Warhammer

Well it looks like despite a long period of avoidance I'm getting sucked into the world of Warhammer Fantasy both with the RPG and the Fantasy Battles game, which will be referred to as WFRP and WFB from now on. I think some of my resistance has been due to Games Workshop's habit of talking about it as the Games Workshop hobby rather than the gaming hobby and the RPG being out of print. The setting being more early renaissance than the more feudal period of many fantasy games.

With the miniatures game I have been slow to buy in as I have quite a number of other miniatures rulesets including Reaper and Hordes of the Things for fantasy gaming. The quality of their figures is good, but the prices seem to be going through a phase of rapid increase.

Now I'm going through the WFB rules though it is the 6th edition rather than the latest 7th edition. From what I understand the rule changes between editions have been incremental rather than wholesale.

The WFB rules are quite traditional using an "I go, you go" turn sequence where one character completes all their actions before the other player goes. In each player's turn there is a sequence of phases with only the final close combat phase involving both players. The mechanics of rolling D6 with a target number to beat is very traditional with similar mechanics described in Donald Featherstone's rules from the early 1960s. Generally the rules look to be readily playable with a fairly consistent approach to the mechanics which has added to their ability to support new players starting.