To war! Warmaster is fast approaching, and you had better not be in its way! Warmaster is our newest Games Workshop game and is takes battles in the Warhammer World to a much grander scale. This game is huge... in a tiny sort of way. However, rather than being a contest of unit and regiment strength, Warmaster is a battle of Generalship where each player takes the role of a commander of a truly massive army!
The miniatures are sculpted in 10mm scale, which is nearly twice as large as our Epic 40,000 range! This means huge units of infantry, chariots, and never before seen war machines. If you love Warhammer then prepare for a real treat. The detail of these figures is amazing. You simply won't believe it until you see it! The initial armies will include the massed ranks of proud High Elves and the hideous hordes of the Undead. These will appear at the same time as the release of the Warmaster rulebook.
I guess I forgot! Silly of me, seeing as how important it is. Warmaster is not a boxed game, but a big-n-thick rulebook. The book is full of scenarios for you to fight these gigantic battles in new and untried ways! The Warhammer World will never be the same.
This format allows you to purchase the rules, and not worry about purchasing models you might not use. Peruse the pages and decide on an army that interests you. Scratch out an army list then pick up the models you'll need to dominate your foolish enemies!
Blister packs will be flying out of here each week to support the game, and each race will have a special army box deal! Once again, the models are really cool, and seeing hordes of your troops on the table will surely bring a wicked smile to your lips as visions of conquest fill your head. White Dwarf will feature new rules, scenarios, and previews as it always has. Look to the website at http://www.games-workshop.com/games-workshop.html in the future for hobby articles, new releases, and conversion ideas.
Does all of this sound like it is just up your alley? Give Mail Order a call at 1-800-394-GAME (in the US) or 1-888-GWTROLL (in Canada), and ask them about Advanced Ordering Warmaster. Don't forget to ask them if they have any specials going on as well.
But enough out of me lets hear what Rick Priestley himself has to say about the development of Warmaster.
What better way to learn about Warmaster than from the man himself? We managed to corner Rick Priestley in his executive fortress of game designing insanity for an exclusive behind the scenes look at the development of Warmaster! So without further interruption, let's take a look at a few behind the scenes anecdotes from the man himself.
How did we get the name? Warmaster began life as 'Warhammer Epic'. We decided to change the name because everyone was getting terribly confused. When you started talking about Epic, no one was really sure what game you were talking about. To avoid as much confusion as possible, especially for all of our customers, 'Warhammer Epic' became Warmaster! It was a name we had already thought of using for something no one quite seems to remember, so 'Warmaster' our game became! I rather like it even if it does occasionally get referred to as Warhamster (Warhammer + Warmaster = Warhamster, ed.).
The idea of a small scale version of Warhammer was first debated when Adeptus Titanicus came out in the mid-80's. Some work was done on developing a game system at that time but it wasn't until a couple of years ago, that we dug out our notes, dusted them off and returned to the theme and began working on it in earnest.
When we first started out, Warmaster was intended to use 5-6mm models. This is the same scale as Epic 40K and we had a whole batch of test models produced to this scale for us to use in testing the game and armies. They turned out to be a bit too tiny, so we made them just a little bit bigger, about 10mm size. These worked out just great, my only problem is that I still have an Orc, Undead, and Bretonnian army in the really tiny scale and have to start all over again!
Originally, we planned for all sorts of esoteric troop types for each of the armies that you couldn't really do in Warhammer. These included vicious monsters and really nasty war machines. Some of these we kept, like the Undead Sphinx, but some of them just didn't quite make it, including the fearsome Dwarf Juggernauts - mobile steam powered castles that just crushed everything! This proved to be a good thing in the long run as it tightened up the game by making us concentrate on each army's core troops and avoid all sorts of gimmicky troops and mechanisms.
We learned all sorts of things during this project and made a few great discoveries as well. When the project started one of our mould makers, Colin Greyson, decided to make a few 10mm models for himself. These turned out so well that we gave him a job as a trainee model designer. Colin made the Empire and Orc & Goblin ranges for Warmaster and is currently working on 'secret projects' for further Warmaster armies as well as models in conventional scales for Warhammer and Warhammer 40K.
Warmaster at this moment is getting ready to be sent off to Games Workshop stores everywhere and is currently being translated into French, Italian, Spanish and German, so soon everyone will be able to get a copy of Warmaster in their native language. It is really interesting to try and read another version of Warmaster to see what things are called.
On a final note, the cover for Warmaster is just great and was painted by Geoff Taylor whose work has graced many of Games Workshop's games and supplements over the years. Geoff is a freelance artist who produces really wonderful wildlife pictures as well as vibrant fantasy art. If you read a lot of fantasy fiction you'll probably find you have a few Geoff Taylor covers on your bookshelves. Well, I liked it so much, that I've nicked the original Warmaster painting and it now hangs in my gaming room. I'm waiting to see if anyone notices.
The rulebook will be sold separate from any figures for $34.99. Pre-packaged boxed starter armies will cost $44.99 for each race, and contain a small number of units to help you get started.
Units will be sold as a whole unit per blister. The average price per unit blister is $7.99 to $8.99. Heros and Wizards come in a separate blister at $8.99. Special units (Dragons, Steam Tank, Sphinx, etc.) will be $8.99 to $9.99.
All prices are in US currency.