What is the 9th Age?

Fantasy Battles: The 9th Age is designed to be the international acknowledged successor of Warhammer Fantasy Battles. It is a project founded by the creators of the Swedish Comp System, experienced ETC players / AR committee members and top national Warhammer fantasy players who have the common goal to create a gaming experience based on the Warhammer Fantasy Battles 8th Edition Rulebook made for competitive play without any need for FAQs, balancing patches or similar documents. In addition we receive overwhelming support and feedback from players of all parts of the world who ensure with their feedback the quality of our work.

Our design philosophy is to stay true to the core principles to maintain the "Warhammer" feeling on the one hand and to streamline the rules, balance units and magic on the other hand. We strive to create a gaming system which is centred around tactical skill and risk management - rewarding players who deploy and manoeuvre strategically.


Current Project Status

The 9th Age project progresses very rapidly and we have released a self-contained rulebook which does not need any external references on the 9th of September 2015. Furthermore we released a "Path of Magic" document which does contain all magic spells and a "Ravaging Hordes" document which does contain simplified rules as a short term substitute until the "proper" army books are released for all regular armies on the 10th and 11th of September 2015.

Therefore we are able to provide a self-contained rulebook which is designed for competitive play in addition to all necessary army specific rules. Moreover community members have already begun creating army builder and battlescribe files for Fantasy Battles: The 9th Age providing players with an easy access to all the updated rules and troops (the-ninth-age.com/index.php?board/62-supporters-corner/). Due to the fantastic work of our supporters we will be able to offer translations for Fantasy Battles: The 9th Age for most common languages for example German, Swedish, Italian and Spanish (the-ninth-age.com/index.php?board/62-supporters-corner/).


Project Outlook

With the release of our self-contained rule book we have officially opened our homepage and forum (the-ninth-age.com/index.php?board-list/). The next step was to reach out to community members and include them in the complete re-writing of all army books. Our experience is that players from around the world have great ideas and are currently providing massive amounts of feedback we gladly receive. We want to deliver the best product possible and are certain that including the community, implementing their feedback and informing them about our reasoning regarding changes is the best way to secure this goal.

In this context we would be delighted to include more community members as part of our staff in our project - currently we estimate to reach approximately 80-100 staff members by the end of 2015 including army book writers, moderators (army support), artists, background staff, content producers (battle reports, army projects, youtube channels, ...) and many more.


Project Scope

With our "team structure" we are able to maintain the quality we are known for in the long run - even if the real live demands a committee member to focus his efforts on other matters we are in a position to draw from a seemingly infinite supply of highly motivated project contributors who are willing to step up to continue the work already done. With this organizational structure (in comparison to single-person or single-company projects) we ensure that people will be supplied with fresh content and rules in the years to come.

No project can maintain a large and expanding player base without new content in the long run. This is why we will periodically (every quarter of the year) review the rules, implement feedback and moreover add additional options for players. It is planned to incorporate new GW miniatures (Age of Sigmar) as well as miniatures from other companies (Mantic, Avatars of War, Scribor Minatures, Fireforge Games and many other) in our project. We are in the unique position to provide our player base with rules for their favourite miniatures wherever they are from. This opens up the possibility to see everything from beloved old armies who wrongfully lost their support (Dogs of War, Storm of Chaos army lists) to completely new ones (Stormcast Eternals, Cathay, Dwarven Bear Cavalry ...).

Fantasy Battles: The 9th Age is a game without boarders - the only limit we have is our collective imagination.


What do we want?

We firmly believe that the disintegration and fracturing of the community must come to an end. People around the world don't know how to move forward because their beloved hobby has been terminated. We offer you the chance to reunite the community and send out a clear sign that there is still a reason to paint miniatures, organize campaigns and play tournaments. Our goal is to create the rule system people deserve, a rule system that is designed to be played competitively, a rule system build by the community for the community.


Fantasy Battles: The 9th Age - worldwide

With the collective decision of the ETC Captains to make Fantasy Battles: The 9th Age the new ETC system for the upcoming ETC2016 the community regained the reassurance that there are still countless battles to be fought in the years to come. Contributors from around the world (USA, France, Spain, Germany, Austria, England, Slovenia, Poland, Slovakia, Russia, Italy, Turkey, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia and many more) are proof that Fantasy Battles: The 9th Age has truly become the rightful successor of Warhammer Fantasy Battles worldwide.

With kind regards,
Fantasy Battles: The 9th Age Team