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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
OK doke.

Here we go!

1. The Cardstock. So, so many cards and counters. Psychic Power cards, psychic power deck, datafaxes, wargear cards, multiple sizes of blast marker, rad grenade counters. Lots and lots of and lots of easily damaged and or lost bits and pieces of varying ultimate necessity to the game.

See, I go the other way. Anything on cardstock was usually ok for me, it was the complexity outside of the cardstock that got me. Individually scattering each and every assault marine every time they jumped for example. We quickly house ruled that to a single scatter roll for the whole squad. I liked choosing Psychic powers, and "random" power generation through force cards But 2E felt more like an RPG where your army was your "character" compared to a strategy game.

all those cards for you vehicles, equipment and psycic cards, fun item, a protectif field that displaced the user when you hit them. with a little luck you could displace him off table, votex grenades that removed every thing it moved over. Orcs where hillarius and genestealer had a rule "jhones is actinf strange" it was a pregame thing you had to roll on a table for every unit of the enemy's army.

Plasma Grenades are another example of game slowing oddness.

See, their markers persisted. And could move, shrink or expand in the end-turn phase. All of them.

They were pretty useful weapons, but man the logistics of using them was pretty discouraging!

Vortex Grenades were also fond of moving, and I have a particularly fond memory of a Chief Librarian being chased by a hungry Vortex. Presumably to “Yakkety Sax”.

Vortex Grenades took a hiatus in our group for a while when we all discovered the Vortex Detonator vehicle card. It became a must-have, which largely rendered the grenades pointless, but was just as expensive as the grenade... and so we all just sort of agreed to stop taking the grenades so both sides could save the points.

The Vortex psychic power worked the same way, and was immune to the Detonator... but always ran the risk of a Daemonic attack.

 insaniak wrote:
Vortex Grenades took a hiatus in our group for a while when we all discovered the Vortex Detonator vehicle card. It became a must-have, which largely rendered the grenades pointless, but was just as expensive as the grenade... and so we all just sort of agreed to stop taking the grenades so both sides could save the points.

Same.

The Vortex psychic power worked the same way, and was immune to the Detonator... but always ran the risk of a Daemonic attack.

Ultimate power made those demonic attacks really bad, too. More than one Farseer met his fate because of that rebound effect.

 Arschbombe wrote:

 tauist wrote:

I see you have not played KT21. The distances are colors, not shapes (the shapes were added to the game in post by corporate mooks), and list building is very much a thing in KT21. You just dont pay points for anything other than extra equipment, but there are still plenty of restrictions on what you can bring.

You're right. The kindergarten colors/shapes thing and the fixed teams were complete turnoffs. When the Eldar could choose to take two fire teams of Guardians, Storm Guardians, Rangers or Dire Avengers instead of a proper kill team like in KT18 I noped on out. So I don't find your suggestion that 2nd Edition get reworked by the guy responsible for those changes to be an inspired recommendation.

Gotcha. You're still bitter about losing access to your KT18 elites/commanders team. On all other counts, we will just have to agree to disagree

What was wrong with 2nd edition? I never got to play it.

2nd edition was the first one that I played. Though I only actually played a few games, the observations on this thread nearly all ring true to me.

A few years back I played a game of 40K just to remind myself, and even without psychics, vehicles and much of the other extranea, it was a slog.

https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/2011/11/vintage-warhammer-40k-2nd-edition/

My review back then was actually quite charitable-with-reservations but now (after a couple years of Grimdark Future) I'm even less likely to pick 2nd edition back up again.

My overall observation is that late RT and 2nd Edition took what was a fairly good set of rules for warband to small platoon level play and then kind of ruined that by ballooning them up to company level.

This also explains why (IMHO) Original Necromunda is such a great game. It's essentially the 2nd edition mechanics at exactly the scope they are best suited for, without subsequent over-complication.

3rd edition tried to course correct but fans were hooked on RPG-like representation of fluff in rules and every subsequent streamlining of 40k has been shortly followed by layers of complicating special rules and such.

 tauist wrote:

Gotcha. You're still bitter about losing access to your KT18 elites/commanders team. On all other counts, we will just have to agree to disagree

Not bitter. Never played commanders. It seemed like it was too much. Our problem was that we got in late. We started KT in mid 2020 during Covid. We never went all in as we were playing other games like Infinity. When KT21 was announced we were interested, but not for long. We had hopes, but GW being GW, those hopes were dashed.

I've thought of another one!
It always bugged me that everyone was by default armed with Imperial tech, and had to be upgraded to have their own tech.

Like, why were Eldar Guardians running around with Lasguns? Obviously, because they were originally armed with weapons kits made for Rogue Trader to allow conversions of fantasy models.

But it's not very good from a background perspective. 3e finally acknowledged that we had a proper model range now and moved the Xenos to having their own weaponry. I think that was way better for the character of the different armies. Orks with bolters was always a bit weird, since they were supposed to be these high tech weapons used by space marines, just ludicrously high caliber solid slugs suit them much better. Eldar having shuriken catapults as default just makes more sense and is cooler.

 Eilif wrote:
2nd edition was the first one that I played. Though I only actually played a few games, the observations on this thread nearly all ring true to me.

A few years back I played a game of 40K just to remind myself, and even without psychics, vehicles and much of the other extranea, it was a slog.

https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/2011/11/vintage-warhammer-40k-2nd-edition/

My review back then was actually quite charitable-with-reservations but now (after a couple years of Grimdark Future) I'm even less likely to pick 2nd edition back up again.

My overall observation is that late RT and 2nd Edition took what was a fairly good set of rules for warband to small platoon level play and then kind of ruined that by ballooning them up to company level.

This also explains why (IMHO) Original Necromunda is such a great game. It's essentially the 2nd edition mechanics at exactly the scope they are best suited for, without subsequent over-complication.

3rd edition tried to course correct but fans were hooked on RPG-like representation of fluff in rules and every subsequent streamlining of 40k has been shortly followed by layers of complicating special rules and such.

Yeah Necromunda was 2nd edition ruleset done in a far better way to 2nd edition imo. 1st ed Necromunda with Outlanders supplement is my favourite game GW has done I think.

I loved chucking a vortex grenade into either a bunch of gaunts/boys and then needing to dodge the resulting insanity for the rest of the game was "fun".

 Da Boss wrote:
I've thought of another one!
It always bugged me that everyone was by default armed with Imperial tech, and had to be upgraded to have their own tech.

Like, why were Eldar Guardians running around with Lasguns? Obviously, because they were originally armed with weapons kits made for Rogue Trader to allow conversions of fantasy models.

But it's not very good from a background perspective. 3e finally acknowledged that we had a proper model range now and moved the Xenos to having their own weaponry. I think that was way better for the character of the different armies. Orks with bolters was always a bit weird, since they were supposed to be these high tech weapons used by space marines, just ludicrously high caliber solid slugs suit them much better. Eldar having shuriken catapults as default just makes more sense and is cooler.

It never bothered me. the technology of laser guns is going to be the same regardless, it uses the same physical properties. That's like saying orks shouldn't get tracks on their tanks, or that marines shouldn't have wheels on their bikes because it's special to someone else.

The game only made distinctions where the weapons were actually unique, like a catapult (there were no other equivalent weapons). But a gun that shoots explosive rockets or a laser gun etc, are the same regardless of who built them.

GW have crawled up their butts trying to invent new finer slices of effectively the same gun for the last 20 years.

at the scale of war we're supposed to be playing at, these billion slightly different versions of weapons shouldn't be visible.


so i don't see that as a problem. A plasma gun is a gun that shoots plasma, it doesn't need a unique profile just because someone else built it.

Racerguy180 wrote:
I loved chucking a vortex grenade into either a bunch of gaunts/boys and then needing to dodge the resulting insanity for the rest of the game was "fun".

I never got into the Vortex Grenade thing, but I loved me some Thudd Gun Template.

Breton wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:
I loved chucking a vortex grenade into either a bunch of gaunts/boys and then needing to dodge the resulting insanity for the rest of the game was "fun".

I never got into the Vortex Grenade thing, but I loved me some Thudd Gun Template.

I had a couple thudds supporting my Squat bikes and trikes, good times had by all...

 Hellebore wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
I've thought of another one!
It always bugged me that everyone was by default armed with Imperial tech, and had to be upgraded to have their own tech.

Like, why were Eldar Guardians running around with Lasguns? Obviously, because they were originally armed with weapons kits made for Rogue Trader to allow conversions of fantasy models.

But it's not very good from a background perspective. 3e finally acknowledged that we had a proper model range now and moved the Xenos to having their own weaponry. I think that was way better for the character of the different armies. Orks with bolters was always a bit weird, since they were supposed to be these high tech weapons used by space marines, just ludicrously high caliber solid slugs suit them much better. Eldar having shuriken catapults as default just makes more sense and is cooler.

It never bothered me. the technology of laser guns is going to be the same regardless, it uses the same physical properties. That's like saying orks shouldn't get tracks on their tanks, or that marines shouldn't have wheels on their bikes because it's special to someone else.

The game only made distinctions where the weapons were actually unique, like a catapult (there were no other equivalent weapons). But a gun that shoots explosive rockets or a laser gun etc, are the same regardless of who built them.

GW have crawled up their butts trying to invent new finer slices of effectively the same gun for the last 20 years.

at the scale of war we're supposed to be playing at, these billion slightly different versions of weapons shouldn't be visible.


so i don't see that as a problem. A plasma gun is a gun that shoots plasma, it doesn't need a unique profile just because someone else built it.

Eh, I think there was a meaningful difference in 3rd between a lasgun, a hellgun, and a lasblaster. Assault meant a significant firepower and mobility boost over rapid fire in 2nd, so a lasblaster is noticeably better than the more unwieldy Imperial versions. Using the same principle is a weird argument. A bolt pistol, stormbolter, heavy bolter, vulkan mega-bolter, and boltgun use the same principle, but they are different weapons with different capabilities. A Salamander and a Chinera both have tracks, but one is quicker etc.

I think plasma is a poor example- Tau and Eldar plasma not exploding in the users face is much more in character with the factions than the Imperial version where they'll issue it to the next Guardsmen once the metal has cooled off.

The 3rd ed fusion gun was a travesty though.

The lasblaster was made because the change in grenades made the hawk's old previous identity (as bombers and grenadiers) impossible in the 3rd paradigm set of rules, and a lasgun would be too little for a jump pack rule.

So they took the name of the old wargear card to put on a weaker weapon.

I started 40k at the beginning of 2nd edition, just prior to the release of Dark Millennium. With just what was provided in the included starter box at the time ("Codex Army Lists"), I thought it was a blast, though games did take forever. Fantastic lore and art throughout the books and materials, with cool miniatures to match (they were still very expensive back then, but at least most models were actual solid metal, so I did feel I got a bit more money's worth when compared to plastics).

Once Dark Millenium was released, with its piles of additional cards, and a new card-based psychic phase, the game got messier (cards everywhere!), and once the individual codexes started releasing, it got a bit more out of hand. Insane space wolf terminators; hero hammer level 4 psykers, warp spiders tearing everyone a new one; bonkers stuff. While it could still be "fun," it was a bit of a runaway train in my opinion making for some crazy games (that still took FOREVER to play out . . .).

I skipped 3rd edition as I had just graduated college and was busy with other things in life, but did come back at the beginning of 4th edition, which I admired (and still do today). All of the rules in one book plus your codex book, no D&D dice required, templates standardized to just three, and a lot of streamlined rules in comparison to 2nd. Yes, the craziness was toned down a lot, but the game felt more like a tabletop wargame should in my opinion, and a game took a lot less time to play out.

Even with rose-tinted glasses, I'd still take 4th edition (and probably 3rd or 5th) over 2nd when it comes to actual playing the game. As to lore, art, and overall presentation? I'd take 2nd edition codexes and other materials any day. So much more color . . . (or "colour" for the Brits . . .).

 Gnarlly wrote:

Even with rose-tinted glasses, I'd still take 4th edition (and probably 3rd or 5th) over 2nd when it comes to actual playing the game. As to lore, art, and overall presentation? I'd take 2nd edition codexes and other materials any day. So much more color . . . (or "colour" for the Brits . . .).

This is similar to how I feel. If forced to play a not-original-Necromunda version of 40k, I'd probably lean into just-the-rulebook third edition. However, the old books I look through most often are definitely the 2nd edition codices. A definite nostalgia hit and a nice in between from Rogue Trader to what came after. However, as it stands my son and I are pretty dang happy with Grimdark for rules and acquiring the second-latest-edition codices for fluff, flavor and reference.

 Haighus wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
I've thought of another one!
It always bugged me that everyone was by default armed with Imperial tech, and had to be upgraded to have their own tech.

Like, why were Eldar Guardians running around with Lasguns? Obviously, because they were originally armed with weapons kits made for Rogue Trader to allow conversions of fantasy models.

But it's not very good from a background perspective. 3e finally acknowledged that we had a proper model range now and moved the Xenos to having their own weaponry. I think that was way better for the character of the different armies. Orks with bolters was always a bit weird, since they were supposed to be these high tech weapons used by space marines, just ludicrously high caliber solid slugs suit them much better. Eldar having shuriken catapults as default just makes more sense and is cooler.

It never bothered me. the technology of laser guns is going to be the same regardless, it uses the same physical properties. That's like saying orks shouldn't get tracks on their tanks, or that marines shouldn't have wheels on their bikes because it's special to someone else.

The game only made distinctions where the weapons were actually unique, like a catapult (there were no other equivalent weapons). But a gun that shoots explosive rockets or a laser gun etc, are the same regardless of who built them.

GW have crawled up their butts trying to invent new finer slices of effectively the same gun for the last 20 years.

at the scale of war we're supposed to be playing at, these billion slightly different versions of weapons shouldn't be visible.


so i don't see that as a problem. A plasma gun is a gun that shoots plasma, it doesn't need a unique profile just because someone else built it.

Eh, I think there was a meaningful difference in 3rd between a lasgun, a hellgun, and a lasblaster. Assault meant a significant firepower and mobility boost over rapid fire in 2nd, so a lasblaster is noticeably better than the more unwieldy Imperial versions. Using the same principle is a weird argument. A bolt pistol, stormbolter, heavy bolter, vulkan mega-bolter, and boltgun use the same principle, but they are different weapons with different capabilities. A Salamander and a Chinera both have tracks, but one is quicker etc.

I think plasma is a poor example- Tau and Eldar plasma not exploding in the users face is much more in character with the factions than the Imperial version where they'll issue it to the next Guardsmen once the metal has cooled off.

The 3rd ed fusion gun was a travesty though.

All of your points though are post 2nd ed retroactive justifications for the existence of those changes in the first place.

2nd ed didn't have rapid fire or assault. It just had shoot and modifiers. Eldar with lasguns had the ability to move further and shoot better than guardsmen - swooping hawks flew and could get within short range to get the hit bonus (and of course their main weapon was their grenade harness anyway). The mechanical difference was in the core rules, not the unit rules.

Tau weren't in 2nd ed and eldar plasma consisted only of heavy plasma guns on gun platforms which removed the risk of the weapon to the operator and allowed them to fire on the move.


3rd ed removed comprehensive core rules that gave variety and started the trend of a threadbare core with bloated unit rules so people felt their stuff was more special than others. This created the run away effect of the billion bolter variations we have today, that are totally unnecessary.

Everyone apart from Choas plasma guns (and heavy plasma) were safe IIRC. Their mechanic used to be the capability to fire max power, but the weapon can't shoot next turn. I think they added 'gets hot' in 3rd edition because they didn't think players could track things in the game like whether a gun couldn't shoot.

The only two things I know, which would make 2ed unplayable in my eyes for any imperial player, is the fact that an Ork army was mostly worth no VP, besides a few characters and that it could stun lock an entire imperial army for multiple turns, and with the strategy rating it had vs imperials they would practicaly always go first.
The swooping hawk exarch being able to solo a practical infinite number of marines, without any interaction, at less then 1/10th of the cost of a space marine army was the other.

Everything else, that was good, was fun and powerful, but because everyone could do fun and powerful it balanced itself out, aside for the orks and the eldar.

Some stuff was potentialy OP. Like the guant list, but from what I was told, in my country there was exactly one dude who bought a blister of melee guants, and then recast 160 of them and was dominating other players.
But to me that is just funny. The other two popular armies around here, had to be popular for multiple cities to have stories about those armies, were untargetable
Wolfguard terminator bricks, that would cover the deployment zone in multiple gigantic sized cylcon rocket launcher templates, and IG who did the same by getting pre game barrage for every vehicle and upgrades.

Oddly enough, I have never heard about anyone playing "regular" marines. SoB were terrible and necron supposably were an army created by GW to anger anyone who bought multiple sets of powerfists, terminators, vehicles etc. Their scarabs, which weren't swarms but single models, could lower the tougness of vehicle, turn off melee and range weapons weapon, and 2-3 scarabs got in close to a vehicle even a regular necron could blow up anything. Nothing near what orks or eldar or orks could do, or even other armies optimised builds, but for regular people starting the game they were, again according to local folklore, the army that made new players quit.

3ed put everything on the head, aside for the eldar things. And somehow orks became super popular, so that today there are dudes in their 40s playing them as their only faction.

 Hellebore wrote:

 Haighus wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
I've thought of another one!
It always bugged me that everyone was by default armed with Imperial tech, and had to be upgraded to have their own tech.

Like, why were Eldar Guardians running around with Lasguns? Obviously, because they were originally armed with weapons kits made for Rogue Trader to allow conversions of fantasy models.

But it's not very good from a background perspective. 3e finally acknowledged that we had a proper model range now and moved the Xenos to having their own weaponry. I think that was way better for the character of the different armies. Orks with bolters was always a bit weird, since they were supposed to be these high tech weapons used by space marines, just ludicrously high caliber solid slugs suit them much better. Eldar having shuriken catapults as default just makes more sense and is cooler.

It never bothered me. the technology of laser guns is going to be the same regardless, it uses the same physical properties. That's like saying orks shouldn't get tracks on their tanks, or that marines shouldn't have wheels on their bikes because it's special to someone else.

The game only made distinctions where the weapons were actually unique, like a catapult (there were no other equivalent weapons). But a gun that shoots explosive rockets or a laser gun etc, are the same regardless of who built them.

GW have crawled up their butts trying to invent new finer slices of effectively the same gun for the last 20 years.

at the scale of war we're supposed to be playing at, these billion slightly different versions of weapons shouldn't be visible.


so i don't see that as a problem. A plasma gun is a gun that shoots plasma, it doesn't need a unique profile just because someone else built it.

Eh, I think there was a meaningful difference in 3rd between a lasgun, a hellgun, and a lasblaster. Assault meant a significant firepower and mobility boost over rapid fire in 2nd, so a lasblaster is noticeably better than the more unwieldy Imperial versions. Using the same principle is a weird argument. A bolt pistol, stormbolter, heavy bolter, vulkan mega-bolter, and boltgun use the same principle, but they are different weapons with different capabilities. A Salamander and a Chinera both have tracks, but one is quicker etc.

I think plasma is a poor example- Tau and Eldar plasma not exploding in the users face is much more in character with the factions than the Imperial version where they'll issue it to the next Guardsmen once the metal has cooled off.

The 3rd ed fusion gun was a travesty though.

All of your points though are post 2nd ed retroactive justifications for the existence of those changes in the first place.

2nd ed didn't have rapid fire or assault. It just had shoot and modifiers. Eldar with lasguns had the ability to move further and shoot better than guardsmen - swooping hawks flew and could get within short range to get the hit bonus (and of course their main weapon was their grenade harness anyway). The mechanical difference was in the core rules, not the unit rules.

Tau weren't in 2nd ed and eldar plasma consisted only of heavy plasma guns on gun platforms which removed the risk of the weapon to the operator and allowed them to fire on the move.


3rd ed removed comprehensive core rules that gave variety and started the trend of a threadbare core with bloated unit rules so people felt their stuff was more special than others. This created the run away effect of the billion bolter variations we have today, that are totally unnecessary.

Different ways of showing differences. But even 2nd recognised it wasn't all in the user statline. A bolter was better than a lasgun, for example. Melee weaponry was also much more granular in 2nd.

Personally, I preferred the level of distinction in 3rd. I like that Eldar gear is (generally) better than Imperial gear, but Imperial gear is generally better than equivalent Ork gear. I don't think that automatically leads to the slippery slope of increasing weapons variations that lead to 8th ed bolter versions. GW went down that path, but it wasn't as inevitable as you make out. Indeed, melee weapon variety was contracted until 6th edition where they added power weapon subtypes again.

Karol wrote:
The only two things I know, which would make 2ed unplayable in my eyes for any imperial player, is the fact that an Ork army was mostly worth no VP, ...

That wasn't a thing. You could build Ork units to be small enough to not give a VP for killing half of them, but 5 model Ork units didn't live very long.

And nobody was quitting the game over Necrons. They were added in the last five minutes of the edition, and had 4 units. Very few people had armies of them.

 insaniak wrote:

Karol wrote:
The only two things I know, which would make 2ed unplayable in my eyes for any imperial player, is the fact that an Ork army was mostly worth no VP, ...

That wasn't a thing. You could build Ork units to be small enough to not give a VP for killing half of them, but 5 model Ork units didn't live very long.

And nobody was quitting the game over Necrons. They were added in the last five minutes of the edition, and had 4 units. Very few people had armies of them.

What was stopping you splitting larger units into MSU? As far as I can see, only a handful of the specialised mobz were limited by Command choices.

Wait….didn’t Karol only start with a Grey Knight army after the edition where GK were rock?

 insaniak wrote:

Karol wrote:
The only two things I know, which would make 2ed unplayable in my eyes for any imperial player, is the fact that an Ork army was mostly worth no VP, ...

That wasn't a thing. You could build Ork units to be small enough to not give a VP for killing half of them, but 5 model Ork units didn't live very long.

And nobody was quitting the game over Necrons. They were added in the last five minutes of the edition, and had 4 units. Very few people had armies of them.

You forget... The army that won the second International GT in 2nd ed was one do these Ork armies. You had was it a 50%? (maybe 25%) character allocation - Nob on a (think Nobz bike) bike with some kind of flamer or similar came in at under 50 points so gave 0vps. Have a mass horde of them and it became mathematically impossible to lose... We switched to units giving up their actual points to fix this.

*monocle pops out* Sounds like bloody poor form to me!

Dai wrote:
*monocle pops out* Sounds like bloody poor form to me!

You could get around it if missions were picked instead of random. Engage and destroy, one point per character killed (also helped against blocks of sub 100pt units like heavy bolter squats).
The only two I remember as being totally unscoring were tyranid spore mines (up to half the army) and Cypher (on a 4+ on 3d6).

It was a house rule though as by the book mission cards were random. Good luck playing bunker assault against zero bunkers while your opponent was scoring a point for every three greenskins in your horde their tyranids wiped out hand to hand.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Wait….didn’t Karol only start with a Grey Knight army after the edition where GK were rock?

He's heard the fairy tails of previous editions.