Battle Masters board game review

Just before Christmas I managed to meet up with some guys I hadn't seen in forever. Of course we talked about board games. We talked about how some games define an era of our childhood. For me this was when I was thirteen and I got Battle Masters. This was my first fantasy miniatures war game and sparked my love of the genre. It opened my eyes to the world of "other" non-generic board games. Sadly my mother tossed this one out a long time ago and I've been searching for a reasonably priced replacement. One of the guys believes he has a copy in his attic and might be giving it to me sometime in the near future.

The big draw for me was the giant vinyl mat that was used for the play area. By giant I mean 4 foot by 4 foot square of floor space. It featured a river, and octagonal terrain markings. Battle Masters came with various terrain tiles: marshes, river fords and ditches as well as some hedges and a tower (which could be destroyed). Each of these had it's own special rules for either movement or combat effects. As a kid this allowed for a quick set up of a battlefield that didn't require modelling skill or elaborate planning. Getting the players directly in to game play and allowing the love of the game genre to grow from there.

There were two sides to Battle Masters. The Imperial Army and the Chaos army. The imperial army was the force for good and it featured archers, knights, men-at-arms, crossbowmen, and the imperial cannon. The Chaos army was evil and featured units like beastmen, wolf riders, orcs, goblins, Chaos Warriors, chaos archers, the Champions of Chaos and the Ogre. The units were set up on bases with usually 3 or 5 units per base. This gave the impression of battle formations. My young imagination ran wild with my vast armies deployed for war.

Link to the official rule book

The special units of the Ogre and the Imperial cannon had their own special rules. The cannon would choose a target when firing then the controlling player would lay down cannon tiles up to the target. Then the player would flip these over to reveal what the cannon ball did. It would either fly, bounce (causing damage to the unit in that tile) or explode ending it's flight and destroying whatever unit was in that tile. If the cannonball made it to the target it would be destroyed. If however the cannonball exploded next to the cannon it would be a misfire: the controlling player would pull a random cannonball card and apply its effect to the cannon. The Ogre had special cards that he would draw randomly and obey in order. Three said ogre moves and three said ogre attacks. These had to be done in the drawn order, but the player could elect not to take a drawn action. The ogre would draw one less card per wound. The ogre other special was that he had 6 health as opposed to the rest of the units 3 health.

Game play proceeded by drawing from a central deck of cards. Whichever units were depicted on the cards would then move and/or attack. Some of the cards revealed would be single units some would have multiple units (orcs, goblins and wolf riders) where all the units would be used. The randomness of the central deck could make it so one player had multiple moves before the opponent could respond. This made for a more interesting game as neither player knew who would be playing next. This means that Battle Masters is a great introduction to weird game play rules.

Of course this made for Battle Masters being Very light on strategy.

That is the biggest downside to Battle Masters, it's not really a strategy game. It is very reliant on luck of the draw and luck of the dice. For someone with a lot of strategy experience the game won't fit your ideal. However when playing with the novice or younger player it does level the playing field and is a nice light introduction to the genre.

I would recommend hunting down a copy of Battle Masters if you would like to introduce a young gamer to this genre of gaming or if you just want to play a quick simple fantasy game with a friend. Of course there are other better designed games out there but collectors should really consider adding this to their list.

Check back next week when I review The Resistance.