LINK’D - The Enemy Within: A Companion

We finally return to something actually oldhammer-related.

Over the years the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay community has produced some truly great fan-made content, ranging from excellent one-shot scenarios to full campaigns and fanzines (Warpstone and Liber Fanatica). 

I’m planning on getting back to some of that stuff eventually, but today I want to mention Gideon’s “The Enemy Within: A Companion”.

I’ll let the author introduce the document himself here, where you can also find a link to the 6th edition of the companion as well as the first part of the 7th edition. You read that right: Seven editions. If that isn’t dedication, I don’t know what is.
I’ve used the companion myself when GM’ing TEW, and it was a great help.

The rest of Gideon’s blog is also a very interesting read if you are at all interested in the early days of WFRP. Give it a look.

Croaker

The small things

Just a quick update this week.

You may recall that I mentioned seeing the exceedingly rare Sigrid from DotR on eBay a while ago. While I didn’t get that figure, the seller also had a few other gems up for auction, most notably (from my perspective) Renate (which I didn’t get either) and this little guy:

It’s probably the single most expensive figure I’ve ever bought, though the price ended up being pretty much in line with earlier auctions I’ve seen for this particular model. The weak British pound helped, so at least there’s some upside to the whole Brexit-thing (from my perspective). Even so, I couldn’t afford more than one of the three figures I wanted, so I had to pick one and hope my bid was high enough.

The three-legged goblin is fairly pivotal to the events of the whole Enemy Within campaign, but the PCs won’t interact all that much with it (and that’s probably all I can say without spoiling anything). In that light, I probably should have gone for Renate, who can actually become a PC, but the goblin is just so iconic that I couldn’t resist it.

Croaker

Not dead – not dead

Uh – It’s been how long since I last wrote something? This time I can’t even blame some new Battlefleet Gothic-related product; I just never got around to writing anything.

I have been painting a bit though and am almost done with my Colette crew. I’ve already started a few proper Oldhammer figures (more dwarves), so if you’ve been holding your proverbial nose through all this new stuff don’t worry, normal service should be resumed shortly.

Here’s what I’ve done over these past weeks:

Now I just need to do a few finishing touches on Cassandra. That doesn’t mean that I’m entirely done with Malifaux though. I’ve played my first match with the crew, and even though it works reasonably well as it is (as long as you don’t have to kill too much stuff), it really needs some extra units to round it out.

In other (and much more Oldhammer-relevant) news, I saw this up for auction some time ago, and I just thought I'd show it to you:

It’s Sigrid from Death on the Reik!

I think I’ve mentioned it before, but this figure is so rare that I’ve never even seen a picture of it before, outside of the official flyer. I did place a bid on it, but the price reached a level I simply couldn’t justify (though not quite Kemmler-levels).

It’s a shame, ‘cause I really wanted it for my collection, and I’m not sure I’m ever going to get another chance, but that’s life I guess. At least now I can use the money to round out my Malifaux crew instead.

Croaker.

Scum and villainy

Happy new year everyone. I’ve been back to work for a week after an unusually long Christmas vacation, and for some reason I just couldn’t get back into my usual rhythm, so I really haven’t been doing much painting – and what little I did, ended up being so appallingly bad that I put the figure right back into the jar of acetone.

Instead of showing painted, I want to talk a little about some minis I got a while back. First, though, I have to ask a question: How old and/or well-known must a story be before spoiling key elements of the plot without a warning is o.k.?

Maybe it mostly depends on the type of story. Certainly, mysteries should be treated with greater sensitivity than the average romantic comedy, but at some point, it just seems overbearing to assume that your audience doesn’t know certain well-known plot-points – the ending of Romeo and Juliet comes to mind.

I’m asking because I want to talk about the villains of The Enemy Within (TEW), and though it’s quite old (as role-playing campaigns go), it’s really impossible to do that without ruining a lot of the fun of the campaign for anyone who might play it in the future. Even showing pictures would be thoroughly spoilery.

Therefore, for the benefit of the two people in the world who are interested enough in the subject to read this, but still haven’t been exposed to TEW, I’ll but in a break.

Heavy spoilers hereafter.

Literary treasure

It is no secret that one of the great pleasures of (and, indeed, reasons behind) “Oldhammer blogging” is getting to brag about all the rare stuff you got a sweet deal on. Usually this involves figures, but as many will agree, collecting the original publications is just as big a part of the experience.

Which brings be to the pride and joy of my Oldhammer collection:

My collection of TEW-modules – all first editions and all in good condition. The individual books aren’t quite as rare and expensive as, for example, The Lost and the Damned (though the Death on the Reik box can get close), but it’s still quite a challenge to get hold of the entire set without having to sell a kidney. 

You’ll notice that I also have the much maligned Something Rotten in Kislev (SRiK) and Empire in Flames (EiF), mostly for the sake of completeness. I’ve never actually run them, and if I ever got that far into the campaign, I’d probably go down a different path anyway (more on that in a later post). Quality of writing aside, the EiF book is an especially lovely item – quite long (154 pages), hardcover, nicely illustrated, and with lots of maps and handouts.

I also got hold of this:

The, very nice, omnibus-edition, comprising TEW, SoB and DotR

Why, you ask? 

‘Cause there’s no way I’m letting a bunch of greasy, unkempt roleplayers be in the same room as my lovely first-editions. Actually, I normally use a set of PDF’s, since it’s generally easier to use, but you get the idea.

Croaker

Wanted! Bold adventurers

Every good tale needs a good opening.

There’s the classic “A long, long time ago, in a land far away”, which is good for all occasions. There’s also the iconic (and brilliant) “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort”, which I’d never dare appropriate for myself.

And then there’s this:

 This poster is the beginning to Mistaken Identity, the first part of The Enemy Within (TEW) – and what a great opening it is. The GM gives the players this handout (hoping that none of them wants to be a dwarf) and off they go. They can, of cause, roll up their own characters, but GW also provided these pre-made ones:

Citadel produced (or reused) miniatures for them, which seemed to be a natural place to get started om my goal of collecting all the miniatures associated with TEW. I therefor present to you:

Someone (not me) seems to have been a bit overly vigorous with the brush when stripping the two figures on the left (Harbull and Johann). The detail is still quite fine, but they have become very shiny.

These are the character models released along with Shadows over Bögenhafen. They are not the rarest of the set, though I suspect they may be some of the most expensive. Wanda can be especially pricy, with a buy-now price around £50 – which just goes to show that you should never trust those things. I got her for £8.

Croaker