A few months ago I stumbled on a blog called Realm of Chaos: An 80s Warhammer Enthusiast Blog.
I have added it to my blog list on the side of this blog. While this blog covers mainly old Warhammer Fantasy Battle things, it was also my introduction to what has become a growing internet community called Oldhammer.
For an introduction to what Oldhammer is check out The Realm of Zhu's post called: The Oldhammer Contract.
The Realm of Chaos blog has interviews with people who used to work at GW in the 80s, people like Graeme Davis, Tim Pollard, Bryan Ansell Rick Priestly and more. It also has been doing blog posts about old White Dwarf articles, old GW artwork and miniatures as well.
While I didn't get into the hobby until the early 90s I love the old art style and the old miniatures. In the late eighties GW was a very different company than it is today and their games were based around their experiences with role playing games moreso than our current ideas of what miniature games are supposed to be.
Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd edition is what Oldhammer is all about. 3rd Edition is also what Rogue Trader (40k 1st edition) is based on.
Rogue Trader and 3rd Edition Fantasy battle had a lot of similar ideas revolving around the idea that a GM was still an integral part of the hobby and that any miniatures could be used in your games. The ideas that a 'balanced' game didn't necessarily revolve around points costs and the game would be set up by the GM before the two players would play it.
In this way these games were more similar to D&D games than the current miniature wargames that exist today. Games were about telling stories and there were not necessarily winners and losers.
I find this mentality very appealing and I love playing story driven games like this. A few years ago I didn't know if I would really like this sort of play or not but I embarked with my friend Pen Dull on an adventure with a game called Book Of The Arbitrator. This is a modified Necromunda ruleset. If you click on the label on the side of my blog labeled Book Of The Arbitrator you will see all of my posts about this adventure.
Book is the same idea as Oldhammer, its a game that ideally uses a GM along with 2 players to tell a story using miniatures. While the idea of playing Chaos Warbands created from the Realm of Chaos books from the 80s is very appealing I have latched onto Book Of The Arbitrator because all of the rules are available free and legally online. Necromunda from the GW website and Book Of The Arbitrator from the link above.
I am quite intrigued though by 3rd Edition Fantasy and all of the figures that go with it after reading the Realm Of Chaos blog and want to try and find the rule book along with the other Realm Of Chaos book I am missing when I go to GenCon in 2 weeks.
If I can find these books there I will let you all know. Until then check out blogs mentioned above if you, like myself, are also old school GW enthusiasts.
Until Next time....
Speaking of which...
ReplyDeleteWe need to get a game of Arbitrator in with GMs again, soon.
I agree - I talked to Seti about Book and he seems like he would like to give it a try.
ReplyDeleteI also want to create a new gang. This time I want them to be all evil characters. I think it would be fun to play corrupted guys with a sorceror maybe as their leader. I really want to play with the psychic power rules some more.