Tell me the saga of 3rd/3.5 edition

[Uprising]

I started the hobby when 4th ed was rolling over to 5th edition.  I been hearing alot lately about many hobbyist, including those in my group thinking of moving back to 3rd/3.5 edition.  What is the appeal?  What was the drawback of the edition?  How big where the armies model wise / point wise on average?  I have a few codexes and the rulebook from the era, and it seems simple, yet highly customizable narrative game.  Thoughts?  

[Captain Idaho]

The game felt more customisable yet nothing was so powerful you'd get wiped off the table at a breath like 5th edition + was.

 

3.5 Chaos Codex in particular was the premium, best Codex 40K has ever did see.

 

Plus narrative feel. Everything felt unique to each army, rather than the "Everything hits on a 3+ and these S4, AP-1 weapons are totally different to those S4, AP-1 weapons."

 

Plus plus, the character of the various armies felt more in line with a sandbox we could happily engage with. When GW started updating the narrative every release in recent times, it ceased to be a sandbox and became us playing some games to be told what the narrative was.

 

Codex Necrons had mystery and omnipresent impending danger, rather than the juvenile "human Egyptian empires but really Xenos, honest" mess that they are now.

 

My most enjoyable games were 3.5 days to be honest. I've never had games as fun as back then.

[Karhedron]

3rd edition had some things that didn't appeal to me. Rhino rush in particular was crazy in the way it made transports so much better than jump packs for melee units. The 3.5E Chaos codex was kinda busted. I preferred 4/5th edition. 

[W.A.Rorie]

I played a lot of 3rd edition as a Space Wolf, Black Templar, Dark Angels, Sisters of Battle and Emperor's Children player.  3rd edition has some nostalgia for me. I started at the tail end of 2nd edition so I was able to learn 3rd edition with @The_Oni_of_Hindsight . During this edition my GF/ Fiancé broke up with me so I spent a lot of time at my FLGS Imperial Outpost mending from the break up.  Owner of Imperial Outpost retired this year and closed his store, Last year I married my former Fiancé after we reconnected 20+ years later. 

 

Space Wolves had a unique flair to the army that I loved. 1 hq for every 750 points in your army, The Wolf Scouts coming in the enemy deployement zone and vaporizing tanks. Wolf Guard Terminators in the 1 Land Raider Crusader all non Black Templar Players were allowed, Hatred Dark Angels and Thousand Sons.

 

Sisters of Battle went from having like 10 total units (Rhino, Immolator, Confessor, Priest, Missionary, Canoness, Battle Sister Squad 5-7 models, Seraphim 5 models, Seraphim Command Squad 5 models, and Frateris Militia) to larger squads and more units including Retriburotrs, Celestians, and Redemptionist. 

 

Customization was probably the biggest thing back then.  And some crazy  rules, like Thousand Son Marines could not be hurt by range attacks of that were  Str 4 or less. 

Edited November 14 by W.A.Rorie

[Evil Eye]

10 hours ago, Captain Idaho said:

The game felt more customisable yet nothing was so powerful you'd get wiped off the table at a breath like 5th edition + was.

 

3.5 Chaos Codex in particular was the premium, best Codex 40K has ever did see.

 

Plus narrative feel. Everything felt unique to each army, rather than the "Everything hits on a 3+ and these S4, AP-1 weapons are totally different to those S4, AP-1 weapons."

 

Plus plus, the character of the various armies felt more in line with a sandbox we could happily engage with. When GW started updating the narrative every release in recent times, it ceased to be a sandbox and became us playing some games to be told what the narrative was.

 

Codex Necrons had mystery and omnipresent impending danger, rather than the juvenile "human Egyptian empires but really Xenos, honest" mess that they are now.

 

My most enjoyable games were 3.5 days to be honest. I've never had games as fun as back then.

3.5 to mid 4th IMO were the peak of the game. Not only were the 3.5 to early-to-mid 4th Codices really well put together with a huge amount of customization, but the supplements were amazing.

[Tawnis]

3rd was the edition that I got into the game, I was pretty young at the time and only played casually with a couple of friends, so I can't give you a meta analysis or anything, but from a narrative perspective, it felt like the sky was the limit, all the random little customizability's you could do really made the most out of limited model ranges, especially for factions like the Tyranids where the any weapon could be equipped to any model but had a strength modifier for balance. So for example, a barbed strangler was (IIRC) S -2 large blast. So, you could equip a full squad of warriors with them to toss pie plates all over the place, but they'd only be S:3. Or you could put Venom Cannons on Termagaunts, though they'd only be S: 5. It went the opposite way too, Fleshborers were S: +1 (IIRC), so you could have things like Carnifex's run around with them blowing up light tanks. Honestly, it was a great way to customize your army while still keeping it pretty balanced. I'm sure there were meta picks, but I certainly didn't know what they were at the time, I just had fun converting. That's not even counting all the crazy biomorph stuff you could do. 

Now i want want to pull out my old codex when I get home and look over all the crazy things you could make. 

Edited Friday at 06:45 PM by Tawnis

[Lexington]

It was, I think, just a much easier game to play. Lots of that has to do with the fact that there’s something like twice as many armies out there now, with several of them having two or three times as many units as your average 3rd/3.5-era armies did. Hell, the 10th Edition Space Marine Codex might actually have more unit entries in it than there were in the entire game of 40K did during some parts of 3rd Ed. There were no Detachment types, no Strategems, and nothing compelling every single unit to have its own bespoke special rule(s). You had army lists with some special weapon choices and character customization options.

 

40K as a game was also just less visibly tied to the particulars of GW as a business.  Not every option needed to have a model made of it, and sometimes whole units were left to convert. There’s good and bad to all of that, but there was a feeling that the game itself was something you had to take some personal ownership of in order to really play. Converting units, creating scenarios, building terrain, etc., it came down to what you were willing to do. It probably narrowed the potential player base down a lot, but the people who played really wanted to be doing it, and GW was, for a while, happy to showcase this kind of initiative. Now everything’s a walled garden of sales and highly engineered play types, and that rankles.

 

…also, we were all 20 - 25 years younger, then. There’s a lot of appeal to that idea once you hit a certain age. 

[Teetengee]

The 3.5 Chaos Codex *to this day* is why I continue to play the game.

[Trokair]

Space Wolves could field 1 Leman Russ Exterminator Tank (the one with the twin autocannon in the turret) per army for no other reason than flavour. It is a tank named after their Primarch, why wouldn’t they have some?

[Scribe]

Beyond the Holy of Holies, the 3.5 CSM Codex, take a look at everything that was released in 3rd. A more civilized age.

[Doghouse]

3rd was ok but 4th was the peak for me which is why I have gone back to it, I think 3 to 5 are basically tweaks of the same edition with it going a bit pear shaped through 6 and 7.

 

 

[Evil Eye]

3 hours ago, Doghouse said:

3rd was ok but 4th was the peak for me which is why I have gone back to it, I think 3 to 5 are basically tweaks of the same edition with it going a bit pear shaped through 6 and 7.

 

 

This is kind of how I feel. 5th had some great stuff in it that's IMO worth backporting to 4th, and the Dark Eldar refresh was one of the best in 40K history, but there's a few bits of the core rules I dislike, notably TLOS (giving rise to Modelling For Advantage as a concept) and the wound-allocation rules leading to stuff like Nob Biker Spam. Though granted I feel the problem with those was they were abused by unscrupulous players rather than being inherently bad in and of themselves. I'm still torn on whether I like blast markers not having to roll to hit in 5th and instead relying entirely on scatter; it feels more immersive but it did make blasts quite powerful. My main gripe with 5th though was the Codices. Aside from the tail-end "Made for the next edition" 4th books just being a bit subpar (Orks lost a LOT of flavour and the Chaos book...moving on!) 5th had some really, really bad books, on both ends of the power spectrum. On the one hand you had Imperial Guard leafblowers, Blood Angels and Grey Knights everything, and then on the other hand you have Tyranids...I will never forgive them for what they did to the Carnifex. There's also the changes they made to the fluff, notably whatever the =][=EXPLETIVE=][= was going on with Necrons.

 

Overall I think the best "mix" of (official) books is 4th core rules and a mix of 3.5E and 4E Codices; to be fair, you can kind of use any era-appropriate book you want and have a good time (4E Orks, 4E Chaos and the WD 4E Blood Angels aside). I personally think the 4E Tyranid book was the peak of the faction, but the 3E book wasn't half bad either. Tau to the best of my knowledge were a straight upgrade in 4th, as were Marines (the only things they "lost" re: weapon options were added back with Imperial Armour Volume 2). The one I'm not sure on is Eldar. I have the 4E Eldar book and it's pretty good, but I have heard the previous book was actually slightly better in some ways, enough that I'm tempted to pick it up.

One thing I will say makes the edition a lot of fun is things like the vehicle/monster design rules from Chapter Approved, which along with the obvious massive amount of creativity it unlocks also allows you to backport newer models into the game. And lots of weapons and wargear are very easy to backport from 5th to 4th- my Chaos Dreadnought is armed with a conversion beamer swiped from the 5E Marine book, costed at 25 points (a weapon that gets better with range is not exactly an ideal choice on a platform that often wants to shoot the closest thing possible!).

[Deus_Ex_Machina]

On 11/14/2025 at 1:58 AM, Uprising said:

I started the hobby when 4th ed was rolling over to 5th edition.  I been hearing alot lately about many hobbyist, including those in my group thinking of moving back to 3rd/3.5 edition.  What is the appeal?  What was the drawback of the edition?  How big where the armies model wise / point wise on average?  I have a few codexes and the rulebook from the era, and it seems simple, yet highly customizable narrative game.  Thoughts?  

The Outer Circle made a video recently about the Chaos 3.5 codex. Since then Chaos never had anything as good as back in the day. Lots of customization opportunities whereas today you buy a clamshell character with a fixed loadout. Modern 40K just pales in comparison. Here is the video:

 

 

 

[TheTrans]

Currently getting my arse into gear for the 3rd annual 3rd-A-Palooza in march next year. Its an event with 32-odd players each year, playing 3.5ed in a campaign based sort of round pairing system. 

So far its been an absolute blast! I chose 3.5 as I feel it fixes many of the issues people had with 3rd but also gives people full access to the glut of armies and cool rules available by the end of 3rd ed! 

I feel, and it seems to be a reasonable consensus from many of the attendees is that 3.5 still feels like a wargame, it feels like decisions matter and units have an actual reason to exist. Thats no doubt a byproduct of the fact codexs didn't have 50 units to choose from, so each unit needed a place. Not to mention, I feel in later editions of the game USRs became such a a big deal that a units statline and weaponry became less important, but in 3.5 like your unit does what it says on the tin and your statline is quite important. 

3.5 also has the vehicle/monster creation rules and a codex for every army sans squats and custodes which means backporting isn't too bad! 

Also the games feel clean and quick, not to mention how variable the missions are so you really need to bring a force that is a jack of all trades force and not just a leafblower sort of list! 

[Magos Takatus]

I feel a lot of people with a hefty dose of nostalgia for 3rd are people that are fond of the Chaos 3.5 era codex, but from the perspective of an Eldar player in 2nd edition, 3rd edition felt like a disease to me. 

Eldar were supposed to be few in number, but effective. Third edition turned the standard Eldar Guardian into a horde unit with feeble armour, a ranged weapon with the same range as a pistol, (and they took away the lasgun, the option that would trade stopping power for range), and then changed the AP system so that the weapon that was explicitly stated at being able to slice through a considerable thickness of armour, was totally ineffective against power armour.

 

They fixed things like the Warp Spiders, who were disgustingly broken in 2nd edition, but then they didn't even function like they did in lore. If I remember correctly, they went from using a flamer temple to represent a stream of monofilament wire into a 2-shot gun. 

 

Dark Reapers battlefield role being completely changed. I think they lost their anti-tank and anti horde firing modes to get a missile geared more for defeating space marines(?).

 

From what I hear the later Craftworld Codex added more options, but the Alaitoc disruption table ruffled a lot of feathers.

 

Looking back  in retrospect, even though 3rd edition ruined enough aspects of lore-to-game translation for me to quit playing for several editions, it is the basis for modern 40k as we know it, so I am curious if I returned back to 3rd edition if I'd find more in it to appreciate with a less knee-jerk reaction like I had in the 2nd-3rd edition transition. I wouldn't be playing Eldar, though. Having Guardians squads charging ineffectually to their doom like it's the battle of the Somme when they are supposed to be a dying race does not appeal to me. I suppose I'd pivot back to space marines, because Orks lost a lot of their cool weapons in the transition to 3rd if I remember correctly, too. Mind you, on the plus side, the looted tank rules for Orks and the vehicle design rules must have created some spectacular abominations. My memories of 40k are more from second-hand accounts from the internet and discussion with people as well as White Dwarf rather than extensive playtesting, so I have to caveat that my experiences are less hands-on than a lot of the accounts above.

 

If I went back to play 3rd edition I would look forward to:

Blast templates and scatter,

Wargear selections, (While characters got a great deal of options, losing almost all the weapon options for my space marine assault squads displeased me, but it's still a lot more flexible than today)

Lots of variant army lists,

VDR possibilities,

Possibly some more things I can't remember off the top of my head.

 

I would be wary of:

An AP system in that was 3+ save are gold, 5+ saves are nearly meaningless,

Army selection that could possibly feel a little arbitrary and rigid,

Guessing ranges for indirect fire (Am I remembering that correctly?),

Vehicles being far less mobile with a lot of their weapons,

Having expensive tanks repeatedly stunlocked by enemy fire,

Psychic powers being effectively turned into guns with fancy names (Just like 10th edition, really),

Lack of support for a lot of armies and units without considerable community-made adaptations,

Twin-linked weapons.

 

I'd probably give 3rd edition a go out of curiosity. I'm not sure if I'd stay.

 

(Just a brief note, Uprising posted asking for both the appeal and the drawbacks of 3rd edition, and as someone that had an extremely negative view of 3rd edition, but has since softened their stance somewhat, I feel my intent here is not trolling or contrarianism, but to try and offer a counterpoint. at the time, 3rd edition gave to me the same sort of reaction 6th and 7th edition 40k has to some of the people here. The transition from 2nd to 3rd lost a lot of granularity and customization, leaving people with anaemic index forces and pamphlet-like Codex with less lore than their predecessors. However, 3rd edition lasted for quite a long time and lots of additional publications and articles managed to do a lot of the heavy lifting from what I remember. I remember following the Eye of Terror campaign unfold, and though I would not roll a single die to decide that war, watching the campaign unfold week after week was fascinating. So while my experiences with 3rd were very negative, my intent here is not to be a "hater", but to explain what I disliked, the positive things I experienced, and to say that yes, I'd give it a go. It would be interesting to get a deeper understanding of the ruleset and to question some of the criticisms I had about the game)

Edited yesterday at 01:30 PM by Magos Takatus