Warrior Heroes: Armies and Adventures - Updating a Classic

Warrior Heroes: Armies and Adventures has recently returned to the Two Hour Wargames line up as a straight reissue of the original game. So just what is in the book?

Warrior Heroes: Armies and Adventures or simply WHAA moving forward, is your key to adventure in the sprawling fantasy world of Talomir. Inside you will find rules for small and larger skirmishes, dungeon crawls, and even mass battles. Your adventures will take you to some fifteen countries where you will encounter friends and foes - mostly foes - from thirty-one army lists.

As if that were not enough the rules provide a complete adventure generation system including random enemy forces (PEF's in game parlance), a lair generator for when you bring the fight to your foes, and an AI, or Artificial Intelligence, that breathes life, or in some cases un-life, into your non-player enemies. All you have to do is roll the dice.

In fact this was the first Two Hour Wargame to introduce PEF's and AI, making it our first truly solo and co-op play friendly game.

So with all of that between the covers what's not to like? The layout and presentation!

Back in 2008 when the game was first released, THW's was in a state of transition from  cult publisher of unique and innovative rules with old school charm, to the more professional and streamlined presentation of today's games. 

In terms of both presentation and mechanics, WHAA, is showing its age but still has plenty to offer.

With that in mind it is my intention to re-visit the rules and updated them significantly. I've no idea if THW will publish a new edition but I think they should. There is a great system in here that just needs a lick of paint and a bit of organization. In any event I will try to get the updated mechanics into the hands of verified purchasers of the current version if all else fails.

First up is a  simple open air encounter to try out my new take on the Adventurer combat mechanics.

Altengard knight, Sir Adelbert is out patrolling the countryside for marauders.  Sir Adelbert is a Rep 5 knight with heavy amour , acompanied by his bannerman, also a Rep 5 knight, and four mercenary, unaroured horse crossbowmen, each Rep 4.

Heading towards a distant dust cloud they have come upon a party of  8 orc riders out for a bit of a pillage. The riders are Rep 5, unarmoured, and have the Terror trait.

 

The orcs immediately closed on our hero, but were unable to come to grips on the first turn.

The crossbowman let fly and one orc dropped from his mount and one retired.

Sir Adelbert ordered a charge, but his men hesitated, clearly not sure of their chances.

For their part the orcs feinted a charge hoping to rout the humans by the mere threat of a charge.

In this they were unsuccessful and the orcs retired to regroup for another go.

The humans followed up at a stately pace, firing as they came. No losses resulted but one orc was goaded into a charge. Sir Adelbert took up the challenge and met the foe head on.

The combat was inconclusive and both opponents remained locked in combat.

Perhaps encouraged or even shamed,by their comrades display the rest of the orcs charged!

This time two bolts found their marks and the orcs now found themselves out numbered, six to five. Which was just as well considering that the mounted crossbowmen were individually no match for the terrifying orcs.

Both knights won their combats, and two mercenaries lost theirs. The remaining two mercenaries managed not to be killed by the orc facing them.

Another volley of bolts saw one orc down. Victory seemed near at hand with only two orcs left to face five humans.

The mercenaries moved to the flanks to try another round of shooting to no avail. 

Sir Adelbert and his bannerman charged and put down the last two orcs.\

After the battle any still living orcs were dispatched and the wounded mercenaries seen to.

Both would live but were to severely wounded to stay in the field and the party retired.

There you have it. Just a first blush at the update, but it went well.

Thanks for stopping by and look forward to more reports as the updating progresses.

Sir Adelbert is an Old Glory figure and his band are all Citadel figures painted by the author.
The orcs are from Alternative Armies and painted by their fabulous in house studio.