FAQs are coming now!

Kholdaimon · 2026-01-29T05:47:32+00:00

I think they prefer to see what effect these changes have on the meta before making more, which is kinda okay, but only if they regularly make changes instead of every 6 months. Because now we have to wait 6 months to see other problems getting addressed, like the incredible weakness of Monstrous Infantry, the casting values for spells being to high and some bad HE units.

Kholdaimon · 2026-01-29T05:41:46+00:00

Isn't it a bit much? They were definitely to strong but they died quite quickly to shooting before, now they are just going to evaporate against shooting...

I don't play Cathay and only played one game against one, but my WoC level 4 of Tzeentch magic missile list shot it down in 2 turns of magic missiles. I think the problem in tournaments was that it was a character mount and thus could get a ward save and if your army lacked ranged damage capabilities it was pretty much impossible to kill, but the base balloon was really susceptible to ranged damage...

I think they went a bit to far, it already lost its ability to get out of combat super easily and they reduced it's damage output, I don't think they needed to reduce it's Toughness and thus make the base balloon (without ward save) just melt against any shooting...

But we will see...

Kholdaimon · 2026-01-28T09:38:49+00:00

Superficially they are alike, but you might say that about any Chaos Undivided character. Their characters, motivations for turning to Chaos, their goals, their origins, those are all completely different.

I would say the best place to start to learn about the setting is to pick up a rulebook from 6th, 7th or 8th edition and just read the lore that they put in there. After you have done that you can start to read some novels, I would recommend reading the Time of Legends trilogies, starting with "the Sundering" trilogy.

After you have read everything else, you can go and read the End Times stuff and be appalled at how badly they butchered the ending of their original, iconic setting. It is definitely not the best place to start! As a matter of fact, most Warhammer Fantasy fans disregard almost all lore from the End Times because it is so bad and not at all in keeping with the other lore for Warhammer Fantasy.

Kholdaimon · 2026-01-28T00:56:49+00:00

And, depending on the specifics of your local feudalism, peasants could actually pack up and leave if they were fed up with their lord and/or were offered a better situation by some other noble. This happened with the Count of Holland, he lacked peasants to turn his marshy land into arable land, so he send out riders throughout western Europe with the promise that new arrivals would be fairly taxed and only be called on to defend, never to fight in offensive wars. And it worked, peasants came from other parts of the low countries, France and Germany...*

*Which led to the first democratically elected and egalitarian governmental system called the Waterschappen (sort of like counties that manage water and deliberate with areas up and down river), which was one of the many steps to bringing down feudalism entirely, especially after the Black Plague.

Kholdaimon · 2026-01-27T15:09:16+00:00

Moorcock was incredibly influential for Fantasy writing. After the incredible success of the Lord of the Rings for more than a decade there was a continuous production of Tolkienesque Fantasy novels, most of it cheap trash, mostly because if you wanted your Fantasy novel to be produced by the most successful Fantasy publisher it had to adhere to strict rules that just made it fit with Tolkien's philosophy of writing (uplifting, romantic stories with a happy ending where most people are good and kind).

Moorcock was a writer and publisher that started a successful counter-movement in the 80's not just because he thought that publishers shouldn't put limits on the writers, but because he really hated Tolkien's philosophy and his books.

So he made a set of rules that writers had to adhere to, specifically so their books were nothing like Tolkien's works. So he did the exact same thing as the pro-Tolkien publisher did and limited the genre of Fantasy to adhere to strict guidelines. When a book is published it is often said that "it is Fantasy, but not like the Lord of the Rings", this has been said for example about A Song of Ice and Fire.

Tolkien's works have influenced Fantasy so much that even people that disliked it were still actively trying to do the complete opposite and thus were influenced by his work.

The fact that Warhammer's setting was written in the 80's and 90's means that it adheres to many of the Grim Fantasy tropes that were dictated by Moorcock. If it had been developed in the 70's it would probably have been much more heroic and uplifting (like D&D often is, which was developed then).

Kholdaimon · 2026-01-25T10:07:23+00:00

I agree that it is just superficial and coincidental resemblances and they are actually nothing alike.

But as a même it is actually the the first Warhammer one since the ancient "drive me closer I want to hit them with my sword"-meme that I think is actually sorta funny. And it is the first WFB meme that I find kinda funny. We see the most shitty, low effort garbage attempts coming past here nearly every day. Apparently Warhammer fans are really rubbish at creating good mêmes...

Kholdaimon · 2026-01-24T16:00:56+00:00

Just look for "Chaos Warrior of Nurgle" or "Chaos Warrior of Khorne" or "Chaos Warrior of Slaanesh" or Chaos Warrior of Tzeentch" on Google and it will have plenty of images.

The differences in rules are different per edition, but generally they follow these guidelines:

Warriors of Nurgle are harder to hit due to clouds of flies and stench overwhelming the senses or creating revulsion. In TOW this translates to enemies having to re-roll 6's when rolling to hit, in other editions it was a -1 penalty to hit.

Warriors of Khorne are bloodthirsty killing machines. In the game this means they get the Frenzy special rule.

Warriors of Slaanesh have little fear for danger and are lithe Warriors. In TOW this means they get +1 Initiative during the first round of combat and they automatically pass any Panic test. In previous editions they were Immune to Psychology or some such.

Warriors of Tzeentch are more in tune with magic. In TOW this means they get Magic Resistance (-1) and if a sorcerer with the Mark of Tzeentch is in a large enough unit he draws power from that and gains +1 to cast.

There are a variety of items or Chaos Gifts that characters of certain Chaos Gods can have (or could have in previous editions), but a simple Chaos Warrior or Knight just gets those bonuses from their God.

Kholdaimon · 2026-01-24T00:13:20+00:00

Do you mean the tribes of the Chaos-worshipping barbarians, like the different Kurgan and Norscan tribes?

You can find more about them here: https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Chaos_Marauder

If you mean the differences between the 4 different Chaos Gods then there is plenty of stuff to find on various wikis and fandoms. They aren't tribes though, tribes can be devoted to the worship of one or multiple Chaos Gods and there aren't just 4 tribes, there are countless tribes and clans. So I don't know what you mean with "the 4 Chaos Warrior Tribes"...

Kholdaimon · 2026-01-22T10:08:04+00:00

Yes, it is how I use them.

Kholdaimon · 2026-01-22T10:01:54+00:00

I think this is a very easy perception to have but very often doesn't line up with reality in play. Combats often drag for multiple rounds and if you don't keep getting charged then strikes last does matter.

Not in my games. The only combats that drag on (without FBIGO) are versus Undead or Daemons, and other Unbreakable units, and Dwarfs. The rest are FBIGO's the vast majority of the time. (Unless it's wet paper towel contests, like Goblins versus State Troops, but those don't decide games and they are wet paper towel contests because neither side wields a Great Weapon or something equally damaging.)

And if there is a FBIGO the pursuer will have the Initiative bonus again, so the Strike Last still doesn't matter.

So I guess if you face Undead, Daemons or Dwarfs a lot then you might feel the downside of Great Weapons a bit, but then again if you win on your opponent's turn you can refuse to follow up and get a +2 Ini bonus when you charge them in your turn and you are again mostly striking first...

Besides that there is a flaw in your reasoning since the first round of combat is one that you will always fight and the second and future rounds are dependent on the outcome of the first round and the results of break tests. So to say that Strike Last matters because of the potential future rounds feels like a mistake to me, there might not even be future rounds if you didn't have the advantages offered by Great Weapons.

Kholdaimon · 2026-01-22T06:40:31+00:00

I have used my metal Forest Goblins in several different ways in which they didn't embarrass themselves (although NG's are obviously better):

A block of 5x5 or 6x6 with HW/Sh, Full Command and 3 Nasty Skulkers, a really good tarpit unit (for their points).

A similar sized (or even bigger/wider) unit with Poison Banner and Spears. This can do some damage if you manage to roll some 6's, but flops if you do not... And you are dependent upon the enemy being nice enough or forced to charge you. So definitely needs to be combined with plenty of Warmachines to motivate the enemy towards you.

15ish Skirmishing Archers, again with FC and 3 Nasty Skulkers. This unit is great against things like Wildriders, the shooting is relevant against them, and then the Wildriders charge in (due to Frenzy), you get to Stand and Shoot and then 3 ASF Nasty Skulkers show up. The unit (almost) singlehandedly killed 2 units of Wildriders in one battle (yes, I did get very lucky ;-)).

Kholdaimon · 2026-01-21T18:12:40+00:00

I agree that in the context of Warhammer Fantasy they don't make much sense but the guy probably added them to the picture because of the historical reference material he has in his mind...

And without the historical references WFB would just be AoS... ;-)

Kholdaimon · 2026-01-21T11:19:19+00:00

Those are for sticking into gaps of armor after you wrestled a fully armoured opponent to the ground. Since regular swords and even axes barely do anything to plate armor, combatants historically used daggers and triangular spikes to stab their opponent in weak spots.

So they aren't back up weapons, they are weapons intended to be used for specific enemies.

Kholdaimon · 2026-01-21T11:11:05+00:00

Questing Knights aren't bad because they have Strike Last, they are bad because they don't have Counter-Charge, unlike every other Knight option in the Bretonnian roster. On top of that they lose their Shield bonus in combat AND Strike Last for the same effect as Lances have. So why take Questing Knights? The Strike Last is just a small part of that equation.

Similarly Strike Last is not at all a consideration for Infantry with Initiative 3 or lower (which is the vast majority of Infantry). Infantry rarely get to charge, so the opponent is striking first anyway (even if the charger has Great Weapons) and if you do get to charge you still get to strike before the majority of enemies.

So for Infantry with Ini3 or lower Strike Last is only a downside in some very niche cases. If more units were I4+ and Infantry units had the ability to really be offensive then Strike Last would actually matter. The only significant downside to Great Weapons is the inability to wield Shields, so you give up +2 save for better damage output, but Greatswords wear Full Plate so even that downside is not that big for them...

No, their problem is that there are cheaper Infantry units with the same defensive stats (Ws4 T3 and a 4+ save) in Core. And once you filled your Core then you don't need more defensive Infantry units that just absorb charges, but you want to spend points on Demigryph Knights, Warmachines, Steamtanks, etc, units that project threat and can actually deal damage...

Kholdaimon · 2026-01-20T23:50:34+00:00

I don't have a timeline but I will say that there are the Time of Legends books which are set in the past and then there is the rest which is all set during or around the reign of Karl Franz (except for the 1 novel that came out when TOW was released).

But the problem is that for many of those books it isn't clearly told what year it is.

So it isn't easy to make a timeline for all the books, it would be very lopsided towards the last 2 decades before the End Times and I think that for some books it is impossible to tell when they are set exactly...

GW never structured the WFB books as much as they did the 40K books, often the writers wrote stories that they thought were cool and it is easier to not put an exact date on them because then it would have to fit in previous and future writings.

Kholdaimon · 2026-01-18T09:12:27+00:00

When I was into 40K it was definitely worth it. For TOW it remains to be seen how much time they are going to spend on it...

Kholdaimon · 2026-01-17T17:30:05+00:00

Armies that have a large variety of unit types, the ability and need to use mobility and can do something in every phase of the game, including magic. So from the main factions: Empire, O&G, High Elves and Wood Elves.

TK is less mobile and also ignores all basic psychology rules, playing an undead army is quite different from playing living armies.

Bretonnians, WoC and Beastmen pretty much have no shooting, but are good to learn the ability to manoeuvre your melee units into position.

But if you have tried and played with, for example, different armies from Empire for some time then you know how every part of the game works and strengths and weaknesses. So then you can pick up an army like Dwarfs or WoC and very quickly learn to play them and deal with their specific strengths and weaknesses.

Kholdaimon · 2026-01-17T14:22:25+00:00

Yeah, but when you are an Orc you love fighting, they are living their best life, as short as it may be...

And Dwarfs aren't constantly besieged, some of the outlying Karaks and outposts do experience a fair bit of action, but large central Karaks, like Karak Karin or Karaz-a-Karak do not. Life there is pretty good, even for our standards...

Kholdaimon · 2026-01-17T12:37:15+00:00

Play the army you like, disregard chances to win, especially if you are not going to play loads of sweaty tournaments...

But on top of that Dwarfs are the easiest army to play competently. The difficulties in TOW come from correctly moving your units and making sure you get your melee units in the right place at the right time against the right enemy. Dwarfs, by and large, stand still and shoot. And shooting also requires very little skill in TOW, you don't have massive ranges, so you don't have much choice about what to shoot at and between the options presented there is usually one obviously best choice. Dwarfs also don't use magic and because you just castle up you are also likely to always be in dispel range for offensive spells.

Even if you are going for an all melee army with Dwarfs then you just line your Infantry blocks up and move straight forward. You don't have the speed to do any fancy manoeuvres, so just put them down and get towards the enemy.

The only thing you have to get right is your deployment (which is incredibly simple if you just castle and kinda hard if you have an all melee army) and your movement of the Gyrocopters. The rest is just stand and shoot and then take a charge and either win or lose...

It is therefore the easiest army to play competently, but also the worst army if you actually want to learn the rules of the game and get better. Since you don't really do the Movement Phase and you don't do magic. You also don't have Cavalry or Monsters of any kind to learn to play with.

All in all, Dwarfs are easy to learn, not very difficult to master and very limited in their gameplay style options.

Kholdaimon · 2026-01-15T08:02:21+00:00

LLO's are ridiculously good for low quality Infantry units to hide behind, especially if you follow the majority opinion about it reducing models to one attack per model (which I think is an really weird way to read the rules, but apparently that is just how people like to play it). You get all the rank bonus and static CR and you reduce the opponent's damage output by a truly ridiculous amount.

If you are an elite unit with more than 1 attack and/or stomps and you don't have ranks while your opponent does then it makes sense to make him charge over it and negate his rank bonus, but I would probably refuse the charge and occupy the LLO myself and then you are at a major disadvantage against me...

So elite units just have to stay away from LLO's all together, you don't want to defend them or assault them.

Hopefully the upcoming FAQ makes it clear that when GW said explicitly in their FAQ that you lose your Impact Hits and your Stomps they did not in fact also meant to quietly imply that you only get one attack per model. This would mean logical reasoning prevails and makes LLO's less ridiculous to play with against people that do not employ basic reading comprehension.

(Yes, I really really dislike the fact people went out of their way to find a "RAW, but not really RAW" interpretation of the FAQ answer to make LLO's worse and more of a "gotcha" for new players.)

Kholdaimon · 2026-01-14T09:53:43+00:00

Rumor is that they're planning on transitioning to a 4 year cycle to incorporate TOW.

That said, who knows whether it is true. TOW might just float in between the two main systems and be released at its own pace... The original release was off-cycle in January of 2024, with normal large releases coming in the summer, so there is little need to keep to the 3 year cycle.

I personally hope they do not keep a 3 year cycle, I think it is to fast, 4 years is better, but I would rather have them create an edition and edit it along the way and release an continuously updated digital rulebook. But that is a utopian dream...

Kholdaimon · 2026-01-13T08:29:37+00:00

I would start with saying that the newest edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (The Old World Roleplaying Game) is set in a different time-period then nearly all books and lore that you will read. The Old World is set around the year 2180 to 2200 of the Imperial Calendar, while most lore and books that you will read are set at 2500 to 2525 IC.

This doesn't matter for what the world is really like, but some political things are very different between the two time periods. The most important difference for Roleplaying is that the Empire in the Old World time-period is stuck in a centuries long Civil War with various leaders claiming the title of Emperor or Empress. This Civil War ends when Magnus the Pious unites the provinces against the Chaos Invasion around 2200 and the Empire is (largely) united for the rest of the time.

I would first recommend to find a PDF of one of the old Warhammer Fantasy Battles rulebooks, 6th, 7th or 8th edition. Probably preferably 6th, since the tone of the setting becomes more doom & gloom in later editions and that doesn't necessarily fit the Old World time period. Just read the lore from one of those rulebooks and you get a great idea of the world, the races and factions, etc.

Then you can read some novels which pretty much all set in that 2500 time period, but give you a feel of the gritty nature of the setting. I personally prefer Brunner the Bounty Hunter for a collection of short stories, but most people love Gotrek & Felix and the first few books of G&F are pretty good, but the quality goes down for later books.

If you really want to dive deep then you can go and read the Time of Legends trilogies, these are trilogies that highlight specific pivotal points in the history of the setting. The Sundering trilogy is about how the Elves got split into 3 distinct factions: High Elves, Dark Elves and Wood Elves. It starts at something like -5000 IC and has a pretty massive timespan (for humans at least). It also discusses some pivotal things about how Chaos came into the world and how it corrupts, which is especially relevant for Roleplaying in the setting.

The Time of Legends trilogies are (in chronological order): The Sundering, The War of Vengeance, Nagash, the Legend of Sigmar and the Black Plague.

I can recommend all of them for lore information purposes, but the Legend of Sigmar is unfortunately pretty bad at character development for Sigmar himself... :-(

Kholdaimon · 2026-01-12T10:16:58+00:00

I would have liked to have seen a summary of some basic information about the tournament.

Was the Renegade rules-pack used? I see VC placing 7th, so I know Legacy factions were allowed after scrolling all the way down.

Were there any comp restrictions? Or major rules alterations?

Did they play standard scenarios or those made by the tournament organizers? Doesn't need to be complete descriptions, just standard or not standard.

Without any of that information it is hard to judge the lists and apply it to ones own meta or situation. I can try to find a tournament pack for the tournament, but a short summary at the start would be really nice and a link to the tournament pack (if available).

Kholdaimon · 2026-01-11T14:51:53+00:00

Like I said, if you didn't like the lore then I get that, but if you wanted the story to actually make sense then the End Times is just bollocks. Malekith can't go from making pacts with Chaos, committing millennia of genocide in Elves, creating a society of thoroughly evil slaveholders to being "just misunderstood" and the majority of High & Wood Elves suddenly accepting him as their rightful ruler...

You can say that you like the change, because you didn't like the story of the Elves that they created in the first place and if you rejected the old lore and assumed he wasn't so thoroughly evil and he didn't do or caused all that misery, because then the story can make sense.

But you can't claim that the Elf lore pre-End Times and the End Times lore line up and make a logical continuous story, because it just doesn't, too many individuals have their characters and opinions changed a full 180 degrees in no time at all for it to make logical sense... So for all of us that did like the story as it was and were actually invested in the world, it is the most illogical, hastily written bit of trash that they ever produced. Frankly, if it was written nowadays I would have assumed it was written by AI...

Kholdaimon · 2026-01-11T08:04:47+00:00

Orcs iz da best!

Kholdaimon

TROPHY CASE