Warmaster: The Old World

The announcement of Warhammer: The Old World has got spirits up among the folks who still pine for blocks of infantry, fantasy Frenchmen and a time when ‘Orruk’ was only three letters. I can understand why. AoS represented the first time I could find myself engaging with Games Workshop’s fantasy line, but there’s a lot to like about the classic, Tolkienesque tones of the original Warhammer Fantasy Battle. AoS removed entire armies to fit the new setting, and while I love the soft reboot of Bretonnians as Flesh Eater Courts, some, like I say, still want those lance formations and grubby peasantry armed with billhooks. What’s more, so many of the video games based on Warhammer Fantasy still take place in the Old World, not least the wildly popular Total War games. The reality is, if someone were coming to Warhammer from the outside, because of games like Total War: Warhammer and Vermintide, Age of Sigmar would seem very unusual. Who are these big gold folks with hammers? Why are those elves riding fish? Where are my Frenchmen? Perplexing.

So going back to the Old World makes a great deal of sense, really. The question is of course, what does going back to the Old World actually look like? The announcement was, Bethesda style, not much more than a graphic and the assertion that it’d be a few years off yet, so we can probably assume new models and new rules. The immediate thought that crosses most folks’ minds, because of the focus on the return of square bases, was that we’d be seeing those familiar blocks of infantry ranked up in formation. A ruleset similar to Warhammer Fantasy 8th edition, in the same way that Horus Heresy is based on 40k 7th edition. However, as nostalgic and familiar as that may be, I don’t think it would be the correct choice.

The issue is one of scale, and the expectation of such. Since the release of Age of Sigmar, the perception of how big things should get on the tabletop has changed. Warhammer 40,000 has its apocalypse expansion, designed to create massive games with hundreds, maybe thousands of models a side, with a simplified, streamlined ruleset to manage all that. 40k also has units to fit that scale, with Forgeworld and Citadel producing massive models that fit that level of engagement. On the sword-and-sorcery end, the Total War: Warhammer games have shown us battles in the old world where the infantry formations are not just small blocks of twenty men, but long ranks, five or six deep, and many of those to an army, with huge dragons and giants and other monsters lumbering alongside. Looking through some pictures in an old White Dwarf of a couple of 2000 point elf armies I was struck how small and anachronistic everything looked, like an amateur reenactment group trying to recreate the Battle of Agincourt.

So what is the solution? Well, firstly, 28mm is probably the wrong scale for Warhammer Fantasy. It works for 40k, because a lot of the units in that system have a much more diverse set of buildable options available to them. In Fantasy, a given unit’s options might only be equipping the entire unit with swords or spears. In 40k, a unit can be given special weapons, heavy weapons, equipment for the sergeant, and it’s far from uncommon for every model in the unit to be potentially equipped with a different set of equipment from every other model in its unit. 28mm is a good scale for this level of customisation, as it clearly shows off the different options and allows the player to easily convert and go ‘outside the box’ as it were. While Age of Sigmar isn’t quite as customisable on a unit-to-unit level as 40k, it is a great deal more so than Fantasy ever was. What’s more, the tone of AoS is much more conducive to highlighting individual figures. It’s high fantasy vs the military fantasy of classic Warhammer, and that lets us bring the camera in and show off specific models. Not being bound into tight ranks gives a greater, more diverse range of posing, not needing to be constrained to base sizes relative to every other model in the unit. It sells the over-the-top fantasy vibe better.

Regardless of what form The Old World takes, we can generally assume that folks won’t want something like Age of Sigmar but in the rough facsimile of planet Earth that classic Warhammer took place in. They will want ranks, and formations, and movement. Lines of warriors anchored by key pieces like monsters and heroes, but still defined by a strategic ruleset that puts the visual emphasis on units, not individual figures. So, that being said, I think the correct way to bring back The Old World is not with an update to Warhammer Fantasy, but actually, to bring back Warmaster.

Warmaster, as some of you might not know, was a short-lived game set in the Old World that positioned itself as the Warhammer Fantasy version of Epic. The models were at 10mm scale, and on rectangular bases with four or five or more individual figures to a base. Armies were built up of rank upon rank of these bases and a full Warmaster army looked more like the box art of a Warhammer starter set, with hundreds of fighters on each side, than even the largest sensible collection of 28mm scale Warhammer figures. It didn’t matter that the models were smaller; as I’ve said, if every model is armed with a spear, one does not need to make each model an individual piece. It’s more important to show off the idea of a cohesive unit. Heroes and monsters stood alone as individual display pieces on scenic bases, acting as cool, fantastical centrepieces to remind everyone that yes, this was still fantasy. Also, it allowed those models to get BIG. Giants were actually GIANT. Dragons had gigantic wingspans that dwarfed the formations of soldiers that fought beneath them. The terrain itself was a lot more elaborate, as more could be done with that scale. Games Workshop even created scale models of real British castles to serve as scenery on the table. 

Frankly, if someone were to show an avid Total War: Warhammer fan a Warhammer Fantasy army and a Warmaster army, they’d see a lot more of their video game in the 10mm version than the 28mm one. From the outside, using smaller models to create the impression of a bigger engagement just seems smarter when your focus is on creating a game where great armies clash with each other. Warhammer Fantasy was 28mm as a matter of legacy, as individual fantasy models became units, which became armies. A sense of abstraction could only go so far when it came to selling the idea of this grand clash between forces. So, a new game, a reboot, with three or more years of development time could fix this. I’m not suggesting to bring back Warmaster whole cloth, but I think a new version of Warhammer Fantasy, with models at 10mm, or even 15mm, would be a lot more effective at describing battles in the Old World than these oddly anachronistic units of sixteen or so High Elf Spearmen. I think Warmaster isn’t what folks might be asking for, but actually, it might be what they want. Fantasy Frenchmen and all.