The game was designed and published by two ex-Games Workshop (GW) employees who disagreed with the much more commercial direction that company was taking.

There was also a related range of Fantasy Warlord miniatures cast by Alternative Armies, and a magazine called Red Giant.

[4] Fantasy Warlord is a single softback book of 192-pages mostly printed in black and white with a Gary Chalk front cover.

Determining the abilities of troop is easy: you choose their morale class (A = veterans, B = trained or C = militia) weapons and armour from 11 different races (Human, Elves, Dwarfs, Orcs...).

Unlike Warhammer Fantasy Battle, movements are made simultaneously, the players using counters to issue orders.

The combat system does not rely solely on random results and copious dice rolling, but rather emphasises strategy and tactics, balanced races, and unit control in order to determine the outcome of a battle.

A science-fiction skirmish game probably based on Fantasy Warlord's system, High Command, was expected in 1992 but never released.

Those science-fiction figures are currently available from SHQ miniatures (Space Ratten, Saurian Militia and Human Earth Guard) Fantasy Warlord was not well received by critics, citing problems ranging from the racial-types not affecting melee, movement being overly complicated, and the cover artwork being "garish".

[5] According to Gary Chalk in a recent interview,[6] producing Fantasy Warlord cost him a lot of money and stress.

[8] Just like White Dwarf did in early ages of its existence, Red Giant made room for many games, such as AD&D, Runequest, Call of Cthulhu, Warhammer Fantasy Role-play and many others.

Actually, Red Giant was a sarcastic title, the exact opposite of White Dwarf, run by Games Workshop.

In this issue... Folio Works launched a full range of 28 mm metal miniatures simultaneously with the publication of the rulebook, produced under license exclusively by Alternative Armies.

It is unclear if this extra range was officially commercialised by Folio Works or cast and sold by Alternative Armies on its own initiative.