Oldhammer, what does it mean to you?

[Robosmith]

I've been digging into a lot of Oldhammer stuff recently because I'm an old fart now and getting nostalgic for my childhood. I find it interesting how so many different versions of Oldhammer exist and thought it would make an interesting discussion to have. I'm interested in both games played as well as the visual side of what you consider Oldhammer. I personally find the painting style of the era and the often strangely shaped figures we had to be the defining factor but that's just me.

[Elbows]

To me, Oldhammer is more or less signified by the pre-2000, pre-corporate era of Games Workshop.  There was a period where Games Workshop was a business, but still felt like a group of gaming geeks...making games for other gaming geeks.  For me this was up to the end of 2nd Edition for 40K - not sure what the coinciding Warhammer Fantasy edition was.

At a glance:
-Contributors/designers like Andy Chambers, Jervis Johnson, Rick Priestley, etc.
-Art by Blanche, Gibbons.  Painted models by Michael Perry
-Sculpts by Jes Goodwin
-The high-water mark of GW metals (which weirdly got far worse after around 2000)
-White Dwarf featuring content-rich articles and not short sales-blurbs masquerading as content
-Games Workshop recognizing other games and model lines existed, even though they were starting in on the "Games Workshop Hobby" silliness.
-Units existed in the game with no models and players were encouraged to actually build their own
-Articles in White Dwarf actually told you how to make terrain, and build custom models (even if they weren't using GW bits, gasp!)
-I'd argue the high water mark for GW's writing/rules/lore/articles
-Best codices every released by GW (haven't been touched to this day as far as quality goes)
-Superb one-box games (Warhammer Quest, Mordheim, Necromunda, etc.)  With content/quality that far exceeds what you commonly get today in the re-released versions.
-Rulezboyz phone lines
-Bits ordering
-Very solid support for Outriders (independent retailers who carried GW products)
-Actual hand-made terrain and (gasp) grass/trees pictured in games of 40K, .  Before the days of "everything in every picture must be a product we can sell you".

There was a decidedly different "feel" to the company as a whole.  Far less "every thing to squeeze a cent out of you", and a lot less corporate/sterile, etc.  However, I can assume as well, Games Workshop was not as financially stable as it is now - a literal money-making juggernaut.  And I think that's the real ticket for me; when the company was probably borderline broke...but existed with far more geek passion than it does now.  To me that is Oldhammer.

[fred]

To me, its far more about figures and nostalgia than anything more. I’m certainly not active in playing or collecting OldHammer stuff, but I have no intention of letting go of what I already have!

Period wise for me it would be the 80s into the early 90s - so predominately pre-slotta figures. I think this was the time of WHFBv2 not that these were great rules, and also lots of boxed games, Kings and Things and Blood Royale. The latter we played some epic campaigns of spread over many many school lunchtimes (I lived close enough to school that we could pop up the road for an hours gaming)

[Storm Wolf]

For me Oldhammer is up to 3rd edition 40K, although by extension this also includes 4th and 5th editions as well as they were essentially all of the same rules but with minor changes

Never, ever actually played Warhammer but I reckon up to 4th edition by the same token as the above.

A lot of what Elbows said is true, I also miss that silly-zaney jokey, tongue-in cheekiness of the old days, when everything wasn't quite so grimdark and a character model wasn't £20 or more 

Bleedin`hell, I am old 

Glen

[Belligerentparrot]

I have mixed feelings about "Oldhammer".

On the plus side, for me it is anything 1980s or early 1990s by GW. Rogue Trader and the earliest iterations of Warhammer. By 1995 you're no longer in oldhammer territory for me at least. 1980s/early 1990s fluff isn't worked out in so much detail, it is really more suggestive prompts for your own imagination rather than delivering you a fully built world, if you get what I mean. Miniatures-wise as a general rule it is the same: factions are recognisable but there are lots of obscure suggestive little details on lots of the sculpts to make you think about the minis personality. By 1995 things are much more uniform and (to me) boring. Other people might draw the line at a different date, and that is fine by me!

There is also a wonderfully supportive and friendly community, exemplified by people like Axiom on this forum.

On the downside, part of the "oldhammer" community can be very prescriptive and high-handed about what counts as oldhammer (see that "declaration" thingy that was going around years ago). Speaking purely for myself, I can't stand that side of things - the subcultures I've spent 2/3 of my life in now have enough of that nonsense going on perennially ("that's not punk/hardcore/straightedge, *this* is" etc. etc.) that I don't need it in my wargaming hobby.

[Hobgoblin]

I just like old Citadel miniatures (and Asgard, Grenadier, Ral Partha, Rieder Design, etc.). I generally prefer pre-slotta miniatures to the slotta-based versions, though I don't mind some of the ranges that straddled the divide - e.g. the last Perry range of C15 orcs or the Trish Carden lizardmen and beastmen or the Aly Morrison hobgoblins, all of which used pre-slotta bodies. And I like some of the early slotta stuff too: the Skaven, the original LotR range and the C24 troglodytes, for example.

My preference for the pre-slotta miniatures is something to do with the designers, I think (I've got a lot of nostalgic fondness for Kev Adams orcs, but I prefer Perry ones - I think Kev said he does too somewhere!), and something to do with the limits that integral bases placed on the designers. There's perhaps an element of "playing tennis without a net" (as Robert Frost described writing free verse), in that the constraints of using integral bases led to more thoughtful posing when those designers were at their peak. I do think that Citadel miniatures became more cartoony and exaggerated in their poses once the freedoms of slotta-basing came in. The ranges from just before then (early/mid-80s) have more naturalistic and convincing sculptural qualities, I think.

I should add that I don't think Warhammer was ever a great game, design-wise: we played a nostalgic game of third edition a while back and found it much inferior to the even older Chainmail! First and second edition did have marvellous scenarios and suggestive, funny background stuff, though.

[Major_Gilbear]

For me, it's pretty much this:

I have mixed feelings about "Oldhammer".

On the plus side, for me it is anything 1980s or early 1990s by GW. Rogue Trader and the earliest iterations of Warhammer. By 1995 you're no longer in oldhammer territory for me at least. 1980s/early 1990s fluff isn't worked out in so much detail, it is really more suggestive prompts for your own imagination rather than delivering you a fully built world, if you get what I mean. Miniatures-wise as a general rule it is the same: factions are recognisable but there are lots of obscure suggestive little details on lots of the sculpts to make you think about the minis personality. By 1995 things are much more uniform and (to me) boring. Other people might draw the line at a different date, and that is fine by me!

There is also a wonderfully supportive and friendly community, exemplified by people like Axiom on this forum.

On the downside, part of the "oldhammer" community can be very prescriptive and high-handed about what counts as oldhammer (see that "declaration" thingy that was going around years ago). Speaking purely for myself, I can't stand that side of things - the subcultures I've spent 2/3 of my life in now have enough of that nonsense going on perennially ("that's not punk/hardcore/straightedge, *this* is" etc. etc.) that I don't need it in my wargaming hobby.

I would say that anything up to and including WHFB 3E and the end of WH40K RT is "Oldhammer". Mostly, it is WHFB 3rd and WH40K RT, along with other games that were around at that time, like Confrontation, Adeptus Ttanicus and Epic Space Marine 1E, Space Hulk 1E, Space Fleet, Advanced Heroquest, Heroquest and Space Crusade, Talisman, Dark Future, etc.

Once you get to WHFB 4E and 5E, and WH40k 2E, you're into the "Middlehammer" or "Herohammer" phase. It includes games of the era too; Necromunda, Gorkamorka, Warhammer Quest, Epic 2E and Titan Legions, Man-o-War, Talisman 2E, Space Hulk 2E, etc.

Anything after that, including WHFB 6E, WH40k 3E, Mordheim, Battlefllet Gothic,Epic 40k, etc up to about 1999-2000 may be regarded as "classic" but is less well defined. This era sometimes gets lumped in with Middlehammer, but for me the key distinction is that at this time the games started to get bigger, more streamlined, and more serious. This is an era where there was still some dark humour and bitter irony in the setting, but it had also notably started giving way to plain dark grittiness in the settings.

If you wanted to define the periods in a slightly more simplistic way, the end of anything remotely considered Oldhammer was when GW painting tutorials switched from using multiple thin coats of bright colours, inks, and simple highlights over a white spray undercoat as the default standard, to using single base coats, drybrushing, and acrylic washes over black undercoats as the default standard. This is also the time when the "default" GW studio armies all switched to colour schemes that could mostly be done over a black or single-colour base coat (including the switch from the classic primary-coloured Ultramarines to the darker scheme pioneered by Dave Andrews), and stopped basing all their models on Goblin Green bases.

For many, the appeal of older models and editions is mostly nostalgia - to finally get that army/game that you always wanted in your youth but could never afford. That said, many of the older games needed fewer models to play and had a bigger emphasis on creating and personalising your own forces than later editions did. The games themselves were often more complicated, more drawn-out to play, and less well-explained than later games too, and some people enjoy this more. In my case, I like that the armies are smaller to collect and paint, the models were often just 1 or 2 pieces, forces were colourful and personalised, and that as a "dead" game there is no real rush or urgency in getting anything (i.e., nor artificial FOMO).

I do agree that there is a certain amount of gatekeeping and "purity" that has unfortunately crept in, and I think that's often snobby which is unnecessary. It's also a bit false in my opinion, as some models were often made long in advance of their release, or were released late but in a style intended for older models that still existed at the time. For example, Dark Eldar were clearly 3E, but their style, silliness, and initial colourfulness would have been right at home in 2E.

I should add that I don't think Warhammer was ever a great game, design-wise: we played a nostalgic game of third edition a while back and found it much inferior to the even older Chainmail! First and second edition did have marvellous scenarios and suggestive, funny background stuff, though.

This a thousand times! Each edition of their games was (for the most part) an overall improvement on previous editions up to about 2005-8. Not everything was better, and not all changes were good/welcome, but the games overall did steadily improve in playability.

[vodkafan]

I foresee this thread getting moved to the dedicated GW section before long....
I never played Warhammer but I do think the miniatures were better then. The latest stuff just turns me off and has for a long time. So that's  what "Oldhammer " means to me.

[Cubs]

For me? Citadel 1980's stuff mainly (perhaps a little 90's) Pre-slotta for the most part - Regiments of Renown, C-series lovelies and the the licenced boxed sets like Runequest.

No, the figures aren't subjectively better than today's stuff, being poorly cast, with iffy anatomy a lot of the time and lots of dead areas of metal. But they have a charm indelibly linked to my childhood and the nostalgia that brings, along with some beautifully subtle posing and characterisation in the models. It wasn't mass produced and doesn't feel like it. Having said that, there were also some misses as well as hits ... just like with 80's music.

[Cat]

I foresee this thread getting moved to the dedicated GW section before long....

Well, perhaps we can avoid that fate by broadening the discussion a bit.
 
For me, it's primarily the minis.  My big project this summer and fall was prepping "OldTech" — battalions of Ral Partha Battlemechs, with a great many of the original 'unseen' mechs, for use with BattleTech Alpha Strike.  Proper mechs look like they've stepped out of a 1980's anime, not a 21st century video game!
: 3
 
Ditto with GW, the old figs rule, give me the 2nd Edition BloodBowl minis and proper Squats and beaky Space Marines in a size that match the originals please.

[von der Tann]

As I am not into gaming, Oldhammer is for me the books and stories of the Old World. The mishmash of cultures and "re-inventing" real world history. I love the Ulrika the Vampire books, but also the stories of how the Skaven invaded the, then called Lizardmen, lands. How they explored the adventures of Florin & Lorenzo, back when things were a little bit more toned down, not over the top like nowadays.
I associate Oldhammer with a huge number of races and factions, most of them very unique, some awsome, some not so much.

I also liked the variety of miniatures back then. Take the mercenary miniature line for example, it had lots of wonderful minis. It was a bit more colorful as well back in the day. An Empire or Bretonnian Army could make you go blind, but I enjoyed it. I still flip through the pages of my copy of Uniforms & Heraldry of the Empire.

That is Oldhammer for me.

[v_lazy_dragon]

I just discovered that my 'oldhammer' is actually 'middlehammer'
As a late 80s baby, WHFB was 5th Ed when I started, but the (Old) world/ middlehammer for me is 5th/6th/Mordheim. It was a established setting, with the Empire in particular being very Puff and Slash landsknecht style, but not as 'weird'/gothic/grom dark as the later incarnations. I have both 5th/6th Perry Empire state troopers on my desk and some of the 7th/8th/AOS state troopers on my desk at the moment. Somewhere between the two boxes puff and slash reduced massively, and they gained a million purity seals/bones/relics/rammage and other assorted crap
 The same sort of transformation happened to Bretonnia when they gained the plastic men at arms set and lost tgeir hundred year war feel. In parallel the skaven jumped completely off the weird steampunk/mutation cliff and we started getting stuff like Stormfiends turning up.

[Westfalia Chris]

I foresee this thread getting moved to the dedicated GW section before long....
(...)

I don't see a need to do so unless it veers off irrevocably into diatribes about current GW price, rules-writing and/or release politics, which would be better off in the general GW thread. I too love me a spot of rose-tinted nostalgia as much as the next man-child. 

Coincidentally, I have been pondering that over the last few months, too, being less than enamoured with current releases aiming at said nostalgia after the fact of spending too much on it.

I'm drifting back to finishing up some Kryomek stuff I had lying about for decades, as that falls into that nostalgia spot of early to mid 1990s minis; for me, the most pleasant memories I have of that time were of the ultimately unsuccessful attempts to compete with GW in the field of "game systems", and the fact that their moments of glory predate the internet fandom for the most part, so that there is little else than the actual mini ranges and a handful of print media (mainly rulebooks, but stuff like Forge magazine etc.).

Warzone, Heartbreaker minis, the aforementioned Kryomek, Leviathan and Flintloque would be my nostalgia triggers, whereas even my perennial favourite of the golden years of 2ed 40k has pretty much been terminally afflicted with my general ennui concerning GW games as a whole.

[Belligerentparrot]

Warzone, Heartbreaker minis, the aforementioned Kryomek, Leviathan and Flintloque would be my nostalgia triggers, whereas even my perennial favourite of the golden years of 2ed 40k has pretty much been terminally afflicted with my general ennui concerning GW games as a whole.

I don't know exactly when they were released, but the Grenadier sci-fi/post apoc gang range (later taken up by em4, not sure if they're still around) also has that oldhammer feel for me. They blend almost seamlessly with the Confrontation gangers from GW, for example.

[Vanvlak]

Oldhammer: my trusty Chaos Lord Vortek of Nurgle leading his mix of warriors, beastmen and demons against a force of assorted undead who were horribly tough characters in a siege campaign. It was, in a word, fun. Especially when one of my characters (a beastman champion?) with a heart of woe blew up most of a horribly expensive unit of wight cavalry. This was just before the over the top Herohammer appeared, which brings to mind the time I used someone else's Bretonnian army and had a whole pack of cards of magic items and weapons to work my way through.

My first game, my first army, my first tournament and my first campaign - very happy days, thanks to Oldhammer.