#WArhammer Fantasy Battle

This is not an Age of Sigmar blog and I frankly could not care less about whether the setting gets nuked again, but I think that if the recent rumors are true then it speaks to the fundamental defect in sunsetting Warhammer Fantasy Battle in the first place. (For those of you that don’t know or don’t care, the rumors are swirling that the final draft of AoS v.5 has been submitted and it’s going to rehash End Times to upend the setting and launch something “new” when it drops next summer) A break because this is a long one. First, a history lesson: Age of Sigmar launched in 2015 after years of declining performance from the Warhammer Fantasy Battle brand, which had become too bloated and too dependent on huge blocks of infantry, sold in boxes of too few models for too many dollars, to perform effectively as a core game. The barrier to entry was too high, even a small game required more models than what was packaged in a battalion box, and for some bizarre reason the most recent starter set featured Skaven - the premier trash infantry horde army. On top of all that, there was the perception that “modern” gamers weren’t interested in slow-playing regimental combat rules with its emphasis on positioning and movement, which had been Warhammer’s bread and butter for thirty years. So rather than try to address any of these issues, lower prices or increase value, GW leadership at the time decided to blow up the setting in the end-of-edition campaign to end all end-of-edition campaigns - the End Times. The Warhammer World became the World-that-Was and in its place, the Mortal Realms became a vast, empty cosmology to be filled in, in a haphazard and slapdash fashion one battletome at a time. Anecdotally, there’s a widespread perception that there was an intent to do precisely the same thing to 40k but that backlash against Age of Sigmar forced a last-minute course correction that changed Gathering Storm to a galaxy-shaking event rather than a universe-obliterating one. I’ve never had this confirmed to my satisfaction, though, and it remains, in my opinion, one of the comforting lies of Warhammer oral history like the Blizzard Divorce. But on the heels of this massive rebranding came an entirely expected and easily foreseen problem. Games Workshop still had licensed Warhammer Fantasy Battle projects in development, and Creative Assembly held the first presser for Total War: Warhammer a month to the day before Age of Sigmar launched, and less than a year later it was released to widespread critical praise and commercial success. So after destroying the setting, Warhammer Fantasy Battle never really left the public consciousness, and Age of Sigmar with its He-Man-like cosmic fantasy never broke out of its tabletop niche. Warhammer grognards performatively destroyed their armies and competitors like Mantic stepped in to capitalize on GW’s exit from the traditional rank-and-file fantasy wargame segment with games like Kings of War offering a place to put those armies to use, for those that hadn’t. Some players even switched to Age of Sigmar because some game is better than no game at all, and eventually, AoS even started to resemble something like a real setting with its own identity instead of the kludge of rehashed concepts and recycled miniatures that it was. I’m told that people were generally positive towards the Kharadron Overlords, anyway, and some have even convinced themselves that Idoneth Deepkin were the long rumored but never realized Sea Elves. And then, in what remains the biggest vote of no confidence in an active product line I’ve ever witnessed, Games Workshop announced that Warhammer Fantasy Battle would be coming back because the Old World was in development … at the beginning of Old World’s development, four years ahead of release. And the shitstorm that unleashed inside the company, I can’t even tell you. I don’t believe half the things I’ve been told, and I have no reason to distrust the people that told me. Suffice to say, there are names you might recognize that were either extremely pro- or extremely anti-Old World, and there are still sore feelings about it today. So, yeah, I’m not surprised that ten years into the AoS project, Games Workshop is ready to reboot it again. I don’t expect that they’ll put a period on it like they did with WFB, but I can easily believe that on the precipice of Return to Armageddon, with the knowledge that the Eye of Terror do-over that was Gathering Storm reinvigorated Warhammer 40,000 after the malaise of 7th Edition, that they’re willing to give End Times another go and remake the World-that-Was with contrived copyrightable brand names like Stormcast Eternals and Ossiarch Bonereapers instead of a badly drawn map of Europe with the “elfs,” “dwarfs” and “orcs” scribbled in. These sort of setting-wide self-immolations are great for attention but rarely seem to materially improve the game, as evidenced by 40k’s ongoing pivot back towards 5th edition characters and designs effectively ending the Primaris rebrand. But maybe it’s a massive psyop meant to drive views to Warhammer influencers’ social media. Time will tell.

👻👻 Ooooohhhhhoooooowoooooooo 👻👻 Rules for ghosts for warhammer: the old world, sort of an army of renown and sort of their own thing now, on my blog. PLUS: Updated rules for Lord Virion the Grim, obscure minor character from WHFB 4th edition that arose entirely from GW forgetting to make rules for the original Corpse Cart model and also canonically one of the lost mortarchs of Nagash? I GUESS? The Host with the Ghosts: A Warhammer: The Old World Army of Infamy AND rules for Lord Virion the Grim, Mortarch of Plague

The graphic designer Philip Spence created this handy map of Mordheim, the City of the Damned back in 2019/2020 to coincide with the release of Heresy Labs’ Citizens of the Old World range . Not only does it serve as a brilliant visual map of the city to help would be adventurers navigate the doomed city, but if you go to the main link for it, the map has a little campaign style add-ons, with each sector having extra little bonuses for each warband taking part in a campaign. AND as a bonus, you can download the map and relevant tokens for your chosen warband from here, with the map being translated into English, French, Spanish, German, Italian and Ukrainian, all for free! Which just goes to show how well loved Mordheim is even in this day and age.

Bought another “galloper gun” and have gone down the rabbit hole of investigating “lead rot,” “tin pest,” and “zinc pest,” though supposedly being a mini made after 1997, there is no lead in this miniature and tin pest would manifest otherwise The curious thing is the corrosion is overwhelmingly on the top, and areas covered by glue or another part are not affected What does it mean Is it just tarnish?

Tried my hand at drawing skavens xD 🐀🐀🐀 Queek Headbiter to congratulate my husband

Ever since Grimdark Narrator got DMCA’d by games workshop on YouTube, all the WHFB lore and explanation videos from other channels all have “Total war” in the title. Secondaries are really hard to ignore sometimes.

Warhammer Old World army that I am starting. I’ve always had a soft spot for the Beastmen. The chaos gods may leave you on read but I never will.

Excited to share that all our Tenehuini painting tutorials are now live on Patreon! Dive into detailed, step-by-step guides for painting individual elements, available with your subscription. Want the full experience? Grab the complete tutorial in PDF format! Join our community, unleash your creativity, and let’s paint something epic together. Drop your feedback or ideas in the comments — we’d love to hear from you! painting tutorials: https://www.patreon.com/Nightscalestudio

Ask game! what’s an uncommon/specific /obscure topic you’re interested in?

The lore of Warhammer Fantasy, but to get even more niche and obscure the Hobgoblin Khanate faction in Warhammer. It never got fleshed out, but their lore can be found on the fringes of other’s stories.

Tumblr gets a sneak preview of my dragon conversion, as a treat

Working on some Middenheimers. Here’s the guy I’ve gotten furthest on.

Chara is Archaon the everchosen Bold sweeping statements are my favorite parts of theory crafting

I found a Borgio the Besieger miniature for what felt like a not completely insane price; once that arrives I’ll have a more or less “finished” Dogs of War army

You know, for how much warhammer fantasy loved it’s dry and/or gallows humor, pop culture refrences, and bouts of silliness. I’m suprised that there wasn’t a bit about the dwarfs inventing and having a love/hate relationship with spam. Like they have a danish/norse aesthetic and yorkshire accents, the monty python refrence would fit so well I’m suprised they didn’t put it in. Plus there’s a point to be made that you could argue that the dwarfs would invent food canning from the prospect of preserving foodstuffs and how practical it is, especially when you consider that the dwarf diet is likely made up of a lot of meat and ale because the mountains have little arable farmland so it’s more easier to raise livestock and hunt wild animals and trade with the locals for staple crops to make up for what little agriculture can be supported

Ask game! Felix from Warhammer 1. Why do you like or dislike this character? 4. If you could put this character in any other media, be it a book, a movie, anything, what would you put them in?

1. While Felix in universe isn’t an every man (wealthy merchant’s son, college education), he is naive to the wilder experiences of the Warhammer Fantasy world and so gives us that first time experience during his adventures with Gotrek. Also he usually has to be the voice of reason AND still gets to be a lady’s man. 4. If we were adapting HIS story into a new media it’d need to a Monster of the Week/Season TV show. Which means I could easily see him have a guest appearance on something like Buffy or Supernatural. Although if he came with his companion Gotrek, Gotrek would break either of those settings.

Between projects right now I was thinking I could either return to the Ravenwing to paint up my 3rd ed “Master of Ravenwing” Landspeeder, or else I could continue with the Death Korps and paint up another heavy weapons squadron, or else I could turn to the 10th ed and paint up some Deathwing Knights

Finally finished drawing Warhammer Fantasy au. I don’t know much about lore yet, but I made Heinrix a witch hunter, and Beulah was obviously an aristocrat. Slightly below is the full-length version

WIP whenever/WIP whatever Thanks @totem-sloth for tagging! 💜 Actually, I haven’t drawn in a while, so I won’t show you any artwork. But I will show you some WIPs of something else Tagging @theory-of-the-crows @cawyden-gaming @nerrlet @natchart @notringl @ormtvnga @laurelindis @mielenrauhaashaikan @kshert @annahenriart @shadrell @yourcommissar @hyenamurena @passacalia-is-cringe and everyone who wants

Warhammer: The Old World - Grand Cathay by LJ Koh