How many of us are joining Old World?

[Elk101]

Funnily enough, it's indirectly got us playing 4th edition again.

[Aerendar Valandil]

I’m not familiar with Warhammer Renaissance. Is this the fan made “9th edition” or closer to the Oldhammer movement?

There are three.

Warhammer Renassance is aptly described above, plays well, well balanced, includes all regular armies and some more including DoW and Norse, not overly complicated and realtively short. No rolling but estimating for charges and artillery. (as per pre-8th. Which I don't like, but many will).

Warhammer Armioes project is a one man-made version based on 8th with substantial modifications. is a bit rules heavy and very long, bet very good I think. Includes most regular and non-regular amies (includien DoW, Estalia, Cathay, Norse and several more) and tries to include all troop types, even some AoS, and some very old, made-up or deriving form Mordheim, WHRP etc.  It's my fav.

9th Age is a very much competition based attempt by a group of people. I have played it only once or twice with small armies, but they have a new edition I don't know anything of.

[Matakakea]

I'm definitely going into the Old World. I still have my Kislevites and have been quivering with anticipation ever since the first teasers back in 2020. If my calculations are correct then Kislev won't come out until November 2026, so plenty of time to finish painting and repainting my existing figures. Then the Maiden Guard (or whatever they will be called) and the Bear Knights.

Lots and lots of bears 

[Basementboy]

I seriously do not understand why people make themselves so dependent of a commercial party. 9th age was there. WAP was there. Armoes project was there. At least the latter two are superior gameswise than any edition, all three have/had a substantial following, were much better balanced, models were well available on the second hand market, there were third party models and the last few years print options galore. Often for relatively cheap.

And still they only return when the Holy GW returns with resonable, but certainlu not the best system, which (although it remains fun) serious problems concerning balance, the use of infantry blocks, some onfathomable rules (linehammer) and more. Did the fanmade projects not have those, yes, but at least they tried to solve them. 'yes, but it isn't real warhammer'. Yeah right. GW ripped out crucial factions like lizards, skaven and darkelves and hardly any complaints. It chagned the base sizes.

My thoughts exactly! I'm really suprised to see how many people are hopping onto the rules when 9th Age and a number of other very popular fan rules exist already. Even printable pdfs of the old editions are only a few clicks away! My guess is that most of them are there for the tournament scene, or are new to the Old World and have come from elsewhere in the GW ecosystem.

[Hobgoblin]

Barring one dip back into 3rd edition with my son a few years ago, I haven't played Warhammer Fantasy Battle since ... 3rd edition. When my friends and I got hold of Hordes of the Things, we never looked back (and then we abandoned all gaming entirely for a couple of decades). We found HOTT to be superior for a massed-battle game in every way - and the fact that you could get a whole game in in the set-up time for WFB was a very significant factor.

The game I've played most in the past year or so, though, is Mordheim. While clunky in places, it's great - and I think it underscores an essential truth about Warhammer: it's always been, at its core, a skirmish game. Large skirmish, at a Dragon Rampant or Saga sort of size, yes, if you want it, but that's really as far as it stretches, I think. Otherwise, the long stat line and individual figure removal just become a bit cumbersome.

I'm struck by how similar WFB 1st edition and Mordheim are: the semi-RPG nature, the scenarios with individual figure movement (The Ziggurat of Doom!) and the randomised character advancement. Add in the larger-scale (again, Dragon Rampantish) scenarios from 2nd edition, and you've got all manner of goodness - games that suit figures with RPG-type stat lines and abilities. But I reckon all of that becomes unwieldy once you scale up to genuine massed battles.

I also find the later iterations of the Old World less interesting than the early ones; there seems to be much more 'filled in'. Some of that was necessary for WFRP, but it still left a lot of haze around the edges. I like the very lightly sketched Old World of second edition and third.

There's a general trend, I reckon, in the best gaming backgrounds towards too much. A case in point is Glorantha, the RuneQuest setting. In the early years, there was just enough in the way of exoticism and flavour for players to enjoy exploring an amazing sword-and-sorcery world - without any real risk of "getting it wrong". The illustrations were loose and helpfully drew on historical analogues (so the Lunar soldiers in the Pavis and Big Rubble modules are shown as Roman legionaries, and the trolls in Borderlands looked like folkloric Scandinavian trolls). The current edition virtually demands a PhD!

From what little I've seen, the Old World (like 40K) went a similar way in later editions of WFB. Rick Priestley had some very interesting things to say about this on an interview I heard a while back: basically, he, Richard Halliwell and Bryan Ansell were into "opening the door" - letting people use their own imaginations - rather than "closing the door" with prescriptive "lore".

Obviously, each to their own - and a bazillion sales count against my points! But I'm certainly not tempted by the newest iteration of WFB; Mordheim seems a much better (and cheaper!) way to enjoy grimdark Renaissance Europe. I'd also note that the original Mordheim rules "limited the palette" of the Old World in a very interesting way: no monsters, really, except undead and chaos creatures (mutants, beastmen, Skaven, etc.). That's kind of what WFRP did  too (bright-green orcs and goblins being kept to the fringes for the most part).

Also, am I the only one who things that 25mm bases look terrible for things like night goblins and Skaven? In first-edition WFB, there was an option to reduce frontages for shock troops to 15mm. Ah, the old Old World ...
 

[Cubs]

On the subject of base sizes, I know I shouldn't obsess about this, but I do - Skaven. The Kaleb Daark comic strip that introduced them in the Citadel Journal (I think) had them as little creatures who took down human guards by swarming all over them. But ... they have human-comparable stats and human-sized basing. Why? Wouldn't it be a much better idea to have them as swarm bases (characters aside) to ... you know, swarm their opponents?

[Padrissimus]

They can still swarm when in big units! My campaign player's current army head three regiments of slaves - 36, 36 and 70 strong. Sure looks swarmy to me!😜

[Aethelflaeda was framed]

All of my many dozens of snotlings, bought many years go from the sale bin are all multiple mounted on large mob swarm bases and used that way in AD&D . Even then the silliness of literalness of individual bases for such a gregarious mob of little creatures was quite apparent.

[Byrthnoth]

I had a read through the old world rules, they seem fine and I enjoyed WHFB well enough in 4th-5th edition, but I’m just not excited to collect a Warhammer army — I have enough time these days to paint about one model a week, and I don’t think I care enough about playing old world (or another WHFB variant) to spend 18 months getting an army together.

On base sizes, I actually think that 25mm is ok for the little guys — I remember those 5th edition goblins being a nightmare to rank up on 20mm, and the skaven were even worse with their tails. However the earlier goblins, or even newer 8th ed ones (currently moonlighting as AoS gits or grots or whatever) would look lost on 25s.

[Cubs]

They can still swarm when in big units! My campaign player's current army head three regiments of slaves - 36, 36 and 70 strong. Sure looks swarmy to me!😜

Swarm - as in, treated as a swarm, not individual models. Reserved for creatures too small and/or puny to stand up one-on-one with a humanish opponent. The swarm base is given a set profile with wounds and attacks, but not the individual models. Imagine how cool it would look with Skaven scattered on 40mm bases - maybe 4, 5 or 6 models squeezed on, randomly squirming about and not ranked up. This seems perfect to me for over-sized rats acting as a pack to bring down bigger prey. But even the original models were larger in comparison to the wonderful Brett Ewins comicbook versions and, of course, they just bulked up and got bigger with each new release.

[Aerendar Valandil]

I the only one who things that 25mm bases look terrible for things like night goblins and Skaven? In first-edition WFB, there was an option to reduce frontages for shock troops to 15mm. Ah, the old Old World ...

I like my 20mm for my 4th ed. monopose plastic elves, and most models of that era fit quite well. So 25 is a small loss there. But I have many later AND third party figs, some old, some new, for which 20mm was a nuisance so small. So i am ambiguous about this. 25 is better for newer, more dynamic figures.

Concerning Skaven: I think you're right about the swarming part. But thare have been many who used all kinds of multibases and unit fillers to decorate their units,. Why not add extra rats on single bases or multibase to fill ut your unit with skaven 'swarms'? Some creativity may well give you the ipression you seek. 

[zemjw]

My Pink Horrors are on 25mm square bases, and even that is nowhere near enough to get them ranked up. There are arms everywhere (and pennies underneath to stop them tipping forward)

Likewise, some of the chaos warriors would be much better on 30mm

[Tactalvanic]

To be fair, I was righting a really, really, long post, but.

There's so much available, some of it even.. free, not to care if GW suddenly decide its time to do it again/milk the nostalgy cow/raise the dead etc.

So in short, I am not joining the Old World, I never left - GW did.

I am not particularly fussed they did, and not particularly fussed they are back with a new version.

I only ever bought one version in the first place  .

[Daeothar]

I for one am not rebasing my Night Goblins, which are on 20mm. If they get fielded in an actual OW game, I'll probably get them bigger movement trays

But they would look so puny on 25mm bases! Most of the WHFB armies I have rank up pretty well on their old size bases: Night Goblins, Chaos Dwarfs and Wood Elves on 20mm and Warriors of Chaos on 25s.

I do get though, that the more modern sculpts require the real estate to fit on their bases. For instance; I do fancy the newest versions of Chaos Warriors, but their posing is so dynamic that they will never fit on the 25mm squares their older brethren are standing on. What's it they're based on? 32mm rounds?

[armchairgeneral]

I do get though, that the more modern sculpts require the real estate to fit on their bases. For instance; I do fancy the newest versions of Chaos Warriors, but their posing is so dynamic that they will never fit on the 25mm squares their older brethren are standing on. What's it they're based on? 32mm rounds?

30mm x 30mm I believe. I have 12 painted ones I am trying to sell