Warhammer Fantasy Battle/Characters

Like its offshoot Warhammer 40000, Warhammer Fantasy Battles contains many playable factions and a large number of named characters.

The playable factions are:

The Human Nations
Humans are a relatively young race in the Warhammer world. They do not remember the departure of the Old Ones or the first coming of Chaos, nor do they have the depth of knowledge and wisdom of the elder races, and yet the fate of the world rests in their hands, for good or ill.

There are dozens of human nations, but only the Empire and Brettonia are playable. Humans do tend to dominate the Dogs of War list, however.

The Empire


""The softest part of a castle is the belly of the man inside"."

Founded by warrior-turned-god Emperor Sigmar Heldenhammer, who united the tribes of humans in the region into what would become the greatest nation of men in the world, The Empire towers in size and military power over its neighbors. Extending from the World's Edge Mountain kingdoms of the Dwarfs to most of the eastern Old World, it is comprised of ten grand provinces, each ruled by an elector count, who vote on who takes the throne after the death of each Emperor.

The Empire is comprised mostly of humans, with a few Dwarfs, Halflings (who control the province of the Moot), and Gnomes within its borders. It is expansionist (when it can be) but also open to trading and diplomatic relations with other nations, which resulted in it gaining both the semi-renaissance steampunk technology of the Dwarfs, and being taught magic from the Elves, both of which they have adapted for human use, resulting in one of the best all-round equipped armies.

Though better than the wilderness, it is still a pretty terrible place to live. Peasants from the northern regions are forced into conscription to beat back the never-ending tide of Norse warbands, Orc tribes, and Beastmen. Templars of Sigmar, better known as Witch Hunters, prowl the villages and cities, eradicating even the smallest taints of heresy with extreme prejudice. And amongst the nobility, it seems only the Emperor himself, Karl Franz, cares for the fate of the nation and not just his own well being.

As for cultural themes, it's mainly Germanic, with a dash of the British Empire thrown in for good measure. In essence, it resembles the Holy Roman Empire, only larger and more zealous. -
 * Ancestral Weapon: The most famous being the nine (although many are lost) Runefangs and the Emperor's hammer Ghal-Maraz
 * BFS: They're not called "Imperial Greatswords" for nothing.
 * Blade on a Stick: The empire likes fielding halberdiers.
 * Church Militant: Warpriests and Witch Hunters
 * Dark Is Not Evil: Amethyst wizards harness the wind of Shyish, death, but are no more evil than any other wizard. Same applies to the Grey Wizards, that actually use the Lore of Shadows; distrust ensues.
 * The Sacred Darkness: Their magics are different from those used by necromancers and chaos worshippers. The ignorance prevalent in the setting means most people are unaware of this however, just seeing a magic user with a scythe in both cases.
 * The Empire: Though it doesn't get many chances to expand its territory. (That said, Kislev after the storm of chaos...)
 * Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Of the Holy Roman Empire. Their religion is basically Norse Paganism crossed with the Catholic Church, also.
 * Gatling Good: Imperial Hellblasters are gatling cannons.
 * Hobbits: The Halflings of the Moot, a client state of the Empire, are very strongly based on Tolkien's hobbits. Their traits are taken to an extreme, however—they're gluttonous and chronically lazy, with a penchant for burglary and other vices.
 * Knight in Shining Armour: Several types even.
 * Our Gryphons Are Different: The Empire breeds 'Imperial Griffons' which are bigger and stronger (though slightly slower) than the regular wild Griffons. A subtype seemingly popular as a mount for wizards has two heads. Then there are the Demigryphs, a small (compared with other Griffons - they are still bigger than a horse) wingless variety used as elite cavalry mounts.
 * Steampunk: Steam driven tanks.
 * Uberwald: Sylvania, while technically a part of the Empire, is ruled by frickin' Vampires.
 * Wizarding School: The Colleges of Magic in Altdorf.

Bretonnia


Feudal kingdom to the west of The Empire. High Medieval France meets the Arthurian mythos. Their religion is implied to have been engineered by the Wood Elves in order to have the humans of Bretonnia act as a buffer against outside threats, primarily the Orcs. Brettonia fields some very nasty knights supported by hordes of cannon-fodder commoners. -
 * The Dung Ages: Most definitely, at least for the commoners.
 * Fantasy Gun Control: Gunpowder weapons are illegal, other ranged weapons are spurned by knights.
 * Knight in Shining Armour: What the Bretonians like to think of themselves as... and some of them really are.
 * Knight Templar
 * Light Is Not Good: The cult of the Lady.
 * Medieval Stasis
 * The Quest: The quest for the Grail is a central institution in Bretonnian culture. Those who find it tend to become really Badass.
 * We Have Reserves: Knights don't really care about commoners fleeing (though unusually for this trope this is more a case of Proud Warrior Race Guy disdain than simple evilness.)

Kislev
A small kingdom of proud mounted warriors that lies to the northeast of the Empire, ruled by the powerful sorceress Tzarina Katarin. Kislev is the last frontier before the Chaos Wastes, molding its people into hardy defenders of the southern lands. Recently, during the Storm of Chaos, Kislev was overrun by a massive invasion from the Chaos Wastes, but still hangs on to civilization by the skin of its teeth.


 * An Ice Person: Katarina is a master of ice magic.
 * Everything's Worse with Bears: They use trained bears in battle.
 * Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Of Imperial / Time of Myths Russia. The indigenous Ungol people were vaguely like the Huns.
 * Grim Up North
 * Out of Focus: Kislev has never been a "full" faction, but in former editions some of their troops and characters were avavailable for use in an Empire army and later GW published an army list for them, allowing them to supplement other factions. As of the most recent edition they are no longer officially legal and even their models have vanished from the GW stores.

The Elder Races
Old, declining, and yet proud beyond measure, the elder races were present in the Dawn Times, the first of their kind were sculpted by the hand of the Old Ones themselves, and thus tend to be far more resistant to Chaos than humans.

Dwarfs
""No Rest until the Blood of Greenskins flows like Dark Ale upon the Earth!""

A dying race modeled on the Tolkienian archetype. Gruff, insular, long-lived, prefer to live inside mountains, excellent miners, smiths and masons, they have had mostly good relations with the Empire since Sigmar saved a Dwarf king from an Orc ambush. They introduced iron working and later gunpowder and cannon construction to the Empire. Many of their mountain strongholds have fallen to Skaven and Orcs over the years. The Dwarfs tend to be slow (and almost completely lacking in cavalry) but very sturdy, capable of shrugging off arrows and bolts and responding with devastating fire from their own weapons and war machines. The three most important things in Dwarven society are revenge, wealth and beards.


 * Best Served Cold: The Dwarfs do not forget their grudges. Not when they pretty much regard vengeance as a sacrament.
 * Death Seeker: Dwarf slayers, having been dishonoured somehow, try to seek death by fighting the biggest, baddest monsters they can find.
 * Disproportionate Retribution: What the Dwarfen obsession with grudges can lead to. Classic example; a White Dwarf battle report depicting a seige of Dwarf attackers vs. Empire defenders that sees hundreds dead was caused by the fact that, six years ago, the owner of the castle was twelve gold coins short in his payment for dwarven construction workers.
 * This is typically caused by Values Dissonance between Dwarfs and their erstwhile allies. In the above case, we (and the castle owner) see it as just a matter of a dozen coins. To the Dwarfs, you have just cheated them out of money, which in and of itself is Serious Business, no matter the amount.
 * An even worse example of this makes its way into the canon; according to the latest Empire sourcebook, in 2410 of the Imperial Calander, the Elector Count of Ostermark has Dwarf craftsmen from Karak Kadrin construct Fortress Kreighof in exchange for twelve dozen wagonloads of gold. Finding they haven't received a "full payment", the Dwarves promptly rally an army and raze the fortress to the ground. They were only missing two and a half pennies!
 * Doomy Dooms of Doom: The Anvil of Doom, Doomseekers...You have to admit that it reflects their fatalistic nature.
 * Drunken Master: Notice how a lot of dwarf technology seems to be based on alcohol?
 * Hermetic Magic: Rune magic.
 * Kill It with Fire: Alcohol-fueled Flamethrowing cannons
 * Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Though the extensive use of cannons and muskets is new.
 * Revenge Before Reason: To the extent that they veer into Too Dumb to Live territory. They are forever taking even the most minor offense against them and writing it down into a "Book of Grudges" so they can one day demand recompense.
 * Roaring Rampage of Revenge: What happens when they set out to set those grudges a-right.
 * Steampunk: Alcohol-fueled helicopters.
 * Stout Strength: They are Dwarfs, after all.
 * Ultimate Blacksmith: Runesmiths, and their forge god Grungni.

Chaos Dwarfs
An offshoot of the Dwarfs who have been corrupted by Chaos. Whereas common Dwarfs shun magic, Chaos Dwarfs are ruled by a caste of wicked sorcerers. However, because Dwarfs are not meant to wield magic, they slowly succumb to a curse that turns them to stone. The Chaos Dwarfs have a vaguely Babylonian culture, making great use of chariots drawn by monstrous bulls; they also use blunderbusses and massive cannons. The Chaos Dwarfs are backed up by Orc and Goblin slaves, and their willing servants, the nefarious Hobgoblins.


 * Born in the Saddle: Hobgoblins, with wolves, although they do have infantry as well.
 * Dirty Coward: The Hobgoblins. This is why the Orcs and Goblins hate them so much--they use subterfuge, which is taboo to other Greenskin races. Hence "Sneaky Gits".
 * Equivalent Exchange: Since Dwarfs aren't supposed to use magic, Chaos Dwarf sorcerers gradually turn to stone.
 * Evil Counterpart: To the Dwarfs, natch.
 * Evil Sorcerer: Their rulers.
 * Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Babylonia. And a bit of Soviet Russia.
 * Horse of a Different Color: Like Tolkien's Goblins, Hobgoblins ride wolves into battle.
 * A Load of Bull: Thematically, and also in the form of Bull Centaurs, Lammasu, and the Great Taurus.
 * The Magocracy
 * Nice Hat: Probably due to being The Napoleon.
 * Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Averted. They are very different from the stereotype.
 * Our Goblins Are Different: The Hobgoblins are found only in this army (and the Dogs of War). Because of their natural cowardice and inherent malice, they are shunned even by other Greenskins.
 * Screwed by the Network: Went several new editions of the game without any updates at all. An official Chaos Dwarf list (The Legion of Azgorh) was finally included in the Tamurkhan: Throne of Chaos book, and Forge World have some models.
 * Slave Race: Hobgoblins. The Black Orcs were created by them to control their other slaves, but they rebelled themselves pretty quickly.

High Elves


""We are the chosen of Asuryan, beloved of the gods and heirs to the world. Our armies are the finest in creation; swift where our foes are lumbering, cultured where they are barbaric. Give no thought to failure, nor defeat – we are the Children of Ulthuan and we shall prevail.""

Calling themselves Asur, they are a dying race also similar to their Tolkien counterparts. Long-lived (more so than dwarfs), refined, strong with magic. Haughty and insular, mostly sticking to their island home of Ulthuan. The arch-mage Teclis helped the Empire found colleges of magic in order to train and regulate spellcasting in the Empire. High Elf armies tends to be diverse and precise, but lacking in staying power. The High Elf armies are based on a system of conscription which allows them to field much larger armies than their dwindling population would normally encompass: All elves are in some capacity trained in the arts of war. The baseline high elf units are very capable spearmen, but they also have a wide variety of both light and heavy cavalry, skirmishers and some warmachines. -
 * The Atoner: Naggarythe. The elves from Malekith's home state who refused to join his civil war.
 * A House Divided: the elven civil war has pretty much doomed the elven race as a whole.
 * Automatic Crossbows: the Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower is a repeating ballista.
 * Determinator: Especially in combat with the Dark Elves.
 * Dragon Rider: used to be a major source of High Elf strength, but most dragons have fallen asleep and can only be woken with great difficulty.
 * Friend to All Living Things: The Everqueen.
 * Good Is Not Nice: While the High Elves are certainly noble, overall good-hearted beings, they are still major assholes.
 * Incorruptible Pure Pureness: The Everqueen again. She kills demons just by being near them.
 * Knight in Shining Armour: They're not called "Silver Helms" for nothing.
 * The Master Swordsman: They're not called Swordsmasters for nothing.
 * Nemean Skinning: They're not called White Lions for nothing.
 * Ninja: The Shadow Warriors.
 * Our Elves Are Better: These particular ones are arrogant dying militarists.
 * Our Gryphons Are Different: Elven Griffons are smaller and weaker than the Empire equivalent but slightly more agile.
 * Panthera Awesome: Lion Chariots.
 * Retcon: At one point, there was a fourth Elven subrace--the Sea Elves, who lived in Ulthuan's Outer Kingdoms while the High Elves inhabited the Inner Kingdoms. Eventually, though, they were Retconned into a subculture of High Elves.
 * Sibling Yin-Yang: Tyrion and Teclis: One is the greatest warrior of the High Elves, with charisma and power to beat most, the other is a sarcastic cripple who needs magical potions to even function. Oh, and he's one of the greatest magicians of the world.
 * State Sec: Swordsmasters double as elite infantry and Secret Police.
 * Sword Beam: Sunfang, Tyrion's sword. It shoots fire
 * White Magic: Elven (and Slann) High Magic is the "least corrupt" form of magic, and draws upon the full spectrum of the Winds of Magic.

Dark Elves


Cruel, sadistic elves descended from exiles that left Ulthuan in the wake of a civil war. Their leader Malekith is actually the original leader of the losing faction and has kept himself alive and healthy for 5000 years by nefarious means. Their entire existence is based around raiding for goods and slaves, and they have such charming habits as making sails and cloaks from the hides of lesser races like dwarfs and humans. Unlike your typical dark elves they neither have dark skin, nor do they live underground (except for one city). Dark Elves tends to be dark mirror to the High Elves, often fielding pretty much identical units. -
 * Automatic Crossbows: The Dark Elves signature weapon.
 * Base on Wheels: The Black Arks are actually castles kept afloat using sorcery.
 * Blood Knight: Witch Elves, all Dark Elves to some degree.
 * Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Dark Elves are marginally less fratricidal than the Skaven or the Orcs. Marginally.
 * Determinator: Dark Elves hate everyone. Literally. It's a game rule.
 * Dragon Rider: Malekith rides a black dragon.
 * The Evil Prince: Malekith the Witch King started out as this. Then he found out that the crowning ceremony wasn't just a formality but a Secret Test of Character.
 * Evil Sorcerer: All women, all bad news.
 * Malekith is one himself, but he's the only male sorcerer at the moment. The reason for this is because a prophecy indicates Malekith will be killed by a male sorcerer.
 * That said, in the 7th edition fluff, illegal male sorcerers are said to exist... they just have to keep their heads down or be killed for the aforementioned prophecy aversion.
 * Evil Tower of Ominousness: Naggaroth is covered in these.
 * God Save Us From the Queen: The queen mother Morathi is a Slaanesh worshipper and had a hand in corrupting her son the Witch-King.
 * Grim Up North: their homeland, Naggaroth means "The land of Chill" On the world map they are the equivalent of Canada.
 * Kick the Dog: They like to enslave animals rather than taming them the High Elf way.
 * Name of Cain: Khaine, their chief god.
 * Pirates: How the Dark Elves make their living.
 * Religion of Evil: The High Elves worship two pantheons, one of "good" gods that should be worshipped and served, and one of "bad" gods that should be appeased and kept at bay. The Dark Elves give themselves over to the Bad gods, most notably the God of Murder.
 * Invoking Khaine to win a battle isn't a bad but worshipping him as the only god is a no-no.
 * Social Darwinist: Malekith generally encourages the Chronic Backstabbing Disorder going on to make sure his society stays strong.
 * Spikes of Villainy: The Dark Elves seems to like them, provided there's enough space for them.
 * The Starscream: While Malekith doesn't take any crap from any of his followers, get below that and you'll find that every other entry on the list of ways to advance in Dark Elf society is "kill the guy above you."
 * The Vamp: Morthai, as befits a worshipper of Slaanesh. She's even trying to bring the society back to Slaaneshi worship.

Wood Elves


""Athel Loren shall not suffer the presence of Men, nor Orcs, nor Dwarfs, nor Beastmen. If a foe takes a single step upon such sacred soil, they shall not take another.""

Descended from elves that refused to heed the call to return to Ulthuan from the mainland elven colonies in the wake of a devastating war with the dwarfs, these elves hide themselves in the forests on the north coast of the Old World and viciously attack any unwelcome intruders. Aside from being excellent archers, they are also allied with various nasty forest spirits, like dryads that transform themselves into walking trees in order to attack their enemies. Engineered the Bretonnian religion venerating the Lady of the Lake in order to manipulate humans for their own purposes. -
 * Defector From Decadence
 * The Fair Folk
 * Forest Ranger: All of them, but Waywatchers in particular.
 * Gaia's Vengeance
 * The Lost Woods: Where else would they live?
 * Noble Savage: Subverted or played straight, depending on edition.
 * Nature Hero: for a given value of "hero"
 * When Trees Attack: Or at least, when spirits possessing trees attack.
 * The Wild Hunt

Lizardmen


""Before Elves, before Dwarfs, before Men, the Old Ones arrived upon this world. Then came Chaos and the Great Plan of the Old Ones was unmade. We are the last of their servants, and only by our hand shall the Great Plan be restored, with the total defeat of the usurping younger races.""

Sentient Lizard Folk found in the jungles of the equivalent of South America, they are based on the Aztec and Mayan cultures. The most truly ancient race in the setting, servants of the Old Ones and archenemies of Chaos. They come in four kinds; the small, skittish Skinks, the tough and warlike Saurus, the massive and strong Kroxigor, and magical Slann overlords. -
 * Berserk Button: Hard-wired into the minds of Temple Guards, who will kill you if you even look at a Slann funny, even if you didn't actually have murderous intent as some Skinks have learned the hard way.
 * Decade Dissonance: The Brettonnians may be medieval, but these guys are barely out of the Stone Age. Not that they let that stop them.
 * That is because said stone is every bit as nasty as steel, and Lizardmen don't even need it to kick your ass.
 * Determinator: Don't get between the Lizardmen and a goal.
 * Dumb Muscle: Sort of, the Saurus are are knowledgeable in the art of warfare, but lack much skill with anything else, to the point where their dialect is entire war-related. The Kroxigor seem to play it more straight; while they're useful as both workers and shock troops, they're not known for intelligence (though they may understand more than they appear to).
 * Dying Race: Until the sixth edition retconned this, no new Slann had been spawned since the Old Ones left (i.e. in the last millennia) and the species was (very, very slowly) dying out.
 * Everything's Better with Dinosaurs: Mounts and Beasts Of Battle include variants of Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops/Ankylosaurus, Deinonychus, and Pteranodon.
 * Kick the Son of a Bitch: Many of the targets of Lizard Men genocides were/are exceptionally evil creatures.
 * Lizard Folk
 * Mayincatec: In all kinds of ways.
 * Poisoned Weapons: Skink skirmishers are Goddamned Bats thanks to this and their blowpipes.
 * Religion Is Magic: All of their (very powerful) spellcasters are referred to as Priests.
 * Somewhere a Paleontologist Is Crying: The Stegadons may be a unique creature, but is explicitly an omnivore leaning towards carnivore, despite being based off of the Triceratops, Ankylosaurus and Stegosaurus merged into one creature. Also, their Ankylosaurus-type monsters fire spikes, and there's also reptiles that shoot fiery napalm. (This is kind of the reason that they use fictional dinosaurs rather than real ones, so they don't have to adhere to such norms.)
 * Theme Naming: The Skink heroes are named after references to their small size. The dinosaur mounts for special characters are named after the Dinobots.
 * Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Slann are kinda lost after losing contact with the Old Ones, so they try to salvage whatever of their plans remain. Those plans involve returning all the Elves to Ulthuan, all the humans to the Old World, and all the Dwarfs to the mountains, and exterminating pretty much everything else. Yeah, good luck with that.
 * Worthless Yellow Rocks: The Lizardmen prize gold for its longevity, not its value, and can't quite understand why the other races are so eager to get their hands on it. However, the Old Ones wrote their messages down on golden plaques. You do not want to steal one of these plaques.
 * Vestigial Empire: Most of their temple-cities are in ruins, flooded, sunken or otherwise uninhabitable, and they've long lost the magical network that once connected them to the Southlands and other parts of the world. However, they're on the way back up.

The Undead
Megalomaniacal in their pursuit of un-life, the dead have long and bitter memories.

Vampire Counts
""Surrender and serve me in life, or die and slave for me in death.""

Vampires are powerful beings, fiercely independent and incredibly individualistic, even the weakest one has power far beyond that of any human, to them humans are little more than cattle to be harvested, and yet they hide in the shadows of human society, parasites that stalk the night.

The Vampire Counts have a complex relationship with the other factions, they would dearly love to see the world eclipsed in darkness forever - but they would hate to have to share any of it with their fellows, they have fought grand wars to destroy the Empire - and yet, when the Skaven had overrun it or when the forces of Chaos ran rampant throughout it, it was the armies of the Vampire counts that saved the Empire in it's moments of direst need.


 * Back From the Dead: well they * are* undead. More specifically the Carstein Ring lets vampires who wear it come back from even stuff that would normally kill vampires.
 * Evil Tower of Ominousness: Nagash, the lord of the undead, has not just an evil tower, but an entire mountain that's been turned into a gigantic fortress of evil!
 * Fur Against Fang: Averted: The closest things in the game to shapeshifter-type werewolves are Von Carstein vampires with the "Wolf Form" ability, and the closest thing to the Wolf Man type are vampires who have lost all sense of humanity and devolved into shaggy, ferocious beasts.
 * Some of the books imply that there are more traditional werewolves (alongside other werebeasts) in Norsca and Kislev, but they don't have anything against vampires that we know of.
 * Game Face: Always sculpted with theirs on in the models.
 * Manipulative Bastard: Manfred Von Carstein.
 * Our Vampires Are Different: from each other even;
 * Blood Dragons: Blood Knight, Blood Knight, Blood Knight
 * Lahmians: The Vamp, Deadly Decadent Court, Evil Is Sexy, Horny Devils
 * Necrarchs: Looks Like Orlok, Mad Scientist, Immortality Seeker
 * Von Carsteins: Classical Movie Vampire, Vampire Vords
 * Strigoi: Cannibal Clan, Our Ghouls Are Creepier, The Corruption
 * Suicide by Sunlight
 * The Undead: Well, duh.
 * Unholy Matrimony: Vlad and Isabella Von Carstein. They do genuinely love each other, and if you kill Isabella Vlad goes fucking nuts.
 * Well-Intentioned Extremist: This was the general idea of Vlad von Carstein, who aimed to take over the Empire and convert it to undead to end its corruption and internal power struggles once and for all, a task which he almost managed to succeed with before he was betrayed by Mannfred on the evening before the final decisive battle. His son Konrad did, however, try to pick up his father's ambitions, but did so for a far less noble purpose. And, Like Father, Like Son, he too trusted Mannfred a little too much for his own good...

Tomb Kings
An empire of liches with armies of skeleton warriors (the royalty and the elite guards are mummified, and still fully sentient) at their beck and call. Unlike the Vampires, however, they are mostly content to remain in their mostly lifeless desert homeland, only manoeuvring their armies to counter intrusions from outside.


 * Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Of Ancient Egypt.
 * Living Statues: Ushabti
 * The Punishment: The Tomb King's Curse
 * Soul Jar; Sealed Evil in a Can: The Casket of Souls
 * Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Will launch massive invasions if someone takes even a coin from them.
 * The Undead
 * Big Creepy-Crawlies: Tomb Scorpions.
 * Dem Bones: Common skeletons are Cannon Fodder.
 * Golem: Ushabti and Bone Giants.
 * Mummy / Our Liches Are Different: They take inspiration from both tropes.

The Forces of Chaos
The forces of Chaos would destroy the world just to watch it burn. They were barely turned back in their first coming by the combined might of the Elder Races, who were at the height of their powers, thrown back and contained in the North, the Chaos gods make their influence felt throughout the world.

The most powerful of the factions, much of the Warhammer world is defined by the struggle against Chaos.

Hordes of Chaos
""Run. You cannot hide from doom.""

The Lands claimed by the Tribes who have pledged to the 'True Gods' are vast, far larger than even the Empire, the people who inhabit these lands are tougher and more resilient than any other race of men, where other human civilizations revile the worship of Chaos and it's 'Gifts', these people have embraced it, from their ranks are the armies of chaos drawn and champions raised up.

Tough, strong, fanatical, the Tribesmen of the wastes are technologically backward and extremely disunited, which may be the sole reason the Warhammer has not yet fallen...


 * Badass: An entire race of badasses.
 * Body Horror: Spawn, mutations.
 * Blood Knight: An entire race of Blood Knights, but particularly worshippers of the Blood God Khorne
 * The Berserker: What do you expect, exactly, from Vikings who worship Khorne?
 * Bright Is Not Good: Followers of Slaanesh (Chaos god of hedonism and excess) are Sense Freaks who wear hideously garish clothing and choking perfumes at all times, being so blasé it's the only way they can feel anything.
 * Challenge Seeker: Wulfrik the Wanderer is forced to challenge people due to a curse from the gods.
 * The Dreaded: Without doubt, the most feared race of humans in the setting. Fitting, they have come perilously close to destroying the world several times, after all.
 * Grim Up North: And how.
 * Horny Vikings: And how.
 * Fantasy Counterpart Culture: They're basically corrupted versions of the Norse, the Mongols, and the Inuit.
 * Proud Warrior Race Guy: What do you expect, exactly, from Vikings who worship Khorne?
 * Religion of Evil: They worship the Chaos Gods.
 * Religion Is Magic: Chaos Sorcerers are also the priests of the Tribes.
 * Screaming Warrior
 * Skeletons in the Coat Closet: They are very fond of putting severed heads and skulls on their...
 * Spikes of Villainy
 * This Is Your Brain on Evil
 * Weapon of Choice
 * An Axe to Grind
 * Drop the Hammer
 * Blade on a Stick
 * Carry a Big Stick
 * BFS

Beasts of Chaos


""And in that time of darkness, Man became Beast, And Beast became Man.""

The Beastmen lurk in the darkest places of the world, they are the true children of chaos, monstrous, numberless and fractious, they are reviled and hated by all and the feeling is very much mutual. -
 * A Load of Bull: Minotaurs act as heavy infantry for the Beastmen.
 * Beast Man: The Mooks start at this, and further up the chain they get more monstrous.
 * Beast of Battle: The Beastmen use assorted mutant animals and monstrosities as living war machines.
 * The Berserker
 * Enfante Terrible: Some Beastmen are born of human mothers whose children are corrupted by Chaos in the womb. They invariably kill their mothers at birth.
 * Fauns and Satyrs: Gors, bestigors, ungors, centigors, and cygors are all goat/human hybrids with varying degrees of bestial traits who run around in forests worshipping dark gods.
 * This is something of a retcon from the older fluff, where they could be a lot more diversely anarchic in form -- particularly when you brought in the tendency for beastment who worshipped particular gods to take on the traits of animals associated with those gods. Justified on a meta-level; it was easier for Games Workshop to produce models if they stuck to a single "set" of racial traits. Lampshaded by notes in the in-verse fluff.
 * Full Boar Action: Tuskgors, which are mutated boars, and Razorgors, which are GIANT mutated boars.
 * Our Centaurs Are Different: The centigors are like goat-bodied centaurs with horns and clawed feet instead of hooves. The are raging alcoholics, and will randomly receive bonuses according to their level of intoxication.
 * Our Giants Are Bigger: The Beastmen often press giants into service.
 * Screaming Warrior
 * Shout-Out: One of the more exotic creatures in the Beastmen army, the jabberslythe, is a reference to the Jabberwock from Through the Looking Glass.

Daemons of Chaos
The physical manifestations of Chaos itself, recently given their own codex. They are inhuman monsters made of pure magic, incredibly powerful and utterly merciless, delighting in slaughter and depravity. Once the four Chaos Gods would frequently be at each others' throats, but now they seem to have set aside their differences to terrorise the world.

They were only recently given their own codex as a separate army, in both this game and Warhammer 40,000. As a result, you can use most of the army models for both games whenever you want, which is quite handy for saving money and time.


 * Asteroids Monster: Horrors.
 * Eldritch Abomination
 * Fantasy Pantheon
 * Slaanesh: Evil Is Sexy, Sense Freak, Nightmare Fetishist
 * Khorne: Blood Knight, Hell Hound, Atop a Mountain of Corpses, Ax Crazy
 * Nurgle: Affably Evil, The Pig Pen, Sinister Scythe, Enemy to All Living Things, Plaguemaster
 * Tzeentch: The Chessmaster, Technicolour Hellfire
 * There's also several minor chaos deities, like Obscuras, or Malal/Malice.
 * Flying Seafood Special: Screamers of Tzeentch--flying stingrays.
 * Multi-Armed and Dangerous
 * Our Demons Are Different

Dogs of War
""Yes my son, Tilea is where you must go!' my father said, 'For from the city of Miragliano, the famous freebooter El Cadavo sets sail this very week upon a voyage to the west, to win new kingdoms and explore lands no man visited before. Flee Fleugweiner, my boy, before the Knights of the White Wolf discover what you have done this day and bring shame upon us all!""

A barely-official line of mercenaries from all over the setting and every faction and race. Primarily centred on Estalia, Tilea, and the Border Princes, as well as some mercenary ogres and hobgoblins.


 * Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Estalia and Tilea are based on medieval Spain and Italy, respectively.
 * Private Military Contractors
 * Out of Focus
 * Punch Clock Villain: Have a tendency to rout if the Paymaster character is killed.
 * Ragtag Bunch of Misfits
 * Screwed by the Network: Not as badly as Chaos Dwarfs - they even got some flashy new units in 6th edition - but they've definitely been sidelined as an army in recent years.
 * The Squad / Squad Nickname: Regiments of Renown.
 * Flying Dutchman: The Cursed Company
 * Ninja Pirate Robot Zombie: Long Drong's Slayer Pirates
 * Psycho for Hire: Menghil's Manflayers
 * Winged Humanoid: The Birdmen
 * Bash Brothers: The Giants of Albion

Gods of Law
Less known and present than the Chaos gods (to the point that everyone forgets them), they still exist. Out of three (it seems they were more in the past; at least Obscuras has joined Chaos), only one of them is considerably active, as another is trapped and another one doesn't do a lot because of his dislike of change.


 * Crystal Dragon Jesus: Worship of Alluminas resembles in some ways Buddhism (the fact he is more popular in the East doesn't help matters), and he has angel-like daemons and a holy book. Solkan's cult is pretty much akin to millitant religious groups, with his temples/shrines being akin to hellenic ones.
 * Eldritch Abomination: All of them, especially Alluminas.
 * Knight Templar: Your average Solkan worshipper as well as the big man himself.
 * Light Is Not Good: The Gods of Law are just as bad as the Chaos Gods and arguably even more inhuman, but are less dangerous because of their relative lack of influence. If the Gods of Law held sway, they would eliminate all progress, effectively creating a stillborn world.
 * Alluminas is pretty much opposed to change, even if for the better, and may grant his followers the ability of casting a light that makes anything it touches unchanging and unmoving. Cue And I Must Scream.
 * Solkan is both the god of the Sun and Revenge. He and his followers are notable for their Knight Templar ways.
 * Light'Em Up: Alluminas, unsurprisingly. Solkan to a lesser extent, being a solar deity.
 * Our Angels Are Different: Alluminas' daemons are angel like and named after angel classes in christian theology.
 * Pay Evil Unto Evil: The signature move of Solkan.
 * Sealed Good in a Can: Whereas Arianka is more sane than her fellow gods of order is unknown, but she is trapped anyway.
 * The Power of the Sun: Solkan, although by now its no surprise.
 * White Magic: For Alluminas' followers. For Solkan's its technically more fire magic.

Ogre Kingdoms
Massive war-like creatures that hire themselves out as mercenaries in order to earn gold and food to satisfy their enormous appetites. Sometimes assemble ramshackle armies to take what they want. Coexist with Gnoblars, an offshoot of goblins.


 * Above Good and Evil: Or possibly below it; they have no real concept of morality whatsover.
 * Adipose Rex: Tradelord Greasus Tribestealer Drakecrush Hoardmaster Goldtooth the Shockingly Obese is this trope Up to Eleven.
 * The Beast Master: Hunters
 * Big Eater: Pretty much the whole shtick of the army. They eat everything they can find, seeking special delicacies. Their religion is founded upon such principles.
 * Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: "Yhetee", actually.
 * Bizarre Alien Biology: The first Ogre Kingdoms army book includes some investigation of Ogre physiology as part of its fluff material. Among other things, it genuinely is a sign of good health for an Ogre to have a huge paunch. Whereas a "gut" like that on a human is caused by deposits of fat, on Ogres, the paunch is actually a set of very large, very powerful and very developed musculature, used for grinding up the contents of the stomach.
 * BFG: The Ironblaster.
 * Every Man Has His Price: Actually the name of one of the above mentioned Greasus' special rules.
 * Extreme Omnivore: Many examples, but the top contenders at first glance are the Ironguts; elite Ogres who regularly eat stone and metal for the bragging rights. But the Firebellies, Ogre priests of their fire god, have them beat. The initiation rite? Drinking molten lava and surviving.
 * Fantasy Counterpart Culture: They're kinda like big fat Mongols.
 * Though the current army book adds a fair bit of Prehistoria to the mix.
 * Highly-Visible Ninja: Ogre ninjas.
 * I'm a Humanitarian: And they eat just about everything else too.
 * Lightning Bruiser: Despite their looks, they're actually one of the fastest armies in the game. The author of the most recent army book likened the army's general style to rolling a gaint bowling ball at your opponent's units.
 * Our Ogres Are Hungrier: Much hungrier.
 * Playing with Fire: The new book gives them Firebellies, fire-breathing Ogres who somehow gained the ability to use fire magic by worshipping a freaking volcano.

Orcs & Goblins
""I'm gonna stomp 'em to dust. I'm gonna grind their bones. I'm gonna pile 'em up inna big fire and roast 'em. I'm gonna bash 'eads, break faces and jump up and down on da bits dat are left. An' den I'm gonna get really mean.""

Standard fantasy greenskins. Orcs are big, tough and vicious but rather stupid, while goblins are smaller and weaker but much more cunning.


 * Authority Equals Asskicking goes both ways. The most powerful orcs tends to become the leaders, but they also absorb more Waagh! energy because they are the leaders, and grow bigger because of it.
 * Ax Crazy
 * The Berserker: Night Goblins. They imbibe fungus-potions that turn them into raving madmen.
 * Badass Boast: "I'm gonna stomp 'em to dust. I'm gonna grind their bones. I'm gonna burn down dere towns and cities. I'm gonna pile 'em up inna big fire and roast 'em. I'm gonna bash 'eads, break faces and jump up and down on da bit dat are left. An'den I'm gonna get really mean" Grimgor Ironhide, black orc warboss and considered to be the manifestation of Waaagh itself.
 * Blood Knight
 * Grievous Harm with a Body Goblin Doom divers. They fire goblins. With catapults. Then they use wings to steer themselves...
 * Funetik Aksent: most orc-speech is rendered thusly.
 * Enemy Civil War the orcs are in a constant state of this. Which is often stated to be the sole reason they haven't conquered the world... yet.
 * The Horde
 * Junkie Prophet: Night Goblin Shamans, as well as being Junkie Wizards.
 * Klingon Promotion
 * Our Goblins Are Different
 * Our Orcs Are Different
 * Power Incontinence: Orc shamans are prone to this.
 * Psychopathic Manchild: An entire species of them.
 * Shorter Means Smarter: Goblins are marginally more intelligent than Orcs. However the trope isn't played entirely straight; while Goblins are smarter than Orcs, in many ways their minds are much weaker, reflected in the game partly by their woeful leadership and partly by their lack of psychic strength (on the battlefield Orc Shamans can draw mental energy from the massed Orc troops while Goblins' minds provide far less power.)
 * Inverted by Snotlings, who are smaller than Goblins but barely even sentient.

Skaven
""All decent folk find the common rat repulsive. Harbinger of disease, it scavenges on our waste-heaps and frightens our children. How immeasurably worse then is the foul Skaven - standing on its hindlegs in foul parody of a human. Rats as tall as man, and blessed with the most vile intellect and cunning. They are the dark side of our souls, come to destroy us for our sins.""

Vicious, cunning Ratmen found in great numbers in tunnels stretching across the Old World. Prone to infighting and considering their own troops utterly expendable. With the aid of warpstone, a highly magical mineral, they make highly advanced weapons that often blow up in the face of the user.


 * Always Chaotic Evil
 * Applied Phlebotinum: Warpstone.
 * Baleful Polymorph: Grey Seers and Vermin Lords can cast "the Dreaded Thirteenth Spell", which turns its targets into Skaven.
 * Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism: Depending on the Writer, male Skaven are bipedal man-sized rats of vaguely human intelligence (they think they're smarter then they really are, but are still quite intelligent) while female Skaven are humungous, bloated, normal female rats that literally do nothing but lounge around, eat and produce litter after litter of new Skaven. In the oldest fluff, females were more like males physically, but were either unintelligent or treated as simple baby-making factories, depending on how far back you go. The most recent fluff seems to be leaning towards the two genders being functionally identical in terms of appearance and social status.
 * Body Horror: Clan Moulder loves inducing horrific mutations in their warbeasts.
 * Breath Weapon: The aptly named "Pestilent Breath" spell.
 * Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Thankfully for everyone else.
 * The Engineer: The warlock engineers qualify, but the most badass of them all, Ikit Klaw, has invented a mobile hamster wheel the size of a car that can shoot lightning.
 * Fantasy Counterpart Culture: With the crazy technology, Evilutionary Biologists, Deadly Gas and "Stormvermin", there's more than a little resemblance to Those Wacky Nazis.
 * Clan Eshin has a lot of Eastern elements as well.
 * Fantastic Caste System: The Clans.
 * Eshin: Murder, Inc.; Ninja; Tyke Bomb
 * Moulder: Rodents of Unusual Size; The Swarm; The Beast Master
 * Skryre: Magitek; BFG; Shock and Awe; Mad Scientist; Gas Mask Mooks
 * Pestilens: The Corruption; Nausea Fuel; Playing with Syringes; Plaguemaster
 * God of Evil: These guys worship the Horned Rat. This wouldn't be a problem, except the Horned Rat is real, and it has its own Greater Daemon. Even the Council of Thirteen is afraid to call on the Vermin Lords...
 * Hurricane of Puns: Beginning with ratling guns and getting worse from there.
 * I Am a Humanitarian: Due to their extremely high metabolism, Skaven often feed on the corpses of their own fallen after a battle.
 * Lightning Gun: Lightning cannon. Magic lightning cannon.
 * Monowheel Mayhem: The Doomwheel.
 * Playing with Fire: The warpfire thrower (a two man flamethrower that tags along with other units), the Scorch spell (perfect for panic tests).
 * Properly Paranoid: Every skaven is out to get every other skaven, and they all know it.
 * Rodents of Unusual Size: Even discounting the Rat Ogres and "Giant Rats", the Skaven themselves are only a little smaller than humans.
 * Rule of Cool / Rule of Funny: Why on earth do they have hamster wheels with lasers? Because it's cool and absolutely hilarious on the battlefield!
 * Sickly Green Glow: Due to the amount of Warpstone they use, this shows up all over the place.
 * We Have Reserves
 * Swarm of Rats: Of course.
 * Zerg Rush: Pretty much the tactic most Skaven Warlords use, who send waves of troops forward and lead from the back.

Dragons
Not actually a faction as such, dragons are still a fairly important part of the setting and are available as monstrous mounts to several of the armies. They are the oldest sentient beings native to the Warhammer world, predating even the arrival of the Old Ones (see Lizardmen) but these days most of them are busy hibernating and only the younger, less powerful ones are around to fight.


 * Breath Weapon
 * Giant Flyer
 * Our Dragons Are Different: Well they are all big, winged and scaly but apart from that:
 * Sun, Moon and Star Dragons: Breathe fire and are used by the High Elves. They are all the same species with Sun Dragons being the youngest and most common and Star Dragons the oldest and strongest.
 * The Imperial Dragon: An apparently unique creature, it also breathes fire and is available to the Empire - though only Karl Franz is Badass enough to dominate its iron will.
 * Black Dragons: Corrupted versions of the High Elf dragons used by the evil Dark Elves. They breathe noxious gas.
 * Forest Dragons: Weird dragons than are more like extensions of Athel Loren than individual creatures. They are used by the Wood Elves and breathe a poisonous green vapour.
 * Zombie Dragons: Undead dragons. Equipped with 'pestilential breath' and under the thrall of the Vampire Counts.
 * Chaos Dragons: Hideously mutated, two headed abominations popular amongst the Warriors of Chaos.