Warhammer The Old World – Welcome to the new year!

On New Year's Eve Games Workshop released the definitive announcement of the Warhammer - The Old World Returning for Pre-Order on January 6th, with most likely delivery on January 20th (simultaneously to an event at Warhammer World).

The return of the Old World will be available in English, German and French.

We won't see a "regular" starter set with two armies, but core sets covering a ~1.250 points army of either Tomb Kings or Bretonnians, including the full-sized hardcover (!) rulebook, templates, dice etc. and between ~70 to ~90 miniatures per box. And a bit to my surprise quite the wave of models, ranging from the 90s to the very last years of Warhammer Fantasy Battles, during the End Times in 2015. Some items will be available exclusively through Games Workshop (the Forge World Resins, some made-to-order items and some of the gaming accessories), while the core items (core sets + books) will be available through the independent traders as well.

Within the army boxes actually only the characters are new models, in case of the Tomb Kings the skeleton warriors are from 1998 with an upgrade sprue, similar with the Bretonnians, who's boxed sets come from 2004 releases.

The Battle Standard Bearer on Royal Pegasus is a new plastic model and seems to be the same model as the one from the army set, as you can build a Lord of Bretonnia on Royal Pegasus leading them. Unusual choice to release the character individually right from the start, Games Workshop usually delays the single boxes a bit after the bigger boxed sets. UPDATE: It's not the same kit, the BSB just shares the Royal Pegasus with the Lords/Dukes kit, with the rider being covered in a seperate small kit while the mount itself is identical with a head variant.

Pegasus Knights are an old plastic kit, that has been around since the 2004 releases. Single sprue per models with the pegasus body and knights with a lance on them, the wings are a separate sprue.

Grail Knights and Grail Knights Command are an old hybrid kit, with plastic horses and metal bits for the knights themself. They used to be a box of 5.

Battle Pilgrims and Grail Reliquae are old metal miniatures, that were released as a boxed set and blisters of 3.

Mounted Yeomen and Mounted Yeomen Command are old metal miniatures, from the 5th edition in 1997/98 with plastic horses (from the mid-90s) and have an incredibly number of poses. They were sold as individual blisters. These sculpts were made by Alan Perry.

Handmaiden of the Lady, Battle Standard Bearer on Foot and Mounted and Questing Knight Paladin with Great Weapon are new Forge World resin models, and replace various 2004s character sculpts. The Questing Knight Paladin was previewed on Warhammer Fest in May and comes with an alternate head.

Tomb Guard are old plastic models, from the later waves of plastic elite units from the 2010s releases onwards (in addition to the core units being released in plastic, Games Workshop released a lot of elite units as plastic units of 10 for various armies to supply the larger regiments of the 8th edition with the proper support).

Sepulchral Stalkers / Necropolis Knights are old plastic models, combi kit that can build 3 of these.

Necrosphinx / Khemrian Warsphinx is an old plastic model, among the first to create monstrous mounts with a character on top and to a certain degree the predecessors of the Necrolith Bone Dragon.

Settra the Imperishable is an old hybrid kit, with plastic horses and metal bits or the chariot and Settra from the 2003s release.

Liche Priest is an old metal miniature from a post 2010 release.

Ushabti are old metal miniatures, while the ones with bows are from a later release in finecast and are now available for the first time in metal.

Tomb King, Battle Standard Bearer and the Tomb Swarms are new Forge World resin models, and replace various older sculpts. The Tomb King was previewed on Warhammer Fest in May as well.

As for the rules, the core rule book will be available as a 352-page hardcover, the same as in the core sets for the Bretonnians and Tomb Kings. In addition, there will be two larger supplements, Forces of Fantasy and Ravening Hordes, covering the army lists of the side of good and forces of evil. Similar as we've seen it in Horus Heresy with Liber Astartes and Liber Hereticus for the loyalists and traitor forces. The names of these supplements are nods to the first army list books in the early editions of Warhammer Fantasy. These books cover the rules for Dwarves, Empire, Bretonnia, Wood and High Elves, incl. special rules, magic (spells and items), and as well as Orcs and Goblins, Mortal Chaos (split into Warriors and Beastmen) and the Tomb Kings of Khemri in the second compendium.

In addition to that, there are softcover supplements who do a further deep dive into the armies, called Arcane Journals and those will cover named characters and themed lists.

The Old World will chance the base sizes from the Fantasy Battle sizes, a lot of cavalry will move from 25x50mm to 30x60mm, as will move the infantry upwards to 25mm square (which means the smaller 20mm bases are gone). There's an overview on the base sizes we will be able to pre-order. I am surprised that they still branch out into these many sizes and the ones they went with didn't interlock more / are multiple of each other. Some of these have been around, others are new additions. It is going to be interesting regarding cavalry, as the new cavalry sized 30x60mm bases don't seem to have slots.

In addition, we will see the return of modular regiment trays. If you're new to square base Warhammer, these were quite handy to move larger units without having to set up the miniatures one by one.

And something that I am really looking forward to is this new map of the Old World. But not the Old World of Warhammer Fantasy around ~2500 Imperial Calendar, but earlier set in the time around 2250 to 2300, centuries before the End Times.

That's it for now. I'll cover more additional information on the game, but usual more focused on the lore and background, rather than meta discussions. Beyond that, enjoy New Year's Day!