What is this Japanese Warhammer book?

[EGG]

It is:
a) Japanese
b) Has the 1994 4th Ed Undead book cover, but with some extra trimming
c) Has pictures of 5th Ed minis on the back and uses the 5th Ed Warhammer logo
d) Is copyright dated 1999?

I don't know if this is a VC book with a different cover and name, or something else? It's on ebay, so sadly they haven't bothered taking any photos from inside.
Anyone seen anything like this before?

 

[ManicMan]

lets see.. my Japanese isn't fantastic but..
1999 Released Undead Army Book.. that's pretty clear.. made for the Japanese market by the flag ... mm.. 'Japanese Original'? that's... interesting..

Cover... ugh.. Warhammer Supplement.. no kidding.. Undead Army Guide! ... wow.. ¬_¬ no information on the front and the back is the same standard stuff.. so personally? It's just the current years army book in Japanese. No numbers (for versions) i can see on the back but then, they didn't do that for English releases either ¬_¬ but then to an extent, it doesn't matter.. you can use older for newer, little changes really.. I would have thought maybe a 'compatible with' but like I said.. Games workshop has never been big on that..

Mm.. never noticed before that Slottabase is a registered trademark of Games Workshop..

 

[Eric]

It seems from the text on the front and back to be an army book, but that's just from throwing cropped bits of the images through OCR and google translate. As to version - quite possibly 5th then based on the logos. Would have been intestine to see how much the internal layout had to be altered to accommodate the script.

 

[ManicMan]

Japanese auctions (be is eBay or one of the others) are known for.. crap information.. Japanese don't seam big on decent photos and information.. which is weird seeing how info heavy alot of the japanese stuff is..

AH.. looking around.. Bingo! searching for it on Japanese sites under it's Japanese name (ウォーハンマー アンデッド アーミーガイド)
It is for the Initial Japanese release of Warhammer Fantasy Battle, and it is a Supplement for 4th Edition. which was the Initial Japanese release. Not sure why but it was. Can't remember when they through out 5th Ed but either they were just getting it out so it's why they updated the logo but not the contents, or it was work on a logo that was being gotten ready.. or they just decided to release old stuff on to the Japanese market. Can pick up a copy for 9,800 yen + shipping.. screw it if i'm gonna spend about £100 on it.. (9,800 is .. just over £50)

 

[EGG]

Hunting around some more, I can find a Japanese Lizardman, High Elf, Dwarf and Skaven book in the same front-cover formatting. Lizardmen didn't exist in 4th and Skaven never got a 5th Ed book.

They've put a lot of work into the internal layout also, it's not just Kanji/Katakana mashed into the original formatting. I can also see that Movement on the statline seems to be in centimeters, Skaven and High Elves seem to have a base movement of 10.

 

[ManicMan]

nice. Base movement of 10.. that's.. just under 5 inchs.. (about 4 inchs) so.. not too bad.. I don't know anyone right now in Japan and sure as not in the miniature gaming market, so it's a hard think to find out much about.. looks like they mostly did 4ed but picked and choose stuff? maybe mostly a mix of 4ed and 5ed.. Undead, like Skaven, just used the 4ed book for 5ed, so i think was still being published (as with Orcs & Goblins, Empire, Dark Elves, Chaos Dwarfs and Wood Elves I believe). I think I saw a 'Warhammer Heroes' book which just had special characters which seamed to include empire, Skaven and a few in Japanese.. Didn't that start in 5ed when they started doing books just with special characters as supplements for the supplements.

 

[Loose Loser]

This should be 5th edition if you take back cover image ( Vampire Lord "The Red Duke", Ghouls from 5th edition, Armoured Skeletons that are also 5th edition, Wight Cavalry also 5th edition ).

There is 5th edition Undead army book. Got one. 1997 released. Cover and all are the same. No Magic inside the army book that was in 4th edition since you got one big supplement for Magic so they put three new special characters that are Banshee ( later as choose unit type in Vampire Counts ), Red Duke that is Vampire Lord and third was some dreaded bloke riding nightmare or skeleton steed ( I think ex Bretonnian bloke ). Kemmler is more expensive in points, and I think Zombies can surround enemy regiment, I think, not sure.

Also you can spot 5th edition Undeads ( whole 5th edition Undead book is few colours, different miniatures photos also ) by colour scheme as they later opted ( around 1997 ) for those "few colours combo". No more Rio de Janeiro, unfortunately.

Chaos had in 5th edition book all about their special characters as 5th edition army book didn't have any.

 

[EGG]

Huh. I had been wondering recently if maybe there had been a 5th Ed Undead book.

I realised a while ago that I have a 5th Ed Skaven book, it has an identical front/rear cover to the 4th book, but the Magic Items use the later style of formatting. Other than that there's no difference that I can tell (although I haven't checked closely), bar some changes to the inside title page, like dropping Bryan Ansell's name as game design consultant.

Could you post a pic of the inner title page? E.g. this is from the 4th Ed book.

 

[Loose Loser]

Here you go. That Black Knight special character is that Wight Lord on Skeleton Steed, I think.

Inner and few of splash screens, also special character pages.

 

[Loose Loser]

Funny stuff on the back. Everything is 5th edition on the back image except Zombies ( and that's a good thing hehe ). Was mentioned before, publishing year is 1999, year when Vampire Counts came out. I think Skeleton plastic regiment box was released in 1998 but not sure, and Zombies follow little bit later. Must be prepared for printing and all that and was too late to take another image with new Zombies?

 

[Loose Loser]

Also, I think that as said before, Undead Guide ( Japanese always got guides or something like that, mook like and all that ). P2+ and all that I assume are pages. So this could be some sort of showcase for possible Undead players.

 

[EGG]

Thanks for that. Those Banshee rules are interesting, they're the same as the rules listed in the "Circle of Blood" scenario supplement, but completely different to the later Vampire Count book Banshee.