And it occurs to me that I haven't really written anything about how battles are fought out. In general, it works pretty much as I laid it out here.
1. Once the campaign phase indicates that there is a battle (or more then one battle), the players involved (normally 2, but there may be 3 if allies are involved) work out a time and location to resolve the battle. The players should choose a time which will allow plenty of time to finish the game.
2. Each player must calculate points based on the banners and supporting banners she/he is bringing to the battle. If there are allied players involved then they should calculate how many points they are bringing to the battle.
3. Each player writes an army list based on his/her points total according to the 8th edition BRB, the most up-to-date army book available for the army and the army FAQs available from the Games Workshop website. There are only a few rules for army list building beyond those in the rules:
a.) NO special characters (e.g. Karl-Franz, Archaon, etc.) are allowed.
b.) All heroes and lords MUST be named APPROPRIATELY (NO Bobs, and NO Karl-Franz's, Archaons, etc. If you play Empire, Google German names, if Chaos then jumble up some consonants and vowels barbarian style or look up some names of Scandanavians or steppes barbarians, etc. not that hard :-).
That's it really. As a side note I reckon a fluffy/appropriate army is always more fun than a 'mathshammered' internet list - just a general guideline which is not enforceable but I had to say it.
4. Ideally there can be a third (or fourth or fifth!) party present as a Gamemaster/s - this GM helps looking up rules and interpreting them though he/she is not in charge - I'm pretty sure we can all work out any disagreements - it's just a game after all!
5. I (or the GM if I am playing) will ideally roll off the scenario based on the appropriate chart BEFORE the game, but keep the result secret from the players. This will enable me/the GM to try and make sure the sorts of appropriate terrain are at the location (either Gary's or Tom's - they both have most of the options available but there will be circumstances when borrowing would be great). On those occassions (and there WILL be those occassions) when only the two players involved can be there, they will just have to make the best of the terrain they have available to the agreement of both.
6. Terrain should be set up as much as possible based on the combo of the territory you are fighting in and the scenario rolled - for example, if you roll the loot and pillage scenario in a river terrain section then you probably want to create a narrative (and battlefield) around the idea of a riverside village or something. The idea here is that we all share in the narrative - do what you think is appropriate and looks fluffy! I'll leave it to the players and GM (if available) to set up an equitable way of placing terrain - we've always been pretty good at this in the past so I don't think there should be any problems here, but if things are a little bit intense you can either have each player take it in turns to place a terrain piece or, better yet, have the GM make the board. If people think there should be hard and fast rules about this feel free to suggest them but I think we're all good probably.
7. Finally, a reminder that these games are about constructing a fun narrative - they are (often deliberately) NOT going to be 'fair' tournament style games but more about playing around with fun (and appropriate!) combinations of scenarios and terrain types which are rooted in an overarching story we are creating together and have the added bonus of actually MEANING something in the context of the campaign.
That's it! Have I missed anything?
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