A long time ago on a hot Australian Christmas day I was in a 3 hour car ride reading my newly acquired copy of the 3rd edition 40k rulebook. The book binding promptly gave way in the heat. Terrible binding and Australian heat are not the point of this thread however.

When I read the book and the white dwarf magazines that came out prior and post release, I had a distinct impression of what the designers were trying to achieve with certain rule changes. In many cases I agreed with and liked their intent but their execution left odd question marks. I'd like to go back to that time and re-examine what could have been done.

Key changes included:
• A halving of unit/model points values (at least for non characters)
• An increase in the cost of special weapons
• A complete re-write of the assault rules
• The movement stat was removed in favour of a general increase and homogenization to 6" movement for all models
• Save modifiers were replaced by the AP system
• High stats were lowered across the board, with WS and BS being capped at 5
• BS modifiers were replaced with cover saves
• Terminator saves changed from 3+ on 2d6 to 2+ on 1d6 (no 5++ initially)
• The ability to run was removed entirely
• Weapon systems changed from basic/move or fire/sustained fire to pistol/rapid fire/assault/heavy/ordnance
• Plasma weapons changed dramatically
• Ranged weapons were diversified by race
• All power weapons were homogenized
• Game turns went from 4 to 6
• Charging was no longer a movement option and became part of the assault phase


The legacy of those changes can still be seen today in 7th edition. Ballistic skill for Marine characters is still oddly capped at 5 even though BS 6-10 is completely workable now. Dreadnoughts suffer along with BS 4. Movement is still homogenized at 6" with an ever increasing list of rules to get around the limitation (fleet being the first). The jink rule exists to cover the old negative to BS from fast moving targets. Power weapon diversity has returned (thankfully). Feel No Pain was introduced, presumably to provide some survivability to units whose armour was next to irrelevant with the AP system. And many more little changes that edge us back closer to how 2nd edition worked, without actually rolling back the initial change.

The impression I had was that the designers were trying to:
• Allow for bigger armies
• Streamline the rules to allow for faster play
• Introduce greater differentiation between the Imperium and Xenos

Many years later we still have those bigger armies, Xenos rules and weapons often have the same stats but different names and any semblance of streamlining is long gone.

Let us collectively go back, re-examine 2nd edition and compare that with both 3rd edition and 7th edition. What are the changes and what way could they have been handled better?

I'll start with Movement
Movement Speed
In 2nd edition, all models had a movement number on their profile. Typically this was 4. Eldar and tyranids had 5 or 6 depending on the model. (Ok and squats had 3, but let's not dredge up that discussion)
This variation was removed, which is good for streamlining but bad for army diversity. It's hard to be the army known for being fast and mobile when everyone moves the same speed. We don't even have to look past the end of 3rd edition before we find a special rule introduced (fleet) to counteract this change. Fleet has changed many times since then, but the point has always been to represent one model being faster than another. So why not scrap fleet and re-introduce different movement speeds for different models? That seems to be the more sensible option to me. If you want to streamline it, consider having fewer variations in speed than 2nd edition had.
I welcomed the increase from 4" to 6" for normal (human) infantry. This made getting somewhere and actually achieving objectives a possibility for all units, not just for those with transports and higher base speed. What speed is best for a re-imagined 3rd edition? I have no idea. My gut instinct tells me that rolling back to 4" is not the answer however.

Run
Run was removed as an option entirely. I recall this being on the premise that the general increase from 4" to 6" was representative of models running from one bit of cover to another. It's a half-run, all the time. Run, shoot, run, shoot. It made sense, but it also lacked tactical flexibility. It has already come back, but now it occurs in the shooting phase. That never made sense, so let's put that back in the movement phase; if only to avoid double handling of models. Remember, streamlining is about speeding up the game. Having to pick up models multiple times in a turn takes more time. Run needs to exist to retain the tactical diversity.

Difficult Terrain
In 2nd edition terrain either halved or quartered your movement. This was replaced with a dice roll. Why? If you want to streamline it, surely just saying your movement is halved is enough. I don't recall ever using the quarter value anyway. I can't think of any reason not to roll this back to 'halves your movement'.

Charging
And here's the killer. As best as I can infer, this change occurred so that assault units with guns could actually make use of their guns. Especially those guns which were not pistols and therefore not usable in hand to hand. I really have no idea what to do with this. I like being able to use my guns and charge. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Perhaps this is a case of 'the change is good, leave it alone'?

Hiding
Hiding was dropped entirely. I approve! Hiding, in my recollection, was merely a way to slow down the game and irritate your opponent. We used to play that you could declare a unit was hiding during deployment. I have no idea if that was an official rule or not, but the result was that every unit always started the game hiding which had a detrimental effect on how the game had to be played (and how you'd pick your army for the next game!).

Vehicle Movement
Vehicles went from all having their own speed, and different speed categories to all having the same speed, fewer categories (although the original number has since returned) and being able to go from stationary to flat-out in a single turn. I can't fault this. Furthermore the restrictions on turning were removed. Again I can't fault this. The wording in more recent editions may lack finesse but the intent is good.

So that's my summary of movement. What are your thoughts? What else changed? What was good, what was bad, and what would you do instead?

Ahhh, the good old days of 2nd ed...

Other changes included dropping sustained fire/jam dice for a set number of shots. Bit more streamlined but I've got to admit I enjoyed sustained fire.

Power weapons used to get a ST boost just for being a power weapon. Don't remember the exact stats but I do remember that doing a drive-by with a power sword by a biker was a viable tactic. The change to User ST and no Armor save was good, but not too enthused with the current set-up with AP values and varying ST.

Split fire was a thing. Yes children, once upon a time, you could shoot your squad heavy weapon at a tank (large target) and your lasguns/boltguns/whatever at Infantry (small target) . But... you generally had to shoot at the closest large or small target.

One thing you didn't point out in the walk/run/charge bit above. You had to choose which of the three you were going to do at the beginning of your turn (what is now movement phase, I guess). SO you couldn't just punch an assault unit forward and then decide post-shooting whether it was assaulting unit A, B, or C. You had to declare before taking any shots...

Re this " A halving of unit/model points values (at least for non characters) " Yeah, that was to sell more models. Suddenly my 1500 point Marine army (just over 30 Infantry and a couple of characters) needed twice as many models. Imagine that...

One thing not mentioned about the assault rule change is that in 2nd, models not actually in btb with the enemy could still shoot (pile-in was way different, 2" IIRC). And you could shoot into HTH combat! Hits were randomized between units. I had no issue with shooting into a HTH between my IG and a Greater Daemon or a squad of Genestealers...

Overwatch. Real Overwatch, as in I give up moving/shooting in my turn so that I can shoot at something during your turn.

Oh yeah, and twin-linked meant twice the number of shots (or double the sustained fire dice), not a re-roll on a miss.

Sure there's more, but TTFN.

Also the over-the-top silliness of old grimdark was traded for serious, depressing new grimdark. The lore lost a lot of its humor because 40k was no longer into comedy. : (

I personally hated 2nd ed.

 Pouncey wrote:
Also the over-the-top silliness of old grimdark was traded for serious, depressing new grimdark. The lore lost a lot of its humor because 40k was no longer into comedy. : (

Yep, altho I seem to recall a rather silly Ork army I put together in 3rd where every unit was random. Madboyz, splatta kannon, don't recall what else. Basic idea was I had little control over what my units might do... Nowadays tho, yeah, not nearly as much fun.

I miss wargear cards.....

Amongst other things.

Martel732 wrote:
I personally hated 2nd ed.

I don't mind 2nd ed. rules in Necromunda where there's <15 models per side and people are fairly restricted in what they can take.

The game fell down in terms of balancing units (Wolf Guard Terminators) and too many games came down to who brought the more unkillable special character. The base rules weren't too bad (IMHO), but fell apart because every writer had to make the special character they introduced the biggest badass in the galaxy topping the previous book's unstoppable killing machine.

One thing to add to "split fire" comment above, just so the "youngsters" have better understanding on how detailed 2nd ed was:

- EVERY model, not only walkers/vechicles had firing arc (90 degrees front) and placement of individual models allowed shooting at different targets. Every member of a squad could have such "split fire", not only heavy/special weapon...

I personally liked 2nd very much and still love Necromunda, but sentiments aside, even with twice the models you needed in 3rd ed, games in 3rd were fast. Even nowadays, in "bloated 7th", games take a lot less time (with lot more minis per side), that games of 2nd ed. Even with all those "randumb" rules like run/difficult terrain rolls, Maelstrom or Mysterious Objectives etc... Especially "to hit" modifiers (essentialy per model LOS checking and shooting), psychic phase and resolving CC took ages back then.

I fully believe that cover saves need to go and be replaced with To Hit modifiers. The AP system should also be replaced with armor save modifiers.
Preferential wound allocation was better than from-the-front allocation. Are you seriously telling me that Marine #8 can't pick up Marine #3's plasma gun and be the new plasma gunner?

To hit modifiers can't work on a D6.

The difference between Eldar, CSM, and Tyranids and the rest of the field in 2nd was worse than any balance issues that exist today.

Of course they do. -1 for soft cover like bushes. -2 for craters and trees. -3 for ruins. -4 for fortified buildings. Stealth is -1, shrouded is -2.
A six always hits, of course. Some very special units like Vindicares could ignore cover.

 Verviedi wrote:
Of course they do. -1 for soft cover like bushes. -2 for craters and trees. -3 for ruins. -4 for fortified buildings. Stealth is -1, shrouded is -2.
A six always hits, of course. Some very special units like Vindicares could ignore cover.

Those end up not working. You need a D10 or D20.

nou wrote:
One thing to add to "split fire" comment above, just so the "youngsters" have better understanding on how detailed 2nd ed was:

- EVERY model, not only walkers/vechicles had firing arc (90 degrees front) and placement of individual models allowed shooting at different targets. Every member of a squad could have such "split fire", not only heavy/special weapon...

Just to point out that Warmachine has "firing arcs" in the form of a "front arc" for every single model, and the rules allow you to not only split fire, but also charge separate enemy units. While I realize that the two game systems are different scales, I've often thought after having come back to 40K after years of Warmachine that the Warhammer 40K rules could benefit from aspects of the WM ruleset. Notably, I think that the entire "I move my entire army, and then I shoot/assault/whatever with my entire army" mechanic is showing its age, and that a "this tactical squad moves, shoots, assaults, and then my next tac squad moves/shoots/assaults" mechanic would probably make the game a bit more tactical. But that's neither here not there in the "2nd vs. 7th edition" discussion....

How so? The system could easily be a flat -1 for a merged Stealth and Shrouded rule, -1 for soft cover, and -2 for hard cover. I see no reason that would be incompatible with D6.

Martel732 wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:
Of course they do. -1 for soft cover like bushes. -2 for craters and trees. -3 for ruins. -4 for fortified buildings. Stealth is -1, shrouded is -2.
A six always hits, of course. Some very special units like Vindicares could ignore cover.

Those end up not working. You need a D10 or D20.

Bull, it works with a D6 just as well.

I've never played 2nd ed (or anything pre-4th ed for that matter) but from what I read it sounds like at least some of those changes needed to be made as 40K was moving away from its small-scale Rogue Trader roots.

I actualy like how CCWs became very binary- you were either using your own strength with a generic CCW or you had something really epic like a power weapon, power fist or anything else with 'Poweeeer' in the name. CCWs shouldn't have AP values, they either ignore armour or they don't.

Wasn't there somekind of 'heavy CCW' rule where things like Ork Choppas had a pseudo-rending ability? I remember someone looking over the 4th ed Ork codex and saying "Well we can't get through Terminator armour as easily, but at least we get the extra ST on the charge.."

 don_mondo wrote:

Split fire was a thing. Yes children, once upon a time, you could shoot your squad heavy weapon at a tank (large target) and your lasguns/boltguns/whatever at Infantry (small target) . But... you generally had to shoot at the closest large or small target.

Make the bad man stop telling lies! :O

The problem with "to hit" modifiers is NOT that they do or do not work with d6. They work acceptably fine. It is that they take ages to resolve if you have mixed cover and multi-model units. For those, who have not played even a single game of 2nd ed, please go and resolve even a single round of shooting between two units, which both have mixed "to hit" modifiers for different members of a squad and different weapons (so different save roll modifiers). Calculate to-hit and save rolls for each model shooting. Every time you have to shoot something or roll a save, you need to recalculate every roll you make, each turn again and again for dozens of models. No more easily memorable flat "to hit", trivial S vs T and flat save-or-no-save. Every shot of every unit different, all day long (sometimes literally all day long...). Do you realy, realy think, that this is how modern, pick-up 40K shoud be like?

 Pouncey wrote:
Also the over-the-top silliness of old grimdark was traded for serious, depressing new grimdark. The lore lost a lot of its humor because 40k was no longer into comedy. : (

That's why I play Orks

If the grimdark ever becomes a bit too grim, just remember that 'Red Ones Go Faster'.

 SDFarsight wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
Also the over-the-top silliness of old grimdark was traded for serious, depressing new grimdark. The lore lost a lot of its humor because 40k was no longer into comedy. : (

That's why I play Orks

If the grimdark ever becomes a bit too grim, just remember that 'Red Ones Go Faster'.

Same here.

nou wrote:
One thing to add to "split fire" comment above, just so the "youngsters" have better understanding on how detailed 2nd ed was:

- EVERY model, not only walkers/vechicles had firing arc (90 degrees front) and placement of individual models allowed shooting at different targets. Every member of a squad could have such "split fire", not only heavy/special weapon...

How did the 90 degree firing arc work with round bases?


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 SDFarsight wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
Also the over-the-top silliness of old grimdark was traded for serious, depressing new grimdark. The lore lost a lot of its humor because 40k was no longer into comedy. : (

That's why I play Orks

If the grimdark ever becomes a bit too grim, just remember that 'Red Ones Go Faster'.

They probably ripped that idea off from the reality that red cars IRL get more speeding tickets.

 Stormonu wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:
Of course they do. -1 for soft cover like bushes. -2 for craters and trees. -3 for ruins. -4 for fortified buildings. Stealth is -1, shrouded is -2.
A six always hits, of course. Some very special units like Vindicares could ignore cover.

Those end up not working. You need a D10 or D20.

Bull, it works with a D6 just as well.

No, it doesn't because even a-1 to hit is enormous.

2nd ed was a dumpster fire of epic proportions.

Zustiur wrote:

Run
Run was removed as an option entirely. I recall this being on the premise that the general increase from 4" to 6" was representative of models running from one bit of cover to another. It's a half-run, all the time. Run, shoot, run, shoot. It made sense, but it also lacked tactical flexibility. It has already come back, but now it occurs in the shooting phase. That never made sense, so let's put that back in the movement phase; if only to avoid double handling of models. Remember, streamlining is about speeding up the game. Having to pick up models multiple times in a turn takes more time. Run needs to exist to retain the tactical diversity.

Putting the Run into the shooting phase was actually a very deliberate move to stop players from running in the movement phase and then forgetting about it by the time their shooting phase comes along and shooting with that unit when they shouldn't.

Yes, it results in double-handling, but it does remove the need to try to track who ran and who didn't.

 don_mondo wrote:
Power weapons used to get a ST boost just for being a power weapon. Don't remember the exact stats but I do remember that doing a drive-by with a power sword by a biker was a viable tactic. The change to User ST and no Armor save was good, but not too enthused with the current set-up with AP values and varying ST.

Likewise, chainswords were S4 with an armour modifier, rather than having the same specs as a pointy stick.

 don_mondo wrote:

Re this " A halving of unit/model points values (at least for non characters) " Yeah, that was to sell more models. Suddenly my 1500 point Marine army (just over 30 Infantry and a couple of characters) needed twice as many models. Imagine that...

For what it's worth, that wasn't entirely driven by GW.

Over the lifespan of 2nd edition, players started to try to play bigger and bigger games with it. By the last year, my gaming group was regularly playing 5000point or larger games, and we weren't the only ones.

While I'm sure it was also driven by the desire to make sales, this is one situation where the games designers actually listened to what the players wanted, which was the ability to play larger games in less than a week and a half.

 Pouncey wrote:

How did the 90 degree firing arc work with round bases?

There were a lot of arguments.

IIRC, there was a handy little 'fire arc' template in the box (although I might be misremembering and merging that with the vehicle turn template... have to have a look through my box of cardboard stuff later , but it was a little imprecise.

The main thing I remember was how strong Eldar was, and how useless paying for Power Armor was considering near EVERYTHING made it worthless in some form while you still had the smaller numbers.

Martel732 wrote:
To hit modifiers can't work on a D6.

They worked fine in WHFB.

 don_mondo wrote:
Power weapons used to get a ST boost just for being a power weapon. Don't remember the exact stats but I do remember that doing a drive-by with a power sword by a biker was a viable tactic. The change to User ST and no Armor save was good, but not too enthused with the current set-up with AP values and varying ST.

Actually power weapons used to be simply fixed S and save modifier. Power sword for example S5. So if you had higher S than 5 power sword was pretty useless except for the parry.




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 Asmodai wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I personally hated 2nd ed.

I don't mind 2nd ed. rules in Necromunda where there's <15 models per side and people are fairly restricted in what they can take.

The game fell down in terms of balancing units (Wolf Guard Terminators) and too many games came down to who brought the more unkillable special character. The base rules weren't too bad (IMHO), but fell apart because every writer had to make the special character they introduced the biggest badass in the galaxy topping the previous book's unstoppable killing machine.

Thing about those unkillable characters is that unless opponent brought in equally expensive characters etc they struggled to kill much.

Short of failed break test it takes 10 player turns in close combat for Abbadon to kill squad of IG troopers. That's more player turns standard game had!

We don't bother bringing in expensive characters(apart from psykers) for the simple reason: They struggle to kill much during 8 player turns and simple vortex grenade is cheap equalizer. Makes pointless to have expensive characters when at the best of times they don't kill much and could get vortexed(albeit vortex grenade has fell out of favour as well due to lack of good targets!).

I fully believe that cover saves need to go and be replaced with To Hit modifiers. The AP system should also be replaced with armor save modifiers.

That just adds complication though. It was hard enough in 2nd ed and we only had like 1/4-1/2 the number of models to deal with. Sorting that for a modern 1750-2000 point game is a lot more than I really want to deal with. "I'm shooting at your scouts who are in soft cover, shrouded, wearing camo cloaks, but I have an omniscope ...." then, once you've solved all that ... "You're wearing scout armour and have gone to ground but my gun gives me bonus to penetrate and I have a blessing ...". All of that versus "I'm shooting at you. You have a 3+ cover save." I'll take cover saves and AP all day every day. Switching back to modifiers is only going to add to all the things we have to remember while also compounding issues with special rules.

Personally, I vastly preferred 2nd, even with its flaws and would have preferred to see a massaged 2nd edition as opposed to the fire sale that was 3rd edition. When 3rd launched it was quite shocking to me. It was akin to someone taking your chess set away and replacing it with checkers. There was a heck of a lot of "wait, but what about..." - "that's gone.". The game in 2nd felt a heck of a lot more like the fluff and it showed on the table top.

2nd was unapologetic in its chunkiness. Much like a lot of older games from the 80's-90's it asked a bit more of its players. A normal game would take 2-3 hours, or an evening with a larger game taking the better part of a day. While a lot of the rules seem clunky, much like today's clusterfeth edition it all became second nature. I had the good fortune of playing with friends and decent people so while there was plenty of room for arguments/asshattery it was rare. This was a time when GW was staffed entirely by artists and gaming geeks without a modicum of business acumen amongst them. The game has no goal of being used for tournaments. When GW ran tournaments they were normally narrative with weird arbitrary exclusions and limitations aimed at forcing gamers to think outside the box, etc.

While 3rd moved to streamline a lot of the game functions it sapped a hell of a lot of "feel" from the armies. Wargear lists were cut in half, wargear cards disappeared, stat lines for almost everything across the board dropped immensely and most special rules for units disappeared. A lot of units disappeared as well (Harlequins and Exodites vanished from the Eldar --- Daemons were dumbed down immensely, Chaos cultists lists disappeared, GSC disappeared, and Sisters of Battle lost a lot of unique traits and were rolled into Witch Hunters etc.). The codices (which had to be pumped out) went from very well written books with colour and plenty of fluff to small 30-page black and white "magazines" etc.

Imagine a great movie you really like...now imagine a half-ass TV show based on the movie? That's what 3rd felt like to a lot of us.

Removing the Movement stat was one of the worst decisions. As can be seen now, where the "basic" movement has been adjusted by a half dozen special rules to counter the fact that they magically decided everyone moves the same (despite 15 years of fluff at this point indicating who was faster etc.). Facing something like a Tyranid army in 2nd was fun because you knew damn well they all ran 12" or more...and your Marines (even Eldar) didn't. It was a real matter of shoot them before they get to you. You couldn't be saved by poorly rolled random movement etc. Removing the Movement stat to simplify things really did the opposite.

Hand to hand combat was terrible in 2nd. It provided for epic game-long fights between characters but it was one of the weakest parts of 2nd edition. Took forever and was far too finnicky. This should have been addressed in a subsequent edition.

The magic phase was...meh. Sometimes it could take forever, sometimes it went quick enough. It was fun drawing random spells (which I'm sure a lot of people would hate) and psyker spells were pretty damn powerful. Recently a friend and I played a game of 2nd and started working on changing the psyker phase to make it much more quick and efficient --- we went to rolling sustained fire dice for power, etc. It worked out quite well.

Weapons were far more diverse in 2nd. This was neat but sometimes they had ridiculous special rules (clearly aimed at smaller games). For the most part though, they were good. It would have been nice to streamline the dice roll for armour penetration as some of their formulas were silly. As stated above, power weapons etc. had a specific strength and did not reflect that of the user (hence why Howling Banshees were dangerous with a Strength 5 weapon with a -3 save modifier).

Personally I preferred save modifiers as it was more interesting than the simple "yes/no" option. Contrary to what people seem to think - this wasn't time consuming or difficult. You got exceptionally fast at working these out. Power sword vs. Space Marine in normal power armour? Saves on a six. Terminator hit by a lascannon? They have 2D6 armour and save on a 3+, the Lascannon is a -6 save modifier so they get a 9+ save on 2D6. It was a lot easier than people think. However it's worth nothing that 2nd was a different level of power. You didn't have the somewhat absurd "roll 40 dice!" attacks by characters etc. Most units on the table had a genuine expectation of lasting more than half of a turn. There was no pie-plates being tossed around the board (until that damn Demolisher Leman Russ showed up!).

I personally would toss the limited arc-of-fire stuff, but it did add some tactical thinking to the game. A unit could only overwatch fire in its arc etc., so flanking an overwatch unit could happen. Shooting at the nearest unit OR vehicle was exceptionally simple (while the special and heavy weapons could target specific things) and --- get this, no single character could be targeted by itself unless it was the nearest target. You didn't have to bubble wrap your characters to make it across the board.

I vastly preferred the no-pre-measuring rules as well. Going to charge that unit? You have 8" of charge distance - better hope you're there, or you'll end up 1" from a unit which will open fire on you next turn. Grenades were terrible and should have been changed. They were actual templates with scatter and rolling to hit units etc. (so yes, a unit all hurling grenades would be a nightmare to work out sometimes).

Vehicles were more heavily armored (and far more varied, ranging from Armour 10 to Armour 26-28 I believe). The datafaxes were cool and easy to use. A lot of vehicles had weaknesses though. Tanks for instance, while tough to crack could be struck in the tracks --- so even something like a heavy bolter was worth chattering at a tank if you were desperate. Vehicles had actual crews who could get out and become a unit if their vehicle was destroyed (or indeed you could re-occupy vehicles with crewmen etc.). There were a lot more cool/random things which could happen to vehicles. They were also fast. Like silly fast (up to 36" in some cases). The movement rules were terribly complicated though and made a little worse by having different speed bands. There is a better set of rules somewhere between 2nd and 3rd for vehicles.

The codices were, by far, the high water mark of GW's publications. Wonderful fluff, good artwork, nice colour sections, and comparatively vast army lists. People nowdays should buy them if only for the fluff and "feel". The Chaos codex shines particularly in 2nd edition (though it was terribly powerful --- power creep was a thing back then too, just not quite as egregious as it is now). You got a lot more bang for your back with the old codices as well. They included more wargear, more items, more special rules, wargear cards you could cut out. The Chaos codex included Chaos Cultists army list, Chaos Daemons army list, and Chaos Space Marines army lists. Did you know in 2nd that groups of Chaos daemons became psykers? Yep. A group of daemons could cast spells...

One thing which was exceptionally tough to understand was the huge nerfing of every unit in the game, across the board. This has carried on and made things difficult for GW the past ten years. In the Eldar army for example, Exarchs went from powerful characters to mediocre squad leaders. Warlocks went from potent (psykers were almost universally available in three "levels" in 2nd edition) battlefield psykers to hopeless buff-machines with no capability to actually fight in combat on the tabletop. Even things like the Avatar had their stats chopped tremendously. By doing this GW shrunk tremendously the area it had to work within for 3rd-7th edition. They did the same thing when they changed vehicles to be armour 10-14. That's not much variation. They now struggle and have to create new rules/hull points etc. to justify larger or stronger vehicles. Same thing with the stat lines. A Space Marine captain's stat lines were a joke compared to 2nd...so this then requires even more of the un-ending special rules added to later editions (instead of simply having a kick ass stat line which expresses how excellent he is/was). GW really put themselves in a corner by limiting the scope of stats for so many units. I'll break out the old 3rd ed and 2nd ed. Eldar codices later and give you proper examples.

If someone had taken 2nd and modified, cleaned it up, etc. it would have been a brilliant game. I've debated trying to do so myself. However it would have never supported the huge increase in models/stuff on the table that they're pushing, so it died a quick death. Personally I'd gladly play a 2nd edition game which took all afternoon. With good friends it was a heck of a good time.

 Elbows wrote:
Personally, I vastly preferred 2nd, even with its flaws and would have preferred to see a massaged 2nd edition as opposed to the fire sale that was 3rd edition. When 3rd launched it was quite shocking to me. It was akin to someone taking your chess set away and replacing it with checkers. There was a heck of a lot of "wait, but what about..." - "that's gone.". The game in 2nd felt a heck of a lot more like the fluff and it showed on the table top.

2nd was unapologetic in its chunkiness. Much like a lot of older games from the 80's-90's it asked a bit more of its players. A normal game would take 2-3 hours, or an evening with a larger game taking the better part of a day. While a lot of the rules seem clunky, much like today's clusterfeth edition it all became second nature. I had the good fortune of playing with friends and decent people so while there was plenty of room for arguments/asshattery it was rare. This was a time when GW was staffed entirely by artists and gaming geeks without a modicum of business acumen amongst them. The game has no goal of being used for tournaments. When GW ran tournaments they were normally narrative with weird arbitrary exclusions and limitations aimed at forcing gamers to think outside the box, etc.

While 3rd moved to streamline a lot of the game functions it sapped a hell of a lot of "feel" from the armies. Wargear lists were cut in half, wargear cards disappeared, stat lines for almost everything across the board dropped immensely and most special rules for units disappeared. A lot of units disappeared as well (Harlequins and Exodites vanished from the Eldar --- Daemons were dumbed down immensely, Chaos cultists lists disappeared, GSC disappeared, and Sisters of Battle lost a lot of unique traits and were rolled into Witch Hunters etc.). The codices (which had to be pumped out) went from very well written books with colour and plenty of fluff to small 30-page black and white "magazines" etc.

Imagine a great movie you really like...now imagine a half-ass TV show based on the movie? That's what 3rd felt like to a lot of us.

Removing the Movement stat was one of the worst decisions. As can be seen now, where the "basic" movement has been adjusted by a half dozen special rules to counter the fact that they magically decided everyone moves the same (despite 15 years of fluff at this point indicating who was faster etc.). Facing something like a Tyranid army in 2nd was fun because you knew damn well they all ran 12" or more...and your Marines (even Eldar) didn't. It was a real matter of shoot them before they get to you. You couldn't be saved by poorly rolled random movement etc. Removing the Movement stat to simplify things really did the opposite.

Hand to hand combat was terrible in 2nd. It provided for epic game-long fights between characters but it was one of the weakest parts of 2nd edition. Took forever and was far too finnicky. This should have been addressed in a subsequent edition.

The magic phase was...meh. Sometimes it could take forever, sometimes it went quick enough. It was fun drawing random spells (which I'm sure a lot of people would hate) and psyker spells were pretty damn powerful. Recently a friend and I played a game of 2nd and started working on changing the psyker phase to make it much more quick and efficient --- we went to rolling sustained fire dice for power, etc. It worked out quite well.

Weapons were far more diverse in 2nd. This was neat but sometimes they had ridiculous special rules (clearly aimed at smaller games). For the most part though, they were good. It would have been nice to streamline the dice roll for armour penetration as some of their formulas were silly. As stated above, power weapons etc. had a specific strength and did not reflect that of the user (hence why Howling Banshees were dangerous with a Strength 5 weapon with a -3 save modifier).

Personally I preferred save modifiers as it was more interesting than the simple "yes/no" option. Contrary to what people seem to think - this wasn't time consuming or difficult. You got exceptionally fast at working these out. Power sword vs. Space Marine in normal power armour? Saves on a six. Terminator hit by a lascannon? They have 2D6 armour and save on a 3+, the Lascannon is a -6 save modifier so they get a 9+ save on 2D6. It was a lot easier than people think. However it's worth nothing that 2nd was a different level of power. You didn't have the somewhat absurd "roll 40 dice!" attacks by characters etc. Most units on the table had a genuine expectation of lasting more than half of a turn. There was no pie-plates being tossed around the board (until that damn Demolisher Leman Russ showed up!).

I personally would toss the limited arc-of-fire stuff, but it did add some tactical thinking to the game. A unit could only overwatch fire in its arc etc., so flanking an overwatch unit could happen. Shooting at the nearest unit OR vehicle was exceptionally simple (while the special and heavy weapons could target specific things) and --- get this, no single character could be targeted by itself unless it was the nearest target. You didn't have to bubble wrap your characters to make it across the board.

I vastly preferred the no-pre-measuring rules as well. Going to charge that unit? You have 8" of charge distance - better hope you're there, or you'll end up 1" from a unit which will open fire on you next turn. Grenades were terrible and should have been changed. They were actual templates with scatter and rolling to hit units etc. (so yes, a unit all hurling grenades would be a nightmare to work out sometimes).

Vehicles were more heavily armored (and far more varied, ranging from Armour 10 to Armour 26-28 I believe). The datafaxes were cool and easy to use. A lot of vehicles had weaknesses though. Tanks for instance, while tough to crack could be struck in the tracks --- so even something like a heavy bolter was worth chattering at a tank if you were desperate. Vehicles had actual crews who could get out and become a unit if their vehicle was destroyed (or indeed you could re-occupy vehicles with crewmen etc.). There were a lot more cool/random things which could happen to vehicles. They were also fast. Like silly fast (up to 36" in some cases). The movement rules were terribly complicated though and made a little worse by having different speed bands. There is a better set of rules somewhere between 2nd and 3rd for vehicles.

The codices were, by far, the high water mark of GW's publications. Wonderful fluff, good artwork, nice colour sections, and comparatively vast army lists. People nowdays should buy them if only for the fluff and "feel". The Chaos codex shines particularly in 2nd edition (though it was terribly powerful --- power creep was a thing back then too, just not quite as egregious as it is now). You got a lot more bang for your back with the old codices as well. They included more wargear, more items, more special rules, wargear cards you could cut out. The Chaos codex included Chaos Cultists army list, Chaos Daemons army list, and Chaos Space Marines army lists. Did you know in 2nd that groups of Chaos daemons became psykers? Yep. A group of daemons could cast spells...

One thing which was exceptionally tough to understand was the huge nerfing of every unit in the game, across the board. This has carried on and made things difficult for GW the past ten years. In the Eldar army for example, Exarchs went from powerful characters to mediocre squad leaders. Warlocks went from potent (psykers were almost universally available in three "levels" in 2nd edition) battlefield psykers to hopeless buff-machines with no capability to actually fight in combat on the tabletop. Even things like the Avatar had their stats chopped tremendously. By doing this GW shrunk tremendously the area it had to work within for 3rd-7th edition. They did the same thing when they changed vehicles to be armour 10-14. That's not much variation. They now struggle and have to create new rules/hull points etc. to justify larger or stronger vehicles. Same thing with the stat lines. A Space Marine captain's stat lines were a joke compared to 2nd...so this then requires even more of the un-ending special rules added to later editions (instead of simply having a kick ass stat line which expresses how excellent he is/was). GW really put themselves in a corner by limiting the scope of stats for so many units. I'll break out the old 3rd ed and 2nd ed. Eldar codices later and give you proper examples.

If someone had taken 2nd and modified, cleaned it up, etc. it would have been a brilliant game. I've debated trying to do so myself. However it would have never supported the huge increase in models/stuff on the table that they're pushing, so it died a quick death. Personally I'd gladly play a 2nd edition game which took all afternoon. With good friends it was a heck of a good time.

If I could Super-Double-Exalt this post I would.

100% agree with all of it.

Well put

No idea on the gameplay front, but I'll echo the difference in Codex quality from older ones to newer.

The latest Eldar codex barely even mentions the War in Heaven!

Martel732 wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:
Of course they do. -1 for soft cover like bushes. -2 for craters and trees. -3 for ruins. -4 for fortified buildings. Stealth is -1, shrouded is -2.
A six always hits, of course. Some very special units like Vindicares could ignore cover.

Those end up not working. You need a D10 or D20.

Bull, it works with a D6 just as well.

No, it doesn't because even a-1 to hit is enormous.

2nd ed was a dumpster fire of epic proportions.

Bolt Action works just fine with negative modifiers to hit on a D6. Your argument is invalid.

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
To hit modifiers can't work on a D6.

They worked fine in WHFB.

Very different game. A game that I think sucked, btw.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Stormonu wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:
Of course they do. -1 for soft cover like bushes. -2 for craters and trees. -3 for ruins. -4 for fortified buildings. Stealth is -1, shrouded is -2.
A six always hits, of course. Some very special units like Vindicares could ignore cover.

Those end up not working. You need a D10 or D20.

Bull, it works with a D6 just as well.

No, it doesn't because even a-1 to hit is enormous.

2nd ed was a dumpster fire of epic proportions.

Bolt Action works just fine with negative modifiers to hit on a D6. Your argument is invalid.

I don't know Bolt Action, and I"m not willing to take just your word on it. To-hit mods is one of the things that made 2nd ed a dumpster fire. Cheapass hormagaunts gave everything a -2 to hit them just for "moving fast". That made them far too durable for their cost and that snowballed into making the Tyranids neigh invincible.

Hi folks.
I have played 40k from RT days to the start of 5th ed.(Then gave up on GW ever sorting out game play issues.)

And I generally agree with the sentiment that the massive change from 2nd ed to 3rd ed was where the 40k rules lost their way.

Rick Priestly admitted in interview that 3rd ed 40k was an '11th hour rush job.'
The studio had been working on a refined skirmish game, EG 2nd ed cleaned up, and tweeked for about 3 years.But GW sales department wanted to up the model count to match the levels of minatures used in WHFB.So the devs had a matter of weeks to write a 40k battle game!

So it is not surprising how many 'over sights' made it into the 3rd ed rules.(The dev team have asked to be allowed a complete re write of the 40k rules since 4th ed!)

If you use the analogy of tactical complexity is muscle , and complicated rules are fat.

2nd ed Ed 40k was a 'sumo wrestler'.quite a bit of fat, but lots of muscle to keep it moving.

3rd ed just cut so much muscle away when trimming the fat, you are left with a weak blob that can hardly move .And it gained so much weight over the last few editions it needs the players to carry it everywhere!

And every other game I play has a power- lifter or body builder rule set in comparison!

Many people want to just go back to the resolution methods used in 2nd ed.(Based on 1970s Napoleonic game design.)
And ignore the last 40 years of development in game design?


The AP system is flawed and leads to a complete lack of proportional results .So the rules need to add on extra special rules to get some sort of definition back.
Armour save modifiers are ok but they are more complicated than other options, and as pointed out they run in to limitations when using a D6.

So why not use a simple and effective alternative that gets the proportionality of the ASM without the restrictions and complication in the rules?

Its like limiting your power options to steam or sail , when there is a wide range of more modern propulsion systems available.

In short..
40k was stuck with WHFB based rules in the 1980s to allow cross over from the more popular fantasy game.
The scale and the scope of the game changed significantly at the insistence of the GW sales department in 3rd ed.
And the devs have never been allowed to address the serious game play issues with a much needed re write to reflect the new scale and scope of the 40k battle game .

 Elbows wrote:
Personally, I vastly preferred 2nd, even with its flaws and would have preferred to see a massaged 2nd edition as opposed to the fire sale that was 3rd edition. When 3rd launched it was quite shocking to me. It was akin to someone taking your chess set away and replacing it with checkers. There was a heck of a lot of "wait, but what about..." - "that's gone.". The game in 2nd felt a heck of a lot more like the fluff and it showed on the table top.

...

One thing which was exceptionally tough to understand was the huge nerfing of every unit in the game, across the board. This has carried on and made things difficult for GW the past ten years. In the Eldar army for example, Exarchs went from powerful characters to mediocre squad leaders. Warlocks went from potent (psykers were almost universally available in three "levels" in 2nd edition) battlefield psykers to hopeless buff-machines with no capability to actually fight in combat on the tabletop. Even things like the Avatar had their stats chopped tremendously. By doing this GW shrunk tremendously the area it had to work within for 3rd-7th edition. They did the same thing when they changed vehicles to be armour 10-14. That's not much variation. They now struggle and have to create new rules/hull points etc. to justify larger or stronger vehicles. Same thing with the stat lines. A Space Marine captain's stat lines were a joke compared to 2nd...so this then requires even more of the un-ending special rules added to later editions (instead of simply having a kick ass stat line which expresses how excellent he is/was). GW really put themselves in a corner by limiting the scope of stats for so many units. I'll break out the old 3rd ed and 2nd ed. Eldar codices later and give you proper examples.

If someone had taken 2nd and modified, cleaned it up, etc. it would have been a brilliant game. I've debated trying to do so myself. However it would have never supported the huge increase in models/stuff on the table that they're pushing, so it died a quick death. Personally I'd gladly play a 2nd edition game which took all afternoon. With good friends it was a heck of a good time.

The Harlequins going absent and Avatar rules "decapitation" were probably the hardest for me personally. Avatar because I finally got the model and converted it to resemble the iconic artwork from 2nd ed codex just two months before 3rd ed happened... Imagine my rage, when Avatar went from 300pts beast god incarnated immune to half of popular weaponry, to a silly 80pts useless deamon with a 5++ save... Exarches and Warlocks dropping the independent character status were also hard to accept... That is why I have dropped 40K in less than a year after 3rd ed premiere (I have played solely Necromunda for a bit, but then it died in my area when BFG and some other miniature games came out).

A fun personal fact from my history: when I finally quit 40K back then, I said to my fellow players, that I'll return when Harlequins are reintroduced as a proper army. When, because some quite convoluted reasons, I finally returned to 40K, it was just after Harlies finally got their codex - the fact that I was unaware of at the moment of making my decision of returning to the hobby

2nd edition is not a game I would ever go back to - it was, in fact the edition that drove me away from 40K until late 5th - but what 3E has become isn't much better. GW does need to tear the game system down and completely rebuild it, but to do so they need to be serious about it and scrap their "design the rules around the model" method they use now.

They also need to hire some real professional rules writers - and playtest the damn stuff they do write. Until then, it's still just them whizzing in the wind and hope it hits the dartboard.

That's not to say there aren't ideas and stories from the older editions that they should draw on, but the mechanics probably isn't anything they need to carry forward.

Second Edition. A slow but interesting skirmish game. Lots of interesting toys and maneuvers (smoke grenades, vortex bombs, and Leman Russ firing from off the board oh my)

However it was extremely cumbersome. Hero hammer was a thing, HtH combat was just downright hard, and it had all the problems of 40K now.

I seem to remember that he who went first generally won with really tweeked armies.

To counter all the negativity, I'll post that I like both systems and think that they work pretty well for their purpose. Both systems groan a bit under the number of special rules/codexes/combos and circumstances available, but if you played games with each systems using fairly basic units, both systems work. I played the **** out of 2nd, and have played every edition since with the biggest lull in my activity during 5th. I consider 4th to be the pinnacle, but I'm also having a lot of fun now. Overall I'm a staunch defender of the post-3rd paradigm, but would be happy to play 2nd if the opportunity arose.


On Movement:

Not mentioned in the original post is the systemic dropping of anything other than a D6. I think this was a clever move by GW to make the game more accessible. All sorts of games have D6s, and it's easy to raid them for more dice. Rolls are also more visually clear when compared to other dice. Whether you like them or not, the game was built around them. For movement the D6 meant a 6" move was natural, and any modifiers to it became proportional. Difficult Terrain is 2D6 take the highest, Very Difficult was a single D6, Fleet and Run use the same mechanics.

On differences between troop speed:

The difference between Rapid-Fire and Assault weapons had an overall effect on unit speed. At the opening of 3rd, in order to Rapid Fire a unit could not move, so Marines could only fire twice if they were stationary, and could fire once one the move. If they fired at all, they could not charge. On the other hand, Eldar (Guardians and Dire Avengers) with their Assault weapons were free to move, shoot and charge in the same turn. The result is that they were waaay faster than Marines once they started engaging in firefights. The particulars have changed some over time, Marines can Rapid-Fire on the move (but still not assault), but Eldar now have their Battle Focus rule, which still keeps them way faster than a Tactical Marine. The combination of weapons rules (Assault vs. Rapid Fire) and the rules Fleet and Battle Focus make the difference between models far, far more more interesting than the old move stat (Marine 4, Eldar 5). The difference between a single inch of movement was almost negligible.

Another thing not mentioned by the OP is that weapon ranges were reduced, in many cases by half. So on the one hand, basic infantry sped up, but on the other hand weapon ranges went down. On the large scale, this meant that unit maneuvering became more meaningful. If you wanted your basic weapons to count for something, you had to get close. If you wanted to avoid the full fire weight of an enemy squad, it was easier to get around them. Without changing the table size, the game now simulated a larger battlefield.

Martel732 wrote:

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
To hit modifiers can't work on a D6.

They worked fine in WHFB.

Very different game. A game that I think sucked, btw.

Depends from the edition. Also, best 40k never required the skill that the best WHFB required.

Martel732 wrote:
Cheapass hormagaunts gave everything a -2 to hit them just for "moving fast".

Did Hormagaunts have M 11? Or a special rule? (-2 to hit against targets moving > 20", Run = 2x M)

For playing a detailed game featuring roughly platoon-level forces, 2nd edition is best . For large company-level battles, 3rd-7th. All five of those editions would probably have something I'd cherry-pick. In both cases, don't bother with the codex books, and stick to the army lists included with the rules.

3rd edition streamlined larger games by removing fiddly details that don't really matter at that scale (and in some cases were too fiddly for 2nd, really; the aforementioned guddling about with individual LOS arcs. Not the sort of thing a platoon Lieutenant should be worrying about). It did the same thing that Epic 40,000 had done, but got away with it. Then they've spent the next seventeen years shovelling all the complexity back in.

Here's an example of the dumbing down from 2nd to 3rd.

Avatar
300 Points
M WS BS S T W I A LD
6 10 10 8 8 7 10 5 10
-Commander (can lead your army)
-Special invulnerabilities due to its molten body (ignores flamers, plasma, and melta weapons)
-Ignores Psychology
-2+ Save which can only be modified up to 4+ at worst.
-Causes Terror
-Rules which impact greater daemons, impact the Avatar
-Comes with the Wailing Doom which is pretty nasty and can be thrown up to 12" in addition to being wicked in hand to hand combat

Avatar
80 Points
WS BS S T W I A LD
10 - 6 6 4 5 3 10
-Fearless
-Inspiring
-Independent Character (this wasn't a thing in 2nd ed.)
-Monstrous Creature
-Invulnerable save (5+)
-Counts as demon

So in the newer edition the Avatar became subject to flamers, meltas, and plasma, and with a Toughness of 6 and 5+ invulnerable - died to a simple squad of Space Marine bolt guns rapid-firing. The Wailing Doom was less effective and no longer had a ranged attack option. The wounds are about equivalent (in 2nd ed. weapons did varying numbers of wounds, so the 7 wounds is not as "incredible" as it sounds --- though again it would give the Avatar much longer life span against being spammed to death by small arms - if any could wound the Tough 8 fella). All in all the Avatar went from a seriously dangerous imposing guy to just "eh...hose him down with bolt guns". As mentioned though, this was all likely intentional to speed the game up.

Another kick in the pants for the Eldar was the complete re-write of Shuriken Catapults. In 2nd ed. they were equivalent to a Storm Bolter (actually better). Suddenly they're 12" mediocre guns? This slew Dire Avengers (until eventually they were retconned with "better" shuriken catapults...and eventually even more special rules to make them purposeful).

I don't claim to say either is the "better" edition...but it was a huge change. People worry about having models made irrelevant between editions --- 3rd was a HUGE change for all the armies. A lot of cool models and characters became far less cool/useful. 2nd ed. for all of its flaws though, was far "cooler". You felt like you were getting something special when you picked up a codex. There was far more character in the armies, and that's something I'm sad to see slowly fade.

That was somewhat unrelated to the change in the rules emphasis. I mean, Shuriken catapults could have been retconned into short-ranged carbines in 2nd edition too.

I agree, though (and so did GW, quite quickly!) that the thin codex books were a mistake. That idea ended with the revised Chaos book, the Inquisition books, Necrons and Tau, IIRC.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Cheapass hormagaunts gave everything a -2 to hit them just for "moving fast".

Did Hormagaunts have M 11? Or a special rule? (-2 to hit against targets moving > 20", Run = 2x M)

For playing a detailed game featuring roughly platoon-level forces, 2nd edition is best . For large company-level battles, 3rd-7th. All five of those editions would probably have something I'd cherry-pick. In both cases, don't bother with the codex books, and stick to the army lists included with the rules.

3rd edition streamlined larger games by removing fiddly details that don't really matter at that scale (and in some cases were too fiddly for 2nd, really; the aforementioned guddling about with individual LOS arcs. Not the sort of thing a platoon Lieutenant should be worrying about). It did the same thing that Epic 40,000 had done, but got away with it. Then they've spent the next seventeen years shovelling all the complexity back in.

Getting 2nd ed into quick version is quite fast actually. Doesn't take much house rules to get it working fast.

It's hell of a easier to make good game out of 2nd ed than 7th ed that's hopelessly broken everywhere.

"Did Hormagaunts have M 11? Or a special rule?"

They had a special rule that let them do it. It was broken.

Martel732 wrote:
"Did Hormagaunts have M 11? Or a special rule?"

They had a special rule that let them do it. It was broken.

Checked straight from my copy of 2nd ed Tyranid codex: they had 12" run plus 6" Leap, for a maximum of 18" move and -1 to hit modifier for rapid moving target. You're probably confused by another -1 to hit modifier they usually had, a soft-cover modifier when firing overwatch, because they could leap up to 3" vertically and ignore terrain penalties for the "leap" part of movement so they practically always charged from behind cover.

Edited multiple times to rewrite the cover part for clarity.

nou wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"Did Hormagaunts have M 11? Or a special rule?"

They had a special rule that let them do it. It was broken.

Checked straight from my copy of 2nd ed Tyranid codex: they had 12" run plus 6" Leap, for a maximum of 18" move and -1 to hit modifier for rapid moving target. You're probably confused by another -1 to hit modifier they usually had, a soft-cover modifier when firing overwatch, because they could leap up to 3" vertically and ignore terrain penalties for the "leap" part of movement.

Okay I knew they were -2 to hit almost all the time. Still absurd.

Curious why you think that's absurd?

Because of how cheap they were and being forced to shoot the closest model.

Being forced to shoot the closest was fairly easily worked around with model placement.... All you had to do in most cases was make sure that the closest enemy was not in your fire arc, if you wanted to shoot something else.

Not entirely foolproof (if the target you wanted was directly behind another unit, for example) but helped considerably.

 insaniak wrote:
Being forced to shoot the closest was fairly easily worked around with model placement.... All you had to do in most cases was make sure that the closest enemy was not in your fire arc, if you wanted to shoot something else.

Not entirely foolproof (if the target you wanted was directly behind another unit, for example) but helped considerably.

Tyranid players knew how to game this. It was all a gigantic hassle.

At which point, the answer was one word: Eversor.

That never seemed to work out for eversor users. He'd end up with 6 genestealers on him and die. It was all a giant dumpster fire, especially with Tyranid strategy cards.

 Elbows wrote:
Here's an example of the dumbing down from 2nd to 3rd.

Avatar
300 Points
M WS BS S T W I A LD
6 10 10 8 8 7 10 5 10
-Commander (can lead your army)
-Special invulnerabilities due to its molten body (ignores flamers, plasma, and melta weapons)
-Ignores Psychology
-2+ Save which can only be modified up to 4+ at worst.
-Causes Terror
-Rules which impact greater daemons, impact the Avatar
-Comes with the Wailing Doom which is pretty nasty and can be thrown up to 12" in addition to being wicked in hand to hand combat

Avatar
80 Points
WS BS S T W I A LD
10 - 6 6 4 5 3 10
-Fearless
-Inspiring
-Independent Character (this wasn't a thing in 2nd ed.)
-Monstrous Creature
-Invulnerable save (5+)
-Counts as demon

So in the newer edition the Avatar became subject to flamers, meltas, and plasma, and with a Toughness of 6 and 5+ invulnerable - died to a simple squad of Space Marine bolt guns rapid-firing. The Wailing Doom was less effective and no longer had a ranged attack option. The wounds are about equivalent (in 2nd ed. weapons did varying numbers of wounds, so the 7 wounds is not as "incredible" as it sounds --- though again it would give the Avatar much longer life span against being spammed to death by small arms - if any could wound the Tough 8 fella). All in all the Avatar went from a seriously dangerous imposing guy to just "eh...hose him down with bolt guns". As mentioned though, this was all likely intentional to speed the game up.

Another kick in the pants for the Eldar was the complete re-write of Shuriken Catapults. In 2nd ed. they were equivalent to a Storm Bolter (actually better). Suddenly they're 12" mediocre guns? This slew Dire Avengers (until eventually they were retconned with "better" shuriken catapults...and eventually even more special rules to make them purposeful).

I don't claim to say either is the "better" edition...but it was a huge change. People worry about having models made irrelevant between editions --- 3rd was a HUGE change for all the armies. A lot of cool models and characters became far less cool/useful. 2nd ed. for all of its flaws though, was far "cooler". You felt like you were getting something special when you picked up a codex. There was far more character in the armies, and that's something I'm sad to see slowly fade.

Well, 2nd Ed did become known as "Hero Hammer".

In contrast to the Avatar, Marneus Calgar had a 2+ Save in 3rd, no Inv. If you shot him with a Meltagun he would die outright. Despite that, I would argue that MCs in 3rd were more survivable, since Lascannons didn't do 2D6 wounds anymore. I rarely saw an Avatar or Bloodthirster get into combat in 2nd, while in 3rd I saw Bloodthirsters table armies.

In terms of army character, that's definitely something they've been bringing back. Just look at all the fancy rules for Aspect Warriors now. The Legions book is full of awesome characterful rules.


Edit: And in 3rd, since the Avatar was an Independent Character, you couldn't target it anyways unless it was the closest model.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Well, 2nd Ed did become known as "Hero Hammer".

Largely because of MAD strategy. Simply taking tons of cheap stuff counters super characters nicely. Biggest issue comes from certain eldar exarch builds and psykers.

But bloodthirsters etc? Have fun killing cheap troops one model at a time.

tneva82 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Well, 2nd Ed did become known as "Hero Hammer".

Largely because of MAD strategy. Simply taking tons of cheap stuff counters super characters nicely. Biggest issue comes from certain eldar exarch builds and psykers.

But bloodthirsters etc? Have fun killing cheap troops one model at a time.

I dunno about cheap stuff, as Marines weren't particularly cheap. My solution was usually something like a Dreadnought with Assault Cannon on Overwatch.

Level 4 psykers were the champions in my 2nd Ed meta for sure though. Lots of cheap troops would have either been Orks or Tyranids, anything else would have likely gotten Virus Grenaded.

Martel732 wrote:
That never seemed to work out for eversor users. He'd end up with 6 genestealers on him and die. It was all a giant dumpster fire, especially with Tyranid strategy cards.

That wasn't my experience. The Eversor ate Genestealers for breakfast, particularly since the more models attacked him, the more attack dice he wound up rolling.

 insaniak wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
That never seemed to work out for eversor users. He'd end up with 6 genestealers on him and die. It was all a giant dumpster fire, especially with Tyranid strategy cards.

That wasn't my experience. The Eversor ate Genestealers for breakfast, particularly since the more models attacked him, the more attack dice he wound up rolling.

Attack dice didn't scale like the +1 WS did. In fact, attack dice could back fire quite spectacularly. It was better to roll a moderate amount and have a HUGE WS.

Lots of interesting points have been made. I was going to run this discussion phase by phase but it seems the discussion has already covered most of the game. Oh well. Here goes;

Movement continued
I was saving the discussion of overwatch for the shooting phase, but yes, you had to declare it at the start of your turn before moving any models. This wasn't great for one reason - players had to look over fire arcs etc. for every model in their army before making any decisions. If overwatch were to be kept, being allowed to declare it at any point in the movement phase would go a long way towards speeding things up. Also, when you resolved the shots in your opponent's turn you did so in their movement phase. This was highly disruptive. More on that later.

Shooting
In hindsight, the changes to shooting were far bigger than they seemed at the time.
Weapons went from single shot, sustained fire, and move-or-shoot or not to: pistol, rapid fire, assault, heavy, ordnance (and eventually salvo). The lack of a way to have a single shot weapon which neither requires standing still nor allows you to charge after firing still seems like a gap today. This is one of those tricky areas where I have no idea what I'd do. I like assault weapons too much to want to scrap the idea of shooting and charging in the same turn. One thing I do know is that I hated rapid fire in 3rd edition for exactly the same reason I hate salvo now. It's the choice between remain stationary and shoot to full range, or move and not shoot at all due to your range being halved. Salvo weapons may as well be heavy in my mind because the half range issue usually results in not getting to shoot anyway. The subsequent changes to rapid fire feel much better to me- they encourage movement around the table which makes objective based missions possible.

Sustained fire went away (for those that don't know, it was roughly a D3, but one side on the die would jam your gun instead of giving 3 shots) and was replaced by assault x and heavy x. This is one of those bits where things went weird for no reason. Replacing the die is fine, getting rid of jam entirely was a relief. It's how they converted from one set of numbers to the other that boggles the mind. Logically (if we ignore jam) a D3 averages out to be 2 shots a round. Looking at shuriken catapults, storm bolters and other 1 sustained fire dice weapons, that converted nicely into assault 2 or heavy 2. All good so far. But then the 2 and 3 sustained fire dice weapons got converted into.... heavy 3. What? A heavy bolter went from an expected 4 shots down to 3 shots. An assault cannon went from 6 down to 3 and eventually got put back to 4. Why? That never sat right with me.

Jam was awful. The game typically lasted 4 turns. If you roll a jam, not only do you not fire this turn, but you have to track that fact and not fire next turn either. Yuck. Don't get me started on needing to hit before you rolled to see if your gun jammed or not. Recharging plasma guns was another 'track it next turn' problem. This got replaced with Gets Hot! Another rule I dislike.

Infantry, and indeed all models, had fire arcs. For a really small scale game this makes sense. For a miniatures game where the models have dynamic poses it makes no sense at all. Which way is the model facing? The way its head is pointing or the way its gun is pointing? What about the other gun in the off-hand? Did I mention that you had to do your pivoting in the movement phase, so not only the position of the model was important but you had to make sure everyone was facing just the right way. I'm so glad this went away.

And firing arcs tied into split fire. Any model could shoot at the closest target (which in my recollection meant the closest enemy model, not closest unit by the way) so you'd often be rolling for every shot individually. This took forever. People complain about to hit modifiers taking time, but if you ask me this is where the real time delay was. Switching to unit-to-unit fire fights was a good move. The lack of ability to split off other weapons remains an issue however. If I were writing 3rd edition now, I'd say 'all weapons of the same type in a unit must fire at the same target unit'. That way you're still ensuring that your 7 bolters will be rolled together without hindering the ability to actually make sensible use of that melta gun or lascannon.

While not part of the shooting phase, the other thing about overwatch which I intensely disliked was just how disruptive it could be. I often fought against Imperial Guard, which meant a lot of units (even back in those days of smaller games). There was more than one occasion where so many models were on overwatch that by the time my opponent finished firing (in my turn) he had convinced himself that it was actually his turn and tried to proceed to hand-to-hand phase before I'd finished moving. From a tactical warfare standpoint, overwatch needs to exist. The way we used to play it was must never return though (and I think was due in part to us forgetting the -1 to hit penalty for overwatch).

Sometime ago I convinced myself that twin linked meant re-roll to wound in 2nd ed. This was wrong. It was double your shots. I like this. I want it to return. It's faster than a reroll and it doesn't stop being useful if you have high ballistic skill.

To Hit modifiers, save modifiers and cover saves. Three separate changes which are so entwined that I feel they must be discussed together. Others have commented up thread how determining to hit modifiers was slow. That's true, but it doesn't have to be. The issue comes back to determining modifiers on a model by model basis, and the plethora of modifiers that existed. Soft cover, hard cover, emerging from cover, speed, size, equipment (targetters). The list seemed endless. In and of themselves to-hit modifiers are not the problem. It's how many there were and the fact you calculated them one model at a time. Shifting towards unit-to-unit determination and culling a lot of the modifiers would speed things up without having the weird dichotomy of cover saves where cover is irrelevant half of the time. Similarly, people often lament how 'power armour was useless' because virtually every weapon had at least a -1 save modifier. To that I say, let's shift all modifiers by one. All those bolters etc. are now save mod 0. Hey presto, power armour is 3+ again.

Wounds. This is a very important point. Weapons did a varying number of wounds. This is what stopped monstrous creatures from being as invisible as they have become in 7th edition. In 2nd the number of wounds was often a polyhedral die. That level of variety and complexity is probably not required, but having some way to deal multiple wounds (other than by instant death) would be welcome. I can think of a number of ways to handle this, but I have no idea which would work best. Perhaps the simplest answer is the best; replace all those die with fixed numbers.

Assault
It's probably quicker to list the things that didn't change, but I'll try anyway.

Model to model vs unit to unit. This was a good change. It sped things up dramatically. With it WS, I and A all took on new meanings in the mechanics. This was done rather well even if it did take a few editions to get to where we are now. This is one area where I see the rules actually improved as each edition came along. Mechanically 7th edition combat works well, though I think there is still room for improvement, particularly with regard to how WS is utilized.

Pistols no longer use their profile in combat. Odd, but counterbalanced to a degree by the whole move/shoot/charge thing. This issue really needs to be considered in conjunction with that point.

Hand-to-hand was another area where the number of modifiers was too high. There are 6 modifiers to combat score you need to remember before you even throw codex rules into the mix. Too many modifiers means too much time working things out. Again, I prefer the way 3rd-7th handle this.

Swords, lightning claws, shields and a few other things could parry. To my recollection this is why everyone had a sword of some sort and you never saw a power axe. The diversity in the rules was nice, but the end result (at least in my play group) was no diversity on the battle field. Parry was too damn good.

Speaking of diversity, there was a huge amount of it in close combat weapons compared with 3rd edition. 7th has gone a long way to restoring this and I am glad of that fact. I see no reason for melee weapons to be homogenised at the same time as ranged weapons were diversified.

Psychics
Much like close combat the way psykers and psychic powers are handled has changed so many times that it's hard to remember exactly which rule came from which edition. 2nd ed (with the Dark Millennium expansion) had a whole card game going on inside your regular game of 40k. Bad move. Fluffy, but slow and unbalanced. With a lot of armies bringing your own psyker made the enemy psyker more powerful by increasing the number of cards being handed out. 3rd went to the opposite extreme where a psychic power was just a gun which required a leadership test to use. This is fantasy knights, orcs and elves, in space, with magic. Magic needs to be more than just a gun you can't see. I think 2nd and 7th are both 'too far' and both bad in approximately the same way. That problem is that psykers feed off each other. The more psykers you have the more cards (2nd ed) or dice (7th ed) you have and therefore the more you can abuse the system. 6th edition psychics may not have been perfect but they were better than either of these messes.

Recovery
Not much to say here, I just wanted to call out the fact that this was an actual phase rather than 'at the beginning of your turn' or 'before the movement phase'.

Oh wait, morale. Space Marines didn't have And They Shall Know No Fear. They had Shaken instead. Failed 1 morale check? Stand still if you want but you can't approach the enemy. Failed a second? Run away like everyone else.

Army Selection
This may be the elephant in the room. No force org chart to constrain you into choices that don't make sense vs no percentages to ensure that you don't just take 60 points of gretchin. Neither of these sits well with me by itself. In 2nd it was >25% squads, <50% characters, <50% support. That was it. Not very limiting because those squads could be terminators and 50% on characters left too much room for hero-hammer. Whereas in 3rd-6th people could just min-max by taking 2 minimum units of their cheapest troop. Let's not get started on 7th's formations and detachments.
This is one of those areas where I feel both methods have a point but that the best answer is to mix the two together. In my re-write of 7th (Project Zeta) I settled on doing exactly that. The Org chart from 3rd-6th is the primary concept, but it now scales on the number of points you're using, and has the additional restriction of percentages. No more 2x30point gretchin units to have minimum troops, no more ignoring 'troops' in favour of elites by picking terminators without any regular marines. Is it perfect? No, but it's better than what went before if you ask me.

Warhammer Fantasy had an alternate solution of core/heroes/special/rare. This might also be worth consideration for 40k. See, the problem in my mind is that the Force Organisation Chart/Combined Arms Detachment that we all love to hate is perfect... for representing a space marine battle company, but not for much else. 6 troops = 6 tactical squads, 2 HQ = Captain and chaplain, 3 fast attack = 2 assault squads and 1 support unit, 3 heavy support = 2 devastator squads and one tank, 3 elite = 2 company dreadnoughts and 1 support unit. It's the double demi company or the strike force, but with more flexibility. Then we look at Eldar (particularly 3rd edition Eldar) and it makes no sense at all. Guardian's aren't standard soldiers, they're conscripts. Aspect warriors are soldiers, but you're heavily restricted in how many you can take. Ack! Also, what happened to my units of 3-7? They all became 5-10. Why? As far as I can tell it was because 3 units of 3-7 aspect warriors is not enough to be of any real use. 3 elites with most aspect warriors being elite just doesn't make sense.
If anything I feel that to make the FOC work for Eldar, you need to use the Beil-Tan options from the Craftworld Eldar supplement. Treat guardians as elite and all aspects as troops. Far better to come up with a FOC for each codex and not shoehorn everything into hq/troops/elite/fast/heavy. However that takes more time and effort.

 don_mondo wrote:
Ahhh, the good old days of 2nd ed...

When were those exactly?

I'm going first. My whole army goes on Overwatch, your turn.

Oh, your 170 point Farseer single-handedly killed my entire 2000 point army. Good game.

I hit your Terminator Armored, Combat Drugged, daemoned up Chaos Lord with a Hand Flamer, a weapon that literally can't cause him any damage ever, now he can no longer take any actions unless you can roll a 6 on a d6.

Turn 1 Pulsa Rocket your whole army, skip your entire turn.
Turn 2 Pulsa Rocket your whole army, skip your entire turn.
Turn 3 Pulsa Rocket your whole army, skip your entire turn.
Turn 4 Pulsa Rocket your whole army, skip your entire turn.
Looks like I win.

Not so fast, I'm playing Tyranids, your whole army died before we even set up.

You're playing anything but Space Marines? Ok, I spent 50 points and killed your entire army.
You're playing anything but Space Marines? Ok, I just happened to get the right tactical card and spend no points and killed your entire army.

Zustiur wrote:
If overwatch were to be kept, being allowed to declare it at any point in the movement phase would go a long way towards speeding things up. Also, when you resolved the shots in your opponent's turn you did so in their movement phase.

While I think the original 2nd ed rules did specify that overwatch was resolved in the movement phase, this was later changed to allow resolving it basically whenever you wanted to. This allowed you to make use of overwatch if, say, close combat casualties suddenly made a potential target become available, which was quite handy.

The main problem with 2nd ed overwatch for me was that there wasn't really any reason to not do it. If you don't have any decent targets, just put everything in overwatch and wait for your opponent to move. This resulted in more than one game where both players were just sitting on opposite sides of the board each waiting for the other to do something, while the turn counter ticked away on its own.

While I prefer the 2nd ed system to the current one, I think if it were up to me I would merge the two (take 2nd ed's requirement to declare overwatch instead of normal shooting and/or movement, add 6th ed's firing overwatch as snap shots) but also require a leadership test for a unit in overwatch wishing to shoot.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

You're playing anything but Space Marines? Ok, I just happened to get the right tactical card and spend no points and killed your entire army.

This one at least was fixed, with an FAQ in White Dwarf telling players to take the Virus Outbreak Strategy Card out and tear it up...

Zustiur wrote:

Infantry, and indeed all models, had fire arcs. For a really small scale game this makes sense. For a miniatures game where the models have dynamic poses it makes no sense at all. Which way is the model facing? The way its head is pointing or the way its gun is pointing? What about the other gun in the off-hand? Did I mention that you had to do your pivoting in the movement phase, so not only the position of the model was important but you had to make sure everyone was facing just the right way. I'm so glad this went away.

It was a game intended for smaller forces. If you're looking at an army of 20 vs. an army of 20, and you're telling the story of an intimate shootout between a couple of buildings the fire arcs worked pretty well. It all depends on the granularity of game you're trying to achieve. It also meant that you could outflank a squad on overwatch, which was kinda neat. (In practice I always felt that movement was too slow for infantry to do this, but it was pretty easy for Bikes and Vehicles.)

You say it's bad, which is fine, but maybe some more context to say why you felt it was bad would help? Firing arcs in the current game where I run 70+ marines would be tedious as ****, but in a small game (Necromunda, Infinity) they're a key part of the game. 2nd Ed. existed in the space between the two.

Zustiur wrote:
Far better to come up with a FOC for each codex and not shoehorn everything into hq/troops/elite/fast/heavy. However that takes more time and effort.

IMO that's where the Macro Formations shine. They do just what you describe, but at the same time don't stop you from doing something more free form if you want.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

I hit your Terminator Armored, Combat Drugged, daemoned up Chaos Lord with a Hand Flamer, a weapon that literally can't cause him any damage ever, now he can no longer take any actions unless you can roll a 6 on a d6.

If you're referring to setting someone on fire, Terminator Armor allowed you to ignore the effects. Exarch armor didn't though! I burned a lot of Exarchs.

Man, a lot of people really lost a lot of games to Tyranids in this thread. Lol

I loved 2nd edition and was completely pissed when 3rd came out. Our entire gaming group dissolved. Then when the Eldar codex came out I was back in.

3rd edition was awful, within a year of it coming out I had sold my old armies and left the hobby. 7th edition is an even bigger mess than 2nd ever was.

 Insectum7 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Well, 2nd Ed did become known as "Hero Hammer".

Largely because of MAD strategy. Simply taking tons of cheap stuff counters super characters nicely. Biggest issue comes from certain eldar exarch builds and psykers.

But bloodthirsters etc? Have fun killing cheap troops one model at a time.

I dunno about cheap stuff, as Marines weren't particularly cheap. My solution was usually something like a Dreadnought with Assault Cannon on Overwatch.

Level 4 psykers were the champions in my 2nd Ed meta for sure though. Lots of cheap troops would have either been Orks or Tyranids, anything else would have likely gotten Virus Grenaded.

Yeah 10 tac marines 300. Still bloodthirster costs how much? 10 tac marines takes 10 player turns(when standard game has 8...) for bloodthirster to kill short of LD issues(and marines had the shaken status to help there).

I played 3rd for a bit but went back to 2nd. It brutally cut the game back to the bone, it binned all the joy in the game and just became a lot more generic moving and rolling lots of dice. The psychic rules were barely evident, the psychology rules were all gone, no more 'frenzy' or 'stupidity'. Everything moves 6" now because we can't understand a movement stat. Loads of units were cut, Genestealer cults, the Orks lost all their cool clans and units (madboyz, Freebooterz), most artillary and Shokk Attack Gun, etc, their army was like a huge Gorkamorka mob. No Squats? Ok, well you'd not done anything with them in a while. Jeeze, what happened to Codex Chaos? Look at the 2nd edition copy, what the hell was that wafer thin thing made for 3rd? Vehicle rules were grossly simplified, I liked the Datafaxes of 2nd and it's fine for a few vehicles on the field, but there was barely anything left. Bikes needed simplifying but now they effectively just granted movement and toughness bonus. No grenades of any sort in the new game. Sigh, I can't remember the number of other units that became redundant, it seemed a lot.

I was 14 when 3rd edition was published and it looked like a horrible, dumbed down disappointment and put me off new editions of 40k permanently. I stick to RT and 2nd, and skirmish games like Necromunda. Love the modern models though, and even at the time the multipart Marines released for 3rd edition were incredible, but the game was gak.

Because OP of this thread is the same person who started "project Zeta", I treat this thread more like a "sister thread" intended to be a "general view on core goals" think-tank for a more detailed rules discussion in "zeta thread". And discussion here nicely shows why any attempt to create an "ideal 40k edition" is futile - there is nothing resembling "a single minded community". Not even creating a "different scale modes" in 8th ed will satisfy all possible 40k "tastes" created by three decades of this game existence. Just to name some broad categories, we have people who:

- would like 40K to be a tight, well balanced, small ruleset focused on tournament play, ideally without large number of fundamentally different factions, in which games last no longer than 2hrs...

- would like 40K to be well written ruleset enabling hassle free play with strangers, but want it be large enough for each faction to be largely unique in playstyle, so you can realy "feel" them being different and identify with.

- would like 40K to be huge and immersive experience, with loads and loads of possibilities and tiny details, with a ruleset "playable", but not realy demand perfect balance "built in", because they can always balance army lists on "per scenario" basis... Here is when things like lasgun guards, stormsurges and mighty psykers existing side by side are not really a problem.

Some of those expected qualities can even be directly contradictory or it can be very, very difficult to find an acceptable "middle ground" of complexity. For those who "lived through" the transition between 2nd and 3rd it is quite obvious, that every compromise will strip some feeling one way or another. Those who started in 4th-5th have every right to feel overhelmed and/or irritated by a "boated rules inflation" in 7th... At the same time a lot of 4th-7th ed players do fear AOS treatment applied to 40K, which is really a 2-to-3rd ed transition repeated once again...

tneva82 wrote:

Yeah 10 tac marines 300. Still bloodthirster costs how much? 10 tac marines takes 10 player turns(when standard game has 8...) for bloodthirster to kill short of LD issues(and marines had the shaken status to help there).

I don't remember the particulars of squads engaging in CC but I think the scenario you're describing didn't come up very often. I definitely know a model could charge multiple models, and follow up into multiple models. You might be able to string out the combat but then couldn't the opponent just fire into the unengaged models? Not to mention that cheap troops might break at the outset of CC anyways because the Bloodthirster caused Terror.

Bloodthirster was 300 I think. Bare bones Tac Squad was 300, but more like 350+ ish once you add a Special, heavy and/or something on the Sarge. I guess you didn't have to take weapons, but then something like a Dreadnought would just murder you.

Space models and he struggles to contact multiple. Then feed him one guy at a time. You obviously don't rush in with all. Well unless you have somebody who beats him.

Wn have been playing 2nd ed for over a year. Thirster is hardly a problem. Especially since it's squishier than in 7th ed. Tac marine with lascannon can kill it with one shot. And shooting into combat is a thing

A Bloodthirster can be dangerous, but it can be tied up (killing 2-3 marines per "turn"). Now, to be fair, a 300-something point daemon killing a 300 point tac squad during the course of a game is technically appropriate.

Close combat is something I'd change from 2nd edition...but not go full-slow like 7th. I chuckle when I see units with wargear in 7th making 12-16 attacks on the charge etc. That's beyond ridiculous. There is a middle ground somewhere.

I have been lucky enough to play every edition of 40k, even Rogue Trader.

And, with the fullness of time (and having played 2nd edition somewhat recently) I can say the 2nd edition is the winner by a mile in terms of narrative and fun. Things "feel" more intuitive and fun.

if you slam the accelerator down and drive full speed into a unit or Orks, they thunk off the ram-prow and die in a most satisfactory way. But, now you're going so fast you can't turn quick enough to avoid slamming into that ruin just behind them...

If you light those Terminators on fire with a flamer, they might just stay on fire all game... and not care, as the flames don't hurt them inside their armor, and they continue to walk about, reaping the world in two with their assault cannon.

It is an age of heroes and drama and tiny, tiny armies.

It is also utterly unplayable if either player is concerned with having the "best" army, or has ever even thought about their win/loss ratio. The army lists aren't balanced, and are easily exploited. Rules are vague, and depend on cooperative play to quickly resolve. (IE: If you shoot a lascannon into this close combat, we randomize who gets hit. And, you have three guys in close combat, and I only have one. But, mine is an Eldar Dreadnought, three times the size of your guys. So, on 1-2-3 one of your guys is hit, and 4-6 the dreadnought is hit. It's not in the rules, its just what makes sense)

But, the days when we could argue 2nd edition was too complex or not as streamlined as modern editions, died around the time the Universal Special Rules section of the rulebook grew larger than most 3rd edition codexes.

2nd ed was my introduction to min/maxing. As I've said, i never won once in 2nd.

 Elbows wrote:
A Bloodthirster can be dangerous, but it can be tied up (killing 2-3 marines per "turn"). Now, to be fair, a 300-something point daemon killing a 300 point tac squad during the course of a game is technically appropriate.

Close combat is something I'd change from 2nd edition...but not go full-slow like 7th. I chuckle when I see units with wargear in 7th making 12-16 attacks on the charge etc. That's beyond ridiculous. There is a middle ground somewhere.

Problem being getting thirster to battle(daemons donjt just start on table. Eiher you sacrifice hero adding to cost or get stuff to combat to get summoning points. Which doesn't happen turn 1 so thirster comes more likely turn 3 or 4 in 4 turn game). Then you can get splatted by lone lascannon

Hey, nobody's perfect. The Bloodthirster also had 10 wounds, so a lascannon (2D6 wounds) was still exceptionally rare to kill it in a single shot. You'd need at least two.

Definitely seems to me that there's a calling for two separate, but definitely linked games: a small-scale skirmish game for narrative-led gaming, and a large-scale warfare one that's balanced for tournament play.

Any ideas on how to make a rule-set that could support both?

Without making two rules sets? Nope.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Definitely seems to me that there's a calling for two separate, but definitely linked games: a small-scale skirmish game for narrative-led gaming, and a large-scale warfare one that's balanced for tournament play.

Any ideas on how to make a rule-set that could support both?

Somewhere around Inquisimunda for skirmish and something between refined 5th-7th ed for standard+apocalypse sized games would be fine, but those are nevertheless two separate rulesets (with a separate army construction rules for standard and apocalypse on top of "core rules"). For example, I don't see how you can have a working and detailed 1-on-1 CC duels and fast squad-vs-squad CC combat in the same system. And while writing those two sets of rules is "easy" enough, convincing people to learn and utilize two different rulesets with same minis is not trivial task at all.

 Elbows wrote:
Hey, nobody's perfect. The Bloodthirster also had 10 wounds, so a lascannon (2D6 wounds) was still exceptionally rare to kill it in a single shot. You'd need at least two.

Yeah but it was possible. Unlike from 3rd ed where 'thirster laughs at single lascannon(and then proceeds to wipe entire squads in one or two combat phase).

Balance problems rarely are because of expensive individual models in 2nd ed. It's too cheap heavy weapon platforms and psykers that are bigger issues.

tneva82 wrote:
Space models and he struggles to contact multiple. Then feed him one guy at a time. You obviously don't rush in with all. Well unless you have somebody who beats him.

I think realistically the threat is more that the Thirster could "follow up" out of Close combat in the space marine turn, and then be free to charge something more valuable. I think the reason I never saw what you describe is because the Thirster was either dead, or busy flipping a Land Raider on it's roof or murdering some hero.

tneva82 wrote:
Wn have been playing 2nd ed for over a year. Thirster is hardly a problem. Especially since it's squishier than in 7th ed. Tac marine with lascannon can kill it with one shot. And shooting into combat is a thing

That was more my point originally, that despite huge statlines they could be quite vulnerable in 2nd. When in effect, even if their stats were "dumbed down" for 3rd, the unit-to-unit paradigm and the CC mechanics (especially sweeping advance) made many MCs more dangerous than before. I remember seeing a Blood Angels army kill a Chaos army down to the last Champion, and then the Champion turned into a Bloodthirster and went on to wipe out the Blood Angels.

Although the real question for 2nd Ed. is why give a Tac marine a Lascannon when you could give him a Missile Launcher with Frag, Krak and Plasma missiles?

IMO, the way to use the same core rules for detailed skirmish game and large battle game, is simply to apply the rules to individual models in the skirmish game, and units in the battle game.

So the game turn, movement shooting and assault are resolved the same way,but the skirmish game uses detailed model interaction, and the battle game uses tactical unit interaction.

 Insectum7 wrote:
I think realistically the threat is more that the Thirster could "follow up" out of Close combat in the space marine turn, and then be free to charge something more valuable. I think the reason I never saw what you describe is because the Thirster was either dead, or busy flipping a Land Raider on it's roof or murdering some hero.

It charges another unit, it just chops another type of cheap troop. If you don't have big expensive model the 'thirster is suffering from serious case of hard time finding worthwhile target.

Much like I have never been particularly bothered about S weapons. Not much difference between S and S10 AP2(or S8 AP2 for that matter...). Not much targets S really is useful over S10.

Similarly in 2nd ed anything 'thirster can kill so can much cheaper models. And there's obviously more of those cheaper models...

tneva82 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
I think realistically the threat is more that the Thirster could "follow up" out of Close combat in the space marine turn, and then be free to charge something more valuable. I think the reason I never saw what you describe is because the Thirster was either dead, or busy flipping a Land Raider on it's roof or murdering some hero.

It charges another unit, it just chops another type of cheap troop. If you don't have big expensive model the 'thirster is suffering from serious case of hard time finding worthwhile target.

Much like I have never been particularly bothered about S weapons. Not much difference between S and S10 AP2(or S8 AP2 for that matter...). Not much targets S really is useful over S10.

Similarly in 2nd ed anything 'thirster can kill so can much cheaper models. And there's obviously more of those cheaper models...

Well I suppose that would work if your army was entirely built of cheap models, I just never saw an "all cheap model army" in 2nd. The little guys never seemed to last very long, even in droves. Too many Blast weapons or other area effects around in my group maybe, or maybe no one really wanted to commit to buying a whole bunch of little guys. The one time I remember a huge IG blob of infantry, it got Virus Grenaded and I think that was that. Maybe it could work with minimal, widely distributed squads, but I'm skeptical. If I ever get the chance to play 2nd again, it might be a fun experiment.

What army are/were you using, btw?

I agree, I'm not bothered by S D weapons either. They're the Vortex Grenade in 2nd, and the Wraithcannon in 3rd to me.

We have orks and various Imperium forces(IG, dark angels, blood angels and tiny space wolf forces along plus Inquisitor) in our main campaign. Eldars are eventually joining but finding time to paint(painted models only) has slowed that plan.

Lanrak wrote:
IMO, the way to use the same core rules for detailed skirmish game and large battle game, is simply to apply the rules to individual models in the skirmish game, and units in the battle game.

So the game turn, movement shooting and assault are resolved the same way,but the skirmish game uses detailed model interaction, and the battle game uses tactical unit interaction.

This approach doesn't work with CC. If I have a model with 50% chance of killing you in a single activation, and you have a model with 50% chance of killing me with a single activation, then if my initiative is higher and I strike first, you have only 25% chance of being victorious. 1-on-1 combat ideally reqires simultainous activation, like 2nd ed rules. Those same rules are total disaster in squad-vs-squad combat, which in turn work quite well with initiative sorting. Play some CC models only Kill Team games to see for yourself.

For modern Initiative sorting CC to be effective in 1-on-1 duels, there should be only a slight chance of striking a killing blow in each turn, and definite combat resolution should take a couple of activations, so you would have to make each individual model in skirmish mode multiwound and eternal warrior minimum, but doesn't guarantee any balance. Let the 7th ed Karandras vs Hive Tyrant be an example - if charging Karandras doesn't kill Tyrant in first activation (he must perform close to average to do so), he dies to Smash (average performance of CC tyrant with tail biomorph is required to do so). If Tyrant has Lashwhip and charges, Karandras does a single wound on 2+ then most probably die without striking back. Karandras vs Trygon is almost guaranteed to end up with dead Karandras and wounded Trygon.

tneva82 wrote:
We have orks and various Imperium forces(IG, dark angels, blood angels and tiny space wolf forces along plus Inquisitor) in our main campaign. Eldars are eventually joining but finding time to paint(painted models only) has slowed that plan.

Right on. I'll admit we never quite saw "horde" ork tactics, our ork player was all bout his Nobz in Mega Armor. Nor did we have a committed IG player either, this left the only real horde option as Tyranids, but I don't remember those battles too well, and they came along a little later anyways.

@nou.
Well that is exactly the reason why I would not use an 'all or nothing ' system like ' initiative' to determine combat resolution.

Alternating phase game turns, with simultaneous resolution modeling , would be my choice.

All combat is resolved by comparing the attackers stat to the targets stat on one table,( that covers the three stages of combat resolution.)

Attackers Shooting skill vs targets Evade skill, to determine D6 roll needed to hit.

Attackers Assault skill to the targets Dodge skill, to determine D6 roll needed to hit.

Attackers weapon AP to the targets Armour , to determine the D6 roll needed to save.

Attack Power to the target Resilience, to determine the D6 roll needed to cause damage /wounds.

(I intend to use the full range of stats from 1 to 10 with fully utilized table( Including automatic success as one end and auto fail at the other.)

We can add some modifiers to stats for equipment and situation, as required.(Make these more detailed in the skirmish game if we want to.)

The Initiative method is abstracting all the chances to hit and dodge and giving you an average of who would land the first blow.(After many swings and misses in the case of a frenzied ork! )
(This was one of many methods used to speed up combat between large blocks of troops in Ancient /Napoleonic based wargames like WHFB, back in the day.)

If you assign and compare these separate values directly and remove casualties at the end of the phase, (So all attacks are made.) It lets ALL the actions happen naturally, without artificial summery.

Lanrak wrote:
@nou.
Well that is exactly the reason why I would not use an 'all or nothing ' system like ' initiative' to determine combat resolution.

Alternating phase game turns, with simultaneous resolution modeling , would be my choice.

All combat is resolved by comparing the attackers stat to the targets stat on one table,( that covers the three stages of combat resolution.)

Attackers Shooting skill vs targets Evade skill, to determine D6 roll needed to hit.

Attackers Assault skill to the targets Dodge skill, to determine D6 roll needed to hit.

Attackers weapon AP to the targets Armour , to determine the D6 roll needed to save.

Attack Power to the target Resilience, to determine the D6 roll needed to cause damage /wounds.

(I intend to use the full range of stats from 1 to 10 with fully utilized table( Including automatic success as one end and auto fail at the other.)

We can add some modifiers to stats for equipment and situation, as required.(Make these more detailed in the skirmish game if we want to.)

The Initiative method is abstracting all the chances to hit and dodge and giving you an average of who would land the first blow.(After many swings and misses in the case of a frenzied ork! )
(This was one of many methods used to speed up combat between large blocks of troops in Ancient /Napoleonic based wargames like WHFB, back in the day.)

If you assign and compare these separate values directly and remove casualties at the end of the phase, (So all attacks are made.) It lets ALL the actions happen naturally, without artificial summery.

You realy have a close aproximation of this method in 7th, resolving CC of same initiative models. And it also has one huge drawback - in my Karandras vs Tyrant example, the most probable outcome of such simultanous duel is that both participants die in one or two turns of fighting. You could flip a coin realy instead of combat resolution. Same would be with squad-vs-squad combats if both squads are efficient enough in CC. And that effect doesn't realy depend on being d6 or d10 system, but relative efficiency of units. You would have to make some sort of modifiers for having initiative/charging/cover, that increase one sides efficiency considerably and then make all CC stats somewhat weak, so that moment manouvers/charging are most important in determining CC. Charging bonus works well for squads in 7th - models with same initiative and stats rely on this +1 attack for gaining a significant advantage (even up to 1/2 total number of attacks), but the same method fails for 1-on-1 duels of CC heroes, because the same mechanics gives them only a 1/5-1/10 bonus to efficiency. Or you could instead make that if two CC units clashes, then they intentionally fight for couple of turns, so that in effect, CC units are only usable against shooty units of significantly lower CC efficiency, but that significantly reduces overal CC-vs-shooting ballance and make charge targets predictable.

My problem isn't realy with particular method of CC resolution, but with meaningful scalability of CC combat from 1-on-1 to squad-vs-multiple-squads in the same system. CC-killing-machines like Swarmlord should have enough efficiency to not drown in cheap bodies in large scale battles, but be not deadly enough in 1-on-1 skirmish gameplay of equals, so that duels aren't autoresolvable or totaly flip-a-coin type random encounters.

3rd Edition was what I grew up and so I loved it, although I fully accept that this is likely 99% rose-tinted nostalgia talking.

Just to add some clear examples to my previous post on why just getting rid of initiative sorting doesn't really solve scalability problem:

- assault marines vs assault marines (same loadout): result hinges on who charges and how far (Hammer of wrath). Those additional attacks create the initial assymetry of casaulties/effectiveness in subsequent phases. You would make a dissordered charge in this setup only if it were for stopping enemy to score objective, because it is a flip-of-a-coin situation.

- Karandras vs Karandras: both deal one wound on 2+ before fight, hit on 4, wound on 2, bypass armour, charger has 6 attacks, defender 5, they both need to score two, with pretty much same probability (expected nr of wounds dealt is 2.6 for attacker, 2.1 for defender). This is pretty much pointless as disordered marine charge, but quicker, as they both die first turn.

- Asurmen vs Asurmen: they have counter attack and ommitable overwatch, so they pretty much always fight just like disordered. They have 3++ and Eternal Warrior, so they both have 5 attacks, hit on 4, wound on 3, save on 3, so they inflict about half a wound per turn each. The expected outcome of this is being stuck in a duel entire game.

Both Karandras and Asurmen examples are practically 50-50 scenarios, there is no situational advantage or cumulative degradation of effectiveness, but while you can predict the outcome of Karandras fight (sudden death or one man standing with last wound after a single turn), you cannot predict the exact outcome of Asurmen fight (it might end at any point of game, with any number of wounds on survivor, depending only on lucky rolls).

A perfectly scalable system should generate results between equals somewhere in between Assault Marines and Asurmen examples and not generate Karandras fights at all.

My question is - how exactly?

@nou.
If you are thinking in terms of 7th ed 40k mess of a rule set with the initiative method removed/revamped, please do not.

For a rule set to cover both skirmish and battle size games it would require a complete ground up re write , with new stat lines new values and only the background of 40k as a basis.
I would like to use some well known and accepted SIMPLE methods taken from the original 40k rules.
EG
3 stage damage resolution,(using a D6.)
Actions confined to clearly defined phases.(EG All movement happens in the movement phase.)
Comparing values on a table to find the score on a D6 required to succeed.

To be fair in the new rules..
Assault marines vs assault marines.The charging unit get an assault stat bonus of +1 for charging.

The combat only last ONE ROUND under the new rules.
The Winner may act normally next turn.
If the Winner has fallen below half strength , they may move and shoot normally.But must pass a morale check if they want to launch an assault .

The looser must withdraw from assault.(Compulsory move, in the next movement phase.)
They may shoot counting as suppressed next turn.(Suppression is lifted by passing a morale test in the Resolution phase.).

If the loser has fallen below half strength, they ROUTE away from the winner of the assault.(Compulsory double move in the nest movement phase.)
If routing units are assaulted they are destroyed.If the routing unit passes a morale test in the Resolution phase, the unit counts as suppressed.

I think assaults in 40k should be much more fluid and violent , than the big scrum of slow moving combat, that made sense in WHFB.

I may need to explain this a bit better?

I still fail to see how a single power fist assault marine vs single power fist assault marine skirmish under your rules would be any different than my Karandras example... Using equals as examples lets me completely forget about any detailed 7th ed rules (used only just as some numerical probability values in mutually known system in my previous post). Those were just three examples of some extremes. The layer on which I'm focusing is quite simple: in squad vs squad situations you have the cumulative effectiveness drop and reasonable "taking initiative" benefits. However, those very same rules (independent on what exactly they are), will generate completely different results of 1-on-1 encounters of single models, even with those very same stats as in squad-vs-squad sutuation.

This is why I'm insisting on my POV, that you need either two rulesets for CC depending on scale, OR two different STATLINES of every model. Your system of resolution would work just fine if every skirmish participant followed the rules for AOS monsters diminishing effectiveness due to damage and gained e.g. 5x normal wound stat, so it is highly unlikely that any duels end up with both sides dead. Under 7th ed rules my Karandras example works just fine if AP/save mechanics is reworked, so that ap2 vs 2+ save worsens only to 4+ save (a compromise between AP and rending mechanics I'm playtesting currently). This is why Asurmen example works just right out-of-the-box - he cannot be easily instagibed without very bad luck due to built-in inv save.

Oggthrok wrote:
I have been lucky enough to play every edition of 40k, even Rogue Trader.

And, with the fullness of time (and having played 2nd edition somewhat recently) I can say the 2nd edition is the winner by a mile in terms of narrative and fun. Things "feel" more intuitive and fun.

It was when I played 2,000-point games with thirty Marines. When I tried something bigger using all my minis, it lasted all day, was awkward to do because I didn't have fifty sets of templates to represent all the smoke/plasma/vortex, etc. For squad-level battles, use Rogue Trader (liberally house-ruled, as intended). For platoon-level games, use 2nd edition. For company-level or more, use 3rd, on a big table. In all case, don't bother with the Codex books. The exception would be to do a big vehicle-centric game; the current rules for vehicles aren't suitably granular, IMO, to work when not part of a combined-arms game. I like 2nd edition, but it's only better in certain circumstances.

As for Overwatch, it was hardly used round here. Most of the time, cover was sufficiently dense as to allow plenty of movement and flanking. Occasionally a heavy weapons squad would go on overwatch to cover an objective, but then they'd get wasted by Warp Spiders or Swooping Hawks (I hated Eldar ...) anyway. Or a Falcon with all the cheesy Vehicle Cards doing a pop-up attack. On the other hand, the assault cannon turned out to be one of the best anti-armour weapons in the game, which was perhaps not quite what the designers intended. Good for keeping Avatars of Khaine in their place, too. The melee queue being discussed happened occasionally (Abaddon the Despoiler killing an Imperial Guard squad one Guardsman at a time), but only because the Chaos player made a daft movement decision.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:


It was when I played 2,000-point games with thirty Marines. When I tried something bigger using all my minis, it lasted all day, was awkward to do because I didn't have fifty sets of templates to represent all the smoke/plasma/vortex, etc. For squad-level battles, use Rogue Trader (liberally house-ruled, as intended). For platoon-level games, use 2nd edition. For company-level or more, use 3rd, on a big table. In all case, don't bother with the Codex books. The exception would be to do a big vehicle-centric game; the current rules for vehicles aren't suitably granular, IMO, to work when not part of a combined-arms game. I like 2nd edition, but it's only better in certain circumstances

For all my 2nd ed love, I have to agree, it was a mess the second we started, oh, say, getting really into the psychic phase. And, you don't know frustration until you meet a 2nd edition Eldar D cannon battery and decide to charge a Carnifex at them.

But, everything felt so much more playful and granular. How I miss the days when a sniper round would take out the driver (and just the driver) of an Ork buggy, sending the buggy careening around the board out of control, while the unharmed gunner continued to hammer away with a looted Plasma cannon, screaming Waaagh the whole way...

My dream project would be to make two systems that both use a D10, one of which caters to small skirmishes with large amounts of detail, and a larger level game like what we have now. The detail level of 2nd WAS pretty cool, but the flagrant disregard for fairness was enormous. Loyalist marines were particularly embarrassing.

Martel732 wrote:
My dream project would be to make two systems that both use a D10, one of which caters to small skirmishes with large amounts of detail, and a larger level game like what we have now. The detail level of 2nd WAS pretty cool, but the flagrant disregard for fairness was enormous. Loyalist marines were particularly embarrassing.

Sounds like gates of Antares which scales small>high very well

If I were to streamline 2nd, I'd probably do the following:

1) Overhaul close combat completely. (make it a hybrid of 2nd/4th)
2) Streamline the magic phase, as we did within two minutes of conversation the last time we played 2nd --- and it worked brilliantly.
3) Change grenades, to reduce the absurd amount of templates needed when a squad threw grenades.
4) Remove the arc of fire except for overwatch, where I'd place a 90 or 180 degree zone they could cover. This would help minimize it a little bit.
5) I'd consider dropping the short range/long range modifiers.

Then go and polish/nerf certain weapons as needed, clear up confusion in some of the codices (no Terminators with assault cannons and cyclone missile launchers, etc.).

Biggest change of all would be some form of activation process (something missing from every generation of 40K). IGOUGO is dumb...and made even worse when you have 15-20 units on the board.

@nou.
I thought having different stat values for the models in the different game sizes was an obvious necessity.

The point remains, the game turn and all the resolution methods remain the same in both game rule sets.Just values and modifiers would be different.

If you want separate rule sets for 40k skirmish game and 40k battle game, then as there are at least a dozen great skirmish rule sets you can convert 40k to.(Beyond the gates of Antares was written by Rick Priestly , and I think it was the 3rd ed 40k GW would not let him write!)

My favorte 40k battle game rule set is Epic Armageddon.(Massive battles using sensible scale modes for the size of game.)

If you want to write rules for a 28mm heroic scale minature battle game , then a complete new rule set is the best way to go.
If you are doing this you may as well incorporate a new skirmish rule set in the basic game rules , so players can simply grow with the rule set.

Just increasing the dice size without sorting out the resolution methods used in 40k, is ignoring the core problem!

If you use the most suitable resolution methods first.(That give proportional results by using a much wider range of stats.)You may find a D6 works just fine.

nou wrote:
Because OP of this thread is the same person who started "project Zeta", I treat this thread more like a "sister thread" intended to be a "general view on core goals" think-tank for a more detailed rules discussion in "zeta thread".

Pretty close yes. It's a way of collecting ideas and opinions, though it's less for Zeta and more for the 2nd project: Eta. It's also a very useful way of 1) reminding myself of how exactly 2nd played 2) Finding all the bits of 2nd that I used to get wrong due to my brother and I playing by rules memorisation since we didn't have the rule book.

For those that haven't been following along: My intention is to use Project Zeta as a patch on 7th ed so that people can keep playing an improved and maintained version of 7th if they don't like what GW does with 8th.
Once that's playable/done I want to start Project Eta which will be a major re-write of 40k, using 2nd edition as a starting point and using all of the ideas and problems of 3rd-7th as a guide for what to do and what not to do. This may only end up being a thought experiment rather than a playable ruleset- who knows. I don't really expect a lot of people to jump on board though.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Elbows wrote:
If I were to streamline 2nd, I'd probably do the following:

1) Overhaul close combat completely. (make it a hybrid of 2nd/4th)
2) Streamline the magic phase, as we did within two minutes of conversation the last time we played 2nd --- and it worked brilliantly.
3) Change grenades, to reduce the absurd amount of templates needed when a squad threw grenades.
4) Remove the arc of fire except for overwatch, where I'd place a 90 or 180 degree zone they could cover. This would help minimize it a little bit.
5) I'd consider dropping the short range/long range modifiers.

Then go and polish/nerf certain weapons as needed, clear up confusion in some of the codices (no Terminators with assault cannons and cyclone missile launchers, etc.).

Biggest change of all would be some form of activation process (something missing from every generation of 40K). IGOUGO is dumb...and made even worse when you have 15-20 units on the board.

Those are some really good ideas. Can you tell me more about how you streamlined the psychic phase in 2nd ed?

Lanrak wrote:
@nou.
I thought having different stat values for the models in the different game sizes was an obvious necessity.

The point remains, the game turn and all the resolution methods remain the same in both game rule sets.Just values and modifiers would be different.

If you want separate rule sets for 40k skirmish game and 40k battle game, then as there are at least a dozen great skirmish rule sets you can convert 40k to.(Beyond the gates of Antares was written by Rick Priestly , and I think it was the 3rd ed 40k GW would not let him write!)

My favorte 40k battle game rule set is Epic Armageddon.(Massive battles using sensible scale modes for the size of game.)

If you want to write rules for a 28mm heroic scale minature battle game , then a complete new rule set is the best way to go.
If you are doing this you may as well incorporate a new skirmish rule set in the basic game rules , so players can simply grow with the rule set.

Just increasing the dice size without sorting out the resolution methods used in 40k, is ignoring the core problem!

If you use the most suitable resolution methods first.(That give proportional results by using a much wider range of stats.)You may find a D6 works just fine.

It wasn't obvious at all, thank you for clarifying.

I'm not so convinced, that in an environment as rich in models/units "twice the stats" approach is that much better than "some minor rules differences". And it definately falls under "two games of common core" category, not a "single universal, perfectly scalable and unified solution". I now play two 40Ks - one heavily modified and one common, depending on who I play with. And for me personally, it is harder to track how any given unit can practically perform within each system, than following different core rulesets. And I have no problem at all in switching between Necromunda and 40K, because everything is different enough not to get confused.

One reason why I prefer OP approach of reevolving 40K from 2nd ed ancestry is familiarity. With completely reinvented ruleset you have to start over not only writing the rules, but most importantly, all players must start over with learning the rules. Rewriting all codices entries and rebalancing all point cost under new ruleset will take A LOT of effort, no matter the approach, but it is a bit easier if at least some of core concepts and functionality remain familiar, so you can have at least some intuition on how different units will perform to set some initial point cost values. And with GW constantly makin new models and units, this is "constant maintenance" type of endavour. Geting familiar enough with 7th ed rules (just two factions only and being familiar with 2nd and 3rd eds earlier), so I could pinpoint what is broken and how to approach rebalancing/fixing things took me about 50 games. And another 50 games of gradual changes and playtests to have quite nicely working version. I have no illusions, that writing any game system from scratch could produce ideally balanced game in the first go, as it is very, very easy to miss some interactions early on and being forced to redo half the work later. I wrote/modified couple of different games in my life and it simply cannot be done well without appropriate amount of "playtesting intended to break things" and bulletproofing findings.

This "effort invest" problem is a huge part of a reason why most folks in the community always play current edition only and none of the constantly emerging "fanrules" ever take enough momentum to become "an alternative standard". Things like Inquisimunda or Heralds of Ruins are somehow popular only because they have/had no official equivalent. Heck - a lot of players won't even agree to play anything outside of the "standard 1850pts Eternal War on 'fair table'".

Just as a footnote: I participate in many "proposed rules" threads, but mostly in seek of abstract 'puzzles' to solve and inspiration material for my personal changes, but I don't realy believe in any "holy grail" common alternative ruleset. So please, in any case, don't treat my posts as "this is dumb solution" type of criticism, more like "let's try to break this system or find it's limits" type of feedback.

I loved 2nd Edition...the editions that followed have spent a lot of time trying to deal with problems created by the dumbing down that 3rd Ed bought in.

However, it did need a significant amount of house keeping - there were instances where a rules were identically named but had slightly different effects.

I haven't played 7th but I don't like the sound of the formations with special rules, etc.

I am hoping that 8th brings radical changes to the game.

@nou.
I assumed the question was how to get both skirmish games and battle games using the same size minatures,(eg 40k minature range) to work using the same core rule set.

As GW has used the same basic rules, with different stat values for different game scales in the past.I was just suggesting this was the only viable way of achieving that goal, that actually can be proven to work.

Having two separate rule sets for different game scales , like Inquisitor , and Epic.Is probably the best option.

Trying to use Ancient warfare (WHFB) skirmish rules to cover a modern battle game, (40k) is probably the worst compromise in rules writing I have heard of.

Writing a rule set for the current expected game play of 40k , using familiar resolution methods and elements of the game mechanics that actually work.
Is something I have invested quite some time in.

@Souleater.
Have you tried any of the other rule set available ?
There a dozens of scifi skirmish rules you could use 40k minatures with.

I am of the options that when you change the scale of the game from large skirmish (2nd ed 40k). To battle game (3rd ed 40k).
The core rules have to change to meet the new scale and scope of the new game play challenges.

If you want a good skirmish rule set to use your 40k minatures in you have lots of options!

Unfortunately all the great battle game rules use 15mm or smaller minatures , so they need lots of work to cover the detail and diversity of 40k 28mm minatures.

IMO, there isn't enough bandwidth on a d6 to cover all of the variation that players seem to want. With the different flavors of army styles/specialties and troops from common soldier to superhero/MC/vdhicle you need more space than 16.666% per side to be meaningful. You don't want 2d6 cause you neee to roll pairs of dice for each roll. I've played enough White Wolf RPGs to know that throwing dice pools.of d10s isn't much different from pools of d6, d12, or d20. Since the 80s game/hobby stores have had a plentiful supply of these other dice cheap. It's not like we have to raid the boardgames cupboard for dice anymore.

2nd, we used to have two rulesets for skirmish/battle scales. It was called Epic. Unfortunately, 6mm scale isn't pretty or glamorous enough for players or sales departments.

@WaughGoff.
If you restrict the results from a D6 the way GW do in 40k, it is just bad game development.

However, if you use opposed stat values in a table , (Stat values from 1 to 10.)
It is possible to use 7 values proportionally allocated across 100 possible results , over all three stages of damage resolution .
Which gives over 200 possible results from combat resolution ,from the fast rolling easy to read D6.
(That is over 5 times the results the current core rules deliver in a non proportional way!)

Well IMO, a 40k battle game should be written based on the expected game play.(Eg More of a modified set of Epic rules, to take the new minature scale into account.Eg add detail to the straight forward rules.)

Not based on a WHFB skirmish rule set, because the minatures are the same size.(Eg hack lumps out the of the skirmish rules to speed up play.Then add poorly applied and implemented fixes that slow the game down and complicate the rules to the verge of unplayable.)

The current 40k battle game is unique in its scale and scope.So you have to write rules for this specific game play type.

Standard skirmish rules do not work, (too complex for the game size.)

Standard battle game rules do not work, (not enough detail to cover the scope of diversity expected from the minature scale.)

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Elbows wrote:
If I were to streamline 2nd, I'd probably do the following:

1) Overhaul close combat completely. (make it a hybrid of 2nd/4th)
2) Streamline the magic phase, as we did within two minutes of conversation the last time we played 2nd --- and it worked brilliantly.
3) Change grenades, to reduce the absurd amount of templates needed when a squad threw grenades.
4) Remove the arc of fire except for overwatch, where I'd place a 90 or 180 degree zone they could cover. This would help minimize it a little bit.
5) I'd consider dropping the short range/long range modifiers.

Then go and polish/nerf certain weapons as needed, clear up confusion in some of the codices (no Terminators with assault cannons and cyclone missile launchers, etc.).

Biggest change of all would be some form of activation process (something missing from every generation of 40K). IGOUGO is dumb...and made even worse when you have 15-20 units on the board.

Those are some really good ideas. Can you tell me more about how you streamlined the psychic phase in 2nd ed?

Interesting. I remember the psychic phase being too powerful if anything, so the fact you made it more powerful intrigues me. Then again, that may just be because I played eldar. What armies were you using?

Eldar vs. Chaos Space Marines (one Sorcerer and one Farseer).

Hey, Remember when they tried to redo the vehicle rules in citadel journal. The problem was that certain weapons could take down a terminater easier than a dread or vice versa

So they did test rules going back to RT days and gave all vehicles a toughness. No one was interested.

The vehicle datafaxes of 2nd edition were the best part of 2nd edition

What if they had went in the other direction and got rid of toughness and gave everyone a datafax?

Sure most troopers would be a very plain datafax but some Marines and characters or Nids could have some interesting results.

What's a Datafax?

Not sure if you are jesting here since I'm new to the forums.

2nd edition introduced individualized cardboard cards for each and every vehicle in full color.

They had location charts and Armor Values for any area to be hit.

Speed, numbers of crew, options for weapons, wargear, etc.

The best part was from 2 to 5 different locations with 2 thru 6 results you could get on each location. I think 3rd + has just a generic for glancing/penetrating results.

MY fave was some elder vehicles would get their skimmer engins destroyed. The tank would do a mid air flip, with a half tuck and then crash on the ground inflicting much damaged to those under it. There was a ton of laughter and hilarity at times.

Thanks for the knowledge.

anytime.

I did enjoy my few years of 3rd edition and the VDR.

But 2nd edition was very fun as well.

the best of both should have been introduced by now ...maybe it has...I hear 5th was very good and parts of 6th and 7th.