Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

That’s a nice mix of eras right there!

 Cap'n Facebeard wrote:
Thought you grognards might appreciate what I got in the mail today:

With how much Codexes are priced nowadays, I'd be expecting them to all look like that

very cool!

TAMURKHAN!

Its a beautiful book, makes me wish I'd bought all the Alan Bligh Heresy books when they were available too.

I started off in 3rd edition. I have retroactively come to appreciate 2nd edition. I even kinda appreciate vehicles having toughness instead of AV to some degree, but I'm not sure if it was entirely needed. Been trying to find some ways to blend my favorite parts of 4th and 2nd edition, with some take-aways from battletech (alternating unit activations, wounds/casualties doesn't apply to until the end of the turn)

EDIT: I've been wondering. I have found the 2nd edition 40k battle bible, but has anything similar been made for other editions of 40k?

Well. Damn.

Preview just showed of the remaining Aspect Warriors in plastic. Which I guess means I’ll be revisiting my “2nd Ed to Modern” Eldar army concept.

Only been at it since 9th Ed.

Just the scorpion phoenix lord left from the old guard?

And pretty much the last of the finecast.

And the Sniper Lad, who’s name I can’t remember.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
And the Sniper Lad, who’s name I can’t remember.

I think he was range rotated out, wonder if he’ll be in the new book? Corsair prince ever make it to plastic?

Corsair Captain is made from the Corsair box, if that helps?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Corsair Captain is made from the Corsair box, if that helps?

I was thinking the named guy prince yrial? Guy with the cursed spear?

Sniper is illic nightspear, nice looking mini.

Oh, Yriel! Yeah, he’s gone Legends too is seems.

So I got the last 4th ed whfb army book I needed, the Chaos Dwarf one. Not as lore heavy as the others, probably because it is a collection of white dwarf articles.

And no I didn't spend the ridiculous ebay prices, I snapped it up from an Australian seller as well as a small army of chaos dwarfs and hobgoblins

Had a couple of revelations whilst dozing in my bed,

1. Plastic Aspects mean I now have the option to build the 2nd Ed Exarchs of my dreams.

2. Jes Goodwin is knocking on a bit now. What if this push to get the Eldar up to date is a herald of his retirement?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Jes Goodwin is knocking on a bit now. What if this push to get the Eldar up to date is a herald of his retirement?

How old is Jes Goodwin now? His online bios are very coy about it. If we assume he was at least 20 in the 80s, he must be 60+

Has to be at least knocking 60.

Let’s think. 40K came out 1987, which is 37 years ago now. Even if he was a mere 20 back then? That’s 57 now. But of course, he was with GW well before then.

So easily into his 60’s I’d reckon?

Cap'n Facebeard wrote:So I got the last 4th ed whfb army book I needed, the Chaos Dwarf one. Not as lore heavy as the others, probably because it is a collection of white dwarf articles.

And no I didn't spend the ridiculous ebay prices, I snapped it up from an Australian seller as well as a small army of chaos dwarfs and hobgoblins

Years ago I grabbed most of the old 4th/5th WFB army books when they were in the price trough of "nobody wants these old books for an obsolete edition of the game" but before the price peak of "wait we're old enough now to be nostalgic for the old stuff". But I turned down an offer of the Chaos Dwarf one, for about $5, because I don't much like Chaos Dwarfs and I already had the old White Dwarfs with those articles in it.

That was a decision of considerable short-sightedness, let me tell you. Clearly I don't think like a Dwarf when it comes to future opportunities to accrue gold.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Has to be at least knocking 60.

Let’s think. 40K came out 1987, which is 37 years ago now. Even if he was a mere 20 back then? That’s 57 now. But of course, he was with GW well before then.

So easily into his 60’s I’d reckon?

Heresy! Jes Goodwin is timeless, just like his sculpts! He'll still be there in five hundred years. Possibly as a liche or something.

Zenithfleet wrote:
But I turned down an offer of the Chaos Dwarf one, for about $5, because I don't much like Chaos Dwarfs and I already had the old White Dwarfs with those articles in it.

Ouch. I paid in excess of $100 AUD and I felt it was cheap, as every other time I've seen in on ebay its been $300-400+

Zenithfleet wrote:

Cap'n Facebeard wrote:So I got the last 4th ed whfb army book I needed, the Chaos Dwarf one. Not as lore heavy as the others, probably because it is a collection of white dwarf articles.

And no I didn't spend the ridiculous ebay prices, I snapped it up from an Australian seller as well as a small army of chaos dwarfs and hobgoblins

Years ago I grabbed most of the old 4th/5th WFB army books when they were in the price trough of "nobody wants these old books for an obsolete edition of the game" but before the price peak of "wait we're old enough now to be nostalgic for the old stuff". But I turned down an offer of the Chaos Dwarf one, for about $5, because I don't much like Chaos Dwarfs and I already had the old White Dwarfs with those articles in it.

That was a decision of considerable short-sightedness, let me tell you. Clearly I don't think like a Dwarf when it comes to future opportunities to accrue gold.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Has to be at least knocking 60.

Let’s think. 40K came out 1987, which is 37 years ago now. Even if he was a mere 20 back then? That’s 57 now. But of course, he was with GW well before then.

So easily into his 60’s I’d reckon?

Heresy! Jes Goodwin is timeless, just like his sculpts! He'll still be there in five hundred years. Possibly as a liche or something.

Oof, I have similar thoughts about 2nd/3rd edition 40k. I grabbed a codex "angels of darkness" back around 4th edition because it had more painting info than the 3rd edition codex, but I currently wish I had grabbed all the other codexes, I also kinda wish I still had all the 3rd edition codexs now too. Looking at prices, most of the stuff in the UK is decent price but shipping adds $20, and most of the stuff in the US is just as expensive with shipping as the UK stuff.

As an old dark angel player i have the 3.5, 4th, 5th and 6th ed codexes, but the 3.5 is still the best. it puts so much flavor into the army with only a couple pagers of rules.

Quick disclaimer: I haven't played in 10th edition yet.

Anyone else remember when there used to be rules for embarking units inside building that were terrain for either side to use? You could target the building and try to destroy it with the unit inside. I wish they'd bring that back.

Recently I managed to snag this large 1998 coffee-table book / guide / encyclopedia thing describing the fluff of 5th edition WFB:



The World of Warhammer

Until a short while ago I never knew it existed. It seems to have come out after the 5th ed Bretonnian, Lizardmen and Realm of Chaos army books were released, but before the Vampire Counts book (it still has classic Undead). Pretty much the definitive version of the WFB background as far as I'm concerned. Everything after this was fanfiction! (Heh, fighting words? )

As a coffee-table sort of book, the main draw is the illustrations. It's full of the bombastic art of 4th and 5th edition all gathered together in one place, plus a few older pieces.

The fluff text isn't copy-pasted from WFB rulebooks but is entirely written from scratch by someone called Richard Wolfrik Galland. It's pretty basic intro-level stuff but it's interesting to see the classic background written in a different style to the usual Rick Priestley / Jervis Johnson / Bill King et al text that used to get copied and recopied across editions and into White Dwarf. It's like a fan telling you about the background in a mostly-accurate-but-not-officially-worded way.

Galland is a bit overfond of the word 'prosaic' and some of the fluff seems a little wonky in places but it's not a bad effort. There are a lot of typos, though, which sadly seems common for books of this kind. I guess the publishers see the illustrations as the main draw and the text is just there as decoration, instead of the other way around. They're meant to be leafed through and oohed and aahed over, not read cover to cover. One map is pretty much unreadable due to some sort of printing error. (And he keeps misspelling Waaagh as Waaargh, but that's how I always thought it ought to be spelled in the first place...)

In a couple of places he gets all scholarly and muses on inconsistencies like whether the Dwarf holds were destroyed by a malfunctioning Skaven device or by the Slann across the sea shifting the continents (both conflicting explanations being present in the respective army books). He notes that no one seems to know how Orcs reproduce or whether they even have genders. (This was at a time when the whole subject of where little Orcs come from was basically ignored.)

Also I'm amused that in the Chaos section there are pictures of Khorne, Nurgle and Tzeentch daemons, but not Slaaneshi ones. And the header on the page misspells it as Slannesh. I don't know what they were worried about... it's not like 4th/5th ed Slaanesh artwork had a reputation for raciness. More like the opposite. Meanwhile the 4th ed Witch Elf art is present and correct.

There may or may not be a scan of the book on the Internet Archive (not done by me, lawyers!) if anyone wants to have a squiz.

Overall it wasn't really worth the slightly silly price I paid for it, but I know some people out there have a lot of nostalgia for this book as it was their first introduction to the WFB world.

Not sure how far down this particular rabbit hole I’ll go, but last night I ordered Realm of Chaos and Champions of Chaos (books only).

Found them both for lower than usual price, from the same seller. Seemed churlish to leave them languishing.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Not sure how far down this particular rabbit hole I’ll go, but last night I ordered Realm of Chaos and Champions of Chaos (books only).

Found them both for lower than usual price, from the same seller. Seemed churlish to leave them languishing.

Those the 5th WHFB chaos books? It’s been a while. As an edition, 5ht had a lot of parallels with 2nd ed of 40k. Same era. Not a bad one to pair with your collection of that.

That’s the ones. Either that or 6th.

The army selection was unique, where you built individual warbands, starting with a champion. That done? You had to at least match their points in followers.

With Chaos returned to the Old World, and a bunch of gorgeous options from Slaves to Darkness, I may yet find myself building up a force.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
That’s the ones. Either that or 6th.

The army selection was unique, where you built individual warbands, starting with a champion. That done? You had to at least match their points in followers.

With Chaos returned to the Old World, and a bunch of gorgeous options from Slaves to Darkness, I may yet find myself building up a force.

The retinue rule made for thematic army construction, but was a pain to actually do. And put some pretty hard caps on what you could do. In a hero-hammer edition if made it hard to max your character points.

But, it did mean we could field 50% characters. And as even a Sorceror was a fisticuffs match for most Combat Characters, we never lacked for oomph.

I couldn’t tell you the exact composition of my old army, but it involved a Lvl 4 Sorceror on Manticore, a Hero, a bunch of Chariots, Chaos Warriors and, my personal favourites, Dragon Ogres.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
But, it did mean we could field 50% characters. And as even a Sorceror was a fisticuffs match for most Combat Characters, we never lacked for oomph.

I couldn’t tell you the exact composition of my old army, but it involved a Lvl 4 Sorceror on Manticore, a Hero, a bunch of Chariots, Chaos Warriors and, my personal favourites, Dragon Ogres.

50% character was the norm for everyone except Bretonians, who could go 75% IIRC. But other armies didn’t need to worry about matching point values so everything lined up just so.

I think my army was a little bit of everything. Chaos knights/warriors, mounted marauders, chariot or two, and yes, dragon ogres. I should check to see if I’ve got pics of all of them in my gallery.

It’s been an age since I saw the Army Books from that era but yeah, I think you’re right on the 50% characters.

Maybe I’ll do an Old Hammer thread in the appropriate board, see if anyone else fancies putting together armies using older edition rules. Doesn’t need to be bought new like.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It’s been an age since I saw the Army Books from that era but yeah, I think you’re right on the 50% characters.

Maybe I’ll do an Old Hammer thread in the appropriate board, see if anyone else fancies putting together armies using older edition rules. Doesn’t need to be bought new like.

Or for old packrats like myself, just grab the books off the shelf and knock the dust off the old stuff. While not an exhaustive collection, I do have a good bit of 5-6th WHFB kicking around, as that was the era I played.