From: cal@fang.att.com (Charles A. Licata)
Subject: Battle Master by Milton Bradley
Organization: AT&T Tax Systems Development, Maitland FL
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 19:51:35 GMT

Last week the game Battle Master by Milton Bradley was released.
After reviewing the rules and assembling the pieces I will review
the game, but again, like my Dark World review, I have not yet
played the game.

Components:

  Playing Pieces:  There are over 100 pieces to this game (104 I think)
                   which consist of the following:

                       1 Chaos Ogre Champion (mounted as 1 unit)
                       3 Chaos Champions (mounted as 1 unit)
                       6 Goblin Wolf Riders (mounted as 2 unit)
                      10 Chaos Warriors (mounted as 2 unit)
                      10 Orcs (mounted as 2 unit)
                      10 Goblins (mounted as 2 unit)
                      10 Chaos Archers (mounted as 2 unit)
                      10 Beastmen (mounted as 2 unit)

                       1 Imperial Canon (mounted as 1 unit)
                       3 Imperial Champion Knights (mounted as 1 unit)
                       9 Imperial Knights (mounted as 3 unit)
                      15 Foot Soldiers (mounted as 3 unit)
                      10 Archers (mounted as 2 unit)
                       5 Crossbow Men (mounted as 1 unit)

                   A unit is mounted to a plastic base which contains the
                   combat strength of the different units.

                   The figures follow the GW Fantasy Battle style.  Though
                   they are of decent quality they are done in 25mm size
                   rather then GW's 28mm (WFB players will not have a
                   cheap army alternative).  Some figure such as archers
                   and crossbow men do seem to loose some detail.

                   The imperial mounted figure went together well, but the
                   chaos mounted figure's riders have some problems fitting
                   onto their mounts.

  Unit Base:  Only complaint about the bases is that the pieces do not
                   fit into the slots tightly, so gluing may be necessary.
                   This of course make storing the pieces more difficult.

  Playing Field:  This is a 5' by 4.5' plastic map with large hexes printed
                  on it.  The terrain has features such as fields, hills
                  and roads, but they serve no importance in the rules.
                  The only feature which does is the river.  The maps
                  terrain features also repeat several times, so even
                  though the map is large and one piece it is made out 
                  of 4 duplicate pieces.

  Counters: Standard card cut outs on light cardboard.  They do punch out
                  real easy.  They include several hex counters which
                  have fortifications and terrain features printed on
                  them.  These can be used to add variation to the map.

  Plastic Keep: The game comes with a plastic tower which may be used
                  for an individual battle.

  Movement Cards: This is a set of cards which is used for movement.

  Dice: There are 6 dice with skull, shield, and blank marked sides.

A run down of the rules:

  The rules are simple.  For those who own heroquest or are familiar with
  the game, it is on the same level.

  There are no turns, only movement.  Movement consist of a unit moving one
  hex (optional) and then attacking.  To determine moves you flip over a
  movement card and the units displayed may move.  One or more unit types
  as well as the whole army may be represented on the card, but a card
  represents only the Chaos or Imperial player, never both.  Certain units 
  have more cards in the deck so they will tend to move quicker and 
  attack more. 

  Attacks are simple.  you may attack any adjacent unit.  You roll a number
  of combat dice equal to the units combat strength to determine hits and
  the defender a number of dice equal to its combat strength to determine
  how many hits are negated.

  If a unit takes 3 hits it is destroyed.

  There is also additional rules for archers, crossbowmen, the ogre, and
  the imperial canon, as well as rules for the tower.

Overall:

  Extremely simple, but it looks enjoyable.  It is a perfect wargame for
beginners.  The rules are flexible enough that if you wanted to add more
detail, there is very little you could do that would get in the way of
any of the rules.  The cost is $36 and it is worth it for the figures
alone.

  I would suggest that if you do not enjoy games that have a complexity
rating of 2 out of a 10 (10 being high), then maybe you might want to stay
away from the game, otherwise enjoy!

Chuck