Warhammer 8th Edition

Warhammer 8th edition is coming out soon (not that this is news to anyone). It's been a long time since I played it, as the 40k side of things has dominated my gaming for a long time now.  I originally played High Elves and have since played Bretonnians.  Due to getting various boxed sets, I've been amassing quite an Empire force as well, which has so far lay untouched and unpainted.  And I've been eyeing Wood Elves for a while now.  I still have tons of miniatures lying around, waiting to be painted.  Maybe this is just the thing to get me into it again.  (so many games, so little time...)

Warhammer Fantasy Battle, 3rd Edition, was the first GW book I ever bought.  Here's a picture of it below--my copy, not a stock photo.  It has weathered the 23 years rather well.  The binding is start to come apart, but other than that it's in remarkably good shape, considering its age and the amount of use it got.

Some thoughts on the price.  At $74.25 it's not cheap.  On the other hand, I bought the 3rd Edition rulebook in 1987 for $34.95.  Don't ask me how I remember that.  I just do.  It is a 278 page hardcover, not full color but with lots of color pages in it.  I still have it after more than two decades, and I'll still flip through it occasionally to look at the art inside, and just to remember how "things were" back in the old days.  I haven't once regretted spending the money, and this was when I was in the 8th grade.  And yes, I used my own money earned from a job, not by begging my parents for it.  Now the new book is $74.25, just over twice the price (2.12 times).  It's also 528 pages, just under twice the size (1.9 times).  It's also full color, and although I haven't seen it, I can imagine the production values are probably much better.  The price difference being largely offset by the bigger size, it comes to only about a 12% increase in net cost.  Considering inflation over 23 years is a lot more than that (about 92% according to my calculations¹), I'd say that this book is a steal.  So for those who are complaining that the new book is overpriced...well, guess what, it's not.

I'm very tempted to pick up the new book. Will I have the chance to play Warhammer very much, if at all? Probably not. And it's hard to justify spending $75 for nostalgia's sake. On the other hand, it just might get me back into playing Warhammer...  But considering the calculations I just did above, I might have convinced myself that it's more than worth it.

Notes
1. CPI Inflation Calculator: http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl.