Tamurkhan is the first book Forgeworld have released for Warhammer Fantasy Battle and with a lot of great titles out for Warhammer 40k it has a lot to live up to. The book tells the story of Tamurkhan, favoured of Nurgle, as he rampages across the Warhammer world. It includes rules for armies as well as rules and ideas for campaigns and battles.
It cost me $80 AU to get the book here which is quite expensive though still cheaper than buying from a Games Workshop store here. It took 22 days to arrive so you'll have to decide if you want to pay the approximately $22 more or wait the 22 days. For the most part the book is a beautiful piece of art, I'm no expert on the subject but most of the art at least looks like it was painstakingly hand-painted, which is gorgeous but some of the art looks like cheap CGI which takes away from the feel of the book. The book also saw the release of a lot of cool models to accompany it and one thing that is really disappointing is that there are no cool pics of these minis included. I understand that in 40k the battle images we see are supposed to be photos taken for records and in the fantasy world photography hasn't been invented but this is a magical world so surely there is a way around it.
The story is quite engaging and it definitely makes me want to participate in a large scale campaign. Where it goes in to detail it really shines however, sometimes it mentions events in passing in a really cheap way; mighty battle was fought, people died, etc., that and the far too often saying "battle was joined" get on my nerves. Overall though the story is great with all the bloody details you could crave and a compelling plot that involves most of the races to be found in the Warhammer world. Anybody who is a fan of any part of Chaos is bound to like it, unless of course you hate Nurgle. Maps are included to help you get an idea of where the story is taking place and how the mighty army flows across the land. The story is divided into six chapters and each of these chapters has a campaign battle idea included after the story.
The rules are the true crux of the book and they come in a range of varieties. The book has rules for a Tamurkhan led Warriors of Chaos army, a rival Empire army and making their reappearance in the Warhammer world a Chaos Dwarf army. I think all of the armies are very characterful and I am especially a fan of the Chaos Dwarf army rules. With such great models out for them I wouldn't be surprised if this marked the comeback of the dark Dwarves. The book also features some really cool rules for united Chaos armies mixing soldiers from, Chaos Warriors, Daemons, Beastmen and the new Chaos Dwarves. These 'Great Hosts of Chaos' are made up of sworn units and antagonistic units, with the possibility of the whole army coming undone if things do not go to plan. Great Hosts come in five varieties, one each for the gods of Chaos and the final for Chaos gods united. Beastmen heroes can only lead a Chaos united host, though their units can be included as part of any other host. There are also no new Beastmen units offered here despite every other chaos faction getting new units or an entire army list in the case of Chaos Dwarves. Forgeworld will just have to do better next time. The campaign is fairly open to allow for a lot of different armies to battle it out across the included scenarios. There are also some scrolls of binding included at the back because hey, they might as well cram as much in as possible.
It is a cool book, with a lot of background, colourful art and tonnes of rules but there are a couple of things that stop it from being perfect, high cost, no pictures of models (poor Beastmen support) and the fact that some people may find it hard to read because of the worn look of each page. Accounting for all these things Tamrukhan: The Throne of Chaos gets 8.5.
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