Warhammer 40,000 3rd Edition, any 'gotchas' to be aware of?

[TheTrans]

Good Morning all!

 

(If Amicus Aedes isn't the right spot, please shot gun it to the correct spot mods).

My local group is arcing up some 3rd edition action and myself and a few of the boys are looking to maybe run a 3rd edition event in the middle of next year. 

While I got into 40k during 3rd edition, I never really played it properly, let alone attended any events.

The event we'll be running won't have any awards for 1st, 2nd 3rd etc, but will have a heap of hobby, fluff and terrain awards. But even without placing awards we'll no doubt get some people that will try and bring crotch-kicker lists, which we ideally want to avoid. 

So I suppose what I'm asking, for any of the...ah...older and more wise frater, what things would one need to watch out for at 3rd edition events/lists just to try and keep everyone within a reasonable balance point and to try and curb someone looking up something on the waybackmachine for 20 year old filth lists haha. 

Thanks in advance.

[Karhedron]

3rd edition was the age of the Rhino rush. Assault  squads in transports could move 12", disembark and then Assault for a crazy threat range. Units that got movement bonuses were the worst offenders. Khorne Beserkers were about the worst so if anyone turns up with 3+ units of those in Rhinos, they are one to watch out for.

 

Other power lists that spring to mind are the Eldar Black Guardian lists from the Eye of Terror expansion. MSU 5-man Guardian squads with Starcannons backed up by War Walkers with more starcannons and Dark Reapers to take out heavy targets.

 

The 3.5ed Chaos Codex could build some nasty lists. I seem to recall Iron Warriors artillery spam being quite nasty to face as they could run stolen IG artillery pieces. Slaanesh lists could be nasty too but the details escape me. Might have been Daemon Prince with Lash of Torment but I think the trauma may have blotted the true horrors from my mind with that one. 

 

If I think of any others, I will let you know.

[Mechanicus Tech-Support]

Ah yes the classic oops all starcannon's list. Honestly Starcannons and reapers will absolutely melt marines, doesnt even need to be eldar EoT lists, they just hurt.
Another annoying thing was eldars crystal targeting matrix for vehicles, move shoot move can be very powerful  

 

Playing Eldar in 3rd taught me not every list needs to be ard'boyz level 

[Trokair]

1,500 points was a fairly normal game size, and given that almost everything used to be more points than now armies might feel small. Also pay attention to the force organisation chart.  

Also most special characters required your opponent’s permission and could only be fielded above a certain game size (1,500 points some even 2,000 points I think). Old One Eye, and I think the Red Terror, could only be taken in armies below 1,500 points.  

 

Oh an another gotcha is that pre-measuring is not allowed. For example when shooting you declare your target then measure if you are in range (unless you had range finders or a similar upgrade).

[Dr_Ruminahui]

3rd edition is probably the edition where the melee/shooting balance was most in favour of melee (at least of the editions I've played - so everything from 3rd onward).  Combined with the mandatory troop slots, many of the most powerful armies of that edition had troop choices that were also potent in melee - this is one of the reasons space wolves were particularly popular in 3rd.

 

There are a bunch of other rules interactions that I remember negatively, but I would want to recheck those before complaining to make sure that I'm recalling them correctly.

[Marshal Rohr]

Starcannons and Rhino Templars. The good old days. 

[Noserenda]

Blood angels and Orks can do turn one charges if you arent careful out of transports, Eldar shinanegans are fairly well covered above but really dont underestimate move shoot move! Oh and Wraithlords being immune to S4 and below could be brutal.

Chaos is a whole thing, armies are either wildly OP or gimped through the floor, unlike the above frater id argue World eaters are one of the latter, knock out their rhinos and they have to move towards the nearest thing, which can easily be a light skimmer or something sat behind them and then their whole army is on autopilot desperately trying to hit a skimmer on 6's.

Iron warrior lists were as common as they were cookie cutter tedium, loads of pie plates blowing holes in stuff, i think the Emperors children trick was a daemon bomb, usually a biker character zooming right into your army and summoning masses of demons on top of you, Thousand sons could do a skew list as Rubrics are immune to small arms but their damage wasnt much luckily :D 

The Rhino rush is definitely strong in early edition but shooty Iron Warriors and Eldar ruled the late game.

[Gorechilde]

My memories of third edition come with some odd exploits that made life interesting at times. The nearly unstoppable Eldar Wraith Lord was a force to be reckoned with. High toughness and several wounds meant it took concentrated Lascannon fire to drop one in a turn or two. Your non-assault based marines usually ran 5-man Las/plas builds with a razorback mounting Lascannons. A chaplain on a bike was your go-to HQ. White Scars could mount their command squads on bikes, making two HQ choices worth 1200 points out of a 1500 point list with plasma and power weapons for everybody. Orks could easily lock down multiple squads into close combat due to their unit size.

 

Necrons only had a raiding list, yet they could destroy every vehicle on the board with massive amounts of automatic glancing hits. Their scarabs were fast moving melta bombs that could detonate at initiative 10, but could also choose to simply fight instead and lock down devastator squads and wraith lords in close combat for three or four turns and effectively remove them from the game until they are no longer as useful to the fight.

 

The Imperial Calidus Assassin was a one warrior army with the ability to obliterate all enemies in close combat with phase blade attacks, then disengage during the enemy turn and jump out of close combat, then neuro shred their enemy in the following turn before charging in and demolishing whatever is left. Equally devastating was the Solitaire, which hit on 2's, wounded on 2's, was only struck on 6's, had a 2+ invulnerable save, and 6 attacks +1 attack per inch not used of their 12 inch charge.

 

It is important to note that while a model could not add their attacks to a fight if they were more than 2 inches outside base-to-base contact, the wounds a squad receives from an enemy will carry through the squad regardless of the distance. For an example, the above mentioned Solitaire or Calidus Assassin. Each puts out 6+ attacks and have the ability to hit a unit fast. Each hits with their attacks easily and pretty  much erase any save against their attacks by the defender. So if we had an Ork mob of Boyz stretched out in a straight line with 2 inch coherency, you would have a line over 40 inches long. A Solitaire hits it on the end from six inches away, giving it 12 attacks, and inflicts 11 unsavable wounds. The casualties in close combat start closest and work their way out. This means that orks 20 to 30 inches from the Solitaire are being removed from the Solitaires melee attacks. I would love to see an anime representation of this concept.

 

In fact, the entire Harlequin army was unbelievably powered. I once played a 5000 point game that had Imperial Guard on one side and Harlequins on the other. The IG used their entire deployment zone of six feet long by twelve inches deep. The Harlequin force consisted of twenty models with the Solitaire and Death Jesters murdering about three feet of that deployment zone by the beginning of turn three. They were expensive in points and expensive in pewter to purchase back then, but they were incredibly lethal.

 

Deep-strike was dangerous for both sides of a match. One side had to worry about mishaps deleting that squad of terminators carrying the heavy flamers, or the scatter dice taking them into a less than useful place. The other side had to be concerned with point-blank flamer templates hitting clustered units, in some cases followed by assault. An added danger that was removed in fourth edition was the ability to opt out of rolling for reserves for your turn. This allowed for a player to ignore their reserves until turn four when a 2+ roll could bring in your reserves and then they could do a mass deep-strike assault with all of their reserve forces at once, unless a unit rolled a 1.

 

Deployment had some tricks to it, such as area denial. If you had a four-corners deployment board you could place your first unit, (usually a dreadnought for Chaos due to frenzy), at the center point of the table and thus force your opponents to push back their deploying units to avoid being too close, I believe the rules forced them back either 12 or 18 inches. This also affected infiltrator deployment as well, which always happens last during setup.

 

3rd Edition was a blast to play. Especially when they reintroduced vehicle design rules. I had a dreadnought with four whirlwind pods on it's shoulders and a heavy flamer in each arm. The guess-range artillery was fun and lethal. My Black Templars ran at the enemy with each voluntarily failed morale check and were lead by a mandatory Emperor's Champion, who was oddly stout for a 101 point HQ choice. Necrons were horribly limited to one choice for each force org selection, but they required a fair bit of finesse because of this, that made them addictive. It was a fun time for the hobby.

Edited November 15, 2023 by Gorechilde

[Noserenda]

Oooof yeah Harlequins were savage, though weak to mass small arms (hardly a meta build tho!) and they were a Journal list so not fully official exactly. You did remind me that swooping hawk exarchs with a web of skulls could also do the infinite kills trick, my record was 40ish guardsmen in one awful sprawling multiple combat :D 

Definitely the true lasplas tactical squads, that was their nickname around my parts they were that ubiquitous, the Razorback was common but not guaranteed :) 

Necrons were nasty but always lost due to phase out, if you kill most of their army by model count they would just nope out, especially grim if you wanted to use their Pariahs who were both expensive and didnt count towards phase out!  

[crimsondave]

All I remember was Dark Angels were God awful.

[Gorechilde]

11 minutes ago, Noserenda said:

Necrons were nasty but always lost due to phase out, if you kill most of their army by model count they would just nope out, especially grim if you wanted to use their Pariahs who were both expensive and didnt count towards phase out!  

 

I had forgotten that their first real codex came out just before Fourth Edition dropped. Yes, that full codex made the Necrons obscenely brutal. I think I made a record of 72 consecutive successful "I'll be back" rolls one game and my opponent quit after satisfying himself that my dice weren't loaded. The lore for that codex was very dark and in some ways better than the complete retcon the current lore supports. I wish they could have better meshed the two identities for the race.

[Rain]

1 hour ago, Noserenda said:

Chaos is a whole thing, armies are either wildly OP or gimped through the floor, unlike the above frater id argue World eaters are one of the latter, knock out their rhinos and they have to move towards the nearest thing, which can easily be a light skimmer or something sat behind them and then their whole army is on autopilot desperately trying to hit a skimmer on 6's.

This gets overhyped in my opinion. They only had to move toward the closest enemy unit if you rolled a 1 or 2 on the rage roll. On the other hand, this also gave them an extra D6 of movement, after which they could still charge, giving them a threat range of 12 + D6 on foot.

 

If the Land Speeder in question actually got charged, it would usually die to the ubiquitous power fist champ, krak grenades, or just a tide of S5 attacks if the squad had FC, which was very popular on Berzerkers.

 

The worst thing about true WE lists in 3.5 was that they couldn’t take obliterators, which were really strong. Khorne Black Legion (with no unit restrictions) was really good though.

[Noserenda]

1 hour ago, Rain said:

This gets overhyped in my opinion. They only had to move toward the closest enemy unit if you rolled a 1 or 2 on the rage roll. On the other hand, this also gave them an extra D6 of movement, after which they could still charge, giving them a threat range of 12 + D6 on foot.

 

If the Land Speeder in question actually got charged, it would usually die to the ubiquitous power fist champ, krak grenades, or just a tide of S5 attacks if the squad had FC, which was very popular on Berzerkers.

 

The worst thing about true WE lists in 3.5 was that they couldn’t take obliterators, which were really strong. Khorne Black Legion (with no unit restrictions) was really good though.

Oh believe me it happened enough that i ditched my world eater force id been slow growing since the end of 1st ed and never looked back, you forget they are hitting skimmers on 6's so it was pretty common for the things to survive and for your opponent to pour on more shooting. 

No matter how mechanically strong things look on paper, if your opponent is choosing where you move its endlessly frustrating to actually play.

[TheTrans]

Alright, so 3rd was as broken as one would expect from GW, (how times don't change haha ;) ).

So so far major 'watch outs' are:
-Eldar Starcannon Spam

-3.5 CSM Iron Warrior Leaf Blowers
-3.5 Slaanesh Summon Bombs
-Space Marine Las/Plas squads w/ Possibly Las/Plas Razorback 

-Watchout of Buckets of Rhinos
-Harlequins are utter bull:cuss: and probably shouldn't be allowed. 

Would it be advisable to use the 'trial' vehicle and assault rules, or just go 'vanilla' 3rd?

 

Also tempted to allow the Vehicle Design Rules, but it be EO's discretion sort of thing. If you've got a legitimately cool model and want to use it in 3rd and it doesn't have a reasonable 'counts as' have at it, just don't be a dick. Thoughts on that? 

[Cleon]

Personally I wouldn't even consider touching vanilla 3rd without the trial vehicle and assault rules. I'd agree with VDR for 'later models that don't have 3rd ed rules  WYSIWIG' rather than a free for all as they were as exploitable as hell.

 

I think 3rd gets you out just before unkillable Falcons made Eldar a poor experience (might have been 4th)

 

Otherwise similar to the above, Rhino based assault troops were the king of the game, Khorne marked characters and Blood Angels Librarians were broken as hell and Dark Angels were a soul killer in how bad they were as a play experience (oh 1 in 6 of your units refuses to move, how fun for you....)

[Karhedron]

2 hours ago, Cleon said:

I think 3rd gets you out just before unkillable Falcons made Eldar a poor experience (might have been 4th)

 

Yes, I think indestructible Falcons and Tau Fish of Fury were 4th edition developments.

[Noserenda]

Vehicle design rules weren't inherently broken, as long as someone isn't trying to break them, working off existing models is a good rule of thumb for example.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

My army in 3rd was the Alpha Legion "Oops, everything infiltrates!" force.  And by everything, I mean "anything in power armor can infiltrate for 1 point per model."

 

Las/plas CSM squads that start on midfield objectives sound manageable until you remember that Raptors with an attached flying Lord can start literally 12" away from your lines, then move 12" and still charge.

 

So keep an eye out for something like that.

[phandaal]

13 hours ago, crimsondave said:

All I remember was Dark Angels were God awful.

 

They were not incredible, that's for sure.

 

On the other hand, Orks were a lot of fun!

[lhg033]

Was it 3rd edition where there were Specific rules for Dark angels vs Space wolves so that they hit each other on 3's regardless of stats etc?

I might be misremembering or getting the wrong edition but I'm sure I had a game against a friend where scouts vs Ragnar resulted in Ragnar running off the board because of this.

 

Also, I dont think DA could ally with anyone other than themselves or successors.

[jaxom]

Space Marines loaded up with MSU Tactical Squads with a mix of heavy bolters and lascannons was surprisingly damaging and hard to clear off the board. Something like 60-70 marines depending on characters.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

It's also worth noting that 3rd edition had two completely different rulesets for the assault and charge phases. Andy Chambers released a beta version in White Dwarf a few years in, which I think was partially based on the Cityfighr rule changes?

[ZeroWolf]

I remember the trial assault rules they gave me some good times with my tyranids...especially loaded up with 32 Hormagaunts 

[ThePenitentOne]

Sort of a tongue-in-cheek response here, but the biggest gotcha in 3rd for me went like this:

 

GW- Check out this Witch Hunter book.

Me- This is the coolest thing I've ever seen!

GW- Oh, if you liked that, check out this Daemon Hunter book.

Me- Holy crap dude! This is awesome! Can't wait for the Alien Hunter book!

GW- Gotcha!

[Petitioner's City]

@TheTrans - can I ask when in 3rd your event is taking its lead from? Is it the game at the end of the edition (2004), or a point during it?

 

Are you allowing fun things like Chapter Approved lists and options (e.g. Andy Hoare's Codex Kroot, the feral orks list, etc.; vehicle design rules, etc), Forge World's additions from during the edition, Citadel Journal additional lists (gsc, for example), and so on? 

 

To be honest all of this was what entranced me as a young 'un during third, and I'd hope it's all there for you too :)