What Is Warhammer: The Old World? A Beginner's Guide

Before the Mortal Realms were dreamed of, and long before mankind reached the stars, Warhammer meant one thing: a single, battered, magnificent fantasy world where regiments of halberdiers stood shoulder to shoulder in the mud and held the line against monsters. Warhammer: The Old World is Games Workshop's return to that original setting — the classic Warhammer Fantasy world, revived as a game of massed ranks, thundering cavalry charges, and kingdoms forever one bad harvest or one black comet away from ruin. If you have ever heard longtime hobbyists grow misty-eyed about the world-that-was and wondered what the fuss was about, this guide will get you oriented.

The Classic Setting, Reborn

For decades, Warhammer Fantasy Battles was the heart of the hobby: a mass-battle wargame set in a grim late-medieval world whose human nations resembled a warped Renaissance Europe, and whose every forest, mountain, and sea hid something that wanted those nations dead. That world was famously destroyed in the End Times, the apocalyptic storyline that cleared the stage for Age of Sigmar. But endings in Warhammer are rarely as final as they appear. Warhammer: The Old World winds the clock back generations before the apocalypse, to a fractious era when rival claimants squabble over the Empire's throne, Bretonnia's chivalry burns at its brightest, and the doom of the world is still a distant rumour rather than a date on the calendar.

Two things define the experience. The first is how its battles are fought. This is a rank-and-flank game: troops fight in ordered regiments — deep blocks of spearmen, wedges of knights, batteries of cannon — where facing, formation, and the timing of a flank charge matter as much as raw strength. Outmanoeuvring an enemy regiment feels like chess played with a thousand tiny soldiers. The second is tone. The Old World is grim without being hopeless. Plague, corruption, and heresy are constant, the woods really are full of beastmen, and yet ordinary men and women keep marching out to face it all with pike, prayer, and black powder. The heroism lands harder because the world gives so little of it away for free.

The World at a Glance

Unfold the map and the shape of the setting appears at once — familiar and wrong, like Europe glimpsed in a cracked mirror. At the centre sprawls the Empire, greatest of the nations of men: a patchwork of feuding provinces, walled cities, and brooding forests, held together by the faith of Sigmar, the ambitions of its elector counts, and the ingenuity of its engineers. West across the Grey Mountains lies Bretonnia, a green land of castles and tourneys where armoured knights uphold ideals of chivalry that the mud of peasant life rarely shares.

East of the Empire rise the World's Edge Mountains, a colossal spine of stone marking the border of the civilised world. Within those peaks the dwarfs delve their ancient holds, and in the tunnels beneath them goblins and worse things breed in the dark. And always, at the top of every map and the back of every mind, waits the north. Beyond the last human kingdoms lie the Chaos Wastes, where reality sickens, the sky burns with the laughter of Dark Gods, and the warbands of the lost gather for the next great invasion. The Old World's geography is a siege: a heartland of fragile lamplight with the darkness pressing in from every compass point.

The Major Powers

Every army in The Old World carries centuries of grudges and glory. These six are the pillars the setting rests on.

The Empire of Man is humanity's bulwark: state regiments in proud provincial colours, handgunners and greatswords, battle wizards wielding the eight winds of magic, and warrior priests bellowing hymns from the front rank. Its politics are as lethal as its battlefields, which is very much part of the charm.

The Kingdom of Bretonnia wages war the old way: a thunder of lances delivered by the finest heavy cavalry in the world, blessed by the mysterious Lady of the Lake, while massed peasant bowmen do the unglamorous work behind them. It is Arthurian romance stretched over a much darker frame.

The Dwarfen Mountain Holds endure in the high places, proud, dwindling, and unbowed. Every wrong ever done to the dwarfs is written in a great book and remembered forever, and every battle is a chance to cross one entry out — preferably with cannon fire.

The Vampire Counts rule the mist-shrouded county of Sylvania, where aristocrats of the night raise armies that do not stop when they die, because they were dead to begin with. Expect marching skeletons, wailing spirits, and a nobility with impeccable manners and appalling appetites.

The Orc and Goblin Tribes are the green tide that never truly recedes. Most of the time they brawl happily among themselves in the mountains and the Badlands; when a warboss grows strong enough to point them all the same way, the resulting Waaagh! can flatten kingdoms.

The Warriors of Chaos come down from the north when the winds blow foul: tribesmen and armoured champions sworn to the Dark Gods, each seeking glory, mutation, and a place in their patrons' favour. They are what happens when ambition is given somewhere terrible to go.

One Story, Two Siblings

The relationship between Warhammer's settings confuses every newcomer, so here is the short version. The Old World and Age of Sigmar are chapters of one continuous story. When the End Times eventually arrive, this world dies — and the magic released by its death drifts through the void and gathers into the eight Mortal Realms, where gods such as Sigmar, once a mortal hero of this very world, take up the tale. To play The Old World is to stand inside the first volume of a saga whose ending you already know, which lends everything a marvellous, doomed poignancy. Our guide to what Age of Sigmar is picks up the story on the far side of the apocalypse.

Warhammer 40,000, by contrast, is a separate universe rather than a sequel — the grim darkness of the far future instead of the grim lamplight of the almost-medieval past. The two share a family resemblance in their gods, their species, and their gallows humour, but no road or starship connects them. If the science fiction branch of the hobby calls to you, our guide on how to start Warhammer 40,000 is the place to begin.

Where to Begin

Start with whichever image refuses to leave your head. If it is a wall of lances hitting home, Bretonnia has been waiting for you; if it is a skeleton horde shuffling out of the fog, Sylvania bids you welcome. Browse the faction pages, follow the stories attached to the army you like the look of, and let the setting unfold outward from there.

On the tabletop, start small. A single box of core infantry or cavalry will teach you the rank-and-flank rhythm — form up, wheel, charge — faster than any rulebook read cover to cover. And if you would rather explore the world before you muster an army, take our tour of the Old World, which walks the map from the streets of Altdorf to the edges where the ink runs out and the warnings begin.