Renaissance Thursday (Rules test #2)

I dug out my, until now much underused Italian Wars miniatures again. This fight we used Warmaster Ancients rules with the modifiers and lists described in "Renaissance Commander".

Gotta say, I think Warmaster gets a bad rap. With the right group, its fun to play. The Command and Control rules were better than the "line 'em up and let 'em go" rules of TACTICA. Having to roll to move your troops frustrated some (Scott), but I really liked them. You'll notice in the pictures not only did I have to repurpose my WotR commanders again, but I mounted everything on shadow bases. This is because Warmaster, like  a lot of games, requires common size frontage. I didn't feel like rebasing 500 minis for a playtest, so there ya go.

Some of the Renaissance mods change how Warmaster is played and make it more like Blitzkrieg Commander. For instance, there is no seperate Shooting phase. All fire must either be "Ordered" or done as part of the "Initiative" phase. 

Overall, it felt like right. I said that abot TACTICA, but more so here. It had more of a gradual wear down to the fight. You really had to grind at a unit to bring it down, with the occasional blow out. I didn't pull stands when they were eliminated, but this proved a problem later on when supporting stands became an issue. Skirmishers acted more like skirmishers and boy do early Spanish pike suck.

So far, it's beating TACTICA, but the next game will be Renaissance Principles of War. I ordered it last week, but it might take awhile to show up from the UK.