Warhammer: The Old World - Forces of Fantasy

Warhammer: The Old World

by Games Workshop

It is a dark age, a bloody age, an age of strife and war, of Chaos and sorcery. Yet amidst all the fire and fury it is a time too of mighty heroes, of bold deeds, and of great courage.

Warhammer: the Old World – Forces of Fantasy is your indispensable guide to the armies of order and civilisation.

This book, used in conjunction with the Warhammer: The Old World Rulebook, provides you with all the information required to command your collection of miniatures on the field of battle.

Inside this 192-page hardback book you will find army lists containing profiles and special rules for every model available for the following factions, alongside magic items and unique spells:

– Dwarfen Mountain Holds
– Empire of Man
– Kingdom of Bretonnia
– Wood Elf Realms
– High Elf Realms

Each army list includes the Grand Army composition list for that faction, along with an introduction to the faction and a full description of each of the many characters and units it contains. Alongside this is a showcase of beautifully painted armies from the talented painters of the world-famous ’Eavy Metal team.

This is an expansion to Warhammer: The Old World – you'll need a copy of the Warhammer: The Old World Rulebook, available separately, to use the contents of this book.

Genres: Fantasy

192 pages, Hardcover

Published January 20, 2024

About the author

Games Workshop Group PLC (often abbreviated as GW) is a British miniature wargaming manufacturing company. Games Workshop is best known as developer and publisher of the tabletop wargames Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000 and The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game.

Reviews

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Old World setting has really returned to the original ways of Warhammer Fantasy Battle, sort of... In the original creation the setting was broken up around the rule book then the forces of "good" and the forces of "evil". In the new edition they've used the same split, but now it's just the "Forces of Fantasy".

This book gives you a little bit of lore to get you started with your army. Right now none of the massive events from Warhammer Fantasy Battle have happened, and this setting feels a lot more of a pre-game of what's to come. I fully expect to see the forces of Chaos rise in the near future when we get back onto the regular timeline of the original release decades ago.

"Forces of Fantasy" gives you rules for the various armies and gives you instructions to help create a muster list. From here you will need to get a hold of your army's respective Arcane Journal to flesh out all the details of running your army. I'm sort of surprised they went this route instead of creating the old 128 page army books that gave you all the information you needed. I do wonder if they eventually march into the next edition they will eventually do that. There are just some minor details that I sort of wish they would get into and flesh out, but that's what makes this feel a lot more like a "getting started" sort of design. The rules are fully fleshed out, but I mean more in the sense of the lore at this point.

I did enjoy reading all the basic lore of all the armies though, so, in that regard I did enjoy the book. Maybe they're trying to entice people to start more than one army... which I can very much see Games Workshop doing. In any event, to play this game as any of the armies in this list, this book one really be enough. You need three books to fully play your army of choice in this edition of Warhammer.

[T R Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book includes all the unit rules for the five civilised factions involved in Old World’s narrative storyline, the Dwarfen Mountain Holds, the Empire of Man, the Kingdom of Bretonnia, the Wood Elf Realms and the High Elf Realms. As with the book covering the evil factions, this book has a brief overview of the setting and factions before moving on to the individual factions with a brief introduction to their lore, and the rules for their general units, magic, and special rules.

As with the evil book, the lore is more of a basic introduction than anything else (due to the more in-depth faction lore being in the Arcane Journals), this was a reasonably good book with rules that were easy to understand. I was glad to see that the Dwarfs have kept the ability to create custom magic items, and that the Bretonnians are back to using a proper lance formation (I seem to remember that some versions of the rule had them two-abreast rather than in an arrowhead). As with the other Old World sourcebooks, the artwork in the book is a nice mix of old artwork from Warhammer Fantasy Battles and Warmaster, most of which are in the nice sepia tones that some old editions used. The model showcase section for each faction was also reasonably good, but I do wish they had been a bit longer and shown more models.

[J.G. Cully · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. Just enough detail on the Old World without over whelming. All the right information for the various armies. Reminds me of the army books of old. Good job 👍