Mighty Old Empires

Mighty Old Empires

My Mighty Empires box is one of the few gaming relics I held on to through various purges and moves and fits of pique. No idea why I held on to it, but when my daughter was born I was like yeahhhh…we’re gonna play this someday.

Then, a few weeks ago, through sad circumstance I came into possession of another copy of ye olde Mighty Empires. The previous owner kept way better care of his stuff than I did, as you can see in the pictures. My box is just loose shit, his was bagged and well organized. It turns out his box was also hiding a copy of Dragon Masters, another Games Workshop title from 1990ish or so.

What a trip down memory lane! I found some copies of White Dwarf I had gotten with great little expansion rules articles. I remember using all of them. Issue 155 also has a big breakdown of new (!!!) miniatures they had released or would be releasing. I was probably in the midst of a divorce at the time, because I completely forgot such things existed.

So I ran off to eBay and, sure enough, Mighty Empires seems to have had quite a life after we parted ways. There was some big elaborate expansion box with 3d locking terrain tiles, of course all the expansion minis, campaign books. Good grief.

I remember getting, wow, hundreds of hours of pleasure out of just plain old Mighty Empires, without even bothering with the WHFB side of the whole thing. We played it entirely as a strategy game, not a campaign frame, and it was weird and completely unbalanced and so great. I cannot wait to see if my kiddo, who turns 7 in a few weeks, takes to it.

I think I’d added a fistful of Monopoly houses and hotels to stand in for extra villages and towns. I’m super excited to have a whole second box’s worth of bits! I might even get around to painting the rest of it someday.