6th Edition Warhammer Fantasy 22 Years Later

I know 7th Edition came out in ’06, but I think it’s been 22 years since I last played 6th edition. I just played it again with a fully painter army. Here are my thoughts.

I have been following the developments in the Warhammer world, collecting miniatures and playing games, since 4th edition was around, but when I think of Warhammer, I think of 6th Edition first. This is not favoritism, but something more like recency bias. I was in high school when 6th edition dropped, and I played it a lot in those years. Life circumstances conspired to make that the hight of my Warhammer career. This is not to say I have stopped playing, but I don’t have those long summers and late nights like I did back then.

I have continued painting and playing other games, but recently I got the opportunity to play a game of 6th edition again and I jumped at it. It was a unique chance to meet one of my hobby heroes, but I also wanted to see how the game held up and whether or not I was looking back on those halcyon days with rose-tinted glasses. I 3D printed and painted a 2,000 point army in two months and the game went off without a hitch. I’m really glad I did it, and I wanted to reflect on it a bit.

Why 6th Edition?

My adversary for this game is a big proponent of 6th edition, so what we were going to play was a foregone conclusion. The Old World had not been released (in his hemisphere) at the time of the game, anyway. But 6th edition has a lot to recommend it on its own. One of the main reasons people like 6th edition so much is that for many (myself included) it sits in that Goldilocks zone between the “Hero-Hammer” early editions and the “Death Star” units of 7th and 8th editions. For my money, it has the best balance of heroes, magic, infantry and war machines.

How did it go?

Terribly! Well, playing the game went fine, but I got absolutely ruined by my opponents terrific rolls and my own terrifically bad rolls. I rolled a miscast on my very first spell of the game, and used a reroll only to get another 1. My general got hit on the head by a rock lobber and killed on my opponent’s turn 1. I rolled another miscast on turn 2. My opponent rolled multiple direct hits with his rock lobber over the course of the game, decimating my lines. On a critical turn my opponent failed animosity checks with two units, only to roll a six for each of them, giving them an extra move, teleporting them across the board and allowing them to charge. It was a brutal game that was almost never in doubt.

What were the highlights?

It wasn’t all a disaster. My decimated unit of knights shrugged off the death of my general and charged into the heart of the enemy army, passing leadership rolls left and right, before finally being cut down, facing their foes with their swords in their hands! One of my canon annihilated a unit of wolf riders with grape shot. My flagellants charged a unit of trolls head on and ultimately crushed them. One of my opponent’s magic phases was so full of drama and strategy that we both had to take a minute to bask in its glory. Despite the lopsided outcome and miserable luck, the game was still a lot of fun!

It also took a long time to play. We were filming, which definitely took some extra time, but still, it took us all day to finish the game. Despite years of experience on both sides of the table and having reread the rulebook cover to cover beforehand, there were numerous pauses to check rules and wordings. The most egregious issue arose during a combat involving multiple units on both sides. After pouring over the rulebook, annual, FAQ and google, we ultimately just had to roll off to determine what happened. It wasn’t game breaking, but it really felt like it should not have been an edge case.

The Bottom Line

I really wish I had a better showing in my first game of 6th edition in 22 years. In those years I have played a lot of different games, and this experience has broadened my tastes. I will freely admit that the rules and games themselves are not what keeps me coming back to GW these days; It’s the settings and the miniatures. On paper, Warhammer 6th Edition looks old and clunky (which it definitely is) and very dated in its playability compared to modern rank and flank games. What surprised me was how much fun I had playing an outdated ruleset, and a game in which I got crushed.

Fully painted Warhammer armies are a thing of beauty, always have been. The joy of throwing dice with an enthusiastic opponent who is there to enjoy themselves cannot be overstated. I don’t know that I will be seeking out more games of 6th Edition in the near future, but this game has done more to hype me up for The Old World than anything else GW has done, besides teasing that made to order Marauder Giant. I guess it’s time to get painting!

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