Generals Handbook 2018 Review

Hi all

We have been fortunate enough to be sent a copy of the Generals Handbook 2018. So I would like to share with you guys and girls my quick review. 

As with the previous Generals Handbooks, there are 3 ways to play the game. Matched, Narrative and Open play. I will briefly cover each of them.

Open play

This is pretty much where you can do what you want, bring any models, and just have a fun game with likeminded people. There is a Battleplan Generator, where basically you roll to select between 12 deployments, 6 objectives, 6 ruses, 6 sudden deaths and 6 twists. If my calculations are correct, that makes 15,552 different combinations. There are also a couple of pretty cool Battleplans that allow for Aerial battles. 

Narrative 

This is designed to help those gamers who are more into the narrative side of battles rather than just the competitive side of things. 

There is a large number of special rules that you can add to help mix up your games a bit. Some of these are also quite thematic, like Boggy Ground, which prevents any unit from running unless they can fly. 

There are a couple of historical battleplans you can choose form if you want to relive some pivotal battles in the Mortal Realms. One is the Cascading Path, which is Nurgle against Sylvaneth and the other is the War in the Glymmsforge Catacombs which is Death against Stormcast. This tides in well with the Soul Wars box set. 

Next up we have Gathering of Might. This provides rules to play huge battles at a faster pace. This includes rules where you are able to double the range of missile weapons for example. There are also some legendary traits, artefacts and spells available for these battles. This is great for people who what to have battles of 5000pts and above, but who do not have the time to play it with the normal rules. Me personally, I think it may be better to make the time to do these properly, but I will reserve judgement until I have actually been able to test it out. 

Matched Play

This is really for people who want even battles, and tournament players. Nothing new has really been added to this section form the last Generals Handbook. The section includes Battleplans which you can roll on to randomise it, the point costs for all units, formations, scenery and the new endless spells. 

Conquest Unbound

The last section of this book is called conquest unbound. The first part of this section covers a total of 13 scenery Warscrolls. I really love these for two reasons. Not only do they look great, but they are also ways of really adding some flavour to your battles. Good scenery really does make a huge difference to battles, and I would even go as far as to say they are just as important as the actual armies.

Next up we have the new summoning rules. As we know from the faction focus’s on the Warhammer Community, the summoning  mechanic has totally changed, and has become extremely powerful. These will no longer cost points from your reserve pool, but instead they will cost other themed resources depending on the army. These will be gained by carrying out certain tasks during the battle. I feel this will make the battles a lot more thematic. But, I can not help thinking that forces that do not have any summoning abilities, will always be at a disadvantage. 

Lastly, we have allegiance abilities for every faction.

Overall, I feel this is a really great book and extremely well put together. The only issue I have with it is that you will still need the core rules. I don’t see why they are not included in this book. 

Let me know what you think in the comments down below

Take care :-)