A great and terrible bloodline

The Von Carsteins are a strange dynasty: noble, conniving, blighted by grim sobriety and unhinged lunacy. And even among the undead, they sleep uneasily in their graves... 

Find out what the legendary vampire line are up to. 

Heffengen

 
The Empire is recovering. But in his private chambers, Karl Franz is worried.

Find out why.

The Green Hell

The Norse and the Lizardmen? What could go wrong?

Read The Green Hell.

Oh yeah, there's a bit of pontificating from me below. 

Right. The last year and a half was... I don't want to say I was unlucky because honestly I'm one of the luckier people about, but a lot of things got in the way. Like, a lot of things. My dad died, my mum got cancer twice then broke her shoulder and got a severe chest infection, I lost of load of Age of Rebuilding templates when a laptop pretty much blew up in my face and then I broke my bloody leg. I'm not complaining, there are plenty of people worse off than me. But it has been a long time - and I kind of had to remember how to do this. This might not be my best, I'm just getting back into it. But I am glad to be back. As long as I draw breath, an ongoing narrative for WFB lives (usual disclaimer about if you don't like it use that energy to write your own version and show me how its done). Anyway I'm done whinging, let's do this!

 

Right. Enough mucking about.

The last year was... complex. Some of you already know that. But a little while ago, someone actually asked me about Age of Rebuilding, which means that at least one person still cares about what I'd done. And coming to think of it, even though the last year was not an amazing time, I missed it. Demonstrating that with just a little imagination the Old World could not only survive but become an evolving story is something I care for dearly. 

Plus, there are a lot of stories left to tell. I haven't forgotten about that newborn democracy in L'Anguille, or the Sultan of Araby cryptically moving his armies around. I haven't dismissed Katl Franz and his reforms, or Settra trying to build a new kingdom in the snow. And most of all, I haven't forgotten about the threat of the Outlanders, lurking at the top of the world, unseen but deadly. 

Point is, sometimes I need to be reminded to do the things I love. So I'm going to dust off my quill, open my Incunabulum and start off again. 

Plus, I can't get the idea of Vikings in a jungle out of my brain. 

High Elves, plans, plots, schemes and me getting my hands stuck together

 Right! So, I've had some very kind messages and a comment asking where I went. Truth is, all the stuff with my family really knocked me silly. I had to step away properly for a bit. I took the time to learn some new stuff as well - I've been working on my terrain building. One of the things I learned was that water clear resin sticks like a limpet: I got that shit on my hands and literally had to keep washing my hands for the rest of the day!

Oh! Quick shout out to Square Hammer for motivating me to get back into things again!

Now, my original Age of Rebuilding writing schedule got completely blown out of the water, and this wasn't helped by the fact I decided I had to do something different than what I'd been working on when my father died. But I've not quit. I'm working on a new piece, which I admit has got a bit out of hands, but I'm getting there. 

So, let's talk about High Elves! Like a lot of 4th edition kids, I started with High Elves and Orcs. The former have always been special to me. 

These are the multipart spearmen, and I recently painted this unit. For a long time, I thought these models were outdated, until suddenly one day I realised that it didn't matter. Yes, the hands are a bit big, but I like them anyway. They come from a time when Warhammer Fantasy was at its apex (well, arguably its first apex, since it nows exists as a purely community porject, which is fairly awesome).

What I will say is that the newer paint ranges make painting High Elves a lot easier. Corax White is more or less my saviour at this point. 

I was also pretty pleased with the bass. They're a base-ready mix from a company called Geek Gaming Scencics. 

It's nice to be back. 

Building the Mystic Isle

 Right, I'm back, more or less. My father's funeral went well... even if my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer only days later. My blog output might be even more spotty than usual!

Anyway, on to business. I've always loved the idea of Ulthuan, this mystical pseudo-Atlantis of soft focus, slender pines and blue hues. But how to realise it? I've never felt quite confident enough to scratch build elven terrain due to all the perfect lines and wotnot. Luckily, Etsy and Ebay came to my rescue!

Look at these statues! LOOK AT THEM! The detail on them is incredible. I got these from an Etsy seller called Elfhead 3D, who was really nice and quick as well as creating great terrain. I decided to paint them as a cold blue stone. 

Speaking of Elfhead, they also sell this great obelisk. My paintjob isn't quite as solid on this one, but that's me, not the model. 

Last one from Elfhead. I decided that this fallen statue should be overgrown. Indeed, all of these bases use a variety of static grass and model leaf litter.

Now, this one here is from minimonsters.eu. It's a bit differently proportioned, but the texture is probably nicer. They also do a bigger version, which I have, but... erm... it's in a different paint scheme and doesn't fit here. 

So there we are! Ulthuan on the tabletop at a fairly low price!

Enter the Kingmaker

 

What can possibly make a civil war between three factions of the most untrustworthy race in the entire world any worse?

An arms dealer, maybe. 

Read a bit about this shifty character.

A saga begins

 

The forces of Chaos took a colossal beating at the end of the dark years - even greater than that which the Empire suffered. The tribes of the north find that the world has changed, bringing new problems... and new chances for glory. That is, assuming that there isn't someone even meaner and more brutal than them on the horizon...

Gather round the fire for the saga.

Ode to Tabletop World

People get into this hobby for different reasons, but for me a major factor was the narrative aspects and the splendid vistas of the Old World. I started the hobby with Warhammer Fantasy in 1995, and my imagination was carried away by the beatiful timber-framed houses, the little forests and the rickety bridges shown in publications at that time. Now as anyone who lived through the glorious era of Books for Hills can attest, a handsome table can really make the difference. 

Making decent terrain has been something of a passion for me since I learned how to do it when working at Games Workshop in 2005-06, but my already potentially worrying passion was given a boost in 2015. Specifically, when GW dropped Warhammer Fantasy. Those familiar with my Age of Rebuilding project will know that I had no intention of adapting to their new world, but what I realised at that time was that at some time along the way, my own gaming board had been coerced. I'd slipped into the habit of buying GW terrain, and whilst some of the pieces were nice, the overrall effect seemed to be that someone had put Clive Barker and Tim Burton's works into a blender and then drizzled them across my table. I decided it was time to restore my terrain collection to what the Old World should be. Cue lots of individually based Gaugesmaster trees... and Tabletop World. 

Tabletop World is a small Croatian company that specialises in scenery which, whilst never outright stated, seems aimed at Warhammer Fantasy players. Now straight up, let's be clear: these models are expensive. Like, almost GW expensive. I'm warning you of that now not because I think that as a wargamer you're averse to high prices (!) but because once you've got one of these kits, you'll immediately want to outfit your entire table with them.

These models are beautiful. The detailing is incredible, including interior detail. Details as small as crumbling plaster are sculpted. They aren't the quickest models to paint because of the sheer amount of features, but honestly they're among the most enjoyable I've ever worked on. 

The roofs and sometimes the individual floors of buildings can be removed, which means that garrisoning can be done by literally placing models in the building rather than abstraction. 

Tabletop World uses a very nice, cream-coloured resin for their models. At one point I tried painting one without washing to see if it worked. To my surprise it almost completely worked fine, though I would still always recommend washing resin (I was just curious at the time). I don't remember ever encountering flash or injection lines on the kits. If your only experience of working with resin is the horrible defect-ridden stuff that GW uses (Forgeworld and Finecast) then TTW kits will leave you goggling in astonishment and thinking you've forgotten something. 

I should emphasise again: if what you want are cheap and nice but not awesome, this isn't the range for you. 4ground do some decent stuff that's easy to get ready. But if you really want to create an immersive and beautiful tabletop environment, Tabletop World is well worth the investment!

The World Turns

After the longest, strangest year in history, the first semblance of normality has begun to creep back into the lives of everyday people. The rulers of the Old World's nations can finally begin to look past the needs of immediate survival and plan for a future which, whilst uncertain, is more filled with possibility than ever before. 

Read The World Turns

Amazons

As with everyone who found themselves suddenly goggling at the lack of right-angled bases in 2015, I've been something of a connosieur of different miniature companies. My first love is Warhammer Fantasy, not necessarily Games Workshop. Titan Forge is one of the companies I would consider 'GW equivalent' in the sense that the scale and sculpt quality are comparable. When I heard last year that they were doing an Amazon Kickstarter, I fell over myself to get there. Amazons are cool: who doesn't like no-nonsense arse-kicking woman women? I wasn't familiar with Wonder Woman until the recent film, but in my teenage years I was a loyal viewer of Xena: Warrior Princess and I don't care who knows. The amazons in Xena have always stuck with me when I bring the idea to mind. From the descriptions we got, the mysterious Lustrian Amazons in the Warhammer Fantasy World were similar to what I imagined, having picked up the trappings of Lizardman civilisation.

Now, Titan Forge clearly had the same idea. Not only did their Amazon sculpts have a decidedly Aztec theme, the different units had some suspicious analogues to Lizardmen units, almost as if there was an expectation that they would be used as an alternative.

After a few months, my models arrived. The sculpting is beautiful, though it's worth noting here that they do need to be washed and cleaned up. As a sidenote, this is one of GW's greatest strengths: they have very user-friendly plastic kits these days, ideal for getting into the hobby. Titan Forge is cleary ot for beginners.

Slightly ridiculously, I purchased an entire army, but I decided to start with some warriors and a couple of characters I decided to give them really bright, vivid colours. Two reasons for this: firstly, because I think it suits them. Second, as you might have noticed on this blog, I have a tendency to default to grim, grimy Blanchitsu-ism if I don't watch myself. But as hobbyists, we need to try new things sometimes to keep our skills fresh and I thought I'd go vibrant. It's more work but relatively happy so far!

For the bases, I decided to go for a verdant forest floor effect. First I did the usual sand, based Rhino Hide, drybrushed XV88 and then Ushabti Bone. Then it was a mix of static grass and different forest floor basing effects.

I'm looking forward to painting the other units up!

Interlude the second - Unexpected heroes and unseen peoples

 Being stuck in the warp is rubbish. But that's what you get for trying to ruin everyone's day. And as this former villain is about to find out, the path to redemption can be outright bizarre...

Read the second interlude.

Altdorf

 Of such days are legends told. The men of the Empire have come home.

Read on. 

The Imperishable

Settra does not serve. Settra rules. The question is, where does he rule at this point?

Find out what the Tomb Kings have been up to.

Chivalry Reborn: designer's notes

Of all the factions in Warhammer Fantasy, I've finally completed the first-phase chapter for them with only one other faction to go (Tomb Kings). This might not seem particularly surprising, until you find out that originally I planned to do it second, directly after the opening Empire chapter 'The Safe Zone'. I have rewritten this five bloody times.

The reason is pretty simple: I just couldn't get the hook. Every time I came at it, I found myself writing a less interesting version of the Empire's story, and basically because their stories have to be similar to some degree. Two races of humans trying to reclaim ravaged and shattered lands after the war that got them all killed. I really couldn't see a way around it, which was why ultimately I decided that the actions of the sieges had to be played down. This couldn't be a story about the land of Bretonnia because it would be too similar to what I'd done for the Empire. This really had to be about the people of Bretonnia, and this was where I finally managed to get some hooks. 

Once I'd wrapped my head around this, I first made the decision that the story should largely revolve around the new Bretonnian king, Jerrod. Readers of the End Times may remember that Jerrod was invented for those books, and ultimately used to facilitate Games Workshop's almost bizarre vendetta against Bretonnia. If you think I'm being a moaning grognard, remember that before the End times Bretonnia went a bewildering eleven years without any sort of update. During the End Times, they were made to look silly, crapped on from a great height and ultimately portrayed as suicidally selfish and stupid (in the godawful Archaon book Jerrod leads his knights away before the battle despite knowing that if they don't win the world will end, just because he's having a little tiff with Lileath). Still, there was a kernel of something good in this sea of absurdity - the concept of a young, unprepared king who barely remembers peacetime as an adult. Oh, whilst I'm pouring salt, I dismissed the whole 'the Green Knight was Gilles all along' because it really achieved nothing: he comes back with a big bang in Nagash, is mentioned as sitting about doing not much in Glottkin and is then never mentioned again. What's more, in Glottkin Louen Leoncourt actually still acts the part of Bretonnian King, leading the crusade and being all heroic and stuff! They introduced this messy extra element and then kind of forgot about it. So with this in mind, I decided that Gilles' return was just a 'wild rumour'. I kept Louen's death because that was actually well delivered and decided that instead of having Jerrod turn into a pathological idiot, we'd stick with the idea first presented in Nagash of him as a capable guy swept up in events. Now, this meant he had to have someone to talk to and do exposition if necessary. I'd already included Matthias the Heroic Warden in my Endgame novella, so I decided to keep him around. Canonically, Matthias is just a heraldry devide in the 6h edition book, but my friend James had developed him into a grizzled hardcase character. Incidentally, I'm aware that he has an indo-European version of my name. Let me assure you, I'm nowhere close to being that cool and it is slightly embarrasing. But there we are. Blame James. 

Anyway, having the idealistic Jerrod and the cynical Matthias gave me an idea that I could tackle the disparate portrayals of Bretonnia: is it the Land of Chivalry or the land of brutal oppression? I think maybe it can be both, which is why Jerrod and Matthias both have the desire to consciously address the mistakes of the past. I figured, if this inconsistency exists in the minds of hobbyists, why not in the Bretonnians themselves? It also led to the fact that no society can stagnate for long, especially after a period of vast upheaval. There's an abjectly ridiculous bit in the 6th edition army book where it's said that the guy who invented the trebuchet was rewarded with two copper coins and a fattened pig, which is more than he would have earned in a lifetime. Come on, people. I know we rightly kick AoS for asurd writing, but that's completely ridiculous. No economy could possibly work under those circumstances. If copper coins were inestimable riches to the peasants, then those coins simply wouldn't enter prouction. Currency needs a wide circulation in order to create the impression of value. It's an extreme example, but it does lead to the point that you couldn't keep a population as wretchedly as some portrayals of the Bretonnians given the technology available and the fact that there's no central army. Think about the Cornish Uprising, Jack Cade's rebellion or especially the Pilgrimmage of Grace: the early modern uprisings started over a lower degree of oppression and genuinely rattled England's leadership. Cade literally sacked London and executed the High Treasurer, whilst the Duke of Suffolk was quickly forced into negotiation by the vast host of Pilgrims in 1536. And what's interesting is that to a degree, these rebellions were successful. They didn't get everything they wanted, but they did manage at least improvemens to the status quo. If the Bretonnian peasants were being treated as badly as the 6th ed book suggests, the pitchforks would have been out. There's also a secondary issue here: how could the commoners be so universally downtrodden given that they provide a good portion of the skilled labour? Engineers, craftsmen, ne assumes shipwrights - these are all, from what we've seen of Bretonnia, peasant skillsets. There would need to be an emerging middle class somewhere to make this society work. To be fair, Robert Earl's novels actually touched lightly on this idea. 

I settled on L'Anguille as the basis for a real renassiance of the peasants because it's coastal, thus would have access to trade routes. Trade would have taught the people of that city to innovate and to learn about other cultures. Readers will notice an alarming resemblance between the character of Maximilien Brewer and a young Robespierre. This is quite intentional, because I wanted to convey the idea that this has revolutionary qualities, but I also wanted it to be a much quieter, soft-revolution, arguably comparable to the British social changes of the inter-war period and the post-war consensus (as associated with Attlee, Bevan, the NHS etc). Now... this is where it was a little tricky and I hope I've managed to at least vaguely pull it off. I did not want Bretonnia to be a Poundland Empire. Nobody wants that. I wanted to create the idea that this is a medieval society where progress is both necessary and inevitable, but keep it as the land we know and love. This is why the models I've created largely maintain the chivalric, Arthurian feel of Bretonnia. Credit should also go to the seemingly indefatiguable Matthias Eliasson of the Warhammer Armies Project, from whom I have replicated the rules for Hippogryph Knights. 

On a final note, the tone may be a little choppy in places. As I say, I've rewritten massive swathes of this repeatedly. It seems to make sense to me, but the flow may be a shade wobbly. 

Bretonnia: Chivalry Reborn

Did any kingdom suffer the destruction of the dark years like Bretonnia? The new King Jerrod must find out if he has the skill to rebuild and govern an overrun nation with a hugely depleted force.

More importantly, he must face the reality that upheaval may have changed the people of Bretonnia in ways he did not foresee...

Read Chivalry Reborn.

High Elves - a Dream of Hope

The High Elves of Ulthuan have lost much, yet their is a strange optimistim among them. The shadow of the oncoming Rhana Dandra which has hung over the Asur for centuries has lifted. It's a new age filled with possibilites/ Which probably a good thing for Teclis, who still can't quite believe that he's now the Phoenix King...

Read A Dream of Hope.

A recipe for conquest

Ogres are generally considered to be simple brutes preoccupied with eating. But there have always been odd suggestions that maybe there is more to the towering inhabitants of the Mountains of Mourn. The world is changed after the dark years, and barely noticed, the Ogre Kingdoms are spreading. Is there more to their actions than the simple aims of rugged mercenaries?

Read this recipe for conquest.

The Hammer is back

The Christmas of 1995 always stands out in my mind. My family had been through a rather rough patch, but earlier that year our luck seemed to have changed and by Christmas we were close to comfortable. By pure coincidence, this happened to be the same time when I first encountered the hobby. My friends had gotten into 40k, and as a 12-year-old boy I was desperate to fit in. But at the time - though I later grew to love 40k - I was lukewarm about it. It was only when I saw Warhammer Fantasy that I fell in love. That Christmas, my family indulged me and got me a plethora of Warhammer stuff, totaling around £40. Now to a working-class kid in the mid-nineties, that was more than I could ever have expected reasonably.

I think that the initial glow never really left. Warhammer Fantasy kept me going through the viciousness of secondary school. Years later, I was the first member of my extended family to ever attend a university, and I remember taking my army books with me as a safety blanket. After university, I actually worked at Games Workshop for a good while, and even that did not break my love for the Old World. It was one of the major constants of my life.

We all know what happened in 2015, some more than others but basically, we all know. Fuelled by egos and personal agendas, Games Workshop failed to address the self-inflicted cost problem of the Warhammer Fantasy hobby which had led to a sales fall (the 'selling less than Chaos Black' myth has been debunked but there was a dip). A crude, depressing, rushed 'End Times' was cobbled together, and one of the richest fantasy worlds of the last hundred years was replaced with... something. I always feel a bit bad about knocking Age of Sigmar because it feels like shooting fish in a barrel. In general terms though, the problem was that it was crude, bland, boring, disempowering, simplistic, unrelatable, unstructured, ill-considered, generic and frustratingly bereft of believable motivation. I could go into detail, but I'm trying to be as kind as possible here. Obviously, this was not acceptable. But the human mind has an odd way of reacting to conflict: fight, flight, freeze or appease. I was a fighter, and in all honesty, I didn't always express it very well. I have at times been belligerent to AoS converts, and that was not the right approach. Some chose flight, giving up the hobby altogether. But the freezers and appeasers formed the first true AoS zealots - having spent so much time and money, they needed to rationalize what had happened. Rather than admitting what I had to admit to myself - that we all got suckered - these people reacted by defending Games Workshop in order to justify to themselves the money they had spent. Thus, unfortunately, the relationship between AoS converts and WFB loyalists has never been pleasant or really even that civil. And at the time, GW themselves did not help matters. Both AoS converts and GW staff seemed to be eerily singing from a very similar hymn sheet: "Warhammer is boring/nobody wanted to play it/it's outdated/you just can't handle change/you're a bad person." There was a very ugly species of gloating around the more radical AoS converts, sneering about fantasy being 'dead'. It seemed to grossly offend them that others might prefer another game (again, I acknowledge that I at times may have acted unfairly to AoSists myself).

But something strange happened, and I can't tell you when for sure. I know when it was for me: about thirty minutes after reading the last bit of the End Times. Years in marketing led me to guess even then that some lame Hollywood reboot was coming: the writers didn't seem to just want to end WFB, they seemed to want to completely bury it, make it look so unappealing that nobody would miss it. I had zero hope for WFB's official survival. And right then, I decided that it would not be so: you cannot kill something that exists in the mind and the heart. I had my books and models: my Old World was not going to lie down just because of a corporate marketing decision. My friends felt the same. We began to plot the bones of what would eventually become 'Age of Rebuilding'.

On the day AoS was released, more cringeworthy and underwhelming than our worst fears had expected, our direction was validated. I remember we had a bunch of fantasy games in my apartment that day. Nothing bad happened to us, no magical GW nuke fell on us. I knew then that WFB would survive, if only in this one corner of Berkshire.

Time went by, and I became slowly aware that we weren't alone. Mutterings, voices from underground, whispers of gaming clubs and online communities who had no interest in AoS. As time went by, it became clear that Warhammer Fantasy was beloved enough that it simply didn't need official support. More astonishing still, it was actually recruiting. slowly, of course: I'd be surprised if there was one new WFB player for every hundred new AoS players. But nonetheless, recruiting. It would never be as widespread as before, that went without saying, but it wouldn't fall away as Games Workshop clearly hoped. What's more, whilst a degree of AoS kicking was involved (again, guilty), the general shape of the community was as healthy and positive as one can ever expect from a wargaming community. This actually made sense: only those who loved Warhammer Fantasy remained. The more toxic power gamers and those with no strong opinion had all drained away. That didn't mean the remainder always agreed, but it did mean that every view was passionate and sincerely held. The people who remained were not willing to passively accept that Games Workshop knew best, were aware that they were choosing a more difficult path and care enough to do so anyway. These were people who understood that if Warhammer Fantasy were to survive, supported by the community, they would have to invite more work on themselves. And everyone in the community, in some way or another, rose to that occasion. Whether it was continuing to play Fantasy, writing new stories, creating new units, running campaign weekends and tournaments, attending those same events... by the very choice to go with what they loved rather than what was easy, those people all made the effort. They were all... we were all... working not just for our hobbies but for the continuation of something which we thought was worth preserving. Importantly, we weren't waiting for Games Workshop to save us. In those early days in particular, it was clear that Games Workshop was not interested in our opinion on the matter. To understand recent news, it is important to recognize that the Warhammer Fantasy community was not on its knees crying to Games Workshop for salvation. Warhammer Armies Project, The Elector Counts, Champions of Destiny, even my own humble Age of Rebuilding project... these were all evidence that we didn't need Games Workshop and weren't expecting anything from them. Sometimes we would buy their moels. Other times we would search eBay and buy from up-coming companies who flooded to fill the void. We purchased square bases separately when they weren't included or cut them from MDF if we had to. We improvised, combined, tinkered, substituted - because astonishingly, Warhammer Fantasy had transcended its owner. It had taken on a life independent of Games Workshop.

And so the world turned and turned again. The rain fell on the just and the unjust alike. A new management took over Games Workshop. I would be remiss not to mention that this new management was not only more intelligent but also more sympathetic. They engaged in properly conceived marketing and engagement campaigns. They partially stepped back from a lunatic pricing policy with numerous good-value combination sets. The people who gave the world AoS to the world were outright hostile to the Old World: the new management much less so. WFB began to feature in 'Time-warp' articles and was referenced elsewhere. The scornful contempt was replaced with a more respectful tone. Interestingly, it seemed that some ongoing releases were devised for a dual audience: 2019's Night Goblin release only needed square bases to be near-perfect for WFB. These changes in attitude were appreciated - at least by me - because it showed that the new management had some civility which their predecessors lacked. But still, no serious analysis suggested an official comeback for WFB. Their attitude had softened, the product had tacitly taken on more appeal to the old guard, but they were still wholly committed to AoS (which I still believe to be the case).

Then came Friday, 15th November. The day that none of us saw coming. The announcement that in 3-4 years, the Warhammer Fantasy world would return (with a slightly tweaked name of Warhammer: the Old World). I have no idea what they will do with this. And neither do you. By their own admission, they are in the earliest planning stages. If I had to guess wildly with nothing to back me up, I would guess a 28mm scale game similar to 6th or 8th edition, supported by Forgeworld.

Obviously, I like everyone else am overjoyed. But before I get into that, let's look into what this is not.

There's a small, unworthy part of most WFB fans (and that includes me) which really wants this to mean that AoS is failing. To that I say simply: no. Nothing of the kind. AoS is, in my view, a bad product. But it is simple and requires little thought, which unfortunately appeals to many people. More importantly, you can sell any poor product if you're skilled at marketing. I know whereof I speak. And the new Games Workshop management is very good at marketing. AoS was seemingly designed as a vehicle for profit, and from what I can see it is achieving that. It's a cash cow. It does not come from a place of love but of ruthless financial consolidation. AoS will continue to be a cash cow for a long time - not forever, as I'll come back to later, but for a long time.

If you go onto any AoS group, you will see wild hysteria. Some of the same people who told me that I couldn't handle change four years ago now appear to be dissolving at the very suggestion of the Old World's return. The apparent fear is that Warhammer: the Old World will displace AoS. Whilst there would be a certain cruel justice to this, I would like to reassure any AoSist that this is not the case. Old World, whatever form it takes, will be a niche product more akin to Necromunda of Adeptus Titanicus - probably more popular than either, but on that sort of level. Or indeed, as Games Workshop themselves have said, like The Horus Heresy. The reason for this is twofold: firstly, they are successfully milking the AoS cash cow, so it would be silly to drop it unless they needed to. Secondly, can you imagine for a moment the shareholder meeting where they had to stand up and explain that they were canning a profitable product which they had spent half a decade talking up? It would be a glaring strategic error.

Another point we need to address is that this is not an act of generosity on the part of Games Workshop. It isn't quite correct to say 'they listened' because that puts the Warhammer Fantasy community in the position of supplicants with the noble Games Workshop swooping in to give us love again. What actually happened was that the Warhammer Fantasy community didn't go away. The new management were almost certainly savvy to the fact that throwing away a portion of paying customers wasn't a cunning plan in the first place, but the continued popularity of Fantasy makes the business case clear: these hobbyists have money. They will spend it on the hobby. Games Workshop is presumably now of the opinion that allowing third parties to have that money unopposed might not be their best plan. Simply put, why would a business refuse money when they - being the official holder of the IP - can provably make a profit simply by reviving a product which only their own ego threw away to begin with?

Now, having talked about what this is clearly not, let's move on to what it is and why I'm very happy about it.

In the first case, there is a reputational/legacy aspect. AoS is clearly a money-spinner, but that's all it is. It's a good device for pumping out product, but there's no underlying loyalty or integrity. If they dropped AoS tomorrow in favour of something else, I'm confident that in four years there would be no AoS community to speak of. They would move on to whatever came next. It's also worth noting that the more cartoony, bland aesthetic of AoS steers it into competition with multiple online games. At the moment, that's a strength. But it might not always be. Restoring Warhammer Fantasy might well be a way of ensuring that in years to come, Games Workshop is perceived by investors as having continuity and a responsible sense of its own history. When explaining how your revenue streams work, it helps to be able to say 'we've been offering this since 1983' rather than 'we dump an IP as soon as someone's ego demands it and there's a sales dip'. A company that doesn't jump about all the time is more reliable and less likely to do something stupid with an investor's money. So in that regard, the move makes sense.

There's also the fact that it never hurts to have an ace in the hole. AoS is profitable, but it's entirely soulless, relying on cashing in on certain trends. The world will turn again eventually. There's no doubt that the minute it flags Games Workshop will dump AoS in a flash and move onto whatever seems likely to have most mass appeal in the background. But if they ensure that there is a steady stream of background products creating a baseline, this shouldn't cause them too many problems.

But most of all, what I think this represents is a colossal vindication for Warhammer Fantasy fans. It almost doesn't matter what Games Workshop does. There's a chance they'll make a massive pig's ear of it. But the point is, the Old World proved to be the world that just wouldn't die. It wouldn't die to the point where Games Workshop thought they'd better get back in on the action. And that shows a level of love, dedication and engagement which is bigger than Games Workshop. Even if they flub it up, Warhammer lives. Warhammer will live. If they mess it up, I strongly suspect that they'll have another go. And looking at the way that they announced it, I believe quite confidently that it will be our Old World and not some half-baked AoS-ified version. Look at the logo - very old-school, with the more subtle colour palette of the early 2000s. The fact that they call it 'The Old World' rather than 'The World That Was' shows that they understand the audience for this forthcoming project. I'd be shocked to find any references to AoS in whatever they do. The Old World may never be as prominent as it once was, but then none of us expected it to. None of us ever expected an official acknowledgment. Games Workshop tried to drag us with them. But by staying the course and doing what we were passionate about, we dragged them. 

I do have to point out they were wrong about one thing. In the mailshot, the banner image said 'The Old World will live again'. Well Games Workshop, your heart was in the right place, but I have to correct you. It won't 'live again'. It never died.

One other thing. Archaon Everchosen, you three-eyed punk. Go find some other world to pick on. Because we're not going anywhere.