I started in 6th Ed. To me that's still the true edition of Warhammer, and I just can't get used to the new rules, even though they make my army even better.


Does anyone know the year each edition came out?

Me and some friends started playing warhammer 1year before 5th Ed changed into 6th Ed.

near the start of 5th edition.

The start of 5th. I've been playing Lizards since they first became an army.

Sometimes in the beginning of 5th edition. Had a look through the rulebook (5th) yesterday. It has some hilarious artwork in it, poor goblins always get squashed, burned or whatever :lol: . Ah, those were the times of glorious herohammer. Had a look in the 4th edition book aswell. Found that the core rules has pretty much stayed the same for a looong time.

Aren't the all players that started playing in the 1st Ed dead already?

6th edition for me. I still haven't played a seventh edition battle yet ... haven't gotten around to it.

5th edition, just as it came into play. The first White Dwarf I bought was 204. I miss those days, back when they would take time out of a battle report to discuss the proper way to make tea.

6th ed. I started a year before the 7th came, but i'm still playing with 6th ed rules.

When did each edition come out?

The only thing I know is that 7th Edition came out in September 2006. I don't know about the others. I don't even know when the game itself started and which armies there were at the beginning.

Wikipedia is your friend.

Although the article is a little vague about 4th/5th edition. 4th edition came out around '94, I think. 5th edition came out in '96.

Which reminds me of that I was like 11-12 years old when I first started, that would be over ten years ago and in the beginning of 5th edition :).

3rd Edition. I still have my 3rd ed rule book. Game was *VERY* different back then.

There was more complexity with maneuvers (you could wheel from the center of a unit, among other things)

Magic was even more godlike. You could, for example, summon an "Elemental" with a high enough level magic user. Oh, yes, an elemental had a statline of all 10s. 10M, 10A, 10S, 10T, etc. etc. etc. If it lost wounds, it's other starts dropped to the total number of wounds remaining, but YOU try and hurt something with 10WS and 10T. Oh, and sinc eit was summoned, it wasn't worth points.

You could summon up a swarm of greater daemons. (yes, like 1d6 of them)

Drain Life (the AOE necro spell that does a S3 no-armor save hit) effected the entire battlefield, not just the short range AOE.

Leadership was actually 3 different stats, and in the case of characters, it recorded not only their actual stat, but how many points they could pass to allied models.

Lizardmen had 2 wounds, not 2 attacks.

There were rules for Nippon and Cathay units, including, if I remember right, suicide bombers. (guy with barrel of gunpowder strapped to his back)

Slann were an entire race of frog-things, not just the lord-level lizardmen.

There were a ton of other races that no longer exist: Fimir, Zoats, etc.

There were a ton of weapon options, ranging from daggers (gave you an I bonus but a S penalty) on up to pikes (2nd rank, every 2nd model could attack, 3rd rank every 3rd model, 4th rank every 4th model could attack), and pikes did, yes, get a bonus vs cavalry (as did spears).

Those're just SOME of the differences between 3rd edition and modern Warhammer. For all intents and purposes, it might as well be an entirely different game.

3rd ed sounds interesting. Is it possible to download the rules anywhere?

I started around year 2000 which puts me in 6th edition i believe, so that's still proper warhammer in my eyes.

I started in 4th, and because it was so similar my buddy (the only one with a rulebook) refused to get 5th. And if I'd got it, we'd still have played 4th. So while I was still playing... I missed 5th and got my own copy of 6th ;)

I've kept up to date, found other players, and stuck with 6th until 7th. We changed over pretty much on the day it came out. In my view: 5th was almost the same as 4th, 6th was a vast improvement and 7th is a further refinement and worth picking up (it clears up a few more of those niggling points).

I started collecting Citadel Miniatures when I was 15. There was no such thing as warhammer in those days. The figures were just accesories for D&D mostly, though me and my friends used them for T&T (Tunnels and Trolls)

I can remember when the 1st edition of Warhammer was brought out. I'm guessing I was 16, so we're talking around 1984/5. Citadel Miniatures (Games Workshop) invented rules for their own miniatures... it was a very humble thing at first.

I dont even think it was a boxed-set, all I remember was the rule book which was about the size it is today (height and width) but all black and white, and very thin (stapled in the middle), the front cover was a drawing of a human warrior with a big warhammer.

I used to play at the Coventry Warplayers Club, (which was mostly historical wargaming) Myself and some other young uns, had this new fantasy game, which the older (more mature players) though was amusing, but a passing phase. Lol

There were no Lizardmen or Brettonians or Skaven or categorised Chaos hordes, in those days, It was basic. Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs... that kind of thing.

I stopped playing when I was 17 because I moved to Cornwall and life took me in other directions. I got back into the hobby about 10 years later (1996) which was 5th edition, magic phase was a deck of cards. Then I stopped again, until a few years ago when I started to just collect and paint, and read posts on Warhammer Palace, just for curiosity... inspired by Warhammer Palace I got back into the game with 6th edition and have played a few tornaments...

I'm now getting ready to purchase 7th edition rules and the new O&G army book, but I havent played any games since last autumn... I'm first and foremost, just into the painting and modelling side of the hobby.