Warhammer Fantasy Battle

Imagine Warhammer 40,000. Now, take away the villain sues, the incompetence, the faggotry that is the Ultramarines, and the profane writings of Matt Ward (well, except Daemons of Chaos...). There you go, Warhammer 40,000 1st Edition. Good ol' Rogue Trader. Only we're not talking about 40k. Nope, Warhammer Fantasy Battle was there long before 40k. It still has daemons (in fact, it has all the same daemons and Chaos gods as 40k) but, instead of boltguns and chainswords, humanity has to fight them with swords and muskets. Somehow, they still manage to take down Bloodthirsters. I think we can all agree that the average human in Warhammer Fantasy is much more hardcore than 40k.

Some argue WFB requires more tactical skill from the player; however, this is probably because it's not as widely discussed and isn't usually played by 13-year-olds. Seriously, anyone out there who's getting tired of playing kids at 40k, get yourself into Warhammer and you'll probably never have to play against one of those little snot-nosed Space Marine players ever again. If you're reading this and you are a snot-nosed 13-year-old, go away and play with your faggoty Space Marines. Fantasy is for grown-ups. Come back when you can grow facial hair and own more than two painted models! It is a well known fact that WFB is a much more manly universe than 40K. Again, this is mostly because fewer 13-year-olds play it, but it's also got many more dead-hard, beardy Vikings killing, raping, and pillaging.

TL;DR: it's basically 40k in a fantasy setting.

In A World Of War

Warhammer is about peasants living in shit, dying in shit, and the thousands of perils that befall them. Which are often covered in shit. It is not a fun place to be, though there are worse. Your average soldier of the Empire is armed with a sword, a musket, and fuck-all armor. Thusly equipped, he is expected to go toe-to-toe with a daemon. Or a 9-foot-tall daemonically enhanced steel/daemon/*insert Chaotic thing* metal clad super Viking. Or a giant, many of which prefer to stuff opponents down their pants. Or a battle-trained whatsit-a-saurus. Or a rat-man armed with a flame thrower. Or a half man/half goat eight-foot-tall killing machine. Or... well, let's just say nothing nice ever comes out of the Chaos Wastes. The one good thing for humanity is that, unlike 40k, the various factions and races have enough sense to set aside their differences to avoid total annihilation. Of course, once the threat of turning into some daemon's bitch passes, the various races get right back to smacking the living shit out of each other.

Background

Warhammer is pretty much early Renaissance Europe, only much, much worse. If you know history, you'll know that's saying something. Nearly everything has some kind of historical analogy, at least within the human nations. Everywhere is a shit place to live, pretty much.

The Empire, the main human nation, is a lot like the Holy Roman Empire, with VERY VERY angry German & Spanish people, but with steam tanks and magic thrown in. Along with pissed off ratmen called Skaven plotting to blow it up and demons trying to eat everyone. It is ruled by an Emperor (who is considerably less awesome than the EMPRAH, but then again - who isn't?), who is elected from amongst the ranks of the Elector Counts. They are for all intents and purposes, the "good" guys.

The first Emperor was a guy named Sigmar. He was fucking hardcore. Its theorized he's one of the lost primarch-sons of the Emprah, which makes sense in a lot of different ways, first and foremost him arriving in a spaceship. He made friends with the dwarfs and pulled a Grimnir, and was never heard from again. For some reason, he also became a god, however the more reasonable conclusion is that he's dead and Ulric handles the prayers of the Sigmarite priests. Neckbeards speculate that he may, in fact be almost as awesome as his 40K counterpart, because he is basically Thor + Jesus = Awesome. Also his hammer, Ghal-Maraz, is THE Warhammmer that both this game and 40K are named for. Which you must admit makes it, and him, pretty damn significant.

The current one is a guy named Karl Franz. He's pretty awesome too, he actually has a political and militaristic stance and he gets shit done. He rides a giant fucking griffin (no, a griffon, not same shit, dickwad) that eats people and owns the one fucking dragon in the entire damn empire, that also eats people. Also, cool bling and a hammer (again, THE Warhammer). Not a fool to be messed with.

The Emperor has to put up with a lot of bullshit: Vampires, Daemons, Orcs, Skaven, Mummies, Beastmen, Elves and other humans. If you can think of it, the Empire has gone to war with it at least once. Its even gone to war with itself a couple of times. Its continued success in managing to keep from falling apart is as much of a mystery as it finding an ally in the dwarves. The dwarves are pretty fucking cliche, but that comes later.

The other major human realm is Bretonnia. Knights, chivalry, all that King Arthur bullshit, with the addition of worshiping baby-eating forest spirits. The peasants in Bretonnia somehow have it worse than the peasants in the Empire. Its pretty much medieval France, only worse-- and these are the guys that invented the guillotine! They have a lot of knights, the lowest of which are Knight Errants, then Realm Knights, then Questing Knights and finally Grail Knights. Peasants are almost completely useless, except as archers or cannon fodder, except for the peasants that are, in fact, carrying a dead knight. But, since they're more French than they are English, this does kinda make sense...

And for all of you neglecting faggots, it's still Bretonnia, not Brettonia.

Other human nations, which are too far off/non-white to warrant an army book include Araby (Middle East), Ind (India), Nippon (Japan), Cathay (China), Kislev (Russia), Tilea (Italy), and Estalia (Spain). So, yeah... paying token tribute to minorities and other cultures with generic names and generic treatments is something that transcends all planes of existence.

Then you've got your elves. They come in three flavors: High, Dark, and Wood.

High Elves used to be cool, they liked to party and were into magically fueled orgies. Until they ripped open a hole in magic. Cue Chaos. Then they became selfrighteous dicks, and started trying to conquer the world. They didn't get far. Mostly because a civil war broke out between the fun loving elves, and the militaristic elves.

The fun loving elves became the Dark Elves, and turned into a pack of cruel, drug addicted fanatical dicks. The militaristic elves became High Elves, and turned into a pack of obnoxiously uptight dicks.

The colonials said fuck you to the High Elves, took to the forests of the rest of the world and became Wood Elves, and turned into a pack of insane dicks. They live in the forests of Brettonia, smoke weed and eat babies. Current edition focuses on the Wood Elves living in Athel Loren, which is both alive, and akin to a forest in Soviet Russia - where forest cuts down you! In short, elves are dicks.

But don't say it to their faces. They are still a hardy lot, and its pretty much impossible to live down getting your ass handed to you by a skinny, effeminate man who comes to the fight wearing a dress. Trust me, I know.

Enough about the elves! Dwarves!

They're fucking cliche, which means they're still better than elves. They've also got a few added twists. Gyrocopters and death cults. There is nothing that isn't improved through the addition of flying machines and death cults. The dwarves have zero magic. No, scratch that, they have even less than zero magic. It tends to fuck up when they're around, and everyone uses magic but them. They compensate for their lack of magic by building giant fucking machines instead. Flamethrowers, helicopters, organ guns, and pretty much any other variant of carnage that can be moshed together with enough steam, alcohol, and gunpowder. They build them smaller but they build them better, and they're all fueled by alcohol. There are also evil dwarves called Chaos Dwarves. They used to be an interesting and unique faction that resembled an even more grimdark ancient Babylon, their corrupting magic slowly turning their evil sorcerers to stone (dorfs ain't meant to magic it up). Nowadays they're just normal dwarves dressed in black.

Their favorite pastimes are drinkin' and fightin'.

Chaos: The original Servants of the Dark Gods. Beardy, berserking Vikings clad in Unholy Chaos Plate and blessed with the Marks of the Chaos Gods personify this faction, and basically granted Warhammer Fantasy it's popularity. Joining them are Daemons of Chaos, who, unlike in 40K, are completely scared shitless of the Mortal Servants and serve no other purpose than to be bound within weapons and given to the Norse Heroes. Which is totally badass. And unlike a certain armless failure, they have actually managed to get shit done. Much in the way of Angron. Joining the dead-hard Vikings of Chaos are the Beastmen, who're basically furries in service to Chaos. Except, unlike regular furries, they're fucking grotesque, mutated scarred and utterly evil beings that grind people to bits with FUCKBIG club/axes. From AMBUSH! Cultists in the Empire; who are either revolutionaries, closeted heretics or bored nobles, and occasionally Chaos Dwarves. These guys are at an ungodly level of badass and are the premier melee oriented army of Warhammer Fantasy. Even better than the Greenskins.

Lizardmen. The arch-enemies of Chaos. Genetically engineered by aliens/gods, they were designed to destroy Chaos. They live in the jungle and are heavily based off the Aztecs, Mayans and Incas. If that offends you, you're playing the wrong game. They have the most powerful wizards and one of the most powerful fighting units. Some could argue that they're broken in the extreme. They can just fuck right off 'cause Lizardmen are awesome. And no furry shit here. They're as ugly and unappealing as real lizard people would be. They are ruled by grotesque, fat toad creatures called Slann. Most of whom are dead.

Vampire Counts. They're fucking vampires, do I need to draw you a fucking picture? There's your Dracula-style Vampires (Von Carsteins), Psycho Lesbian Vampires (Lahmians), Nosferatu (Strigoi), Magic-style (Necrarch), and Vlad the Impaler-style (Blood Dragons) [SIDENOTE: Current Ed. Bloodlines are out, but conceptually it lives on in "Bloodline Powers" available to your vampire, the only difference is that you can integrate different styles of badassery, as if they weren't already ungodly fucking killing ma-fucking-chines]. All of them can raise hordes of undead, and use zombies and shit as troops. They also use ghouls, which technically aren't undead. Or are they, now? Oh, and wraiths and banshees. And nigh-indestructible Black/Blood knights that kill with a mean look/rip guts out and force-feed them to original owners. Also, bats are EVERY-FUCKING-WHERE, and not the kind that scare you when you open the closet, then fly of into the night - think piranhas with wings and a fucking attitude. Creepy as all fuck. No Anne Rice, Angel bullshit, these guys are fucking evil. And they're not about to save you from being hit by a car to creep into your room at night, no, they're most likely the one driving the car into you.

Tomb Kings. Egyptian mummies! With Anubis warriors! And BONE SCORPIONS! In conclusion. MUTHA FUCKEN SKULL CATAPULTS!

Skaven. Technologically advanced rat people. Again, no furry shit here. These guys are ugly, fucking foul creatures who keep their women folk, otherwise known as "their bloated, scab-ridden brood-mares" locked away for the sole purpose of mass-reproducing thousands upon thousands of future vermin-men. The leaders of the species are a motley bunch, composed of batshit crazy scientists, ninja-like assassins, and bio-terrorists. Everything else is either slave cannon fodder or a mutant abomination. They love their hordes almost as much as they love their broken tech. And puns, fuckton of puns come with these guys, they love their puns. They made a nuke once, but it failed to detonate. Most of their schemes (they love scheming!) involved taking down the Empire and conquering the world. They're like Pinky and the Brain, but with flame throwers, tesla coils, thousands of minions, and no arsing about on the subject. Also, WEAPONIZED HAMSTER WHEELS.

Orcs and Goblins - You've all seen 40k. Much the same, except here the goblins can fight back. Now add trolls and giants and occasionally ogres into the mix as well. HAHA! DISREGARD THAT LAST PART, GOBLINS ARE JUST AS USELESS HERE AS 40K! Well, except for a stronger presence.

The Ogre Kingdoms - FUCKHUEG sumo wrestler-types with katanas, frying pans strapped to their gullets and a mean streak as big as their enormously fat asses. Will eat ANYTHING, including the chef, the table, the plates and the fucking bundle of forks. They ride large beasts resembling mammoths and saber-tooth tigers. They think with their stomachs, which shows how fucking intelligent they are, plus their shaman-cooks use a very specific "gut magic", that mostly consists of shoving all kinds of inedible stuff down their own throats. And each and every one of the fuckers is obsessed with stuffing his face full 'o your innards. Heck, they even worship a giant, fuck-off sky mouth. Ogres are often considered to be a "neutral" army and can end up fighting for any side since they hire themselves out as mercenaries to whoever can pay them in piles of food.

Tabletop

Gameplay

Warhammer is a tabletop wargame where two or more players compete against each other with "armies" of 20 mm - 50 mm heroic scale miniatures. Games may be played on any appropriate surface, although the standard is a 6 ft by 4 ft tabletop decorated with model scenery in scale with the miniatures. If you're Games Workshop's bitch-boy and have no imagination of your own you will buy the ridiculously overpriced Citadel Realm of Battle tabletop and have a scenery collection made of boring plastic pieces bought entirely from GW, but REAL players make their own gaming tables (saving a fuck-ton of money in the process). Games Workshop used to encourage this until they sold their souls for money.

Gameplay follows a turn structure in which one player completes all movement for troops, then simulates casting spells (when spell-using units are available), uses all ranged or missile weapons in the army such as bows and handguns, then any units touching fight in melee or close-combat. After finishing, the second player does the same. The winner is often determined by victory points; earning a number equal to the value of enemy units killed. Special objectives can add or subtract from this total based on predefined goals, usually holding parts of the battlefield or killing powerful units (such as the enemy general).

Magic

Perhaps the thing that separates Warhammer Fantasy from 40k, aside from the obvious, the most is the use of magic. Each army (with the exception of the dwarves) has at least one unit that can use magic, often in the form of an independent wizard. When magic units are present on the battlefield, they're given their own turn separate from the shooting, moving and melee phases to cast their spells. There are several kinds of magic but most magicians are able to use only a single form.

• Dark Magic, used by Dark Elves, Beastmen, and sorcerers of Chaos.
• High Magic, used by the Slann and the High Elves.
• Nehekharan Incantations, Used exclusively by Tomb Kings Liche Priests and High Liche Priests (and Settra)
• Light: Wind of Hysh, Lore of Light
• Gold: Wind of Chamon, Lore of Metal and Alchemy
• Jade: Wind of Ghyran, Lore of Life
• Celestial: Wind of Azyr, Lore of the Heavens
• Grey: Wind of Ulgu, Lore of Shadows
• Amethyst: Wind of Shysh, Lore of Death
• Bright: Wind of Aqshy. Lore of Fire. Basically the ammunition of the Fire obsessed psychopaths known as the Bright Wizards.
• Daemon magic: Used by... well, daemons. Broken into three categories - one for each of the gods that give a shit about lasers - Slaaneshi [Indulgent, relies on enemy Ld], Nurglite [decay, revolves around enemy S/T scores], and Tzeentchian [OMG FIRES]. Khorne is too awesome for magic; he'd much rather crush skulls with his bare thighs.
• Amber: Wind of Ghur, Lore of Beasts. Basically a Radagast rip off.
• Necromancy: used exclusively by Vampires and Necromancers.
• Warpstone: used exclusively by the Grey Seers of the Skaven.
• Gut magic: used exclusively by the Ogre Butchers.
• Waaagh magic: used exclusively by Orcs and Goblins. Has a very high chance of making the user's head asplode.
• Athel Loren magic: used exclusively by Wood Elves. Moves forests, or move folks through forests.
• Ice: Used exclusively by the Tzar of Russi- er, Kislev.
• Lizard magic: Used by lizardmen, it has only one spell, called "Fuck you, I'm a Aztec dinosaur, therefore awesome."

Magic is powerful, very powerful. A lone unit can wipe out half the opposing army with the right spell at the right time. Magic can also misfire, badly. This adds an element of unpredictability to its use, making it much more dangerous to the user and therefore, much less broken.

GW also recently released an expansion to WFB with a bigger focus on magic, called Storm of Magic. Which turns magic from regular broken into DOUBLE BROKEN.

Significant Personage Of Warhammer

• Sigmar Heldenhammer: First Emperor of the Empire, fought a lot of Orcs. Disappeared after a few years and became a god. 100% badass.
• Settra the Imperishable: Greatest of the Tomb Kings. Fights upon a pimped out chariot and casts like a Liche High Priest. He has been toned down in the newest version of the game he now cast like a chump at a level 1
• Khalida. Freaky mummy-chick blessed with the powers of a snake.
• Teclis: Mage of the High Elves. Pathetic weakling that drinks magic potions like an alcoholic and falls over in a breeze, also one of the few non-Slann mages to be capable of nuking cities.
• Tyrion: Teclis' warrior twin brother. May in fact be aroused by killing, its hard to tell because he doesn't stop to answer questions.
• Volkmar the Grim: Grand Theogonist of the Empire. Quite a stern faced fellow.
• Gotrek & Felix: Adventuring duo, have a lot of books based on them. Gotrek begrudgingly tolerates Felix travelling with him because he needs someone to pen the mighty tale of his epic doom.
• Karl Franz: Current Emperor and number one puppet master in the Empire.
• Kurt Helborg: Captain of the Reiksguard.
• Luthor Huss: Crazy ass preacher.
• Valten: Reincarnation of Sigmar. Got ganked by a Skaven, probably Snikch, but the lack of gore makes it hard to tell.
• Lady of the Lake: Creepy cannibal spirit of Brettonia. A fine piece of ass regardless of diet. May be an elf in disguise.
• Katarin the Ice Queen: Tzarin of Kislev. Cold bitch.
• Mannfred Von Carstein: Vampire Lord, and the only Von Carstein to even think about getting shit done.
• Thorgrimm Grudgebearer: Dwarf High King, very angry, very angry indeed.
• Josef Bugman: Dwarf brewer and 200% Awesome.
• Grimgor Ironhide: Orc Warlord, one of the most powerful warriors in the setting. Got his ass handed to him once by Archaon's standard bearer, Vardek CROM!!! Grimgor swore to prove he was the best in any case and did it in the manner described below.
• Snikch: Skaven ninja-assassin. Uses three scimitars at once to lop off limbs from his target, doesn't so much as assassinate people as shred them into little pieces.
• Thanquol: Skaven grey seer and archenemy of Gotrek. He does lines of warpstone powder which is to cocaine what a monster truck is to a pair of baby's first rollerskates, also he managed to escape from the prophet of Sothek, who after losing his sacrifice to his awesomic god, takes a nap(meditate, despise the fact that he is a skink). forever.
• Archaon: Lord of the End Time, the Ever Chosen and most powerful warrior in the setting. Beat all four of the greatest Champions of the Empire in single fight during the Storms of Chaos Campaign and then was beaten when Grimgor ran up to him while he was tired and headbutted him in the groin, then ran away yelling "Grimgor iz da bezt!!!"
• Venerable Lord Kroak: Slann Mage Lord, most powerful crapass fat useless toad magician in the setting. Can't even move by himself. Also, he is made of awesome awesome fat fa/tg/uy guts and more awesome magic, he is fucking death and he CAN FUCK UP A FUCKING CITY. Despite being dead for the last few millennium, his corpse used to shoot laser from his eyes, now its just localised nuclear explosion... every. fucking. turn. Probably the most powerful entity because even being a dead, inanimate corpse, he has killed more shit than anyone else on this list, except for maybe Nagash, even then its too close to make a call, except that he probably will kill Nagash if they meet and would just blink the guy out of existence if they had met when he was alive. In short, he's the toad-emperor of lizardkind, and he's on a hoverchair.
• Aekold Hellbrass: Pathetic excuse for a Tzeentchian Champion.
• Balthasar Gelt: Empire Wizard, looks like Dr. Doom. Rides a white pegasus and wears such gaudy clothing that Lady Gaga looks frumpy by comparison. Possibly Elton John without the singing voice.
• Grom the Paunch: Former Goblin Warlord. Famous for being obese, no joke.
• Green Knight: Brettonian Holy Warrior and professional ass rapist.
• Khazrak The One-Eye: The most cunning Beastman. Loves messing with Todbringer.
• Gorthor the Beastlord: An Everchosen. Whipped up on the Empire for awhile before dying.
• Morghur, Master of Skulls: A creature so close to Chaos that stuff he touches becomes Spawns.
• Konrad Von Carstien: Bat-Shit crazy vampire Lord. Just snapped one day and wandered off into a forest muttering to himself, where he was promptly tackled by a dwarf and stabbed in the heart with the Elector Count of Ostland's Runefang. Total "pants-on-head" retarded vampire noob.
• Orion: Consort King of the Wood Elves. Rides through Bretonnia every summer and kills everybody who runs from him.
• Nagash: Supreme Lord and Creator of the Vampires. Used to get shit done and then raised it as undead to scare the shit out of everyone, now he camps in fortress, or something, things have been quiet since 5th edition. He may still be getting some shit done, since one of the vampire's spell involves him looking at people. Which kill them. Badass. Supposedly the stronger human wizard ever, and had an almost evenly fight with sigmar. Almost, because he still ended up having his ass wiped.
• Arbaal the Undefeated: All mighty Champion of Khorne. Another one of the greatest warriors in the setting. Obviously, being a favored champion of the Ultimate God of War. Was with Asavar Kul when Praag was destroyed, fled the battle after he died at Russia, likely to assume Khorne ain't very happy with him. Also destroyed the gates of Praag with a single strike from his sword. (badass) Angron probably got his inspiration from this guy.
• Asavar Kul: Greatest Champion of Chaos. Greatest warrior in the setting. Almost destroyed the Empire. 'Nuff said.
• Magnus the Pious: Greatest Emperor since Sigmar. Also one of the few who wasn't morally bankrupt.
• Vardek CROM!: Archaon's standard bearer and King of the tribe of Asavar Kul. Was man handled by Archaon once and beat Grimgor once.
• Malus Darkblade: The Starscream of Warhammer.
• Malekith: Lord of the Dark Elves; master of Dark Magic, uses a shield that can asplode your brain from a distance, and rides a giant-ass black dragon. Still lives with his mom. Also considered a whiny emo git who costs so much no one will ever use the Malekeith on a Dragon model because they'd rather finish the game before the entropic heat death of the universe.
• Lord Mazzamundi: Most powerful and influential Slann alive, unnecessarily rides on a dinosaur and gets the bloated toad-alien equivalent to a raging hard-on every time he nukes a city and/or non-Lizardmen species into dust. Also leads the Lizardmen equivalent to the Klan and was one of the brilliant minds behind a plan for a redecorating of the world's volcanic system, this also resulted in the Dwarves being marginalised close to the point of extinction. And then he fapped to it.
• Louen Leoncour: King of Bretonnia. Believes in the Feudal system, also believes that a 300% tax rate for the peasantry promotes economic growth, also believes that knights are of infallible morality, also believes that guns are weaker than bows, also believes people of the Empire would prefer a system of governance that emphasizes crushing their hopes and dreams, also believes that a pig and 12 Bretonnian coppers (which exchanges for less than half an Empire copper on a good day) is an excessive reward for saving his nation. In the same support group for ludicrous theme naming as Canis Wolfborn.
• Golgfag Maneater: An Ogre mercenary, notorious for doing pretty much everything. Example: your mom.
• Greasus Goldtoof:A huge motherfucker that weighs more then a pile of corpses made from giants. He loves eating almost as much as he loves killing. His name is also really, really long. Ogres are impressed by his name and he probably gets a shitload of tail. But he's a huge lardass who costs 565 points and makes ogres more awesome and enemy units pants shittingly stupid.