Linking games through a story, map or some other method is considered the ideal way to enjoy Warhammer: the Old World by many players. In such campaigns, each individual game represents but one battle fought in an ongoing war and there are plenty of excuses to enjoy challenging and varied games.

Many stories of the Warhammer world are told through campaign books, supplements and other publications which present exciting tales of epic deeds. Such publications present rules for recreating famous battles of history, translating them from the page to the tabletop.

Often, campaigns are about conquering lands, with each player controlling multiple armies of the same faction, located in different regions. Each rival faction attempts to build its own dominion, increasing the size and strength of its armies and holdings. Such campaigns quickly turn bloody, as armies march forth to invade the lands of their neighbours.

As victorious armies seize land, the defeated forces must retreat, regroup and rebuild their strength. This adds new strategic and tactical challenges as a player attempts to outmanoeuvre and outmatch their foes on the campaign map as well as the battlefield.

Campaigns can be complex, involving many battles over many months and including rules for lines of supply, sieges, allies and spies, perhaps even random events such as plagues or rampaging monsters. Alternatively, a campaign can be quite a simple affair, with only a few parameters influencing the scenarios used in a small number of linked games.