The Inside Scoop on Gaming

I was eager to see what exactly GW had done to 40K to warrant a 3rd Edition, and now I have, I really wonder exactly why they did it. First off, though, I'll look at the first impressions and good points of the new 40K boxed set, and then I'll examine the areas where it lacks.If you're not interested in the miniatures etcetera, and just the rules, you should feel free to skip the first four paragraphs. Be warned, this review is pretty thorough and thus fairly long.

Your first impression on seeing the box will probably be mixed if you liked 2nd Edition 40K with it's good design and relatively elegant and colourful art. The cover painting is a typical John Blanche effort, featuring a black and white armoured legion of Space Marines shooting and posing. It's cluttered and inelegant,(some would even say "bad") but does the job, I suppose. Opening the box you find a single, massive book, ala Rogue Trader (40K first edition, for the newer GWers), and flicking through the book one sees that the cover trend is continued in the book with dark, cluttered, confused "imperial" artwork and a few good pieces here and there. The next thing you notice is the lack of counter sheets. This because they are no longer necessary. No, none. Well, technically anyway.

Now onto the minatures and accessories...

This is one area the new edition scores very highly in these regards. The miniatures are plastic but of a high quality not seen for about 6 years, and much finer than any previous plastic miniatures. You get 10 Space Marines including a Sargeant, a Missile-Launcher armed Heavy Weapons guy and one Marine equipped with a flamer. To call them "fully-poseable" would be inaccurate, but with separate and slightly different heads (even Mark 6 ones!), backpacks, torsos and legs as well as slightly different arms and a load of accessories such a telescopic sights, grenades, rockets and pockets, one can certainly achieve quite a variance of appearance. The models look good too, with nice proportions and really fine features. The only downer is that the arms and weapons are of a new and less poseable type than the old plastic arms that came with metal marines. The marine side gets a Land Speeder too, which is also nicely moulded and looks very good on it's twistable stand, and is fairly easy to put together.

The 20 Dark Eldar miniatures are pretty good too, and, though clearly not of the same standard, they also allow alot of indivduality with separate heads, crests, spikes, torsos (even some female ones), legs and arms and weapons. They are slightly brittle though, and all the combat knives on my sprues snapped in half when I tried to remove them, however gently I did it. Most of the various spikes and blades came off fine, however, and the parts fit together suprisingly well. The main problem with Dark Eldar is their appearance, which is, well "not very scary". When I heard the term Dark Eldar (and after I stopped laughing...), I thought GW were going to create some menacing and original race, but what we actually have is "Dark Elves in Space", right down to the beserker women. Still, properly painted they might look somewhat menacing, what with all the spikes and so on.

Then there is the other plastic stuff, which is, basically, two wrecked building corners, three barrels, an oil can, a barracade, two little pieces of rubble, four tree bases replete with an array of modular tree pieces, three transparent weapon templates and two range/LOS sticks. All of the scenery is very well made and absolutely light years ahead of the folded card stuff in the second edition, and the inclusion of transparent templates and Necromounda's LOS sticks is a welcome one.

Now onto the important part, the new, revised, changed and, well, shrunk (as opposed to expanded) rules. As I said, good points first. The weapon system has been more or less completely changed and clarified and is far superior to the previous one in most respects and although it eliminates a few more "colourful" ammo types it overall makes virtually all weapons more useful. No longer is Rapid Fire restricted to the spoilt Space Marines, and is instead by weapon (and virtually all standard weapons have it). Shuriken Catapults become even better as they are now Assault class weapons which can move and fire at full rate and range and Needle Rifles become far more useful Sniper Rifles. Some other weapons are made much weaker though, particularly other Eldar ones, such as Death Spinners (which are now so bad as to be almost pointless, and actually worse than most normal weapons, no longer having a template, instant kill or any AP ability). Overall though, even as someone who fields an Eldar force, I can see the weapon changes are mainly positive and necessary.

Another good point is the change in scenario rules, which are now much clearer and more interesting, and there are now experience rules, which are nice too. There are some problems with the scenario unit choice rules though, which are completely unecessarily restrictive, and stifle innovation or even more traditional setups.

The movement rules have been dramatically changed as well, meaning more good news for Imperial players, especially Marines, and bad news for faster people like Eldar and Tyranids, as all infantry now has a move of 6 inches, all vehicles 12 or 24 inches, all jetpack-type devices 12 inches, bikes 12 inches, walkers 6 inches and cavalry 6 inches (although they have a very long Assault Move, more on that later). Turning is out(ie turn as much as you like) and any vehicle can move in any direction at full speed, excepting terrain modifiers, of course. This is overall an improvement, I think (although the one speed infantry rule is a tad boring), and certainly saves alot of time fiddlin with little turn templates and complex vehicle rules.

Another major change is the close combat rules which are now far more abstract, and well, confusing and unrealistic, if alot faster. There are some serious problems here and alot of confusion and silliness. Remember the old Harlequin's Kiss weapon, one of the most deadly hand to hand weapons of 1st and 2nd edition 40K? Well it's now exactly as useful as a blunt, rusty, potato peeler or a piece of wood with a nail through the end in close combat... It's an extreme example but entirely true as they together with _all_ pistols (not matter how good) count as basic clsoe combat weapons. Power Weapons are all lumped together, which is fine, except power fists, thunder hammers and lightning claws (and presumably chain fists) which are all lumped with each other under weapon type of Power Fist. The new close combat rules are both good and bad, but are mainly just annoying, particularly as _all_ the weapons which have an advantage (the Power ones) are used mainly or entirely by the Imperials, and all they lost were the Chain weapons, and all the specialist Eldar and Tyranid weapons are made useless (which is particularly bizarre in the case of some weapons, like Boneswords, which were meant to be superior to Power swords...).

Then we reach the low point, the worst part of the new rules, the army lists. If you, like most 40K players, play Space Marines, you have nothing to worry about. The Space Marine Codex and Blood Angels Codex are out already, and anyway the main 40K rules cover most Space Marine stuff. The other Space Marine codexes are out soon (within the next two months or so). If you're anyone else though, prepare to suffer. The army lists are severely incomplete and simplified, and some units are changed in really bad(or at least annoying) ways. Jervis Johnson (GW high-up and rules designer) claims that the main rulebook contains all the rules you need to play any army, and maybe if you're some newbie with about three models that's true, but experienced non-Space Marines with large armies are in trouble. About 65-75% of my 5000+ point Eldar army is now unusable and illegal, as they completely forgot about the vital Harlequins, and no longer allow Guardians with Lasguns or Laspistols! At all!

My Genestealer Coven army is no longer useable either, at all, as there are no rules for it what so ever (Genestealer-Imperial Guard alliance maybe...). Players who are awaiting the return of Squats will have to keep waiting, possibly for a very long time, as there is _nothing_ on Squats in this, even less than in 2nd edition, which at least had the "Grey Codex". It is entirely unclear if alliances are even still possible as well. Despite the fact that the Assasins Codex was only released a short time ago, the Imperial Assassins are basically "screwed" too. So is the Avatar, the Farseer, Warlocks and all sorts of other exciting and interesting troop types. Terminators are better than ever, of course. This might be alright if Codexes for these troops were coming soon, but they aren't. The Eldar codex isn't out until next September at earliest, and Orks aren't until May. Tyranids et al(including Heroes of the Imperium) may well have to wait until 2000! Dark Eldar codex is out already in a blatant marketing attempt.

Overall then, it's not what's IN 40K 3rd edition, but rather what's missing that is bad. Psychic powers have been toned down almost to non-existence (and will stay that way, according to Jervis Johnson), Wargear cards no longer exist(nor does any alternative to them...), nor do exciting grenade types like Toxin, Tanglefoot, Rad, Photon or Vortex, and so on. Heroes no longer have levels, just types, and most are much weaker, particularly previous bigshots like the Avatar and Bloodthirster, who can both now be mowed down by sustained small arms fire(having worse saves than Space Marines vs. light weapons). It's a sad day when a Greater Daemon can be taken down by two guys with Autopistols... It seems that despite all the simplifications and improvements this edition is far less packed and contains vastly less, well, fun, than the previous ones. It's all so faceless... Basically I'd suggest sticking to 2nd edition for the moment unless you have a desperate need for the 3rd edition , at least until later in 1999 when a few more Codexes are out. I really like alot of 3rd edition's rules, and I want to like the game, but I can't because of how they've shafted all non-Space Marines by taking months or years over the release of their Codexes, and the Dark Eldar and C'Tan (Necrons) are both just to gimmicky for words...

Style: 5 (Excellent!)
Substance: 3 (Average)

Warhammer 40,000 3rd Edition
Author: Assorted Category: miniature Company/Publisher: Games Workshop Cost: £40-£49.99 Page count: Approx. 300 ISBN: 1-869893-19-0 Capsule Review by Alex Watters on 12/27/98. Genre tags: Science_fiction Far_Future Space	I was eager to see what exactly GW had done to 40K to warrant a 3rd Edition, and now I have, I really wonder exactly why they did it. First off, though, I'll look at the first impressions and good points of the new 40K boxed set, and then I'll examine the areas where it lacks.If you're not interested in the miniatures etcetera, and just the rules, you should feel free to skip the first four paragraphs. Be warned, this review is pretty thorough and thus fairly long. Your first impression on seeing the box will probably be mixed if you liked 2nd Edition 40K with it's good design and relatively elegant and colourful art. The cover painting is a typical John Blanche effort, featuring a black and white armoured legion of Space Marines shooting and posing. It's cluttered and inelegant,(some would even say "bad") but does the job, I suppose. Opening the box you find a single, massive book, ala Rogue Trader (40K first edition, for the newer GWers), and flicking through the book one sees that the cover trend is continued in the book with dark, cluttered, confused "imperial" artwork and a few good pieces here and there. The next thing you notice is the lack of counter sheets. This because they are no longer necessary. No, none. Well, technically anyway. Now onto the minatures and accessories... This is one area the new edition scores very highly in these regards. The miniatures are plastic but of a high quality not seen for about 6 years, and much finer than any previous plastic miniatures. You get 10 Space Marines including a Sargeant, a Missile-Launcher armed Heavy Weapons guy and one Marine equipped with a flamer. To call them "fully-poseable" would be inaccurate, but with separate and slightly different heads (even Mark 6 ones!), backpacks, torsos and legs as well as slightly different arms and a load of accessories such a telescopic sights, grenades, rockets and pockets, one can certainly achieve quite a variance of appearance. The models look good too, with nice proportions and really fine features. The only downer is that the arms and weapons are of a new and less poseable type than the old plastic arms that came with metal marines. The marine side gets a Land Speeder too, which is also nicely moulded and looks very good on it's twistable stand, and is fairly easy to put together. The 20 Dark Eldar miniatures are pretty good too, and, though clearly not of the same standard, they also allow alot of indivduality with separate heads, crests, spikes, torsos (even some female ones), legs and arms and weapons. They are slightly brittle though, and all the combat knives on my sprues snapped in half when I tried to remove them, however gently I did it. Most of the various spikes and blades came off fine, however, and the parts fit together suprisingly well. The main problem with Dark Eldar is their appearance, which is, well "not very scary". When I heard the term Dark Eldar (and after I stopped laughing...), I thought GW were going to create some menacing and original race, but what we actually have is "Dark Elves in Space", right down to the beserker women. Still, properly painted they might look somewhat menacing, what with all the spikes and so on. Then there is the other plastic stuff, which is, basically, two wrecked building corners, three barrels, an oil can, a barracade, two little pieces of rubble, four tree bases replete with an array of modular tree pieces, three transparent weapon templates and two range/LOS sticks. All of the scenery is very well made and absolutely light years ahead of the folded card stuff in the second edition, and the inclusion of transparent templates and Necromounda's LOS sticks is a welcome one. Now onto the important part, the new, revised, changed and, well, shrunk (as opposed to expanded) rules. As I said, good points first. The weapon system has been more or less completely changed and clarified and is far superior to the previous one in most respects and although it eliminates a few more "colourful" ammo types it overall makes virtually all weapons more useful. No longer is Rapid Fire restricted to the spoilt Space Marines, and is instead by weapon (and virtually all standard weapons have it). Shuriken Catapults become even better as they are now Assault class weapons which can move and fire at full rate and range and Needle Rifles become far more useful Sniper Rifles. Some other weapons are made much weaker though, particularly other Eldar ones, such as Death Spinners (which are now so bad as to be almost pointless, and actually worse than most normal weapons, no longer having a template, instant kill or any AP ability). Overall though, even as someone who fields an Eldar force, I can see the weapon changes are mainly positive and necessary. Another good point is the change in scenario rules, which are now much clearer and more interesting, and there are now experience rules, which are nice too. There are some problems with the scenario unit choice rules though, which are completely unecessarily restrictive, and stifle innovation or even more traditional setups. The movement rules have been dramatically changed as well, meaning more good news for Imperial players, especially Marines, and bad news for faster people like Eldar and Tyranids, as all infantry now has a move of 6 inches, all vehicles 12 or 24 inches, all jetpack-type devices 12 inches, bikes 12 inches, walkers 6 inches and cavalry 6 inches (although they have a very long Assault Move, more on that later). Turning is out(ie turn as much as you like) and any vehicle can move in any direction at full speed, excepting terrain modifiers, of course. This is overall an improvement, I think (although the one speed infantry rule is a tad boring), and certainly saves alot of time fiddlin with little turn templates and complex vehicle rules. Another major change is the close combat rules which are now far more abstract, and well, confusing and unrealistic, if alot faster. There are some serious problems here and alot of confusion and silliness. Remember the old Harlequin's Kiss weapon, one of the most deadly hand to hand weapons of 1st and 2nd edition 40K? Well it's now exactly as useful as a blunt, rusty, potato peeler or a piece of wood with a nail through the end in close combat... It's an extreme example but entirely true as they together with _all_ pistols (not matter how good) count as basic clsoe combat weapons. Power Weapons are all lumped together, which is fine, except power fists, thunder hammers and lightning claws (and presumably chain fists) which are all lumped with each other under weapon type of Power Fist. The new close combat rules are both good and bad, but are mainly just annoying, particularly as _all_ the weapons which have an advantage (the Power ones) are used mainly or entirely by the Imperials, and all they lost were the Chain weapons, and all the specialist Eldar and Tyranid weapons are made useless (which is particularly bizarre in the case of some weapons, like Boneswords, which were meant to be superior to Power swords...). Then we reach the low point, the worst part of the new rules, the army lists. If you, like most 40K players, play Space Marines, you have nothing to worry about. The Space Marine Codex and Blood Angels Codex are out already, and anyway the main 40K rules cover most Space Marine stuff. The other Space Marine codexes are out soon (within the next two months or so). If you're anyone else though, prepare to suffer. The army lists are severely incomplete and simplified, and some units are changed in really bad(or at least annoying) ways. Jervis Johnson (GW high-up and rules designer) claims that the main rulebook contains all the rules you need to play any army, and maybe if you're some newbie with about three models that's true, but experienced non-Space Marines with large armies are in trouble. About 65-75% of my 5000+ point Eldar army is now unusable and illegal, as they completely forgot about the vital Harlequins, and no longer allow Guardians with Lasguns or Laspistols! At all! My Genestealer Coven army is no longer useable either, at all, as there are no rules for it what so ever (Genestealer-Imperial Guard alliance maybe...). Players who are awaiting the return of Squats will have to keep waiting, possibly for a very long time, as there is _nothing_ on Squats in this, even less than in 2nd edition, which at least had the "Grey Codex". It is entirely unclear if alliances are even still possible as well. Despite the fact that the Assasins Codex was only released a short time ago, the Imperial Assassins are basically "screwed" too. So is the Avatar, the Farseer, Warlocks and all sorts of other exciting and interesting troop types. Terminators are better than ever, of course. This might be alright if Codexes for these troops were coming soon, but they aren't. The Eldar codex isn't out until next September at earliest, and Orks aren't until May. Tyranids et al(including Heroes of the Imperium) may well have to wait until 2000! Dark Eldar codex is out already in a blatant marketing attempt. Overall then, it's not what's IN 40K 3rd edition, but rather what's missing that is bad. Psychic powers have been toned down almost to non-existence (and will stay that way, according to Jervis Johnson), Wargear cards no longer exist(nor does any alternative to them...), nor do exciting grenade types like Toxin, Tanglefoot, Rad, Photon or Vortex, and so on. Heroes no longer have levels, just types, and most are much weaker, particularly previous bigshots like the Avatar and Bloodthirster, who can both now be mowed down by sustained small arms fire(having worse saves than Space Marines vs. light weapons). It's a sad day when a Greater Daemon can be taken down by two guys with Autopistols... It seems that despite all the simplifications and improvements this edition is far less packed and contains vastly less, well, fun, than the previous ones. It's all so faceless... Basically I'd suggest sticking to 2nd edition for the moment unless you have a desperate need for the 3rd edition , at least until later in 1999 when a few more Codexes are out. I really like alot of 3rd edition's rules, and I want to like the game, but I can't because of how they've shafted all non-Space Marines by taking months or years over the release of their Codexes, and the Dark Eldar and C'Tan (Necrons) are both just to gimmicky for words... Style: 5 (Excellent!) Substance: 3 (Average)

Warhammer 40,000 3rd Edition