Warhammer Fantasy Battles 3rd Edition - any players left?

[weazil]

Earlier this year, I finally reached that place gamers reach, when they realise they can no longer deactivate their brains long enough to actually get through a whole game of warhammer. Before then, I'd never heard of this forum, but as I started exploring alternatives (that is, both alternative games and previous versions of warhammer), the discussions on this board came up more and more in my searches.

Eventually, as I hunted for solace on the internet, I noticed two things:
1. Many, many fantasy gamers who have abandoned Warhammer have moved into smaller skirmish games.
2. Many, many fantasy gamers lament over the lost brilliance of previous versions of Warhammer.

Now the thing that really grabbed me about the esteemed folk on this channel, is the memory so many of you carry about the character, humour and ambience of the older versions, especially at the time of GW's finest moment: Warhammer Fantasy Battles 3rd Edition.

So I felt compelled to post, based on the fact that as a new member, I must, otherwise my access will be revoked, and, that I want to know how many people here are actually playing Warhammer 3rd edition? Not moaning about better days, or just painting stuff from the 80's, but actually getting in true, Warhammer-the-way-Warhammer-should-be-played types of games?

My research has showed me that there are many beautiful armies out there (even two battle reports) - but, are they being used?

If so - where?

My story is that I've just turned my back on 21st century Games Workshop, hoping to return to the 80's where games were games...not dice throwing competitions. I want reserve moves, and chaos attributes, and monstrous hosts that need to be bound. Having turned my back on Warhammer 8, I've collected all the necessary material for Warhammer 3 and have started getting together some armies - Orcs & Goblins, Undead and Chaos.

But all that's no good if I can't find anyone to play. I've tried to convince players at the club that this is something they should investigate, but it feels like too many of them are lost in the tournament mentality and actually only come to the club to practice for their next tournament.

So, my questions really are:

Do you play Warhammer 3?
If so, where?

[Gibby]

Welcome to the forum, weazil!

To be somewhat more polite than Bezzo, I can't say I play Warhammer 3rd, it's a bit before my time, but from the sounds of it, it was the sort of game I'd like now. Not a fan of the "tournament mentality" to be honest. If I lived remotely close to New Forest I'd offer to join you in your endeavour, but alas I live in the East Midlands!

[OSHIROmodels]

No, I don't.

Not any more, I've got your rules  

I've played two games in the past year or so (at the Richmond club). I was using a 3rd Ed Nippon army against undead of the same.

I suck big time, love it to bits but suck  

cheers

James

[thebinmann]

sorry stuck in 2nd ed here

[Pil]

Hello Weazil, welcome to the forum, thanks for the links to the blogs (hadn't seen that Slann army before, nice!) and thanks also for including my undead

I have never played 3rd edition (I started at the end of 4th edition), but I do still play 8th edition which is I think what most people do who collect a complete army (i.e., collect it to use it with the current rules). I do have the 3rd edition rules and I actually made a start reading through them years ago. For now I am actually fairly happy with the current fantasy rules, though I am less enthusiastic about the focus on special rules and I don't like the tournament mentality much.

Of course 3rd edition would probably have the same mentality if it were played by as many people as 8th edition, and it would probably prove to be more unbalanced than the current rules. Regarding 3rd edition I don't think I will play a battle any time soon as there is quite a time investment to be made just to get a game in, let alone master the rules.

[dinohunterpoa]

Our gaming group - nowadays relocated to a mad, mad island in south Brazil - have been playing regularly since 1986; we use 2nd Ed. rules concepts -  stuff like "The Magnificent Sven" and "Lichemaster" scenarios - mixed with Mordheim rules to keep adventures at a skirmish scale most of the time, since our games have a strong RPG element as well. 

This year we are re-designing the whole thing to cope with a modern setting; something like hot lesbian vampiress bikers against the zombie horde in that small town in the desert...
 

[Thantsants]

Cheers also for the mention!  

I started out with 3rd ed. and its been a good bedtime read since - then 4th ed. came out and I got tired of cheating empire players abusing the rules for stupidly powerful war machines like volley guns and steam tanks (got my own back at the time by bending the rules with my battery of doom divers - can't beat 'em join 'em I'm ashamed to say!  ).

Then had a break and came back into the hobby and now enjoy picking and choosing what rules I play and making them fit with the minis I have - not being one to be ruled by army books, codexes/codices and the like!

I have many fond memories of 3rd ed. but am not a particularly regular player - the game I wrote the report about did remind me of the time and effort that went into a game - great for massed actions but a lot of modifiers to remember to use for dice rolls.

Still humming and hahing over whether to use 3rd or 2nd ed. when I finally get round to playing Orc's Drift - this summer hopefully...  

http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=17333.435

When I finally get round to playing it I'll probably go and see if anyone's interested at my local club in York as it'll need a few bodies - be interesting to see if anyone down there still plays 3rd ed. or not.

The attraction of the smaller skirmish games is their simple elegance and immediate gratification - plus you can get a warband painted up in no time at all compared to a 3000 point 3rd. ed army!  

Personally what I look for in a good game nowadays is what you bring to it yourself - a good narrative thread - usually inspired by old skool warhammer daftness - that way even the loser has a good laugh at the crazy things that go on rather than just feeling like a loser in some random evenly points-matched pitched battle!

Oh that and the humour, ambiences and other stuff you mentioned! 

[Blue in vt]

I feel you on this one Weazil...3rd edition was by far the best set of rules and I mourn its passing...There is a very active group of players in my area who are using the current rules...and though I long to play I have no interest in playing the new rules...they have none of the character and interest of the 3rd.  So I'm indoctrinating some of my non-gaming freinds to play with me...we'll see how it goes.

And while you miss things like the Reserve move etc...the piece I miss most is the FREE HACK! 

Cheers...good luck...if you move across the pond to new england...give me a call....

Blue

[Faust23]

Welcome to what I consider the best forum on the web!

I just repurchased the 3rd ed rules out of nostalgia.  I started with Ravening Hordes in the late eighties.  3rd edition was special in its feel, but really, really, really drawn out to play.

4th & 5th editions worked rather well, but I'm working on my own skirmish rules to minimize time commitment, but still get the same 'special' feel.

[Erny]

I played a lot of 3rd as a kid with a brief dalliance with Fantasy warlord. Then my younger brother got into it and slightly converted me to 4th, 5th sent me scampering back to 3rd. I started playing at a club when I moved to Cambridge in the late 90's and made everyone play house ruled 3rd until a mate convinced me to give 6th a go. It isn't too bad and it is possible that I played more games of 6th than 3rd. About the same time I got into rapid fire and other historical games, they took over for a bit and with a lot of the club playing FoW these days I never really played 7th and haven't even got 8th.

The thing missing form 6th is the 3rd ed army lists. The thing missing from 3rd is the simplified rules, really there are to many and its very clunky but the troop types and lack of different special rules for each list is very appealing. If I were to play 3rd now I'd use the 6th ed movement rules, reserve movement sucks compared to marching, flying is a beast, fast cavalry is a great idea.  I'd also give considerable thought to taking the magic rules of 6th over but a restricted 3rd list would be OK stripping out summoning spells and most high level ones but adding demons possibly even half power elementals to the appropriate army lists. Combat is a slog though not necessarily a painful one I'd still use the 4th ed over run rules possibly even the combat modifiers rules from 4th onwards. I'd keep 3rds formations though, available to all if they pass their leadership rolls.

When I play against my brother it is a 3rd/4th/6th blend.

[Gibby]

Gibby
I said I was sorry. How much more polite do you want?

Hehe, it just seemed a bit abrupt in response to someone's first post :-p

[Braxandur]

4th ed. just came out when I started playing and not only have I played every edition aftewards, but I also tried a bit of 3rd edition.

The 3rd edition rulebook looks great. The army lists from 3rd edition are great, but the game...  well to be honest, isn't...

For me 8th edition is sort of a new 3rd edition. Somehow it feels a lot like 3rd edition. Big blocks of infantry, large monsters, heroes and warmachines. Some just as overpowered as in 3rd, but defenily not as bad as things have been for years. Especially the steadfast rules make the game feel more like 3rd. The only things bothering me a bit are:
1) Crappy army books. There is quite an unbalance bewteen the armies.
2) Free reforms after haven succefully having catched an enemy that fled from a charge. The free reform after having broken an enemy bothers me less.
3) lack of psychology test made by units in close combat. For me one of the greatest things was charging in a flank or rear of a unit, thereby forcing a panic test, or seeing an entire battle line break due to neigbouring units losing combat.
4) Too many specialty units. In 3rd ed. you have a few unit choices, but each had quite some equipment to choose from. Nowadays, there is less equipment to chose, but more special unit types.

3rd ed. was great, but I thinks it's better to keep being nostalgic about it instead of playing it again, like our gaming group did with 2nd ed. 40k a while ago. Lot's of atmospere and an interesting experience. For me it showed again that fun (28 mm) sci-fi games are skirmish battles for me and not the full blown battles with less tactical manouvering (but more army list building) that 40k is nowadays...

[Luthaaren Von Tegale]

we played 3rd a couple of times when it first came out but soon reverted to 2nd for our games as we had 3-8 players in the game and quite a few figures. 3rd Ed is great for smaller scale skirmishes - say a couple of dozen figs per side but a bit slow for anything larger - and is my favourite of the first five editions.
Having said that I tend to use a LOTR/WH blend these days on the rare occasion I play fantasy.

vT

[weazil]

Hey chaps

Thanks for the welcome (even you, Bezzo - I'm sure you're all just hugs and kittens anyway), it's nice to get a feel for where people sit on this topic. Perhaps I've been too sentimental about 3rd ed. I know its not the fastest gun in the west, exactly, but I just can't seem to remember too many bad experiences with it...compared to the myriad of bad experiences I've had with recent Warhammer 8 games. It's not that I'm shooting 8th ed down, even, because I do think they've put a lot of thought into it...it just feels that the game is too closely linked to the business of GW and the selling of figures, and that the game is now exclusively for the sale of figures. I don't believe that was the primary purpose of the previous rulesets - I can't help thinking they were written to be a good product in their own right - especially back in 3rd edition, where I'm sure GW didn't really know what their future held.

I'm getting the feel that one might actually reclaim a lot of that wonderful glory by using the 3rd ed army book (and Realms of Chaos, no doubt) to create and 'cost' armies, but use 7th ed to actually process the game. That suggestion might actually be more palatable at the club. Hmmm...

Let me pose another question, then: If not Warhammer, then what? What 'formation' size wargame is there for 28mm that allows one to play with 80-120 figures? I know of Armies of Arcana, but apart from that (and Fantasy Warlord mentioned earlier), everything else out there appears to be a skirmish game. Skirmishes are great, but they're not the same for me - have I missed something?

[Braxandur]

I think you can still download Fantasy Warriors (and it's army lists) for free from Mirliton...
Kings of War might also work. Haven't tried that one yet...
Also heard about HAVOC: Tactical Miniature Warfare, but didn;t get around to order a copy yet

For the rest there are a load of other ruleset that went out of print
Bladestorm (ICE)
Fantasy Rules (Chipco)
Raven (ICON/Harlequin/Black Tree)
No Quarter (though I think it works better for skirmish games)

and actually even a lot more...  I found out that for me the most important factor is not:"How much do I like the game" but rather:"Can I find people to play it with."