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Hi there. I've been growing an interest in Warhammer Fantasy thanks to my tangentially related interests of mythology and history. So when I learned that GW was bringing back Legacy Warhammer Fantasy content with the release of The Old World, it got me curious. So I have a couple of questions regarding The Old World:

1. What are the most noob friendly Warhammer Fantasy factions to get into?

2. I know that the "Core Factions" are The Empire, Bretonnia, High Elves, Wood Elves, Dwarfs, Orcs & Goblin, Tomb Kings, Beastmen and Chaos Warriors whereas the "Legacy Armies" are the Dark Elves, Chaos Dwarfs, Vampire Counts, Lizardmen, Ogre Kingdoms Chaos Demons and Skaven. Do you think Legacy Armies will be upgraded to full-blown core armies in future TOW editions if TOW itself is financially successful enough?

3. I've heard that Kislev and Cathay are getting armies as well, probably thanks to the Total War: Warhammer Trilogy in addition to other factors. Do you think TOW will give models to dormant factions such as Albion, Amazons, Araby, Border Princes, Dogs of War, Eastern Steppes (Kurgans?), Estalia, Fimir, Gnoblar, Haflings, Hobgoblins, Kingdoms of Ind, Khuresh, Nippon, Norsca, Regiments of Renown, Pirates of Sartosa, Tilea, and the Zombie Pirates of the Vampire Coast? Would definitely love to play Albion on both Tabletop and in the form of official DLC for Total Warhammer 3.

If there were any dormant factions I forgot to mention in the 3rd question, please feel free to let me know. Either way, hope you all have a nice weekend coming up.

1) any who has a wide range of plastic models available and if you go with 3rd party models I would say Bretonnia

2) no, the decision not doing them is not related to success but that GW does not want them to be there so it depends on the manager changing their mind or leaving

3) we don't know and anything is possible, could also be that we see a 2nd wave of the 9 core factions before there will be any new one

1) In general I think the easiest Warhammer Fantasy armies are the ones that touch all mechanics, so you don't have to, e.g., get by without a Shooting phase (Vampire Counts), or deal with armies that have very restricted unit types (Ogre Kingdoms), but with that restriction almost anything works fine, and if you really like one of the weirder armies they're not *that* much harder. Tl;dr: Do whatever, you'll be fine.

2) I can't speak to their rules development, but I have a hard time believing they won't throw square bases into all the in-production DE, VC, Lizardmen, Daemon, and Skaven kits at some point.

3) I don't expect we'll see everything as full armies, but I could see a few mercenary units or variant lists. The variant org chart mechanic we've seen in the Bretonnian and Tomb King books, for instance, could be used to make Border Princes out of Empire, or Norsca out of Chaos Warriors, or stuff like that.

1.For most noob friendly, I would go with an army that can do everything at least decently well. Both so you can learn everything, but also so if you find one playstyle you don't like, you still have other options.

I'd recommend starting with Empire, High Elves, or Greenskins.

2. Nobody can really say. GW has a history of changing their minds when they see the dollar signs, but they can also be stubborn. The only honest answer is 'maybe'.

3.I doubt it. I wouldn't expect The Old World to receive more model support that WHFB did when it was a mainline game. Kislev and Cathay are probably still coming, but I wouldn't expect any other new faction anytime soon.

 K9ofChaos wrote:


2. I know that the "Core Factions" are The Empire, Bretonnia, High Elves, Wood Elves, Dwarfs, Orcs & Goblin, Tomb Kings, Beastmen and Chaos Warriors whereas the "Legacy Armies" are the Dark Elves, Chaos Dwarfs, Vampire Counts, Lizardmen, Ogre Kingdoms Chaos Demons and Skaven. Do you think Legacy Armies will be upgraded to full-blown core armies in future TOW editions if TOW itself is financially successful enough?

I don't expect these factions to return, but the payoff could possibly be a new version of Warmaster. By keeping the faction count low in TOW, the more managable Warmaster would also be.

1) Just to note - High Elves had one of the most complete new plastic armies. So they might be pretty good as a choice since I think its only their core models (spearmen, archers and basic cavalry) that are somewhat older. Everything else they had pretty much got updated in new plastic or is a new plastic model.

2) Most of the Legacy armies have major AoS armies of their own. I thus don't expect them to appear in Old World because GW is keeping the two games as separate as they can get away with. There are some outliers, eg they can't get away with zero Chaos in Old World so Slaves to Darkness jumped over and Demons might one day since they already pair with 40k

Otherwise I don't expect GW to start doing a second Lizardmen, Skaven or other major army in their design roster. IF they crossed over it would purely be their AoS models just getting formal rules and some square bases in the box.

3) Yes, No, Maybe - not even GW likely knows


Right now my expectation for Old World
Phase 1 - get all the original core armies out. Old models and a few new ones scattered through them with a mix of forgeworld resin and plastic

Phase 2 - get Kislev and Cathay out. This will either be right after the others; or it will form the start of Old World 2.0 edition with both armies being the tital box armies and leading the way.

Phase 3 - start updating older armies with more models. This would likely be part of Old World 2.0 - ergo second edition. Not every army would get it, but I'd expect to start seeing armies getting big updates with new models.

Phase 4 - after that its hard to say what GW will or won't do.


Note I expect to see Made-To-Order runs of old stuff; old models or unique stuff that never got releases and individual character/model new plastic kits to appear for all factions in drips and drabs over time.

kodos wrote:1) any who has a wide range of plastic models available and if you go with 3rd party models I would say Bretonnia

2) no, the decision not doing them is not related to success but that GW does not want them to be there so it depends on the manager changing their mind or leaving

3) we don't know and anything is possible, could also be that we see a 2nd wave of the 9 core factions before there will be any new one

AnomanderRake wrote:1) In general I think the easiest Warhammer Fantasy armies are the ones that touch all mechanics, so you don't have to, e.g., get by without a Shooting phase (Vampire Counts), or deal with armies that have very restricted unit types (Ogre Kingdoms), but with that restriction almost anything works fine, and if you really like one of the weirder armies they're not *that* much harder. Tl;dr: Do whatever, you'll be fine.

2) I can't speak to their rules development, but I have a hard time believing they won't throw square bases into all the in-production DE, VC, Lizardmen, Daemon, and Skaven kits at some point.

3) I don't expect we'll see everything as full armies, but I could see a few mercenary units or variant lists. The variant org chart mechanic we've seen in the Bretonnian and Tomb King books, for instance, could be used to make Border Princes out of Empire, or Norsca out of Chaos Warriors, or stuff like that.

Grail Seeker wrote:1.For most noob friendly, I would go with an army that can do everything at least decently well. Both so you can learn everything, but also so if you find one playstyle you don't like, you still have other options.

I'd recommend starting with Empire, High Elves, or Greenskins.

2. Nobody can really say. GW has a history of changing their minds when they see the dollar signs, but they can also be stubborn. The only honest answer is 'maybe'.

3.I doubt it. I wouldn't expect The Old World to receive more model support that WHFB did when it was a mainline game. Kislev and Cathay are probably still coming, but I wouldn't expect any other new faction anytime soon.

SamusDrake wrote:

 K9ofChaos wrote:


2. I know that the "Core Factions" are The Empire, Bretonnia, High Elves, Wood Elves, Dwarfs, Orcs & Goblin, Tomb Kings, Beastmen and Chaos Warriors whereas the "Legacy Armies" are the Dark Elves, Chaos Dwarfs, Vampire Counts, Lizardmen, Ogre Kingdoms Chaos Demons and Skaven. Do you think Legacy Armies will be upgraded to full-blown core armies in future TOW editions if TOW itself is financially successful enough?

I don't expect these factions to return, but the payoff could possibly be a new version of Warmaster. By keeping the faction count low in TOW, the more managable Warmaster would also be.

Overread wrote:1) Just to note - High Elves had one of the most complete new plastic armies. So they might be pretty good as a choice since I think its only their core models (spearmen, archers and basic cavalry) that are somewhat older. Everything else they had pretty much got updated in new plastic or is a new plastic model.

2) Most of the Legacy armies have major AoS armies of their own. I thus don't expect them to appear in Old World because GW is keeping the two games as separate as they can get away with. There are some outliers, eg they can't get away with zero Chaos in Old World so Slaves to Darkness jumped over and Demons might one day since they already pair with 40k

Otherwise I don't expect GW to start doing a second Lizardmen, Skaven or other major army in their design roster. IF they crossed over it would purely be their AoS models just getting formal rules and some square bases in the box.

3) Yes, No, Maybe - not even GW likely knows


Right now my expectation for Old World
Phase 1 - get all the original core armies out. Old models and a few new ones scattered through them with a mix of forgeworld resin and plastic

Phase 2 - get Kislev and Cathay out. This will either be right after the others; or it will form the start of Old World 2.0 edition with both armies being the tital box armies and leading the way.

Phase 3 - start updating older armies with more models. This would likely be part of Old World 2.0 - ergo second edition. Not every army would get it, but I'd expect to start seeing armies getting big updates with new models.

Phase 4 - after that its hard to say what GW will or won't do.


Note I expect to see Made-To-Order runs of old stuff; old models or unique stuff that never got releases and individual character/model new plastic kits to appear for all factions in drips and drabs over time.

Thanks for all the replies so far. I will now respond to each response in a combined generalized format. With variations of unrlated questions here or there.

1. So Bretonnia, Empire, High Elves and Greenskins would be good noob friendly factions to start out with then?

2. I've heard rumors that Total Warhammer 3 might get DLC content for Araby, Ind, Khuresh and Nippon. Which I hope is a rumor that will eventually come true since it could provide great promotional material for tabletop models of not only those 4 previously mentioned factions, but provide model material for Albion, the Amazons, the Border Princes, Estalia, and Tilea as well.

3. I know that in the Total Warhammer Trilogy that Norsca is it's own separate faction. But in the tabletop version the Norsca are a sub-army of the Warriors of Chaos, at least from my understanding of it. Would it one day be possible for the Norsca to get their own independent tabletop army? In addition to that, could it be possible one day for the Kurgan, Hung, Tong, Skaramor and Veigs to get their own separate armies in both TOW and Total Warhammer 3? (Sorry for mentioning the video game spinoff a lot, especially for a tabletop wargaming forum like this one.) Also, what's the difference between TW3 Norsca and TW3 Warriors of Chaos?

4. What's the difference between the Dogs of War and the Regiments of Renown? Are they based on Swiss Mercenaries, the Landsknechts or the Condottieri?

5. I'm working on making a MapChart map of the WHFB factions. I'm posting an incomplete version here because I want to know where exactly I should put the Dwarfs, Greenskins, Beastmen, Wood Elves, High Elves, Skaven, Ogre Kingdoms, Daemons of Chaos and Chaos Dwarfs. https://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Image:Map_of_Warhammer_Fantasy_Factions_Prototype

I'll be sure to come up with more questions if/when I can think of any new ones. But that's all for now.

Bretonnia and HE are more straight forward to play and Bretonnia already got their release, not sure how long it will take for HE

TWWH is something different and while connected those 2 games are not really linked

Norsca itself is not part of Warhammer Fantasy, some of the Chaosbooks allowed to play Barbarian focused armies to simulate Norsca but they are like other factions that were covered within other army books, so their best chance this time is to be an Army of Infamy in the Chaos Journal

Dogs of War are the general Mercenaries and its own faction as in "Armybook Tilea" and based on Italien City States, Regiments of Renown are the special "named" version of the standard units, usually more elite
(and for history, for the timeframe this is based on, there was no difference between Soldier and Mercenary)

for the map, this off by a big margin as they do not use modern countries therefore modern borders are not useful
like Kislev is not Russia, mot more like Poland-Lithuania
with Hobgoblins being the Khanats (so central and eastern Russia, while the others are central Africa), Bretonnia is England+France, Albion only Ireland, also Dwarfs would go from Austria over to Sweden/Norway, Vampires being inside the Empire, Arabia is the whole Northern Africa, Middle East and Persia, same as Lizardmen are all Central and Southern America (GW was not focusing on one culture but combined clishees from multiple ones) etc

you better start with a map from the 1400-1500 rather than a modern one were the countries that are used exists

1. As far as beginner friendly, the Empire, Dwarves, and Warriors of Chaos are pretty beginner friendly. Each of these factions have a lot of plastic models and have units and characters that are survivable. Each have the pros and cons - Dwarves are slow, Chaos lacks shooting, and the Empire is a jack of all trades.

2. As for now, I would suggest sticking with 1 of the 9 if you are new. You won't be disappointed if it takes a long time for GW to convert an army or two from Legends to a core faction.

3. I'm guessing but I would expect GW to treat TOW similar to HH. I would expect to see expansions at some point - how long that will be? Could be a year or two. GW did promise Kislev and the story line for them is the Fall of Praag when Asavar Kul invasion unites the fractured empire. These expansions may bring a legend faction into a core too. I would believe that GW will hit us with some older models and over time if the game is successful, we will see more and more support for it.

Grail Seeker wrote:
1.For most noob friendly, I would go with an army that can do everything at least decently well. Both so you can learn everything, but also so if you find one playstyle you don't like, you still have other options.

I'd recommend starting with Empire, High Elves, or Greenskins.

From a gameplay perspective, this is the best advice, in particular due to the bolded point. Of those three armies, Empire is the most flexible, with Elves being a bit more unforgiving due to their fragility and Greenskins due to them being occasionally out of the players control.

You can make any army work over time though, and of the nine core factions I think all but Wood Elves are suitable for a beginner. Wood Elves being really tricky to get right are something I would suggest to somebody just starting the game.

However I would always go for the army you like the models of, including the experience of building and painting them. The hobby portion will most likely take up much more of your time than the "playing the game" part. So go for an army you enjoy working on in your hobby time - if you love a factions background and models, you will find ways to make the gameplay work for you.

kodos wrote:
for the map, this off by a big margin as they do not use modern countries therefore modern borders are not useful
like Kislev is not Russia, mot more like Poland-Lithuania
with Hobgoblins being the Khanats (so central and eastern Russia, while the others are central Africa), Bretonnia is England+France, Albion only Ireland, also Dwarfs would go from Austria over to Sweden/Norway, Vampires being inside the Empire, Arabia is the whole Northern Africa, Middle East and Persia, same as Lizardmen are all Central and Southern America (GW was not focusing on one culture but combined clishees from multiple ones) etc

you better start with a map from the 1400-1500 rather than a modern one were the countries that are used exists

I was mainly using the MapCharts website when creating that map. Though this Europa Universalis Map would probably be a good substitute for what template I should use: https://www.mapchart.net/eu-iv.html

Other than the corrections you mentioned, is everything else about the map alright?