Warhammer: The Old World Preorder Is Selling Like Hot Cakes

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Warhammer: The Old World, a new incarnation of the classic Warhammer Fantasy miniature war game, is officially being released later this month, but preorders have gone up already and show that fans of the old-school game are very hungry – over half of the items currently offered for The Old World are “temporarily sold out” on Games Workshop’s online store despite hefty prices.

The Old World is a new ruleset featuring the factions from Warhammer Fantasy (before it was replaced by Age of Sigmar) and allows players to use their old miniatures, giving them a fresh chance for exciting battles and undying glory. This is a huge deal for fans of the hobby, some of whom have collected these miniatures for years only to find that the game they belong to has been discontinued. Partly motivated by the immense success of Total War: Warhammer, which massively helped the popularity of the discontinued miniature game, Games Workshop plans on supporting The Old World with new miniatures and even entirely new factions, such as Kislev and Grand Cathay.

The beginnings, though, will be a bit more humble: At launch, nine factions will be fully supported, which means that they get featured in the game’s rulebooks. These are the Empire of Man, the Dwarfen Mountain Holds, the Kingdom of Bretonnia, the Wood Elf Realms, the High Elf Realms, the Orcs and Goblin Tribes, the Beastmen Brayherds, and the Tomb Kings of Khemri.

Of these, Bretonnia and the Tomb Kings have taken center stage in the core sets for The Old World – these are, essentially, beginner sets. Containing enough miniatures to make up an army, tools to play the game, and a rulebook, they offer everything a player needs to get started. Well, you still need to assemble and paint the models, of course.

Bretonnia and the Tomb Kings were some of the least popular factions in the past, so it’s been regarded as a bit of a gamble for Games Workshop to give them the spotlight. However, it looks like this is paying off so far: The $255 USD Bretonnia Core Set is out of stock already, which means that eight out of a total of eleven available Bretonnia products have been sold out during the preorder phase. The more expensive Tomb Kings – their core set is $290 USD – are still available, but nearly half of their product range has been sold out as well.

The Dark Elves, Daemons of Chaos, Lizardmen, Chaos Dwarfs, Ogre Kingdoms, Skaven, and Vampire Counts won’t be featured in any rulebooks at launch, but all of them will be included in a range of free army lists distributed via PDF when The Old World is being released, so people will be able to take the field with these hosts in the game – they just won’t be as fleshed out as the officially supported factions. The hope among fans is that eventually they’ll all be included in the brand-new rulebooks in the future as Games Workshop continues to work on The Old World.

Various battle reports have been released online by Games Workshop itself as well as different content creators, who got access to the game early, and The Old World really shines in them – it still has those old-school war game roots of Warhammer Fantasy, but looks a bit more streamlined and accessible now. Only time will tell whether The Old World proves itself successful, but the enthusiasm in the community at the moment is really delightful.

You can find The Old World preorders on Games Workshop’s official website.