Fantasy Warlord is one of those games that feels like it should have had a real shot…and then simply didn’t.
Released in 1990 by Folio Works, it was the work of two ex-Games Workshop employees: Ian Bailey and Gary Chalk (Chalk also did the illustrations; which are polarizing, some like it, some really don't). They left GW because they didn’t like the direction the company was heading: more commercial, more product-driven; and decided to build their own alternative to Warhammer Fantasy Battle. On paper it had a lot going for it: simultaneous movement, a proper command-and-control system built around brigades led by characters, fog-of-war rules, and an attempt at more balanced magic and army construction. It even had its own setting (Vortimax) and a short-lived supporting magazine called Red Giant (a none-too-subtle dig at White Dwarf). The promise didn't match up to the reality however.
And then it was gone.
The game was out of print in roughly eighteen months. The planned supplements never appeared. Only two issues of Red Giant saw the light of day. Folio Works itself was dissolved in early 1993. In the grand scheme of the hobby it barely registered. Most people who were playing fantasy wargames in the early ’90s simply never saw it, or saw it once and moved on. I was in the later, I recall seeing at Crazy Egor's around 1992/92ish.
I have a fair amount of sympathy for what Bailey and Chalk were trying to do, especially as someone who came up playing 3rd Edition Warhammer. Fourth Edition was a pretty abrupt turn. The game moved away from the more historical-miniature-gaming roots and into a cleaner, more simplified, fully fantasy product. A lot of the older texture got sanded off in the process. Fantasy Warlord feels like it was aimed at players who still wanted some of that earlier complexity and command friction. Whether it actually delivered is another question, but the impulse behind it makes sense when you remember how sharp the break between 3rd and 4th Edition felt at the time.
I only remembered the game several years back and grabbed a copy off eBay for something like $20. To me it felt very natural in the sense that the miniatures looked familiar. They are quite decent sculpts and fit the style of 3rd Edition armies quite well. It’s also interesting to note just how “early” they were with this: by which I mean there are clearly GW miniatures in the photos of the rulebook. That is to be expected. If you look carefully on page 139, that’s quite clearly the Warhammer Mighty Fortress forming the walls the cavalry is charging from along with Bretonnian knights AND other GW figures.
This doesn't bother me in the slightest, it points to just how close to the ragged/bleeding edge this enterprise was.
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| Warhammer Mighty Fortress...err, FANTASY WARLORD FORTRESS! |
One aspect of Fantasy Warlord that still lives on is the miniatures it spawned. To this day they can be found on the Alternative Armies website. The sculpts are good and look very much in line with the 3rd Edition Warhammer miniatures ranges.
One last point. The art. As I noted up-thread either you loved it or hated it. For my own part I'm of the opinion that Chalk's black and with stuff is very good. There are a lot of great pieces that feel very gritty in that Warhammer kind of way. Its his color stuff that is much more divisive.
To close? Sometimes the market doesn’t care how good your rules are. Sometimes it only cares who got there first and who has the louder voice. Fantasy Warlord is one of those quiet near-misses that still deserves a footnote.
So, any other folks out there that remember Fantasy Warlord?
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