Anybody ever play WARMASTER?

[Rakkasan101]

First off, I love this game. Play it ever morning on my metro commute to school. It's been a long time since I literally cheered while playing a PC game. Interestingly enough, I'm god awful at P&S and can only beat the normal scenarios about 50% of the time.

Did anybody play a games workshop game called WARMASTER? It was set in the warhammer fantasy world, but used smaller minis and focused more on the Command and Control aspects of battle, rather than the stats of the units involved. The game was a flop, but it might have been the best "wargame" GW ever put out. They even republished a version focusing on battle of the ancient world, and there have been lots of conversions of the system (ACW, Nap, WW2, etc.). The relatively simple rules are online. At any rate, the think something like the War master system would be perfect for adding C2 to Pike and Shot.

Basically, in addition to your units, you have a general and a few subordinate officers, who all have a leadership rating. To give a unit an order, you had to roll under that leadership rating. Of course, there are a host of modifiers that affect that roll, and rolling double 6's results in a blunder of orders. It was great fun, and pretty much guaranteed an interesting battle that never played out the same way twice. The strategy was about knowing when to play it safe vs. when to push your luck.

Just a thought. I know some folks (me included) like individual leaders on the field, and a system similar to Warmaster would be perfect. Or hell, just contact GW and get the rights to make the actual game. They aren't using it anymore.

[ulysisgrunt]

The command system you describe (I have lots of Warmaster armies) is fairly common in ancients warfare. In fact, RBS (who created this game) was one of the authors of the DBX system which had what you described.
All the best!
Danny Weitz 45 feet below sea level in the California desert

[Alma69]

Yeah commanders are somehow missed in this game.