Role-Playing with Warhammer

Firsthammer Adventure Gaming
The first edition of Warhammer is titled Warhammer: The Mass Combat Fantasy Role-Playing Game and includes rules for dungeon delving and character advancement as well as tabletop miniatures battles involving troop units and leader personality figures. Using the game to role-play in the traditional sense requires a bit of effort on the part of the referee, but is supported. Like TSR's White Box this GW "white box" leaves a few things undefined. Filling in rules where I think the game may need them is part of what I enjoy about the White Box(s).
Vol. 3: Characters explains how to roll up a player character, including random numbers for stats like Initiative, Strength, Toughness, Weapon Skill and so forth. Firsthammer uses the familiar Warhammer stat line (that has appeared in every version of the game since Firsthammer), with the exception of Toughness being a letter rather than a number, but the concept works the same. Characters may be a Fighter/Warrior or a Wizard. Races include Humans, Elves (supermen!) and Dwarves. Background Professions give the character some skill. Psychology is an interesting part of the game and allows for characters and monsters to lose morale and run away.  Some creatures project fear or terror and cause opponents to runaway before the fight begins. Other situations such as loss of a leader, wounds or loss of companions may cause a morale test and result in fleeing or surrendering.
The concept of Life Force is introduced in Vol 1: Tabletop Battles and we learn all characters have a Life Force score and that casting spells deducts points from Life Force equal to the Magic Points spent. Humans, Dwarfs and Elfs all roll differently for starting Life Force, Human - d10 x 200, Dwarf  - 2d6 x 200 and Elf - 2d6 x 200. Necromancers may drain Life Force from victims and add a d6 x 100 pts. to their own total. Life Force is connected to aging, but there are no specifics given in the rules as written beyond this point. There are a number of ways aging through use of Life Force could be handled. A simple solution could set percentages, such as at 50% the character appears old from then on. Another use of the Life Force can be to add a random mutation table such that excessive use (10% or more in a day?) of Life Force may result in hair turning white, eyes starting to glow, skin becoming scaly, growing a forked tongue, tail, horns or claws. Tentacles or bat wings seem a bit too extreme to me, but may be appealing to some.
Experience is earned for killing or capturing enemies, surviving an adventure, and for acquiring gold. Fighters and Wizards advance separately on their own tables with Fighters gaining Initiative when reaching the second level while Wizards gain Constitution (Magic points). Additional advances entitle the character to add to specified attributes or skills. Men, Elves and Dwarves all vary in terms of their maximum levels of advancement. Firsthammer lends itself naturally to houseruling and the addition of subclasses could easily be done thereby customizing the rules to better fit a certain milieu. Foresters, Clerics, Witches, Thieves, Paladins and other specialized characters could have their own advancement tables. Skill lists could be expanded and skills rolls added. Keeping the skill mechanic consistent with a d6 roll seems logical.
The combat system is the standard roll a d6 per attack that anyone familiar with later editions of Warhammer will recognize. The d6 mechanic is simple to grasp, but each plus or minus one modifier changes the odds by 16%, so there is nothing subtle here. Armor entitles the character to a save and toughness can turn a successful attack into an insignificant scratch or bruise. Most characters only have a single Wound however, so getting wounded takes one out of the fight (in most cases). In the regular mass combat game, a Wound is the same as being dead, but for role-play an injury table is available that elaborates on what a wound means for your character (broken jaw, etc.). Results are given in terms of Severity, Discription, Out of Action, Time to Recover, lasting Effects and ultimate Risk of Death. Warhammer First Edition (Firsthammer) is a deadly game even with the mitigation of the Injuries table.
Initiative determines who strikes first in combat as well as how quickly the character may react to changing situations. In situations where the party is surprised Initiative can be houseruled as playing a part. Initiative can be used as a mechanism for determining a characters ability to use reflexes and quickly react to sprung traps or ambushing monsters. Initiative can also be used to determine ability to quickly puzzle through a situation demanding quick thinking. Strength, Toughness and other ability scores can serve similar game functions by applying some creative rulings.
Vol. 3: Characters contains a chapter titled Creating Adventures and though brief, it gives some good ideas for possible missions such as rescuing a "lovely Italian princess", exploration of an island, dangerous territory or a dungeon, an assassination or kidnapping, "or anything you like!" A cost table is provided for equipment along with rates of pay for one's "profession" or job which can be used to expand into an economic system if desired. Additional material to assist the referee in running traditional role-play sessions includes encounter charts and treasure tables along with a sample adventure, The Redwake River Valley.
Firsthammer offers both a tabletop battle experience and small group role-playing both using miniature figures, something rather unique in the hobby and something more common in the early days. Player characters act as leaders of units of figures on a battlefield adding a dimension to play which I don't see much anymore. a couple years later Games Workshop (GW) would separate the Fantasy Battle line from the Fantasy Role-Play line of products with publication of Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing in 1986. The grim, gritty world which first sees light in Firsthammer supplements and came to be known as "The Old World" in later GW products has become one of the most recognizable of game milieux.
As a role-playing game, Firsthammer offers a lot of the style and tools I appreciate in a game. It's a do-it-yourself box full of inspiration and encourages the player characters to be involved in the milieu in ways not often explored, that of leading troops into battle. The mechanics are straight-forward and easy to add to or modify and although rolling a single d6 has its limitations, there is a certain accessibility it provides.
The later Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing (WHFRP) line of products has seen three major editions and as many publishers. GW itself chose to focus exclusively on miniatures games and first farmed-out WHFRP to Hogshead Publishers, then to Green Ronin and Fantasy Flight. I have read rumors that Cubicle 7 now has the rights to WHFRP and may release a new edition this fall (Gencon?). I am looking forward to that.