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Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Been a while, but given a fresh thread seems wasteful, hopefully this threadomancy can be understood.
Getting back to rounding off my 2nd Ed Epic collection this year. Just need a copy of Titan Legions, and the relevant WD back issues.
I'd like to collect the entire print run of WD during the 2nd ed. 40k era I've been mostly doing "strategic purchases," buying issues that I know have articles I want (like the Datafaxes for Eldar Falcons), but now I'm thinking of broadening the effort.
Of course, Codex: Warhammer 40k Battles covered a lot of ground. That's got to be the hardest of the various books to fine. I found one reasonably priced and in good condition, but all the inserts were stripped.
That was okay, though, because I built my own Battle Bunkers.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2023/01/19 00:32:21
My Xmas gift to myself this year was using my bonus to add to my Oldhammer collection.
I spent a bit more than I should have ebaying a full set of RT and RoC reprints. I also dug out a tattered copy of WHFB I bought 10 years ago and finally did the binding and cover repairs I'd been meaning to get around to...for 10 years.
Thusly equipped with the basics, I've managed to hunt up reasonably-priced copies of the RT Compendium, Compilation, and Battle Manual. On top of that, a friend txted me from a used bookstore to ask me if I wanted a copy of the 3e Warhammer Siege for $15. (The answer included very emphatic profanity, but boiled down to 'yes, please'.)
I'm now poised to embark on some fun STL and modern plastics (mostly Northstar) projects to put together something I'm thinking of as 'neo-Oldhammer'. Where I play around with the rules and the DIY mindset of Oldhammer, without being chained by the nostalgic need for original-era miniatures that grips some in the movement.
Now, I just need to decide if I want some of the never-reasonably-priced rulebooks (like Warhammer Armies or the RT Ork books) or if I'm fine referencing the scanned PDFs I have on my tablet...
Oh, and my Herohammer collection is missing only a Chaos Dwarf army book, and the Sister of Battle, Angels of Death, and Space Wolf codexes. I'd love to get a Chaos Dwarf book, but not for the Oldhammer Derangement Syndrome prices on eBay. The codexes....eh, SoB would be nice but suffers from ODS prices, too. The variant marine chapters hold little interest for me, though.
Oh, and my Herohammer collection is missing only a Chaos Dwarf army book, and the Sister of Battle, Angels of Death, and Space Wolf codexes. I'd love to get a Chaos Dwarf book, but not for the Oldhammer Derangement Syndrome prices on eBay. The codexes....eh, SoB would be nice but suffers from ODS prices, too. The variant marine chapters hold little interest for me, though.
The best time to buy that stuff is always 10 years ago.
So, in the interest of full disclosure, I didn't get into Warhammer gaming until Fall 1996, when I moved to a college town for, well, college. I fell into WHFB 5e rather hard, and dabbled in 40K 2e. Although I was Warhammer-adjacent all though late middle school and high school, as my best friend and I jumped into Heroquest and Battlemaster early and with both feet.
Now I'm finally able to sit down with a hardcopy of WHFB 3e and Rogue Trader, flipping back and forth to reference other pages in the way you just really can't do with a PDF on a tablet. It's really sinking in just how versatile and toolkit-based these editions are. I really, really get why so much of the 'proper' Oldhammer movement focuses on them. It's less "Here's the kit to start playing our game,' of the box set editions and more, "Here's the kit to make our game yours."
Now I sit and read and, underneath all the crazy plans and designs for getting back into Warhammer my way, I also can't help but envision an alternate timeline. One where, instead of a media and book store opening in the nearby town leading us to find AD&D 2e, maybe one of the five (yes, five) comic shops that opened to cash in on the 90's speculator craze (and because that's all they were doing, lasted...I think the most successful one lasted a bit over a year) had also offered games and such, and our Battlemaster-playing selves had stumbled onto these books...
I think I get the 'proper' Oldhammer editions purists a little better now. I'm really glad I bought these editions, even if I never actually use them. There's some real gaming magic in here.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/01/21 20:25:22
I'm finding that reading through these books (and thumbing through PDF scans of old White Dwarf I found somewhere...probably some online back-alley of dubious legitimacy) and soaking up the context and concepts alone is worth the money (don't add up how much, don't add up how much) I've spent on them this holiday season. Even if I never play a game.
It's also made me reflect on when, how, and why gaming feels like it's shifted from selling us ways to do fun things with miniatures and dice, and selling us 'the right way' to play with miniatures and dice. Somewhere, it feels like we lost the creative impulse to say, "screw it, let's do this, this, and this for this game and see how this scenario plays out!" and instead looked to the rulesets for permission to do such things.
Hmmm. I live in the same town as that old friend I played Heroquest, Battlemaster, and AD&D with. He's always had a soft spot for Conan and other Cimmerian type barbarians, and I have a few boxes of Frostgrave barbarians stockpiled. And I have the full range of Monstrous Encounter's Bretonnian STLs and a resin printer. I think I might be getting inspired...
Edit: Oh, and the temptation was too much. I also have a copy of Warhammer Armies on the way.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2023/01/21 22:33:13
Yes the base rules have gone from “feth it, put it in” through many many polishes and now maybe a bit overproduced.
But like my beloved Punk music? The spirit is still there, and that spirit is eternal.
A lot of the rough and ready stuff of Rogue Trader was necessary. They clearly had a vision grander than their resources could deliver, so a lot of it was DIY.
Rogue Trader and 2nd Ed really took off, and so the resources over time got closer and closer to being able to deliver the original vision. And as it did so, it replaced the need for DIY. But even as we seem to be hurtling toward 10th Ed? They can’t and probably don’t want to remove the Want to DIY.
Yes No Model No Rule is a pain in the balls. But the fact there’s an Official Model by no means stops you or I kitbashing our way to victory.
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
Psychopomp wrote: It's also made me reflect on when, how, and why gaming feels like it's shifted from selling us ways to do fun things with miniatures and dice, and selling us 'the right way' to play with miniatures and dice. Somewhere, it feels like we lost the creative impulse to say, "screw it, let's do this, this, and this for this game and see how this scenario plays out!" and instead looked to the rulesets for permission to do such things.
My timeline is very similar to yours. The 1990s GW was the best GW, and there was so much creativity and experimentation that one could look past bad rules to see the big picture. GW's official position was also more of a DIY approach. It was near the end of that era that the Tournament Mentality took root, and people would excuse rules imbalances and uneven balances by saying "well, in a tournament, that list would get trounced!"
Yeah, well I'm not in a tournament, and I don't care that over 100 games things will work out with other players I don't know.
I kept my 2nd ed books and when friends quit, they gave me theirs. I also ended up with a bunch of 5th ed WHFB books, which is funny because I hated that game. I loved 6th, but when I heard the first hint of 7th, I sold off all my books while I could still get decent (current) prices. I was short of cash at the time, and I have no regrets. That money went to good use.
Since those days, I have been rounding out my 2nd collection, having all the codexes and a bunch of WD. It's a fun era to live in, so that's where I'm staying.
Honestly, if 5th wasn't so badly abused, it had a lot of things going for it. I used my 5th ed books to inform the lists I built for my fantasy wargame, Conqueror: Fields of Victory. I feel that that was in many ways more authentic than what came after.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/01/22 00:03:28
This is definitely a thread I can settle down in.
We're making banners for the backs of our bikes with cocktail sticks as a prototype Standard Template Design hole on the back of the bike seat.
Double purpose, even ABS resin is fragile and it makes a simple play model interchangeable.
Fluff related content about this by myself and star studded team of painters of many levels and fields of talent keen to give Old Edition hobby content a reworking.
It's also what Bikers do, double secure flags at the back of a seat or cissy bar.
Since retiring from the military I have lost my most regular 3rd Ed. 40K opponent. Shame, I now have 3 Vindicators painted up and ready for a game...
On the plus side the FLGS has let me slot in a "classichammer" weekend each month to concentrate on older editions of WFB, heavy on 6th, and if it is popular enough moving into older editions of 40K.
On the plus side the FLGS has let me slot in a "classichammer" weekend each month to concentrate on older editions of WFB, heavy on 6th, and if it is popular enough moving into older editions of 40K.
Dunno how many takers I might find, but hey, if you don’t Grot Around, you won’t find out!
That not surprisingly is the best way to do it. as the old joke goes if you build it.... building the community is where it starts.
We have a core group of local regulars who started back with the older editions but since we are near 2 military bases we have a high volume turn around of gamers every few years. i have made some great friends and miss some of them quite a bit, but i am always happy to introduce new players to the older editions. did some of that last weekend (batrep in my old editions topic) in fact. the guy tried out a game of 9th and got spanked by a tournament minded player (think tread head meets eradicators) and then got to play his 3rd ed armored company list in our 5th ed hybrid setting (vs 5th ed standard guard) and loved it.
GAMES-DUST1947/infinity/B5 wars/epic 40K/5th ed 40K/victory at sea/warmachine/battle tactics/monpoc/battletech/battlefleet gothic/castles in the sky,/heavy gear
Yes the base rules have gone from “feth it, put it in” through many many polishes and now maybe a bit overproduced.
But like my beloved Punk music? The spirit is still there, and that spirit is eternal.
A lot of the rough and ready stuff of Rogue Trader was necessary. They clearly had a vision grander than their resources could deliver, so a lot of it was DIY.
Rogue Trader and 2nd Ed really took off, and so the resources over time got closer and closer to being able to deliver the original vision. And as it did so, it replaced the need for DIY. But even as we seem to be hurtling toward 10th Ed? They can’t and probably don’t want to remove the Want to DIY.
Yes No Model No Rule is a pain in the balls. But the fact there’s an Official Model by no means stops you or I kitbashing our way to victory.
There's just something so refreshing about the way WHFB 3e says, "Here's the points for everything, including the various troop type upgrade rules. Put together whatever serves your purpose in friendly games, and army lists for competitive games are in this book. Of course, you can use those lists as guidelines and add other things from the corebook for your friendly games, too."
RT has a lot of that too - including the rough points costs for stats! - but initially there were no lists for the corebook to refer to. The randomly-rolled equipment is a bit off-putting, but an easy fix just by saying, "Let's just choose equipment and pay for it using the rulebook points, following the rough guidelines of what the squads have available."
There's a big difference between today's "here's the game laid out for you" with the option of sitting down and figuring out how to tweak it between friends and the RT/WHFB3 era's way being giving a toolbox and resources, with a "and you can buy preconstructed elements, if you want." Even the rules are a more interesting read, because there's more a sense of them being something you'll build a game with, rather than being what you must know to play a game as built.
Like I started with...it's just refreshing. I very much see why these ruleset editions are the ones that caught so much traction in the Oldhammer movement.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/02/16 14:48:28
I don’t mean that in a mean spirited “damn whippersnappers” way. Just an observation.
Most of the stuff I did as a kiddo was Mend and Make Do or Make It Up Yourself. For instance, yes I had Star Wars and He-Man toys - but no VCR. So if I wanted to indulge, I was making up my own stories via the toys. We just didn’t have the home media options, so it was loose memories and whatever my mind vomited up.
So when 40K came along, and it had that DIY, bodge it as best you can vibe? I was up for it, and greatly enjoyed it. I still do.
Of course, that’s no excuse for them not putting out better rules etc in the first place. Just a bit of framing as to why, and I dare say my contemporaries perhaps aren’t as irked as others.
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
Dunno how many takers I might find, but hey, if you don’t Grot Around, you won’t find out!
I'm running an Epic Space marine event (1991/94 edition) at a local store next month. Was expecting maybe a handful of people and actually wondering if anyone would come at all. Then, it absolutely blew up on social media with hundreds of likes and shares, and the place has had to put on more tickets and time slots for attendees so we are not overwhelmed!
Definitely think there is a big appetite for retro stuff, and especially the likes of Epic where it hasn't been available as an official product for some time. But, you have the whole of GW history to plunder - everything from Battle on the Farm, to Space Hulk/Tyranid Attack, even WHFB now as that game has been out of circulation for a few years now.
I don’t mean that in a mean spirited “damn whippersnappers” way. Just an observation.
What you're referencing is that we had a lack of "structured play." Older generations were left to their own devices to devise the rules of games and then enforce them. This fostered independence and creativity.
Since that time the emphasis is on structure and guided learning. Children have to check and see if a certain activity is allowed before trying it out. Individual behavior is frowned on in favor of group conformity and adherence to authority directives.
This meshes with GW's increasingly authoritarian approach to gaming, and I think much the appeal of Oldhammer is the freedom it offers the players. For many of these people, it is wonderfully bracing to break out of what is permitted and find their own way.
That's certainly a theory one could have, to put it politely. Alternatively, GW's "authoritarian" approach to gaming aligns with their increased manufacturing capacity and expectations of shareholder value, and the freedom of the early era was largely the result of GW having to settle for "make up your own stuff" because they lacked the ability to manufacture and sell it to you. I don't see any connection to any larger cultural trend towards conformity in play, if such a thing even exists at all.
I have been making some videos to help people tinker with 3rd edition WFB. Here is the latest and the necromancer and his vicious girlfriend are a small example of the make it yourself nature of that era.
I don’t mean that in a mean spirited “damn whippersnappers” way. Just an observation.
What you're referencing is that we had a lack of "structured play." Older generations were left to their own devices to devise the rules of games and then enforce them. This fostered independence and creativity.
Since that time the emphasis is on structure and guided learning. Children have to check and see if a certain activity is allowed before trying it out. Individual behavior is frowned on in favor of group conformity and adherence to authority directives.
This meshes with GW's increasingly authoritarian approach to gaming, and I think much the appeal of Oldhammer is the freedom it offers the players. For many of these people, it is wonderfully bracing to break out of what is permitted and find their own way.
I think saying GW are authoritarian is over-egging the pudding somewhat, but I see where you’re coming from.
But we need to acknowledge the GW of today just isn’t the same GW of yesteryear. They’re a helluva lot bigger for a start, and that brings different pressures.
One concept I will rail against is the odd insistence that GW are trying to ban or discourage conversions and scratch builds.
Yes scratch builds are near a thing of the past - but because GW now have the design and production capacity to churn out…..pretty much anything. Going back to Rogue Trader, there were four plastic vehicle kits. Land Raider, Battle Wagon, Rhino and Predator. And until 2nd Ed, that was your lot.
So in WD we got plans and instructions for converting those into new variants, and even nets for entirely scratch building the Gobsmasha (I have the plans. One day I will give it a try!).
No we don’t get those anymore, because GW have the necessary resources to make them formal, commercial kits. And let’s be completely real here. Those conversion articles were a sales pitch, as you still typically had to buy the base kit first. So they’re really not that different in approach.
I will rag on the modern “set equipment” approach, because it’s not what I’m used to. But tied as that is to the models GW actually produce? That’s still not them actively blocking conversions. Like. At all. Not having to convert is not the same thing at all from not allowed to convert.
And to me, that’s all they’ve done. Greatly reduce the need to scratch build or convert.
Not using another companies models as proxies, or as the obvious base to a model? That’s been an objection all the time I’ve been gaming in-store (circa 1996….ish), so again is hardly a modern development.
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
I got in a game of 2nd ed. a couple of weeks ago. Chaos Rhino got hit by a D-cannon and teleported to the worst possible place on the board in terms of the scenario. What are the odds? It died almost immediately, but the lone survivor of all the shooting - a veteran with a missile launcher - managed to blow the leg off an Eldar dreadnought in a brilliant last act of defiance.
My Chaos guys got crushed, but it was close for a while and quite fun. My first time using Noise Marines and they were utterly useless. So clearly I wasn't missing anything.
Used to love making bits fly off vehicles and land on some poor unfortunate.
Best shot I ever pulled off was the lone surviving Blood Claw putting a bolt round square into a War Walker pilot, who promptly failed his save, before falling into another War Walker, setting off a chain reaction of lanky Eldar Dominos.
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
5th ed 40k and 7th ed Oldhammer will always hold special places in my heart. While I liked 8th, I painted 300+ Goblins and Orcs and found it very exhausting.
I wish I could of seen like 3rd-4th ed 40k and 5th ed Oldhammer, but alas just a bit before my time. :(
Whee have Kaptoored it for Kay-oos" I like to play Skirmish games and occasionally some AoS or 40k.
There wasn’t much difference, barring cards for items and spells going bye-byes.
I think 5th also did sway with “flying high” which drastically reduced the potency of Flying Creatures and increased the life expectancy of Artillery. Both were welcome!
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: There wasn’t much difference, barring cards for items and spells going bye-byes.
I think 5th also did sway with “flying high” which drastically reduced the potency of Flying Creatures and increased the life expectancy of Artillery. Both were welcome!
Flying high was still in 5th WHFB. That’s when I played almost all my fantasy games (no 4th, just a few 6th) and remember it being a big thing.
I have been making some videos to help people tinker with 3rd edition WFB. Here is the latest and the necromancer and his vicious girlfriend are a small example of the make it yourself nature of that era.
Great looking armies. The vampire and necromancer diorama in particular is excellent.
The game looks horribly unbalanced, but really cool unit entries and fluff.
Whee have Kaptoored it for Kay-oos" 
Ultramarines, 3rd Co. and friends, 16k+ 
4k 
2k Points
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