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| "Such a cool cover for such a flawed book." |
Ahh, the good old Warhammer Siege supplement for 3rd Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Was there ever something so promising, but ultimately unplayable?
When I was in high school I can’t begin to tell you how much we looked forward to playing this, how much effort we put into creating scale model stone throwers, siege towers, drills, sheds, catapults, and other siege equipment, to say nothing of the scratch-built castle I made that was huge. I don’t think there has ever been a bigger letdown in the history of man…ever. I don’t say this lightly either. Read on to find out why.
My friends and I (Dave and Jeff) spent a great deal of time playing Warhammer 3rd Edition in 1989–92ish, with a fair amount of Warhammer before college beckoned in the Fall of 1991. We were all pretty well versed in the rules and how it played by then and were looking forward to the new challenges that Siege offered. We had progressed rapidly from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay to Fantasy Battles to Siege. Each of us had large armies and were some of GW’s biggest fans this side of the pond.
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| An assault underway on the Might Fortress |
As mentioned above, we got our supplies, armies, and terrain together and gathered in the basement of Dave’s house. I think we prepped for several days before the game actually began (incidentally, Dave’s ping pong table was perfect for a Warhammer table). We pointed out our respective armies: Jeff playing his Orcs and Goblins were the defenders of the castle, and I was playing my Empire army as the attackers. (I recall we rolled randomly to see who attacked and who defended.)
After noticing some interesting loopholes (I had units of Landstrum (levies) that I never intended to bring onto the main board, continuously in the remote zones scavenging for supplies to reduce my point costs) is one that came to mind. Mind you, I didn’t actually have the models either, but they were never coming on the board. We finally got the main game rolling.
I’m not going to bore you with half-recollections, but skip to the meat of this post.
As mentioned above, we got our supplies, armies, and terrain together and gathered in the basement of Dave’s house. I think we prepped for several days before the game actually began (incidentally, Dave’s ping pong table was perfect for a Warhammer table). We pointed out our respective armies: Jeff playing his Orcs and Goblins were the defenders of the castle, and I was playing my Empire army as the attackers. (I recall we rolled randomly to see who attacked and who defended.)
After noticing some interesting loopholes (I had units of Landstrum (levies) that I never intended to bring onto the main board, continuously in the remote zones scavenging for supplies to reduce my point costs) is one that came to mind. Mind you, I didn’t actually have the models either, but they were never coming on the board. We finally got the main game rolling.
I’m not going to bore you with half-recollections, but skip to the meat of this post.
Finally, the strategic phase, foraging, strategic time, etc., was over and we got to firing. Now, in order to save points I had skimped on ammo for the siege weapons, figuring I could scavenge for them. We looked through the rules and… nope, no go. I was horrified: I had made such a huge blunder. You can forage for supplies but not ammo. Immediately, one thought: do I have enough ammo? As it turned out I had plenty. (Makes no sense for stone throwers, but I digress.) I tried to hide it and grabbed for my dice.
Reluctantly, I have my catapult fire: it launches and it does middling damage to the wall it’s facing. Next up, the 10-man cannon with barely any ammo. I figure that I’m not going to have enough ammo to do anything to the castle and will have to fall back on a futile ladder and ropes assault. The dice roll a pretty good result, we then flip to the section with wall damage and look on in horror as one shot blows away the section of wall it’s firing at and does so much damage that the secondary collapse blows up the entire facing, to say nothing of the Orcs that it vaporizes in the resulting collapses.
We then stare at each other dumbfounded. Did that really just happen? Did we miss something in the rules?
I can’t stress this enough: the three of us literally stopped the game, looked at each other, then we huddled around the rule book, looking at the relevant rule sections. Now the three of us had each taken turns reading it and it’s still “What the Hell?” We also figured we had the rules down pat, but nope.
We had read the rules right and the castle wall was history from one shot. A nanosecond later we all come to the same conclusion. Did they play-test this at all? And that pretty much ended that game right there. We tried a couple more scenarios and the results were pretty much the same.
What a disappointment, one of the greatest of my thirty years of gaming.
Now sure, the rules have some notes about how the GM can increase the walls statistics but the wasn't the point. As written they were pretty wobbly. Perhaps the envisioned that people would take the top end artillery?
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| Siege rules were written with the models ACTUAL foam walls in mind? |
The back portion of the book had rules for 40K, but we weren’t into 40K, so we never tried the 40K rules for it. One would imagine that if gunpowder weapons could blow up a fortification with one shot, then what lasers, bombs, siege dreadnoughts, etc. would do to it? Sure, the energy fields might have made them last a tad bit longer, but ugh, who wants to game that out?
So that was my first (and pretty much only) brush with Warhammer Siege, and it sticks out in my mind like a sore thumb. The rules could not have been conceivably tested in any way, shape, or form. It’s probably fitting that the large (as in 3-foot castle), counters, siege engines, and the like are mostly long gone now. It would be too painful to look at the time and effort put in for such an enormous letdown. Certainly a low point for me in terms of gaming.
As a quick aside, I always wanted to create 10-man cannon and crew. Maybe I will as homage reminder of the game.
There you have it. What were your experiences with Warhammer Siege?
