History TabletopGame / Warhammer

* RedshirtArmy: Bretonnian infantry-

* CrapsaccharineWorld: Take equal amounts of Arthurian legends, J.R.R.Tolkien and Ivanhoe, and add in twice the amount of MichaelMoorcock, MontyPython and [[TheDungAges|Age Of Enlightment ideas of Medieval society]], and you get Bretonnia, with brave knights, damsels and fabulous castles - with peasants bound to turf with ridiculous 90% taxes living in squalor, ignorance and oppression, and where boy children having magical tendencies are quickly eliminated. And ''those are actually one of the good guys''.

* TheTemplar: Bretonnian knights. Also Empire knights to lesser extent.

-->''"Prepare thyself to enter a world of [[TheLegionsOfHell daemons]] and [[BlackMagic vile sorcery]], of battle and death, of violence and of madness."''

-->''"The fate of the world, be it damnation or salvation will soon be decided. This is a world of eternal war and fleeting glory. This is the world of Warhammer."''

-->''"The gods of strife shall feast upon this day, and every day hence, until the end of time."''

** The Lizardmen were the first to fight Chaos; they are the true reason that Chaos can hardly leave the wastes. Pretty good, right? Well, Their leaders the Slann are actively trying to shift the world back to its pure untainted state, and no cost is too high for them to pay if it thwarts the ruinous powers. The Lizardmen will eat sentient bipeds, lobotomize them and use them as slaves, and their opinion on almost every sentient race is that of a pest exterminator finding cochroaches in their own house. When they made the first and so far only step to fixing the world, it reduced the dwarven people to a shadow of a fraction of themselves; the Slann don't know this happened, but if they did they would be disappointed they didn't get the whole species.
*** Actually, the dwarves are part of the Old Ones' plan, so they would be apathetically apologetic at how dumb the dwarfs were being for living where an inland sea should be.

** As a result of some deft political maneuvering and excellent culinary skills during the reign of Emperor Ludwig the Fat, the Elder of the Moot holds a vote in the election of the Emperor, and the halfling lands are not subject to any of the Elector Counts.

* IDidWhatIHadToDo: ''Way'' too common justification for several people's, and nations', actions in this world.
** Its gotten to the point where it may have once been possible to fight Chaos in the past more effectively as an alliance if certain groups *cough*Lizardmen, High Elves*cough* didn't treat this trope as a standard operating procedure or even a stated goal of success.

** Lizardmen have this, its just not very obvious from an outside point of view, just remember those elderly comatose toad guys will shift continents regardless of the bodycount if they think its right, especially if the victims weren't part of The Great Plan of the Ancients, which covers pretty much covers everyone not Cold-Blooded.

** From a human/elf/dwarf perspective this applies to the Lizardmen as they currently have more pressing priorities to attend to before making these people extinct.

* LizardFolk: The Lizardmen, obviously, except for the Slann, they're toads.

** Great Unclean tends to be

* MasterPoisoner: The entire Skaven race. The Skinks of Lustria are a distant second, its implied in fluff that they can do many things, but they'd rather just kill.

* {{Mayincatec}}: The Lizardmen are a FantasyCounterpartCulture of the {{Mayincatec}}. Culturally closer to the Mayans, their jewelry is more Aztec inspired and their pantheon is based on the Aztec one, particularly Quetzalcoatl.

* MightyGlacier: Lizard Men are known for two things: Uber powerful basic rule book casters, and slow but tough as nails units.

** Lizardmen magic is their religion, although its more shamanistic with the skinks, and sort of Zen Buddhist (minus the prevent Suffering clause) with the Slann.

* RuleOfFunny: the ork Doom Diver catapult, which fires a goblin in a hang-glider, and the Skaven Doomwheel, which is a giant hampster wheel with ray guns. Also, look at the names of the Lizardmen gods. The Snotling Pump-Wagon.

** Actually based on a story from the [[FafhrdAndTheGrayMouser Grey Mouser]] series called Swords of Lankhmar, although in that story they are normal rat sized. They have an evil council and everything!

**** Some played with the Slann since while they are tough, in fact are better at taking hits than the Lizardmen warrior heroes, they are still lousy fighters.

* StatusQuoIsGod: Last write up of Storm of Choas. The Hero of the Empire is on his knees, about to be killed by the Champion of Chaos...only for the Champion of Chaos to get knocked out from behind by someone unrelated. And then both of the villains take their armies and go home. And then the Vampire who was invading in their wake changes his mind too. Why? Cause otherwise they'd have to alter how the world is set up.

* DarkIsNotEvil: That is how the [[AntiHero less insane]] Undead commanders try to spin it at least.

** The Lizardmen, despite being [[ReptilesAreAbhorrent lizard people]] and feeding people to giant snakes for their religion aren't too bad, at least for the world.

* DropTheHammer: Warrior priests and many dwarfs carry these, it is all in the title after all

* DecadeDissonance: Bretonnia is pretty much Medieval France, rife with knights and peasant longbow men and run by a feudal system. It sits right next door to TheEmpire, which has Renaissance era level technology going into the early Industrial Period level with elements of SteamPunk thrown in for good measure as well, including ''steam powered tanks!'' Bretonnia manages to resist being forcibly assimilated into the Empire, most likely due to the mountain range that makes travel between the two difficult, and the magic granted by a local god, the "Lady of the Lake" making their elite upper class {{Immune to bullets}}. [[spoiler: However, it's a little more complicated then that, with the local baby-eating wood elves being the most favourable candidate to be both granting them this power, and keeping the nation in its {{Medieval Stasis}}, simply to shield themselves from the outside world...]]

* DecadeDissonance: Bretonnia is pretty much Medieval France, rife with knights and peasant longbow men and run by a feudal system. It sits right next door to TheEmpire, which has Renaissance era level technology going into the early Industrial Period level with elements of SteamPunk thrown in for good measure as well, including ''steam powered tanks!'' Bretonnia manages to resist being forcibly assimilated into the Empire, most likely due to the mountain range that makes travel between the two difficult, and the magic granted by a local god, the "Lady of the Lake" making their elite upper class {{Immune to bullets}}. [[spoiler: However, it's a little more complicated then that, with the local baby-eating wood elves being the most favourable candidate to be both granting them this power, and keeping the nation in it's {{Medieval Stasis}}, simply to shield themselves from the outside world...]]
** Another possible reason that Bretonnia has maintained it's independence is their great success in domesticating the flocks of pegasi that live in their mountains resulting in the rise of the Pegasus Knight. Pegasi exist in the Empire too, but mostly as very rare possessions of aristocrats, giving Bretonnia effective dominance of the air.

If you were looking for a character who ''uses'' a warhammer [[DropTheHammer here it is.]]

*** However they lunch massive invasions in order to get back their stuff that had been stolen over the years.

* ElvesVsDwarves: Not so much in the present day, but the [[strike:War of the Beard]] [[InsistentTerminology War of Vengeance]] is the embodiment of this trope taken literally.

* FantasyGunControl: [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig Zagged]] due to SchizoTech. Elves and Bretonnia stick to bows and arrows, while the Empire and Dwarfs use firearms and cannons. The Skaven use [[strike:gatling]] [[IncrediblyLamePun ratling]] [[GatlingGood guns]] and sniper rifles and flamethrowers and grenades and laser guns and poison gas [[TheLongList and...]]

** The Lizardmen were the first to fight Chaos; they are the true reason that Chaos can hardly leave the wastes. Pretty good, right? Well, Their leaders the Slann are actively trying to shift the world back to its pure untainted state, and no cost is too high for them to pay if it thwarts the ruinous powers. The Lizardmen will eat [[strike: humans]] sentient bipeds, lobotomize them and use them as slaves, and their opinion on almost every sentient race is that of a pest exterminator finding cochroaches in their own house. When they made the first and so far only step to fixing the world, it reduced the dwarven people to a shadow of a fraction of themselves; the Slann don't know this happened, but if they did they would be disappointed they didn't get the whole species.

** They stopped [[strike: caring]] trying to hide it with X's with "Tiqtaq'to". Gaaaah.

** The Different [[OurGhoulsAreCreepier Ghouls]] and [[OurZombiesAreDifferent Zombies]] serve vampires, as (respectively) devolved, cannibalistic, but still living humans and shambling, brainless corpses which need magical control to stay [[strike:alive]] upright.

* SchizoTech: The Empire's up to rifled firearms supplemented by gigantic cannons and steam-powered tanks. The Dwarfs have gyrocopters, submarines, and ironclad ships. Thanks to {{Magitek}}, the Skaven have jezails, [[strike:gat]]ratling guns, giant hamster wheels that shoot lightning, or really huge death rays, portable nuclear reactors, and what seems to be three different types of nukes. Meanwhile, the High Elves still use chariots and bolt-throwers, while the orcs have just enough know-wotz to slap together a "rock lobber." Though elves focus more on magic than technology and a well-trained elf archer tends to be as useful as any fellow with a musket.

There is also a science fiction tabletop miniatures wargame set in a universe having much in common with ''WHFB'': ''{{Warhammer 40000}}'', generally known simply as "40K". Think of it as ''Warhammer'' [-[[RecycledInSpace IN SPACE]]-], though it has grown over the years into a distinct and very different game, and has become much more popular than ''Warhammer'', at least in the United States.

The wargame has also spawned a [[TabletopGames role-playing game]] tie-in, ''WarhammerFantasyRoleplay'', which is not unlike a grimdark version of ''DungeonsAndDragons''. Like its SciFi "brother", it also has some {{Gaiden Game}}s: ''BloodBowl'', a "fantasy football" wargame set in a parallel dimension where ultra-violent rugby has replaced war, and ''{{Mordheim}}'', a semi-postapocalyptic wargame set in the eponymous city after it got levelled by a meteor of solid GreenRocks and the shards of which, incidentally, are the key ingredient in a working recipe for the Philosopher's Stone.

* BlackAndGreyMorality: Not quite as bad as ''{{Warhammer 40000}}'' on this, but it does run a close second. It's really more of a case of "They would if they could".

* ContinuityNod: The ''Warhammer'' world does not canonically take place in the same universe as ''{{Warhammer 40000}}'' ([[RetCon anymore]]), but it does make a few nods to the sci-fi mythos, such as the Old Ones' starships and warp gates and Greenskin spores coming down from space, and the Ogres' Great Maw is reminiscent of Tyranid biotech. It's easy to believe that Sigmar, founder of the Empire, is one of the two missing Primarchs. In fact, in the earliest editions, it was all but stated that the Warhammer world is part of the {{Warhammer 40000}} universe- or at least that the Chaos Wastes connected to the Warp. Characters of all species could run around with, among other things, bolters (machine gun rocket launchers) and lascannons, while Chaos Space Marines were an actual troop/leadership choice for mortal Chaos armies.

* OurGnomesAreWeirder: They're basically identical to ''DungeonsAndDragons'' gnomes--small burrowing humanoids with a knack for technology and illusion magic--but extremely rude and short-tempered. They disappeared some time after the '90s.

*** Claw of Devistation = Lightning Claw.

** Nehekhara is Egypt, except that pretty much all the humans who used to live there have died in a magical plague and the Pharaos have all come out of their pyramids to rule over a kingdom of shambling undead.

* YourSoulIsMine: The Necromancy spell Wind of Undeath kills any enemy unit and lets you replace them with a unit of Spirit Hosts- basically ghosts. The Tomb Blade steals an enemies' soul and adds their skeleton to your army (represented by adding a single skeleton to the unit the blade's weilder is attached to).

The wargame has also spawned a [[TabletopGames role-playing game]] tie-in, ''WarhammerFantasyRoleplay'', which is not unlike a grimdark version of ''DungeonsAndDragons''. Like its SciFi "brother", it also has some {{Gaiden Game}}s: ''BloodBowl'', a "fantasy football" wargame set in a parallel dimension where ultra-violent rugby has replaced war, and ''{{Mordheim}}'', a semi-postapocalyptic wargame set in the titular city after it got levelled by a meteor of solid GreenRocks and the shards of which, incidentally, are the key ingredient in a working recipe for the Philosopher's Stone.

* ExactWords: In the novel ''Nagash the Sorcerer,'' The titular sorcerer promises his bride, Neferem, that no harm will come to her son, Sukhet, from this moment forward if she drinks an elixir [[spoiler:recently made from the now-deceased Sukhet's blood.]]

** I mean, the Skaven are the only faction that can shoot into close combat involving their own troops. With ''[[KillItWithFire flamethrowers]]''. They just don't care that much.
*** Whereas the Goblins are the only ones that shoot their troops ''as ammunition''. Good old Doom Diver...
**** The Skaven are faced with mass starvation if they're not engaging in their part-time civil war, or invading the surface with countless numbers. It was stated in one of the army books that this is just as much a driving force for the Council's plans as conquering the Old World.

* AffablyEvil: Vlad von Cartnstein started out this way. Honestly, the only thing that makes him ''really'' evil is using Undead minions rather than living ones, and ousting the priests of Morr. Trying to take over the empire is actually a pretty common pastime for Elector Counts, after all.