Expansive History of Mighty Empires | GW's Tabletop Total War

[@herrferret]

Can we all agree the production quality on this channel is magnificent. 🔥

[@jordansorcery]

Thank you so much!

[@leejamesburns]

Yes, yes we can

[@f0rth3l0v30fchr15t]

Back in the mid 90's, me and my gaming group managed to get 3 sets of this together, build a stupidly massive board, and spent the summer holiday getting rules wrong, cheating, and making 'alliances' that rarely lasted through a single campaign season.

[@jordansorcery]

Sounds like the perfect game to me; I’m jealous!

[@robodog3571]

same here, maybe the same one

[@jackhartford521]

Ha me too we combined 3 sets and 4 of us played. Pretty great. I just now recall that I won that game actually. I played the dwarves, and we were pretty far apart initially, but I spread out in separate lines from my beginning empire. With my three or four separate banners. When they got out about eight tiles or so, I had them turn and take over tiles in the direction of the other lines of tiles the other banners had made and eventually connect with them. So I had a huge empire with a bunch of territory inside that was all mine to discover muhahaha!

[@rhelyk7893]

You should have mentioned that when GW released the 2007 plastic tiles, they also put a scanned (and fully official) PDF of the original rulebook online for people to use, it's still easy to find it. In the early 2000s some of the older Fantasy players brought this into the game store on a random saturday and pulled in a bunch of us 40K regulars. Most of us had no idea what we were getting into and I'm not even sure how many sets they'd combined, but they ran a massive 10 player Mighty Empires game as essentially a convention game for pretty much an entire day. 20 years later It remains one of my fondest memories, just absolutely stupendous fun! Even people not playing stood around watching for much of the day as banners were moved and towns were sieged. A few years later a friend used his own set for a 6-man map based 6th ed map based campaign run using General's Handbook, which was a stripped down version of ME. Spent a couple months stomping banners around a hex map and fighting out games of actual WHFB when the armies met. I really miss those days, only one of those friends still has his WHFB army and we got together a few times this summer to play 6th ed for the first time in a decade. Strangely enough it gave me the excuse to print out a copy of the PDF so we could start a proper campaign. Mighty Empire lives on!

[@jordansorcery]

That sounds like an amazing game day! It was always great when you could get enough people invested in a full game, the more you put into it the more you’d get out. I’m still hoping to get the tiles going again for a longer campaign with friends, just need to work out those logistics (which these days can take as much to manage as a small Empire!)

[@aquilaprimedesign]

I would gladly welcome a return of this game and a modern version of EPIC!

[@jordansorcery]

Absolutely second this! Would love to play new editions of both

[@marcraygun6290]

I always feel that 40k is more suited to epic

[@mrbeast85]

@@marcraygun6290 my thoughts too. 40K is always branded as (parden the pun) epic scifi battles, yet the tabletop reality doesn't really match up with that. Epic or Space Marine as it was branded fixed this problem and I think gives you a far better impression of being in command of a vast army.

[@philipdutre5144]

I always felt that Mighty Empires drew big inspiration from "Setting Up a Wargames Campaign", a book written in the 70s by legendary wargamer Tony Bath, and which was based on his experiences with running the "very first fantasy wargaming campaign" set in Hyboria in the 50s and 60s.

[@jordansorcery]

I can definitely believe that Stillman and Priestley were well read on the topic

[@Joth4851]

In the early 90's me and some friends played at least two campaigns of ME, playing out the battles using the WFB3 rules. It was lots of fun! However none of the campaigns ever lasted beyond year 4 or so, as by that point most of the map was discovered and occupied and every month resulted in at least one, probably several battles. And resolving those battles sometimes took weeks as everyone had to wait for the battles to be played. One of those campaigns resulted in the biggest WFB battle I think I have ever played, and it played out in a very typical 3rd editon way! My dark elves clashed with the skavens, each of us involving several banners, resulting in about 4800 points of Dark Elves fighting over 5000 points of skaven. As this was year 3 or 4 each of us had at least one lvl 25 wizard and max level spells were... insane. And models still had Cool, Willpower and Intelligence stats. The battle began with one of my wizards summoning a unit of skeleton horsemen, who were fast, etheral and moved through terrain so they very quickly charged the skaven line and since they caused fear the ratmen had to test on their Cool or flee. Skaven Cool was... 5. They broke. Nearby units had to test for panic. Which was also a Cool test. So some more broke and since he had SO MANY TROOPs that they were packed together some very quickly fled off the board. The next turn my cold one riders charged his skirmish lines. Cold Ones cause fear so the skirmishers broke and fled straight through a big unit of skaven warriors... who panicked and fled... and at this point a third of his army has broke off the table. I finished the leftovers by summoning a Vorpal Hurricane of Chaos and watched the swarm of black holes disintegrate them. You really needed a Game Master to play 3rd edition or things got out of control quickly!

[@s.g.3898]

Bloody hell, I remember Might Empires. I feel much older now realising it was way back in 1990 lol. Thanks for that

[@jordansorcery]

Feels like they just keep making these games older and older!

[@s.g.3898]

@@jordansorcery Lol, yep that must be it

[@chrisgesell8752]

This box was a favorite epic game. 2 Sets to play 4-5 players is a must. I loved the game, but many of the complicated random issues you mentioned bothered me endlessly. I now have made a playable new version of the game along with some new pieces. I have stripped down the game to be a board game only. Exploration is now done by rolling 3 dice. 2 Dice tell you what you have found, the third determines if something might be independent or Barren or an Event. Instead of the crazy event table, i created event cards that give you a choice. The locals seem unhappy. Do you push on ignoring them or do you forgive their taxes? I also added 5 different possible victory conditions to replace the the part of the game which dragged on to fully wipe everyone out. Will you try to complete epic side quests while trying to maintain your empire? Will you acquire legendary traits such as Benevolent or Militaristic? Or can you gain control of 4 of 6 mage towers. Or capture 2 opponent capitals. Finally custom dice made the combat just take a couple rolls without requiring math and pretty crazy outcome tables. Effectively turned exact points into rounded 100s, or whatever scale you want to pretend. The basic concept of Mighty Empires certainly captured my attention as a youth and decades later still has me thinking about it. Thanks for this piece, it filled in some gaps that I noticed, such as odd tiles and pieces I didnt know about.

[@musashidanmcgrath]

One summer holidays, back in the 90s, 6 of us(Dwarf/High Elves/Wood Elves/Empire/Bretonnia/Chaos) set up a crazy campaign combining Mighty Empires/Man O War/WFB/Realm of Chaos warband rules/WFRP/Warhammer Siege. The scope of the campaign was insane and needless to say we barely scratched the surface before the end of the 3 month summer holidays. :D The idea was to start on the Mighty Empires board, with each of us having a 'capital city'. Attacks on the city would be resolved with Warhammer siege rules. Ocean/river encounters would be Man O War rules. Open battles were WFB. Skirmish encounters were ROC warband rules(Mordheim didn't exist then), and special characters/champions/wizards could go on sidequests using WFRP rules. We spent more time changing the board and setting stuff up than actually playing. 😅 It was amazing though. If you had years to play and a massive room with all the boards set up separately it would be the ultimate campaign.

[@eisenphx980]

Fond memories & 2.5 copies on my shelves. Really have to get this on the table! Hm, maybe I should solo it?

[@jordansorcery]

That sounds like an ace plan! I’d love to hear about a good solo variant if you find/make one!

[@6Stevo]

I once created my own version of this for our 40k Campaign. I drew out the hex board on a sheet of A3 paper and pinned it to a cork board. We used coloured pins to represent our armies and maneuvere around the map between games. Certain pointa on the map granted in game benefits. Such as preliminary bombardments if a player controlled the artillery hex or extra Heavy support choice if they owned the tank factory. It was great fun, we played mamy games, but never finished it. If we tried, we would still be playing today!

[@jordansorcery]

That sounds amazing - I remember my local GW store doing something similar on a much smaller scale, with the map hung up in the corner and Warhammer shields used to mark army positions. So many great ways to bring a campaign to the next level!

[@michaelmitchell2123]

Some brilliant Russ Nicholson art in the video!

[@jordansorcery]

I absolutely should have mentioned the artist, thank you for pointing it out. His work is so great!

[@garfieldv2]

I have an original game. Right now I’m running a game via messenger with 3 mates. The best thing about it? Each player can only see a small amount outside their own empires. True fog of war.

[@jordansorcery]

I love that idea, expanding out from your own territory and not knowing where your opponents really are! That’s great!

[@marcocd]

Wow I can’t believe you’re covering this game! First WHQ and now this! Can it get any better? I had the original ME in the 90’s and loved playing it, I used it as a standalone game. One of my first GW games after the original HeroQuest. You can barely find any Mighty Empires content online, so this is definitely appreciated! Amazing channel, sir!

[@marcocd]

The most frustrating part of the original game was the fact that the tiles did not attach to each other, and with younger siblings at home bumping into (or intentionally fooling with) a flimsy card table we’d play this on sometimes, it was like a bowl of tile soup 😅. One of my favorite games of all time though, many fond memories of playing this. Still have my copy, really wish I could have afforded all the extra new minis back then. May try to acquire them on eBay at some point…

[@jordansorcery]

I’m really glad! It was such a fun game that I’m glad it’s not been totally forgotten!

[@jordansorcery]

Absolutely! Just a little knock on that beautiful river valley was now blown to the four winds and you had to hope you all remembered the same where things were!

[@manofaction1807]

At first, you had my curiosity..... Subbed for this video alone!

[@jordansorcery]

I’m glad you’re enjoying the videos!

[@LaBibliotecaEterna]

Why no one else is talking about this game!?!?!? Is wonderful and sooooo great!, I would need to check how available they are.

[@jordansorcery]

It’s a classic gem, but definitely seems to have been forgotten a little bit, sadly! It’s a fun time if you can get a few players together who can invest enough time

[@LaBibliotecaEterna]

@@jordansorcery it looks really interesting, maybe I will try to find the rules or a similar game because it definetly got my atention.

[@scelonferdi]

I'd really now the campaign rules for the 2006 version, but can't find them anywhere. The 1901 ones are much less of an issue.

[@jordansorcery]

Yeah the sets are not cheap on eBay these days, don’t think I’ve seen the more recent rules anywhere online either sadly

[@goodjessehobbies]

Fantastic video.

[@jordansorcery]

Thank you!

[@Emsworth377]

I had the original ME and lived the detail it went into. Even to the name generation table for different species towns etc...

[@jordansorcery]

There were some really fun ideas in there, and a lot of those tables really added character! It could just take over your whole weekend if you weren't careful!

[@stephenrenwick8781]

Great video, we put twosets together and had a massive campaign lasting about a year of weekly games. I still have the original ships and a couple of the metal bridges.

[@jordansorcery]

Outstanding, the only thing better than Mighty Empires is double Mighty Empires!

[@williamdaniel4081]

Hi I bought a box at Historicon several years ago. It was owned by a ex GWs staffer. It was a double painted set and had lots of metal miniatures. Included was the Walls and Skaven army. Had to sell them a year later for rent.

[@jordansorcery]

Oh wow, that’s ace! I’ve seen some pictures of the Screaming Bell and Skaven banner, but haven’t seen any in real life! Sorry you had to sell them!

[@danbrown2473]

Loved Mighty Empires. We had army lists worked out for each banner. We used it more as a campaign map. Had a few campaigns during holidays when 3 or 4 could get together for a few days.

[@jordansorcery]

That’s a great way to use it tbf, the board game takes a lot of work even if it can be fun. It’s such a great looking campaign system though so it still adds a lot I think

[@PaintedThumbVids]

My gaming group has started a Mighty Empires game. We are resolving some of the battles with Warlords of Erehwon, which is another Rick Priestley creation.

[@pcppbadminton]

Wow I'd completely forgotten about this game. Me, my brother and a friend played it a few times when it came out and then tweaked the rules a bit to run some 40k tabletop campaigns (we preferred the future setting). It worked pretty well with my Tyranids based loosely on the Skaven rules of razing everything to stockpile food but I also had to spend food instead of money to create new armies. It was great to play some asynchronous battles too, trying to do as much damage as possible or take out specific targets before inevitably losing the battle. Loving the channel, it's been bringing back a lot of memories for me.

[@jordansorcery]

That sounds amazing! It was a fun system, and using to make your own campaigns work like you did is the best thing about it! Glad you’re enjoying the channel, thanks for the comment!

[@Zaphodox]

Love your channel. Would love to see more examples of these really old minis painted.

[@MajorSvenGaming]

I remember this being all over white dwarf back in the day. I had no idea it was a board game in its own right. I would be all over this nowdays.

[@jordansorcery]

It’s a great time, with the right group of players! And both editions make for lovely campaign maps

[@paulwalker5221]

Many years ago I had a couple of sets and many metal stars including the walls and Skaven. I wish I had kept and didn't sell so cheaply when I needed some money at University. Happy days.

[@jordansorcery]

A tragic tale that I share! I got rid of my copy when I was younger, then a few years ago the guy I sold it to sold it back to me! Still haven’t ever gotten my hands on those Skaven banners though, sadly!

[@redcoat259]

Hey Jordan, just wanted to let you know, I think your channel is great, keep it up! 👍

[@jordansorcery]

Thank you, really appreciate you watching the videos and commenting!

[@danroberts007]

I wasn’t into wargaming when the first version came out and never had a need for it when the second version was released. Still found the video fascinating. I have never heard of Dragon Masters before and I can’t remember the last time I was surprised to discover an old GW game for the first time. Thank you for that! Blood Royale: a friend of mine (not a wargamer, but an avid boardgamer) has a copy of Blood Royale. That game can take… days to play. We had a running joke in our group; we’d finish up our main game of the night and then nod our head at the bookshelf, “quick game of Blood Royale?” 😆

[@jordansorcery]

Blood Royale was actually one that I’d not heard of before the research, sounds like a mixed bag!

[@Basil_Ghothickovitch]

I have one old issue of White Dwarf magazine, which came with a sprue with two such plastic hexes and markers. Unfortunately, due to the long delivery, the entire cover of the magazine is damaged by the sharp edges of this thing. Plus some markers broke off and got lost. ... However, this is original Warhammer plastic so I keep that. But since I never play, I just collect and explore the world, I didn't come up with a way to use these hexes for regular 28mm Warhammer miniatures. Are there any ideas?

[@jordansorcery]

With just a couple of tiles I think it would be tough to get too much use, though you could use them as token to indicate who controls certain resources (or similarly important things) in a campaign? If you get access to a few more then you can make some great campaign maps for a few AoS players to manoeuvre and battle over!

[@colinmallery50]

“Burninate” was that a trogdor reference 🤔

[@jordansorcery]

I made sure my peasants didn’t live in thatched roof cottages is all I’m saying

[@Jarumo76]

@@jordansorcery *high pinched singing* "...And the Trogdor comes in the NIIIIGHT!!"

[@AFnord]

I would love to see a version of this game using some more modern design sensibilities (i.e. a bit less randomness that can completely swing the game) and with the rules being tightened up a bit, but keeping the spirit and the themes of the game. Oh and thanks for showing the little ram mini. Now I know where that thing is from. Somehow that thing made its way into my collection about 20 years ago and I've just used it as Warmaster prop ever since.

[@jordansorcery]

I would be very interested in such a modern reinvention, it’s a great game concept. Glad I could help place that siege engine for you!

[@thomasparker6124]

I have memories of reading about Mighty Empires (and Dragon Masters!) in hand-me-down copies of White Dwarf from the WD 130+ era. However now I mostly wonder if there is some profound meaning behind "Dragon Rage" vs "Dragonrage" on the same Winter Events Table...

[@jordansorcery]

That totally slipped by me! Now I’m consumed by the dragon / rage question too!

[@pancakeonions]

With the release of the beautiful Hexton Hills, I sure wish there was a newer version of ME out there. I just can't bring myself to attempt to learn ME, with all its glorious randomness and 90s chaos and wild swings. I have no idea what a more modern treatment might look like... But I sure wish I had a good use for my Hexton Hills which even now taunt me from my painting table!

[@jordansorcery]

Those Hexton Hills are beautiful

[@sidtandy4333]

Are the Hexton Hills-tiles compatible with Mighty Empires? Are they the same scale?

[@goreshadetube]

I still have this and still have yet to enjoy it in a campaign. But I have played it as a straight board game. One day I hope to use it with Warmaster to do an epic High Elves vs Dark Elves campaign.

[@jordansorcery]

That sounds like great fun! It's been a long time since I've actually got it on to the table, but I look forward to revisiting it one day

[@Stonegolem6]

My buddy had this when i was young and we'd spend a whole day playing in bardgame mode, we dreamed of someday doing a whole campaign where we actually played out the battles instead of rolling for the result, but alas we never had the models or space to leave the board set up for more than a few days.

[@DoctorEviloply]

I got Planetary Empires for 40k around about when they released that version in 2009. It's a shame it didn't really come with rules like Mighty Empires did. It was just tiles and the pamphlet inside just said to make your own rules up.

[@jordansorcery]

I think they really missed a trick with those reissues. A nice new rule set would have been great; at least the tiles were lovely though!

[@michaelmitchell2123]

…I have this and I’m trying to find tiny armies to add to it all the time! I cannot wait for you to do man o war! Huge hint!

[@jordansorcery]

Now there is a game that I spent a lot of time with! Absolutely loved the minis for it. Ok, now you’ve got me planning!

[@DeltaDemon1]

I remember playing Mighty Empires when it came out. I thought it was mediocre but it had potential for a campaign of WHFB combat. Unfortunately, others wanted to play WH40K, so it never was realized.

[@jordansorcery]

It definitely needs a lot of investment to get it played and it’s really not a tight rule set, but with the right group I found it could be pretty entertaining. That said, the campaign aspect was always a huge draw. I had exactly the same problem though, everyone left WFB for 40k instead!

[@System-Update]

Skeletons were OP in mighty empires. No baggage, no raising, belt-tightening was vaguely humorous. Such a shame that it wasn't re-released as a stand-alone game although the rules are available on the internet. It was ace.

[@jordansorcery]

They were great fun, but so terribly inconvenient - always a skeleton banner jumping out of the lowlands to get your unsuspecting troops! I agree, the ‘07 tiles are lovely, it would have been great to see new rules to go with them

[@shaunyams]

it's Dave Lee Travis playing Warhammer!

[@jordansorcery]

I appear to have fallen far short of the late-career Orson Welles benchmark I was shooting for!

[@shaunyams]

@@jordansorcery no worries mate you've got some cracking videos😀

[@Magyarkhan]

I ma hoping for a massive warofthering alike boardgame

[@stalker1983]

hehehe Strong bad Reference XD Also I am be that guy for a second "Well aaaactually it was in WD 331 not 330" as I discovered from immediately going on ebay trying to find it.

[@jordansorcery]

Ah, my mistake!

[@TheLordUrban]

Does anyone know where I can find the articles from Citadel Journal?

[@ironbomb6753]

I have a copy of Mighty Empires. I thought it would have been a fun game. I had no opponents, I've yet to play a game. Gotta be about 30 years now...

[@jordansorcery]

Almost as long as some games!

[@commentarytalk1446]

It's a good idea, but Mordheim campaigns is much better and more manageable tbh. Now Total War Warhammer video game more or less does it all for you...

[@thesheeteels8252]

Successor, surely? Ancestors come first.

[@jordansorcery]

The original Mighty Empires hit stores in 1990 so it’s got a few years on Total War: Warhammer, but there’s some fun similarities in what they were trying to simulate!

[@thesheeteels8252]

Oh right. Good video.

[@eldritchmorgasm4018]

OLD exotic boardgame? Well, how about "The Legend of Zagor", a Dungeon Crawler with a talking-module to insult you, including some RPG elements.

[@jordansorcery]

Ha, wow that’s a wild coincidence - I literally wrote a line today about Zagor in a video about another game! It’s not one I’ve ever actually seen in real life, but it looks interesting (and was designed by Ian Livingstone) so I’d give it a proper look at some point!

[@eldritchmorgasm4018]

@@jordansorcery 😬 There's another boardgame from the 90s that also talks, called "The Omega Virus", though it's not realy good or interesting, it's funny because of the fiendishly evil AI making a fool of the players, and it could be worth taking a look at this as well at the same time as 'Zagor"

[@jordansorcery]

That’s one I’ve not heard of, but you make it sound very interesting! Will definitely investigate further, thanks!

[@thesmilyguyguy9799]

: )

[@grahamfroggatt4530]

Ok - you’re definitely going to cover Talisman then, right? Right?? 😅

[@jordansorcery]

There’s a lot of great Talisman history out there, even if the game did completely decimate me every time I tried it! I do love a lot of the art though so I am tempted to take a proper look at the history at some point!

[@jridenou72]

I don't think empirical means what you think it means

[@jordansorcery]

Sure I do, it means games of unusual scale!

[@ja37d-34]

A couple of the ten or so, years older guys at my club as i was a kid had that early box. Seemed fun. I think they played it and used WHFB to play out the action.