The defending force sometimes can withdraw, if it is faster than the fasting attacking unit, and combat does not always destroy the entire attacking or defending stack, which may instead have to retreat. Leaders, except for Charlemange, are obtained as stratagems. Pillage is an operation, but strangely, it is not automatic. Success depends upon the strength of the force, and may give the other player a stratagem marker even if not successful. Religious conversion is also not automatic, and also may give the other player stratagem markers.
Victory is entirely dependent upon how well the Empire player does.
At our last CABS meeting Derek Croxton and I punched the counters out and got half way through the game before the Witching Hour. I, as the Empire, concentrated to much on destroying enemy units and not enough on converting areas, while Derek also concentrated to much on combat and not enough on pillage and destruction, which seems to be the best Chaos player's option. The map is beautiful, but gets cluttered from the set up and stays that way. Units are named for their home region and are set up and recruited that way, so sorting them is a problem. To add to this, each unit is purple on one side to show Empire control and green on the other to show Chaos control, but there is no way to show neutral units, so the game suggest rotating them.