In the known world, the dead do not rest easy.
Vampires lurk in haunted castles in the sinister forests of
Sylvania. Necromancers seek to escape
their mortality by searching for forbidden knowledge within the
pages of accursed books. In lost pyramids beneath the
desert sands of the Kingdom of the Dead, the Leech Lords rule
over legions of corpses, their servants in death as they were
in life. Armies slain in the poisoned
wilderness of the Chaos Wastes do not lie dead as others do.
Often they return to a ghastly unlife and bring terror to
former comrades. Along the boundaries of Kislev.
In the musty crypts of dead noblemen, tomb robbers freeze in
terror when they hear the clink of silver rings and movement
behind them. And behind all this towers the
gigantic shadowy figure of Nagash, the Great Necromancer
who in ancient days rivalled and challenged the gods themselves.
To understand the nature of the restless dead, one must
understand the nature of magic in the known world.
The winds of magic emerge from the northern Chaos Gate and blow
out across the world. Magical energies permeate
everything blowing down from the northern wastes.
Most of the currents of magical energy separate into one of the
8 colours of magic. Some however, remain a rolling
mass of pure dark magic which descends where it will.
A peculiar quality of dark magic is like attracts like.
Once it starts to build up in the area, more and more of the
stuff will be drawn to the same place, forming a swirling vortex
of evil that will eventually coalesce into pure warp stone
from the very air. Since dark magic pervades the
motivating power that animates the undead, many of the areas
where dark magic is strongest are also the places that attract
or spawn undead. Furthermore, some philosophers
state that since chaos feeds on strong emotions, places where
great negative emotions such as fear, terror, hatred, and horror
have been felt also attract dark magic.
Battlefields, plague stricken towns, houses where dark deeds
of murder have been committed, all draw the forces of undeath
to them, often compounding the horrific effects of whatever has
gone before. Alternatively, it could simply
be a reflection of the fact that dreadful energies are often
unleashed during battles, and that mass graves and plague pits
of diseased townships attract and provide cover for
necromances and their unspeakable rites.
Whatever the reason, there are particular areas in the known
world that attract the undead. These areas include the
Desolation of Nagash, the Kingdom of the Dead, Sylvania,
the cursed city of Mussilon in Bretonia, the zombie haunted
swamps South of Skavenblight in Thaila, and the Mound of Crell
in the Grey Mountains. The Barrow Hills and the Border
Princess are scarcely less infamous.
These areas, I'll famed as they are, are far from being the only
places where the undead are found.
Any lonely tower with access to old burial grounds or crypts may
be the haunt of a necromancer, or worse still, one of the
undying leeches that they can become.
Welcome my friends. My name is Owen and this is a
deep dive into Warhammer Armies Undead by Jervis Johnson and
Bill King, released I believe in 1996.
I want to say a classic book. I think in this book we see the
undead have not yet found themselves.
They have not yet become the Tomb Kings.
On the vampire accounts they are still under 1 banner, and that
one banner is undead. But the writing is so good, the
background is so good, everything here is so evocative.
I only read you a part of the introduction to this book just
then, but it was enough to give you a taste of what lies within
something truly wonderful in Warhammer's old world.
You are lucky to have me today. It's one of the stormiest days
in living memory. Today as I look out the window,
the rain lashes against the windows.
But I decided to go and visit a standing stone.
In my foolish nature, I drove my car nearly all the way there, my
dog in the boot when nearly about a mile away from the
stone, a river burst its bank and run across the road.
It took my car for a second, but luckily I was going fast enough
I was able to regain control and get it back on the road.
I pulled over, more in shock than anything, and let my dog
out for a moment and it saw some sheep in a field and ran after
them and I ended up chasing it through the hills.
Then I had to run a drive back through the river to get away.
So I'm just chilling out. I'm just calming down.
I'm just here feeling lucky to be here and I thought why not
calm myself down by doing a reading from this book.
I used to love the undead. I had a lovely army full of
skeletons. I can remember being on a a
works course away and building a regiment of 40 zombies, those
old zombie figures from years ago.
So this is a great book to read. So if you are sitting down or
painting or whatever it is you're doing, wherever you are
in the world, why not sit back and relax?
And I'll take you through some of this book.
If you really enjoy it, you can buy me a coffee at
coffee.com/owen State and that would be great.
Or you can follow my storytelling podcast, Time
Between Times. That would be great as well.
But I'm just glad to have your company, to be honest.
OK, I'm using a new program because I don't have this book
again and it's very small so I'm struggling to read it.
So please bear with me if I'm not quite as fluid as I normally
am as I'm working my way through to other bits to read.
And of course I'm just coming at this almost blind if you like.
So I'm choosing bits of the book to read and then we'll go from
there. So please forgive any mistakes.
The introduction that I read you just now, I love that it goes on
for quite a bit, a couple of pages and there are some lovely
pencil art that goes with it. One of a skeleton with a spear
standing there with bats flying all around him.
Reminds me of the Nightmare Legion.
Do you remember those four years ago?
What was his name now? But anyway, brilliant figures, I
think they still stand up to this day.
What I'd give to have a regiment of those now that would be
amazing. Then we've got what looks like a
vampire counting sort of bone armour, probably reminiscent of
the Dracula film, the Gary Oldman Dracula film that goes
back to about the same period of this, which obviously has taken
some, this has taken some influence from that.
We go on a couple of pages and we turn over and there's a
lovely pencil sketch of a mummy and it looks like some sort of
where creature as a mummy, you know, with his long teeth
screaming through the bandages. In fact, while we're here, let's
read about mummies. They were terrible figures.
You remember them? They were looking like they were
doing some sort of dance. But there we are.
Mummies are found in the tombs of Arabi and the necropolises of
the Kingdom of the Dead. Once, they were the remains of
proud nobles of the ancient land that Nagash destroyed.
They were buried according to the custom of their kind,
wrapped in sediments and preserved by strange alchem.
Why did I choose this one chair? Strange practices.
These mummies were imbued with dark power by Nagash when he
created the Leech kings of the necropolises.
Others have sold. The necromancers have been sold
to necromancers in the Old World by unscrupulous merchants still
permeated by the dark energy of ancient days that make
particular powerful and dead when raised according to the
proper rituals. All ghouls share an unspeakable
hunger for the meat of their fellow men.
Some ghouls are the twisted descendants of primitive tribes
who long ago worship Nagash as a God.
They observed the dark feast and ate the flesh of their kin, and
down the generations were changed into warped and twisted
parodies of men. Now they are roamed the
desolation of Nagash and the surrounding lands, searching for
fresh meat. Other ghouls came about by a
different method. When the lean and hungry times
of famine came upon the Old world, certain depraved folk
took to feasting on human flesh to stay alive, and entire
villages have been known to dissolve into this vile state.
Certain inbred Hamlets in Sylvania have been burned to the
ground by the Emperor's troops because of this disgusting
affiliation. Yet other colonies of ghouls
creep through the years undiscovered.
It is said that a small army of them dwell within the great
burial crypts on the hills around Mussilon.
It is true that the tomb guards of that city are all armed and
never enter the crypts alone. Ghouls are often drawn into the
wake of the great undead armies. Something in their blood calls
to them, and they must go. There we are, mummies and
ghouls, and we move on and we come to the next page, which is
the undead Gazeteer. There is a bit about the land of
the dead then. Nagishiza.
Let me read about that. Nagashiza.
By the shores of the Sour Sea. Oh, beautiful stuff.
By the shores of the shuts. If I could say it again, by the
shores of the Sour Sea, surrounded by the glittering
desert of the Desolation of Nagash, is Nagishizar, the
Cursed Pit, home of the great necromancer Nagash and mightiest
fortress the world has ever seen.
Built over centuries by the tireless labour of countless
undead things, the castle rises nearly half a mile above the
desert. It is sculpted and excavated
amongst the living rock of Cripple Peak, and the mountain
top is its highest Spire. Hundreds of other great towers
bristle from the mountain side. By night, terrible green witch
lights are often seen burning in their windows.
Nagishiza is a fortified mountain pierced by councillors,
leagues of corridor within thousands of chambers.
Hundreds of undead things wait, ready to answer their Lords.
Every command. Vast as this great Army is, it
is but a tiny fraction of the legions who once served the
Great Necromancer. Four mighty gates guard the
approaches to Nagashisa, each watched over by mighty war
machines of the most dangerous type, animated golems of bone,
boat throwers that fire the thigh bones of giants wound
round with deadly ruins, catapults that throw screaming
skulls, and worse. The gates themselves are made
from some nameless black metal, which shines like burnished
Obsidian and is 10 times harder than steel.
The pits beneath Nagishiza extend down almost twice the
height of the mountain, forming a huge honeycomb of galleries
and mines. Where once undead and Scraven
toiled to find Warpstone, these corridors are patrolled by
untiring sentries from the Gash's undead legions, who must
be eternally vigilant in case the Scaven should ever return.
With his great audience chamber. At the height of the peak of the
Husk of the Gash, the great Necromancer himself sits on a
throne of skulls. He has brooded here for over a
Millennium, waiting and planning and guiding the host of agents
at his command. With his thoughts now infused,
he is ready to March once more. Now that was good, wasn't it?
Excellent stuff. By the shores of the sour sea.
It's easy to write, it's hard to say, but by the gods it's
evocative. Some of the writing in this book
is absolutely fantastic. The next couple of pages are
filled with maps. Those old familiar maps that
we've looked at a couple of times in these deep dives, but
they are excellent. Pencil drawn, not in colour, in
black and white. Then we have some more
information about the Plain of Bones, Drakenhof, Castle
Mussilon, all these places where you can choose to put your
undead armies should you so wish.
Then we have a piece on the history of the undead and the
Great Necromancer. Let's read a bit of this.
Seems to go on for quite a while.
There's an amazing pencil drawing on the bottom right hand
corner with some grim Reaper on a Black Horse overlooking a
curved bridge coming out of the skull of a a giant and sitting
behind that up great castle. Here we go.
South of the Empire, South of the broader Princess, South even
of the Badlands and Caracazeal, lies a land of which few men
speak. Even those who know its true
name do not say the word aloud. Rather, they refer to it in
hushed tones as the Kingdom of the Dead.
Few men have been there and returned to tell the tale.
The mad Arab Prince Abdul Ben Rashid wandered there for a
season, seeking inspiration for his blasphemous masterpiece, The
Book of the Dead. It is the few one of the few
remaining copies of this poem that most scholars owe their
knowledge of the Kingdom. Ben Rashid did not live to see
the widespread public revulsion against his work, all copies of
which the Caliph of Kasaba ordered burned.
The Mad Prince died under mysterious circumstances,
strangled by unseen hands within a locked and shuttered room.
When his servants eventually broke down the door, they found
only his frozen, purple faced corpse.
The body was so chilled to the touch that it burned the hands
of those who tried to lift it. The Crusaders eventually brought
back copies of the work back from their journeys in Araby,
but many of them later came to regret that decision.
The Book of the Dead speaks of a great desert to the east of
Araby, from which rise the necropolis, tomb cities of the
Unquiet dead. Each necropolis consists of
countless mausoleums and pyramids, within which dwell
things it is better to be ignorant of.
By day the burning sands between the grave houses are empty, and
only huge serpents glide through the ruins.
But on certain dark nights, the corpses of the dead stir from
their homes and go about their business.
In a grim parody of their former lives, they repair the time
eroded tombs and patrol the boundaries of their necropolis.
Often they March forth to make war on the dead inhabitants of
other tomb cities. This goes on for a long time, my
friends, and I wish I could read it all for you, but all I can
recommend is that you grab a copy of yourself and let this
just be a taster for this is a wonderful tone.
I could not remember this being so good.
I mean, Bill King is obviously writing on here.
He's a great author, isn't he? But yeah, some of the the
fiction here, which obviously in these books, they gave a great
pride of place to something. They don't do as much now, which
is unfortunate, but there we go. We have page after page after
page about the history of Nagast here.
I'm looking at 10/12/14 pages. And then we get to the vampire
accounts of Sylvania, which would of course take pride of
place in further editions. There's a long piece on them as
well, but I will go forward because this background is
really, really good, isn't it? We go into an undead timeline a
few pages further on, so I'll have a look at this.
I'll choose a year -1152 The Priest Kings are now united, and
the King Alakaziza under his formidable leadership, Lagashe's
first assault is defeated. Lagash unleashes a plague upon
the land. His own undead forces are
immune, but the folk of the land die in droves.
A new army of undead invades the lands of the Priest Kings and
sweeps all before them. Alkadizar is brought in chains
to Nagishezar to be tormented by nagash -15.
Arkin the Black crushes a huge Escaven horde at the Battle of
Death Rock. The scheme defeat is so
devastating they give up attempting to recapture the
cursed pit in the year 1797. Vlad von Karstein, what a name
there is, becomes the first of the vampire accounts of Sylvania
and Mary's Countess, Isabella Vondrak.
Over the following two centuries, the remaining
aristocratic families are infected by the curse of
vampirism. And now we lead to some coloured
pages. Here we have the old undead
figures. We're looking at the Skeleton
horde. Skeleton army figures now
matched with a load of whites and newer undead figures for the
time. They still have a metal zombie
regiment here, maybe my plastic one came a little bit later than
this. Then we have the wraiths, who
are all grim reapers, some skeleton horsemen, an undead
chariot, a Wraith Lord, and then a battle scenario.
Forces of the undead confront high elves.
The undead. There they are, the Leech King's
mighty chariot. I haven't seen that for a long
time now. There's a model from the dark
dusty ages gone by, isn't it? Arc in the Black Riding in it?
And then we have some. A vampire.
I've got that vampire Lord. I've got the necromancer figure
there. I believe that one came free
with a computer game, didn't it? Is it cursed to the horn rat?
Something like that. Then we have some spell cards
which are in there. Then Dieter Helsnicht, the
Doomlord of Mendenheim, the old, there, he is riding on his beast
there. What is that?
A manticore is it? I believe it is.
Wow. Now that's a model from age has
gone by, isn't it? Absolute classic model of the
age. And then we have some more
battle pictures, some more spells, a ghost, a ghoul, some
more wraiths. They look great in ranks of
ranked up units to deny all these.
Then we've got a a scenario, a deployment map.
And this is called Revenge of the Doomlord.
And let me just read a little bit of this.
Deita Helsticht was once a great and renowned wizard who lived in
the Empire city of Medenheim during the time of the three
Empires. Over the course of his studies,
Dieter learned that the great necromancer King Kedan had
decided to travel the lands he had once ruled over in the
Border Princess in order to find out more about this enigmatic
and evil figure. It was while he was there that
Dieter first stated first started to hear rumours of the
return of the Gash. After his defeat by Sigmar,
Data, drawn by the irresistible curiosity, continued his journey
and travelled to the fortress of Nagishiza.
What happened to him in that cruel place is unknown, but he
returned to Medenheimer changed man.
His hair turned prematurely grey and his skin tinged with an
unhealthy pallor. The Doomlord had been born
shortly after his return. Word began to spread of evil
practices and vile rituals being performed in the dead of the
night by Data and his followers, only two aware of where such
things could lead, the High Priest of Ulrich gathered a
company of Knights and descended on Data's dwelling.
They arrived just in time, disrupting a magic ritual that
would have allowed Data to raise the dead buried in Medenheim
into a powerful undead army. Shaking his 1st and vowing
revenge, Dator fled from the city, swooping over the heads of
their astonished high Priest and Knights atop the back of his
monstrous manticore. Dator was a man of deep, if
twisted, intelligence and had prepared for every eventuality.
He had built the secret fortress deep in the forests of Shadows
to which he could escape should his activities be discovered.
From this dark and evil place he plotted his revenge and surely
built up his strength. Decades passed and those who had
known Dieter Helsnicht had either died or forgotten him
when rumours started that a dark tide of pestilence and death was
spreading through the land. That's great, isn't it?
That's just an introduction to this scenario.
There's a piece there on undead army selection and deployment.
And then we've got more a few more pages about maps, about how
the battle should be run. There's an Empire army against a
an undead army in this. So they were very sort of niche.
These weren't there. I mean, if you didn't have the
figures or the armies, they were very difficult to do anything
with. But they are so nice and they
read so well that I still believe they have a place here.
Then Jervis Johnson decides to to give us the gift of a an
article on undead battle tactics.
Let's have a look at what he's got to say about undead
Chariots. And Carrion is it?
There's quite a few things in here, but let's just look at
this one. These two units can win the game
for an undead army, but have to be used carefully because they
are quite easy for an opponent to destroy.
Undead Chariots in particular are very susceptible to missile
fire because it only takes one hit on the skeleton's steeds,
pulling the chariot to render it next to useless.
Because of this, you should be very careful where you set the
Chariots up. If at all possible, set them up
behind cover so your opponent can't shoot at them.
If this is not possible, try to put other units units between
the chariot and the enemy. Once the battle starts, try to
save the Chariots up for a final devastating charge to finish the
enemy off. If you send the Chariots ahead
of the rest of the army early, they will almost invariably get
destroyed before they can do anything.
Sadly, in most battles your Chariots will be taken out by
enemy missile before you even have a chance to use them, but
when you do get to charge, they should win you the game.
He's basically saying they're next to useless here.
Carrion are extremely useful for taking out enemy war machines
and missile troops. Like the Chariots, they are
vulnerable to enemy missile fire, so you should try to move
them round the enemy's flanks or advance towards them undercover.
Fortunately, the Carrion's 24 inch movement fly a flying move
makes this fairly early fairly easy, and they can always fly up
high and then dive down on the enemy if there is no approach
route on the table itself. Avoid the temptation and attack
anything other than missile troops or war machines with
Carrion, at least early in the game.
The Carrion's low weapon skill, strength and toughness useless
means that they are quite easy to beat in hand to hand combat,
so you need to pick on enemy troops.
You don't have rank bonuses, unit champions, or standards if
you want to be sure of winning. And later in the game you can
use the Carrion to launch flank attacks on enemy units that are
already engaged in the front, or even better to chase them down
when they are fleeing. The Carrion's 24 inch charge
makes moves very difficult for the fleeing unit to get away.
They'll only move 2D6 or 3D6 and if the Carrion catches them, the
fleeing unit will be wiped out. Well, there we are.
Thank you Jervis. I don't know if I'd be investing
in those units after reading that undead roster sheets.
Undead always had quite low stats, didn't they?
But and they were quite expensive.
So the armies weren't that big, but obviously you could re raise
them, which was obviously the the the major point.
But and obviously you had that big weakness that if the the the
leader, the general was to die, then the whole thing could
crumble around you. Dieter Helsnet is 750 points.
That's a massive amount of points to spend on one figure,
isn't it? Even if he's got his Mantico?
Excuse me. Right, we have got, we're going
on to the meeting and contingent.
We're still talking about the scenario battle here.
Then we have a bit of fiction, and then we've got the Undead
Beastery for one of the first rules.
It tells us about no March moves.
So that makes the undead army very slow, doesn't it?
Let's have a look at Skeleton Warriors, the meat and two veg
of the old undead army. Here.
The battlefields of the old world are strewn with the graves
of countless brave warriors who are fallen in combat and be
consigned to a hasty resting place or simply left upon the
ground amongst the carnage. Even in death there is no place
for fallen warriors, for they can be summoned back from the
dead as skeletons. I've lost my page now.
Very awkward this one. By using dark sorcery.
All the skeletons can recall of mortal life are faint memories
of battles fought long ago. They feel the compulsion to
fight, to March, to wage war and obey the commands of their
master as they did when they were alive.
The power of dark magic binds their bones together and gives
strength to that grip. Skeleton warriors carry rusty
weapons, axes and swords, Spears with splintered shafts.
Another ancient war gear. A few tattered rags still cling
to their old bones, while they may still be encased in battered
armour covered with filth and corrosion.
Movement 4. Weapon skill 2 Bow skill 2
Strength 3 Toughness 3 Wounds 1 Initiative 2 Attacks 1A.
Leadership 5. Special Rules Combat skeletons
cannot be broken in hand to hand combat, and he never take a
brake test if beaten in combat. When they are beaten in hand to
hand combat, the magical link between them and their master is
weakened and as a result some of the skeletons collapse and are
destroyed. For every point at which they
have lost the combat, one extra skeleton is removed.
This means the skeleton units would quickly dissolve away if
they are beaten, although they can never be broken as such.
Fear skeletons are unnatural creatures which cause fear in
others. Skeletons are covered by the
psychology rules for fear as described in the Warhammer rule
book and immune to psychology. Skeletons are not affected by
psychology themselves. They are immune to fear, terror,
panic, and all other psychology tests.
I go on the page and read you a bit about zombies.
Zombies are fresh corpses brought back to life by foul
necromancy. Being more recently dead than
skeletons, they retain much of their intellect and are more
like living humans, although they are totally under the will
of the necromancer whose conjurations created them.
Although rejuvenated by magic, they continue to decay.
Their flesh is rank and hangs in strips from their bodies, and
their clothes are tattered and caked with blood like skeletons.
Zombies are animated by magic, and this link can be broken as
they fight, making them vulnerable to weapons in the
same way as living men. They are horrible creatures and
extremely difficult to fight, though troops who stand their
ground can beat them off if they keep their nerve, and they have
some special well. Their stats are Movement 4
Weapons killed 2, both killed 0, Strength 3, Toughness 3, Wounds
1, Initiative 11, Attack and Leadership 5.
Fear Zombies are disgusting and natural creatures that cause
fear as described in the Warhammer rule book, immune to
psychology and Brake. Units of zombies that fail a
brake test in hand to hand combat are destroyed
immediately. The magical link that makes them
keeps them animated is destroyed and they collapse lifelessly to
the floor. That makes them very vulnerable,
isn't it? Especially with all sorts of
stats, Very, very vulnerable indeed.
We have ghosts, we have whites, we have carrion, We have all the
rules for these beats beasts, the wraiths, the zombie dragon.
And we still move on. And we come to a bit of fiction
and and then we go to undead Chariots and screaming Skull
catapult, undead magic, Van Hal's Dance, Macabre's in there,
Necromandic spell commentaries, all those are quite good.
We have lots of this, and then we've got another little bit of
fiction. In fact, I'll read you this one,
shall I? I'll read this as we go on.
Let's have a look at it. It's a couple of pages long, but
here we go. Heinrich Kemler looked down on
the valley below. Perhaps he could find a place to
turn at Bay and make his last stand.
His enemies snapped at his heels like a pack of Manji Kurs.
Once he would have brushed them aside like bothersome fleas.
Now his powers had faded and his necromatic might was all but
spent. Now those who once would have
been less than apprentices to him were close to ending his
days forever. He felt old.
He felt tired. Kemler leant on his staff and
asked himself how this could have happened.
How could a man know his name had once called peasants to
shiver from fear all through the Old world, and the merest rumour
of those caused rivals to retreat to their protective
crypts. How could it have come to this?
It was not that his knowledge was any the less.
He could still remember every stanza of the Nine Books of
Nagash, He could still quote to memory every sanity blasting
line of the Lieba Mortis. He knew still knew every spell
from the art of necromancy, and he knew many more spells from
other forbidden colleges. No one since the days of Great
Nagash himself had his compendious knowledge of the
dark arts of this seafelt shore. Despite the long centuries he
lived, his mind was still keen. If it wasn't a lack of
knowledge, then what was it? How was it now?
His rivals had been able to drive him from his ancient lair
and forth into empty lands as a wanderer.
It wasn't that there were too many of them.
In the past, his enemies had gathered together in cabals,
pooling their resources in vain attempts to dispute his mastery.
Always, he had overcome them. He smiled with satisfaction,
remembering old triumphs. In the hills beyond Britonia,
his mighty army had smashed the zombie legions of the Council of
Nine. In the dark woods beyond the
town of Bogan Halfen, he had overcome 3 vampire Wizards of
Brutwald and all the armies of The Walking Dead.
In the crypts beneath the cursed castle of Vermas, he had
overcome the ancient wizard and all his acolytes and one for
himself the title of Leech Master.
Kemler allowed himself a wintery smile.
In those days, his military genius had been renowned as his
necromancy. He had LED his hordes to many
victories. Even kings had come crown in
hand to beg his assistance in their petty squabbles.
Slowly, Kemler's smile ended. Now was not the time to relieve
past triumphs. He could I'll afford any time
for reverie with a hounds of darkness snapping at his heels.
Still, the temptation was there. It was more comfortable to
recall lost glories than to relive his recent defeats.
Better to remember the days when the kingdoms of men were baubles
to be played with than to recall the recent shattering of his
undead host by the forces of his accursed rivals.
Cold fury filled him as he looked at the pitiful remains of
his undead army. Here were but a few 100 animated
skeletons and 10 score Walking Dead.
A pathetic remnant of an army whose numbers had once been
legion. Once the Carrion had come back,
Once the mummies of the night tombs of the Kingdom of Dead had
lumbered to obey his every whim. Now he had nothing.
Now his enemies flickered through the pages of his
unsurpassed necromatic library, and his greatest rivals drank
hallucinogenic wine drawn from the Cellars of his Dark Tower.
Kemler licked his lips. He could kill for a drink of
that wine now. He recalled laying it down in
the days of his glory 150 years ago, mixing the potent mushrooms
with drops of Lotus and the forbidden grapes of Quaar Amman,
whose roots must be bedded in soil fertilized with a flesh of
murderers. He cursed aloud and hoped the
wine brought his foes nightmares, that it had gone bad
and poison ran in their veins. He knew it would not be so.
One glance over his shoulders and he could see the distant
stream of green witch lights that marked the presence of his
pursuers. He thought of his library and a
great gloom filled him. It had taken many lifetimes of
man to acquire it, the greatest trove of necromatic law outside
Nagishizar. Now it was in the hands of
fools, lesser men without the vision of a foresight to apply
it beyond their own petty ends. There was one consolation,
though. He had modified many of the
spells in the Gurimas in ways only he knew and could
compensate for. Anyone using these works without
his knowledge was in for a few unpleasant surprises, and no one
would benefit much from the store of knowledge he had
smuggled so long to accumulate. This was getting him nowhere.
He was no closer to solving the Riddle of why he was being
defeated. He could no longer muster the
strength to break the spells of his foes.
Perhaps, he thought, age had finally overcome him.
In spite of the cunning of his sorceries and the supreme
alchemel mastery that had prolonged his life, his strength
had flowed from him like wine from an overturned goblet.
Perhaps there was a limit to how long a mortal man could
continue, and perhaps he had reached it.
He knew he could no longer find the strength within him to cast
the great spells. He struggled with simple
reanimations, like a wheezing old codger trying to run a mile.
He simply no longer had the power he once had.
His strength had faded and withered, and there could be
nothing he could be doing about it.
Perhaps all necromance has reached this point, he thought.
Perhaps that was why they became leeches and bartered their
mortal thorns for undying carcasses.
Kemla shuddered. Even after all these centuries
of eluding death, the idea was still repugnant to him.
He tried to imagine what it would be like to be a Leech.
He tried to imagine what it would be like to find life in
death, or perhaps death in life. He tried to imagine what it
would be like to never breathe or feel a heartbeat, or to enjoy
the taste of wine or food. He tried to imagine what it
would be like to have maggots eat his rotten vitals and simply
not to care. Others might make the trade
willingly, but they were ignorant fools.
They might think it was not so bad to swap a living, ageing
body for one which could. Chuet's change meant nothing.
He had seen leeches in all their horror.
He had talked with those he had bound to his will, and he had
some idea of what it would be like to become one over
centuries. He had put off the idea, but he
told himself perhaps that was simply the folly of a young and
mighty mage, confident in his power.
Perhaps, all necromancers thought as he did when they
first set their feet upon this dark path, perhaps this was the
choice they all faced eventually, the slow and
diminishing of their powers and eventual death on a transition
to a new and different stage of being.
Perhaps the human form was merely a lava from which a Leech
emerged like a moth from a chrysalis, Faced with the stark
choice between extinction and continued existence, maybe all
men would make this choice if they could.
Perhaps he was simply lucky to be in a position to make it.
Countless millions of others would never be granted such a
chance. Kemla cursed himself for a fool.
He had stood here brooding on the nature of his existence, and
all the time his enemies drew closer.
He felt a brief stab of startled panic, such as a fox might feel
when it hears the hounds closing in, and he fought the urge to
contain the urge to run. He would survive only now by
keeping his wits about him. Those who followed would make no
deals, would show no mercy. He knew he was alone.
They did not frighten him. He had been alone for many long
decades. His vocation had cut him off
from those who followed more normal human lives.
The years had taught himself sufficiency and great cunning.
It was time to put that cunning to use.
Perhaps there was something about this might aid him.
And after all, this was why he had fled in this direction.
The stretch of the vaults was dotted with ancient tombs and
barrows dating from the time before the Empire and the
Kingdom of Bretonia. Some, it was whispered, dated to
the time even before dwarfs and elves had walked these lonely
paths. It was even hinted yet in
certain dread books that there was a Barrow about here which
contained a weapon of power that was once belonging to a Champion
of Chaos. With such a weapon, Kemler knew
he might be able to defy those who hounded him, perhaps even
reclaim his former pre eminence. He ordered his servants to
spread out and speak in the search.
With this will, he imprinted upon their rotting brains that
they must find that Barrow. With the relentless, implacable
purpose of automatrons, they began their search.
Kemler muttered a prayer to whatever dark gods might be
listening. He knew his existence hung in
the balance. They were still using Kemler a
lot to you, Heinrich Klemmler. I remember him from Terror.
The niche master in a green box, I believe it was all those years
ago. Card buildings and the works.
The army list is next, and we have a few pages of that.
Of course, all the stuff there at the front is the same as we
have in all the different books. And you have a unity of
characters and dead generals and dead battle standard and a hero
and dead champion Necromancers. Lots of these regiments include
skeleton horsemen, skeleton warriors, zombies, ghosts,
wraiths and ghouls. Excuse me, mummies, carrion
wraiths, screaming skull catapults, undead Chariots.
Beautiful, isn't it? And then the list of monsters,
which of course was traditional in these times.
And we have special characters, the first of course being Nagash
Spree, Supreme Lord of the Undead.
Look at that, 475 points plus 35 points if given the Blade of
Death, plus 100 points for the Black Armour of Nagash, plus 100
points for the Book of Nagash, and an extra 40 points for the
Staff of Power. You wouldn't have much else if
you went with Nagash, would you? Are the characters of Vlad von
Karstein, Isabella von Karstein, Manfred von Karstein all
characters that would make brick a lot into the Warhammer world
as things went on? Heinrich Kemmler we know all
about just now, the Cloak of Shadows Ark and the Black Krell,
Lord of the Undead. Good figure for him.
I remember Cetra, the Tomb King of Kemri.
See, the whole background here was just based in one character
at this point, really was. This was to really emerge and
get a lot deeper as we went on. Then we have some magic items.
They're on the backs of cards as they were in these books in
years gone by. And let me see the Cloak of Mist
and Shadows. The Cloak and Mist and Shadows
allows its wearer to cast the necromantic dark mist spell a
Will. Once per magic phase, the
character's body melts into the dark mist and swirls around the
battlefield. He may move 24 inches per turn
and can move through solid objects and therefore no suffer
no penalties for moving over difficult terrain or obstacles.
He can move through buildings, but may not move through other
creatures. The character may not attack
while the spell is infect, but can cast spells.
It may only be harmed by magical weapons or spells.
Once cast, the spell remains effective for the rest of the
game until it is dispelled or until the character decides to
end it. It's a powerful spell, isn't it?
A powerful item, really are now just finishing up.
Towards the end of the book we have these black and white
pictures of the figures and all their parts and components.
Yep, there they are, the undead. They're of a different time.
Like suppose they're supposed to be really, aren't they, these
figures? But they still hold a certain
charm to them. Skeleton commands some beautiful
standard bearers there. Undead plastics.
Then coming up, skeleton horse, skeleton foot, skeleton chariot,
even undead plastics. And then the back and shows us
some of the books we can get before finishing off with a
skeleton horde, a mighty undead horde, lovely scenery.
That old Chapel that they often used, rocks filled with skulls
before we have the black back at the end of the book.
Well, there we have it. You could read that for
pleasure, couldn't you? It was such a good book.
Some of those stories, some of the background they gave those
characters, they felt lived in, they felt alive even though they
were undead and they felt or you felt that you would be proud to
have them leave your armies. I think that's been my favorite
one so far. It really is such a good book.
It has such a good feel to it and it's also one of the ones
they moved away from more than some of the other ones really.
They changed the background a lot in later editions.
But there's gold in them hills there, isn't there?
It's a really, really you could tell the talent they had at that
time. I think Bill King was a big loss
when he left. To do stuff or not to do the
books anyway. Well, there we are, my friends.
I survived a a death defying moment today.
The night is growing dark. The storm is still raging
outside. You could probably hear it as I
was reading to you. It's getting to the end of
November. I'm not sure when Joshua put
this out, so if I don't see you or hear from you before, have a
Merry Christmas guys. The Doleg Klawen.
My name is Owen Stayton. You can follow me on X or
Twitter as I prefer to call it, and VO in Stayton on there and
even on Blue Sky. Now I'm getting the hang of
that. Please feel free to buy me a
coffee, coffee.com/owen stating and listen to my podcast The
Time Between Times. I'd be very grateful if you did
that. Take care everyone.
It's a good hobby to have, it's a good hobby to spend your time
in, It's creative, it inspires your thoughts, and it's
something that you can take with you anywhere.
War Gaming has been a great servant to me and continues to
be. I'm quite proud of that ticket.