The sounds of pounding drums and bellowed war cries are getting louder, which can only mean one thing – the Orc & Goblin Tribes are getting closer to pre-order. In today’s Almanack we’re taking a look at the new Arcane Journal coming out alongside the horde with input from the guys who wrote it. So what’s in this 48-page book?
Danny: Orcs and Goblins! And some Trolls… As we saw with the previous two Arcane Journals, there’s expanded background on what the Orcs and Goblins are up to during this time period. We’re seeing two new special characters, and two bespoke Armies of Infamy which use familiar miniatures in a new way to give existing players something fresh to run with. We’ve also got new Magic Items, a narrative scenario that follows on from the story in the book, and a new lore of magic focused on the sorcerous abilities of the Troll Hags, who conjure up swamp magic!
JTY: Trolls are fundamentally and inherently magical creatures – they regenerate when you cut them, for example. There’s Chaos and magic and chaotic magic in the Old World, and Trolls are creatures of that, but the real magic of Trolls is that they’re the most fun things in the game!
Danny: Even if they would probably lose a debate to a fencepost…
JTY: From a game design perspective, Stupidity is a force equaliser. What stops Trolls from being one of the best units in the game is that sometimes they stand around instead of charging when you want them to. Even the Troll Hag has stupidity, because she’s still a Troll. She is excellent – if she were able to operate freely, she’d be too excellent for her points. We try to make all of our rules thematic but balanced, and things like this even it up.
There are two Armies of Infamy in the book. The Nomadic Waaagh! is a tried and tested classic – an all-mounted tribe of Orcs and Goblins on the warpath – but the Troll Horde is something new, and something very cool. We asked ourselves whether it was possible to make a Troll army; we’ve got the hag, and Ogdruz Swampdigga, who’s an Orc Shaman who thinks he’s a Troll. Well, Trolls think he’s a Troll. He might be more intelligent than that, but it’s hard to tell…
It’s not purely an army of Trolls – it can be, but you’re limiting yourself a bit if you do that. It’s an army of big things from the Badlands, which is very powerful but perhaps quite small in number.*
The Nomadic Waaagh! relies a lot on Goblin Wolf Riders. It lets you take them in Close Order to rank them up, or you can use them as fast, aggravating missile troops. If you tool them up with Shortbows, Feigned Flight and Reserve Move, they are amongst the best light cavalry in the game.
Danny: Right up until they fail that Impetuous roll and they get beaten up by someone you don’t want them to charge… You can have your Wolf Riders harrying the flank and doing a wonderful job, but with Swiftstride and a 9” Movement, they’ve got a hell of a charge range!
Troll Magic
Danny: Magic in the World of Legend is not just for the learned and the wise – it’s a natural thing that certain magical creatures can tap into in a very instinctive fashion. They bend the Winds of Magic in any way they feel is natural – this sums up how a Troll Hag compares to an Empire Wizard.
JTY: By no means is every faction getting a new lore! We deliberately steered away from entire lores for every faction because we wanted to keep the number of spells down. If you have too many spells you run the risk of running out of design space and there’s a danger new spells become too powerful. By keeping it limited, we can wait ‘til we have a good narrative reason to introduce more spells, and make them fit a theme that we haven’t explored. That’s what we’ve got with Troll magic and a couple of others that appear in future. They’re not necessarily more powerful, but they’re different. They synergise with your armies in different ways – we’re trying to build choice.
Danny: Ogdruz Swampdigga is an Orc Shaman. Shamans are odd, but this guy is particularly weird even by their standards. He has been shooed away from several tribes, surviving on his own in the Badlands until he found and draped himself in some especially stinky Trollhide. He stumbled across some Trolls who mistook him for an undernourished runt and took him under their care. As his shamanic powers grew, they shifted towards Trolls – especially after a Troll Hag gave him some Troll brew, which is why he’s so big and tough by Orc standards. He’s the only Shaman who has access to Troll magic without spending points on Magic Items, he also has regeneration so he’s quite survivable for a wizard, and he buffs Trolls, who can use his Leadership even if he’s not the general. Even though this lore is designed for use with Trolls, you can find clever interactions with your Orcs, giving you even more options.
What’s Next?
Danny: It’s fair to say that Warhammer: The Old World is here to stay, and we’ve got a wonderful time period to explore (not wonderful for people living there, but from a storytelling perspective!)
JTY: We’ve got nine core factions – that’s a lot of models to bring back, and we can’t do that all at once…
Dan**: The painting team would probably crumble at that point!
JTY: There is a mountain yet to climb with our plans for the Old World, and even with so many people working on it (including in the factories, the painting and photography studios, and even the box design). The amount of plastic, metal, and resin we need to bring back for nine factions is a lot – and it’s going to take us quite a long time.
Danny: The game has been incredibly well received, and it’s great that there’s so much passion – the scope of the project has grown, so please bear with us.JTY: We aim to do this forever. We have planned books for the next
years – we have all these miniatures planned and clear ideas of what we’re working towards, but we have to get there! We’re reintroducing the world and the setting over the course of nine Arcane Journals. Once that’s done… who knows?
Thanks again guys. Tomorrow we’ll be looking at how Orcs are intended to play, and why Impetuous is better than Animosity…
* And it’s perfect for when the Made to Order comes out bringing back a range of classic Stone and River Trolls. More on that later in the week!
** AKA ‘Other Dan’... Sorry Dan!