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I posted this on the Geeks and Gamers Forums but I thought I'd share it here:
After 14 years, I finally played my copy of Battle Masters for the first time. I received it as a gift when it first came out and was put out by the large Battle Mat and amount of play space you need (six feet square!) and never really had enough space to play it.
Seeker and I played it last night twice and in general it was a fun experience. It's a relatively simple wargame. The units are rather neat and the Battle Mat is cool even if far too large. Our guess is that they simply wanted to give the impressive feeling that each unit was in fact a unit instead of using a single figurine (like Risk) to denote a unit.
My only objection to it is how random everything is. For the most part it seems victory is dependent on luck. Players do not alternate turns: they are determined by a deck of Battle Masters cards. Each turn a card is flipped from the top of the deck. This card determines which army (Imperial or Chaos) will move/attack and which of their units will get to move/attack. Then attacks are made using combat values representing the number of attack dice to roll.
I immediately saw room for improvement and am working on a rules variant that will have players alternating turns. They will each take the Battle Masters cards for their army, shuffle it into a face down deck and draw three cards to begin as a hand. Then it works much like Memoir '44 in that each turn you choose one of the three action cards in your hand, play it, resolve it, then draw a replacement. I think this would make the game less luck dependent but not putting too much power in the hands of the players.
Beyond that, I liked how the Mighty Cannon and Ogre Champion worked. The first game I chose to use my cannon at long distance. I figured out how many explosions were in the stack of cannon cards and figured I had a reasonable chance of hitting or doing damage. I failed to realize, though, that if I made it all the way to the target, the only cards left would be explosions, ensuring my cannon would be destroyed. That's exactly what happened. Hoist by my own petard!
Anyhow, we didn't try the scenarios and I have yet to try team play, but I think I will hold onto this one. I would like to try it with my rules variant when I have a chance.
After 14 years, I finally played my copy of Battle Masters for the first time. I received it as a gift when it first came out and was put out by the large Battle Mat and amount of play space you need (six feet square!) and never really had enough space to play it.
Seeker and I played it last night twice and in general it was a fun experience. It's a relatively simple wargame. The units are rather neat and the Battle Mat is cool even if far too large. Our guess is that they simply wanted to give the impressive feeling that each unit was in fact a unit instead of using a single figurine (like Risk) to denote a unit.
My only objection to it is how random everything is. For the most part it seems victory is dependent on luck. Players do not alternate turns: they are determined by a deck of Battle Masters cards. Each turn a card is flipped from the top of the deck. This card determines which army (Imperial or Chaos) will move/attack and which of their units will get to move/attack. Then attacks are made using combat values representing the number of attack dice to roll.
I immediately saw room for improvement and am working on a rules variant that will have players alternating turns. They will each take the Battle Masters cards for their army, shuffle it into a face down deck and draw three cards to begin as a hand. Then it works much like Memoir '44 in that each turn you choose one of the three action cards in your hand, play it, resolve it, then draw a replacement. I think this would make the game less luck dependent but not putting too much power in the hands of the players.
Beyond that, I liked how the Mighty Cannon and Ogre Champion worked. The first game I chose to use my cannon at long distance. I figured out how many explosions were in the stack of cannon cards and figured I had a reasonable chance of hitting or doing damage. I failed to realize, though, that if I made it all the way to the target, the only cards left would be explosions, ensuring my cannon would be destroyed. That's exactly what happened. Hoist by my own petard!
Anyhow, we didn't try the scenarios and I have yet to try team play, but I think I will hold onto this one. I would like to try it with my rules variant when I have a chance.
