Speaking of things being better in the olden days, shall we jump in to? Yeah, mate, go for it. Yeah, So happy to have you on again, Emil, and thanks very much for accepting my invitation to come and talk all about your experience playing third edition for the very first time. It's been a been decades in the making and. Yeah. I'm just glad, yeah.
I'm just glad that you got to experience it with someone you met down there in in Sydney, where you are there on such a beautifully landscaped and model table. Yeah, I'll thanks. Yeah, really blown away by those pictures, mate. Yeah, yeah, me too. I mean, yeah, like you're saying it was a it's been a really big lead up. You know, the third booklet that sorry, the 3rd Ed robot came out in the same year that I was born. So it's a lifetime in the
making. But yeah, like, I've, I've always wanted to play old Hammer. Even when I was a kid, I came in right at the end of 5th. So like, sixth really was my first addition. But I've always been, I was always enamoured by the like, the dioramas they had set up in the back of the shop. So they had, you know, a 5th edition set up for 3rd, 2nd, 1st, even they had the old three booklets there with miniatures
from that era. And I used to spend half the time just with my face pressed against the glass looking at those miniatures. So yeah, but before, before this game, I've never played third edition. So yeah, bear that in mind. I'm a novice at best that that he was my experience. So besides just really loving the miniatures, I think my brain is just wired to like old things more. It's always kind of been like, I don't know why, it just is the other miniatures and the
aesthetic. And the more and more I learned about it as well, the mentality, you know, the game is not competitive, It's not meant to be. It's it's a vehicle for creating stories. And you know, it's supposed to be played with AGM who runs the game and steals it like like you would during an RPG. You know, I mean, that's where it was birthed from, that sort of seventies, 80s Dungeons and Dragons sort of sort of time before it's sort of morphed more into like a miniature war game.
What I also really love is how the rulebook explicitly states that you don't have to use Citadel miniatures and that it also contains cardboard cutouts or stand in miniatures so you can play without buying a single one. Like, could you imagine Games Workshop doing that today? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, after coming back in the hobby, I think it was, it was winter, so yeah.
So probably August last year after finding the Crown of Command, I thought, well, you know, Oldhammer exists and there are actual people who still play it. So you know, why not? I I could be one of those people who play it. So I put up an ad in the player locator in the Discord looking for third players here in Sydney. I had no bites for a while until Zodi Biggs introduced himself on the server and he told me he was
keen for a game of third. At that point I didn't have an army to play a game of third with, so I met up with Zodi Biggs at Kind FX's game club, the Sutherland Shire Gamers Club, and we played some more time while I started building up a third undead army. So during that time I also got my hands on Bob, the Big Orange Book, the giant thirded book, which, like I said, was published in the same year that I was born. It was actually fairly difficult
to get my hands on that book. It took quite a while because it's pretty expensive online. I just had to wait and be patient. I was using the PDF but it's it's not very. It's not the easiest book to navigate at the best of times, and using APDF makes it even more difficult. But eventually I found one along with the Warhammer's Armies book which is a great book. Unlike later editions, it's basically every single army book
in one book. Imagine that, having one book that has everything you'd ever need to play any army you'd like. You know you can actually get away with just using Bob to build your armies. There's a beast tree in the back that that has enough to get you by that. The army book just makes it so much easier. Both of these books are really worth getting simply for the artwork alone, even if you never plan to play third it I I really highly recommend getting them.
In my opinion, they contain the best app for games or workshop has ever produced that you have to bear in mind that that I'm biased. I'm a sucker for 80s fantasy art, but it's also really like how it's there's not sort of an art style like all the artists in there have their own style. You know, it's kind of like at the same time around 3rd Ed also when Wolfram like first edition came out as kind of when, you know, the old war sort of really became that had the beginnings
of what it is today. Like it kind of became concrete in that way. But I just like how it's still, it was still so much, at least my feeling towards that. There's so much still mystery and area left to explore, and the fact that the artwork isn't all sort of the same really sort
of makes that more exciting. I also really love the world of Warhammer seen through an old hammer lens with chaos infecting and corrupting everything, chaos greenskins and marauding bands and in those same marauding bands you can have chaos worshipping elves and chaos towards. And also the stories in the pre black library days are just so
good. The Oldhammer Fiction podcast is really good at exploring some of those stories and for me I think also for use the Felix and Go Trick stories are really epitome of this. I also just really love the aesthetic. Like it's grim dark before there was a green dark in the days before everything was read, and the miniatures are just so damn characterful. Like just just take a look at what Chaos towards looked like before they got their big hats like it, it'll blow your mind.
There are also some other things that were, let's say a little bit more adult themed that were removed from the setting after third edition in order to appeal more to younger audiences and more importantly their parents. For example orcs were not made of fungus and there were half orcs, so I wonder how they were made. You know, when a when a mummy ork and a daddy human fall in love? Anyway, they're also for me and they also reproduce in a not so
savoury way. And there were other races that also felt by the wayside. Unknowns. You could have been your dwarf army and stoats. You could also have Nippon and Cafe as like mercenary additions to your army and you could field a complete army of slam. Yeah, it's just a crazy twisted dark place and. And that's just the way I like it. So yeah, now down to the crunch. Again, I've only ever played one game of 3rd Ed so take what I say with a grain of salt, but I
really love all the extra rules. There are rules upon rules, even rules for making your own rules in case they got to put rules for things that needed rules. Lots of rules. It's It's also, like I was saying before, not really presented in the best way for absorbing the rules and also not for finding things that you need to reference mid game.
So I found that a bit of the hurdle, but for me learning to play a game, it's I can read the rule book as many times as I want, but I really actually kind of have to sit down and and play it to really make sense of it. And when I did so you you see that it's actually really not that different from later editions. You can play it almost like force. There are just loads of rules to allow you to do anything you could possibly imagine.
Like you want your giant to roll a wagon up the hill and push it down onto an oncoming army? No worries. You want to reform your regiments and to shield walls or testudos or wedges? Again, that's not a problem. There are rules for that. I like to think of it like it's a road map which enables your imagination to run wild and and kind of create and do whatever you'd like to do. So once I sort of got my head around that becomes a lot less
intimidating. All the rules are just there to do things if you'd like to do them, but if you just want to play a straight up game like 4th or 5th or even 6th, you can do that. So yeah, once Zodi Bix and I set a date for the game, it was a really good motivator to get my hobby on and painted like I'd never painted before. This was the first army I'd ever really painted that wasn't, you know, half a day in the backyard with spray paint and having a BLOB fest on, on plastic miniatures.
I've just torn off the sprue with my fingers to form into an army like I did when I was 13. Zodi Bigs was a great help as was kind of fixing, helping me choose the right colour scheme and for bouncing armies off and I ended up painting pretty much 2000 point army, the majority of which within six weeks. So I was really proud of myself achieving that. I never sat down and you know, painted anything like that in that period of time. But bear in mind it's an undead
army, so most of it's just bone. So that makes it a lot more manageable than, you know, escape an army or a Britannian army or Ohio farm. The wake up leading up to the game Zodi bigs really helped me in turning on my skeletons into an army army list. We'd agreed on 1000 point game as he told me. So that games take a really long time to play, so it's best to keep it small, especially it's the first time I'm playing it. But it would take even longer.
But I found 1000 points and it still gave me a fair scope to use a fair few different types of units. We also decided to drop the minimum number of core units that you have to take in order to be able to play around a bit more with special units. As you know, I'm still building the army and I want to make it bigger and bigger. So I wanted to try out different things on on the table to see what I liked more of in order to know what to what to paint up
next. So my list I I went with the level 10 Necromancer. I had a 20 grim reapers with Shields plus a standard musician. I had 14 zombies and with a standard and musician. And in both of those units I had one level 5 undead hero SO2 in total. I had a chariot play cart, carrion skull tracker with screaming skulls and eight death riders with Lancers with standard musician and Zodi Biggs. He took a greenskin army.
He had a one level 1 orc, level 15 hero, 19 orc boys, and so we had the general in that unit at 20 Arab boys, 6 gobbo wolf boys, 20 goblins, 3 goblin fanatics, and one giant. So yeah, now to the big day itself. I arrived and, and I walked into a games room and felt like I'd stepped into a White Dwarf battle report from the late 80s. I couldn't imagine a better table to play on. Zodi Bix is an incredible artist and Craftsman and he he's
created an amazing table. Let me just pull up a picture so I can talk you through it. On a 6 by 4 table there was a farm with with wheat fields, a watchtower, some ruins are shrouded in a forest, two hills, a beautiful river traversing the table with a bridge going over it and a dirt Rd. leading off from the bridge and a couple of farmhouses on the other side and a peak style and two more crops of trees.
It's it's absolutely gorgeous. You couldn't imagine a better table and and what a table to have for your first game. These minis are are also to die for. It's got a collection of third edge and earlier pre slaughter miniatures of orcs and half Hawks and hobgoblins that I'd never seen before. His skill with the brush is is like yours, Josh. He's he could be an heavy metal painter and it's all painted up the way it was in the 80s.
It's absolutely amazing. So to make it a bit more interesting, we created a scenario imagining that we're on the border of Sylvania. It's a greenskin wah beginning their rampage across the Empire. The Electric Count of Sylvania may still be a vampire, but it's his duty to stop the greenskins from rampaging across his land. So here's where he decided to hold the horde with his undead. I even took my little vampire mini who I couldn't include in the game as inferted.
They're extremely expensive. Point what point wise? So he just sat with a little entourage in the ruins watching the battle take place. We finished setting up, we had some lunch and then we dove in. So I rolled to go 1st and I sent my death riders up the left flank through the river. And I figured, you know, they can go through difficult terrain and very difficult terrain and there's no hindrance to them and they can even go through buildings and and bridges at
half rate. And then I sent my carrion up over the pigsty to land behind a farmhouse to keep him screened from errors. But working out those flying rules is something else altogether quite different to to forfeit. It's we kind of need a degree in trigonometry to sort of work it out.
But we did sort of I sent my chariot up the right flank with my play cut tucked in behind it. So to give extra strength against instability to the chariot and also the grim reapers just to the side of it and just shielding from arrows. So yeah, the the 3rd Ed rules for artillery are not amazing. I think it makes them really overpowered, but in White Dwarf 147 they came out with the rules for artillery that you use in fourth head but just before 4th head was released.
So still technically we're using 3rd Ed rules, just later 3rd Ed rules. So we're using essentially 4th Ed rules for artillery. So I overshot with the skull tracker and I had the the one skeleton on the chariot with a bow and of course he missed with his ballistic skill of two, he's not going to do very much, but you know, may as well have something to do. In the shooting phase.
The the grim reapers shambled forwards and I left my zombies as a meet a rotted meat shield in front of the necromancer. And he did really well in the magic phase. He summoned four more death riders to create another little mini unit. Let's look at the next picture, Greenskins, or move forward next. It's funny the the giant just beginning the game, he had to roll up on a chart to see what he's going to be like. And he turned out to be drunk and he moved sort of haphazardly
forwards in a random manner. And at that point, this is my grave error. I thought, you know, not to worry about him too much. But yeah, that turned out to be a bit of a mistake. And the wolf Red has ran up my left flank to meet my death riders and his Arab boys shot my chariot to shed. So chariot disappeared pretty quickly. So my turn again and the death riders, they can ignore the difficult terrain.
So they charged the wolf riders across the river and and going through the bridge, the wolf riders are making their way between 2 farm buildings in a sort of alleyway. And I sent my carrying up from behind them to sort of make a trap. There was nowhere they could go. There's death riders in front of them and the Karen behind them, the buildings on the other side. Because the chariot had been
shot to ship. I turned the play cut around and moved it sort of backwards so that he wouldn't have the same fate as the chariot. And I scored a hit with the cut of bolt and killed a couple of Hawks. They passed their few tests because they had the general with them. So having charged the wolf riders, the gobbos being gobbos failed their few tests and they routed. But being trapped between the buildings and my units, they ran straight into the waiting
carrion and were destroyed. My necromancer then raised another six death riders to add to my ever growing new unit, which ended up being bigger than my other unit of death riders, which is great. And yeah, the Greenskins then continued more forward and they shot a couple more zombies and then three fanatics jumped out. And they were whirling around dangerously between our units and one of them managed to wrap a chain around his own neck and he was there.
Yeah. This is where things started to go wrong for me. I was over confident and I thought I'd send my victorious death riders flush from their victory against the Wolf riders to circle around the enemy that attempts to capture their baggage car. Or that's another thing about you can get into a bit later, the baggage cart. I love that. Or the sort of circle, circle behind the Arab boys and the zombies then met the goblins that were across from them head on. Once the fanatics had sort of
spun out of danger. I think the fanatics must have killed a few zombies. I can't exactly remember, but I think one, yeah, one of them must have. And then sort of welled himself out. And then my new unit of death writers at my necromancer had summoned, met the old boys with the general in the middle of the table, and the drunk giant charged my grim reapers. He then rolled up on the drunk giant the drunk giant chart and decided he was having a lot of fun being drunk drunk and he
wanted to dance. So I thought this would be good for me as he was jumping up and down. But it turns out that causes a shit ton of damage and he wanted to keep jumping up and down for the rest of the rest of the
game. So he smashed the grim reapers with the undead hero down very, very quickly and the zombies and death riders couldn't do much against their opposing gobos and or boys with the battle sort of grinding down to a scrum, each side winning or losing in this mechanic in 3rd that I really like is when you lose a battle, you get pushed back. So all the units it really it kind of makes this a more mobile battlefield line and it's not just sort of a big free for all
in the middle of the table. Things get pushed around and moved around and you know, you end up bumping into other units which cause other things to happen. And don't worry, there are rules for that too. I was very lucky as well, because every time I'd lost a round of combat, as you generally do with skeletons, I had to roll up on the instability chart. But each time I rolled really well, and all the units that had been killed then were raised immediately back and joined my
regiments. This happened two or three turns in a row. So my units in the middle of the table at least weren't weren't disappearing. And my carrion then I got him to charge in the side flank of the goblins that were already engaged with the zombies. And the Karen's really interesting because every time the after each round of combat, he gets bigger and bigger and you add another attack after each round of combat as a little, a little Wraith on his back gets bigger and bigger.
And I thought that you know, the goblins being goblins being attacked from the front and the rear by units causing fear would run, but they didn't because they were still so close to the to the general, the unit right next to them. I guess the goblins were more afraid of the big ol boss than the undead flying beasts, so they didn't run, but they held
firm. And of course, my catapot misfired just as I got the range right, fell apart and it killed, killed all the crew around it just as it does. Yep. And my death riders who had had sent on their way around to sort of outflank the Arab boys and capture the baggage truck, they had run too far away from any controlling force. I didn't have an undead hero in with them. So they all sort of just fell apart, which was, you know, to my detriment.
And yeah, at this point I started to panic as the drunk dancing giant was having so much fun and getting carried carried away, jumping up and down every round of combat. So he smashed my entire regiment of Grim reapers to pieces and there was nothing between him and my necromancer. This is where the funniest part of the battle took place. So I had nothing between the giant and the necromancer. And you know, it wouldn't be so difficult for him just to stomp
him immediately. And all my other units were engaged in hand to hand combat except for one. That was my play card. So I charged the play card into the giant. And yeah, play card is not meant to be used offensively as weak as Pierce. He's just got that, that one little guy on the back who has one attack with the, you know, with his weapon skill of two. And the ox doesn't do anything. So the giant dumped up and down and stomped on it and he snaps the play card in half.
However, the axle of the cart pierced into the giant and caused a wound after destroying everything. The play cart was the only thing that that caused any damage to the giant. So I was like wow, yeah great. It's caused a wound. How many wounds has he had left? He's got 5 wounds left. My whole regiment have been reapers with an undead hero. Couldn't cause a scratch on the guy, but the plucky play card caused a wound, so there was
that. I used my last remaining magic points, desperately trying to raise some more skeletons to put between my necromancer and the giant. But, you know, as these things do, I rolled pitifully and only managed to raise 2. At this stage. We'd been at it for over six hours and it was getting late. It was clear what would happen in a turn or so. Giant would just stomp on my necromancer and that was that.
So we called it a day. I had really high expectations for the game, but really they were exceeded by a mile. I knew it would be really fun that one thing I found really interesting. What I wasn't really prepared for was, you know, the absolute majesty of the spectacle of seeing 80s minis on such a perfect table straight out of a white dwarf. Zodi Vix's minis and his terrain so well crafted and painted. It was like really easy to get
immersed in what was happening. It just, it all looked so cinematic. I could just, you know, see the death riders galloping silently through the trees and could hear the wolves howling, imagining the occupants of the farmhouses, you know, huddling terrified under their beds. They could just see the giant jumping up and down on the Stelly Boys until they were a pile of dust. It was just amazing. I'd say. Yeah. It's the most fun I'd had in a long time. And I really can't wait to play
play again. Zodi Dix is a gentleman and a scholar and I consider myself lucky to have him as an opponent and now as a friend. He's a absolute top bloke. Brilliant mate. That's great. Really happy for you. Because yeah, when you show me those those photos like we talked about, I was so happy that you could have experienced your first game with such a
beautiful looking table. But then I thought, if he's going to give you like the proper 3rd edition experience, maybe he should have just stuck with the the tablecloth and the books underneath the tablecloth, ribs and the heroes and everything like we did back in the day, and play on the floor, You know what I mean? And yeah, I think we're we're getting too old. I don't begun each container.
No, no, certainly mine couldn't. Yeah, but, yeah, but just, you know, like having played a game with 3rd and looking back on it, you know, it's, it's really complex and it's, you know, it's crunchy as it comes, but it's, it's so much fun. You don't really notice all that crunch. You can see it's, it's really, it's meant for creating a narrative and it really excels at that. You know, we spent the whole day laughing at all the crazy stuff
that was happening. And, you know, in the end, that's what it's all about, right? That's that's what you're there. For yeah. One, one thing that you know, I found really complicated though, was the movement mechanics with all the different, was that the simple and complex manoeuvres and the different penalties for being encumbered and moving through different types of terrain and carrying different amounts of weapons and Shields
and armor. And the reserve moves the wheels and turns, formation changes ranks and wedges and shield walls and Wheeling forwards, Wheeling backwards, Wheeling from the centre, making squares into studios, snaking and all those complex flying rules, which, you know, you needed masters in maths to sort of work out that, you know, I think it is you can master it. And you know, I've, I've played one game and of course it seems complex that point, but you
know, I think after a couple of games you'd sort of get used to it. One thing I did really enjoy was the reserve, the move. I feel it really adds a new level of strategy to the game because you know, you move, then you depending on how shooting and combat went, you can then move the units which didn't shoot or fight and sort of position them ready to receive a charge or to be in a position better position to charge or to shoot better next round.
I really like that. I know it slows things down, but but I think it's worth that for the sort of level of tactics that it gives. You also really like the fact that you have to take a baggage cart and you know the different I think you get 100 victory points if you capture it.
And there's all these funny rules about what happens when you get close to it. You know you can't, you know, your units might end up fighting each other to get all the booty or things like half things can't help themselves. They have to run to the to get all the food or to being undead. You don't really need to worry about that. They don't need a baggage cut because you know, skeletons don't eat. I also really like the magic
system. I know a lot of people talk about how it gets really crazy at higher levels, but I really like the idea of having a limited number of magic points and that you kind of have to use it as a finite resource. I like at the beginning of the game as well, rolling up on the table to see what spells should have.
Like it randomizes that, I guess kind of like how what you do with drafting in Source and Renaissance and you know, you can get your wizard and he can meditate and do nothing for a turn. But then you only get one point, which is, you know, really nothing. As at least for me with my necromancer at that level in that game, I needed at least three points to do anything.
So it's kind of like the whole level of strategy to sort of, you know, do you use them all at once in one big go or do you sort of how do you how do you manage them? I really liked all the RPG elements and all the tables and charts to roll up against it really like adds a lot of depth and makes makes it a lot of fun. I'd also really love to to try a
game with AGM. Think AGM controlling the game and you know, controlling like the NPCS on the board and adding different elements like whether or changing, you know, the scenario in the big game. I think that'd be really fun. One thing that what's also really different was the two hit chart. So say it's like the weapon strength of weapon skill, sorry of both opponents is the same.
Like say that's three verse 3 and you know normally you need a fourth to a four to hit, but in 3rd you need a 5. So it's like one up. And I understand why they did that because, you know, you think 2 equally matched opponents would have difficulty trap hitting each other. But I find it it really slows down the game and it in and not in a good way because, you know, they're just sitting there like no one can really hit each other or it takes a really long time.
And like mathematically the end result will be the same. If you have to roll on pives or rolls on fours, it just takes a lot longer. And, you know, if you're, you know, a teenager in the 80s and you've got nothing else to do, then that's fine. But I think you know, and I know a small sort of heel playing skirmish using 3rd Ed rules that would be fine. But you know, big units of 25 or more. It just takes forever to resolve
the combat. An idea of Zodibexes, which I, I really like is to do a combination of third and 4th, sort of like a 3.5 where you can do all the cool things that third lets you do, like use a 3rd Ed magic and army lists and you know, wedges and shield wars and all that. That using the movement and flying rules for 4th and using the 4th to hit table just to speed things up. Be like having a warhammer and essence but for 3rd Ed. Yeah, yeah. Next time we'll takes time.
We'll give that a go. Yeah, yeah. Now the now the dream is to have a siege game that might, that might take a while, that it will happen. And I'm really looking forward to that. And yeah, I mean, if there's anyone out there in Sydney who wants to play a game of 3rd Ed, feel free to contact me on Discord. I'm Beowulf BEOWALF in southern Sydney, Australia. Awesome mate. That's great. So thanks Emil for for giving us your insights into your very first game of 3rd edition.
I'm sure we're going to elaborate and expand on that later. I'm thinking about doing like a series of the Bob book, the Big Orange book, but broken down into different segments. So like movement, shooting hand in combat, magic, the beastry and the Army's book, and eventually all the other supplements that came out as well. So that's something we're to touch on later in a probably a series of of podcasts bringing experts in. I'm no expert at 3rd edition.
I don't know much about it. Like you say, it's it's a pretty complex beast, especially if you had no sort of formal playing experience with it. So, but I have tried, I have tried getting in touch with Brett at Solo Oldhammer Gaming and he's he's still alive, thank goodness. He released a video not so long ago and I'm pretty sure he's in the Sydney area too, but he's just so Brett, if you're listening to this mate, please get get in touch because there are people playing third edition.
So I'd love to see you expand from being a solo war gamer of 3rd edition, but actually playing it with people in person. So that'd be really nice to see you having the guys over to your, to your house and playing a third edition battle report and and that kind of thing. Maybe in the future. But but yeah, we've got plenty of things obviously to ask about. There's there's lots of things like the baggage cart, like how fanatics work, you know, how does magic impact the game?
Magical musical instruments for your units and stuff like that and how armies are constructed. So we'll have to cover those in future episodes on the Chronicle Man podcasts. But Emil, thank you so much again for your time today, mate, and I look forward to, yeah, tackling this and getting more into grips with 3rd edition in the future. Yeah, no worries. Thanks have beyond.
No problem mate. We'll catch up with you soon and anybody like Emil said, if you want to get in touch with Emil or any other guys, we do hang out on Discord. I, I, I, I talk about this quite often. I don't really, I don't really go onto Facebook so much these days. So sorry about that guys if you're on Facebook, but we do hang out on Discord a lot and I tend to live in that Discord space because there are so many great channels like ours who who love this part of the hobby in
this era of the hobby. So if you're interested, check out the description below for the links and join our Discord and get in touch with the Play Player Locator channel and maybe you'll find someone in your area that plays the same Go games that you like to play. Not necessarily 3rd edition 1A fantasy, but it could be like 6th edition fantasy. It could be third edition 40K, it could be anything, could be row trader, you name it. We've got a growing community.
I think it's swelled up to now almost 900 members, which is amazing, and we've had a big influx of people coming through recently. So it's always encouraging to see that there's a growing community there in Discord and that we're trying to connect people together. Like you have done a meal with Zodi Bix. Zodi Bix has got a fantastic Instagram page. I'll leave a link in the description as well. Go and check it out. Go to see his work.
It's really inspiring, but we'll leave it for now mate. Thanks again. And Emil, we'll get in contact soon and but apart from that we can chat on our discord mate as we paint and and hang out that way. Awesome. OK mate, will you take care of yourself and we'll catch up soon?