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Original guides and history: from a beginner's introduction to the deep past of The Old World.
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guide
Where to Start Reading Warhammer Fantasy
The fiction of the Old World is deep, sprawling, and gloriously grim. This guide maps a sensible path into Warhammer Fantasy (the best starting novels, the key series, and where the story ends) without demanding you read all of it.
Warhammerism · July 9, 2026
guide
How to Start Warhammer: The Old World
Marching regiments, thundering cavalry, and a grim world worth defending. Warhammer: The Old World is the classic fantasy wargame reborn. Here is how to choose an army, gather your first models, and learn the rank-and-flank game without drowning.
Warhammerism · July 9, 2026
guide
What Is Warhammer: The Old World? A Beginner's Guide
Warhammer: The Old World returns the hobby to the classic fantasy setting where it all began: a grim late-medieval world of knights, wizards, and marching regiments. This beginner's guide explains what the setting is, tours its geography, introduces its major powers, and shows how it connects to Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40,000.
Warhammerism · July 8, 2026
Lore & History
lore
The Great War Against Chaos
It was the invasion that should have ended the world: a tide of daemons and northmen that swallowed Kislev and hammered the Empire's gates. That it failed is the work of one man: Magnus the Pious.
Warhammerism · July 11, 2026
lore
The Winds of Magic and the Colleges
Magic in the Old World blows from the poles as eight coloured winds. Taming them nearly destroyed every human wizard who tried, until the elf Teclis founded the eight Colleges of Magic in Altdorf.
Warhammerism · July 11, 2026
lore
The Lizardmen and the Old Ones
In the steaming jungles of Lustria dwell the oldest servants of the world's first gods. The cold-blooded lizardmen keep a cosmic plan older than mankind, and have warred against Chaos since before history began.
Warhammerism · July 11, 2026
lore
The Vampire Wars
For a century and more the Empire's own dead marched against it. From the haunted province of Sylvania, three von Carstein counts waged war on the living, and every soldier they killed simply rose to join them.
Warhammerism · July 11, 2026
lore
The Skaven Under-Empire
Beneath every city of the Old World runs a second, secret civilisation: the teeming ratmen of the skaven, ruled by the Council of Thirteen and hungering to devour the surface world entire.
Warhammerism · July 11, 2026
lore
The Realm of Chaos and the Wastes
At the poles of the world reality dissolves into the Chaos Wastes, and beyond them lies the Realm of Chaos itself: the home of the Dark Gods and the source of the doom that hangs over the whole Old World.
Warhammerism · July 11, 2026
lore
The Storm of Chaos
Generations after Magnus, the north emptied itself southward once more. Archaon the Everchosen led the greatest incursion in living memory, and the fate of the Old World turned on the walls of a single city.
Warhammerism · July 11, 2026
lore
The Dark Elves of Naggaroth
In the frozen Land of Chill dwell the druchii: the dark elves. Ruled by the Witch King Malekith and his mother Morathi, they worship murder, live by slavery, and hunger to reclaim the throne they lost.
Warhammerism · July 11, 2026
lore
The Greenskins and the Waaagh!
They are the green tide that never truly recedes: brawling, breeding, and spoiling for a fight in every wasteland and mountain of the Old World. Meet the orcs and goblins, and the roaring storm of violence they call the Waaagh!
Warhammerism · July 9, 2026
lore
The Undead: Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings
Death is not the end in the Old World: it is a recruiting ground. From the sunlit tombs of the desert south to the mist-drowned counties of the Empire, two great powers command the dead, and both trace their curse to one immortal name: Nagash.
Warhammerism · July 9, 2026
lore
The Dwarfen Holds and the Great Book of Grudges
Carved into the world's oldest mountains, the dwarf holds endure on pride, gold, and memory. At the heart of that memory lies the Great Book of Grudges: a ledger of every wrong ever done to the dwarfs, and a vow that none will be forgotten.
Warhammerism · July 9, 2026
lore
The Elves: High, Wood, and Dark
One people, three destinies. From the white towers of Ulthuan to the whispering deeps of Athel Loren to the black spires of the frozen north, the elves are ancient, gifted, and divided by a wound that has never healed.
Warhammerism · July 9, 2026
lore
Bretonnia and the Lady of the Lake
A realm of pennanted castles, sworn knights, and a goddess who rises from still water: Bretonnia is chivalry given armour and a lance. This is the tale of the Lady of the Lake, the Grail, and the kingdom that lives and dies by the charge.
Warhammerism · July 9, 2026
lore
Sigmar Heldenhammer and the Founding of the Empire
Before there was an Empire there were only frightened tribes and a boy with a warhammer. This is the story of Sigmar Heldenhammer: the alliance he forged, the horde he broke, and the nation he built before walking into legend.
Warhammerism · July 9, 2026
lore
The Empire of Man: Lamplight in the Forest
The greatest nation of men is also its most fragile: a patchwork of feuding provinces held together by faith, gunpowder, and sheer stubbornness. This is the Empire of Man: its founding, its politics, its wizards, and the darkness pressing at its gates.
Warhammerism · July 9, 2026
lore
The End Times: The Death of a World
It is the storyline that ended Warhammer Fantasy forever: an apocalypse that gathered every doom of the Old World into one final, unwinnable war. This is the End Times: how the world died, and what rose from its ashes.
Warhammerism · July 9, 2026
lore
The Forces of Chaos and the Northern Wastes
At the top of every map waits the north, where reality sickens and the Dark Gods watch. From the frozen tribes of Norsca to the beasts in the deep forests, the forces of Chaos are the doom the whole Old World marches to hold back.
Warhammerism · July 9, 2026
lore
A Tour of the Old World: Nations, Mountains, and Dark Places
From the lamplit streets of the Empire to the silent dunes of Nehekhara, the Old World is a map worth getting lost in. This tour walks its proud nations, ancient mountains, and the dark places between them, and tells you which ones to leave before dusk.
Warhammerism · July 8, 2026
