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Hi,
I'm trying to simplify 40k at the moment, to get my RPG group into wargames. Now, it's pretty common knowledge that 3rd was the most basic edition of the game, and I do have all the 3e codexes, but I'm wondering... Does anyone who played during the initial release period of third edition remember much about the army lists in the back of the BBB? What was the balance/metagame like?

I only collected models without really playing until the release of the 3e Tyranid book, so I don't really have any experience of the rulebook lists. However, looking at them, the simplicity of the lists look useful for my purposes. Are they worth using for a friendly escalation league?

Looking forward to your responses.

Rhino Rush, that's all I really remember.

Yeah rhino rush was the # 1 strategy.

Thanks guys. I remember Blood Angels rhino rush from my time. Were any of the lists especially bad? I guess you can almost always expect marines to be decent, and I remember the 'Nids doing fairly well locally in that time.

They weren't too bad for your purposes I suppose. The only trouble was that a lot of the armies that were unique at the time were suddenly very samey in how they played since there wasn't much in the way of options and wargear to differentiate them.

As a starting point though, it works great - just be sure to take fairly basic units and maybe one or two units with special rules or kit to start off with, so they can get used to the core rules before you introduce anything complicated. The same goes for vehicles and especially walkers - use one per army at most to begin with.

Land raiders were made of cardboard and Necrons made everyone cry.

Everything had a bolter according to the back of the book too iirc, that was the balance.

For Tyranids, it was 2 Hive Tyrants with Venom Cannons and Flesh Hooks (106 points each, I know, crazy right?), 2 Carnifexes (90 points each), 3 Zoanthropes (S6 AP2 blast), 3x 20 Hormagaunts as fast attack and then buckets of 22 point Genestealers (which back then had pure and simple power weapons), screened by the Hormagaunts. Sprinkle with broods of 3 Warriors, each brood bringing a S8 assault 2 Venom Cannon (which when stood alongside the Tyrants and their Venom Cannons, was enough to crack open the few transports that were around before the Codex creep unleashed the Rhino rush).

It was slow, it was very one-dimensional, it rolled over the enemy like a Tsunami and it usually worked. So was everything though, and it worked. Usually. 3rd edition suffered from truly epic Codex creep though (I'm looking at you, Codex: Blood Angels and Codex: Craftworld Eldar), so it didn't last forever.

That said, when the 3rd edition Tyranid book rolled around it was pretty easy to update the original list with the latest in brutal, points efficient monsters through the "build a bug" section (as I recall, 114pts got you a 2+ save Carnifex geared for melee), which was so superior to the BBB variant it was just silly).

Ah, crazy times.

There was definitely some broken stuff in those old rulebook lists. Wave Serpents' shield was represented by being AV14! I do miss my Wraithlord with D-Cannon, though.

From memory, or even better, looking at an old rulebook, are there any units/vehicles/characters any of you would suggest banning outright?

I played mostly IG during third, took a break from SW in 2nd. You could definitely abuse the IG list from the rule book indeed then was when the acronym SIGFH became known, Shooty Imperial Guard From Hell.

Very static gunline that was kind of boring but very good in tournaments. Also there were not the huge number of IG players then because of the cost of metal miniatures and most IG infantry was metal. Maybe the catachans were out, dont remember.

I do remember doing well and winning more than a few local and Rogue Trader events. BAsically if I went first you were screwed by massive missile and other HW spam. Many games were over by turn 3 or effectively over. I can remember one poor guy at a rogue trader event that brought a nice deathwing army that I virtually tabled in one turn of shooting.

The Blood Angel third edition codex was the most dangerous of the rhino rush armies. The Iron Warriors from the chaos codex was also an army that people did not like. Generally I remember the Iron Warriors as being an army people really hated the most.

Don't use the Blood Angel or Eldar
1) Blood Angel rhino rush
2)Craftworld Eldar Seer Counclil 1 HQ was 2 to 5 Farseers and 3 to ∞ Warlocks

From memory, I would ban the entire blood angel,eldar (regular and craft world) and tyranid codecies.
All three were broken as hell.

Hmm.. Alaitoc Ranger Distruption table... sweet memories.

From memory, I would ban the entire blood angel,eldar (regular and craft world) and tyranid codecies.
All three were broken as hell.

Do you mean Eldar from 3rd edition, or 2nd? I don't seem to remember the 3e codex as being broken at all. If anything, the current Eldar codex dropped tons of points costs on things across the board. 3rd Edition Eldar was the days of things like Shining Spears being 50pts apiece.

 marv335 wrote:
From memory, I would ban the entire blood angel,eldar (regular and craft world) and tyranid codecies.
All three were broken as hell.

And Necrons laughed at your cardboard Land Raiders.

 AegisGrimm wrote:

From memory, I would ban the entire blood angel,eldar (regular and craft world) and tyranid codecies.
All three were broken as hell.

Do you mean Eldar from 3rd edition, or 2nd? I don't seem to remember the 3e codex as being broken at all. If anything, the current Eldar codex dropped tons of points costs on things across the board. 3rd Edition Eldar was the days of things like Shining Spears being 50pts apiece.

Eldar during 3rd in the hands of a skilled player were really excellent. In the hands of an average player they were not so good. I had my toughest games against good eldar players. A lot of Blood Angel players were just flavor of the month types so not so much of a threat from skill but from the codex rules and revved up rhinos.

Keep in mind guys, I'm considering using the army lists from the back of the 3e BBB, not 3e codecies. Thanks for the pointers anyway, especially JWhex.