The Art Of War Warhammer Ancient Battles - shorl.com/hoseprimafropre.
Author: Sun Tzu (original)
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Pages: 34
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Book Description HTML
The Art of War is an ancient Chinese military treatise attributed to Sun Tzu, a high-ranking military general, strategist and tactician. Each of the 13 chapters of the book is devoted to one aspect of warfare. It is commonly known to be the definitive work on military strategy and tactics of its time. It has been the most famous and influential of China's Seven Military Classics. For the last two thousand years, it remained the most important military treatise in Asia, where even the common people knew it by name. It has had an influence on Eastern and Western military thinking, business tactics, legal strategy and beyond. The book was first translated into the French language in 1772 by French Jesuit Jean Joseph Marie Amiot and a partial translation into English.
(The Great Sun Jester)
A mighty fish-god am I.
This is not, of course, to say that WFB in the 1990s was a game dominated by tactical manoeuvre; this was the 'herohammer' era of invincible characters and army-obliterating magic. However, as Jervis Johnson, Rick Priestley and the Perry brothers' game demonstrates, once these elements were been removed, what remained was a surprisingly intuitive system that rewarded generalship on the field.System
Though many gamers will be familiar with WFB (even if only as an old shame), I intend to frame my comments, as I am wont to, in a description of WAB's system. At its most basic, WAB is a system intended to simulate historical battles in 28mm scale, and follows Warhammer's I-go-You-go structure, whereby each player's whole army acts in turn. As usual, each turn is broken up into discreet phases: movement, shooting and combat.
Just like its fantasy progenitor, WAB describes the quality of each and every soldier on the field with a profile of nine statistics, defining a warrior's movement allowance, combat skill, resilience, morale, etc. This is the first prominent point of difference between WAB and most other historical wargames, in which the unit forms the base element of gameplay.
In the specifics of soldiers' profiles, however, WAB begins to make itself quite distinct from its fantastic ancestor. While both employ the same figures to represent the average fighting man (a Move of 4, Weapon Skill of 3, Leadership of 7, etc.), WFB, being an heroic fantasy game, allowed far more variance in those statistics (e.g. Chaos Warriors had a WS of 6 and Ld of 9), whilst WAB deviates far less from the baseline, dropping a stat or two by a point here and there to represent levies, raising by a point (and no more) to represent elites. Where troops receive special rules, they commonly apply either to movement or to psychology: Roman legionaries benefit from being Drilled, which allows them a free change of formation or turn during their move. Barbarian warriors receive the Warband rule, allowing them to add their rank bonus to their miserable Ld of 5.
Gameplay
So, how do the rules work? Well, the short answer is: almost exactly like WFB 5th edition, but without the burden of allowing for monsters and magic. Movement is handled very simply indeed: troops move up to their movement value in inches each turn (4” for most infantry, 8” for most cavalry), and may move at double time in order to charge into combat or to march when safely distant from the enemy. Small penalties to movement accrue from encumbering armour, obstructing terrain, manoeuvres and changes to formation.
Combat is likewise simple; when attacking at range, D6s (and the system uses no other die type) are rolled for each model firing against a target number determined by their Ballistic Skill, and modified by circumstances (bonuses for large targets, penalties for firing on the move). In hand-to-hand combat, all models in direct contact roll to hit against a difficulty determined by a matrix of their WS and their opponent's. Both sides fight in hand-to-hand in each turn, with priority going to chargers, and then defaulting to the side with the higher Initiative statistic. This might seem fiddly and dice-heavy, but the premise is intuitive enough, and the basic principle that equal WS means a hit on a 4+, higher a 3+ and lower a 5+ is not hard to memorise.
Damage employs a similar matrix, pitting the Strength of an attacker who has hit against the Toughness of his opponent. In practice, since all but a few models are S3 and T3, this means rolling a 4+, but the granularity of the system allows, for instance, the greater strength of a ballista or the tough hide of an elephant to be appropriately represented, though such exceptions are not nearly so prevalent (or dominating) as in WFB.
Next – as those familiar with WFB will already know – come armour saving throws, deflecting successful wounds if the controlling player can pass his save on a D6. It is here that the system allows the most differentiation between troops on the field: a fully-equipped Roman legionary shrugs off a wound on a 3+, whereas as a barbarian warrior with nothing but a shield requires a 6+. While this may all see a little overcomplicated, the system allows for plenty of granularity (which is useful, since the rules nominally cover warfare from the bronze age to that of gunpowder), and allows the inactive player some action in his opponent's turn.
Next, there are the rules for combat resolution and psychological effects, both of which rely upon the Leadership statistic – probably the next most important in the game after the armour save. Once both sides have fought in a combat, casualties for both sides are counted. To each side's total, a bonus of up to +3 is added for each complete rank after the first, along with modifiers for flank and rear attacks, unit standards, etc. The losing side must then roll 2D6 against their Ld score, reduced by the number of points by which they lost the engagement.
It is this mechanic, particularly the bonuses offered by flank and rear attacks (which also negate an opponent's rank bonus) which makes the game one principally decided by manoeuvre, rather than, as in WFB, the head-to-head collision of two tooled-up elite units. A large formation of Roman legionaries might be nigh-unbeatable in a frontal assault, but combine that frontal attack with a well-timed flank charge from a few cheap and manoeuvrable light troops, and the odds shift dramatically against them. (Naturally a sensible Roman player will do everything he can to anchor his flanks, or to screen them with his own light units.)
Units which fail their Leadership test and rout from combat retreat 2D6” (3D6” for cavalry), and will be cut down automatically by a pursuing opponent who can catch them by making a higher roll. (Though it is true to history that the greatest carnage wrought on the battlefield commonly ensues when one side breaks, I have never much liked the arbitrariness of this rule, and as a house rule instead use the 'Free Hack' from WFB 3rd edition.) Another curious omission is the absence of rules for pushing-back an enemy unit defeated in combat, something common in historical games. (Again, when playing at home I import the rules for doing so from WFB 3rd edition.)
Units may rout for other reasons, most commonly they may panic upon seeing friendly units put to flight or destroyed, being charged in the flank, or after taking 25% casualties from missile attacks. Once again, to avoid panic requires an Ld test on 2D6; the same mechanic is used for other less frequently encountered effects, such as the fear inspired by elephants.
Finally, there are rules to represent period-appropriate weapons and formations, chariots, elephants, war machines and the like, along with a few special rules to reflect the particular qualities of certain troop types (such as the aforementioned Drilled rule for legionaries). Most of these will be familiar to WFB players, but there are a few new ones such as the pilum covering weapons absent from that game's pseudo-renaissance milieu. These are all relatively simple, well-balanced and historically appropriate (no lance-armed cavalry in the Classical era, for instance). A few more options here, such as forming a square, however, would not have gone amiss (yet again, rules for such are easily imported from WFB 3rd).
Tactics
The result of all of this is a game with mechanics very familiar to WFB players (and intuitive, if not so familiar to players of other historicals), but from which emerges very different gameplay on the field. As I have remarked above, without magic, monsters and super-powered characters and elite units to dominate the battlefield, the game's system allows for a remarkably tense, tactical game, decided by deployment and manoeuvre.
Though characters, as a relic of WFB, sill possess superior profiles, they are, without the protection of stacked saves and the added striking power of magic items, not pivotal combatants in WAB. Instead, an army's general more valuable for his leadership bubble than his sword arm; indeed, since his death occasions army-wide panic tests, wise players will keep him close behind the line of battle, and throw him into the fight only when absolutely necessary. Allowing players to mimic Julius Caesar's account of his actions at Alesia, (or, less happily, those of Valens at Adrianople) the results of these mechanics are pleasingly characterful and authentic, as well as offering meaningful and difficult tactical choices on the tabletop.
What players used to historical games will find a glaring omission, however, is the lack of a command and control mechanic: beyond the ability of characters (representing, for instance, Roman tribunes or barbarian nobles) to bestow their superior Leadership score upon the unit they lead, the army general's similar 12” Leadership radius, there is none. There are a few exceptional rules to represent the ungovernability of a barbarian warband (which on a 1 in 6 chance must advance towards the enemy), or the discipline of a Roman legion (which need not test to hold its place in formation instead of pursuing a broken enemy), but in the main the players have perfect control over their troops (at least until they break or panic).
So far as historical authenticity goes, being intended for 28mm miniatures, the engagements WAB best suits would qualify by historical standards only as skirmishes, but this (for me at least) spoils neither the enjoyment of the game as a tactical exercise, nor its immersiveness as an historical simulation. Where the game succeeds relatively well, however, is in encouraging the players to employ historically appropriate tactics. Cavalry in the ancient world are principally for keeping the opposing side's cavalry of your flanks, or else function as a mobile reserve. Skirmishers, though cheap and relatively ineffective, are similarly vital to guarding flanks and softening up the enemy.
Rounding out the rulebook are brief articles on collecting and painting an historical army, a nice colour section featuring photographs of the development team's armies, and a set of scenarios. These, covering situations from the standard pitched battle to ambushes and last stands are uniformly well thought-out, and do much to add variety to the game. My only disappointment with them is the absence of historical examples; it would have contributed much to the tone of the game to have accompanied the Ambush scenario with a narration of the Battle of the Allia, or the Last Stand with some notes on Thermopylae.
Following the scenarios are a few pages dedicated to campaign rules. Somewhat perfunctory and lacking in balance, these don't, in my opinion, quite live up to the standard set by the rest of the rulebook. They do succeed, however, in communicating the enthusiasm of the authors, and provide enough practical ideas to be of use inspiring campaigns of one's own.
Forces
Appended to the rules are two army lists, one covering the legions of early Imperial Rome, the other the barbarians at its gates. Herein lies the final element of WAB's distinctiveness among historical games: the assumption that battles typically will be fought between evenly-matched sides according to a points system, rather than according to specific historical scenarios. Each list is preceded with a discussion of its history and development which, though brief, is a more than adequate introduction to the subject. These two lists would subsequently be supplemented by the expansion Armies of Antiquity (reviewed here, and then by a number of more detailed books focussed upon particular periods (which I shall be reviewing another day).
The Roman list, as one would expect, allows a player to build a mixed force of auxiliaries and allies around a core of stalwart legionaries. The latter are, predictably, well-equipped, disciplined and expensive, while the former covers a range of troops with average statistics but who are nonetheless vital to Roman success. Though a Roman army is unlikely to deviate from the general pattern of a core of heavy infantry who will do the bulk of the fighting (and take all of the glory) while supported by their auxiliaries, there are still enough options in the list to allow a Roman player a variety of different tactics on the field.
The Barbarian list, which broadly covers the ancient Gauls, Britons and Germans, necessarily employs a little more imagination (the military history of its subjects being less well-recorded), but is filled with characterful choices, including druids to stir up hatred of the enemy, and frothing fanatics ready to hurl themselves frenziedly at the foe. Though the core of the Barbarian army, large warbands of average-profile warriors, are of lower quality than that of the Romans, they do benefit from something unavailable to the Romans: high-quality fast troops in the form of noble cavalry and chariots.
After playing a good number of battles between the two, I feel that I can confidently say the two lists are fairly well-balanced, and unafflicted by the problem of undercosted/overpowered de rigeur choices which plagued Warhammer Fantasy (and still do). What is vital in army selection, however, is balance. Unstoppable as an army comprised solely of veteran legionaries might seem on paper, it will be outflanked and destroyed in detail by a force selected according to a combined arms doctrine – an appropriate lesson for generals from Classical warfare.
Presentation
Warhammer Ancient Battles is cleanly and professionally laid out - indeed the rules are more clearly presented than those of contemporary editions of Warhammer Fantasy. Compared with the historical games of the time (DBA in particular) the book is lavishly illustrated, and a few illustrative quotations from Livy's Ab Urbe Condita, Caesar's De Bello Gallico and Vegetius' De Rei Militaris add an air of scholarship. More than a decade on, however, the mainly black and white book looks rather dowdy in comparison with Warlord's Hail Caesar or Osprey's Field of Glory.
Conclusions
Given its age (and its publishers, who aren't exactly renowned for their watertight rules) Warhammer Ancient Battles holds up remarkably well in practice. Stripped of its fantasy trappings, the Warhammer system works remarkably well, and provides an appealing level of detail. Despite the buckets of dice needed, players familiar with it (or who take the time to become so) will find it remarkably intuitive and unintrusive in actual play. It's probably fair to say that WAB has long since been overshadowed by Warlord Games' Hail Caesar (the work, of course, of GW alumnus Rick Priestley), which begins from similar principles, but throws out much of Warhammer's largely unnecessary detail to produce a far more up-to-date game, but WAB nevertheless succeeds at what it sets out to do, and seldom fails to provide fun, drama and difficult choices on the field of battle.
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