The world of Warhammer is a land sundered by bitter strife and deadly conflict. Every realm and kingdom is riven by war and destruction, a battleground for mighty armies that advance to the beat of sonorous war-drums and the braying call of trumpets.

Warhammer, The game of Fantasy Battles, allows you to wage war with armies of Citadel miniatures across tabletop battlefields in the ultimate contest of strategy and skill. Each player is a general, who must choose his finest warriors, decide upon cunning battle plans and strategies and lead his followers to victory or death. Games can vary in size from small skirmishes of just a few dozen models per side, to massive clashes with literally hundreds of miniatures.

In a nutshell, each player collects an army of Citadel miniatures. Then, using the Warhammer rulebook as a guideline, they fight epic battles against their fellow generals. Dice (like you'd find in almost any board game) are used to determine success and failure: to decide whether an arrow hits its target, or whether a magical power works, for example. Each game is played, not on a regular 'board' but in a special gaming area where models are not confined to 'squares' but are free to move as their controller wishes. Because Warhammer is not played on a set game board, tape measures or rulers are used to see how far a miniature can move - a horse can run faster than a stumpy-legged Dwarf, after all.

That might all sound a little complicated, but most Warhammer players find that after just a short game or two they've grasped the basics. Seasoned Warhammer generals find that the rules become second nature, and they seldom need to refer to the rulebook at all.