Conversions Are Back! ‘Warhammer: The Old World’ Reverses GW’s Position On Scratch-Built Models
The Old World marks a major change in how GW is treating conversions and building your own units.
The Warhammer hobby has always been just that, a hobby. While the game has been a major part of it, the hobby has always been just as if not more important. Building, painting, and converting models is, for many, the core of Warhammer. However, the last decade or two have seen GW slowly start to move away from one aspect of that – converting. With a greater push to use official GW models, and not scratch build things, we’ve seen anything other than minor conversions get downplayed. However, The Old World has marked a major change in this policy. GW has rolled back the clock to a more player, and hobbyist-friendly era. Take a look at what’s going on.
The Trend Away From Conversions
For most of Warhammer’s history, converting or scratch-building things was a core part of the game. Units often had options that their models did not come with. You would regularly even have whole units with no official GW models. In these cases, you would either have to scratch build a model/unit or find some way to convert it. This could be simple weapon/armor conversions to having to build everything. This could be a very fun and rewarding part of the game as you really made something your own – and really attached the hobbyists to their armies.. It also allowed you, at times, to find more budget alternatives to some things. To be fair, some people didn’t like this at all. Not being able to simply walk into a store and buy a unit they wanted was annoying to some. But overall, the opportunity for conversions made Warhammer Fantasy richer and better.
However, over the past couple of decades, GW has started to move away from this idea. There are a number of reason behind it, but it’s become something an unspoken rule of thumb with them, that if there are no models there are no rules. Units without models have slowly disappeared from the game over that last decade. GW has started taking it even further recently, making it so that a unit’s options are tied directly into what comes in their box. If you can’t build it straight from the box – it’s not an option at all on the tabletop.
This has led to some… awkwardness, as classic unit equipment options get nixed, due to modern rules mandates. In some cases 10 or 20-year old models are constraining how modern GW can write rules. This was clearly never intended back wen the units were originally sculpted and released. I think overall it’s been a deterrent to both the hobby, by limiting peoples incentive to convert, and the games, by limiting what options/rules can be given to a unit.
The Old World Turns This On It’s Head
Whether by choice or necessity, GW has completely reversed its stance on this with Warhammer: The Old World. This is a game that once again allows conversions and scratch builds. To some extent, it was always going to have too. The sheer number of models that need to be released has always meant that, for at least a while, there were always going to be rules for models that GW is not selling right now. However The Old World has not just grudgingly accepted conversions. They’ve embraced them! Armies are filled with units that can take options the models don’t include, or in some case don’t even have models – such as Tomb King Tomb Guard Chariots.
Moreover, each of the Arcane Journals comes with four brand new units. These units, by and large, have not been in Warhammer Fantasy or any other version of the game before – such as Bretonnian Border Prince Brigands. They do not have models, and likely never will. However, they are legal units, and players will have to build or convert to use them. GW has included advice on how to do this, which ranges from “use this kind of unit and give it a special paint job” to “use parts from these couple of kits and convert them”. However there is nothing binding you to doing it directly that way. This is fully going back to how things used to be in the GW days of yore, and embracing it.
Fill Up Your Units
The fun doesn’t stop at straight-up conversions either. GW has also come out in support of using unit fillers in your units. For those not in the know, unit fillers were a way to bulk out the sometimes massive Fantasy units. Basically you would model some kind of scenic or action mini diorama onto a larger base (normally about the size of 4-6 regular bases) and stick it into the unit. This would allow you to fill up back ranks without having to buy as many models and add some cool elements to a unit. It was a fairly common practice, but not one GW ever seemed super fond of, as it might mean you were buying fewer models. However, now GW seems more than fine with it in The Old World.
Good For The Hobby, Good For The Game
All of this is really good news to me. Allowing, even encouraging, scratch-building and converting is a great move. It’s good for the hobby as it brings more people in and gives you more ways to express yourself artistically. People who put a lot of time into building and converting an army are more likely to stick with and support the game for a longer period. They have more buy-in. It’s a very player and hobbyist-friendly philosophy. It’s also just straight-up good for the game. It lets GW build it out and add new and exciting things to the game without having to wait months or years to get a model. It’s a huge 180-degree turn on how GW have been pushing things, but the right direction. Hopefully, if the Warhammer: Old World does well, this might encourage GW to bring this mindset to other games.
Let us know if you are happy to have conversions and scratch-building back down in the comments!
