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So, fresh (well, freshly back - I'm actually somewhat tired, and currently sat out on the Historic Pantiles, with two pints, my iPad and two, count 'em, two pints of Red Ale enjoying the sun) from Warhammerfest and a massive looting for my FB group (shameless plug is shameless)....and I also picked up a copy of the Rogue Trader reprint.

Now, you may be thinking Oh but Doc, wot is da point inna firty yeer olde book?

Well, I'll tell you.

1. Nostalgia. Let's face it, we all enjoy a trip down memory lane. It's a way of getting in touch with our more youthful selves, and a window into the origins of what rapidly grew into the dominant war game of our time.

2. It's beautiful. The paper it's printed on is matte, and from memory of a higher quality than the original volume.

3. It's literally a copy of the original. Misprints, typos etc are all still there. Yes, including your basic* bow being better than a Bolter in a pretty obvious stat line mix up

4. It's ideal for the aged gamer, as it offers a way to delve into our past without wrecking our precious original any more following our enthusiastic teenage manhandlings (not like that, you dirty bugger)

5. It's £35. £35. That's all. One could argue GW could've charged a 'Hobby Hipster' premium. But they haven't. I mean, it's not cheap, but it is perfectly reasonable and within all but the most restricted of budgets.

And here's a dinger....I'm offering a copy in my group when we hit 750 members. In a frankly even more shameless second shameless plug (I mean, this plug has just gone right ahead and whipped its knickers off) you can find the link in my sig. It's likely of particular interest to the geographically unfortunate who don't get many if any local GW events. Why, just this weekend I picked up around £1300 worth of bits and gubbins for folk. From Ixion Hale, via Magistus Amon, past a buttload of Grombrindal and Black Gobbo for Blood Bowl to t-shirts, I've made a good number of Nerds happy. And I'm off to to Warhammer World end of June. So there's never been a better time to sign up!

* 'Appen I mistyped that at first.....and my iPad corrected it to Naismith, spooky!

I liked how there was so much space wolf stuff in there.

Best find I ever had was getting one from a second hand book store maybe 2 years back, 40k then and now are different in so many ways. I'd grab a reprint if I could as the book is a bit old and I worry parts could fall out of it eventually

Well n0t_u, happen I'm off to Warhammer World end of June, so will endeavour to grab you a copy.

Because something like this needs to be shared.

As for the changes. It's weird. I mean, the background has been seriously developed and stuff fleshed out, but the core still remains. Orks in particular are pretty much 'same as they ever were' - but it's interesting to see Chaos so underplayed.

I feel the biggest but most explicable shift has been Tyranids. Their anatomy remains mostly the same, barring only the middle legs being typically used for locomotion. But the background could be seen as 'in character' early interpretations of the race, gathered from incredibly fragmentary reports.

I for one find that incredibly pleasing. It helps the game's development feel more organic - the Rogue Trader stuff is early records, made before the true threat was properly established at Macaragge.

Now, whether that's accident or design is up to the individual, but I like to think the latter.

Would be pretty awesome to have a hardcover copy. My copy is an original paperback version, but it's coolness is that it's signed by Rick Priestly, from a Gamesday at least a decade ago.

It's a shame the reprint is not a bit more widely available. My hardcover Rogue Trader is pretty battered now in general, let alone the infamous poor binding job on what was a very expensive book back then....

My original print run RT rulebook was a hardcover (finally got it back from the brother of a mate I loaned it to ages ago. He died, and it got lost in his gaming stuff.)

The binding dissolved and the pages fall out if you open it (no surprise it hasn't been touched in years. Not just because the game REQUIRED a third player to literally GM it.)

It got reprinted locally into softcover around 1990.

I never really felt that Rogue Trader 'required' a GM, like people say. It always seemed like two people, especially good friends, could easily make some forces that would function just fine -especially in a skirmish styled game- as long as one of them doesn't get all saucy and take crazy overpowered stuff. Especially once things like the first compendiums came out with the first 'codex' army lists.

Actually it was kinda in the same vein as the pre-Generals Handbook Age of Sigmar games, really.

Mostly it's worth is to see where today's game came from, though. Like Space Marines with 3 Toughness and 4+ armor saves, lol.