WHFB

Warhammer: Fantasy Battles

I will use this page to list the armies I have collected and in the process I will decide if WHFB has a future for me.

My fist memories of WHFB were from the early 1980s when I was a young teenager. I had been attending the weekly Wargames Club at my school for a couple of years. At that time there were basically three games being played regularly: WW II battles using basic rules and using Airfix 1/72 scale tanks and troops (which I played); or Napoleonic battles, again using basic rules and Airfix toy soldiers; and Dungeons and Dragons Role Playing Game. I used to look across at the generally older teenagers playing D&D with their odd shaped dice and think that maybe I'd get into that in a couple of year's time. However, things changed when the D&D lot started to use lead miniatures to represent their characters. At first just one or two orcs, goblins and elves appeared from companies like Ral Partha, Marauder and Citadel, then more and more appeared.

At some point, I cant remember exactly when, the D&D lot began to use their lead miniatures to play games of fantasy battles using a new set of rules called 'Warhammer'. The sight of rank and file regiments of goblins, dwarfs and elves really captured my imagination and I began to get involved.

I started to go into Manchester each Saturday to a newly opened store called Games Workshop which sold Citadel Miniatures, and at the time lots of other games besides. The main purchases at the time were Regiments of Renown box sets which were newly released. The store also had a few boxes of 'bargain blisters' and mis-cast models which I used to rumage through in order to expand my collection at pocket money prices.

The first army I collected was 'Orcs & Goblins'. I used to enjoy their quirkyness and although they performed really badly for me on the battlefield I was not put off.

Even back then there were 'power gamers'. I recall being regularly shredded by bow fire from an opponent who used to place a 'gun line' of Bowmen of Orion Wood Elves standing in a single rank behind a line of Bugman's Dwarf Rangers! I can't recall if there was any animosity between the troops but I do recall my own animosity that my opponent was not (in my opinion) playing in the spirit of the game! My nicely arranged regimental blocks rarely got into combat because they were cut down before they got there. The answer was war machines and chariots but there is always a counter tactic, isn't there......


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