Why I Like Forces Of Fantasy

I love the old Forces Of Fantasy supplement for Warhammer. 

It's still a brilliant read after 40 years and was, in my humble opinion one of the greatest of the early GW products.

It was a rambling three book set which gave you additional rules - some of which you never used at the time, but which, 4 decades later, are brilliant for role playing based actions (you remember that 3rd book in the original Warhammer set, right?) or really small battles.

But for me, the true beauty of this supplement came from the lists and descriptions of the forces available.

Lets take a look at what constituted a list back then by grabbing the book and selecting a list at random - Wood Elves:

If you click on the image and enlarge it you'll see that the common troop types (those available at the time) are all given a single line, with basic weapons and notes on whether armour can be worn. Rare units are also note.

Beneath this, you get special rules for the army and character model stats.

And that's all she/he/it wrote...

Plenty of room for you to make an army which was exclusively yours, whilst having a flavour of the race in question. These days, competition players and let's be honest, mental defectives who need a 50 page, illustrated book to stand in for their own creative ability and inspire them (look, if you need a big book to inspire you in this hobby, take up golf for fuck's sake!) are making fantasy gaming a bland and uninteresting place and in my opinion should be purged in the matter of the Celtic kings of old... Let them take part in the hobby for a year and a day, fete them and then off to the wicker man they go. 

But I digress and dream an old man's dreams...

OK, so once you had the list sorted, you were faced with painting the army. Of course, your own imagination will always be the best way, but this was a time when fantasy was booming and new and fresh blood was flowing in fast. So, a little primer was useful to inspire (and it did, and it still does) those obsessed young minds.

This was where book two came in, as it contained thumbnail sketches of each of the armies, which gave enough info to guide you but again, left you to decide how you visually interpreted the army you commanded.

We return here to the Wood Elves:

Here you see, you got notes on organisation of units (these were the days before stupidly large (and pointless) units, more in keeping with historical gaming, followed by a few tactical notes and finally general colour schemes, all rounded off with some lovely shield and banner ideas in the margins. 

And that was it... You were ready to go.

I have lost count of the times I have returned to this supplement, sometimes to draw upon the dark energies of a better time, and sometimes to remind myself of what an army of the era should look like. And it never, ever fails to deliver. In fact, at this time there are two complete sets of FOF scattered throughout the Dark Tower for easy access and immediate gratification of Oldhammer needs... There will probably be more if I have my way and the Memsahib doesn't stage an intervention.

I was speaking with my painter yesterday and I am now less than £2000 from completion of my Great Project, so I'm pushing forward with that and getting it all put to bed financially this year, with completion of the models by mid 2025 I reckon. Five years to amass 6000 or so models is pretty good, and after that I'll be channeling my finances into sensible stuff like hi-fi, vinyl and sneakers, possibly some East German lava ware ceramics...

Oh, on Friday, I picked these up on a well known auction site. Those of you with an eye for the classics will notice several things...

Those shields have a whiff of Blanche about them and are almost certainly from The Players Guild. And of course the first figure has had his axe replaced with the chain, but is in a fur tabard rather than the usual cloth version.

If you look in the excellent Heroes For Wargames book, you'll see lots of work by the same painter. Anyway, they cost me a fiver each and will be getting my varnish treatment before becoming characters in my Forces Of Chaos, apart from the Gnome who will become the leader for my Gnomish brigade.

Well, the day is speeding along and I must return once again to the coal face of creativity.

TTFN