Warhammer: the Old World vs Dragonbane - which fantasy table do you want to sit at?

The short answer

Pick Dragonbane if you want to open a box on Friday evening, hand out the pregenerated characters and be fighting a troll by nine. It is fast, bright, a little mischievous, and everything you need is in one box.

Pick Warhammer: the Old World if you want a campaign that remembers you, in a world that does not. Your characters are ratcatchers and river wardens, not heroes, and the thing they stumbled onto in session one will still be hunting them in session twenty.

Both are fast, deadly, old-school-flavoured fantasy games from publishers who know exactly what they are doing. The difference is not the rules. It is the mood you want at the table.

What these two games have in common

Both are modern games with deep roots. Dragonbane is Free League's English reimagining of Drakar och Demoner, the Swedish game that has been "Sweden's D&D" since 1982; the box arrived in 2023. Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game is Cubicle 7's new take on a setting that has been the home of grim fantasy since 1986; it appeared digitally in 2025 and in print in early 2026.

Both are roll-under games at heart, which means your character sheet tells you your chances straight away. Both make combat quick and dangerous: one bad round can end a character, and neither game apologises for it. Both use a mechanic that looks like D&D's advantage and disadvantage but does it with a twist: Dragonbane rolls twice with boons and banes, Warhammer rerolls your failures or your successes with Glorious and Grim tests. And both let you play the classic fantasy cast, humans, dwarfs, elves, halflings, without turning anyone into a demigod.

If you have played Dungeons & Dragons and want something leaner and more dangerous, either of these is a good next step. The question is which direction you want to lean.

Where they really differ

The dice. Dragonbane rolls one d20 and wants it low: your skill is a number from 1 to 18, and you succeed by rolling under it. A natural 1 is a dragon, something wonderful happens; a 20 is a demon, something terrible does. Warhammer rolls a handful of d10s, as many as your Characteristic, and counts every die that comes in under your Skill as a success. One success passes, more successes do it better. Dragonbane is one clean number; Warhammer is a fistful of dice and a feeling of weight behind every attempt.

The wound. Dragonbane has hit points, low ones, and damage that bites. Warhammer has no hit points at all. Lose an opposed roll and you are Staggered; get Staggered again and you must give ground, fall, or take a Wound, and a Wound is a roll on a table that runs from a bloodied face to a lost arm. In Dragonbane you can count how close you are to death. In Warhammer you can only count how many bad things have already happened to you.

The world. Dragonbane's Misty Vale is classic fantasy with the colour turned up: ruins, dragons, a demon or two, and a tone the publisher calls mirth and mayhem. It is dangerous, but it is not cruel. Warhammer's Old World is a mirror of Europe around 1500 with the rot showing: an empire with no emperor, cults in the cellars, and a port town where everyone knows your name and someone is already selling it. Dragonbane wants you to laugh in the dungeon. Warhammer wants you to whisper in the alley.

The campaign. The Dragonbane box holds eleven adventures that chain into one long story, Secret of the Dragon Emperor, plus a solo booklet for the nights nobody else can make it. You can play it as a string of one-shots or as a campaign; the box does not mind. Warhammer is built for the long haul from the first session. Every group starts with a Grim Portent, the moment the characters see something they should not have, and from there the GM pulls on Dark Threads: a web of factions, contacts and conspiracies in the town of Talagaad. Your career gives you a shop, a farm or a small vicious terrier, and the enemy can take all of them away. Dragonbane gives you adventures. Warhammer gives you a life, and then threatens it.

The box. Dragonbane is a complete game in one box: rulebook, adventures, map, cards, dice, standees and a battle mat. Warhammer is two hardcover books, a Player's Guide and a Gamemaster's Guide, and you bring your own d10s, more of them than you might expect. One is a Friday-night kit; the other is a library.

What it feels like at the table

A Dragonbane session moves. Initiative comes from a deck of cards, so the order of battle changes every round, and a fight is usually over in minutes. Players laugh when the dragon shows up on the die and groan when the demon does. The GM reads a short adventure and runs it; preparation is measured in minutes.

A Warhammer session simmers. Dice pools take a moment longer, and the Staggered rule means every fight is a decision about how far you dare to push. Between fights the table talks: who owes whom, which contact can be trusted, whether the priest is lying. Players keep a list of injuries, because in this game the scars are the character sheet. The GM keeps the Dark Threads moving between sessions, and the town changes whether the players are watching or not.

Neither is better. Dragonbane is a game you can bring to a table of strangers; Warhammer is a game you commit to with the same four people for a season.

What you actually need to buy

For Dragonbane, the Core Set, and that is honestly it: the rulebook is in the box, the dice are in the box, the first eleven adventures are in the box. The hardcover Rulebook and the Bestiary are for groups who want a sturdier book on the table and more monsters, but neither is required to start.

For Warhammer, the Player's Guide and the Gamemaster's Guide together make the complete game. The Player's Guide has character creation, the rules, magic and the gods; the Gamemaster's Guide has the Grim Portents, the Dark Threads, Talagaad and the bestiary. You can buy them separately, which is handy if more than one player wants their own Player's Guide, or together in the Collector's Edition, a foil-stamped slipcase with exclusive woodcut-style covers. Add a handful of ten-sided dice.

Price-wise, Dragonbane's box costs about as much as one of Warhammer's two books, so the Warhammer entry is roughly double, and the Collector's Edition is a shelf piece with a shelf-piece price.

Choose Dragonbane if... Choose Warhammer: the Old World if...

Choose Dragonbane if you want to be playing within the hour, if your group changes from week to week, if you like your fantasy dangerous but good-humoured, or if you want a box that also plays solo on a quiet evening. It is the better game for a new GM and the easier game to bring to a club night.

Choose Warhammer: the Old World if you want a long campaign with a town that remembers what you did, if your group likes intrigue as much as combat, if you want your characters to be ordinary people who may not survive the second session, and if a bleak world is a feature rather than a bug. It is the better game for a steady group and a GM who enjoys tending a web of threads between sessions.

If what you really want is Warhammer's darkness without the campaign machinery, Mörk Borg is the third door: the same bleakness, in a faster and stranger package.

Where to start at Netherbook

Start with the Dragonbane Core Set or with the Warhammer Player's Guide and Gamemaster's Guide, or the Collector's Edition if you want both books in one slipcase. Our Dragonbane starter guide and our Warhammer: the Old World starter guide explain both systems in more detail, and if you want to know how the Old World was destroyed in 2015 and came back, that story is in From End Times to Old World. For the wider picture, browse our Fantasy collection, or see how Dragonbane fares against the other big fantasy box in Daggerheart vs Dragonbane.

Dragonbane is for this Friday. Warhammer is for the winter.