237. Why you should player retro Warhammer

This week Phil talks about the change of editions, and why it's sometimes great to play older editions of Warhammer 40k or other games like Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Watch along on YouTube: https://youtu.be/eQvGpUkTk6E

TIMESTAMPS: 
0:00 - Intro
1:54 - Retro Gaming
1:08:27 - 5 Star Review
1:12:39 - Outro

Chaos Bunker Classics: Retro gaming event: https://www.chaosbunker.de/en/2026/04/20/warhammer-40000-chaosbunker-classics/#more-65511

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Hello and welcome. This is episode two hundred and thirty-seven of the lookouts podcast available in audio and video format. So if you're listening along on the podcast app and you want to see my face, you can head over to YouTube. And if you're watching on YouTube and you don't like the look of my face, you can head over to your favourite audio podcast app and just listen to the sounds of my Dulcet tones in audio-only format. This is episode 237. We are talking this time about why you should get into playing older editions of Warhammer. It's a bit of an odd topic, but I'll get into the reasons why we're talking about it throughout the course of the show and also in a little bit more detail in the outro. But I wanted to do something a bit different. It's just me on my own as well. There's no one else joining us, so I'm sorry about that if you enjoyed your episodes with Tim and with Richie. Well, I would say they weren't available, but I I didn't ask because I just didn't have time. Again, more in the outro. I will talk about that there. But yes, if you want to hear me bang on about retro gaming, older editions, and why I think you should play them, stick around and listen to this episode. With that all said and done, we're going to quickly move on to that topic now. So transitional noise. So in this part of the podcast, the main section is going to be just a bit of a ramble from me. And I'm going to pitch to you why you should love and play older editions of the game. Now I think this is going to be most relevant for older gamers that have been around for a few years, that have played a few editions of the game, because I think there's certainly an element of nostalgia baked into this whole want and desire to play older editions, and we will talk about that. But I think there's also an element of experimentation, maybe if you're more newer to the game and you haven't got a chance to play the older editions. I know a lot of people have got into Warhammer 40k post 8th edition, basically. So the concept of playing an old edition might be completely foreign and alien to you, or at least those older sort of, you know, anywhere from 1st to 7th edition where you had a big chunky rule book, uh, the rules were probably a lot more complicated, potentially. Uh, although I guess we could argue about that. Um, I would say they're a lot more narrative and flavorful. Uh, although I won't, you know, criticize the newer editions too much. Uh, we will get into the sort of differences between some of the editions. Um, in fact, let's let's address the reason why I'm talking about this. Uh, in a way, it's timely with 11th edition coming along. You know, people want to jump ship onto a new edition. But I think there are reasons to go back and love older editions. Um, but it isn't really to do with that. It was actually, I saw an Instagram post. I can't remember who it was, unfortunately, but I think it was somewhere in Germany. They were doing a retro second edition Warhammer 40k uh gaming day. So it, I guess it wouldn't have been a tournament. I'd assume I assume it wasn't a tournament. Um but it was a bunch of tables all lovingly crafted to look like second edition Warhammer 40k. They had, I think, 3D printed and maybe scratch built some bits to look like the old terrain uh from back in those days, as they were seen in White Dwarf, uh, for example. You also had all the armies using the old models, painted in that bright, poppy 90s colour scheme with the goblin green bases, which is an iconic look. It was a time when the boxes were bright and colourful. It was before 40k and Warhammer Fantasy Battle really lent into like the grim-dark era of the later editions. And I think for me, those older editions have real nostalgia. They were in the 90s. I was in my sort of early teens in those days. They were effectively the first editions of both games that I played. I played Warhammer Fantasy Battle first, I think I want to say it was third or fourth edition, and then I think fifth edition was the main one that I really got into and I bought the box set. Um, but I did have some of the uh books from the older editions and sort of dabbled here and there. Um but I think fifth edition was my main bread and butter for Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Uh, and then 40k, it was second edition, I played a lot of, and uh then kind of progressively went on from there as well. So those editions are the ones that really hit the nostalgia for me as a kid. But also 6th and 7th edition 40k has another kind of nostalgia for me because I effectively re-got back into the hobby, I think it was I want to say 12 to 14 years ago. Um, I've sort of always been in the hobby, but there was definitely a period in my sort of 20s and 30s where I wasn't really playing the game. I mean, I don't really play the game huge amounts, but I play it a lot more than I certainly did back then, and certainly more than I did as a teenager. But I wasn't necessarily actively engaged, I was sort of just keeping a tab on it. I was occasionally walking into a games workshop store when I walked past one, and I might have bought the odd thing here or there, but I wasn't anywhere near as active as I am now. So, you know, the quizmaster Richie, he got me back into the game. That's how I met Dan. Um, so and then we became like this group where we'd go up to Warhammer World, uh, go to the events, play Warhammer together, play Warhammer around Dan's house. He was always the one that had the gaming table. Uh speaking of which, I have a gaming table I bought just today that will be filling this space here uh in a couple of weeks' time, hopefully. So that'll be exciting stuff. Yeah, so um that was sixth edition. It was the tail end of sixth edition because six didn't really stick around for too long. Uh and then seventh edition was when um sort of it all kind of kicked off, really. That's when by that point I was starting to buy the Imperial Armour books, for example. So for me, the Imperial Armour books and Forge World is the nostalgia of those uh last editions of Warhammer 40k in terms of before the big complete change in rules from that we got from 8th edition. And you know, ironically, I sort of still had nostalgia even for 8th edition. And um even looking at things like Age of Sigma 3rd edition, 3rd edition is the edition that I really got into it. I did buy the first edition rule book, and I was super excited about trying to convince Dana Ritchie to play AOS, and it didn't really work. I think weirdly Dan did buy the box set at the time, but yeah, I didn't really have anyone to do AOS with. So I had some seraphons that I'd bought back then and just made no progress with. And then I'd sort of sat out second edition completely, but I I sort of kept tabs on what was going on with you know some lore videos and watching the evolving storyline. I thought that was really interesting. But third edition was one that we played, and obviously we're now at fourth edition Age of Sigma. Um, and I actually have real nostalgia for third edition. There was a lot of rules mechanics that I really enjoyed. There was a lot of depth uh to the detachment styles in terms of how you build your army. I thought, I guess my two criticisms of both 4th edition AOS and modern 40k is that a lot of the uh detachments and the sort of rules mechanics uh are a little bit more bland in comparison to those slightly more overly complicated editions, even you know, comparing 9th edition to 10th edition 40k. So I have different areas of nostalgia for older editions. Uh you might have just gotten into the hobby in this edition of 40k. You you might not have even played the game, but you might be just collecting stuff. Um, but I do think there are reasons, other reasons other than nostalgia, uh, why you might want to go and play older editions. I think for me, the main one is the burnout and the churn of the editions. So with 8th edition onwards, for 40k at least, we've had a cycle of new editions coming out every three years. And if you're someone that kind of lovingly crafts and paints your armies, uh maybe you want to kitbash things, maybe you just don't have much time, maybe you've got kids, or maybe you're a poor student and can't afford that much. Uh, I do know people that can smash out a 3,000-point army in six months. Good on you if you're that person. That is not me. I can't do that. Um, it takes me several years normally to build up uh a 2,000-point army. My minor tools that I've sort of been working on and off, and to be fair, they have been parked for a few years. Um I'm not a 2,000 points with them, and I started them in it was just before Indomitus, I think. I think it was um it was around that time, so several editions ago, and I'm still struggling. So for me, the churn that there is in terms of rules is something that's hard to keep up with in terms of planning and building an army. And you don't get that with older editions. With the current editions, you do get um, you know, there's lots of fun and excitement, new models come out, new units. Um you get to see how cool and powerful something is, whether that's an old unit that's just got a revitalized index or a new codex upgrade, it's slightly more powerful than it was before. And that element is really exciting where you can be like, okay, cool, I can be a little bit competitive with this uh unit that I was maybe not looking at before. That's really exciting. Um, and we're less likely to get that potentially with a length edition because they're not indexing it. What we're gonna have is your codex carries over, but that doesn't mean they're not gonna balance the armies. They might do a complete points update, for example, for all your units. My current theory, my hot take, my tinfoil hat uh mad theory is that actually the smolgus board of the detachments that we're going to get within the new edition is Games of Workshop's way of balancing units and making units viable. A Lehman Russ might not be that great in the Bogstandard generic detachments, you know, arc KG stands, whatever it is called. Um but it might be really great, might be really, really great in a new tank detachment. Uh so suddenly a unit that wasn't that viable before can suddenly be really good and have a new lease of life, but only in a specific playstyle, which is thematic, I'll give you that. Um and it allows all units to potentially be usable, but they are limited in their use via a particular detachment. That's that's my theory anyway. And I think with the current glut of detachments that we're getting with the campaign books that are coming out at the moment. So at the moment, uh lots of people seem really excited about this land raider space marine detachment that has literally just come out today. Um and that's all well and good. But, you know, how viable are those land raiders in another list? Um, how viable are these detachments going to be when the new modular detachments uh come out in 11th edition? It's like who who knows? But I I sort of feel like the detachments might be an interesting way of breathing life into old units without having to change the data sheets. Because I think Games Workshop's always been really reticent to do that. Uh obviously changing points is another option, and they do do that as well. But I think, you know, the there's a certain ceiling in terms of what you can actually do with points, because it's sort of an all or nothing. It tends to be either really good for its point or tends to be a bit middle average or just not worth looking at. There's um whereas often a bad unit is always bad no matter how cheap it is, and it needs some kind of life in terms of rules. So with Age of Sigma, they've been doing quite a good job at that in terms of the um Scourge of Guy Ran, which is alternate data sheets uh for units, and what they've been doing with that is they've just given you whole new rules, and you can play either option, either version of of that of that data sheet. That's really good. Um scroll for Age of Sigma, but I'm assuming you're a 40k aficionado if you listen to this podcast. And 40k they do sometimes tweak a data sheet, but uh, but I think they really try and resist it. Instead, the detachments actually can give units rules by stratagens or the detachment rules. Um so I think that's an interesting way in which I can balance things. Um there's some other things like in the new edition that they are sort of limited in terms of what they can do in terms of the codex. So for example, the psychic keyword exists. Um so previous editions we had a psychic phase. Narratively, I would love it if a psychic phase came back. Um and previously you had to basically pass a psychic test. So you had to roll 2d6. It on average, it was a 2d6 roll, and you had to effectively beat your um you know, your psychic cast level. Maybe that was your leadership, it really depends on the addition. Normally, as a value you've got to beat on 2d6. Um that can't really exist in the current formats because all the rules are baked into, for psychic at least, baked into a keyword on just a shooting profile or an ability. Now they could sort of do it, for example. They could basically say, to be able to shoot or use that weapon or use that ability, you must pass your morale test, basically, to pull it off. That would be one way they could sort of jam in a psychic phase, um, but it's not a particularly elegant method, basically. So yeah, there's only so much they can do with this new edition. I feel like I'm going on a bit of a tangent here. So let's let's go back to talking about um the editions themselves and the churn. And you know, we've got these f three year cycles and it's a lot to keep up with. So, in a way, if you have uh an older edition, you can actually just plan everything. And as I was saying, and I think this is where I got on the tangent, the excitement of new models or new rules is really fun, and that really only works when you're playing a current edition. The older editions, everything's there for you. It's all done and dusted. And you don't get that kind of excitement of, oh, how can my my my bad unit suddenly be good? And I guess there's a balancing issues, especially with some of those older editions where they weren't maybe as balanced, but I think the community can deal with that in one form or another. But there's also, you know, if you're just playing with friends, it's also not a problem as well. So this edition we've had for campaign books. And prior to that is when all the codexes got released, and before that, we were some people had an index, some people had a codex, and it wasn't really a level playing field. Um but a few months ago, we basically got to a point where all the codexes for 10th edition was out. And in a way, this should be the most exciting time to play 40k. Everyone's on a level playing field in terms of their codecs, everything's being balanced by Games Workshop. There shouldn't really be new stuff coming out, although the campaign books have been coming out. Most of that is supplementary rules. There have been units effectively being released at the same time, like Titus, Yarek's coming, for example. So there is a slight shift in the meta that would happen with those models coming out. But by the very end of the edition, all the models are out. There is no meta shift. And likewise with older editions, there will be no meta shift. So personally, I would quite like to. I wouldn't say this for 10th edition, but actually I said it for 9th edition. In 9th edition, where we got to this point, I really wanted to keep playing 9th edition, which was ironic because it wasn't the best edition, it was very overly complicated. I know most people at this point in 9th edition was just bored of the edition. They found it really cumbersome, too many stratagems, uh, too many optional army rules, although I did love the customization of some of those army rules and where you could upgrade characters, for example. I thought that was very cool. Um, but I thought we were in a really solid point because one, the game was really balanced, two, the the edition was finished. And in a way, that is the best time to be playing the game. And I always wish when we get to that point, Games Workshop would extend the edition in terms of us all playing it together for at least a year, so we could have one full year of playing the finished product of Warhammer 40k. Because I feel like up until that point, we're playing this mishmash, catching up with people. Some people have codexes, some people don't, and it's really sort of unbalanced and just sort of feels unfair with these haves and have nots. Um it still works, but there's definitely a disparity in the armies that do have codexes and the armies that don't. I think 9th edition was much worse for that because of these sort of optional uh kind of scoring mechanics and stratagems that allowed you to do some really cool stuff uh that you didn't really get prior to your codex coming out. Uh whereas 10th edition, your index is very similar for a lot of people to their codex. So it felt more like it was an even playing field. And, you know, with this edition, with the campaign books coming out, the campaign books are amazing. Well, I mean, I have some criticism of them as well, but I I think I'll save that for another time. But the good things about them is uh Titus comes with campaign book, great, comes with boarding actions, great. Uh the Maelstrom book comes with rules uh uh for customising characters, that's very cool. Comes with its own campaign as well, very cool, and then you've got Armageddon, which has got tank battles, uh apparently in some format, although it's not come out yet, so I don't know. And then the Maelstrom, not uh Maelstrom, the Eye of Terror has apocalypse style games, which I'm not really fussed about because trying to do that with people is really difficult. I don't think I've ever I played, I would say it wasn't quite apocalypse level, but it was a 4v4 game which was apocalypsized, but we were doing 40k rules. That was the Council of the War, which was one of the best events Warhammer World has ever put on, and they've never done it since. It was a complete one-off, but I I loved it. It was a 4v4 team event, uh, with the final day being one big battle, whereas the prior previous day it was a few 1v1s and 2v2s games building up to the big four-player event. So I had played some apocalypse and I kept tabs on the rules with the previous apocalypse uh like rulesets and editions that they've put out. Um so that's interesting, and it's an interesting thing for other people to play. But giving us four new ways to play with literally like four or five, maybe six months of the edition to go, is kind of poor form. I would have rather we had maybe one of these books every year of the edition, so we could have been playing this for ages. Um, I will say this though, for Games World Trump, they have said they're obviously still viable for the new edition, so it's not quite so bad because we can be playing these rule sets in 11th edition, apparently. So that is kind of cool. But in a way, it would be nice to just have played 10th edition for another year or so, and these books could be padded out throughout that. Time, just lumping them all on us all at the same time is a bit pointless because no one has time to do all of those things. I'm still towards the tail end. I think I've done maybe two-thirds of the Titus campaign uh system, the 500 Worlds campaign, uh, with some friends. In theory, we could have maybe blitzed through it if we were gaming several times a week, but you know, not everyone can do that. We're sort of doing it on a reasonably restricted, sensible schedule in terms of gaming. And we haven't finished that. And we really want to do the Maelstrom one afterwards, or maybe the Armageddon one. But by the time we get around to doing that, I would assume it's going to be 11th edition. And maybe the excitement for those books sort of dwindled because people just want to play the new chapter approved and get their heads around that. Again, chan chan chan, rush, rush. The focus of the excitement is going in whatever's new. And um, you know, that works really well for Games Workshop in terms of sales, selling models. That's all very cool. But it's very easy to just forget about something that came out a few weeks ago or a few months ago and be like, oh yeah, I was super excited for Maelstrom, I was super excited for Red Course Airs, but now I'm I'm on to the next thing instead. Um, that is the downside of the new editions and the churn of that cycle. So let's bring it back to older editions. Like you don't get that, you don't have that problem, you don't have that fatigue of new rules constantly coming to, you know, catch up with. Yes, there's an element of a lack of excitement, maybe, but I like the fact that, you know, 10th edition as it is stands now is a complete edition is there, you know, effectively captured in time, time capsuled, that we can now play or go back to, you know, in several years' time. And we could do that with earlier editions. I could do that with seventh edition, with sixth edition. I've still got all of those books. I could actually I've got all the books, well, the core rules I've kept since I've been collecting them. So I've obviously, you know, more recently, eighth and ninth, tenth. Going back, I think I've maybe got second I've had to buy off eBay because I never had the box. My friend had the box. Um, I think I've got maybe third and fourth edition as well, in terms of core books. Yeah, I've got one of them, I can't remember which. And um, yeah, I've got six and seventh edition uh as well. So it would be nice to go back and explore some of those armies, play around with some of those rules. And I think this is one of my other points, one of my other pitches. And you might find this uh going forwards with several editions. And some of our friends have been thinking about it. I think Dan does it with Aegis Sigma or at least has been trying to. I'm sort of coming around to it for 40k, and that's for each edition of 40k, it for each edition of whatever game, have a new army for that edition. Now, it doesn't necessarily quite work for me because some of my armies take a very long time, but you know, for me, 10th edition has been my Thunder Warriors. Uh at least the second half of this edition, because it, you know, I think I was sort of building them in 9th, didn't get it finished. At some point in 10th, I was like, yeah, they're pretty much done now. Cool, I can start playing with them. So uh I did play a bit with my mine tours, I did play a bit with my Krieg, but this edition I've mostly been focused on my Thunder Warriors. Uh next edition, I obviously still want to carry on with my Thunder Warriors because I love that army, but I would quite happily just go, cool, I'm gonna do knights, and knights is gonna be my new edition project. Uh however, because it takes me so long to do an army, maybe I need uh to carry on with my Thunder Warriors for a few at least a year, they'll say, and then second and third year I'll have my knights already, or at least, you know, a thousand points. Maybe not two thousand, but I can at least do a thousand points of uh something for some time of an edition. Uh so time capsuling an army for a specific edition is good, because one of the other problems that I've been having over the last few editions, so my Krieg army that I built, six and seventh edition, all old Ford Ward models, beautiful, stunning, big resin tanks, uh slowly being phased out of the game kind of completely. And in terms of model range, can't buy them anymore unless I was to risk getting recasts via uh eBay, for example. And you know, I'm not a huge fan of recast items. Uh there's pros and cons to it, and I don't really want to go into it here, but I'm firmly on the camp of predominantly buying legit Forge World miniatures, even if you've got to sort of pay over the odds for it. Um because yeah, uh I can understand people not having easy access to them and going down that other route. But personally I want to yeah, is it is the trick it I'm not gonna talk about it here because I I'll just go around in circles for ages. It's a big topic, and I've talked about it on many episodes over the years. But suffice to say, the models I can't get hold of anymore, although I do have a big back catalogue of, you know, still to build stuff for my Krieg army, but predominantly the rules just don't really support a lot of those models. The old Krieg centaurs, which aren't the centaurs, centaurs, centaurs, centaurs of the uh, you know, the new um Astral Militarum Centaur, is very different from the old one. Um it was still a transport, but it was like a little open-topped one that could carry like five people and had a heavy stubber. Back in the day when uh tanks weren't blessing full of uh gums, basically. Um I had Krieg grenadiers, they've um sort of disappeared. Um obviously the engineers went and came back, but the you know, things like the Hades breaching drill that came with them that was iconic, they've all gone. The Malkador tank, that's gone. The Macarius tanks, which I have many of to build as a one-day project, uh, those were all gone. Now, yes, they do still exist in Legends. Will they exist in Legends for 11th edition? Who knows? Possibly, possibly not. I wouldn't be surprised if they start doing away with some legend support, which is a shame. I've always appreciated the fact that in Age of Sigma they've had legend support to an extent, uh, and they've always had it in the app, which has been really good because it just makes it much more playable. In 40k, they have legend support, but it's a really clunky PDF that's massive and hard to you know view. It's never been in the app supported, which is a terrible shame. And Aegis Sigma only has legend support up to a point. The old Forge World um Warhammer Forge, I think it was called back then, which was the Warhammer Fantasy Battle Forge World Range, which then turned into the Aegis Sigma Forge World Range, um, got discontinued several years ago, and Legend support for that just stopped. It did not appear after third edition. Um it was then third edition, yay. Uh fourth edition, they just don't have it. Whereas at least in 40k, what they've done is they've carried over, they've rolled over that legend support, they've updated within reason the rules, albeit most of the time terribly, to the point where it's pointless taking the stuff because the rules are just bad. And it's like, I would like to take Vestigi's tank hunter, that would be very cool, but the rule for it is just laughably bad. It's, you know, to the point where I'm literally hamstringing myself to take it from a that there's a difference between being competitive and just, you know, shooting yourself in the foot. And it feels like you're really hamstringing yourself when you take a lot of those legends units. Uh, if you and your partner, your opponent, are both taking those sorts of things and you're really leaning into the narrative, um, it should be fine. But at the same time, there's a certain feels bad when your thing that's really old and beautiful does not perform anywhere near as well as something much more modern would. Because it's just not blistering with guns and doesn't have the you know same sorts of interesting stats or abilities. Um so that's the downside of the legends sort of units. Um, but going back to the old editions allows you to play and explore that army. Um I could go and play a sixth or seventh edition game, Warham 40k, and I can use all the rules for all the models correctly as they should be, as intended. Um there's the Imperial Armour books, which are these gorgeous tomes, and I have the full collection of 6th slash 7th edition Imperial Armour, 2nd edition. Um, I don't think I've got all the first edition ones, but that is also my goal to one day get those as well. But they're not quite as beautiful, they're a lot more black and white in comparison to the sort of full colour versions of the second edition Imperial Armour. I believe there was 13 uh Imperial Armour books in total in terms of second edition ones and in terms of the main ones, and then there was also some additional ones for uh Flyers and Apocalypse, which I think I've also got as well. So there's a whole gamut of stuff that I could pick and choose from. And obviously I'm in a privileged position where I've sort of gone out of my way as a Ford World fanboy to buy all of those books and trying to procure them now is quite expensive, but you know, even for myself, I only bought some of those books within the last year or so. The Imperial Armour 13, which is the uh Renegade Militia one, for example, that only got, I think, within a year or two, and uh that took a while to buy because it's one hard to get hold of and two, it's always very expensive. So I was trying to wait until I could get one uh reasonably uh you know affordable within my budget, for example. So yeah, it'll be nice to go back and experience the rules, for example, but also experience those armies because I've not really been playing Krieg much. As a diehard Krieg fanboy, um, if you were to go back and listen to all of the episodes or look at so you would see my heart basically break as each edition comes out from eighth onwards, and support for the army dwindles with each edition. Uh units just become unplayable. Uh sometimes they're not even in legends. For example, the Krieg Engineers, I don't think, had rules in 9th edition at all. Um, and other units I could name as well. So, yeah, support's been really difficult for that army. Um, and then I'm at a point now where the Astro Militarum army has sort of changed so much. Um, obviously, we've had models be refreshed in terms of like the Sentinels, but the we've had new tanks, like the Rogal Dawn, which personally I'm still visually not a fan of. But rules-wise, it's amazing, yay! Great for those people. Um, but uh it sort of is yeah, my army's not as good if I'm not playing with a Rogel Dawn, basically, because every guard player will tell you you need several Rogal Dawns to be good, because they're just good rules. And Games Workshop does do this gentle social engineering by pushing you towards the new stuff, like the Rogal Dawn, um, and away from the older stuff by just making some rules for units better than others. And I think that is a deliberate choice. So by the time maybe something like Berlin Russell for Chimera disappears because the ATV, um yeah, the new the new is it the ADF, the the new tank, uh Troop Center Transport comes out. Um the rules for that are just sort of better, I suspect. Um I with the vehicles I'm still on the fence in terms of whether they will redo them or if these are just modern replacements. I'm yeah, still not sure. It'll be interesting to see what they do, especially with the space marine um units and space marine tracked tanks in particular. Um but yeah, I can go back uh with an old edition and just play on that stuff as it was intended. Um rather than it being parked on a shelf because I can't really play the army in 10th edition, let alone 11th edition, without some serious work and overhaul. Um, you know, a great example is the Krieg infantry haven't been WYSIWYG legal for several years because the Krieg Infantry uh watchmaster, they're called their the sergeants, have lasguns. Whereas a regular Cadian sergeant has doesn't have a Lazgun. He has a pistol of some kind and a combat weapon of some kind. So WYSIWYG, if I'm trying to go to an event, I'm technically not playing correctly because you are meant to play WYSIWYG. Now, a lot of events will be quite lenient on that, but you know, maybe some way to be. And that's just a very minor example of a big issue that's been around. I think maybe since 8th edition. Definitely 9th edition. Like that problem has existed for a while. I think actually it's been since 8th edition, and I've been sort of wangling my way through uh on that one. But other things get a bit bigger. Another good example is the Forge World uh Def Riders came on for Krieg, came on RAM bases, and the new plastic ones are on oval bases. So if I want to go to an event, uh I would have to technically rebase them, uh especially if it was a Games Workshop official one because, you know, or tournament of some kind because base sizes matter according to them. You know, I think within reason, I don't think base sizes is as big a deal, um, especially when the differences are quite minor. But some people might be a bit picky. But personally, I've never been a huge fan of oval bases. I've always loved round bases and all bases being round. Uh so I don't really want to re-base my death riders. So again, they can't go to an event. You know, could I play them with my friends? Sure. Uh as I sort of mentioned, most of my gaming group is based around going to events with friends and playing other people in addition to playing with your friends. So yeah, being able to go back to play an old edition and revitalize those units will be lovely. I would also love it to be able to go back to an old edition and just collect a new army and relive some of that nostalgia, um, even if I wasn't hugely into that army at the time. So it's not like I'm reliving an old army that I had. I'm just exploring something new. So several years ago I started collecting a second edition Warhammer 40k Orc Army, uh, buying bits off eBay, going through the old catalogues that I had, or looking online at the catalogues that were available, and trying to effectively get almost one of every sort of model, which is an impossible feat. Um, but it's nice to try these things. And as someone that played against orcs, I think I have a nostalgia element to that in terms of I remember seeing them in White Dwarf all the time. They were really colourful, they were really vibrant. They were like my menace as a guard player, they were like my Arch nemesis, for example. I had my Yarrick of I don't think he came out in second edition, but he came out in if it wasn't second, it was probably third edition. So, you know, Yarrick and Gazgol, I've got in my head as like these being quintessential um hero and villain type characters. Um so yeah, I I basically went out and started to slowly collect an orc army. It needs a lot of work, it leans a lot of love. I need to strip lots of paint from it, but I've got them in a box somewhere. In fact, they're one of the few armies that I haven't bought down from my loft to live in my shed, so I should do that at some point. Uh another one that I did, I'd say more recently, again a few years ago, I started to collect a classic era metal chaos dwarf army for Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Now I've got my very old dwarf army from for fifth edition or thereabouts, uh, which I loved. And again, the arch nemesis of dwarves. Obviously, elves, yes, elves for sure, but also chaos dwarves. And I remember really loving some of the elements of Chaos Dwarves, their big crazy hats, their crazy long beards, and you know, maybe being a dwarf fan as a child has turned me into someone that grew up with a big beard. Uh and if you're watching along on YouTube, you can see that beard uh for yourself. Now I'm clearly uh long beard because I have lots of grey in it. Is grey beards a thing in dwarf culture? I'm sure it is, but I think long beards is the old people. Um so yeah, Chaos Dwarves, I started collecting that as well. And I would love to play it. I think originally I got the idea for it being an old world army, but I think I've decided I'm gonna keep the old style bases so I can go back and play really retro Warhammer uh effectively. I think I can probably do four, fifth edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Eighth Edition Warham Fantasy Battle. I think Dan has a hankering for eighth, so there's a chance I might get to do some eighth edition and then potentially with some base modifiers or just being a bit liberal with my friends, uh play it with um playing old world. And when it comes to the old world, I think I would just stick with the first edition because that's the book I bought. So if in a year's time a second edition comes out, it's like why why jump on that bandwagon um when the rules are probably quite a minor change. I would rather just stick with an edition. And I I have that same sort of issue with you know Blood Bowl as well. It's like I've got the 2016 version of Blood Bowl. Uh I haven't even got the previous version of Blood Bowl, let alone well, I think I I bought a rule book maybe, but not anything else. Because I got Dungeon Bowl in the last edition, and I haven't jumped on this new one because just there's no point, really. And unless you're playing it really regularly. I think here's the thing: the reason why you need to play the current edition is because if you're going to a gaming club or a tournament or an event, that's predominantly the thing everyone else is playing. But if you've got a gaming group that you can persuade to do old events, old editions, then it's not so much of a problem. Um likewise just doing it with your friends, you can play older older games and even some events, as I was saying about the Instagram one. The uh clearly some people are playing old events, and I think there is a real nostalgia around um old editions. I think there's you know, Crown of Command is the one I I'm watched the most in terms of like a retro channel. There's a bunch though, and they do four fifth edition Warham Fantasy Battle, and there's minisodes and miniscapes, I think, on YouTube. They've been quite popular ones, and I think Miniscapes also was on tabletop tactics for a bit. So I think there's been a real renaissance around those sort of retro editions of the game. Um, again, going into that real nostalgia of the 90s. So I think there is a popularity around them and real charm to those editions, even if the rules are maybe a bit clunky. So I think there's I think there's definitely some good reasons to want to explore those editions. Um I would love to, as I said, do my Chaos Dwarves, do um Orcs for second edition. Uh if I was to get into sixth and seventh edition again with my Imperial Armour, I would love to actually build more of my Krieg, because I've got a bunch of those models still. But I also bought, and it was going to be my next project many years ago, a grot tank army. So I've got all the grot tanks and I've got all the mega tanks. Uh I think I've got three mega tanks and I want to say four squads worth of grot tanks. So that's probably at least 12, maybe like 16 grot tanks. It was a full 2,000 points back in I think 7th edition, maybe 8th edition when I bought it. Maybe it was 8th edition. That was the grand plan. It was going to be like an event army because I really wanted to get back in the cabinet of Warhammer World and why not have like this grill. Gloriously themed Grot Tank Army because everyone loves Gross, right? That was the plan. Um, and yeah, I just never got around to it because it was such a big investment of time to create a brand new army, and basically every few months there was gonna be an event that I was going to, so I was like, well, I'll just paint one more new unit for my Krieg to do this event, and it basically kept stalling other projects, and then my minor tools for Space Moon was gonna be like my next one, and again I got to a point where I sort of stalled on that because I kept going back to my Krieg, uh, and then finally the Thunder Warriors project was born, and then I dedicated a lot more time to doing that, and the other two have dwindled uh in comparison. And now for Asia Sigma, I'm doing Nighthaunt, lots of Nighthaunt, and then I'm trying to collect others as well. So I've um yeah, I'm spreading myself quite thinly, but I would love to go back and play and build and collect. I've done a lot of collecting at least for the nostalgia armies. Um with the orcs for Rogue Trader, I don't have a huge amount. I've got um I've got a moderately sized collection. I think I also bought some Beaky RTB01 Space Marines at some point because they they actually go quite cheaply, at least when I bought them a year or so ago. Um TrollTrader is a good place to look. Uh, eBay's another good place, but eBay can be a bit hit and miss. Uh basically I went for uh because it that kind of really old stuff, it's gonna have paint on it, it's gonna possibly be built, or most likely built, so just you know, be aware you're gonna have to strip stuff back and um start doing those sorts of things. Yeah, so with the orcs, they're not quite there in terms of collecting. I really want to get the Stormboy models because those old guys look phenomenal, and I'd really like to get some in a box, even if they're built, because the box art is just like peak 40k. And I've managed to do that with some of the Chaos Dwarves. So, Chaos Dwarves, I splurged quite a bit of money over a period of a year uh to get a full 2,000 plus, if not 3,000 points worth of Chaos Dwarves. Uh I basically made sure I got one of every sculpt, uh, one of every unit, um, at least in the confines of the uh catalogue at the back of the codex for uh chaos dwarves. So that had some stipulations. I think I didn't look at the black orcs back in those days, even though they might have been there. It was predominantly orcs and goblins or hobgoblins, is how I sort of thought about it. So I made sure I got every unit, got finally every character, although that was quite difficult to hunt some of them down, especially some of the sorcerers on foot had um there's a few different versions, and some of them were a bit rarer than others. I don't think I've got the relatively not so limited, but should be limited, um, like unreleased sculpt of one of the champions, uh, because they're clearly all recasts, so I've sort of not bothered getting that, and I also don't think it's a great sculpt. And also it wasn't in the catalogue, so that was uh outside of my scope. But yeah, got lots of the whole goblins, got all the chaos dwarves. The Lamasu and the Tauros um I got boxed. Uh one was I think they were both one was s completely sealed and one was just new boxed, but the seal had been unwrapped. Um, and one of the ears from the Taurus was missing. It was like a miscast. Um so yeah, those two I've got for the actual boxes, which I would love to display maybe on my shed because again, old boxes are nostalgic artwork uh in my book, just bright and colourful. So I think I might have to add them somehow to my uh wall collection as in a slowly growing art piece. Um so yeah, that's kind of all collected, um, but there's a lot of work to be done on that one. Um I've got to basically strip a lot of paint, so I've got to probably remove all the bases um or maybe re-glue a lot of the bases uh on, and at one point I was really umming and Ring about whether to rebase them to the old world size to be compatible with the current edition. I just realized it's not worth it. Um, in part because I bought the Games Workshop um, you know, new bases and none of them are slotter bases, so I would have to clip off all the tabs of the models um and pin them in, which would be an utter nightmare. Um, you can buy third-party bases with slotters in, so that was always an option. But I think because I actually want it to be backward compatible and play older editions of the game, I will just stick um with the old base sizes and use base adapters where needed for playing the slightly more modern edition if I ever get around to it. I guess for one downside is there, it's it's not really compatible with maybe other people. So Dan, for example, has a Tomb King army, but he's got it on, you know, he bought it on all the new stuff, right? So they've got all the modern base sizes. So my base sizes are kind of incompatible with Dan's and Richard got cafe, but they all live in boxes, and again, they're not really compatible either because he'd be on the more modern sizes, whereas I'm on the old sizes. Um, but it kind of is what it is, I guess. Um I'm sort of going for more fourth edition, fifth edition vibes with Chaos Dwarves rather than eighth edition or even old world um sort of style. When it comes to Chaos Dwarves as well, my one sort of last recent purchase for them, if I can talk about that briefly, was they recently on Meta Order did the Black Orcs, which were the Black Orcs of the era of the original Chaos Dwarves. So actually I did splurge and get some Meta Order ones. Now they're my one like modern purchase for my Chaos Dwarf army, because everything else is literally old original models. Um the black orcs are actually quite difficult to get hold of, uh at least at reasonable prices, whereas the Meta Order was basically the easiest solution and cost-effective solution. Similar with my dwarf army that I still have, again, retro collection, a mixture, I think, of real like third old edition and more later fourth edition sculpts, and the the dwarf sculpt sort of style completely changed from those older Warhammer editions to the Four Fed ones. So I'm sort of I've got a bit half and half, and I would like to get more of a complete fourth edition sort of style. Um but there was the old Imperial Dwarves, which was a regiment of renowned, I think. I always loved them. I remember seeing them and falling in love with the box uh of them as a child, as a kid. Um, so when they came on tomato order, I snapped them right up. Uh, because again, they're not necessarily maybe the exact same style as uh the four fed dwarves, but again, they just yeah. For me, that was a real nostalgic purchase, I think. Um because my dwarf army is relatively complete, but I don't have a huge number of like the model count in the units. I've got pretty much like one of every unit, I think. I think I've got long beards. I think there's maybe there's definitely some units where I don't have much of, and there's definitely been more modern stuff that have come out in later editions post fifth edition at the least. Between fifth and eighth, there was a lot more stuff that came out, like um it wasn't the troll slayers, but it was the ones that are sort of single characters with the spinny chain axe type things. I can't remember what they're called. Uh those they those are really cool sculpts, but I don't have them in the army. Like the um the uh was it the axe hewer? The axe throwing machine. Again, don't have that. So there's lots of more modern stuff that I I just don't have for that dwarf army, and I'm sort of less precious about those things. Um I'm sort of happy to sort of again time capsule it for a particular edition and just focus on those things. And likewise, Grop Tank Army, that would be a sixth, seventh edition, maybe even eighth edition army, but it doesn't really translate into ninth edition onwards because it's just legends at the moment, and I don't think the rules are particularly good. And also they reduce the points on them so much. So while before I bought it with uh 2,000 points in mind, it I think last time I checked it was like 1,200 points. I've points dropped so much it would be impossible to do it as a 2,000-point army now. But I would love just an excuse to go back and explore those old uh games. And there are some really, you know, I I sort of feel like I've talked a little bit about the rules of the more modern stuff, but there were some really old thematic rules of the older editions. Um it felt much more like the older editions had narrative elements really baked into the rules. In the older editions, tanks, for example, all had firing arcs from their weapons. Your main turret could spin around as much as the model was able to spin around, and then your gun shooting out for your line of sight, what you could actually target. Uh your sponsons could only pivot and move around in a certain direction, and then you again 45 degrees that you could shoot from. So your Lehman Rust tank, your left sponsor, for example, could only shoot to the left and slightly forwards, and then your right sponsor can only shoot to the right and slightly forwards. They both, unless there was a point far in the distance, could shoot both sponsors at the same target. If an enemy was to your left, only your left sponsor could hit it. Your right one couldn't. Your main battle tank cannon could because it could also spin around, that your whole bolter, your whole mounted weapon that was facing forwards, couldn't shoot to the left either. Whereas now, um, you know, anywhere from any one single point on that tank, all your weapons can just shoot. And there's a real like cognitive dissonance in that, in terms of that just doesn't feel realistic. It's it's taken it from a true representation of what is happening in air quotes, the the real world, how it would actually play out if it was a real world. Um, and it's taken it to a much more abstract level. And that's the elements of the later editions of a game that I don't like as much. Um, whereas you had theming built into those rules, even though the rules were much more clunky. You had a real definition between a regular tank and a heavy tank that maybe was a bit more slow and lumbering and couldn't travel as fast, um, but then it had extra rules in terms of maybe allowing it to shoot uh its full ballistic skill rather than having to snapshoot, um, which was basically hitting on sixes uh back in those days. Um likewise faster, more recon star vehicles could move and shoot their lighter weapons, um uh and they were all categorized. So, you know, you had to learn those categories, whereas now, you know, the rules sort of dictate um, you know, they've just got movement values now, and that maybe still kind of corresponds to how the older rules work slightly, but you know, you don't call a Lehman Russ a heavy tank anymore, you don't call a chimera uh, you know, a the standard tank, and you wouldn't call I don't think it does I mean guard doesn't really have a light tank, but let's say for this example the chimera is a light tank or the sentinels cast for some reason is a light tank. You don't have those naming conventions, so you're not mentally thinking, ah, my Lehman Russ is a is a heavy tank or whatever it might be. Instead, you just go, yeah, cool, my my Lehman Russ has you know movement of 10 inches, right? That's it. And you know, my chimera probably also has a movement of 10 inches, right? Um but maybe in older editions it was slightly different, or there was there was more interplay between uh what a thing was and what the rules allowed it to do, whereas everything's been homogenized and there's a little bit blander. Another great example, again, might be repeating myself, a great example was a winged demon prince in older editions, could fly around, but it couldn't just fly around and charge into combat because it was flying around in the air above you, and then it had to spend a turn effectively landing and could then charge into combat. It couldn't fly down directly into combat, which was a to be fair, a bit of a pain from a rules point of view if you were a winged demon prince, especially if you had to come on from reserves because you were starting flying, because that's how I think fly worked back in those days, so you weren't coming on to the second turn anyway, so you weren't getting into combat at the earliest the third turn, which is you know a bit of a bummer, but there were some cool thematic elements to it. So, for example, to hit a flyer or anything flying, you had to snapshoot because it was difficult to hit. So you're hitting on sixes, but if you did score a hit, I think there was a chance. I can't remember what you had to roll if it was a morale test or something else. Um, but there was a chance you could down it, and basically you'd be clipping its wings, you'd be shooting holes into the the winged membrane of uh your flyer, whether that's a you know a demon prince uh with wings or a tyranny hive tyrant, for example, because they were super popular back then, winged hive tyrants. Um anyway, it'd be shot at and then it would come crashing down to the ground and do some damage uh either to itself or maybe to the surrounding area, depending on what it hit into. So that was a really fun thematic moment when it happened, and that was baked into the core rules, but the chance of it happening was down to effectively random probability of the dice. And it feels like now if that was to happen in the game, it would be a stratagem. It wouldn't be a random element, it would be a resource management that you would have to decide to spend points on to activate. And I feel like that's the real difference between the old editions and the new ones, where rules told the narrative, whereas now one, I don't think it tells it very well, but it's now baked into a kind of resource management system in terms of that stratagem stuff. So recently they've announced some new rules where um for the tank detachments that you could take, guard embarked in troop transports, can shoot out in combat uh into the unit they're in the tank is in combat with, and they can use blast weapons, and there's no penalty for that, and there's no penalty for being minus one in combat either. Um, because the they don't care about the armour of the tank because it's so industrially strong, they're just being reckless. And I'm like, that's really cool. It would kind of be cool if that was just the rules a guard could do to represent the guard's tanks are tougher than say Drakari or Elder skimmers. Like that would be a really interesting just give it to us in the rules, and it can happen all the time. And maybe something else that's a bit more random, like maybe there is a chance that your tank can get damaged by you doing it, but that's the risk and reward of doing those things. So older editions tended to lean more into rules, give you this sandbox in which the narrative story can unfold within the game. Whereas now it feels like you have to consciously elect to tell the story via the medium of stratagrums. Predominantly, that's not always the case. There have been some fun moments that I remember in the previous well, I say previous season, like eighth and ninth edition, where the story unfolded via just the rules themselves. I remember when I was at No Retreat one time, um, I can't remember his name, but he I think he was a well-known Death Watch player, and he now is a painter for Games Workshop. Um he charged with his jump pack captain into my Avenger Strike Fighter, which was a Ford World fighter plane, um, and he sort of fluffed his charge. I think I did Overwatch to whittle him down to a couple of wounds, and then basically I got to use my plane to attack with. It has like three attacks, I think it's hitting on fours or fives. It's not it's like no AP, one damage each. But I did manage to plink off the final wounds and kill the captain, which was a heroically hilarious moment um for for for both me and him, but obviously more of a horrible moment for him. Um but I basically said haha, you've you've been sucked into the jet engines and been destroyed because you know you should not be wearing a cape. So that was like a hilarious moment that we sort of managed to forge a narrative via the medium of the rules. And I think it's fun when stuff like that happens. Now, that wasn't really the rules telling it, that was just a funny matchup between two units, and it should have really gone the other way around. Like as a smash captain, as they were called in those days, with a jump pack and a cool weapon, probably a thunder hammer, should have taken out the plane quite easily. But there wasn't any interesting mechanic in terms of you know, if a fire fly blows up, it's kind of crashed out to the ground or anything like that. So yeah. Newer additions can tell stories, but I feel like you you've got to be doing it more so yourself. And when it comes to river stratagems, there is storytelling there, but again, you have to proactively select those ones. And I feel like often people just feel like, well, I'm just doing this thing and it makes my army cool, it makes my unit a bit more killy, I'm getting plus one to wound, you're not really feeling like you're somehow going, Oh yes, my my my soldiers have suddenly done this cool, interesting piece of storytelling. It's like, no, I'm just rolling a bunch of dice and getting plus one to wound. Like that's all people care about, I feel, when it comes to the use of stratagems. So while there's a narrative bit of storytelling to them, I don't really feel like they have the same impact on gamers in the same way that the older rules had on older gamers. So if you are interested, I would say give the older editions a go. Now I feel like I've rambled on enough in regards to the older editions of Warhammer 40k and why you should maybe with your friends collect, uh build, paint, play with an old army. Now, in theory, you could play a modern army in an older edition. That's not a problem. And actually, I will say this the one reason to play a more modern edition is to just have access to newer units. So, for example, you can't really play cafe in fourth edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle or 8th edition. I think you possibly could. I think it would be it wouldn't be outside of the realms of possibility to either transpose the rules because I think the stats system is relatively the same. The rules are reasonably compatible to an extent that you could just take them and you know convert them over with a little bit of work. I wouldn't be surprised if some people have done that already. Um, the other alternative is you just proxy units or models. So for cafe, you might go, actually, it's kind of an empire army. So let's just run it as empire, and there's lots of similar units. Um, I've always said my tinfoil hat theory is that cafe is chaos dwarves because they've got a lot of gunpowder weapons, they've got a lot of sorcerers, they've got sorcerers riding big creatures, um, they've got blunder buses, if I recall correctly, and they've got ogres loading cannons, they've got a lot of crossovers, so yeah, you could run cafe as chaos dwarves potentially. Um When it comes to forty K, let's say you want a space army army and you run it want to run it in seventh edition. Now this makes it actually a bit harder. So intercessors, you could just do as a stand-in for tactical squads, noting that you don't get a missile launcher or a heavier special weapon in your current intercessors. Likewise, your Redemptor Dreadnought isn't really the old venerable dreadnoughts, uh the boxnaughts as they were once called. Um but I think you could kind of it's not WYSIWYG, but you could certainly do it. Things like Gravis or the faux boss armor stuff gets a lot more complicated. Yeah, you probably just can't use those units. Um obviously scouts exist as scouts in the older editions, but the the old Space Marine Ranger was really small in older editions. So you probably have units that you can use to fill out everything that you need, but you can't necessarily play with all of your units in those older editions. So that's something worth bearing in mind if you did want to get into it and you you wanted to, but you could certainly pick up Space Marines now, play them in an older edition with a little bit of work, basically. But the way I personally, because I am mildly autistic about it, is I would collect an army from that era to play, basically. Um if I'm doing second edition, I want to play with second edition models because that's half the fun and half the point of it. It's not about experiencing just the rules for the sake of the rules, which is what you could do if you wanted to, but you know, half of the joy of it is really playing with those models. It's an excuse to buy those things or to paint them up or to for me have an army that I dreamt of having back in that day. So yeah, that is I think it for retro gaming. Uh give it a go, is all I can say. And if you have given it a go, or you do regularly give it a go, let me know down in the comments if you're watching on YouTube. Um and if you're not watching on YouTube because you're on the podcast, head over to YouTube and leave me a comment anyway. You can do it, it's only an extra step. Um, so yeah, with that all said and done, we're gonna have a transitional noise. So we're now into the five-star review section of the podcast, where as always, I read out a five-star review that has been left by one of our lucky listeners. You can, if you want to be like this person, leave a five-star review wherever you can find a possible place to do it. Normally, this is Apple Podcasts of some various countries. Some, like Australia, I don't think are coming through on the feed system that I'm using to collate the five-star reviews, so I do apologize for that. I think also Spotify, you can just leave five stars, but there's no message. So unfortunately, please do it if you can, but you will not be featured here in this segment. Audible, however, you can leave a five-star and obviously leave it for everything from storytelling to, you know, whether the narrative, the voice recording options are inaudible, uh, but also you can leave a message that I will also then read out. And now I'm going to honour a YouTube five-star review. So you can also leave in the YouTube comments, just say five stars and leave your five-star review, and I will make a note of it. Good old pen and paper style, and I will read it out to you. So this is our first ever one from YouTube, I think. I might have done one before. I think this is the first. Uh yes, I'm pretty sure it is, but I could be wrong. Uh don't hold me to it, everyone. Anyway, so this is from Dan Harding 3549 from episode 234. Look at that, I made a note. Five stars, he says. Great episode, Phil. It was really interesting to see all the new models in context with the historic models. That added a lot of depth to the is this a good model discussion, I thought. I appreciate the work this must have taken as well. Yeah, so thanks, Dan. I appreciate it. Uh yeah, it took a lot of effort to do all the, I think this was the model review episode where I was looking back to the historical uh leanings of where things came from. So yeah, it took a lot of effort to put together. I do want to do some more in the future, specifically around all the new Astral Militarum tanks, because I have a lot to say on their design and where they came from in terms of the World War II tanks that they are inspired by or of. Yeah, so I'm glad you enjoyed it. I will look forward to doing more episodes in the future along that theme. But yeah, they do take a lot of work, so I haven't done one yet, but maybe for a future episode. So yeah, thanks very much. And yes, if you'd like to leave a five-star review, please do. As we've always said, when the five-star reviews run out, the show closes down. But there's a few more to go still, but don't let that happen in anyone. So leave that five-star review. If you would also like to support the show in any way you can, you can obviously just leave a regular comment on YouTube. So if you're listening via the audio podcast version, you can obviously leave a five-star there as well. But you can support us by, I guess, heading over to YouTube and leaving a comment there if you are so inclined. Um, please do like the YouTube post. Please do subscribe if you are not subscribed. Uh, if you see any Instagram or Facebook posts, please do like those, comment on them, and also hit the reshare button, especially on Instagram, it just reshares it to your followers without adding it to your feed. That sort of support is also greatly appreciated and costs you nothing other than a couple of little clicks of your finger. So, yeah, please do that. If you would like to support the show in a more monetary way, which is also greatly appreciated, you can buy some merch over on Rev Level, which are linked down in the description, and you can support the show over on Patreon. And the Patreon helps keep all the lights running and allows me to buy equipment, which I will talk about in the outro. So, yeah, thank you for supporting the show. If you're just a listener and you don't want to do anything, that is more than welcome. Enjoy the show for free, you freeloaders. Thank you very much. Keep on listening. But there's still more of this show to go. Not much, just a little bit extra. So stick around for the outro. Transitional noise. It's the final part of the show where we can get cozy together for the outro. Um, there's not a huge amount that I'm gonna talk about here, so I'm hoping it's gonna be quite short. But I just wanted to talk about a few things. Um, so firstly, I've been quite busy for the last few weeks. So this episode was a little bit haphazard. It wasn't the episode I wanted it to be. I did really want to get around to Titus and 500 Worlds, but I realised I've still got a ton more lore to read in the 500 Worlds book, um, which I've just not had time for lately, unfortunately. Um, and it's looking like it might not have much time to do it for the next episode either, because I've got a Aja Sigma Grand Tournament coming up at Warhammer World in two weeks' time. So next episode, when that comes out, I will be there up in Nottingham with Dan, Ritchie, Tim. I think that's all of us, yeah. We're all going up there to do Asia Sigma, so that'll be fun. However, I've got a lot of stuff to paint, so a lot of my free time is going to be spent doing that. It does mean I've had less time this week to do the podcast, so I haven't planned it as much as I would have liked. So I do apologise, but I thought this would be quite a good topic to talk about. We've also had some technical issues that I've noticed for the last few episodes, whenever I've had the boys on, Richie and Tim, or even when it was just Richie, I've had some real technical issues, and that's basically because my laptop could not hack the processing power needed to do a screen share and also record myself and someone else at the same time. So I have bought a new laptop by the powers of Patreon. So thank you very much, Patreon listeners. Um, the savings that we have made over the last year have allowed me to buy a laptop, which has been greatly appreciated. So thank you very much, Patreon supporters. You have made that happen. However, the laptop arrived today, uh, but because it is a Mac doesn't come with a power block, so I couldn't actually use it and set it up for this episode. Um, so that was my technical issue. Uh, hopefully that will be up and running for next episode, so then I can start getting other people involved in the episode on a bit more regular basis. It wasn't something you hopefully really noticed in the last few episodes, but it made editing a real pain and actually recording a real pain because the connections kept dropping off basically, and recording kept cutting out at times. So yeah, um, hopefully future episodes will be a bit more streamlined with a new laptop. It should have a nice shiny high-def camera. So hopefully, when you're seeing me on my own, I won't be as fuzzy. I'll be, you know, you can see those wrinkles in high definition, so that will be something as well. So yeah, really, really uh appreciate uh all the support I've had on Patreon over the last few years, and Dan, um, you know, you supported him as well. So the it's not just us banking the money in some way, most of it actually we save up specifically to spend on either books for Warhammer or um, you know, equipment when it's needed, and it really was needed. Uh, because obviously Dan was doing most of the recording previously, so it wasn't an issue for my very old, I guess it's like 12 to 15 years. No, maybe it's 10, it's a 10-year-old laptop. That's it. This is a 10-year-old laptop. Um, so yeah, it just can't cope anymore um other than just me recording. So this episode, that's why it's just me predominantly. Uh Richie actually has also got a new desk set up, which I think he's halfway through building at the moment. So I even though it was a bit last minute and I didn't ask him, I think he wouldn't have been able to do it either. And Tim is always a busy boy. So maybe next episode I'll get them on because I don't think I'll have time to do all the research needed for Titus, even though I really want to talk about that, and I appreciate there's a bit of a backlog because yeah, Titus has been out a few months now, and the other books are starting to come out, and Armageddon's on pre-order this week. So I would like to get around to doing all of that stuff as well. So I appreciate the the topics aren't maybe as timely as they should be, but we will get around to doing them. There's there's a process um involved. Hobby-wise, from me, I have been doing my night haunt, I'm trying to get that ready. It turns out I'm actually trying to paint quite a lot for this grand tournament, and I've got two weeks left to get it done, which is unfortunately a tight time frame for me, but I'm gonna try and crack on and get it done. So um I had to finish off the Mongol, which was the giant Forge World model from ELD uh days of older editions, Warhammer Forge, which we've briefly talked about in this podcast. Uh it's like a giant ghost. It's now in well, it was in Legends, but as I mentioned, it doesn't exist in the rules anymore. But I'm running it as a Man Crusher Gargant, which is the mini giant. Um, so I've rebased it and I did some really nice um basing features to it, and then the last bit that I did this week was adding some chains to it to sort of tie it visually in to the rest of the Nighthaunt Army. If you would like to see what that model looks, I will not be sticking a picture up here, but you can head over to my Beyond the Tabletop Instagram and where you can see it there. Uh links below down in the description of this episode, uh, or just look up Beyond the Tabletop on Instagram and it's there. I've done a nice little video so you can see all the lovely mausoleum crypt uh engraves that I've all scratched-built for that base. So that was the main thing I've been doing, and then I've started to paint up everything. So I've got two units of ten chain ghasts, no, two units of ten chain rasps, gotta get this right, uh, that I've had built for ages. They've been on my painting desk for a while, so they're ready to paint. So I've started them. Then got two units of five Craven Frone Guard, otherwise known as the crossboos, because they have crossbows. I've then got a unit of two chain ghasts, which are kind of like not quite characters, but they're a good buffing unit. Then I have the actual original Lord Executioner Mini, which I've been running lately using a different model. The old Underworld Warband had a executioner model where he had a big sword that he was chopping down. Very cool. And I was using him as the AOS executioner. But I've got the, well, I've got all of the executioner models because I've been collecting them for the sake of collecting them. But the original one that came out with the launchbox of second edition Aegis Sigma, where he has a giant hangman's noose on his back, and then coming out of his back is also a bunch of spectral ghosts, and then he's got a big axe that he's chopping down, which is ultimately just a much cooler model. So I wanted to paint up him because he just looks a bit better and a bit more imposing for the Lord Executioner, and I've been really enjoying running him, so I thought I would do him credit and try and use it as an excuse to paint that up as well. And then lastly, I've got the Mongol, which is the ghost, the big giant ghost. That is really my them and him and the cross, I say cross, but craven frame guard are my two like essential units that I really want to get painted up because the Mongol is just a cool unit, and I I want to take it, it's not very competitive, but it visually will look great. The Craven Frame Guard really work with Kurdos. There's like some good synergies that I want to test out. So that's sort of why that's essential. Everything else is optional, really. So if I don't have time, I will try and prioritize getting those finished. Um, I've had some real issues painting though. Um I've had issues with everything in the last few weeks, to be honest. Um, but basically my airbrush um was constantly blowing bubbles back into the cup. Um, and occasionally it would work fine, and then other times it wouldn't. I did a massive deep clean of it and even dismantling bits of the airbrush. I'd never dismantled before in literally the 10 to 12 years that I've had it. I think it's older than my laptop, basically. Um it served me well, but I thought it's finally given up the ghost because I disassembled it, cleaned it out, got rid of some really encrusted paint right at the very back of the airbrush, which I didn't even know was a place that could exist, but it did. Uh got it all cleaned and still didn't really work. Occasionally worked, didn't, you know, sometimes I got I also got the airbrush lube, which helped sometimes, but ultimately it still didn't work. And I was left in a position of, okay, am I buying a new airbrush or am I buying maybe a nozzle? Because that's normally the only well, there's two other problems it could have been. The nozzle often gets damaged, and I looked at it and it didn't really look damaged, but it's sometimes a bit too hard to see. Or the worst problem is it's a seal, and therefore I'd need to buy a seal kit. And I think if that was the case, I'd rather just bought a new airbrush. But I bought a new nozzle, and as of yesterday, it seems to be I'm back in business and it's working, so that's good. Uh it still clogs quite quickly, so I think maybe I need to thin the paints because a lot of the paints I haven't used in a year or so for my night hawk, so they might have dried out a little bit. But I seem to be making progress, slow progress, but I am making progress. Um, that's sort of it, really, for the hobby. Um, there's one other thing that I bought that's quite interesting. I got another picture. You can't quite see it, but maybe on YouTube you can. There is a little pictured frame uh of an Inquisitor sort of rogue trader type character from John Blanche. It's not an official print like these are. Um is from an eBay seller where they basically, I think, cut up Games Workshop books and White Dwarf, which is somewhat sacrilege, and then they spray mount them and back them and put them in cheapish but okay looking frames and sell them for a reasonable price. So I thought before I would on a punt buy one. Um again on Instagram there's a picture that you can check out. Um and yeah, I was pretty happy with it. It looks good, and also these picture frames uh behind me are just massive. Uh they are I think a three, whereas the smaller one is A4, which is much more manageable. And I'd love in that wall, which is gonna be like a little gallery to have lots of different sizes of pitch frames, and actually I really want some like a five and a6, like really small picture frames of stuff in. So that's gonna happen at some point. And then the other thing, as of today, I bought a gaming table, so I think it's from a place called Arbor Gardens. I found it via a few people. Um, so one is Ed from Warhammer World. Um basically they got new gaming tables up at Games Workshop HQ at Warhammer World. And I asked them where they got them from, and they were like, well, they're custom. Um, but Ed said they got some cool gaming tables up at Element Games, um, and then he put me in touch with his cousin, I think, who then put me in touch um with the company Harbor Gardens. Um, and then also I had coincidentally seen those same tables down at Element Games in London, their new store when I checked that out, and I was like, oh, this is amazing. I'd really like to get this. And I asked them, and they said, Oh, I think they're just custom built for them, which they weren't. They're from this place, Harbor Gardens. So, yeah, I'm getting the same tables that they use at some of the element game stores, at least. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to that. And then I've made plans to customize the under part of the table, so effectively I can slot in sort of racks the realm of battle tiles, but I don't have the plastic ones because I'm a Forge World fancy pants. I bought many years ago uh the Forge World Cities of Death Realm of Battle tiles, basically, that are very nice, but um they're expensive. But I bought them a long time ago, and they've literally been living in my loft for several years. They go for crazy money now. Thankfully, I didn't pay that kind of money, but they were still more expensive than if I just bought them at the time from Games Workshop, I think. Or maybe it was about slightly more than face value. It wasn't much more. It felt like it was a good bargain, basically, when I got them. So yeah, that's the aim for that. So I will have an ability to play on maybe a mat or two if I buy a mat, but I'm not worrying about that yet. I've got an idea for storage for the tiles, and potentially it will also have some storage for necromunda size one foot by one foot tiles as well. It will either motivate me to get some Necromunda stuff for when I play Necromunda, or it'll motivate me to do my dream projects of converting up the kill team uh sort of boarding actions style terrain into sort of Zone Mortalis style terrain tiles. That's that's the plan with that anyway. So you won't say by the next episode because it's getting delivered in a few weeks' time. So hopefully by two episodes' time, the table might appear in the video if you're watching along on YouTube. Um yeah, so that will be quite exciting. Uh yeah, I appreciate it's been a bit of a rambly episode, but uh, hopefully that's sort of uh, you know, I've been, you know, the busyness and the technical issues. I've had other technical issues with that might be on the tabletop shop. But yeah, that that's the other thing that's really taken up all my time at the moment. I'd I've done very little of the actual painting of the night haunt, unfortunately. Yeah, so I think that's it for my outro. Future episode. So next episode probably won't be 500 words. The episode after will most likely be all about the Age of Sigma tournament that we're talking about then. Yeah, so who knows what next week will be. I did want to talk about salute at some point, and I do have plans. I recorded a load of sort of B-roll footage for want of a better term. I I recorded a load of footage of me going around Salute, and I was going to do that as a Patreon video, so that will happen at some point. Um, and I was thinking maybe about getting Richie on to talk about it this week, but obviously it just didn't happen because of all the technical stuff that happened. So maybe we'll talk about that next week. Maybe I'll just save that for a Patreon exclusive video when I get round to editing that footage together. Maybe we talk about something else next week. But yeah, 500 Worlds is still in the plan when I get a bit more time. And as part of that, I'll also talk about the campaign book as well, because that's been really exciting, and we've been doing the campaign uh alongside that as well. Yeah, that's been that's been good. Oh yeah, and we also took part in the 500 Worlds campaign. That was the other thing I did uh a couple of weekends ago. Um that was good fun. I won both my games. I won one against Dan and the one that actually took part when we all met up together and also won that that was against Spike and his ultramarines. I feel like I'm getting too rambly. I feel like I'm more rambly when I'm on my own than if I'm got someone else to keep me in check. Maybe I I've been the problem all along when it comes to rambling around and going off in different directions. But yeah. So this has been episode 237, I believe. Thank you so much for listening, everyone. I'll see you in two weeks' time. Uh don't forget to hit that like and subscribe if you're listening on YouTube. And if you're just on you're just listening to the audio, like you said, you don't have to do anything. You can you can just switch off now. You can just go to bed or you know, get on with your day, whatever you're up to. But you YouTubers, you've got stuff to do. You've got comments to write. Thank you very much. I'll speak to you soon. Take care. Goodbye. Bye bye now. Bye bye.