WARHAMMER: AGE OF SIGMAR
THE FORCES OF DEATH ARE ON THE RISE IN THE NEW WARHAMMER: AGE OF SIGMAR. WILL SALMON VISITS GAMES WORKSHOP’S HQ TO FIND OUT WHAT NAGASH HAS PLANNED FOR THE MORTAL REALMS…
So what’s the deal with the new Warhammer update? We enter the Mortal Realms in the name of investigative journalism.
There’s something about games Workshop’s headquarters that makes it stand out from the other buildings around it – several somethings, in fact. if you don’t immediately spot the giant two-headed eagle insignia on the side of one of the buildings, or the full-size rhino armoured personnel carrier in the car park, then you’re bound to notice the statue of a mighty warrior that towers over the entrance. he’s one of the stormcast eternals, the immortal defenders of mankind from Age Of Sigmar, the company’s fantasy wargame, which is relaunched as a new and improved version this month.
it comes at a time of growth for the company, who are currently in the process of expanding their nottingham premises to fulfil an increased demand for their games and miniatures and enjoying a surge in profits that stands in stark contrast to their fortunes just a few years ago, when both games Workshop and the Warhammer hobby itself seemed like relics from a fading era.
THE GREAT GAME
Age Of Sigmar is a comparatively young game. its first edition was released to fanfare – and some controversy – in 2015 when it replaced Warhammer Fantasy Battle, the 32-year-old system that made the company’s name.
Fantasy Battle was first published in 1983 as a set of dense rulebooks written by bryan ansell, richard halliwell and rick Priestley. the game saw armies of figures (manufactured by Citadel miniatures in a heavy, lead-based white metal) face off on the kitchen table. it was well-liked, and really took off in the ’90s when games Workshop’s increasing ubiquity ensured they had a store in almost every decent-sized town, and a range of boxed games made it easy to get started with the hobby.
When that popularity peaked, however, Fantasy Battle began a slow decline. While the company’s sci-fi title Warhammer 40,000 was still selling well – and continued to inspire spin-offs in a variety of media, including numerous video games and even a Cgi movie based around the space marines – Fantasy Battle was facing an inglorious defeat.
“at the time, 40K was going from strength-to-strength and, at best, Warhammer was just bumping along,” says games designer Jervis Johnson, who has been with the company for more than 35 years and proved instrumental in the development of their products. “We wanted it to be as popular as 40K…”
their solution? Destroy the Warhammer world, kill Fantasy Battle, and replace it with a new game in a new – but related – setting. Age Of Sigmar takes place in the Mortal Realms: eight planes of existence that are linked by realm gates. the traditional races – and even some of the characters – still exist here, but
everything is in a remixed form. “it was scary – it really was,” Johnson admits. “and we had a bumpy ride to start with.”
the decision to end Fantasy Battle did not go down well with fandom. some seasoned gamers felt betrayed by the company, angry that a world they had invested so much time, imagination and money in was being discontinued. When Age Of Sigmar was revealed to have a more stripped-down ruleset – just four pages for its core rules, compared to previous weighty tomes – many assumed that the company was abandoning its principles to chase a newer audience of lucrative ‘beer and pretzel’ casual gamers.
three years down the line, however, that now seems like a hilarious overreaction. not only has Sigmar proven to be a success as a sleek, exciting game in its own right, it’s proven hugely popular with both new and old gamers. “We’ve ended up in a really fantastic place,” says Johnson. “the difference with
Warhammer now compared to where it was three years ago is just vast. and it’s got a whole new generation of people playing.”
DEAD RISING
three years is an age in games. time, then, for an update that moves the Age Of Sigmar setting on by a couple of generations. Soul Wars – as the initial boxed edition of Age Of Sigmar 2 is called – adds some important changes to the ruleset while delving deeply into the lore of the realms.
the groundwork for the new edition was laid in this year’s Malign Portents campaign – at the time of writing still playing out in games Workshop stores and homes. “that was meant as a look into the reality of the mortal realms,” says the company’s senior background writer, Phil Kelly. “it was a lot of snapshots of the common man, the farmer, the guardsman… We wanted to ask, ‘What’s it like to live in a place where there really are ghosts and ghouls and demons around every corner?’ even the most untalented hedge wizard can tell that something is coming, there’s all these weird phenomena happening and they all point to one thing: the forces of Death are on the rise.”
the playable armies in Age Of Sigmar are all divided into one of four camps: order (basically the good guys), Chaos (the baddies), Destruction (orcs – sorry, “orruks” – and other marauders who are mainly in it for the thrill of the fight) and Death, as ruled by nagash, the supreme Lord of the Dead. the plot of both Malign
Portents, and now Soul Wars, sees his forces step up as a major power.
“originally, Age Of Sigmar was a very binary struggle,” says Kelly. “order versus Chaos. now, we have another faction on the rise, and they’re doing something truly realm changing. nagash is working a great ritual that is so vast it’s created great ripples in time and space. he’s not messing about here – he’s managed to change the nature of the cosmos.” What that means for the game is that Soul
Wars comes with two complete armies in the box, represented by some of games Workshop’s best ever miniatures. Fighting for order is a new “chamber” of stormcast eternals – shining immortal warriors in golden armour. the forces of Death, meanwhile, are represented by some truly sinister skeletons and other undead creatures.
EVOLUTION
as games Workshop have slowly built up the mythology surrounding the realms – and as players have figured out what worked and didn’t work about the initial version, the company has been tweaking and tinkering with the ruleset.
updating the rules was a case of “evolution not revolution,” according to Jes bickham, creative writing manager. “it’s not as big a change as with [last year’s relaunched] Warhammer 40,000,”
he says. “With 40K it was a whole new rules system. With Sigmar there’s been minimal tweaking, so it’s backwards compatible. We’ve taken great pains to make sure the existing army books [the separate tomes which allow players to field the many different races] work within the framework of the new game.” indeed, the new rules are very much a matter of a few well-chosen adjustments, a couple of cool new features and the incorporation of feedback from gamers – it sounds minor on the page, but has major ramifications for matched play (there is a huge AOS tournament scene) in that distances between models are now measured from the figure’s base, rather than its body, while shooting has been tweaked to ensure that weird situations – such as a unit of archers being engaged in combat by a nearby foe, but choosing to fire at a general on the other side of the battlefield – are no longer permitted. Probably the two biggest additions are the changes around Command Points and magic. “You now get a Command Point each turn, which you can choose to give to any model so that they can use a command ability,” says Jervis Johnson. “that means you can look around the battlefield and say, ‘i’ll get that hero over there to use this command ability, rather than the general this turn’, or you can save the points up and do lots of stuff in one go.” the result is that you get a better sense of being a general directing their army.
endless spells have also been introduced. Where most spells in Warhammer are short-lived affairs designed to, say, blast an opponent’s troops with a fireball, endless spells are more unpredictable. “You can still do the old-fashioned spells,” says Johnson, “but Predatory endless spells create magical monsters that go rogue and rampage around the battlefield.” that element of uncertainty makes for exciting – and hazardous – magic.
getting the blend of rules, background and – arguably most importantly – the models right is crucial to games Workshop. it’s what makes the difference between a good army, monster or character and a great one.
“if all of those aspects are working, then you have something super-compelling and people really get hooked,” says Phil Kelly. “if only one part is working then it’s not reaching its full potential. i genuinely think that now we have all those elements in Age Of Sigmar. People are really delving into it. it’s really open-ended and it gives you a lot of freedom.”
The New Edition of Age Of Sigmar is out 30 June and available to pre-order from 16 June.