Battlemasters Goblin Wolfriders

This seemed so lavish when I was a youngster - still does to be honest

Battlemasters is an old MB games board game produced in the early 90s.  It was the third in a series of games produced by MB games with Games Workshop, the more famous first two installments being Heroquest and Space Crusade.  I loved them all, but Battlemasters was a real success because I played far far more games of it than I ever managed of Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd and 4th edition. 

The premise is simple; a simplified hex based wargame with card driven movement and 100 plastic figures in the box.  Gameplay is simple and a normal game runs for about an hour. 

I think this may be where I picked up my love of games with grids. I've been playing it with the Kinchlets and we've been having a lot of fun with it. I've set myself the medium term goal of getting all the figures painted for it this year.  

It also had a pretty impressive TV ad 

Goblin Wolf riders

The Evil player has a force made up of Orks, Goblins, Beastmen and other gribblies, but their main cavalry force, beyond some Chaos Knights, are the Goblin wolf riders.  These are a fast moving, but relatively weak unit, that can nip in and harry weaker infantry units. 

I'm pleased with how the wolves turned out.  I wanted to do them in something other than grey, so doing them in a variety of browns suited me.  It was a job that was very suited to Citadel Contrast paints. Using these with a big brush and a few drybrushed highlights did the job nice and quickly. 

The riders were a little more involved.  But I based out six of 'em and the remainder of the wolves in one three hour painting stint with Savage. It was nice to get stuck into something and stick with it.  Once I got home, all I had to do was add some decals and they were done. 

Painting a swatch of colour on top of the pot is extremely handy. 

My local model shop has just started stocking AK paints and they are fabulous.  Wonderfully opaque, not prone to seperating (I see you vallejo) and just splendid strong colours.   I've totally fallen in love with them.  However, one thing that I wasn't aware of and I'm not sure if this is by design or not, but you can use the hollow in the top of the cap to put a small out of paint in.  This makes it much easier to tell paints apart at a glance. 

Battlemasters with Kinchlets

"Pay attention Sir Harry, the Hun is here, here and here." - LadyBaby

Finished up a practice game of the old MB Games/Citadel miniatures game Battlemasters with the Kinchlets (with feline auxiliary). They successfully defended the tower from the baddies. We’re playing a Dads v Kids game on Saturday with their cousins and I'm looking forward to it. 

“Imma gonna punch that goblin inna snoot” - Bear

I had planned on giving the kids special characters, but they asked if they could have “gifts” like the Pevensie children in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. 

One quick rewrite later and we are sorted.  The mechanical affect was exactly the same, but the kids enjoyed being able to pick one over the other.  The LadyBaby picked a diamond bottle filled with a healing elixir distilled from flowers grown in the mountains of the Sun (she has always loved Lucy in the Narnia stories) while Bear plumped for a sword and shield like Peter.  

The mechanic effect was that Bear added a die to a units dice when attacking while the LadyBaby could heal a point of damage from a unit each time the Mighty Cannon card was turned. 

“We should get him, he’s a meanie” - LadyBaby

Thus the band of Chaos Warriors were doomed. 

The LadyBaby used her diamond bottle of healing potion successfully.  Bears magic sword was less successful - he spent the game with the artillery - but he’ll remember for next time.

The LadyBaby showing Colonel Sir Harry Flashman VC the next card. 

The card mechanic where turn order and unit activation is randomised definitely keeps the kids engaged.  The LadyBaby in particular enjoyed turning over the next card to find out what would happen next. 

The LadyBaby took charge of the cavalry at an early juncture.  She approves of knights it seems. 

Slowly tipping one die at a time into the Dice Tower is apparently the secret to Bear's success. 

The game ended with a resounding Kinchlet victory as they managed to hold off the hordes of Chaos for long enough that a relief force arrived and the tower was saved!

Thoroughly enjoyable game.  What interested me most about this one was that the Kinchlets took more ownership of what was going on.  They talked between themselves to try to formulate a plan and considered different options.  The simple mechanics made it possible for them to grasp all of them and not just engage with the rules, but also with what they were actually trying to do. 

It was wonderful to watch.