The Essence of Warhammer Fantasy
My attempt to describe the most essential elements of Warhammer Fantasy and a discussion on originality in fantasy.
Any time the question of originality and Warhammer Fantasy Battles (WHFB) comes up somewhere around the internet, there’s always a vocal group there to let you know that Games Workshop simply stole all the good ideas from elsewhere, like Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and that it’s just a cheap knockoff. While that may be somewhat accurate for the first editions of the game, I don’t think it’s fair in any sense for what we know today as Warhammer Fantasy. Read on to see me think about originality in fantasy and to try and conjure up the essence of Warhammer Fantasy.
Please note that this was the first ever essay or a longer piece of writing I’ve ever published for the public to read, now reading it I can see that the writing is a bit rough and clumsy, but I do think the overall argument I’m making comes across well enough so I will leave it as is. I will at some point come back and rewrite this as I think it’s important for understanding Warhammer Fantasy both as a setting and as a game.
Originality vs. Familiarity
Is Warhammer Fantasy just derivative of other fantasy literature as many of it’s detractors and strangely even many of it’s fans claim? I would argue strongly that it’s not any more derived than other popular fantasy IPs (including books, games etc.) and compared to many it’s much more original. The first 2 or 3 editions of the game were certainly much more reliant on direct inspiration or wholesale lifting of concepts from Lord of the Rings and other fantasy content, but by the 4th edition it had coalesced in to something wholly distinct and fully recognizable to modern fans of the setting even if the tone was still quite a bit lighter compared to what it would become with 6th edition and later editions.
One could write a whole essay or even a book on so called originality, the difference between plagiarizing and being inspired by and so on, but here I’ll just boldly state that in our culture being original has become an over emphasized value to the point that it’s unfeasible as in practice it’s impossible to be wholly or even mostly original since we incorporate influences from everything we experience. In the theoretical scenario where it would be possible to come up with something totally original and detached from any influences, the outcome would be so unrecognizable to everyone that it would be impossible to get into and enjoy. Something like that wouldn’t tug at our cultural memory and mythical heritage resulting in something that wouldn’t have any sense of deeper meaning to us. Fantasy writing can sort of co-opt our sense of deeper meaning by referring to deeply embedded cultural concepts, like myths and legends, which carry a massive load of meaning in dense concepts that would otherwise need to be developed in long form. That being the case, the real aim is not total originality, but to strike the right balance between originality and familiarity, utilizing dense meaningful concepts while making them feel original and distinctive. I would argue exactly that is one of the core strengths of WHFB, one of the pillars of it’s essence and part of the reason why it’s a great setting.
Games Workshop has certainly always unashamedly taken ideas and concepts from other sources like history, mythology and other fantasy settings but by 4th edition they had managed to create the distinct essence of Warhammer and were able to have those “loaned” elements mix with it freely so that they became distinctly Warhammer as well (more or less). Sure, at the baseline there’s a lot in Warhammer that is somewhat generic for most fantasy settings but most of that is arguably those cultural and mythological dense base elements which are needed as a foundation for a setting like this to have that sense of familiarity and meaning. I would argue that these elements in fantasy, which are belittlingly referred to as “tropes” actually usually point to base truths about reality in a way that is easily recognizable by someone familiar with the culture it’s based on which in the case of Warhammer is mostly European, but also utilizing other cultures. I realize that is somewhat controversial and I do not mean to say that all tropes are accurate or good in any sense, but many of them do point to underlying truths. I might write a separate story on tropes and fantasy in general as it’s too complex to satisfactorily write about here.
A great example of how Warhammer uses these cultural concepts or “tropes” are the now iconic Dwarf Slayers with their orange crests and beards. Warhammer Dwarfs rely heavily as their basis on the generic concept (or trope!) of fantasy dwarves, but Slayer dwarfs are original to WHFB and they are a great small example of the method Games Workshop has used for their IP. Usually fantasy dwarves are stubborn, valuing honor and loyalty above everything else and live in large family units like clans. They commonly also have elements of Viking culture mixed in, forming part of their aesthetics, but also bringing in historical and legendary concepts like berserkers. While WHFB Dwarfs are very stolid and usually in control (leadership 9 for Dwarf Warriors!), it’s logical to assume that losing their honor due to an shameful act and being pushed outside of their clans could result in them trying to regain their honor by reckless action, becoming like the berserkers of legend. That’s Games Workshop’s writing method in a nutshell, taking real world historical examples, mixed with legends and mythology, implanting that to the setting of Warhammer and following a logic that’s internally consistent with the established lore. I would argue that is what all great fantasy writers have always done and Games Workshop’s writers are no exception to that. That’s not to say everything they have written is great or even necessarily original enough, but the method itself is clear and has consistently created the best fantasy settings. The quality of the writing itself is a separate issue and I don’t think anyone writing for Games Workshop rivals the best fantasy authors, but I think as a setting Warhammer is up there with the best and there certainly are many good books written set in the Warhammer world. The same method I’ve tried to describe above for writing is also used for the visual aspects, the art and the miniatures which are just as or even more crucial to the success of WHFB.
The Essence of Warhammer Fantasy
I would argue that the core of the essence of WHFB is the feeling of meaningfulness and believability that it manages to capture as a whole. We have dealt with the feeling of meaningfulness in the previous part, now let’s discuss believability. While many of the setting’s distinct elements are unrealistic or even silly, like it’s oversized weapons or comical greenskins, as a whole it still somehow manages to remain believable. I’m consciously using the world “believable” instead of realistic, as even though to be believable you need to have an element of realism, these are two distinct categories and a fantasy world permeated with magic simply cannot be described as realistic but it can still be believable if it has internally consistent and coherent rules and if it’s close enough to the real world. WHFB once again manages to strike a great balance on this front, being very clearly based on the history of the real world and having internally consistent rules but still being fantastical. Many other settings, like the successor of WHFB Age of Sigmar (AOS), veer so much in the direction of fantastical that they lose their believability. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with that in itself, by doing that you lose the element of familiarity that being believable grants you and that makes it unappealing to many of us. This element of believability is carried through everything in WHFB (well, at least until around 6th to 7th editions), for example the weapons and armour on the miniatures for the most part look like they could work and that they could have been used by a real historical people. Of course the weapons are way too large to be practical in reality and a lot of the armour would in reality only be fit for ceremonial use at best due to the more fantastical elements, but at their core they still remain close enough to real world examples to retain that element of believability that is so crucial for the feel of WHFB.
There’s one very practical core reason to why Warhammer Fantasy is the kind of mix of historical and fantasy that it is which goes right back to the first moment it was being created. Originally Bryan Ansell tasked Rick Priestley and Richard Halliwell with the writing of the 1st edition of Warhammer Fantasy as a freebie to be sent to customer’s along with the models they had bought from Citadel mail order to encourage customers to buy more miniatures and to give them something to do with their existing collections. It quickly grew to a bigger standalone publication, but this initial ethos of it being written based on the then current Citadel miniature catalogue still carried through it’s creation, which meant that the creature list of the first rulebook was created totally based on the selection of fantasy and historical miniatures Citadel had available then. As those models were meant for roleplaying games in general, along with a few lines for specific games as well as for historical wargames in general, this meant that the foundation for all the races and creatures in Warhammer was created on quite generic fantasy tropes and historical medieval and renaissance era influences just due to the practicalities of them being a small company with very limited resources. Of course later on they have added things and heavily changed them, but the initial mix of well known fantasy tropes mixed in with real history has carried through all the way to the current day with Warhammer The Old World! It’s interesting to think that such a mundane reason is partly the reason why the setting of Warhammer Fantasy is such an intriguing mix and one of the reasons why it’s arguably better than most settings.
Many of the most major Games Workshop writers and designers have always been open about being very passionate about history, some of them were even trained historians or archaeologists and that’s clearly visible in the end product. I’m not as familiar with their modern games, but unfortunately that element seems to have been mostly lost and instead of taking influences from real world history, they now seem to be taking influences from Warhammer itself, leading to a strange product that is derivative of itself. There are still those elements that made it distinct and great, but unfortunately it seems to be losing it’s historical grounding and the great balance between familiarity and originality that made WHFB what it was. I’m not here to judge other people’s taste, it’s clear that the modern games are very successful, but they lack the original feeling of Warhammer that made it a standout setting for me personally. It will be very interesting to see whether they will manage to capture that original recipe with the return of Warhammer Fantasy with the Old World or whether they will fall to the same pattern of creation they have been using for Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40K. The pattern has changed due to many factors like becoming more commercial and making sure the IP can be protected by copyright, which automatically tilts the balance more on the side of originality than familiarity. That ultimately makes the setting feel less meaningful and believable, as the elements of our common heritage and real word history cannot be copyright protected without making them distinct enough to arguably make them feel artificial. This is just my personal opinion as someone who has always been very passionate about history and for whom the miniatures and the setting or lore are the most important aspects of Warhammer, I’m sure AOS is a great game as it was developed originally by a legend of game design Jervis Johnson, but it’s clearly not aimed at a longbeard like myself.
Did you think I managed to capture anything about what makes Warhammer special, is there something I missed or do you disagree with my analysis of it? I’d be very glad to hear your thoughts in the comments. Next time I’m planning to write about the history of one Warhammer unit or something along those lines, check back in to read that.
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