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I do think depending on how long 10th edition's design ethos lasts, we might eventually see 8-9th as kind of a transition bubble that's not really Oldhammer or Newhammer.

In my opinion Oldhammer covers Rogue Trader through 2nd edition, maybe stretching into early 3rd. It’s the era before everything became giant characters, streamlined stats, and cinematic explosions. I feel like retro - feeling of nostalgia I get when I think back to earlier editions is more about the shifts in gameplay.

For me, “retro” evokes the time before two key shifts:

- Arrival of mega-units: Imperial Knights and Wraithknights stomping onto the battlefield marked a sharp turn into spectacle—around 6th or 7th edition. That’s when the scale and tone really departed from the gritty skirmish roots. No longer several squads, some transports, and a couple tanks - Tau could shoot your army off the table by turn 2.

- Vehicle redesign: The moment vehicles lost facing and armor values in favor of hitpoints (8th edition) felt like the final nail in the coffin for that old-school tactical flavor. No more angling Rhinos for cover—just a health bar and damage brackets.

For me it’s less about a hard cutoff and more about the feel—retro is the era where positioning, unit stat cards, and weird wargear charts reigned supreme.

 Eilif wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

 Eilif wrote:
Also, what is "Oldhammer" doesn't change just because time has gone by and more people playing today started in more recent editions.

Well, that's how language works though. People who started with 8th or later outnumber people who started with any of the previous seven editions at least 10 to 1. It doesn't matter what you used to call "oldhammer" if that term is used differently by 90% of the people in the hobby today.

Really? Is it so loose a term that 8th edition will someday be "oldhammer"? Come on.

Yes? That's exactly how it works. For example, if 40k will ever move to alternating activations, everything before that will be oldhammer eventually.
That's how words all around us work as well. Words change their meaning over time, heck, even emojis do.
Language is a constantly evolving thing. Just like a tyranid hive fleet

 Jammer87 wrote:
In my opinion Oldhammer covers Rogue Trader through 2nd edition, maybe stretching into early 3rd. It’s the era before everything became giant characters, streamlined stats, and cinematic explosions. I feel like retro - feeling of nostalgia I get when I think back to earlier editions is more about the shifts in gameplay.

For me, “retro” evokes the time before two key shifts:

- Arrival of mega-units: Imperial Knights and Wraithknights stomping onto the battlefield marked a sharp turn into spectacle—around 6th or 7th edition. That’s when the scale and tone really departed from the gritty skirmish roots. No longer several squads, some transports, and a couple tanks - Tau could shoot your army off the table by turn 2.

- Vehicle redesign: The moment vehicles lost facing and armor values in favor of hitpoints (8th edition) felt like the final nail in the coffin for that old-school tactical flavor. No more angling Rhinos for cover—just a health bar and damage brackets.

For me it’s less about a hard cutoff and more about the feel—retro is the era where positioning, unit stat cards, and weird wargear charts reigned supreme.

2nd to 3rd was such a drastic change in both gameplay mechanics and visual style that they can't be lumped in the same group. While there was a tone change later, it was a bigger shift then than that from 5th to 7th, and 7th was still in reality version/edition 3.6 with 8th being the proper reset.

Another dramatic change was early to late rogue trader, though it is kind of the change between RT and 2nd edition, but late RT resembled what became 2nd edition quite a lot and had the changes that have lasted to this day.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jidmah wrote:

 Eilif wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

 Eilif wrote:
Also, what is "Oldhammer" doesn't change just because time has gone by and more people playing today started in more recent editions.

Well, that's how language works though. People who started with 8th or later outnumber people who started with any of the previous seven editions at least 10 to 1. It doesn't matter what you used to call "oldhammer" if that term is used differently by 90% of the people in the hobby today.

Really? Is it so loose a term that 8th edition will someday be "oldhammer"? Come on.

Yes? That's exactly how it works. For example, if 40k will ever move to alternating activations, everything before that will be oldhammer eventually.
That's how words all around us work as well. Words change their meaning over time, heck, even emojis do.
Language is a constantly evolving thing. Just like a tyranid hive fleet

We don't start calling the bronze age the stone age and the iron age the bronze age because we're later on in time. The modern period still begins around 1500.

 Daba wrote:
We don't start calling the bronze age the stone age and the iron age the bronze age because we're later on in time. The modern period still begins around 1500.

Correct, that's why that age was named after a distinct, unchanging feature and not after a relative thing like "old". At some point around 750BC the bronze age was referred to as "the good old times" and the new iron thing only those youngster smiths were using that just didn't feel right.
Or in other words, the name for the time periods making up the bronze age absolutely did change over the course of the iron age. We literally have written proof of that.

Fun fact, the terms stone age, bronze age and iron age weren't called that until the early 19th century. It caught on, was broadly accepted by historians and language evolved as a result.

It comes down to, as it always does, what your definitions are to inform the correct answer. The argument is using different premises, each with sound logic, which is almost always the issue in any social discourse. Your logic is true if your premise is correct and people get caught up arguing their logic, rather than proving the premises.

Decide whether 'retro/oldhammer' refers to abstract eras based on GW design and production, or whether it's referencing a feeling and perception of gamers based on their experiences of the game.


I go for the former in conversation, because I think it's useful to discuss the design paradigms and their effects on game play and player experience. But there's nothing wrong with thinking of it as the latter.

To me the term Oldhammer doesn't actually refer closely to rules, but to model Design.
Oldhammer describes models up until about the late 90's, so rather stubby models, a lot of "2D" metals, monopose plastics like the first plastic Khorne Berserkers and Plague Marines, small vehicles from the first rhino family. Yes, that is quite closely tied to 2nd edition, but many of these were also sculpted in 3rd and some, like Ragnar, were sold until 9th edition.
That is to say not all minis from that time have an oldhammer feel, like the eldar vehicles or the Defiler still look good despite their age.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
To me the term Oldhammer doesn't actually refer closely to rules, but to model Design.
Oldhammer describes models up until about the late 90's, so rather stubby models, a lot of "2D" metals, monopose plastics like the first plastic Khorne Berserkers and Plague Marines, small vehicles from the first rhino family. Yes, that is quite closely tied to 2nd edition, but many of these were also sculpted in 3rd and some, like Ragnar, were sold until 9th edition.
That is to say not all minis from that time have an oldhammer feel, like the eldar vehicles or the Defiler still look good despite their age.

This would always be a gradual process as lines are refreshed over time, and character models were generally always like that all the way through until the finecast era. Warp Spiders are even older than Ragnar, being 2nd edition models monopose one piece (apart from the exarch) models all the way up until the most recent 10th edition Eldar Codex release this year.

In the design sense, you could mark 3rd as the turning point due to the multipart Space Maine Tactical kit introduced then (but ironically, one existed in Rogue Trader), which also went with the art shift that happened during 3rd.

I think I put the cut-off at 7th because that was really the deathknell of the old system. Bloating the rules and the product releases to an unsustainable level all but ensuring 8th was necessary. Not many people enjoyed 7th, excepting some HH guys. I really hated it for making Raven Guard nigh unplayable (as compared to the glory of their 6th Ed CT).