Ah, Old Battle Reports

I really miss battle reports. When I first got into Warhammer, battle reports were my favourite part of White Dwarf. This was around WD280 – 300ish, my first year or two in the hobby. Those issues had great battle reports with five minute fictions to set up the story, long introductions by the players explaining their army selections and a very personable prose style. Those batreps really helped me see the world of Warhammer in the game I was playing. They were also a great place to see a fully painted army in all its glory, which is a real inspiration and something you very, very rarely see in an actual gaming environment (no criticism, we all buy more than we can paint, nature of the beast).

Those battle reports (and the Tale Of Four Gamers that ran from WD300) are something I go back and reread every now and again for inspiration. Just the other day I dug through my shelves for WD278 and WD292, which ran a pair of Tomb Kings/Bretonnia match-ups.

These two reports tell a linked story. In the first, Duke Theuderic led his knights against the Tomb Kings of Khemri and got absolutely slaughtered. In the second, Theuderic's grandson Henri returns to exact revenge. It's a simple narrative but I like it. That second batrep was the one that convinced me I wanted to paint some Bretonnians and now they're my signature army.

I'm rereading them, incidentally, because I'm planning a series of games with my Tomb Kings against my friend Tom's Bretonnians. It's a classic match-up to me and I'm really looking forward not only to playing it but to playing against Bretonnians, which I've only done once or twice.

Also for the nostalgia kick, not that there's anything wrong with that.