This post continues my history of WFRP‘s first edition. The first post in the series can be found here.

In part VIII of this series I quoted from Katherine Kerr’s scathing review of WFB1 in Dragon 85. She remarked that “perhaps someday the game will be revised to make it live up to its potential”. That revision came rather more quickly than Kerr’s distant “someday”. In the two years following its first release Warhammer would undergo something of a revolution, culminating in WFB2.

The revolution was conducted piecemeal. From the very beginning Warhammer‘s primary objective had been to support sales of Citadel Miniatures. The wargame existed to support the miniatures, not the other way round. And so WFB1 was not initially revised and expanded via extensive supplements. Instead material was mainly released in the form of inserts in miniatures boxed sets.

The earliest inserts are described below.* I have listed them in what I believe is the correct chronological order, though this is not always entirely clear. For most of the sets, flyers and advertisements provide a release date. However, these dates are not always precise. For example, some sets are listed as new releases in more than one month. Moreover, it is not always known whether the inserts were included with the miniatures’ initial release or were added subsequently. It is, however, reasonably clear that the first six inserts (printed in single-column text) predate the remaining six (which present text in multiple columns). The first group probably appeared around July and August 1983, and the second around September and November 1983.

Dungeon Adventurers Starter Set (v2)

Dungeon Monsters Starter Set (v2)

I believe the first Citadel box sets to contain inserts with Warhammer material were the updated versions of the Dungeon Adventurers and Dungeon Monsters Starter Sets released in August 1983.

The sets contained a selection of individual characters and monsters, rather than a regiment of uniform miniatures. This is consistent with the approach of WFB1, which styled itself as a dual system for both role-playing games and skirmish wargames.

The inserts provide WFB1 profiles for all of the miniatures in the boxes. The information is quite generic. There are some mentions of names from WFB1 (Borunna and some magic items), but they are very few. There is also a tongue-in-cheek reference to Vandamar, Lord of Chaos. Overall, though, they say very little about the incipient world of Warhammer.

SS1 (v2) – Warriors of Chaos

SS5 (v2) – Warrior Knights of Law

The next inserts accompanied these box sets of Chaos warriors and knights of Law. They describe a short two-part campaign for WFB1 (‘The Quest for Chaos’ and ‘The Mausoleum of Ifram’), which adds a small amount of information about the Warhammer world. It mentions a few place names that do not survive into the later setting. Most notably, though, it introduces elements of Warhammer‘s early conception of Chaos.

The campaign describes how a band of Chaos warriors cross the Crack of Desolation, enter the human realm of Irysia and try to take a powerful magical artefact from the tomb of a knight of Law, Saint Ifram. This artefact is the Eye-stone, which keeps the forces of Chaos in check and prevents them from overrunning Irysia.

These boxed sets were announced as new releases in July 1983. This is shortly before the release of the two Starter Sets mentioned above. However, the text of the Starter Set inserts strongly implies they they were the first to be produced. I therefore believe ‘The Quest for Chaos’ and ‘The Mausoleum of Ifram’ were perhaps not included in the initial release of the miniatures but added shortly after, possibly in August. In any case the dates are sufficiently close to each other that their exact order may not be significant.

CP1 – Bryan Ansell’s Chaos Marauders

CP2 – Bryan Ansell’s Heroic Adventurers

In August 1983 Citadel launched a pair of box sets by Bryan Ansell in the Citadel Presents range. These sets again contained collections of individual characters more suitable for role-playing and skirmishes than mass battles. On this occasion, though, the inserts contain a lot more detail about the early Warhammer setting. The setting is once more very different from what it would later become.

The inserts describe two bands of warriors on conflicting quests. The Heroic Adventurers are led by Skarlos, a knight from the city of Chrystol. Skarlos bears a marked resemblance to Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melniboné. He is an albino half-elf, who is the cursed descendant of great warriors. He is clad in black mithril and wields a soul-stealing sword called the Black Doomblade. He is on a quest to destroy the revenant spirit of Enkalon Garusa, ancient Emperor of the Four Nations.

The Chaos Marauders count Enkalon Garusa among their number. Interestingly they are led by Cormanti, who is described as a Sudden Priest of “the mad god Khorne”. This is, I believe, the first mention of Khorne in Warhammer. His character is just as bloodthirsty as his later incarnations: the Sudden Priests are descended from the Cult of Laerial, whose priests used to engage in ritual carnage in the Great Arena of Dakron.

Arcane Ramblings

Citadel also produced a series of ‘Arcane Ramblings’ flyers in this period. They were not connected to any specific set of miniatures. The first flyer contains an orc army list and rules for infestations and swarms. The rules are described as extracts from an unnamed forthcoming supplement.

The Stuff of Legends dates the first ‘Arcane Ramblings’ flyer uncertainly to August 1983. I believe it should perhaps be dated slightly later, in September 1983. There are three reasons for this. The first is that the swarms miniatures it mentions were advertised as new in WD45 (September 1983). The second is that it uses multiple-column text, which is not present in any of the other flyers from August 1983, but is used in all the later flyers. The third is that there is no mention of the Citadel Compendium. All the flyers I have placed in November 1983 mention the Compendium, and so this document probably predates then.

CP3 – Tom Meier’s Troglodytes

In November 1983 Citadel released this licensed range of troglodytes by Tom Meier. The troglodytes are reptilian, as they had been in D&D/AD&D since the original AD&D Monster Manual (1977). They seem to be the origin of Warhammer‘s conception of troglodytes as lizardmen.

The set contained an insert titled ‘The Duelling Circles of Khorne’, which describes the city of Horvenghaast (whose name was perhaps inspired by Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast). Horvenghaast had once been a distant outpost of the slann, but fell to the forces of Chaos, who host ritual duels there at the time the piece is set.

CP4 – Tom Meier’s Lizard Warriors

This set of lizardmen miniatures was also released in November 1983. The insert contains a short scenario, ‘Dorian Redhorn & the Lair of the Lizard King’, in which the eponymous Dorian Redhorn (possibly echoing Moorcock’s Dorian Hawkmoon) has to navigate the Lizard King’s tunnels under the Black Mountains.

SS3 (v2) – Knights of Chaos

The insert that accompanied this set, ‘The Warrior Knights of Chaos’ describes various followers of Chaos and their cults. Khorne is once again mentioned, along with a range of unfamiliar sub-cults, ranging from “the Divine Tuluk” to “Heinous Suth”. It was released in November 1983.

CP5 – Orc War Machine

This set, also from November 1983, contains an insert with Warhammer rules for the war machine, but no background information.

Arcane Ramblings

The second ‘Arcane Ramblings’ flyer contains rules for Old Slann arcane rods and power weapons. They are said to be “parts of Bryan [Ansell]’s gigantic chaos saga”.

In this case I believe The Stuff of Legends is correct in dating this document November 1983, as it refers to the “new” Knights of Chaos set and the Citadel Compendium.

I shall discuss these inserts in greater detail in parts XIV to XX, where I will look thematically at the development of the Warhammer world.

FOOTNOTES

* The copies of the inserts presented above are taken from this excellent post in the Eldritch Epistles blog and The Stuff of Legends.

The next post continues the chronological review of WFB1‘s development.

Title art by John Blanche. Used without permission. No challenge intended to the rights holders.