Way back in December 2019 Games Workshop announced that The Old World was being developed. For anyone reading this who isn’t familiar, The Old World is a revised version of the original fantasy wargame, Warhammer Fantasy Battle.
For wargamers of a certain age, Warhammer Fantasy Battle was the first step into toy soldiers and tabletop gaming. For someone who works in product development I found the initial launch a little bit weird. Even the advert at the time acknowledged it could be a few years in the making. I know there is value in teasing products but telling your customers something is coming in a few years just feels a bit unnecessary.
Weirdly this happened at the same time as Mantic’s third edition of King’s of War was released. Coincidence? I have my suspicions, but any way I try to cut it it’s always seemed an odd step. Leaving aside GW’s communication approach, the idea of breathing new life into an old format is not something that doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world, and the launch of Heroquest is a great example of where it’s gone well in gaming.
Roll forward several years and we’ve now had the release of The Old World. Personally, I knew I was never going to be interested in the game. Kings of War works for me on a number of levels, and as the releases have followed I’ve been largely unexcited, until a couple of weeks ago when a number of characters for the Empire army dropped. Amongst them was one of the first miniatures I ever bought, the Grand Master of the Knights Panther. I absolutely loved the model then, and I was surprised by just how much I loved it when I saw it again a couple of weeks ago. What was even more impressive though was the fantastic new sculpt based on the John Blanche artwork. I was also suitably impressed with another couple of models in the range, which found their way into the basket.
They are now happily on my painting table, at the start of their respective journeys and the question becomes, what am I going to do with them? The answer – they will be joining my Basileans. I’ve always had a few issues with my Basileans, simply because I’m not keen on a lot of the models in the range at the moment. They have some lovely men-at-arms which I would say are some of the best high fantasy human soldiers on the market, but the more elite elements of the army are pretty old and not great quality (although I love the aesthetic, they’re just a bit of an effort to clean up and put together). All this has meant my Basileans don’t really get the love I think they deserve or the play time. But I have a feeling that’s about to change.
So, whilst the Old World has been, in many respects a non-event for me, at least it’s produced some beautiful models and got me digging out my Basileans once again.
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The Wizard's Bookshelf 