So I came across the game via a Facebook Post. I then went to the website for Fantastic Battles and watched some videos and comments by others. The rules looked intriguing enough I was able to get the printed rulebook for 20 dollars from amazon.
After reading the rules and running through some basic table top actions on how it plays. I determined this is the game I always wanted for Fantasy Battles. I have a full Dark Elf and Dogs of War army for Warmaster but not a big fan of Warmaster, as it gets fiddly and pretty unbalanced for certain armies.
The Fantastic Battles rulebooks comes with over 15 armies (Fantasy and some historicals), broken down by races (humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, beastman, undead, skeletal, deamons etc). So if you have a Warmaster army you should be able to use one of the FB lists to make an army. You can also create your own units based on the system (more later). Currently I am creating FB lists for Dark Elves and Dogs of War. These lists should match as close to possible as the Warmaster list. The idea is to simply play FB using your Warmaster armies with no noticeable change over (their will be some like points etc).
For the first game I had my friend Shawn over and we played Wood Elves vs. Dark Elves (using the FB army list of Wyld Elves and Night Elves). We did this to make it easier to learn the rules and find out how it plays.
We did 1000pts per side (Wyld elves had 1063) and played on a 4x4 table using 40mm square bases. We did the standard 40cm distance during setup with expanded deployment zones, since the standard table size is about 4x3.
Unit design is different and straight forward. A company is a standard 40mmx40mm base. A unit compromises more than one company. The limit is 4 companies as a unit or 6/8 depends on the unit type.
Each company has stats of resolve, move, melee, shooting (then abilities). Resolve is like damage, morale etc rolled into one, move is how far you move, melee is how many D6 dice to roll in combat and shooting is broken down by short/long range and indicates the number of D6 dice for each range.
When you have a unit the resolve stacks (so a company with resolve of 4 in unit of 3 has 12 resolve)
Since this was a learning game it took about 2-2.5 hours to complete. At the end of the day the Wyld Elves won breaking the Night Elves on turn 5 I believe.
The game played well the turn structure is different we start with shooting, then actions, then melee.
Shooting phase players take turns shooting(no command rolls or anything). All damage is resolved at the end. (which means if your shooting wipes out another shooting unit, that unit can still fire if it has not).
Once shooting is done we move to the action phase. This phase is where your move, charge, conform, disengage, evade etc. your units. Characters give order to units in range have them perform one action. To determine who goes first is similiar to Bolt Action. You get one counter for each character in your army and one for impetutious. All this goes in bag and you draw from their to see who performs their action (ie what side performs and any character they choose). This makes for a fun filled turn where your opponent may move several times before you get a chance (good or bad depends).
When a unit charges into another unit, the charged unit can respond this allows them to possibly get a bonus in combat. Once all actions are done we move to melee.
All melee is simultaneously and results are applied at the end of melee. Characters can join in the fight to bolster a unit/company. If they join in combat they have a chance of being killed. Units lose Resolve in combat once their resolve is 0, they are considered scattered. Scattered units can cause further resolve loss to other companies/units.
Some thoughts after the first game.
Units (with mulitple companies) have staying power since their resolve stacks. With no base removal based on Resolve loss makes it a more simple mechanism (you dont have to worry about base removal and what happens to unit touching the bases etc).
wizards cannot move and cast spells I noticed (or missed something)
characters have only one action it seems
suggested table size is to small width wise for 1000pts should be 4x5, especially with the amount of terrain they are allowed to place.
once units got stuck into combat, their is no pushback/fall back/withdraw mechanism to move battle lines.
Flank/rear attacks seem to be hard or discouraged from occuring.
love to see some sort of pushback, withdraw rule. Disengage is their but it forces your unit to turn 180 and move away leaving the unit rear exposed to a charge.
Overall a very enjoyable and fast simple game, with enough mechanisms (relics, objectives, mishaps, etc) to make for a fun long term game. With standard lists, it will work great as a tournament game.
