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So I have heard that there was a game that the developers of 40k 3rd edition liked playing and they basically adapted 40k into a similar game, but my brief research into it hasn't proved fruitful in finding what that game was. So I'm wondering, what was that game? Have you played it?

It's obviously a streamlined 2nd edition so that sounds like nonsense to me.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
It's obviously a streamlined 2nd edition so that sounds like nonsense to me.

No, the rules that they based 3rd edition off of. There was a few videos I saw.
Andy Chambers talks about 40k 2nd/3rd edition
https://youtu.be/rkM9Y3agV_I?si=69JVuJfLY-WuXE3F

Gav Thorp Talks about 40k 3rd edition.
https://youtu.be/_ehGFPeDQyQ?si=WsE_ZTtoi3YiEqRK

There was like.. a ww2 game that one of them was playing, and they used it as the basis for 3rd edition 40k rules, but they only talked about playing the game, some game, not what the specific game was.

The ruleset that they based 3rd ed off was 2nd edition. They just stripped out a bunch of stuff to streamline everything.

It's possible they took some inspiration for individual elements from some other game, but the core of the game is the same one that powered 2nd ed.

 insaniak wrote:
The ruleset that they based 3rd ed off was 2nd edition. They just stripped out a bunch of stuff to streamline everything.

It's possible they took some inspiration for individual elements from some other game, but the core of the game is the same one that powered 2nd ed.

well, what game inspired them to greatly simplify it the way that they did?

The version of events that I had always heard was the WW2 story as well. Supposedly, the staff presented a refined 2nd edition to management. That was rejected. Staff were told to expand the size of the battles in order to sell more minis. So they reached for the WW2 rules and modified them for 40k. Remember, there was a Warhammer historicals section that made rules for historical battles ranging from ancients to WW2. It wouldn't be too far-fetched for the WW2 rules they used for the 3rd edition to have been developed in house. Warlord Games was started by ex-GW folks and their Bolt Action feels very 40k having been developed by Alessio Cavatore and Rick Priestly.

The WW2 game was a homebrew by Priestley afaik that he just ran games at home with.

Clearly he built it off 2nd ed 40k, but stripped out the crunch and supernatural components. You can see where 40k elements are bolted back on. If you take out all CCW weapon rules and monstrous creatures, psychic powers etc.

You get a game that models guns and vehicles in detail but glosses over everything else. Given WW2 would be human on human with vehicles, there would be a lot of breakdown of weapon models and types, artillery, machine guns.

I would potentially expect armour to be out of the game as well, and cover saves ruling it.


But we never saw Rick's other game, because it wasn't published.

So it was an in-house game most likely? That's interesting but also disappointing because I wanted to see what the game was to read myself.

BanjoJohn wrote:
So it was an in-house game most likely? That's interesting but also disappointing because I wanted to see what the game was to read myself.

probably a proto of bold action. i would guess a 3ed edition blend of bolt action would land you close what they had.

I wonder if "warhammer historical the great war" was similar, it came out in 2008 ish? so it might have been in development from those earlier in house games

The story I heard was that it was a Napoleonic era wargame. Allegedly that was why the ranges for firearms were so whack, they just transposed Napoleonic era firearm ranges onto 40k without much thought.

Given the majority of weapon ranges were the same or similar to 2nd ed, often shortened, I'm not sure if that works.