A world to game in.

Like most people into wargaming my age, time appears to conspire against me, coupled with a problem finding opponents. If I'm honest, he finding opponents bit doesn't bother me that much since I've developed a very particular style of play which features abandoning rules if they get in the way of the flow of the narrative. The big up to the game, the developing of narratives and armies, the assigning of characters to models I paint and the preparation of figures and painting of them gives the most satisfaction. How they do in battle is part of the narrative, but the battle (the game) is a small part of the hobby. There are exceptions of course (e.g. Blood Bowl is a game that has to be played, but then only as part of a league) but every game is a part of a wider campaign and narrative I'm building and finding opponents to take part in this is great but not the be all and end all of the hobby or the reason I do it.

The time aspect is more frustrating. Trying to fit in a hobby around family, work, mundane tasks, other hobbies (including reading) is frustrating. Looking at what I've collected and what I want to do with it compared to what I have the time to achieve is saddening but it also reminds me that when I gamed as a teenager I did not have that much time either. Back then I had other things effecting my time and rarely had the time or resources (each paint pot cost quite a lot, even back then) to put on the game that were advertised in White Dwarf. Looking at it honestly, my hobby time as a teenager was always in competition with other things in my life and there was a reason I did not ever achieve the big games that were advertised in White Dwarf.

But it is also true that my teenage gaming was kept alive by two things. It was playing simple, easy to play games that were fun, challenging and fast moving and it was very easy to throw them together. The other thing that kept me gong was the wider narrative that did not just focus on the armies  I was fielding, but the idea that the game and what it represented fitted into a wider universe that I was helping to develop.

Space Hulk, for example,  was (and I'm sure still is) a quick game with endless possibilities and very simple rules. What kept me playing a campaign each weekend for about a year was the idea that the Marines in my force were individuals and they were part of the wider universe, not just a playing piece. By the time I would reach game six of a campaign, there was the underlying sense that these were the survivors of the marines elite first company, each had a story and I had witnessed them fighting this far.

Likewise, the Realm of Chaos books helped to revitalise Warhammer and give it a permanent place in my memories because it built a narrative and a background that lifted the models beyond being just pieces in a tactical battle game. A story was being brought to life. The quick easy games with warbands were just moving the story forward and the warband and champions story was what you were involved in, not simply a collection of statistics that enabled you to flank.

While this is a repeat of what I've already been saying in the previous posts of this sporadic blog, it is also something I feel I need to focus more on. I try to give al the armies I paint a theme but if I'm to get the most out of the little time I spend on this hobby, I need to focus less on gaming and more on my idea of world building. The way the army fits together for a game is a direct reflection of the role it plays in a world and the more complex and detailed this world is, not only will the narrative behind the game become stronger, but it will also make coming up with scenarios easier with multiple possibilities resulting from all parts of the game.

So I have come up with a few ideas about the world that I want to build a narrative around for my games.

It's the Warhammer world, but my Warhammer world.
The Warhammer world of my  teenage games was directly related to the highly developed and believable world of WFRP first edition. By being based on roleplaying game this world was developed and realistic, being given from the perspective of a powerless individual, without much control on the chaos around them.

The Enemy Within campaign, and to a lesser extent the original Warhammer novels, further developed this world and had a setting where interaction of the characters reflected the real world, complete with rules for class and superstition clouding what was really happening.

By the end of the Third edition of WFB this world had been abandoned. Leading into the fourth edition, armies were to become hero lead with the awesome elites being the emphasis. Rules for realistic things such as baggage trains and levies were largely abandoned along with most of the different religions and tensions in the empire (and other factions). Instead a high fantasy existed where the Emperor was a great warrior, not the compromise between different factions and society was not just  permanently at conflict but was in organised armies. The  forest moved from something to be feared containing beastmen and other horrors that preyed on isolated villages, to something another battleground for the highly organised Landsknecht armies of the warrior Empire.

The hidden war between the nobility, sometimes breaking into open armed conflict, mentioned in White Dwarf 91 article on nobility in WFRP was abandoned in favour of the united warrior nobility. The magic that posed both a threat and promise of power was formalised and controlled in official state universities and registered war wizards, destroying the possibility of adventure and creating a simplistic good and bad that drained the  colour and character from the Warhammer world.

This world changed with each edition and now no longer exists. Games Workshop put it out of it's misery, perhaps realising it was only nostalgia that kept it going and they had developed in a limited way. It's replacement is something that is not really aimed at gamers my age but does look as if it is full of more possibilities, returning to a kind of Michael Moorcock world of endless realms and eternal Champions. It should guarantee the continuation of Games Workshop with enough to inspire any imagination (other than the imagination of tournament players who found they could not win without thinking anymore). It reminds me of the aspects of the Warhammer world that was presented in 'Slaves to Darkness' and 'the Lost and the Damned'.

But I am not currently looking for that. I want to use the Warhammer world of first edition WFRP, the Warhammer world of my youth, and then expand it filling in the unwritten background or changing the background I don't like. This will be the world for my games, just as everyone has their own 'Enemy Within' campaign and events. If, for example, you like Orcs being rapists and feel this has to be done to make Warhammer real, I am not going to get into long arguments on background with you. Although I might question why you are insistent on this and what it says about you...

This will allow me to have 'Song of Fire and Ice' political style infighting,  reformation style religious conflict, every character to be equally important and to have their own aims and perspective, an overriding threat of apocalypse (very '80s cold war style) and Tolkien style ancient history effecting each kingdom with the irony being it is often based on lies. The 1st edition WFRP had all this and lots of room for expansion as well as more detail for armies that the later army books missed.

So I am going to focus on finishing my proxy Empire army using mainly Perry Miniatures. I plan to base it on the list in Warhammer armies and around the politics and threat to an invented small province that reflects and adds to the world of WFRP 1st edition, not the world of Warhammer as it was developed, even if I might borrow some of the aspects of these later developments. But in all I want it to be based upon getting a reflection of the world in my mind, rather than an army that is aimed at taking all comers. It is a reflection of a narrative. The skill and fun comes from being able to play and win within these constraints, producing heroes doing truly great things, not from building undefeatable armies.

The underlying focuses for my army will be the following:

The Enemy Within as a source book
As  mentioned above, the Empire army evolved into a form of Landsknecht  soldiers as WFB 3rd. edition developed. This was the continued in all subsequent editions. While it provided a very visually interesting army and fitted with the idea of a professional standing army, it didn't really fit with the kind of world portrayed in WFRP. The Empire is not a great power, but a political mess barely holding together.

In reality the Empire, in it's present incarnation, has only lasted for 200 years since Magnus the pious defeated Chaos incursions and united the Empire. The Empires armies are made up of many different elements, with the Imperial Guard forming the personal bodyguard of the Emperor and being an elite with in the army. With this, there are the provinces standing armies, ranging from nobles personal retinues, through to town militias. equipment and training varies with these forces. Finally there are mercenaries, used throughout the Empire and if we look at real history, they were often a vital element in providing a professional boost to a states armies in times of war (and were the role played by the original Landsknecht.

There is more detailed information on this on pages 28-29 of the 1995 Hogshead printing of 'Shadows over the Bofenhagen' and was originally in 'The Enemy Within' adventure module. A quick read through it shows that the best match army list is the one in Warhammer Armies and this gives plenty of scope to play with when trying to make this source material into an army.

The struggles of the Nobility
This is best summed up with  quotes from the White Dwarf 91 article on nobility:

"Imperial politics are based on the division of power among the electors, for whom the Emperor is but a figurehead. The divisions and alliances among the Electors tend to be at their most critical during the election of a new Emperor, but the process takes place all the time. Normally there are only a small number of figures at anyone time with the drive, energy and influence to be considered major figures in the hierarchy of the Empire... Behind these figures, a complex web of supporters spreads throughout all areas of the Imperial life."

And

"One of the sad truths about the noble class is that they love fighting. No harm in that, you'd have thought, given the enemies beyond the border, but the fact is they prefer fighting each other. There is a kind of institutionalised violence in the Empire called the Private War. This is a family feud blown out of all proportions, involving the raising of armies, battles, sieges etc. It's called a private war because it is actually illegal to 'join in'- you are supposed to be hired by one of the principle parties involved, related to one of them, a retainer of one of them or just one of them. The rules of the private war are simple; you can d what you like to the people on the other side, but you are supposed to avoid general mayhem around the place."

In other words, the nobility are not united but are full of differing interests, feuds, power struggles and questionable loyalty. Basically I aim to reflect this in the background to my Empire army and let it show in the campaigns that it is involved in.

Religion
WFRP, reflecting renaissance Germany, has religion as a major factor. The obvious conflict between followers of the cult of Sigmar and followers of Ulric are well covered and can be easily represented. But WFRP mentions the other ods which might be followed by conscripts in the army or the alternative to Ulric, Myrmidia, the Goddess of War who represents strategy and is seen as unfit for a warrior to follow by Ulric's worshippers.

Then there is the opposite to the Chaos Gods, the Gods of law. Long neglected with only a paragraph for each of them. I  see that there followers can have as harmful an impact as the followers of the Chaos Gods with their triumph also representing the destruction of society and the world. Solkan, the master of vengeance and law could be used as a deity for defeated champions and a motivation for witch hunters and puritan politicians.

Magic
White Dwarf issues 113 and 114 presented the beginnings of what became colour magic for Warhammer. The interesting thing was that it gave background that individualised the magic users and encouraged them to be more than simply a choice for the army. The underlying suggestions are that magic is a powerful addition to society and has it's own secret underworld and power struggles. It would be foolish not to tap into this rich vein and tie it up into the narrative of my games. Coupled with the struggles of the nobility, the reason for battles and the objectives in the scenario can be extremely varied.

Next blog I'll start showing how my Empire army looks and how I'm beginning to develop the narrative around it. hopefully there won't be too much gap between this post and the next.