Old Skål Cometh

Greetings.

As a reader of my blog you might be a little confused at the sight of this post and that peculiar banner atop it. What is this "Old Skål" nonsense? Let me elaborate.

Before the year 2018 went out, I made a promise here at ExtraBushyBeards. I swore to bring existing campaigns to a closure, to start a bunch of new ones and to generally uphold all the things going on in the blog: shareable campaign systems, stories, narrative battle reports and pics of painted models. However, I also made a solemn promise on a wholly different matter... to start working on a project that would breathe the dark, grimy air of The World That Was. To start posting material on one of the old editions of Warhammer Fantasy Battles, a pedecessor of Age of Sigmar.

What this promise means is that I'm going to start collecting armies and rules for one of the older editions and to keep those models on square bases for that specific purpose. It also means you will be able to see WHFB-stuff on this page alongside all things Age of Sigmar.

No-one ever said these two game systems couldn't co-exist in a hobbyist's life.

"Alright, peeps! Pack your squares, we're heading back to the past for another spin!"

What draws me back to the older editions is not any flaw I find in Age of Sigmar: I find AoS the single most enjoyable miniatures game I've ever played, and it will remain my number one favourite for all time. Still, I have my wargaming roots deep in the beginning of the 7th Edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battles and I want to re-visit that early part of my hobby life. As I extensively explain (and to some extent, complain) in my write-up Age of Casual Salvation, I loved some specific parts of the WHFB as a hobby, yet there were many drawbacks and other bits that rubbed me the wrong way: mainly the arcade-y and competitive compromises the ruleset had gone through on its way to its 7th version.

Whereas Age of Sigmar ticks all my boxes for a wholesome and entertaining miniature wargame hobby, I have started thinking... what if I went back and re-visited one of the older editions with this new, open-ended, narrative-heavy mindset I've discovered with Age of Sigmar? Because, in the end, Age of Sigmar is the legacy of the older editions, one which happens to compile all the elements I love about the Warhammer system. Games Workshop rolled back a lot of the cumbersome competitive-style parts of the Warhammer system, as evidenced by the lack of a points system back when AoS initially launched.

Doesn't that suggest there must be some older point of reference, a place in time where the story-telling tool-box aspect of the game still triumphed over the crunching of numbers?

"Square bases! Round bases! Squares! Rounds! Squares! Rounds! Raaaaargh!!!"

I set out in search of this point of reference, this stripped core of Warhammer game system that was present in every edition including Age of Sigmar; in some editions the core was just a bit more hidden beneath tournament rulings and other balance-oriented tweaks.

First of all I strolled over into the ruins of the 8th Edition WHFB and its mother, the 7th edition. Amidst all the blood, shit and spittle still staining the crumbled shells of these Editions from the fierce opinion-battles of the System Transition Wars, I discovered that the rich world, the backstories and the plethora of different playable scenarios were much of the lure of those Editions. Sieges, random terrain, ambushes, last stands and whatnot, all set in the deeply described and widely recorded World of Warhammer. The rules were quite streamlined even then, with players being able to steal souls from the undead (who often have none) and the richly depicted factions of the game waging wars with upwards of half a dozen pre-determined unit types. Each High Elf carrying a greatsword is a Swordmaster? In the culturally rich land of the elves every cavalryman is either a Silver Helm, a Dragon Prince or an Ellyrian Reaver? So... Are there social class-based restrictions to weapon usage in Ulthuan? Did the elves of Ellyrion patent the use of bows from horseback, as there are no, say, Sapherian Reavers?

The core of Warhammer was still there: player-created heroic stories in a richly described fantasy world, with rules to have the inhabitants of the world whack each other with sharp objects.

"Wait, cease fire! Old Snorri brought his crossbow into our unit of Thunderers. We must reform and evict him!"

Having extracted the core of the 7th and 8th Editions from their smoking ruins, I continued my venture out into the older Editions that I had never personally played. I arrived at the ancient moss-covered remains of the 5th and 6th Editions that beckoned me from the woods of the past. I dared closer, to learn from these old ones and to see what it was that made them tick. To my surprise I found them much like their more recent successors, with clearly defined unit types and ways to form a legal army list. The rules were more rambling than those of 7th and 8th, but they were easily recognisable. Many of the odd little bonus rules in the later editions were revealed to be remnants of larger rule branches from the older ones, which I found amusing in the extreme. Like all living things, game systems must evolve and shed useless or impractical parts of themselves in the process of evolution!

I was also positively surprised that many spells and abilities took faction- or race-specific abilities and specialties into consideration: no stealing souls from models that do not have one! Another funny thing that caught my eye was the pace at which close combat was carried out in each edition. Aside from the 8th, which also had larger unit sizes and wider formations, the older editions allowed only the first rank of each unit formation to fight, as opposed to two fighting ranks in the 8th. Combat was slower and the situations on the battlefield didn't shift and change quite so rapidly due to combat itself. Could this be a clue of some kind? Slower combat left more time for non-engaged units to maneuver around and vie for positions on the field, while mages rained fire and archers poured shafts into the foe; in other words, the battles were less hectic, in a way. That is not to say the games weren't intense! On the contrary: tension is always palpable when two generals lean over a crowded battlefield to consider their options and the carefully calculated moves of their miniature subordinates. What I mean is that the games were slower, less hurried.

The core of Warhammer seemed to remain the same: casually paced player-created heroic stories in a richly described fantasy world, with rules to have the inhabitants of the world whack each other with sharp objects.

Whenever I post old school content in the blog, you'll find it tagged with this rather retro "Old Skål"-banner.

My ventures took me further out into the shadows of the past, bringing me to the foundations of 3rd Edition WHFB that were only vaguely discernible under the layers of soil and vegetation that had piled upon them with the inevitable flow of time. I was utterly fascinated by what I found: one book for rules, another for all the available armies. And not just restricted little factions but actual lists of recruitable creatures! There were familiar forces like the Dark Elves, High Elves, Empire, Bretonnia, Dwarfs, Chaos, Undead and the Wood Elves, but instead of limited unit types with pre-determined equipment, the Warhammer Armies book listed each faction's selection of warriors from all walks of life. For example, the High Elves had guards, rural levies, trained archers, marines and merchant companies to choose from for their infantry options alone, with mounted coast-guards, knights and scout riders to pick for cavalry. These units had different sets of stats, most often divided so that less trained or less enthusiastic troops cost less points per model, but equipping them was left to the player: one could take a unit of levy with longbows and another with shields and spears, or spend more points and hire a cohort of elven guards with similar equipment but more courage and skill with weapons!

The system is truly captivating as it enables the player to gather a very narrative-driven force to play games with. Lord Andrioch's Lothern Levies, a force of cheap elven militia bulked up by the local merchant company and led by Lord Andrioch Brightfeather, an ambitious but rather untalented lvl 15 Elven Noble. How does that sound? Magnificent, to me at least. And yes, the heroes have levels in 3rd Edition! It is a relic of Warhammer's distant origins, a link between dungeon-crawling Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Warhammer Fantasy Battles, its sister focusing on mass combat. It is, in fact, very common in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1st Edition's adventures to make references to Fantasy Battles whenever the story calls for a larger armed conflict!

The game system of 3rd Edition WHFB is in many ways a more bloated version of its later versions. There are rules for flying models to change elevation and drop down rocks, rules for casting illusionary units to distract your foe, rules to carry torches around and set fire to stuff, not to mention the possibility of changing your units' formations shieldwalls, wedges, squares and even testudos! The weapon rules are also closer to roleplaying games than contemporary tabletop wargames, as daggers, spears and pikes give models higher Initiative, dual-wielding models suffer bonuses for both left- and right-handed attacks and many weapons confer additional bonuses when used on horseback or against mounted units. While all this can sound a bit off-putting at first, as it did to me initially, it is an undeniable fact that it's extremely cool to have your unit of half-orc spearmen plunder a battlefield tavern and re-emerge with pockets full of bottles to use as Improvised Throwing Weapons.

The core of Warhammer that I discovered in the later Editions was clearly a dominant feature in 3rd Edition WHFB. Despite its immense size and rules for absurd situations on the battlefield and beyond, this ruleset gives the players greater freedom than any of those that followed. The levels of player freedom in 3rd, both in game rules and in imagination, corresponds very closely to that of Age of Sigmar, don't you think? A rich, wide world with yet enough vagueness to leave the players free hands to place their adventures anywhere and to involve anything they want to. Back in 3rd Edition, many of the familiar races and features of the Old World were already in place, but timelines and locations were still only vaguely described, leaving a great deal to the imagination and needs of the players themselves.

It is not so much a pack of rules for balanced tournament gaming as it is a toolbox for narrative freedom of the hobbyists: the players can use as many or as few of the rules presented as they want! The same mentality can be found at the core of Age of Sigmar, so I present a question to those dwindling few who bull-headedly argue that AoS killed Warhammer: if what you preach is true, then how do you explain Age of Sigmar staying truer to its original heritage than the Editions of WHFB that came before the transition? If anything, Age of Sigmar is the rebirth of Warhammer Fantasy Battles as it had been meant to be employed – as a collection of suggestions for ruling-guidelines for hobbyists creating incredible stories with each other and their miniatures.

What are the conclusions, then?

I checked out WHFB 1st and 2nd Editions, too, but they still show their nature of being "in-development" a bit too harshly; many details and inconsistencies get smoothed out in the 3rd, and the world gains consistency as well as races are bundled up into factions and alignments (Law-Good-Neutral-Evil-Chaos). That is to say that the 3rd Edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battles will be the one I shall dive into in my Old Skål project: the perfect mix of player freedom, established guidelines, rich background and unhurried casual gameplay!

And of course, I do recognize that many hobbyists found WHFB Editions 4th to 8th more to their liking that the 3rd or AoS: and the diversity of the Warhammer hobby is what makes it tick. Some people, like me, enjoy the freedom of creating narratives and couldn't care less about balance or points; and some people like fine-tuning their army lists and engaging in challenging balanced-out matches using rules that leave less to the players' interpretation, rules that are clearer and more straight-forward. Yet all these different types of players flock under the same hobby-umbrella that is Warhammer! We are all different and that's what makes us rich, but the trick is to learn how to co-exist with ideas and preferences different to yours so that everyone could enjoy the hobby the way they like it.

For me, the way to go is a steady flow of AoS games, narratives and painting, spiced up with the occasional foray into Warhammer 3rd Edition for some longer, in-depth weekend games.

To those of you who scrolled past my ramblings and jumped in here right at the very end: my regular Age of Sigmar adventures will from now on be accompanied by irregular posts and battle reports regarding the Old Skål -project!