Fall of the West is the latest installment in the Warhammer Ancient Battles series, which is now up to four volumes. These include the original rules, Warhammer Ancient Battles, and the supplements Armies of Antiquity and Chariot Wars. In the author's opinion, Fall of the West is the best of the series. This is largely due to it's focus on a specific period and the richness of the detail included in the volume. The period covered in Fall of the West is the fall of the Roman Empire, from about 300AD to about 500AD, specifically the Western half of the Empire. As a result it has no information regarding the Sassanids or other Eastern campaigns. This author hopes that a later volume will give these Eastern campaigns some exposure. But despite this narrow field, the book is larger than any of the other supplements. Fall of the West is 80 pages long, full of detail, and lavishly illustrated. There is also the usual color section in the middle showing some of the Perry twins' amazing collections. In addition to new army lists for Late Romans, there are new army lists for the later Barbarians. These behave quite differently from the Celtic style of Barbarians found in the original Warhammer Ancient Battles volume. Barbarians are listed as Western (e.g. Franks, Saxons), Central (Goths, Sarmatians), and Eastern (Alans, Huns). There is a third type of army list that these rules allow, which represents the chaos of the 5th Century in which mixed armies of Romans and Barbarians fought other mixed armies. This third type of list is called "Warlords" and is suitable for such campaigns as Chalons-sur-Marne and the adventures of Stilicho and Aetius. The most impressive thing about this work is the history section. Over half the book is historical reference material, with sections on the organization of the Roman army, the nature of the Barbarian armies, and a nice summary of the entire period. Also there are sections on the characters of the age, such as Atilla, Aetius, Stilicho, Alaric, and Gaiseric. There are several battle scenarios including Strasbourg, Adrianople, Frigiclus, and Chalons-sur-Marne. There is a section on the fate of Britain after the legions were withdrawn, a favorite of this author. The author (John Lambshead) was clearly aware of the various controversies and differing views on many of the subjects in the book. He, in this author's opinion, did a great job of presenting multiple viewpoints on these issues. In this volume he did not present any information that was clearly controversial. An example of this is King Arthur, who is never mentioned by name. The only mention of this myth is a sentence regarding the Battle of Badon Hill at the end of the Britain section, in which he says "This battle is associated with a shadowy British Hero whose story will be told in another supplement." Clearly this book is for factual history and a follow-on book is for the mythology. This author eagerly looks forward to this next book! The book includes all the things we have come to expect in a Warhammer supplement. There are color pictures of the uniforms, standards, and shield patterns. There are color photos and drawings for you to use when constructing model buildings and terrain for the period. There are special rules for the more unusual units, such as the use of Lassoes by the Huns. Orders of Battle are provided for the Roman Army in Britain, Gaul, the Danube, Africa, and Italy. Another plus is the inclusion of a Skirmish gaming section. Special rules, army lists and scenarios are provided for gaming with small forces, including some of the adventures of a very interesting historical individual named Charietto. In conclusion, this book is money well spent. Back to MWAN #109 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2001 Hal Thinglum This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com