Warhammer 40,000 3rd Edition

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Oh look, a new rulebook with new artwork.

In 1998, Bill Clinton tripped over his own dick. More important, Warhammer 40,000 3rd edition was released. In contrast to the unpolished wonkiness of Rogue Trader or the fun but unbalanced ruleset of 2nd Edition, 3rd completely overhauled the game's mechanics while also fully taking on the mantle of grimdark that players are now accustomed to. As such, 3rd is the granddaddy of both the current 40k ruleset and the memes.

Major New Rules

3rd edition set out to be more streamlined than the previous edition, allowing faster gameplay and larger battles. At the time, neckbeards weren't exactly sure if they should be weeping with joy or raging at the fact, that Geedubs had dumbed down the game in order to sell more miniatures.

• Point Costs: Point costs across the board were roughly halved. Where a battle might have previously consisted of a couple dozen miniatures per side at absolute most, it was now feasible for some armies to field 100 models or more in a 2000 point game (the first true "horde" armies).
• Streamlined gameplay: At its core, 2nd edition was a skirmish game with a whole lot of fiddly. 3rd edition changed that and even though it was clearly based on the old ruleset, it differed in almost every aspect.
  • Most modifiers were abandoned in favour of faster one-roll-resolution: Cover (invulnerable save), movement (6" universal and a dice roll for everything else), close combat (throw a bucket full of dice for the whole unit) etc.
  • Where dice rolls existed beforehand, they would be replaced by static values (sustained fire became "Heavy X").
  • Many rules were scrapped altogether, eg psychology, hiding, overwatch or parry.
  • A lot less bookkeeping, as the lower level of detail meant no more checks like "Does my flamer set this Ork on fire and where does he scatter?" or "Where does my scattered frag missile end up?" or "Check this table if your cock falls off. If it does, roll a scatter die."
• Weapons: 3rd edition introduced the AP weapons stat and universal weapon classes, ie rapid fire, assault etc. Power weapons loadout defined a MEQ killer unit. Grenades were turned into close combat weapons.
• Melee: Whereas in 2nd edition, melee was basically a mini game between individual models, since 3rd edition the unit fights as a whole. Inerestingly, the S stat became very important. Before, everyone used the S stat of the wielded melee weapon, now everyone used the model's S stat.
• Herohammer no longer: Characters and especially psykers were nerfed hard and could no longer rape a unit on their own (well, most of the time). Now, their main role was to buff units. Compared to any editions before or since, 3rd's focus was very strongly placed on the squads themselves.
• Vehicles: Vehicles used to have over-complex movement and damage rules, each coming with a unique datasheet that explained which part went boom in what way when hit. Now they moved more or less like infantry, armor penetration was changed to a basic S+D6 roll and universal damage tables were introduced.
• FOC: 3E gave us the modern FOC-style army organization.

Awesome 3E Shit

• Index Astartes: This series was awesome back then. For the first time, the essential 40k lore got an official-ish update for all the 18 legions and more. Of course, Geedubs being Geedubs, it all went downhill from there with them publishing a shitload of crappy HH novels even faster than neckbeards could throw their money at them.
• Doomrider
• CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!!
• Army Customization: IA gave your SPESS MEHREENS legionized flavour, your Imperial Guard doctrines, Codex Craftworlds, Forgeworld books, MUTABLE GENUS... 'Twas a good time.
• Sly Motherfucking Marbo
• Straken