It seems that 2nd ed has the most staying power of every edition ever: why?
Tell me about it.
Feel free to post army lists and pics of armies etc.

Thanks
Austin

It was a much sillier time in the game, though not so much as RT was. It was also much more heavily based on being Warhammer Fantasy in Space, what with there still being Space-Dwarves with their enmity with Space-Elves and all.

The GrimDark was also a bit more slapstick, but the game was designed around fairly low-model-count armies, more a skirmish game than anything, and the Codex power-creep and such hadn't taken quite a hold... of course, there were fewer armies to choose from, and what are now Codices/Dataslates were either just a background detail (like AdMech) or were just units part of other armies, or simply didn't appear at all.

2nd edition was special for a bunch of reasons. The story was getting refined from the crazy silliness of RT and then you had the first Codex releases. RT and 2nd edition in my eyes were the wild west in terms of what you could field in an army. My Orks had heavy plasma guns, webbers, stub guns, chainswords, power weapons, hand flamers and many more choices. You could just about field anything that was in your imagination.

I am currently trying to locate some of my old hand written 2nd ed Ork lists, but so far no luck. My list was huge for the time, almost 60 orks. That was a green tide back then. The only vehicles I normally ran were buggies and a dread. (Dreads were crazy good back then also)

Then of course there was the vortex grenade. 1 1/2 inch blast area, if the model is hit it dies no exception. Then it could start to wonder around the table randomly.

If I can find my lists I will share them.

2nd ed:



I could go on but you can check here more if you wish:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-20983-43407_Flashback%20Friday.html

 Ratius wrote:
2nd ed:

Spoiler:

I could go on but you can check here more if you wish:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-20983-43407_Flashback%20Friday.html

Sexy 'nids!
Everything is awesome... but those nids!

It was a great game at the time, and the diversity of combat was well reflected. Every gun had different to hit modifiers for long and short range, reduced armour saves and some did variable damage. In combat attacks could be parried, and combatants could fumble. The mono d6 hadn't yet taken hold, and everything from d3 to d12 (can't recall anything using a d20) was in use (mainly for armour pen). That all sounds great, but the reality was constant checking of weapon stats, combat phases that took an hour, dozens of vehicle/psychic/wargear cards to keep on top of, and games regularly got abandoned rather than finished. That said, the game had soul, which is something I feel it's lost.

 Psienesis wrote:

The GrimDark was also a bit more slapstick, but the game was designed around fairly low-model-count armies, more a skirmish game than anything, and the Codex power-creep and such hadn't taken quite a hold... of course, there were fewer armies to choose from, and what are now Codices/Dataslates were either just a background detail (like AdMech) or were just units part of other armies, or simply didn't appear at all.

You must have played a different game than I did. Codex Creep was very evident in 2nd edition. The first codex, Space Wolves, was considered extremely powerful with all the terminators it could throw out (back when termies were good), but then things calmed down for a bit. The later part of codex releases started to really ramp up the power creep though. I seem to recall Chaos, Tyranids, and IG being extremely powerful in 2nd edition. As for small model count, that depended solely on the meta in your area (back then, nobody knew what a "meta" was....simpler times). My area loved to play 2000-2500 point games, which had roughly the same model count as a 1250-1500 point game today. It was rare that we played a true skirmish style game of 40K.

Things I miss from 2nd Edition:

-The Outlandish Weapons - especially for Orks. I LOVED 2nd Edition Ork armies, so fun, so random. Shokk Attack, Hop Splat, Pulsa Rokkits, such fond memories of my apprehension and the terrified look on my opponents' faces as I rolled to see what effect the weapon would have!
-Special Issue Wargear - usable by ANY army! Sure, some of it was crippling (Virus grenades against Orks or IG, ugh), but the fact that any army could have them was really nice.
-Vehicle Durability - in 2nd edition, vehicles were rather durable, even the smaller types.
-Dreadnaughts - dreads were king in 2nd edition, and everybody that could fielded them.
-The Novelty - just about everything was new back then, and seeing the Tyranids, Chaos, and IG begin their evolution was cool.
-White Dwarf - this was the true Golden Age for White Dwarf. It was always loaded with rules, painting and modeling tips, and fluff, gobs and gobs of fluff. And it was all new, not rehashed a thousand times!


Things I hated about 2nd Edition"

-Overwatch - ugh, it killed the game and made it drag on forever.
-Overall speed - 2nd edition played like a skirmish game, with model-level movement, shooting, and assault rules, and vehicle specific rules, but if you played it with larger points, be prepared to spend 8+ hours on the game
-Psychic Powers - talk about clunky mechanics. Power cards that you used to power the spells, some of which acted like a spell themselves.
-Assault Rules - the rules for close combat in general were a hot mess, which is why nobody ever assaulted unless it was hero vs hero
-Cards, Cards, and More Cards - everything had a card back then, every vehicle, every wargear, every mission, every psychic power (cards for the power, deck of cards to USE the power). You ended up taking up half the table just to lay out all the cards you had to have.

Armies looked like this, but smaller. Here's my retro-style Ultramarines:






Although I only painted that army in the last two years or so.

The old round turret Pred. Iconic in the extreme.

2nd Ed was my fav. The shooting, saves, everything seemed to work more naturally.

 JamesY wrote:
It was a great game at the time, and the diversity of combat was well reflected. Every gun had different to hit modifiers for long and short range, reduced armour saves and some did variable damage. In combat attacks could be parried, and combatants could fumble. The mono d6 hadn't yet taken hold, and everything from d3 to d12 (can't recall anything using a d20) was in use (mainly for armour pen). That all sounds great, but the reality was constant checking of weapon stats, combat phases that took an hour, dozens of vehicle/psychic/wargear cards to keep on top of, and games regularly got abandoned rather than finished. That said, the game had soul, which is something I feel it's lost.

There were plenty of D20 rolls. It was a staple for S8+ melee attacks against vehicles for example.

Eg. Powerfist was 8+D20+D6 against vehicles.

Loved 2nd. Faaar cheaper game. My chaos list was:
2 vet squads with 2 missile launchers in one, 2 autocannon in the other.
5 Khorne Terminators with post heresy armor with twin lightning claws giving them a 2+ save on 2d6.
Nurgle Sorceror lord, lv 4 with terminator armor, a daemon sword, displacer field, and I think Combat drugs.
Thats 1500 points if I remember right. The lord was 365 points alone.

The rules were so much more fun. If you knew your army well enough, looking up stats was as easy then as it was today. A game was typically one hour per 1k points. Orks were the most fun army in the game. Shokk attack guns had a whole page of charts and tables to reflect the random effects it could have on different kinds of targets.

 JamesY wrote:
It was a great game at the time, and the diversity of combat was well reflected. Every gun had different to hit modifiers for long and short range, reduced armour saves and some did variable damage. In combat attacks could be parried, and combatants could fumble. The mono d6 hadn't yet taken hold, and everything from d3 to d12 (can't recall anything using a d20) was in use (mainly for armour pen). That all sounds great, but the reality was constant checking of weapon stats, combat phases that took an hour, dozens of vehicle/psychic/wargear cards to keep on top of, and games regularly got abandoned rather than finished. That said, the game had soul, which is something I feel it's lost.

Some armour penetrations required a D20 as did some wound rolls:

Meltabomb and Powerfist: D6+D20+8
Or chainfist: D20+D4+D6+10

I just got into 40k about a year ago with Tau. Those minis are so ugly. They look like toys lol. I think some people have too much nostalgia goggles.

2nd ed had too many problems for me to call it enjoyable. The codex balance was 7th-ed-esque, for starters. The only thing that kept me in the game was the sanity of 3rd.

I loved 2nd edition because Chaos felt like playing Chaos. Their combi bolters felt different than the loyalists, the termies didn't have teleporters because they had rebelled before teleporters were invented. Zerkers were tough dudes in CC.
SOB, my favorite army came out.
It was a funner though more poorly designed game than its predecessors. (Up to 5th)
I was really excited about 6th because it felt like a return to 2nd.....noble intent but poor failure.

I love the 2nd edition ruleset despite some of its flaws (as posted by others).

If you want to experience the 2nd Edition rules in its best adaptation I cannot recommend enough 2nd Edition's spin-off side game, Necromunda.

I do eventually plan to return to 2nd Edition 40k. I think playing the game with no Dark Millennium, no codexes (using the black codex instead), limiting wargear options massively and using modern/3rd Edition+ victory conditions and scenarios could make a great skirmish game.

 Redbad wrote:
It seems that 2nd ed has the most staying power of every edition ever: why?

Short answer: Because 2nd Edition was actually a different game. Everything since 3rd Edition has largely just been revisions to the same basic game.

 Gamgee wrote:
I just got into 40k about a year ago with Tau. Those minis are so ugly. They look like toys lol. I think some people have too much nostalgia goggles.

Ehhh it's all a matter of opinion

I love those minis and rules, because I respect where my favorite gaming universe came from. I have both 2nd edition, and a signed copy of Rogue Trader.

Necromunda is absolutely awesome, too.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 Redbad wrote:
It seems that 2nd ed has the most staying power of every edition ever: why?

Short answer: Because 2nd Edition was actually a different game. Everything since 3rd Edition has largely just been revisions to the same basic game.

2nd was a revision of RT, but 3rd was, as you say, a very discrete break. And has been revised since. I think any modern player would be able to shift gears and play 3rd with little to no problem, but once you go back to 2nd/RT it’s vastly different. I’d say completely different, but a lot of the core mechanics are similar. S vs. T, etc.

2nd was baroquely complicated. Everything had special rules, or odd dice, of finicky mechanics. Overly complicated, but very detailed. You could have a whole squad toss frag grenades, and roll scatter and resolve a whole lot of blast markers. It was a lot more “realistic” that way. But this all came at the cost of time to play. 3rd pared all the complexity away. And while I mourned the loss of detail, I loved the speed of play. It was a different game, but not necessarily any better or worse. But 3rd did cement the shift from a RPG/Skirmish game to a full wargame, where armies clashed.

 Gamgee wrote:
I just got into 40k about a year ago with Tau. Those minis are so ugly. They look like toys lol. I think some people have too much nostalgia goggles.

Back in your box, noob.

It's an incredibly high quality model even if you don't like what it's depicting. I find it ridiculous but well made.

-Edited by insaniak. Please see Dakka's Rule #1

 Gamgee wrote:
It's an incredibly high quality model even if you don't like what it's depicting. I find it ridiculous but well made.

Besides, this whole "quality" thing gets thrown around a lot, and the 2nd Ed plastic kits went together just fine, so I can only assume you mean the relentless greeble that the modern kits are plastered in, which isn't so much an indicator of quality as an indicator of lack of restraint.

But a year in you're probably at a stage where more is still more for you, and haven't quite developed the appreciation of a large blank space on a model appearing where there should be a large blank space. Or that no amount of "quality" can offset a really dumb concept.

Yes, judge models made 20+ years ago to current models....that's fair.

It was Glorious. I loved 2nd and was out of 40k for several years when the 3rd ed. reboot happened. Sooooo blandtastic.

4th was probably my favorite but 2nd is a close.....second.

Az, everyone knows Skulls=Quality.

My understanding of 2nd (which I've never played):

"Sweet! My pre-game bombardment killed most of your army! Oh wait... Darn! I miscalculated my vehicle's speed as I moved forward, and now I've accidentally sped off the table. Oops!"

I miss vortex grenades, and teaming chaos and genestealers,

I don't miss the arc of fire every model had though

I also miss different units having different speeds, it felt much more realistic. Like a Stealer should be faster than a regular Guardsman, or Banshees able to outrun Orks.

I concur that it probably did have too many sub rules and some wacky cards and overwatch was utterly broken as a mechanic but the vehicles rules I really liked - they felt like.....well big juicy machines of death rather than boxes to be stripped of hullpoints.

A bit of context ...

1st edition was written as a narrative skirmish wargame - closer to Necromunda or Inquisitor than what you young 'uns think of as 40k now. A couple of dozen hapless pirates with an odd mix of muskets, plasma grenades and a hovertank trying to rob a bank while being attacked by five Space Marines and an Inquisitor, for example.

Once the expansions and new miniatures started coming out, proper army lists were published and people wanted to field actual armies rather than warbands and mobs. So, the model count increased, and special rules for this, that and the other proliferated wildly (you think some armies have a lot of rules now? Have a look at the 1st edition Orks or Chaos, or any Imperial army with a robot). Even then, armies were quite small. The studio Space Marine army was as follows:
Captain Tycho
Chaplain
Librarian
Medic
10-man Tactical squad
10-man Devastator Squad
5-man Terminator squad
Techmarine
Rhino
Dreadnought
Land Speeder (technically a Tornado, now)

That was it, and the last four items were later additions.

The rules - with all their special cases, details, exceptions and charts, worked fine for skirmishes, and OK for armies like the one I listed there, but by the early 90s, it was starting to creak under the strain of larger and larger armies (gamers keep buying more minis, after all).

So, along came 2nd edition, which stripped a lot of that out. No "reserve movement" pahse, now models could run at double rate and not shoot, instead. No random charts (!) for choosing your characters' equipment, and the wargear lists were dramatically reduced. Pretty much all the weapons present in 1st edition were in 2nd, but most armies had access to a limited subset of those. For example, Space Marines could use missile launchers, lascannon, heavy bolters, heavy plasma guns and multi-meltas, but no autocannon, multilasers, conversion beamers or heavy stubbers (in fact, the latter two were featured in the Wargear book, but I don't remember any armies which could actually field one).

Even there, though, armies were small compared to now; a Marine army would be perhaps three squads, plus characters and support elements (a tank, perhaps two if you were really flash, a Terminator squad, a Dreadnought, etc). Even Imperial Guard armies were smaller; fielding a Leman Russ tank and a Chimera was perhaps going overboard with vehicles. So, the detail that remained usually didn't slow things down. With two exceptions: vehicles and persistent area effects.

Vehicles had a "datafax"; an A5 card with the stats on one side and the damage tables on the other. Somewhat similar to the 3rd-7th edition stats, but with more detail - Slow, Combat and Fast speeds were different for each vehicle, and each damage location (usually Tracks, Hull, Turret, Weapon and Crew if appropriate) had their own armour values. Damage results ranged from restricting a vehicle to Slow speed, or killing the driver and moving out of control, to damaging an individual weapon, or exploding catastrophically. The thing is, even bikes were "vehicles" - so if you had a squad of five models on bikes, by turn three or so, you had one guy running to keep up on foot because his bike was shot from under him, one that couldn't shoot, one that couldn't move at Combat or Fast speed, and one that was moving randomly each turn. It was enough to dissuade people from fielding bikes.

Then the template weapons: grenades were ordinary weapons; every model in a squad could throw them. That means that a squad of Marines could throw ten frag grenades, each with a 2" radius. Excellent! except that you'd need to roll scatter for three or four of those. Then, take things like smoke, blind or plasma grenades (all pretty common); not only do they do that, but the templates stay on the table, and each turn you need to roll to see if they dissipate, shrink, grow or move around. Fun if it's that one vortex grenade, not so much fun if it's ten blind grenades (and personally, I didn't have ten templates of every size, so we couldn't just leave them in position).

Basically, 2nd edition 40k had you playing as the commander of a reinforced platoon, where the important element is the individual. 3rd and subsequent editions have you playing as the commander of a company where the important element is the squad (although they've not managed to shake off some of the individual-centred parts, hence still having to worry about would allocation and exactly where the guy with the lascannon is standing).

Did anyoneever pay the points to actually use Anti-plant missiles? Instead of shooting a missile that caused damage, you fired a missile that destroyed forest terrain. Kind of like fast acting agent orange.

I remember my chaos army one time facing off against a nid army. I forget which order the phases were in but my sorcerer cast Plague Wind and literally a third of his army turned into Plague bearers and killed a significant portion of others as I ran out of plague bearer models to sub in. In the shooting phase, first shot of the game was a Joe marine with an autocannon, hit the hive tyrant who failed his armor save(s) and caused enough wounds to kill him. You rolled armor for the shots if I remember right and then rolled for the amount of wounds if it was a multi-wound weapon. Opponent conceded.

Games were not slow unless you didn't know what you were doing, 1 hour per 1k points was the norm. And you have to admit, armor save modifiers were a light year's better system than the AP crap we have now.

True line of sight- Since models were individuals within squads, if the whole squad shot at A except for Bob who couldn't see A because of a physical tree, but he could see B, Bob could fire at B instead.

The main thing I remember from 2nd edition was that it often devolved down to which ubercharacter got into close combat first. A lot of the troops choices were merely window dressing. I was about 13 at the time though, so our tactics may well have been somewhat, well, crap

No, you're sort of right Flinty. characters in general were hth combat beasts, even shooty ones like Maugan Ra could demolish whole units in combat.
Added to that Chaos had the ability to custom build Lords with wargear that make todays Abaddon look like a chump.
Im talking ws9, t6, up to 10 attacks, 4++ saves etc .
I found once the dust had settled 2nd ed did definielty have a herohammer feel to it.
Coupled with the crazy that was overwatch a lot of battles did come down to heroes clashing midfield whilst everything else overwatched or simply got chewed up as cannon fodder in combat (remember every model after the first got +1WS attack bonus, so if you let those 5 bloodclaws die and then send in Ragnar he'd be base Ws +5!).
I saw Grot units fight the Avatar in hth and have a chance

 Ratius wrote:
No, you're sort of right Flinty. characters in general were hth combat beasts, even shooty ones like Maugan Ra could demolish whole units in combat.

Characters were often very good in close combat, and could wipe out an entire unit. It would just take most of the game to do it. Last game I had a tooled-up Chaplain charged one of my Guard squads. He killed the Guardsman he attacked, obviously, and used his follow up move to engage another Guardsman. The rest of the squad pretty much ignored him and continued shooting at something else. After he had killed 4 Guardsmen, the remaining 6 just ran off :-)

The balancing factor of badass characters was shooting. Any chump with a lascannon had a good chance of doing 2D6 wounds to a character which mostly had 2-4 wounds.

Yeah but those single beatsticks were easy to hide, were usually packing 4++ or 3++ saves (displacer anyone?), some had termy armor which could actually save the lascannon hit, could be made harder to actually hit via -1 range modifers, -2 in hard cover etc and usually had access to fast moving wargear (jump packs, gate psychic power, wings, teleporters etc).

Sure you could snipe one with a lascannon but it was darn hard work :(

In 2nd ed, you had to shoot the closest unit/model, which made it very easy to use god-mode characters.

The whole rule set was terrible, and the balance was likewise terrible.

Martel732 wrote:
The whole rule set was terrible, and the balance was likewise terrible.

I'll agree with you on the second count, but the *whole* rule set wasn't terrible. There were just a few flaws that needed fixing and it could have been a pretty good game, compared to 7th which would need an entire rewrite to be half decent.

2nd edition's biggest flaws, IMO, were the close combat phase and the general poor balance of the codices. But I think the core rules had more potential than any edition since.

It would be, perhaps, better to think of RT/2nd Ed as a "competitive role-playing game", which is what this BS about "forging the narrative" is supposed to be about, rather than a table-top wargame.

 Brother SRM wrote:
Armies looked like this, but smaller. Here's my retro-style Ultramarines:






Although I only painted that army in the last two years or so.

i actually own the OG whirlwind turret and grafted it onto a modern razorback so damn sexy is that missle launcher

In 2nd ed, you had to shoot the closest unit/model, which made it very easy to use god-mode characters.

Yes that was a definite flaw. Infact individual characters as per the rules couldnt be targetted unless they were the closest. Bizzare when you have Kharn bearing down on you but a useless group of cultists just in front of him

When shooting Nids iirc, there was a special rule where if you took a LD test you could fire on their bigger creatures irrespective. Something like that would have helped a lot in general.

 Ratius wrote:
I also miss different units having different speeds, it felt much more realistic. Like a Stealer should be faster than a regular Guardsman, or Banshees able to outrun Orks.

I concur that it probably did have too many sub rules and some wacky cards and overwatch was utterly broken as a mechanic but the vehicles rules I really liked - they felt like.....well big juicy machines of death rather than boxes to be stripped of hullpoints.

overwatch still is a broken mechanic its this thing you do automatically as a player rather than something that you should choose to do. if i were in charge of rules writing i would make it clear that if any models overwatched not only could they not voerwatch again in the same phase but that they forfeited their ability to attack back with pistols having the effect of allowing attacks back at ws1. now you need to decide if trading away your pistols for combi weapons is a good idea on your units rather than a mechanical auto buy, and if your whiff your overwatch your dead and you know it. now the mechanic is a choice and a gamble you make as opposed to a thing you jsut automatically do (for most armies, with the exception of the tau because screw actually playing the game your opponent is playing right?). it forces you to consider a number of factors rather than just sit there and go okay well here comes my automatic response.

overwatch is far to reflexsive when it should be mechanical. in a world where overwatch is mechanical this army race for fancier and more quantative death cannons isnt so bad, because if going back to tau here for a second, if their ion death rays of greater good justice death fail them their army is probably going to be in for a nightmare of a following turn

I've read enough to be interested in trying a game.
Anybody in my area (NW ohio) who still has these rules (and minis)?

Let me know thanks
Austin

 Ratius wrote:

In 2nd ed, you had to shoot the closest unit/model, which made it very easy to use god-mode characters.

Yes that was a definite flaw. Infact individual characters as per the rules couldnt be targetted unless they were the closest. Bizzare when you have Kharn bearing down on you but a useless group of cultists just in front of him

When shooting Nids iirc, there was a special rule where if you took a LD test you could fire on their bigger creatures irrespective. Something like that would have helped a lot in general.

This problem existed in 3rd and 4th as well, IC's could only be targeted if they were the closest model. Made for some absurdly abuseable shennanigans even in those later editions (looking at you Jetbike Farseers....)

 Ratius wrote:

In 2nd ed, you had to shoot the closest unit/model, which made it very easy to use god-mode characters.

Yes that was a definite flaw. Infact individual characters as per the rules couldnt be targetted unless they were the closest. Bizzare when you have Kharn bearing down on you but a useless group of cultists just in front of him
.

Although 'The Assassins' mission set killing the enemy commander as your mission objective... and you were allowed to ignore the closest target in favour of shooting at a mission objective instead.

I remember my very first game against Abaddon when the Chaos Codex was released... My opponent had Abaddon in the middle of a squad of Berzerker Terminators. Turn one - Lascannon to Abaddon's head. Bye bye...


But yeah, in the general course of things, characters were just nasty.

I started in 2nd edition, it was awesome.

Everyone talks about how to make Terminators good these days, well in 2nd they were.

3+ save on 2D6 (and weapons modified armor) but worst case you were looking at a 7+ even against las and melta. Nothing outright ignored armor.

Oh also they hit on a 1+ (WS5 and a targeter stock) so even with modified to hit you were looking at 2's. Not to mention storm bolters could get up to 4 shots a turn. Powerfists were amazing as well.

All the close combat weapons were good and had stats and such, like, beyond a chainsword (S4 -1 save, melee, parry) but even a knife or a club were different weapons.

People will grumble about close combat taking a long time, but damnit it was so much more epic than today.

It worked like this: roll dice = to your attack profile, add +1 for 2 CCW and 1 for charging. Add the highest roll to your weapon skill. Opponent does likewise and you compare scores, the higher score gets the difference in hits against their enemy. Initiative is only counted for a tie. You add +1 to your score for every 6 you roll after the first, and -1 for every 1 you roll. If you have a weapon with the parry rule (every sword has this rule) then you can force your opponent to re-roll 1 of their dice (unless they also have a weapon with parry).

Sufficed to say, someone with high WS was a badass in CC.

9+ vs lascannons, they had a -6 modifier :

 More Dakka wrote:
Nothing outright ignored armor.

Well, except for Vortex or Stasis grenades. Or Pulsa Rokkits. Or the Shock Attack Gun.

 More Dakka wrote:
I started in 2nd edition, it was awesome.

Everyone talks about how to make Terminators good these days, well in 2nd they were.

3+ save on 2D6 (and weapons modified armor) but worst case you were looking at a 7+ even against las and melta. Nothing outright ignored armor.

Oh also they hit on a 1+ (WS5 and a targeter stock) so even with modified to hit you were looking at 2's. Not to mention storm bolters could get up to 4 shots a turn. Powerfists were amazing as well.

All the close combat weapons were good and had stats and such, like, beyond a chainsword (S4 -1 save, melee, parry) but even a knife or a club were different weapons.

People will grumble about close combat taking a long time, but damnit it was so much more epic than today.

It worked like this: roll dice = to your attack profile, add +1 for 2 CCW and 1 for charging. Add the highest roll to your weapon skill. Opponent does likewise and you compare scores, the higher score gets the difference in hits against their enemy. Initiative is only counted for a tie. You add +1 to your score for every 6 you roll after the first, and -1 for every 1 you roll. If you have a weapon with the parry rule (every sword has this rule) then you can force your opponent to re-roll 1 of their dice (unless they also have a weapon with parry).

Sufficed to say, someone with high WS was a badass in CC.

But terminators were still bad in 2nd, unless they were Chaos. So 2D6 3+ still was not a good mechanism. Armor save modifiers made them die like slime.

For those of us who played against Pulsa Rokkit spam, 150 hormagaunts, Eldar insta-death circus, and CSM table-you-the-first-turn Noise marines, 2nd ed was a hellscape.

Pulsa rocket spam was bonkers tbh.

Martel732 wrote:


But terminators were still bad in 2nd, unless they were Chaos. So 2D6 3+ still was not a good mechanism. Armor save modifiers made them die like slime.

Hrm, Even with a -3 modifier (like on an Autocannon) they were saving as often as they were now. Against a Bolter or a Shuriken weapon, they were definitely more survivable than they are now. Given how many weapons also had different modifiers from what their AP values ended up being, stuff like Plasma Guns and Multi-metlas were much less dangerous to Terminators back then they are today. And that's not even taking to-hit modifiers into account.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Martel732 wrote:


But terminators were still bad in 2nd, unless they were Chaos. So 2D6 3+ still was not a good mechanism. Armor save modifiers made them die like slime.

Hrm, Even with a -3 modifier (like on an Autocannon) they were saving as often as they were now. Against a Bolter or a Shuriken weapon, they were definitely more survivable than they are now. Given how many weapons also had different modifiers from what their AP values ended up being, stuff like Plasma Guns and Multi-metlas were much less dangerous to Terminators back then they are today. And that's not even taking to-hit modifiers into account.

That may be true, but their armaments sucked terribly for the loyalists. Their weapons all rolled the jam dice! Terrible. And don't forget krak missiles used to be -6 armor save, and so dark reapers and devastators would light these guys up. Chaos terminators with reaper autocannon and blast masters, on the other hand, ruled.

Lol, krak missiles have sucked now for what, 18 years?

Terminators weren't the only unit to suffer potential jams however, Shuriken Catapults could do so to as could many other weapons.

Sure, Krak Missiles had a -6 modifier, but we're talking dedicated heavy weapons units doing the dedicated heavy weapons thing, as opposed to every unit having multiple weapons that could mostly ignore a Terminator's save.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Terminators weren't the only unit to suffer potential jams however, Shuriken Catapults could do so to as could many other weapons.

Sure, Krak Missiles had a -6 modifier, but we're talking dedicated heavy weapons units doing the dedicated heavy weapons thing, as opposed to every unit having multiple weapons that could mostly ignore a Terminator's save.

But terminators were so costly and so little dakka that they were still awful. And genestealers absolutely raped them in HTH. Heck, even hormagaunts could tie them up FOREVER.

The whole attacks in D6 + WS thing was stupid, because it made WS a godly stat. Now the current WS chart is also stupid, but I'll take the scenario where I can at least punch back.

I miss 10 wound carnifexes that could regenerate wounds faster than you could deal them. And genestealers.. oh my yes. They were what the are actually supposed to be. Now i'm sad.

2nd ed was miserable because Astartes were embarassingly bad. They were basically the worst list in the game. I guess unless your opponent had a virus grenade. Then IG was the worst.

 More Dakka wrote:

Oh also they hit on a 1+ (WS5 and a targeter stock) so even with modified to hit you were looking at 2's. Not to mention storm bolters could get up to 4 shots a turn.

Nothing hit on a 1+ ever. 1 was always a miss no matter your BS or WS.

Also, storm bolters had 1 die of sustained fire. So either you could say they had up to 3 hits per turn one 1 shot, or 6 hits per turn on 2 shots (for certain colors of marine). 4 never enters into that discussion.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 More Dakka wrote:

Oh also they hit on a 1+ (WS5 and a targeter stock) so even with modified to hit you were looking at 2's. Not to mention storm bolters could get up to 4 shots a turn.

Nothing hit on a 1+ ever. 1 was always a miss no matter your BS or WS.

Also, storm bolters had 1 die of sustained fire. So either you could say they had up to 3 hits per turn one 1 shot, or 6 hits per turn on 2 shots (for certain colors of marine). 4 never enters into that discussion.

Some people played 2nd ed that the sustained fire die was above and beyond the initial hit of the gun. 3+1=4.

I used to run DA back in 2nd ed...halcyon years!
Of course they got continually destroyed by my mates super cheesy OP space wolves...I distinctly remember squads of 5 SW termies with assault cannons, cyclone missile launchers and power fists...on each model! They put out the hurt.

We ended up banning vortex grenades...I used to run a tooled up captain with a jump pack displacer field and vortex grenade (as did my ultramarine mate) and it always devolved into a race to jump in and vortex each other, was funny but boring. We also nerfed psychic powers iirc I think we thought they were too op, or maybe it was just Njarl Stormcaller constantly trolling us.

I really did like the terminator armour's mechanic back then...The initial concept for their design was to protect peeps working inside/near plasma reactors ffs, now a plasma gun just wrecks them.

Martel732 wrote:

Some people played 2nd ed that the sustained fire die was above and beyond the initial hit of the gun. 3+1=4.

Then they were playing it wrong...

 mekugi wrote:
We ended up banning vortex grenades...I used to run a tooled up captain with a jump pack displacer field and vortex grenade (as did my ultramarine mate) and it always devolved into a race to jump in and vortex each other, was funny but boring.

The group I was playing with didn't bother banning them... their use sort of dried up on its own when people started taking Vortex Detonators.

We also nerfed psychic powers iirc I think we thought they were too op, or maybe it was just Njarl Stormcaller constantly trolling us.

It was fairly common towards the end of 2nd edition to just drop the psychic phase entirely.

Personally, I loved the psychics in 2nd edition, other than the random draw for powers.

 insaniak wrote:

Personally, I loved the psychics in 2nd edition, other than the random draw for powers.

And the warp charge deck, too, for actually casting your powers.

Yeah, 2nd Edition has some crazy things. You could have more than one save, as long as they were different types of saves, so one character could potentially have: armor save, dodge save, field save, and psychic save.

I miss the strategy cards. In one game I drew the one that lets you give a random wargear card to a character, so I had an Inquisitor with Ork telescopic legs (extra 2" movement, woot).

RT was random RPG skirmish wargame. (wargear was random )

They got rid of that in 2nd edition, psychic powers were strong in 2nd edition, Character were overpowered in 2nd edition. Heavy weapons could be devastating. I hated shuriken catapults -2 save 24" range and sustained fire if i remember correctly.

Assault cannons could explode! lots of wacky grenades.
Bloodthirster and terminator had 3+ on a 2d6 save (although a lascannon had -9 save modifier) Khorne berzerkers were useful.

Space wolfs were the beardy space marine chapter! (and yes eldar were very powerful also).

There were still squats! No Tau and Necron were plastic miniatures in the Space crusade board game.

Oh and smoke grenade spam was a thing.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
so one character could potentially have: armor save, dodge save, field save, and psychic save.

Prior to the FAQ that limited you to one of each type, you could actually have a character with multiple field saves... There were quite a few Farseers running around with a 4+ field save from their Rune armour and a Displacer or Power Field.

I miss the strategy cards. In one game I drew the one that lets you give a random wargear card to a character, so I had an Inquisitor with Ork telescopic legs (extra 2" movement, woot).

Special Issue. Yeah, that was a lot of fun when you drew something oddball.


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 Jehan-reznor wrote:
...and Necron were plastic miniatures in the Space crusade board game..

Those weren't Necrons. They were Chaos Androids.

Necrons came much later.

2nd ed made me swear off 40K, namely because of Chaos cheese (my smurfs getting turned into pink horrors and facing off against a chaos lord on a juggernaut)

 Stormonu wrote:
2nd ed made me swear off 40K, namely because of Chaos cheese (my smurfs getting turned into pink horrors and facing off against a chaos lord on a juggernaut)

Man, the Chaos books of that era were the best things ever. I used that gak in every RPG I was playing in those days. Still do, to some extent, in fact.

Characters weren't that overpowered, if you managed to tie them up in melee properly. Marines had trouble, but Guard, Tyranids and Orks all had numbers to slow them down. And every model after the first in a many-vs-1 combat got +1 A and +1 WS; Get jumped by a mob of Gretchin and the sixth guy is on WS 7 and 7 Attacks. Granted they might not do him any damage, but they'll likely win the combat or at least force a draw.

You needed to be in base contact too, so no killing a whole unit because they're nearby.

I once tied up Abaddon for a whole game because he charged one Guardsman at the end of a line; killed him, followed up, next turn, repeat. Lost the squad, but who cares?

If I want to put an Inquisitor and five henchmen up against a dozen Chaos cultists, I'll play Rogue Trader. If I want to put thirty Guardsmen and a Leman Russ up against twenty Chaos Marines and a Dreadnought, I'll play 2nd edition. If I want to put seventy Guardsmen, a couple of Vendettas and a squadron of tanks up against fifty Chaos Marines, thirty Cultists, a couple of Heldrakes and a Greater Daemon, I'll play 7th edition. They all have their place.

And if I want to put a company of Baneblades, two companies of Guardsmen, a platoon of Rough Riders, a squadron of Manticores and a Warlord Titan up against a company of Chaos Space Marines, a squadron of Land Raiders, a horde of Cultists, daemons and a pair of Chaos Warhounds, I'll play Epic Armageddon.

Combat didn't take long. Remember, you were using a quarter of the models you are using today. My current chaos army has something like 50 models in it. In 2nd it had 15 and only 6 of them were close combat guys. I like the idea better that the superior fighter gets to be the one who hits as opposed as initiative step.

Armor mods are a far better system and I preferred the detailed combat system. Admittingly the combat system wont work for the wargame that 40k has turned into but the armor save modifier would.

Just have to remember, 2nd edition was a large skirmish game. 3rd turned it into a wargame.

I remember how people were crying OP at the new Blood Angels Mortis Dreadnought which had 2 twinlinked Assault Cannons, which were easily the most evil weapon in the game. It was what, strength 6 with a -6 armor save and did d3 or d6 wounds each hit?

Assault Cannon was:Str 8 D10 damage -3 modifier up to 3 Sustained Fire dice (potentially 9 shots). It did 8 + D10 + D6 armor penetration.

 ClassicCarraway wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

The GrimDark was also a bit more slapstick, but the game was designed around fairly low-model-count armies, more a skirmish game than anything, and the Codex power-creep and such hadn't taken quite a hold... of course, there were fewer armies to choose from, and what are now Codices/Dataslates were either just a background detail (like AdMech) or were just units part of other armies, or simply didn't appear at all.

You must have played a different game than I did. Codex Creep was very evident in 2nd edition. The first codex, Space Wolves, was considered extremely powerful with all the terminators it could throw out (back when termies were good), but then things calmed down for a bit. The later part of codex releases started to really ramp up the power creep though. I seem to recall Chaos, Tyranids, and IG being extremely powerful in 2nd edition. As for small model count, that depended solely on the meta in your area (back then, nobody knew what a "meta" was....simpler times). My area loved to play 2000-2500 point games, which had roughly the same model count as a 1250-1500 point game today. It was rare that we played a true skirmish style game of 40K.

As someone who played in GTs in those days, I really don't agree with this.

SW (the first codex) were easily top of the heap in power armor, grossly outclassing the later UM and Angels of Death codicies. Eldar, also an early codex (second?), was easily the best in the game and one of the most broken things GW's ever produced. Chaos was good...not nearly Eldar good, but it was strong. But Tyranids and IG being particularly powerful? No, I really never saw that.

 obithius wrote:

 Ratius wrote:
No, you're sort of right Flinty. characters in general were hth combat beasts, even shooty ones like Maugan Ra could demolish whole units in combat.

Characters were often very good in close combat, and could wipe out an entire unit. It would just take most of the game to do it. Last game I had a tooled-up Chaplain charged one of my Guard squads. He killed the Guardsman he attacked, obviously, and used his follow up move to engage another Guardsman. The rest of the squad pretty much ignored him and continued shooting at something else. After he had killed 4 Guardsmen, the remaining 6 just ran off :-)

This was absolutely one way to deal with an uber-character...just let it kill one model per round and stick to the rest of your plan. Vortex was also an option here. It's hard to cry "cheese" when you're throwing down a 350 pt. uber Chaos Lord.Something I loved to do was throw blind grenades at them. Once they were in, they were forced to move out at half speed in a random direction. It only got funnier when you blinded that 300 pt character AGAIN and cost them another turn.

And it wasn't nearly as bad of a game as some of you suggest. Out of the box...sure, it was pretty bad. The rulebook was mostly a mess. HOWEVER, GW also patched the game to death, and after all that patching it was solid enough. GW had GTs during 2nd edition, and they went fine...games didn't devolve into endless rules arguments, etc.

I (somewhat obviously) wasn't one of those who ragequit after they rebooted the whole system with 3rd. I played and enjoyed 3rd. But with time, I've come to realize that they did throw out some good along with the bad, and it's been nice to see just a smidge of that stuff return in recent editions.

CSM were Eldar good if played properly. Blight grenades were the only mechanic we knew of that could stop the attack of 150 metal hormagaunts.

Wow, even nastier than I remember. What was funny and once again proved the lies GW kept saying, was that mortis dreadnought came out in a white dwarf and was only out for a few months before we never saw it again until recently much more toned down.

The one time I saw a mortis dreadnought, it spent most of the game trying to unjam its weapons. The Tyranids still bulldozed them.

As a dark angel player in 2nd ed I loved the mortis dread and the ravenwing landspeeder.
I've made the same point in another thread but those two vehicles had very nicely matched weapons compared to what the other variants of SM had; and exclusive for me? awesome!

Two of my favourite things in 2nd ed were sustained fire dice and overwatch - both rules made sense, but did make it more of a ranged war.

My absolute stand-out star of the edition was the vehicle damage tables - so much more scope for damage than what we have now.

Check out the batrep in white dwarf #187 for what could happen when your vehicles got damaged and started careering across the table!
HBMC did a brief review here...
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/229485.page#553603

Honourable mentions go to ezikiel's 'mind worm' power, deathwing terminators and genestealer cults!

Genestealer cult could get Pulsa Rokkits. Think about that for a second. Yeah, 2nd was so great.

I really loved the mission deck in it too actually - hold the line, dawn of war, assassinate, purge the psyker, bunker assault, tyranid attack....all fun missions and nice that each player could have asymmetric missions. Mixed things up nicely.

Not to mention the Vehicle expansion. I have a whole load of 2nd edition stuff somewhere and that is one of my favourites.

Another really cool thing about 2nd Edition:
All the old Armorcast vehicles (and the Epicast before that).

No self respecting Grunge Teenager could afford that Tann, over SoundGardens latest album.

GTFO this thread please.

 Ratius wrote:
No self respecting Grunge Teenager could afford that Tann, over SoundGardens latest album.

GTFO this thread please.

I'm going to Warhammer World in April with my 2nd ed-style Ultramarines. I'll be wearing my Mudhoney shirt, you can count on that

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Another really cool thing about 2nd Edition:
All the old Armorcast vehicles (and the Epicast before that).

The Armorcast vehicles are so goofy since they're just upscaled versions of the Epic models that aren't meant to be seen at that detail level. I love them though, my Armorcast Shadowsword is just waiting for the day I can get paint on it.

Martel732 wrote:
Genestealer cult could get Pulsa Rokkits. Think about that for a second. Yeah, 2nd was so great.

How? They could still get the mole mortar, thud gun and tarantula that had vanished from the Imperial Guard army, but pulsa rockets? Those were for Orks. Or do you mean the Genestealer Cult army could have Ork allies.

I don't remember a "mortis" dreadnought for 2nd edition. Well, the Dark Angels model had a twin las annoy and missile launcher armament, but everyone could take that. It wasn't even worthy of a special name.

Yeah, I'm a little puzzled on the Pulsa thing. Cults didn't have access to them, and their only available allies were Chaos.

Unless it was a Citadel Journal addition.


And yeah, fairly sure the Mortis didn't make an appearance until 3rd ed.

Agreed, someone has editionisia.

Nope Mortis was an end of 2nd thing. Then it went away completely like so much else they pumped out at the end just to get it off their shelves before 3rd. Then they didnt reprint the rules for much of it. Lost and the Damned if i remember was a full army with a special character and a dreadnought, as was the original necrons with their stupid commander guy, necron warriors and that silly looking vehicle they had. Necrons at least got a codex within a few years after 3rd came out.

Agreed, someone has editionisia.

I call it simply "age"

Col. Dash wrote:
Nope Mortis was an end of 2nd thing.

It really wasn't. It was introduced in one of the Imperial Armour books right up towards the end of 3rd edition.

Lost and the Damned if i remember was a full army with a special character and a dreadnought,

Lost and the Damned weren't a list until 3rd edition, with the EoT codex, although you could build them in 2nd ed using the Chaos and Guard codexes.

... as was the original necrons with their stupid commander guy, necron warriors and that silly looking vehicle they had. Necrons at least got a codex within a few years after 3rd came out.

They weren't really a full army. The initial release was just the warriors, Lord and scarabs, and then later on they received an updated list with Destroyers and Immortals added in.

The Necron codex was one of the last released in 3rd ed.

I think he meant Legion of the Damned, which was a thing in 2nd. Led by Centurius the LE special character. Not sure if they were an entire arm unto themselves, pretty sure they were just in the UM 'dex.

 Ratius wrote:
No self respecting Grunge Teenager could afford that Tann, over SoundGardens latest album.

GTFO this thread please.

Puh-leeze! If they had any self respect, they wouldn't listen to grunge.

(I was in my mid20s when grunge hit ... far from a teen - and I never liked grunge anyway.)

The ravenwing landspeeder was definetly second edition (the last year of it i think?) - i remember having a dread with TL las and the ML at the same time and being chuffed that i'd chosen the 'right' chapter, but like you say, I might be getting 'edition-isia' but i can't confirm/deny that as i don't have access to a copy of 'codex angels of death' right now.
Or my old pile of 'white dwarf'.
Only #187 left...

There was a Ravenwing Speeder (AC + HB) and the dual ballistic weapon dread (which other chapters later got) in 2nd.

 SirDonlad wrote:
i remember having a dread with TL las and the ML at the same time and being chuffed that i'd chosen the 'right' chapter,

The second ed codex had that option, sure. But that's not a Mortis. The Mortis has the same ranged weapons on each arm... And that option came later.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
I think he meant Legion of the Damned, which was a thing in 2nd. Led by Centurius the LE special character. Not sure if they were an entire arm unto themselves, pretty sure they were just in the UM 'dex.

Yeah, they had the squad in Codex Ultramarines, and Centurius added in White Dwarf, but the full army list came in 3rd ed.

Towards the end of 2nd there was full Legion of the Damned army list in one of the WD's, can't recall the issue though. It was quite interesting.

 Gertjan wrote:
Towards the end of 2nd there was full Legion of the Damned army list in one of the WD's, can't recall the issue though. It was quite interesting.

Yeah, you're right... I was picturing the models from that one, but had attributed them to the Cursed Founding list

 insaniak wrote:

 SirDonlad wrote:
i remember having a dread with TL las and the ML at the same time and being chuffed that i'd chosen the 'right' chapter,

The second ed codex had that option, sure. But that's not a Mortis. The Mortis has the same ranged weapons on each arm... And that option came later.

Actually, no it didn't. I looked at Codex: Angels of Death. All it said for dreadnoughts was that they could take any two weapons from the list. No restriction on taking the same weapon on both arms, be that pairs of lascannon or pairs of power fists. The only restriction was that they didn't make left-handed twin lascannon or right-handed power fists.

The available models were:
Blood Angels: multimelta and power fist (as an aside, the term "Furioso" came from the studio model; the name on its back banner was "Furioso")
Space Wolves: Bjorn the Fell-Handed with assault cannon and lightning claw
Ultramarines: assault cannon and power fist
Dark Angels: twin lascannon and missile launcher.

You could mix and match most of those (apart from Bjorn's lighting claw arm, as it had a big wolfskin draped over it), but anything else would be a difficult and somewhat expensive conversion.

However, "Mortis Dreadnought" was a term introduced by Forge World.

Y' know, I actually just remembered that I even had a Dreadnought back then with a heavy plasma gun on each arm... Had completely forgotten about that, as I replaced one of them with a missile launcher years ago

With all the Terminator notes earlier, I didn't see one to the Khorne Terminators who had a 2+ save on 2D6... Lasguns actually couldn't hurt them.

 Flinty wrote:
With all the Terminator notes earlier, I didn't see one to the Khorne Terminators who had a 2+ save on 2D6... Lasguns actually couldn't hurt them.

Lasguns could hurt a 2+ save on 2d6. Lasguns had a -1 save modifier (nearly every basic weapon did, which was the main problem with the save modifier system at the time, modifiers should have been reserved for special and heavy weapons).

Guardsmen in close combat wouldn't have been able to hurt them, though, as close combat modifiers started at S4, other than for special weapons.

 insaniak wrote:
Guardsmen in close combat wouldn't have been able to hurt them, though, as close combat modifiers started at S4, other than for special weapons.

True, but guardsmen in CC with Khorne terminators wouldn't likely garner any hits to begin with. Lol.

Yeah, CC was super duper lopsided in 2nd. One of the things that ruined the game for me.

 docdoom77 wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
With all the Terminator notes earlier, I didn't see one to the Khorne Terminators who had a 2+ save on 2D6... Lasguns actually couldn't hurt them.

Lasguns could hurt a 2+ save on 2d6. Lasguns had a -1 save modifier (nearly every basic weapon did, which was the main problem with the save modifier system at the time, modifiers should have been reserved for special and heavy weapons).

I think the save modifier system was vastly superior to the AP system, but yeah, modifiers were given out too liberally. Most things that were -1 should have had no modifier and most things that were -2 should have been -1.

I think that's why most people don't like the idea of modifiers, too many people remember Space Marines that were effectively 4+ save.

But I still like it way more than the AP system, the AP system is just inherently unbalanced.

Martel732 wrote:
Yeah, CC was super duper lopsided in 2nd. One of the things that ruined the game for me.

See, I actually quite liked that aspect of it. When Guard were in close combat, you knew that something had gone horribly, horribly wrong...

They could still do ok, but had to be judicious with their use of their heroes... Throw enough meat shields at the enemy to build up their (comparitively) weaker characters with multiple opponent bonuses. The grunts would all die horrible gruesome deaths so that the commissars and officers could get the glory.


And the more dedicated close combat beasts (like Bloodthirsters, and Eversor Assassins) were truly frightening, and as a result you were forced to think really hard about trying to engage them up close...

CC is still pretty lopsided, but not even being able to land a hit is just super humiliating.

I used to love the parry rules. Combat would go on for several hours...

Martel732 wrote:
CC is still pretty lopsided, but not even being able to land a hit is just super humiliating.

Sure... but in certain cases, that's exactly how it should be. Again, the system rewarded you for flooding them with bodies in that situation.

Unless you were fighting the Eversor, in which case he got bonuses for you having weight of numbers as well... That guy was just nuts.

 insaniak wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
CC is still pretty lopsided, but not even being able to land a hit is just super humiliating.

Sure... but in certain cases, that's exactly how it should be. Again, the system rewarded you for flooding them with bodies in that situation.

Unless you were fighting the Eversor, in which case he got bonuses for you having weight of numbers as well... That guy was just nuts.

Yeah. I was just on the wrong end of Tyranids way too many times to ever support that CC system.

There was a Mortis Dread in a white dwarf with assaultcannons on each arm. It was restricted to either DA or BA, I dont remember which. But Assault weapons being the god weapons of 2nd made it a horribly OP unit but it had less than a 6 month lifespan before 3rd came out like so many other things they pumped out in the last few months. I actually never saw one on the field.

 Warboss Gobslag wrote:


Then of course there was the vortex grenade. 1 1/2 inch blast area, if the model is hit it dies no exception. Then it could start to wonder around the table randomly.

Oh, how I miss vortex grenades. Would be so much fun in this era of titans and superheavies

I'm back into the hobby after a 20 year hiatus, and realized after reading this thread that despite playing until about '96, I only ever used the 1st edition rulebook. At the time, I wasn't even aware that a new rulebook had come out! Ah the days before the internet.

My ork army topped out at 3 painboyz, 2 meks (1 w/ shokk attack gun), 1 nob on a bike, 2 regular boyz, 5 boyz in 'eavy armor, 1 freeboota kaptin, a dreadnought, a trukk, and 2 ogryns. Back then, a game with an army that size typically took all night. I also inherited a small IG army (complete w/ a squat squad), some random chaos marines, some harlequins, and a Greater Demon of Slaneesh. Good times!

Vortex grenades with a jumppack Captain could take out entire armies, lol.

I wish I hadn't sold all my 2nd ed codex's and stuff. I also have very few of my 2nd ed models, other than rhinos, Laz/please Razorback, one Land Raider, some Termies (like 50, lol some), a few dreads, a few random orks, and the old terminator inquisitor and daemonhunter models.

My favourite character was a Master Librarian with terminator armour, warp jump and psycannon. Teleporting psyker assassination a specialty

How are you taking out entire armies with a vortex grenade? You only got one and yes it would kill pretty much anything you dropped it on and used right and there goes the super character, but the rest of the army would still be there. We always banned vortex grenades though. The funny part was when someone expected a vortex grenade and brought a Vortex Grenade activator(probably had a real name). You had to get I think either 6" or 12" from the carrier and the grenade went off automatically in their hands.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 docdoom77 wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
With all the Terminator notes earlier, I didn't see one to the Khorne Terminators who had a 2+ save on 2D6... Lasguns actually couldn't hurt them.

Lasguns could hurt a 2+ save on 2d6. Lasguns had a -1 save modifier (nearly every basic weapon did, which was the main problem with the save modifier system at the time, modifiers should have been reserved for special and heavy weapons).

I think the save modifier system was vastly superior to the AP system, but yeah, modifiers were given out too liberally. Most things that were -1 should have had no modifier and most things that were -2 should have been -1.

I think that's why most people don't like the idea of modifiers, too many people remember Space Marines that were effectively 4+ save.

But I still like it way more than the AP system, the AP system is just inherently unbalanced.

I agree completely. I would bring back the modifier system in a heat-beat given the chance, just at much lower values. Nearly all basic weapons would be no modifier, Heavy Anti-infantry (like heavy bolters) would be -1, anti-tank weapons in the -3/-4 range, etc.

2nd edition was all about removing models from the table.

Things died, easily and a lot.

The vehicles has "more realistic" movement with stationary + iirc 3 movement speeds which determined how many turns they could do, and there was a turn thing for wheeling vehicles, instead of pivotting about the center.

ironically psychic powers now are fairly similar, as they are randomly selected as well.

Most armies has some unit that was good at killing other things easily, this unit was often not a character.

Orks had pulsa rokkits, which if you understood math when making firing predictions meant you would probably win the game if you used them and had a lot.

Tyranids got gargoyles in the mid of 2nd edition from a WD, they used to fire a template that forced models to move, and you could force models off the table with it with no LD roll.

Warp spiders, were utterly ridiculous and would pretty much kill any non vehicle with their templates once you fired a squad of 5 of them at something, every model had to take multile I tests with penalties, failure was pretty much death regardless of wounds.

Assault cannons, rolled iirc 3 sustained fire dice, which often resulted in doing 6 hits, but sometimes 9 hits or a bunch of jams. The way shooting worked is you rolled to hit, if you hit you hit with all the dice, or none. Which was gak and made no sense....anyways with save modifiers each shot ignored armor of any model with a 3+ save.

in general save modifiers were bad, and made most models effectively have the same save after being shot by anything. The modifier system does not work with d6, maybe d20. Which is why you saw lots of terminators, and the squat exo armors. 3+ save on 2d6 means you had an unit that could survive being shot at by heavy bolters. Normal marines had a 6+ save versus heavy bolters...

Col. Dash wrote:
How are you taking out entire armies with a vortex grenade? You only got one...

Well, technically you could have two, as there were two cards. Plus the Vortex psychic power, which was the same thing in psychic form...


Because they stayed on the board and roamed around, you could potentially do a lot of unexpected damage with them... But yeah, taking out a whole army with it would take some luck.

The funny part was when someone expected a vortex grenade and brought a Vortex Grenade activator(probably had a real name).

Vortex Detonator.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Col. Dash wrote:
There was a Mortis Dread in a white dwarf with assaultcannons on each arm. It was restricted to either DA or BA, I dont remember which.

As was already pointed out, the Dark Angels dread had access to twinned ranged weapons in the codex... It just wasn't called a 'Mortis'.

Heavy Bolters and Warp Spiders were -2 hardly "pretty much death".

The thing is, there were also modifiers on the "to-hit" roll as well. It wasn't a 3+ freeforall like we have now. It was harder to hit and harder to save against. Cover was WAY more important to everybody, not just troops with gak armor. Anything in the open was DEAD. Which makes sense for the types of weapons in the game.

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
Heavy Bolters and Warp Spiders were -2 hardly "pretty much death".

The thing is, there were also modifiers on the "to-hit" roll as well. It wasn't a 3+ freeforall like we have now. It was harder to hit and harder to save against. Cover was WAY more important to everybody, not just troops with gak armor. Anything in the open was DEAD. Which makes sense for the types of weapons in the game.

Guns had their own hit modifiers built in as well, shotguns were something like +2 to hit at close range 0-6" IIRC.

Also 2nd ed. had things like muskets and crossbows, which is awesome.

Children, gather around. For I shall tell you a tale of another age. GW were full of fresh and creative young minds and some smarty. The models were toys colored brite and glossy. The figures extravagant and cartoony.

The rule books were short and filled with pictures looney. The players were nice and never rudey. Time to plau the game was shorty. Many armies where not so shooty.

Yes this was the time before Matt Wardy.

Virus grenades were the ticket early on in 2nd. I don't know how many Ork, IG, and Squat armies were almost wiped out on turn one by an Assassin dropping the disguise and popping one of those babies.
I remember an old White Dwarf battle report between Andy Chambers running Space Wolves and Jervis Johnson running Orks.
At one point, a virus grenade was tossed into the Orks, and only killed six. Anyone who played the game back then realized at that moment that the reports were rigged.

Then there was the "Grand Warlord", Adrian Wood, who could never seem to win a battle report...

I also liked the cardboard buildings that came with the beginner set. You and your opponent could pretty much populate the table with the buildings and after the game. put everything away pretty easily.
I'm going to have to pull my 2nd edition stuff down from the shelf now and get some games going with my group.

Yeah, we totally banned Virus Grenade (and the strategy card Virus Outbreak). It would either wipe out an entire army or do nothing at all, depending on whether the faction you played had sealed armor or not.

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
Yeah, we totally banned Virus Grenade (and the strategy card Virus Outbreak). It would either wipe out an entire army or do nothing at all, depending on whether the faction you played had sealed armor or not.

Same here. They actually admitted Virus Outbreak was a mistake and told everyone to rip it up in a White Dwarf article. I took great pleasure in doing just that.

I heard about that.

Are the remaining cards going for huge prices on eBay now?

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
Heavy Bolters and Warp Spiders were -2 hardly "pretty much death".

The thing is, there were also modifiers on the "to-hit" roll as well. It wasn't a 3+ freeforall like we have now. It was harder to hit and harder to save against. Cover was WAY more important to everybody, not just troops with gak armor. Anything in the open was DEAD. Which makes sense for the types of weapons in the game.

The problem with the 2nd Ed rules though was that the game devolved into a static waitathon with everyone hugging cover and on overwatch. It could get real boring real fast! I actually quite like the curernt armour save mechanic as it emcourages infantry dressed as tanks to act like tanks. The problem is that the armies with infantry dressed like tanks can have sooooo may of them then all other armies need to have anti-infantry-tank weapons in order to have half a chance and that devalues the whole shebang.

I played Orks in 2nd (now I play Guard) and it was just fun. You could give your "warlord" a variable number of Wargear cards, and "warlords" had no restrictions on what they could take. So I took my Ork Warboss "Skullkrakka" in Mega Armor, with a Jump Pack and just jumped him near whatever I wanted to die. Usually vehicles, as a power klaw was Strength 8 + D12 + D6 (if I recall correctly) so it was almost a guaranteed penetration. He got several of those attacks, too (5 (or 6 when charging) I think). Of course, he would then die to a multi-melta or lascannon or something. But it was good times.

And the Shokk Attack Gun was pretty damn fun! It fired Squigs into enemy vehicles!

ziggurattt wrote:
I played Orks in 2nd (now I play Guard) and it was just fun. You could give your "warlord" a variable number of Wargear cards, and "warlords" had no restrictions on what they could take. So I took my Ork Warboss "Skullkrakka" in Mega Armor, with a Jump Pack and just jumped him near whatever I wanted to die. Usually vehicles, as a power klaw was Strength 8 + D12 + D6 (if I recall correctly) so it was almost a guaranteed penetration. He got several of those attacks, too (5 (or 6 when charging) I think). Of course, he would then die to a multi-melta or lascannon or something. But it was good times.

And the Shokk Attack Gun was pretty damn fun! It fired Squigs into enemy vehicles!

powerfist did d6+d20+8

The Shokk Attack Gun fired Snotlings.

In my one foray into marines, it was either Blood Angels or standard marines, My Assault Squad all had Chain swords and powerfists. Chainswords for the free parry and powerfists for dealing the damage. They were a tough unit.

That was definitely the optimum standard ccw loadout.

Yeah, one of the two Space Wolf 'power builds' was an army entirely made up of jump packing Blood Claws with chainsword/powerfist.

Wasn't quite as ridiculous as the Wolf Guard 'Cyclone/Assault Cannon Terminator Army of Doom', but came close.

 docdoom77 wrote:

ziggurattt wrote:
I played Orks in 2nd (now I play Guard) and it was just fun. You could give your "warlord" a variable number of Wargear cards, and "warlords" had no restrictions on what they could take. So I took my Ork Warboss "Skullkrakka" in Mega Armor, with a Jump Pack and just jumped him near whatever I wanted to die. Usually vehicles, as a power klaw was Strength 8 + D12 + D6 (if I recall correctly) so it was almost a guaranteed penetration. He got several of those attacks, too (5 (or 6 when charging) I think). Of course, he would then die to a multi-melta or lascannon or something. But it was good times.

And the Shokk Attack Gun was pretty damn fun! It fired Squigs into enemy vehicles!

powerfist did d6+d20+8

The Shokk Attack Gun fired Snotlings.

Right, thanks!

Ffyllotek wrote:
I used to love the parry rules. Combat would go on for several hours...

I saw many an army with two swords on every CC mini.


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 CrashGordon94 wrote:
I heard about that.

Are the remaining cards going for huge prices on eBay now?

I still have mine, waiting.....

blaktoof wrote:
2nd edition was all about removing models from the table.

Things died, easily and a lot.

The vehicles has "more realistic" movement with stationary + iirc 3 movement speeds which determined how many turns they could do, and there was a turn thing for wheeling vehicles, instead of pivotting about the center.

Not that 2nd ed was any more realistic; vehicles pivoted around the inside front corner, which meant the tail swung out wildly. If anything, pivoting around the centre is better, especially for tracked vehicles.

1st edition did it "best", with the "turn radius ratio" stat, but that was a fiddly mess and was ditched early on.

They introduced a more realistic turn template in the Journal-
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There were a lot of new rules in the Citadel Journal, which would have made for a good 3rd edition!

 obithius wrote:

There were a lot of new rules in the Citadel Journal, which would have made for a good 3rd edition!

Actually that's what they were going to do if I'm not mistaken, but the higher-ups wanted a "new" game which would need double the amount of models to be played, and thus 3rd edition became what we know today.

Relapse wrote:

I still have mine, waiting.....

Don't blame you, would've done the same myself!

 Gamgee wrote:
I just got into 40k about a year ago with Tau. Those minis are so ugly. They look like toys lol. I think some people have too much nostalgia goggles.

Abaddon, Ahriman, Kharn, Eldrad, the Phoenix Lords, Azrael, Dante, Corbulo, Captain Tycho, Mephiston, Ulrik the Slayer, Ragnar Blackmane, Njal in power armour, Calgar in his Artificer armour.

What you call ugly others refer to as iconic.

These characters have been seriously influential in the directions their respective model ranges took - the design of the weapons and armour, the general pose and even any adorning bits of jewelry or trinkets. They have aged remarkably well and with the exception of some size issues (mainly in the SM models) do NOT look out of place with their modern counterparts.

You just got into 40k a year ago with tau...and you call miniatures that are in some cases probably older than you (in other words they were around before your parents...got it on as it were) and still look exceptional 'ugly'.

Get back in your box son.

And that's before I acknowledge the influence that the 2nd ed. Tyranids had on their current range (the Hive Tyrant is a glorious nod to his 2nd ed. grandpappy).

Man the Harlequins Kiss in 2nd Ed was boss
I cant remember the stats but i do know that you made a special roll to see what would happen to the crew of a tank
1. was nothing (i think)
2-3. one crewman killed (i think you got to pick, nowadays you would refer to this as Weapon Destroyed and Immobilized)
4-5. 2 Crewmen Killed (not sure if you picked)
6. All crewmen inside the tank are killed (stupidly fun on larger tanks)


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Man the Harlequins Kiss in 2nd Ed was boss
I cant remember the stats but i do know that you made a special roll to see what would happen to the crew of a tank
1. was nothing (i think)
2-3. one crewman killed (i think you got to pick, nowadays you would refer to this as Weapon Destroyed and Immobilized)
4-5. 2 Crewmen Killed (not sure if you picked)
6. All crewmen inside the tank are killed (stupidly fun on larger tanks)

Hit a Baneblade and roll a 6

I'm going to Warhammer World in April with my 2nd ed-style Ultramarines. I'll be wearing my Mudhoney shirt, you can count on that

Lasguns could hurt a 2+ save on 2d6. Lasguns had a -1 save modifier (nearly every basic weapon did, which was the main problem with the save modifier system at the time, modifiers should have been reserved for special and heavy weapons).

Termies were 3+ on 2d6 not 2+.
So lasguns could kill them - snakes eyes or 2 + 1. Poof.
Statistically difficult but no more than these days with 2++ et al.

The problem with the 2nd Ed rules though was that the game devolved into a static waitathon with everyone hugging cover and on overwatch.

Fully agree mate.

 Ratius wrote:

Termies were 3+ on 2d6 not 2+.

The 2+ was referring to berzerkers, not regular terminators.

I don't remember if they were a 2 or 3... The mark of Khorne entry in the codex is slightly ambiguous, and if it was FAQd, it's all and truly been lost in the dim fogginess of encroaching senility...

Khorne termies were 2+ but still failed on a roll of snake eyes. Much like a 1+ save in WHFB it was there for the inevitable modifiers.

Now I kinda wish I could play the older editions. Sadly I got into it 6th edition and nobody at my store wants to bother with the older stuff

I refuse to believe that 2nd edition couldn't be hugely fun played today. Like anything, its best between two good buddies who want to have a fun afternoon. There were no more shenanigans than in 7th edition, you just need a gentleman's agreement to not go that route.

Personally im still burned out on 2nd ed. It was truly a terrible rules set.

I've played two games of 2nd ed in the last few weeks, and had a great time. Wouldn't say it was truly terrible.

 obithius wrote:
I've played two games of 2nd ed in the last few weeks, and had a great time. Wouldn't say it was truly terrible.

it's probably just Martel being Martel, he seems to have baffling and ridiculous standards for everything.

 CrashGordon94 wrote:

 obithius wrote:
I've played two games of 2nd ed in the last few weeks, and had a great time. Wouldn't say it was truly terrible.

it's probably just Martel being Martel, he seems to have baffling and ridiculous standards for everything.

Nah, by all accounts, he's been stuck for years in one of the most craptacular metas I've ever heard of.

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
Heavy Bolters and Warp Spiders were -2 hardly "pretty much death".

Warp Spiders in 2E were death incarnate. Their to hit was based on the beating Initiative of the target and they got +1 to models fully under the large flamer template. In addition any model hit once was automatically hit by all subsequent deathspinner attacks that turn. If you're hit you make a save- no to wound- and failure is instant death regardless of wounds.

Any weapon that ignores cover and automatically wounds (as well as potentially automatically hitting!) is amazing. That it's mounted on models who can teleport up to 30" in a turn (including after shooting) and it can easily hit multiple targets is just gravy. Granted the were like 40pts per model but still, I never failed to recoup my costs with them.

 obithius wrote:
I've played two games of 2nd ed in the last few weeks, and had a great time. Wouldn't say it was truly terrible.

Yeah. I know several people that were surprised to find out that the core mechanics they liked from Necromunda were initially from 2nd edition, when they thought 40k had always been like 3rd edition onwards.

Granted, Im not a big fan of cumbersome 2nd ed. armor penetration rolls.

 CrashGordon94 wrote:

 obithius wrote:
I've played two games of 2nd ed in the last few weeks, and had a great time. Wouldn't say it was truly terrible.

it's probably just Martel being Martel, he seems to have baffling and ridiculous standards for everything.

No, I just don't like games where I can be tabled in one turn. I played 2nd ed with BA over a dozen times and never won.

Wait, you never won with 2nd edition BA? Are you sure its not just you Martel? (no offence intended)

Yeah, Blood Angels weren't quite on the same level as Space Wolves or Eldar, but they weren't far behind...

 master of ordinance wrote:
Wait, you never won with 2nd edition BA? Are you sure its not just you Martel? (no offence intended)

Pretty sure, because when 3rd hit I had a 21 game win streak BEFORE codex BA came out. Yes, I abused the gak out of 3rd ed power armor.


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 insaniak wrote:
Yeah, Blood Angels weren't quite on the same level as Space Wolves or Eldar, but they weren't far behind...

Umm...... not even close. The Space Wolves were the only playable loyalist marine faction. All the others were pure victims. I never saw Ultramarines win, either. EVER. The Eldar were one of the power three in 2nd. I can't even conceive of a way for loyalist marines to beat Eldar in that game short of the Eldar player having a stroke during the match.

Yeah, I have to agree here, the Eldar have always been stupidly OP and cheesy. One can but hope that they get a massive nerf sometime soon.

Played 2nd for years and never saw anyone wiped off the table turn one. Saw some major hits with a lucky spell like Plague Wind or freak decapitation of armies by a lucky autocannon first shot, but I have seen far worse(and did) in 3rd or with the advent of superheavies having massive death throes 7th.

Martel732 wrote:

Umm...... not even close. The Space Wolves were the only playable loyalist marine faction. All the others were pure victims. I never saw Ultramarines win, either. EVER. The Eldar were one of the power three in 2nd. I can't even conceive of a way for loyalist marines to beat Eldar in that game short of the Eldar player having a stroke during the match.

Which is a problem if you're only ever playing against Eldar... less so if you're playing against other armies.


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Col. Dash wrote:
Played 2nd for years and never saw anyone wiped off the table turn one. .

It happened from time to time (even ignoring the aforementioned Virus Outbreak, which did cause some havoc before it was removed) but was mostly a result of the exact same thing that has caused turn 1 tabling in every edition since - not using enough terrain.

 master of ordinance wrote:
Yeah, I have to agree here, the Eldar have always been stupidly OP and cheesy. One can but hope that they get a massive nerf sometime soon.

I personally believe GW use Eldar as their Great Leveller. When things get stale, start looking balanced and the game starts looking stable? Throw in the Eldar!

 insaniak wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

Umm...... not even close. The Space Wolves were the only playable loyalist marine faction. All the others were pure victims. I never saw Ultramarines win, either. EVER. The Eldar were one of the power three in 2nd. I can't even conceive of a way for loyalist marines to beat Eldar in that game short of the Eldar player having a stroke during the match.

Which is a problem if you're only ever playing against Eldar... less so if you're playing against other armies.


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Col. Dash wrote:
Played 2nd for years and never saw anyone wiped off the table turn one. .

It happened from time to time (even ignoring the aforementioned Virus Outbreak, which did cause some havoc before it was removed) but was mostly a result of the exact same thing that has caused turn 1 tabling in every edition since - not using enough terrain.

I don't like the terrain excuse for horrible mathematics in a game. List A should not be even mathematically capable of a thing that List B is not mathematically capable of. Also, there was considerable terrain on the map. But each opposing unit could see at least one target. It's not like terrain was a big deal in 2nd anyway, as you had to shoot the closest thing anyway.

You also had to declare your fire at the start of the shooting phase, making it damn near impossible to table someone first turn.

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
You also had to declare your fire at the start of the shooting phase, making it damn near impossible to table someone first turn.

I saw it happen several times in 2nd. Not that hard in the right matchups.

Martel732 wrote:I don't like the terrain excuse for horrible mathematics in a game.

Whether or not you like it, it's always been a thing. The game works better with more terrain. The less terrain you use, the more freedom shooty armies have to knock you down before you can do anything.

List A should not be even mathematically capable of a thing that List B is not mathematically capable of.

Of course it should. The whole point of having different armies is that they can do different things.

It's not like terrain was a big deal in 2nd anyway, as you had to shoot the closest thing anyway.

Having to shoot the closest visible target made terrain a very big deal in 2nd edition, as it meant that you could effectively choose what your opponent was going to have to shoot at.

That, combined with the fact that cover made your guys harder to shoot made cover more useful for MEQ armies than it is now.

SlaveToDorkness wrote:You also had to declare your fire at the start of the shooting phase, making it damn near impossible to table someone first turn.

No you didn't. You had to declare all of your charges at the start of the Movement phase, but shooting was just done unit by unit as it is now. Although I did come across players from time to time who played it the way you suggest... I suspect it was the rule in Fantasy at the time, as the rulesets were very similar at that point.

"Of course it should. The whole point of having different armies is that they can do different things. "

List A should not be able to cause enough damage to destroy all of List B in one turn. That means List A's shooting is way too cheap.

" made cover more useful for MEQ armies than it is now. "

Yeah, too bad the armor was basically worthless in 2nd.

Martel732 wrote:
List A should not be able to cause enough damage to destroy all of List B in one turn.

If you're using sufficient terrain, and deploying so as to make the best use of that terrain, it won't be able to.

The fact that you want to ignore the fact that shooting in this game is balanced by terrain filtering what can and can't be shot at doesn't change the fact that this is how it works.

And for the most part, it works well. The vast majority of turn 1 tablings I've seen over the years have come down to either insufficient terrain or bad deployment.

Yeah, too bad the armor was basically worthless in 2nd.

No moreso than it is now. Marines still got their armour save against most basic weapons, and still didn't get their save against most heavy weapons. But with the tradeoff that a marine standing behind a bush was harder to hit, whereas now the bush might as well not be there most of the time.

Don't forget that any unit deploying in or behind cover could start the game in hiding. My Guard very rarely get the first turn, and so most of my infantry will start the game in hiding. Very hard to table an opponent you can't see:-)