Why is Oldhammer so popular?

[Zhu Bajie]

This by the ever increasing numbers of members over on the oldhammer subreddit.

Nostalgia old guys, like most of the membership forum thinking about 'ye good old days' when we were lads. Oh yeah.

Faux-nostalgia a lot of current GW fanboys love oldhammer to see how 'funny' and 'weird' things were in the past. They often like to say 'amazing how well this sculpt stands up today'. There's a kind of 'ultra-fanboy' who wants to grok the whole history of the development of the Ultramarines and sees Oldhammer as a more exclusive 'fine wine' version of the Newhammer.

Creativity Something about the early days free-wheeling, inventiveness catches peoples imaginations. Hard to pin down, but kit-bashing Arfix and Zoids, exploring fantasy in a swords-and-sorcery, historical satire seems to appeals to people.

Once upon a time I would have said cheap, because you could get Rogue Trader and 3rd Edition for less than the current ecition and an armybook/codex, but I don't think that is the case any more cost of entry is getting increasingly worse.

So what's everyone else think, why is Oldhammer growing more popular than ever?

 

[AranaszarSzuur]

I blame Kid_Kyoto and Snipe and Wib. Like Snipe and Wib video on Rogue Trader from 20170730 got 257k views. There were also multiple youtubers promoting the game. There was an earlier leakycheese from 20170605 video that has 14k views.

This by the ever increasing numbers of members over on the oldhammer subreddit.

Nostalgia old guys, like most of the membership forum thinking about 'ye good old days' when we were lads. Oh yeah.

Faux-nostalgia a lot of current GW fanboys love oldhammer to see how 'funny' and 'weird' things were in the past. They often like to say 'amazing how well this sculpt stands up today'. There's a kind of 'ultra-fanboy' who wants to grok the whole history of the development of the Ultramarines and sees Oldhammer as a more exclusive 'fine wine' version of the Newhammer.

Creativity Something about the early days free-wheeling, inventiveness catches peoples imaginations. Hard to pin down, but kit-bashing Arfix and Zoids, exploring fantasy in a swords-and-sorcery, historical satire seems to appeals to people.

I once experienced Nostalgia when seeing perfectly recreated late 2nd ed/early 3rd ed Chaos Terminator. Very unpleasant feeling. Haunting and reminding of irreversiblity of time.

For me it was mainly all the pen and ink art and the early Space Marine designs. Wait, I have reasons somewhere in my txt files. From late summer of 2008:

I prefer an original science-fantasy setting with warp creatures instead of Chaos deamons and psycho space soldiers instead of baroquegothiceldritchknightsbutINSPACE.

I started with WHFB. I've read a lot of WDs and some Felix & Gotrek novels and got interested in the whole Chaos stuff. Then I bought myself the old Champions of Chaos and the new Hordes of Chaos and my first box of Chaos warriors. I wanted to create a heavily converted Slaaneshi army with some sculpted miniatures. I carefully examined the new miniatures and I came to conclusion that they have very unnatural proportions and that I'm not willing to buy such caricature-style miniatures for so much money and that I don't want to sculpt such miniatures, so I gave up WHFB .
I still have a mega paint set and 3 blisters of greenstuff from those crazy times .
Meanwhile, I still bought WDs and WHMs and got more and more interested in WH40k, mainly because it had much more dakka than WHFB.
Also, I loved Bloodquest and Deamonifuge .
I lost all my interest in WHFB after the Storm of Chaos fiasco.
Then I had a long pause and I bought a single WD with a giant giant Ultramarine with two power fists. I didn't like it (both the new WD and the painting). While previous edition marines were big and heroic, now for some weird reason they needed to be more baroquegothiceldritch and even bigger and even more superheroic. I lost my interest in WH40k until the Horus Heresy series appeared.
I didn't read any of the new books until I finally got HR, but meanwhile I've read some internet articles about WH40k. I found those about the first edition especially interesting.
So, when I got a holiday job, I bought RT rulebook on an internet auction.
I loved it . I love the looks of characters and vehicles, especially the SM armour . Also, I found the idea of warp creatures much more fitting than fantasy daemons just as eldar pirates/mercenaries are much more fitting than fantasy elves. Even the angry midget bikers were cool .
Not to mention the marines being former gangers and "KIL KIL KIL" .
It's very different - with a strong Vietnam movie vibe - like dark medieval fantasy meets Apocalypse Now in space .

So, yeah, these were the reasons . I like reading old fluff and looking at the art, huge inspiration for me. Like it had massive influence on me as an artist D: .

Once upon a time I would have said cheap, because you could get Rogue Trader and 3rd Edition for less than the current ecition and an armybook/codex, but I don't think that is the case any more cost of entry is getting increasingly worse.

 

[symphonicpoet]

It's kind of nice seeing the subreddit finally catching on a little. And yeah, I think certain bloggers/vloggers/personalities like Snipe and Wib have had a lot to do with the increasing reach. Their videos are good fun and it warms my heart to hear them enjoying a bit of the Oldhammer. There was another fellow that wrote an article on Oldhammer in the Jerz a few years back in BOLS. It's good to see the newer gamers looking at my sort of old-fart material.

 

[MichaelStockin]

Nostalgia and ease.

I got into GW around WD 80 ish.
I played WFB, 40k, WFRP, all the GW boardgames and lived GW.
After many years I moved away from home and drifted from the hobby.

About 15 years ago I got back into the hobby but not oldhammer.
It was not until about 16 months ago I decided to do some fantasy mass battle games.
What rules?
Well I could buy some new ones, hope they made sense and that I liked them, if not, keep buying until I get a set I like.
Or.
Buy WFB 3rd edition, I am familiar with and know I like it.
So that is what I did, it is easier to re-learn and then the nostalgia vibes give me warm feelings.
Chasing the Dragon and all that.

 

[twisted moon]

i can't really say as i never stopped playing or updated beyond wfb3 and rogue trader. for me the appeal is the story telling, which you don't really get as the rule sets become more geared towards tournament / competitive play.

 

[MichaelStockin]

i can't really say as i never stopped playing or updated beyond wfb3 and rogue trader. for me the appeal is the story telling, which you don't really get as the rule sets become more geared towards tournament / competitive play.

In general I am not so sure, there are a bucket load of rules out there meant for story telling and many much better than the stat heavy and rules intensive Warhammer sets.
I am not saying you can't use GW rules for more story based games, you surely can.
But there are plenty of rules that are designed with story and the feels in mind.

 

[Zhu Bajie]

i can't really say as i never stopped playing or updated beyond wfb3 and rogue trader. for me the appeal is the story telling, which you don't really get as the rule sets become more geared towards tournament / competitive play.

In general I am not so sure, there are a bucket load of rules out there meant for story telling and many much better than the stat heavy and rules intensive Warhammer sets.
I am not saying you can't use GW rules for more story based games, you surely can.
But there are plenty of rules that are designed with story and the feels in mind.

Yeah there are definately games out there that have more 'narrative rules' that form the action on the tabletop, but there is definately something special about how narrative emerges from the combination of a stat-heavy ruleset and traditional wargaming objectives and scenario setting that Oldhammer provides.

 

[MichaelStockin]

i can't really say as i never stopped playing or updated beyond wfb3 and rogue trader. for me the appeal is the story telling, which you don't really get as the rule sets become more geared towards tournament / competitive play.

In general I am not so sure, there are a bucket load of rules out there meant for story telling and many much better than the stat heavy and rules intensive Warhammer sets.
I am not saying you can't use GW rules for more story based games, you surely can.
But there are plenty of rules that are designed with story and the feels in mind.

Yeah there are definately games out there that have more 'narrative rules' that form the action on the tabletop, but there is definately something special about how narrative emerges from the combination of a stat-heavy ruleset and traditional wargaming objectives and scenario setting that Oldhammer provides.

Do you think there is any correlation between WFB and WFRP that makes WFB more story based?
So do you think that people that have played WFB and WFRP are more likely to use WFB for story games than those that have only played WFB?

 

[Zhu Bajie]

Do you think there is any correlation between WFB and WFRP that makes WFB more story based?
So do you think that people that have played WFB and WFRP are more likely to use WFB for story games than those that have only played WFB?

I think the venn diagram of WFB and WFRP players generally has a very small overlap, and don't think their playstyles really influence each other.

WFBs playstyle come from the kinds of wargames that Rick and Hal were playing, massively influenced by Charles Grant (and arguably Tony Bath) and is evidenced through the warhammer scenarios - McDeath, Lichmaster etc. along with things like the scenario generator in Rogue Trader - all of which establishes a more open and narrative led play-style than the strictly competitive or collectorist pay-to-win playstyle that dominates Newhammer.

I'd love to say that a broad base return to that playstyle is the reason for Oldhammers increasing popularity, but from what I can see I don't think it's the main driver.

 

[AranaszarSzuur]

It's kind of nice seeing the subreddit finally catching on a little. And yeah, I think certain bloggers/vloggers/personalities like Snipe and Wib have had a lot to do with the increasing reach. Their videos are good fun and it warms my heart to hear them enjoying a bit of the Oldhammer. There was another fellow that wrote an article on Oldhammer in the Jerz a few years back in BOLS. It's good to see the newer gamers looking at my sort of old-fart material.

My main issue with mass promotion of it is that unless one has a stash of old stuff, the hobby is pretty much a zero sum game. Like over last years, prices of RT books have increased massively - some costing ~200+ GBP. I remember seeing someone complaining that prices of miniatures have increased a lot too - like several or even ten times. Like it would probably be better if the hobby stayed somewhat obscure.

Oldhammer getting so popular may be beneficial for adjacent stuff and also for seeing what better painters/modellers do. But for getting original stuff it's catastrophically bad.

 

[symphonicpoet]

^I suppose your view may depend on how you weight your desires for old Citadel lead versus new Citadel inspired lead. I've got enough of the former for my own purposes, so the latter probably weighs more heavily in my calculations. As to the former, I definitely understand why the cost can be a source of frustration. The hobby has always been a bit expensive, and that seems especially unfair to younger entrants. But to some extent I figure that's the price you pay for what is, in the grand scheme of things, still a pretty darned small hobby. It's more or less always been a cottage industry of people hand sculpting originals and casting up copies. We just don't have the numbers to support an assembly line cranking out tens of thousands of copies of each miniature. I don't know that there are ten thousand of us worldwide to buy the things. Citadel in the 80s probably wasn't that much bigger than Crooked Dice now. (Of course Citadel now really might be rolling millions of units off an assembly line while charging impressionable kids bespoke prices, but that's a separate issue. And it's not like they're the only guilty parties.)

Anyway, a surprising amount of the price is just inflation. There's always some merchants out there on the bay that will gouge you, but even now I don't think things are really that bad. As a bench mark I just checked beakie prices. Plastic beakies fetched just over a buck a piece in the late 80s. Inflation makes a 1985 dollar $2.61 today. Today they seem to be fetching about three from the smaller merchants and about five from the big houses. That's a little ahead of inflation, but not absurdly so, particularly if you hunt sales a little. (And I expect you could do better here or on Facebook if you can find anyone willing to part with their beakies.) Trends can distort the picture a bit. There's been something of a run on Squats lately, which has inflated their prices. But the other side of that coin is the explosion of very RT styled new space dwarves. I've definitely fallen into the Kickstarter conundrum: "Holy cow! There's this new thing that may not be available in future so I better get it now." And Mount Paint-Me grows ever larger. (Let me tell you about the harmonic convergence of three massive releases over the winter and the trouble I'm in as a result.)

I've been complaining about the cost of gaming miniatures for nearly forty years now, so maybe I'm just getting jaded. That pair of Rhinos with the crude cast on treads cost forty smackers or so at a time when you could buy a nicely detailed Sherman or Tiger for less than ten. But I have to say, I'm thrilled silly to see all the new support. I honestly feel like the variety and quality of miniatures is higher than ever before. And seeing new sculpts from the likes of Bob Olley and Trish Carden is beyond wonderful. If the cost of the new sculpts is rising costs for the old . . . I'm down with that. (Which goes back to that original math, I suppose.)

 

[Zhu Bajie]

seeing new sculpts from the likes of Bob Olley and Trish Carden is beyond wonderful. If the cost of the new sculpts is rising costs for the old . . . I'm down with that. (Which goes back to that original math, I suppose.)

That really might have something to do with the rising popularity, there's a lot more people specifically calling their stuff "Oldhammer style" miniatures now than there were even 5 years ago, and using the term in that way brining it to the attention of wargamers.

 

[symphonicpoet]

^Sooner or later there's going to be more new and currently in production "oldhammer" than the old stuff. Honestly, that feels healthy and vibrant to me. (Though it too can drain a wallet. There's just no winning on that front. Wargamers: turning gold into lead since the enlightenment.)

 

[AranaszarSzuur]

I've definitely fallen into the Kickstarter conundrum: "Holy cow! There's this new thing that may not be available in future so I better get it now." And Mount Paint-Me grows ever larger. (Let me tell you about the harmonic convergence of three massive releases over the winter and the trouble I'm in as a result.)

It makes me wonder if GW didn't start using these FOMO tactics specifically to compete with Kickstarter projects. Like if their stuff stays in sale, it means it can always be put on back-burner.

I never got into Kickstarter because I'm very poor since 2012.

I the cost of the new sculpts is rising costs for the old . . . I'm down with that. (Which goes back to that original math, I suppose.)

I just wish they'd come with games and fluff and artworks that would replace RT, though. Since it's the books that got the most drastic increase of price over last 14 years. Like all these books for 200+ GBP and stuff. Games themselves and core units like Space Marines are pretty much most hit by the no future syndrome.

 

[Padre]

Do you think there is any correlation between WFB and WFRP that makes WFB more story based?
So do you think that people that have played WFB and WFRP are more likely to use WFB for story games than those that have only played WFB?

For me. Yes, and yes.

I can't comment on 40k (never played it ever) but I have played since 1st Ed (1983) WFB, which I used for BOTH WG and RP, and I never stopped doing so. WFRP became my base RP game, and I later even used the (1st ed WFRP) system for 'historical' ECW (Witchfinder) scenarios and 1680 Highwaymen scenarios. My WFB campaigns are both wargaming and roleplaying 'cos the players are roleplaying individual characters (commanders/rulers). I have done many a stand-alone WFRP game that leads to a battle, and vice versa - a party of pistoliers sent to scout Skaven positions and a party of 'pirates' sent to sabotage an Empire coastal fort, for example, both leading to battles which could be affected by what happened in the RP scenarios.

WFB and WFRP are the same world to me, just on a different level in terms of numbers, and I have always 'intermeshed' (not sure that's a word) the two together. I moved along with the WFB rules (only skipping 4th and 5th, while continuing to use 3rd) and have used 8th since the rules came out, in a very low fantasy, 'old-hammer' way. I never, however, moved on with WFRP, preferring 1st ed throughout although I had to make one published scenario some later addition to get it published (in Warpstone).

 

[twisted moon]

I had to make one published scenario some later addition to get it published (in Warpstone).

what was the scenario?

 

[Zhu Bajie]

^Sooner or later there's going to be more new and currently in production "oldhammer" than the old stuff.

Eventually we reach the paradox horizon when there's more new oldhammer than newhammer stuff. Boom!

Has to be said, aside from the retro models, I think most people these days people are probably looking at illegal pdfs and copypasta wikis for their day-to-day Oldhammer inspo, but they've always been around, so unlikely to drive a more recent increase in populairty. Maybe some form of critical mass.

 

[symphonicpoet]

^Sooner or later there's going to be more new and currently in production "oldhammer" than the old stuff.

Eventually we reach the paradox horizon when there's more new oldhammer than newhammer stuff. Boom!

You make this sound like the birth of some young chaos god. Which implies that the major games and gaming companies are the old chaos gods. Which would explain a great many things.

 

[Zhu Bajie]

My WFB campaigns are both wargaming and roleplaying 'cos the players are roleplaying individual characters (commanders/rulers).

I think that's really interesting, playing the commander / ruler was always part of wargaming, from the 18th C. Kreigspeil through Tony Baths Hyboria, through to being baked into WRG Ancients C3 system in the 1970s. Wargaming playstyles always incorporated what people now consider 'roleplayig' and they only really became divided in the mid 80s when D&D was trying to market itself as a new thing for the kids, as a lot of older hobby wargamers wanted to be taken seriously, and saw the fictional aspects as detracting from that.

Perhaps there is something in the Oldhammer playstyle, where armies are led from the generals point of view, rather than being played just as an abstract game, that is attracting new players who are looking for something more imaginative than corporate fantasy battle allows.