Any reviews or batreps?

[Ferb]

As the title says anyone know of any reviews or batreps?

Thanks,
Ferb

[Leon]

There's one of the playtest batreps on this blog: http://luddite1811.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/warband-orcs-vs-dwarves.html

As more of them start to appear we'll be creating threads to list them all in.

[Leman]

Giants fighting rock chaps, bit of a laugh what? Am I getting ahead of myself in thinking there might be a Warband competition at the next Battleground?

[Luddite]

There's one of the playtest batreps on this blog: http://luddite1811.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/warband-orcs-vs-dwarves.html

As more of them start to appear we'll be creating threads to list them all in.

Yeah, that was an earlier playtest, when there were spells that meant you could summon fresh units.  Caused major balance problems that one, so they got removed.

[petercooman]

That battle looked like fun!

I always liked fantasy, but so far restrained myself from buying more. I hve so much stuff in 28mm that is painted and ready to use and so much unpainted stuff lying about, it seems sensible to just use that and focus on painting the other stuff.

[MattW]

Hmmm, it looks alright, but it doesn't seem to have too much subtlety in terms of manoeuvring. That could just be because it was a "line up and fight" type battle with no real terrain to speak of, but I'd like to see another battle with a bit more going on.

[Chieftain]

Hmmm, it looks alright, but it doesn't seem to have too much subtlety in terms of manoeuvring. That could just be because it was a "line up and fight" type battle with no real terrain to speak of, but I'd like to see another battle with a bit more going on.

It was a 'line up and fight' effort, and its worth considering too that it was an early (2 years ago) playtest battle, designed to stress-test the core mechanics rather than exhibit tactical genius!   

You can just line up and bang heads, but success will come far easier if you build an army, place terrain that matches with that army's strength and then maneouvre to gain the best advantages over your opponent.  There are also scenrios to play and some of these will certainly not be a 'line up and fight' affair.

[Bodvoc]

Well we had our first game of Warband last night. There were 4 players sharing 500 point armies of Dragon Men and Orcs and Goblins. I was the only player who had read the rules and was pleased with how quickly the other players picked up the basics of throwing for Command, Magic and Motivation. The use of Command points was very positively commented on as a good system, you really need to be careful how you use them. We played the 'Find the Prize' scenario and this was found early on by the Orcs and Goblins who held onto it until the end of turn 5 when the Dragon men charged their giants in to try and grab the prize. That is when we ran out of time. Next game i am sure we will be quicker.
The other 3 players all enjoyed the game and are keen to have another game in 2 weeks time. I had chosen fairly basic armies with quite weak magic users. next time I will use powerful magic users and boost units with extra special abilities. One thing we found was that it took some effort to actually rout units which were then quite easy to rally. However I will be re-reading the rules tonight and may find we were doing one or two things a little bit wrong.
Overall this does seem to be an easy to learn rule system that is fun to play. We are all keen to give Warband another go and one gaming friend went away talking of building a dwarf army and one of the others was going to search his collection for his 10mm goblins he has somewhere.

[Bodvoc]

...and to add to my batrep, one player did a very good owl impression, often asking "two hits, to who". (Well it made the rest of us laugh!)

[Techno]

Made me smile, too ! 
Cheers - Phil

[Leon]

Well we had our first game of Warband last night...

Excellent, thanks for the report and the feedback, good to hear it went well.

[getagrip]

Sounds good fun Bodvoc 

[Luddite]

Any pictures Bodvoc?

If not, will you be taking some at your next game in two weeks?

[Luddite]

A very interesting post by Decklan over at wargamerau (our Aussie cousins).

http://www.wargamerau.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=176205&st=20#

Straight away we loved the adaptability of the way the base styles work. My brother and I love 10mm scaling because it gives the game a fantastic feel. BUT we have friends who aren't keen on it, while it messes with the "look of the game" if I want to play the game at 10mm and my mates want to use their warhammer fantasy battles figures as long as they are using the 100mm by 50mm template as a base we are both good to go (land of the giants!)

The rules were nice and simple but didn't feel "lacking" at all. The armies we used were very simple (just to test a range of rules) and we only played 250 points. The evolving "attacker/defender" initiative is a nice rule, and you don't feel down and out if you become the defender and they get their charges off first because of still being able to fire/use magic until you are "locked in combat".

The spell system again was nice and simple, The turns you rolled high you could bring some nice abilities to focus, the turns you rolled low you could throw around some simple damaging spells.

Command points again add a nice amount of tactical flexibility to the table, allowing you to apply some extra pressure where it's needed at the time, on that topic I didn't double check stats and went charging into my brothers Dwarf Honour Guard (I believe they are called) with my Barbarian Chieftain.. word of advice keep your commander back for commanding!

Which brings me to army building. Initially I thought army building was going to be incredibly simple and plain, but actually turned out to be rather interesting with the way you can tag certain special abilities onto units. Not only did I like this from a rules stand point but also from the thematic stand point as well. For example your baseline units might just be going into combat with sword and shield.. but that same unit with POWERFUL maybe is represented by Halberds or maybe even great weapons? I'd also find it pretty hard for someone to not be able to find an army to play either through what is already in the book and what can be easily represented

I haven't had a change to revisit since my last game just because we've had some events for game systems going on in our area, but its still very much in the front of my mind. Being a fan of knights the Dragon men are very much to the forefront of my mind.

[Bodvoc]

Any pictures Bodvoc?

I did take a couple although we were using 6x3cm bases (I made a few simple rulers out of card) and the figures were from a range of manufacturers including Pendraken. If people want to see tem I'll pop them on the site tonight as I have made some nice (in my opinion anyway) magic user bases.