Warhammer was one of the very first games to come from the Games Workshop designers. It all started way back in the very early 80s, when Rick Priestly and Bryan Ansell came up with the very first version of Warhammer. Designed to be more of a roleplaying system than a table top war game, Warhammer was very easy to get the hang of and easy to play. The original system came as a set of black and white illustrated books, (mostly drawn by Tony Ackland and Jon Blanche!) in a full colour box with an excellent painting of Workshops first Chaos hero Mandar Elvenbane on the cover (first name may be wrong please mail me if it is. Marc) by Tony Ackland.

The rules drew a great number of followers all over the UK and it was very soon being played in a great many of the wargames clubs that dot the country. Many serious wargamers looked on Warhammer as something to be scorned and even now almost two decades later it is still often the case with more hard core wargamers.

The second realise for Warhammer was Forces of Fantasy. Adorned with attacking Skeleton warriors on the box cover, this was the very first army listings for the game and contained another three books which gave the player extra rules and troops for the first time. Warhammer was now starting to grow as was its parent Games Workshop (at the time of realise the company had five stores in the UK!).

Over the next few years as the company grew, so too did the range of miniatures for Warhammer. Unlike now where the only real way to get multiples of individual miniatures is via Mail order, back then most of the GW shops stocked miniatures singly and sold them over the counter from small file systems that stored them. But with more shops opening it was time to try a different approach.

For a while the miniatures were packed in small clear plastic bags with the Citadel Logo on the card header, all this changed with the realise of the long awaited 2^nd edition of Warhammer. Now with full colour covers on its books the system introduced the main core that hasn’t really changed too much over the past twelve years. The old world (covered in the original system) was expanded and new items where added. The lost continent of Lustria was re discovered and with the deadly Slann and their enemies the Amazons.

Slann proved to be unpopular, but the Amazons sold by droves and many of those miniatures are highly sort after by collectors. The core rules of the system although changed, still managed to keep to the characteristics set out in the first version of the game. But the 2^nd edition wasn’t without its own flaws and it was very easy to make a character that could prove almost impossible to kill.

Extra rules and characters where given in the Citadel Journals, a series of one off magazines that acted as both a catalogue and brought more rules to the ever hungry gamers. Four of these came out between 1985 and 1989 and once again often command high prices from collectors. In 1989 it was decided to change the system once more and for the first time the rules were all collated together in a single volume and Warhammer3rd edition was released.

This time it was in the form of a hard-backed book (later out in soft back!) and contained full army lists for all the major races. But once again this was not with out flaws and soon after its release the company came up with two new books that helped sort it out Siege (for both Warhammer and its sister game Warhammer 40,000) and Warhammer Armies.

Chaos was left alone in the rules as the company had big plans for it and towards the end of 1990 the first volume of the Chaos books Slaves to Pleasure came out covering the two Chaos gods Slannesh and Khorn the blood god.

The book was very adult in nature and GW informed most of its retail staff not too sell it too anyone under sixteen years of age (by now over 50 stores world wide!), and sparks flew when it was learned that the artist who did the cover binding of the system (who had been sacked from the company just before the book came out) had planted a subtle hidden message "Give your Soul to us!" on the cover, and if you have a copy and don’t believe me look very closely at the cracks painted around the picture.

The next year the other two Chaos gods were covered in Lost and the Damned. Full ranges came out for all the Chaos books and both sold very well.

However it was decided in 1991 that the company, after taking a look at the long term future of the hobby would take a drastic new direction. Management were told that by the end of the year 2000, Games Workshop intended to have completely replaced the majority of its miniature ranges with plastic rather than white metal!

This bold new move was reiterated in 1992 by the release of the 4^th edition of the Warhammer Fantasy Battle (now just Warhammer) system. Now for the very first time the system came complete with miniatures as well as the rules. High Elves and Goblins were the choice for the first of the plastic ranges to be included in the system. By now GW was well used to making good quality plastic miniatures and its range of 40K Space Marines and Orks were among its top 20 best sellers. The 4^th edition was very well received and for the first time we saw Battle Magic, a new magic system which was added as a separate boxed set. Using a card based system helped keep down costs and was more practical than earlier versions, although the use of colour coding the magic system to different schools was a little confusing to some, over all it worked well.

The real move however was the release of the Army Books. These where to cover the forces and characters from all of the armies of the Old World. Starting in with the High Elves and ending with the Lizardmen and Brettoinan books these contained a wealth of information and helped to make Warhammer one of the most in-depth systems available (40K followed suit with the Codex’s for its different armies!)

The latest edition of Warhammer came out in 1995 and this time saw the revival of the Lizardmen and the long lost Slann, both completely changed from their original forms (Lizardmen were part of the Regiments of the Renown, from Forces of Fantasy!).

Once again plastic miniatures came with the system but this time more than ever. Now Lizardmen and Brettoinans could fight against each other. The miniatures were by far some of the best plastics that have ever come out and still continue to be great sellers, and the sheer weight of the box is more than enough to convince a lot of potental buyers!

The 5^th edition came with card stock buildings and like the version before it, but the main changes were to the system itself. Some of the more confusing rules had gone and been replaced with far simpler changes. Battle Magic was redone and named Arcane Magic. Overall the system had come a long, long way since 1980.

So what dose the future hold for Warhammer Fantasy? Well the game will always be in a constant state of improvement. It is a growing system, that mirrors Games Workshop and is intended evolve over time. Don’t count on having seen the last of Warhammer! Some say that the system is just a way for the company to get more money out of the pockets of overly eager gamers, and others say that it’s the system that counts in the end.

But having worked for the company for a number of years and been involved with Warhammer as a player since it first came out, I must say that while I have been researching this article it has really struck home just how much the system has grown and despite the high prices I for one am glad to see its getting better all the time.

Marc Farrimond