WARHAMMER 1ST EDITION GENERAL OVERVIEW

When taking a summary glance at Warhammer the Mass-Combat Fantasy Roleplaying Game, we find a box with 3 booklets featuring great cover art and illustrations and type-writer stencilled text with a very amateurish lay-out.

The rules are presented step-by-step, booklet 1 giving rules for movement, ranged attack, close combat, psychology, morale, creatures and underground fighting. Towards the back of the book is the first warhammer scenario, “the Ziggurat of Doom” pitting six Dwarf Heroes against a horde of Goblins.

Booklet 2 details magic, wizards and magic items and booklet 3 gives a rather bare-bones set of guidelines for using the rules of the other two booklets as a roleplaying game.

Aside from the covers and the illustrations, WMCFRPG is not much to look at. It's in many ways the inverse of another 1^st edition RPG (OD&D) when it comes to production quality: where OD&D had production quality text and amateurish illustrations (5^th grader sketchbook quality), WMCRPG has draft-work style text and relatively high quality illustrations!

There is a general sense of incompleteness to the work. The combat rules are the most complete among the 3 booklets, detailing enough to fight a battle with fantasy miniatures, while the other two are more rough drafts giving a sneak peak to what forthcoming publications might present.

Over the next few posts I will take a more detailed look at each of the 3 core booklets, the Forces of Fantasy books, the 1^st and 2^nd citadel compendiums (as far as Warhammer rules go) and a few other 1^st edition publications I came across on the “Eldar Webway” (the internets that is).