‘Warhammer: The Old World’: How GW Should Add More Armies
Warhammer: Old World has launched with a smaller selection of armies. Here’s how GW can expand on that – and make everyone happy.
After a long wait, Warhammer the Old World has finally launched. It a great game, with great rules. In fact, it’s pretty much the best game GW has put out in the last decade or so. Still, to some people, it’s an incomplete game as not all the old armies have come back. While this was likely the right call for now, it doesn’t need to remain this way. Let’s talk about the easiest way GW can add stuff into the game.
Combined Books
The Old World has done away with the classic Army Book/Codex system used by most GW games. Instead, the game has launched with a couple of large combined books. Forces of Fantasy covers the five “good” races, while Ravening Hordes covers the four “evil” ones. All the rules you need to play the armies, and a bit of background, can be found in these books. Additionally, each army is getting an Arcane Journal. These bonus books add extra options to the army, but are not strictly needed.
So far, this system seems to be working pretty well. It also gives us a pretty easy clue as to how GW might choose to add more armies into the game. Rather then needing to put out a bunch of armies books, they can have a handful of larger expansions with books just like Forces of Fantasy and Ravening Hordes. This could let GW build up things pretty quickly if The Old World continues to be the hit it seems to be. So what books might Nottingham put out?
Forces of Lustria
The first major expansion I’d suggest they put out would be a Lustria book. It wouldn’t even be the first one they’ve done. This book could cover the western part of The World of Legend. I’d call it Lustria if for no other reason than “Warhammer: The Old World : The New World” is a bit clunky! With this book you could add in four factions with ease.
Skaven, Lizardmen and Dark Elfs would all feature in this book as they fight over the west. In addition Vampire Counts would get reimaged as the Pirates of the Vampire Coast. This would bring back the old faction with a new twist and add something new to the game. This single book would be a huge step forward, and deal with over half of the Legends armies.
Armies of The East
The second book I could see them added would be one focusing on the East of the Old World. This book would bring back Ogre Kingdoms and Chaos Dwarfs. It would also add in the new, and already teased, faction of Grand Cathay. All these armies are geographically tied together and make sense to feature in the same book. If you wanted a fourth army, Kingdom of Ind or Nippon could show up, but three is probably enough and gives a mix of old and new. We’ll talk more about Nippon in the future…
Forces of the Wastes
The last book I could easily see them adding would focus on the north of the Old World. At base, this would bring Chaos Daemons into the game and add in Kislev. Kislev has been teased for a while, and this would be an easy way to get them in. If two factions aren’t enough for a book, you could also see the much-demanded Norsca faction make an appearance here, really rounding things out.
A Fleshed Out World
With three pretty simple additional softcover books GW can really flesh out the Old World. Each one focuses on a geographic region, expanding both the world and the factions. With them, you’d see all the old Warhammer Fantasy armies brought fully into the Old World, and a few new ones get added in. Doing it this way would also help stagger things out. At that point Arcane Journals can be added for the new factions and you’d have a very complete game. We will have to see what GW does, but these seem a pretty obvious, and good move.
Let us know how you would add armies to the game, down in the comments!
