An 'Old School' 10th Edition 40k Tournament

[Lathe Biosas]

Our group has tossed out an idea for all the "more mature" players (physically, not mentally).

 

The "Old School 10th Edition 40k Tournament!"

 

In this tournament you get to play like it was 1996, and you were still rocking out with your dial-up modem.

 

FAQs? Game Balance Data-nonsense? Bah! None of that here.

 

You must bring a 1750 point 10th Edition tournament legal point list... with some "old school" changes (or should I say, lack thereof).

 

 

 

1. Players can use any print Codexes and Supplements (including White Dwarf supplements) to build their armies.

 

 

 

2. Books and supplements are used with their exact, printed wording. No FAQs, no errata, no online detachments, no balance dataslate.

 

 

 

3. Ignore any army construction rules and dataslates that aren’t in the Core Rules, your Codex, or a Supplement you’re using.

 

 

 

4. Use only codex point values, as printed.

 

 

 

5. No Warhammer+ App or games-workshop (or any such online app can be accessed during the tournament).

 

 

 

6. All lists must be handwritten or typed and printed.

 

 

7. EDIT: REMOVED

 

8. You must bring the books you want to use to the Tournament.

 

 

Would you play? 

 

(And did we miss anything?)

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 27 by Lathe Biosas
Removed 7. You are allowed to use the Imperial Armour hardback. The Information is out of date.

[Kommisar_K]

Clarification requested - can you use any points values? Or just the most recent?

[Lathe Biosas]

1 hour ago, Kommisar_K said:

Clarification requested - can you use any points values? Or just the most recent?

 

Whatever is in your Codex. That's where you pull your points from.

[DanPesci]

14 hours ago, Lathe Biosas said:

7. You are allowed to use the Imperial Armour hardback.

 

AFAIK the last printed hardback of Imperial Armour was in 9th edition, and is now out of date if you were wanting to use that alongside 10th edition codex/rules (WS/BS is handled differently, marines still have chapters, Toughness values are out of line with 10th etc - e.g. a land raider achilles is only T8, leviathan dreads are T7).

 

In 10th all the Imperial Armour/Legends entries are now digital downloads, so you'd maybe want to change that to being able to use as long as theyve printed off the download.

 

 

[Lathe Biosas]

1 hour ago, DanPesci said:

 

AFAIK the last printed hardback of Imperial Armour was in 9th edition, and is now out of date if you were wanting to use that alongside 10th edition codex/rules (WS/BS is handled differently, marines still have chapters, Toughness values are out of line with 10th etc - e.g. a land raider achilles is only T8, leviathan dreads are T7).

 

In 10th all the Imperial Armour/Legends entries are now digital downloads, so you'd maybe want to change that to being able to use as long as theyve printed off the download.

 

 

Excellent point.

 

I think this was a concession to our Imperial Knights player who bought a Lancer.

 

It's probably best to remove #7 altogether. 

[DemonGSides]

Sounds like a headache, honestly. Points values being the biggest one; I can understand "Use the sheet as printed in the book" but having the points be current so as to streamline army building feels line a small easy concession.

 

Sort of feels like someone thinks their printed codex was strong but got nerfed and now they want to go beat some people up. I wonder. 

[gaurdian31]

Or people just want to pay for a codex and just use the rules in the book they paid for? That streamlines the army building because you only have to reference one thing, the codex you paid for. Sort of like was done in previous editions, old school style.

[Dr. Clock]

This seems like more work for anyone who actually knows their rules and keeps up with changes. For a 'learning event' where many/most people will be completely or nearly new to the edition it might be easier than getting everyone the rules on the app, but outside of that I don't quite see the value here...

 

I understand and agree that the pricing model on rules access between books and WH+ is anti-consumer, but this kind of restriction doesn't add value in a meaningful sense for me. When you pay for a new codex today you are paying for the digital access code as well. I wish they were separated as distinct products, but that's not the world we live in (yet).

 

Like the expectation is that we' prepare for these games and learn or look up every rule as originally written rather than just... referring to the app and our knowledge of the game as it is today?  Basically we'll be self-consciously playing a version of the rules that nobody outside our group will share, and that the designers don't recommend.

 

In essence I think the best features of this idea can be enjoyed well enough by leaving this as just an idea. Personally after about a turn of play like this I would likely just ask opponent if we can use our current rules instead. 

 

More constructively, I'm pretty sure there were FAQs and other external sources to refer to in 1996... Heck, I used to be able to call the local warehouse Trolls for rules help during games.

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

[gaurdian31]

There were FAQs and such but they weren't always easily accessible or even known about. When I started playing I was unaware of White Dwarf and that Games Workshop even had a website, but then I didn't really do much online at the time either. The FAQs and such also didn't happen very frequently. Heck, some armies were still using their 3rd edition codexes in 5th edition like the Dark Eldar. Not saying that is a good thing either. It does make it simpler though to just have to reference your codex and the main rulebook and not have to look up a bunch of stuff online. Would be nice if GW just tested the rules first to make sure they don't need to be constantly updated so print codexes stay valid.

[Dr. Clock]

7 hours ago, gaurdian31 said:

Would be nice if GW just tested the rules first to make sure they don't need to be constantly updated so print codexes stay valid.

Fair enough, but I much prefer the current 'living ruleset' vibe to the one that left me occasionally without a Codex for entire editions of the game, or just resulted in obvious and sometimes staggering codex creep. They didn't test things super well before instituting the current paradigm either from what I could tell, it's just that we usually had to wait like a couple years at least for things to be actually fixed, but even then it was usually just 'different' rather than better. These days it seems like things actually do get better, and when things get out of whack it's only ever for 6-12 weeks tops. 

 

It's intriguing that basically we almost can't tell which codexes would be over or under powered based on 'only the books as originally printed', but I have a sense that there would be some pretty obvious codex creep setting in about now... Like AdMech would be WAY less interesting, and Marines would be completely overtaken by the variant chapters... So it does feel somewhat like this kind of conscious limitation would actually mean we'd just be playing a worse game IMO.

 

I think the 'testing in the wild' that happens after codexes come out kind just can't be done nearly as well 'under wraps' unless they break the codex schedule up alot more, and they just... aren't going to do that.

 

Anyway - it's an interesting thought experiment; thx to OP for the food for thought!

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

[gaurdian31]

On 10/29/2025 at 8:07 PM, Dr. Clock said:

Fair enough, but I much prefer the current 'living ruleset' vibe to the one that left me occasionally without a Codex for entire editions of the game, or just resulted in obvious and sometimes staggering codex creep. They didn't test things super well before instituting the current paradigm either from what I could tell, it's just that we usually had to wait like a couple years at least for things to be actually fixed, but even then it was usually just 'different' rather than better. These days it seems like things actually do get better, and when things get out of whack it's only ever for 6-12 weeks tops. 

 

It's intriguing that basically we almost can't tell which codexes would be over or under powered based on 'only the books as originally printed', but I have a sense that there would be some pretty obvious codex creep setting in about now... Like AdMech would be WAY less interesting, and Marines would be completely overtaken by the variant chapters... So it does feel somewhat like this kind of conscious limitation would actually mean we'd just be playing a worse game IMO.

 

I think the 'testing in the wild' that happens after codexes come out kind just can't be done nearly as well 'under wraps' unless they break the codex schedule up alot more, and they just... aren't going to do that.

 

Anyway - it's an interesting thought experiment; thx to OP for the food for thought!

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

Getting a bit off topic but I really wish that GW would release all the codexes at the beginning of the edition and then just release campaign books/boxes the rest of the edition. That should give them time to test things and then once released into the wild they can update with FAQs. Then everything should be in a good spot so things are getting tweaked every two weeks and the codexes are at least worth the money spent on them. They can still release new rules and models in the campaign books/boxes.