Reviews

[Chieftain]

ricardo440 http://www.pendrakenforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,11759.0.html

We played the game 3 times last weekend. We used 40mmx20mm bases and a 2ftx3ft board. I think our terrain features were probably a bit large. I was stuck on a hill for pretty much an entire game.
So here are my first impressions:

Good Bits:
Overall it was fun
We picked up the rules quickly. We made a few mistakes in game 1 (e.g. forgot CPs can only be spent 4BW away). But I think by game 2 and 3 we were playing most things right.
It is quite quick. As I say we completed three games in a day, starting from a point of never having played before.
the Commander was fun. Deciding what to invest him into each turn was good fun and very important.
Shooting is effective.
The points system was great, really easy to pick an army and it seemed very balanced.
The terrain placement worked well. Quick and easy and no chance of crying "foul" to ones opponent.
Combat and shooting are very simple. The core mechanic means you don't need to worry about lots of modifeirs.
I love the rules about protection rolls being worse when near the edge of the board. No hiding in the corner!!
Wizards were not a necessity. At first I thought a wizard was going to be a points tax you couldn't do without. But in game 3 my opponent decided to keep his army simple and didn't choose a wizard. With the extra points he got two beefy units and the game was a good one. It is nice to play a game where the points system is good enough that you don't NEED a wizard.

I absolutely loved the protection mechanic. I think it is genius. Your save isn't per the number of times you are hit, but if fixed, allowing spread out damage to be shrugged off, but concentrated damage to really make a mark.

Cons:
Motivation can be very frustrating. Just by random chance certain units can do nothing in the entire game. It is a problem with any game that has random movement.
It was also annoying when you had two units side by side and you roll well for the first, but you can't really move it off full speed because you don't know what you're going to roll for the other one yet. So good motivation rolls were often not fully used but poor ones always clobbered you.

Some of the spells seemed rather good. (Zeal of the dragon king). Fear was also amazing, but the points cost for it are high so that worked out ok.
The game doesn't really have any paper scissors stone element to it. So certain troops being good against some types and weak against others.

CPs are very random - large variance.
The other downside with CPs is if you roll one success you don't notice. But when you spend CP after CP trying to get something to move or a critical protection roll or whatever and you fail every time and use up 4-5 CPs you do notice. And it happens multiple times in a game.
It left the players feeling mightly frustrated, and not in a fun way.

So the main question will I play it again? Yes, certainly.

[Chieftain]

Ian Burrell

http://idburrell.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/warband.html

A few weeks ago Pendraken Miniatures published Warband, a set of rules of fantasy tabletop wargaming.  Having limited space I have always consider 10mm to be a good scale, having similar detail to 15mm with a smaller foot print.

The rule boook is paperback with 66 pages, scattered with colour illustrations, diagrams and photographs on Pendraken's 10mm figures in action.

Armies are based on bases 100mm by 50mm, with each base being a mini diorama conveying the nature of the units it represents, such as unformed bersekers or ordered lines of trained troops.

Pendraken's fantasy range is being reorganised to reflect the units required for Warband.  So far the Goblins and Hill Dwarfs have made the transfer, with other armies to follow.  There are also two starter Warbands available, being the aforementioned Goblins and Dwarfs.  An essential payday purchase.

Both packs contain the following:

3 Units of Warriors
1 Unit of Shooters
1 Unit of Riders
1 Command Unit
1 Magic User Unit
1 Unit of Artillery
8 100mm x 50mm bases

The Goblins weigh in at 340 points while the Dwarfs muster 400.  The rules are based on armies of 500 points so these army packs will have to be supplemented with further units.  Nevertheless, the packs provide the essential core troops, allowing the player to add to them to his own taste.

I'm looking forward to clearing the decks and starting on the Goblins this month and there is plenty of lead to keep me occupied for now.

All in all a well packaged set of rules and figures.  I'm looking forward to trying the rules out in anger.

[Chieftain]

Decklan

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.

[Leon]

Review of Warband from the July edition of Miniature Wargames with Battlegames, reviewed by Dan Mersey.

© Miniature Wargames with Battlegames 2015. Reproduced with permission from the Editor.