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Hi all, I'm new here but I thought I'd share my latest project and invite your comments. Inspired by websites like Classichammer, Herohammer and Warhammer For Adults, I've decided to throw my hat into the ring and support the sadly forgotten 90's editions of Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Much maligned today for not fitting into the preconceived mold of what proper Warhammer ought to be, 90's Hammer nevertheless holds several important distinctions in the annals of Warhammer gaming. It was the very first edition with a robust online community, spawning thousands of discussions, articles, battle reports, strategy guides, image galleries, house rules and much, much more. It also remains the most materially-inventive version of the game, with multiple box set releases, card-based magic minigames, tokens galore and unique templates for dozens and dozens of spells. It is the edition that inspired Warhammer Ancient Battles and Mordheim, two games which remain fan favorites to this very day. It is also the era that produced the most coherent and elaborated Warhammer setting, with gorgeous artwork and new army books that delved deep into each faction's history.

While some may claim that it was not as detailed as earlier editions or not as balanced and troop-centric as later versions, 90's Hammer nevertheless captured the imagination of thousands of players and provided countless late-night games of gonzo, memorable fun. My new blog will attempt to capture some of those experiences, as well as collect, curate and republish the massive volume of early internet articles about the game that would otherwise be lost to the void of shutdown websites and bad links. It will do this (nay, it could only do this) in the true spirit of the internet in the 90's. So disable your autocorrect, turn on "frames", set your monitor to 640x480 and fire up Netscape Navigator for…

90's Hammer!

To get the ball rolling, what is your favorite memory of that period?

90s-hammer to me is 4th and 5th edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles.

I remember opening the 4th edition box and seeing all the lovely plastic minis. A vast improvement over wrestling with the 3rd edition rulebook at the age of 12 and having no idea where to start. In fact, I think those spearmen and archers are still better than the multipart plastics released for 6th edition, only bettered by the 8th edition Island of Blood models. My current High Elf army is, in fact, made up of a mix of the 4th and 8th edition box set models (with metal Eltharion and a bolt thrower replacing the cardstock ones).

Fun gameplay memories include Teclis crushing Thanquol under a mountain with the Assault of Stone spell, Thanquol taking two direct hits from a goblin doom diver and surviving, playing Skaven vs Undead and having the two main infantry regiments on each side spend the entire game in melee against each other and finishing with more models in them than they started with (each magic phase, I'd cast Raise the Dead and add 2D6 skeletons to my unit; he'd then cast Curse of the Horned One on them and turn D6 of them into clanrats), playing a couple of Mighty Empires map-based campaigns (fudging the ME rules from 3rd ed WFB to 4th) and an Empire wizard (Grey or Celestial) casting the "move through the warp spell onto the unit of Imperial Knights he was part of. The unit is then removed from the board ... and now the wizard can't cast the second half of the spell to re-appear, since he's no longer on the board!

And then there was my friend's skaven regiment of doom(tm); 70-odd clanrats, with (takes deep breath) Thanquol on screaming bell, Boneripper, Queek Head-taker, Lord Skrolk, a warlord and an army standard bearer in the front rank. Deathmaster Sniktch was probably in there, too. The regiment was the entire 1,500-point army, and he used the army book as the movement tray!

I'm a fan of the older editions of Warhammer and I started playing with 5th edition, so congrats on your blog.

On a side note since Warhammer Fantasy is completely unsupported by GW now, I'd love to see a bigger presence at independent tournaments and events for any and all editions of Warhammer Fantasy. Personally, I've been on a collecting hunt lately tracking down complete sets of rules, army books, and Warhammer Magic box sets. (I've currently obtained 3 of them on eBay.)

On the other hand, rules and army books for 6th and 7th edition Warhammer are all over the place.

GW still sell 8th edition books, You can get the downloads from Black Library.

I love the old editions as well, so much more relevant than 8th edition, which fixed some things and allowed other things to break the game. (over powered units and allies mixing that made unbelievable combos)

I always felt the downfall of fantasy was GW developing the game for 3000 points, which was mostly driven by the power gamers who wanted to do everything in their army books rather than build a army focused on a single army trait. They also want bigger and more powerful units with spectacular models. This and the 3000 points was a death sentence to fantasy because it eliminated the ability for most pre-college and college level player from affording an instant army.

I wish I could get people behind resurrecting 5th or even 6th edition

The unit minimum and maximum sizes in Warhammer Armies for 3rd edition (1988 - 1993) were set for a standard size of 3,000 point armies, and it stated you could reduce them proportionally if playing smaller games. The power gamers came much later.

3rd was before my time, I was the College student who couldn't afford anything but the occasional 3-4 boosters of MTG. I started when 2000 points was the 'just right' size game at the start of 5th.

Yes, the armies suddenly shrunk when 4th edition came along.

Everything painted red!