Played a couple games of Warmaster last night. Excellent rules system, we really enjoyed ourselves. Loved the fact that tactics & battlefield position weigh so heavily in the outcome.
The first battle, Tomb Kings VS High Elves saw the pointy-ears almost entirely wiped out due to a two-pronged attack. Two units of chariots, backed by a Liche Priest on a zombie dragon swung quickly around a hill on double orders & crashed into the sides of two Elven archer units, wiping one out completely (with the hero that had to back up & join them due to being moved through), and doing surprisingly poorly against the other (two chariots & two archers were removed) while the Sphinx came around the other side & took on a unit of Elven spearmen, wiping them out. The battle was won when the Elf general joined the fray with a unit of Reavers, getting annihilated by a unit of Undead Chariots, Liche Priest on Zombie Dragon, Sphinx, a unit of Carrion & two recently raised units of skeletons...Ouch!
The second battle (Dwarves VS Orcs) was more straightforward, with both forces marching out to meet in the middle. However, double orders on a unit of Trollslayers managed to charge them into combat with the Orc's giant, who they wiped out while only taking 3 wounds. Unfortunately for the Orc player, he had two units less than 20 cm away, and the Slayers chewed through both of them, leaving one slayer still kicking, but with nobody to fight. The Orc player rallied back & outflanked the less numerous dwarves, but only managed to take out a unit of Rangers & the Gyrocopter before the Dwarves retaliated & killed enough Orc units to end the game. Nontheless, since both units of Slayers lived through the combat, the victory points almost resulted in a draw:
Dwarves: 410, Orcs: 395
As a result of the second game, we've all developed a healthy respect for the unstoppable Troll Slayers, and the durability of Dwarves in general.
Both games had order screwups that the players had to adjust to deal with, but they didn't seem to dictate the outcome of the game, as both sides screwed up pretty much equally.