Swords, Boards and Square Bases

Christmas 2003 was where it all started, really. I'd had Warhammer Fantasy Battle bits and bobs before, playing a handful of games with starter set materials or the Chaos Warriors I'd collected because a 3000 point army could be had for a hundred quid (if you spent a quarter of it on a Greater Daemon, and you didn't mind losing a lot). Then the vast majority of it had been car-booted under the auspice of grandparental authority and concern about examinations. 1 This, though: this was the year that I had beer money . I'd just turned eighteen, started my first job as a weekend bartender, and didn't have many vices other than goth girls and Jaffa Cakes. And on a beer money budget, in 2004, things were possible. Like, say, slow-growing a Warhammer Fantasy Battle army. I've been trying to work out why I made the choices I did. I thought it was the White Dwarf article on the Army of Sylvania that influenced me, but a quick fact check shows that came out in March of th

It's no bad thing that Warhammer Fantasy Battles is back, in congealed and collated post-facto final form, a sort of "best of" the rules for the original game that so far seems to draw on third, seventh and a little bit of eighth edition (you can have a little bit of eighth, as a treat). It's also no bad thing that the Tomb Kings (and Bretonnians, I suppose) are back in production. Eighth edition Warhammer had the misfortune to appear during a time of murderous austerity, and a public servant like what I was at the time couldn't spring for a shiny new Necrosphinx no matter how pretty the figure was. But my very favourite thing about The Old World is that I don't have to come along on Mister Workshop's Wild Ride if I don't want to. The studio has decided that the Vampire Counts are a done deal, with Mannfred left for dead at Hel Fenn... and that's when my own personal Vampire Lord's unlife starts to get interesting. There's a convenient inte