‘Warhammer: The Old World’ – Five Things I Love The Most About The Game
Today, lets take a look at some of my favorite parts of the game. The things I truly love (and hope you do to) about Warhammer: the Old World.
The Old World has been out for over a year now. We’ve gotten to really play it and put it through it’s paces. I stand by it being a great game. However it is not a game without flaws. GW is working to address them, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t around. But it’s easy to sit around and dwell on things you might see as negatives. Today I want to have a little bite of a lighter look at the game and talk about a few things in it that I love.
5. The Arcane Journal System
I think the Arcane Journal/Combined Army books was such a good idea for this game. It let them do a couple of things. First off it let them put out every army all at once when the game launched. This was big! We didn’t have to wait months or years for an army to get rules. We also weren’t stuck with some “make-do” rules while waiting for the “real” thing to drop. the Journals are a great way to build on that, adding flavor and sometimes power and expanding on it. They don’t tend to overshadowing the core rules, but are very nice additions. I really like the new/alternate units you get in in them.
4. Fall Back In Good Order
I think of all the specific rules changes Fall Back In Good Order is my favorite. It adds a lot of granularity and dynamism to fights. Rather than the binary of “one side routs/we stay here and grind on each other” combats can move and wonky stuff can happen, which is fun! When it’s working right, especially with a couple of closely matched units I think its just a great change.
3. The Spells/Lores Of Magic
I’m not talking about the magic system as a whole here (I wouldn’t say I hate it, but I also really liked the old dice pool system). What I’m talking about is the spells/lores of magic themselves. I think GW actually did a really good job with making a large number of distinct and useful spells and lores. I feel like they hit a good power level with them, where spells are impactful, but not broken and its rare where a single spell will turn a game without some major set up. Not every spell is a banger, but most have at least some use and there are lots of good combos. Lots of things feel viable and there isn’t a clearly best lore or anything. The addition of the faction signature spells was also a great addition allowing each faction to feel distinct while still using a lot of the same spells and mostly drawing form the same pool. I think its just a really well done aspect of the game.
2. Armies Of Infamy
Swinging back to the Arcane Journals, Sigmar but I love the Armies of Infamy. Just, what a great way to add a lot of variety and customization into the game. These open things up a lot allowing for super cool and thematic verations to lists. They are great for casual, narrative and tournament players. I’ve always loved when GW would add in alt armies and ToW has embraced it more than really any other game. It’s a major bonus to the game.
1. Embracing Conversions and Customization
Right now, sadly, a lot of GW games are moving away from conversions and customizing things. There is a strong, “you get what is in the box/base model” ethos in many games with few options to build out units or characters as you please. The Old World has firmly rejected this in favor of an old-school GW approach. And it’s really baked into the game. It’s not just that almost every units has a couple of various options, or that most characters have nearly endless options to chose from in the form of gear, magic items, mounts and other upgrades. Now they’ve even brought back whole units that you specifically have to convert, somehow! Each Arcane Journal has added in some of these units that you are going to have to scratch build. It’s so great to see this kind of hobby aspect celebrated.
Let us know what things about the Old World you like best, down in the comments!
