Before I get distracted with writing about the different editions and intricacies of the rules I want to share this interview with Rick Priestly. In the interview Rick Priestly is talking about the inspiration for the design of his game 'Black Powder'. I have not had the pleasure of trying this game but the interview does give some insights into the design process and also how the Games Workshop designers approached gaming. Rick Priestly describes playing games (not necessarily Games Workshop games) with the Perry twins, Jervis Johnson, Ali Morrison, Dave Andrews and Tim Adcock. All of them were big names in the history of Games Workshop and have made a significant contribution to either the look or the design of the games. I believe only Jervis Johnsons still works full time for Games Workshop, but I could be wrong about some of the others.
The most telling bit is how Rick Priestly describes their gaming. He does not start by saying "We decided to try out the new Codex and suddenly realised they had 'nerfed' half my units so put the models away with disgust." Nor does he say "We play to try out as many unbeatable combinations as an army list allows. We don't really care for the background, it's the winning we love." He certainly doesn't say "We realised that Games Workshop had stopped supporting our preferred rules set a month or so earlier, so Alan Perry twins took all his models outside and burnt them!" Yet what he does say is very telling.
Rick Priestly starts by talking about how the palying of games were a social event ("we’d turn up of an evening, gobble a curry, start a game and the two sides would just begin to engage around about midnight by which time my pumpkin was ready outside"). He then goes on to menton how the rules he developed with Jervis Johnson for Black Powder were based upon allowing a game to be played in these circumstances and to enable quick movement of large numbers of figures that were in their collections. The rules were there for providing solutions to problems with the way they wanted to play, not for dictating the way they played.
Returning to Warhammer, it is possible to see the strengths and the weaknesses of the various editions coming from this style of play and games design. The first edition of Warhammer was meant as something to do with your roleplaying figures. It also meant that players were more likely to buy more figures for the parent company. An immediate clash of styles can be seen. Roleplaying can have lots of rules or very few rules, but it always relies on some form of initiative from the games players to make a session successful. Wargaming can have very complex rules or very few rules. But it always needs some kind of firm basis to cover basics to enable tactical competition. In other words it needs agreed rules on movement and combat, followed by an agreement on what the game is actually representing (Company level combat? skirmish? overall command sweep or individual unit commanders having the initiative? and so on).
By the second edition, Warhammer had moved from it's roleplaying roots and had an agreed set of combat rules that could be used in most scenarios. Work on the game was required from all players, with a Games Master being helpful and a scenario being very useful (even if it was simply the Dwarfs had to defend a bridge from Goblins attempting to raid their territory. This was fine between friends and players familiar with roelplay scenarios or fantasy stories. But two unfamiliar players would be lost. Gamers who had a win at all costs mentality (rather than just enjoying the tactical challenges of a specific scenario) were liable to take advantage. the attempts to set up Warhammer competiitons (or tournaments) had to deal with these problems. Cue third edition.
Third edition (building on Ravening Hordes supplement released earlier in 1997) tried to sove these problems by keeping the possibility for narrative play but also by having rules fro nearly every possibility that could arise playing the game. It was suggested that a certain degree intelligence was needed while usingthe rules and that the majority of the rules were optional suggestions. With friendly play it worked fine. The Realm of Chaos warband skirmish system perfectly complemented the rules and everyone had fun. Or almost everyone. If you wanted to use all the rules, apart from having a massive task of learning lots of rules for situations that might never arise, the flow of the game ground to a halt. This was fatal for competitive play, but then so what. It also turned players away who were a lot happier playing one of Games Workshops (or another companies) more streamlined games that had just as much tactical challenge. If you doubt me, compare third editon Warhammer to Space Marine/epic. Or Space Hulk. Or Blood Bowl. Or Dark Future or whatever you want. The problem was Warhammer was still fun to play and was good at putting an interesting background into action on the table top, allowing the players to develop depth and charaters to their armies. But Games Workshop needed a big selling game to keep selling it's models around. It tales a lot of investment ot build a Warhammer army and Games Workshop were very keen for people to invest!
So fourth focused on getting games played, removing ambiguity and the need for agreement over rues (or a games master) by having exact rules. And the problem developed, because to get more games played, you had to develop a system of rules that enabled to strangers to play each other, rather than one focused on people with common interests developing a narrative. Although the narrative role of gaming remained in place, this approach to rules gradually evolved into the mess that was eight edition; rules were like laws, the games were not representations of events but competitions between two equal armies and variation were discouraged with constant changing army books driven by the latest model releases being necessary to prevent even tournament gamers becoming bored.
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| "Don't you think were all focusing a bit too much on me, rather than maximizing our army list and using the tightness of the rules to defeat them? After all, I'll provide an unbalanced game and possession of the Necronomicon encourages fluff based play, distracting from the seriousness of fantasy wargaming tournaments." |
Fourth and fifth edition are labeled 'Herohammer' because the game allowed interesting heroes but competition games abused this and built unstoppable heroes. The fact that this is only a problem with people who don't see the game as a development of a narrative, but as a competition to crush all opponents, was lost on many people. I see the real problem hitting home just before seventh edition. Lord of the Rings was a big seller, the remaining narrative based games had been pushed into a tiny part of the company called 'Specialist Games'. The rest had to be a big seller focused on getting models sold on mass, not the actual fun of playing.
So returning to the original point of this post, my approach to the rules. Rules are just a guideline, otherwise your missing the whole point of miniature wargaming. That is to play out a narrative with your collection of models. Third edition provides a great loose basis for fantasy games that only becomes rules heavy and hard to play if the rules are taken literally. Once you learn the basics for maneuvering and combat the rest is optional and can be added to are then away from. If something doesn't seem right, don't let it spoil your game, improvise anther rule. Warhammer third is just an example, the same applies to every game I play and to be honest I'm happier for it even if it means that finding opponents becomes an almost impossible task (at times some tools for randomized decision making can be used for some solo play!)
So I'm saying, remember that wargaming is about fun and the rules are to facilitate fun, not provide constraints. If you are representing the events of a war, real or fantasy, the rulebook must be a guide and also allow almost any possibility to happen. For this to happen the rules don't need to be complex, just flexible enough to allow the numerous possibilitys that the background offers to be played out.
