The Appeal of WFB

[Tobs6311]

Hey guys, I recently started a new blog that is primarily WFB centered, and I posted about it under the modeling section of the forums. After some "encouragement" to begin posting on the forums, I'm gonna give it my first go (this is also a post on my blog, but I thought it might be worthy to begin a discussion here). Hopefully it will kick start some of your imaginations and influence you to post about what makes the Old World so appealing to you.

Thinking back to a particular post on BoLS where one of the arguments against WFB was that the background/fluff isn't very original, and 40k is much deeper. So why do I find the Old World such a compelling setting? I think the idea of a 17/18th century European empire transplanted into a world filled with magic, mayan-inspired lizards (visited chichen itza a couple summers ago...amazing. Absolutely dumb struck by what our ancestors created (even with the constant badgering of mexicans trying to sell me cheap trinkets...)), arthurian knights, elven mystique, human/beast hybrids, egyptian undead, vampiric lords, and vikings infused with the power of chaos all waging war on an epic scale is fascinating. For a history/fantasy buff like me, this is as good as it gets. Where else can you wage a battle over an ancient magical artifact with elves of the forest allied with a feudal army from a nearby keep against undead hordes led by a blood thirsty vampire? Where else can norse raiders seeking treasure (a la pizzaro but with giant axes and furs) become ambushed by lizards sallying forth on dinosaurs? Where else can a Holy Roman Empire inspired mass of men, backed by tanks, griffins and mages wage war against a horde of blood crazed dark knights and creatures from our darkest nightmares? The possibilities are almost endless...and GW has so much more they could work with- imagine samurai of nippon attacking a grecian-inspired phalanx (or roman legionaries led by a khornate emperor)...the historical references mixed with tolkien-ist fantasy is simply enthralling. Not to take anything away from 40k; what they've done with that universe, with support from novels, supplements and a sister company is equally awe inspiring. But for anyone with any historical interest, I think that WFB offers an incredible amount of opportunity to indulge in martial conflicts that never occurred, and, with a little imagination, make those real.

What keeps bringing you guys back to WFB? What scenarios are you most interested in, and would most like to see?

JTS

[eldargal]

I agree entirely (though one small nitpick, the Old World is more 14th-16th centuries than 17th/18th). One thing people cite in favour of 40k, that you can make your own worlds, is certainly a plus but it also makes the setting a little impersonal. The claim you can't fit your own stories into the WFB world is also ludicrous. Take the Empire, it is a huge place, sure you might not be able to make another large city like Altdford or Nuln but you can make your own noble family with their own estates. I have a Countess from Nuln (not an Elector-Countess) who has an estate and properties within Nuln and extensive lands outside the city, just like real nobility would have had. There are enough towns and villaged in those lands to furnish any number of scenarios and they are spread out enough that any number of enemies could invade (few noble estates were entirely contiguous).

The same applies to almost all the other races, there is plenty of space for new Orc warlords, Dark Elf noble families, High Elf noble families, small lizardmen 'temple-towns' etc.

Sure you can make your own system or even sector (or Craftworld) in 40k and I have done) but it still feels much more impersonal, if it gets destroyed no one will even notice. Whereas having a connection with, say, Nuln or Saphery or Hag Graef helps ground it more in the established fluff. That is much more difficult in 40k as you can't easily link your planet with an established one as they are by definition seperate planets. Hence the impersonal bit.

[Tobs6311]

Ah my mistake, I was thinking more of the 30 years war/english civil war with the proliferation of firearms...but yes the knights/archers/swordsmen would throw it back a couple hundred years, thank you for the correction.

JTS

[eldargal]

Well as I said it was a small nitpick, and it is easy to confuse the periods but the Empire is very much a 1450-1550 period, Bretonnia more 1350-1450 etc. There is a bit of 17th century mixed in though. I'm an archaeologist and history obsessive so I have trouble letting these things slip by without comment.

[Wildeybeast]

I agree entirely (though one small nitpick, the Old World is more 14th-16th centuries than 17th/18th). One thing people cite in favour of 40k, that you can make your own worlds, is certainly a plus but it also makes the setting a little impersonal. The claim you can't fit your own stories into the WFB world is also ludicrous. Take the Empire, it is a huge place, sure you might not be able to make another large city like Altdford or Nuln but you can make your own noble family with their own estates. I have a Countess from Nuln (not an Elector-Countess) who has an estate and properties within Nuln and extensive lands outside the city, just like real nobility would have had. There are enough towns and villaged in those lands to furnish any number of scenarios and they are spread out enough that any number of enemies could invade (few noble estates were entirely contiguous).

The same applies to almost all the other races, there is plenty of space for new Orc warlords, Dark Elf noble families, High Elf noble families, small lizardmen 'temple-towns' etc.

Sure you can make your own system or even sector (or Craftworld) in 40k and I have done) but it still feels much more impersonal, if it gets destroyed no one will even notice. Whereas having a connection with, say, Nuln or Saphery or Hag Graef helps ground it more in the established fluff. That is much more difficult in 40k as you can't easily link your planet with an established one as they are by definition seperate planets. Hence the impersonal bit.

There are also large chunks of the Warhammer world which are left balnk, I think deliberately so, which leaves plenty of space for writing your own stories. Take the Border Princes, a human territory with no fixed state or leadership, where new towns are continually being founded and destoryed and it's position in the worlds means it borders pretty much all the significant territories so can be invaded by most people.

Whta I really love is the unique character of all the armies anad how the models (particualrly the new stuff) represent this. It is just the right mixture of fantasy archetypes, real world inspiration and bonkers stuff to make each army feel like it really has a character of its own and really lives up to it's background. Keep your soulless robots, alien bugs and stoic GM soldiers and give me flying statues and goblin suicide launchers.

[eldargal]

Indeed. The only reason I don't base something in the Border Kingdoms myself is half a dozen players in my games club already do that and I wanted to be different. But even beyond Border Kingdoms there are Empire, High Elf and Dark Elf colonies all accross the world. Ditto for Skaven and it isn't hard to see Dwarves or Chaos Dwarves doing the same.

[Wildeybeast]

Absolutely there are loads of named but barely explored places. I liked Dreadfleet giving us just a brief glimpse into life in Sartosa. Anyone who tells you 40k is better because they can't create stuff fantasy is just looking for excuses because they don't want to create stuff in fantasy.

[Nightstalker]

creating your own planet is pretty easy to do, finding your own place in an already described world is much more challenging and fun.

My empire army is from Sylvania, lead by one of the Lords who was invited to the banquet were Vlad von Carstein poisoned all the barons and lords who were against him, and died when he arrived at his castle. later when an amateur necromancer (and former death mage) stumbled upon his castle, the Lord was revived, the exotic poison still in his veins, turning him into something thats neither dead nor alive. The lords memories still in the past he got a grudge against vampires and is on a mission to rebuild his rightful lands. The necromancer, who the lord sees as his private mage and counselor who was responsible for the army keeps fooling the lord so he can do his private studies in black arts. the clouded mind from the lord is still in the past so he doesnt notice that some of his soldiers are more dead than alive (he still wonders why they dont respond to his questions). A Priest of Morr who was investigating in that area, since he heard the Lord´s plan to drive out the von Carsteins and all the the other vampires and foul creatures, until Sylvania can be added to the empire again, joined forces, forcing the necromancer to hide his dark secrets from the priest, to stay out of trouble. The still living sylvanians are very grim and fear the forces of the vampires more than they fear the undead creatures in their rows. (i know im crazy, i just love to invent my own stories) offered me a lot to do conversions.

My chaos forces were based on a cult of Slaanesh army, so i painted all my marauders like they are only wearing some loincloth, and very crude weapons. They all got a brand on their butt showing whos slaves these were, so no other Dark elve could claim them for himself. The shields of the marauders are either red/blue or white/ blue, which are also the shield colours of some of my skelleton units of my vampire counts army. there is a lot more. in my armies

[slk28850]

What first got me into fantasy was the new(7th ed) Vampire Counts and the constant badgering of my friend for three years. Loved the models and the story. Recently GWs push to put a center piece model in every army has rubbed me the right way. I play both 40k and fantasy but I prefer fantasy. Now that I've started I can't stop!!

[LordMcSpank]

For me it's the vast range of different armies from different parts of the world. It's funny, despite the fact that 40k takes place over a whole galaxy, there seems to be much less variety in army choices . You have your choice of 6 different Marine armies (plus Chaos), a handful of somewhat friendly Xenos races and a few more sinister Xenos races, and that's about it.

In WFB, however, you have 16 different races to choose from that all are very distinctive and play differently. Even the similar races (all 3 elves, 2 human armies, 2 undead armies, etc) each have their own unique background and play style. I think this lends itself to much more variety on the tabletop, whether you are just playing in your friendly weekly league or even in a tournament setting. It's much harder to build your army to defeat a specific opponent when you could literally be facing any one of 16 unique forces at any time.

Anyway that about sums up my fascination with the WFB world. 40k is is entirely stale to me right now and I hope 6th edition can peak my interest again. For the time being I have my Fantasy armies (and Warmachine) to keep my busy.