Warmaster 2! Warmasteryier...

Last night I played my first game of Warmaster!  My order from Pendraken had arrived and had been painted and this (with some borrowed bears and a few magical toys ) brought my army up to near 1500 points.
My Force consisted of:
General with Orb of Majesty
Hero with sword of might
Hero with Bear
Wizard with dispel scroll
3 units of Lancers (1 with a magic banner)
3 units of Horse Archers
2 units of Archers
2 units of Axemen
1 Warwagon
1 unit of Borrowed Bears

These faced Geoffs High Elves!
2 Units of Silver Helms
2 units of Reavers
2 units of Chariots
4 units of Spearmen
3 units of Archers
1 battery of bolt throwers
General, hero and wizard

The General and the Kislevite centre

The Elf centre.  

The Elven Right .

The Kislevite left,

The Lancers 

The Kislevite Light Cavalry Brigade mix it up with the Reavers and Silver Helms. They destroyed the Reavers, but only bagged one stand of silver helms before the brigade was lost. Still, their charge caused Chaos in the elven lines...

In response the rest of the Elven wing went and stood on a hill for a bit.

Last stand of the Horse Archers

The Lancers try out a lance formation. They'd lost three stands when they got
charged by the chariots, but they destroyed the chariots in turn. Pity they spent
most of the game just standing there.

My left flank- at this point with a briagde gone, and still outnumbered I
moved the lancers closer to my centre for mutual support

Meanwhile in the centre- the Kislevites have taken their time over laagering,
luckily the elvish brigades here were taking orders from an wizard, and spent
most of the time just faffing about.  The Bears are sent in to cause more chaos.

The Elvish archery eventually deals with the bears and they steady their lines only
for the Lancers to arrive, coming down the hillside (and presumably with Sabaton
providing the soundtrack...), and were driven back, despite the Kislevites only being
armed with rubber lances....

The game didn't quite end there - The silver helms managed to catch my two under strength lancer units unawares and destroyed them. This should have ended the game but I miscounted and didn't realise I'd reached half strength! Pressing on, my remaining lancers charged the two spearmen units that had survived their previous charge, and wiped them out , breaking the Elf army as well...whoops!


So whats the verdict? It was a great game, though I need more units: I was a bit out numbered, and even just 4 units less in such a small game meant I was somewhat stretched. Need to get my General to where the action is as well, the first half of the game was all about the cavalry engagement on my left, but the general was miles away, and the two heroes commanding Brigades there were out of their depth!  And wizards are no substitute for a proper commander.  Never got to see what the Infantry could do, once they'd laargered they were rather static! They shot up any elves that came near quite well, but we never got to test Geoff's assertion that they were unassailable once formed up. But the fact he was reluctant to engage them suggests more warwagons might be worth it. 

Most of the rules of the game I very much like, but  I was a little dissatisfied with the melee mechanic were you keep fighting round after round till one side is defeated. Theres something funny about it, but I can't quite decide what it is. More testing required.

Anyway, heres some random shots of the whole force.  Think it needs more Horse.  A lot more Horse...