Red Hat / Fedora :: Setup And Configure A Server Entirely With Text Only Run Mode 3 On A Virtual Machine

I'm trying to setup and configure a server entirely with text only run mode 3 on a virtual machine so I can redo my current live server. I'm now trying to set up the firewall of the system using iptables. I've read up on it and came up with the following:

-clear all rules
#iptables -F
-set default policy rules
#iptables --policy INPUT DROP
#iptables --policy FORWARD DROP

[Code]....

Everything above worked for me but just out of interest I looked at my live server which was configured using a GUI. I ran iptables-save and it was pretty much the same but its port open lines read like this:

#iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -m state --state NEW --dport 80 -j ACCEPT

so finally my question is do I really need the "-m state --state NEW"? Wouldn't having that drop established connections on those ports? I'm just confused as to what exactly the NEW state is doing and would it make a difference if I didn't include it.