Warhammer: The Old World RPG Offers A New Take On The Empire

An easy way in for people less familiar with the lore.
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The Warhammer brand is one of the few gaming IPs that has a similar cultural cache to Dungeons & Dragons. It has decades of lore that span multiple games and eras of the world. Celebrities have started to discuss painting (or neglecting) their armies. When Games Workshop released the Warhammer: The Old World miniatures game early in 2024, they wanted a fresh take on the setting that would appeal to potential customers who are new to the grim setting.

Warhammer: The Old World The Roleplaying Game, from Cubicle 7, looks to do the same on the RPG side of things. The game boasts a fresh take on the classic setting with a streamlined system meant for fast play. Cubicle 7 gave me access to an advanced PDF of the Player’s Guide for this article and allowed me to ask some questions of the design team.

“We wanted people less familiar with the lore to have an easy way in,” said Dominic McDowall, Game Designer and CEO/co-founder of Cubicle 7 Entertainment Ltd, “so each character has contacts. Your contacts give you advice or assistance, and also ground your character with background elements that tell you how you fit in. Besides that, we also designed the game to be easy to get your head around - simple to learn, and with a satisfying breadth and depth using those core principles”

“We considered how to make the game as accessible as possible at every step of development,” said Pádraig Murphy, Senior Producer at Games Workshop. “Even if you don’t know the name of every god or have a map of the Empire memorised, you will find the game invites you in. As Dom mentioned, contacts work really well for this. Focusing on one town, the port of Talagaad, also allowed us to show off the setting without immediately overwhelming new players and GMs. All of the depth of the setting is there once you’re ready for it, of course — this is Warhammer after all.”

Warhammer: The Old World The Roleplaying Game is set a few hundred years before its older darker sibling. Things have not gone to Hell in a handbasket like they have in Warhammer Fantasy Role Play, but you can see the basket in the process of being woven. Chaos cults and magical anomalies might be more rare but there’s still plenty of conflict in the air. There is no clear leader ready to lead the empire, which means all the city states are jockeying for power. Its through the cracks caused by these rivalries that Chaos begins to take hold.

Elements of the new game will seem familiar to fans that have played the original. The stats and skills are more or less the same. Characters still are built through class-like careers and encouraged to roll for random elements. While the company spins up content for this new line, it seems like it wouldn’t be too difficult to convert some of the more low key adventures of Warhammer Fantasy Role Play to use with this game.

“The ratcatcher was non-negotiable!” said McDowall. “One of the things that’s always important for us is capturing the feel of the setting we’re working on and reflecting that through our design choices.”

Combat and magic remain dangerous propositions. As players take injuries and summon unknowable power, they rack up a dice pool that’s rolled on a chart filled with the sort of awfulness expected in a Warhammer game. These dice can be disarmed if time is taken to bind wounds and discharge those energies but they can also quickly stack up during a battle and cause some unpleasant moments for player characters.

“We knew we wanted the possibility for players to suffer a grisly injury or two!” said Murphy. “We also wanted to keep the idea of degrees of success, and to make sure players had a chance to roll some dice when they were attacked to parry a blow or dive out of the way. Beyond that, the star of the show for me is the setting — the World of Legend is such a rich and rewarding world to explore, both as a developer and a player.”

Characters are given pieces that connect them to the setting and let them learn about it at their own pace. They get contacts, relationships and assets like businesses or holdings. These aren’t the amoral drifters expected to steal a dead man’s identity to kick off a grand campaign. These characters have homes, jobs and people they care about and, hopefully, fight for.

Which isn’t to say that this game is Warhammer: Animal Crossing. The players are linked by a Grim Portent which shows them the grave future that lurks in the dark spaces of the world. Perhaps they saw a Chaos ritual on the edge of their little town. Maybe they were drawn to a cursed location by a friend who didn’t make it out alive. They know that something's rotten in the Old World and they’ve got to stop it, whether for the greater good or simply to save their own skins.

“It’s a new take on a classic setting,” said Murphy, “with a snappy system and dynamic combat. It’s a great and accessible way to get your friends into a Warhammer Roleplaying Game if they’re not familiar with the setting, or if they aren’t normally into roleplaying games.”

“It's a great opportunity to explore a new era with its own flavour too,” said McDowell. “The new take on familiar elements mixes things up in ways you might not expect. Don’t take Sigmar’s ascendency for granted - invoking his name outside of the Reikland can land you in deep trouble if the witch hunters have recently rolled through town!”

Warhammer: The Old World The Roleplaying Game is due for a physical release in Q1 of 2026. Fans who pre-order the game can get access to early PDFs as they are completed.
 

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Rob Wieland

Rob Wieland

Faith
Faith comes in 3 steps, the first time you buy faith you gain a lore skill and a minor benefit. Ulric grants mountain lore, resistance to cold weather and bonuses to attack after you take a wound. The 2nd step grants you 3 prayers. These take an action to use but just happen, One of Ulric summons a wolf to help you with combat, while one of Sigmar makes it harder for people to cast spells. The final step in faith requires you to perform a great taste for your god then you can buy a single use miracle you can call upon. After you use it you can buy that level of faith again after you complete another task for your god
It sounds like they made a an effort to make followers of different distinctive, which is good. I don't need the priests in Warhammer to have a large toolbox of spells and powers, as long as they can do things wizards cannot. I do worry, from what I've heard so far, that this is one career path that may suffer for the streamlining and simplification.
 

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The best way to learn about the setting is to read the novels. In this order.

Beasts in Velvet
Drachenfels
Konrad, Shadowbreed, Warblade
Ignorant Armies
Wolf Riders
Troll Slayer
Skaven Slayer
Dragon Slayer
Demon Slayer
The Vampire Counts Trilogy
The Matthias Thulman Trilogy
The Mallus Darkblade Trilogy.

Once you’ve read them I’ll get you another list.
Generally I prefer to read, but I have 10 hours worth of driving every other weeks and enjoy audio books while doing so. In case others are interested, you buy audio books from the Black Library.


They don't have a lot of Warhammer Fantasy books, but they have the Vampire Genevieve collection and the Gotrek and Felix stories, which are well voiced (Troll Slayer, Skaven Slayer, Dragon Slayer, Demon Slayer, etc.). They are pretty expensive though and are missing a lot of the classic stories.

There is a podcast called The Oldhammer Fiction Podcast (The Oldhammer Fiction Podcast) where the host reads the books with some discussion of them at the end of each episode. Not everything is Warhammer Fantasy, he also reads from classic 40k, and other material. The readings from the classic era of Warhammer Fantasy include:

Episode 1 – The Reavers and the Dead from Ignorant Armies
Episode 2 – No Gold in the Grey Mountains from Wolf Riders
Episode 3 – The Other from Ignorant Armies
Episode 4 – The Tilean Rat from Wolf Riders
Episode 5 – The Phantom of Yremy from Wolf Riders
Episode 6 – The Star Boat from Ignorant Armies
Episode 7 – Geheimnisnacht from Ignorant Armies
Episode 8 – Wolf Riders (story) from Wolf Riders
Episode 9 – The Dark Beneath the World from Red Thirst
Episode 11 – Apprentice Luck from Ignorant Armies
Episode 14 – The Oldhammer Christmas Stocking: Short Fiction from Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned
Episode 15 – The Ignorant Armies from Ignorant Armies
Episode 16 – Hammer of the Stars from Wolf Riders
Episode 18 – The Voyage South from Red Thirst
Episode 19 – A Gardener in Parravon from Ignorant Armies
Episode 20 – The Way of the Witch Finder from Wolf Riders
Episode 23 – Cry of the Beast from Wolf Riders
Episode 27 – Pulg's Grand Carnival from Wolf Riders
Episode 29 – The Laughter of Dark Gods from Ignorant Armies
Episode 31 – Drachenfels, Prologue and Act 1
Episode 32 – Drachenfels Acts 2 & 3
Episode 33 – Drachenfels Acts 4 & 5
Episode 34 – Zaragoz Part 1
Episode 35 – Zaragoz Part 2
Episode 36 – Zaragoz Part 3
Episode 37 – Red Thirst from Red Thirst
Episode 38 – The Magician's Son from White Dwarf 136
Episode 40 – Konrad (Part 1)
Episode 41 – Konrad (Part 2)
Episode 42 – Konrad (Part 3)
Episode 43 – Stage Blood from Genevieve Undead
Episode 49 – Plague Daemon (Part 1)
Episode 50 – Plague Demon (Part 2)
Episode 51 – Plague Daemon (Part 3)
Episode 52 – The Cold Stark House from Genevieve Undead
 




I know WH from WHFP 1e and I've not followed the setting from there to 4e. I'd love to hear ppls' opinion of the setting the designers have chosen for this system.

My understanding is that while WH is grimdark, there was a certain hilarity to what was going on throughout the original setting that I cherished a lot, but that this got lost in subsequent iterations.

Maybe they will bring this sense of levity and grace back?
 


For the most part Warhammer Fantasy has never been as dark and dreary as 40k.

Still it has it's black humor stuff like the Leg Tax in the new player's book in the main town. Were there is a fine each time you cross it's main bridge.

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Better hope you don't live on this side of the river if you want to do business in the capital without a big fine.
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WFRP had "The Small vicious Dog", it was not just a "Terrier". It British humor making its way into the setting, you could tell that Monty Python was the writers Saturday morning, plus just the wealth of the European history. :)
 
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