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 Da Boss wrote:

I think the expansion to include those armies was a real improvement to the game, I think Eldar should have been Dark Eldar all along anyway.

How do you mean? I agree, I think having a bad and a default eldar faction is terrible and Dark Eldar should drop the dark from their name to become the default eldar.

 warhead01 wrote:
The guy playing the sisters of Battle from Chapter Approved where I was at the time was always winning. So much cheese.

I'm curious as to what they managed to get up to with the chapter approved sisters - they were still BS 3 at that point, the exorcist had rhino armour and AP 3, only characters generated faith points and only units led by characters and the seraphim could use them (though to be fair you could take one priest per unit).

So, I think it is fair to say that the early codices of 3rd were worse value for lore than the 2nd edition codices. Plus, it is clear that a lot of that lore was split out into other publications, so the price could build rapidly if collecting all sources (such as needing White Dwarf/Index Astartes for more Marine lore).

However, for the most part I think the quality of the Imperial lore in 3rd edition codices was very high and better than a lot of codex lore from 2nd (in some cases polishing the core laid down in 2nd), so not as good overall but what was there was gold. This carries over to 3rd edition lore from other sources, like White Dwarf or the background books from Black Library towards the end of the edition and into 4th (like the Sabbat Worlds Crusade book). That era had the strongest lore of 40k IMO.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Fair enough, but I'm still sore over my Squat codex! I called the Mail Order guys to try and order one, it was an awkward conversation! They said there'd be more in Codex Squats in the starter, the lying bastards!

I think the fact that everyone got a book in 3e is important, and editions that don't manage that are worse for it.

Sisters of Battle didn’t! Not properly.

Even then I think that was into 4th Ed?

Codex: Witch hunters was in 3rd edition, and you could easily run an army solely made of Sisters in that codex. I think it qualifies as a Sisters of Battle codex. They did have two other approved lists in 3rd edition too (rulebook and Chapter Approved).

A.T. wrote:

 warhead01 wrote:
The guy playing the sisters of Battle from Chapter Approved where I was at the time was always winning. So much cheese.

I'm curious as to what they managed to get up to with the chapter approved sisters - they were still BS 3 at that point, the exorcist had rhino armour and AP 3, only characters generated faith points and only units led by characters and the seraphim could use them (though to be fair you could take one priest per unit).

It was a total gimmick list. Some kind of imperial cultist unit with a flamer weapon that they would trigger for auto hits when they were charges and could pour faith points through to just kill models. I can't exactly recall how it worked but he had a lot of that kind of unit and minimal actual sisters supported by an excelsis tank but I can't remember what else was in the list. Many many years later I found out he was using two different sets of battle tech dice that looked identical except that the symbol on one set was a 6 and on the other set was a 1. I am very sure that was a contributing factor to his wins, more than the cheesy list he'd put together. I may have that Chapter Approved around somewhere but I wouldn't know where to begin looking for it.

That guy has been kicked out and banned from nearly ever game store in the state of Florida. Or so the legends say.

That sounds like Redemptionists, although the rules as presented are a little... off. The exterminators, for example, did not autohit, but had a hit role varying from 3+ to 6+ depending on the number in the squad.

From what you are saying though, they may have just been cheating.

 Haighus wrote:
That sounds like Redemptionists, although the rules as presented are a little... off. The exterminators, for example, did not autohit, but had a hit role varying from 3+ to 6+ depending on the number in the squad.

From what you are saying though, they may have just been cheating.

It's been far too many years for me to know if he was cheating, not counting the dice and I only learned about that a few years ago. I had no idea at the time.
Has to have been Redemptionists.

A.T. wrote:

 warhead01 wrote:
I believer I remember Vehicles could leave combat but the question is what about walkers, am I misremembering.

They couldn't. It was one of the problems with early oldhammer that units who were tied up often had no way to disengage short of losing combat (and often getting wiped out).

The 3e witch hunters actually used it as a strength as their 'stubborn' ability was wargear on their squad leader so you had some limited control over when you were tarpitting and when you were trying to get wiped out (sisters never won combat unless they were fighting grots but they could drag it out).

To clarify - in 2nd edition, dreadnoughts and robots were explicitly allowed to just walk out of combat on their own turn, unless they were fighting a model of similar size.

In 3rd ed that rule was removed, and dreadnoughts could be locked up for the entire game by engaging them with a unit with a better WS that couldn't hurt them.

pelicaniforce wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:

I think the expansion to include those armies was a real improvement to the game, I think Eldar should have been Dark Eldar all along anyway.

How do you mean? I agree, I think having a bad and a default eldar faction is terrible and Dark Eldar should drop the dark from their name to become the default eldar.

I don't disagree but by the time they explored the lore about who they were, it was 4th edition. The 3rd edition codexes were not filled with lore. The lore about Vect was all of 3-5 paragraphs. The other 2 characters were 2-3 paragraphs each. They were short and just rules. 4th edition saw lore make a come back. I remember each codex being $20 and the Dark Angels codex being $10. I remember playing my Praetorian Guardsmen. My army was a mix of GW's American soldiers - Mordians and Catachans. My mom got me the Praetorian box for Christmas - it's still my favorite army as it has the greatest nostalgia value. I just remember painting the army in HS for several weeks. I then got to play it in our store league. I ended up tying for first place. I also remember playing in multiple tournaments with the army with my favorite game being against a Dark Eldar player. I hit his Raider with a Basalisk cannon and rolled a 6 to damage which left no survivors.

Over time, the codexes increased another $5 over the edition too.

pelicaniforce: Yeah my preferred Eldar are the decadent piratical raiders rather than the Craftworld Eldar.

Now, Craftworld Eldar are pretty cool, and I love the designs for those miniatures, but I think Eldar work better as pirates. I think Dark Eldar went too far in making them torture obsessed Hellraiser people. There's room for that, but I'd rather a more Rogue Trader-esque style to my Eldar.

 warhead01 wrote:
It was a total gimmick list. Some kind of imperial cultist unit with a flamer weapon that they would trigger for auto hits when they were charges and could pour faith points through to just kill models... Many many years later I found out he was using two different sets of battle tech dice that looked identical except that the symbol on one set was a 6 and on the other set was a 1

Redemptionists, divine guidance, cheating and loaded dice - yes, that would definitely make a mess of any elite-unit opponent that couldn't deal with hordes of conscript-type units.

Divine guidance ignored armour on a 6 to wound and was the cornerstone of the latter 3e Witch Hunters firepower as well (of course they couldn't mass up 5pt grunts to use it on - the latter WD zealot rules didn't allow them to use faith). When the 5e sisters cruddace-dex came out it was restricted to the retributors only and sisters players generally acknowledged that it had been a bit of a crutch.

And then 6e eldar came out and every shuriken and mono-web weapon got divine guidance free and without the activation test all game long, because the strongest aspect of the old sisters was a footnote in the power creep of the faction...

 Da Boss wrote:
pelicaniforce: Yeah my preferred Eldar are the decadent piratical raiders rather than the Craftworld Eldar.

Now, Craftworld Eldar are pretty cool, and I love the designs for those miniatures, but I think Eldar work better as pirates. I think Dark Eldar went too far in making them torture obsessed Hellraiser people. There's room for that, but I'd rather a more Rogue Trader-esque style to my Eldar.

Yeah, it would be nice to see them beef up Corsairs a bit. In my army, it will be the Corsairs who bring aircraft to the Archon's force; he'll have to make a deal in order to get them to join.

 Da Boss wrote:
pelicaniforce: Yeah my preferred Eldar are the decadent piratical raiders rather than the Craftworld Eldar.

Now, Craftworld Eldar are pretty cool, and I love the designs for those miniatures, but I think Eldar work better as pirates. I think Dark Eldar went too far in making them torture obsessed Hellraiser people. There's room for that, but I'd rather a more Rogue Trader-esque style to my Eldar.

Yeah, I've long thought that if it were up to me, the "Dark" Eldar would be so named because they were descended from outcasts and technicians deep in the webway who superscienced their souls down to a size that Slaanesh was no longer interested in and mainly interacted with the outside post-apocalyptic galaxy via raiding. Would be more room for grey and underdogs that way. You can still have the haemonculi and their madness plus gladiators and their bloodthirst but they're just one facet of it all.

 Haighus wrote:
That sounds like Redemptionists, although the rules as presented are a little... off. The exterminators, for example, did not autohit, but had a hit role varying from 3+ to 6+ depending on the number in the squad.

From what you are saying though, they may have just been cheating.

This goes back to the need to have your own reference copy so you can "fact check" things.

The other thing about 2nd was that each book could have multiple lists. Obviously Angels of Death was two factions, but there were also variant lists, optional rules and so on. Chaos had three lists in it, Tyranids had two, and the faction options for Orks allowed for very different themes that effectively amounted to different lists. Speed Freeks or Grot swarm? Goffs and Nobs also worked, as did the Ork Artillery Park.

Just so much variety, neat little vignettes that it's no wonder why those books are still in demand.

 insaniak wrote:
To clarify - in 2nd edition, dreadnoughts and robots were explicitly allowed to just walk out of combat on their own turn, unless they were fighting a model of similar size.

In 3rd ed that rule was removed, and dreadnoughts could be locked up for the entire game by engaging them with a unit with a better WS that couldn't hurt them.

Yes, thanks for yet another example of how 3rd ed. dreadnoughts were totally wrecked. In 2nd, you could bog them down with chaff, unless it was another dread or a monster, it could literally lever its way out of the combat and then hose it down with shooting.

Someone talked about the "feel" of the rules, and the 2nd rules felt right. Big robots and monsters can and should be able to just trundle where they want, heedless of screaming grots trying to distract them.

With 3rd, everything was simplified, made more generic, bland. Power weapon. Close combat weapon. Vague abstractions that replaced two-handed chain axes, swords with their parry, and so on.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
That sounds like Redemptionists, although the rules as presented are a little... off. The exterminators, for example, did not autohit, but had a hit role varying from 3+ to 6+ depending on the number in the squad.

From what you are saying though, they may have just been cheating.

This goes back to the need to have your own reference copy so you can "fact check" things.

The other thing about 2nd was that each book could have multiple lists. Obviously Angels of Death was two factions, but there were also variant lists, optional rules and so on. Chaos had three lists in it, Tyranids had two, and the faction options for Orks allowed for very different themes that effectively amounted to different lists. Speed Freeks or Grot swarm? Goffs and Nobs also worked, as did the Ork Artillery Park.

Just so much variety, neat little vignettes that it's no wonder why those books are still in demand.

[

Eh... 3rd wasn't lacking for list variety, the rulebook lists all had 3 additional variants in the appendices. However, it is true that the lists were spread over a lot of publications overall rather than being contained in one volume.

By the end of 3rd, Orks, for example, had 9 lists, Eldar had 7 (8 if you counted the new Dark Eldar, 9 if you included the experimental Harlequin list), Chaos had 10, Space Marines something like 13, Imperial Guard had about 10, most of which got rolled into the doctrines system (except the armoured company and deathworld veteran lists), Tau even had Kroot mercenaries and 'nids got seeder swarms and an experimental genestealer cult list.

 Haighus wrote:
Eh... 3rd wasn't lacking for list variety, the rulebook lists all had 3 additional variants in the appendices. However, it is true that the lists were spread over a lot of publications overall rather than being contained in one volume.

By the end of 3rd, Orks, for example, had 9 lists, Eldar had 7 (8 if you counted the new Dark Eldar, 9 if you included the experimental Harlequin list), Chaos had 10, Space Marines something like 13, Imperial Guard had about 10, most of which got rolled into the doctrines system (except the armoured company and deathworld veteran lists), Tau even had Kroot mercenaries and 'nids got seeder swarms and an experimental genestealer cult list.

Right, and that's a problem because each new arrival had to differentiate itself with new special rules, new abilities, new models and of course none of these got adequate playtesting, which was impossible with such a sprawling design.

I mean, you just rattled of 60 army lists. That's obscene. It's only purpose is to push more models out there (and sell more books) and this goes back to my point that just trying to keep track of what's out there was hugely expensive (especially if you have to buy your book twice), and then the edition ends and you get to do it all over again.

I quit the "GW Hobby" when I realized that the changes coming to 4th ed. 40k and 7th ed. WHFB were not intended to fix or improve anything, merely stir the pot and sell more stuff.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

Yes, thanks for yet another example of how 3rd ed. dreadnoughts were totally wrecked. In 2nd, you could bog them down with chaff, unless it was another dread or a monster, it could literally lever its way out of the combat and then hose it down with shooting.

Someone talked about the "feel" of the rules, and the 2nd rules felt right. Big robots and monsters can and should be able to just trundle where they want, heedless of screaming grots trying to distract them.

Have you ever seen ants take down a much larger insect? How about a snake? There are videos of it out there, so I'm not going to link something potentially upsetting. Suffice it to say that exists. And while not pleasant to watch, it's fascinating in just how the tiny creatures literally swarm all over their much larger quarry. Sure some of them fall off as whatever they're trying to kill flails around / even wipes them off, but they're rapidly all over its body and it's unable to extract itself from the situation.

Just to be clear, that is what a dread vs screaming grots fight would be.

Likewise, have you ever played Dawn of War? 1,2, or 3. Dreadnoughts (and lots of other large gribblies) feature in those games, and frequently end up in melee with smaller adversaries. And when said dreads / carnifex's try to leave melee in those games they're frequently unable; as a foe that wants to melee them is EASILY able to keep up with such a ponderous war engine. The only way to extract a dreadnought from a mob of screaming boyz is to have the dreadnought kill all those boyz, or have some nearby friendlies shoot them dead / until they run away.

I find it hilarious that you think dreadnoughts walking out of combat, then hosing down said combat with their guns, is the correct "feel" of the game when it's literally anything but. Dreads, carnifexes, and the like are large and ponderous things. Insanely powerful, but not exactly agile and fast. This is why you yourself used the word trundle. So the idea that they can walk out of combat and then shoot said unit from range is entirely based on gameplay. It represents that said unit would acknowledge it's not their turn, and stand in place, so the dread could do that. While in actuality they would be climbing all over the damn thing like ants; wipe five off, and another ten are now climbing up the arm you just used to wipe.

Again, it's totally fine to not like 3rd edition and favor 2nd. No problem; people are entitled to their opinions. But let's not pretend that a gamey elements are some supreme narrative story-telling device, when in actuality the way the rules shifted is a vastly better representation of how those situations would go.

 morganfreeman wrote:

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

Yes, thanks for yet another example of how 3rd ed. dreadnoughts were totally wrecked. In 2nd, you could bog them down with chaff, unless it was another dread or a monster, it could literally lever its way out of the combat and then hose it down with shooting.

Someone talked about the "feel" of the rules, and the 2nd rules felt right. Big robots and monsters can and should be able to just trundle where they want, heedless of screaming grots trying to distract them.

Have you ever seen ants take down a much larger insect? How about a snake? There are videos of it out there, so I'm not going to link something potentially upsetting. Suffice it to say that exists. And while not pleasant to watch, it's fascinating in just how the tiny creatures literally swarm all over their much larger quarry. Sure some of them fall off as whatever they're trying to kill flails around / even wipes them off, but they're rapidly all over its body and it's unable to extract itself from the situation.

Just to be clear, that is what a dread vs screaming grots fight would be.

Likewise, have you ever played Dawn of War? 1,2, or 3. Dreadnoughts (and lots of other large gribblies) feature in those games, and frequently end up in melee with smaller adversaries. And when said dreads / carnifex's try to leave melee in those games they're frequently unable; as a foe that wants to melee them is EASILY able to keep up with such a ponderous war engine. The only way to extract a dreadnought from a mob of screaming boyz is to have the dreadnought kill all those boyz, or have some nearby friendlies shoot them dead / until they run away.

I find it hilarious that you think dreadnoughts walking out of combat, then hosing down said combat with their guns, is the correct "feel" of the game when it's literally anything but. Dreads, carnifexes, and the like are large and ponderous things. Insanely powerful, but not exactly agile and fast. This is why you yourself used the word trundle. So the idea that they can walk out of combat and then shoot said unit from range is entirely based on gameplay. It represents that said unit would acknowledge it's not their turn, and stand in place, so the dread could do that. While in actuality they would be climbing all over the damn thing like ants; wipe five off, and another ten are now climbing up the arm you just used to wipe.

Again, it's totally fine to not like 3rd edition and favor 2nd. No problem; people are entitled to their opinions. But let's not pretend that a gamey elements are some supreme narrative story-telling device, when in actuality the way the rules shifted is a vastly better representation of how those situations would go.

I can see some situations where it's appropriate to walk out freely.

A Carnifex vs. Grots, for instance-mechanically, hit on a 5+, wound on a 6, save on a 2+. Less than a 1% chance of any attack doing a wound.
And lorewise, Grots might be able to cling onto it and slow it, slightly, but without actual melee weapons they ain't hurting it significantly enough to matter.

However, let's replace Grots with Marines, of basically any stripe. These are superhuman killing machines capable of ripping a tank's hatch off with their bare hands. Mechanically, sure, the only difference here is a better hit roll, but lorewise the difference is much more immense than that. A Carnifex COULD walk away from Marines... But not without risk.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
Eh... 3rd wasn't lacking for list variety, the rulebook lists all had 3 additional variants in the appendices. However, it is true that the lists were spread over a lot of publications overall rather than being contained in one volume.

By the end of 3rd, Orks, for example, had 9 lists, Eldar had 7 (8 if you counted the new Dark Eldar, 9 if you included the experimental Harlequin list), Chaos had 10, Space Marines something like 13, Imperial Guard had about 10, most of which got rolled into the doctrines system (except the armoured company and deathworld veteran lists), Tau even had Kroot mercenaries and 'nids got seeder swarms and an experimental genestealer cult list.

Right, and that's a problem because each new arrival had to differentiate itself with new special rules, new abilities, new models and of course none of these got adequate playtesting, which was impossible with such a sprawling design.

I mean, you just rattled of 60 army lists. That's obscene. It's only purpose is to push more models out there (and sell more books) and this goes back to my point that just trying to keep track of what's out there was hugely expensive (especially if you have to buy your book twice), and then the edition ends and you get to do it all over again.

I quit the "GW Hobby" when I realized that the changes coming to 4th ed. 40k and 7th ed. WHFB were not intended to fix or improve anything, merely stir the pot and sell more stuff.

Games Workshop released stuff during Second Edition that was also not thoroughly play tested and highly imbalanced. Releases in projects for 2nd edition were also profit driven we're sold an excuse to sell models. My biggest question to you is why is it that things that were done during Second Edition were perfectly fine yet done in Third Edition were the worst things Games Workshop ever did?

 morganfreeman wrote:

Spoiler:

Have you ever seen ants take down a much larger insect? How about a snake? There are videos of it out there, so I'm not going to link something potentially upsetting. Suffice it to say that exists. And while not pleasant to watch, it's fascinating in just how the tiny creatures literally swarm all over their much larger quarry. Sure some of them fall off as whatever they're trying to kill flails around / even wipes them off, but they're rapidly all over its body and it's unable to extract itself from the situation.

Just to be clear, that is what a dread vs screaming grots fight would be.

Likewise, have you ever played Dawn of War? 1,2, or 3. Dreadnoughts (and lots of other large gribblies) feature in those games, and frequently end up in melee with smaller adversaries. And when said dreads / carnifex's try to leave melee in those games they're frequently unable; as a foe that wants to melee them is EASILY able to keep up with such a ponderous war engine. The only way to extract a dreadnought from a mob of screaming boyz is to have the dreadnought kill all those boyz, or have some nearby friendlies shoot them dead / until they run away.

I find it hilarious that you think dreadnoughts walking out of combat, then hosing down said combat with their guns, is the correct "feel" of the game when it's literally anything but. Dreads, carnifexes, and the like are large and ponderous things. Insanely powerful, but not exactly agile and fast. This is why you yourself used the word trundle. So the idea that they can walk out of combat and then shoot said unit from range is entirely based on gameplay. It represents that said unit would acknowledge it's not their turn, and stand in place, so the dread could do that. While in actuality they would be climbing all over the damn thing like ants; wipe five off, and another ten are now climbing up the arm you just used to wipe.

Again, it's totally fine to not like 3rd edition and favor 2nd. No problem; people are entitled to their opinions. But let's not pretend that a gamey elements are some supreme narrative story-telling device, when in actuality the way the rules shifted is a vastly better representation of how those situations would go.

In 3rd edition, a dreadnought in combat with grots would have pasted a few grots, and the rest would have run away. That wasn't the problem. The problem was when the dreadnought wound up in combat against an opponent with better WS but no weapons that could hurt it. The end result was an eternally drawn combat that neither side could escape from. In 2nd edition, the dreadnought could have just walked away from the smaller opponent, or the opponent could have voluntarily broken and run away. In 3rd, they just stayed there for the rest of the game... which was neither a more realistic outcome, nor one that made for a more fun game.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

Spoiler:

Haighus wrote:

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
That sounds like Redemptionists, although the rules as presented are a little... off. The exterminators, for example, did not autohit, but had a hit role varying from 3+ to 6+ depending on the number in the squad.

From what you are saying though, they may have just been cheating.

This goes back to the need to have your own reference copy so you can "fact check" things.

The other thing about 2nd was that each book could have multiple lists. Obviously Angels of Death was two factions, but there were also variant lists, optional rules and so on. Chaos had three lists in it, Tyranids had two, and the faction options for Orks allowed for very different themes that effectively amounted to different lists. Speed Freeks or Grot swarm? Goffs and Nobs also worked, as did the Ork Artillery Park.

Just so much variety, neat little vignettes that it's no wonder why those books are still in demand.

[

Eh... 3rd wasn't lacking for list variety, the rulebook lists all had 3 additional variants in the appendices. However, it is true that the lists were spread over a lot of publications overall rather than being contained in one volume.

By the end of 3rd, Orks, for example, had 9 lists, Eldar had 7 (8 if you counted the new Dark Eldar, 9 if you included the experimental Harlequin list), Chaos had 10, Space Marines something like 13, Imperial Guard had about 10, most of which got rolled into the doctrines system (except the armoured company and deathworld veteran lists), Tau even had Kroot mercenaries and 'nids got seeder swarms and an experimental genestealer cult list.

Right, and that's a problem because each new arrival had to differentiate itself with new special rules, new abilities, new models and of course none of these got adequate playtesting, which was impossible with such a sprawling design.

I mean, you just rattled of 60 army lists. That's obscene. It's only purpose is to push more models out there (and sell more books) and this goes back to my point that just trying to keep track of what's out there was hugely expensive (especially if you have to buy your book twice), and then the edition ends and you get to do it all over again.

I quit the "GW Hobby" when I realized that the changes coming to 4th ed. 40k and 7th ed. WHFB were not intended to fix or improve anything, merely stir the pot and sell more stuff.

Ok, I've added the quoted text from you back in for context which you chose to snip out for some reason.

So, you say that 2nd was good because it has variant lists with different compositions and special rules, but 3rd was bad because it had variant lists with different compositions and special rules?

Re. playtesting- 3rd overtly had experimental lists that were modified due to feedback before the approved version was released. Did 2nd have anything like that, or are you assuming it was better playtested because (as you stated earlier in the thread) you chopped out the unbalanced bits?

2nd and 3rd were proper wonky, and each in their own way.

However, 3rd had a hobbling that 2nd didn’t. And it’s not one I can lay at GW’s door.

The Internet.

3rd Ed got going just as I started to explore the Internet and Forums (oh hi, Portent!). As I’ve mentioned before, that indelibly coloured my view of it, as it was my first unpleasant brush with “WAAC and sod the background” gamers.

Now, I can’t and won’t say those sorts of folks didn’t exist in 2nd Ed. But I can and will say they never darkened my doorway or had any contact with me.

As such, my friends and opponents in the store just…fielded what we could afford. We didn’t know words like meta or tier. Well. We knew tier, but that was about Posh Cakes, understanding the more tiers the posher and fancier your cake was.

That is a lasting impression. And by no means a fair one. But add in it’s greatly simplified nature made 3rd pretty easy to Mathammer, and it felt like a flaw in the game at the time, even though I’m now conscious it mostly came from outside agencies.

 morganfreeman wrote:
Likewise, have you ever played Dawn of War? 1,2, or 3. Dreadnoughts (and lots of other large gribblies) feature in those games, and frequently end up in melee with smaller adversaries. And when said dreads / carnifex's try to leave melee in those games they're frequently unable; as a foe that wants to melee them is EASILY able to keep up with such a ponderous war engine. The only way to extract a dreadnought from a mob of screaming boyz is to have the dreadnought kill all those boyz, or have some nearby friendlies shoot them dead / until they run away.

Walkers just needed to be treated the same way as other vehicles - not locked in combat between rounds. They might still be unable to move away if surrounded but they could shoot and be shot at (the surrounding unit providing cover penalties as usual) and are still going to be attacked if base to base in the combat phase. Similarly the infantry can step away in their turn.
Walker/MCs could remain locked, perhaps excepting immobilised walkers.

It wasn't just a problem of dread being tied down by two screaming grots as you could also have entire units stuck indefinitely in combat with an armoured sentinel - for example the sanguinor himself leading a full squad of lightning claw terminators, Lemartes, and a sanguinary priest can do nothing against this unarmed tin-can except to fish for boxcars with a couple of krak grenades each turn.

Mad Dok: I think the Internet does ruin games, but I'm not sure I'd put the blame at 3e's feet. I think it got much worse later.

I think some games are "one and done" a set of rules, maybe a second edition at some point to clear things up, but other than that, it's just done. Those games don't get a lot of discussion on the internet, because people know there's nothing more coming and the internet loves hype and especially new intellectual puzzles to decode when "solving" a game.

The other type of game is the GW main game style - churn and constantly provide new material for people to think about and new game puzzles to "solve" for people who are interested. Tracking this, solving new problems and thinking about them is a whole hobby in itself for a lot of people.

The problem with the Internet is that now you've got thousands of brains all "solving" at the same time, and so the best solutions are found really fast, and then propagated. Lots of people reading discussions find these solutions and copy them. It becomes the received wisdom.

I hate that. I quite enjoy the process of discovering and "solving" a game with some friends, but it's generally a pretty slow process as we experiment with models we have built and painted and we may never get all the way there. But as soon as someone in the group goes online to a game that focuses on a churn of releases and gameplay puzzles, they find all the discussion about the best builds and lists and come in with the solution already, and start giving everyone a hiding. Then, if you don't do the same, you're at a big disadvantage.

You see this in all sorts of games predicated on the "new release" model - magic the gathering, warhammer of all types, even dungeons and dragons.

That's part of the appeal with playing "one and done" and older games that no one is talking about online. You still get to organically discover the game together through play.

Also, those netlists tend to be for a prevalent style of play* and can often fall flat if you change the context.

People have mentioned 3.5th Iron Warriors a few times in part due to their extra heavy support slot. However, I distinctly recall a battle report with 3.5th Iron Warriors facing off against Salamanders, where the IW were defenders in a bunker assault mission.

This mission is supposed to represent an engagement on a previously-quiet segment of the frontline where the initial defending forces are a basic garrison. Specialised support units have to rush into the battle to plug the gap after the enemy assaults the defences. What this means is that only HQs and Troops can be deployed by the defender at the beginning of the game, and everything else is in reserve.

The IW list was skewed to heavy support, and hadn't got enough troops and HQ to adequately man their defences. They took heavy losses early on and the heavy support was too little too late as it couldn't be brought to bear quickly enough once it arrived (the Basilisk had to wait a turn to fire, for example). The Salamanders captured 2/3 bunkers.

However, if it had been a basic mission it probably would have looked very different. This highlights to me the importance of mission variety in creating list variation.

Another good example is that most Terminators were lackluster from 3rd through 7th. But stick them in Zones Mortalis and they were solid, because you couldn't bring superior numbers to bear on them, heavy long-ranged firepower was neutered or unavailable, and they could decisively beat most individual squads opposing them in a given corridor. In that circumstance, a space-efficient, tough, close-quarters unit was ideal. Also matches their preferred deployment scenario in lore too.


*Often a tournament standard with a focus on repeatability and symmetry.

It’s not Netlisting so much. Whilst not to my tastes, it is of course one of many approaches a player can take.

But it was the people. The “if you’re not WAAC, you’re disrespecting me because that’s how I play”.

Having any and all conversation be broken down to “but it’s not optimal”, with seemingly very few understanding why a given list worked annoyed me. As did conversation about how to “psyche out” your opponent.

I mean, nobody makes a living going to tournaments, or even winning them. Yet the discussions seemed to believe it was like MTG, where those at the top could make a handsome living from prize money.

Add in the general “but it’s just not 40K anymore”, and it’d a recipe for a chip on my shoulder.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
In fact. Bragging Rights.

We all enjoy Bragging Rights, yeah? Gathering tales of victory and derring do.

As covered before, 2nd Ed gave you sagas to tell. Magnificent tales of genius and luck and the right turret landing on the right thing at the right time and making it go squish.

3rd Ed? Because of the WAAC crowd? “Well I added tall billboards to my Ork Trukks because the rules don’t say I can’t and it allowed them to block LoS in such a way my opponent could barely target anything, aren’t I a tactical genius and not a cheating little scrote “

3rd was core-mechanically still deep enough to not be flat out a solved listbuilding simulator that the more recent editions have become though, partially due to a push and incorporation of the tournament scene.
I do think that with 3rd there was a slow push torwards a more tournament orientated mindset.

That said, you are playing a wargame, at the end it is a competitive game and i expect that even IF we are playing a narrative campaign that my opponent aims to play as competently as possible.

But to facilitate a more responsible army maintenance playstyle and not just frontloading of firepower damn the consequences we saw with things like suicide terminatiors, we'd require better mission / army survivability mechanics/ campaign mechanics.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

We all enjoy Bragging Rights, yeah? Gathering tales of victory and derring do.

As covered before, 2nd Ed gave you sagas to tell. Magnificent tales of genius and luck and the right turret landing on the right thing at the right time and making it go squish.

3rd Ed? Because of the WAAC crowd? “Well I added tall billboards to my Ork Trukks because the rules don’t say I can’t and it allowed them to block LoS in such a way my opponent could barely target anything, aren’t I a tactical genius and not a cheating little scrote “

That's just unsportsmanlike.

I think there's a massive difference with a WAAC mindset and a highly competitive one. The later doesn't pull above but then again is probably also not inclined to rules lawerying either. The former is just honestly grounds to not play said person anymore.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
We all enjoy Bragging Rights, yeah? Gathering tales of victory and derring do.

As covered before, 2nd Ed gave you sagas to tell. Magnificent tales of genius and luck and the right turret landing on the right thing at the right time and making it go squish.

Different people have different criteria. I might joke about the time I won a game through sheer dumb luck but I don't consider a victory worth bragging about if I didn't earn it through my own skill.

But subtle strategic choices are often not all that interesting outside of the game itself, and for some people not inside the game either. The afore mentioned banshees for example being a circumstantially advantageous unit in 3rd compared to a massively skewed fist of god in 2nd.


I've had the turret smash myself - Imperial Guard squad leader with a bolt pistol, an ork vehicle, a 6" backflip and a dead warboss and retinue behind a building. There was also one time playing tyranids where the landraider just spontaneously caught fire and wiped out the whole crew before the game started while Brother Bethor, wielder of the standard of devastation, simply keeled over and dropped dead mid-deployment.

You got that same 2e experience playing apocalypse some times - like the game where an ork rok missed its target titan by about five feet and simply wiped 90% of another players army off the board instead. Certainly a magnificent tale of luck but not something to brag about IMO.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
3rd Ed? Because of the WAAC crowd? “Well I added tall billboards to my Ork Trukks because the rules don’t say I can’t and it allowed them to block LoS in such a way my opponent could barely target anything, aren’t I a tactical genius and not a cheating little scrote “

How was 2nd ed any different?

By the rules as written you could model your ork vehicles however you wanted and then 'shake off' orks on a drive by to strategically disembark them. Older editions of 40k and WHFB were full of insane shenanigans (god help anyone playing fantasy orcs with their formation wheeling loonie catapult).

I think if you're a competitive player and you use netlists, I just don't really respect you. I know that's harsh, but anyone can google "good list" and show up. List building is a huge part of 40K and people can't even be bothered doing it themselves.

I've read here that the modern game is even more point and click, but it was already becoming like that in 5e.

2e was certainly a lot harder to game that way, because it was so random.

A.T. wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
3rd Ed? Because of the WAAC crowd? “Well I added tall billboards to my Ork Trukks because the rules don’t say I can’t and it allowed them to block LoS in such a way my opponent could barely target anything, aren’t I a tactical genius and not a cheating little scrote “

How was 2nd ed any different?

By the rules as written you could model your ork vehicles however you wanted and then 'shake off' orks on a drive by to strategically disembark them. Older editions of 40k and WHFB were full of insane shenanigans (god help anyone playing fantasy orcs with their formation wheeling loonie catapult).

The difference was The Internet.

I can hand on heart say I never encountered such cheating shenanigans during 2nd Ed. But, as I wasn’t online then, my whole point is that 3rd Ed came unfairly tainted by greater communication with the wider community, many of whom just didn’t seem like fun opponents.

Perspective without a conclusion. And me being much too young and inexperienced of ways of t’internet to not care what the next person reckons.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I can hand on heart say I never encountered such cheating shenanigans during 2nd Ed. But, as I wasn’t online then, my whole point is that 3rd Ed came unfairly tainted by greater communication with the wider community, many of whom just didn’t seem like fun opponents.

I guess it's going to be different for everyone - who they play against, what settings they play in, what influences they do and do not have access to.

But that's not the fault of the system. Could you imagine 2nd ed rules being the competitive play standard today?