The 40K- all things old editions topic.

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.

**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: