit more complex –

Artilery, infantry and half of your command is present at the beginning of the game. The other half of command and the heavy calvary/calvary/chariots enter battle on the 3rd turn.

An outpost should be manned lightly, close to the invasion force’s deployment zone, at the start of the game

Defensive starting command should be out of command range of its troops to represent an unexpected attack

So here’s how our battle went

Here are my takeaways:

I think the scenario has a major design flaw. The combination of the river slowing down the invaders and the heavy defenders showing up as early as turn 3 creates an incredible obstacle that unbalances the scenario in the defender’s favor.

Solution for the next playtest: I should expand the scenario to 7 turns, or delay the arrival of the majority of the defending forces.

My goal is to design scenarios to be flexible enough for use with a ton of rules systems and genres.

Let me know if you like the scenario and what rules systems you would like to see this scenario used with.

All my best for the best in gaming!

Chris