Nice to see the space wolves photos I took from when I worked in the studio getting called out 😊 When I was there the design studio was amazing with writers, artists, graphic designers, photographers and sculptors all working together in one place. But after 6th Ed 40K it all got split up into separate and access controlled divisions. It made sense for the business to grow as more space was needed. But it meant sculptors didn’t work close with the writers anymore. Early on this led to weird discrepancies between sculptors intent and the writers bg and rules. Biggest impact though was expanding the books team into its own division. You can see when this happened when there was a big spike in books and supplements, an increased frequency in edition refreshes, as the new publishing division needed to make more products and money. This of course impacted the art. More was needed and fast. This led to digital art and freelance which early on had a mismatch in quality. I hope we’re seeing just growing pains at GW and they change things up.
This makes so much sense as to what happened to the magic. That environment produced my favorite parts of 40k. I started with 3rd-4th. I felt despite 7th editions bloat everything that came after was not anywhere near as fun. Even my armies death korps and admech got twisted into wierd models and rules that didn't fit. Horus heresy feels like the only part of warhammer that still feels like the game i loved. Thank you for the magic you helped create.
It's so bizarre to me that 40k is now being explicitly designed with competitive play in mind, when in early editions it always felt to me like serious tournament play was missing the point in the same way as trying to "win" D&D.
@@5punkybob yep. And old books are either available as pdfs, or as used copies. It's just harder to find someone to play against. Clubs usually push the latest thing for more sales. Players of older games even get criticism for it sometimes for playing "fossils" that are better left in the dust. I understand why they say it, but it's a bit disingenuous, seeing how ruined some new products are
I just recently went to a Warhammer shop and got myself some paints and brushes to finally finish my "Alpha Legion simping over Bel'akhor" army as I have some time to kill. I was a GM zealot as a kid about 24 years ago. I saw the release of Necromunda, Mortheim & Gorkamorka. I saw editions come and go. I will never forget the time we actually ran a 10,000 point Warhammer fantasy game with my armies led by Nagash and Egrimm van Hortseman... Even though Warhammer eventually faded from my life, I have always been a big fan of War Occaionaly, checking out the lore updates over the years. Listening to what you describe, the incredible dedication to the lore and the diversity of the rules that allowed us to really customise our army and show their differences is something that made it a great strategy. To see the state of the franchise is to see the Emperor on his throne... what has become of you... There is something that bad management decisions cannot take away from us. The old rulebooks we own, our armies and the amazing memories we have made along the way. Heard that the regulars in the shop are still playing 9th for the time being, I guess I will have to try out those "Bel'akor's Simps" with them sometime soon. Keep up the good work, brother. Let the galaxy burn
I miss it so much. I started collecting at the end of 6th but took too long and had no one to play with. Only recenlty have I started playing. I think I'll go back and try some older editions; even homebrew some rules for factions which didn't exist back then.
I can't say I was ever too into the 40k tabletop, I came in at the end of 9th, One Page Rules is my drink of choice these days, and as much as I can and will ETERNALLY simp for OPR, I wish they had an optional extended rule set that added some stuff like this, just so you could make your legendary heroes feel a bit more unique
I miss playing orks and killing half of my army and the enemies with a wacky roll, sure it wasn't competative but orks was never about winning tournaments and all about just having fun.
It's quite simple : suits don't have souls. So, as a company expand, and the numbers of suits raise, the end-product ends up reflecting the loss of soulstuff.
I only ever played third edition. I had all the numbers memorized. It was so stream lined and simple. I watch play on table top now and I'm astonished by how complex it has become. I poured over the codexes and rules book, learning the lore and falling in love with the artwork. Ah nostalgia.
I started getting involved in 1992. It's heart wrenching seeing how far Warhammer has fallen. It was around 2015 when the Hobby really started to fall out for me. Then came the Primaris Marines and I full sale checked out. I've been dabbing in The new Horus Heresy stuff. It's the only new content I am able to keep down.
I started playing in 2003?...well 3rd edition was king. It was a fun time. I didn't find it intimidating, but I did jump in trying to be fluffy. Good times.
Started in 2e myself, right on the cusp of 3e, and didn't play from 2001 until 2023. Been a lot to catch up on, but I've enjoyed the process. Would have been very interesting to see it evolve firsthand over the years.
I don't actually remember wat edition I started at, I think it was 4th? I remember Battle for Macgragge being released, so maybe 3rd? Idk. But yeah, I had a similar view on the vid. Great work from the creator and earned a sub from me for sure. 5th ed was the golden age for me. How about you guys?
6th is when I started and I got the dark vengence Dark Angels half of the box. I have since amassed a huge Dark Angels army and also started playing Grey Knights in 7th when I could take a small detatchment of them. The psychic powers, the penetrating hits on vehicles, the scatter dice for deep striking, the challenges my characters could issue, all of it was just so much fun amd I count myself lucky to have had a great hobby store owner who wrote awesome 4 month long campaigns with unique narrative flavors and fun twists. I think my favorite time was when we lost power at our store and our store owner suddenly shouts "Oh no! A sudden warp storm summoned by the forces of chaos has blotted out the sun! As of right now night fighting is in effect!" We all used our phone flashlights to represent searchlights on our vehicles and it was a blast. When the power was fixed he then said "Huzzah! A brotherhood of Grey Knights have broken the storm and the powers of the warp have subsided! Night fighting is gone!" You were a great store owner Steve and we did not deserve you.
As someone who got into 40K because of what happened to Magic The Gathering during the Fire design era I kind of understand what a lot of Warhammer players feel about the game today I'm saddened that all my Modern decks got removed due to powercreep and bans I'm starting to see that no matter where we go we're all seeing a decline in the games we've enjoyed our entire lives
They’re is always hope I think the main reason for the decline in games movies and tabletops is because as time goes on people care more about making money than releasing good content.
@@josefrieckenI mean, that's no different from TCGs. MtG has a lot of formats with different rules, the vast majority of them being born from homebrew rules that gained traction. And not just MtG, YGO for example also has very popular retro formats in GOAT and Edison (which in 40K terms would be like 2nd-3rd and 5th-6th respectively). That said, it's true TCG players are a lot more rigid and competitively minded.
Great rant. Couldn't agree more, my playgroup had similar feelings regarding 10th and bounced off it. Now we just play Horus Heresy with fan made / 6th edition rules for the Xenos factions.
@CrucifixionxX I think we're talking about how much it focuses on being a competitive wargame now, whereas before it was a more lore and 'rule of cool' focused
I mind when it was a bunch of people on a single office floor in Birmingham, the staff where real characters who we got to know, battle reports would be hilarious, themed with jokes, now their only purpose is to sell whatever is coming out next. GW went form being a hobbiest company to being a multi million dollar franchise.
I like that, media is so full of self-concius postmodern parodies that is refreshing to have a franchise that takes itself with a little geniunety,nobody goes _"oh these primarch guys take the 'extintion of the human race' waaay to seriusly, they should learn to chill"_ . Even if it ironically started as a parody of OG WH.
I miss the Codex rules that gave you the ability to make your own original armies/regiments/chapters/cabals, instead of just picking from the 10 most famous from each faction. Guardsmen with snipers, rough riders, and grenadiers. How I miss thee.
The simplification of the rules is not bad (they could add some lore friendly mechanics though), what is actually sad is that Warhammer40k lost a bit of its soul everytime it got a new editions.
Personally, I'm not interested in gaming the Warhammer, I'm more into painting models and lore, but I agree When I look at guard, I feel like they're loosing something that made them special For example, sentinel (my first model) used to look dieselpunk, raw and wild. Like real weapon of warfare made by facist government And now, current sentinel looks too much cyberpunk. Too modern for it to be empire machine
Back in the day the rule were simple. Probably 4th edition was the most streamlined experienced possible and the 3rd edition codex were probably the greatest with a lot of personalisation army wise.
@@Daemonik Rogue trader wasn't even a game, more like a bunch of stuff trow together. When people (and me) refer to old editions of the game in general refers to 3rd, 4rt and 5ft.
I missed all the extra rules like eternal warrior and instant death. And I remember I played chaos Space marines during the dark vengeance box era and we had rules like champions of chaos and challenges it was so much more fun. Now its pandering to competitive spammers and to new players too lazy to learn the rules to try to appeal to people not that into the setting.
i played some games of horus heresy, and instant death was the most frustrating thing ever. my bf attacked my mardruk zedras with his unnamed champion model. his weapon has instant death on a 6. he rolled a 6. dead. nothing i could do about it. mardruk zedras is supposed to be a terrifying man, his sword is literally called 'the death of worlds' but nope. a random guy with a special pokey stick just killed him with no chance to fight back.
@@easyeden5620Sounds like Warhammer 40k. Horus got shanked with a pokey stick and died and came back as a Chaos Champion determined to kill everyone he's ever loved. Sounds about right
@anthonyallmond3682 honestly I love situations were a unamed mook takes out a named character. I had a funny one where my champion with paragon blade was able to take off the last wound on Alexis Pollux, however my opponent decided to use Pollux's hammerblow so he struck at initiative and he instant deathed my champion. It was so cool because it felt so cinematic as if my champion stabbed him, and on his death he brought down his powerfist onto my champions head. It was such a cool moment in the game and my opponent and I still gush over it.
I had the joy of playing some of the older editions, i prefered 40k as more of a small scale skirmish game that actively encouraged experimentation and customisation.
A friend of mine and I flipped through the 8th ed warhammer fantasy battle core rule book yesterday. He had no exposure to it beforehand and he simply was baffled about how much better the art used to be. (Mostly the Blanch stuff) Don't get me wrong, 8th was the worst edition or WHFB, but it was league's above new warhammer when it comes to art, lore and feel.
8th is such a tragedy and it was clear that some staffers in GW were really trying to make one last push to keep that game and world on life support before the sales team essentially demanded they nuke it midway during edition development (so no Beastmen, Bretts and Skaven books). I was only rediscovering the hobby then and I agree about it not being an optimal edition compared to 6th the presentation was great. The only silver lining is that a lot of that effort ended up being used as the basis for Total War.
I started playing tabletop with 10th edition and what you’re describing sounds way more fun and dynamic than what i’ve experienced of ‘move model, never understand cover, get lucky with rolls, and hope your opponent didn’t bring a meta list’
I think Heresy's use of 5th and 6th edition rules means it retains some of that character. I appreciate if you are a Xenos player then it's probably not for you, and some factions such as Solar Auxulia are incredibly expensive to collect, but the community's stance on ultra competitive play (Stone Gauntlet, Contemptor spam) means it has a different flavour than modern 40K.
5th edition was such a wonderful ruleset, sure Space Wolves could be a handful, but the games from that era felt good with everyone having something cheesy to get excited over. I'm still playing that edition to this day and have thoroughly enjoyed losing every game with my Eldar. It was a game I could always enjoy losing at. Rules provided the perfect amount of depth and you could still have wacky situations (like losing 2/5ths of a Warp Spider squad on a bad teleportation roll).
0:17 ooft, when you showed that Dark Vengeance box I looked over at my brother's old copy that he gave to me a couple months ago. He's the only reason I'm interested in Warhammer at all, so a rather wholesome connection there
This brought back good memories from when I played 3rd - 5th edition. It was a more narrative game style and it made battles feel like a movie sometimes with people often standing on the sidelines and watching battles at the local club. It was like watching a story play out.
I stopped following GW's lore and stopped buying their books after 6th Edition came out. I much prefer to dip in and out of the old books for rules, ideas, and artwork. I'm probably one of the few who preferred it when the hobby was much more niche than it is today. Seems to be more popular than ever, and has become more corporate because of it. I liked having a hobby nobody had ever heard of.
I don't see how more people knowing the hobby is a bad thing. In my opinion the real problem is GW Corpos often having policies and decisions that are even more draconian than Disney's. That and I honestly just think that 75$ for a patrol squad that's neither assembled nor painted is utter horse shit.
@@pyerackIn B4 some GW shill cries about how expensive the master moulds are.... totally disregarding the fact GW literally owns the ENTIRE process of production from design to manufacturing and has direct control over this shit
Totally there with you man. I started in the tail end of 4th edition and used to buy every codex and rulebook I could get my hands on, nowadays I only occasionally bother. I miss all the awesome psychic powers the most and totally agree formations were the major fuckup, one that could have been solved so easily if theyd just made them cost points...
i'm an old school gamer from 2nd ed, when blood angels and dark angels shared the same codex, when things were simple, and Captain Tycho was still alive!! we had more freedom in army building and even down to each figure customization in and out of game. we had so much fun just playing to play. i remember playing till 2am and had work at 7am, but that didn't slow me down. I'll admit the newer models and newer factions brought a bit of freshness to the game, but at a sacrifice to the fun. i haven't played a single game in 6 years, as it just doesn't feel right anymore. i still love the entire warhammer universe and miss my scratch built creations, but i doubt i'll every pick my dice back up again, and my passion for warhammer builds is a fancy version of models. some people build model cars, i build warhammer models, but i'll be sticking to only those pieces that catch my attention.
That reminds me of playing a really late game and we decided to do the whole game as night fighting because it was like 1 am. Back in the day where we were a high trust society and we were allowed to play at our LGS after hours and lock up ourselves. Nowadays they have to remove windows from the back room because of break-ins :(
Yeah, when I got into 40k in 2020 as a younger person reading older player’s books, that’s the sort of tactical intricacy I thought I was getting into. Trying to flank a tank with a weapons squad to hit it in the side, without misplacing the squad into the path of something else
I'm still fairly new, about two years into it. But two of my friends are old school and know everything top to bottom and one thing they taught me was the classic Warhammer stories/lore/ gameplay and I certainly think it had more of a soul.
I never played Warhammer just collected my admech. Mostly because I’m slow at painting and because the rules in 9th was so intimidating. I love Warhammer but I must admit that most old art looks better than never and the thing with the rules for characters without models is just so awesome.
I really get where you're coming from. Player preferences have changed. When I was a teen in the 90's, 40k was much closer to an RPG. Now, most of those elements have been removed. Today it's less about lore and more anout win-rate. I don't know why competitive 40k is the most popular. I think it must have something to do with the zeitgeist of Millennials and Gen Z. They have a shared outlook with a huge emphasis on winning and on tournaments. I'm a bit alienated by it, to be honest.
I'm a millenial. I started around 5th edition and I can tell you I preferred the rpg and narrative side of 40k. The codex part hits so hard because I used to just read endless amounts of lore and look at the cool artwork and painted minis in the back. Losing those cool little details was sad
@@midbeef2902 yeah, GW must have some research that says the game needs to be simpler for new players. They must be worried the current player base is going to fade away and the hobby is going to die out. You would think that if they're going to bother getting into such an involved hobby that they'd take the time to learn some immersive rules that make the game cooler, but what do I know?
Why I love the Horus Heresy so much. The armor values actually add a lot more to the game than you’d think at first. It makes anti-tank units important and makes positioning very important as well. Such a silly mechanic to have gotten rid of
@@wonkerswilly1967 I've never played but that's the most appealing and interesting area of rules to me. I think it was in a review for horus heresy that I first saw it mentioned and I was like "that sounds brilliant, wait that isn't in normal 40k..? huh, anymore? it used to be?!?". It seems like the difference between a well simulated driving experience in a video game vs the result of a super basic beginner unity game engine tutorial for making a cube slide around or something.
we as fans should make a fan edition which would implement the best rule set's of previous editions in one package and isn't mega competitive or just by the numbers borefest but what the game should and was and that's fun.
This vid got me crying in TS and GK. They took too much with 10th. I loved playing Rubric marines and making every squad unique even though it was the same models. I miss playing TS, they're not The sons of Magnus in 10th, they're just space marines. :(
Warhammer struggles from existing within its own ecosystem separate from wargaming as a wider hobby, I get the impression the newer people that write/maintain the new rules only really play warhammer. I personally think streamlining and simplifying the core rules for 8th was a good move, however some of the ways they did this weren't done all that well, I missed using templates and there's a bunch of stuff they really should have streamlined that they just didn't bother with (like the turn system, I love sitting and waiting for my opponent to complete 100 different rounds of combat before I can start my 100 different rounds of combat).
Hearing all these old rules explained again, seeing the old artwork and models, the charts and tables you could roll on. Makes me smile, I will never forget those times of my Warhammer journey.
The problem is Games Workshop was not doing well financially during the times you are talking about. It's only until fairly recently, when Games Workshop decided to bring back Primarchs and advanced the storyline with the Primaris Marines, that GW started turning a serious profit and brought the company out of financial troubles.
that also led to heresy getting its 2nd edition and now the old world coming back, they can afford to take a loss with those due to 40k selling so well and give long time fans something to play like they used to
>Old Warhammer was beautiful >Shows 6th Ed Art Hey that's Dark Vengence! That's when I got into the hobby! I'm not-- >Remembers Dark Vengence came out in the 10s Oh fuck...
No one will probably see my comment, and thats ok. IMO - The two 'worst' things that have / has had happened to warhammer (specifically 40k) were.. 1. GW becoming more 'corporate' and ultimately started to put profits as their #1 priority 2. Competitive player(s)
I am actually trying to make an in house rulebook utilizing a lot of the old mechanics but I can't find books for anything older than 7th. I f anyone could help me find where to get the old rules I'd really appreciate it.
Ebay? I mean seriously, you can get old rule books for quite cheap, I just got myself a copy of the 4th edition limited edition rule book for around 20 bucks(?).
So damn true, competitive is like cancer in anything. It's not only Warhammer and tabletops it also destroyed video games like WoW or LoL. Everything must change to suit for elites. Sad AF.
I feel this in my soul. Let's be real nobody wants to watch competitive video games or wargames we have actual sports for that. Can we please just have a fun game we can play with our bros please?
It's no coincidence that it's during the age of the Internet. The minute you buy some models and start getting into 40k, you search the web. Maybe find some lore but you also find 10,000 reddit posts of 'that guy's talking about meta and combos. It turns everybody subconsciously into this type of player, once you know it.
It's no coincidence that it's during the age of the Internet. The minute you buy some models and start getting into 40k, you search the web. Maybe find some lore but you also find 10,000 reddit posts of 'that guy's talking about meta and combos. It turns everybody subconsciously into this type of player, once you know it.
It's no coincidence that it's during the age of the Internet. The minute you buy some models and start getting into 40k, you search the web. Maybe find some lore but you also find 10,000 reddit posts of 'that guy's talking about meta and combos. It turns everybody subconsciously into this type of player, once you know it.
I’ve discovered Titanicus in recent years. Feels very much like 4th. Character creation with the titans, blast templates, scatter, armour vs strength etc. plus random explosions. Totally love it, and the rules don’t change every other week.
Yeah its pretty cool! Idk people just whine too much with "back in the old days"...There are so many great games out there, you dont have to stick with 40k
Came back to the hobby after leaving in 4th edition, was honestly baffled by the changes to vehicles. It feels like a shift from an attitude where mechanics were trying to simulate the lore to an optimization of gameplay.
Primaris kinda ruled out the struggling grim dark aesthetic of the imperium. Now we have a primarch leading sleek clean new marines (which is cool btw) The old marines had a much less uniformed look, armored pieced together from different marks that were thousands of years old. I do miss the old aesthetic but I’m not mad at the direction things are going. It makes the old first born, Badab era even cooler and more detailed
I think the Primaris marines would've been more interesting if instead of just being perfect replacements to shove down everyone's throats they were sort of a big trade-off, having stronger capabilities but being more vulnerable to their geneseed mutations or something. It would've helped usher them in without forcing firstborn/classic marines out of the setting. But it's pretty obvious GW doesn't care about setting and just wants to sell you the exact same shit you already bought but 1.5x larger.
@@spimpsmacker6422 primaris were clean and new because they were, they were all made after the heresy, we see in the 9th edition release a more grungy version with the bladeguard really owning that "space knight" look
The warmaster becons. Horus heresy is basically 7th ed from what I understand. It feels extremely cinematic compared to 40k, and with all the little customization it's hard to not fall in love with your favorite legion, as you have so many options and kitbash to do Edit: dang you mentioned HH right at the end, oof. It is sad that it's really only Marines, but it makes me wonder if you could just bring in the other factions with their 7th ed rules
I also joined during 5th edition and left around the time 6th started coming out. I never knew I was this nostalgic for the old times... I remember that space wolf codex, and I remember those stat lines.... Back in the day: It might take a decade for a new edition to come out These days: A new edition every 3rd year! Gotta keep pumping those numbers!
Bought my older brother who is a casual 40K fan (By that I mean, he plays a Darktide mission 3 times a week and goofs lore references when talking to me) and also enjoys going to the gym a lot one of your bezerker muscle shirts for Christmas and he absolutely loved it. Thanks for the perfect gift for my brother.
Absolutely agree. The older editions have so much more SOUL, and personality. Every faction had something special about them, not just a +1 to hit. I remember 5'th edition Orks would stop their looted tank on a roll of 6, rendering them immobile for a turn, or Nids losing control of units outside of synapse, or the plethora of Chaos mutations I could equip my guys with. Psychic doesn't even exist anymore, and it was SO FUN. 10'th feels samey, safe and, worst of all, boring. Nids special rule is now "easier to pass Battleshock tests" , really?? CSM is "hit harder". Boring as hell. People forget that less than 1% of players ever go to a tournament, or big event with their armies. Designing the game with only those people in mind robbed it of all flavour for the rest of us who just play with friends.
I have a genuine question (I have yet to play a game - just started building an army as of 10th).. what is actually stopping people from just playing their preferred edition? That material, rule books, everything must be very accessible online nowadays. Is there a reason people don't keep playing older editions as people do with older editions of D&D etc?
I think it’s more to do with lack of players, a lot of people play the current editions because of “competitive play”. And also because a lot of the new models aren’t supported. But I’m sure there’s still a lot of people who play older editions, I do, I love 5th edition, I even create custom rules for the new models 😁
From 2nd to 5th was about war and Battles. 6th was hybrid but started to introduce more capturing objectives, from 7th to now, is all about the capturing of objectives, how to capture points and how to maximize those. It's not about removing treats or deal with your opponent with the strategy of war, rather to, how can I min/max points that I receive playing the game. Gw is more about pushing the competition instead of making good armies that you can play with your friends. Gw fears that they can get canibalized by older editions of 40k as well. At this point they could create different formats and ways to play. 10th edition will grow to become a complex editions as the others before it, GW can't scape the Bloat, and they are a models company first, the rules are only complementary, they are an excuse to sell models, but not a goal to sell them anymore.
I wanted to start by saying that this was a fantastic video! You really did a great job of bringing back the nostalgic feeling I used to get from playing 40K. The music gave me serious Mass Effect 1 main menu vibes! I started playing in 6th edition and I agree about the artwork. I play IG (I do not acknowledge the name Astra Miitarum, they will always be the Guard to me) and that 5th edition codex cover really sold me on that faction, even if they did suck on the tabletop (for me at least, I lost every single game I ever played.) I totally agree about the old school WS/BS stats and the narrative fluff they provided to the games. I disagree with your view on cover saves. I prefer the new system, where cover affects to-hit instead of replacing your armor/invulnerable save. While it does mean a rail gun can still kill you, I feel like the affect on to-hit balances out the kill/avoid damage better than choosing between saves. I mostly disagree with your view on armor saves. I like that AP doesn't completely negate armor anymore because it gives factions with horrible saves a fighting chance. I think a fair compromise would be the new AP system reducing armor saves to 6+, but being able to negate armor saves if it's over the armor save. An example: Melta gun is AP -4, so a Guardsmen's 5+ flak armor doesn't stand a chance (AP -4 passes the AP -1 needed to get the flak armor down to 6+, so it doesn't get a save), but a Terminator would be able to get a 6+ save (AP -4 to 2+ armor makes a natural 6+ save). I have mixed feelings on your views of universal rules. While I do enjoy the thematic nature of those rules, I do like being able to know every single ability a character or unit has by just looking at its page in their codex. I also disagree with the old blast & flamer templates. I think flamers were way too OP back in the day. I remember Grey Knights incinerator squads using that crazy 30" leap ability to just land in front of my guardsmen & strategically place the Str 6 AP2 templates to kill over 10 models per template with absolutely nothing I could do to avoid, negate, or even counter it. They were brutal. I know this is a personal gripe, and I was not a good player, but damn was that shit unbalanced as all hell. I still stand by my belief that the Grey Knights didn't resemble any kind of "balanced" fighting force until 8th edition. As for the blast templates, I like the current D6+6 or 2D6 hits more. It means you can do more damage to vehicles, while still being able to kill squads too. With the way I used to roll, my Leman Russ battle cannons never hit anything I aimed at. 2D6 was way to much scatter for the scale of the battlefields. Maybe 1D6 minus BS, but even then, I prefer the new blast rules. I used to hate the old WS/BS and Initiative components, but listening to you explain them really made me miss the narrative effect they added to the game. A Guardsmen may not have stood a chance in melee against a Space Marine, but I remember Yarrick giving a few Chaos champions a good ol' pinch with his Killa Klaw, and that couldn't even happen today. But with the mainstreaming of modern 40K, I don't think they ever plan to go back. I think the best place to implement the old school WS/BS & Initiative would be in 3rd Edition Killteam or a reboot of Inquisitor RPG. Thanks for the video, dude. I really hope somebody from Games Workshop with some ability to control future planning sees this video. You made some great points, and you really hit me in the feels with this awesome nostalgia trip. In the Emperor's name, LET NONE SURVIVE!
Dang dude this is great; beautifully done. I just got into Warhammer in 10e with some friends, and with a heavy background in game design, I could *feel* something was off about the game from how all my "old" friends described their play experiences 5+ years ago. I chewed up all the rules in a couple of months and just a handful of games, and could very clearly feel the lack of flexibility / creativity in list building and play EVEN THOUGH my faction has its codex already. I found a bunch of legend and long-gone units and made homebrew to update them into 10th, bringing back their rather unique mechanics and interesting play patterns. Then I made some custom units to bring the forgotten / unviable playstyles up to snuff. "10e is just Rolling Dice and pointing at things; it's a game of who can hide their units best and sitting on points." But man... do I feel this. The game DOES feel bland. There's SO MUCH focus on the models (buy them, paint them, base them, kitbash them, make lists, attach them). But when you sit down to play the game the ONLY focus is on VP. "Who cares that 95% of your guys are dead? You got more VP; you won, dude!" *Doesn't feel like a win* The game has ABSOLUTELY moved from a top-down design (where the flavor and lore come before the mechanics, and the mechanics are meant to serve that vision) to a bottom-up design (where mechanics come first, and you combine/alternate them together to try and fit the flavor). Both are valid approaches to designing games, but you'll see the same divide in the playerbases as "People who are here for the story" vs "People who are here for the gameplay". The reason certain games like Magic: the Gathering have thrived as long as they have is that they ALTERNATE how they design card sets, so no group stays alienated forever. Very sad to see this moving in the direction that it is. It's so obviously boiled down that it's tasteless now.
Been in 40k since 5th ed. This video is a strange one - remembers all the cool and good stuff, but totally forgets about how some of it was actually tras'y. Example - tanks with sponsons. 95% of all those in game could target ONLY 1 unit, not a unit per sponson! And if you moved a tank without FAST rule up to 6" - you can fire ONLY ONE weapon. I am looking at those predators with lascannons and heavy bolters, and those either were a sitting and firing ducks for whole game, or ate shit, because no firepower is there after moving. LORE ACCURATE stuff sounded like a complete joke even then - in case of CSM named characters - only Lucius and Abaddon had Eternal warrior rule (Typhus would get instakilled by melta, like a LORE ACCURATE Typhus would, uhuh) from 6th and forward - ahh yes, such tasty and COOL random shit like pcychic powers, Warlord traits... it felt not cool even then, your custom warlords risked to get a random shit trait because it was out of your control! Morale was also quite bad - especially in 6th-7th. How many Fearless (or rules that just said you fail morale without repercussions there were, phew - all of loyalist space marines literally forgot what rules were if your squad failed morale, they NEVER needed them) Powercreep was there even in 5th. Tyranids came - they OP. Dark eldar came - OP. Grey Knights - OP and literally counter dark eldar bullshit just by being there. Blood angels - OP. Necrons - so OP, you can play whatever and roflestomp anything in the entire game (MINDSHACKLE scarabs ALONE lost people friends) All the missions played this way - you try to kill everything, and on 5th turn run towards objectives. SUCH VARIETY AND FUN!!! It might sound, like I am writing this to shit all over 5-7 editions, But I'm not (there were enough said about decurion-formations) Those old editions had good in them, and had the same ammount of bad. Any ideas fo making lore accurate space marines fell down and burned because of dumb stats and only 1 wound, or because your custom made character had no way of surviving a powerfist to a face(in some armies that wasnt a problem at all). Some units were so overcosted and had rules so bad - those were unusable (I am looking at you CSM RAPTORS) And terain rules were fun, but we all had this constant "I SHOOT THROUGH 3 TERRAIN HOLES INTO THAT TANK'S SIDE!!!" and NO legal way to say "Dude, chill!" 10th isnt the best, but its a way better start to just play the game. And if you and your buddies have the same ideas - its very easy to homerule 10th, and add stuff to it. Basic and simple doesn't equal BAD, as well as RULE_OVERBLOAT doesn't mean GOOD Best wishes for 40k enthusiasts out there - find likeminded players, and do your thing. Homerule and Rule of Cool your games to your heart's desire. -If your opponent's Emperror's Champion wants to duel your Overlord, but lacks the CP needed to activate a stratagem - just do it anyway, like in 6th. -Use trueLOS if you wanna. -Remove closest models, if it feels fluffy and cool. -Use Instant Death if weapon's STR twice as big as target's T. Its a hobby for us nerds. And GW right now sells it to sports-oriented players. Game is somewhat balanced, if arcade'y. DO your hobby the way you like with your dudes! And to hell with GW's constant meta race!
I don't know why GW doesn't just include "optional rules" within the codex like what we have in the dnd dungeon masters guide. This would allow for players to play a streamlined game that is both simple for next players and also quick to play for the hyper competitive players. It would also allow players who want more depth along with fun and interesting mechanics to have them in the book to use and officially written out. I really don't see a reason why GW can't include something like armor facing or advanced rules for vehicle combat within 10th as an optional rule. I also think that getting special characters taken away is stupid and just rude to players. I wish they just kept them in the books and would make a list or denote which units could be taken for competitive play.
I liked 6th tbh. It felt easy to grasp, there were still things like AV for vehicles, glanc/pen hits, scatter....felt more variable. 7th was incredibly bloated, my main is CSM and I was bringing like 5-6 books to play. Also... the Traitor Legions supplement, which was legal for like 3 months. 8th was pretty fun, very fresh, gutted tho.. but it was very nice change of pace, also with just indexes for the first months, it was great! Then.. the bloat came back. That´s when I´ve stopped playing, 9th skipped and 10th .. I am looking into it, but tbh I rather play the HH. It feels like true warhammer. And now with the old world coming back, that feeling is even stronger.
My friend group only plays 7th edition (and 1st edition, but I consider it a whole other game to be honest). We all played 8th, but by the time 9th edition rolled out, we checked it out and just decided 7th was better than the two that followed it. 10th was almost interesting, but personally it doesn't offer anything that 1st and 7th can neither offer. It only brought back some earlier lost ideas and added some very bizarre things that we didn't think made any sense. I also run some 40k tabletop RPGs so we can experience 40k in a wide variety of ways... honestly I fear even 11th edition will probably just follow the current trajectory for the game. An unforseen boon for playing 7th is that the meta for us doesn't change arbitrarily... it only changes if one of us figures out a thing about the game nobody else had thought of. So we don't need to update lists every time GW wants money.
I do miss some of the flavor rules you mentioned for many of the subfactions, but overall i did not enjoy the rules of 5-7th edition as much as 8th and beyond (aside from strategem bloat that crept in which i can genuinely understand how some can find that frustrating but is far more manageable now). The game used to take MUCH longer to play due to all the small rules you listed. It was weighted much more in favor to heavy firepower weapons because tanks were basically invincible otherwise, and meanwhile heavy infantry ABSOLUTELY did not feel like they were tough at all. Do yall remember how bad some of those rules (like the invincible chapter master smasher, or deepstrike scattering off the battlefield and dying) ACTUALLY were? Or is this rose tinting because were all getting disillusioned by GW deciding to throw out all the flavor for blander primaris? Yea, losing the characters from lore weve had since we started playing SUCKS. I genuinely cannot play the space marine chapter I started back then anymore cus Veteran Bikers and several other models I bought dont exist anymore. But lets not lie to ourselves, there were entire editions where some armies were essentially unplayable or unwinnable because GW would give a codex of badly balanced units and almost never do anything to fix it. Or some armies that were just skipped an edition entirely. And GWs only excuse was "were a company that makes miniatures for hobbyists, not for gamers"
The unfortunate thing about the pivot to competitive support that GW has done is that it wasn't needed. Competitive 40k existed IN-SPITE of if being sub-optimal for competitive play. But now as they turn to making it more balanced and bland for competitive 40k, they are killing the narrative aspects.
Old Warhammer was also the time of GW growing increasingly detached and aloof from its community, increasing disdain for the hobby side of Warhammer, the forums being shut down, gratuitous lawsuits from GW and highly questionable business practices (although that last thing arguably is something that hasn't changed). "New" GW at least does a lot more engagement and outreach to its fans, actively trying to encourage a community and the hobby beyond just "buying new miniatures", as seen from projects like Warhammer Community and Warhammer TV. The old editions of Warhammer were far from perfect either, and often outright broken. There were a lot of big "don'ts" if you wanted to have a casual game in certain editions, since even the mere act of bringing an army like Tau or Eldar was already enough to completely break the balance of the game and get you accused of being a powergamer in some editions. Stuff like Fish of Fury was fairly easy to do even if you weren't purposely trying to make a broken list and it was absolutely disgustingly powerful. The newer editions since 8th have been far from perfect, but they at least have generally avoided the kind of massive balancing issues and outright broken rules of older editions. I have yet to see abominations like Fzorgle (lash of submission) from 4th or the Screamerstar from 6th edition. A lot of issues were also caused by the much slower turnaround of codices. Some armies went through several editions without ever getting an updated codex. At least nowadays, most armies get a new codex every edition. Finally, lorewise there were a lot of divisive and polarizing things happening, mostly courtesy of Matt Ward. The Newcrons and Grey Knights bathing in the blood of Sisters of Battle are things that come to mind. As does the "spiritual liege" and blatant favoritism for the Ultramarines in those days, leading in turn to the Ultramarines getting a lot of hate from the fanbase. Overall, 3th-7th edition were a good time that I have a lot of nostalgia for, but it's easy to get blinded by that nostalgia and forget everything that was bad back then. Modern Warhammer has improved a lot in many ways.
GW calling Crusade ‘narrative’ play shows they know nothing about their audience. Crusade is just ‘campaign play’ labelled as narrative in an attempt to placate players who hate ‘math hammer’. The beauty of old 40k was that the rules aloud you to tell stories within the game. New 40k is just chess with more pieces. Terrain means nothing any more. The soul of the game died when they drove 7th into the ground (intentionally). They do the same with all editions now, because they need people to want a new edition, and the best way to do that is to ruin the current edition. You forgot to mention, before 8th edition, you knew what you units cost. Now, they change the points value every month! It’s impossible to keep up!
I only started playing 3 years ago. I love 40k lore, read about 40 of the books, and have a couple armies, but the game is just not that great. Whoever gets the first turn just has a huge advantage, and I'm sick of getting smashed by Leagues of Votan when they came out, or Eldar in 10th. I hate how many games are decided in the listbuilding stage. However when I started playing MESBG, it was just so much better. Listbuilding was so much simpler, there are enough special rules that give incredible depth to the game, yet not too much to be bloated. Bringing fluffy lists is viable even in a competitive setting, and competitive lists can still be thematic. There are also very few lists that are just a pain to play against. Playing against Vanquishers of the Necromancer just sucks, but other than that, I can enjoy playing against most other armies.
I started in 8th edition with orks in tts. Even if I got smashed a lot I had fun, then 9th came and I started seeing the troubles with it, but still enjoyed it. Then 10th edition came, I got excited. But then it got fuckin downhill quick, and I just didn't have any fun. It felt like I was pushing a boulder up a brick wall. Getting no where and I wish I started 40k around 6th or 7th edition, or stayed in 8th. But now it's all competitive bs and even in crusade/narrative games people only focus on winning and not fun
Thank you for making this video, your passion for 40K really shows. A lot of people say old hammer is better but usually go into a tirade as to why everything new is bad. I appreciate you going into depth as to why Warhammer 40K was so fun before 8th as I didn't really know why until now. I'm just getting into the game side of 40K and am disappointed with how white washed all the armies feel. I prefer narrative games that encourage tactical play though I don't think I'll branch out into other IP's just yet because of the cost involved in starting a new army. What would be the best way to experience playing the game like described in the video? Is it best to go and pick up the core rules books for 7th edition or is there another way about it?
Says old 40K had soul, proceeds to show very modern 40k starter sets. ;) Anything past 3rd is new, arguably past 2nd. That's just me though, just funny that I feel the same way about 4th ed onwards as you feel for 8th ed forwards.
Ugh. People bitched and moaned in 3rd edition. They did the same with 6th. Then 8th. This cycle will never stop because people have sentimental attachment to their earlier years in ANYTHING.
Welcome to your mental 30's, when you start seeing the enshitification of things. What used to be better and cheaper has become worse and costs more. It'll happen to you too, reader! “I used to be with ‘it’, but then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it’ anymore and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary. It’ll happen to you!"
i have been in the game for 30 years and nothing beat 3rd ed vdr rules, NO cp , NO every week new release (thats bought up by scalpers) dice rolls is what made you win or loss .............................and 0 mathhammer ppl played to have fun
I agree, some rules from older 40k where a lot better. Miss the wargear and unit customization, now every unit has a flat cost, so why not just bring the better weapons, they cost nothing in 10th. Also rules like closest models die first brought in a lot of strategy. You want your flamer weapons out in front so they can get more hits, but if that unit gets shot, guess who is gonna die first. And losing moral in 10th is a joke compared to what it use to be. But that being said, there absolutely needed to be rules reworks, and GW has defiantly improved in alot of places. Example is the old wound charts, good reddens. You could have a single terminator on the field, and your opponent have 72 billion hormagaunts, you still win, cuz they could never wound you. And the rules bloat, yeah you could have special rules for your space marines depending on the chapter you chose, but 90 percent of the pages of special rules where absolute garbage and people would only ever play one of three good ones. And so many rules that had to be referenced. everybody had like 3 books with dozens of little tabs of paper to reference back to what this or that thing did. A lot of the older rules where not new player friendly and i am certain there where many people that wanted to get into the game but see all the charts and rules about weapon skill, army composition, and faction rules then immediately turned away. Was old warhammer better, not to the vast majority of players. Hardly ever see anyone play anything older than 8th save a few older veterans . Is new warhammer perfect, absolutely not, but GW understood that the game was way too bloated and over complicated for no reason and needed to change. If you want to play old warhammer, by all means, play old warhammer. But i think you may have had some rose tinted goggles on when making this video, and nostalgia for older editions has blocked out the memories of how frustrating and shut off from the community old GW and 40k was.
Damn, I think this video finally made it click for me. I get it now. I am someone who wouldn't even get to play, if it wasn't for simpler games like Age of Sigmar. I might have said that older editions of 40K and Fantasy were bloated, but I see now that that is a part of the immersion. I am super annoyed with grognards who give us shit for the things we like about AoS, but I guess I finally see what they feel like they're missing.
As someone who just played for the first time in a 10th edition game, I was extremely confused how such a boring game has had so much of a cult following. Nothing in the game I played was like what I heard about. I really wish I was able to start sooner and play the game I was envisioning this whole time, it's good to hear that I wasn't just fantasizing and that it actually was like how I thought at one point. Great video.
It has become too mainstream. I started in 8th edition and I enjoyed it, but I have to admit that it was better before 8th edition. Even though I have only ever played 8th edition I can see the dedication that was put into the art/lore in previous editions. I currently don't like the new Warhammer art and don't like a lot of the models. The pushing of the new, 'modern' look of 40K drove me away from the game and the price increases drove my friends out.
Yeah before quarterly FAQ’s you had armies or units that were either unplayable or broke the game, and would remain so for YEARS. The only thing better about old hammer is the nostalgia we feel. 10th edition is the best ruleset to date. The models are the best to date.
I can't describe the feeling I got watching this. Got me feeling nostalgic for something I've never ever played. There's a lot of rules and it sounds a tad complex, sure, but like you said (and said absolutely right), you get used to it and then it'll become easy. Having a buddy that loves Chaos Space Marines, the idea that his champion bloke could turn into a Warp Spawn or a full-fledged Daemon Prince sounds extremely fun, possibly making some derpy funny moments. It sounds just like the kind of thing I'd love to play casually with my buddies for gigs and shittles. Being able to challenge leaders also sounds amazing, not only in flavour considering the setting, but as a strategy too. I just love all of it. What edition was this, exactly? I'd like to get into it with my fellas, count me converted
Jesus, this vid genuinely got me tearing up thinking about my 4th edition games. My land raider felt like the strongest thing on earth(14 on each side)…until my friend sunk a railgun on it and turned it to ash. I loved how the stats were and how funny it was when you rolled a 10 for a small blast template only for it to go off the table. GW needs to realise that at the end of the day. Most people are playing Warhammer in their mates garage with jenga blocks and soup cans for cover and a wobbly table, not in a competitive setting. I loved how every codex was flavoured. I think a lot of the personality has gone from the game.
This is why i fell in love with warhammer. My buddy and I were talking about all the fun we used to have pre 8th edition with so many stories of ridiculously hilarious outcomes. Once we had an ork player roll wrong on the shock attack gun and he teleported 72 inchs into close combat first turn in an apocalypse game with everyone screaming that he got into close combat first, and the target was a dreadnought that immediately killed him in CC😂. I realized the newer editions just feel boring and stale. We've been talking about going back to 7th and fixing all the stuff that needed fixing.
the thing is the narrative is left out because it can no longer hold itself up the narrative is deader then the rules just marvel releasing a new big bad for every movie and only keeping the hype up with the inevitable release of yet another loyalist primarch the setting i fell in love with as a kid is gone the game dying after it is of little relevance to me
It went from a company making a game for everyone to get creative and use your imagination into a company that sells you nothing but more and more and more and more product.
Bro not only did you just give me some great memories and I'm not going to lie maybe I even teared up a little bit, and then I just felt really old and then really pissed off at GW because you're damn right, it was so different and they had to go and ruin it. But the memories that I've made along with the friends and the hundreds of thousands of dollars I've spent will always never hold any regrets for me😂😂😂😂😂
I am newer player, but everything you said sound so cool! The thing is I play adeptus mechanicus. Can anyone help me find the 6th edition rules or if there are not fan rules?
AdMech came first in 6th ed and was divided in Cult Mechanikus and Skitarii. 2 books and 2 completely diffrent armies. Both + core rules could be found on ebay or amazon. Maybe someone in youre area/club/store is in the hobby long enough to help you out.
I'm just hoping Old World is good because although I never played the old editions of 40k or WHFB the ws matching against each other and initiative systems I thought were really cool and I don't really know why they got rid of them. Always rubbed me the wrong way that a guardsman could land the first blow on a Aeldari just because he ran at them.
Nice to see the space wolves photos I took from when I worked in the studio getting called out 😊
When I was there the design studio was amazing with writers, artists, graphic designers, photographers and sculptors all working together in one place.
But after 6th Ed 40K it all got split up into separate and access controlled divisions. It made sense for the business to grow as more space was needed. But it meant sculptors didn’t work close with the writers anymore. Early on this led to weird discrepancies between sculptors intent and the writers bg and rules.
Biggest impact though was expanding the books team into its own division. You can see when this happened when there was a big spike in books and supplements, an increased frequency in edition refreshes, as the new publishing division needed to make more products and money.
This of course impacted the art. More was needed and fast. This led to digital art and freelance which early on had a mismatch in quality.
I hope we’re seeing just growing pains at GW and they change things up.
As a lifelong SW player, thanks for your awesome images! 😊
For Russ and the All Father!
Your illustrations gave life to what I tried to paint as a kid you and set us up for a life time of wargamming, so thank you sir.
This makes so much sense as to what happened to the magic. That environment produced my favorite parts of 40k. I started with 3rd-4th. I felt despite 7th editions bloat everything that came after was not anywhere near as fun. Even my armies death korps and admech got twisted into wierd models and rules that didn't fit. Horus heresy feels like the only part of warhammer that still feels like the game i loved. Thank you for the magic you helped create.
7th was a rushed schedule filler while they figured out AoS. Made me quite sad as 6th Ed 40K book didn’t get the time in the sun it deserved.
Guess it is happening in all big businesses. Agenda hitting hard.
Back in the days when character and narrative were more important than tournament balance. 40K was basically DnD with armies. I miss those times.
Funny you should mention D&D as it is just as far away from its roots in design and game flow now as Warhammer
Agreed
It's so bizarre to me that 40k is now being explicitly designed with competitive play in mind, when in early editions it always felt to me like serious tournament play was missing the point in the same way as trying to "win" D&D.
@bencochrane6112 remember you can still play old editions :-)
@@5punkybob yep. And old books are either available as pdfs, or as used copies. It's just harder to find someone to play against. Clubs usually push the latest thing for more sales. Players of older games even get criticism for it sometimes for playing "fossils" that are better left in the dust. I understand why they say it, but it's a bit disingenuous, seeing how ruined some new products are
Brilliant work brother, expansive, concise and a great video 😁
I just recently went to a Warhammer shop and got myself some paints and brushes to finally finish my "Alpha Legion simping over Bel'akhor" army as I have some time to kill. I was a GM zealot as a kid about 24 years ago. I saw the release of Necromunda, Mortheim & Gorkamorka. I saw editions come and go. I will never forget the time we actually ran a 10,000 point Warhammer fantasy game with my armies led by Nagash and Egrimm van Hortseman... Even though Warhammer eventually faded from my life, I have always been a big fan of War Occaionaly, checking out the lore updates over the years. Listening to what you describe, the incredible dedication to the lore and the diversity of the rules that allowed us to really customise our army and show their differences is something that made it a great strategy. To see the state of the franchise is to see the Emperor on his throne... what has become of you...
There is something that bad management decisions cannot take away from us. The old rulebooks we own, our armies and the amazing memories we have made along the way.
Heard that the regulars in the shop are still playing 9th for the time being, I guess I will have to try out those "Bel'akor's Simps" with them sometime soon.
Keep up the good work, brother. Let the galaxy burn
I miss it so much. I started collecting at the end of 6th but took too long and had no one to play with. Only recenlty have I started playing. I think I'll go back and try some older editions; even homebrew some rules for factions which didn't exist back then.
I can't say I was ever too into the 40k tabletop, I came in at the end of 9th, One Page Rules is my drink of choice these days, and as much as I can and will ETERNALLY simp for OPR, I wish they had an optional extended rule set that added some stuff like this, just so you could make your legendary heroes feel a bit more unique
Man my dad played in that time and gave me some old books (eldar, two old guard, orks and a core book) from I believe 3rd or 4th edition
I miss playing orks and killing half of my army and the enemies with a wacky roll, sure it wasn't competative but orks was never about winning tournaments and all about just having fun.
Me and my gaming group have gone back to 7th as 10th is so boring. Started back in 3rd edition and there was so much freedom and narrative to armies.
Proper weapon/ballistic skill is what I miss most about old GW. It actually felt like a stream lined TTRPG battle simulator.
I play 4th edition, my favorite edition. Happy Days!
Cheers!
It's quite simple : suits don't have souls.
So, as a company expand, and the numbers of suits raise, the end-product ends up reflecting the loss of soulstuff.
It's the sad reality in just about everything nowadays :(
We slowly turning into Cyberpunk 2077 but without the cool futuristic shit :c
@@Eleven217that’s…what cyberpunk is.
@@Prophetofthe8thLegion He means we don't have the cool cybernetics Cyberpunk Dystopias are usually associated with.
They really need to keep the original designers well fed and around
I only ever played third edition. I had all the numbers memorized. It was so stream lined and simple. I watch play on table top now and I'm astonished by how complex it has become. I poured over the codexes and rules book, learning the lore and falling in love with the artwork. Ah nostalgia.
One Page Rules just might be for you it's a easier way to play with war hammer models it's fun
@@ghr501able it's been twenty years. I don't have the time for it anymore, I just like to listen to the stuff these days.
@@thedude5449 I understand It seems like life is more stressful now in days.
I love the lore and books of 40 and 30k but have gone to other tabletop stuff now.
3rd edition was so much fun
As a 1e veteran (yes, I started in 1987, I'm _that_ old), I really appreciate this look back to an earlier time.
I started getting involved in 1992. It's heart wrenching seeing how far Warhammer has fallen. It was around 2015 when the Hobby really started to fall out for me. Then came the Primaris Marines and I full sale checked out. I've been dabbing in The new Horus Heresy stuff. It's the only new content I am able to keep down.
I started playing in 2003?...well 3rd edition was king. It was a fun time. I didn't find it intimidating, but I did jump in trying to be fluffy. Good times.
Started in 2e myself, right on the cusp of 3e, and didn't play from 2001 until 2023. Been a lot to catch up on, but I've enjoyed the process. Would have been very interesting to see it evolve firsthand over the years.
I don't actually remember wat edition I started at, I think it was 4th? I remember Battle for Macgragge being released, so maybe 3rd? Idk. But yeah, I had a similar view on the vid. Great work from the creator and earned a sub from me for sure. 5th ed was the golden age for me. How about you guys?
1e for me too , was so exxitee waitinf rhe six weeks for it to arrive
6th is when I started and I got the dark vengence Dark Angels half of the box. I have since amassed a huge Dark Angels army and also started playing Grey Knights in 7th when I could take a small detatchment of them. The psychic powers, the penetrating hits on vehicles, the scatter dice for deep striking, the challenges my characters could issue, all of it was just so much fun amd I count myself lucky to have had a great hobby store owner who wrote awesome 4 month long campaigns with unique narrative flavors and fun twists.
I think my favorite time was when we lost power at our store and our store owner suddenly shouts "Oh no! A sudden warp storm summoned by the forces of chaos has blotted out the sun! As of right now night fighting is in effect!" We all used our phone flashlights to represent searchlights on our vehicles and it was a blast. When the power was fixed he then said "Huzzah! A brotherhood of Grey Knights have broken the storm and the powers of the warp have subsided! Night fighting is gone!" You were a great store owner Steve and we did not deserve you.
That's awesome :)
That's some wholesome shit right there; thanks for sharing.
Stories like this are what make a game truly special; not balanced mechanics.
As someone who got into 40K because of what happened to Magic The Gathering during the Fire design era I kind of understand what a lot of Warhammer players feel about the game today
I'm saddened that all my Modern decks got removed due to powercreep and bans
I'm starting to see that no matter where we go we're all seeing a decline in the games we've enjoyed our entire lives
They’re is always hope I think the main reason for the decline in games movies and tabletops is because as time goes on people care more about making money than releasing good content.
And yet, there are things like OPR and people continuing to use the older, better rules to this day.
The beauty of Wargaming over something like Magic is you can just play the older rules or even entirely different systems.
everything can and will get watered down to fit the broadest paying demographic
@@josefrieckenI mean, that's no different from TCGs. MtG has a lot of formats with different rules, the vast majority of them being born from homebrew rules that gained traction.
And not just MtG, YGO for example also has very popular retro formats in GOAT and Edison (which in 40K terms would be like 2nd-3rd and 5th-6th respectively).
That said, it's true TCG players are a lot more rigid and competitively minded.
Great rant. Couldn't agree more, my playgroup had similar feelings regarding 10th and bounced off it. Now we just play Horus Heresy with fan made / 6th edition rules for the Xenos factions.
Me and my buddies do the same. Any chance you could link some of those fan made rules?
Agree! We need the alternative to the bullshittery of GW
Man pass me them rules plz. I really want to play a more narrative driven game that isn't just space marines.
I feel like 40K just takes itself a little too seriously nowadays.
How’s that? More lax than ever before and the story is going down the drain lol
@CrucifixionxX I think we're talking about how much it focuses on being a competitive wargame now, whereas before it was a more lore and 'rule of cool' focused
I mind when it was a bunch of people on a single office floor in Birmingham, the staff where real characters who we got to know, battle reports would be hilarious, themed with jokes, now their only purpose is to sell whatever is coming out next. GW went form being a hobbiest company to being a multi million dollar franchise.
I’m a die hard fan and I agree
I like that, media is so full of self-concius postmodern parodies that is refreshing to have a franchise that takes itself with a little geniunety,nobody goes _"oh these primarch guys take the 'extintion of the human race' waaay to seriusly, they should learn to chill"_ .
Even if it ironically started as a parody of OG WH.
I miss the Codex rules that gave you the ability to make your own original armies/regiments/chapters/cabals, instead of just picking from the 10 most famous from each faction. Guardsmen with snipers, rough riders, and grenadiers. How I miss thee.
The simplification of the rules is not bad (they could add some lore friendly mechanics though), what is actually sad is that Warhammer40k lost a bit of its soul everytime it got a new editions.
Personally, I'm not interested in gaming the Warhammer, I'm more into painting models and lore, but I agree
When I look at guard, I feel like they're loosing something that made them special
For example, sentinel (my first model) used to look dieselpunk, raw and wild. Like real weapon of warfare made by facist government
And now, current sentinel looks too much cyberpunk. Too modern for it to be empire machine
Back in the day the rule were simple. Probably 4th edition was the most streamlined experienced possible and the 3rd edition codex were probably the greatest with a lot of personalisation army wise.
simplifying the rules comes hand in hand with loosing soul.
@@alet2691"Back in the day the rules were simple"
_remembers Turning Radius Ratio from 1e with a shudder_
@@Daemonik Rogue trader wasn't even a game, more like a bunch of stuff trow together. When people (and me) refer to old editions of the game in general refers to 3rd, 4rt and 5ft.
I missed all the extra rules like eternal warrior and instant death. And I remember I played chaos Space marines during the dark vengeance box era and we had rules like champions of chaos and challenges it was so much more fun. Now its pandering to competitive spammers and to new players too lazy to learn the rules to try to appeal to people not that into the setting.
Challenges were the best minigame.
i played some games of horus heresy, and instant death was the most frustrating thing ever.
my bf attacked my mardruk zedras with his unnamed champion model. his weapon has instant death on a 6. he rolled a 6. dead. nothing i could do about it.
mardruk zedras is supposed to be a terrifying man, his sword is literally called 'the death of worlds'
but nope. a random guy with a special pokey stick just killed him with no chance to fight back.
@@easyeden5620Sounds like Warhammer 40k. Horus got shanked with a pokey stick and died and came back as a Chaos Champion determined to kill everyone he's ever loved. Sounds about right
@@easyeden5620So you think you should automatically win because you have a named character?
@anthonyallmond3682 honestly I love situations were a unamed mook takes out a named character. I had a funny one where my champion with paragon blade was able to take off the last wound on Alexis Pollux, however my opponent decided to use Pollux's hammerblow so he struck at initiative and he instant deathed my champion. It was so cool because it felt so cinematic as if my champion stabbed him, and on his death he brought down his powerfist onto my champions head. It was such a cool moment in the game and my opponent and I still gush over it.
I hate competitive. It always sucks the soul out of everything.
I had the joy of playing some of the older editions, i prefered 40k as more of a small scale skirmish game that actively encouraged experimentation and customisation.
A friend of mine and I flipped through the 8th ed warhammer fantasy battle core rule book yesterday. He had no exposure to it beforehand and he simply was baffled about how much better the art used to be. (Mostly the Blanch stuff)
Don't get me wrong, 8th was the worst edition or WHFB, but it was league's above new warhammer when it comes to art, lore and feel.
8th is such a tragedy and it was clear that some staffers in GW were really trying to make one last push to keep that game and world on life support before the sales team essentially demanded they nuke it midway during edition development (so no Beastmen, Bretts and Skaven books). I was only rediscovering the hobby then and I agree about it not being an optimal edition compared to 6th the presentation was great. The only silver lining is that a lot of that effort ended up being used as the basis for Total War.
I started playing tabletop with 10th edition and what you’re describing sounds way more fun and dynamic than what i’ve experienced of ‘move model, never understand cover, get lucky with rolls, and hope your opponent didn’t bring a meta list’
I think Heresy's use of 5th and 6th edition rules means it retains some of that character. I appreciate if you are a Xenos player then it's probably not for you, and some factions such as Solar Auxulia are incredibly expensive to collect, but the community's stance on ultra competitive play (Stone Gauntlet, Contemptor spam) means it has a different flavour than modern 40K.
5th edition was such a wonderful ruleset, sure Space Wolves could be a handful, but the games from that era felt good with everyone having something cheesy to get excited over. I'm still playing that edition to this day and have thoroughly enjoyed losing every game with my Eldar. It was a game I could always enjoy losing at. Rules provided the perfect amount of depth and you could still have wacky situations (like losing 2/5ths of a Warp Spider squad on a bad teleportation roll).
0:17 ooft, when you showed that Dark Vengeance box I looked over at my brother's old copy that he gave to me a couple months ago. He's the only reason I'm interested in Warhammer at all, so a rather wholesome connection there
This brought back good memories from when I played 3rd - 5th edition. It was a more narrative game style and it made battles feel like a movie sometimes with people often standing on the sidelines and watching battles at the local club. It was like watching a story play out.
I stopped following GW's lore and stopped buying their books after 6th Edition came out. I much prefer to dip in and out of the old books for rules, ideas, and artwork. I'm probably one of the few who preferred it when the hobby was much more niche than it is today. Seems to be more popular than ever, and has become more corporate because of it. I liked having a hobby nobody had ever heard of.
I much prefer the older stuff as well. Primaris marines and the equally soulless Votann are too much for me.
I don't see how more people knowing the hobby is a bad thing. In my opinion the real problem is GW Corpos often having policies and decisions that are even more draconian than Disney's.
That and I honestly just think that 75$ for a patrol squad that's neither assembled nor painted is utter horse shit.
@@pyerackIn B4 some GW shill cries about how expensive the master moulds are.... totally disregarding the fact GW literally owns the ENTIRE process of production from design to manufacturing and has direct control over this shit
Totally there with you man. I started in the tail end of 4th edition and used to buy every codex and rulebook I could get my hands on, nowadays I only occasionally bother.
I miss all the awesome psychic powers the most and totally agree formations were the major fuckup, one that could have been solved so easily if theyd just made them cost points...
i'm an old school gamer from 2nd ed, when blood angels and dark angels shared the same codex, when things were simple, and Captain Tycho was still alive!! we had more freedom in army building and even down to each figure customization in and out of game. we had so much fun just playing to play. i remember playing till 2am and had work at 7am, but that didn't slow me down. I'll admit the newer models and newer factions brought a bit of freshness to the game, but at a sacrifice to the fun. i haven't played a single game in 6 years, as it just doesn't feel right anymore. i still love the entire warhammer universe and miss my scratch built creations, but i doubt i'll every pick my dice back up again, and my passion for warhammer builds is a fancy version of models. some people build model cars, i build warhammer models, but i'll be sticking to only those pieces that catch my attention.
That reminds me of playing a really late game and we decided to do the whole game as night fighting because it was like 1 am. Back in the day where we were a high trust society and we were allowed to play at our LGS after hours and lock up ourselves. Nowadays they have to remove windows from the back room because of break-ins :(
I miss armor facing.
Yeah, when I got into 40k in 2020 as a younger person reading older player’s books, that’s the sort of tactical intricacy I thought I was getting into. Trying to flank a tank with a weapons squad to hit it in the side, without misplacing the squad into the path of something else
When I read the 8e leaks and saw that armour facing was dropped, it was obvious what was coming. Same with blast templates. Very sad.
I'm still fairly new, about two years into it. But two of my friends are old school and know everything top to bottom and one thing they taught me was the classic Warhammer stories/lore/ gameplay and I certainly think it had more of a soul.
I never played Warhammer just collected my admech. Mostly because I’m slow at painting and because the rules in 9th was so intimidating. I love Warhammer but I must admit that most old art looks better than never and the thing with the rules for characters without models is just so awesome.
I really get where you're coming from. Player preferences have changed. When I was a teen in the 90's, 40k was much closer to an RPG. Now, most of those elements have been removed. Today it's less about lore and more anout win-rate. I don't know why competitive 40k is the most popular. I think it must have something to do with the zeitgeist of Millennials and Gen Z. They have a shared outlook with a huge emphasis on winning and on tournaments. I'm a bit alienated by it, to be honest.
I'm a millenial. I started around 5th edition and I can tell you I preferred the rpg and narrative side of 40k. The codex part hits so hard because I used to just read endless amounts of lore and look at the cool artwork and painted minis in the back. Losing those cool little details was sad
@@midbeef2902 yeah, GW must have some research that says the game needs to be simpler for new players. They must be worried the current player base is going to fade away and the hobby is going to die out. You would think that if they're going to bother getting into such an involved hobby that they'd take the time to learn some immersive rules that make the game cooler, but what do I know?
Bruh most of us Gen Z guys can barely afford to buy squad of intercessors.
@@Prophetofthe8thLegion I hear you. I barely can now either.
@@Prophetofthe8thLegion *stops in shop, picks up combat patrol*
"Welp, see ya next tax return!"
The two things I missed the most from 7th edition (when I started playing) are the templates and vehicle armor value.
Why I love the Horus Heresy so much. The armor values actually add a lot more to the game than you’d think at first. It makes anti-tank units important and makes positioning very important as well. Such a silly mechanic to have gotten rid of
@@wonkerswilly1967 I've never played but that's the most appealing and interesting area of rules to me. I think it was in a review for horus heresy that I first saw it mentioned and I was like "that sounds brilliant, wait that isn't in normal 40k..? huh, anymore? it used to be?!?". It seems like the difference between a well simulated driving experience in a video game vs the result of a super basic beginner unity game engine tutorial for making a cube slide around or something.
@@Shot5hells do 8 9 10 not have armor value? thats dumb.
we as fans should make a fan edition which would implement the best rule set's of previous editions in one package and isn't mega competitive or just by the numbers borefest but what the game should and was and that's fun.
This vid got me crying in TS and GK. They took too much with 10th. I loved playing Rubric marines and making every squad unique even though it was the same models. I miss playing TS, they're not The sons of Magnus in 10th, they're just space marines. :(
A really enjoyable watch since I started at 9th Edition and didn't know much before then,
Thank you for putting literally every recent thought I've had about Warhammer 40K in this video.
Warhammer struggles from existing within its own ecosystem separate from wargaming as a wider hobby, I get the impression the newer people that write/maintain the new rules only really play warhammer. I personally think streamlining and simplifying the core rules for 8th was a good move, however some of the ways they did this weren't done all that well, I missed using templates and there's a bunch of stuff they really should have streamlined that they just didn't bother with (like the turn system, I love sitting and waiting for my opponent to complete 100 different rounds of combat before I can start my 100 different rounds of combat).
Hearing all these old rules explained again, seeing the old artwork and models, the charts and tables you could roll on. Makes me smile, I will never forget those times of my Warhammer journey.
The problem is Games Workshop was not doing well financially during the times you are talking about.
It's only until fairly recently, when Games Workshop decided to bring back Primarchs and advanced the storyline with the Primaris Marines, that GW started turning a serious profit and brought the company out of financial troubles.
that also led to heresy getting its 2nd edition and now the old world coming back, they can afford to take a loss with those due to 40k selling so well and give long time fans something to play like they used to
>Old Warhammer was beautiful
>Shows 6th Ed Art
Hey that's Dark Vengence! That's when I got into the hobby! I'm not--
>Remembers Dark Vengence came out in the 10s
Oh fuck...
I thought the same thing bro hahaha. Asking myself if I can justify calling 6th edition "old" and realizing it was 10 years ago
No one will probably see my comment, and thats ok.
IMO - The two 'worst' things that have / has had happened to warhammer (specifically 40k) were..
1. GW becoming more 'corporate' and ultimately started to put profits as their #1 priority
2. Competitive player(s)
3rd and 4rth edition was a magical time. Nowadays things feel like a bloated money grab
Yep! 4e was my favourite. Miss templates and vehicle rules the most
4th-7th edition was the best period for Warhammer. 7th may not have been the best, but it’s far better than what 8th brought.
I got into warhammer in 7thEd, I was hopeful, wanting to save up for an SM army, now I just pay attention to the more interesting lore bits
I am actually trying to make an in house rulebook utilizing a lot of the old mechanics but I can't find books for anything older than 7th. I f anyone could help me find where to get the old rules I'd really appreciate it.
Ebay? I mean seriously, you can get old rule books for quite cheap, I just got myself a copy of the 4th edition limited edition rule book for around 20 bucks(?).
My brother in Christ I am broke
Wahapedia! Has from 6th edition I believe available all for free
@@MitchellWelsh-i6l I have been using Wahapedia, it's not on the main page so I have no idea how to find it if they do have it.
@@MitchellWelsh-i6l It does not, only 7th and on
👍👍 This is the 40k I remember!
So damn true, competitive is like cancer in anything. It's not only Warhammer and tabletops it also destroyed video games like WoW or LoL. Everything must change to suit for elites. Sad AF.
I feel this in my soul. Let's be real nobody wants to watch competitive video games or wargames we have actual sports for that. Can we please just have a fun game we can play with our bros please?
It's no coincidence that it's during the age of the Internet. The minute you buy some models and start getting into 40k, you search the web. Maybe find some lore but you also find 10,000 reddit posts of 'that guy's talking about meta and combos. It turns everybody subconsciously into this type of player, once you know it.
It's no coincidence that it's during the age of the Internet. The minute you buy some models and start getting into 40k, you search the web. Maybe find some lore but you also find 10,000 reddit posts of 'that guy's talking about meta and combos. It turns everybody subconsciously into this type of player, once you know it.
It's no coincidence that it's during the age of the Internet. The minute you buy some models and start getting into 40k, you search the web. Maybe find some lore but you also find 10,000 reddit posts of 'that guy's talking about meta and combos. It turns everybody subconsciously into this type of player, once you know it.
I’ve discovered Titanicus in recent years. Feels very much like 4th. Character creation with the titans, blast templates, scatter, armour vs strength etc. plus random explosions. Totally love it, and the rules don’t change every other week.
Yeah its pretty cool! Idk people just whine too much with "back in the old days"...There are so many great games out there, you dont have to stick with 40k
Came back to the hobby after leaving in 4th edition, was honestly baffled by the changes to vehicles. It feels like a shift from an attitude where mechanics were trying to simulate the lore to an optimization of gameplay.
Primaris kinda ruled out the struggling grim dark aesthetic of the imperium. Now we have a primarch leading sleek clean new marines (which is cool btw)
The old marines had a much less uniformed look, armored pieced together from different marks that were thousands of years old. I do miss the old aesthetic but I’m not mad at the direction things are going. It makes the old first born, Badab era even cooler and more detailed
I think the Primaris marines would've been more interesting if instead of just being perfect replacements to shove down everyone's throats they were sort of a big trade-off, having stronger capabilities but being more vulnerable to their geneseed mutations or something. It would've helped usher them in without forcing firstborn/classic marines out of the setting. But it's pretty obvious GW doesn't care about setting and just wants to sell you the exact same shit you already bought but 1.5x larger.
@@spimpsmacker6422 primaris were clean and new because they were, they were all made after the heresy, we see in the 9th edition release a more grungy version with the bladeguard really owning that "space knight" look
It’s nice to just have some status quo change after years stagnation.
@@spimpsmacker6422 agree, they are kindve ALL ultramarines haha
@@brianwilkowski9754 true, the imperium might’ve fallen without a little facelift
What is your opinion on Battletech @DeadliftsForTheDarkGods ?
The warmaster becons. Horus heresy is basically 7th ed from what I understand. It feels extremely cinematic compared to 40k, and with all the little customization it's hard to not fall in love with your favorite legion, as you have so many options and kitbash to do
Edit: dang you mentioned HH right at the end, oof. It is sad that it's really only Marines, but it makes me wonder if you could just bring in the other factions with their 7th ed rules
Apparently there are fanmade Xenos additions which honestly is pretty cool.
I also joined during 5th edition and left around the time 6th started coming out.
I never knew I was this nostalgic for the old times... I remember that space wolf codex, and I remember those stat lines....
Back in the day: It might take a decade for a new edition to come out
These days: A new edition every 3rd year! Gotta keep pumping those numbers!
Old man yells at cloud
Bootlicker consoooms product
Ah well, it’s always fun to do a bit of yelling at clouds together :)
Bought my older brother who is a casual 40K fan (By that I mean, he plays a Darktide mission 3 times a week and goofs lore references when talking to me) and also enjoys going to the gym a lot one of your bezerker muscle shirts for Christmas and he absolutely loved it. Thanks for the perfect gift for my brother.
Absolutely agree. The older editions have so much more SOUL, and personality. Every faction had something special about them, not just a +1 to hit.
I remember 5'th edition Orks would stop their looted tank on a roll of 6, rendering them immobile for a turn, or Nids losing control of units outside of synapse, or the plethora of Chaos mutations I could equip my guys with. Psychic doesn't even exist anymore, and it was SO FUN.
10'th feels samey, safe and, worst of all, boring. Nids special rule is now "easier to pass Battleshock tests" , really?? CSM is "hit harder". Boring as hell.
People forget that less than 1% of players ever go to a tournament, or big event with their armies. Designing the game with only those people in mind robbed it of all flavour for the rest of us who just play with friends.
I have a genuine question (I have yet to play a game - just started building an army as of 10th).. what is actually stopping people from just playing their preferred edition? That material, rule books, everything must be very accessible online nowadays. Is there a reason people don't keep playing older editions as people do with older editions of D&D etc?
I think it’s more to do with lack of players, a lot of people play the current editions because of “competitive play”. And also because a lot of the new models aren’t supported. But I’m sure there’s still a lot of people who play older editions, I do, I love 5th edition, I even create custom rules for the new models 😁
DIY terrain tips. Those were the days.
From 2nd to 5th was about war and Battles. 6th was hybrid but started to introduce more capturing objectives, from 7th to now, is all about the capturing of objectives, how to capture points and how to maximize those. It's not about removing treats or deal with your opponent with the strategy of war, rather to, how can I min/max points that I receive playing the game. Gw is more about pushing the competition instead of making good armies that you can play with your friends. Gw fears that they can get canibalized by older editions of 40k as well. At this point they could create different formats and ways to play. 10th edition will grow to become a complex editions as the others before it, GW can't scape the Bloat, and they are a models company first, the rules are only complementary, they are an excuse to sell models, but not a goal to sell them anymore.
I wanted to start by saying that this was a fantastic video! You really did a great job of bringing back the nostalgic feeling I used to get from playing 40K. The music gave me serious Mass Effect 1 main menu vibes!
I started playing in 6th edition and I agree about the artwork. I play IG (I do not acknowledge the name Astra Miitarum, they will always be the Guard to me) and that 5th edition codex cover really sold me on that faction, even if they did suck on the tabletop (for me at least, I lost every single game I ever played.) I totally agree about the old school WS/BS stats and the narrative fluff they provided to the games.
I disagree with your view on cover saves. I prefer the new system, where cover affects to-hit instead of replacing your armor/invulnerable save. While it does mean a rail gun can still kill you, I feel like the affect on to-hit balances out the kill/avoid damage better than choosing between saves.
I mostly disagree with your view on armor saves. I like that AP doesn't completely negate armor anymore because it gives factions with horrible saves a fighting chance. I think a fair compromise would be the new AP system reducing armor saves to 6+, but being able to negate armor saves if it's over the armor save. An example: Melta gun is AP -4, so a Guardsmen's 5+ flak armor doesn't stand a chance (AP -4 passes the AP -1 needed to get the flak armor down to 6+, so it doesn't get a save), but a Terminator would be able to get a 6+ save (AP -4 to 2+ armor makes a natural 6+ save).
I have mixed feelings on your views of universal rules. While I do enjoy the thematic nature of those rules, I do like being able to know every single ability a character or unit has by just looking at its page in their codex.
I also disagree with the old blast & flamer templates. I think flamers were way too OP back in the day. I remember Grey Knights incinerator squads using that crazy 30" leap ability to just land in front of my guardsmen & strategically place the Str 6 AP2 templates to kill over 10 models per template with absolutely nothing I could do to avoid, negate, or even counter it. They were brutal. I know this is a personal gripe, and I was not a good player, but damn was that shit unbalanced as all hell. I still stand by my belief that the Grey Knights didn't resemble any kind of "balanced" fighting force until 8th edition.
As for the blast templates, I like the current D6+6 or 2D6 hits more. It means you can do more damage to vehicles, while still being able to kill squads too. With the way I used to roll, my Leman Russ battle cannons never hit anything I aimed at. 2D6 was way to much scatter for the scale of the battlefields. Maybe 1D6 minus BS, but even then, I prefer the new blast rules.
I used to hate the old WS/BS and Initiative components, but listening to you explain them really made me miss the narrative effect they added to the game. A Guardsmen may not have stood a chance in melee against a Space Marine, but I remember Yarrick giving a few Chaos champions a good ol' pinch with his Killa Klaw, and that couldn't even happen today. But with the mainstreaming of modern 40K, I don't think they ever plan to go back. I think the best place to implement the old school WS/BS & Initiative would be in 3rd Edition Killteam or a reboot of Inquisitor RPG.
Thanks for the video, dude. I really hope somebody from Games Workshop with some ability to control future planning sees this video. You made some great points, and you really hit me in the feels with this awesome nostalgia trip.
In the Emperor's name, LET NONE SURVIVE!
Dang dude this is great; beautifully done.
I just got into Warhammer in 10e with some friends, and with a heavy background in game design, I could *feel* something was off about the game from how all my "old" friends described their play experiences 5+ years ago.
I chewed up all the rules in a couple of months and just a handful of games, and could very clearly feel the lack of flexibility / creativity in list building and play EVEN THOUGH my faction has its codex already.
I found a bunch of legend and long-gone units and made homebrew to update them into 10th, bringing back their rather unique mechanics and interesting play patterns. Then I made some custom units to bring the forgotten / unviable playstyles up to snuff.
"10e is just Rolling Dice and pointing at things; it's a game of who can hide their units best and sitting on points."
But man... do I feel this.
The game DOES feel bland.
There's SO MUCH focus on the models (buy them, paint them, base them, kitbash them, make lists, attach them). But when you sit down to play the game the ONLY focus is on VP.
"Who cares that 95% of your guys are dead? You got more VP; you won, dude!"
*Doesn't feel like a win*
The game has ABSOLUTELY moved from a top-down design (where the flavor and lore come before the mechanics, and the mechanics are meant to serve that vision) to a bottom-up design (where mechanics come first, and you combine/alternate them together to try and fit the flavor).
Both are valid approaches to designing games, but you'll see the same divide in the playerbases as "People who are here for the story" vs "People who are here for the gameplay".
The reason certain games like Magic: the Gathering have thrived as long as they have is that they ALTERNATE how they design card sets, so no group stays alienated forever.
Very sad to see this moving in the direction that it is. It's so obviously boiled down that it's tasteless now.
Been in 40k since 5th ed.
This video is a strange one - remembers all the cool and good stuff, but totally forgets about how some of it was actually tras'y.
Example - tanks with sponsons. 95% of all those in game could target ONLY 1 unit, not a unit per sponson! And if you moved a tank without FAST rule up to 6" - you can fire ONLY ONE weapon. I am looking at those predators with lascannons and heavy bolters, and those either were a sitting and firing ducks for whole game, or ate shit, because no firepower is there after moving.
LORE ACCURATE stuff sounded like a complete joke even then - in case of CSM named characters - only Lucius and Abaddon had Eternal warrior rule (Typhus would get instakilled by melta, like a LORE ACCURATE Typhus would, uhuh)
from 6th and forward - ahh yes, such tasty and COOL random shit like pcychic powers, Warlord traits... it felt not cool even then, your custom warlords risked to get a random shit trait because it was out of your control!
Morale was also quite bad - especially in 6th-7th. How many Fearless (or rules that just said you fail morale without repercussions there were, phew - all of loyalist space marines literally forgot what rules were if your squad failed morale, they NEVER needed them)
Powercreep was there even in 5th. Tyranids came - they OP. Dark eldar came - OP. Grey Knights - OP and literally counter dark eldar bullshit just by being there. Blood angels - OP. Necrons - so OP, you can play whatever and roflestomp anything in the entire game (MINDSHACKLE scarabs ALONE lost people friends)
All the missions played this way - you try to kill everything, and on 5th turn run towards objectives. SUCH VARIETY AND FUN!!!
It might sound, like I am writing this to shit all over 5-7 editions, But I'm not (there were enough said about decurion-formations)
Those old editions had good in them, and had the same ammount of bad. Any ideas fo making lore accurate space marines fell down and burned because of dumb stats and only 1 wound, or because your custom made character had no way of surviving a powerfist to a face(in some armies that wasnt a problem at all). Some units were so overcosted and had rules so bad - those were unusable (I am looking at you CSM RAPTORS)
And terain rules were fun, but we all had this constant "I SHOOT THROUGH 3 TERRAIN HOLES INTO THAT TANK'S SIDE!!!" and NO legal way to say "Dude, chill!"
10th isnt the best, but its a way better start to just play the game. And if you and your buddies have the same ideas - its very easy to homerule 10th, and add stuff to it. Basic and simple doesn't equal BAD, as well as RULE_OVERBLOAT doesn't mean GOOD
Best wishes for 40k enthusiasts out there - find likeminded players, and do your thing. Homerule and Rule of Cool your games to your heart's desire.
-If your opponent's Emperror's Champion wants to duel your Overlord, but lacks the CP needed to activate a stratagem - just do it anyway, like in 6th.
-Use trueLOS if you wanna.
-Remove closest models, if it feels fluffy and cool.
-Use Instant Death if weapon's STR twice as big as target's T.
Its a hobby for us nerds. And GW right now sells it to sports-oriented players. Game is somewhat balanced, if arcade'y.
DO your hobby the way you like with your dudes! And to hell with GW's constant meta race!
I don't know why GW doesn't just include "optional rules" within the codex like what we have in the dnd dungeon masters guide. This would allow for players to play a streamlined game that is both simple for next players and also quick to play for the hyper competitive players. It would also allow players who want more depth along with fun and interesting mechanics to have them in the book to use and officially written out. I really don't see a reason why GW can't include something like armor facing or advanced rules for vehicle combat within 10th as an optional rule. I also think that getting special characters taken away is stupid and just rude to players. I wish they just kept them in the books and would make a list or denote which units could be taken for competitive play.
I liked 6th tbh. It felt easy to grasp, there were still things like AV for vehicles, glanc/pen hits, scatter....felt more variable. 7th was incredibly bloated, my main is CSM and I was bringing like 5-6 books to play. Also... the Traitor Legions supplement, which was legal for like 3 months. 8th was pretty fun, very fresh, gutted tho.. but it was very nice change of pace, also with just indexes for the first months, it was great! Then.. the bloat came back. That´s when I´ve stopped playing, 9th skipped and 10th .. I am looking into it, but tbh I rather play the HH. It feels like true warhammer. And now with the old world coming back, that feeling is even stronger.
My friend group only plays 7th edition (and 1st edition, but I consider it a whole other game to be honest).
We all played 8th, but by the time 9th edition rolled out, we checked it out and just decided 7th was better than the two that followed it.
10th was almost interesting, but personally it doesn't offer anything that 1st and 7th can neither offer. It only brought back some earlier lost ideas and added some very bizarre things that we didn't think made any sense.
I also run some 40k tabletop RPGs so we can experience 40k in a wide variety of ways... honestly I fear even 11th edition will probably just follow the current trajectory for the game.
An unforseen boon for playing 7th is that the meta for us doesn't change arbitrarily... it only changes if one of us figures out a thing about the game nobody else had thought of. So we don't need to update lists every time GW wants money.
I do miss some of the flavor rules you mentioned for many of the subfactions, but overall i did not enjoy the rules of 5-7th edition as much as 8th and beyond (aside from strategem bloat that crept in which i can genuinely understand how some can find that frustrating but is far more manageable now). The game used to take MUCH longer to play due to all the small rules you listed. It was weighted much more in favor to heavy firepower weapons because tanks were basically invincible otherwise, and meanwhile heavy infantry ABSOLUTELY did not feel like they were tough at all. Do yall remember how bad some of those rules (like the invincible chapter master smasher, or deepstrike scattering off the battlefield and dying) ACTUALLY were? Or is this rose tinting because were all getting disillusioned by GW deciding to throw out all the flavor for blander primaris?
Yea, losing the characters from lore weve had since we started playing SUCKS. I genuinely cannot play the space marine chapter I started back then anymore cus Veteran Bikers and several other models I bought dont exist anymore. But lets not lie to ourselves, there were entire editions where some armies were essentially unplayable or unwinnable because GW would give a codex of badly balanced units and almost never do anything to fix it. Or some armies that were just skipped an edition entirely. And GWs only excuse was "were a company that makes miniatures for hobbyists, not for gamers"
The unfortunate thing about the pivot to competitive support that GW has done is that it wasn't needed. Competitive 40k existed IN-SPITE of if being sub-optimal for competitive play. But now as they turn to making it more balanced and bland for competitive 40k, they are killing the narrative aspects.
Old Warhammer was also the time of GW growing increasingly detached and aloof from its community, increasing disdain for the hobby side of Warhammer, the forums being shut down, gratuitous lawsuits from GW and highly questionable business practices (although that last thing arguably is something that hasn't changed). "New" GW at least does a lot more engagement and outreach to its fans, actively trying to encourage a community and the hobby beyond just "buying new miniatures", as seen from projects like Warhammer Community and Warhammer TV.
The old editions of Warhammer were far from perfect either, and often outright broken. There were a lot of big "don'ts" if you wanted to have a casual game in certain editions, since even the mere act of bringing an army like Tau or Eldar was already enough to completely break the balance of the game and get you accused of being a powergamer in some editions. Stuff like Fish of Fury was fairly easy to do even if you weren't purposely trying to make a broken list and it was absolutely disgustingly powerful. The newer editions since 8th have been far from perfect, but they at least have generally avoided the kind of massive balancing issues and outright broken rules of older editions. I have yet to see abominations like Fzorgle (lash of submission) from 4th or the Screamerstar from 6th edition. A lot of issues were also caused by the much slower turnaround of codices. Some armies went through several editions without ever getting an updated codex. At least nowadays, most armies get a new codex every edition.
Finally, lorewise there were a lot of divisive and polarizing things happening, mostly courtesy of Matt Ward. The Newcrons and Grey Knights bathing in the blood of Sisters of Battle are things that come to mind. As does the "spiritual liege" and blatant favoritism for the Ultramarines in those days, leading in turn to the Ultramarines getting a lot of hate from the fanbase.
Overall, 3th-7th edition were a good time that I have a lot of nostalgia for, but it's easy to get blinded by that nostalgia and forget everything that was bad back then. Modern Warhammer has improved a lot in many ways.
GW calling Crusade ‘narrative’ play shows they know nothing about their audience.
Crusade is just ‘campaign play’ labelled as narrative in an attempt to placate players who hate ‘math hammer’.
The beauty of old 40k was that the rules aloud you to tell stories within the game.
New 40k is just chess with more pieces.
Terrain means nothing any more.
The soul of the game died when they drove 7th into the ground (intentionally).
They do the same with all editions now, because they need people to want a new edition, and the best way to do that is to ruin the current edition.
You forgot to mention, before 8th edition, you knew what you units cost.
Now, they change the points value every month!
It’s impossible to keep up!
I only started playing 3 years ago. I love 40k lore, read about 40 of the books, and have a couple armies, but the game is just not that great. Whoever gets the first turn just has a huge advantage, and I'm sick of getting smashed by Leagues of Votan when they came out, or Eldar in 10th. I hate how many games are decided in the listbuilding stage.
However when I started playing MESBG, it was just so much better. Listbuilding was so much simpler, there are enough special rules that give incredible depth to the game, yet not too much to be bloated. Bringing fluffy lists is viable even in a competitive setting, and competitive lists can still be thematic. There are also very few lists that are just a pain to play against. Playing against Vanquishers of the Necromancer just sucks, but other than that, I can enjoy playing against most other armies.
I started in 8th edition with orks in tts. Even if I got smashed a lot I had fun, then 9th came and I started seeing the troubles with it, but still enjoyed it. Then 10th edition came, I got excited. But then it got fuckin downhill quick, and I just didn't have any fun. It felt like I was pushing a boulder up a brick wall. Getting no where and I wish I started 40k around 6th or 7th edition, or stayed in 8th. But now it's all competitive bs and even in crusade/narrative games people only focus on winning and not fun
Thank you for making this video, your passion for 40K really shows. A lot of people say old hammer is better but usually go into a tirade as to why everything new is bad. I appreciate you going into depth as to why Warhammer 40K was so fun before 8th as I didn't really know why until now.
I'm just getting into the game side of 40K and am disappointed with how white washed all the armies feel. I prefer narrative games that encourage tactical play though I don't think I'll branch out into other IP's just yet because of the cost involved in starting a new army. What would be the best way to experience playing the game like described in the video?
Is it best to go and pick up the core rules books for 7th edition or is there another way about it?
Says old 40K had soul, proceeds to show very modern 40k starter sets. ;) Anything past 3rd is new, arguably past 2nd.
That's just me though, just funny that I feel the same way about 4th ed onwards as you feel for 8th ed forwards.
Ugh. People bitched and moaned in 3rd edition. They did the same with 6th. Then 8th. This cycle will never stop because people have sentimental attachment to their earlier years in ANYTHING.
Welcome to your mental 30's, when you start seeing the enshitification of things. What used to be better and cheaper has become worse and costs more. It'll happen to you too, reader!
“I used to be with ‘it’, but then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it’ anymore and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary. It’ll happen to you!"
i have been in the game for 30 years and nothing beat 3rd ed vdr rules, NO cp , NO every week new release (thats bought up by scalpers) dice rolls is what made you win or loss .............................and 0 mathhammer ppl played to have fun
I agree, some rules from older 40k where a lot better. Miss the wargear and unit customization, now every unit has a flat cost, so why not just bring the better weapons, they cost nothing in 10th. Also rules like closest models die first brought in a lot of strategy. You want your flamer weapons out in front so they can get more hits, but if that unit gets shot, guess who is gonna die first. And losing moral in 10th is a joke compared to what it use to be. But that being said, there absolutely needed to be rules reworks, and GW has defiantly improved in alot of places. Example is the old wound charts, good reddens. You could have a single terminator on the field, and your opponent have 72 billion hormagaunts, you still win, cuz they could never wound you. And the rules bloat, yeah you could have special rules for your space marines depending on the chapter you chose, but 90 percent of the pages of special rules where absolute garbage and people would only ever play one of three good ones. And so many rules that had to be referenced. everybody had like 3 books with dozens of little tabs of paper to reference back to what this or that thing did. A lot of the older rules where not new player friendly and i am certain there where many people that wanted to get into the game but see all the charts and rules about weapon skill, army composition, and faction rules then immediately turned away. Was old warhammer better, not to the vast majority of players. Hardly ever see anyone play anything older than 8th save a few older veterans . Is new warhammer perfect, absolutely not, but GW understood that the game was way too bloated and over complicated for no reason and needed to change. If you want to play old warhammer, by all means, play old warhammer. But i think you may have had some rose tinted goggles on when making this video, and nostalgia for older editions has blocked out the memories of how frustrating and shut off from the community old GW and 40k was.
Damn, I think this video finally made it click for me. I get it now. I am someone who wouldn't even get to play, if it wasn't for simpler games like Age of Sigmar. I might have said that older editions of 40K and Fantasy were bloated, but I see now that that is a part of the immersion. I am super annoyed with grognards who give us shit for the things we like about AoS, but I guess I finally see what they feel like they're missing.
As someone who just played for the first time in a 10th edition game, I was extremely confused how such a boring game has had so much of a cult following. Nothing in the game I played was like what I heard about. I really wish I was able to start sooner and play the game I was envisioning this whole time, it's good to hear that I wasn't just fantasizing and that it actually was like how I thought at one point. Great video.
It has become too mainstream. I started in 8th edition and I enjoyed it, but I have to admit that it was better before 8th edition. Even though I have only ever played 8th edition I can see the dedication that was put into the art/lore in previous editions. I currently don't like the new Warhammer art and don't like a lot of the models. The pushing of the new, 'modern' look of 40K drove me away from the game and the price increases drove my friends out.
Yeah before quarterly FAQ’s you had armies or units that were either unplayable or broke the game, and would remain so for YEARS.
The only thing better about old hammer is the nostalgia we feel. 10th edition is the best ruleset to date. The models are the best to date.
Luckily you can always play older editions of 40k. 2nd if you are hardcore nuts or 4th if you want a polished 3rd.
I can't describe the feeling I got watching this. Got me feeling nostalgic for something I've never ever played.
There's a lot of rules and it sounds a tad complex, sure, but like you said (and said absolutely right), you get used to it and then it'll become easy.
Having a buddy that loves Chaos Space Marines, the idea that his champion bloke could turn into a Warp Spawn or a full-fledged Daemon Prince sounds extremely fun, possibly making some derpy funny moments. It sounds just like the kind of thing I'd love to play casually with my buddies for gigs and shittles.
Being able to challenge leaders also sounds amazing, not only in flavour considering the setting, but as a strategy too. I just love all of it.
What edition was this, exactly? I'd like to get into it with my fellas, count me converted
This is the 6 and 7 editions presumably
The Andy Chambers days, that's why I'm starting a 3rd edition player group. 3rd Ed was peak
Jesus, this vid genuinely got me tearing up thinking about my 4th edition games. My land raider felt like the strongest thing on earth(14 on each side)…until my friend sunk a railgun on it and turned it to ash. I loved how the stats were and how funny it was when you rolled a 10 for a small blast template only for it to go off the table. GW needs to realise that at the end of the day. Most people are playing Warhammer in their mates garage with jenga blocks and soup cans for cover and a wobbly table, not in a competitive setting. I loved how every codex was flavoured. I think a lot of the personality has gone from the game.
This is why i fell in love with warhammer. My buddy and I were talking about all the fun we used to have pre 8th edition with so many stories of ridiculously hilarious outcomes. Once we had an ork player roll wrong on the shock attack gun and he teleported 72 inchs into close combat first turn in an apocalypse game with everyone screaming that he got into close combat first, and the target was a dreadnought that immediately killed him in CC😂. I realized the newer editions just feel boring and stale. We've been talking about going back to 7th and fixing all the stuff that needed fixing.
I shifted to hh I couldent get into 8 and 9th. There is was no substance . 10 just feels like magic the gathering Instead of wargame
the thing is
the narrative is left out
because it can no longer hold itself up
the narrative is deader then the rules
just marvel releasing a new big bad for every movie and only keeping the hype up with the inevitable release of yet another loyalist primarch
the setting i fell in love with as a kid is gone
the game dying after it is of little relevance to me
Man the loss of initiative really sucks. I'm glad it's back in Old World it just makes sense
I REALLY MISS SCATTER DICE AND BLAST TEMPLATES!
It went from a company making a game for everyone to get creative and use your imagination into a company that sells you nothing but more and more and more and more product.
Bro not only did you just give me some great memories and I'm not going to lie maybe I even teared up a little bit, and then I just felt really old and then really pissed off at GW because you're damn right, it was so different and they had to go and ruin it. But the memories that I've made along with the friends and the hundreds of thousands of dollars I've spent will always never hold any regrets for me😂😂😂😂😂
Pancreas? Is that you?
Seriously though, very nice video! I never knew old Warhammer used to be like that, but it sounds like a lot of fun!
I am newer player, but everything you said sound so cool! The thing is I play adeptus mechanicus. Can anyone help me find the 6th edition rules or if there are not fan rules?
AdMech came first in 6th ed and was divided in Cult Mechanikus and Skitarii. 2 books and 2 completely diffrent armies. Both + core rules could be found on ebay or amazon. Maybe someone in youre area/club/store is in the hobby long enough to help you out.
I'm just hoping Old World is good because although I never played the old editions of 40k or WHFB the ws matching against each other and initiative systems I thought were really cool and I don't really know why they got rid of them. Always rubbed me the wrong way that a guardsman could land the first blow on a Aeldari just because he ran at them.
Indeed and Warhammer was also more political / satirical back in the day. It was better.
GW's gone mad with power. That's why I switched to Turnip 28.