Warhammer: The Old World

I played 4th and 5th in school and 8th more recently, when I got back into the hobby. So, I missed 6th (and 7th) but I gather that 6th is well regarded. That said, the reputation of an edition depends on both the core rules and the army books (many of which spanned several editions).

True. 6th Ed has a good balance though, nothing that over the top. Atleast IMHO..
There are some minor things and some open-to abuse, but not as bad as later..

Some of my pet peeves are the Ratling Gun not needing to roll to hit. Not a huge thing but also a little too generous.
Vampire Counts are very strong, I love that Gothic horror.. But you can abuse the list and the Fear rules a bit. In short if you completely ignores having any Zombies and Skellies. Well, I think it is "abuse". Your milage may vary.

7th Ed gets some absolute nonsense things. The first book, O&Gs is fine.. But when Elves get new stuff and the Demons, Chaos Warriors. it just goes bananas..

What bugs me a little in 6th Ed is they are not consistent - like Orcs needing to have as many normal Orcs before Big ´uns, Black Orcs characters taking up additional slots, Hero slots. I am fine with that, but they forget to or ignore being consistent with later books that probably needed that too. Or the Orcs not having that "limitation". Not a huge thing but bugs me.
 
I curious as to what the major issue with infantry is at the moment? Infantry has been subpar ever since 6th edition slashed the points value of cavalry but it was still used for many armies. So why are they now considered unusable.

I am not the greatest fan of 6th edition the slots system could create some oddities in my opinion depending on how useful your core units were, encouraging min maxing and so on. It was also far too weighted towards cavalry and lvl 4 mages. It got very boring and predictable. Also both my main armies were very poor in that edition. 7th was better rules wise but the army books got into a horrible power creep very quickly. I'd probably say play 7th with the 8th edition army lists.

As for large monsters these are an important and flavourful part of the Warhammer universe so I definitely want to see them on the tabletop even in smaller games. There could be better restrictions on lord level characters maybe, but I fear you would just end up with every army being forced to take a level 4 mage again and any other options being seen as uncompetitive.

For magic I still prefer the old magic card system from 4th and 5th. Never liked the dice system although I think it was better than the current system sounds.

Most don´t get more than +2 rank bonus. The cost effectiveness between them and cavalry is.. Worse now. As cavalry got stronger while the points difference is kind of the same as before, very easily explained.

Yeah the slots systems is not perfect either. But Core wwere generally more useful than today. Good, solid, cheap units to build, well the core of the army.

Sure, larger monsters should be there. But should you *always* see a dragon at 2000p, in additon to other big nasties? I think not, but that is highly subjective. Now, it is often a gang of various monsters with some minimal units of infantry (maybe) at the back. The support do the lion part of the job. That ain´t right to me.

The cars were fun. Just a little impractical - or something.. Well, I have the experience from 2nd 40k but same as 4th Ed generally.
The current system is.. Plain booring if you ask me. The old magic systems were small, exciting mini games inside the game. It is my second biggest dislike of TOW, after the too generous army selection of anything but Core.
 
That was 6th I think. I remember his ardboyz list being quite good.
Yupp, the Orcs & Goblins book is from the autumn of 2000 so soon 25 years.. :cautious: it was the first written but second released (after The Empire)
The Grimgor´s ´ardboyz is from, I want to say 2004? In the Storm of Chaos book. I like it but I prefer the normal. As I find it to be more flexibel. You sacrifice magic offence and defence in Grimgor´s list. Which is sgood, so it is pros and cons and not just plain better. But it made you able to play Orcs as a tough and hard-hitting close combat army. Or the normal list not as tough and hard hitting but back up by the whacky goblins stuff. I am all for thta and switching back and forth. But often suffered from hevay magic lists with Grimgor´s list. Which is fine.
 
Most don´t get more than +2 rank bonus. The cost effectiveness between them and cavalry is.. Worse now. As cavalry got stronger while the points difference is kind of the same as before, very easily explained.

Yeah the slots systems is not perfect either. But Core wwere generally more useful than today. Good, solid, cheap units to build, well the core of the army.

Sure, larger monsters should be there. But should you *always* see a dragon at 2000p, in additon to other big nasties? I think not, but that is highly subjective. Now, it is often a gang of various monsters with some minimal units of infantry (maybe) at the back. The support do the lion part of the job. That ain´t right to me.

The cars were fun. Just a little impractical - or something.. Well, I have the experience from 2nd 40k but same as 4th Ed generally.
The current system is.. Plain booring if you ask me. The old magic systems were small, exciting mini games inside the game. It is my second biggest dislike of TOW, after the too generous army selection of anything but Core.
The loss of combat res bonuses for infantry certainly explains why they're not being used and why they seem to be seen as free victory points by a lot of players from what I read.

Fix infantry and a lot of the other problems would go away or be reduced in my opinion as there would be more options to pick from instead of players just picking multiples of what are perceived as the most points efficient or consistent units (Which at the moment seems to be skirmishers, cavalry and flying monsters).

As for monsters I suspect that they are currently either undercoated or too strong (and no those aren't necessarily the same thing), which is why they are being consistently chosen over other options. Large Dragons definitely look too cheap as they are quite a bit less than in earlier editions while being better with extra stomp attacks and combined stats with the rider. Personally I'd suggest removing the stomp attacks entirely and maybe the loss of one or two wounds from some of the bigger monsters. Also spamable magic items like the opal amulet need to go. 1 copy per army of any magic items should be the rule.
 
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Yeah I think so too. And I am all for actual infantry being the real basis, blocks with full command. It should be tough to break with anything but better infantry or similar, with better support (or softened up).

Exactly.

GW is a little too driven by sales, in the short run. Not what makes the game good, and sell that way. Now they push expensive "big things", pretty cynical.

Stomp is something I don´t think should be there unless infantry have supporting attacks for example. It was some poor decision there what to lift out of 8th Ed and what not to. Balance fail. It was my thought exactly, get rid of Stomp.

Combined profile, not sure I want that either. The game is not overallmore simple than previosuly, so why do that simplification?

Damn, I´ve chatted more TOW than Necromunda here I think, on this site.. :D
 
I also think there has been a huge over correction on monsters and cav from 8th… there were a few levers GW could have pulled to tweak the balance but they just whacked them all down at once.

The biggest issue to me is the layers of saves you can put on the monsters, it’s soul crushing needing 6’s to wound and then watching 3 attempts at a 5+ save. If you get a wound through by some miracle… well done, only seven more to go. I personally tried not taking the wards and regen on big monsters, but then of course my dude just got stomped by the monster riders that did have them.

FAQing that big monsters get the close order bonus, despite the rule itself saying it applies to two or more models, was pretty obnoxious and makes me think they are deliberately encouraging AOSing the armies… perhaps they took all the internet chatter about no one playing fantasy as they didn’t want to paint infantry blocks at face value?

I really liked Old World at the start but it’s losing its lustre a bit, mostly because the poison of competitive YouTube list-wanking has infested my group. Feels like it’s take a dragon and min core now or don’t bother. In one respect it’s not really the game’s fault as the first games we had were great when we were just dusting off old armies for a narrative map campaign, but now everything is geared at the next tournament on the horizon and I’ve just lost the urge to play.

Old World seems like an old fashioned game (a plus for me!) that’s coming into the contact with the reality of modern GW e-Sport like games, which is gross. We can’t have nice things as some cretin will leap on the worst abuses and tell anyone who’ll listen that anything else is sub-optimal.

Sorry that this went on a sumpy tangent!
 
It has been discussed (primarily through relentless piss taking) but I’m afraid the genie is out of the bottle a bit with it a bit. The majority of the group are now more competitive focused, so we’ve reached a tipping point. Our map campaign just withered and died, and now it’s just accepted that filthy lists are taken, as that’s what we’ll ‘need’ for the next event. As much as I might not like it, overall lean of the group has gone that way I fear.
 
Damn, that sucks. I have been enjoying Old World in a non-competitive way. It works fine if people just take what they think is "right" and don't powergame the minutiae of the rules. Hope you can find some like-minded people who want to play more friendly style games.
 
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I do get some excellent games in still thankfully, overall I do still enjoy it but the game needs a lot of restraint I feel… I’ve been playing plenty of 2nd Ed 40K so am used to filtering out the wonkiness! There’s just so much content out there focusing on what’s optimal (and what’s optimal isn’t ‘warhammery’ I’m sure most would agree) that it seeps into the games and makes not optimising a guaranteed stomping… the game can be horrifically unbalanced.
 
Our group had that issue with 40k a while ago (7th ed I believe). One person started net-listing the most competitive tournament lists, despite never going to a single tournament. The only way to even have a chance of a fun game without getting tabled by turn 2 was to play min-maxed lists, which nobody else wanted to do.

We fixed it by just agreeing to not play with the formations rules, that turned out to be the culprit of the imbalance.

You could probably fix it with Old World easily enough but it requires the group to agree with a house rule. I haven't managed to play yet but monsters using their rider's armour and regen seems broken.

My first thought when writing an Ogre list was: "Wow, I can give a Thundertusk a 3+ save and a 4+ ward, and then use a spell to give it either a 5+ regen or T8!".
 
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I've been watching YouTube 2nd ed 40k games and modelling videos for the nostalgia hit. I think I'd rather play 2nd ed than any of the later editions (last I played was maybe 6th?) but maybe that's because I'm a curmudgeonly old man. I've been digging out my old metal Necro minis and stripping them as there's been some chatter amongst friends about maybe a wee Necro 95 campaign in between all our Newcromunda campaigns. I wonder if my love of the 90s era gaming was maybe because there were no internets to argue and optimise and whatever.
 
I do get some excellent games in still thankfully, overall I do still enjoy it but the game needs a lot of restraint I feel… I’ve been playing plenty of 2nd Ed 40K so am used to filtering out the wonkiness! There’s just so much content out there focusing on what’s optimal (and what’s optimal isn’t ‘warhammery’ I’m sure most would agree) that it seeps into the games and makes not optimising a guaranteed stomping… the game can be horrifically unbalanced.
It does seem like they’ve decided to cash in on the Oldhammer trend but without actually upholding any of the ethos of the movement.

Its a shame but Tournament lists and the internet have kinda killed a certain play style. Unfortunately GW embraced the Tournament mindset in the late 90s and since then everything they make is filtered through it.

That seems to be why Oldhammer exists; it’s not just a nostalgic love of older models and aesthetic (though that certainly is a part of it) but the “spirit” of the games pre 1997 was certainly based on “let’s have fun” and not “let’s calculate the best possible combination here”.

It could be argued that modern Necromunda shows that not everything GW does is tournament focused but it could be argued that actually, it emphasises that they do. They seem to have no real idea anymore how to create a game system that can actually be fluffy without them saying “Here’s a few core mechanics” then just dumping a bin load of random ideas on top and saying “Ta Daaaa! Sandbox!!”.

Tournaments they understand, making everything 0-100 they understand, putting something in that is fun, thematic, that you want to field because it’s cool and not making it top tier, they don’t. Sadly the player base has followed this methodology over the last 30 years.

A lot of the game designers are fans of GWs older games. I think they emulate those but can’t capture what made them special.
The designers of those older games were gamers with interests outside of their workplace - that shows up in the quality of their games.

Sorry my rant isn’t very TOW focused - the principles follow over though, the designers are recreating their memories of playing Warhammer Fantasy but making it viable in a world that expects optimised lists vs disposable chaff.
The original WFB was written by people who loved the fantasy genre but also played historical games and had a knowledge of history and decided to try to carry that over to make fantasy creatures and regiments operate in a realistic way against each other.
 
I also think there has been a huge over correction on monsters and cav from 8th… there were a few levers GW could have pulled to tweak the balance but they just whacked them all down at once.

The biggest issue to me is the layers of saves you can put on the monsters, it’s soul crushing needing 6’s to wound and then watching 3 attempts at a 5+ save. If you get a wound through by some miracle… well done, only seven more to go. I personally tried not taking the wards and regen on big monsters, but then of course my dude just got stomped by the monster riders that did have them.

FAQing that big monsters get the close order bonus, despite the rule itself saying it applies to two or more models, was pretty obnoxious and makes me think they are deliberately encouraging AOSing the armies… perhaps they took all the internet chatter about no one playing fantasy as they didn’t want to paint infantry blocks at face value?

I really liked Old World at the start but it’s losing its lustre a bit, mostly because the poison of competitive YouTube list-wanking has infested my group. Feels like it’s take a dragon and min core now or don’t bother. In one respect it’s not really the game’s fault as the first games we had were great when we were just dusting off old armies for a narrative map campaign, but now everything is geared at the next tournament on the horizon and I’ve just lost the urge to play.

Old World seems like an old fashioned game (a plus for me!) that’s coming into the contact with the reality of modern GW e-Sport like games, which is gross. We can’t have nice things as some cretin will leap on the worst abuses and tell anyone who’ll listen that anything else is sub-optimal.

Sorry that this went on a sumpy tangent!
Yeah that is a sum-up that sadly is my experience too. Honestly sick of that type of player more than anything. They infest several systems, to a larger or smaller degree, even Blood Bowl..!

That is why i am very pikcy who i play these days. They are a waste of time, for me and if they sneak up without me getting it, it does not happen twice.
That is not why I chill in my spare time with this hobby.
 
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It does seem like they’ve decided to cash in on the Oldhammer trend but without actually upholding any of the ethos of the movement.

Its a shame but Tournament lists and the internet have kinda killed a certain play style. Unfortunately GW embraced the Tournament mindset in the late 90s and since then everything they make is filtered through it.

That seems to be why Oldhammer exists; it’s not just a nostalgic love of older models and aesthetic (though that certainly is a part of it) but the “spirit” of the games pre 1997 was certainly based on “let’s have fun” and not “let’s calculate the best possible combination here”.

It could be argued that modern Necromunda shows that not everything GW does is tournament focused but it could be argued that actually, it emphasises that they do. They seem to have no real idea anymore how to create a game system that can actually be fluffy without them saying “Here’s a few core mechanics” then just dumping a bin load of random ideas on top and saying “Ta Daaaa! Sandbox!!”.

Tournaments they understand, making everything 0-100 they understand, putting something in that is fun, thematic, that you want to field because it’s cool and not making it top tier, they don’t. Sadly the player base has followed this methodology over the last 30 years.

A lot of the game designers are fans of GWs older games. I think they emulate those but can’t capture what made them special.
The designers of those older games were gamers with interests outside of their workplace - that shows up in the quality of their games.

Sorry my rant isn’t very TOW focused - the principles follow over though, the designers are recreating their memories of playing Warhammer Fantasy but making it viable in a world that expects optimised lists vs disposable chaff.
The original WFB was written by people who loved the fantasy genre but also played historical games and had a knowledge of history and decided to try to carry that over to make fantasy creatures and regiments operate in a realistic way against each other.

I had mostly a good time during 2nd Ed 40k, starting when it was released. Can´t really remember people being too over the top with nonsense. And i played regulary, a couple of weekends each month with some class mates, school friends etc. Later on, a buddy started to attend tournamnets, was at the very end of 2nd Ed though. he made some nasty stuff with Eldar (minimum Aspect Warrior squads and thena couple of Swooping Hawk Exarchs with Vortex Grenade, another with combi weapon, aux grenade launcher, Fast Shot etc.. Not very fluffy but.. Eh, not too bad either) but he was pretty chill in our games in the club.

I remember hanging on Portent.net and reading tacticas later too.. 1996 or so..?
But i still don´t felt it was as "bad" as now. But I am not sure..

I left the hobby in 2007-8 or so and sold off or threw my stuff away. Sold my Orks to a local guy, 4-6 years older who had played Rogue Trader but not since. And that "new" group coming back in late 4th Ed was like the "worst" now.. Googling what the latest tourny list was.. All games in the club was to "practice" for the next tournamnet. And more often than not, proxying most things.

Later on (a friend kept playing and we kept talking GW over all years) they just switched to the latest release, prxying this Marine chapter for the newest best..
I am glad i bailed when i did but sad to see it is like that still, or worse in many areas. it should be more chill, in my humble opinion. Beer and pretzels.. it never is nor was balanced enough to be that "competetive" or take it that serious.

I can enjoy the "balanced", matched games. Easy pick-up games at standard points value. But I still don´t do min-maxed, optimized stuff (I never really did, but I made some good lists in 2nd Ed or 3rd Ed but i never compromised too much on flugg).
I personally think the most fun is when you try to have the background in mind and make armies or gangs mostly abiding that. For WHFB, a strong Core (it also looks the best to me! With rows of the most common warriors supported by, the support!).

I have heard the phrase from some of those when i have raised the issue - "Go play historical". I dunno.. How about they actually find a meaning in in life, a nice job and a family. That seems to be lacking for many of the worst "offenders".
Not meant to "offend" anyone but it really is a running theme. Atleast in my experience, the most fun players to have a good time with are chill, people not too much caring about showing off.

Ah whatever. Not meant to be nasty so better stop before I sound like that.

but The Old World can be fun with like minded. But I actually prefer older editions (6th Ed!) still.
 
When being nostalgic, just remember:

if today’s internet existed back in 2nd Ed 40k or 3rd Ed fantasy, you’d have had videos about which units are worth taking and the latest tournament winning lists.

Those games were even more imbalanced than The Old World by a long stretch. It’s only really the player mentality that has changed.
 
Oh God yes, it was crazy what you could do. But I think our group kept each other honest. And we also could not afford all nonsense.. ;)

When the first local store opened (my town was pretty small but a computer game store started to stock GW) I could much easier use money froma spare time job and was probably the one overdoing it.. I bought three Predator Annihilators and three Land Speeders after seeing Ian Pickstock playing Space Wolves with armour..
But i never played with them like that.. At most, one of each.. A waste of money. lol
 
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Those games were even more imbalanced than The Old World by a long stretch. It’s only really the player mentality that has changed.
That’s definitely true! The ethos was to have fun, there were definitely people who put together ridiculous combinations - mostly because they thought it was hilarious!!

These days they do it to scrape through a very nasty build to gain an uncompetitive advantage in an official setting whilst still remaining within “rules as written”.

Funnily enough though, it wasn’t until in the late 90s/early 2000s that I even heard of most of those old 2nd Ed 40k weird exploits like SW Terminators with Cyclone Missile launchers and an Assault Cannon, or an Assassin in Terminator Armour riding a bike and throwing vortex grades or whatever it was.
 
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