The 40K- all things old editions topic.

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**Overread**

Da Boss wrote:
Haha, wow really? Not even alphabetical?
Smacks of being too used to search functions and forgetting how books work, honestly...

I've no idea how they do it but yeah its just a jumble; but its been that way for a few editions. Honestly makes me wonder if GW lost a key editor or some phase ni their development of codex.

Though they aren't the only ones to blame - people doing photo and art books STILL keep doing double page spreads or creating 100s of pages long books and printing images over the entire page right into the spine...

**Insectum7**

Da Boss wrote:
Dunno if this has come up here before, but I've been reading some old rulebooks over the last few days.
Man, I wish 4e had army lists in the book! The 3e book is great, and ends up winning due to those army lists, but I always felt it did the non-Imperial factions dirty in the background section, and the colour section is great but...

The 4e colour section is just the best it's ever been. It's got gorgeous art for all the factions (I realised looking at it that the impression that art made on me is probably the REAL reason my marines are Crimson Fists and my chaos marines are Word Bearers!) and a fairly decent spread of background for all of them. The miniatures are close to my favourite versions of most of them.
And then it just keeps going - loads of advice on how to make terrain, cardboard city and bunker templates, photo examples of cloth battlefields with lichen and other "real" examples. Alternate game modes like Kill Team and Combat Patrol, really well developed with lots of hobbyists actual models painted with a skill level achievable by the average gamer. Advice on how to make minefields and other markers. Army profiles and how to paint guides that are actually realistic, and again, show real hobbyist's collections. And then another section of lovely terrain boards for inspiration.

And then it keeps going some more, with campaign rules, advice for how to make campaigns, and a whole example campaign at the back!

Just glorious stuff. And it'd be the last time we'd get a book like this with so much hobbyist content. In 5e it was all GW kits, and not nearly as hobby focused. One page on customising your miniatures, but nothing that wasn't GW terrain and all miniatures 'eavy metal painted. Gorgeous, of course, but not really showing a new gamer what is achievable and "normal".

It's a shame. I think of it as being the last hurrah for "old GW" cramming all that stuff in. It feels like someone thought "We've got to show kids that this is something they can do!"

I have to admit I am exceedingly happy that the only "special edition" GW books I have is the faux-leather 4th edition rulebook and the matching 4th ed SM codex. I love those books!

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Overread wrote:
Eg Tyranids right now they "could" have put all the models in alphabetical, but nope instead they are just randomly inserted. So as there's no "hq, troop, heavysupport etc..." to break it down it takes ages to find a model.

Oh gawd, for real?

**aphyon**

Yeah i also have a copy of the 4th ed main rulebook. it has so much stuff in it. when we do combat patrols and kill teams it is what we base our games on. keep in mind that when 4th was made all the original team were still there. by the end of 5th they were pretty much all gone. helps you understand why 6th was so bad.

**Da Boss**

Even the 5e rulebook is not as good from a hobby and creativity perspective. Much more of a "buy this stuff to play the game" and much less creative and inspiring.

Also, the art for the colour section is nowhere near as good. Those 4e single figures for each faction are iconic.

**Haighus**

Da Boss wrote:
Even the 5e rulebook is not as good from a hobby and creativity perspective. Much more of a "buy this stuff to play the game" and much less creative and inspiring.

Also, the art for the colour section is nowhere near as good. Those 4e single figures for each faction are iconic.

I think the 4th ed book is better overall, but I will defend some aspects of the 5th ed book. It showed a lot more army showcases, which was inspiring to me. I still occasionally think about the Khorne force with all the soul faces painted on the armour. Plus, the 5th ed book included line-art style images for many factions which were great references that I still use today (esp. the Guard ones, example below) and the faction-specific galaxy maps began in 5th and they were really cool. I like how they found different ways of showing faction activity.

My ideal book would probably be a mash-up of the best parts of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th ed books.

The art I was talking about:

Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Craftworld Eldar, Tau, and Tyranids got art like this.

Example of the great faction maps:

So not as good for hobby advice, but better at fleshing out the world and faction identities, and giving creative hooks for your own force.

**insaniak**

Insectum7 wrote:
I have to admit I am exceedingly happy that the only "special edition" GW books I have is the faux-leather 4th edition rulebook and the matching 4th ed SM codex. I love those books!

Yeah, I splashed out for the limited ed version of the 4th ed book, because it was really pretty. Ironic that it turned out to be my least favourite edition... which turned me off from buying any more limited edition books.

**aphyon**

Weird happenings-

About a decade ago i sold off most of my tau army to a regular at the time and he has recently started gaming again and wanted to focus on his crimson fists so he re-sold the army to a newer player in our oldhammer group. so i ended up getting my butt kicked by myself.

the tau list was effectively an armored company with 3 scout and 2 fire warrior squads with devilfish, a crisis suit commander, 3 man broadside team and 2 hammerheads.

Spoiler:

**aphyon**

A bunch more 40K this weekend. one of our regulars was out for about a month so he was amped to get in some games.

first he did 2 games against my guard. the first one was a really close games against his iron hands. with 5 objectives he managed to hold on to 3 to my 2-

Spoiler:

The second game against chaos we went quick and dirty with no objectives. this game was also pretty close. but he managed to pull ahead by 2 kill points at the very end.

Spoiler:

**aphyon**

Got some big toys out tonight.

Used some of the store terrain with my out post mat and i think it turned out pretty good-

Spoiler:

The first game was 4th ed tau at 2k

X3 pathfinder teams, X2 fire warrior teams, X2 2 man broadside teams, commander r'alai, and a hammerhead.

The 5th ed guard brought the FW armored company with vendetta support. turned into quite the drubbing for the guard.

Spoiler:

The second game went big at 3k points and 5 objectives. both players using the 3.5 chaos codex as the core of their armies. they also included some big boys on the khorne side like a 3rd party brass scorpion and scarbrand. it ended up being a close game with a 3/2 objective margin of victory for the iron warrior player....blod was spilled and skulls were taken, so we all know who really won.

Spoiler:

**dreadblade**

I painted "Leetu" up like the original lead miniature and thought I'd try one of the new Wicked Brick display cases:

**aphyon**

In my bid to do weird things...who expects a guard army to assault you, especially against iron hands?

The game 2K points 5th ed core rules iron hands Index astartes/4th ed VS 5th ed guard with bullgryn-

5 objectives-as usual my opponent managed to go first. and quickly dominated to right flank of the table. i used the outpost to shield a left push. i lost half my Bullgryn in the fight but i managed to kill an ironclad and his librarian and get one of my Vet squads on an objective....then a silly thing happened the top of 5 my opponent decided the game usually goes to turn 6 on a 3+ so he stepped off both objectives he held to get better shots at my units. it cost him the game because i was the only one holding an objective when the game suddenly ended on the bottom of turn 5 with a roll of a 2 on the dice.

Spoiler:

**aphyon**

Loads of stuff tonight-

First off the big event-

there were 2 regulars who planed a couple 3k games using our house 5th ed rules. as it was above 2,500 points the FOC restrictions were removed

One was a crimson fists player, i forgot to get a full pic of his army as i was in another game at the time.
in no particular order he had pedro cantor, terminator squads, dreadnoughts, storm talon, a land raider transport, vindicators, devestator squad, razor backs, rhinos, tactical squads, sternguard squads in drop pods, a legion of the damned squad.

The other player sent me pics of his full armies-the first being an imperial guard armored company-

Spoiler:

The second an index astartes (3.5) iron hands themed list-

Spoiler:

The table was an imperial city-

Spoiler:

Both games had 5 objectives

Game 1 went to the guard

Spoiler:

Game 2 i am not sure how it ended, but from the wreckage on the table, i am pretty sure it was close-

Spoiler:

I had my own game on this table.

5th ed guard VS 4th ed black templar-5 objectives and the game went all 5 turn-

These are the armies at 2k points-

Spoiler:

I lost all my regular guardsmen, all my chimeras, 3 of my bullgryn and 2 of the 3 structure points on the doom hammer, but i managed to sit on 3 objectives at the end of the game to his one giving me a solid victory.

His surviving force was 3 land speeders, one land raider crusader (immobilized), 4 assault terminators, Grimaldus, and a drop pod.

A very hard fight.

Spoiler:

**Tiger9gamer**

aphyon wrote:
Loads of stuff tonight-

First off the big event-

there were 2 regulars who planed a couple 3k games using our house 5th ed rules. as it was above 2,500 points the FOC restrictions were removed

One was a crimson fists player, i forgot to get a full pic of his army as i was in another game at the time.
in no particular order he had pedro cantor, terminator squads, dreadnoughts, storm talon, a land raider transport, vindicators, devestator squad, razor backs, rhinos, tactical squads, sternguard squads in drop pods, a legion of the damned squad.

Sounds like a lot of fun! how was the balance?

**aphyon**

Well everybody had a fun time so i think that is enough, but i can only speak for my game, you can tell by the surviving units (he had 9 in various states of damage, and comparatively i had 8) it was equally brutal for both sides and came down to objectives.

**Tiger9gamer**

aphyon wrote:
Well everybody had a fun time so i think that is enough, but i can only speak for my game, you can tell by the surviving units (he had 9 in various states of damage, and comparatively i had 8) it was equally brutal for both sides and came down to objectives.

hey, fair enough! I enjoy close games like that. I know i'm mostly going to be building towards a HH / old editions list anyways

**aphyon**

Did a test game tonight VS one of our regulars 3.5 iron warriors army.

i ran salamanders led by Brey'arth ashmantle with a squad of sniper scouts and a squad of flanking scouts in a storm speeder. a doredeo dreadnought a storm eagle, storm hawk, and an allied grey knight grand master w/retinue in terminator armor.

He started out very lucky with danger close deep strikes with his obliterator. and he even managed to kill brey'arth for a moral victory.

I lost 5 of my GK terminators taking out all his oblits by this time i had the flyers the doredeo and 5 terminators left. he had 1 CC dread, his 2 chaos lords. and a badly damaged leviathan dreadnought.

Spoiler:

**aphyon**

Ran a bit of a different list from last week. traded out the dreads for more infantry to give my opponents black templar army some boots on the ground to fight with.

Spoiler:

The templar player was doing some proxy testing to see if he would like to run land raider spartans. they fit in the superheavy detachment for our 5th ed house 40K games as light super heavies (2 structure points).

The game was pretty brutal, with both our terminator squads killing each other. i failed to kill either spartan and he slowly removed my AT weapons from the game giving him a win.

Spoiler:

**A.T.**

aphyon wrote:
The templar player was doing some proxy testing to see if he would like to run land raider spartans. they fit in the superheavy detachment for our 5th ed house 40K games as light super heavies (2 structure points)

Given how fragile and cramped the land raider felt at times in 5th the spartan certainly was a much more suitable 'centrepiece'. And a rough time for any eldar players if taken with the Templars blessed hull.

Though IIRC the award for most durable went to the achillies, pre-hull points that thing was just about unkillable without armourbane or railguns. Or meltabombs as they curiously didn't count as having the melta rule...

**aphyon**

Yeah i have an Achilles and they are tough with a price tag to go along with it, they are immune to lance and the melta special rules. along with the -1 on the damage chart results.

In my handy 40K folder i bring with me i have the data sheets for every official land raider made for the game including the Ares, and Achilles.

**aphyon**

Tonight's table by request was the imperial guard outpost.

Spoiler:

Game 1 was a brawl against iron hands fighting to a tie. we both scored 2 of 5 objectives, contested the last. he had first blood and i had slay the warlord but we both also had line breaker.

Spoiler:

Game 2 was a test fight with the tau player loaning out his army while he was in a different game. we never finished but it was a close fight.

Spoiler:

The last fight started out in favor of the Tau with more hate being spewed at the deathwatch allies in all 3 games. it turned at the end of 6 with the tau loosing most of it's heavy firepower and deciding to do the tau thing and give ground for future victory.

Spoiler: