A Tale of Three Editions

The 3 last rulebooks (pocket versions)

Last night I was browsing my 40K stuff, and just occurred to me that I have the 3 last rulebooks in their pocket incarnations - the versions that used to come in the starter sets (Battle for Macragge, Assault on Black Reach and Dark Vengeance, respectively). It brought me into a trip down the memory lane.

I know Warhammer 40K (and Warhammer Fantasy as well) since the early 90s, when the second edition was rocking. Brazil was passing through a new age of imports, with the cut of importation taxes (what is not the case anymore), opening our market to all kinds of goods from around the globe. It was how I got to know the game. A local RPG store/club started to stock 40k 2nd edition starter sets, and all the people drooled over those gigantic boxes - they were HUGE, much bigger than the starter sets that came later in the next editions. It had a ton of Space Marines, Orks and Goblins, all in the same, cookie-cutter pose. They had some fliers in Portuguese as well, presenting the game, the hobby and miniatures (it was from Portugal), so everybody wanted those boxes.

The price was prohibitive, they used to cost as much as a motorized RC plane or something. It was SO expensive that even I, the most consumerist kid/teenager I knew wouldn't even think asking my parents for that. I was a student at that time, so I didn't had my own money, so I could only dream. the closest thing I had was playing some matches of Space Hulk, that was available for play in that club. At that time I didn't have the slightest clue on what the 40K was about, the fluff or anything. I only knew that the Space Marines enter Space Hulks to prevent genestealers from reaching populated planets.

It was only in the middle of the 4th edition that I rediscovered the game, I've completely forgot about it. A friend of mine, fan of computer games, was browsing review sites and installing those games to try, and that way he came across the Dawn of War game. He was thrilled in showing me the strategy game he found, how cool it was and such (we both are big fans of computer strategy games). I started watching him play. creating mechanical monasteries and such, and the logos on the units were familiar to me. So I asked: "Isn't it a Warhammer game?" (he just presented it to me as Dawn of War, and I didn't saw the opening screen - I wasn't that much interested in watching a game that day) and he said "Yes, did you already know this one?". That got me hooked. I've played the hell out of it, and I realized that I wasn't a penniless student anymore. I was an adult now, working, and I could pay for my own miniatures this time. Then I've got the 4th edition rulebook.

Nothing screams 40K at you face like the 4th edition rulebook. In fact I didn't knew about this Portuguese set of Battle for Macragge until later, and my first contact with the hobby as a player and collector was the main, hardcover book. The gritty look of the cover (the one with the hammer and the servo skull), and the epicness of the first pages, all black, presenting the Emperor in the Golden Throne, the Palace and the High Lords of Terra, the Space Marines, and the Inquisition, in that old-styled text, it blew me away. In my opinion, no other edition matches this one when presenting the grimdark future.

The 4th Edition Rulebook

Getting back to the Portuguese book, I knew from the internet that the 40k stuff used to be released in Portugal, translated to Portuguese at least until the first years of the 4th edition - I could see pics of the codices with their Portuguese names, but never saw those books in person. It was only when a company called Hobby Delivery started to represent GW at Brazil (what is not the case anymore too), just before the 5th edition, that they started to sell the Portuguese versions of the "Batalha por Macragge" box set, and it had all it's contents translated. One thing that is very cool about the 4th edition pocket book is that despite not having all the fluff and hobby parts of the complete book, it still have some pages presenting the universe and the factions, invaluable in my opinion to the buyers that are having their first contact with the game through that box. It's something they abandoned in the following editions, what I consider a BAD idea. The starter sets as they are now seems to me just like good opportunities for seasoned players to get cheaper miniatures and a pocket-sized version of the book. And one thing that adds to that impression is the new habit from GW of having some miniatures exclusively at those boxes, forcing people that already have their armies for years to invest on starter sets. Which other way can you get those cheaper and nicer versions of the Ork Deffkoptas, or the new Chaos Chosen, Chaos Cultists and the Helbrute?

Do you prefer these...

Stand-alone Ork Deffkopta

...or these?

Assault on Bleack Reach Ork Deffkopta

The 5th edition rulebook was great in concept, but poor in execution. It was much more colorful (what is not necessarily a good thing for a morbid universe like the 41st millennium), with much more fluff, but had awful illustrations, and just missed the point on what 40K is all about for me. The cover was supposed to look like a "better" version of the 4th edition book, missing the point as the rest of the book. And I still can't forgive GW from casting the Witch Hunters (my first army) aside as "Forces of the Imperium", bleh - we WH players freaked out thinking that our army would go the way of the Squats.

The 6th rulebook is an step in the right direction. It is colorful and gritty at the same time, with much better taste in illustrations and art. It's not free of flaws, tough - it isn't as gritty and 40k-in-your-face like the 4th edition book, but maybe I'm just jaded since it was my real first - and the laziness of Games Workshop on using the covers of the last codices to present each army was a poor choice. I bet they have tons of artwork of each faction laying around, why give us more of the same? The cover is nice, and a very welcome change from the uninspired hammer from the 5th edition cover, and a nod to the old covers from the first three editions of the game.

* * *

Just after playing for some time, just before the 5th edition, I could take a look at the older versions of the rulebook. The first one, Rogue Trader, is awesome, in a B-rated movie sort of way. It's from 1987, and there's no art direction at all, it's all over the place. The art remembers me the old Battletech books, that came around the same time. But we will talk about this book in the future ;)

The second edition of the rulebook was rather boring. I remember flipping though it at that game store, but it didn't caught my attention. It was all black and white, and my english wasn't that good to really appreciate the snippets of text that I was looking at. Now, knowing the language much better than before, the book remains unimpressive to me - maybe I was lucky in getting to play 40k just later.

The 3rd edition book was presented to me by a friend that was one of the first people I played 40k against. It's a very interesting book, bridging the gap between the 2nd and 4th editions - it's a very transitional book, giving away several cues on how the rulebooks would be after that one: lots of colored pages, pics of miniatures and armies, all in a BIG book, that still had army lists inside of it - only from the 4th edition an on that all armies were presented on their own, separated codices...

Well, this text ended up being much longer that I expected, and maybe not that interesting as it appeared to me when I decided to write it. But it was a fun thing to do, so I hope you can dig it, at least a little bit ;)