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I've basically accepted that GW & it's modern audience and I have parted ways when it comes to what we're looking for from 40K both as a game and as a setting. I don't see why that should make me stop enjoying the version of it I like, however, so I'm going back to cludge together core rules from 5th and 4th and pick out the "best" applicable codices - which I define as the ones that give the most thematically appropriate options and require actual intent to make broken cheeselists.

My current roster is:

Assassins(3rd)
Black Templars(4th)
Catachans(4th PDF)
Chaos Daemons(4th)
Chaos Marines("3.5" edition)
Daemonhunters(3rd)
Dark Angels(4th)
Dark Eldar(3rd, revised edition)
Eldar(4th)
Imperial Guard("3.5" edition)
Orks(4th)
Space Marines(4th)
Tau(4th)
Witchunters(3rd)

Plus various campaign book, white dwarf, and Imperial Armour based units and army lists of the period.

Where I'm havering a bit is which 5th edition codices could or should be included, given it's been so long since I actively played those older editions. While 5th brought some decent rules changes, I'm less enamoured of its codices. I kind of want to include the 5th Necron codex just to have more count-as unit options(I dislike the Wardian rewrite of their fluff, but the 3rd 'dex is really spartan in terms of unit choices). I've seen discussions over the years that suggest the 3rd edition incarnations of Blood Angels, Space Wolves, and Dark Eldar are all hot garbage. I'm not sure how necessary the 5th Tyranids book is. In all cases I'm worried that the 5th stuff will too radically outclass the remaining 3rd and lower-tier 4th books.

Not using the Marine, Guard, Chaos, GK, and Sisters material from 5th is intentional, I prefer the more open and customisable approach of the former three and don't care for the additions and changes in the latter two cases.

So assuming anyone else can remember that far back, what would you say - which 5th ed books are necessary, which aren't, and which should be absolutely avoided?

I'm pretty much in the same boat as you. While I liked 8th edition initially, I was turned off with the various supplements/bloat. I don't care for the direction 9th edition is going, with changes to board sizes just to sell more GW products, and heavy focus on tournaments and the posterboy Primaris Space Marines. Instead, I am focusing more on the new Apocalypse these days, which is a really fun rule set, and going back to 8th without supplements and 4th/5th for more fun 40k games at home.

I recently picked up a set of old codexes on ebay including 3rd, 4th, and 5h editions. I still have to compare several of them, but some initial suggestions to expand on your current roster:

-Most of the initial 3rd edition books are bare-bones without much fluff. In general I also prefer 4th edition, but there are some decent 5th edition books and some good fluff (and some really bad fluff . . .).
-Don't bother with the 5th Grey Knights codex; stick with the 3.5 books.
-I like both the 3.5 and 5th Necrons codexes. You are right that the 5th edition book has more units, but the 3.5 book is still very usable with the core Necron units. The 3.5 Necrons book is a classic in my opinion.
-I still have to compare the 4th and 5th Tyranid codexes, but I will likely lean more towards the 4th book.
-I like the 4th Space Marines book allowing custom chapters similar to the 8th V2 codex. I'd probably stick with the 4th book instead of the 5th book.

The 4th/5th codexes are dirt cheap on eBay (I averaged about $6 a book), so it doesn't hurt purchasing the complete set just to have on the shelf.

My 2cts regarding nids: please use the 4th edition book. It's not even a contest. The 4th book is loyal to the fluff and allowed you to customise and adapt units. I think it's the best codex nids ever had (starting with 3rd ed). The 5th book was a blatant new-kit-pushing cashgrab that completely removed their customization and invalidated their staple unit (carnifex).

My nids have been gathering dust ever since, no new codex has come close to capturing the flavor of the army like the 4th ed dex did. It's why practically every nid player that's been around since then has an irrational hatred for cruddace.

Sorry for the salt, it still smarts after all those years!

I second the above post about Tyranids.

I'd basically default to 4th ed books, the exceptions I'd consider are tge Ork and DE 5th Ed books, as both of their prior books were relics of early 3rd edition at that point. I thunk both of those books were about a decade old by the time they were replaced.

Similarly, I'd start with 4th ed rules, and then carefully consider which 5th ed changes to take. 5th Ed morale really hurt Necrons. 4th ed Terrain rules were better, imo. 5th ed wound allocation was terrible. 5th ed improved transports though, so you might look at those changes. 4th ed Omega level mission rules were great (Reserves is more similar to 9th, actually). That's off the top of my head.

The difficulty with going all the way back to 4e is that there are a lot of units from later editions people might like that don't have 4e rules. You might want to allow unit profiles for things like the 5e-vintage Leman Russ variants to be used with the older books.

The things to watch out for doing this are the fast armoured MCs (particularly the Dreadknight, Riptide, and pre-superheavy Wraithknight, which proved particularly format-warping in the 5e/6e timeframe) and the flyers. The reason flyers were so disruptive when GW brought the type into the main game in 6e was that they had released a lot of them as fast skimmers in 5e that were much cheaper and had higher armour than Forge World flyers of the time (I don't have a copy of the original Imperial Armour 1 to hand but I remember Valkyries being 200-ish points and AV 11/11/10 rather than the 5e Guard book's 130-ish points and AV 12/12/10) and then made them flyers without adjusting them at all. Get your hands on old Forge World books balanced against 3e/4e and use them as guidelines for flyers and you might have more fun with them.


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 Insectum7 wrote:
...5th ed improved transports though, so you might look at those changes...

The vehicle damage tables are something you're going to want to look at carefully. 4e was written around assumptions about how much AT an army might have that don't necessarily line up with peoples' collections/expectations and you risk making vehicles too squishy, 5e made vehicles so tough that it kicked off the death spiral of stat creep that culminated in things like 7e scatterbikes. I might suggest trying the 5e table (so you only need one vehicle damage table instead of three) but with 6e AP modifiers (+1 for AP2 weapons/+2 for AP1 weapons rather than just +1 for AP1 weapons) to make weapon AP more relevant and make vehicles easier to kill without things like the GK autocannon Dreadnaught.

 Yodhrin wrote:
Assassins(3rd)
Black Templars(4th)
Catachans(4th PDF)
Chaos Daemons(4th)
Chaos Marines("3.5" edition)
Daemonhunters(3rd)
Dark Angels(4th)
Dark Eldar(3rd, revised edition)
Eldar(4th)
Imperial Guard("3.5" edition)
Orks(4th)
Space Marines(4th)
Tau(4th)
Witchunters(3rd)
... I kind of want to include the 5th Necron codex

- Assassins would seem to be obsoleted by the witch hunters/daemonhunters codex. You could arguably also combine those two into a superdex (the alliance rules in the books made that pretty much the case anyway) but if not then keep an eye on the errata as the two were not updated in-sync.
Chapter approved had rules for zealots if you wanted to make ecclesiarchy more of an option. All the missing characters for the sisters were in citadel journal 49 - I can provide them if you'd like.

- Dark Angels 4e (and blood angels 4e if used) had 5e costings for vehicles which will need to be revised. 3e space wolves outdated but try them and see.
You may wish to fold the unique 4e dark angel and 4e blood angel options in the the marine codex rather than trying to retrofit the 4e rulesets.

- 4e nids were solid. 5e necrons will be waaaay to powerful and are costed for a different game so stick with oldcrons.

- Assuming you are using some variant of the 5e core rules the eldar will be fine. If you are using the 4e rules you'll be seeing super skimmers. 3.5 dark eldar could be VERY powerful, but as the points go up their power swings down rapidly, and they are limited.

- 3.5 chaos - you'll want to remove siren, use the FAQed rules for obliterators (toughness 4(5)), and may want to consider not allowing dread axes on daemon princes (strikes first, wound on 2+, no armour, no invulnerable, potentially instant kill, and a half dozen attacks on a jump unit).
There is also quite a jump from the daemons of 3.5 and the stand alone 4e book - and I wouldn't recommend retrofitting the 4e daemons back into the 3.5 book as they are undercosted by the standards of the edition, probably due to their erratic deepstrike entry requirements.

- Imperial armour - the last IA book of 4th edition was IA6. You may want to pick the odd unit from later books (i.e. Inquisitor Rex in IA7, as he is still 3e material). Beware some of the content like the imperial guard auto-moral-breaking ammo, forgeworld had a reputation for a reason. How you pick units out depends on whether you want to write new books or just use the originals and prinouts.

-------------------------------------------------------

5e ruleswise:
Vehicles - i'd suggest adding +1 to damage results for any vehicle that is immobile, and making both the weapon destroyed and immobilized results an 'attackers choice' so rhinos. You are using old books and old costs so you shouldn't have too much in the way of 5e-style parking lots to deal with.

Wound allocation - require wounded models (other than characters) to absorb wounds first. You might want to simplify the allocation split into just two groups 'regular' and 'upgraded/veteran'.

Cover - you may want to reduce the basic obscured cover save to 5+, rather than 4+

Missions - you'll probably want to improve these.

-------------------------------------------------------

I've got a fair collection of oldhammer FAQs - let me know if you need any.

I Sense a theme, i'd reccomend ia13 .
Not for the tanks but rather the R&H list in it .
You'd probably have to cross reference it though with the free vraks PDF that fw released once upon a time.

Alternatively the vraks PDF itself is good Fun but a bit on the iffy side sometimes , due to arty strikes and minefields aswell as Bunkers and sabre weapon plattforms beeing there.

eh, better to use the publishing dates and a wayback engine online to find FAQs and Erratas for the various Editions.
The publications that I have (in chronological order):

Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader rulebook (1987)
Warhammer 40k rulebook (1993)
Warhammer 40k Codex Imperialis (1993)
Warhammer 40k Wargear (1993)
3rd Edition Rulebook (1998)
Codex Space Marines (1998 reprinted 1999)
Codex Imperial Guard (1999)
Codex Battlezone Cityfight (2001)
Tau Codex (2001)
Codex Chaos Space Marines (2002 Third Printing)
Codex Imperial Guard (2003)
Codex Eye of Terror (2003)
Codex Daemonhunters (2003)
Chapter Approved 2004 (2003)
4th Edition Rulebook (2004)
Warhammer 40k Space Marines (Codex, 2004)
Warhammer 40k Wargear (2005)
Imperial Armour Apocalypse (2007)
5th Edition mini Rulebook (2008)
Warhammer 40k Apocalypse (Bit of a mystery here as there is no date printed anywhere on it)
Warhammer 40k Apocalypse Reload (2008)
Tau Empire Rulebook (2008)
Warhammer 40k Imperial Guard (Codex, 2008)
Warhammer 40k Space Marines (Codex, Edition September 2009)
5th Edition mini Rulebook (2008 reprinted 2010)
Warhammer 40k Grey Knights (Codex, 2010)
6th Edition Rulebook (2012)
Warhammer 40k Codex Tau Empire (2012)
Farsight Enclaves supplement (2013)
Warhammer 40k Codex Space Marines (2013)
Warhammer 40k Stronghold Assault (2013)
7th Edition Rulebook (2014)
Warhammer 40k Codex Tau Empire (2015)
War Zone Damocles Kauyon (2015)
War Zone Damocles Mont'ka (2015)
Warhammer 40k Codex Supplement Farsight Enclaves (2016)
8th Edition Rulebook (2017)
Imperial Armour Index: Xenos (2017)
Chapter Approved 2018 edition (2018)
Warhammer 40k Codex Heretic Astartes Thousand Sons (2018)
Warhammer 40k Codex T'au Empire (2018)
Warhammer 40k Codex Chaos Knights (2019)
Warhammer 40k Codex Heretic Astartes II Chaos Space Marines (2019)
Psychic Awakening Engine War (2020)
Psychic Awakening The Greater Good (2020)
Psychic Awakening Ritual of the Damned (2020)
9th Edition Core (Rule)Book (2020)
Warhammer 40k Chapter Approved Grand Tournament 2020 (2020)
Warhammer 40k Chapter Approved Munitorum Field Manual (2020)

to the OP, my preference would be to pick a year, then use the most recent printing before that date.

If anyone wants to, copy my list and add your own books to keep it going.

Not Online!!! wrote:
I Sense a theme, i'd reccomend ia13

I can't think of anything that might go wrong bringing an amped up 5e guard-style faction into a 3e-4e retrohammer game setting...

 carldooley wrote:
eh, better to use the publishing dates and a wayback engine online to find FAQs and Erratas for the various Editions.

Wikipedia will give you a complete list.
The FAQs and errata are harder to track down. I have a number (from my own re-write project), but I doubt it's a complete set.

A.T. wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
I Sense a theme, i'd reccomend ia13

I can't think of anything that might go wrong bringing an amped up 5e guard-style faction into a 3e-4e retrohammer game setting...

Hence why i stated that he should crossreference it.
Op clearly stated he wanted customizability and the decent Times of 4-5 TH Edition.
Now ia13 fits the customizability, but also is Way newer.
Hence why i also Pointed to the free PDF that was released at the time for cross reference.
Which btw is a lot more abusable due to arty strikes...

Not Online!!! wrote:
Hence why i stated that he should crossreference it.
Op clearly stated he wanted customizability and the decent Times of 4-5 TH Edition.
Now ia13 fits the customizability, but also is Way newer.
Hence why i also Pointed to the free PDF that was released at the time for cross reference.
Which btw is a lot more abusable due to arty strikes...

Without knowing which update you are referring to I can't comment on that, but you'd have to completely re-write IA13 from the ground up to field it against 3e and 4e books. I'm also not sure why you wouldn't just use the 4e renegades rules.

Do you have a name for the errata pdf? I have an IA5 q&a, and of course the IA1update, 5e krieg update, heavy artillery update - but it's all bringing the books up to 5e/6e costs.


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Regarding 4e FAQs :

https://web.archive.org/web/2007*/http://us.games-workshop.com/errata/assets/*
You'll probably have to try a few times to get through the 503s

Obviously where possible you would want to use the 5e errata (especially for factions such as eldar and witch/daemon hunters that weren't updated).

-----------------------

Also note that these are not entirely complete - there are some very extensive 3rd edition chapter approved errata documents that I don't have links to (but I do have old local copies for CSM, daemonhunters, DE, guard, and wolves) - which cover a lot of questions in more detail.

If you have your copy of CSM 3.5 to hand check the predator entry - if it reads side armour 12 you have the old first edition printing and need "Warhammer 40k - Codex - Errata - Chaos Space Marines Q&A v3.0.pdf" (huge list of changes) - the version on the trove among others is the outdated one.

Flyers won't be an issue, since both they and superheavies will be barred outside of specific narrative scenarios and Apocalypse games. My objective is to get back to when 40K was a reinforced platoon style game and the big & fancy stuff had its own separate game mode you agreed to play in advance so everyone knew where they stood. The goal is to use 40K rules when that's appropriate for the size of game at hand, and make use of other rulesets(Epic, a tweaked version of the Strike Force rules from Heresy) when that makes more sense.

Bit disappointed to hear 5th Necrons are a bit too far outside the power range of the other stuff, it would have been easier to have the extra choices for "counts as" than trying to drag stuff like the Skorpekh Destroyers and the various Canoptek units back through editions. I'm going to have to do that anyway for a lot of stuff, but it would have been a nice shortcut. Could it maybe be solved by applying a simple point increase? Establish an average percentage difference between the units the 3rd and 5th 'dexes have in common, then bump up all the new stuff by that amount? Bearing in mind that the goal isn't to make a tournament ruleset, just to have things in a state where it's hard to make a cheeselist by accident.

 Yodhrin wrote:
Flyers won't be an issue, since both they and superheavies will be barred outside of specific narrative scenarios and Apocalypse games. My objective is to get back to when 40K was a reinforced platoon style game and the big & fancy stuff had its own separate game mode you agreed to play in advance so everyone knew where they stood. The goal is to use 40K rules when that's appropriate for the size of game at hand, and make use of other rulesets(Epic, a tweaked version of the Strike Force rules from Heresy) when that makes more sense.

Bit disappointed to hear 5th Necrons are a bit too far outside the power range of the other stuff, it would have been easier to have the extra choices for "counts as" than trying to drag stuff like the Skorpekh Destroyers and the various Canoptek units back through editions. I'm going to have to do that anyway for a lot of stuff, but it would have been a nice shortcut. Could it maybe be solved by applying a simple point increase? Establish an average percentage difference between the units the 3rd and 5th 'dexes have in common, then bump up all the new stuff by that amount? Bearing in mind that the goal isn't to make a tournament ruleset, just to have things in a state where it's hard to make a cheeselist by accident.

then you don't want to play less than 500 points, as for several years It was effectively the lowest that Necrons could play at until their newer codecii. 2x10 warriors and Necron lord with Res orb was precisely 500 points.

A.T. wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Hence why i stated that he should crossreference it.
Op clearly stated he wanted customizability and the decent Times of 4-5 TH Edition.
Now ia13 fits the customizability, but also is Way newer.
Hence why i also Pointed to the free PDF that was released at the time for cross reference.
Which btw is a lot more abusable due to arty strikes...

Without knowing which update you are referring to I can't comment on that, but you'd have to completely re-write IA13 from the ground up to field it against 3e and 4e books. I'm also not sure why you wouldn't just use the 4e renegades rules.

Do you have a name for the errata pdf? I have an IA5 q&a, and of course the IA1update, 5e krieg update, heavy artillery update - but it's all bringing the books up to 5e/6e costs.

I mean this doccument, the issue is twofold, for one : http://i.4pcdn.org/tg/1365969838183.pdf (FAQ for it : Forge world Imperial armor 5 - Renegades and Heretics army list update FAQ modified 8th december 2010, which is the latest version to my knowledge but the free download is away from FW sadly so you get forced into less then savoriy sites.)
It is only Vraks defense force during the initial phase and some true wonkyness is in it.


The core issue is that there is no limit for arty strikes in non Apo games.
And even if you go by the benchmark given, you'd end up with 2 permanant bombard strikes in a 2000pts game. Which are 7" blasts S8 AP3 with pinning.
It get's worse with mortars, funnily enough.
Also the minefields are per FAQ: create for 5/6th dangerous terrain around 5" each and you get 6 markers that are each 40mm and a trigger range of 2".
Also the old Advisors are kinda iffy compared to the IA13 ones (read alot better funnily.).
It's honestly a bit of a wash though, because with the rest of the army you might aswell be playing guard without doctrines at that time. (infact even the militia is just guard, infact actually better then guard in that iteration 70% of the time.

TBF you can set out with both lists to break the game, if you intend to do so, one is also a static firing-line with alot of terrain options that get iffy sometimes, the other relies upon combination more, but with formatiions out of the picture the IA13 one get's a lot more palpable because the meanest thing then to do would be Tzeentchian grenadier spam, which wouldn't even really work without Snapshots and overwatch beeing a thing,

 Yodhrin wrote:
Bit disappointed to hear 5th Necrons are a bit too far outside the power range of the other stuff / Could it maybe be solved by applying a simple point increase?

Potentially... but the entire codex is on roughly the same power level as the 5th edtion GK codex.
My first game with it was helping a few friends practice for a (casual) tournament and I won without even trying. Everything is built for the cheaper, more numerous heavy weapons and invulnerables of end-game 5th edition, I can't see how they wouldn't be a brutal steamroller against the 3e books without a total rebalance.

On the subject of points - i'd suggest 1000 minimum, 1500 standard, and 1850 large, give or take. Lower than 1000 you may want to use the patrol rules (i.e. no characters above 2 wounds, vehicle limits).
I would avoid some of the old comp rules that were floating around from that era, they usually hurt the limited armies more than the strong ones.

Not Online!!! wrote:
1365969838183.pdf

That is the 5th edition renegades update. It scales directly to the leafblower codex, only cheaper and with more guns.
Fundamentally it is the codex from IA5, but with 5e points rather than 4e points, given that everything else is using 4e points the original rules would make more use. But they are the static gunline to end all static gunlines - I guess it is down to each group whether they want to play against mindfields and artillery strikes on their objectives.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here are the errata for the chaos 3.5 second printing :

P12. Fearlessness. The wording for Fearless should be standard wherever it occurs in the Warhammer 40,000 game system. The entry in Codex: Chaos Space Marines is in error as it should confer immunity to Morale AND Pinning tests.
P.14 Servo-arm is Iron Warriors only. Juggernaut of Khorne should be 35 points. Talisman of Burning Blood should be 10/5. All Marks of Chaos should be asterisked as they can be used by models in Terminator armour.
P16 Reference to Favour of Khorne under bionics should refer to Feel No Pain instead.
P17 The Terminator armour entry should state that models in Terminator armour count as stationary when shooting, even if they move.
P27 Obliterator Toughness should be 4(5).
P32 The line, "The squad may be an Aspiring Champion" should read "The squad may include an Aspiring Champion".
P33 Screamers of Tzeentch have the Furious Charge ability.
P34 Predator Side Armour should be 11.
P37 Maximum indirect fire range for a Defiler battle cannon is 72".
P47 Axe of Khorne should be 20/15 points.
P47 Khârn has Daemonic armour not Chaos armour.
P59 An Aspiring Champion with the Mark of Tzeentch automatically passes any Psychic tests taken. All models with the Mark of Tzeentch are Fearless. A Disc of Tzeentch costs 30 points.

A.T. wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
Bit disappointed to hear 5th Necrons are a bit too far outside the power range of the other stuff / Could it maybe be solved by applying a simple point increase?

Potentially... but the entire codex is on roughly the same power level as the 5th edtion GK codex.
My first game with it was helping a few friends practice for a (casual) tournament and I won without even trying. Everything is built for the cheaper, more numerous heavy weapons and invulnerables of end-game 5th edition, I can't see how they wouldn't be a brutal steamroller against the 3e books without a total rebalance.

On the subject of points - i'd suggest 1000 minimum, 1500 standard, and 1850 large, give or take. Lower than 1000 you may want to use the patrol rules (i.e. no characters above 2 wounds, vehicle limits).
I would avoid some of the old comp rules that were floating around from that era, they usually hurt the limited armies more than the strong ones.

The plan, assuming I can convince anyone else to sign up, is to run a continuum of games going: Strike Force(will be tweaked) for Kill Team-esque missions, Zone Mortalis(again, tweaked) at 1k where the narrative calls for it, 1500pt Groghammer as the "typical" game, and Epic Armageddon or nuTitanicus for anything larger.

I suppose for the Necron stuff I'll just have to try and write up my own versions of the units then, eesh.

 Yodhrin wrote:
I suppose for the Necron stuff I'll just have to try and write up my own versions of the units then, eesh.

When I was playing around with much the same project a while back Crons and DE were the most awkward caught mid-way between large edition changes, followed by nids. Though quite a bit was a question of target audience.
Daemons were also in an awkward place relative to CSM and all of the anti-daemon rules of the time, i'd pushed them onto the backburner initially.

A.T. wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
1365969838183.pdf

That is the 5th edition renegades update. It scales directly to the leafblower codex, only cheaper and with more guns.
Fundamentally it is the codex from IA5, but with 5e points rather than 4e points, given that everything else is using 4e points the original rules would make more use. But they are the static gunline to end all static gunlines - I guess it is down to each group whether they want to play against mindfields and artillery strikes on their objectives.

.

Hence why i stated that IA 13 rewrite would fit better.

You'd not even have to change awefully lot of things.

Vehicles you can take 1:1 regular IG ones, apply Militia training and point accordingly to the IG dex in use.
Cut the arvus.
Increase the pts for Plague zombies by 1 PPm (probably better 2)

Cost Disciples and veterans at 8 ppm, and force min 10 man squads.
Force min 10 man squads on marauders.
Copy Chaos spawn entry over from the CSM dex in use.

Fixing the covenant of tzeentch , probably allowing overwatch(?¨?)

Not Online!!! wrote:
Hence why i stated that IA 13 rewrite would fit better.

Sorry, i'm still not seeing how this all works.

There is an existing 4e version of the renegades and heretics codex in the vraks book that can be used largely as-is.

I don't know why you would ever go near the 5e and 6e versions if you are playing oldhammer with 3e and 4e books.

A.T. wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Hence why i stated that IA 13 rewrite would fit better.

Sorry, i'm still not seeing how this all works.

There is an existing 4e version of the renegades and heretics codex in the vraks book that can be used largely as-is.

I don't know why you would ever go near the 5e and 6e versions if you are playing oldhammer with 3e and 4e books.

Again, rather simple, because the old version is one specific subjfaction.
Largely broken comparatively, even pts wise and only really workable as a counter player to a DKoK army.
You could go even further back with the eye of terror list, but that one, has also it's pitfalls.

Regardless what you do you have your work cut out for it:
also this is from OP:

I've basically accepted that GW & it's modern audience and I have parted ways when it comes to what we're looking for from 40K both as a game and as a setting. I don't see why that should make me stop enjoying the version of it I like, however, so I'm going back to cludge together core rules from 5th and 4th and pick out the "best" applicable codices - which I define as the ones that give the most thematically appropriate options and require actual intent to make broken cheeselists.

Not Online!!! wrote:
Regardless what you do you have your work cut out for it:

Well my two cents on that front would be that if renegade guard are desired - start with vraks, fix any issues, and then add to it.

IA13 was high power 6e rules down to its underlying structure. You'd have to gut it entirely, repoint everything, and rebuild half the units from the ground up just to get it to a point where it is vaguely consistant with the 3.5 imperial guard codex so that you could consider any actual balance changes. Vraks may also have its issues but it is a whole lot less work.

A.T. wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Regardless what you do you have your work cut out for it:

Well my two cents on that front would be that if renegade guard are desired - start with vraks, fix any issues, and then add to it.

IA13 was high power 6e rules down to its underlying structure. You'd have to gut it entirely, repoint everything, and rebuild half the units from the ground up just to get it to a point where it is vaguely consistant with the 3.5 imperial guard codex so that you could consider any actual balance changes. Vraks may also have its issues but it is a whole lot less work.

Disagree, you aren't pts wise that far off, especially in conjunction if you want to actually take advantage of the subfactions within. Which Btw, doctrines are basically the same but without a pricetag.
And high power is also not correct.
the build you have in mind that was seen in tournaments and rightfully called broken, was a specific vraks sub category in conjunction with a formation from mainline GW. Neither of which show up in IA 13.

Not Online!!! wrote:
Disagree, you aren't pts wise that far off, especially in conjunction if you want to actually take advantage of the subfactions within. Which Btw, doctrines are basically the same but without a pricetag

I think we've just hit a fundamental difference of opinion over whether a 3e/4e codex or 5e/6e codex would be more suited to a 3e/4e oldhammer game.

aren't there traitor rules in the excellent Eye of Terror campaign supplement or am I misremembering?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
aren't there traitor rules in the excellent Eye of Terror campaign supplement or am I misremembering?

Yes - lost and damned, page 42 onwards.
There was also a more restricted variant printed in the witch hunters codex (but not the free witch hunters pdf release), and the large IA5, 6, and 7 rulesets.

For Renegades, I would suggest just using the Lost And The Damned list from 3rd and the original Renegades & Heretics list from 4th.

LatD gives you the catch-all mutants-and-Chaos list, and R&H gives you the more focused, Chaos-influenced-Guard list.

Hey folks, I'm just getting caught up on this thread and I'd absolutely love to play the older editions again (stratagems don't make sense as a concept too often!).

I was wondering if there's any thought of retrofitting primaris as their firstborn equivalents yet? It would be great to get to use existing models like that, or even use both firstborn and primaris, but just give primaris Feel No Pain or something. Hellblasters could just be plasma wielding tacticals, intercessors could be tacticals and infiltrators would just be assault marines minus the jump packs.

Also is there any consensus on which rulebook should be the basis of whatever you're calling this? I know little about balance between editions, but would be very interested in seeing what becomes of this (I miss my old fluffy codex!)

Subtract 1 W from Terminators, Aggressors and Centurions, translate low M to low Initiative, Slow and Purposeful or always strikes last weapons. When assigning a pts value keep in mind multiple wounds was generally more powerful in previous editions. 2W is the same as 4+ FNP, so try contrasting with Plague Marines, I believe they used to have 4+ FNP at some point.

a fat guy wrote:
I was wondering if there's any thought of retrofitting primaris as their firstborn equivalents yet?

Could perhaps be done using the sons of antaeus.
They are old chapter approved 2004 cursed founding rules that give you toughness 4(5) marines for +5pts a model (+10 for multiwound models)

Similarly the deathwatch rules give a cost for extended range AP4 boltguns for intercessors, and when it comes to all-special squads you might consider the +5pt/+50% wargear cost increase common for the era. That would give you a starting point anyway,

a fat guy wrote:
Also is there any consensus on which rulebook should be the basis of whatever you're calling this? I know little about balance between editions, but would be very interested in seeing what becomes of this (I miss my old fluffy codex!)

Modifying oldhammer is always a case of picking an edition and then retrofitting it. They all have issues but 5e is usually a popular one and doesn't particularly favour any codex when you deal with the low hanging fruit of vehicle damage, wound allocation, and mission objectives (victory points in particular).

a fat guy wrote:
Hey folks, I'm just getting caught up on this thread and I'd absolutely love to play the older editions again (stratagems don't make sense as a concept too often!).

I was wondering if there's any thought of retrofitting primaris as their firstborn equivalents yet? It would be great to get to use existing models like that, or even use both firstborn and primaris, but just give primaris Feel No Pain or something. Hellblasters could just be plasma wielding tacticals, intercessors could be tacticals and infiltrators would just be assault marines minus the jump packs.

Also is there any consensus on which rulebook should be the basis of whatever you're calling this? I know little about balance between editions, but would be very interested in seeing what becomes of this (I miss my old fluffy codex!)

No offense but escaping guff like Primaris is why I'm doing this.