I was in a local shop looking for an Ork Stompa for my grot when I stumbled upon a copy of the Battle March Generals Compendium. I was unable to get get a copy when it was first released as it was almost immediately sold out here in the states. I saw it was back in stock and considered ordering it but being able to pick it up at a friendly local game store made it a no brainer! This review is thus a bit later than my normal Arcane Journal reviews but better late than never!
I guess the first thing I should start with is explaining what exactly Battle March is for our new players! In Warhammer The Old World Battle March you take control of much smaller forces than you do in a regular game of Warhammer. While a regular game tends to be around 2,000 points a Battle March army is between 500 points and 750 points. In Warhammer The Old World the Battle March format was first introduced in the Arcane Journal The War of Settra’s Fury.
Just as the March of Chaos Arcane Journal with its throwback to the Path to Glory this book gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling thinking about the classic 2003 Generals Compendium!
Much like the Arcane Journals this book is softcover and is 48 pages long.
Unlike most of the Arcane Journals there are no alternate army lists in this book, and there is very little background material.
The first five pages talk briefly about the War of Settra’s Fury, and the Coming of the Chainmaker, in the context of the role small skirmishes had on shaping the overall results of those campaigns. The are the two storylines that have been advanced since the release of The Old World. Rather than focusing on either of these campaigns the scenarios in Battle March are focused on the Infamous Axe Bite Pass, an old standby location for fans of Warhammer. This is a logical location to choose to set the scenarios in as the pass connects the Empire and Bretonnia, is near the Wood Elf Realms of Athel Loren, Beastmen riddled forests such as the Reikwald, dwarven strongholds, and many other of the races of The Old World.
The book has a few pages dedicated to telling the story of the Orc Warboss Drazzog Skullsmasha as he broke his warband off from the larger Waagghh of Durgath Spinecrusher after he was defeated by the Bretonnian King Louen Leoncoeur and worked his was into Axe Bite Pass.
The scenario section features six scenarios all with recommended forces, but giving you any modifications you might need if you select your own armies instead. These scenarios look like they will be fun, one of my favorites replays a skirmish between Skullsmasha and an Empire Force trying to block his way at a bridge over a river crossing. The other scenarios feature Baggage Trains, buildings that need to be sacked or saved, and a few small villages that need to be fought through. Normally you might see a single building on a battlefield, to see four or more is a mighty hamlet indeed!
The book features six Battle March armies with two page spreads. Each army has an army list, and slight blurb on the armies play style. Conveniently enough each of these six armies are the figures contained in the various Battle March box sets available online.
The book then covers the rules for building an army in the Battle March format, objectives, strategic landmarks, and provides six deployment maps. These six pages are already in the updated Warhammer rule book, and while The War of Settras Fury only contains 3 deployment maps and doesn’t cover strategic landmarks or objectives 3 of the pages are the same in this book as that.
This book contains a stat line for the Baggage Train, which makes sense as at this level, and against a smaller amout of troops, the Baggage Train can be more of a feature of the game than in full size battles. It won’t last long in combat, but in Battle March it won’t die just by having troops last a turn in base to base either!
One of the things I like about this book are the inclusion of Random Happenings. There are three tables you can opt to roll on, Disruptive Weather, Wilderness Terrain, and The Chaos of War. The authors recommend just using one table for a game, but if you are up for it you can go with all two, or even all three!
When you roll on the Disruptive Weather table you get stuck with that result for the whole game, so unlike in Blood Bowl where the weather can change from drive to drive if something bad is happening, it is happening all game! The Disruptive Weather table can cause a heavy downpour slowing your troops, a fierce gale reducing ranged weapon attacks, scorching heat that can kill off your heavily armored troops, lightning strikes that can zap a unit with D6 strength 4 hits, a Dust Devil that can drive through the armies reducing their WS and BS, and Freezing Winds that can force units to need to take a Leadership test to move, shoot, cast spells or declare a charge!
The Wilderness Terrain chart effects terrain features. Whenever you enter a natural terrain feature you roll a D6 on the table to see what effects the feature has. The chart doesn’t explain if the terrain feature retains it’s normal features, or if it is outright replaced, or even supplemented with the rules listed so you’ll have to discuss that with your opponent before the game! Additionally, the rules don’t state if the terrain feature keeps the same rules every time a new unit goes in it, although it is implied in one of the results on the chart that the feature stays the same throughout the game.
If you get stuck in a Briar Patch you are dealing with difficult terrain, but if you charge, flee, or pursue it is dangerous terrain! Sometimes troops will get luck and find the terrain they are in makes a perfect Defensive Position and they get the benefit of low cover, and disrupt their enemies charges. Sometimes the terrain has Lingering Magic and your troops get Magic Resistance (1) or has Healing Herbs that allows a single model to regain wounds! Sometimes things are much worse than that as some features have Toxic Spores which forces a Toughness test that if failed causes a single wound! This is even worse than stumbling upon a Troll’s Lair!
The Chaos of War gets more chaotic as the game goes on. Starting in the second turn the first player rolls a D6. If it is equal to or lower than the current turn the second player rolls on the Chaos of War chart. It doesn’t say otherwise so I’d assume that means you can potentially roll on this chart 4 or 5 times in a game! (Most games of Battle March are only 5 turns.) It is possible you will be fighting over terrain cursed by Aetheric Instability, in which case if you roll any doubles to cast you will either end up with a miscast (1,2,3) or a perfect invocation (4,5,6)! You might be the recipient of Misplaced Resources as a lost baggage cart wanders onto the battlefield causing one player to fight to retrieve the baggage cart while the other must destroy it. Dwindling Ammunition means you can only fire your missile weapons every other turn, a boon for those troops without missile weapons, but a curse for those with! In Treasures of the Backcountry objectives and strategic landmarks are worth more Victory Points than normal, and in a Drawn-out Conflict you will play 6 turns instead of the usual five. Finally, there is a chance you, your opponent, or both, will get a unit of 10 wandering mercenaries to join their side. At such a small points game even 10 basic troops with hand weapons and either shields or short bows can have a huge impact!
Next up is a section on running a Matched Play event using Battle March, including 10 secret objectives, similiar to the Matched Play Guide, but toned down for the smaller size battles.
Finally, the book contains 21 new magic items available to all armies for use in Battle March games only. The most expensive magic item is 30 points, with most being 15 points or less. These are fun magic items that probably wouldn’t see much use in a regular game, but could be quite powerful in a smaller battle!
I have to say I love the Battle March format. My group has been playing smaller armies in multi-player games for years, and I’m thrilled to see the format get supported. Even more important is it seems as if it has really grabbed the interest of gamers all over the world and it bodes well for the hobby. With that said I have to say I’m not a fan of the book as a whole. With what are essentially double page spreads of the Battle March armies a full quarter of the book (12 pages) are really wasted space. Add that to the six pages duplicated from the main rule book (or even just the three from the War of Settra’s Fury) you have a total of 18 pages that really don’t provide any value. There are a few sections of the book as I’ve mentioned above that aren’t quite explained in enough detail, and there are a few other errors I haven’t gone into detail about. For example in Scenario 1 it says look to the rules in Scenario 2 to determine who goes first but Scenario 2 doesn’t have an explanation beyond the attacker goes first, while Scenario 1 has a fun mechanism to determine who goes first on its own! Normally, I’d just mention these little errors but in the book it vexes me considering how much is just cut and paste! I’d be happier if we were in truly different editions but the new rule book is just a cleaning up and errata of the previous book so seeing information in one Arcane Journal republished in another book just feels cheap to me.
The scenarios are fun, I like the random encounters, and the magic items add some flair to the smaller games, but having an entire supplement for those three things just feels super cheap and lame to me. I’m sure you’ve sat in a meeting before and thought “this meeting could have been an email” and in that vein “this Generals Compendium could have been a White Dwarf.” If I bought this copy from Games Workshop I’d absolutely be testing their return policy, but as it is the completionist in me will be glad to not return it to the FLGS I bought it from. I suppose it is nice to have everything in one book instead of spread out amongst multiple resources, but that’s probably just me trying to wrap this review up on a positive note!
I think I might need to do another retro review of the classic Generals Compendium to make me feel better!
-Wachtmeister
