The rules of Warhammer are generally rather long, dense, and confusing. Veterans of wargaming, and of Games Workshop wargames, will become inoculated to this with time. New players, however, will generally have to stumble through the rules and pray that everything clicks into place. To remedy this, Games Workshop has often included introductory scenarios in their rulebooks, so as to provide a decent framework upon which a decent understanding of rules may be built. So how did this approach change over time, are the missions any good, and should Games Workshop bring this concept back to the tabletop? Warhammer first edition was the first foray of Games Workshop into wargames rules, summoned into reality following a lengthy ritual performed by Bryan Ansell, Richard Halliwell, and Rick Priestley in 1983. If you've ever read these rules then you know it's a relatively basic game. There are no points values and no army lists until a later addition, meaning the impetus for game balan...

Immediately, I know vivisecting sounds kind of bad right? I don’t intend to slice open a living, breathing, WAAAAAAAGH-ing orc right in front of you. Instead I want to reach back in time and have a look at how orcs have developed as a flexible and evolving concept, particularly through three distinct lenses. These are the models, the rules, and the fluff. The plan is that this will be a multi-part series going from pre-Warhammer days up into the Age of Sigmar, with this first part being on Warhammer Fantasy's first edition. Prehammer & First Edition Orcs have the dubious honour of predating the notion of Warhammer (the game not the weapon), with their first range being the Citadel fantasy tribes orcs in the very early 1980s. As per the 1982 dragon catalogue most of these guys would set you back the hefty sum of D. No that’s not one single pre-decimal penny, the catalogue used a letter-grade pricing system for questionable simplicity. A price of D is of course 45p, the equivalen...