Games Workshop has revealed the first wave of releases that are going to be coming to Warhammer: The Old World. There are two big Army Boxes on the way for Bretonnia and the Tomb Kings Of Khemri plus a host of books to covering the rules and the building of your armies.

New Boxed Sets // Warhammer: The Old World

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Rather than one big boxed set that offers up two smaller armies clashing on the tabletops, Games Workshop has gone for two this time. Each set contains a full 1250-point army for Warhammer: The Old World made up of all plastic miniatures from the range. In addition to the armies, you'll also get the Warhammer: The Old World Rulebook, a Reference Sheet plus loads of dice, templates and more that you'll need for playing your games.

Kingdom Of Bretonnia Boxed Set // Warhammer: The Old World

The Kingdom Of Bretonnia set comes with the Lord On Royal Pegasus who can also be built as a Duke or Baron. You also get twelve Bretonnian Knights Of The Realm, thirty-six Bretonnian Men-At-Arms, twenty-four Peasant Bowmen (with defensive stakes!), three Pegasus Knights and a transfer sheet for doing all of that heraldry. No Knights Of The Realm On Foot which is a shame but this does give you the core of pretty much any knightly force for the Bretonnians.

For Khemri...

Tomb Kings Of Khemri Boxed Set // Warhammer: The Old World

The shambling undead of the deserts of Khemri is led by a new Liche Priest On Necrolith Bone Dragon (which can also build a Tomb King On Foot or a Tomb King On Bone Dragon). Rising from their tombs, you'll also get forty Skeleton Warriors, thirty-two Skeleton Archers, sixteen Skeleton Horsemen and three Skeleton Chariots. Again, a solid core of troops that would be great for expanding into all manner of different armies later on down the line.

As mentioned, both come with the Warhammer: The Old World Rulebook so you'll be able to get these to the tabletop and start learning the updated rules alongside building your armies.

New Warhammer: The Old World Books

Talking of that Rulebook, you will also be able to buy Warhammer: The Old World - Fantasy Battles In The World Of Legend separately. This is probably going to be the route for a lot of folks who already have armies tucked away in boxes and carry cases from before The End Times.

Rulebook// Warhammer: The Old World

Inside this weighty tome, you'll find a whole host of background and lore on the World Of Legend plus Core and Advanced Rules for the game. Everything you'd expect is included with rules for the Winds Of Magic and spellcasting, rules for building armies and setting up battlefields and more. You'll also find a bunch of inspirational content including galleries of painted miniatures from the ’Eavy Metal team. The book will also be available as a digital ePub so you don't have to lug the book around everywhere.

So what about the Army Lists for the launch factions? Well, they are contained within a pair of books, Forces Of  Fantasy and Ravening Hordes.

Forces Of Fantasy & Ravening Hordes // Warhammer: The Old World

Forces Of Fantasy will feature the rules for the Dwarven Mountain Holds, the Empire Of Man, the Kingdom Of Bretonnia, the Wood Elf Realms and the High Elf Realms. Ravening Hordes covers the rest and your Evil factions including the Orc And Goblin Tribes, Warriors Of Chaos, Beastmen Brayherds and the Tomb Kings Of Khemri.

Each army will get an introduction to their lore and background, a grand army composition list, all your unit profiles, special rules, magic items and unique spells plus a gallery of painted miniatures as inspiration. You will need the main Rulebook to use both of these books and they will be available in ePub format as well as in hardback form.

It's certainly an interesting option when it comes to getting the rules for the different factions out there. It follows in the footsteps of the likes of The Horus Heresy where you get lots of rules bundled into one or two tomes. I imagine a lot of people, regardless of the army they want to play, will be getting both books.

As well as those main books to cover the different armies, you'll also be able to get Arcane Journals for different factions.

Arcane Journals // Warhammer: The Old World

Straight away, these books aren't essential for your faction and you can play with the books we've mentioned above. However, Arcane Journals come with additional history, heraldry, maps, special character rules, magic items, spells, a historical-based scenario and thematic Armies Of Infamy which allow you to build your forces in different ways.

As an example, the Kingdom Of Bretonnia book will feature rules for the Bretonnian Exiles and Errantry Crusades. The Tomb Kings book will contain rules for the Nehekharan Royal Host and the Mortuary Cults. More of these Arcane Journals will launch alongside the core factions for The Old World in good time as and when they are released back into the world.

I would hope that the Arcane Journals are relatively inexpensive but we shall see. I could imagine the rest of the tomes for the game being particularly costly. I suppose that as a plus, once you've got that book covering your factions and the main Rulebook, you're sorted, especially if you don't collect either of the two launch armies.

Factions not covered by Forces Of Fantasy and Ravening Hordes will be available as PDF army lists covering the likes of Ogre Kingdoms, Skaven and more.

New Tomb Kings Miniatures!

As if all this wasn't enough, we also got to check out the new miniatures coming our way for the Tomb Kings. We start with Nekaph, Emissary Of Settra.

Nekaph, Emissary Of Settra // Warhammer: The Old World

Armed with the Flail Of Conquered Kings, this fellow is there to make sure that Settra's litany of victories and other achievements are recounted in full before every battle. I can see this fellow being a rather good way of enforcing some order amongst the ranks of the undead and perhaps even boring your enemies to death with that long list. I like the sculpt, especially the face with that haunting, moaning visage.

You've also got a new Battle Standard Bearer miniature coming out for the Tomb Kings with a rather splendid looking banner!

Khemri Battle Standard Bearer // Warhammer: The Old World

A great champion for your warriors to unite around and it should help keep them together if your priests begin to fail in the casting of their rites! Another awesome-looking miniature that captures so much character and comes packed with details. The design team have done some great work on these new miniatures for The Old World.

Last but not least, we have the Tomb Swarms.

Tomb Swarm // Warhammer: The Old World

The Tomb Swarms are a swirling mass of reanimated corpses of scorpions, scarabs and more that you might find deep within the various tombs across the lands of Khemri. They are something of a pain to deal with and could be a great way for you to lock down a particular persistent enemy. There are only so many bugs you can crush with a hammer or sword before they get inside your armour and start eating you alive!

All of these miniatures and books should be coming up for pre-order relatively soon. I imagine there might be quite a long pre-order period for these books and army sets so that Games Workshop can work out how many they need to make!

What do you make of the first set of releases for Warhammer: The Old World?