BanjoJohn wrote: I had forgotten completely, or never knew, but pistols could shoot twice if your model stood still in 3rd edition, hmmm, I guess I didn't read carefully enough back then. Not that it makes a huge difference but it is interesting.
That was before they started equipping everyone with a free sidearm (and grenades) IIRC. Generally the only people with pistols wanted to be in CC. There may have been a handful of edge cases (SoB jump pack gunslingers maybe?) but it was almost never used.
The only model I can think of that would want to do that would be Cypher.
It was definitely an edge case, but if you had a model within charge range without moving, you could shoot twice with a pistol and then charge, which is something that Rapid Fire weapons prohibited.
Sergeants, and assault squads are the only models I can think who regularly had pistols, but you'd want them to assault instead of shoot, unless maybe getting those extra shots with plasma pistols could be worth it, say a squad of 6 assault marines with 2 plasma pistols, getting 4 plasma shots and 6 bolt pistol shots isn't bad. Or a tac squad that stood still to rapid-fire boltguns would allow the sergeant to shoot twice with pistol too. At least the bolt pistol would have AP5 when shooting, assault marines would allow armor save in combat.
Rapid Fire and Heavy weapon models which remained stationary to fire could not Assault, but models with pistols could, so these Sergeants, Assault Squads, or equivalent models could fire twice with pistols and then assault.
It'd be a circumstance forseeable in situations where an opponent has Assaulted your models and won the combat, but might not be able to reach any more models after consolidation or advance from combat resolution. There'd be enemy models very close to other troops ready for counterattack.
Or sometimes you didn't really want to charge anyways. I saw a lot of Bloodthirsters in action during 3rd ed, and I wasn't excited to charge 'em! Dumping Plasma Piatol fire into them instead of charging would be a pretty enticing option.
Yeah, there was NEVER enough terrain at any LGSRT event or even GT's. And since the LGS was the central place for everyone to meet for leagues and such, it was the same problem. Never enough terrain to do anything.
I didn't have any Vypers, Guardians, or War Walkers. I have a Biel-Tan army, so it was expensive elites and vehicles. The pair of Falcons and the pair of Wave Serpents had Starcannons, but that was it, and I often took Bright Lances instead to deal with the vehicle spam. The Eldar vehicles with Spirit Stones and Holo-Fields were literally indestructable for the most part...IF got the first turn and could move them to take advantage of the skimmer rules. If not, you just picked them up, and rolled to see who died inside them.
I eventually just left them on the shelf and played all-on-foot Biel-Tan. 40 Banshees, 10 Reapers, 2 Wraithlords (1 BL, 1 SC), and 2 Farseers with Fortune. I think I had enough left for some Hawks with a Web of Skulls on the Exarch. For some reason, when 40 Banshees and 2 WL's are charging your lines, those Marines pretty rarely got around to shooting the Reapers, who were making them pick up two 5-man squads every turn and sitting in cover with re-rolled armor/cover saves and a Farseer to assign occasional wounds to. It didn't fare as well against horde-style armies, but since 67%-75% of the people at an event were playing Marines/Chaos Marines every edition, I didn't really care. All the models on foot made them easier to hide with what little terrain there usually was and made losing the first turn less devastating. Suddenly Razorbacks are dumping lascannons into WL's that I didn't really care about all that much, they were just a giant distraction.
Lack of terrain was a common thing to see. I usually was the guy who made sure our local games had enough stuff to make a good table.
40 Banshees in an army sure would have caught me by surprise! I almost never saw them during 3rd. That could have been an interesting fight.
I loved my Banshees, obviously, fielding 4 full squads of them with Exarchs. They were totally wasted potential against anything but a 3+ armor save or better, but as I mentioned, in my area, Marines/Chaos Marines were always 2/3rds or more of your games. I own all the Aspects, and theory/mathhammered the hell out of the Banshee/Scorpion contest. The Scorpions were always better against T3/4 models with a 5+ or worse save, and the Banshees came out on top against T3/4 and a 3+ or 2+ save. Against a 4+ it was pretty much a wash.
The look on some Marine players faces when I set down the carrying display of minis was priceless. Ork, IG, and Tyranid players, OTOH, would just giggle. With good reason.
I ran a 180+ ork green tide list for a while and it was a similar sort of thing. The average "tooled against Marines" list suddenly looked at all their lascannons and multimeltas and dark lances and venom cannons and sighed, whereas the Dual Lash Princes with double vindicators and a defiler started to cackle maniacally.
Da Boss wrote: I ran a 180+ ork green tide list for a while and it was a similar sort of thing. The average "tooled against Marines" list suddenly looked at all their lascannons and multimeltas and dark lances and venom cannons and sighed, whereas the Dual Lash Princes with double vindicators and a defiler started to cackle maniacally.
Those armies are a blast to face, so overwhelming but still so much killing. I like to think my typical 3rd ed list would have fared reasonably well, since I ran 60+ Marines and incorperated flamers rather than plasmas for my specials.
Yeah one of our regulars runs an iron hands list for our 5th ed games puts nearly 100 marines on the table at 2k points. the only vehicles he has is 3 rhinos for his small dev squads.
it is a lot to chew through. back in my days of silly list writing i wanted to do a grot centric "ork" army. it would probably do terrible but it would be a blast for me to play personally.
Yeah everyone was generally pretty happy to see it coming because it was fluffy and it's fun to slaughter orks by the handful win or lose, it feels like the fiction and makes your opponent feel badass.
The main thing is to be fast at your movement phase (like not sweating optimal dispersion) and have ways to tell the mobs apart (I did different coloured base rims) so you don't run out of time or visually overwhelm your opponent.
I can do it with Tyranids these days. I've got 120 Termagaunts painted up alongside 60 Hormagaunts. Not much time to game though, and little interest in 10th. Someday I'll roll 'em all out at once though.
I was actually supposed to get a couple more games in but real life got in the way. i got one at least against iron hands with my demon hunters and deathwatch allies-inquisition for days....
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
A very close game with a king of the hill center objective came down to the last shot of the game to break a tie.
IIRC it wasn’t until 5th? that “specialist” weapons were a thing, and you could get an extra attack for a pair. I thought the early editions were a flat “no extra attack” for things like fists and hammers.
Or it might have been they were prohibitively expensive to take in pairs. I do remember that lightning claw/powerfist was a go-to combo for a while, as the LC was reasonably priced and paired for +1A. Also gave you the option to strike hard last, or at your normal initiative.
Nevelon wrote: IIRC it wasn’t until 5th? that “specialist” weapons were a thing, and you could get an extra attack for a pair. I thought the early editions were a flat “no extra attack” for things like fists and hammers.
Lightning Claws were an explicit exception in 4th edition and post-rulebook 3rd, needing matching pairs. Everything else you could pair off with anything until 5th.
Due to the way specialist weapons worked in 5th you had to take a lightning claw instead of a power weapon alongside a fist if you wanted the bonus attack which is how that combo ended up being used.
In 3rd edition, a pistol/close combat weapon could give +1 attack to power weapon, power fist, chainfist, and thunder hammer.
Lightning claws were the only ones explicitly stated which could only get +1 attack from having a second lightning claw
But...
Only terminator miniatures had thunder hammers. The rules for "What you see is what you get" meant that you had to have the weapon on the miniature. You could technically convert a power armored marine to have a thunder hammer in order to get an extra attack with a pistol.
Chainfists were the only weapon stated to explicitly be "terminators only"
And...
Characters in terminator armor are not allowed to take pistols so the miniatures that were actually modeled with the thunder hammer/chainfist could not get the extra attack from a pistol by default, so you would have to give them a second "Special weapon" like a power fist or lightning claw to get the extra attack.
Which is kind of funny. You could have a terminator character with a chainfist and a lightning claw, the lightning claw would give an extra attack to the chainfist, but the claw would only get an extra attack as a pair of claws.
Tonight i was running a demon hunters army (3rd) with an attached allied unit of deathwatch.
my opponent was also running a composite force. of guard and iron hands.
He decided to try and castle up behind his defense wall. his lack of mobility made it easier for me to pull off a pincer attack. it took me a while to start killing his tanks loads of damage results of 1s and 2s, MVP went the calidus Assassin Taking out his tech priest and proceeding to wreck his tanks with glancing hits from her neural shredder. the vindicare helped out as well.
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
I lost a single grey knight terminator out of the command squad, and all but 2 deathwatch.
Since this was an attack/defend mission his lack of mobility made my objective a non-factor. so it was all pushing on my side.
Even if he had managed to prevent me from taking his objective, the tie breakers were in my favor so we ended the game on turn 5 (my Calidus was on his objective.
Game 2 my opponent did much better. we had no objectives for this one. the inquisitorial storm troopers really pulled their weight in this one, helping thin out the 2, 10 man crusader squads and the terminator squad coming my way. my command squad lost all but 2 terminators, i also lost 2 of my assassins but when re rolled off for the game to end on turn 5 he had a single model left on the table. the last spartan land raider. as usual the deathwatch squad took a big part of the pain.
BanjoJohn wrote: Lately I've been wondering if pistols should have been Assault 2, hmmm. Certainly worth playtesting a little bit
In 3e and 4e they were effectively Assault 1 / Heavy 2, mimicking the extra attack you got from the old rapid fire rules.
I don't know quite what GW was aiming for with it though as the late 3e witch hunters were probably the main users. Most units didn't even have pistols and those that did usually wanted to assault.
BanjoJohn wrote: Lately I've been wondering if pistols should have been Assault 2, hmmm. Certainly worth playtesting a little bit
In 3e and 4e they were effectively Assault 1 / Heavy 2, mimicking the extra attack you got from the old rapid fire rules.
I don't know quite what GW was aiming for with it though as the late 3e witch hunters were probably the main users. Most units didn't even have pistols and those that did usually wanted to assault.
I've been thinking that since, unless you had power weapons, shooting was probably better most of the time than combat, some units like assault squads, seraphim squads, or similar units with pistol/combat weapon or two pistols would probably have been more effective if they had assault 2. Of course having pistols be assault 2 could have made other units a little more viable too, the odd sergeant or squad leader getting a small boost, etc.
Insectum7 wrote: You could fire pistols AND Assault. It wasn't the either/or situation thar seems to be constantly alluded to here.
I'd say we turn people getting the rules to 3rd wrong into a drinking game, but then we'd surely die of alcohol poisoning...
I don't get the rules wrong though, I know you can shoot pistols and assault. I'm saying assaulting a unit isn't always the best option because... they can fight back, and they might have power weapons when your assault squad doesn't, and your bolt pistols at least negate 5+ and 6+ armor saves when your close combat attacks dont. And your plasma pistols negate 2+ armor saves when your close combat attacks dont.
I'm just saying, I can see that there could be a scenario where you would prefer to shoot and not assault, rather than shoot and assault. It might not exist all the time, but it can exist some of the time.
EDIT: Maybe pistols could have been "Assault 1/ Heavy 2" with a special jump pack rule that lets them fire pistols as if they had stood still, even if they moved, hmmm.
Most of the units I assaulted with in 3rd were built expressly for that purpose, and would basically throw the unit away if I decided to pass up charging to double pistolnshots when pistol shots would soften the unit I would then devastate in hand to hand.
Yeah I understand that, but really, if your unit is standing still in order to get to shoot twice with pistols, and then being able to assault after that, the enemy unit would have been 6" or less away, and that situation happens rarely, if never, because they would have either stayed out of 12" range, or would have assaulted your unit.
So shooting twice with a pistol would normally only happen in circumstances when you'd never be able to assault in the first place, ie, more than 6" away but less than 12" away.
EDIT: I'm also just thinking of cost-benefit analysis. Depending on the unit you're shooting at, the cost for charging them might be less than the benefit of charging them, but the cost might be greater than the benefit. But the spirit of the game tells me its generally more fun to just try anyways.
BanjoJohn wrote: Yeah I understand that, but really, if your unit is standing still in order to get to shoot twice with pistols, and then being able to assault after that, the enemy unit would have been 6" or less away, and that situation happens rarely, if never, because they would have either stayed out of 12" range, or would have assaulted your unit.
So shooting twice with a pistol would normally only happen in circumstances when you'd never be able to assault in the first place, ie, more than 6" away but less than 12" away.
EDIT: I'm also just thinking of cost-benefit analysis. Depending on the unit you're shooting at, the cost for charging them might be less than the benefit of charging them, but the cost might be greater than the benefit. But the spirit of the game tells me its generally more fun to just try anyways.
The scenario that comes to mind that makes pistols firing twice possible is when a CC ends near your own line, but the victorious opponent can only Consolidate, or has Sweeping Advanced towards/into your other troops. Enemy models that have Advanced into a new unit can still be shot at even when they're in base contact, and your own models can fire twice with their pistols, and still move to engage in the subsequent assault. (Rapid Fire and Heavy weapons don't allow it)
Which is neat, imo. It gives pistols a little extra capability once troops are contacting each other.
Quixote wrote: I kinda wish I could play with Custodes in 5th Edition.
You can....and we do- the 7th ed book and HH 1st ed are completely cross compatible.
you just end up with a very small albeit very tough army. everything is T5 with 2 wounds and a 2+/5+ save (even the vehicles all have 5++) and your terminators are rocking S10 power fists.
The heavy support guys with rifles are effectively rocking heavy bolters with a built in melta pistol. then there is Constantine Valdor, the guy is a beast in 5th ed.
BanjoJohn wrote: Yeah I understand that, but really, if your unit is standing still in order to get to shoot twice with pistols, and then being able to assault after that, the enemy unit would have been 6" or less away, and that situation happens rarely, if never, because they would have either stayed out of 12" range, or would have assaulted your unit.
So shooting twice with a pistol would normally only happen in circumstances when you'd never be able to assault in the first place, ie, more than 6" away but less than 12" away.
EDIT: I'm also just thinking of cost-benefit analysis. Depending on the unit you're shooting at, the cost for charging them might be less than the benefit of charging them, but the cost might be greater than the benefit. But the spirit of the game tells me its generally more fun to just try anyways.
Pistols are 12" range, which means you are within move and charge ranges in order to rapid fire, so STILL no reason to rapid pistols instead of charging.
BanjoJohn wrote: Yeah I understand that, but really, if your unit is standing still in order to get to shoot twice with pistols, and then being able to assault after that, the enemy unit would have been 6" or less away, and that situation happens rarely, if never, because they would have either stayed out of 12" range, or would have assaulted your unit.
So shooting twice with a pistol would normally only happen in circumstances when you'd never be able to assault in the first place, ie, more than 6" away but less than 12" away.
EDIT: I'm also just thinking of cost-benefit analysis. Depending on the unit you're shooting at, the cost for charging them might be less than the benefit of charging them, but the cost might be greater than the benefit. But the spirit of the game tells me its generally more fun to just try anyways.
Pistols are 12" range, which means you are within move and charge ranges in order to rapid fire, so STILL no reason to rapid pistols instead of charging.
6
Except plasma pistols were a thing and several units could take at least one if not two. Then add one onto the sarge/champ and you get 6 shots at S7 which is often enough to put the hurt on whatever your shooting at.
BanjoJohn wrote: Yeah I understand that, but really, if your unit is standing still in order to get to shoot twice with pistols, and then being able to assault after that, the enemy unit would have been 6" or less away, and that situation happens rarely, if never, because they would have either stayed out of 12" range, or would have assaulted your unit.
So shooting twice with a pistol would normally only happen in circumstances when you'd never be able to assault in the first place, ie, more than 6" away but less than 12" away.
EDIT: I'm also just thinking of cost-benefit analysis. Depending on the unit you're shooting at, the cost for charging them might be less than the benefit of charging them, but the cost might be greater than the benefit. But the spirit of the game tells me its generally more fun to just try anyways.
Pistols are 12" range, which means you are within move and charge ranges in order to rapid fire, so STILL no reason to rapid pistols instead of charging.
It depends on if your unit has regular close combat weapons vs power weapons, and what AP your unit's shooting weapon has, vs the armor save of the unit you are looking at shooting/charging. You would have to weigh the cost vs benefit.
LIke... "how many wounds can I cause if I rapid fire and fire heavy weapons (if any)" vs "how many wounds can I cause if I don't rapid fire, only shoot pistols/assault weapons, and then charge into combat"
Most if not all pistol armed troops in 3rd eete armed with a close combat weapon of some type giving them root 2 attacks as a base. As you still got +1 A for charging even if you shot, then once again there isn't much of a reason pull this, especially with the risk of not doing enough damage to force a rout which meant the unit shot would get to charge you next turn and get the +1 A themselves. Still seeing very little reason. To rapid pistols instead of charging leaves you with less damage output despite the charged unit getting attacks back. There seems to be a ton of assuming perfect dice rolls to get to this conclusion...
BanjoJohn wrote: Yeah I understand that, but really, if your unit is standing still in order to get to shoot twice with pistols, and then being able to assault after that, the enemy unit would have been 6" or less away, and that situation happens rarely, if never, because they would have either stayed out of 12" range, or would have assaulted your unit.
So shooting twice with a pistol would normally only happen in circumstances when you'd never be able to assault in the first place, ie, more than 6" away but less than 12" away.
EDIT: I'm also just thinking of cost-benefit analysis. Depending on the unit you're shooting at, the cost for charging them might be less than the benefit of charging them, but the cost might be greater than the benefit. But the spirit of the game tells me its generally more fun to just try anyways.
Pistols are 12" range, which means you are within move and charge ranges in order to rapid fire, so STILL no reason to rapid pistols instead of charging.
6
Except plasma pistols were a thing and several units could take at least one if not two. Then add one onto the sarge/champ and you get 6 shots at S7 which is often enough to put the hurt on whatever your shooting at.
6+6=12
Don't be purposefully obtuse.
Making the assumption that you have a non-combat unit within charge range is about the only possible scenario where rapid works, but even still you have to question whether 2 shots per basic troop and 2 pistol shots per leader and however many special weapon shots are going tondo as much damage as 1 shot per troop and 2 attacks on the charge for all base troops and 3 or 4 per leader. That's excluding characters, naturally. My response would be FAR less diplomatic if someone is wasting characters by rapid firing with them
Pistols are 12" range, which means you are within move and charge ranges in order to rapid fire, so STILL no reason to rapid pistols instead of charging.
Wait . . . Why are we saying you can't assault after firing twice with pistols again? Didn't we clear this up?
BanjoJohn wrote: Yeah I understand that, but really, if your unit is standing still in order to get to shoot twice with pistols, and then being able to assault after that, the enemy unit would have been 6" or less away, and that situation happens rarely, if never, because they would have either stayed out of 12" range, or would have assaulted your unit.
So shooting twice with a pistol would normally only happen in circumstances when you'd never be able to assault in the first place, ie, more than 6" away but less than 12" away.
EDIT: I'm also just thinking of cost-benefit analysis. Depending on the unit you're shooting at, the cost for charging them might be less than the benefit of charging them, but the cost might be greater than the benefit. But the spirit of the game tells me its generally more fun to just try anyways.
Pistols are 12" range, which means you are within move and charge ranges in order to rapid fire, so STILL no reason to rapid pistols instead of charging.
6
Except plasma pistols were a thing and several units could take at least one if not two. Then add one onto the sarge/champ and you get 6 shots at S7 which is often enough to put the hurt on whatever your shooting at.
6+6=12
Don't be purposefully obtuse.
Making the assumption that you have a non-combat unit within charge range is about the only possible scenario where rapid works, but even still you have to question whether 2 shots per basic troop and 2 pistol shots per leader and however many special weapon shots are going tondo as much damage as 1 shot per troop and 2 attacks on the charge for all base troops and 3 or 4 per leader. That's excluding characters, naturally. My response would be FAR less diplomatic if someone is wasting characters by rapid firing with them
I'm not being obtuse. I ran two such squads with my Emperors Children army. Didn't worry about being charged so much as I was effectively I5 even if charged, and the Champ had 4 S5 powerweapon attacks (after demonic gifts), and as long as you didn't kill my summoning Icon, I also ended up with 6-12 daemonetts the next turn for back up.
Yes, its somewhat situationally dependent, yes, my build was possibly unique-ish as I was probably one of the fewer EC armies that didn't overload on sonic weaponry gunline and went with a highly mobile combined arms approach.
Pistols are 12" range, which means you are within move and charge ranges in order to rapid fire, so STILL no reason to rapid pistols instead of charging.
Wait . . . Why are we saying you can't assault after firing twice with pistols again? Didn't we clear this up?
He was talking about rapid figing out of charge range, basically refusing to move forward to achive range for a charge explicitly to rapid fire pistols.
Pistols are 12" range, which means you are within move and charge ranges in order to rapid fire, so STILL no reason to rapid pistols instead of charging.
Wait . . . Why are we saying you can't assault after firing twice with pistols again? Didn't we clear this up?
He was talking about rapid figing out of charge range, basically refusing to move forward to achive range for a charge explicitly to rapid fire pistols.
Ahh, I see.
Well, that doesn't mean that there's still no reason. If the potential charge target is extra dangerous to your troops in CC, shooting twice might be the better call. Bloodletters, Genestealers, Greater Daemons or other nasty characters, etc. An Assault Squad getting two or three extra Plasma Pistol shots at S7 can be better than running into combat with a Bloodthirster, where you'll only hit on 5s and wound on 6s. Or Genestealers who would get to fight first and make you lose those extra CC attacks you were counting on before you even swung.
Hmmm. Just making a note of some of the rules as presented for 3rd edition in the "Trial Assault rules" , just some things that strike me as different enough from the rules in the book to make a note of.
If you stand still to fire a pistol twice in the shooting phase, you can not charge in the assault phase.
If you shoot in the shooting phase, you do not gain +1 attack from charging in the assault phase, unless you're a unit that always counts as stationary for shooting, like terminators, dreadnoughts, walkers, bikes, etc.
I just thought this is interesting because of some of the discussion about pistols and charging vs not charging that had been going on. Seems like this makes it a "shoot once with pistols, and charge, or shoot twice with pistols and don't charge, or don't shoot and get a bonus attack for charging" kind of choice to make
As for the two example posts? Retrograde. Move as fast back to the main line as possible so you can shoot them to death with as much firepower as possible. I also don't tend to throw my combat units at combat units. I shoot the choppy stuff and chop the shooty stuff.
And the trial assault rules were swill in my opinion.
Just Tony wrote: As for the two example posts? Retrograde. Move as fast back to the main line as possible so you can shoot them to death with as much firepower as possible. I also don't tend to throw my combat units at combat units. I shoot the choppy stuff and chop the shooty stuff.
And the trial assault rules were swill in my opinion.
Hmm, I'm still re-learning them as I study this, I'm curious what you mean exactly, like what about the trial assault rules do you think are bad either compared to the default rules in the 3rd edition rulebook? or compared the rules that came afterwards?
Just Tony wrote: I liked nothing about them. They were unrealistic and punished the entire game because a few units or a couple of army lists were OP in combat.
I can see the reasoning of not allowing charge after double shooting. Kind of feels like having your cake and eating it when your unit gets the firepower of a tactical squad and the charge of an assault squad, even if under only limited circumstances.
Just Tony wrote: I liked nothing about them. They were unrealistic and punished the entire game because a few units or a couple of army lists were OP in combat.
I can see the reasoning of not allowing charge after double shooting. Kind of feels like having your cake and eating it when your unit gets the firepower of a tactical squad and the charge of an assault squad, even if under only limited circumstances.
I'll have to look when I get home but I'm pretty sure you were never allowed to charge after rapid firing or firing heavy weapons.
I'm also trying to figure out in what world someone would get within charge range of a unit and NOT charge, unless that unit was there from a sweeping advance.
Just Tony wrote: I'm also trying to figure out in what world someone would get within charge range of a unit and NOT charge, unless that unit was there from a sweeping advance.
Failed charges through cover, units out of charge range that have run to get closer to improve their odds next round, Templars, Repentia, and other forced moves, Seraphim (etc) with hit and run, deepstrikers (and any other alternate arrivals that disallow charges), disembarking units, all kinds of mixed and screening unit scenarios, etc.
Though as an old sisters of battle player I might be a little biased as my primary object was to often get within charge range without charging. More models under the flamer template :p
From what I can tell, having spent the last few weeks reading the rules and working on the 3rd ed battle bible, Original rules did not allow you to charge after rapid firing a rapid fire weapon, or shooting a heavy weapon. But there was an implication you could shoot a pistol twice and then charge.
Looks like the "Trial Assault Rules" clarify that pistols, too, can not be fired twice and allow the unit to charge.
And then the one big difference was, original rules allowed you to shoot a pistol and get +1 attack for charging, but trial assault rules do not give you +1 attack for charging IF you fired a weapon, presumably only a pistol or assault weapon.
The assault rules were pretty consistent once they laid them down from 3rd-5th.
can charge 6"
.assault weapons-1 shot(pistols, melta guns etc..)-yes
.rapid fire weapons-no
.heavy weapons-no
.after running-no, unless you have fleet of foot/claw
.are a stable platform ignoring weapon restrictions(terminators, bikes, dreadnoughts)-yes
.immediately after disembarking from vehicles without the assault vehicle special rule-no
The other fun distinction-beasts, cavalry and leaping units charge 12"
aphyon wrote: .immediately after disembarking from vehicles without the assault vehicle special rule-no
The dark eldar 'boarding torpedo' tactic was an amusing way around the rules back then.
Fast skimmers could move flat out up to 24", but units were expressly forbidden from disembarking from a vehicle at that speed. DE could add an extra 2d6" to that, again expressly forbidden from disembarking.
Nothing however preventing them from shock-prowing into another vehicle half way across the board, exploding, and then assaulting out of the crater on the same turn...
BanjoJohn wrote: From what I can tell, having spent the last few weeks reading the rules and working on the 3rd ed battle bible, Original rules did not allow you to charge after rapid firing a rapid fire weapon, or shooting a heavy weapon. But there was an implication you could shoot a pistol twice and then charge.
Looks like the "Trial Assault Rules" clarify that pistols, too, can not be fired twice and allow the unit to charge.
And then the one big difference was, original rules allowed you to shoot a pistol and get +1 attack for charging, but trial assault rules do not give you +1 attack for charging IF you fired a weapon, presumably only a pistol or assault weapon.
Yeah that seems right. Then in 4th ed the BRB kept the "Pistols can't fire twice and charge" bit, but dropped the "lose bonus attack if you shoot your Pistol before charging".
Which is kinda too bad, tbh. The double Pistiol firing and then charge thing was such a rare circumstance to begin with, it's hard to see why it would be an issue.
BanjoJohn wrote: From what I can tell, having spent the last few weeks reading the rules and working on the 3rd ed battle bible, Original rules did not allow you to charge after rapid firing a rapid fire weapon, or shooting a heavy weapon. But there was an implication you could shoot a pistol twice and then charge.
Looks like the "Trial Assault Rules" clarify that pistols, too, can not be fired twice and allow the unit to charge.
And then the one big difference was, original rules allowed you to shoot a pistol and get +1 attack for charging, but trial assault rules do not give you +1 attack for charging IF you fired a weapon, presumably only a pistol or assault weapon.
Yeah that seems right. Then in 4th ed the BRB kept the "Pistols can't fire twice and charge" bit, but dropped the "lose bonus attack if you shoot your Pistol before charging".
Which is kinda too bad, tbh. The double Pistiol firing and then charge thing was such a rare circumstance to begin with, it's hard to see why it would be an issue.
I think the main argument I could see for not allowing a charge after firing the pistol twice is that it is the same as a "rapid fire" weapon, which may have been what their intent was in the original rulebook, it just wasn't clear.
One thing I've been wondering about is that, some things from RT era, and 2nd ed era are still easy-ish to find second hand, but it seems like the "Storm of Vengeance" campaign stuff and power plant cardstock terrain are really hard to find. Was that a much smaller production run compared to other things like dark millenium?
1) Some things might have had a smaller production run or might have had smaller releases in certain regions.
2) There can even be some releases that were entirely unique to one global region with others getting nothing at all and probably not even being told about it. Like those collectible marine figures that were only for the Asian market for a good while
3) Survivability - some stuff survives better than others. Metal models survive generally really well; however cardstock takes more wear and tear and is much easier to damage over time.
Esp if you factor in that many people buy stuff when younger and then sell it on - those formerly loved metal models might be totally fine ;that card stock could be all kinds of bashed in or just thrown out.
4) Desirability comes in waves. Some stuff can vanish from the market because it becomes really popular and if you're unlucky to want it after this period then there's almost nothing left because what there is is already in the hands of collectors/gamers.
5) The Pandemic did a major boost on secondhand sales for a while so that cleaned up a lot of the market stuff being sold to collectors and likely entering long term collections.
6) Time - the longer after a release the less stock there is overall and the less in good condition. Plus again the chance that the longer it is the more likely its wound up entering peoples long term collections.
7) Where you look. Facebook has honestly taken over for 2ndhand gaming trading. Forums just don't have the active populations; ebay grew more unpopular with its growing fees (fees they've recently started dropping to try and compete with essentially free trading on FB).
So sometimes its not a case of something being less sold or such its just that you were looking in spots where the active trading wasn't taking place.
Doubly so for niche games which might have their own trade groups where much of the trade happens instead of generalist ones.
8) Not asking. Honestly sometimes people have stuff and they never bother to sell it - sometimes you've got to put up a "I want this" post around the place to draw those people out.
Bringing things back to 1st edition Rogue Trader, what are the chances that GW might reprint the Compendium? I already have Rogue Trader and the two Realm of Chaos reprints from Warhammer World, but the Compendium would be the icing on the cake.
It's always very random what they choose to reprint. At one time they seemed to be on a big roll of reprints with the Inferno and a bunch of other books - but I feel like whoever was spearheading that isn't doing so now. It feels like ages since they did some classic reprints of lore/art books
dreadblade wrote: Bringing things back to 1st edition Rogue Trader, what are the chances that GW might reprint the Compendium? I already have Rogue Trader and the two Realm of Chaos reprints from Warhammer World, but the Compendium would be the icing on the cake.
Given that the person who scanned and restored those previous books is no longer working for GW, I think that the chances of a Compendium reprint are pretty remote. Reading between the lines, I suspect that the Rogue Trader and Realm of Chaos reprints were something of a passion project.
Hellebore wrote: I believe Louise of Rogue Hobbies on YT was involved as a labour of love. But she's no longer at GW.
Given the interest (and the prices for originals), it seems like an exercise in printing your own money.
Thing is if it was a passion project it was likely done at her own time/cost or alongside other duties. So chances are when she moved on and no one stepped into that spot and if everyone else is already working hard there might just not be anyone to push for it. It's a huge shame as a LOT of classic GW stuff would be great to have in print-on-demand and even as digital copies. They've got a huge library of material and heck even some things they've done before fairly recently would be worth running again for new customers and those who missed out before.
Overread wrote: Thing is if it was a passion project it was likely done at her own time/cost or alongside other duties. So chances are when she moved on and no one stepped into that spot and if everyone else is already working hard there might just not be anyone to push for it. It's a huge shame as a LOT of classic GW stuff would be great to have in print-on-demand and even as digital copies. They've got a huge library of material and heck even some things they've done before fairly recently would be worth running again for new customers and those who missed out before.
Just selling .pdfs of White Dwarf back issues could make them serious money. No printing, just pay for the download.
Overread wrote: Thing is if it was a passion project it was likely done at her own time/cost or alongside other duties. So chances are when she moved on and no one stepped into that spot and if everyone else is already working hard there might just not be anyone to push for it. It's a huge shame as a LOT of classic GW stuff would be great to have in print-on-demand and even as digital copies. They've got a huge library of material and heck even some things they've done before fairly recently would be worth running again for new customers and those who missed out before.
Just selling .pdfs of White Dwarf back issues could make them serious money. No printing, just pay for the download.
I'd easily pay for and download copies of:
Mordheim (everything)
Necromunda (the original, not the ridiculous slop GW put out recently)
Blood Bowl (ditto)
Dungeon Bowl (double ditto)
Epic Armageddon
Battlefleet Gothic
I mean...I have most of this stuff in one form or another. But I'd re-buy digital copies just to have them on-hand, on-demand. These are easily the best games GW has put out. IMHO.
If I were in charge of content for Warhammer+ I would be pushing for digital copies of every GW book and magazine back to the dawn of time, and access to PoD copies of same.
GW could probably make a fine amount of cash if they 3d scanned/meshed their old out of print miniatures to sell directly to enthusiasts who want to 3d print them, just another way they are missing out on cash.
I have thought that they could scan/sell White Dwarf pdf collections, just scan/sell a whole year at a time as a pdf.
^I cynically believe they might think easy access to their past products would compete with their current and future products, becaise it might pull a portion of players off their content churn and maybe question certain practices, like $50 hardbacks that go obsolete every couple years, or quicker.
Insectum7 wrote: ^I cynically believe they might think easy access to their past products would compete with their current and future products, because it might pull a portion of players off their content churn and maybe question certain practices, like $50 hardbacks that go obsolete every couple years, or quicker.
You aren't wrong. At all. GW has become a top-100 company over in the UK, IIRC, and frankly that speaks volumes about the actual usefulness of the UK's manufacturing base and economy.
That said, they don't give a single poop any more about anything but the bottom line, and profits for the shareholders. The days of the old guard writing rules and sculpting minis for a tabletop hobby are long gone. They might not have been perfect (gods know some of the rules weren't), but now it's all in the pursuit of the almighty pound.
I'd never lift a finger again to play any edition of WFB beyond 7th, and the only reason I still kind of like 40k is because they didn't completely destroy it with Age of Sigmar level BS, and my Eldar and Tyranid models are still cool as heck to push around a tabletop.
But...
Give me a good group of players, say, 8 or so, who love the hobby. Let's play a long-ish campaign/league of Necromunda, then, when that's done and we've had the "finals" and all sat around laughing and drinking, move on to the same thing in Necromunda, then rinse and repeat. In the meantime, us die-hards will have a side-campaign/league of Bloodbowl or Epic.
I've never had so much fun with a tabletop wargame as the days when that was a reality. Aos and 40k are the flagship games, but let's face it...they are shadows of what they used to be, designed for the modern short-attention-span group. At least IMO.
Ignore me. I'm just an old man, missing the past, shouting at clouds. To be fair, the clouds started it.
I'd like to see a reprint of 1st edition Battle Manual. Its the missing link that brings Rogue Trader rules much closer to 2nd edition rules, ie. the best of both worlds. Still allows all that RPG stuff and unlimited customization (ie make your own vehicles, units and whatnot), but already has something resembling "classic 40K" gameplay.
I got everything sorted on the digital document dept, but wouldnt mind paying for physical copies of all the RT era books. I think its only a matter of time until GW starts to sell their back catalogue. The cultural value of early editions of GW games will only increase in time as the brand (and its fanbase) grows. However, it wont be easy in terms of legalities, due to various licensing contracts etc they might have once had with all that content..
Hellebore wrote: I believe Louise of Rogue Hobbies on YT was involved as a labour of love. But she's no longer at GW.
Given the interest (and the prices for originals), it seems like an exercise in printing your own money.
Right, but the question is, “How much money?” I suspect that the market for RT-era reprints is tiny compared with the market for 10th edition material. It may not be worth anybody at GW’s time to make it happen.
Hellebore wrote: I believe Louise of Rogue Hobbies on YT was involved as a labour of love. But she's no longer at GW.
Given the interest (and the prices for originals), it seems like an exercise in printing your own money.
Right, but the question is, “How much money?” I suspect that the market for RT-era reprints is tiny compared with the market for 10th edition material. It may not be worth anybody at GW’s time to make it happen.
The market is way smaller of course, but I suspect still very profitable when you consider how big GW's market is.
I suspect its less a case of it being unprofitable; just a case if it not being profitable enough. Plus it honestly might just be one of those things that no one there in management appreciate as a market segment, but isn't opposed to it. So it just needs a staffer to champion it.
Personally I'd say GW should be putting all their old stuff in digital and as much as possible "print on demand". Why have assets that earn nothing when you've got them in storage.
Insectum7 wrote: ^I cynically believe they might think easy access to their past products would compete with their current and future products, becaise it might pull a portion of players off their content churn and maybe question certain practices, like $50 hardbacks that go obsolete every couple years, or quicker.
This has a firm foundation in fact. Back on Portent/Warseer, there were threads that centered on 2nd and there was a steady amount of pure animosity towards that edition, often spread by known GW staff.
What made it annoying was that they got things wrong. They talked about how bad the rules were and then used examples that were illegal.
So I think there is a cultural bias against older edition as they fear it will cut into their churn.
As to the economics of the thing, please. There is no formatting, no writing, no production of any kind. Just have an intern use the scanner and use the right naming convention for the files and then rake in the profit.
Seriously, offering a scanned WD for a dollar would easily pay a staffer's salary to do scans full time. Charge more for the books, and watch the dough accumulate. If you charge $10 for digital books, (which would be absurdly cheap, honestly) how many do you have to sell for your break-even point? Production costs are nil, just labor for a starting employee to run the scanner.
It's easy money, but GW has a habit of turning away from slam-dunk sales.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: As to the economics of the thing, please. There is no formatting, no writing, no production of any kind. Just have an intern use the scanner and use the right naming convention for the files and then rake in the profit.
They're a British company. They don't have interns.
As for the work involved, that really depends on the condition of the originals. Given the age of older WDs, there would likely be a reasonable amount of restoration required. For a professional looking end result, it's not as simple as 'scan document, make PDF'
It also depends what nature they are stored in - some might have original documents; others might be lost to time; corrupted files or formats so old they can't be easily re-used today.
Good reproductions of old media is an art and takes time in itself. Otherwise oyu can get things like reprints you see on amazon where they scan with an OCR and never check the results - resulting in loads of miss-spellings and quirks where the reader didn't quite read it perfectly.
Or where the words aren't in the standard dictionary
Overread wrote: It also depends what nature they are stored in - some might have original documents; others might be lost to time; corrupted files or formats so old they can't be easily re-used today.
Many of the older WDs and books predate computers for this sort of work. The originals were made from pieces of paper glued to a board.
Overread wrote: It also depends what nature they are stored in - some might have original documents; others might be lost to time; corrupted files or formats so old they can't be easily re-used today.
Many of the older WDs and books predate computers for this sort of work. The originals were made from pieces of paper glued to a board.
Yeah there's a good chance that the really old stuff is a case of having to scan copies - even then GW might have a copy that has worn the test of time poorly so such a project could even involve having to try and source better condition copies.
GW could offer a "magazine contest" to any fans, like... give them really good copies of the old magazines for the digital archiving, and you get a new army box or something.
Overread wrote: It also depends what nature they are stored in - some might have original documents; others might be lost to time; corrupted files or formats so old they can't be easily re-used today.
Many of the older WDs and books predate computers for this sort of work. The originals were made from pieces of paper glued to a board.
Yeah there's a good chance that the really old stuff is a case of having to scan copies - even then GW might have a copy that has worn the test of time poorly so such a project could even involve having to try and source better condition copies.
Bah. Not an issue. As one person, I could provide GW with near pristine copies of every page of every book I've mentioned. I have an uncut (from a standpoint of the cut-out pages) copy of the orange book of 3rd edition WFB, the original Mordheim book and multiple Town Cryer mags, the original Necromunda books, the original boxed set of Bloodbowl, and a bunch of other publications. I'm ONE PERSON. They could source anything they wanted with a simple "Hey everyone, we're looking for" post.
That's just my collection. If I was willing to pony up, I could literally buy everything on eBay. I just sold a full boxed set of BFG, less the ships, and also a bunch of books for it on that very marketplace. I'm getting ready to list a couple dozen books and boxed sets (Dark Millennium, Warhammer Magic/Battle Magic, others).
The point is, literally everything GW has ever published is out there in some format, whether it's physical and you're paying a premium for it, or it's digital and you're downloading it illegally for free. Or something in between.
For the ferocity they show with lawsuits and hammering the little guy, you would think they'd recognize the nostalgia market for games and just keep digital copies available for ready sale when it comes to these documents. The amount of effort would be negligible, and the profits would be small...but they would be profits.
GW is a multi-million pound global company. They can invest in an ebay account to find back issues, and a scanner with attendant intern to turn the pages.
But if GW release old White Dwarf issues, people might wake up to how poor more modern runs are.
Lord Damocles wrote: GW is a multi-million pound global company. They can invest in an ebay account to find back issues, and a scanner with attendant intern to turn the pages.
But if GW release old White Dwarf issues, people might wake up to how poor more modern runs are.
Exactly. The return on investment would be immense and immediate. The "production line" is literally someone with a decent flat-bed scanner.
I also find it highly unlikely that one of the most lawsuit-happy companies on the planet would destroy (through carelessness or deliberately) crucial pieces of evidence to prove copyright and/or trademark violations.
The people on this thread alone would probably buy enough scans to pay an entire year's worth of wages. The answer is that GW isn't really that keen on comparisons with what was before. It's culture is the present, with just enough nostalgia bait to pull along the incurable addicts.
A 'decent flatbed scanner' does not get you a publication-quality product.
I also find it highly unlikely that one of the most lawsuit-happy companies on the planet would destroy (through carelessness or deliberately) crucial pieces of evidence to prove copyright and/or trademark violations.
I mean, this is a company that in the middle of its last big lawsuit realised that it didn't actually own the copyright on a portion of their art catalogue and tried to get artists to retroactively sign over rights for work they had done decades ago...
That's the same lawsuit in which they tried to claim ownership of chevrons and roman numerals and insisted that their designers drew inspiration only from their own imaginations with no outside influences. Being 'lawsuit-happy' doesn't inherently make them good at it.
I would suspect that they would have published copies of everything they have produced in their vaults. Whether or not they have the original proofs is another matter entirely... Preserving for potential legal claims aside, (for which, the published version would probably be sufficient anyway), a lot of that stuff pre-digital publishing just doesn't store well.
Digitising a magazine or book for publication is not just a case of plopping it on a scanner and calling the job a good-un. As was explained in the linked article about the Rogue Trader restoration, there is a lot of post-processing that is required to get the scan into publication-ready quality.
Esp if you want accurate scanning - I noted earlier that OCR scanning for books just with text can result in huge problems when the computer doens't read the text right or when it has words which are non-standard-english appear and suddenly technical terms get garbled because its trying to guess.
My dad has one book which is a reprint of a technical book on plants and almost all the latin is wrong; most likely because of an issue like that and then no one reviewing it properly.
Also lets not forget even digital data can be lost. Harddrives fail; files get corrupted and even backup systems can fail; often only be detected when they are then needed. Not to mention that its very easy with both systems to lose things.
Given decades; multiple staff; shifting priorities its very possible that even an organised firm can have information that gets filed in different ways for different reasons - all justifiable and logical at the time - but then 20 years later no one remembers and suddenly a bunch of things are "lost" somewhere.
That said I still sit on the side that agrees that a firm of GW's size and customer base can still turn a profit and overcome these problems. They are not insurmountable and GW has proven that many times before by doing reprints. The Inferno reprints were utterly awesome, faithful and well done. The White Dwarf issues that were added to Warhammer+ were also well done; if annoyingly so because Gw had the old game data scrubbed from them.
Not sure I’m fussed for archival White Dwarf, but I’d love to see the old Ork books back in print, even if it means a trip to Warhammer World.
As has been pointed out, whilst not as simple as “just go and scan an existing copy”, surely it’s a fairly cost effective measure? According to the article, Rogue Trader took Louise about two weeks to get all the scanning done, then considerably longer to smarten it all up and that.
But compared to writing and page setting a whole new volume, I’d imagine it compares favourably as an investment of time and effort.
Lord Damocles wrote: GW is a multi-million pound global company. They can invest in an ebay account to find back issues, and a scanner with attendant intern to turn the pages.
But if GW release old White Dwarf issues, people might wake up to how poor more modern runs are.
Exactly. The return on investment would be immense and immediate. The "production line" is literally someone with a decent flat-bed scanner.
I also find it highly unlikely that one of the most lawsuit-happy companies on the planet would destroy (through carelessness or deliberately) crucial pieces of evidence to prove copyright and/or trademark violations.
The people on this thread alone would probably buy enough scans to pay an entire year's worth of wages. The answer is that GW isn't really that keen on comparisons with what was before. It's culture is the present, with just enough nostalgia bait to pull along the incurable addicts.
Which I would be, if they'd sell old scans.
I don't know how much it would actually sell. When I found my old White Dwarf magazines from 1996-2005, I dropped them off at a game shop with a very large player base as their bi-weekly tournaments got 40 people and the shop had a good 25 tables for Warhammer. After a year, 6 copies were taken from the bos. The shop tossed them all in the recycling bin. That was during the phase where White Dwarf became the weekly magazine that was essentially the Warhammer Community page. Would it sell now? Maybe some of the old issues would sell. Not sure how well but it most certainly would not be like printing money.
There's also local stores where they'd have fought over the best copies.
Local scenes vary a LOT - I've seen boxed sets from GW that sold out in minutes online sitting on shelves in local stores months later; and that's when sold at a fair price.
I think that, instead of selling individual white dwarf magazines, it would "sell better" as yearly collections. Like.. White Dwarf 1990, White Dwarf 1991, etc.
I have some experience now with Affinity publisher, layout, editing, etc. And yeah its not as simple as "scan and done" but its not a lot of hard work either, and having a good clean issue to scan can make for less digital work to clean it up.
Part of the problem of releasing loads of old white dwarf or codex/rulesbooks is that people might realise that GW were a hell of a lot more customer friendly back then!
Part of me wonders, if fans of old GW purchased enough shares of the company, that influence on the board/leadership could be pushed to make them more hobby friendly again, but maybe not enough shares to influence the board are publicly purchasable, I dunno. Might be a better investment of money instead of buying a new army though.
Might be a fun gift for someone to buy them some GW shares.
(I wonder if they still have Stock Certificates in the UK.)
I doubt that anyone can really change their minds on the current way they are doing things. They are turning a profit, and the majority of players seem to be enjoying the games they produce.
boyd wrote: I don't know how much it would actually sell. When I found my old White Dwarf magazines from 1996-2005, I dropped them off at a game shop with a very large player base as their bi-weekly tournaments got 40 people and the shop had a good 25 tables for Warhammer. After a year, 6 copies were taken from the bos. The shop tossed them all in the recycling bin. That was during the phase where White Dwarf became the weekly magazine that was essentially the Warhammer Community page. Would it sell now? Maybe some of the old issues would sell. Not sure how well but it most certainly would not be like printing money.
Printed magazines/books are different because shipping becomes a big factor. Also physical quality.
But if it is a digital download, none of that matters. And as others mentioned, you could batch them by year, making them even more attractive. Like a specific edition? Buy the years it was in print. Instant money.
All that being said, GW has been that wonderful company that seems to do everything wrong and somehow still keeps on going. They made a pact with the Chaos Gods or something.
As noted many times over the last 25 years or so, just because it should happen doesn't mean it will.
My only point is that - compared with publishing books and miniatures, scanning in the back catalog would not take that much effort and it would be not just immeidately made good whatever their costs were, it would be a continuing resource for the years to come.
The game of Warhammer’s reason for existence has always been to encourage people to buy Citadel miniatures. New editions of the game ensure that all of the current models are supported. Republishing old editions that support out of production models simply isn’t Games Workshop’s business model. Encouraging players to stop buying new models is a significant risk, and likely isn’t worth the relatively small revenue selling those old books and magazines represents.
Pariah Press wrote: The game of Warhammer’s reason for existence has always been to encourage people to buy Citadel miniatures. New editions of the game ensure that all of the current models are supported. Republishing old editions that support out of production models simply isn’t Games Workshop’s business model. Encouraging players to stop buying new models is a significant risk, and likely isn’t worth the relatively small revenue selling those old books and magazines represents.
This is true probably. Seems like the rogue trader release was a labour of love and also it is likely seen as more of a historical collectable than anything. I expect more people have that just to display or leaf through than actually play games with it.
A 'decent flatbed scanner' does not get you a publication-quality product.
And yet, I can find the entirety of Mordheim (all books, Town Cryers, and every half-assed experimental rule in existence) scanned in, in printable form, for free, on the internet. Because someone cared enough to do it. Same with Epic Armageddon. And likely other GW products I haven't looked for.
I sincerely doubt they were using anything more than a scanner. It's not hard if you're willing to sacrifice one copy of a book and do some editing work on the .pdf's. GW doesn't even care if they're not selling a currently competing product, as far as I can tell. Why would they? No one is selling any of it. It's all out there, free to have. The most it would cost you is your time, printer ink, and paper.
Are those things perfect? Nope. They're 95% though. And if GW wanted to, they could make money doing it themselves. Digital downloads, print-on-demand, and things like that already exist. It's not even hard.
Those people saying GW doesn't care because it doesn't sell the current line of minis are 1000% correct. That is literally all they care about, selling overpriced plastic miniatures. And they've done very well for themselves by caring about nothing else. Don't fool yourself.
The fact that, even WoTC, as bad as they are, still still print on demand and digital downloads of older edition D&D products shows that GW could be doing the same thing, its a one time investment in the time to get those digital products ready, and then it becomes a life-long potential revenue stream.
Honestly when you look at the volume of material that places like Drive Through RPG have for DnD its amazing that GW doesn't do more.
Then again GW has the issue that past rules material is basically useless for modern games and GW really wants you playing modern rules to generate sales for modern models.
Meanwhile in DnD old stuff might not be 100% compatible, but you can still use it with the modern rules and books. If anything greater historical access increases direct sales for the new material
Overread wrote: Honestly when you look at the volume of material that places like Drive Through RPG have for DnD its amazing that GW doesn't do more.
Then again GW has the issue that past rules material is basically useless for modern games and GW really wants you playing modern rules to generate sales for modern models.
Meanwhile in DnD old stuff might not be 100% compatible, but you can still use it with the modern rules and books. If anything greater historical access increases direct sales for the new material
It is both the company and the player base. the drive/fomo or whatever you want to call it is so strong with 40K getting people to step away from what is current is incredibly hard. compare it to battle tech. the core mechanics of the game have basically remained nearly unchanged for 40 years. and they have entire tomes of official optional rules that players can use to deepen the game experience. it is overall a better game design since the same minis can be used in whatever era or with whichever optional rules the players like to use.
The problem for 40K is that the company constantly changes the core rules so half the time you cannot or do not want to use the same minis in your collection. with the additional strain of the 3 year edition cycle to drive sales most players are not the long time gamers such as myself since it tends to lead to a high turnover of the players base. even with every edition having it's flaws the game play is so markedly different it isn't really the same table top game even if it is in the same universe.
Overread wrote: Honestly when you look at the volume of material that places like Drive Through RPG have for DnD its amazing that GW doesn't do more.
Then again GW has the issue that past rules material is basically useless for modern games and GW really wants you playing modern rules to generate sales for modern models.
Meanwhile in DnD old stuff might not be 100% compatible, but you can still use it with the modern rules and books. If anything greater historical access increases direct sales for the new material
There are so many "new" miniatures that are basically fully compatible with 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th edition of 40k, and Rogue Trader is designed to allow you to design your own units to fit the miniatures. Sure there are probably some new minis that wouldn't work in these editions, but so many other miniatures can work, or... they can be proxied by other new miniatures which lots of people who are into older editions would be more likely to do anyways.
Overread wrote: Honestly when you look at the volume of material that places like Drive Through RPG have for DnD its amazing that GW doesn't do more.
Then again GW has the issue that past rules material is basically useless for modern games and GW really wants you playing modern rules to generate sales for modern models.
Well, if they want me playing a "modern" version of Man-O-War, Mordhiem, or Battlefleet Gothic they'd better get off their asses....
Overread wrote: Honestly when you look at the volume of material that places like Drive Through RPG have for DnD its amazing that GW doesn't do more.
Then again GW has the issue that past rules material is basically useless for modern games and GW really wants you playing modern rules to generate sales for modern models.
Well, if they want me playing a "modern" version of Man-O-War, Mordhiem, or Battlefleet Gothic they'd better get off their asses....
And, frankly, I really hope they don't. Old school Mordheim is a superb game to play with a half-dozen+ friends over the course of several weeks during a campaign, everyone laughing and toasting to each other's triumphs and tragedies.
So is old school Necromunda. Now, compare that to the newest version, with vehicles, walkers, monsters, and a bunch of other unbalanced nonsense throwing everything that was good about the first game out the window to replace it with more short-attention-span miniatures to sell, and I'd rather they didn't do ANYTHING except publish their original rules.
In fact, I'd rather people who actually love the games literally stole everything GW ever did and republished it for free, ala Mordheim and Epic, than let them get another crack at "improving and modernizing" it.
Republishing original works after scanning them and cleaning them up? Yes.
Publishing new and "improved" versions of their older games? Hard pass. The community has them beaten, hands down.
Kagetora wrote: In fact, I'd rather people who actually love the games literally stole everything GW ever did and republished it for free, ala Mordheim and Epic, than let them get another crack at "improving and modernizing" it.
Republishing original works after scanning them and cleaning them up? Yes.
Publishing new and "improved" versions of their older games? Hard pass. The community has them beaten, hands down.
At this point it is axiomatic that GW players have far greater affection for the company's legacy products than the current management does. In fact, it seems embarrassed that this stuff even exists, and attitude that goes back to 1998 and the launch of 3rd ed 40k.
That was also the point at which GW changed from a "product improvement/expand the player base" model to a "product cycle/milk the player base" one.
It is what it is, I suppose, and somehow it keeps working after all of these years.
That was also the point at which GW changed from a "product improvement/expand the player base" model to a "product cycle/milk the player base" one.
I don't think that statement rings true at all. In 3rd lots of armies got new, cheaper plastic troops kits, and codex price dropped as well. The focus was definitely on expanding, not gouging. That was also the era of calling up the company and ordering specific bits by part number. Customer service was amazing.
The feeling of gouging for me started when they moved to hardcover codecies. That was 6th ed. iirc. Imo rules started to feel more "churney" during 5th, but that's probably more subjective.
That was also the point at which GW changed from a "product improvement/expand the player base" model to a "product cycle/milk the player base" one.
I don't think that statement rings true at all. In 3rd lots of armies got new, cheaper plastic troops kits, and codex price dropped as well. The focus was definitely on expanding, not gouging. That was also the era of calling up the company and ordering specific bits by part number. Customer service was amazing.
The feeling of gouging for me started when they moved to hardcover codecies. That was 6th ed. iirc. Imo rules started to feel more "churney" during 5th, but that's probably more subjective.
I will say, corporate practices aside, I've never known anything but awesome customer service and friendliness from my local GW employees.
That was also the point at which GW changed from a "product improvement/expand the player base" model to a "product cycle/milk the player base" one.
I don't think that statement rings true at all. In 3rd lots of armies got new, cheaper plastic troops kits, and codex price dropped as well. The focus was definitely on expanding, not gouging. That was also the era of calling up the company and ordering specific bits by part number. Customer service was amazing.
The feeling of gouging for me started when they moved to hardcover codecies. That was 6th ed. iirc. Imo rules started to feel more "churney" during 5th, but that's probably more subjective.
That was also the point at which GW changed from a "product improvement/expand the player base" model to a "product cycle/milk the player base" one.
I don't think that statement rings true at all. In 3rd lots of armies got new, cheaper plastic troops kits, and codex price dropped as well. The focus was definitely on expanding, not gouging. That was also the era of calling up the company and ordering specific bits by part number. Customer service was amazing.
The feeling of gouging for me started when they moved to hardcover codecies. That was 6th ed. iirc. Imo rules started to feel more "churney" during 5th, but that's probably more subjective.
Also seconded.
I was interestingly right at the time the original design team parted ways with the company. Andy was the head of game design for 3rd, 4th and left partway through the development of 5th. most of the original team was gone by 6th. just comparing the wealth of options and information in say the 4th ed main rulebook or any of the old smaller and simpler codexes, compared to anything released today showed the level of difference in concern for the community and the health of the game. bitz buying for conversions, home made terrain tutorials. VDR etc.....
That was also the point at which GW changed from a "product improvement/expand the player base" model to a "product cycle/milk the player base" one.
I don't think that statement rings true at all. In 3rd lots of armies got new, cheaper plastic troops kits, and codex price dropped as well. The focus was definitely on expanding, not gouging. That was also the era of calling up the company and ordering specific bits by part number. Customer service was amazing.
The feeling of gouging for me started when they moved to hardcover codecies. That was 6th ed. iirc. Imo rules started to feel more "churney" during 5th, but that's probably more subjective.
I will say, corporate practices aside, I've never known anything but awesome customer service and friendliness from my local GW employees.
Agreed and from their mail order services have always been very helpful too. When I say they were more customer friendly I suppose I ultimately mean less "coroporate". I know they were always about profit but the likes of White Dwarf had a more charmingly amateur style and of course were far more open with advice on conversions, using non GW parts, terrain etc. They of course can't really recreate this now and they seem to have at least tried with White Dwarf somewhat, they're just a far more "professional" company I guess.
That was also the point at which GW changed from a "product improvement/expand the player base" model to a "product cycle/milk the player base" one.
I don't think that statement rings true at all. In 3rd lots of armies got new, cheaper plastic troops kits, and codex price dropped as well. The focus was definitely on expanding, not gouging. That was also the era of calling up the company and ordering specific bits by part number. Customer service was amazing.
The feeling of gouging for me started when they moved to hardcover codecies. That was 6th ed. iirc. Imo rules started to feel more "churney" during 5th, but that's probably more subjective.
I will say, corporate practices aside, I've never known anything but awesome customer service and friendliness from my local GW employees.
Agreed and from their mail order services have always been very helpful too. When I say they were more customer friendly I suppose I ultimately mean less "coroporate". I know they were always about profit but the likes of White Dwarf had a more charmingly amateur style and of course were far more open with advice on conversions, using non GW parts, terrain etc. They of course can't really recreate this now and they seem to have at least tried with White Dwarf somewhat, they're just a far more "professional" company I guess.
That's entirely fair. Won't object to that statement.
Where does this "you cannot play old editions with modern models" BS come from?
Take any edition, with the current GW plastic ranges for AOS, 40K & 30K, and there isn't almost anything you would be without. Proportions are better, and scales overall are much more consistent now. Converting and kitbashing has never been as good as now. Heck, throw in some Necromunda resins and you can easily turn the clock back to Rogue Trader-o-clock, all with modern models. Only thing you'd have changed would be the base sizes..
That cannot be the reason why old editions arent re-released. It has to be something else..
tauist wrote: Where does this "you cannot play old editions with modern models" BS come from?
.
They don't mean that modern versions of models can't be used, because for the most part that's totally fine. There are one or two, like the Greater Demons, which are a LOT bigger now than they were (honestly you'd likely use princes as greater demons for old versions of the rules); but by and large whilst a few have gone up in base size its not game breaking.
What they mean is that there are a lot of models in modern armies that have no equivalent in the old rules. Tyranids have loads of models that were never around in 1st and 2nd edition - even 3rd edition is missing whole chunks of the army that is out now. Which means you either have to make up your own rules or not use those models.
So yes you can build a 3rd, 2nd or even 1st edition force using modern models - 100% you can do that.
You might have a few quirks here and there and maybe hunt down the odd retro model but otherwise you can easily do that.
You just can't bring the new fancy cool toys as well without creating house rules for them.
Insectum7 wrote: In 3rd lots of armies got new, cheaper plastic troops kits, and codex price dropped as well. The focus was definitely on expanding, not gouging. That was also the era of calling up the company and ordering specific bits by part number.
The switch to plastic models is what killed the 1st party bits orders. Even pre-2nd edition plastics were strictly by sprue and not by part.
tauist wrote: Where does this "you cannot play old editions with modern models" BS come from?
Take any edition, with the current GW plastic ranges for AOS, 40K & 30K, and there isn't almost anything you would be without. Proportions are better, and scales overall are much more consistent now. Converting and kitbashing has never been as good as now. Heck, throw in some Necromunda resins and you can easily turn the clock back to Rogue Trader-o-clock, all with modern models. Only thing you'd have changed would be the base sizes..
That cannot be the reason why old editions arent re-released. It has to be something else..
Splitting the difference a bit here, and hopefully not a hair.
As Overread said, loads of stuff exists now that just didn’t exist in earlier editions. So there’s some stuff you’d need to home brew rules for.
But, you can of course use modern models to play a Codex 2nd Ed army. Except there is a scaling issue if you’re using modern models, and your opponent is using models from the 2nd Ed Era. Line of Sight is the main issue there of course. A modern Great Unclean One can’t be hidden from view as readily as the RT or 2nd Ed one, for example. Terminators are much bigger too.
Some armies have done better than others there. Eldar haven’t been scaled up quite so much, other than the Avatar.
So you need to be a bit careful to ensure you’re not playing at a disadvantage. But only if one of the players is using vintage models.
I've said it before on here but 4e was the last edition with a proper "hobby section" in the rulebook. 5e switched to being all about the kits GW released and didn't really have the same amount about kitbashing, or painting your army to a hobbyists standard, or making terrain. That was a great part of the philosophy back then, which was really shown best in the various LOTR books where they wanted to make wargaming accessible.
On the playing with new models thing, the main issue for me is the egregious scale creep. Not interested in playing with the upscaled models generally.
That cannot be the reason why old editions arent re-released. It has to be something else..
That 'something else' is *obviously* that GW want to keep their customers on the treadmill.
A.T. wrote: The switch to plastic models is what killed the 1st party bits orders. Even pre-2nd edition plastics were strictly by sprue and not by part.
Even without the move towards plastic, the removal of the bits orders was almost inevitable.
GW had in the region of 6000 SKUs when they discontinued bits - which reduced to about 600. It was simply unmanageable.
Just to say with the advances in AI models of various types, setting up an archiving system for old publications, especially if it can destroy the originals in the process, is pretty easy for a specialist. Then all you need is a proof reader.
tauist wrote: Where does this "you cannot play old editions with modern models" BS come from?
.
They don't mean that modern versions of models can't be used, because for the most part that's totally fine. There are one or two, like the Greater Demons, which are a LOT bigger now than they were (honestly you'd likely use princes as greater demons for old versions of the rules); but by and large whilst a few have gone up in base size its not game breaking.
What they mean is that there are a lot of models in modern armies that have no equivalent in the old rules. Tyranids have loads of models that were never around in 1st and 2nd edition - even 3rd edition is missing whole chunks of the army that is out now. Which means you either have to make up your own rules or not use those models.
So yes you can build a 3rd, 2nd or even 1st edition force using modern models - 100% you can do that.
You might have a few quirks here and there and maybe hunt down the odd retro model but otherwise you can easily do that.
You just can't bring the new fancy cool toys as well without creating house rules for them.
I don't even see that as the main issue, sure it could be a problem but not really our 5th ed group regularly back fills "newer" models/rules from 6th and 7th into 5th ed core rules. and you could do something similar with minis from from even newer editions as "counts as" the real problem is the lack of knowledge or drive to get a community to play an older version of the game when GW actively discourages it. i can tell you all the players we have drawn into our 5th ed group since 8th ed ranging from players in their teens to their 40s LOVE playing 5th ed. and now have come to hate everything about modern 40K. when given the chance they will not play 10th.
I think its inevitable that GW will one day realize they are better off offering their publications from any previous edition to their customers. It could be a strictly MTO affair, if nothing else. Obviously GW would still encourage the latest and greatest edition for their customers, but would still drop these MTO runs every now and then, to keep hardcore fans happy.
Maybe one day you can go "Play 40K?" and people will be like: "sure, which edition?" and even pickup games can be found for a specific edition of the game in an active player area..
The way I see it, there are a few groups of people to consider.
#1 people who won't be interested in playing 40k no matter what.
#2 people who don't currently play 40k but who might enjoy either older editions, or newer editions, or any edition
#3 people who used to play 40k during the older editions but aren't interested in newer editions
#4 people who play newer editions but aren't interested in older editions
#5 people who play newer editions but who would enjoy newer editions.
Scanning and making older editions available for print on demand or digital downloads can appeal to different groups of people.
#1 people who on a lark might get something just to see if its interesting or not.
#2 people who want to complete their collection of older edition books, or replace damaged books.
#3 people who hear about the game from friends and who want to get in on it too
#4 people who play 40k but who are interested in trying something new(or old so to speak)
If I were GW I would see doing something like this as a one time investment to get all the old editions digitized, and then it would be available as a basically free to maintain long term revenue stream. Making the hobbyists who are are interested in the older editions happy will help them to keep their groups going, and keeping groups who are interested in 40k going helps to broaden up the hobby as a whole, which can both indirectly or directly increase sales of newer models as more people get interested in the hobby as a whole.
And I don't really buy the downside of the "people will realize how good it used to be" to turn off the newer players. I think people who are likely to not like current GW will already have that opinion, and people who are likely to form that opinion are going to do so anyways, while people who are not likely to develop that opinion will not develop it from this stuff. If anything, it may just make more people more interested in the game as a whole.
They could foster even more growth by having some "oldhammer" tournaments, or painting competitions. I haven't checked so I don't really know if golden daemon is still a thing, but if it is, they could have oldhammer categories.
Insectum7 wrote: I don't think that statement rings true at all. In 3rd lots of armies got new, cheaper plastic troops kits, and codex price dropped as well. The focus was definitely on expanding, not gouging. That was also the era of calling up the company and ordering specific bits by part number. Customer service was amazing.
The feeling of gouging for me started when they moved to hardcover codecies. That was 6th ed. iirc. Imo rules started to feel more "churney" during 5th, but that's probably more subjective.
The focus was absolutely on expanding the number of models sold, and that increased the size of the games.
But the concept of refining the system to create a "definitive" rule set was gone. Maybe I was more sensitive to it, but the way WDFAQs outlined how you could have an ork vehicle move without actually counting as moving, was the kind of Jesuitical rules analysis that the old GW would have openly mocked.
It wasn't all at once and everywhere. The 6th ed. of WHFB was a vast improvement over Herohammer, and caused me to make deep investments into the game. But even there, it didn't last. Had to make front ranks wider because more models have to be sold.
As to customer service, that is in no way relevant to my remark. I did interact with them in those days, especially the Rulz Boyz and I was a regular patron of Trollboss Bob's Bargain Basement.
The culture didn't change all at once, and different people can pick different moments when it struck them, and that was mine.
tauist wrote: Maybe one day you can go "Play 40K?" and people will be like: "sure, which edition?" and even pickup games can be found for a specific edition of the game in an active player area..
I think that gets less likely the longer they continue this 3 year edition cycle, honestly. There are just too many different editions, which in many cases now drastically change the game.
I do think at some point the 3 year edition is going to break. Either GW puts so many games on it that GW itself breaks and has to slow down or gamers start to edition drift and not keep up or slow down buying or start investing into other games.
Which could well mean something like One Page Rules or another proxy rules system rises up and GW keeps selling models but people play other games with them.
The focus was absolutely on expanding the number of models sold, and that increased the size of the games.
But the concept of refining the system to create a "definitive" rule set was gone. Maybe I was more sensitive to it, but the way WDFAQs outlined how you could have an ork vehicle move without actually counting as moving, was the kind of Jesuitical rules analysis that the old GW would have openly mocked.
It wasn't all at once and everywhere. The 6th ed. of WHFB was a vast improvement over Herohammer, and caused me to make deep investments into the game. But even there, it didn't last. Had to make front ranks wider because more models have to be sold.
As to customer service, that is in no way relevant to my remark. I did interact with them in those days, especially the Rulz Boyz and I was a regular patron of Trollboss Bob's Bargain Basement.
The culture didn't change all at once, and different people can pick different moments when it struck them, and that was mine.
Yeah, 6th/7th edition WHFB was pretty much the peak of that game. Then the pendulum swung back to Hero/Magehammer with 8th, and now we have 40k with Fantasy models.
Kagetora wrote: And yet, I can find the entirety of Mordheim (all books, Town Cryers, and every half-assed experimental rule in existence) scanned in, in printable form, for free, on the internet. Because someone cared enough to do it. Same with Epic Armageddon. And likely other GW products I haven't looked for.
Yeah, I have an original physical copy of Rogue Trader and then every single codex from 2nd to 9th edition, Mordeim, Necromunda, Gorkamorka, Inquisitor and Battle Fleet Gothic rulebook s on my phone. (I also have a physical BFG rulebook too... with the "Dakka Dakka Store Copy" sticker on it. I think it ended up in my collection after the roof collapsed at Battlefield: Manchester [Dakkas 3rd version/location]).
Da Boss wrote: I've said it before on here but 4e was the last edition with a proper "hobby section" in the rulebook. 5e switched to being all about the kits GW released and didn't really have the same amount about kitbashing, or painting your army to a hobbyists standard, or making terrain. That was a great part of the philosophy back then, which was really shown best in the various LOTR books where they wanted to make wargaming accessible.
On the playing with new models thing, the main issue for me is the egregious scale creep. Not interested in playing with the upscaled models generally.
I have to agree on both points here. Never played the 4th for 40K but I could tell a difference when I got a copy of the BRB. It made me start to collect the edition myself, even though I am not sure that I ever will play that edition, still one can hope.
Yeah, 6th/7th edition WHFB was pretty much the peak of that game. Then the pendulum swung back to Hero/Magehammer with 8th, and now we have 40k with Fantasy models.
My Lizardmen and Wood Elves miss the olden days.
Yep, that is about right on AOS in my view. 40K with fantasy models.
Da Boss wrote: 5e switched to being all about the kits GW released and didn't really have the same amount about kitbashing, or painting your army to a hobbyists standard, or making terrain.
They hadn't gotten to the 'no model no rules' of later editions in 5th though, and to be fair to them most of what they were doing was filling in the gaps in the model range rather than pulling stuff out*
5e was also the golden age of ebay and bitz sites when things cost less than retail. GW may not have encouraged it but it was a hell of a lot more affordable.
*With the exception of the jump pack canoness (retroactively shakes fist at Cruddace and his half-assed phoned in excuse for a product) :p
I liked 5e don't get me wrong, but looking at the two rule books the change is stark to me and bodes ill for what came later.
On the churn thing, I think we'll end up a bit like RPGs where people just pick the ruleset they like but the most recent one is the biggest most of the time.
I personally use OPR but that has fairly fast churn of it's own, it's just that the rules are free so it doesn't bother people as much.
OPR tends to be more iterations as well rather than a wholesale "change ALL The Rules just cause".
IT's honestly also a system that's been around for a while but has grown significantly over the last few years. I'd expect a newer rules set to evolve more rapidly as it finds its feet ,but also as its userbase and collection size grows etc...
Da Boss wrote: I liked 5e don't get me wrong, but looking at the two rule books the change is stark to me and bodes ill for what came later.
I think 5th was definitely a shift. Stuff like Doctrines/Chapter traits was out, and named characters became a more prominent feature for army/ability unlocks, iirc. Gameplay customization started taking a hit, in general, I think.
Da Boss wrote: I liked 5e don't get me wrong, but looking at the two rule books the change is stark to me and bodes ill for what came later.
I think 5th was definitely a shift. Stuff like Doctrines/Chapter traits was out, and named characters became a more prominent feature for army/ability unlocks, iirc. Gameplay customization started taking a hit, in general, I think.
Da Boss wrote: I liked 5e don't get me wrong, but looking at the two rule books the change is stark to me and bodes ill for what came later.
I think 5th was definitely a shift. Stuff like Doctrines/Chapter traits was out, and named characters became a more prominent feature for army/ability unlocks, iirc. Gameplay customization started taking a hit, in general, I think.
Plus the garbage wound allocation rules
Oohh, yeah. I wasn't going to go into specific mechanics, but yeah 5th brought some other obnoxious things with it. That was the first edition that felt like a downgrade to me.
Da Boss wrote: I liked 5e don't get me wrong, but looking at the two rule books the change is stark to me and bodes ill for what came later.
I think 5th was definitely a shift. Stuff like Doctrines/Chapter traits was out, and named characters became a more prominent feature for army/ability unlocks, iirc. Gameplay customization started taking a hit, in general, I think.
Plus the garbage wound allocation rules
Oohh, yeah. I wasn't going to go into specific mechanics, but yeah 5th brought some other obnoxious things with it. That was the first edition that felt like a downgrade to me.
As a play through i saw the general progression from edition to edition it was an overall improvment from 3rd to 4th to 5th and i felt it was overall better but yeah the wound allocation thing, i understand the reason, but i think the design team underestimated the player base abusing the system. it is why we use the 4th ed wound allocation system in our 5th ed games to avoid said abuses It leads to a situation where game mechanics are generally the best in 5th ed, but the best codexes are generally better from 3rd and 4th save the blood angels, space wolves, necrons and dark eldar from 5th which were better codexes over the predecessors.
It was a downgrade across the board, from gameplay to background. This was the edition that began transitioning to comic book style superheroics and 1v1 knock down battles with the space marine codex and Marneus' infamous avatar punch up. That started the ball rolling that led to sanguinor v thirsters and draigo...
I was less aware of the rules degradation because the quality of background writing had nosedived so much.
It also gave us the current better than everyone super beatdown necrons and sidelined the originally lovecraftian cosmic horror ctan.
I disagree on the rules... Wound allocation and vehicle damage were not perfect in 5th, but it was a far better ruleset overall than 4th, IMO. 4th ed was not fun, particularly for transport vehicle-heavy armies.
On the other hand, 5th ed was not fun for footslogging infantry focused armies (unless they happened to be a heavy infantry/bikes death star abusing wound allocation).
insaniak wrote: I disagree on the rules... Wound allocation and vehicle damage were not perfect in 5th, but it was a far better ruleset overall than 4th, IMO. 4th ed was not fun, particularly for transport vehicle-heavy armies.
Transports suffered in 4th, but that went a long way in keeping 40k a game mostly focussed around infantry. In 5th, deployment on our local tables usually looked like a parking lot. The increase to vehicle toughness, the return to TLOS, price reduction on transports combined with an increase in ranged lethality incentivised armies to load up on METAL BAWKSES. Terrain variety suffered and armies looked uglier, imo.
It would have been understandable to soften the blow to infantry in transports when the transport dies, but the correctional swing was (as typical) way too severe.
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Just Tony wrote: 5th had me stop caring about owning every supplement to an edition. I would have quit outright back then but I was assured 6th would fix everything.
Same here. I had (have) just about every book up until 5th. 5th was when I started buying just the minimum to play.
Insectum7 wrote: In 5th, deployment on our local tables usually looked like a parking lot. The increase to vehicle toughness, the return to TLOS, price reduction on transports combined with an increase in ranged lethality incentivised armies to load up on METAL BAWKSES. Terrain variety suffered and armies looked uglier, imo.
The answer to this was the same as it has been in pretty much every edition of the game (at least up to 6th) - use more terrain.
40K has always been at its best when you cram as much terrain as possible onto the table.
Edit: OH! I think 5th is the edition that GW really started leaning into giving things-other-factions-had to Marines, and make them better of course. Like Celestine was the Imperial "Daemon" entity, but then BA got The Sanguinor. And I think Orks lost Boarboyz, but then Space Wolves got their Wolf Cavalry. Chaos had Obliterators as a unique Heavy unit, then Marines got Centurions. A bunch of that started happening around then too, iirc.
My memory is fuzzy around the details, but I seem to remember having a more extensive list from the time.
Insectum7 wrote: In 5th, deployment on our local tables usually looked like a parking lot. The increase to vehicle toughness, the return to TLOS, price reduction on transports combined with an increase in ranged lethality incentivised armies to load up on METAL BAWKSES. Terrain variety suffered and armies looked uglier, imo.
The answer to this was the same as it has been in pretty much every edition of the game (at least up to 6th) - use more terrain.
40K has always been at its best when you cram as much terrain as possible onto the table.
Normally I'm right there with you, but it's not that simple in this case. The transition to 5th changed the nature of a lot of terrain. It's not so much "use more terrain". It's more "the terrain that you use which would formally block LOS and give cover, well you can see right through that now. FU"
So yes, you *could* change your terrain around, but there are undesireable side effects. For one, tables looked uglier. If you need solid walls to block LOS, forests start to dissapear and you get big block terrain like bunkers or that tower thing they put out around that time. You also remove a whole class of terrain which was terrain-that-blocks-LOS-but-not-movement, which is what forest/area terrain could be earlier.
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Hellebore wrote: 4th ed's abstract LoS was the best system they ever used.
It still pisses me off that people call modern LoS 'true'. Because it's only 'true' in ironically the most abstract sense.
It's true to a model on a table standing in its artsy pose raised off the ground by a base and tactical rock.
It's not 'true' to the behaviour the soldier that model represents would have.
Abstract LoS is far more true to the soldier, in that it assumes agency and behaviour.
^Yah 100%. With emphasis on the assumption of agency.
Insectum7 wrote: You also remove a whole class of terrain which was terrain-that-blocks-LOS-but-not-movement, which is what forest/area terrain could be earlier.
What it turned it into, though, was terrain that could block LOS but not movement. You could still block LOS with forests, you just needed more than a single MDF base with a tree stuck at each end of it. Larger areas of forest blocked LOS better than a small stand of trees... and that works just fine in my book, and makes area terrain functionally completely different to solid terrain like buildings.
Hellebore wrote: 4th ed's abstract LoS was the best system they ever used.
It still pisses me off that people call modern LoS 'true'. Because it's only 'true' in ironically the most abstract sense.
It's true to a model on a table standing in its artsy pose raised off the ground by a base and tactical rock.
It's not 'true' to the behaviour the soldier that model represents would have.
Abstract LoS is far more true to the soldier, in that it assumes agency and behaviour.
From a purely mechanical point of view, abstract LoS gives a more 'realistic' result, certainly. From a gameplay PoV, GW's stance has largely always been that it is more immersive for players to get down and look at what their models can 'see'. That's why 4th ed's system didn't adopt the abstract entirely - it only applied to area terrain and close combats. The rest of the time, it was the same 'bend down and have a look' system of LoS that the game has used in every other edition.
It's immersive in name only because at no point is your model actually going to be in the position its modelled in to see its target.
Simply telling people it's immersive does a lot of the thematic heavy lifting...
It was as close as we got to a proper LoS system, they just couldn't commit all the way through to a full terrain ruleset. And you'd still need to have a look from down below to see if the LoS could go past pieces of terrain, it's just that it would be from the base rather than the 'eyes' of your cirque du soleil Mime reject.
Immersion is in the eye of the beholder and there's nothing stopping beholders from looking at their models at table level at any time. That the mechanics don't rely on subjective viewpoints shouldn't have any impact on that.
There just isn't a way to have a forest or patch of rubble block TLoS while still allowing you to place models inside it. The base will be floating on top of the underbrush or boulders.
TLoS only works on the table if you're using thin walls or impassible obstructions, which (unsurprisingly) seems to be what all terrain in 40k has become.
Da Boss wrote: I liked 5e don't get me wrong, but looking at the two rule books the change is stark to me and bodes ill for what came later.
I think 5th was definitely a shift. Stuff like Doctrines/Chapter traits was out, and named characters became a more prominent feature for army/ability unlocks, iirc. Gameplay customization started taking a hit, in general, I think.
Plus the garbage wound allocation rules
I missed 5th edition (was playing WFB and Epic instead). Can someone explain the wound-allocation shenanigans that went on?
Because there were plenty of them previously too. In 3rd, before the revision to 3.5, Monstrous Creatures counted as "units," and Characters could join them. I remember abusing that in a couple of games by having the Avatar (MCand Character) and a Farseer (Character) join a Wraithlord (MC) and form a "unit" (yes, I use that term lightly). It was legal by the rules, but it let me literally ignore the most common shooting on the board, i.e. the 5-man Tac Squad with Plasma Rifle and Missile Launcher (or Lascannon).
Anything with S6 or less went to the WL, the Plasma hits went to the Farseer (T4 back then, so no auto-kill), and Heavy Weapon hits got shouldered by the Avatar. The Farseer, of course, had Fortune, so re-rolls on Armor, Cover, and Inv. Saves for the "unit."
Opponents had to dedicate so much firepower to delete that unit while it stomped across the board 6" a turn (doing literally nothing most of the time, or even all game) that they'd ignore the rest of the army tearing them to shreds. I never took it to a tournament or anything, but it was literally stupid.
"So, you got a Krak Missile hit, 3 Bolter hits, and the Plasma Gun. Ok, I'll allocate them. Plasma on the Seer. wounds on a 2+, but he has a 4+ with a reroll (75% save rate) and it only does one of his three wounds. Bolter on the WL. You need S5 to wound T8, so it does nothing. Krak on the Avatar. Again, won't kill him, and he has a 5+ re-rolled. Another bolter on the WL, same result. Last bolter on the Avatar, needs a 6 to wound."
Went away when they FAQ'd the rules to say MC's couldn't be joined by Characters.
There are so many simple ways of simplifying and de gamifying wound allocation. GW just loves to throw whole systems out rather than improve them.
And a lot of players assume the core mechanics are faulty because the implementation was bad. Rather than understanding that you can implement it differently and get a better result.
5th edition forced you to allocate wounds before saving if the unit wasn't made up of identical models. Each different model had wounds assigned separately. So, for example, a Marine squad of 4 bolters and a sergeant taking 9 hits, you would allocate 1 to the sergeant and then the other 8 to regular guys. If the sergeant passed his save, and the other 8 saves all failed, you would only remove the 4 bolter guys.
It was tedious and time-consuming (although not as bad as 6th edition forcing you to roll saves one at a time if there was a character in the front of the squad), and could be gamed through clever unit composition.+
Edit - so yes, on reflection, I think it was fairly similar to 3rd edition's version.
There's a bunch of simple ways you can fix this, but off the top of my head:
divide target units up by toughness and sv and group them. ie taking crusaders with 2 groups of T4 Sv3+/4+, you have two target groups. Apply attacks to the larger group until have received an attack and then move to the next group.
Attacks themselves are made and applied in discrete groups of identical properties - all bolters, all power weapons etc. If the number of attacks overflows the number of targets in the target group, the remainder spill into the next group, or wrap around onto the group again.
The owning player makes saves or removes casualties and its up to them what comes off from each target group.
An independent character would count as its own group for attack application purposes even if it had identical stats to the unit joined.
Your target groups can only be made up of models in btb or within 2". This means that technically, your crusader unit with more marines than neophytes might end up with the neophytes getting hit first because they happen to be the majority group.
5th edition had the best wound allocation rules GW have ever written.
They made it so that the special weapon wasn't always the last to die, and weight of fire was actually an effective threat to specials. It was a very effective way of encouraging larger units without removing the option of small squad sizes.
Where the problems arrose was with a handful of units of multi-wound models which could all take different equipment.
That could have been largely solved by adding an extra sentence to the wound allocation rules (allocate all AP1 hits, then all AP2, then 3, etc) and trimming some of the unnecessary wargear from codexes.
As with most editions, 5th was mostly screwed by the codexes and not the core rules.
Insectum7 wrote: You also remove a whole class of terrain which was terrain-that-blocks-LOS-but-not-movement, which is what forest/area terrain could be earlier.
What it turned it into, though, was terrain that could block LOS but not movement. You could still block LOS with forests, you just needed more than a single MDF base with a tree stuck at each end of it. Larger areas of forest blocked LOS better than a small stand of trees... and that works just fine in my book, and makes area terrain functionally completely different to solid terrain like buildings.
Ok, think about that for a second. You make a dense forest instead of "a single mdf base with a tree at each corner". How exactly? You get pre-built model railroad trees, but the foliage only starts partway up the trunk because it looks like a real tree. So even though you spend the money for a dense pack of trees, you can see right through it at model-eye height or similar. So then you pack the base with lichen to *actually* block LOS, but now you've made it harder to set up, or if pre-built and glued in place, you've made it harder to move models into/through. If you haven't fastened your trees in place, when you move a model through it you may have to move some trees out of the way in the process, which changes the LOS characteristics of the forest. All of this is in addition to the fact that checking for individual LOS all the time becomes a fiddly and potentially time consuming process in a game where a couple hundred models might be moving around.
As opposed to the ease of putting some trees on bases down, calling the extent of the group the edge of the forest, and making things quicker, cheaper, easier and potentially even better looking.
So sure, in the 5th ed paradigm you could make a dense tree clump that actually blocked LOS, but what the 5th ed system actually did was force ITC to make their own rules for Ruins (the first floor of a ruin/building always blocking LOS) because the GW system was inadequate.
Insectum7 wrote: Ok, think about that for a second. You make a dense forest instead of "a single mdf base with a tree at each corner". How exactly? .
I didn't say you make a dense forest - that causes problems with model placement. But using foliage of varying sizes and adding rocks and raised areas to the base helps to break up those sight lines (and looks better than flat bases with 2 or 3 identical trees spaced arounds them), and using multiple forest bases makes them block increasing amounts of LoS depending on where exactly your target is.
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Lord Damocles wrote: 5th edition had the best wound allocation rules GW have ever written.
They made it so that the special weapon wasn't always the last to die, and weight of fire was actually an effective threat to specials. It was a very effective way of encouraging larger units without removing the option of small squad sizes..
4th edition already accomplished that with the torrent of fire rule, without the need for the wound allocation shenanigans.
Lord Damocles wrote: 5th edition had the best wound allocation rules GW have ever written.
They made it so that the special weapon wasn't always the last to die, and weight of fire was actually an effective threat to specials. It was a very effective way of encouraging larger units without removing the option of small squad sizes.
So, in 4th ed they had a quicker system with the same intent. If you did more wounds to a unit than it had models, then the attacking player got to choose one model to make a save. (If you doubled the wounds, then two models, etc.) I think I prefer that over the 5th ed one. I like that there's no individual wound allocation for most of the time, and that the attacker gets to pick the model when it does.
Insectum7 wrote: Ok, think about that for a second. You make a dense forest instead of "a single mdf base with a tree at each corner". How exactly? .
I didn't say you make a dense forest - that causes problems with model placement. But using foliage of varying sizes and adding rocks and raised areas to the base helps to break up those sight lines (and looks better than flat bases with 2 or 3 identical trees spaced arounds them), and using multiple forest bases makes them block increasing amounts of LoS depending on where exactly your target is.
You could make the same varied forest bases, and have it be more effective at blocking LOS under the 4th ed rules, while taking less time during gameplay for checking individual LOS lines. It grants more freedom, aesthetically, while also being faster and more effective.
Insectum7 wrote: You could make the same varied forest bases, and have it be more effective at blocking LOS under the 4th ed rules, while taking less time during gameplay for checking individual LOS lines. It grants more freedom, aesthetically, while also being faster and more effective.
But that's the thing - I don't want forests to be more effective at blocking LOS. The fact that a forest base blocked LOS differently to a building (because forests are not composed of solid walls) was precisely what I liked about 5th edition's terrain rules.
Insectum7 wrote: You could make the same varied forest bases, and have it be more effective at blocking LOS under the 4th ed rules, while taking less time during gameplay for checking individual LOS lines. It grants more freedom, aesthetically, while also being faster and more effective.
But that's the thing - I don't want forests to be more effective at blocking LOS. The fact that a forest base blocked LOS differently to a building (because forests are not composed of solid walls) was precisely what I liked about 5th edition's terrain rules.
YMMV, obviously.
Heh, but they were different. In 4th forests gave a 5+ cover save and buildings/ruins 4+. In 5th both categories were 4+
Also, you could just throw down some terrain pieces and declare them not area terrain in 4th, and get the same results you want above.
And when you say building do you mean building or ruin? A building blocked LOS differently than a forest in 4th, because you could see up to 6" into a forest (or ruin). A solid wall building blocked LOS just as it would in 5th.
And to bring it back around, in 4th your transports could be better protected with intervening forests/area terrain, because area terrain more effectively blocked LOS.
For a long time 5e was my favourite edition, but I think it's just because I got the 4e Ork codex right before 5e dropped and I really loved that codex.
If I look at the edition more neutrally, I agree that the background started to get worse around then. The actual 5e books especially for Marines were pretty bad - I really didn't like the direction they took the special marine chapters in back then, I felt they should have remained supplements rather than distinct armies with special units.
And with the core rules, I prefer 5e's vehicle rules but 4e's line of sight rules. The 4e rules were just more practical for gameplay - you could have a base for your forest and move the individual elements around to make it easy to fit troops inside it. In 5e, the forest had to be a fixed object, which made it annoying to work with in game and if you didn't magnetise it or build it with recessed bases (or buy GW's very cartoony grimdark forests) you needed to glue the trees in place, which made it a nightmare for storage.
But the pendulum swing against vehicles was far too harsh in 4e, due to Rhino Rush being stupid. Rather just go and fix the stupid fast Blood Angles Rhinos that throw vehicles that aren't skimmers under the bus.
What ruined 4e as an experience for me was being a one codex guy for most of it playing a codex that was just outclassed, and feeling hard done by. Going back now, with everything published, I think I'd agree that you pick and choose the best codices for each faction from 3rd to 5th and use either 4th with tweaks to vehicles or 5th with tweaks to terrain and maybe wound allocation. In my ideal world all marine chapters would be represented with the traits system rather than bespoke supplements.
I missed 5th edition (was playing WFB and Epic instead). Can someone explain the wound-allocation shenanigans that went on?
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So...was 5th edition actually worse than that?
5th you would allocate hits based on group of different models, based on different wargear in the squad. No restriction of putting wounds on damaged models first. IIRC you couldn’t allocate a second hit to a mini until everyone had been tagged at least once. For “normal” squads it meant the one plasma gunner would probable be the last guy to die, unless you dumped a lot of firepower into the squad all at once.
Where it got abusive was multi wound squads who could have different gear profiles. Nob bikers and GK terminators were the stand out examples, but there were others. The hypothetical worst case was a 10 man squad of 2W models that needed to eat 11 wounds before they lost anyone.
It was mildly cumbersome at its best, and brokenly irritating at its worst.
Lets just get straight to the elephant in the room with 5th ed wound allocation.
Group of nob bikers 10 in number all T6 (for being on a bike) with 2 wounds, all have 1 different piece of war gear. apply 10 wound, 1 to each model. fail 8, assign 8 wounds to separate models. nothing actually dies.
VS 4th-wounded models must die first, but the owning player gets to assign wounds. so the special/heavy weapons or squad leader might be more likely to survive as the rules explanation put it-the brother with the plasma gun goes down, but since it is a relic weapon the marine behind him will just pick it up and fill in the gap. wounds were usually taken on the group overall not specific models.
Also area terrain is still a thing in 5th. it represents ruins or forests because it would be ridiculous to expect a player to break out 20 trees to put on a template to represent something as abstract as a forest thus leaving no room for minis. the different is the "if you not within 6" of the edge you cannot see in or out for direct fire weapons" that sized area terrain had in 4th. Andy re-used those area terrain rules (always blocking LOS unless your in it with in a certain distance from the facing edge) when he made the 3d terrain rules for DUST 1947, so apparently he still likes the idea as well.
Lord Damocles wrote: 5th edition had the best wound allocation rules GW have ever written.
They made it so that the special weapon wasn't always the last to die, and weight of fire was actually an effective threat to specials. It was a very effective way of encouraging larger units without removing the option of small squad sizes.
So, in 4th ed they had a quicker system with the same intent. If you did more wounds to a unit than it had models, then the attacking player got to choose one model to make a save. (If you doubled the wounds, then two models, etc.) I think I prefer that over the 5th ed one. I like that there's no individual wound allocation for most of the time, and that the attacker gets to pick the model when it does.
Torrent of fire only worked with one save no matter the number of wounds.
So a five man Tactical Squad with a Plasma Gun, Missile Launcher, Sergeant, and two Bolters takes ten wounds, and only one can be specifically allocated.
Whereas in 5th each model would have to take two saves (four on the pair of Bolters), which significantly increases the odds of killing something worthwhile.
Lord Damocles wrote: Whereas in 5th each model would have to take two saves (four on the pair of Bolters), which significantly increases the odds of killing something worthwhile.
5e was just far too granular.
Upgraded / not upgraded / character - plus the usual split of armour saves that 4e also had. That is all that was needed to scale up the torrent of fire rule from 4e.
Lord Damocles wrote: 5th edition had the best wound allocation rules GW have ever written.
They made it so that the special weapon wasn't always the last to die, and weight of fire was actually an effective threat to specials. It was a very effective way of encouraging larger units without removing the option of small squad sizes.
So, in 4th ed they had a quicker system with the same intent. If you did more wounds to a unit than it had models, then the attacking player got to choose one model to make a save. (If you doubled the wounds, then two models, etc.) I think I prefer that over the 5th ed one. I like that there's no individual wound allocation for most of the time, and that the attacker gets to pick the model when it does.
Torrent of fire only worked with one save no matter the number of wounds.
So a five man Tactical Squad with a Plasma Gun, Missile Launcher, Sergeant, and two Bolters takes ten wounds, and only one can be specifically allocated.
Whereas in 5th each model would have to take two saves (four on the pair of Bolters), which significantly increases the odds of killing something worthwhile.
Ah fair. I thought the 4th ed one scaled for some reason.
But as AT says, the 5th ed one is too tedious. (In addition to the horrific shennanigans that could be pulled). Though still not as tedious as 6th(?), where a model in the front could tank hits one by one. Eff that.
I also like the notion in 4th that maybe a model with a special weapon is killed, but another model in the squad picks it up. The implied agency of your troops is nice there.
While directional wound allocation had it’s issues, (making life harder for assault armies as mentioned being a big one) I liked how it made maneuver mean something. Sure, you might have your tanky character on point, but when I zip a pair of land speeders down your flank, suddenly it doesn’t mater and I can shoot up the squad.
Tyran wrote: To be honest the tanky character tanking all the shots was also very silly.
Except the ones he didn’t want to take, which were Look our Sir!’d over to the mooks in the squad.
No arguments that it was also a flawed system open to abuse/manipulation.
Pretty much all the systems have issues, which is why I prefer the “the guy taking the hits just kills who he wants, if they are already wounded, that guy needs to finish soaking up wounds before moving to the next one”. It’s not perfect, but at least it’s fast. Splash in a little precision hits to taste.
4e's version had problems. Rhino sniping was one. A character with artificer armor taking every AP3 wound (but never AP2) was another. I actually think 10e has the best rules for wound allocation so far.
Orkeosaurus wrote: 4e's version had problems. Rhino sniping was one. A character with artificer armor taking every AP3 wound (but never AP2) was another. I actually think 10e has the best rules for wound allocation so far.
I agree with the first one, and I'd modify it somehow. I'm not fond of 5ths solution though. I think a good compromise is to let the defender choose whether the "snipe" is successful, or whether to allow hits to hit unseen models like 5th. This way any attempted Rhino snipe is understood to be potentially thwarted, so becomes less of a viable tactic. On the flipside, a random model left out of cover doesn't automatically damn the whole squad.
As to a model with artificer armor tanking wounds, that wasn't a thing because you took the majority save among elegible targets.
Going down the abstraction route, and given the behaviour of soldiers, you could say that if only some of the models are out (the single model visible thing) then up to half can see and be seen.
It's not perfect, but it gives you a consequence and makes it a risk reward decision.
Orkeosaurus wrote: 4e's version had problems. Rhino sniping was one. A character with artificer armor taking every AP3 wound (but never AP2) was another. I actually think 10e has the best rules for wound allocation so far.
I agree with the first one, and I'd modify it somehow. I'm not fond of 5ths solution though. I think a good compromise is to let the defender choose whether the "snipe" is successful, or whether to allow hits to hit unseen models like 5th. This way any attempted Rhino snipe is understood to be potentially thwarted, so becomes less of a viable tactic. On the flipside, a random model left out of cover doesn't automatically damn the whole squad.
As to a model with artificer armor tanking wounds, that wasn't a thing because you took the majority save among elegible targets.
Really in 4e? In that case we were playing it wrong.
Hellebore wrote: Going down the abstraction route, and given the behaviour of soldiers, you could say that if only some of the models are out (the single model visible thing) then up to half can see and be seen.
It's not perfect, but it gives you a consequence and makes it a risk reward decision.
Then you were playing it wrong saves were taken based on the majority save and toughness for the unit. made black templar super good. sacrifice all the neophytes.
Really in 4e? In that case we were playing it wrong.
Yeah, it's later in the book but it is referenced in the Shooting/Take Casualties section. There's a passage that points to pg 76 (I think) which lays out the mixed armor saves rules.
Hellebore wrote: Going down the abstraction route, and given the behaviour of soldiers, you could say that if only some of the models are out (the single model visible thing) then up to half can see and be seen.
It's not perfect, but it gives you a consequence and makes it a risk reward decision.
Sorry, I don't follow. What's the decision?
To prevent the 'see one model, see all, or los from one model means the whole squad has it', and give cover an effect, you basically have to have los or draw los to more than half the unit to see or see from that whole unit. Less than half means just half.
So no rhino sniping etc, but also not as extreme as loss of cover entirely.
insaniak wrote: In a squad-level game, though, it should be none of the squad or all of the squad. Because you interact with the squad.
Taking it down to an individual model level is too much granularity above a skirmish level game.
Sure but that means every squad needs to be identically equipped as well. No sergeants, no special weapons, because individual model level is too much granularity.
Hellebore wrote: It was the risk of exposing 1 model exposes half the squad, but gives you half the squad to shoot with.
Rather than either none of the squad, or all of the squad.
Oh I see. But that's no different than just placing half your models out there. It's not really a *new* choice, right?
I think the problem I have with the proposal, on further thought, is it leaves the player without control over how many models are exposed. It seems like it's just none, half, or all. In a way it reduces choice.
It was specifically to prevent gaming the rules where you can snipe with one model just by placement shenanigans. Because the other solution was to make the whole squad targetable instead. It's a middle ground between the two.
insaniak wrote: In a squad-level game, though, it should be none of the squad or all of the squad. Because you interact with the squad.
Taking it down to an individual model level is too much granularity above a skirmish level game.
I don't think that's true. I think one of the faults of 3-7th is the inability for Heavy weapons to split fire. That's a case where the focus on full-unit action went too far. I get where the sentiment comes from, but I saw it cause a lot of grief when new players had to waste bolter shots from their Tactical Squad while their Missile Launcher shaot at a Monster or whater. You pick your detail on a case by case basis.
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Hellebore wrote: It was specifically to prevent gaming the rules where you can snipe with one model just by placement shenanigans. Because the other solution was to make the whole squad targetable instead. It's a middle ground between the two.
How do you feel about my proposal of "defender's choice"?
insaniak wrote: In a squad-level game, though, it should be none of the squad or all of the squad. Because you interact with the squad.
Taking it down to an individual model level is too much granularity above a skirmish level game.
I don't think that's true. I think one of the faults of 3-7th is the inability for Heavy weapons to split fire. That's a case where the focus on full-unit action went too far. I get where the sentiment comes from, but I saw it cause a lot of grief when new players had to waste bolter shots from their Tactical Squad while their Missile Launcher shaot at a Monster or whater. You pick your detail on a case by case basis.
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Hellebore wrote: It was specifically to prevent gaming the rules where you can snipe with one model just by placement shenanigans. Because the other solution was to make the whole squad targetable instead. It's a middle ground between the two.
How do you feel about my proposal of "defender's choice"?
Isn't the issue that you can then leave out your lascannon dude to shoot and take your casualties on your bolter dudes in cover? That's what I remember was a common practice - you only get to target one model, but I get to take the casualty so obviously not the guy left out.
Sure but that means every squad needs to be identically equipped as well. No sergeants, no special weapons, because individual model level is too much granularity.
Exactly where to draw the line is going to be different for everyone. For me, I'm fine with granularity so long as it adds something worthwhile.
Allowing squad members to take upgraded weaponry to change the role or firepower level of the squad is fine for me, because it gives the player control over how their army functions on the table, and makes building the models more interesting.
Placing the wound allocation focus on which individual models can be seen slows down the shooting phase, allows for weird edge-case shenanigans from players deliberately blocking their own models' LoS in order to snipe specific enemies, and does not (IMO) add any significant value to the game in return. Sure, it makes model placement matter... but so does just allowing the squad to benefit from cover if at least some of the squad is in cover. So you're trading how much model placement matters for ease and speed of play.
Isn't the issue that you can then leave out your lascannon dude to shoot and take your casualties on your bolter dudes in cover? That's what I remember was a common practice - you only get to target one model, but I get to take the casualty so obviously not the guy left out.
Fair. . . Though through the agency lens the guy out of cover dies, then a buddy picks up the weapon and carries on.
Heh. Ok what about taking your half-squad idea and applying it here? The defender can choose whether to lose the outlying model, or take casualties from the rest of the squad up until half (roundding down) the total squad members. At that point the outlying trooper has to die.
Hellebore wrote: Isn't the issue that you can then leave out your lascannon dude to shoot and take your casualties on your bolter dudes in cover?
The alternative is that the dudes are out in line of sight getting killed first anyway.
Depending on the area cover/intervening model rules that may or may not make a huge difference. In 5e odds were that something else was already going to be giving that squad a 4+ or 5+ so hiding 90% of a squad behind a wall was less of a favourable move.
I'm not scrolling back enough to find the post lamenting that special weapons would be the last to be taken off except for specific hits in certain editions. That's kind of the point. We're trained that if the soldier carrying the machine gun or grenade launcher, as two examples, were to get killed then someone else picks up their weapon. It's absurd to think that armies in 40K wouldn't operate under the same sort of TTPs.
Tyran wrote: To be honest the tanky character tanking all the shots was also very silly.
Except the ones he didn’t want to take, which were Look our Sir!’d over to the mooks in the squad.
No arguments that it was also a flawed system open to abuse/manipulation.
Pretty much all the systems have issues, which is why I prefer the “the guy taking the hits just kills who he wants, if they are already wounded, that guy needs to finish soaking up wounds before moving to the next one”. It’s not perfect, but at least it’s fast. Splash in a little precision hits to taste.
Sounds like a revival of RT/2nd. Had to always shoot the closest model/unit, so people would turtle up with board-range weapons behind a Space Marine Terminator Lord (3+ save on 2D6) with a Power Field (2++ save taken only AFTER the Terminator Armor save might have failed) who just stood out front. Then drop 12" Krak Missile templates on your army from a horde of Cyclone Missile Launchers and kill anything trying to flank the Lord with Assault Cannons.
The only way I ever managed to get rid of that Lord was a suicide charge with a Swooping Hawk hero who had a Vortex grenade and literally had to land right next to him and also be under the template because the Lord would have the wargear that auto-detonated the grenade if someone tried to throw it.
It was the best of times, it was the dumbest of times...
Isn't the issue that you can then leave out your lascannon dude to shoot and take your casualties on your bolter dudes in cover? That's what I remember was a common practice - you only get to target one model, but I get to take the casualty so obviously not the guy left out.
Fair. . . Though through the agency lens the guy out of cover dies, then a buddy picks up the weapon and carries on.
Heh. Ok what about taking your half-squad idea and applying it here? The defender can choose whether to lose the outlying model, or take casualties from the rest of the squad up until half (roundding down) the total squad members. At that point the outlying trooper has to die.
That might be too complicated?
How about this: the defender chooses the casualties but the cover save of the unit is equal to the worst save of all possible targets. But technically each save can be rolled sequentially allowing the defender to kill off models out in the open (or in inferior cover) and thereby secure a better save for the remaining models.
So in the lascannon scenario, the defender can have any model die but none of those models can claim a cover save so long as that lascannon lives. I guess the guys keep running out of cover to grab the lascannon as the last guy dies. Once the defender finally relents and removes the lascannon (who is the only guy out of cover) the subsequent wounds can now all be made with a cover save. Likewise the defender may choose to remove models from outside line-of-sight, but he if were to remove every model within line-of-sight all of the remaining models would be safe from any remaining wounds.
This would make the lascannon immune to rhino-snipes while still preventing him from claiming a cover save without being in cover.
ETA: NM. I just looked it up in the Wargear book. You're right, it was diameter. Still, 6" diameter S8 -6 save D10 wounds. Still ridiculous. I guess it felt like a personal pan pizza getting dropped on my units.
Isn't the issue that you can then leave out your lascannon dude to shoot and take your casualties on your bolter dudes in cover? That's what I remember was a common practice - you only get to target one model, but I get to take the casualty so obviously not the guy left out.
Fair. . . Though through the agency lens the guy out of cover dies, then a buddy picks up the weapon and carries on.
Heh. Ok what about taking your half-squad idea and applying it here? The defender can choose whether to lose the outlying model, or take casualties from the rest of the squad up until half (roundding down) the total squad members. At that point the outlying trooper has to die.
That might be too complicated?
How about this: the defender chooses the casualties but the cover save of the unit is equal to the worst save of all possible targets. But technically each save can be rolled sequentially allowing the defender to kill off models out in the open (or in inferior cover) and thereby secure a better save for the remaining models.
So in the lascannon scenario, the defender can have any model die but none of those models can claim a cover save so long as that lascannon lives. I guess the guys keep running out of cover to grab the lascannon as the last guy dies. Once the defender finally relents and removes the lascannon (who is the only guy out of cover) the subsequent wounds can now all be made with a cover save. Likewise the defender may choose to remove models from outside line-of-sight, but he if were to remove every model within line-of-sight all of the remaining models would be safe from any remaining wounds.
This would make the lascannon immune to rhino-snipes while still preventing him from claiming a cover save without being in cover.
Ooh, that's nice! I"m trying to think if it could be gamed somehow, but nothing really jumps out at me. Simple and effective.
ETA: NM. I just looked it up in the Wargear book. You're right, it was diameter. Still, 6" diameter S8 -6 save D10 wounds. Still ridiculous. I guess it felt like a personal pan pizza getting dropped on my units.
Yeah I thought it was 12" for a game or two, and then felt pretty sheepish wben I reread "diameter".
I think every other template is expressed in radius, which is why it throws you.
Insectum7 wrote: Ok I don't know that one. Is that from 1st ed Grey Knights? I seem to recall Holocaust in 2nd being the 3" radius template.
The daemonhunters (3e) holocaust was a large template.
In 2e it inflicted an automatic S4 (-1 save) hit on every single living model within 12" of the psyker... so technically a little more than 24" across depending on what base you had.
And then it just kept going, inflicting more hits and wounds on the psyker themselves round after round - twice per turn as it happened in both psychic phases - until you passed an Ld test to stop it or it was nullified.
Inquisition power so 80pts with a jump pack. Kind of a reverse swooping hawk/vortex combo that would do nothing to characters but wipe out a whole flank of infantry.
Sounds like a revival of RT/2nd. Had to always shoot the closest model/unit, so people would turtle up with board-range weapons behind a Space Marine Terminator Lord (3+ save on 2D6) with a Power Field (2++ save taken only AFTER the Terminator Armor save might have failed)
Yeah, but that's not what the rules actually said. HITS flowed from front to back, so yes, you could put tough hombres in front to be the first ones hit, but if enough firepower was dumped on the squad, everyone was getting a piece of it.
Speaking of the Cyclone, I recall a game where a player decided to put his terminators against a wall so they would be out of the Cyclone's LOS, but then thoughtfully left one peering around the corner. Pie plate blast coming in 3...2...
I've not played any of the newer stuff, but I think that if you read through the 2nd ed. rules carefully (which not everyone did - even the Battle Bible got things badly wrong), it works fairly well and if you streamline certain aspects (individual jump pack scatter, persistent weapons), you can raise the amount of models on the tabletop while keeping playing time reasonable. My melee rules, for example, save a ton of time, reducing each combat to a single (modified) opposed roll.
aphyon wrote: Lets just get straight to the elephant in the room with 5th ed wound allocation.
Group of nob bikers 10 in number all T6 (for being on a bike) with 2 wounds, all have 1 different piece of war gear. apply 10 wound, 1 to each model. fail 8, assign 8 wounds to separate models. nothing actually dies.
Nob Bikers were T5 SV4+ with the bikes. 45 points per model base. Then you wanted to make one a Painboy for FNP with an orderly for FNP re-rolls (+35). Taking the Painboy let you take cybork bodies (5++) for 5ppm. So you could be at 535 points before any differentiating wargear like bosspoles, ammo runts etc.
Building one in Army Builder just now I got 668 points for the squad.
20 T5 wounds at 4+/4+ cover/5++
3 sluggas
3 TL shootas
2 shoota/skorcha kombis
1 shoota/rokkitL Kombi
5 Big Choppas
2 Powerklaws
Bosspole
Waagh Banner (+1 WS - hit marines on 3+, marines hit back 4+)
They were the big bad of the meta for a short while. I don't remember what pushed them out. I only faced them once at a tournament (I lost). Grey Knight terminators had much more staying power after their release.
The problem with Nob Bikers wasn't the core wound allocation rules. It was *drumroll* the Nob Bikers.
They should have been their own unit, rather than an upgrade option for basic Nobs.
They shouldn't have been able to take a Painboy.
'Eavy Armour should have been for the whole unit, not individual models.
Bosspoles shouldn't have had special rules
Models on bikes shouldn't be able to use most two-handed weapons.
Ammo Runts probably should have been unit upgrades rather than individual models.
Taking a Warboss shouldn't have made them Troops choices.
I do remember GK being the more problematic of the units that could exploit the rule, but there were only a handful of units that could even do it. Nob Bikers was one of the others.
My friend’s SoB army at the time was wonderfully counter meta. While melta was generally out of fashion, it was one of the only AV tools they had in the army, so he spammed it. So while generally the bottom of the barrel on a power ranking scale, the ability to spam strength 8 shots with good AP was a hard counter to the wound allocation trick. Also good for killing LRs, which were more resistant to the “spam autocannons/plasma and just strip HPs” AV philosophy of the day.
Bad in most match ups, but it was hilarious to watch GK players just get stuffed by a bottom tier army.
Arschbombe wrote: They were the big bad of the meta for a short while. I don't remember what pushed them out. I only faced them once at a tournament (I lost). Grey Knight terminators had much more staying power after their release.
Not pushed out I think, just eclipsed by whatever codex-creeping competition the writers had going on.
Cruddace was one and done with his pet faction and phoned in the rest, Ward seemed to be trying to repeat his WHFB success, Phil Kelly went full 'daemons of chaos' with the Wolves but to his credit reigned it back with the DE. And the rest were 4e books that GW were very hesitant to update.
In an edition of compulsory scoring troops the Orks did have some of the best choices around though, and not just the bikers.
Insectum7 wrote: Ok I don't know that one. Is that from 1st ed Grey Knights? I seem to recall Holocaust in 2nd being the 3" radius template.
The daemonhunters (3e) holocaust was a large template.
In 2e it inflicted an automatic S4 (-1 save) hit on every single living model within 12" of the psyker... so technically a little more than 24" across depending on what base you had.
And then it just kept going, inflicting more hits and wounds on the psyker themselves round after round - twice per turn as it happened in both psychic phases - until you passed an Ld test to stop it or it was nullified.
Inquisition power so 80pts with a jump pack. Kind of a reverse swooping hawk/vortex combo that would do nothing to characters but wipe out a whole flank of infantry.
Ahh, that's awesome. I don't remember that at all. I think I was always fishing for Vortex assuming the S4 wasn't going to be useful enough against my usual opponents.
Sounds like a revival of RT/2nd. Had to always shoot the closest model/unit, so people would turtle up with board-range weapons behind a Space Marine Terminator Lord (3+ save on 2D6) with a Power Field (2++ save taken only AFTER the Terminator Armor save might have failed)
Yeah, but that's not what the rules actually said. HITS flowed from front to back, so yes, you could put tough hombres in front to be the first ones hit, but if enough firepower was dumped on the squad, everyone was getting a piece of it.
Yes Hits did. That's why the Space Marine Lord wasn't part of a squad. Just standing out there a foot or more in front of everything else, tanking all the hits until the player somehow got stupidly unlucky on a save or two. By then, your army was mostly gone. Behind him was another character in Termie Armor with the next best field save stacked on top of it.
RT/2nd Edition was dumb. Fun on occasion, but mostly dumb. What I'm describing is just scratching the surface.
Kagetora wrote: Yes Hits did. That's why the Space Marine Lord wasn't part of a squad. Just standing out there a foot or more in front of everything else, tanking all the hits until the player somehow got stupidly unlucky on a save or two. By then, your army was mostly gone. Behind him was another character in Termie Armor with the next best field save stacked on top of it.
RT/2nd Edition was dumb. Fun on occasion, but mostly dumb. What I'm describing is just scratching the surface.
30 years go by, and even then I don't miss it.
I'm struggling to imagine a board where a single model can block every fire lane. It was perfectly legal to turn a squad to limit their arc of fire to avoid something you don't want to shoot, and equally legal to target different classes of targets. You are not required to shoot an individual model if a tank is behind it.
A turret, for example, can point in any direction, and must only choose closest/easiest within that fire arc. I'm not seeing how what you describe could actually happen.
A non-trivial amount of problems with 2nd were due to people not understanding or employing the rules correctly. This sounds like one of them.
For anyone interested, I recently discovered that one of the managers of the Spain branch of GW made a 3rd edition squat army list, I suppose by no means official, but an interesting triviality of history that seems worth being aware of. One interesting thing is that it says Squats hate orks, but doesn't describe how that manifests in the game's rules, also for some reason squats have Strength 4 lasguns because their lasers are stronger
Kagetora wrote: Yes Hits did. That's why the Space Marine Lord wasn't part of a squad. Just standing out there a foot or more in front of everything else, tanking all the hits until the player somehow got stupidly unlucky on a save or two. By then, your army was mostly gone. Behind him was another character in Termie Armor with the next best field save stacked on top of it.
RT/2nd Edition was dumb. Fun on occasion, but mostly dumb. What I'm describing is just scratching the surface.
30 years go by, and even then I don't miss it.
I'm struggling to imagine a board where a single model can block every fire lane. It was perfectly legal to turn a squad to limit their arc of fire to avoid something you don't want to shoot, and equally legal to target different classes of targets. You are not required to shoot an individual model if a tank is behind it.
A turret, for example, can point in any direction, and must only choose closest/easiest within that fire arc. I'm not seeing how what you describe could actually happen.
A non-trivial amount of problems with 2nd were due to people not understanding or employing the rules correctly. This sounds like one of them.
Bear in mind two things...
This was nearly 30 years ago, and all I remember for 100% sure is the bitter taste that some of that crap left.
Also, I was new to the game (although I'd been playing WFB and Battletech previously), so I may not have been the best player standing at a 40k tabletop.
I'll also point out that being able to turn a model so they can see 1-degree past an enemy model to something behind it isn't really a strong argument for the rules being good...just even more stupid.
BanjoJohn wrote: One interesting thing is that it says Squats hate orks, but doesn't describe how that manifests in the game's rules, also for some reason squats have Strength 4 lasguns because their lasers are stronger
Luv me trike. Luv me lasers. 'Ate Eldar. 'Ate Orks. Simple as.
Yes Hits did. That's why the Space Marine Lord wasn't part of a squad. Just standing out there a foot or more in front of everything else, tanking all the hits until the player somehow got stupidly unlucky on a save or two. By then, your army was mostly gone. Behind him was another character in Termie Armor with the next best field save stacked on top of it..
Thing is, because of the huge damage potential of heavy weapons in 2nd edition, this would not have been a reliable strategy. One of my regular gaming opponents was very excited the first time he fielded Abaddon when the model was released, anticipating some lovely carnage to come... and I dropped him in the first turn with a lascannon to the head.
Characters running around by themselves, even with fields, tended to not last long when you made them priority targets.
BanjoJohn wrote: For anyone interested, I recently discovered that one of the managers of the Spain branch of GW made a 3rd edition squat army list, I suppose by no means official, but an interesting triviality of history that seems worth being aware of. One interesting thing is that it says Squats hate orks, but doesn't describe how that manifests in the game's rules, also for some reason squats have Strength 4 lasguns because their lasers are stronger
Are they only equipped with lasguns?
They were equipped with either lasguns or bolters in 2nd, so maybe he just collapsed that into a unique squat lasguns instead. 3rd Ed was the edition that each army got it's equipment differentiated from everyone else's. Orks bolters went to shootas for example. Plasma cannons to starcannons etc.
Yes Hits did. That's why the Space Marine Lord wasn't part of a squad. Just standing out there a foot or more in front of everything else, tanking all the hits until the player somehow got stupidly unlucky on a save or two. By then, your army was mostly gone. Behind him was another character in Termie Armor with the next best field save stacked on top of it..
Thing is, because of the huge damage potential of heavy weapons in 2nd edition, this would not have been a reliable strategy. One of my regular gaming opponents was very excited the first time he fielded Abaddon when the model was released, anticipating some lovely carnage to come. j
1. and I dropped him in the first turn with a lascannon to the head.
Characters running around by themselves, even with fields, tended to not last long when you made them priority targets.
Some of those Chaos Lords got pretty gnarly. 2++ Power Field, then a rerollable 2+ on 2D6 in Terminator armor. I feel like there was some other thing you could stack on there . . . Can't remember.
BanjoJohn wrote: For anyone interested, I recently discovered that one of the managers of the Spain branch of GW made a 3rd edition squat army list, I suppose by no means official, but an interesting triviality of history that seems worth being aware of. One interesting thing is that it says Squats hate orks, but doesn't describe how that manifests in the game's rules, also for some reason squats have Strength 4 lasguns because their lasers are stronger
Are they only equipped with lasguns?
They were equipped with either lasguns or bolters in 2nd, so maybe he just collapsed that into a unique squat lasguns instead. 3rd Ed was the edition that each army got it's equipment differentiated from everyone else's. Orks bolters went to shootas for example. Plasma cannons to starcannons etc.
Maybe this was his equivalent
I have some of those fun codexes on PDF including a compilation for an arbities force-from the intro page
BanjoJohn wrote: For anyone interested, I recently discovered that one of the managers of the Spain branch of GW made a 3rd edition squat army list, I suppose by no means official, but an interesting triviality of history that seems worth being aware of. One interesting thing is that it says Squats hate orks, but doesn't describe how that manifests in the game's rules, also for some reason squats have Strength 4 lasguns because their lasers are stronger
Are they only equipped with lasguns?
They were equipped with either lasguns or bolters in 2nd, so maybe he just collapsed that into a unique squat lasguns instead. 3rd Ed was the edition that each army got it's equipment differentiated from everyone else's. Orks bolters went to shootas for example. Plasma cannons to starcannons etc.
Maybe this was his equivalent
I'm dont really understand spanish that well, but looking at the troops choice of a squad squad, they have laser pistols, and can be upgraded to laser rifles, and have upgrade options for meltagun, plasma rifle, etc.
Insectum7 wrote: I feel like there was some other thing you could stack on there . . . Can't remember.
Daemonic aura - a 4+ invulnerable that stacked with everything else.
Characters capable of casting from the librarian power set could also stack up an extra 4++, and an extra 3++(rolled per wound), and rerolls on everything, and toughness 10, and even a 4+ damage reflecting save vs melee attacks borrowed from the inquisition set.
No surprise that swooping hawk wings and vortex grenades were popular combinations. And the 'look out, sir - Aaargh!' card to no-sell it entirely...
Insectum7 wrote: I feel like there was some other thing you could stack on there . . . Can't remember.
Daemonic aura - a 4+ invulnerable that stacked with everything else.
Characters capable of casting from the librarian power set could also stack up an extra 4++, and an extra 3++(rolled per wound), and rerolls on everything, and toughness 10, and even a 4+ damage reflecting save vs melee attacks borrowed from the inquisition set.
No surprise that swooping hawk wings and vortex grenades were popular combinations. And the 'look out, sir - Aaargh!' card to no-sell it entirely...
Ahh "Daemonic Aura" that must have been it. And yep, vague memories for everything else listed, too.
My go-to was the Chaplain with Vortex Grenade, but some tournaments didn't allow the Vortex nade. A cheap and entertaining tactic against the tanky Lord was to throw a Blind grenade on him. Oh look, my army can't see your shot-blocker. I guess I have to shoot past him!
I was pretty happy when 3rd came around and most units only got one save, and characters could be Instant-Deathed with a Krak Missile or Lascannon equivalent. Those 2nd ed shennanigans were fun but tiresome.
This was nearly 30 years ago, and all I remember for 100% sure is the bitter taste that some of that crap left.
Also, I was new to the game (although I'd been playing WFB and Battletech previously), so I may not have been the best player standing at a 40k tabletop.
I'll also point out that being able to turn a model so they can see 1-degree past an enemy model to something behind it isn't really a strong argument for the rules being good...just even more stupid.
You have a right to your own opinion, of course, but how much of the "stupid" was rampant rules abuse? In addition to getting targeting wrong, the character violated the FAQ that limited field saves.
Characters capable of casting from the librarian power set could also stack up an extra 4++, and an extra 3++(rolled per wound), and rerolls on everything, and toughness 10, and even a 4+ damage reflecting save vs melee attacks borrowed from the inquisition set.
I mean, yes, in theory... but in practice, you were never actually going to have all of those in effect at once, even if you managed to draw those four specific powers for the psyker.
Insectum7 wrote: I was pretty happy when 3rd came around and most units only got one save, and characters could be Instant-Deathed with a Krak Missile or Lascannon equivalent. Those 2nd ed shennanigans were fun but tiresome.
There were a lot of players with a very thin grasp of the rules who pushed things into absurdity, and unfortunately that's what many people think 2nd was.
I initially welcomed 3rd because it was streamlined, faster and allowed bigger games, but all it really did was replace old cheats with new ones. Codex creep was still a thing, and then came the beginning of rules churn.
Going back to a "dead" edition allows a lot of the slop to be cleared out and gives one a more stable set of rules. Most if not all of the excesses were cleared away by the FAQs and a single page of clarifications.
Also, characters could be instant-deathed with Krak missiles and Lascannons in 2nd edition... Krak missiles did up to 10 wounds, and lascannons did up to 12.
insaniak wrote: Also, characters could be instant-deathed with Krak missiles and Lascannons in 2nd edition... Krak missiles did up to 10 wounds, and lascannons did up to 12.
Multi-meltas were 2d12! Even heavy bolters did d4, or d6 if using Hellfire. Assault cannon were d10 per hit, so you could really shred some stuff.
insaniak wrote: Also, characters could be instant-deathed with Krak missiles and Lascannons in 2nd edition... Krak missiles did up to 10 wounds, and lascannons did up to 12.
I think the point was more that those weapons could roll low enough to not kill the character. Conversely a lascannon could roll high enough to one shot a bloodthirster - having a heavy weapon with a damage output so varied seems pretty weird.
Their high damage was pretty much for armour penetration which really skewed their design.
3rd ed went for less gradation and more binary yes now - saves yes or no, dead yes or no. I have plenty of issues with the 3rd ed rules, but an anti tank weapon instantly killing an infantry model isn't one of them.
It's already had 2 layers of uncertainty to get to the damage roll, plus the responding Saves, adding a fourth seems gratuitous, especially for something that takes up such large % of your army. Having it threatened so readily from easily accessible weapons, but 'balancing' it with a high randomness isn't that satisfying to me.
Sure. Which just makes it a matter of where you draw the line on 'excessive'. For me, all of the randomness of 2nd edition was what made the game what it was. The unpredictable nature of it all meant that every game was different, even if you used the exact same armies each time, and outcomes were more uncertain even if armies weren't entirely balanced.
With so much of that stripped out, games became much more samey and predictable, as often the likely outcome could be predicted just by looking at the army lists.
If I want to play Chess, I'll play Chess. If I want to see a mighty hero shrug off certain death from heavy weapons fire before leaping off a building, laying waste to a horde of enemy troops and ripping the turret off an enemy tank with his bare hands... that's what 2nd edition 40K is for.
Seems more of an in theory than a practically happens scenario though. You can't plan that, you can only look back on the game and notice that those unlikely events happened in a sequence, if they happened at all.
But 3rd ed allows those things to happen too - the character is wounded on a 1 so ignores the hit, or uses their invulnerable save to tank the shot, or gets missed entirely, jumps off difficult terrain and charges a tank in the rear to cause an explosion and charges into a squad, getting 6 attacks on the charge, killing half, winning combat and running the rest down.
In 2nd ed a marine captain will be losing combat by the 4th or 5th consecutive opponent. I used to love charging them gretchin and stabbing them with the 5th and 6th grotz, inflicting damage from sheer outnumbering.
I enjoy 2nd ed and have fond memories of various random aspects, but I also have very unfun memories of different random aspects. Nothing wrong with randomness and fluff flavour, I just like to be sensibly applied.
This was nearly 30 years ago, and all I remember for 100% sure is the bitter taste that some of that crap left.
Also, I was new to the game (although I'd been playing WFB and Battletech previously), so I may not have been the best player standing at a 40k tabletop.
I'll also point out that being able to turn a model so they can see 1-degree past an enemy model to something behind it isn't really a strong argument for the rules being good...just even more stupid.
You have a right to your own opinion, of course, but how much of the "stupid" was rampant rules abuse? In addition to getting targeting wrong, the character violated the FAQ that limited field saves.
Well, TBH, I'm not sure, as I said. 30 years and a n00b and all that. I have no idea if that FAQ had dropped or not. What I remember about those days is pretty simple...
--Battletech was fun until you realized there was really just one tactic, maximizing your chance to hit while minimizing your opponent's, then letting the dice do their work. I played it enough that it began to feel like tic-tac-toe.
--3rd edition WFB was an absolute blast once you realized you had to restrict some things (a few spells, some item abilities), and campaigns of it moving banners around a map and fighting battles when they met was my first "real" introduction to wargaming, and one that I still miss a bit. 7th edition was the height of WFB for me, but there'll always be a soft spot in my heart for 3rd.
--2nd edition 40k was where I started earnestly collecting and painting minis because I was out of college and had a job, and didn't need to proxy some things for WFB or look at my hideously painted Mechs anymore. When I started seeing some of the absolute garbage on the board (unkillable characters, Pulsa Rokkits, Virus Grenades, etc.), the sheen of newness wore off very quickly. I have zero fond memories of 2nd edition, but since I had an army and it was painted reasonably well, I dove head-first into 3rd and 3.5. Won some RT's, played a lot of games, and then when I got fed up with picking up a third of my army before I moved a model if I didn't go first, I swapped back into WFB in a big way. RT's, GT's, my army is even pictured in the 2004-2005 Catalogue and Hobby Reference (the "big blue book" GW used to publish).
I'm literally looking through a 2nd edition rulebook right now. I can see how it could be fun, just like 3rd WFB, with some restrictions and gentlemanly conduct. I was not privileged to receive such in the 90's, and as such, 2nd, for me, is a ludicrous set of rules where you can go full ham on your opponent. Feels bad, man.
But, yes, this is just my subjective opinion based on my experiences.
Yeah, fun in 2nd edition very much relied on playing with like-minded people. The Ork Pulsa Rokkit army, the Wolf Guard Terminator army, the Blood Claw all-chainsword/powerfist army, the all-flying-high and pop-up attack Eldar army... they were all problematic if you weren't expecting them.
The groups I played with varied over the years between deliberately avoiding anything too nasty, and deliberately trying to make the worst lists we could. Either way worked, so long as both players were showing up to the table with the same expectations.
insaniak wrote: Also, characters could be instant-deathed with Krak missiles and Lascannons in 2nd edition... Krak missiles did up to 10 wounds, and lascannons did up to 12.
It's the combo of multiple saves plus damage roll that's the bugger of 2nd. 3rd Insta Death meant often, no save, no damage roll. Sorry Calgar, that Lascannon caught you in the open. Remove from table.
If I had it my way a 1 wouldn't auto fail to wound either. That's a similar sort of unpleasantness as rolling a 2 or 3 on your charge roll. Beyond a certain threshold of S vs. V auto-wound is justified imo.
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insaniak wrote: Sure. Which just makes it a matter of where you draw the line on 'excessive'. For me, all of the randomness of 2nd edition was what made the game what it was. The unpredictable nature of it all meant that every game was different, even if you used the exact same armies each time, and outcomes were more uncertain even if armies weren't entirely balanced.
With so much of that stripped out, games became much more samey and predictable, as often the likely outcome could be predicted just by looking at the army lists.
If I want to play Chess, I'll play Chess. If I want to see a mighty hero shrug off certain death from heavy weapons fire before leaping off a building, laying waste to a horde of enemy troops and ripping the turret off an enemy tank with his bare hands... that's what 2nd edition 40K is for.
I don't think randomness made 2nd. It was more the crunchy detail of it which brought a ton of character and really helped illustrate this fantastical world of 40k. The extra detail could be cumbersome, but it also did a great job of bringing it to life.
The detail also brought a whole bunch of interesting tactics with it. . . . Once you got past your typical power army plays. I dunno if the Pulsa-Rokkit army counts as "interesting".
This was nearly 30 years ago, and all I remember for 100% sure is the bitter taste that some of that crap left.
Also, I was new to the game (although I'd been playing WFB and Battletech previously), so I may not have been the best player standing at a 40k tabletop.
I'll also point out that being able to turn a model so they can see 1-degree past an enemy model to something behind it isn't really a strong argument for the rules being good...just even more stupid.
You have a right to your own opinion, of course, but how much of the "stupid" was rampant rules abuse? In addition to getting targeting wrong, the character violated the FAQ that limited field saves.
Well, TBH, I'm not sure, as I said. 30 years and a n00b and all that. I have no idea if that FAQ had dropped or not. What I remember about those days is pretty simple...
--Battletech was fun until you realized there was really just one tactic, maximizing your chance to hit while minimizing your opponent's, then letting the dice do their work. I played it enough that it began to feel like tic-tac-toe.
--3rd edition WFB was an absolute blast once you realized you had to restrict some things (a few spells, some item abilities), and campaigns of it moving banners around a map and fighting battles when they met was my first "real" introduction to wargaming, and one that I still miss a bit. 7th edition was the height of WFB for me, but there'll always be a soft spot in my heart for 3rd.
--2nd edition 40k was where I started earnestly collecting and painting minis because I was out of college and had a job, and didn't need to proxy some things for WFB or look at my hideously painted Mechs anymore. When I started seeing some of the absolute garbage on the board (unkillable characters, Pulsa Rokkits, Virus Grenades, etc.), the sheen of newness wore off very quickly. I have zero fond memories of 2nd edition, but since I had an army and it was painted reasonably well, I dove head-first into 3rd and 3.5. Won some RT's, played a lot of games, and then when I got fed up with picking up a third of my army before I moved a model if I didn't go first, I swapped back into WFB in a big way. RT's, GT's, my army is even pictured in the 2004-2005 Catalogue and Hobby Reference (the "big blue book" GW used to publish).
I'm literally looking through a 2nd edition rulebook right now. I can see how it could be fun, just like 3rd WFB, with some restrictions and gentlemanly conduct. I was not privileged to receive such in the 90's, and as such, 2nd, for me, is a ludicrous set of rules where you can go full ham on your opponent. Feels bad, man.
But, yes, this is just my subjective opinion based on my experiences.
I have kind of formed the opinion that the 2nd edition codex's would have worked pretty good in the 3rd edition rules. And maybe you could have kept AP reducing armor saves, and instead of cover providing its own cover save, cover could have reduced AP of weapons based on how lighty or heavy the cover was. And maybe terminator armor should have been 3+ save rolling 1d12 instead of 2d6, and maybe invulnerable saves should have just been something where you roll 1d12 for the invuln save but AP still applies to it
insaniak wrote: Sure. Which just makes it a matter of where you draw the line on 'excessive'.
Being a dice game there is always the chance of a string of 1s or the like, but I think 'excessive' - at least for me - is when the swing of luck exceeds reasonable precaution.
i.e. deciding whether or not to dedicte an extra unit to a task because one unit might reasonably fail 1/6th of the time. You might not need it, you might fail regardless, but it is the kind of randomness where you feel like you have some control.
Compared to the early mission card implementation for example, where you'd randomly draw the twelve labours of hercules as your objects while the opponent would score six points on the first turn for having units in their own deployment zone.
insaniak wrote: Yeah, fun in 2nd edition very much relied on playing with like-minded people. The Ork Pulsa Rokkit army, the Wolf Guard Terminator army, the Blood Claw all-chainsword/powerfist army, the all-flying-high and pop-up attack Eldar army... they were all problematic if you weren't expecting them.
The groups I played with varied over the years between deliberately avoiding anything too nasty, and deliberately trying to make the worst lists we could. Either way worked, so long as both players were showing up to the table with the same expectations.
I think that is true of any game that requires social interaction, even more so with 40K even including editions i like most. 3rd-5th still required players to not be "that guy". to me the attitude most desired is what GW used to put in all the books-remember that the game should be fun for both players-
That's why, for me, thematic play always tops "balanced" play when it comes to 40k or WHFBs i am doing epic GAK in the 40K setting for LOLs with my friends. we can talk GAK to each other or inter-factionally about our boyz and see where the dice take us. and when i look at the table i can clearly see i am facing some white scars, bad moons or Iyanden craftworld forces because of the army composition.
insaniak wrote: Sure. Which just makes it a matter of where you draw the line on 'excessive'.
Being a dice game there is always the chance of a string of 1s or the like, but I think 'excessive' - at least for me - is when the swing of luck exceeds reasonable precaution.
i.e. deciding whether or not to dedicte an extra unit to a task because one unit might reasonably fail 1/6th of the time. You might not need it, you might fail regardless, but it is the kind of randomness where you feel like you have some control.
Compared to the early mission card implementation for example, where you'd randomly draw the twelve labours of hercules as your objects while the opponent would score six points on the first turn for having units in their own deployment zone.
It's a matter of how much randomness you want in a game. Chess, or Craps? Or somewhere in-between?
I can literally beat any odds. Personal story time warning. I was at an RT at an LGS down in San Diego in the early 2000's. I brought my Eldar, all on foot, and had two squads of Dark Reapers with Exarchs and Quick Shot. I was playing Tyranids. My opponent had a Lictor pop-up in a flank (I don't even remember the rules for Lictors 25 years ago), threatening them with a charge next turn. It shouldn't have been a problem, despite one squad being down two Reapers.
I picked up four dice for the normal Reapers. Hit on 3's, wound on 3's, Lictor has 3 wounds. I proceed to roll four 1's. My shoulders sag and I sigh. Ok, Exarch time. 2 shots hitting on 2's, wounding on 2's, auto-kill because it's twice the Lictor's toughness. I roll two more 1's.
Ok, darn. Now I have to commit the other squad. I pick up eight more dice for the Reapers. Eight 1's. Yes, seriously. We're up to fourteen 1's in a row now. I just look at the player across from me. Even they can't believe it. Sighing, I pick up the Exarch's dice. A 1 and a 2. Praise to the dead Eldar Gods, I hit once! A single 2 to wound, and I'm golden. I roll a 1.
Sixteen 1's out of seventeen dice. Anyone want to calculate the odds of that single Lictor's survival? It proceeded to charge, do some damage to the full squad in his turn, finish them off and consolidate in my turn, then delete the damaged squad in their next turn. Cost me the game.
I grabbed my dice when we were done, walked out the front door, and hurled them across the parking lot into the road beyond. Went back in and donated to my LGS for new dice to keep going.
Why do I share this painful story? Besides the hilarity of it all?
You can never predict "when the swing of luck exceeds reasonable precaution." We're rolling dice. Swings happen. I defy anyone to tell of a worse (better?) one than mine, but it happens. We're not playing chess, at best we're playing backgammon. You can tune the rules to eliminate randomness, or enhance it.
Which would you rather play? Remember, others might feel different. There's a balance to strike, but where do you want to move the needle to?
Kagetora wrote: Which would you rather play? Remember, others might feel different. There's a balance to strike, but where do you want to move the needle to?
I'm ok with being able to play well or play conservatively to stack the deck in my favour and then getting unlucky.
I'm not fond of deus-ex-machina where the big random table in the sky is more statistically significant than my choices - something like bad weather in bloodbowl where I can switch up my style to adapt is fine, something like a fireball being randomly tossed onto the field every turn on the other hand is completely unearned.
Similarly when the odds or unit capabilities become too variable to predict in any meaningful way. If you take an 80% shot and fail then ok, if you take a ??% shot and ?? ?? ?? - it just makes it difficult to enjoy your success when you weren't much of a part of it. At least for me.
Agreed, I find games where I feel like the win/loss was my choices during the game are more engaging and easier to learn and play than those where
1) The unit choices are so swingy that taking the wrong army leads to an auto win/loss situation. Within reason of course, each game has to have some ground fundamentals for building an army up that players should learn
2) The dice rolls are the win-loss. This is a reason I hate the AoS Duel Turn mechanic because its such an insanely swingy aspect of the game state and its a single dice roll.
It doesn't actually end up feeling cinematic but like an auto win/loss punishment on the game.
Cinematic is when two evenly matched generals are facing off in a duel where either one could win and each dice roll is them trading blows where they could win or die; but similarly that's just one part of the battle in itself not the whole game.
Oof, its bad luck like that which would make me take a farseer with guide, at least 1's on that would make the power work... though you'd have perils of the warp hehe
insaniak wrote: Yeah, fun in 2nd edition very much relied on playing with like-minded people. The Ork Pulsa Rokkit army, the Wolf Guard Terminator army, the Blood Claw all-chainsword/powerfist army, the all-flying-high and pop-up attack Eldar army... they were all problematic if you weren't expecting them.
The groups I played with varied over the years between deliberately avoiding anything too nasty, and deliberately trying to make the worst lists we could. Either way worked, so long as both players were showing up to the table with the same expectations.
I think this it true of all of GW's offerings. Even 5th ed. Fantasy was okay if one took a collaborative approach to the game. If not, it was a nightmare.
The thing about 2nd is that it is very intuitive at its core, and it lends itself to a narrative format of creating linked battles.
Even as a pick-up game, I still found it enjoyable, and with the very common rules mods, it is even better.
As far as weapons/dice, one of the strengths of 2nd was that those high-end damage possibilities did put a limit on tactics and also rewarded shrewd game play.
The best compliment I can give it was that when I finished Conqueror: Fields of Victory - which I felt was what WHFB should have aspired to be - I felt no similar desire to do a Conqueror: 40k because 2nd ed already had that covered. I could think of nothing to add to it.
Yes, it does have imperfections but taken as a whole, it's great and is probably the closest the rules ever aligned with the fluff.
BanjoJohn wrote: Oof, its bad luck like that which would make me take a farseer with guide, at least 1's on that would make the power work... though you'd have perils of the warp hehe
Yeah, it was a brutal way to lose a game.
Typically I had Farseers in the list, to sit with the Reapers in cover and give them Fortune re-rolls on their saves. I never bought Guide, because what are the chances of what I described happening? As kindly pointed out, 1 in 200 billion.
My opponent, however, had virtually no shooting in his 'Nid list, so the Farseers were out helping other units that game.
I very much enjoyed the simulation and detail of 2nd ed, but there are definitely areas of it I think were too complicated without really gaining anything from it.
IMO, flavour doesn't have to be sacrificed for good rules. Randomness isn't the be all of flavour.
Like, individual scatter for jump packers seems excessive. Unit scatter represents that factor enough, rather than trying to track individual model movements. Similarly setting a model on fire - a fire token on the unit that requires a test to remove gives you that flavour without needing to track individual models.
Necromunda is the scale at which I would expect individual model tracking, rather than a squad based game.
If you absolutely must do it in a squad based game, then resolving it in the same turn reduces to data load, rather than tracking it across multiple turns.
Love seeing all the talk about the fun side of 40K, This is something i can enjoy while i recover, since it will probably be at least another month before i can get back to the game store.
Necromunda is the scale at which I would expect individual model tracking, rather than a squad based game.
While I mostly agree with this, I think 2nd ed really falls into a bit of a middle ground - while it's technically a squad based game, the actual number of squads on the board is generally fairly low (unless you're playing Orks) so the rules get away with those individual model interactions for the most part. The two main places (off the top of my head) I would say go too far are the aforementioned individual jump pack scatter, and whole squads throwing grenades... Anything else I've forgotten that involves 10 or more models having to individually resolve scatter for anything would also fit into that basket.
I'd be inclined to do away with individual firing arcs too, although I'm interested in how 2nd ed fans feel about that. Maybe keep them for heavy weapons? (Or certain forms of heavy weapons, like those Eldar platforms or the Guard tripod/cart ones).
Depends if you want to have unit splitting for shooting.
40k seems to have a bad habit of using different 'scale' resolutions for different aspects of the same game. 10th has unit based rules, but then allows every model to shoot at a different target in a unit.
2nd ed allowed only special weapons to fire separately, so you have a situation where the detailed 2nd ed requires 10 bolter marines to target the same unit, but 10th has 10 bolter marines able to target 10 different units....
But then 2nd ed has individual fire tracking and 10th has flamers that are just shotguns...
If you want a squad level game, then I would say that facings can exist based on the sergeant. They direct the unit and thus are the facing model you use.
How do you feel about nixxing arcs and just allowing squads to split fire? I guess that gets goofy if retaining "must shoot at closest" and removing arcs.
"Half of the squad must shoot the closest target. The rest of the squad can shoot closest target within Sergeants arc"? Maybe combine that with an Ld check.
Insectum7 wrote: I'd be inclined to do away with individual firing arcs too, although I'm interested in how 2nd ed fans feel about that. Maybe keep them for heavy weapons? (Or certain forms of heavy weapons, like those Eldar platforms or the Guard tripod/cart ones).
I like fire arcs, but 90 degrees is a pain in the butt, and caused no end of arguments. For my house rules, I'm going with 180 degrees instead.
2nd ed allowed only special weapons to fire separately, so you have a situation where the detailed 2nd ed requires 10 bolter marines to target the same unit, but 10th has 10 bolter marines able to target 10 different units....
Although you could still shoot your 10 2nd ed marines at different targets by facing them in different directions.
BanjoJohn wrote: Oof, its bad luck like that which would make me take a farseer with guide, at least 1's on that would make the power work... though you'd have perils of the warp hehe
Yeah, it was a brutal way to lose a game.
Typically I had Farseers in the list, to sit with the Reapers in cover and give them Fortune re-rolls on their saves. I never bought Guide, because what are the chances of what I described happening? As kindly pointed out, 1 in 200 billion.
My opponent, however, had virtually no shooting in his 'Nid list, so the Farseers were out helping other units that game.
Yeah, but you don't need to roll all 1's to miss with the normal reapers, but even paranoid me would want a re-roll to miss when you're hitting on 2's. I could see having a farseer with guide and fortune so you can choose situationally which to use.
But oh well, that is a really fun story of a once in a lifetime thing that could happen in a game.
I’m in favour of the 2nd Ed individual fire arcs - for 2nd Ed.
For the uninitiated, games were on a far smaller scale during that period. Not just smaller squads, but smaller armies. Which meant boards were rarely crowded. But, as shooting was pretty potent, and squads smaller? Being able to sneak up where the foe simply isn’t looking was bloody useful - especially with Overwatch being common.
Much beyond that scale and it doesn’t really make much sense.
insaniak wrote: While I mostly agree with this, I think 2nd ed really falls into a bit of a middle ground - while it's technically a squad based game, the actual number of squads on the board is generally fairly low (unless you're playing Orks) so the rules get away with those individual model interactions for the most part. The two main places (off the top of my head) I would say go too far are the aforementioned individual jump pack scatter, and whole squads throwing grenades... Anything else I've forgotten that involves 10 or more models having to individually resolve scatter for anything would also fit into that basket.
If one wants to play 2nd exactly as written, it will be hard to put more than three squads on the tabletop and finish it in a normal session (3-4 hours).
However, it is quite easy to prune away the rules, which speeds up gameplay and allows larger forces to take the field.
The fire arcs are nice because 2nd really depends on shooting lanes and overlapping fire to make its tactics work. That's one of the things I love about it - it takes a solid modern tactical system and adds fantastic and sci-fi elements to it.
It has less abstraction than later editions, which does limit army size, but I feel makes it more intuitive.
When 3rd came out, there was a lot of heavy lifting in terms of making the narratives make sense because of the higher level of abstraction.
I will say that movement stat, different vehicle speeds do allow some wild tactical options. Third ed. simply was not as 'fast' in those regards.
Necromunda is the scale at which I would expect individual model tracking, rather than a squad based game.
While I mostly agree with this, I think 2nd ed really falls into a bit of a middle ground - while it's technically a squad based game, the actual number of squads on the board is generally fairly low (unless you're playing Orks) so the rules get away with those individual model interactions for the most part. The two main places (off the top of my head) I would say go too far are the aforementioned individual jump pack scatter, and whole squads throwing grenades... Anything else I've forgotten that involves 10 or more models having to individually resolve scatter for anything would also fit into that basket.
That was my experience playing Warmachine, which I would assume was a similar scale.
1st edition Warmachine was definitely in a similar sort of game scale to 2nd ed 40K, although it tended to look smaller due to the focus on 'Jacks over squads. As 40K did, Warmachine grew over editions as squads became more prevalent and points were revised.
3000 points wasn't the standard size for 2nd ed games, though. Games were more commonly 1500 to 2000 points, because anything bigger took too long.
Having said that, people wanted to play bigger (and those of us with plenty of free time often did) ... and the fact that it was so clunky at larger game sizes was a large part of the reason for 3rd edition being what it was.
insaniak wrote: I disagree on the rules... Wound allocation and vehicle damage were not perfect in 5th, but it was a far better ruleset overall than 4th, IMO. 4th ed was not fun, particularly for transport vehicle-heavy armies.
We house ruled out the entire 4th edition vehicle damage rules (entrapment being the biggest offender) in friendly games. Everything just flowed better after that.
If one wants to play 2nd exactly as written, it will be hard to put more than three squads on the tabletop and finish it in a normal session (3-4 hours).
I certainly remember a lot more than three squads being common though. Even in the WD battle reports. My expensive Marine army featured 4-5 (Assault Squad-often Combat Squadded, Devastators, Scouts and Terminators. But many of my opponents had a whole lot more. Guard, Orks, Tyranids, and Guardian-heavy Eldar, or just Eldar with lots of small Aspect Warrior squads. There were definitely 2000 point games that had 100+ models on the table. Termagants were only 6 points or something. Guard 10 or 11? If any player decided to lean into the swarm the model count got big quick.
Insectum7 wrote: I'd be inclined to do away with individual firing arcs too, although I'm interested in how 2nd ed fans feel about that. Maybe keep them for heavy weapons? (Or certain forms of heavy weapons, like those Eldar platforms or the Guard tripod/cart ones).
I like fire arcs, but 90 degrees is a pain in the butt, and caused no end of arguments. For my house rules, I'm going with 180 degrees instead.
A less specific arc seems like a reasonable compromise, actually. I still worry a bit about arguments but you're probably right in that they'd be less common.
insaniak wrote: 3000 points wasn't the standard size for 2nd ed games, though. Games were more commonly 1500 to 2000 points, because anything bigger took too long.
Having said that, people wanted to play bigger (and those of us with plenty of free time often did) ... and the fact that it was so clunky at larger game sizes was a large part of the reason for 3rd edition being what it was.
Pickup games at the local store ran 1500 to 2000 points. Psykers were a major time sink and people had army lists with and without them. Most didn't use them. In fact, I only recall two games using the psychic phase, both against Eldar.
That being said, there were bigger games. I recall a 5,000 point A Bridge Too Far scenario with scheduled replacement points. As models got killed we sorted them into new squads which entered from various board edges. We played the long way, and the Space Marines were trying to seize a road and bridge from the Orks. It was a lot of fun.
BanjoJohn wrote: Oof, its bad luck like that which would make me take a farseer with guide, at least 1's on that would make the power work... though you'd have perils of the warp hehe
Yeah, it was a brutal way to lose a game.
Typically I had Farseers in the list, to sit with the Reapers in cover and give them Fortune re-rolls on their saves. I never bought Guide, because what are the chances of what I described happening? As kindly pointed out, 1 in 200 billion.
My opponent, however, had virtually no shooting in his 'Nid list, so the Farseers were out helping other units that game.
Yeah, but you don't need to roll all 1's to miss with the normal reapers, but even paranoid me would want a re-roll to miss when you're hitting on 2's. I could see having a farseer with guide and fortune so you can choose situationally which to use.
But oh well, that is a really fun story of a once in a lifetime thing that could happen in a game.
A fair point, and part of what made it bizarre, all of those single pips staring up at me accusingly. "You rolled us, loser!"
It was less funny at the time, but 20-years on, it's effin' hilarious.
I wanted to write out some of the insanity I have re-discovered of 3rd edition. Your own custom tyranid hive fleet.
If you kept the number of species in your fleet to a bare minimum, 2 species. 1 of warriors (which can count as HQ, Elites, or Heavy Support), and 1 of gaunts (troops), you could have every warrior in each brood be a mutant, and 1 in every 2 gaunt be a mutant.
Most mutations are not very powerful, hive node just lets that one creature be a synapse creature for the squad, weapon beast lets the creature replace its normal weapon with any bio weapon, acid blood makes enemies take wounds for killing them in combat. But "Exceptional size" mutation grants you +1 Strength and +1 Toughness.
This is where the craziness comes in. You would need to decide, do you want S5/T4 warriors, or S4/T4 warriors to start off with. Because if you make the mutant S6/T5 it will cost +30 points to the base cost, but if you keep it to S5/T5 it will only add +25 points to the base cost.
What does this mean in practice? If you were crazy enough to only include warriors/gaunts in your army. You could have broods of WS5/BS3/S6/T5/W2/ 4+ armor save warriors for 54 points per warrior, plus cost of weapons. Very costly indeed. But your 2 troops choices could be taken up by 2 broods of 8 gaunts costing 5 points per model. (80 points total for filling your 2 troops choices) Giving you your points limit -80 points for the rest to be warriors.
Going up to S6 really makes the barbed strangler option very potent, because it reduces it to S4, much better than S3 it would otherwise be. And S6 gives your venom cannons S8, again allowing for vehicles of AV14 to be chipped down if you so wanted, or other vehicles to get "autocannoned" down.
Even if you choose not to go for those huge weapons, other weapons like the Deathspitter (S7 assault blast weapon) and devourer (S5, assault 4) become even more potent in these warrior's hands. So even when you're saving points by not getting big guns, they become that much more potent. Of course 4+ armor save means you need to make liberal use of cover saves, and maybe you might decide to take more units of gaunts as screening units
EDIT: So why would you even want to do this? This is the only way to get more S6 models than the normal army list. Normally the Hive Tyrant, Lictor, and Carnifex would be the only models that could get S6 or more. 54 points per warrior seems expensive for S6/T5, but hive tyrants are 90 points per model for S6/T6, Lictors are S6/T4 at 80 points per model, and Carnifexes are 90 points per model for S10 T6.
So you're trading some durability for a little more flexibility, and a very specific vision of what you might want your army to be.
Welcome to why big 3e option lists were popular and why they were phased out. They inevitably led to a whole lot of really poor, inefficiently priced choices and a few select wombo-combos that shaped the faction, at least amongst more competitive players.
That said I don't think anyone was too worried about 54pt + gear warriors as that's a lot of points for artillery fodder. Now sneaking a handful of hidden rending mutants into big, fast moving chaff squads on the other hand...
(from what I hear it was also banned at official GW tournaments due to players fudging the rules if a difficult to spot way)
Welcome to why big 3e option lists were popular and why they were phased out. They inevitably led to a whole lot of really poor, inefficiently priced choices and a few select wombo-combos that shaped the faction, at least amongst more competitive players.
That said I don't think anyone was too worried about 54pt + gear warriors as that's a lot of points for artillery fodder. Now sneaking a handful of hidden rending mutants into big, fast moving chaff squads on the other hand...
I love the crazy options, its making the whole battle bible thing just more fun to do. But speaking of which, after the next update I post, probably on friday/saturday this week, I'll take a bit of a break because its been eating a lot of time that I would have been using for other projects, let things simmer for a bit, and update it more slowly, since I think the next update I have for the battle bible will pretty much get most of the nessisary stuff done and included.
This isn't related to rules, but I have to say that I have a fair amount of the old boxes kicking around - you know, the 2nd ed jetbikes and various plastic kits.
They are so useful! The perfect size for so many things. You can roll dice in them, flock figures with them. Recently I was doing a bunch of ebay auctions and one of the things I was selling was perfect for one of those boxes but I couldn't part with it. I knew I'd miss it.
The funny thing is that a bunch of them are from kits I never bought, they just sort of washed their way into my collection through fellow gamer, ex-housemates, etc. I'm trying to think of any other 30-year-old packaging that remains so useful.
I still have one of the boxes from the very first Warhammer I got given at Christmas 25 years ago - two Knights of the Realm - which serves as one of my bits boxes. It's quite a sentimental piece, actually.
Yeah I've still got a few of those 2nd ed boxes around, too. Most of them filled with bits/mini collections unrelated to the actual box. I have a 2nd ed Marine Bike squad unbuilt in its box though. That might be the only one holding its actual product.
I have a bunch from 3rd ed era too, as well as the 3rd ed starter box. It's not in very good shape though.
It didn't fare as well against horde-style armies, but since 67%-75% of the people at an event were playing Marines/Chaos Marines every edition, I didn't really care. All the models on foot made them easier to hide with what little terrain there usually was and made losing the first turn less devastating. Suddenly Razorbacks are dumping lascannons into 
with you anymore. it is a nice feeling. 
j
