3e. vs 4e.

I think for me it comes down to nostalgia.

4th was what I played the most growing up and I played it through some pretty tough times and the escapism it gave me (along with reading comic books) was very important.

3rd reminds me of a time before, the sh!t hit the fan so I ike that too but early 4th will always be my true love, warts and all, probably up to and including the Chaos Book, I think it really started going wrong for me with the Dark Elf book, I think that's where I start to grumble and stroke my beard like an old grey haired Dwarf.
 
airbornegrove26, I guess in response to your original question (before I got all excited that someone was actually talking about 90's Warhammer :)). Bear in mind I started with 4th so am working backwards...

I think the actual rules, as in the rulebook itself isn't that different. Clearly toned down in some stages, but still familiar territory. It's the armies themselves and the magic phase that make it really different.

4th had all sorts of crazy units showing up, each with their own special rule-breaking rules. Not so much the charts of earlier games, just things like the squig herds/riders, doomwheel and screaming bell. The shift to characters, monsters, war machines and small specialised units make armies look/play quite different too.

Magic clearly feels quite different being a card game within a game. Oddly, for something they abandoned, I think this would be more popular today. That they sell out of the current spells printed on cards so quickly hasn't been enough to get them to bring it back surprises me :)

People call it "Herohammer" but to me it's more "fiddly special unit hammer" or even "every second unit has a magic standard hammer".

I'm hoping to play more freely, using whatever models and units we have painted ("unbound" to new 40k kids 8-)) with more focus on scenarios. I still think that's the focus the studio had at the time, a couple of mentions of the grand tournament and some "stand 'em up" battle reports don't make me think otherwise.
 
One problem that was introduced in 4th Ed (and hasn't gone away despite lots of special rules) is that elite infantry becomes too expensive. Units got bigger and bigger (esp in 7th, with 5 needed to count as a rank). The changed To Hit table from 4th levelled the playing field. In 3e, elite Dwarves with WS5 hit Orcs on 4+, while Orcs need 6s to hit; in 4e, the Dwarves need 3+, the Orcs 4+.

This was nothing, though, compared with the changes to combat resolution. As soon as the difference in Combat Result reduces Ld, then one bad turn, or a decisive charge, makes elite Elves and Dwarves run away after one round of combat, no better than a mob of gobbos. Sure, the expensive troops can normally kill a few more of their cheaper opponents, but one bad turn can mean it's all over. With the rules for fleeing and pursuit, they're highly likely to all die, regardless of toughness or armour. So a unit costing more than several hundred points often isn't much better than a unit of much cheaper troops, and certainly worse than the equivalent points of most cheaper troops.

In 3rd Ed, this never seemed to happen: combat was much slower, with fewer casualties (harder to hit, smaller save modifiers) and the higher Ld meant that high Ld troops like Elves and Dwarves could lose turn after turn, and not flee. If they did flee in sufficient numbers, they were likely to survive the free hacks and rally, too. So luck played much less of a part in the combats in 3rd Ed, in my own experience.

Coming back to 3rd Ed after 4,5,6th (I stopped there), though, it seemed really weird not to modify Ld after a devastatingly damaging turn of combat, but I recall at the time thinking that the changes were totally absurd (one hero mowing down a whole unit etc, as has been mentioned).

Just for the record, I like 6th the best of the post-3e rules, for the same reasons as Treps and Snickit.
 
Awesome guys thanks for the feedback! I'm not planning on making the jump...I enjoy third to much! But I figured I should know a bit about 4th and what it is all about.
 
airbornegrove26":2e1hb41a said:
Awesome guys thanks for the feedback! I'm not planning on making the jump...I enjoy third to much! But I figured I should know a bit about 4th and what it is all about.
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Still, couldn't hurt to play a little just to try it eh?

Herohammer/Spellhammer, on an odd occasion, can be a guilty pleasure and rollicking good fun!
 
Fimm McCool":1jr4cgn9 said:
Compare, for instance, how many figures 3000 points gets you at 3rd Ed and at 8th Ed.
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Excuse me, but in 3rd ed an orc archer cost 7.5 points and now costs 7 points! So on 1000 points that is a difference of about 9 archers!


I like 3rd, and cant see what the problem is with the combat. Animosity works really badly, and flying is stupid. 4th ed "fly high" rules are my favourite.
 
ramshackle_curtis":2a1d4n0n said:
Fimm McCool":2a1d4n0n said:
Compare, for instance, how many figures 3000 points gets you at 3rd Ed and at 8th Ed.
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Excuse me, but in 3rd ed an orc archer cost 7.5 points and now costs 7 points! So on 1000 points that is a difference of about 9 archers!
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There is a lot of preconceive ideas, one of them is to say that in each version miniatures have lesser PV so that you need more, in fact there is no rules, some models have costs that stayed consistent through editions while some have are cheaper (mounted miniatures notably) and some are more expensive... It's part of common GW bashing to blame them for this...
Probably the same idea were people believe that you need at least 3000+ points army to play 8th, except that the rules works exactly the same from skirmish sized battles to big monstrous battles (maybe with some tuning for magic, and even then I'm not sure that's it really needed)...
 
Shep":cionqt57 said:
I recall at the time thinking that the changes were totally absurd (one hero mowing down a whole unit etc, as has been mentioned).
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Why is this absurd? that kind of thing happens all the time in myth and fantasy literature. Heck even Tolkien, whose heroes are generally restrained has one guy face down an army of Balrogs in the Silmarillion. That's like a Major Hero loaded with magical equipment, rather than a champion with a pointy stick, but it's your choice whether you do epic or gritty.

Speaking of magical equipment. is it just me or is 3rd really thin on the ground in that department, especially in comparison1/2?
 
There is quite a bit of magic in the BOB but somehow it all gets restricted to the magic items in WHA. The BOB also suggested you could use magic items from WHFRP which further expands whats on offer then we add in all the bits from the RoC books and we have rather a lot of magic.

Rules wise 4th and 3rd are closer bedfellows than is being given credit here, particularly the way I play which is sort of 3.5. Oh and not having a march move isn't a removal of tactics. If you have to react to an event by using your reserve move I'd go so far as to say your local tactics have failed you, if you're reacting you are already dancing to the oppositions tune sound tactics doesn't end that way.
 
There's some truth in that Ern. The kinds of reactions I'm thinking about are to the more unpredictable outcomes and events that can happen, either from not knowing the enemies strengths (spell lists, magic items, exact troop profiles, arms or armament etc.) rather than being caused by the enemy generals strategy. So yes, not being able to react to an unexpected fireball in the middle of a melee by moving troops to support the subsequently failing unit (or moving missle troops to remove the newly discovered threat, or what-have-you) is, imho, a removal of tactics. Perhaps one of the reasons that people complain of magic being "too powerful" in later editions is the erosion of tactical options to cope with its effects.

Regards magic items, I always think of RoC as kind of it's own thing (in many ways a 1st edition book that didn't get published for a while, then got a bunch of stuff added that didn't really belong in there lol!) I don't have my books to hand, but if IIRC the magical attribute list is much shorter than 2nd, there weren't any rune weapons, power weapons, carpets, boots etc in 3rd.
 
Noooo.

Warhammer armies doesn't really add anything but it really restricted what people would generally take because of the very limited tables.
 
No problem, I hope that Nooo came out as the comedy noooo it was in my head and not just rude :oops:
 
Don't forget the 3rd edition Dwarf Runes printed in White Dwarf the month before they released 4th edition :lol:
 
I think WD 153 Dwarf Runes were previews of the 4th edition Dwarf army book. They are nice rules tho, I would allow them for any race, not just dwarves... more 2nd Editionish.

Erny":26izxtx2 said:
There were if you do as suggested and use the WHFRP magic items. No points cost though.
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They're 99% taken from 2nd Edition - so the PVs could be taken from there - where it lists them, it doesn't for the artefacts.
 
Zhu Bajie":15aaxby3 said:
I think WD 153 Dwarf Runes were previews of the 4th edition Dwarf army book. They are nice rules tho, I would allow them for any race, not just dwarves... more 2nd Editionish.
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They were very different from what ended up being included in the fourth ed army book and they were peeved with the last third ed battle report.

They may very well have been play test rules, but I don't think they were merely a preview.
 
ardyer":3cnnuu5f said:
Zhu Bajie":3cnnuu5f said:
I think WD 153 Dwarf Runes were previews of the 4th edition Dwarf army book. They are nice rules tho, I would allow them for any race, not just dwarves... more 2nd Editionish.
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They were very different from what ended up being included in the fourth ed army book and they were peeved with the last third ed battle report.
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Ah OK, I don't have the Dwarf Army book to compare, but that's interesting - more like the LaTD previews than the 40k Compendium etc. I read the introduction to The Battle of Grimdal's Tomb as being 'this was one of many development games for the new edition'. Not that it really matters at all - is there anything in the batrep that relies specifically on 3rd ed mechanics, or couldn't be done in 4th?
 
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