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Warhammer Fantasy Battle , often abbreviated by fans as WFB, WHFB, or simply Warhammer, is a tabletop miniature war game designed and published by Games Workshop. It is the oldest and most popular game to use Game Workshop's original Warhammer setting of the Known World. The game's 8th Edition, released in 2010, was its last, as the setting was brought to an end in the apocalypse of the End Times and was replaced by a new high fantasy setting known as Warhammer: Age of Sigmar in 2015.

However, in 2024, Games Workshop will be releasing Warhammer: The Old World, a new iteration of the original tabletop game which will be set in an earlier timeline in the 23rd century IC prior to the Great War Against Chaos.

Setting[]

Main article: Warhammer World


The game is set in a dark fantasy world much like our own called the "Known World" or the "mortal world" by its inhabitants which is home to a vast number of magical and fantastical beasts and intelligent races, each with their own civilisations, customs and enmities.

Many are based on the traditional high fantasy races dating back to the works of J.R.R. Tolkien such as Men, Elves, Dwarfs and Dragons but many are also original, such as the Lizardmen, Skaven, and Ogres.

Events in the setting play out over the course of five millennia, as mortal civilisations rise and fall. The player is tasked to champion one of these, to lead them to victory against their foes.

Editions[]

  • First Edition (1983)
  • Second Edition (1984)
  • 3rd Edition (1987)
  • 4th Edition (1992)
  • 5th Edition (1996)
  • 6th Edition (2000)
  • 7th Edition (2006)
  • 8th Edition (2010)

8th Edition Armies[]

The inteligent races of the mortal world and their allies may be commanded by the player in what is known as an army. The rules for playing each are released in sourcebooks known among the fans as "armybooks."

  • Chaos Dwarfs (Introduced in 4th Edition, White Dwarf supplements and later readded by Forgeworld in the 8th Edition)

Defunct Armies[]

These armies existed in previous editions of the game. Their rulesets are no longer compatible with the current game and their background lore may have been significantly altered since they were last used.

  • Kislev (introduced in the 6th Edition and in a White Dwarf supplement)
  • Dogs of War (5th Edition armybook, 6th and 7th Edition White Dwarf supplement)

Game History[]

In the First and Second Editions of Warhammer Fantasy Battle, the terms "West", "Westerner" or "Men of the West" stood for the Old World and all of its peoples. The Men of the West's primary anatagonists at this time was another Human faction later identified as Araby. The backstory of the Old Ones and the Slann's role within it were also very different from the present iteration.[1a]

The Old World was depicted much like at present, as a mirror of Renaissance Europe in the sixteenth century, comprised of many independent states of varying sizes and related to real world cultures such as high medieval France (Bretonnia) and the Holy Roman Empire (Empire of Man). Although the Old World included the Dwarf Holds of the Karaz Ankor, it was dominated by Men. The language of the Men of the West, called Old Worlder, was spoken and understood as a common tongue by all Humans within the region -- despite some extreme dialectical variations. Old Worlders were white-skinned, usually with brownish hair and green or brown eyes. Most Old Worlders were considered neutral in moral alignment.[1a]

The north of the Old World was more primitive culturally and technologically than the rest of the continent, more analagous to Europe during the Dark Ages or Early Middle Ages (sixth to eleventh centuries) whilst the central regions were slightly more sophisticated, matching the Europe of the High Middle Ages (eleventh to fourteenth centuries) and the southern regions proved the most advanced, aping the culture and technical advances of the Renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Gunpowder weapons were totally unknown in the north of the Old World in these earlier editions, but available in the south, although even here they were crude and far from common.[1a]

Derived Works[]

The Warhammer tabletop war game has been adapted onto multiple platforms and has equally inspired a number of other franchises, most notability the Warhammer 40,000 setting also published by Games Workshop. Other games set in the Warhammer universe include:

Video Games[]

Books[]

See: Literature

Notes[]

  1. The Chaos faction has been renamed several times over the years. The former names for the faction included: "Chaos," "Realms of Chaos" and "Hordes of Chaos." The army was split into the Beasts of Chaos and the Hordes of Chaos in 6th Edition. Daemons were then given their own army in 7th Edition as the "Daemons of Chaos." The Chaos armies have remain divided in this way into the 8th Edition.

Sources[]

  • Warhammer: The Game of Fantasy Battles (6th)
  • (Classic) Warhammer Website (archived)
  • 1: Warhammer Fantasy Battles: Battle Bestiary (2nd Edition)
    • 1a: pg. 21

External Links[]

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