Basically as in the title, what edition(s) of 40k is generally accepted to correspond with the term 'oldhammer/retrohammer'?

Because ive heard over the last decade some people say its 1st ed. Others say its 2nd-3rd. Others 2nd-4th. Others say its anything pre5th. Others say anything pre-8th.

What is the 2025 consensus?

This really depends on a few key factors

1) The age of the person responding

2) When they first got into Warhammer

3) IF they consider Oldhammer to be a date/age mark or if they consider it in relation to their own interests



Eg someone who played in 3rd edition might consider 2 and 1 to be oldhammer but not 3 and beyond.
Meanwhile someone who played 5th edition might consider 1-4 to be Oldhammer.

Then you'll have those who put a rough date on it - say ever game 10 years older or more; or every before the last 2 or 3 editions etc....

1st and 2nd. I will reluctantly concede the possibility that 3rd might qualify as well

The main point for me is that 1st and 2nd edition were radically different from 3rd. Everything that has come since has essentially been expansions and iterations on 3rd edition, so I bundle everything from 3rd onwards as "newhammer" and 1st and 2nd are "oldhammer" not in a purely chronological definition but in the same way New Coke was different from old Coke (and Modern Coke is different to New Coke) - the formula changed.

So when someone says Oldhammer I'm imagining goblin green bases, everyone using flock, skirmish-level battles, occasionally wacky elements, no tournaments (I'm sure there probably were tournaments in 2nd edition but nowhere NEAR the prominence they rose to), a very casual game driven by narrative, Stillmania and weird conversions

Newhammer is, to me, taking itself much more seriously, and that's where the break occurs. It's about tournaments and base size restrictions and squeezing value out of every point and TLOS/Blast Marker arguments.
I reluctantly included 3rd because I know that's where some people consider the break to be, but I was around for it and there wasn't much of a distinction between 3rd and 4th, especially as 3rd had rules revisions and expansions along the way.
Also because this extends further than mere background (although it's a factor) you might have a better response in 40k general discussions than here.

I doubt we'll reach consensus though

Charax wrote:
1st and 2nd. I will reluctantly concede the possibility that 3rd might qualify as well

The main point for me is that 1st and 2nd edition were radically different from 3rd. Everything that has come since has essentially been expansions and iterations on 3rd edition, so I bundle everything from 3rd onwards as "newhammer" and 1st and 2nd are "oldhammer" not in a purely chronological definition but in the same way New Coke was different from old Coke (and Modern Coke is different to New Coke) - the formula changed.

So when someone says Oldhammer I'm imagining goblin green bases, everyone using flock, skirmish-level battles, occasionally wacky elements, no tournaments (I'm sure there probably were tournaments in 2nd edition but nowhere NEAR the prominence they rose to), a very casual game driven by narrative, Stillmania and weird conversions

Newhammer is, to me, taking itself much more seriously, and that's where the break occurs. It's about tournaments and base size restrictions and squeezing value out of every point and TLOS/Blast Marker arguments.
I reluctantly included 3rd because I know that's where some people consider the break to be, but I was around for it and there wasn't much of a distinction between 3rd and 4th, especially as 3rd had rules revisions and expansions along the way.
Also because this extends further than mere background (although it's a factor) you might have a better response in 40k general discussions than here.

I doubt we'll reach consensus though

Im gonna be weird and say i exclude 1st edition entirely purely because of how radically different it was. To me, retrohammer/oldhammer is 2nd. Posssssibly 3rd and 4th, even though the transition between 3-->3.5-->4 is much 'lighter' than 2nd -->3rd. In my opinion

According to my research the exact line was actually the change from the 3.5 Chaos codex to the 4e Chaos codex.

And that fact has nothing to do with it ruining my Alpha Legion army, I'm unbiased. There was a shift in attitude from GW throughout that time period but nowhere was it shown as starkly as with those two codices. The previous attitude was much more favorable towards customization, wargear, optional rules and army lists, conversions and even scratch-builds, ongoing campaigns, and building "fluffy" armies. The later attitude was much more about tournament lists, building models as instructed, using GW's special characters, and playing balanced symmetrical missions in isolated games.

There's still a tension between those two philosophies to this day but there was a definite pivot to favoring the latter in the middle of 4e.

 Orkeosaurus wrote:
According to my research the exact line was actually the change from the 3.5 Chaos codex to the 4e Chaos codex.

And that fact has nothing to do with it ruining my Alpha Legion army, I'm unbiased. There was a shift in attitude from GW throughout that time period but nowhere was it shown as starkly as with those two codices. The previous attitude was much more favorable towards customization, wargear, optional rules and army lists, conversions and even scratch-builds, ongoing campaigns, and building "fluffy" armies. The later attitude was much more about tournament lists, building models as instructed, using GW's special characters, and playing balanced symmetrical missions in isolated games.

There's still a tension between those two philosophies to this day but there was a definite pivot to favoring the latter in the middle of 4e.

The 3.5 to 4.0 is a range ive heard. A lot. I do believe 5th marked the 'end of a era'

See whilst I can understand that divide I still recall the 3rd edition Tyranid codex that had a whole custom fleet builder in the back where you could change almost every stat and ability. It was - well - yes you could do fluffy things. You could also do insanely broken things.


I guess I've always approached the game/hobby in that the rules should be or always work best when they provide an even level playing field and then if you want ot homebrew a load of stuff you do it yourself; you don't need a book to tell you you can do it.

I personally split it from Oldhammer (1e and 2e), Middlehammer (3e to 7e) and Newhammer (8e onwards). I started at the end of 2e and 3e to 5e were my heyday in the hobby. I tailed off hard for 6e and 7e due to disliking the shifting scale of the game already clear in late 5e. So when I think of the 'good old days' it's that time I am thinking of.

 Da Boss wrote:
I personally split it from Oldhammer (1e and 2e), Middlehammer (3e to 7e) and Newhammer (8e onwards). I started at the end of 2e and 3e to 5e were my heyday in the hobby. I tailed off hard for 6e and 7e due to disliking the shifting scale of the game already clear in late 5e. So when I think of the 'good old days' it's that time I am thinking of.

I honestly felt there's a wee bit of a jump between 4th and 5th edition. 5th felt very different to 2nd, and third for that matter. I didnt even play 6th🤣

Not being there obviously, i've found that when reading other's comments on this here forum for a long time, the pivots are 2nd edition and 5th edition. Both moments when the game changed direction. It has seemed to me that these are the treshholds people will define old hammer with, that is, oldhammer end either with 2nd or 5th.

That's nothing but the impression I've got navigating this forum though, so take it with the whole tetrapack of salt.

 Da Boss wrote:
I personally split it from Oldhammer (1e and 2e), Middlehammer (3e to 7e) and Newhammer (8e onwards). I started at the end of 2e and 3e to 5e were my heyday in the hobby. I tailed off hard for 6e and 7e due to disliking the shifting scale of the game already clear in late 5e. So when I think of the 'good old days' it's that time I am thinking of.

That seems pretty apt to me.

For me I think it’s more a time period than a game edition.

I just missed the end of Rogue Trader, to the point we’d gone to Brighton to buy it, and were told it’s out of stock, as a new edition is releasing soon. And so it was 2nd Ed 40K I got started with.

But there was also 2nd Ed Epic, Tyranid Attack, Man’o’War, Necromunda, WHFB 4th Ed, Warhammer Quest to occupy my friends an I’s time.

All to the back drop of what’s widely considered White Dwarf’s heyday under Paul Sawyer and Robin Dews.

That whole period (probably 1992-1998) is, for me, the classic period.

Then came the dark times, then came The Empire 3rd Ed. Witness its bland, uninteresting rules. Behold its skinny, largely uninspiring Codexes. Regard the overall banality.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Not being there obviously, i've found that when reading other's comments on this here forum for a long time, the pivots are 2nd edition and 5th edition. Both moments when the game changed direction. It has seemed to me that these are the treshholds people will define old hammer with, that is, oldhammer end either with 2nd or 5th.

That's nothing but the impression I've got navigating this forum though, so take it with the whole tetrapack of salt.

I concur.

1st/2nd are solidly oldhammer. Can’t see many arguments against 2nd in the category.

Is 3rd? Maybe. I’d say so. And if you include 3rd, spiritually 4th and 5th are refinements of the same core.

While 6-7th share the same framework, they felt different. Like the management had taken over from the gamers. They looked largely similar, but the soul was changed.

8th+ are right out for consideration as old. Or even middle hammer.

If you are just binary new/old hammer, I could see up to 5th.
If you include middle hammer as a concept, you might draw a harder line at 2nd.

I’m honestly having a hard time pinning my feelings down to vote.

I could get behind 3-5th being Middlehammer with a hard line after 2nd for Oldhammer

End of 1st (call it 1.5 - Battle Manual & Vehicle Manual era and everyone's on lovely clean Goblin Green bases) and most of 2nd, along with Epic.

Because that's what I played as nipper. By 3rd I was chasing girls (not literally)... of course, then I came back sometime during 7th, so you can imagine my surprise..

There is now twice as much time between 3rd edition release and today than between Rogue Trader and 3rd ed, I feel like not including it in oldhammer is more down to personal bias only.

Charax wrote:
I could get behind 3-5th being Middlehammer with a hard line after 2nd for Oldhammer

Im inclined to say Middlehammer is 5th edition to 7th edition.

I suppose one could place 4th in there as well.

Interestingly ive heard some say 7th should be considered newhammer purely because of all the new changes circa 7.5

the-gentleman-ranker wrote:
Basically as in the title, what edition(s) of 40k is generally accepted to correspond with the term 'oldhammer/retrohammer'?

Because ive heard over the last decade some people say its 1st ed. Others say its 2nd-3rd. Others 2nd-4th. Others say its anything pre5th. Others say anything pre-8th.

What is the 2025 consensus?

Given we're in the 40k Background forum, are you meaning from a background perspective or a mechanics perspective? I'm seeing responses for both so far.

And if you're meaning mechanics, this should probably be in a different bit of t'forum.

I propose a different definition for the eras. I belive (although someone may know better), that what I think of as the 40k "Golden Era" is roughly commesurate with Andy Chambers being near to or at the helm of the design team. I think that's about late RT through the middle or end of 4th edition. Late Rogue Trader saw a lot of things fall into place for 40k, and then late 4th seems to be when a different flavor of design began to take hold. That's when options started being culled from codexes and the sense of balance started to waver considerably. You might call that 2nd through 4th time "The Chambers Years".

I think of "oldhammer" as being a catch-all for 40k up through and including 5th ed only because the 3-5 systems were fairly compatable even if the codex styles and balance fluctuated quite a bit, but late 4th itself is the end of a sort of "golden era". Early Rogue Trader is so different than late Rogue Trader that I think of early RT as "proto-40k", really.

Another personality that can't be ignored from those early days is Jes Goodwyn. By late RT his designs for Space Marines and Eldar had taken hold and set the stage for the next two decades.

It's clearly RT And 2nd.

Third edition was a massive change in aesthetics and mechanics of the game.

We're far enough along that people who started in 3-5th might be getting nostalgic for those editions but that doesn't make them "Oldhammer".

^Heh. I was getting nostalgic for 4th ed during 6th.

1st and 2nd definitely fall under the term, 3rd is reasonably under the term but there's more of a greyzone there because 3rd ed's aesthetics is the foundation for by now most of 40K's lifespan.

If you want to, you can make a distinction between early 3rd ed and late 3rd ed. The style did shift as new codexes were published.

to me its 1st edition, without a doubt. 2nd edition is basically just a cleanup of the last 1st edition rules introduced in WH40K Battle Manual (1992), so to me it doesn't even count as its own edition, if we use the current convention of describing major and minor editions.

I suppose the larger cutoff point is somewhere around 3rd edition, when the game size upped radically and focus went from a couple squads duking it out into more larger forces we know today. But in the same way some people today consider 9th edition a cleanup of 8th edition, I consider 2nd edition a cleanup of 1st edition (larger paradigm shift in 2nd edition than the rules themselves being the elimination of GM and RPG narrative elements from the game, rules notsomuch)

RT-2nd.

In my opinion 40k is marked by 4 game paradigms representing the way the game was presented, written and sold.

87-98 1st and 2nd
98-2012 3rd to 5th
2012-2017 6th to 7th
2017-2023 8th to 9th

10th is now arguably a new paradigm, but could slot into the previous.


People don't remember that 1st ed was turning into 2nd ed in WD and supplement releases years before 2nd ed was released. The only time 1st ed was truly the crazy GM led edition it was, was in the first year after it released. It quickly changed after that.

although the game used the same core from 3 to 7, they did some internal tweaking at 6th that changed it quite a lot (melee weapons with AP for example). 3-5 was relatively minimalist in size and detail. 6th dumped a whole bunch of rules and detail into that core that changed it greatly.


I say this because 'oldhammer' to me is tied to paradigms as well as years. The core of 3rd was the same as 5th, but there's a 14 year gap between when 3rd ed began and 5th ended and the 3rd ed core survived up until the mid 2010s when 8th came in.

I can't see you playing 3rd ed as oldhammer when you're playing effectively the same game as someone playing 5th in 2012 (6th came out in June 2012), making that paradigm only 13 years old. If you keep 6-7 as part of the same paradigm given they used the same core, it's even more recent (8 years ago).

2nd ed ceased in 1998, which is now 27 years ago and no later paradigm is like it.

Basically, if the end of the paradigm is recent, the earliest point of the paradigm is cancelled out for old hammer. There are generations between the end of 2nd and now, there aren't for the end of 3-5/6/7.

A 12 year old in 2012 playing 5th along side a 24 year old and a 36 year old, means the younger is now 25 and the elder is 49, while only the elder would be able to have encountered 2nd ed at all (the 24 year old might have experienced 2nd ed when they were 10?).

Having started in late 5th/early 7th, I can't speak to the 5th to 6th changeover. I was under the impression that the basics were the same.

Though with 9th to 10th, I would class that as a large but not fundamental revision. There were lots of little changes, but functionally, the main change was just letting Characters lead squads again. A lot else was just numerical tweaking and cleaning up.

Simple answer, Rogue Trader and 2nd edition, and as a true simple answer, I have so many exceptions to that rule that it's useless. It's a frustratingly nebulous mix of monopose plastic rank fillers and metal characters, five pages of rules for the Shokk Attack Gun, and lore of a galaxy lit only by fire where the heroes all failed millennia ago and all that's left is ignorance and superstition raging against a slowly encroaching defeat they don't understand was set in stone before they were born. It's anything that makes me think 'oh yeah, I remember that', except the ones that don't quite seem to fit with the 'old' stuff - it's the boxnoughts, even the Venerable Dreadnought that's still available (if it would ever move out of 'temporarily out of stock' so I could buy one), but not the Tacticals that came in the 3rd edition box (no matter how much I love them too). It's 'the way things were' even though they never quite were that, I'm just looking back and interpolating everything I like in the modern game and products into the frame that used to be. It's based on feels, or as that old judge said, "I know it when I see it."

There is also the relativity of the concept. I was discussing it in an abstract objective perspective, while from an individual perspective oldhammer will be whatever edition/paradigm gives you that nostalgia feel.

everyone will have that first encounter nostalgia feel regardless of the edition. That feeling will be the same across all people. A 12 year old in 2014 is 23 now and will be getting that old hammer feel from 7th ed.

Agreed, Hellebore, as I am in that very situation: started in 2013 with 6 at 13 and now I'm 25 and it's been a lot of years and what I started for. I can't classify it into oldhammer for sake of objectivity but it feels like it to me.

Maybe we can group 40K into eras by edition?

I don’t think anyone can dispute 1st and 2nd would be Early Era. But I can and will make an argument that 3rd Ed belongs there.

All three were pretty experimental, and each is a refinement of the last. Not just rules, but background and model range.

3rd Ed, much as I loathe its bland uninteresting rules, was when GW, rather than the game, really hit its stride. Lots more plastic tanks and kits for everyone, the scale of battles increased. The company itself went from nutters in Nottingham, to a pretty slick, professional operation. Whatever you might think of the end of the Kirby Era, he still transformed GW, and with massive success for a decent number of years.

Middle Era is a period of refinement without drastic changes. I’d say 4th-7th, where the underlying rules remained pretty stable, with only minor changes.

8th-10th is Current Era. Significant overhauls, greater unit diversity etc, and very, very few non-plastic kits, and getting fewer every year. Not to mention the setting being right on the verge of going genuinely mainstream thanks to licensing and visibility.

An interesting POV on how to draw the line.

Mechanics? Philosophy? Corporate? Chronological?

I could see arguments for different breaks for all of those.

I think you have to take them all into account.

The earliest days, basically up to 2nd Ed were from a largely anarchic Ideas Machine, married to Bryan Ansell’s considerable skill as a businessman.

But, GW as we know it now didn’t fully manifest until during 3rd Ed.

Kirby provided the right stewardship at the right time to cement it as Proper Company With Shareholders And Everything.

Much as people not unjustly scorn his later years at the helm, I argue he was a victim of his own success, as GW outgrew him.

Kevin Rowntree is the main architect of modern GW, including leveraging its now evidently valuable IP and the Essentially Free Money it brings to GW’s coffers, and putting out almost certainly lower profit margin games to prevent other companies filling those niches, and just as almost certainly making the universe accessible to those who can’t, or won’t, cough up for a 40K or AoS army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Actually…gonna be bold.

The end of Oldhammer was….Inquisitor

That was when the Imperium’s background got a sudden and thorough fleshing out. It’s most shadowy aspect exposed as being far more than just Ordos of varying size. We saw Radical and Puritan, and denominations like Horusian, Mono-Dominants etc.

And….it was the last of GW’s truly bold game offerings. Sure, its rules kinda of trace back to Confrontation, being incredibly detailed and intended more for roleplaying than Wargaming, but its scale was entirely new. It was also seemingly a Passion Project, like 40K originally was.

I'll stick with RT-2nd as said before, but I'd offer the additional evidence that those are the editions that most closely map (rules and years) along with what "Oldhammer" is in the WHFB fandom.

Similar art styles, rules similarities, charts galore, controlled chaos, etc....

3rd edition was a clear departure from all of that which was probably evident to anyone (such as myself) who had the 2nd edition box set and then bought the 3rd. Sure the statlines and core rules were very similar, but everything else and the overall art and presentation style changed dramatically.

We have missed something crucial in determining what Oldhammer is.

It's not about editions, art, community perception or rules frameworks.




It's when you have converted 1983 Zoids kits for your vehicles.

Rosebuddy wrote:
We have missed something crucial in determining what Oldhammer is.

It's not about editions, art, community perception or rules frameworks.




It's when you have converted 1983 Zoids kits for your vehicles.

I used a super cool Zoids scorpion bot as late as 4th edition, fielded as a Brass Scorpion using the Vehicle Design Rules.

Come to think of it, the Chapterhouse case happened some time around 4th or 5th edition, right? That clearly had an impact on the game moving forward.

The chapthouse case?

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
The chapthouse case?

Chapterhouse was a 3rd party company what made bits, and also some full minis. Instead of just folding when GW sent them a cease amd desist order, they fought it in court. And CH won a large number of the claims. It’s probably why we have no model, no rules, and all the copyrightable names now.

But GW was claiming all sorts of things they really shouldn’t have been. And made outlandish claims like there was no outside influences on 40k.

CH stagged on for a while post-lawsuit, but the whole ordeal was draining on them and I think they shuttered their doors a few years after.

Edit:
I think it was late 5th? Edition.

Staggered on, accepting orders and payment and not fulfilling.

Boggles my mind folks still think he was a good guy.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Staggered on, accepting orders and payment and not fulfilling.

Boggles my mind folks still think he was a good guy.

He was the little guy standing up against the bully. Because let’s face it, GW was throwing their weight around in a way that was not right, and nobody was calling them on it. Chapterhouse did. And while they “won” most of their cases, it was a pyric victory.

I’m glad someone made a stand. It was the right thing to do morally.
The ramifications and fallout screwed up a LOT of our hobby. Not a fan of that.
I’ll forgive a lot for a small business going through what they did. But not to the point of cheating customers.

In theory I’m glad he made the stand, in practice less so. It’s not a black and white issue with clear lines. And a very hot topic of debate at the time.

They can be both a poor businessman and still be in the legal right to trade in the manner they did. They aren't mutually exclusive.

As Nevelon says, GW was throwing its weight around egregiously, sending cease and desists for frivolous things and acting like everything they produced was entirely unique and untouchable.


Everyone in the creative space is supposed to play by the same rules around copyright, but GW acted like trademark was the same thing, or acted like their IP was protected by patent...

And far too many fans of the setting believed them. Copyright is not conceptright, GW never owned, nor currently owns, concepts that appear in 40k. Nor does it own combinations of those concepts.

GW would have set precedent for its own destruction at the hands of the Heinlein and Herbert Estates, not to mention Disney and Star Wars.

The most GW could ever have claimed is that Chapterhouse couldn't sell products under the trademarked names of their product lines, but they were absolutely in their right to sell 'compatible with' products, just as anyone else does for literally any other existing IP in the world.

GW can't claim armoured space men as a protected design, regardless of the concepts that went into them. No one can, or we have no creative space at all. No one can own breastplates with eagles on them. No one can own green barbarian orcs.

The years following where GW started creating trade marked names for everything was definitely a response to this, but if they'd been smarter they would have done that from the beginning of the business, not decades later when they were forced to confront how derivative their products really are.

The consequences to gamers of this event are entirely on GW, they spent decades coasting on non enforceable legal assumptions rather than doing it the right way. No other IP dependent companies hold any delusions about what aspects of their products are protectable, it's not a clandestine secret of the creative IP industries.

GW simply used its monopoly in the sector to be incredibly lazy about its business and when it was finally challenged, it reacted to correct that attitude, but it did so in a very pouty way.

And how does any of that justify him taking orders and payment, not fulfilling those, and continuing to do so whilst in the process of winding up the business?

Because that’s what I was criticising. His specifically and demonstrably fraudulent activity.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
And how does any of that justify him taking orders and payment, not fulfilling those, and continuing to do so whilst in the process of winding up the business?

Because that’s what I was criticising. His specifically and demonstrably fraudulent activity.

you equated that behaviour with him not being the good guy in the context of fighting a large company on sound IP grounds.

Boggles my mind folks still think he was a good guy.

I said they are separate things. He was entirely in the right to fight that fight and he can still be a bad businessman for his actions around his business and 'not a good guy'.

But the two are not related. Things can be two things.

Just weird to see a thieving scumbag praised is all.

 Da Boss wrote:
I personally split it from Oldhammer (1e and 2e), Middlehammer (3e to 7e) and Newhammer (8e onwards).

Same here.

Someone says OldHammer & I think of either RT/2e or 3rd-7th.
Personally I don't consider RT/2e "The Good Old Days". I enjoyed 3-5 much more than those editions.

 Da Boss wrote:
I personally split it from Oldhammer (1e and 2e), Middlehammer (3e to 7e) and Newhammer (8e onwards). I started at the end of 2e and 3e to 5e were my heyday in the hobby. I tailed off hard for 6e and 7e due to disliking the shifting scale of the game already clear in late 5e. So when I think of the 'good old days' it's that time I am thinking of.

Yep, that split makes the most sense. I feel like people split of 6th and 7th from 3-5th due to how bad they were, but in the end they were still more or less versions of the same game, while 8th-10th is something completely new.

It's also about the size of the community. The number of players playing rogue trader and 2nd is very low, while during "middlehammer" things like the Dawn Of War games and THQ putting a life sized space marine into every electronics store drew vast amounts of people to the hobby, plus the internet made it more accessible (and pirateable) than ever before. New hammer brought a ton of people back to the hobby and made it more appealing to people with adjacent hobbies, while GW returning to the internet an leveraging social media made all the fun parts of 40k more visible than ever. Players who have started with newhammer easily outnumber anyone who played middlehamer 10:1, if not more.

 Jidmah wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
I personally split it from Oldhammer (1e and 2e), Middlehammer (3e to 7e) and Newhammer (8e onwards). I started at the end of 2e and 3e to 5e were my heyday in the hobby. I tailed off hard for 6e and 7e due to disliking the shifting scale of the game already clear in late 5e. So when I think of the 'good old days' it's that time I am thinking of.

Yep, that split makes the most sense. I feel like people split of 6th and 7th from 3-5th due to how bad they were, but in the end they were still more or less versions of the same game, while 8th-10th is something completely new.

It's also about the size of the community. The number of players playing rogue trader and 2nd is very low, while during "middlehammer" things like the Dawn Of War games and THQ putting a life sized space marine into every electronics store drew vast amounts of people to the hobby, plus the internet made it more accessible (and pirateable) than ever before. New hammer brought a ton of people back to the hobby and made it more appealing to people with adjacent hobbies, while GW returning to the internet an leveraging social media made all the fun parts of 40k more visible than ever. Players who have started with newhammer easily outnumber anyone who played middlehamer 10:1, if not more.

While i agree that the period of 4th to 7th heralded in a mass influx thanks to video games, im not sure middlehammer as a 'concept' has percolated into common parlance. Yet.

I don't think there are that many people playing newhammer who know enough about rogue trader and 2nd edition to actually give it any thought. I have people in my gaming club whose parents are younger than those editions.

I doubt we'll reach a consensus.

For me, Oldhammer is up to and including 2nd, for no better reason than I started playing in 3rd.

Charax and Da Boss make good points, and I can see the argument for 3-5 being "middlehammer" but I'm not old enough to emotionally agree (only 64)

I feel this is kind of a question of when you consider yourself to be operating from.

I mean it is 2010. You are playing at the height of 5th. Obviously oldhammer must mean 2nd (or I guess RT, but no one played or plays that). After all 5th is just the evolved version of 4th and 3rd. 2nd edition was 12+ years ago - Empires have risen, bloomed and died in this time.

Unfortunately the curse of years hangs heavily upon humanity and it is now 2025. 2nd is ancient history - and 5th is now as far back as 2nd edition once was. It seems bizarre not to call this "old" - even if you want to group up the editions into "2nd" vs "3rd-7th".

Interesting to see that so many point to RT and 2nd as the Oldhammer set. I would say 3rd through 7th just because the impression I have is that most of the organized Oldhammer efforts I see are based on those editions.

While RT and 2nd are oldhammer, 2nd is interesting in and of itself it because there is a separate with early and late rogue trader onwards where 40k is pretty much the same ever since (though 3rd edition was a more 'drimdark' depiction of the same. I think since primaris there may be a new kind of direction that's distinct to the 2nd-3rd until maybe the WHFB End Times (caused by Chapterhouse?)

The visual style change between 2nd and 3rd makes the eras pretty distinct, so I would still put the cut off between 2nd and 3rd ed.

I tend to refer to Rogue Trader and 2nd ed as distinct editions of the game use 'oldhammer' as a blanket term for 3rd to 5th edition (3rd-7th to a lesser extent).

 Daba wrote:

maybe the WHFB End Times (caused by Chapterhouse?)

Are you suggesting that WHFB was dumped because the lawsuit exposed GW's IP vulnerabilities for their fantasy setting? So Sigmar was really just a more thoroughly copyrighted re-skin of the same material like when GW renamed the paint line? I suppose that's possible, but I thought WHFB died because it's sales were in the toilet. Towards the end, probably during 8th edition WHFB, we were told that the SM tactical squad box alone outsold the entire fantasy range.

Funnily enough I remember thinking of RT as old and exotic in the mid 90s, because there was so limited access to older material, if you didn't have a copy of a book you had no idea what information was there. So the only knowledge of it was through esoteric hints dropped by WD, or in rulebooks, or people telling you about when they once read the realms of chaos books - I literally borrowed realms of chaos from a GW staffer at my local to photocopy the story of the emperor and starchild because it was so esoteric and obscure and my friends never believed me when I told them about it...

As editions have progressed alongside the internet, the mystique of older editions is somewhat lessened, they are easily searchable, and in many cases readible without trawling second hand bookshops or finding a friend of a friend.



I think that 3-7 was the weakest in terms of intra editional definitions because they were all refinements and while launched as new editions, they didn't have the weight of a real one IMO.

2, 3 8 and 10 are imo the strongest distinct editional identities for launch (not including RT because it had nothing to distinguish itself from, but being first holds a unique place).

 Arschbombe wrote:


Are youl suggesting that WHFB was dumped because the lawsuit exposed GW's IP vulnerabilities for their fantasy setting? So Sigmar was really just a more thoroughly copyrighted re-skin of the same material like when GW renamed the paint line? I suppose that's possible, but I thought WHFB died because it's sales were in the toilet. Towards the end, probably during 8th edition WHFB, we were told that the SM tactical squad box alone outsold the entire fantasy range.

All those things can be true:
Ditching WHFB and creating AoS could have been because of WHFB not selling well (It's pretty undeniable that AoS sells better than WHFB did)

Renaming all the factions to be less generic can be because of the Chapterhouse suit (the timing certainly matches up, as does the renaming of 40k factions and the shift away from providing rules for anything without current models)

Space Marine tactical squads can still have outsold everything else (but that has been true pretty much from their release up to the mid 2010s IIRC, and in itself does not justify killing off a whole game system - space marines have carried the financials for a long time)

Things can happen for more than one reason, and when GW deign to give us a reason it's worth remembering that it might not be the only reason. I certainly can't see them coming out and saying "well we sued a guy and got embarrassed in court when it was pointed out that we didn't have all the trademarks we thought we did and forgot to get the rights to some of the artwork we sued over so that's why the factions whose names have been consistent for decades need to be changed"

Alright. Its been nearly a week. That means it's weekly analysis time.

In first place at 28%. 2nd Edition. Very predictable and expected.

In second place at 22%. 1st Edition. Very predictable and expected.

In third place at 19%. 3rd Edition. Very predictable and expected.

Special mention to 4th + 5th edition, netting a combined total of 23%

And odd mention to the 8% who voted for 6th+7th.

Excellent Analysis.

And to crib a line from the Dark Knight which to me sums up the whole Chapterhouse ordeal...

BATMAN: "You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain."

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Maybe we can group 40K into eras by edition?

I don’t think anyone can dispute 1st and 2nd would be Early Era. But I can and will make an argument that 3rd Ed belongs there.

All three were pretty experimental, and each is a refinement of the last. Not just rules, but background and model range.

3rd Ed, much as I loathe its bland uninteresting rules, was when GW, rather than the game, really hit its stride. Lots more plastic tanks and kits for everyone, the scale of battles increased. The company itself went from nutters in Nottingham, to a pretty slick, professional operation. Whatever you might think of the end of the Kirby Era, he still transformed GW, and with massive success for a decent number of years.

Middle Era is a period of refinement without drastic changes. I’d say 4th-7th, where the underlying rules remained pretty stable, with only minor changes.

8th-10th is Current Era. Significant overhauls, greater unit diversity etc, and very, very few non-plastic kits, and getting fewer every year. Not to mention the setting being right on the verge of going genuinely mainstream thanks to licensing and visibility.

Another issue that many will marvel at today is availability of product. Games Workshop products were not readily available in the late 1980's in the US. I had a friend that would have killed for a full chaos heavy weapon unit during that period. Around 3rd edition, GW had truly established themselves as a product. I agree that modern 40K, started with 3rd edition. 1st edition was the wild west where gw was trying a lot of different things. 2nd edition was more focused and trying different things to see what would work. Some worked and others didn't, but it was interesting and getting to see the evolution first hand was really cool. Playing Ork in late 1st edition/early 2nd edition was really cool. Orks were probably the faction that got the most attention during that time and it was gloriously chaotic. Imagine a unit getting 6 different charts of random ways they would act in a battle that could change every turn today? That was orks back in the day. Maboyz were insane, literally.

Willaim

Any objections to this breakdown?

1st Edition - Oldhammer
2nd Edition - Oldhammer
3rd Edition - Midhammer
4th Edition - Midhammer
5th Edition - Midhammer
6th Edition - Midhammer
7th Edition - Midhammer
8th Edition - Newhammer
9th Edition - Newhammer
10th Edition - Newhammer

Having actively looked around the web and in real conversations after reading this thread, I think the general usage seems to be more like this:

1st Edition - Rouge Trader
2nd Edition - 2nd edition (it's always referenced specifically)
3rd Edition - Oldhammer
4th Edition - Oldhammer
5th Edition - Oldhammer
6th Edition - Oldhammer
7th Edition - Oldhammer
8th Edition - Modern Warhammer/Newhammer
9th Edition - Modern Warhammer/Newhammer
10th Edition - Modern Warhammer/Newhammer

In other words, when someone says "oldhammer" if fairly safe that they refer to way of playing from 3rd to 7th, which all shared a lot of common rules among them - which also causes them to blend in memory. More rarely (usually when talking about fluff), they also include 1st and 2nd, but the overwhelming majority of active hobbyists has never played those edition nor read any of its books.

the-gentleman-ranker wrote:
Any objections to this breakdown?

1st Edition - Oldhammer
2nd Edition - Oldhammer
3rd Edition - Midhammer
4th Edition - Midhammer
5th Edition - Midhammer
6th Edition - Midhammer
7th Edition - Midhammer
8th Edition - Newhammer
9th Edition - Newhammer
10th Edition - Newhammer

About right, shows bigger changes in the paradigm behind the ruleset, rather than just modifications of the one of the edition before.

Oldhammer = pre-Covid/pre-TTS

Warhammer = post-Covid/TTS

Cyel wrote:

the-gentleman-ranker wrote:
Any objections to this breakdown?

1st Edition - Oldhammer
2nd Edition - Oldhammer
3rd Edition - Midhammer
4th Edition - Midhammer
5th Edition - Midhammer
6th Edition - Midhammer
7th Edition - Midhammer
8th Edition - Newhammer
9th Edition - Newhammer
10th Edition - Newhammer

About right, shows bigger changes in the paradigm behind the ruleset, rather than just modifications of the one of the edition before.

Although they had the same skeleton, there were some pretty big changes between 3rd and 7th.

I know when i came back to the game in 7th after not really playing since early 4th I had a lot to catch up on! None of them might have been paradigm shifts in themselves, but they do add up.

You could also call it an attitude/ feel change too?
It felt to me like the rules written in 7th were more about layers of rerolls/ special rules, 3rd edition was more about weird army lists that let you field unusual combinations of units in my recollection.

Even with the changes, it was still trying to make the 3rd paradigm work rather than what they should have done and done a complete reset to be more like 6th Fantasy.

I suspect the only concensus will be: "I started playing in edition x. Anything before that is oldhammer"

Probably.

Trying to mark it along edition changes is definitely not the way. Plenty of editions had more dramatic changes mid-edition than at the edition-change. And plenty of factors on how "the game changed" aren't connected to the rulesset at all.

The very reason people use a term like "oldhammer" instead of "5th edition or earlier" is to describe a different / more intanglible change that isn't directly connect to a rulesset-edition. If they wanted to do the latter, they wouldn't need to coin new terminology.

Sunny Side Up wrote:


Trying to mark it along edition changes is definitely not the way. Plenty of editions had more dramatic changes mid-edition than at the edition-change. And plenty of factors on how "the game changed" aren't connected to the rulesset at all.

That is interesting, can you name such changes of both kinds you mention? I've played the game 3rd to 8th and cannot think of any.

Sunny Side Up wrote:
Probably.

Trying to mark it along edition changes is definitely not the way. Plenty of editions had more dramatic changes mid-edition than at the edition-change. And plenty of factors on how "the game changed" aren't connected to the rulesset at all.

The very reason people use a term like "oldhammer" instead of "5th edition or earlier" is to describe a different / more intanglible change that isn't directly connect to a rulesset-edition. If they wanted to do the latter, they wouldn't need to coin new terminology.

From my observation, the only reason why people wouldn't refer to 6th and 7th to "oldhammer" would be when it's their starting edition and they are young enough to still be in denial about their age

Cyel wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:


Trying to mark it along edition changes is definitely not the way. Plenty of editions had more dramatic changes mid-edition than at the edition-change. And plenty of factors on how "the game changed" aren't connected to the rulesset at all.

That is interesting, can you name such changes of both kinds you mention? I've played the game 3rd to 8th and cannot think of any.

The introduction of new factions.

The addition of large models like Knights, Wraithknights, etc.

The launch of Black Library

GW going "anonymous" after the Mat Ward witchhunt

GW stores changing to stopping/discouraging game play in the stores

GW going "secretive" on leaks with their LoTR arrangement

The introduction of Finecast

The phase-out of Finecast

GW pulling out of doing their own tournaments and supporting competitive play

GW returning to dowing their own tournaments and supporting competitive play

Shifts in their approach to updates and FAQs

The launch of Warhammer Community (or even older, the rise and fall of forums like Dakka, GW's Forum, later Discord, etc..)

The launch of Magnus and the break with the old "static lore"-policy.

Tabletop Simulator-40K becoming a more normal part of 40K

3D-printing becoming a more normal part of 40K

Etc,

Etc..,


All and any of the above are probably more relevant to many people than rules changes between 2nd and 10th or whatever.

I’d add Chapterhouse and the rise of No Model, No Rules to that list. And the change in CEOs.

That’s a valid aproaccch to take, but I think most of use would just round those events to the nearest edition change

Sunny Side Up wrote:

...


All and any of the above are probably more relevant to many people than rules changes between 2nd and 10th or whatever.

Interesting how point of view matters - these corporate/trend changes hardly affected my games at all and I see them as completely separate from game/edition/rules changes which are my basis for separating periods of the game's existence.

It's mostly periods in what the internet talks about.

Cyel wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:

...


All and any of the above are probably more relevant to many people than rules changes between 2nd and 10th or whatever.

Interesting how point of view matters - these corporate/trend changes hardly affected my games at all and I see them as completely separate from game/edition/rules changes which are my basis for separating periods of the game's existence.

It's mostly periods in what the internet talks about.

Indeed. And than they label these periods with terms like "oldhammer" for reference (and for distinction relative to talking about just the pure rules editions) in my experience.

Again, as above, to me the most incisive change feels pre- vs. post-COVID Warhammer, perhaps because it had a period of not playing. Inversely, the shift from 7th to 8th or from 9th to 10th didn't really matter, I think. It was learning some new rules and getting a bunch of cool new minis, but that isn't really substantially different from any random Codex or Miniature release like Black Templars now or whatever. The "gaming experience" didn't change.

Sunny Side Up wrote:
Inversely, the shift from 7th to 8th or from 9th to 10th didn't really matter, I think. It was learning some new rules and getting a bunch of cool new minis, but that isn't really substantially different from any random Codex or Miniature release like Black Templars now or whatever. The "gaming experience" didn't change.

I think that is why 6e/7e stands out from 3-5, to a different degree for different players.

You could pile all the 3e-5e books together, pick two out at random, write an all-comers list and then pull out a random rulebook to play them with and at worst you'll need a short supplementary list of USRs.

6e-7e was increasingly apocalypse on steroids along with fundamental differences in the ruleset that went beyond a point or two on the vehicle damage chart or variations on wound allocation.

Cyel wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:


Trying to mark it along edition changes is definitely not the way. Plenty of editions had more dramatic changes mid-edition than at the edition-change. And plenty of factors on how "the game changed" aren't connected to the rulesset at all.

That is interesting, can you name such changes of both kinds you mention? I've played the game 3rd to 8th and cannot think of any.

7th edition pre Necron Codex that introduced "Decurion-"detachments was quite different from everything after that. Granted, that was not even a year, but pre-Necron 7th is more like a 6th edition with an update, while Decurion Codizes in 7th went completely off the rails and changed the game more than the actual edition change.
8th edition had an Index phase during its first year and a Psychic awakening phase in its last year.
Horus Heresy 1.0 had some changes because of a 40K FAQ that suddenly allowed only 1 grenade to be thrown (among other things).

These are of the top of my head.

Power creep is normally constant, but there have been a few times it took a mid edition turn. Decurions was a hard line you could see it. But it happened in a different edition as well. And not just a “this codex was written with edition N+1 in mind”

If forget which one is was, but remember people looking forward to a new book on par with the others, and being sadly disappointed. And the next few followed suit.

 Nevelon wrote:
If forget which one is was, but remember people looking forward to a new book on par with the others, and being sadly disappointed. And the next few followed suit.

Pretty much ever edition to some degree or another, except perhaps 4th which was reasonably restrained (though chaos was always going to draw comparisons to 3.5).

6e had the fire that was daemons and taudar followed by the luke-warm marines, nids, and guard. 7e went the other way with craftworlds and decurions within a few months of each other off the back of a streak of weaker books.

And 5e had a few factions waiting their turn at the 3e update party. 5e Crons were top tier, 5e GK were stronger, 5e Dark Eldar were a respectable and full blooded update... and then the sisters got absolutely Cruddaced.

I remember Orks in 7th coming out worse with their new 7th edition codex in 2014 than with their late 4th edition codex from 2008.

I know w40k from 8th ed onwards, but from what codex and reports I have seen, 8th was a dramatic shift in the game.

Something others say happened between 2ed and 3ed too. But I have exactly 0 ways to prove that. GW resets rules, and often anwsers "probelms" they self created an edition later, so it is hard to judge what has roots in what.

The modern stuff does seem to run on a 3-6 years circle, With a reset edition, followed by the "real thing that should have done in the reset edition" edition. Which they gets reset . To a point that now, a lot of people don't want editions to change. With a sprinkle of very w40k specific dread of getting a codex.

Did you mean to write "encapsulates"? I hate to be that person, but the word "episcolates" does not seem to exist in the English language.

More on topic however, for me, especially as an Ork player, I find "oldhammer" to refer to either, 2nd edition - the first edition that made the game even playable in my opinion, 5th edition - where Orks finally got a decent, although not really "good", codex, and 7th edition - where the rules started to coalesce, before they switched over to the newer rules that removed Armor Values on vehicles and started introducing faction <keywords>.

Sunny Side Up wrote:

Spoiler:

The introduction of new factions.

The addition of large models like Knights, Wraithknights, etc.

The launch of Black Library

GW going "anonymous" after the Mat Ward witchhunt

GW stores changing to stopping/discouraging game play in the stores

GW going "secretive" on leaks with their LoTR arrangement

The introduction of Finecast

The phase-out of Finecast

GW pulling out of doing their own tournaments and supporting competitive play

GW returning to dowing their own tournaments and supporting competitive play

Shifts in their approach to updates and FAQs

The launch of Warhammer Community (or even older, the rise and fall of forums like Dakka, GW's Forum, later Discord, etc..)

The launch of Magnus and the break with the old "static lore"-policy.

Tabletop Simulator-40K becoming a more normal part of 40K

3D-printing becoming a more normal part of 40K

Etc,

Etc..,


All and any of the above are probably more relevant to many people than rules changes between 2nd and 10th or whatever.

Honestly, next to none of those came even close to changing to how the game is being played. Fethin' Brexit had more impact on my hobby than all of those combined.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Nevelon wrote:
Power creep is normally constant, but there have been a few times it took a mid edition turn. Decurions was a hard line you could see it. But it happened in a different edition as well. And not just a “this codex was written with edition N+1 in mind”

If forget which one is was, but remember people looking forward to a new book on par with the others, and being sadly disappointed. And the next few followed suit.

The turning point seems to be when GW is writing a codex while the edition is still fresh and going off assumptions vs writing a codex when the edition is already settled and GW knows what works and what doesn't. Codices written for the second half always tend to be better adapted to how the game actually plays.

Whether GW actually succeeds at writing a good codex is an entirely different topic.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
I remember Orks in 7th coming out worse with their new 7th edition codex in 2014 than with their late 4th edition codex from 2008.

True story. And there was the supplement which shall not be named in that edition as well. A complet clusterfeth of non-functional formations which clearly had not even been play tested once, while at the same time forcing you to buy more models than any sane person would own as a minimum requirement for any of them.
And let's not forget that they even published a PDF which added an ork decurion which was 100% drawbacks with no advantages whatsoever as well

7th edition for orks was so much fun, I literally quit the hobby and tried to sell everything.

 Jidmah wrote:


Honestly, next to none of those came even close to changing to how the game is being played. Fethin' Brexit had more impact on my hobby than all of those combined.

/shrug

Every single one, and probably also Brexit, had more efffect on the games being played than the rules difference between 2nd and 10th. The essence didn't change. Roll some dice, make cool noises, push cool minis across a table. Not much there can change in the rules that will impact the game experience. It's the surrounding technological, social and cultural changes that separate a 2nd edition game from a 10th Ed. game, not what Strength a boltun or how many wounds a Space Marine has.

RT-3ed - ancienthammer
4-7 - old hammer - the time I played
8+ newhammer.
Idk why people say 7 to 8 shift wasn't hard. Well I shift from 7 to 10 and it's different game, like I played 40k and switch to infinity. At least for me. And there is dramatic change in my army. Almost every infantry model now new. At least for me again.

I would say 3rd and 4th edition (and 5th) can't really be separated out. They're all to interlinked with each other to be regarded as separate. 6th was also using the same baseline, but I would say 6th was a turning point (which was started in 5th) for overall tone so you could put a change there.

3rd was the longest running core rule set GW ever used, because it was the basis for everything up to 7th. Each edition just added more to the rules that came before, but the basic building blocks of mechanic resolution didn't change during that time. Svs and AP, cover, invulnerable, S vs T, WS vs WS, etc.

You can take virtually any codex from 3rd to 7th and play it any edition inbetween because the profiles and rules interact with the game the same regardless.

3rd was also artificially longer than any other edition due to the drain caused by LotR, so it was really 2 editions in one trench coat, with updates released through WD and their chapter approved books.

3-5 is very distinct in that there were more refinements to existing rules, and not a lot of additions. But 6th and 7th added a range of new concepts like melee AP etc, which puts it further away.

3-5 was the most stable time in 40k, when you had completely transferrable codexes from 1998 to 2012. That's a 14 year period of just incremental change between editions and codexes. Each new version of a codex/rules was looked at more for the new things it would add, rather than any change it would make to the game.

8th came out in 2017, so the 3rd ed paradigm lasted 20 years, with only one real shift for the last 5.

That 20 year era really set a certain tone for 40k which they've never really gotten back to, in terms of rules and compatibility. 8th and 10th both reset codexes, making previous ones incompatible. That's 2 resets in 6 years.

But you can take 3rd ed codex marines and play it in 7th ed 40k - it may not be very good or competitive, but the mechanics still work.

That's 20 years of compatibility.


It's partly why I can't see 3rd ed as old hammer, because it was still alive in 2017.

1st and 2nd were dead and ancient at that time, but 3rd was living with a new coat of paint and gibbinz.

kabaakaba wrote:
RT-3ed - ancienthammer
4-7 - old hammer - the time I played
8+ newhammer.
Idk why people say 7 to 8 shift wasn't hard. Well I shift from 7 to 10 and it's different game, like I played 40k and switch to infinity. At least for me. And there is dramatic change in my army. Almost every infantry model now new. At least for me again.

Grumpy grognard post incoming...

I think the problem here is that many folks seen to want to calibrate Oldhammer based on when they entered the hobby and feel the need to create a term/label for everything. Middlehammer, Ancienthammer, Newhammer, ugh.

-RT and 2nd Edition are Oldhammer
-3rd is debatable
-10th is current.

Everything else is just past edition's.

Also, what is "Oldhammer" doesn't change just because time has gone by and more people playing today started in more recent editions.

A few weeks ago I was playing a scenario the manager of the FLGS put together. It used a scatter die. My opponent had no idea what it was. And he was no youngster and had been around the block a few times. 7th was the last 40k edition that used them and it wasn’t that long ago…

I had a full on meme “watch me age 30 years in a few seconds” moment. Because it’s been more then a couple years at this point. Not saying 8th is oldhammer, but for some people, it’s the edition from before the one they started after.

I need to lie down now…

We are rapidly approaching a decade since the removal of scatter dice. Locally we have a playerbase that largely consists of people that started in 9th and ask questions about the beforetimes that include 8th pretty regularly.

 Eilif wrote:
Also, what is "Oldhammer" doesn't change just because time has gone by and more people playing today started in more recent editions.

Well, that's how language works though. People who started with 8th or later outnumber people who started with any of the previous seven editions at least 10 to 1. It doesn't matter what you used to call "oldhammer" if that term is used differently by 90% of the people in the hobby today.

 Jidmah wrote:

 Eilif wrote:
Also, what is "Oldhammer" doesn't change just because time has gone by and more people playing today started in more recent editions.

Well, that's how language works though. People who started with 8th or later outnumber people who started with any of the previous seven editions at least 10 to 1. It doesn't matter what you used to call "oldhammer" if that term is used differently by 90% of the people in the hobby today.

Really? Is it so loose a term that 8th edition will someday be "oldhammer"? Come on.

It depends on whether we're talking about a term loosely applied to a thing or an era of time. Era's, generations, etc are much less fungible than random terms tossed about.

I'd lean towards "oldhammer" being an era, especially since editions have specific years and the "oldhammer" term comes from WHFB players. There is debate there, but I don't think most WHFB fans are calling anything post 2000 "oldhammer"

 Orkeosaurus wrote:
According to my research the exact line was actually the change from the 3.5 Chaos codex to the 4e Chaos codex.

And that fact has nothing to do with it ruining my Alpha Legion army, I'm unbiased. There was a shift in attitude from GW throughout that time period but nowhere was it shown as starkly as with those two codices. The previous attitude was much more favorable towards customization, wargear, optional rules and army lists, conversions and even scratch-builds, ongoing campaigns, and building "fluffy" armies. The later attitude was much more about tournament lists, building models as instructed, using GW's special characters, and playing balanced symmetrical missions in isolated games.

There's still a tension between those two philosophies to this day but there was a definite pivot to favoring the latter in the middle of 4e.

Is this just a long-winded way of saying "after Andy Chambers left"?

I do think depending on how long 10th edition's design ethos lasts, we might eventually see 8-9th as kind of a transition bubble that's not really Oldhammer or Newhammer.

In my opinion Oldhammer covers Rogue Trader through 2nd edition, maybe stretching into early 3rd. It’s the era before everything became giant characters, streamlined stats, and cinematic explosions. I feel like retro - feeling of nostalgia I get when I think back to earlier editions is more about the shifts in gameplay.

For me, “retro” evokes the time before two key shifts:

- Arrival of mega-units: Imperial Knights and Wraithknights stomping onto the battlefield marked a sharp turn into spectacle—around 6th or 7th edition. That’s when the scale and tone really departed from the gritty skirmish roots. No longer several squads, some transports, and a couple tanks - Tau could shoot your army off the table by turn 2.

- Vehicle redesign: The moment vehicles lost facing and armor values in favor of hitpoints (8th edition) felt like the final nail in the coffin for that old-school tactical flavor. No more angling Rhinos for cover—just a health bar and damage brackets.

For me it’s less about a hard cutoff and more about the feel—retro is the era where positioning, unit stat cards, and weird wargear charts reigned supreme.

 Eilif wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

 Eilif wrote:
Also, what is "Oldhammer" doesn't change just because time has gone by and more people playing today started in more recent editions.

Well, that's how language works though. People who started with 8th or later outnumber people who started with any of the previous seven editions at least 10 to 1. It doesn't matter what you used to call "oldhammer" if that term is used differently by 90% of the people in the hobby today.

Really? Is it so loose a term that 8th edition will someday be "oldhammer"? Come on.

Yes? That's exactly how it works. For example, if 40k will ever move to alternating activations, everything before that will be oldhammer eventually.
That's how words all around us work as well. Words change their meaning over time, heck, even emojis do.
Language is a constantly evolving thing. Just like a tyranid hive fleet

 Jammer87 wrote:
In my opinion Oldhammer covers Rogue Trader through 2nd edition, maybe stretching into early 3rd. It’s the era before everything became giant characters, streamlined stats, and cinematic explosions. I feel like retro - feeling of nostalgia I get when I think back to earlier editions is more about the shifts in gameplay.

For me, “retro” evokes the time before two key shifts:

- Arrival of mega-units: Imperial Knights and Wraithknights stomping onto the battlefield marked a sharp turn into spectacle—around 6th or 7th edition. That’s when the scale and tone really departed from the gritty skirmish roots. No longer several squads, some transports, and a couple tanks - Tau could shoot your army off the table by turn 2.

- Vehicle redesign: The moment vehicles lost facing and armor values in favor of hitpoints (8th edition) felt like the final nail in the coffin for that old-school tactical flavor. No more angling Rhinos for cover—just a health bar and damage brackets.

For me it’s less about a hard cutoff and more about the feel—retro is the era where positioning, unit stat cards, and weird wargear charts reigned supreme.

2nd to 3rd was such a drastic change in both gameplay mechanics and visual style that they can't be lumped in the same group. While there was a tone change later, it was a bigger shift then than that from 5th to 7th, and 7th was still in reality version/edition 3.6 with 8th being the proper reset.

Another dramatic change was early to late rogue trader, though it is kind of the change between RT and 2nd edition, but late RT resembled what became 2nd edition quite a lot and had the changes that have lasted to this day.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jidmah wrote:

 Eilif wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

 Eilif wrote:
Also, what is "Oldhammer" doesn't change just because time has gone by and more people playing today started in more recent editions.

Well, that's how language works though. People who started with 8th or later outnumber people who started with any of the previous seven editions at least 10 to 1. It doesn't matter what you used to call "oldhammer" if that term is used differently by 90% of the people in the hobby today.

Really? Is it so loose a term that 8th edition will someday be "oldhammer"? Come on.

Yes? That's exactly how it works. For example, if 40k will ever move to alternating activations, everything before that will be oldhammer eventually.
That's how words all around us work as well. Words change their meaning over time, heck, even emojis do.
Language is a constantly evolving thing. Just like a tyranid hive fleet

We don't start calling the bronze age the stone age and the iron age the bronze age because we're later on in time. The modern period still begins around 1500.

 Daba wrote:
We don't start calling the bronze age the stone age and the iron age the bronze age because we're later on in time. The modern period still begins around 1500.

Correct, that's why that age was named after a distinct, unchanging feature and not after a relative thing like "old". At some point around 750BC the bronze age was referred to as "the good old times" and the new iron thing only those youngster smiths were using that just didn't feel right.
Or in other words, the name for the time periods making up the bronze age absolutely did change over the course of the iron age. We literally have written proof of that.

Fun fact, the terms stone age, bronze age and iron age weren't called that until the early 19th century. It caught on, was broadly accepted by historians and language evolved as a result.

It comes down to, as it always does, what your definitions are to inform the correct answer. The argument is using different premises, each with sound logic, which is almost always the issue in any social discourse. Your logic is true if your premise is correct and people get caught up arguing their logic, rather than proving the premises.

Decide whether 'retro/oldhammer' refers to abstract eras based on GW design and production, or whether it's referencing a feeling and perception of gamers based on their experiences of the game.


I go for the former in conversation, because I think it's useful to discuss the design paradigms and their effects on game play and player experience. But there's nothing wrong with thinking of it as the latter.

To me the term Oldhammer doesn't actually refer closely to rules, but to model Design.
Oldhammer describes models up until about the late 90's, so rather stubby models, a lot of "2D" metals, monopose plastics like the first plastic Khorne Berserkers and Plague Marines, small vehicles from the first rhino family. Yes, that is quite closely tied to 2nd edition, but many of these were also sculpted in 3rd and some, like Ragnar, were sold until 9th edition.
That is to say not all minis from that time have an oldhammer feel, like the eldar vehicles or the Defiler still look good despite their age.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
To me the term Oldhammer doesn't actually refer closely to rules, but to model Design.
Oldhammer describes models up until about the late 90's, so rather stubby models, a lot of "2D" metals, monopose plastics like the first plastic Khorne Berserkers and Plague Marines, small vehicles from the first rhino family. Yes, that is quite closely tied to 2nd edition, but many of these were also sculpted in 3rd and some, like Ragnar, were sold until 9th edition.
That is to say not all minis from that time have an oldhammer feel, like the eldar vehicles or the Defiler still look good despite their age.

This would always be a gradual process as lines are refreshed over time, and character models were generally always like that all the way through until the finecast era. Warp Spiders are even older than Ragnar, being 2nd edition models monopose one piece (apart from the exarch) models all the way up until the most recent 10th edition Eldar Codex release this year.

In the design sense, you could mark 3rd as the turning point due to the multipart Space Maine Tactical kit introduced then (but ironically, one existed in Rogue Trader), which also went with the art shift that happened during 3rd.

I think I put the cut-off at 7th because that was really the deathknell of the old system. Bloating the rules and the product releases to an unsustainable level all but ensuring 8th was necessary. Not many people enjoyed 7th, excepting some HH guys. I really hated it for making Raven Guard nigh unplayable (as compared to the glory of their 6th Ed CT).