Battle March: A Quick Jaunt in the Old World

I know, it's been a little bit. I've had work travel, family visits, and the World Cup all going on at once so it's been a tad difficult to do a lot in terms of the hobby. But, I've actually managed to squeeze in a few sessions of some games I've been meaning to play for a while. One of those games, obviously by the title, is Warhammer The Old World. But not the usual, big battle format. Instead we played Battle March, Games Workshop's attempt to cut down the glut into a manageable weeknight game format. Were they successful? My first impressions of the game after the jump. 

Battle March takes the 2000 point big army format we all know and compresses it down into a 500 to 750 point game. This does restrict your list building, most notably that you can only fit one or two heroes into the mix and they won't be a powerhouse. A lot of the specialized units won't be making an appearance either; this is an infantry and cavalry game. You'll probably be looking at about 3-5 units with the aforementioned 1-2 heroes. Which is great because this fits in a small carrying case and is a much easier ask for painting purposes. 

The rules are pretty much exactly the same as the Old World core rules. At the time of writing GW has announced (but not released) a new Battle March handbook, so it seems the game mode is doing well. In the meantime, the War of Settra's Fury Arcane Journal (I'm sure we could squeeze in a few more words there) contains the current set of rules which make some minor changes, give some restrictions to list building, and provide a few scenarios to play.

I took out my High Elf army for a spin against my friend's Mountain Hold Dwarfs. The game played nice and quick, with action happening almost from turn 1. In fact the game played so quickly that we were finished before my other friends who were playing Warcry, a GW skirmish game. This had me surprised as the main reason I haven't played any Old World/Warhammer Fantasy is the time commitment, I just don't have weekend days that I can give up for a game at this moment. So this is a really great mode for after work play.

As far as the game itself, it was a close loss for me, as I just didn't know my army very well. I had a ton of fun though, and would definitely try it again. Below are some glamor shots of the game as it progressed. 

A few notes that I would pass along, not necessarily all learned from this game:

• Flyers can be oppressive, so talk to your opponent before bringing them along. 
• Units that are very points efficient in a 2000 point game are even more so in a small game. 
• Don't bring a massive block of powerful shooters. Units don't have a ton of staying power at this size.
• Mess around with units you normally wouldn't bring. This is a fun mode to experiment with because games go so quickly.

I would highly recommend anyone even remotely interested in playing Warhammer Fantasy to give Battle March a try. It's a fun, fast paced game mode that will leave you hungry for more but won't overstay its welcome.

-The Space Dinosaur