June 19, 2010

What was that about?

OK, I had my fun with yet another narrative writeup, but what was it all about? Well... after more than a year and a half of painting and preparations, H. and I decided that we had enough painted figures to have a decent 1500 points Warhammer contest. I fielded a Romano-British force consisting of one unit of mounted commanipulares, another rather small force of commanipulares on foot, two units of milites and a largish unit of pedes. The difference was made up by a horde of skirmishers. H. countered with a mounted unit of Gedrihts and three of Duguths, one of them mounted. He also fielded a small force of skirmishers.

The game developed as described in the narrative - inital clash between best cavalry ended in disaster for me, mainly because of superior strength of H.'s leader and my lousy dice rolls. Then our infantry clashed together, with me loosing by a single point and failing morale test for three units (only one of which was actually in combat). Next round saw my cavalry being overrun and my commanipulares on foot being annihilated. The fact that all of three routing units managed to rally was a small consolation and we decided it was a rather overwhelming Saxon victory.

And what did we think about 'Warhammer'? Here's the thing - we are using the original edition. That's right, not 2.0, not even 1.5, but the original, that by now gives a different meaning to 'Ancient' in the title of the rules than was originally intended. I've understood from the comments on the net, that there are some ambivalences in the original ruleset and yes, now I can confirm that. For example, how the heck do leaders fight? And how does one fight against them, especially with thrusting spears? The way we finally decided on handling the leaders was to deal with them separately, before proceeding with the rest of combat, but I don't have a clue if we are doing it 'right'. Another thing - counter-charges by cavalry. Once more, I know that they were added to the ruleset, because I've seen them mentioned on the net. But they are certainly not described in Warhammer 'the original edition'.

Nevertheless, we both had a blast and really enjoyed the game. Even though it was a bit one-sided, I hope to smack those pesky Saxons back to Denmark as soon as I'll get the opportunity. And of course, me and H. are already discussing the next army. :)

2 comments:

  1. Glad to hear you had fun! WAB is my favorite game for Viking-era combat.

    Mostly the leader just adds another d6 to the attack roll.

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  2. Thanks for the comment, Hdan. There are two things I wonder about in regard of leaders - can they split their multiple attacks, so they can attack different figures? And how does one fight against them - can multiple figures attack them in a single combat? Furthermore, when thrusting spears are in play, could one say that some of the attacks coming from the rear ranks be targeting the leader and if so, how many?.

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