Collected Warhammer Volumes part 9: Al ook through volumes 1 and 2.

Having discussed the binding of these books let's turn our attention to their contents. After all, that's what this is all about, chronicling the journey of Warhammer Fantasy Battles from its inception to its discontinuance. As they're both relatively slim and self-contained we'll start rooting through volumes one and two, the first two editions and supporting material.

Volume 1- Forehammer begins with endpages by Josh Kirby from Terry Pratchett's Bromeliad trilogy. For no other reason than I had these posters, love them and associate them with my experience of fantasy from the 80s and 90s.

Volume 1 contains the three books from the Warhammer box, with glorious black and white art by Tony Ackland. At this stage 'Fantasy Battles' isn't quite right because what you've got is rules for fighting combat on the tabletop with miniatures but we're talking very small and character-driven skirmishes. This is essentially a tabletop RPG, which absolutely floats my boat having just written The Woods for exactly that kind of gaming. Interestingly that's now going in a mass-battle direction, perhaps echoing the rise of Warhammer...

Next up we've got the three books from Forces of Fantasy, plus the book of Battalions which pops up later. This supplement expands the magic, bestiary, items and scope of the original rules.

Whilst there are plenty of creatures there's really no definite setting provided anywhere here. The Redwake River Valley scenario in the rulebooks is as close as we get to a world for the game (and features as the cover of this volume).

More lush black and white art from Tony Ackland.

Then we come to the Citadel Compendiums. These are included here as their size makes them compatible with the first edition books whilst they are shorter than the second edition books. There's not too much difference between the two and the content of the Compendiums is suitable for both editions.

A bit more of a glimpse of the developing Warhammer world is given to us in the form of Kremlo the Slann and the Shrine of Rigg scenarios. Vikings in the lush jungles was very much in vogue!

To accompany the Shrine of Rigg we have a look at mixing science fiction into the fantasy world, a precursor to Rogue Trader where ancient cultures rub up against strange technologies.

Everyone's favourite fantasy setting (maybe) gets some love with a Minas Tirith siege which must have been enormous by the standards of the era.

The Book of Battalions contains the first Regiments of Renown to be seen in Warhammer, some of them continuing long into the game's future.

And another Paul Kirby image (Strata) to round off.

Each core volume has a synopsis of the To Hit and To Wound charts, shooting modifiers, combat resolution (when it came in) and saving throws. Because there are subtle changes, and not so subtle changes in the first few volumes!

Volume 2- Plothammer uses the endpages I salvaged from my 3rd Ed hardback (signed by Bryan Ansell and Kev Adams) and amalgamated with bits of the Armies endpages.

The second edition rules were also in a 3-book format.

And Norse and Slann returned once more in the Magnificent Sven scenario.

The reason for calling this edition 'Plothammer' was twofold. Firstly it follows the example of first edition in its focus on roleplay rather than pitched battles. Secondly there was a wealth of narrative scenarios produced for it. At a time when the Warhammer world was beginning to mesh together in coherency it was shaped by the publication of some important pieces of Oldhammer history.

 

The Riding was published to accompany the famous Townscapes card buildings. It seems incredibly hard to track down and in the end I settled on a print-out PDF which I was lucky enough to source online. It's entirely setting, detailing a region of what we'd now call the Empire along with the inhabitants of the small villages and their customs and traditions.

Orc's Drift has a character you might expect going by the names of its authors.

Terror of the Lichemaster introduced the infamous Heinrich Kemler (one M) who became a key character in the events of the Warhammer world right up until its end.

And, of course, McDeath with its literary references and terrible puns.

Next we have the Citadel Journals, included in this volume because it most closely matches their size, although the Journals required trimming to adequately match the rest of the text block. Fortunately they have wide margins.

The second Journal was a gift from the most-excellent Zhu and it only seemed right to keep his epistle in the canon. Especially as it is scribed on the reverse of a print of Tony Yates' artwork!

These shall not be cut out!

The wonderful and sadly unfinished saga of Kaleb Daark.

Thanks to BOYL the Arcane Armorials competitions sport entries by Tony Ackland...

...and Tony Yates. Sadly I was unable to get Wayne England's entry for the T-Shirt competition.

Excellent dioramas in true 80s style. Bet these aren't at Warhammer World.

And rounded off with another reference sheet. In these two editions there's no combat resolution modifiers, all the bonuses are applied in To Hit modifiers. Many of the Shooting Modifiers and Saving Throws, however, are largely unchanged all the way through the editions.

Next up, Volume 3- Oldhammer. Where it really begins.... ;)

Collected Warhammer Volumes part 9: Al ook through volumes 1 and 2.

Collected Warhammer Volumes part 8: Step through binding part 4- Fully ReCovered

 

Well it's been a few years in the pipeline and a good while since the last instalment of this series, but the Encyclopaedia Warhammica is finally all bound up! As you can see (squeezed in between my undead army and glacial lake- projects which I started in November and almost beat the Encyclopaedia to completion!) the 15 volumes look rather splendid in their various shades of leather. In the weeks to come I'll be taking a good look through the pages and charting the progress of Warhammer from 1st through to 8th edition, but first let's finish what we started and complete the rough guide to binding these mighty tomes.

 

When we left off last time the book was in the 'press' after having its boards glued on. Now, the last stage requires quite a lot of hands-on action, so not a lot of time to pause for photography and I'm afraid I will just have to try to explain the processes as best I can. 

 

Fixing the leather spine in place is the next point, and the place where it really begins looking like a book. Measure the height and width of your card spine and add about two inches to the width and 20-30cms to the height. This is to give you a good wide surface to stick to the boards. The leather you choose is quite important, it's going to form the hinge of the book so the thicker the book the thicker (stronger) the leather will need to be. Too stiff though and it will be hard to get it into shape. I got my leather from a local scrap store so couldn't be too choosy. Some of it was pretty hard to work with and I had to use bulldog clips to hold it while the glued dried. I don't recommend doing this as it marks the surface. The tan leather in the picture was a bit too soft on the other hand and loses its shape a little because of it.

The technique is to glue one edge of the leather onto a board. I choose the front one because this line you'll know will be even and it's more important for the front to look good. I think anyway. Once this is relatively set glue the spine of the book and the underside of the leather strip and start working the leather onto the spine. IMPORTANT BIT!: Make sure you pull the board away from the spine a bit and get the leather to stick to the edge of it and across a few millimetres of the fabric before it reaches the spine. Otherwise you'll find the board has to crease to open and it will wreck the cover and make using the book pretty hard. Working the leather over the spine pull fairly tight and keep rubbing down as you go. Once you've reached the other board repeat the process as with the front cover. Then use a curved clay shaper or rounded dowel to work the leather down into the corners and ridges, you don't want any voids underneath and the thick strips of leather underneath should be clearly defined. At this point I usually put the book back into a stack to keep it pressed down and wait a few hours for the glue to start going off. If you're feeling brave you can go straight onto the next step...

You should have a few centimetres of leather extending from the top and bottom of the book. This bit is a little fiddly, but persevere with it and don't be afraid to be a bit rough with the leather, it can take it! What you're looking to do is fold over the excess leather so that it lies over the underside of the boards but tucks inside itself on the outside of the spine. This is why it's best not to have the fabric hinge extend right to the edge of the spine, the leather needs some space to tuck through. You might have to prise back the leather from the top of the spine, that's ok, make sure you put a lot of glue down into the gap before tucking the excess in to it.

Return the book to the stack/press and wait for the glue to cure. Now your book is finished. But of course you'll want to make it prettier so we need to add covers, corners and endpages. I used wallpaper with images printed on and a glaze applied to seal as my covers, but you can use fabric, more leather, a poster, whatever you like really. It's just a case of gluing it in place and wrapping the edges around the boards onto the underside. You can use strips of card with a torn edge to blend your cover up to the thickness of the leather for a nice, flush look. I didn't in most cases because the leather I was using was so thick it would have looked sillier having the cover slope up to it than it did having the edge of the leather exposed.

To make the corners slice across the cover at the angle you want the corner to sit on. Don't cut the whole corner away, just remove whatever you covered it with and the top layer or two of the board to help the leather sit flush. Then cut four squares of leather with each side about 2cm wider than the hypotenuse of the corner. Glue these in place and allow the glue to set.

This bit is tricky to get neat. Make two cuts in the leather square so you have a strip which begins about 6-8mm wide at the corner of the board and ends about 20mm at the edge parallel to the hypotenuse. Fold this strip over and glue it to the board, pulling it pretty tight. Then fold each of the side flaps around the board and trim off the excess where they meet the strip you just glued down. Pull these in tight and glue them down, you should have something like this:

 

 

With a bit of glue and manipulation you can make the corner less square, it works best with soft, stretchy leather. Allow it to dry fully and trim the inside of the corner to a nice straight line, but allow at least a cm border from the edge of the board before you trim.

 

 

Now, endpages. The end of the process. I'm using posters but you can use marbled paper, plain coloured paper or anything else you like. First step is to cut the paper to a size a few centimetres larger than the width and height of your open book. Decide which half of the piece is going to glue to your board and cut this half to the size of the board minus about a cm border all the way around. Make sure you don't trim down the part of the endpages which will sit against the text block. Glue the endpages to the board, working it down into the crease between the board and the text block. Apply a thin strip of glue to the spine edge of the first page and rub the endpages down onto it. Press some waxed paper (or something else that is flat and won't stick to the endpages) into the crease between the board and text block and close the book. Now open it again and check there aren't any creases you need to press out. If everything's ok then close the book, press it and wait for the glue to set.

 

Once the glue is dry you will have a finished book with the edges of the endpages protruding from the sides of it. The last step is to turn the book so the text block is sitting on top of the endpages you need to trim and CAREFULLY run a scalpel around the edge of the text block to trim the endpages neatly to size. Use a sharp scalpel and place a cutting mat between the text block and the board to avoid cutting into your cover. Then, YOU'RE DONE.:)

 

Sorry it took a few years. Any questions (I may need to clarify a bit, it's hard without pictures) just comment and I'll do my best to explain. Rundown of each volume coming soon.



Collected Warhammer Volumes part 8: Step through binding part 4- Fully ReCovered

Collected Warhammer Volumes part 7: Step through binding part 3- Board yet?

Quick update with about as far as I'm likely to get before buzzing off to New Zealand.

This bit is optional, but to give the spine some interest I'm going to recreate the look of ancient bound books and put bars on the spine. This replicates the old practice of sewing gathers around thick twine which is then fixed into the boards.

The bars on my books are 5mm wide strips cut from some leftover thick hide I used to make some leather armour once.

These strips are glued at the desired intervals across the spine using PVA. Later on the title labels will fit between the strips.

Using a sharp scalpel the ends of the strips are tapered towards the edges of the spine...

...and the square edges are removed so that the leather that will be stretched over the top will have a nice curved contour.

Wrap clingfilm around the text block and secure with masking tape to make a kind of book condom. This will protect the text block from glue whilst you attach the boards.

The boards are 1000gsm recycled greyboard. Ideally I'd have gone for something a bit thicker, but these are OK and I struggled to find anything a bit chunkier without buying large quantities. For previous volumes I've got good covers from lever arch files and even recycling the boards from books I've dissected (like the WHFB3 and Armies boards).

Apply a liberal amount of glue to the fabric hinge, leaving a strip of 5-10mm between the board and spine so it can open freely. Apply glue to the same area of the board and press together. Use plenty of glue so that if (when!) you need to remove the board again because it's not straight or evenly spaced you will be able to.

Open the board and smooth down the fabric onto it. Then close it again, turn the book over and check you have an even amount of board all round the text block and it is sitting square to the spine. If not, peel it off and reapply. Keep the board pulled away from the spine, it's important the fabric doesn't stick to the edge of the board. Repeat with the other board, trying to keep it evenly aligned to the front one.

Once the boards are in places press the book firmly. I stack other books on top to keep it all pressed together. Remember to place something under the book you are binding and have the spine hanging over the end to prevent pressing it at an odd angle.

That's all for now. Hoepfully sometime soon into the new year I'll actually get the leather and covers on. Happy New Year!

Collected Warhammer Volumes part 7: Step through binding part 3- Board yet?