The "Realm of Chaos" books are one of the most iconic Warhammer releases ever. They were released at the peak of WHFB 3rd edition and Rogue Trader 40k, when these settings were still taking shape. 2 massive tomes filled with weird artwork, dense rules and the foundations of WHFB and 40K lore that are still referenced to this day.
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| The books that first brought us into the Realm of Chaos (from ChaosBunker) |
Over the years I've seen a few people online attempt warbands using these books but actually playing games using the rules seemed rare. It's an idea that I think comes up in every gaming group with even a passing interest in Warhammer and that's how it started for us.
It all started with a throwaway suggestion from Jackson @hollowbodies_13 at our CantCon event last year (there's a theme here, he's a troublemaker). "Maybe we could finally do a Realm of Chaos thing..." led to a bit of excited chatter around the table at the pub, and then we moved on. Indie games came and went, more group events were held, but the idea was a little goblin camped out in my brain, chattering away about D1000 roll tables and tentacles. And eventually I couldn't ignore it anymore.
Why RoC? For me it mostly comes down to nostalgia for a period of gaming that we are too young to have experienced firsthand. 3rd Ed WHFB and RT 40K are strange games, before GW had decided if they were making mass battle games or RPGs. The rules and their supplements ooze with vibe, a cobbled together mishmash of the settings' literary references (Tolkien / Moorcock and 2000AD / Herbert are the main culprits), squeezed through the imaginations of writer Rick Priestley, artists like Blanche and Miller, and miniature designers like the Morrisons, Morley and Goodwin. All of it is familiar enough but had this oddness to it that was equally uncomfortable and excitement for someone who started in this hobby only a few years later in the era of big box games and the kid-friendly WHFB 4th Ed and 2nd Ed 40k.
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| Our Realm of Chaos event in full swing (Fin / @bugboyminis) |
The RoC books are the distillation of the vibe that permeates this period. Two books both as big as the rulebooks they supplement, and on first appearance covering only one faction - Chaos. In all its horned, tentacled glory for the first time in both settings. Cruel gods heaping mutations on their champions to wage war on the forces of good, who risk everything for the chance at glory and immortality as a daemonic servant. Chaos is what makes Warhammer Warhammer. It's cool. It's always been cool. It always will be cool.
I put the word out to a couple of other degenerates from the Downunder Empire discord server that I thought might be interested in running a Realm of Chaos event. Everyone was interested in participating and a few threw in some ideas on what we could do with it. But one of them demanded, pleaded and bargained for a place in the pantheon of Chaos, to enact the will of Gods and inflict their whims on the players who would eventually participate in the event. Crom, sculptor of giants and supplier of vibes. You can read his recap of the event here (and check out the rest of his blog): https://cromshall.wordpress.com/2026/01/26/realm-ov-chaos-dream-event-with-dream-folk/
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| Crom and I fulfilling the whims of the Chaos Gods (Fin / @bugboyminis) |
We put our heads together and poured over the rules, picking at blogs and pdfs of old White Dwarfs to absorb the vibe and distill things down to the most straightforward presentation for our players. RoC is a DENSE system, mostly due to how random it is. Everything is determined by D100 or D1000 roll tables, from the origin of your Champion, to their mutations and rewards, to the warriors and creatures that follow them into battle. In keeping with the original books we split our event pack into 3 documents - one warband creation, one for the rules for on table, and one for the scenarios being played on the day.
We'd done most of the work in secret over several months; throwing around ideas, taking things out only to put them back in, trying to capture the best parts of this system and this era of gaming. We knew people were interested but it wasn't until our group's Pox event last year that we knew how interested. While we were hanging at the pub for a post-event catch up, Crom and I stole away to a corner and were chatting eagerly about our latest ideas for the event. The words "realm of chaos" froze the room, it was like walking into the saloon in an old western. "Did you say...?" The cat was out of the bag, roll for how many heads it has.
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| The Slaanesh board causing panic (Fin / @bugboyminis) |
Crom christened our event "Realm Ov Chaos: Dungeon to Diety". A name that played on a tongue-in-cheek attempt at making a 'legally distinct' event to avoid copyright lawyers, together with a nod to the silliness of the metal aesthetic we both love. And it captured the journey that the champions would undertake in their quest of daemonhood.
The warband creation pack was the hardest part. We wanted to give players enough time to convert and paint their minis for the event, to really give everything the effort and love it deserved. The original RoC system for creating warbands is confusing and circular in nature, rolls refer to results on another table, which leads to another table. We laid this out into the simplest steps we could:
- roll for which God the champion serves
- roll for the origin of the champion (human, beastman, goblin etc)
- roll 3 times for the champion's rewards, and roll again on the mutation table as indicated on the table
- roll 3 times for the champion's follower units (Chaos Warriors, orcs, beasts and monsters)
- roll 2 rewards for the followers and choose which units to apply them too
All the rules were stripped out of the pack so all the rewards and mutations became hobbying prompts without any attached in-game value. Every option was valid and exciting. And our players ran with it. Over the months leading up to the event, players posted in our server with WIP photos of the critters they were creating. From giant frogs and harpies to fat orcs and multi-headed spawn, everyone embraced the hobby aspect of creating these warbands. The rules for each warband were supplied to players on customised warband sheets in the lead up to the event.
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| One of Crom's giants sculpted for the event (Fin / @bugboyminis) |
With the warbands decided our next step was working out how the games would be played on the table.
Some of our players were WHFB old heads who'd played in the earlier editions, while some had missed
it completely. To accomodate for this breadth of experience, we felt that we had to strip back some of the density of 3rd Ed to make the game suitable for a single day gaming event. I sat down and wrote a set of rules that I explained as "I've played Warhammer before and this is kinda how it went"; very basic rules for movement and psychology, the usual to-hit and to-wound charts and a magic casting system that borrowed heavily from the 6th Ed power dice and miscast system. To keep the games moving and add a little more tension, we tacked on a version of the Rout mechanic from Mordheim as well.
Scenarios are so important with gaming events so that the players are doing more than just piling into melee in the centre of the board. To chronicle the champions' battles across the Realm of Chaos, we designed a scenario for each of the Gods and an Undivided one. Each added a different mechanic or win condition:
Khorne - all slain units were resurrected back on to the board edge at the start of the next turn
Tzeentch - all magic is more powerful with a miscasts bestowing mutation rolls
Slaanesh - all Champions are compelled to a stash of treasure in the centre of the board
Nurgle - escort a Plague Priest off the board (or kill them)
Undivided - Slay the giant
Crom sculpted custom models for the NPCs (seriously, do yourself a favour and check out his blog) and I built all the terrain.
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| Another of Crom's giants (Fin / @bugboyminis) |
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| Floating hills on the Tzeentch board (Fin / @bugboyminis) |
The results of every game provided either a Chaos Reward to the winner of the scenario, or a Mutation to the loser. Players tracked these Rewards and Mutations (adding the ones they had rolled originally in warband creation) throughout the day as their Championed edged towards Daemonhood or Spawndom. Reaching 6 Rewards would result in the Champion being transformed into a Daemon Prince, while 6 Mutations would see them damned and reduced to a Chaos Spawn. I believe Dan was the first to have his Champion turned into a Daemon Prince, while Rei's Champion collapsed into a Spawn right before the last game.
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| The largest of Crom's giants (Fin / @bugboyminis) |
The last game of the day was a free-for-all between just the Champions on the temple board. At this point the game was a vicious and fast fight to the death. We sprung our last twist on the players at the start of this game, any player with a Daemon Weapon could free the daemon to fight for them in this battle. This led to even more carnage as several Greater Daemons took to the field to slay their enemies. A fitting conclusion to a chaotic and fun day.
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| Champions and Greater Daemons prepare for the final battle on the temple board (Fin / @bugboyminis) |
The best part of this event was the engagement and excitement from the players. We've built a really solid crew over on the Downunder Empire discord server, and likeminded gamers are always welcome. If you've got an interest in indie skirmish games / narrative gaming / the hobby in general, please join us: https://discord.gg/mDHuKRxSXh
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| The crew (Fin / @bugboyminis) |
Finally, here's a bit of a showcase of everyone's warbands from the event. We had the temple board set up off to the side of the room all day and Fin / @bugboyminis was kind enough to come along to take photos.
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