The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Quick Overview: You get a 48 page booklet printed on glossy magazine material. Plenty of full color photographs are spread throughout, with small maps in a gray scale printing. 25 small scale Warhammer skirmishes are detailed, along with some craft ideas and methods of integrating these smaller skirmishes into larger battles.

The details: The book begins with a few pages of introducing the idea of the Skirmish rules included with Warhammer. Warhammer has traditionally been used to simulate larger scale battles between various fantasy armies, with small scale fights left as an appendix in the rulebooks. GW appears to be moving into the smaller scale skirmish market with this book and the supporting pages on their web site. (Debates about competing with the now deceased Chainmail and/or Mage Knight are up to you). The rules are not reprinted or revised here - you will need to boxed set rules to play. Some guidelines for fair play are offered since the rules set used here is not specifically designed for the smaller scale fights and unique situations which can crop up.

A few ideas for creating terrain for skirmishes are offered. There are not a lot of details here, and this section mostly reads like a sales pitch trying to drum up excitement for getting you to want to create terrain.

After these short sections, the meat of the booklet begins.

25 scenarios are detailed, each with a defined set of foes to face each other, and suggestions for tailoring the scenario to fit other forces. While most of these scenarios can be found online at the GW web site, some are unique to the book, such as "Slayer." All have great photography, guidelines for designing a battle site, deployment rules and special rules for the scenario. An example of a special rule from the first scenario would be (in essence) "It's foggy so movement is cut in half." Each scenario also includes tips for using the results of the skirmish to affect the setup of a larger battle which may follow. Generally, these results are along the lines of the winner getting X number of extra points to use to build an army for the later, large scale battle, or determining which player goes first in the next fight, or the like.

It's also within these scenarios that a GM using this booklet as a LEGO(tm) Idea Book could get ideas for any fantasy campaign and how the characters actions could affect the world around them. Since most of these fights are for low numbers of characters, about 6-10 per side per encounter, tailoring the scenario to an RPG setting seems natural. The "Part of a Larger Battle" section can give ideas for how to integrate the skirmish into an RPG setting, and having a photo is always a plus: "The bridge looks like *this* and the troll coming at you looks like *that*."

Scattered throughout the scenarios are small pieces of fiction and some ideas for building terrain and other obstacles to use in the encounters.

The book wraps up with some examples of integrating skirmishes into larger battles.

There are 3 paragraphs of what I would call "house ads" within the pages of the booklet, along with one interior cover.

Let me add the writers point out that not all the scenarios are balanced, and some are harder than others for a given side to win. I like having this information up front so I don't get caught wondering if the designers intentionally designed the skirmishes the way they did.

Overall, this book is very well designed. I'll mention it again - the photography is excellent, the miniatures well painted and the page layouts are consistent and easy to read. The only downside is the dearth of original material, as most of the scenarios and all the construction tips are available on the GW webite. The $4 price tag more than offsets this shortcoming, though, since color printouts alone would cost dar more than that to print.

Warhammer Skirmish
Warhammer Skirmish Capsule Review by John Guin on 02/07/02 Style: 5 (Excellent!) Substance: 4 (Meaty) The best four dollars you can spend on Warhammer, with ideas to offer for any fantasy RPG. Product: Warhammer Skirmish Author: GDW Staff Category: Miniature Company/Publisher: Games Workshop Line: Warhammer Cost: 3.99 US Page count: 48 Year published: 2002 ISBN: UPC 08374600128 SKU: 0128 Comp copy?: no Capsule Review by John Guin on 02/07/02 Genre tags: Fantasy Other	Quick Overview: You get a 48 page booklet printed on glossy magazine material. Plenty of full color photographs are spread throughout, with small maps in a gray scale printing. 25 small scale Warhammer skirmishes are detailed, along with some craft ideas and methods of integrating these smaller skirmishes into larger battles. The details: The book begins with a few pages of introducing the idea of the Skirmish rules included with Warhammer. Warhammer has traditionally been used to simulate larger scale battles between various fantasy armies, with small scale fights left as an appendix in the rulebooks. GW appears to be moving into the smaller scale skirmish market with this book and the supporting pages on their web site. (Debates about competing with the now deceased Chainmail and/or Mage Knight are up to you). The rules are not reprinted or revised here - you will need to boxed set rules to play. Some guidelines for fair play are offered since the rules set used here is not specifically designed for the smaller scale fights and unique situations which can crop up. A few ideas for creating terrain for skirmishes are offered. There are not a lot of details here, and this section mostly reads like a sales pitch trying to drum up excitement for getting you to want to create terrain. After these short sections, the meat of the booklet begins. 25 scenarios are detailed, each with a defined set of foes to face each other, and suggestions for tailoring the scenario to fit other forces. While most of these scenarios can be found online at the GW web site, some are unique to the book, such as "Slayer." All have great photography, guidelines for designing a battle site, deployment rules and special rules for the scenario. An example of a special rule from the first scenario would be (in essence) "It's foggy so movement is cut in half." Each scenario also includes tips for using the results of the skirmish to affect the setup of a larger battle which may follow. Generally, these results are along the lines of the winner getting X number of extra points to use to build an army for the later, large scale battle, or determining which player goes first in the next fight, or the like. It's also within these scenarios that a GM using this booklet as a LEGO(tm) Idea Book could get ideas for any fantasy campaign and how the characters actions could affect the world around them. Since most of these fights are for low numbers of characters, about 6-10 per side per encounter, tailoring the scenario to an RPG setting seems natural. The "Part of a Larger Battle" section can give ideas for how to integrate the skirmish into an RPG setting, and having a photo is always a plus: "The bridge looks like this and the troll coming at you looks like that." Scattered throughout the scenarios are small pieces of fiction and some ideas for building terrain and other obstacles to use in the encounters. The book wraps up with some examples of integrating skirmishes into larger battles. There are 3 paragraphs of what I would call "house ads" within the pages of the booklet, along with one interior cover. Let me add the writers point out that not all the scenarios are balanced, and some are harder than others for a given side to win. I like having this information up front so I don't get caught wondering if the designers intentionally designed the skirmishes the way they did. Overall, this book is very well designed. I'll mention it again - the photography is excellent, the miniatures well painted and the page layouts are consistent and easy to read. The only downside is the dearth of original material, as most of the scenarios and all the construction tips are available on the GW webite. The $4 price tag more than offsets this shortcoming, though, since color printouts alone would cost dar more than that to print.

Warhammer Skirmish