14 January 2017

Fantasy Warlord

About a week ago, a fellow Oldhammerer on the FB page enquired about the value of a copy of Gary Chalk and Ian Bailey's 1990 publication, Fantasy Warlord. Now, I'd been aware of this, vaguely, as being the source of some of Gary Chalk's fabulous illustrations alongside the first eight Lone Wolf books, Talisman, the Redwall books, etc, but never really looked into it.

Cue a 1p + postage purchase on Amazon, and I have a copy myself.




Being second hand it has some nice patina - a message in the front showing it was a Cornish holiday present for James in 1993 from his parents, and an AD&D card still tucked in as a bookmark:


Perhaps this lawful-evil warrior, Vance, will appear as an NPC in a campaign at some point...

The book is fabulously illustrated by Chalk, often several to the page. Most of them are black and white, but there are a few primary-coloured page spreads as well. I prefer the b&w ones, like this fabulous dwarf wizard:


or this shifty thug keeping an eye on the revenant in the next frame:


There are also plenty of Oldhammery photos of great miniatures, which aren't actually out of focus despite the motion-blur evidence below:


I was pleased to see that all the detachable sheets in the back were still there:


I haven't done more than scan the rules yet, but they seem to be the furtive love-child of a traditional Napoleonic ruleset of the late-80s, and some D&D house-rules. This is not necessarily a bad thing! I quite like the idea of simultaneous actions based on order chits and the importance of commanders and would be happy to give them a play at some time. The emphasis on the quality of troops, rather than racial aspects, has strong similarities with the currently (and rightly) very popular Dragon Rampant.

Needless to say, Fantasy Warlord did not succeed in its aim to dislodge WFB as the fantasy ruleset of choice - indeed it seems to have been fairly poorly received with particular disapproval reserved for the brightly coloured pictures. This set me thinking, though, what other mass fantasy battle rules were published in the mid-80s to mid-90s? Going back a little to D&D days, I know the medieval ruleset Chainmail was intended to be used for larger encounters, but I'm totally ignorant of any other deliberately fantastical sets. Can any of you enlighten me?

Thanks,
Rab

18 comments:

  1. Great article. What I'd love to know is if you can still get any of the dedicated miniatures for FW? If anyone out there knows the answer please let us know! :)

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    1. Thanks Leadhead. My understanding is that the "Large Ogres" and "Hill Orcs" that SHQ currently sell are from the FW Ogres and Urucks ranges - LINK

      Also, Alternative Armies apparently have some of the moulds, but I don't know any more about that.

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    2. Cheers, might have to ask AA if they'll cast some up!

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  2. I've got Fantasy Warlord as well, I'd be intrigued about how it played. Two other rulesets worth having a look at are Ral Parthas Chaos Wars (handily available here http://www.ralpartha.com/index.php/chaos-wars/48-free-download-chaos-wars-classic-rules) and Grenadiers Fantasy Warriors (also available on line http://www.grenadier.it/fantasy-warriors-ruleset.php)

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    1. Perhaps one day I'll manage to get myself sorted out and we could try them out? Thanks for the steer on those two; I hadn't realised Chaos Wars was a ruleset, I thought it was the name of a figure line, and I'd merged Fantasy Warriors and Warlord in my head, thinking they were the same thing - time to do some downloading!

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    2. If you flick through some of the Dragon magazines I linked to a couple of posts ago you can find the Original Adverts fro Chaos Wars.

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    3. Going Further back you could try and find Archworld or Royal Armies Hyborian Age.

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    4. I reckon if I am good and get my mock exams marked then I can reward myself with some geeky reading to go alongside a big mug of tea and the last slab of Christmas cake. Ah, the unbridled hedonism of the latter years of my thirties...

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  3. There's also Harlequin's Raven ruleset which features illustrations by several ex GW artists and is actually quite decent!

    Bladestorm is also a good game, if a bit more towards the skirmishy RPG end of things.

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    1. I'll check Raven out; never heard of it before! Thanks.

      Bladestorm didn't grab me at all when I flicked through it years back, but I can't remember why! I vaguely remember it feeling a bit like a naff cartoon. Either way, thanks to you and WP I've got three big battle sets to read through first :)

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    2. I suggest you take a look at this link before you go hunting for Raven Rab :)

      http://www.theminiaturespage.com/rules/fan/raventhink.html

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    3. Just noticed that there's a link to a whole collection of mass combat rule systems reviews there too. Enjoy :)

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    4. Yikes, it sounds like Raven wasn't universally popular! I'll still try and hunt down a copy for the illustrations at least. Thanks for the link as well, that'll keep me busy!

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  4. I remember one of my gullible mates, when he was a teen, getting conned into purchasing Chaos Wars by an unscrupulous hobby shop owner. It had sat there for years, literally! Nobody was interested in it, at all! He'd try and flog it to any & every person who walked through his doors :D

    We played it a couple of times, but it wasn't a patch on WFB......wasn't very detailed. That was a very long time ago now though, so I'm not sure if I'd feel the same way now about it.

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  5. I think Gary recalls Fantasy Warlord as a bit of a disaster really.

    I had Asslessman paint up one of the SHQ Fantasy Warlord Large Ogres for me see here. Lovely Bob Olley stuff.

    You can see the Alternative Armies Fantasy Warlord categories here: http://www.miniatures-workshop.com/lostminiswiki/index.php?title=Fantasy_Warlord_%28Alternative_Armies%29

    Earlier rulesets - Rich and Hals Reaper (78) of course. SELWG middle Earth (1976), WRG Ancients (1976) with the fantasy supplement, and also Lidless Eye (1983). I have a deep fondness for Archworld (1977) Mike Gilberts illustrations are wonderful, and the world is very much a precursor to Warhammer - nice campaign generation rules but battles are a little abstract. Of course all are of the 'small press' style of publication.

    Mid 80s - don't forget Fields of Battle from Warlock, for Fighting Fantasy by Graeme Davis. Very simple, but quite effective. Illustrated by Jes Goodwin, with some photos of Citadel Miniatures as tokens.

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    1. Fantasy Warlord certainly didn't grab the moment, did it? I do like the idea of simultaneous movement, and the collapse of a chain of command, something that is more straightforwardly modelled nowadays in Lion/Dragon Rampant and Song of Blades and Heroes.

      Fields of Battle! I had completely forgotten about that, and I've got it. Oops.

      I also hadn't realised those Tolkien-inspired sets were battle rules, I'd always assumed they were rpg or for very-small-encounters to round off an rpg campaign. Archworld seems to have quite a bit of love for it, or at least happy memories, so perhaps that will creep higher up the virtual pdf pile.

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  6. I really like my copy of FW for the illustrations alone. The rules I haven't delved into either...but for the price its worth adding to the collection.

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    1. It was you that prompted me to buy it! And at a grand total of about $3 it was well worth it, even if only for the pictures.

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