Furui Hanmā: A Journey to the East. Part Two: The Men of the Orient

This is the second stage of our Journey into the East - looking at the visual and sculptural elements of the Orient in Warhammer. Inspired to finish this write up by the announcement that Dave Morris and Jaime Thompsons Tetsubo - an unpublished draft of an Oriental supplement for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is being resurrected by Daniel Fox's for his  Zweihander RPG.

 The original intent for Furui Hanmā II was to cover all the Orient, Nippon and Cathay material produced for Warhammer in 1984, however there is really too much material to do any kind of justice to in just one blogpost, so this has once again been split into future posts. I also made a quick banner for these posts, based on the Oriental Heroes logo (which we'll get to eventually) and featuring Two Dragons in Clouds by Kanō Hōgai...

Furui Hanma Banner

The story so far: Furui Hanmā: A Journey to the East. Part One covering the Citadel miniatures and Warhammer material produced between 1982-83, where Oriental and Occidental tropes rub shoulders, shake hands and team up in a funky fresh East-West fantasy fusion.

Now read on...

The Men of the Orient 

While a couple of Samurai  do appear in Warhammer 1st Edition Tabletop Battles book in artwork taken from an earlier flyer they not given any separate rules game-wise than any other kind of human in armour with a sword, they are fairly generic warriors, in eastern garb, fighting Orcs, which by the 1980s had become a generic western fantasy genre trope of evil.

All that changes with the publication of the Forces of Fantasy (1984) supplement. The East-meets-West approach is abandoned and instead the fantasy humans based on different historical cultures are split up and  given their own distinct geographical settings to exist within, and given statistics, profiles and special rules that differentiate them in gameplay terms. Forces of Fantasy makes the Samurai statistically the best fighters and archers, outclassing any other humanoid troop type in the game. Alongside the superior Samurai, there are the more mundane Ashigaru or foot soldiers.

Men of the Orient

Hieta Noh mask.

The illustration accompanying the army list (I think by John Blanche, although clearly the style is different to his other work, perhaps intentionally to reflect the oriental feel) with its dramatic moustache and eyebrows resembles the Noh mask called Heita.

Noh masks are found in traditional Japanese theatre, each mask expressing a specific character type that appears across multiple plays in the Noh genre, rather than depicting a single specific character. The Heita mask represents the idea of a mature, heroic, victorious warrior. His bushy eyebrows and ruddy complexion are due to the time spent on the battlefield, rather than at home plucking his brows and hiding from the sun.

Noh masks are extremely influential in Japanese character design beyond the theater, in comics and videogames, from Wario to Ogami Ittō, the Heita expresses a shared language of short-cuts that define characters that can be overlooked by western audiences. The choice here, in using Hieta to depict Oriental warriors seems completely accurate and culturally appropriate and goes some way towards integrating Japanese cultural ideas and visual language, into Warhammer rather than simply providing an image of a western ideal of the pseudo-medieval oriental warrior.

As well as the standard warrior-types, there are several specialist troops. The Kamikazee are obviously named after the suicide bombers of World War Two, and play as suicidal shock troops. These have nothing to do with the 16th century Japan that the Samurai are based on, and have no medieval historical origins. The Kamikazee are as clear an indication as any that the Men of the Orient are grounded in contemporary notions of the Oriental warrior, rather than an attempt to create a strictly historical fantasy.

Forces of Fantasy also introduces Vim-to Monks.  For those readers who may be unfamiliar with British soft drinks that are extraordinarily popular in Arabian countries during Ramadan, Vimto is a mixed fruit flavoured beverage, sold as both a syrup and a carbonated drink. They do sweets as well. I assume "Vimto", being born in Manchester in 1908 and not having any particular relation to the far-east, or kung-fu, seems to have been chosen purely as a pun on "Shinto", the traditional religion of Japan.

This crude punning is somewhat essential to the early Warhammer experience, running throughout the names of Slann, Ogres, Halflings, and other humans, but is also displays a somewhat disrespectful  attitude towards what is an important religion.

C05 Specialists | Martial Arts Monks

Fizzy-drinks based puns aside, the description of Vim-to Monks given in Forces of Fantasy describes them as unarmed, unarmored, or with sword, bo-staff or nagitana, so only cover the C05 Martial Arts Monks miniatures that are derived from the Chinese Shaolin school of kung-fu, wearing tunics and trousers, and not the ones based on the Sōhei Buddhist warrior monks of Japan, who are hooded, armoured and carry polearms.

While Shaolin can be found in Japan - it crossed the sea from China to Japan in the 18th Century, like the Kamikazee reference this is quite a distance from the 16th Century Momoyama period of the Samurai and Ashigaru. As well as contracting historical periods, the Men of The Orient also collapses geography, combining both Japanese and Chinese forms,  a vague concept of The East which blending, or ignoring, of the differences between Oriental cultures and history, strongly shaped by a Western lens rather than any attempt to create any kind authentic Eastern voice or a historically anchored basis from which to build the fantasy.

Forces of Fantasy also gives us a brief guide to the iconography of The Men of the Orient as might be found on their banners and other regalia. Alongside the mitsudomoe shinto symbol for Hachiman - the god of war and archery is the Heita Noh mask, both of which go some way to showing that, whilst wildly historically inaccurate, how well thought out and researched the iconography of the Men of the Orient is. One of the symbols in particular stands out - a rendition of the traditional Japanese manji 卍.

Yurr dere's a swass sticker top left.

The manji can be drawn in either direction, turning to the left, or turning to the right, the manji in a Japanese context relates strongly to Buddhism, is used to mark temples on maps, and seems to mean something like 'good luck' or 'positive vibes' and usually goes to the left. 

Japanese Manji

The symbol appears twice, both in the army list iconography and in the depiction of two oriental warriors.

Samurai Rising Sun and Mount Fuji motifs | John Blanche | Forces of Fantasy 

However, instead of the usual Japanese left-wards manji, Warhammer presents us with the right-wards turning version.

Of course, the symbol is more familiar to western audiences as the one appropriated by the Nazis from the Hindu to propagate the idea of Aryan racial supremacy, and is probably one of the most recognisable and reviled visual symbols in modern European history. There is no necessity for the use of the Swastika in Warhammer. It could easily have been avoided in favour of more obviously Eastern symbols like the yin-yang or any number of Japanese family crests (or mon), but given that it appears twice, and both the Noh Mask and mitsudomoe show some research was undertaken, it's hard to write off the swastika as a mere accident or casual historical reference.

various mon or family crests.

There are number of possible readings of the Warhammer Oriental Swastika, none of which are exclusive to the others.

The Warhammer Oriental Swastika, could be a reclaiming of the Swastika symbol as a Manji or Kamon - the symbol is being deliberately re-aligned away from its association with Nazism and Aryanism, and placed into an previous historical context as an act of semiotic disarmament, robbing the symbol of it's specific power in singular political context, a form of genericide, where a symbol is shown to be so generic that any claims for specific use become ludicrous, and any flag-worshipping power the symbol might have for those gathered under its banner diminished.  There have been periodic attempts at reclaiming the swastika over the years and are generally frowned upon as being 'epic fails' or worse, attempting to normalise the agenda the symbol has come to represent. The symbol itself has no intrinsic value, it's just some geometry, it is purely the narratives that surround it and its repeated use within specific contexts that form meanings, and while signifiers do shift, escaping the weight of history is not something that happens easily.

Then there is a  'punk' repurposing of the Swastika as pure agitprop (in a literal sense of 'agitating propaganda') the symbol only used in it's intent to shock and offend, as instigated by the prime punk provocateur, incidently of Jewish decent - Malcom McLaren, and carried out by future Queen of the Goths and Bromley Contigent superstar Siouxie Sioux.

Siouxie Sioux 1976 | Caroline Coons |via

While the adoption of the swastika by punks may have only been to upset and annoy the previous generation, it was swiftly taken up by far-right youth as an endorsement, with the all too predictable confusion and violence ensuing as the cultures clashed in the gig venues, dancehalls and streets of the late 1970s.

Notably Siouxie herself is no stranger to Orientalism, with the lyrics of The Banshees debut single, Hong Kong Garden, released in 1978 ostensibly being inspired by her local Chinese staff takeaway being abused by gangs of neo-nazi skinheads. The song is by no means unproblematical lyrically, celebration and condemnation ring out alongside crude stereotypes and witty rhymes in something of a stream of consciousness embracing all things Chinese, and there are later forays into 80s Japanomania.

Siouxie 1982 | Sheila Rock | The Face |

Siouxie Sioux Hannya Noh Mask / Onibaba T-shirt | Rabatu Smitu | 1982?

Similarly we could look to David Bowies Thin White Duke persona flirting with fascistic imagery and Orientalism:

Visions of swastikas in my head,
Plans for everyone
It's in the whites of my eyes,
My little China girl 

David Bowie - China Girl 1983

Oldhammerists often talk about the influences of 80s popular culture on Warhammer in a vague way, as if the statement itself provides validation of some innate quality, or that locating something in time is the same thing as explaining it. In Warhammers appropriation of the Swastika / manji in a Japanese context as the Warhammer Oriental Swastika, clear parallels can be drawn with sifting of post-war cultural detritus and ambiguous play as performed by eclectic post-punk magpies Siouxie and Bowie.  Whether Bowie or Siouxies entanglement of the orient and fascism directly inspired Blanch or Priestly or Halliwell, or not, they are part of a broader cultural milieu superficially adopting the appearance of the rejected (fascistic) and exotic (oriental) as a performative, creative strategy, pushing against and challenging the mainstream consensus culture.

The Tale of Sanyo Kawasaki | Book of Batallions

The Warhammer Oriental Swastika can be read as a reference to the Japanese role as one of the Axis powers allied to the Nazis in WW2, as a kind of 'honorary aryan' proxy-nazi. We already have the Kamikaze which establishes Warhammers Men of the Orient as being based on as much post-war stereotypes of Oriental as medieval stereotypes, and this is a further continuation of a post-war influenced theme, rather than a pseudo-medieval one. Then The Book of Batallions which appears in Forces of Fantasy describes Sanyo Kawasaki (named after a well known Japanese electronics and motorcycle company, respectively) - who feels his government is 'weak and liberal' and besieges their capital city for not sinking a 'foreign' ship on sight, a cartoon of a strident insular ultra-fascist, who is ultimately made ridiculous by committing ritual suicide by standing upside down in a bucket of cold water.  The combination of anti-liberalism and violent xenophobia with the Swastika leaves very little room for doubt of what ideology is being pointed at in the character of Sanyo Kawasaki.

Samurai | Sanyo Kawasaki (?) | Forces of Fantasy

There is some irony in this as it takes what is essentially an occidental movement, bundled up with ideas of the racial superiority of Western Europeans and projects it onto a foreign, exotic culture, while swastika waving Nazis themselves were more than happy to use the kinds of romanticised Medieval imagery that Warhammer would produce for the Men of the North and Men of the West to promote their aims - strident norsemen and feudalist society. On one level it can be read as a form of psychological splitting - the externalisation of unwanted or negative traits that can't be admitted to or integrated  and the subsequent psychological projection of those traits on to a foreign or distant Other. Rather than accept and deal with (one way or another) the complex relationships between the fantasy of medieval Europe and fascism they remain hidden, or sublimated, and instead Warhammer renders it 'elsewhere'.

I will insert a break here, just to point out that Evan Webber, in the comments below, notes that the Tale of Sanyo Kawasaki closely follows the story of Yukio Mishima actor, author and militant Japanese nationalist who committed ritual suicide in 1970. The time-frame certainly puts these events within reach of the authors of Warhammer. and reframes the narrative as near contemporary satire, and puts paid to the idea the Orientalist conception of Nippon was born from ignorance or off-handed.

It should also be noted the Tale of Sanyo Kawasaki only describes one clan, or one faction, by no means are all Men of the Orient, nor even the dominant clans, portrayed as fascistic - this certainly wouldn't be the last time Warhammer attempted a cartoon of fascism.

Renegade Scout - Review

Renegade Scout - Retro-inspired Sci-fi Miniatures Rules is a 179 page e-book (pdf) published in August 2018, by Nordic Weasel Games and written by Ivan Sorrensen, containing 50 colour photographs of various science-fiction miniatures and some scratch-built scenery.

Renegade Scout. Front Cover

"Retro-inspired Sci-fi Miniatures Rules" hmm? sounds interesting...

Ivan is quite open about his inspirations and sources - the original 1987 Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader and 40k 2nd edition, his introduction even goes as far as to suggest a musical play-list including Slough Feg, Bolt Thrower and The Sword, all hopefully familiar territory to long time followers of this blog, and firmly in the centre of my gaming obsessions. It has to be said, rewriting the ruleset that built a gaming empire is a brave move, not only taking on Rick Priestly's 1980s design decisions, many of which lasted through 30 odd years of tinkering by inheritors, but also the legions of grongnards who appreciate the original game like a vintage motorcycle.

My original falling apart Rogue Trader
Like a vintage motorcycle, spends most of its time in the garage.

Renegade Scout is touted on it's OBS page as a retroclone. To me, the word 'retroclone' has a very specific meaning, in that the game mechanically reproduces or 'clones' the original, as near exactly as legally possible. So OSRIC is without a doubt a retroclone of the 1978 Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, while Lamentations of the Flame Princess - based on 1974 'oD&D' and somewhat compatible is not a retroclone of it, but instead takes some of the core ideas and takes them into a new direction. Renegade Scout is an example of the latter rather than former.

If you're looking for a retroclone of Rogue Trader to use at the table as a straight alternative to your original hardback that fell apart because the binding was iffy, or to compile the various additional rules from White Dwarf - Renegade Scout is not intended to fill that role. Most notable deviations the core combat mechanics have been overhauled, the To-Hit and To-Wound tables have been replaced with a roll-under stat mechanism, much like contemporary 40k, which  Renegade Scout then uses as a universal mechanism for action resolution.   The turn order is different, with the players taking turns within each phase (movement, shooting, combat etc.), rather than completing all their phases before play passes to the other player. As Ivan states in his designers notes, having produced a reasonably accurate retroclone as a draft, he then took it into a new, simpler and more streamlined direction. Whether the ideals of simpler and more streamlined can produce an authentically old-school experience is very much a matter of taste, nontheless, much of the attitude and game style of the original Rogue Trader remains - the open universe, narrative gaming and providing a large toolbox of ideas to play with.

The whole thing is written in a clear, friendly, personable style, not a dry rules-lawyereese nor the incessant sales-pitch nor constant self aggrandisement that plagues many genre games. The attitude is  both casual and enthusiastic, but doesn't intrude on the clarity of the rules. Although the PDF has not been professionally designed, the page layout is very clear and functional, not suffering from paragraphs breaking over pages or many of the typographical and layout problems we see in small press games. While there are no diagrams, the explanations are clear, but for primarily visual learners this might be something of a drawback.

There is much that will be familiar to the 40k Grognard and appeal to those looking for something similar, in function, playstyle and attitude, yet different and not explicitly tied down to the extremely narrow narrative tones of 40k setting such as the recent 40K:Kill Team or Necromunda. The profiles, with renamed statistics are very much the same as Rogue Trader / Warhammer 2nd - keeping the Leadership, Cool, Intelligence, Willpower - and expanding on their use to make them more . There are familiar equipment lists and several archetypal species statlines - these are given within the lightweight "Unified Space" setting, which like the original Rogue Trader is pretty much a hodge-podge of sci-fi sources designed to enable you to tell your own stories, and easily convert from one fictional universe to another as you'd expect from a generic game.

It's easy to recognise what the Unified Space the creatures might represent from other universes - alongside both stalwart and scummy  humans there are even Necron and Tau types for those interested. So you can easily stat-up pretty much any model you have or want to make by deciding what kind of creature is closest to it, and selecting the kind of weapons it is armed with and keeping this all consistent. Renegade Scout suggests estimating force strength and judging whether the forces appear fair. There is a similarly a relaxed attitude to creature creation, where just tweak one of the example profiles to make a different creature. As someone who advocates for well thought out and predictive points systems in wargaming, I find this is a bit of a shame, but I appreciate such interests are extremely niche.

Renegade Scout Infiltration Games

The 170-odd pages of rules cover an awful lot, there several specialist troop types, Jump Troops, Fire Teams, Swarms, Cavalry, off-table heavy support weapons. There are dangerous and deadly Terrain tyes and various Flora and Fauna, some of which will be familiar to Rogue Trader players, and others adding new twists. There is a Psionic / Magic phase and attendant powers (graded in 4 levels) rather nicely titled Wyrd, with a fun critical failure table and a serviceable list of powers (from psionic blasts, to healing). While the focus of the game is small squad and character actions, there are some lightweight vehicles rules - much simpler than those presented in Rogue Trader, you won't need to work out acceleation, deceleration speeds and turning circles. This might lack the crunch for a dedicated heavy armour game, but again has an entertaining critical failure table to ensure the pushes the story forwards.

By far the biggest highlight for me is the 'Problem Solving' section, here Profile characteristics used to determine outcomes - so if you want to break down a door, roll under Strength, if you want to pick the lock, roll under Intellect, use modifiers if the problem is more or less difficult. This kind of streamlining, rather than tagging on a slew of special skills, rules and keywords to model actions is an elegant solution. Renegade Scout goes on to provide a number of useful examples, like using stolen communications equipment and barricading doors that not only illustrate the rules system but help provoke narrative scenarios and inspire the kind of games that the 'there is only war' crowd don't. It's a lightweight flexible framework that successfully expands the core engine beyond just shooting and punching stuff, towards more action, adventure and discovery without bogging the rules down or overcomplicating the game, and easily lends itself to improvisation.

Renegade Scout also has guidelines and advice on writing and running different kinds of scenarios and campaign games, as well as optional, advanced rules, many of which belie more of a nu-school game design philosophy, taking some of the better innovations of more recent game design and adding them to the core.  There is a skills system based on special rules to supplement the statline tests and provide further diversity of character and troop types,  and a Decision Point system that can be spent to invoke special rules and abilities, much like how Command Points and Stratagems/Tactics work in 40k 8th Edition/Killteam, where a certain number of points are generated each turn and these can be spent on activating special rules. These are flagged as optional but well worth playing with - Renegade Scouts modular approach encouraging experimentation and rules tinkering.

Renegade Scout: aliens on the battlefield

My biggest gripe, actually has very little to do with the game itself - unfortunately the miniature photography doesn't credit the manufacturers of the models, or note what ranges they are from, or who painted them.   On the one hand it is refreshing to read a sci-fi miniatures ruleset that doesn't exist primarily as a sales catalogue, on the other hand, there are some quite cool aliens I wouldn't mind seeing more of. Speaking of models, there is, in grand old Rogue Trader tradition, a modelling and painting section, with some solid advice on getting half decent looking terrain and models on the table quickly so you can get on with playing a game, rather than posting 4K Ultra HD tilt-shift digital photographs on Instagram and dreaming of winning Golden Demon competitions.
 
If you're hankering after a version of Rogue Trader that gives you narrative skirmish gaming, but with considerably little less 'clunk' in the form of table referencing and taking a steer from modern trends in tabletop gaming. Or if you're new to tabletop miniatures gaming, and perhaps not convincefd of the "there is only war" (i.e. there is only 'combat') schtick or want something more generic and not explicitly tied to one specific science-fiction universe, with a little more RPG-focus that encourages you to tinker with the rules a bit, and not treat them like the holy gospel, then Renegade Scout might just fit the bill.

Renegade Scout is available from Wargames Vault, priced $19.99 / £15.54

Furui Hanmā: A Journey to the East. Part One

It has been a truth long acknowledged by Oldhammerists that the Warhammer World was cobbled out of Citadels existing historical and fantasy miniatures ranges, rather than created out of whole cloth. It weaves in elements such as Araby, Cathay and Nippon, not because there was some grand underlying world building motive, but simply because Citadel made miniatures of historical Arabian and Oriental figures, and Ye Olde Warhammer was ultimately designed as a marketing tool to sell them.

Early in 2018 Gideon over on Awesome Lies completed a series of excellent blog-posts covering the Warhammer Japan proxy "Nippon", covering ground such as the cultural milieu of late 70s early 80s japanomania encompassing Hai-Karate and Bruce-Lee movies, considering the published written sources on Nippon, from Warhammer 2nd Edition, Ravening Hordes, WFB3 and WFRP moving on to  review Dave Morris's excellent 'but not quite Warhammery enough' Tetsubo, to speculating what a successful WFRP1e Nippon could have been like.

This inspired me to examine the sculptural and visual sources, and consider what they might tell us about the presentation of The East in early Warhammer, and perhaps outline the world it describes.  However, there turned out to be a much, much larger quantity of Oriental based miniatures over a far greater period of time than I'd expected, a steady stream of releases over a roughly a five years period. Then in May Nico completed his massive and excellent Nippon Army, once again prompting me to revisit the East,  but still, no, and more recently Whiskey Priest wrote up two excellent blogposts on Nippon, which again made me think I should really get this done, but the whole thing was too big and messy. So time to chop it up into manageable chunks.

In this first post, we focus on the Pre-Warhammer Citadel miniatures starting in 1982, and those released throughout the publication of the first edition of Warhammer (1983), with a slight reference to Forces of Fantasy (1984). These lay the foundations of the portrayal of Far Eastern themes in Warhammer, setting down some of the basic principles that are adhered to throughout it's five year development.

Fantasy Tribe Samurai (1982)

Orcs Vs. Samurai | Flyer 1982

The first set of miniatures we meet is one of the historical ranges that Citadel produced in the early 1980s. Sculpted by Michael and Alan Perry, described as from the 16th Century Momoyama period. Known as the 'Fantasy Tribe' Samurai - something of a misnomer, as they are catalogued elsewhere as just SAM Samurai, there are foot Samurai, Ashigaru (including one armed with an Tanegashima) as well as horse-mounted Samurai and a pair of Warrior Monks who resemble the Japanese Sohei Buddhist Warriors.

The Sōhei - Saito Musashibō Benkei

The flyer clearly juxtaposes the Samurai against scimitar and pole-arm wielding Orcs. The drawings are posed facing each other as if opposing sides in a conflict and the overall effect is situating the historical Samurai into a Tolkienesque fantasy milieu, perhaps an Orcish invasion of 16th Century Japan, or a re-staging of The Battle of the Pelennor Fields from The Lord of the Rings outside Osaka Castle. The Samurai simply stand as enemies of the Orcs, stalwart heroes as the Rohirrim or Gondorians.

As we will see, this mixture of Oriental and Western Fantasy themes will dominates much of the early development and presentation of The East in Warhammer.

FA12: Fantasy Adventurers Ninja (1982)

FA12 Ninja!

Ninjas turning up in Citadels range of models is most probably in response to the appearance of the Assasin class in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (1978), and here there is no doubt that the FA12 Ninja is being presented as a Fantasy Adventure gaming miniature, and not as a historical war gaming piece.

Ninja themselves walk a curious tightrope between historical fact and folkloric fiction. While assassins and spies certainly existed in feudal Japan, they would have typically been dressed in common garb so as to blend in with the people. The classic image of the figure in black garb may have come from “kuroko” - the stage-hands of Japanese Kabuki theatre, whose costumes rendered them 'invisible' on stage - and so their appearance became a visual short-hand for 'sneaky git' used by illustrators, rather than a historically accurate depiction of what Ninja may have actually worn.

Hokusai | 1817

Nonetheless, what the FA12 Ninja, hidden in plain sight amongst his fellow pseudo-medieval european adventurer types indicates is this mixture of eastern and western tropes, a motif we find yet again with our next model, Yamato Takashi.

Bryan Ansell's Heroic Adventurers: Yamato Takashi (1983)

Yamato Takashi | Bryan Ansell | 1983

Yamato Takashi | Heroic Adventurers Box insert

It is notable that while the first edition of Warhammer makes mention of "Medieval and Dark Age wamiors together with Arab types and fearsome Vikings." other than a small crop of the FTO/SAM advert used as an illustration for the 'Combat' section,  no explicit mention of the Oriental or Far East appears at all.

However, shortly after the publication of Warhammer, Citadel released a boxed set of miniatures entitled Bryan Ansell's Heroic Adventurers, sculpted, unsurprisingly by Bryan Ansell. This set included an insert of rules sheet for the then brand new Warhammer game. Amidst the Elric clones and pseudo-medieval european tropes of early 80s fantasy, there is a Samurai. Yamato Takashi, making him the first published explicitly eastern figure in Warhammer. He has something of an authentic sounding name, Yamoto being the name for a region, dynasty, period and ethnic subgroup of Japanese and Takashi, in some writings meaning 'Samurai', indicating him as something of an archetype.  His character description however falls off the edge of offensive cliche, having him both be "inscrutable" and also appearing to be servile whilst having ulterior motives, while the model design itself is suitably heroic, and his statistics make him by far best fighter of the band of adventurers - again setting a trend that would continues through early Warhammer portrayals of Samurai as superior warriors.

C05 Specialists: Martial Arts Monks (1983)

Like the FA12 Ninja model, filled a niche in the Assasin character class, the C05 Martial Arts Monk miniatures are likely to have been designed to meet the gaming requirements of the Monk character class in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Players Handbook. 

C05 Specialists | Martial Arts Monks

As with the Samurai range, there are a few that resemble Sōhei, with their face coverings, at least one of which seems to be a SAM Warrior Monk  but with a slightly larger axe possibly remodelled due to casting or breakage issues, while the majoirty seem to be based on the tunic, trousers and shaved head of the Chinese Shaolin. 

Shaolin Monk

Considerable years before Quentin Tarrentino finally materialised Fox Force Five  in Pulp Fiction as the Deadly Viper Assassin Squad in Kill Bill vol. 1, Citadel were headlining an all-star all-female action Chopsocky sub-range of miniatures in the C05 Mistresses of the Martial Arts in the First Citadel Journal.

Mistresses of the Martial Arts | Citadel Journal

 

Deadly China Doll |1973

The appearance of one of these Female Kung-fu artists continues through both illustration and advertising, turning her into something of a recurring Iconic Character for early Warhammer in the same way Riolta Snow or Gotrek and Felix will come to the fore in their respective generations.

May 1983 Flyer | Tony Ackland | I kung-fu the Nazgul in the face

Like with the Fantasy Tribe Samurai vs. Orcs flyer from 1982, in the May 1983 flyer we see an 'oriental' character - in this case the female martial arts monk - fighting traditional Tolkienesque Dungeons & Dragons type monsters, this time being the robed and hooded Nazgul on a desolate hillside in a scene reminiscent of the Battle of Weathertop from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, where a Ranger and Four Halflings stand their ground against undead spirits, and it's hard to imagine that iconic reference wasn't the original intent.

David Carridine | Kung Fu | 1972

Our female martial artist is somewhat reminiscent of David Carradine in the  early 70s tv-series Kung Fu in which a Shaoling monk of American-Chinese parentage travels across 19th Century America in search of his long lost brother. This theme, of a hero being trained in the Martial Arts in the 'east' then heading to distant western lands is by now a common trope in genre fiction, influencing everything from the 1970s Iron Fist to the 2010s Batman

Conversely it is equally possible to imagine the  Ringwraiths, Elves and Zombies could be fighting in the ruins of an ancient ruined Shaolin temple, it's hard to distinguish the architectural style from ruined cyclopean masonry, but there are no clear Oriental references being made in the images architecture or scenery.

Martial Arts Monk, with crossbow | Forces of Fantasy | Tony Ackland (1984)

The same Female Martial Arts Specialist also appears in Forces of Fantasy (1984) in the image above, of a European medieval, 1960s style Robin Hood being out-shot by our top-knot wearing, be-tunicked female assasin-monk. The trees and foliage don't seem particularly Far Eastern, and the Robin Hood figure suits a Sherwood Forest, so it is simple to read the image as a European fantasy landscape. The image is quite amusing on a number of levels, one is that the bowman is the exact same fellow used to illustrate the Shooting section in Warhammer 1st Edition, here being given his come-uppance in the Return Fire section of Forces of Fantasy.

Again, I have to say Tony Ackland is second to none for building these kind of narratives into his imagery, I don't know of any illustrator from the early 80s who really brings tabletop rules to life in such an effortless way, it's not just fantasy art, but fantasy art about gaming. There is also some irony in Robin Hood, folk hero fabled bowman of Ye Olde England being out by a female Eastern Martial Artist with a crossbow pistol, symbolically killing off the old well worn fairy-tale, ushering in a brave new dynamic era of sensibly dressed female Fantasy!

Conclusion

Before wrapping up what this means for Warhammer, it should be noted that the East-meets-West themes are by no means unique to the Citadel ouvre in this period. In AD&D kung-fu monks, Ki-Rin, Ogre Mages and Samurai Hobgoblins in lamellar armour rub shoulders with Orcs, Elves and Dragons,  and fan-made classes for the Ninja and Samurai classes in D&D appeared very quickly in the mid 1970s. Citadels ranges were designed to meet this demand from fantasy gamers, as much as they were to provide historical wargamers with suitable miniatures.

To summarise we have miniatures:

• Samurai
• Ashigaru
• Tanegashima
• Sōhei Monks
• Shaolin Monks
• Mistresses of Martial Arts
• Ninja

Then if we examine the relationships with other factions they are portrayed alongside:

• Samurai Armies fight Tolkienesque Orc Armies.
• Samurai allied with medieval fantasy adventurers.
• Samurai fight against Chaos Marauders
• Ninja appear alongside medieval fantasy adventurers.
• Shaolin Monks fight against Tolkienesque Undead.
• Shaolin Monks allied with Tolkienesque Elves and Rogues.
• Shaolin Monks kill Robin Hood.
• Shaolin Monks can be male or female.
• Oriental types appear in Western Landscapes.
• Western types do not appear in Oriental Landscapes.

There is a clear direction being set here, the Orientals, Samurai, Monks, Ninja are allied with the traditionally Lawful / Good tolkienesque tropes fighting against the monstrous Chaotic / Evil Undead, Orcs, and Chaos, and also the chaotic-good Robin Hood, they are Heroes and Adventurers, not monsterous.

If we extrapolate from that idea, the very early Warhammer world is one in which Questing Knights are perhaps just as likely to be fighting great Yokai as Samurai are to be found defending isolated villages against marauding bands of Orcs, where Mistresses of the Martial Arts rally Wood Elves against the sorcerous powers of the Undead, and Ninja are sent against the daemonic servants of Chaos.  This is perhaps a world where global travel, while fraught with danger, excitement, and adventure, is much more common than the historical analogue at a similar point of technological development, and the fantasy gaming possibilities that such a milieu where borders are irellevant and culture is set free from the moorings of geography afford are ripe for development.

Overall, the idea that Fantasy in general, and Warhammer in particular of the early 80s was primarily concerned with reproducing a Pseudo-Medieval Fantasy Europe is evidentially mistaken, no doubt some groups of players took that stance, the attitude at Games Workshop and Citadel evidences a much broader pallet of references.

Next Time, on Furui Hanmā: A Journey to the East... It's 1984, and everything explodes. C05 Specialists transmute into the C05 Oriental Heroes, there are strange new models, new boxed sets,  historical heroes figures emerging from the mists of time, and the grimacing face of Oriental Evil is revealed...

The Chaos Deth Spiky Name Generator of Chaos

Having quite enjoyed building the Orc Name Generator, and being prompted for more by some of the responses to the original, I've constructed a Chaos Warrior name generator out of the original Oldhammer (pre Realms of Chaos) Chaos Warrior ranges.

As an exercise in geekness, trawling through the names themselves was very entertaining. But before we get into that, here is the result, Zhu's Patented Oldhammer Chaos Deth Spiky Name Generator of Chaos.

Warhammer Chaos Warrior Name Generator

Or if the dimensional portal iframe above isn't working visit : Ye Olde Oldhammer Chaos Warrior Name Generator

However, random Chaos Warrior name generators don't just grow on trees, not even chaotic twisted skull infested ones that jibber and clank in the night, full of ravens and other black feathery things that skwark and gibber endlessly. So here follows some of the arcane lore dredged up from mouldering tomes of evil regarding the early Citadel Chaos Warriors. As with the orcs, my sources are just the miniatures ranges produced by Citadel up to the end of Second Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle, not scenarios or rulebooks.

Solid Base Era Citadel Chaos Warriors 

Set One: Champion of Chaos Box Back (1982)
via

Set One version 2: Warriors of Chaos (1983)
From the First Citadel Compendium
via

Some copies of SS2 Warriors of Chaos also came with a scenario, mine didn't. However, I did get Airbornegrove to paint some up. Must get around to blogposting those, as soon as the sibilant demonic voices in my head let me stop engineering random name generators.

Quest for Chaos Scenario 1(via)

Quest for Chaos Scenario 2 (via)

It is well worth reading for the Swords & Sorcery background and atmosphere. The illustrations showing the warriors (and a Manfish!) in action by Tony Ackland are supurb, like spot illustrations for some unknown Moorcockian tome.

Set Three version Two: Knights of Chaos (1984)
Second Citadel Compendium

Knights of Chaos side 1 (via)

Quest for Chaos side 2 (via)

Again, these are essential reading if you want to get an idea of the dawn of the Incursion of Chaos, how it worked, who wreaked it, what it devastated, and why.

The blasphemous names of the Chaos Warriors from these sources, are as follows:

Range	Firstname	Secondname	Honorific
SS1	Arkon	Stormrider
SS1	Bloodaxe	Gutripper
SS1	Belial	Doomsword
SS1	Urlik	Bloodletter
SS1	Chronos	Foulblade
SS1	Braxus	Dwarfbane
SS1	Elrik	Darkhelm
SS1	Goron	Widowmaker
SS1	Charon	Unspeakable
SS1 v2	Ulvar	Vileblood
SS1 v2	Skathor	Skullcrusher
SS1 v2	Kardos	Bloodhelm
SS1 v2	Belmoth	Blacksword
SS1 v2	Athgul	Evilhand
SS1 v2	Drakar	Deathbringer
SS1 v2	Ogroth	Darksoul
SS1 v2	Morthog	Doomaxe
SS1 v2	Uthmog	Elvenblade
SS1 v2	Nekris	Demonblade
SS3 v2	Tomar	Spogh	Warrior of the Divine Tuluk
SS3 v2	Red	Dulmoon	Dark Saint of Insane Gotd
SS3 v2	Agrad		Champion of Laughing Jokkle
SS3 v2	Gindar	Milk	Disciple of Dark Zoombar
SS3 v2	Doomed	Ratchragged	Priest of Wenwoch the Waylayer
SS3 v2	Rechgrundle		Priest of Wenwoch the Waylayer
SS3 v2	Cursed	Doomhandle	Apostate of Heinus Suth
SS3 v2	Buoophut	Bane-Arrow	Devotee of Alaman
SS3 v2	Thel		Knight of Gorth the Great Obecisty

Don't read them out loud, Nyarlathotep is a busy fellow and doesn't like to be invoked on a whim.  The forenames are a mix of the Tolkienesque - several seem based on Morgoth, and generic fantasy sounding names, in fact they seem like they've already been randomly generated.

The structure of the secondnames in SS1 and SS2 is ver similar to that of the Orcs, a two-part name that describes some characteristic, although here it tends to be more narrative based rather than descriptive of arms and armour - as an example Uthmog Elvenblade is wielding a hammer, not an elven blade. 

Uthmog Elvenblade, John Blanche (1982?)
Not "Harry the Hammer"

There is a clear and dramatic shift in naming strategies from Speciality Set One versions 1 & 2 to SS3, where each Chaos Knight gets his own honorific title as Champion of one of Khornes divine retinue, and an ability bestowed upon him by his chosen deity - not really a mutation as later conceptions of Chaos would have it, but more a kind of super power. It was the end of a conceptual chain, where originally Citadel sold its creations as generic "Chaos Fighters", the Boxed Sets individually named each model, giving it a unique identity, through to fleshing out each identity as a unique character. Outside of the Regiments of Renown series and Scenario Packs the idea of models representing specific characters was largely abandoned - simply expecting the individual gamesmaster or players to pick models to suit their narrative or character concept or represent the character archetype or troop type.

Several of the names of these, the oldest of Oldhammer Chaos Warriors, stand out notably Arkon Stormrider.

Hello. My name is Arkon.
I wear furry pants, jaggy boot tops and a shoulder strap
circa 1982 (via)

Hello. My name is Arkon.
I wear furry pants, jaggy boot tops and a shoulder strap
circa 1970 (via)

The best thing about Heroquest is
I look like Arkon in a dress
Chaos Sorcerer circa 1989

Besides Arkon the Magnificent, with his indebtedness to Marvel comics in both name and design,  Bloodaxe Gutripper is clearly derived from 10thC Norwegian leader Eric Bloodaxe (who, unsurprisingly for Oldhammer, appears in Riverworld).  Another familiar name is Elrik Darkhelm, probably named after everyones favourite albinoid doomladen ex-emperor of Melniboné, but doesn't have any of Elrics trademark design queues. Drakar is Swedish for Dragon (which, I have to admit, only know because of Paul Bonners work on Swedish RPG Drakar och Demoner / Trudvang). Another one that struck me, but must just be an odd coincidence is that Tomar Spogh sounds a lot like Thomas Pugh, of Bolt-thrower miniatures fame.

After much bloodletting, belching and sacrificing skulls to the mighty overlords of chaos, I decided to drop the -letter suffix from SS1 Ulrik Bloodletter, as it often doesn't work well with any other prefix. It's nice to see the litany of blood, skull, death, demon  was well established even then.

One of the fun things was generating the name for the SS3: Knights of Chaos style honorific, so the deities name in Haxdar Widowrider Disciple of Bandar (for example) is generated using the same components as the other chaotic forenames, creating an infinitely branching family tree of ascended demi-god warriors of Khorne and their doomed followers. Not that this has anything to do with Realms of Chaos guff, ascending to godhood is pure BCEMI D&D isn't it!  An alternative approach could have been to just randomise the aspect of Khorne listed in the SS3: Knights of Chaos flyer, but that seems too dogmatic, in keeping with a strictly codified version of Chaos rather than the more freewheeling attitude evidenced by the other ranges of the period. Although what unearthly powers the Insane Chaos God Bandar may bestow upon his chosen Knight will have to be devised some other way! They're also not very frequent, so if you really want a follower of named deity, the generator will need refreshing a few times.

Mid 1980s Slottabase Citadel Chaos Warriors

Chaos Warrior miniatures released during the publication era of Second Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle.  Sculpted by Aly Morrisson, Bob Naismith and Michael and Alan Perry - an eclectic bunch of spiky deth chaos warriors if ever there was one.

Citadel C35 Chaos Warriors (1985) Compendium 3

Range	Firstname	Secondname	Honorific	Title
C35 Chaos Warriors	Ulrik	Giblit
C35 Chaos Warriors	Udkar
C35 Chaos Warriors	Nud	Spinespittle
C35 Chaos Warriors	Fenris
C35 Chaos Warriors		Boneracker
C35 Chaos Warriors	Penedal
C35 Chaos Warriors	Daethskar
C35 Chaos Warriors	Harrowhound
C35 Chaos Warriors	The Iron Duke			Duke
C35 Chaos Warriors	Bandog
C35 Chaos Warriors		Metalmane		Count
C35 Chaos Warriors	Jagglespur
C35 Chaos Warriors	Bezzlebound

By this point the Tolkienisms seem to have dropped all together, so no more anagrams of Morgoth. There are several canine references -  Fenris, the apocalyptic norse wolf demon, and Udkar and Ulrik also follow a vaguely norse bent.  Bandog may well be another canine reference to a class of English guard dog, a kind of Pitbull Mastiff. Harrowhound, maybe a small but vicious dog hailing from Harrow? I've no idea what Jaggle or Bezzle might refer to, 1985 seems a bit soon for bedazzle my vajazzle!

Then there is The Iron Duke, a nickname of the Duke of Wellington, a much celebrated English military commander and English Prime Minister. Odd choice for a Warrior of Chaos, surely a Goodly Knight of Law if ever there was one. Perhaps it's ironic.

Duke of Wellington "The Iron Duke"

Of course, this lead me to think that perhaps the nicknames of prime ministers, perhaps Dodgy Dave the Pigsticker, or  Teflon Tony B'liar (the list goes on, and on) could join the ranks of the Initiates of Khorne. It's even possible the canine references were a coded reference to Sir Winston Churchill - the Bulldog (and car insurance sales gimmick), but rather than add in external sources, I just mixed the name-parts in. As with the earlier Speciality Set Chaos Warriors, the two-part second names dominate, which lend themselves very easily to randomising.

And finally we have the consciousness devouring 1987 range of Chaos Warriors, sculpted by Jez Goodwin that would go on to form the definitive look of the Chaos Warrior throughout the bleak and dismal ages that would follow the end of Second Edition.

CH2 Chaos Warriors advert, White Dwarf 81 (1986) 

Range	Firstname	Secondname	Honorific
CH2	Arnie	Slicernecker
CH2	Cedric	Hammerhand
CH2	Boris	Heartcleaver
CH2	Slambo
CH2	Eric	Umbrand	Earthshaker
CH2	Garog		the Unstoppable
CH2	Haxrot	Greenpiece
CH2	Krayos	Dleth
CH2	Ivan	Edaik
CH2	Ludmilla	Loinripper
CH2	Suiyakai		The Inscrutable
CH2	Gladstone		The Large
CH2	Papworth	Organgrinder
CH2	Dread	Indy Babylon
CH2	Pestilens	One Eye
CH2	Chengis	Crump
CH2	Zog	Arkwright	Mighty
CH2	Gigal	De Appliance	Sir
CH2	Pifco	The Deliverer

Again certain names jump out - Arnie Slicernecker - perhaps a loose play on Arnold Schwarzenegger. Gladstone - four times heavyweight Liberal prime minister William Gladstone - and like The Iron Duke before him, a peculiar choice for an agent of Chaos. On a medical front Ivan Edaik "I've an headache", Papworth Organgrider a reference to the Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridge that specialises in major organ transfer surgery. Pifco "The Deliverer" is the name of a UK electrical appliance brand. We also see Dread Indy Babylon, a reference to rastafarianism grafted on to a somewhat sumerianesque figure, and the oriental Suiyakai which could be based on a kind of japanese noodle dish. It's tempting to think that Pestilens One Eye is a reference to the one eyed daemons of Warhammers plague god Nurgle (which may have been in development, but unpublished at this time). Of particular interest to me is Erc Umbrand, who seems to be distorted echo of Umberto Eco - whose work is great, but also contains multiple layers of intertextuality and makes deliberate references through naming of characters.

And then there is Slambo.

Salammbo, by the mighty Druillet (1980)

Slambo. Ever wondered why the entire CH1 range is regaled in green armour? Of course we know Druillet had provided the inspiration for The Red Redemption, which were also sculpted by Jes Goodwin and released in May 1985. The design of Slambo provides the template for the Chaos Warrior in Heroquest (who nontheless fails to #twoweapon). I imagined the name was a combination of Slam and Rambo, still a valid joke, and considering  the reference to Arnie, not beyond reason,  but the weight of evidence that Druilet was something of the power behind the throne becomes as overwhelming as a great neon green chaos warhammer crushing down on a many tentacled beast from beyond the stars.

Then there are the honorifics - 'The Appliance", "The Unstoppable" which echo back to the Marvel Comics "The Mighty Thor" or "The Spectacular Spiderman" as well as Wrestling and American Football (William "The Refrigerator" Perry). Again, rather than adding to the list by invoking similar names, from sport and comics The Oldhammer Chaos Deth Spiky Name Generator of Chaos hews close to the sources.

And there endeth the beleaguered and mind shattering history of Oldhammer Chaos Warrior names. But of course, all this is but a history of a time to come!

What arcane anti-heroes of darkness has the generator summoned? What insanity hath the nominative Khaos engine wrought? What dark disciples of the infinite void are belched forth from the eternal cosmic darkness of Old Night?  If the Chaos Name Generator produces something funny, or entertaining or simply soul-destroying let me know in the comments!