Why 1st Edition?

A friend of mine recently moved away and bequeathed to me all of his Warhammer 40,000 models (mostly Sisters of Battle).  In the collection was an old hardback copy of Rogue Trader.  As is the case with most copies of this book, the binding is mostly disintegrated.  I've kept my original copy of Rogue Trader out of sentimental reasons, and this recent addition to my back catalog of gaming got me thinking about Warhammer 40,000 again.

I really can't stand the current edition of Warhammer 40,000 and I'd given up on Games Workshop as a company long ago.  I haven't played in almost three years, most of my gaming now is Warmachine and/or Hordes and I'm very happy with Privateer Press.  Yet deep down inside I've always had this love of Warhammer 40,000.  Not because the rules were any good.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  Not because the models were awesome.  It's because its the first real game I ever really played and loved.  It also might have to do with the science fiction elements that are prevalent in the background.  That's something that I'm missing in Privateer Press right now.

About four years ago I threw all my old Space Marine models into a bucket of Simple Green (a great household product that also happens to safely remove paint from plastic models).  I got the idea then to repaint the models as Crimson Fists as an homage to the original rulebook cover (which features the last stand of a group of heroic Crimson Fist Space Marines).  Back then (in the heady days of 4th edition) I was intent on making an army for each of the loyalist Marine Chapters as well as rounding out my Imperial Fists and their successor chapters (I already had a decently painted Black Templars Army).

Then 5th edition came out.  I tried.  I really tried to enjoy playing, but the changes to the game infuriated me.  For every rule that *needed* to be changed, four other rules were randomly changed as well.  Most infuriating was the addition of "True Line Of Sight" which, in case you didn't know, isn't *actually* true line of sight.

Richard Linklater once said that "withdrawal in disgust is not the same as apathy".  That's pretty much how I feel about Warhammer 40,000 right now.  I don't expect that it will change for the better any time soon.  Games Workshop seems intent upon making money at the expense of their players, and that's fine.  I just don't plan on playing along.

And so my marine armies (and my three Tau armies, my two Eldar armies, my two Imperial Guard armies, my Chaos Marine armies...)sat in their cases and were neatly stacked against the wall.  Then Ellery gave me his Sisters of Battle army and that copy of Rogue Trader and an idea began to form.

A group of my older gaming friends play "Alpha Magic".  They collect Alpha set cards and construct original 40 card decks and play when they are together.  We are spread out quite far nowadays, from Iowa City to Chicago to New Hampshire to Norway.  I thought about that copy of Rogue Trader and realized that I had *two* rulebooks.  What if we could somehow bring back our old models, like Jason's Squats or Sean's Imperial Guard (many of which were bought when they were called Imperial Army)?

Could it be possible?

I dug out the resources I had at hand, thankful (for once) for my packrat mentality.  Back in the day my Grandma Haise used to buy all of the grandkids magazine subscriptions, so I asked for White Dwarf.  I dug out all the copies I owned prior to 1993 (the year that 2nd Edition came out) and got to work.

I was also emboldened when I found a treasure trove of Rogue Trader Era models in Ellery's collection, including five of the original metal Space Marine models.  The one piece models with lasguns and lascannons and the like.  I made a few phone calls and wrote a few emails and posted on a local forum and now things seem to be in motion for Retro Trader...