Fantastic Battles

Author: Nic Wright

Publisher: Irregular Wars

Fantastic Battles is a fast-play, mass-battle, wargaming system for any fantasy setting. The rules emphasise the tactical concerns of command friction and the fog of war through randomised initiative, tabletop mishap rolls and the impetuous decisions of unsupervised unit commanders.

An all-in-one volume, this book contains the rules for stand-alone pitched battles as well as campaigns. Twenty-four example army lists are provided; however, army building is designed to be flexible. A toolkit of base profiles and unit traits allow players to build customised armies to suit their own vision of their fantasy faction.

Scale agnostic, with multi-based figures and no individual figure removal, the game can be played using any fantasy figures, or historical armies from the ancient to the early modern period.

This rule set probably works best at scales between 6-18mm, but it can easily be used for 28mm. My plan is to use it for fantasy at 10mm the old Warmaster scale, and 15mm for historical gaming. This is the first great aspect of these rules is that it can be utilised for either fantasy or historical games. Period rise I’d say it’ll only work up to and including the 17^th Century, beyond that and you’ll need another set of rules.

These are a really easy set to pick up and play, you won’t get bogged down in too many rules to learn. The fact the book is laid out in a rather; logical manner makes learning the rules much easier and faster. There are several illustrations/photos throughout the book.

The setting and scale are agnostic meaning you can use any existing armies you have or you can purchase any fantasy or historical army to play with these rules. A basic unit is a company on a war base of approximately 4-6cm square. You can use up to four in a formation in a unit. All companies will use the same sized base. Both movement and range weapons are measured in base widths (BW’s).

Units are removed once they have suffered enough Resolve loss, which is similar to morale in other systems, this can be reduced through combat or magic attacks. Once RESOLVE reaches zero, the unit will disperse and have a detrimental effect of any units nearby.

Movement is limited in comparison to other similar rule systems, but I didn’t find this to be an issue. It made for fast play which for me was great. I don’t want a game to take several hours to play. I’d rather have two or three games in an evening rather than just one. That was my main issue with the last edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battles.

The book contains 24 sample armies for both fantasy and historical and it’s not too difficult a task to create a list to suit your army. You only need this one rule book to play and it’s a reasonable price to purchase from either Amazon or Wargames Vault website.

Once you get units into close combat then it becomes really harsh and it’s quite easy to punch holes into your opponent’s line. Then when units start failing resolve that can have an even bigger effect and before you know one side is running for the hills. The book also includes a campaign section which is a great way to play the game. Fantastic battles can also be played in solo mode, which adds an extra dimension and is perfect for the current pandemic where some of us can’t get out to play against friends. It’s also a good way to learn the game before demoing it to friends.

I think this is a great set of rules to pick up and play especially if you’re looking to go down in scale from 28mm. I want to play mass battles again, but storage space is a premium specially to build an army in 28mm. So, dropping down to 15 and 10mm is a much better option for both storage and cost.