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3rd really was a living reset. It started very stripped down, but they kept adding and tweaking rules for the entire edition. Which was not a short lifespan.

I recall it being basically a different game at the end.

 Arschbombe wrote:
This kind of discussion is why I made this thread in the first place. People have different recollections from their time with the edition which may have been at the end of the edition or closer to the beginning.

Yeah, this happened over in the other (all things old) thread where I described pistols as assault 1/heavy 2 and it was pointed out that you could assault after firing them twice ...

... or not, depending on when you were playing and with which books. Chapter approved trial assault rules, same time as the 'no assaulting out of moving vehicles' rule came in, among other changes in the lead up to 4th.


3e to 4e may be a jump in some places but final-errata 3e to 4e was a much smaller step.

3rd Ed had its problems.

Close Combat ruled the day, and some armies got plain unfair advantages in that regard, such as Blood Angels who were faster, and better on the charge, for no cost in points.

Some Codexes suffered from the FOC, with some slots (often Elites) heavily oversubscribed, and those units often having stand out options. This lead to a real sameyness in armies.

Staples of 2nd Ed also fell by the wayside. Now I’m not claiming anything in 2nd Ed was perfectly balanced. But Dreadnoughts, Terminators and Aspect Warriors all suffered heavily. They lost raw hitting power, lost survivability, and typically faced down far larger enemy units, where they’d struggle to punch their points weight and could be easily dragged down through sheer attrition - especially Eldar Aspects, who really couldn’t take it, and could barely dish it out.

This again lead to very samey armies. Why take Aspect Warriors, when you’ve got Wraithlords, immune to pretty much all small arms fire instead. And unless your opponent has a Powerfist, Chainfist or Power Klaw, you can wade happily into combat knowing your T8 will prevent any damage. And after the first turn of combat, they have to swarm round you, often preventing anyone with a weapon that could hurt you wading in for an assist.

For all the Decurion type nonsense, if I had to Oldhammer other than 2nd Ed? I’d go 6th or 7th.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


3rd Ed had its problems.

Yeah, I am starting to see the messiness.

For all the Decurion type nonsense, if I had to Oldhammer other than 2nd Ed? I’d go 6th or 7th.

Nostalgia is a big driver here and Buddy has never played those editions. I never played 7th and found 6th to be supremely annoying with challenges, flyers, allies, and all the other nonsense. Wraithknights and Riptides, ho!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’d go 6th or 7th.

Out of curiosity... why?

Variety of weapons came back then.

They’re not perfect, far from it. But superior to the blandness that was 3rd.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Variety of weapons came back then.

They’re not perfect, far from it. But superior to the blandness that was 3rd.

Commander Dante is incensed at your heresy.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
But superior to the blandness that was 3rd.

Ah.

The 'wrong' power weapon, the early edition have and have nots of destroyer and skyfire/interceptor, the flurry of +1 rules on weapons to make them extra special.

It's 40k marmite. Piles of extra rules, love it or hate it.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
But Dreadnoughts, Terminators and Aspect Warriors all suffered heavily. They lost raw hitting power, lost survivability, and typically faced down far larger enemy units, where they’d struggle to punch their points weight and could be easily dragged down through sheer attrition - especially Eldar Aspects, who really couldn’t take it, and could barely dish it out..

3rd also introduced tarpitting, because dreadnoughts and monstrous creatures could no longer choose to just walk away from a close combat, so they could be locked up for an entire game by being charged by a lower value squad that couldn't actually hurt them.

All of these come back to the origin of the rules as ww2, so they didn't need rules to cover monsters or power weapons. You can see where the rules weren't great is usually where the 40k bits meet the realworld human war bits.



The USRs were introduced specifically because they had no core special rules, only one off rules put into units in each codex that all often were similar but sometimes slightly different. So you had version control issues trying to explain feel no pain working slightly differently depending on which unit had it.


By the end of 3rd, each codex had special rules for units/armies, but none where in the core rulebook. The only changes were to core mechanics like combat and they were in WD. The terminator invuln was an unusual exception in that they called out how poorly termies were doing and had to add something to offset it.

The DE and DA redos were also called out as underperforming - the DE didn't even have a vehicle upgrade list in the original book iirc...


4th set up the GW paradigm of being in a position to refine the existing rules and codify things, but decided to also redo chunks of the game entirely so that it wasn't just a 3rd ed update.

If you take the best of 4th and use the core of 3rd you'd probably get a good game.

The 2nd Ed to Now loss of proper psychology rules also irk me.

Time was, a Carnifex could prevent enemies charging it just by causing Fear and Terror. Since 3rd Ed, enemy troops just sort of give a polite round of applause as it horribly murders their mates. Or your squad would just absolutely refuse to charge a Bloodthirster, and rather sensibly run in the opposite direction.

Which is why 3rd Ed Heresy’s advanced stats have piqued my interest. Different weapons, different effects, different impacts. Proof will be in the pudding of course, but the concept I think is solid.

3rd is a little rough around the edges, but i can fix her! give me time for the battle bible hehe

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The 2nd Ed to Now loss of proper psychology rules also irk me.

I can see how someone who was deep into 2nd edition would not like the great simplification of 3rd especially at the beginning with the rule book army lists. In some ways I think it's a miracle that 40k survived the change. But to someone like me that started much later 3rd just looks like a lot. Lots of codices, lots of rule additions and changes, and even lots of flavorful things. like the Craftworld Eldar codex that gave us five craftworld archetypes to play with, all the Index Astartes articles etc.

Your perspective makes me think of Thanos in Endgame:

"And as long as there are those that remember what was, there will always be those that are unable to accept what can be. They will resist."

Which is why 3rd Ed Heresy’s advanced stats have piqued my interest. Different weapons, different effects, different impacts. Proof will be in the pudding of course, but the concept I think is solid.

HH2.0 had been previously described by folks around here as the peak development of the 3rd-7th 40k paradigm. I'm mildly interested, but without xenos it's basically a non-starter.

Eh.

Much as I’ll always be of the opinion 3rd Ed was “baby with the bathwater”, 2nd Ed was a messy system, with a pretty firm cap on game size due to its underlying mechanics.

But 3rd Ed just lacked necessary detail and subtlety I guess in the rules. And it just played far too differently.

For instance? Cover Modifiers were applied to BS in 2nd Ed. That allowed units with solid BS score and say, a Targeter to still be accurate when the foe was in cover. 3rd Ed changed that to a flat save, which ignored AP. With no reward for high BS scores. And so room for nuance between units was lost.

I can’t remember which edition did it first, but as soon as you couldn’t readily assault out of a transport, or consolidate into a new combat? That’s when things struck a better balance between shooting and combat.

Where does the overall happy medium lie? I really don’t know.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

They’re not perfect, far from it. But superior to the blandness that was 3rd.

What's interesting is that I see much of the 3rd-4th era as being the height of diversity. Many codexes were more customizeable than they've been either before or since, and then you had all the sub-armies and options released in WD/Chapter Approved at the time. Also noteworthy, yes a lot of wargear got simpler, but 3rd also gave xenos armies more of their own weapons. Orks often had Bolters in 2nd, and Eldar Lasguns. Both factions had Lascannons and Plasma Cannons as well. 3rd edition may have simplified weapons in one sense, by removing some detail, but it also diversified them by creating new classifications with important distinctions, like Rapid-Fire and Assault, which fundamentally altered how the units wielding those weapons behaved.

So on the one hand, sure a Power Axe and a Power Sword did the same thing in 3rd. But Orks no longer held Bolters, they had Shootas, and Eldar didn't have Lascannons, they had Bright Lances, and the differences brought by those new weapons had a much bigger impact then the Power Weapons would when they got their own individualized profiles back.

Not to mention the addition of three (2.5? Necrons existed a little bit during 2nd) new factions with their own new styles of play and unique interactions.

I get where the idea of "bland" comes from because of loss of certain granularity. But that really undersells what 3rd grew into.

 Arschbombe wrote:
My buddy is feeling nostalgic and wants to play 3rd edition again. I've never played it having formally started with 40k in 4th. I have the rules and a few of the codices. I've even found an online list builder for it (newrecruit.eu). It feels kind of incomplete compared to the later editions. Is there a collection of resources to add that make a "definitive" 3rd edition with WD articles, Chapter Approved, FAQs, etc? A final form if you will.

Bouncing back a bit to take a different tack...
Your buddy has some nostalgia, but what are your reasons for wanting to play 3rd edition? If it's streamlining you desire and don't particularly want to sift through all the variant rules that appeared during that edition why not give Grimdark Future try? Its more balanced and playtested than 4th edition ever was. It feels like lightweight 40k and it's free.

That said, if you worry that 3rd edition is too streamlined, then Grimdark Future is probably not for you.

 Eilif wrote:

Bouncing back a bit to take a different tack...
Your buddy has some nostalgia, but what are your reasons for wanting to play 3rd edition? If it's streamlining you desire and don't particularly want to sift through all the variant rules that appeared during that edition why not give Grimdark Future try?

Buddy asked to play 3rd because of his fond memories. He was a kid and the leader of his little group as the only one with a rulebook. I am willing to give it a go. I am not particularly looking for streamlining. I just understood that there was a lot of stuff released between 1998 and 2004 and was looking for guidance about what to use and what to toss.

We've played GF. I was willing to continue with it, but it didn't scratch the itch for him. We've also done Kill Team 2018, Bolt Action, and Infinity. KT21 killed our interest because of how teams get built, Bolt Action because all the armies felt very samey to us, and Infinity because of the how orders get spent on the same models over and over.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

They’re not perfect, far from it. But superior to the blandness that was 3rd.

What's interesting is that I see much of the 3rd-4th era as being the height of diversity. Many codexes were more customizeable than they've been either before or since, and then you had all the sub-armies and options released in WD/Chapter Approved at the time. Also noteworthy, yes a lot of wargear got simpler, but 3rd also gave xenos armies more of their own weapons. Orks often had Bolters in 2nd, and Eldar Lasguns. Both factions had Lascannons and Plasma Cannons as well. 3rd edition may have simplified weapons in one sense, by removing some detail, but it also diversified them by creating new classifications with important distinctions, like Rapid-Fire and Assault, which fundamentally altered how the units wielding those weapons behaved.

So on the one hand, sure a Power Axe and a Power Sword did the same thing in 3rd. But Orks no longer held Bolters, they had Shootas, and Eldar didn't have Lascannons, they had Bright Lances, and the differences brought by those new weapons had a much bigger impact then the Power Weapons would when they got their own individualized profiles back.

Not to mention the addition of three (2.5? Necrons existed a little bit during 2nd) new factions with their own new styles of play and unique interactions.

I get where the idea of "bland" comes from because of loss of certain granularity. But that really undersells what 3rd grew into.

I think it's where we see the shift from most rules being in the core rules, to a lot more of them being in the codexes. The 2nd ed rules were detailed and pretty complete, the army lists were quite plain. most units had the same profiles and equipment options, almost none had unique rules.

3rd ed started the trend of fewer rules in the rulebook and expanding individualism of armies. So you focused on your units for the granularity, rather than the core rulebook. In 2nd ed an assault marine and a tactical marine on foot were defined entirely by the weapons they carried, but we see the changes to special rules and equipment lists later and they become a lot more different.


I think there is a sweet spot between the two, not too heavy for core and not too abstractly arbitrarily unique snowflake for armies. I think we've swung to far towards unique snowflakes currently, and the game has no real grounding, units just have unique rule X to make them distinct from unit W, rather than it having any bearing on the background of the unit.

Were their options?

Sure.

But those options just weren’t of equal appeal.

Codex Craftworlds for instance essentially boiled down to “Oh I’ll play Iyanden, because Wraithlords can be taken more frequently, and they’re really good for their points”.

The 3.5 Chaos Codex was awash with choice, that’s true. Yet many went with Iron Warriors or Word Bearers, because their tricks were just Better. Daemon Princes, for all their options, were essentially always identical.

Unless you got Tank Hunters on Autocannon somehow, you were better off investing in Lascannons (which could wreck any vehicle with relative ease) or Heavy Bolters. And many, many weapons fell into no useful category. Shuriken Cannon for instance. Unless there was no other options, you’d always go Starcannon, as it was simply an outright superior choice for general purpose model murder.

It’s like look at an All You Can Eat Buffet from afar, and seeing the table groaning under platter after platter of treats and meats. Yet, once you’re there with your plate, you find 90% of the dishes are either manky and rotten, Tramp Toe Jam Sandwiches, Pickled Eyeballs, Scab & Matter Custard, Pork Seepage Sago, Turkey Leakings Pie etc, with only 10% being nice food you actually fancy. And none of it seasoned, so it’s all disappointingly bland.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Were their options?

Sure.

But those options just weren’t of equal appeal.

Codex Craftworlds for instance essentially boiled down to “Oh I’ll play Iyanden, because Wraithlords can be taken more frequently, and they’re really good for their points”.

That actually doesn't work. Iyanden gets you no more Wraithlords than the base list because, while it moves both Wraithguard and Wraithlords to troops, you can't have more Wraithlords than Wraithguard. Best case is 3 of each, which is exactly what you can do with the base list. It's just the slots are moved around. But I get your broader point.

This problem still persists today in 10th, right? There are still discussions about it here. If you want Wraiths, you're going to run the Spirit Conclave. If you're an old Saim Hann guy, it's Windrider host for you. Ulthwe I guess can pick between Guardian Battlehost and Seer Council. Biel Tan gets Aspect Host. Alas, poor Alaitoc, I knew them well.

Less so today, as the Eldar Codex seems to have a reasonable internal balance.

Sure you can lean into a theme. But with no unit being objectively superior in its role, no theme is clearly better than the others.

Thats what the 3rd Ed Codexes got wrong in my opinion. Especially with restricted slots often having an abundance of competing units.

Tyranids really suffered from that, because if memory serves, so many middle sized beasties were Elites. And so a lot of folk just went Nidzilla, spending their Compulsory Troop allocation on two broods of three Rippers. Which was very boring for opponents, as it tended to be tricky to counter, and seen with depressing frequency.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Thats what the 3rd Ed Codexes got wrong in my opinion. Especially with restricted slots often having an abundance of competing units.

I think that remained true throughout the FOC editions. Eldar in third had most of the aspects jammed in the elite slot: Spiders, Scorpions, Banshees, and Dragons were all there plus Wraithguard. Avengers were troops and Spears and Hawks were fast attack.

Tyranids really suffered from that, because if memory serves, so many middle sized beasties were Elites. And so a lot of folk just went Nidzilla, spending their Compulsory Troop allocation on two broods of three Rippers. Which was very boring for opponents, as it tended to be tricky to counter, and seen with depressing frequency.

Was Nidzilla really a thing in 3rd with two tyrants and three fexes? I thought Nidzilla was a 4th edition thing with two tyrants and six fexes because the cheap fexes could be taken as elites.

The 3rd edition Nid book seems really sparse to me. Two HQ choices, tyrant and warrior. Broodlord hadn't been invented yet. Elites were just Lictors and Warriors and you could only make one selection of Lictors for up to 3 models. Heavy support was just fexes, biovores and zoanthropes, which were limited just like the lictors. If you used the customization rules you could move some things around. Gaunts and rippers could be fast attack. Warriors could be fast attack and heavy support in addition to their normal HQ and elite choices depending on mutations. You could take 11 broods of warriors if you were so inclined.

It definitely was a thing. And kinda like Imperial Knights further down the line, an opponent only really stood a chance if they’d loaded for bear.

Which in turn, meant people did load for bear. 5 man Las/Plas spam. Such wonderful variety.

Tyranid Warriors suffered from not being massively Killy, and not being massively tough. Add in your ranged anti-tank options were extremely limited (Zoanthropes were about it, as even Heavy Venom Cannon could only ever glance), but your CC anti-tank was pretty good? And again, a strong natural bias for Nidzilla.

I no longer have my 3rd Ed pamphlets Codexes, so apologies if I’m off the mark on exact details.

But extremely limited useful army builds were the hallmark of 3rd Ed to me.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
But extremely limited useful army builds were the hallmark of 3rd Ed to me.

Not an intrinsic fault of the system or wargear though IMO.

The 4e ork codex was a good example of a faction with a half dozen different competative builds. While the individual pieces were the same (i.e. always nobz with klaws if you wanted a squad to hit in cc) there was a world of gameplay difference between green tide, bikers, battlewagon rush, kan wall, etc.

This was when codex design was in its 'make it simple again' phase and the orks were very much unburdened by the late 3e double and triple dipping optimisations of wargear and subfaction combos.

Not a perfect book by any means but most units knew what they were and didn't deviate far from that point. Sure your Evil Sunz weren't any faster than your Goffs or Bad Moons but that just meant that every third ork list didn't suffer from 'unit X spammed with custom rule Y led by named character or wargear carrying Z' because any other use of bikes was sub-optimal.

And at the cost of almost all Orky flavour.

Bubble Chukka? Gone.
Smasha Gun? Gone.
Traktor Cannon? Gone.
Hop Splat Field Gun? Gone.
Pulsa Rokkit? Gone.
Shokk Attak Gun? Gone.
Boarboyz? Gone
Clans? Gone, until a WD article, possibly series of articles, which I genuinely do not recall personally.
Weirdboyz? Gone.

Lootas? No special guns for you. But you can take the options of a unit from another Codex. But thanks to BS2, there’s absolutely no good reason to do so.

Choppas and Mob Rule was kinda fun. But so much of what made Orks Orks was just ripped straight out.

The army may have worked overall, but it was a dreadfully bland Codex.

 Arschbombe wrote:

 Eilif wrote:

Bouncing back a bit to take a different tack...
Your buddy has some nostalgia, but what are your reasons for wanting to play 3rd edition? If it's streamlining you desire and don't particularly want to sift through all the variant rules that appeared during that edition why not give Grimdark Future try?

Buddy asked to play 3rd because of his fond memories. He was a kid and the leader of his little group as the only one with a rulebook. I am willing to give it a go. I am not particularly looking for streamlining. I just understood that there was a lot of stuff released between 1998 and 2004 and was looking for guidance about what to use and what to toss.

We've played GF. I was willing to continue with it, but it didn't scratch the itch for him. We've also done Kill Team 2018, Bolt Action, and Infinity. KT21 killed our interest because of how teams get built, Bolt Action because all the armies felt very samey to us, and Infinity because of the how orders get spent on the same models over and over.

Fair enough. Sounds like at least for now 3rd edition might be a good choice.

Also, If you've already got bolt action forces, the upcoming Konflikt 47 version might be of interest to you. Adding a few Weird War units can go a long way towards differentiating the forces.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Clans? Gone

That's kind of the point though.

If playing Red Sunz mean that you paint your army red and take more vehicles in your list for flavour then it's easy to balance.

If playing Red Sunz mean that you get +1 movement on vehicles, fewer heavy slots, unique strategems to make bikes fight twice and all that then every fast vehicle list is a Red Sunz biker list, and most likely skewed towards the specific subset of units and wargears that double dip on the bonuses.

-----

It was a shame the orks didn't get boarboyz outside of the supplement. 4e did get Shokk Attack guns and weirdboyz, the rest of their old 2e big guns were... unstable.

Splatta Kannon - became the kannon, without having to calculate ricohet angles and setting distance based on the artillery dice of all things. No laser pointers back then so be prepared to argue facing down to the degree on two models 30" apart based on sight and a wobbly tape measure.

Tracktor Cannon - became the zzap gun but without the forced movement - though given that several units in 4th had unit movers i'm not sure why.

Squigg Catapult - became the lobba, without the 'joy' of 2nd editions 'argue over the movement of the 20+ roaming templates' phase. The scatter dice giveth arguments, the scatter dice taketh forever.

Smasha Gun - look up a table for range, cross reference with unit type for dice roll needed, ignore the normal firing rules entirely, roll scatter dice, roll distance dice, consult vehicle collision tables with the noted changes...

And finally the Pulsa Rokkit - range nD6+12, blast 2d6, strength n/a, automatic pinning (for individual models, not the squad), automatic penetration of walkers, automatic stunned and out of control vehicles, ongoing effect. Lob one of those vaguely near an objective in 3e onwards with throw on the clown shoes.
It did exist in the apocalypse rules but so did strategems with an (in)accuracy measured in feet.

But the Grot artillery was dull. Basically worse version of a Lascannon, Missile Launcher and Mortar respectively.

All flavour and fun forcibly extracted.

A.T. wrote:
This was when codex design was in its 'make it simple again' phase and the orks were very much unburdened by the late 3e double and triple dipping optimisations of wargear and subfaction combos.

Jervisification. All the 4th edition codices suffered from it to some degree. CSM and DA may have had it the worst. No more FOC swaps. No more doctrines, craftworlds, legions etc. Oddly enough SM got chapter traits, but that was probably just because they were the 1st out of the gate.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:And at the cost of almost all Orky flavour.
...
The army may have worked overall, but it was a dreadfully bland Codex.

That might be part of the draw to 3rd for Buddy. Third had all the crazy stuff and 4th started tamping it all down.

 Arschbombe wrote:
CSM and DA may have had it the worst. No more FOC swaps. No more doctrines, craftworlds, legions etc.

The orks again being the odds ones out keeping their FoC swaps, at least without being tied to named characters like the Dark Angels.

A middle ground between the more restrictive books 'your HQ is always X, your Troop unit is always Y, your only meaningful assault unit is Z, etc' and the extremes of craftworlds/legions 'to play style X, paint in colour Y, recieve freebies Z1, Z2, Z3 and Z4'.*

Pretty much all second printing and supplemental in 3e though. The first release book for each faction in the edition was generally much more restrictive, and fairly similarly so for all factions.


--------
*Reminds me of the sisters and chaos a couple of editions back where the faction bonuses were so extreme you'd field entire detachments build around one or two units because they could be literally twice(or more) as strong as the un-factioned unit.
"Why yes, every single one of my obliterators has abruptly become fabulous" (reaches for double shot slaanesh only strategem)