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Fantasy Battles: The 9th Age has arrived, ushering in a new chapter for Miniature Fantasy Wargaming

On the 30th of April, 2016 the official ruleset for Fantasy Battles: The 9th Age was unveiled. The forever-free Rule Book, Magic Compendium and 16 Army Books are now available on the-ninth-age.com. These books represent the cumulative efforts of over 250 volunteer staff members and the input and playtesting from more than 5,000 fans, who were eager to help pick up the pieces after the scene crashed in summer of 2015.

The project was launched in Q3 of 2015 by a team led by the creators of the widly-adopted Swe-comp tournament balancing rules. With their cumulative decades of competitive wargaming experience serving as the guiding hand, and a palpable desire within the fantasy wargaming community, experienced tournament players form all over the world quickly lent their support to help create what has become a comprehensive, balanced, re-imaging of Fantasy Wargaming for a new age, if you will. This community of stalwarts persevered through a lengthy design and balancing phase, producing thousands of games worth of play-testing data that was compiled and used to inform more than seven book iterations. The result is a well balanced tournament-ready system.

Already The 9th Age has established itself as the tournament standard for competitive fantasy wargaming. As a beta, the Ninth Age has been played at innumerable games and Grand Tournaments worldwide and will be the ruleset for the European Team Competition (ETC) in May. In less than a year The 9th Age has experienced staggering growth and support from all reaches of the globe, filling a void in the rank & filefantasy war gaming scene.

Now that T9A offers a stable version, the game is increasingly accessible to gaming groups who balked at the rapid pace of updates in the early development phases.

Complete army books include three human factions, three elven factions, two dwarven factions, two undead factions, three beast-like factions and three monster-like factions. There are already future plans for several supplemental armies based on community demand. As there are no official miniatures for the 9th Age any model you own that you feel adequately represents a unit is completely legal under these rules, and always will be. For the first time YOU the player decide what your units look like.

Recently, The 9th Age announced Shield Wolf Miniatures would provide miniature support going forward. This is only the first of several partnerships with miniatures producers to come for the 9th Age.

So Join us in this Golden Age, download The 9th Age today!

http://www.the-ninth-age.com/index.php?simple-page/

I was really torn when WHFB ended whether to go with 9th Age or Kings of War for my Chaos Dwarfs. Ended up going with KoW, but the amount of work you guys have put into this is really incredible!

One of the things that kept me from going for 9th Age is that it was in flux, but with a stable version I think that could be a real positive. MIght be a bit tough to compete with a pointed version of AoS, though!

Thanks for the link to the final rules and am already checking them out

Congrats on a lot of hard work and some very nice imagary and fluff - my main interest..........

Looks great, will probably have to give this a try.

Good luck!

Although I have serious doubts about the longevity of this whole operation, I gotta say its a pretty impressive piece of work.

I think 9th Age and AOS aim to do two different things. AOS is a skirmish base with a progressed "epic" myth background. 9th Age is a continuation of the WHFB formation based forces wargame. KoW is similar, but treats units as units instead of bunches of individual models. The great benefit to players is that they can play all of these with the same minis. The more players empowered to play the games they want with their figures and realizing that there is no "one true" ruleset, the better!

Best of luck 9th Age crew!

Writing as a diehard fan of Kings of War - I am downloading 9th to at least take a look at it,

I played Warhammer for a long time, starting with second edition (3rd was my favorite) and it is good seeing somebody putting in the effort to keep the game alive.

The Auld Grump - the first fantasy wargame that I played was titled Chainmail, by some guy named Gygax....

 RiTides wrote:
MIght be a bit tough to compete with a pointed version of AoS, though!

Assuming that isn't sarcasm, you'll have to explain your thinking there; adding points to AoS is good for folk who like AoS in principle but wanted an army selection mechanism, I don't see what it could offer to people who liked WHFB and want more of the same but with better balance, they remain almost completely different games.

Oh I totally agree! But some folks will jump back to it now that it does have points, and a lot of the models you'd use for 9th Age are being discontinued or moved to "Last Chance to Buy" with that being the next step.

Having Shieldwolf sign on for 9th Age makes sense - that's what would be needed going forward, army lists that match up with model lines still in production.

Really wish the best for these guys and it's some amazing work!

Congratulations on the work done, and best of luck. One can only wish something similar ends up happening with 40k.

That said, still no Dogs of War?

KoW is the rank n' flank game for me, but all the best wishes to the 9th age.

I don't think 9th age will suffer too much by the discontinuation of GW models actually. The mainline Bretonnian units have great ranges from the Perrys, Fireforge, Gripping beast and too many metal manufacturers to count.

Hopefully Mantic's Empire of Dust range is up and running sooner than later to supply TombKing players and for characters and monsters, there are almost always something fitting to be found in the vast Reaper line.

Kirby Casts Create Competition!

It's *Super Effective!!*

Kirby Is Stunned!!!!

Took a quick look at the main rules - looking quite good, and reminds me a bit of 5th edition.

The Auld Grump

Great work, looks like a quality product, downloaded a few .pdfs and the production values are excellent. Print release should be the next step!

While KoW is my main game, I'd be happy to play this since it looks like a genuinely excellent community project, far better than most of what GW did with the game before it became abandonware.

Miniature support shouldn't be a problem, I know that Mantic are planning a Tomb Kings release later this year.

Good! I hope to start playing again.

As far as I'm concerned, it's just another layer of band-aids on a system that was never good in the first place, but good on you. I suggest that you look into producing a more diverse layout ASAP because chewing through 120 pages of plain text isn't particularly appealing. Get some columns in there, some sidebar boxes, some artwork, that sort of thing. It actually makes rules easier to remember because our brains will associate the text with the surrounding graphic design.

A truly impressive looking piece of work, I don't think 'labour of love' covers even half of it!

I think the most important thing is that it looks like there will be a 'single point of truth' for 9th edition going forward.

And, reading about how committed some of the plans are (outreach programs to clubs and independent stores to publicise the game, discussions with manufacturers about them using their miniatures for the game) this sounds like it has every chance of longevity.

The key point for me now is the rules. I stopped playing at 7th edition, if this is indeed a turn back to (what in my eyes) were the golden days of 5th/6th edition then I'm going to be all over this. Time to start reading!

 Pacific wrote:
The key point for me now is the rules. I stopped playing at 7th edition, if this is indeed a turn back to (what in my eyes) were the golden days of 5th/6th edition then I'm going to be all over this. Time to start reading!

In all honesty, and while the work done with 9th age deserves praise, I don't truly see it as a return to the golden age. Just wait until you get to the Empire armybook and see the 20+ infantry units.

I see it as what 8th edition would have been if GW had competent rule designers. If you were a 5th/6th player and didn't like the overall design philosophy of 8th, I don't think 9th age will be for you.

I think it looks great. I haven't played fantasy since AoS started and this may be just the thing to get me back in. Thanks for all the hard work, it really shows!

Seems quite thorough, but KoW appeals to me more. I prefer the simplicity.

"For the first time YOU the player decide what your units look like."

Uh, no. Been doing that in KoW for a long time.

Always good to have a nice choice of rulesets though

Fair play guys Can see a lot of hard work has gone into this. Think it's main problem is that it is competing with KoW but if its holding the ETC crowd and gathers steam it would be nice to see it stick around. Had a read through the Dwarf list and see that there are army entries that suit the old Dwarf Slayer Doom Seekers and also monstrous infantry! Being able to use Scibor's Ancestral Guardian models in game is a definite plus

I have to say I like several of the things I see so far.

Especially like the apparent removal of the Reign of Comedy table from the DoC book....

 Korinov wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
The key point for me now is the rules. I stopped playing at 7th edition, if this is indeed a turn back to (what in my eyes) were the golden days of 5th/6th edition then I'm going to be all over this. Time to start reading!

In all honesty, and while the work done with 9th age deserves praise, I don't truly see it as a return to the golden age. Just wait until you get to the Empire armybook and see the 20+ infantry units.

I see it as what 8th edition would have been if GW had competent rule designers. If you were a 5th/6th player and didn't like the overall design philosophy of 8th, I don't think 9th age will be for you.

I have nothing against the philosophy of 8th, but there were a few elements of the rules that didn't sit easily with me.

From my quick skim reading it seems like it's removed some of the more OTT and random elements, which I would be fine with.

Me and my friend group play Ninth Age (our GW manager even allows us to play it in store, setting aside a table for us and he has a collection of square bases he allows us to swap AoS circle bases for when we buy models) and it's a very tight and balanced rule set.

It seems to me the choice between Kings of War and Ninth Age comes down to a single matter. Did you like Warhammer because of it's complicated and nuanced rule set or in spite of it? Kings of War is too simplistic for me, the magic isn't as interesting and the movement isn't as nuanced and also doesn't capture the 'vibe' of the 8th Ed armies as well in my opinion. In this way Ninth really called to me. But if you never had any interest in the use of chaff, how to manage an efficient magic phase or large army rosters then I can understand that a Ninth Age that builds upon these may alienate people.

Congratulations on getting this done!

I was never a fantasy player but always loved the Olde Worlde in novels and RPGs.

I really like your design, the army icons are fantastic (except for the Vampires that could use another draft).

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
Me and my friend group play Ninth Age (our GW manager even allows us to play it in store, setting aside a table for us and he has a collection of square bases he allows us to swap AoS circle bases for when we buy models) and it's a very tight and balanced rule set.

It seems to me the choice between Kings of War and Ninth Age comes down to a single matter. Did you like Warhammer because of it's complicated and nuanced rule set or in spite of it? Kings of War is too simplistic for me, the magic isn't as interesting and the movement isn't as nuanced and also doesn't capture the 'vibe' of the 8th Ed armies as well in my opinion. In this way Ninth really called to me. But if you never had any interest in the use of chaff, how to manage an efficient magic phase or large army rosters then I can understand that a Ninth Age that builds upon these may alienate people.

I kind of feel the same way. As much as I love the 'logic' of what Mantic has done with its system (and really, they are not alone in terms of how they have designed a basic mechanic for their game, a lot of the platoon-level, mass battle historical games do it in the same way) there was something about WHFB and the individualisation of characters (kitting them out with wargear, choices of weapons etc.) that made it a lot of fun.

Looking forward to getting hold of my Kensei Undead miniature force, and getting cracking on a new army for this game !

Grats guys!

I'm glad the first edition is finally done so I get get to printing a hard copy of the rules. Love the game so far, good work all around.

looks interesting, will check it out.

This is why i believe (partly) that Age of Sigmar occured. All of the art I have seen for this game looks like old Warhammer Fantasy art. Which isn't a bad thing, but when anyone can use your image, it's time for a new image.

Neronoxx wrote:
This is why i believe (partly) that Age of Sigmar occured. All of the art I have seen for this game looks like old Warhammer Fantasy art. Which isn't a bad thing, but when anyone can use your image, it's time for a new image.

And you think AoS is somehow more protectable? You can't legally defend the drawn equivalent of a genre; anyone can paint in the Cubist style, anyone can even create a work similar to a Picasso piece as an homage, they just can't literally duplicate a Picasso painting. GW's legal standing is no greater now they're churning out freelance digital DeviantArt commission images of Stormcast than it was when they were publishing arguably more distinctive and interesting work. Be honest now, if you'd come across an image of a Stormcast on some random fantasy art gallery on DeviantArt without any prior knowledge of AoS, would you really be struck by how amazingly unique a high-fantasy warrior in full plate with a mask is?

You might think 9th Age tickling the nostalgia bone means GW had to move on, but for my money the only reason many folk are interested in having their nostalgia bone tickled by 9th Age is that GW stopped doing it themselves and so lost their custom.