Third edition 40K in 2024!
What you need to know about 3rd-a-palooza
Local tabletop wargaming legend and all-round great guy Nick Beattie was kind enough to answer a few questions about a third edition Warhammer 40K event he and his team recently ran at The Esplanade in Geelong.
Q&A time with 3rd-a-palooza event organiser Nick Beattie
Q: What inspired you and the local wargaming community to organise a third edition Warhammer 40K event in 2024?
A: Honestly I think it stemmed from myself wanting a bit of a break from 30K (which is, realistically, marines on marines and only select chapters at that) to sort of stretch out my hobby legs a bit.
I wanted to do some work on some T’au or Tyranids or something of that ilk (incidentally, after trying to avoid marines, I ended up whipping up a quick ‘Gumby’ army of Crimson Fist marines from the third ed. codex cover art haha … so go figure) and obviously you want to smash out some games if you're building an army!
Myself and my local group of guys leapt into eighth ed. when it dropped, we enjoyed the shake up and sort of the 'blank slate' that everyone started off with.
The rules were simple, as were the stat lines, but not long into eighth you started getting all the stratagem shenanigans rattling around, the constant churn of codices, huge FAQs, point changes we found even as ninth ed. started. If you weren't living and breathing it, it was pretty hard to keep up. We all held our breath for 10th, and, well, the lack of any real list building nuance sort of killed it dead in its tracks for us.
So we started looking into older editions – both myself and a good handful of my friends got in when third was the current edition. I doubt any of us even played games back then, but it had that heavy nostalgia pull and that’s what drew me into looking into it. After having a good read and nodding a lot at the rules, also looking over all the released codices, chapter approved rules etc. it really sang out to us.
As an aside, Victoria and more broadly Australia had a bit of a resurgence of sixth ed. Warhammer Fantasy Battles (WHFB) over the last couple of years which everyone quite enjoyed.
With the variety of material released and armies available it was a fantastic 'old' edition of fantasy to get into, and I think third being of a similar era and GW mindset made it an easier sell to people.
So after much umming and ahhing and agonising over fourth or third, we went third. The rulebook certainly had a bit more late ‘90s GW jank and weirdness, but the sheer volume of extra armies and rules that were released in third sold us on that edition. Not to mention the ‘3.5’ Chaos Space Marines codex may be the most comprehensive, cool and broad codex ever released!
Q: The lore from that era is particularly rich. What are your favourite authors and stories from that time?
A: Well as I said above, I got into 40k in that third 'bracket' with said rich lore. I think my first GW novels were probably the Space Wolves ones by Bill King, followed up by the wonders of Dan Abnett, including the likes of the Xenos of the Eisenhorn series. So again, like many people getting into older editions there was a level of nostalgia there. But also, I find the lore in third edition, like in the codices and what not, to be most fantastic by what ISN'T explained.
This also can be said for the WHFB sixth ed. army books also, but I really find the lore 'tidbits' and the black-and-white art so heavily used in that era almost add more depth to the setting than what we currently have which I find can be over examined and over explained.
The older editions with its very concentrated, but sparse bits of 'in universe' lore gave you so much more room to play in the grey areas than the sort of 'no, Roboute is in every battle' that we see rattling around today.
So the TL:DR would be the limited, but fantastic lore gave your imagination free reign to fill in the many blankets!
Q: That rulebook you compiled specifically for this event was an impressive undertaking. It even included Vehicle Design Rules. That must've been a challenging and daunting task?
A: Honestly just transposing all the old rules into a printable document wasn't too hard, just very time consuming. Massaging in the Trial Vehicle and Assault rules was probably the most annoying part. After some heavy usage on the weekend there is certianly some parts of the rulebook that will need neatening/spell check and even just an 'EO's Note' or something of that ilk to help people move along on weird rule interactions.
The Vehicle Design Rules, weren't actually in the rulebook, but the PDF of them was made available to anyone that wanted or needed them. I believe after all of that though only two people opted to use the VDR/Monstrous Design Rules. But at least it gave people the option!
Q: What do you like the most about the third edition rules?
A: I think what really draws me to the third edition rules is a combination of things. First up I like it has a much lower lethality in its shooting phase (outside of some corner cases) which allows you to do something with your army if you don't get first turn. Also you really have to make hard decisions in the game, it has nowhere the amount of guide rails the later editions do (i.e. run for everyone, rapid fire weapons easily firing from the hip etc.). You'd often find yourself having to forego any reasonable amount of shooting due to having to move troops as you know there wasn't the ability to 'run' them up later.
You need to have your limited forces kind of doing something, to their fullest every turn. On top of this the lack of pre-measuring speeds the game up a lot as there isn't any of the ‘Ok well I'm 18.1’ away, so no matter what you can't charge me’ sort of stuff, you just move your guys up 6" and hope for the best.
Also the relative simplicity of the rules I found was a huge win. I had a few players that had never played third (I had one player, a mate doing me a favour as a Gumby, who had never played any version of 40K!) who, after their first round had a very firm grip of the rules and had no issues pushing their armies around, to great effect, for the rest of the event!
Finally also I feel the army sizes where pretty reasonable. Units and models where generally more expensive in third, points wise, than in later editions, and running the event at 1,500 tightened the sheer amount of models down a fair bit, if you really needed to lower your model count. At the same time though, it still had enough scope for people, if they chose, to effectively run horde armies.
So the TL:DR of what most do I like about 3rd would be no pre-measuring, simple, yet deep rules and reasonable army sizes.
Q: For 3rd-a-palooza 2024: Eye of Terror, there was a major focus on narrative-driven conflict with approx. 32 players divided into two forces, order and disorder. Each side was further broken down into smaller teams that functioned as battlegroups/warhosts each comprising four players. Is that accurate?
A: That is spot on mate! These Battlegroups/Warhosts could then be deployed to one of three sectors each round, depending on where their Strategic Commander thought they'd be best used!
In hindsight I feel we could have probably invested a little more time and weight into these decisions for the StratComs but by and large I think it invested people enough, without (hopefully) causing to much brain strain.
Q: How did the narrative play out over the course of the weekend?
A: I think as people got more into it and started spotting the control over certain systems fluctuate they certainly lent into the battles a bit more which was fun to see.
Overall, it was quite interesting watching the sway of control over the systems.
At the end of rounds 1 and 2 (the initial 'deciding' rounds) Both Aripinnaa and Thracian Primaris were firmly, and I mean firmly, in Disorder hands, while Cadia was evenly matched.
Over the rest of the weekend Thracian Primaris and Aripinnaa stayed in Disorder's control over all, but we had some points when they were almost wrestled back.
Cadia, amazingly and narratively, held and over the course of the weekend and became more and more under control of Order as Adam, the Order StratCom, kept applying some attacking forces there to keep it in control.
Overall, Disorder firmly controlled two of the three sectors, but given that Cadia still stood, I feel, at least thematically, it felt like an Order victory!
Q: Were there any epic moments you would like to share?
A: I asked players to jot down any notes in a score sheet, including anything fun or cool happening, while I got a lot of cool little tidbits in shorthand, such as Abaddon getting trounced by a Storm Guardian, or a single Veteran Sergeant with a powerfist murdering two Hive Tyrants(!!) outside of that we didn't have any huge, Abaddon vs Eldrad punch offs or anything like that.
Q: Third edition evokes loads of nostalgia. The winner of the Goblin Green Rimmer (EO's Choice) award, Adam Smith, brought an amazing Eldar army to the table. He mentioned it was a long-time goal of his to complete that project. It sounds like many hobbyists took this opportunity to work on minis that have been in storage for decades?
A: Yeah Adams all-metal (well some resin ;) ) Eldar army looked fantastic and managed to squeeze through the EO's Choice award as it looked fantastic and was very on-brand for early third!
The other major contender (and recipient of the 'Nostalgia Buster' most third ed. army award) went to Evan Valdyke and his amazingly third ed. Blood Angels army!
We also had Dan's Dark Eldar which were made entirely from the **Cluteches pearls** third ed. models, but with the paint job he had given them they looked fantastic!
Across the field we had an excellent amount of models rocking the third ed. vibes, people using third ed. models, or even more modern armies still managing to capture the third ed. feels, so by and large it was a fantastic line-up of armies, and themes and was a joy to see!
Q: What kind of battlefields did players wage war on? Who supplied the terrain?
A: The lionshare of the battlefields were supplied by the amazing Lachie and Dave of Target Acquired Tabletop Wargaming Geelong.
Lachie and Dave have helped me now with two events, a close mate Corey with his event also and innumerable other EOs with their terrain needs.
Not only that while those boys have a good volume of terrain, the quality of all of it is fantastic and always in good repair which no doubt takes a huge amount of effort from those two, so honestly boys, thank you for your indispensable help!
From a type standpoint we had all sorts, ruined cities, farm land, desert mesas, ice canyons the full gamut, gave most peoples armies somewhere to be on their 'home turf' with.
Q: It's awesome to see a sportsmanship award in there as well. Given the logistics and scale of this event, setting that expectation for fair and fun gameplay would've been essential?
A: Honestly any event I run will never encourage any form of battlepoint winner in any real sense, and if it does it is clearly the 'lesser' of any awards that go out.
I've found that having a best sports award isn't so much like a goal for people as my expectation is everyone should be rocking up to this event with a pretty open mind and easy attitude, but a prize for someone who exemplifies the fun, roll some dice, talk some shit and look at pretty models ideals of the event!
Luckily everyone that did rock up was by and large a good dude, and as far as I'm aware as an EO there wasn't any major neck-bearding or unreasonable rules conflicts. As an EO I had a very easy time of all of the above on that front so thank you to all the attendees for being functional adults and working stuff out ;).
Q: You've teased another third edition event for next year, Armageddon! That's exciting. Do you have any advice for anyone tempted to give the next one a go?
A: Yeah given the reception 3AP:EoT received and the general thirstiness for third that has come after the event I think I'll run 3AP next year. As you've said we'll be looking at Armageddon! Everything is very broadly spitballing at this point but I suppose I can say is we need Orks, Orks and more Orks and If someone has a titan or Stompa, this may the event for you!
Q: Is there anything else you would like to add?
A: Not really, I had an amazing weekend, got to meet a heap of people I've never laid eyes on before and just generally spent a good two days hanging around with an awesome lot of blokes, playing a game, in a setting that we all clearly love!
Feedback from the players
Great time all round, pew pew. Jacked up Archon smashed up some ladies and received a swift retribution. Four Dark Eldar units in opposing deployment, one sisters unit in deployment zone.
Ork rokkits rained on the knife ears pulverising them to dust!!
60 per cent casualty rate via dangerous terrain, Korolis is a hellhole.
Sisters have AP 1 bolters with acts of faith! Stay away from penitent engines.
Heavy bolter triple penned a rhino first turn.
Hive tyrant ate the red seer council.
Dreadnought died before it did anything.
Order 367, disorder 86 VP. Ogryns hulk smashed a squad of cultists.
A tactical marine bolter killed an oblitorator when a plasmagun, lascannon, and furioso dreadnought couldn’t.
Necrons are hard as fuck.
+3 control points for Order player. Final round down to two kills to secure area of control. Close game!
Jork Redboots trusty steed Red Un, on losing its rokkit launcher, makes one desperate last charge at the enemy to be detonated by a plasma gun leaving no trace of the mad machine.
Close game! Randalls good bloke!
Death Company bolt pistols glanced a Raider to death.
Scattered a big boi demo charge into Old One Eye.
Brendan’s Havoks abandoned duty and failed to come on from reserves.
Cameron is a fucking top bloke.
Two demo charges scattered back wiping the squads.
Yet again the rangers ran away.
Jork Redboots, angry at the failure of his boys rokkit strikes, charges and and destroys a land raider in single combat. The nob who allegedly charged the tank with him was never heard from again.
Dangerous terrain = 1s!
Warboss can opener.
Exarch kills DP, runs into brick wall lol.
Abbadon getting killed by a storm guardian
Zombies and Guard battled it out in a long line all game
Deathwatch captain spam killing.
Super frogs for the win
Daemons v. Daemon Hunters. Banished to the warp foul spawn.
Abaddon got reverse bukkaked by 18 Battle Sisters.
War of attrition yet again with the Krieg tar pit soaking up the Dark Eldar’s drug-fuelled rage
A Veteran Sergeant with a power weapon and storm shield killed two Winged Hive Tyrants.
Snipers took out the Daemon Prince model turn one.
Invincible nob.
Soooooooo many ones.
Uriel didn't die ... Again.
Wolf lord is the demon slayer.
Jork Redboots fought valiantly and died early.
Fire prism wiping the table.
Best. Game. Ever.
Opponent used shag carpet on his table, you know who else liked shag carpet? Jeffery epstein.
Bunker got immobilised four times
Scouts wounded Abaddon.
THE ARCHON DID NOT OVERDOSE.
Soooooo many necrons.
Necron Lord lasting five turns in combat with Wraithlord. Immortal Farseer
Matador exploding its own weapon.Demolisher off with no victor and demon summoning.
Great Unclean One and Avatar of Khaine honour duel. GUO had the Avatar down to one wound, GUO down to five. GUO stability test rolled a 15 losing the final five wounds.
Jork Redboots, tired of his many victories, decides to take a break put his stinky green feet up.
Incubi fleeing from lasgun shooting, wyches losing combat after three drawn rounds to a command squad.
Lascannon Pred couldn't kill a Rhino and a multi-melta Attack Bike missed every turn.
Half strength, the Guard held the line