Forces of Fantasy

Forces of Fantasy was the first published supplement to the Warhammer rules system. Like the basic game it was a boxed set, and included 4 booklets: Forces of Fantasy, Fighting Fantasy Battles, Arcane Magicks and the Book of Battalions. It includes all of the new rules and errata introduced in the First Citadel Compendium (except for the Mark of Chaos article and Science Fiction/Modern rules).

Overall appearance

Forces of Fantasy looks a lot more professional than the game it expands. The layout is professional, arranged in neat columns with a good font rather than the type-writer blurbs in the basic rules. The art is still very nice and varied. Blanchitsu box-cover and the art inside by various artists, include Tony Ackland, Nick Bibby and of course, John Blanche.

Forces of Fantasy

The eponymous booklet of the publication holds a large collection of army lists and includes the army selection rules and introduces a points system for organising your army into battalions of 1000 points.

It is the most wargame-oriented booklet of the set, and also introduces rules for regimental leaders and champions, banners and musicians. The rules for capturing an enemy standard are very characterful and complicated, basically a dice-off between both units, the loser suffering casualties and the winner capturing the standard. Very cinematic.

This booklet also gives the rules for the Leadership Factor characteristic.

The point system is not fully detailed as in 2^nd edition/rogue trader, but a list of equipment values is given just before the army lists.

There are a lot of army lists, 4 types of humans (North, East, West and Oriental), 4 types of elves, Halflings, dwarves, gnomes, Orcs, several Goblin variant (Great Goblins, Red Goblins, Hobgoblins, Night Goblins), Chaos, Slann, lizardmen, undead, Giants and Monstrous Hosts. Each army has several troop-types on offer and details the character-models available to the armies. New special rules and abilities are also introduced as well as a 3d character type just for the Oriental Humans: the Martial Hero (basically a Wuxia Shaolin monk “class” with amazing stats). 

Once more, Chaotic attributes are mentioned but not detailed, and even the Chaos character models don't get rules in this book, the reader is once more referred to a 'forthcoming' supplement called "Realms of Chaos" to create his leader characters. The "Mark of Chaos" article from the First Citadel Compendium is presented as alternative, to use while awaiting the Realms of Chaos expansion, possibly in conjunction with the Character generation rules of FoF volume 2: Fighting Fantasy Battles.

The character profiles for heroic leaders and wizards are introduced and have a rough level system.

The wizard levels were already mentioned in Volume 3 of the basic boxed set, but are now codified into:

Mastery Level 1: Novice

Mastery Level 2: Acolyte

Mastery Level 3: Adept

Mastery Level 4: Mage

Heroes get three levels to measure their power and ability, which start at much hire characteristic scores than would later be the case:

Minor hero

(compared to normal creature: +2 WS, +1 I, +1W)

Hero

(+3 WS, +2 BS, +2W, +5I, +1A)

Mighty Hero

(+4 WS, +2BS, +1S, +1T, +2W, +8I, +2A)

Some races/armies have access to all levels of wizards/hero, while other are limited to “Acolyte” level wizards and Heroes at best. Halflings are worst of, no wizards and only up to Hero level Characters.

It is a very useful booklet as the arrangement of text and the characteristic profiles are very readable. In addition, every army-list also includes a random generation table to generate the kind of creature a party encounters in a random encounter. I.e if the GM generates a random encounter with some Orcs with the tables in Vol3. Characters, he may use Forces of Fantasy to see what kind of Orcs they are.

Each army/race gets a bit of background, but it's very summary compared to later publications. As of yet, nothing of the warhammer setting is set in stone.

Fighting Fantasy Battles

Fighting Fantasy Battles is a mixed affair, introducing new rules for siege weapons, fire, buildings (and setting them on fire) and (finally!) Personal Characteristics along with painting and wargaming advice.

We also get the long awaited rules for Fighting Defensively (which allows you to stop an enemy from attacking you), which is a very characterful rule and ideal for RPG combat.

The rules for mounted troops also add detail for small engagements if so desired.

There is also a chart to generate random hazards (animals, monsters and undead) inhabiting terrain features on the battlefield that units walk into, very much like Newhammer's terrain rules. Generally there is a 5-10% chance that any terrain feature holds some kind of creature. I think it can be useful for sandbox adventures, or when the Player characters seek out a resting place in the wilds.

The rules on personal characteristics does not provide much rules for characteristic tests, only Willpower introduces a system for Magical Resistance, but all other characteristics are limited to providing guidelines on what psychological conditions affect a character. Leadership was detailed in the Forces... Booklet.

Intelligence determines if a character is subject to Stupidity, is a fast or slow learner, if a character can be a wizard (INT 5+ required) and how fast one learns skills or gets promoted in a day job in one of the skill professions.

Willpower introduces a system for magical resistance, and gives dwarves extra flavour by making dwarfs with WP 16 (?) so immune to magic that they cannot wield magic items, nor become wizards and cause fear to any wizard within 12”.

Cool is very much the characteristic of self-control in this edition. Characters with a particularly low Cool are subject to Frenzy while those with a high cool may be immune to Frenzy, Fear and Terror.

There is also a page detailing the random generation of mercenaries. It's interesting, but very much geared towards the wargame tier of Firsthammer rather than the RPG side of the system.

Then comes a bunch of pages detailing the tactics, organisation and uniforms of the various races, followed by the Regiments of Renown, who give us new insights in the warhammer world. Many of the regiments or characters are still around to this day, including Josef Bugmann, Menghil Manhide, Grom -the paunch of misty mountain and Golgfag and his mercenary Ogres.

The chapter that interested me the most is the chapter on randomly generating Heroes and Wizards, in a manner that is quite possibly the inspiration for the Realms of Chaos warband rules!

It has a bunch of tables to determine hero/wizard level, their characteristics, any possible magical equipment, fantastic mounts and the chance of and number of followers a character has and what kind of followers they might be (including animal/monster companions). It's not at all balanced and I can't imagine these rules to see much use in wargame battles with armies created using the battalion rules, but I can see it's value in as a character generator in an RPG or Skirmish campaign!

When used as character generation rules for an RPG variant of Firsthammer, you'd get characters that are more durable and possibly have a few magic items and/or followers. I also like the remark that the quality of randomly generated heroes is “In the hands of Goethi and Spanaal the Gods of Chance”!

There are rules for generating heroes for the three races available for player characters in the Role-play variant, Men, Elves and Dwarfs. It also gives a bit more differentiation between the 3 races, Dwarfs being slow but tough having the highest possible wound score among the three but lowest initiative levels, while elves are skilled, fast and fragile (least max. wounds) and humans are somewhere in between. The followers generation table for human characters is the most diverse and might also factor in a character's alignment, some results giving a human hero the choice between a Dwarf or Ogre or Elf or Orc as follower.

It also strikes me that elves have the lowest possible amount of followers (d8 at best for a mighty hero/mage), while Dwarves have the highest (3d10 for a Mighty Hero/Mage) and humans are again in between (2d10 for a Mighty hero/mage). It seems unfair to have a quite powerful race have the most henchmen, but in contrast to humans and elves, Dwarfs get no 'creature' followers (which includes manticores and wyverns!) like humans and elves do, nor may they have Fantasic Mounts, so the possibilities of such may balance things out.

Hey, let's make a hero!

Ackny Toland, Minor Hero

Weapon skill: 8

Bow Skill: 3

Strength: 2

Toughness: B

Wounds: 1

Initiative: 3

Attacks: 1

Magic weapon (10% chance): none

Other magic (5% chance of 2): none

Followers (20% chance): none

Arcane Magicks

The third booklet is the most Role-play oriented of the lot. We get a bunch of new magic items, magic item random generation rules, a few new spells, new creatures and a more detailed and expanded treasure generation table, detailing the possible 'treasures' found in various kinds of buildings. Points values for magic items are not all to common throughout the book, but most rules include a monetary value in gold crowns, the currency used in the Role-play variant (WH1 vol.3).

Once more magic is very much geared towards (role playing) campaign play, but has the potential to add a lot of flavour and excitement to the battle game.

I like they way magic weapons are handled in this edition, weapons often having a certain alignment (chaos, evil, neutral, good, avarice or hunger), a willpower factor and possibly even a name! All these factors must be taken into account to see if a character can wield the magic item at full effect or suffers penalties using it, a slimmed-down version of this was used in WFRP ed. 1 where you must pass a WP-test to be able to use a magic item.

Unlike the white box Vol.2: Magic, there is not a whole lot of setting-notes beside the introduction of Araby and its native magical creatures (Djinn and Efreet) and items (flying carpet, magic lamp, magic rope) and the chapter on Power weapons.

Forces of Fantasy as a whole introduces the Slann as the ancient race of 'creator god-aliens' thet build the world and brought in magic, the artefacts of the Slann being presented as Arcane Rods and Power weapons. Arcane Rods are basically storage units for magical energy that can be used to cast, enhance or resist spells. Power Weapons are more dangerous items, which can enslave weak-willed characters and drain away their willpower up to a point that the character is compelled to undertake a long journey to some Slann ruin where some ritual takes place that results in mastery of the weapon. Power weapons are a bit like the later Deamon Weapons in that way (powerful but dangerous to wielder and victim alike), but also find employ as “laser-guns” and heavy hitters. These weapons should obviously be very rare and highly sought after by ambitious characters and/or villains and may inspire a campaign arc. Finding one by random chance in a sanbox environment might add a defined plot to such a campaign if the GM is willing.

The book of battalions

This booklet details some army lists. I'll not go into details on these, for I am more concerned with the RPG aspect of things.

The 1st WARHAMMER, a closer look at Volume 3: Characters.

Now, volume 3 is actually the main thing of this blog. It is the booklet that inspired me to try and use warhammer as RPG!

Unfortunately it's also the least comprehensive of the 3 original booklets. It's apparently aimed at experienced role-players who want to avoid system-switching between Adventures and Mass-combat who are proficient house-rulers and home brewers as the best we get from Volume 3 are guidelines.

The worth of this booklet for WFRP scholars is however, enormous in my opinion. This is zero-edition WFRP, with the kernel of the injury tables and career system.

I have yet to use the firsthammer rules with my friends, but did some solo-games and it's quite a rules-light RPG with low character survival chances at first.

The booklet starts with some general information on how to play a role-playing game, yet gives a paragraph on the handling of the player-character's miniature and by that Warhammer remains a miniatures game even if used as RPG. And would we have it any other way?

It does bring up an interesting, board-gamist rule that only the player may move his character's figure and once moved a player may not change his mind (like in chess).

Volume 3 adds more characteristics to the game: personal characteristics. Some have no mechanical use other than determining wealth (social status) and general appearance, but Intelligence, Cool, Willpower and Leadership are implied to have mechanical effects in play. Sadly, these are barely covered and aspiring Firsthammer GM's are left in the dark as what to do with them!

A list of skills is also provided. It features shockingly few actual rules on their use, has no less than 5 naval skills, 3 of which are absolutely superfluous and the list also includes the cringe-worthy skill transvestite! I'd hate to have an immature GM/Group when I roll that skill, and of course it is also semi-superfluous as there is also an actor skill. It's an interesting skill if done well though, if a GM treats it as “disguise as opposite sex” skill, rather than implying your character to suffer gender disphoria (unless you want to role-play that of course!). It also brings up the question on what Dwarf women would look like in your campaign, as Dwarves can get this skill and male Dwarves invariably have beards while females have not, in Warhammer lore (though firsthammer is pre-canon). So, in firsthammer, do Dwarfettes have beards? I actually prefer them not to have beards... but maybe they (sometimes) wear veils?

The characteristic generation range is quite broad for certain characteristics, while others have maybe two or three options. Wounds and attacks always start at 1 and can only be advanced quite late into a campaign, making character survival precarious. The injury table is quite unforgiving too, so players would need to tread carefully to make it to the level where they finally get that additional wound point. Off course, if you get that maximum weapon skill of 6 and a good score for bow skill to boot, you might have a good chance to slaughter your way to experience level 500.

Playable races are Humans, Dwarves and Elves, and may be generated randomly (1:2 chance of human, 1:3 chance of Dwarf and 1:6 chance of elf).

What I don't like here however, is the character generation sequence given, the order in which you roll up your attributes as it is completely out of sequence with the profile-organisation in the creature list, the descriptive at the start of the chapter and the profile of sample character wulfhand. It seems all randomly arranged in a random fashion that is completely random!

But then, if anything, randomness is of course, a big part of oldskool gaming, especially Oldhammer (Realms of Chaos anyone?)!

One of the personal characteristics I have tinkered with most before writing the blog was Social Status. In Firsthammer you generate your social class which determines wealth and in some cases starting equipment... and that's it. While your character may be a Duke or Dwarf Royal Prince, nothing says you have a castle and retinue, just more wealth. I first considered nobles to have a chance on having estates and/or retainers, or instead of rolling for skills rolling for privileges, offices and titles but in the end I settled on something simpler as there's only a 10% (20% for dwarves and elves) that a character is generated with an aristocratic social standing. My house rule for aristocrats would be that instead of having a skill, they may have a servant-henchman with that skill, especially if a skill is a commoner's profession. Could vary by race: human and elfish nobles would sneer at blacksmithing being a peasant's job, while a dwarf noble might take great pride in his family's forge!

I have a lot more thoughts on Firsthammer character generation I'll write up in another post (this one is long already).

Character advancement is one of the more incomplete chapters of Firsthammer. For starters, remember volume 2 where the writer tells us he will give a (more) detailed explanation Life Energy in Volume 3? Well he lied! All we get is the life energy generation rules and nothing about the effects of losing large amounts of life energy.

Aside from experience for killing mook NPC's (standard creatures) and acquiring wealth, experience points are to be randomly generated if we follow the rules. This might be okay in sandbox-style play where every encounter is randomly generated, though for prepared adventures a GM should predetermine the amount of XP based on what he throws at the party.

The advancement tables are a variant of D&D, I can see it no other way. There are no “levels” mentioned though, but I might use “levels” as in D&D for ease of use, as XP accumulates and at certain thresholds advances are gained. The tables go up to “level 10”, but would obviously be expanded on when WFRP were to be released. Would it? ;)

Wizards get their own table for the magical stats, but also progress on the fighter chart at double cost at the same time (so at XP100 a wizard can advance both Constitution and Initiative). The table for wizards is a bit different though.

Absent from the advancement tables are strength and toughness and personal characteristics, so I might make my own variants to improve them.

Alignment is done a bit differently in Firsthammer. Chaos is not yet an alignment, we get Good, Neutral, Evil, Avarice and Hunger as alignments, and all but Neutral alignment affect experience rewards in some ways or other. Good aligned characters gain double XP for killing evil creatures but penalties for slaying Good ones while Evil characters get double XP for killing good creatures and triple points for harming allies and friends!

Avarice alignment characters get double points for acquiring money but nothing for acts of courage, bravery or self-sacrifice.

Hunger aligned characters get quadruple points for eating defeated enemies though the alignment is only available for Human player characters, though the chance of getting it using the random table is pretty slim.

As in WFRP, a GM is encouraged to reward players for role playing alignment accurately.

There is also a full-page table for randomly generating alignment of many creatures, though for some creatures the inclusion in the table is quite pointless, some having 100% chance of being of Hunger alignment (though nice for reference).

As characters are stuck with one wound for quite a while, the booklet provides an injury table so characters are not killed outright but might survive with a (possibly) debilitating injury instead. The example description of the injury table in use is a bit grating as it presents us with a high level character slaying 20 orcs and only suffering injury after taking no less than 3 wounds, implying Rothnik 'Mad Hacker' Redbeard to be at least level 8 (1250 total XP). How did he get that far? Why is there no mention of niggling previous injuries? What a lucky bastard that Rothnik is!

The Creating Adventures chapter gives us some tiny plot hooks and summary GM-prep-advice, but also a nice price list and employment chart which may double as guidelines for henchmen fees.

The Encounter charts provided are nice, but generic. It does give a table to determine the direction the creatures come from though, something I haven't seen in RPG rules before.

The random treasure table is neat too, and includes all items described in volume 2.

Volume 3 concludes with the rough outline of a sandbox style warhammer adventure in the Redwake River valley. Once more a lot is left to the GM running the game to elaborate on and prepare, but the adventure has a start and a finish and the potential to be a multi-session campaign rather than a single adventure, with a few plot twists to boot!

LET'S MAKE A FIRSTHAMMER PLAYER CHARACTER:

Priri Ecestlyk

Social status: Free Elf

Age: 30

sex: male

Alignment: Good

Intelligence: 7

Cool: 12

Willpower: 8

Leadership: 3

Attacks: 1

Wounds: 1

Initiative: 5

Weapon skill (secondary skill): 4

Bow Skill (Primary skill): 6 (being an elf gives a +2bonus to the 2d6 roll on the bow skill generation table)

Strength: 2

Toughness: B

Move: 4½

Money: C30 (gold)

Weapons: Sword, bow (elf standard equipment).

Skills: pickpocket, trapper

1st WARHAMMER, a closer look: Volume 2 Magic

So you know what I'm talking about 

The 2^nd Volume of the original Warhammer White Box is a very interesting one. For starters it has a lot of elements that would fit a Role playing game better than a mass-combat wargame. Secondly, the magic item section gives the reader a summary glance into the setting-background as originally conceived, naming locations and some mythical personae. The snippets gleaned from the magic item descriptions paint a picture of a world inspired by Middle Earth to no small extent!

But let's not get ahead of things, and dive into the original magic system of Warhammer Fantasy.

Volume 2 introduces the reader/player to three new characteristics, Mastery, Constitution and Life Energy.

Mastery and Constitution are familiar statistics for Oldhammer players. Mastery being a Wizard's power level, rated 1 to 4 (as it would forever remain) and determines the ability of a wizard to cast spells and which spells are available. Constitution was the harnessed raw magical power a wizard could summon to cast those spells.

Life Energy was abandoned in 2^nd edition, and even here it's described as only relevant in a role-playing campaign, but basically it represents the physical and mental price a wizard pays for using arcane powers, draining away slowly as a wizard expends constitution leaving him eventually an emaciated (and possibly deranged) wreck of a creature. The paragraph on Life energy claims that the subject is covered in detail in Volume 3... but it's not (we'll get to that later).

In Recenthammer (4^th and 5^th edition) and Newhammer (6^th edition and beyond), Mastery Level is just an indicator of general power and number of spells available to a wizard, practically on a point-for-point basis, a level 2 wizard knows 2 spells, a level 3 wizard knows 3 etc. In Oldhammer the magic system was much closer to Role Playing magic systems, most notably Dungeons and Dragons when it comes to ability/power/spell levels as spells are divided into mastery level categories, requiring a wizard to be of a certain level to know particular spells, just as D&D.

In addition, we get casting times and recovery times for wizards, some spells needing some time spent in some form of ritual not detailed, while others apparently put some form of strain on the caster one would need to recuperate from.

Practically all spells also require ingredients to be cast, mostly philtres of some 'humour' or other, or Talismans. Again a very RPG feature which was abandoned for the wargame but retained with some modifications in WFRP.

Enhancing and Annihilating is the bluffing-game of dispelling magic aimed at wizards, secretly assigning constitution to dispel or enhance spells cast.

The Fumble Factor presents another rule that is in many ways geared for campaign play as one of the triggers of the Fumble test is when the wizard attempts to cast a newly learned spell for the first time (would you use that in a war game battle?). Essentially it is a system for spell-failure or miss-casts, and a bit of a balancing factor for wizards, as attempting to cast spells of a higher level than current mastery give a modifier to the test. Like morale, the chance of fumbling is affected by the wizard being wounded.

The effects of a fumble can be quite disastrous, hitting yourself, allies or causing opposite effects! One might even buff enemy units by fumbling.

Both the Fumble Factor and Enhance/annihilate seem to work best with a GM at the table for some things are to be done in secret or rolled for in secret to have fun effects...

Volume 2 also gives the first random generation table for characters, player or non-player depending on the type of game being played. Here we get the wizard generation tables, giving rules to generate mastery level (on a d10), constitution (2d4 per level), if a wizard is specialized or not (d6 table, 1:3 chance of specialization), number of spells and which spells. Characteristics are to be generated using the rules in Volume 3, though are modified in relation to mastery level (+1 WS, I and W per mastery level).

The list of spells is quite large, 75 are provided, though not all of them are useful in a normal table-top battle, many being utilitarian kind of spells (lock, detect hidden doors, far sight) while others have only cosmetic -albeit comical- effects like curse. Of note is that there are as yet only 2 lores of magic (general and necromantic), no distinction being made between general magic and elementalism, illusionism and deamonology. Any evil wizard may summon deamons, Balrogs even!

Necromancy is quite a small lore though, only 15 out of 75 spells are necromantic.

And now to my favourite part of Volume 2, Enchanted Objects. This chapter summarily describes various magic items, some of which do not even get defined rules! The writer tells the reader- in between the lines-: “I trust in your imagination, figure something out, do what you like, you bought this because you are awesome and creative!”

The greatest value in this chapter is in my opinion not the rules, but the world building notes presented through the magic item descriptions, especially among the magic weapons.

Quite a few items have a story and many of those might be taken as adventure seeds by GM's. I know that one contestant in the Citadel Compendium's Character design competition played a campaign based on the (Tolkien-inspired) story of the Forges of Aran-Cabal, one of the more fearsome magic weapon sources. In fact, the campaign arc described was more or less Opposite-World Lord of the Rings! It can be found here

And did you know the original warhammer world had realms known as Borunna and Bloodren? Human realms that have some magic crafting bladesmiths.

The dwarves of course are as ever, champions of ironworking and Firsthammer gives us the first look into the realm of the Dwarves.

Originally the Dwarven Kingdom was called Caraz-Adul, its strongest fortress being Caraz-A-Carak, nice to see the current Dwarf Capital's origin in the first ever Warhammer game!

It elaborates further on the “heir-weapons” of the Dwarf nobility and gives a shout-out to Volume 1 by mentioning the magic hammer of the Dwarf commander in the Ziggurat of Doom scenario (Foebane). Together with foebane, we only get rules for two weapons from the Dwarven Forges, but the presumed loss of Foebane at the Ziggurat is a nice plot-hook for an adventure.

Names, locations, artefacts, I could get a lot out of this part of the book. A lot of items described could be a quest objective of some kind and I feel many who would review this edition from a wargaming perspective would overlook and miss out on the scenario opportunities presented here. Also, the description of Garathea's Cord is classic warhammer slapstick!

I get a strong notion that Firsthammer's target audience would have been the regular customers of Games Workshop back then. Not only did I learn that it was meant as freebie with mail order parcels (thanks Orlygg), but the rules are not detailed, clear and unambiguous enough to be an entry-level wargame. Firsthammer is for experienced gamers who can come up with their own stuff and especially roleplayers who want to now and again fight a bigger battle.

Concluding, volume 2 is in my opinion one of the best Firsthammer booklets for the good read the enchanted items chapter provides and the implied adventure hooks transcend the warhammer game. I'd advise any GM who runs a Fantasy RPG to take a look at that chapter and take an idea or two from it for adventures or magic items... So, let I also pose a question to the readers of this blog: what items would you have fun to write into a quest or adventure?

1st WARHAMMER, a closer look: vol.1: Table-top Battles part 3

Continuing where the previous post left of, we now come to the part of Volume 1 that gives some advice on how to play the game with your miniatures, a summary glance at waging war underground, rules for creatures and their special abilities, the first Warhammer scenario and the Bestiary.

The original publication of Warhammer did not yet have a points system, so the eponymous chapter of the book (Table-top Battles), gives some general advice on table-top wargaming, i.e. how to lay-out a table using common sense (there's not much though). It's also the first time that the troop types and forming up of regiments is covered in more detail. even though the movement rules are written with ranked-up miniatures in mind, only on page 27 proper guidelines on how to form units are given. In Firsthammer it's only guidelines though, advising the use of regiments with homogeneous weapons and armour rather than mixed units whereas later editions required regiments to be homogeneous.

Also in true wargaming fashion, the basing of troops is far more detailed and influential to the game than in later editions. It gives 4 base sizes: 15mm for small humanoids (halflings and lesser goblins), 20mm for 'normal' sized humanoids (dwarves, goblins, men and elves), 25mm for Orcs and hobgoblins, and 25x40mm for cavalry. Later editions did away with the 15mm base size. Large monsters do not have a predetermined base-size, the rules only state that these should be appropriate to the model's size.
To add to this are the Base-size modifiers for Skirmishers (+50%) and Shock-troops (-5mm). A nice touch, giving a clear visual aid to what kind of troops you face, but not really practical with the models I and my friends own (all slottabase era save for a single regiment of Orcs found in a bargain-bin once). Note that there was not yet a "skirmish formation" as in the later editions, but skirmishers were in ranks, albeit with larger bases to make them stand out from standard and shock troops.

Fighting in Dungeons is an important chapter for those of us (me) who want to use Firsthammer as RPG rules. The rules given are not as complete as one might wish for, though the chapter assumes the reader to have some familiarity with dungeon crawling roleplaying games. The rules for darkness and lights are well conceived.
The opening doors mechanics are a bit lacking though, in that they only provide in forcing doors (though these are quite detailed and account for heavy cutting and/or crushing weapons) but nothing on lock-picking. Lock-picking will altogether be foreign to Firsthammer until White Dwarf 51 published play-test rules for Thieves (which I will try to provide on this blog and are a nice peek into the WFRP design progress!)

Flying Creatures are summarily handled in a one-page chapter, and are essentially the 4th/5th edition rules for flyers minus aerial combat and the 24" table-top-level flying (things I might add if it becomes relevant).
Flying creatures are scary though, big initiative bonus, weapon length assumed as 'pike' and penalties to hit for enemies engaging them with melee and missile weapons.

The Ziggurat of Doom is the first ever Warhammer scenario, pitting 6 Dwarf Heroes (pre-hero rules) against a horde of goblins. It is a nice little game really, in which the dwarfs must make good use of the Ziggurat to keep the waves of goblins at bay.
The advantage seems to be firmly with the Dwarves though, despite goblin numeric superiority. This is because of their high Weapon Skill, 5 of the Dwarves being "accomplished" melee fighters, while their leader Thorgrim Branedimm is an "expert" hammer-wielder with a magic hammer that causes fear to enemies within 15". In fact, 6 named dwarves face of against a horde of nameless mooks, who must test against fear and have epic-level dice-luck to accomplish anything!
The scenario objectives also skew in the favour of the Dwarves, as the goblins score 2 points for each Dwarf slain while the Dwarves score 1 point per turn survived with at least 1 Dwarf remaining. Effectively this means that the Goblins have 12 turns to wipe out the Dwarfs to win and 13 turns to get a draw. Any other outcome is a Dwarf Victory.

Following the scenario is the Creature List which starts of with rules for Poison. I find the poison rules a bit off in that poison must be saved at using Strength rather than Toughness, which would be (to me) the obvious characteristic for such.
Regeneration comes, next, being a bit different from later editions, the first incarnation of regeneration being a bit like AD&D as I experience in Baldur's Gate: lose all wounds but test each round if your monster regenerates.
Animals are divided into non-intelligent creatures and semi-intelligent ones and are exempt from morale test but affected by fear, terror and hatred as applicable. Non-intelligent animals are subject to stupidity.

The creatures provided in this part of the book get some summary descriptions, some being just what models are available to represent them. The number of creatures provided is sufficient for the rules-set, and it features some creatures that have since been removed from the Warhammer world... Menfish being the most famous example.
There also used to be a large variety of were-creatures, winged animals, reptiles, amphibians, more goblin variants and several types of giant (no less than 8 sub-types of giant are given), very similar to the wealth of giant-types provided in (A)D&D. Chaotic attributes are mentioned in the creature lists for the first time, and pop-up now and again with certain creatures but are not described in the set at all. The first we will see of Warhammer's Realms of Chaos would be in the First Citadel Compendium.

Most monstrous creatures are fittingly terrifying, the Balrog being king at that, with its fire-spells, epic characteristics (Maxed-out) and terrible fire-whip. Here the Balrog is pretty much presented as described in the works of JRR Tolkien and can be used as leaders for a small contingent of goblinoids and trolls.
Dragons are to be found in various colours like in D&D. Interesting hook here are the possibilities of Dragons being Intelligent rather than semi-intelligent and having magical abilities. Also lifted straight from D&D I presume, but very neat for dragon-based adventures and battles. The rules for the various dragons span the better part of 3 pages.

What I miss in this part of the rules however, are the heroes and individuals. you only get basic creatures and only a slight glimpse on heroic humanoids in the scenario... Well, except for Balrogs and Liches- hm... there could be a cool scenario in a battle between a Balrog and Liche who each have a bunch of suitable units under ther command.

So, that's the entirety of Volume 1: Tabletop battles. overall a nice set of unpolished but playable rules if you ask me. It does require a good measure of Game Master and Player creativity to be used to full effect and would need some house rules, especially the weapon bonuses vs troop-types if used as RPG.

1st WARHAMMER, a closer look: vol.1: Table-top battles part 2

In my previous post I took my first steps into 1st edition "archeology" diving into Warhammer Volume 1: combat covering the movement and shooting phase and had a bit to say on psychology, at the time, at the front of the rulebook, rather than in the back.

Now we continue with the Shooting phase dissection, mainly because it brings us the first Advanced Rule: Critical Hit
In Firsthammer the Mass-Combat Fantasy Roleplaying game, critical hits are handled a bit differently than in many other RPG's, for rather than being the result of a lucky die-roll, it is in fact more like a "called shot"-type of skill of any creature armed with a missile weapon provided the target is in short range and the creature has BS 4. To effect a critical hit, the shooter must hit the target and then roll as many dice to-wound as the target has actual wound points. If all of those dice rolled come up with a sufficient number for a wound (or kill as it was then called), the target has sustained a critical hit and dies instantly. otherwise the shot is wasted.
I like this rule a lot, and would certainly try and use it when I finally get some mates to do some oldschool RPG-ing.
Critical hits are also possible in melee, but are only available to "Individuals" fighting a creature that has multiple wounds on his profile. What individuals are is not all too clear, but I guess the writer refers to what we nowadays call Characters models. I guess these include your Firsthammer RPG adventure characters created using Volume 3. ;)

After Shooting we get to the Eponymous chapter of Volume 1: Combat.

Warhammer's Hand-to-hand combat system is actually my favourite hand-to-hand combat system among the games I played to date. The mechanics are table-driven but not too crunchy, opponent's skill is a big factor and armour negates damage rather than making you harder to hit or reducing damage. What I especially like about early editions Warhammer HTH is the fact that the chart is a lot tougher in fights with roughly equal (1 point apart at best) weapon skills. Things like higher ground, winning the previous round and charging really count in editions 1 to 3!

Also, striking in initiative order, regardless of charging is Oldhammer, and as I have heard, back in 8th edition. Still gone is the so-called 'stepped initiative' (a later WFRP-term) which means creatures with multiple attack do their first attack at full initiative and subsequent attacks each a grade of initiative lower, i.e: human hero with I4 and A3 would do his first attack at initiative 4, his second at initiative 3 and so forth, meaning lower initiative creatures could possibly get off an attack in between one of these attacks.
Just take a look at that To-Hit chart for close combat below (and the cool dual-wielding Orc beside it). In early edition warhammer having a high WS was a matter of Life and Death!

Taking a bit of a leap forward, the RPG characters you create with Volume 3 all start with but 1 (ONE) wound and in Firsthammer's character advancement system, won't get a second wound until they have earned 500 XP points (equalling 250 slain orcs or collecting 5000 Gold Crowns in loot) and you may forget about advancing strength and toughness altogether as those characteristics are not covered. You can however, advance your Weapon Skill much earlier and it would be wise to do so if you want to give your character a fighting chance against a lot of monsters. In fact, a WS 6 character may go toe to toe with a Troll, Ogre, riding reptile/riding wyvern or Mummy and have a fighting chance despite multiple high strength attacks being thrown at him just because the chance he gets hit by these WS2 or 3 creatures is quite small while he hits them easily in return.

I find it a nice touch that the various weapon skill levels are given titles like "inexperienced" and "accomplished" in this edition. It could be used as some form of indicator of skill given by a GM if he does not wish to give away precise numbers:
GM: "your opponent, Sir Skullsmash the Magnificent is know as an expert Swordsman!"
Player: "ye gods! he has WS 8 against my 5. I'd better run now"

Alternatively, it can be used in lieu of OD&D's level titles for fighters "I am sir Luc de Batards, Skillful swordsman"

*overlooked this when discussing the shooting phase, but Bow Skill also had these name-grades.

Next up in noticeable novelties in Firsthammer are the Weapon stats for close combat weapons. It's all quite broad categories and very much in the league of Table-top wargames rather than RPG's but a bit of a jumble at that.
First off, the Lance is practically the only weapon that gets a separate mention for its combat bonuses (+1I and +1 to kill/wound). The others are divided into two types: Heavy Crushing and Cutting weapons and light cutting weapons. apparently there are no piercing weapons or light crushing weapons? And then it gets even more interesting when weapon length is brought into the mix in addition to the kind of formation the target troops are in. Apparently, hitting a skirmisher or individual with a club is harder than hitting at a dude standing in a falanx formation, but using a sword or scimitar has no problems with skirmishers but hard times against close order troops. hm...
In all, it does make things a bit easier. just one page for the weapon rules and its pretty clear cut but would it work in the RPG-style firsthammer game? It does narrow down your choices for weapon type, your not useless with just a knife and the cheaper weapons do confer pretty bonuses in the correct circumstances. On the other hand, besides reach, there's nothing that sets a hand axe apart from a bearded battle axe, which could be a point of conflict between GM's and Axe-crazy historybuff players.
To be honest, the weapon  rules in Firsthammer were not doing it for me at all before I wrote this, but now I have given them more thought, they are actually rather cool and I really want to see them in action some time. But just how should creatures in RPG combat be regarded? Skirmish order or Shock order? I guess I'd have it depend on the disposition of troops, location and all circumstances that may come up in play (important because of the weapon rules).

Monsters with Heavy Cutting Weapons are M***erF***ing badass though... I don't even want to talk about it. (see for yourself on Scribd)

Combat results are based on number of kills per side, highest kill count wins, loser is pushed back 2" and the winner must follow. 3 pushbacks in a row cause a unit to rout, though certain creatures might rout after more or fewer pushbacks (Dwarfs for example, must be pushed back 5 times before routing, while Orcs and Goblins leg it after just 2). See that? No Break-test involved here. just plain old attrition!

Free-hacks against routing backs are in this edition too, though pursuit is handled differently. It's not completely compulsory as a player can choose to have his unit remain stationary in his next movement phase. If pursuit is given, the pursuers move in the Rout Phase just as their quarry and may strike freehacks as long as they catch up to the routers. Pursuit then only stops  if the pursuers are intercepted by another enemy unit, are all killed, kill all routers or if the player controlling the unit rolls a 6 on a d6 at the start of his turn to try and stop them.

And after with pursuit, as in the following of routers, follows the following Advanced Rule: Follow on Combat. This is a rule of advanced heroics thereafter only seen again in the guise of Warhammer Quest's Deathblow special rule, which is but a meagre shadow of the original. Follow on Combat is another special ability that comes for free at a certain characteristic level. In this case Initiative 6 or better. Units with initiative 6+ may, after winning a round of combat, immediately fight again if they roll 4 or better on a d6 and may move up to 3" to engage a new enemy if unengaged and may continue this as long as they win and there are enemies in range. Ah, I can just see the heroes created by my friends cut a bloody swathe through a horde of goblins as the win round after round and roll 4+ after 4+!

The rule is illustrated by the first Warhammer Named Character, Solomon Klomp, who is one tough MF-er with an unthinkable (for a later edition human) Initiative of no less than 8!

Not only that, overleaf he takes on the much-tougher-in-first-edition Giant Rat and even a winged serpent (I gave you a link to a scribd document posted by an awesome dude I don't know, go check it out)

The basic rules end at another Advanced Rule: Knock out! providing stunning/overbearing rules for Warhammer, and the first rule which requires d10's to use (for determining the time spent out cold).

Welp. That's it for today. Basic rules covered, next we fill up with some gaming tips. flavour and bestiary things form Volume 1 and I might throw in something extra just for the special.

1st Warhammer, a closer look: Vol. 1: tabletop battles

Today I have some time to spare and will take a closer look at the core of the Warhammer system as it was originally published: the Combat rules, the Volume 1 booklet of Tabletop Battles.

Great picture IMO. what's that Chaos Orc
with the drooping-horns helmet looking at?
He's not looking at the scary shield so why
the wide eyes?

In the more recent editions combat (and magic) is all there is to Warhammer Fantasy, unless of course your playing WFRP (any edition)!

The books starts with a brief introduction on Fantasy wargaming, use of dice, miniatures and the turn sequence:

1. Movement phase
2. shooting phase
3. close combat phase
4. second movement phase2nd Movement phase? If I had not read WH40K:Rogue Trader and 2nd and 3d edition WFB I would have been completely baffled by this. Move twice? what about march moves? can I march twice too?
5. magic phaseOnly in 6th edition did the Magic phase move from the end of the turn to being phase 2 (between movement and shooting)
6. rout phase (currently part of the movement phase as "compulsory movement"

Nothing much has changed though when you look at the basic rules. Things have been tidied up a bit, streamlined and in some cases simplified. not always for the best, but the majority of changes after 1st edition do improve the game.
Let's take Movement as our first example here:
In the original game, movement was, as it is today, measured in inches. And fractions of inches. Did you know that Elves originally moved 4.5 inches? and Dwarfs 3.5?
And we also hit our first mystery in the rules right at the first page describing movement: armour encumbrance!
Nowadays armour encumbrance is pretty clear cut. If you have heavy armour and a shield, you lose one point of movement. In originalhammer it just says that all "armoured" creatures except Dwarfs walk one inch slower. Nowhere in the 3 books is explained what kind of armour slows you down only that Mithril armour does not. So chain mail (light armour) appears to be just as cumbersome as Plate armour (heavy armour), and shields do not seem to factor into the equation.
There is no marching (something only thought up for 4th edition) because players get another movement phase at the end of their turn, the reserves phase. Difficult ground and crossing obstacles appear at first glance to be similar, but are not. The former counts each inch crossed as 2 inches and the latter halves the crossing model's movement... which make me flinch due to the half-inches used in some profiles.
wheeling, turning, extending frontage, Charging, flee-as-charge-reaction and stand and shoot are present in 1st edition, but more awesomely, Counter-Charging and interpenetration are in too!

Oddly enough, after the chapter of movement, we get a chapter on Psychology, which in my later editions experience was usually somewhere in the back-half of the rulebook among the "advanced" rules. It makes sense though to put Psychology close to movement, as in Originalhammer (and in modernhammer too), most psychological effects affect movement.
Then we get to the all important chapter of Morale. oddly enough, no one has yet been shot at or hacked with an axe, but we are given the rules for troop morale and courage right before the chapters detailing that stuff.
Oh wait... the original warhammer Morale save is what we now call: the Panic Test (i.e. Leadership-test for casualties by shooting, units breaking/fleeing nearby and slain generals).
In originalhammer, Morale was tested on with a d6 roll, modified by penalties and bonuses requiring a score of 3 or better to "pass a morale save". The rules for morale are the first major "hey that's different" moment for me. Not only is the "panic-test" handled differently, the effect of a failed test is completely alien to my 5th edition-trained brain too! The results are scaled!

• Rolling a 0 or less for the test (due to the mentioned penalties, this is possible) a unit immediately routs and behaves much like any fleeing unit would do in later editions. rallying being an option... but again its a bit different in that it must double move (charge-rate sayeth the rules) in each player's Rout Phase.
• getting a 1 results in your unit having to 'just' retreat for two turns. No further explanation is given on that. I guess you'd just be obligated to have your unit turn and move away for 2 movement phases?
•  scoring a 2 gives you a choice to either 'halt' or retreat for two turns, no explanation on this either. A smart GM would probably be able to judge what is the "realistic' option based on the situation in which the morale test was failed.

It also treats multi-wound individuals a bit harsher, requiring a morale test for each wound suffered and inflicting a penalty of -1 to the roll for each wound suffered. Now, that could put pay to all the Super-characters if you could make it into an 8th edition house rule!

... resisting the urge to extend this post unduly with an enormous rant about the diminishing of the morale and psychology rules in warhammer since 6th ed, we continue with Shooting...


After movement comes the shooting phase, I am back in familiar territory here. The ranged to-hit chart is pretty much the same as it is today, basic score needed on a to hit equating 7 minus shooter's bow skill. The to-hit penalties for range and cover remain unchanged to this day, but the to-wound chart gives us auto-kill results if S= Tx2+1

Today the Human's Toughness is brought to us
by the letter 'B'

Look at the picture to the side. What do you notice?

...


Yes, the Strength of the weapons is quite different than it is now, but that's because everyone's/everything's strength is one lower in 1st edition, it got an Characteristics advance in 2nd Edition ;)
Then we get weird again, Toughness not only being 1 point lower (like strength), but also measured in Letters! Why? what wondrous thinking might have led to that? Classic Hex-and-Counter Wargames perchance, where units were given a troop quality based on alphabetical order?

In this case, Toughness A= toughness 1 and toughness 10 (or should that be 'J') is off the map.

Then we have armour saves... back on home ground, nothing much changed but for what names are given to types of armour. In Originalhammer Light armour is called Chainmail, Heavy armour is named Plate armour and a 3d rank of armour goes by the name of "Mithric armour". Obviously inspired on Tolkien's Mithril, which 4th edition was cool enough to split into Ithilmar for Elves and Gromril for Dwarfs. Saving throws are as they are to this day, each grade of armour giving 1 'pip' on a d6 for a saving throw, high numbers good, low numbers bad.

The armour save modifiers for strength, high strength attacks reducing armour saves, also originate in the original. However, whereas all (or most) creature's strengths are one lower than from 2nd edition onwards, the armour save modifiers did in fact start at S4! How about that?

As this post is getting quite longer than I expected before starting, I will end it hereabouts. In the next post, we continue with the first nifty Advanced Rule and I hope to get through the full extend of the close combat rules. The post thereafter will include the remainder of Volume 1.

So, Originalhammer, a lot seems familiar and yet, a lot is not.

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).