I hadn’t intended to play Old World last weekend. It’s been a busy year (look, I promise I’ll stop saying that soon), and I haven’t touched the rules since our last Old World Day in November last year. Instead, my lounge has been filled with a pile of boxes full of incredibly spiky Chaos Boys waiting to be painted. When the guys started planning an Old World Day, I originally intended to skip it, assuming I’d be worn out from work and needing a weekend to sit quietly somewhere. But with things normalising at work and me having a little more time, I decided to come along instead and prepared myself for a drive to York.
You may have noticed that I didn’t have a post on the last Old World Day I mentioned above. This is because, frankly, it was a mess for me personally. This was supposed to be our first 2000pt game day, and even though I didn’t get them painted, I was able to get all the toys out and run some great combinations (such as a triangular arrangement of Warriors or multiple characters). However, there were plenty of negatives to the day – the first was that I had struggled to sleep the night before, a situation made worse due to losing track of my usual Gaze of the Gods counters. I spent a chunk of the night frantically searching for them, before eventually giving up and just using dice. I did enjoy two games (one against the Redshirt Regular Opponent and another against the Creative Regular Opponent’s bullshit slayer list, which was almost impossible to score VP against). Tired and a little disheartened by that last game, I ended up going to pack my terrain away… only to discover my resin Gaze of the Gods tokens were in the terrain box. Somehow I’d missed them, stayed up late trying to find them and made an ass of myself.
Frankly, I was in no fit state to play the game that day, and I suffered for it. But it did also taint my feelings about Old World as a whole, another part of my disinterest in the game. I had felt like I hadn’t properly got Old World, despite having (for the most part) enjoyed pushing the armies around the table, a chance to indulge in a game that I had only been able to gaze longingly at as a child.
From under this dark cloud, however, there was a ray of sunlight. As a group, we decided to play Battle March, a variant of the game intended for smaller 750-point armies, played on a smaller area and focused on central objectives and victory points. This makes it great for getting more games in a single day, letting people who haven’t played for almost a year relearn the rules, and even allowing multiple people on each side in a single game without taking literal years to play. As someone who likes to play against multiple friends in one day, hasn’t touched the ruleset for almost a year, and enjoys multiplayer games, it seemed like a perfect variant to try.
For my army, I went for a subset of my Warriors of Chaos list I have been running. Sadly, the points limitation means I can’t rock up with either my Greater Daemon pretending to be a dragon or my Demon Prince as a leader, since Battle March forces are supposed to represent various scouts, raiders and other small forces. In my case, I went with an Aspiring Champion riding a Demonic Mount (aka Chaos Lord on big Croco Boy) for my general, his only special toy being a Favour of the Gods re-roll. He would be accompanied by 5 Chaos Knights, a solid core of two Chaos Warrior units and a screen of Forsaken. The cunning plan? Forsaken lead the charge (usually to get torn apart), the Warriors advance and lock in place, and then the Champion and his Knight bodyguard smash into the flank.
After a good night’s sleep (a rarity before these big events), I headed over to York and our usual big-game event space. On arrival, I discovered another benefit of me coming along – two of the five tables were missing battle mats and terrain. Luckily, I had packed both mats, a box of trees, and a mix of other terrain pieces, so we could get the boards detailed and ready to go.
For my first game, I found myself across the table from one of the Manchester folks (and fellow games industry employee) using his Bretonnian force (new for me, having previously played his childhood Empire force). While neither of us had played Old World for a while, he had a slight advantage in that he has been a very keen Warhammer 40k player for several years – there is definitely a bonus to having lived in that GW rule ecosystem, with rolls to hit and wound being off the top of your head rather than having to constantly check the quick reference sheet. This was a game where I was out-diced, with some appalling rolls on my side and The Lady truly blessing my opponent with a surplus of sixes. I also made a few mistakes with my force – the Forsaken ate a trebuchet stone that wiped out half their numbers in one fell swoop, the Chaos Knights got tar-pitted by a block of peasants, and the Aspiring Champion found himself getting wounded by the various characters hiding in said block of peasants. However, the Chaos Warriors did get to break a lance or two and chew their way through the other set of peasants. Overall, it was a good learning game, a reminder to get myself back into the dice rolling. Plus, things can only go up from here!
Game two saw me against my former housemate and his new Ogre Kingdoms army. This was going to be an interesting one; I had fought ogres at the last game day I wrote about, when my Necromunda GM and his brother used them for their intro game (they now had their own armies of Chaos Dwarves and Cathay). They were nasty to play against at 2000 points, but at 750 you could definitely see them struggle because they lacked the ranks to generate that horrifying number of impact hits that usually forecast a stomping. It also didn’t help that the secondary objective (a baggage train) was close enough for my knights to swarm forward, counter-charge the mounted Ogres, send the lone survivor running, and then overrun into the baggage (while also putting me on the flank of the army). The Warriors baited the Ogres into a position where I could charge while the Forsaken rolled up Killing Blow during both combat rounds, quickly whittling down the Ironguts. In the end, we agreed to end early so we could play something a little special. I was in a superior position by the end of play, helped by having cavalry break through. On the other hand, I can see a grudge match coming when we hit 2000 points next time.
We ended Game Two early because we had enough people to run a doubles match! Doubles matches are usually very fun, and battle march lists mean you’re only dealing with 1500 points per side (a usual-sized game of regular Old World), but just with two heads to run careful plans/squabble. I was paired with the Ogres under my Old Housemate, while across from us were the Redshirt Regular Opponent and his Empire troops, with the Dastardly Regular Opponent and his Dwarves – truly a thematic match! The game itself was fun – the plan for the ogres to lead the way and for my Chaos troops to roll up the flank was only partially successful due to the high speed of the Ogres and my own dilly-dallying. The Dastardly Regular Opponent also did the sweaty thing of digging into the tower with his Rangers (but frankly I could do without them killing my Chaos Knights). We did eventually, near the end of the game, get the clash we had been waiting for – Chaos Knights and Aspiring Champion on Demonic steed vs Imperial Knights with the Chapter Master. The Aspiring Champion fought a duel against the Imperial Knight’s Champion (brutally ripping him apart while the Chapter Master got stuck into my Knights); the lances smashed into each other, and by the end, both sides were down to their respective heroes and one regular unit. Overall, a very fun game and an experiment we shall do again.
The actual MVP of the match, however, had to be the lightning storm random effect we rolled up (using the table from the Battle March General’s Compendium). By the end of the game, it had killed Chaos Knights, Ogres, Imperial Greatswords and even the Mortar – a sign of Sigmar’s anger, perhaps?
All in all, it was good to return to rolling dice, seeing friends and moving figures around the table. As much as I love Necromunda (the other game I have played this year), there is something about a room full of Old World tables, the sea of green with a few scattered bits of terrain, squares of units to be poked around and increasing shouts of astonishment at leadership tests, charge distances and more. It’s also great having a common game we all have our own armies for and play, that we can hang out and chat about, talk through games and more. It’s a type of day I really enjoy, and I feel like we need to plan more of them.
However, it did make me realise something – I don’t think I like Old World (the game) very much.
To be specific, this is me talking about the mechanical side – the list building, the rolling dice, the interplay of mechanics. Looking at the board, moving units around and carefully positioning them, I wasn’t having the same level of excitement or interest as I would when I play BPRE28mm, for example, or Chain of Command, or during some of my recent games against the Creative Regular Opponent with various Skirmish things. Maybe it’s the IGO UGO systems that can devolve into (as MSPaints calls it) Mumbling at your dice tray; maybe it’s just the mechanics where units shuffle back and forth with only the occasional defining smash. Maybe I still don’t like Combat Geometry as much as I had thought. Or maybe I just lust for some suppressive fire and an armoured vehicle.
The thing is, with Old World, not liking the game isn’t a problem – the focus these days is more about hanging out with friends and occasionally painting up armies (we are all, after all, steaming through our 30s at a rate of knots). I am still looking forward to finishing my Chaos boys (although being able to put a finger on my lack of interest in them does reduce my desire to buy more, which is good). Perhaps the Old World for me will be like the old pub you only ever go to with friends – somewhere that may not be as exciting as the preferred drinking hole, but the music is fine, the beer selection tolerable, the company excellent, and the shenanigans entertaining.
Anyway, I have to go finish painting all this bronze trim. See you next year for more Combat Geometry when someone organises the next day – I have a feeling that someone may end up being me.
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