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Back when 2nd edition gave way to 3rd edition I was one unhappy customer. Sure 2nd edition had it's myriad flaws but allowing Jervis to tear it down and rebuild a new game was a big mistake. There were plenty of things about 2nd that worked well and made for a very fun gaming experience. Fresh off his Epic 40k debacle, Jervis imposed his bland vision upon 40k and whipped up a rule-set that sucked the soul right out of the game. Now, to be clear, I like Jervis. I believe his heart was in the right place and he desperately lobbied for his new version to be accepted by the community at large. And for the most part it was. I remember him feverishly working the boards trying to keep the flamers at bay when 3rd was released. A few dropped out in disgust, while most drank the kool-aid. Shame and blame should be placed squarely on whomever gave him the green-light to do what he did. I still for the life of me can't imagine that Andy Chambers was at all happy with 3rd (or 4th).

Now 5th edition looms large and from the rumors I sense a shift in the direction back to my beloved 2nd edition. I know there are a large number of folks like me who recall the old days of 2nd fondly and look forward to the new changes. For those who weren't around for 2nd, you are in for a treat if 5th is half the game 2nd was - flaws and all.

Personally I never played 2nd edition but I find it funny the game migh become more complex while the latest codices have been over-simplified.

- G

As long as it isn't the uber character pwnzorz crap that 2nd was, I might get it and play it.

I've got friends who still play 2nd ed (and RT) as they believe that 3rd/4th ed were a step backwards.

Different strokes for different folks.

Not everybody enjoyed Herohammer.

You do realise that it wasn't Jervis in charge of the change of direction back then?

Its all well and good to look at 2nd edition with rose tinted glasses, but look back... it did have some massive downsides:
Combats that took a week to work out when it was 1 squad vs another,
Armies that could be constructed in such a way that they were completely unstopable (did you ever play against a pulsa rokkit army of doom?)
Wargear cards that could wipe out an army before the game began
Characters that could not die and could wipe out all the basic troops in the opposing army
A scattering of cards, paperwork and headaches for every single vehicle you used


At the end of the day- 2nd edition was a skirmish game, 3rd edition moved 40k into being about larger scale battles. Alot of the people who complain about 3rd and 4th editions being "bland" need to realise that it has to have some reductions in complexity to allow you to actually fight reasonably large scale battles in a sensible amount of time.


Take today for example- I've just come back from the store having watched a 1500pt game between an ork player and an eldar player.
The ork player had 100+ models on the table, the eldar player had about 30, with all of them being jetbikes or other skimmers.
Would that game have finished in the 2 hours they played it in today had they been playing 2nd edition? Of course not... they wouldn't even have got a turn finished in that time- why?
Combats were on a model by model basis
Vehicles were treated for everything on a model by model, shot by shot basis. So for every round of shooting or combat, there would be a mass of paperwork, chart rolling and head scratching for each shoota shot at a jetbike (remember bikes were vehicles too)

I feel 2nd edition has its place- its a skirmish game- if you still like it so much- necromunda still uses most of the rules- you could adapt something for using a small army- but for goodness sake- not the size of game we've grown to be used to

I see changing rules here and there, BUT the whole book of rules, esp with in 4 years? WTF

2nd edition is often looked at fondly because it really was quite fun.

Complex rules and funky wargear, and warts and all.

I do hope that 5th recaptures some of that, but really, I doubt the new ruleset will be spared the castration...er...streamlining that all of the recent Codex releases have been getting...

Hate to break it to ya, but Jervis had very little to do with the move from 2nd ed to 3rd. He is however at the forfront of the new codices and 5th ed. It will not however be a return to 2nd ed ways, it will be a move forward. 5th ed hs every indication of clean simple easy to follow rules that will favor fluff. I expect to hear the battle cry "Nerf!" all around, but what we will actually have is solid and interesting builds sans cheese. I expect to see people developing fluffy armies and spending more time discussing tactics instead of min max options.

Maybe I'm wrong, but the again maybe you are. All I know is that if you wind up happy with the changes, thank Jervis.

dark-hamish wrote:Hate to break it to ya, but Jervis had very little to do with the move from 2nd ed to 3rd. He is however at the forfront of the new codices and 5th ed. It will not however be a return to 2nd ed ways, it will be a move forward. 5th ed hs every indication of clean simple easy to follow rules that will favor fluff. I expect to hear the battle cry "Nerf!" all around, but what we will actually have is solid and interesting builds sans cheese. I expect to see people developing fluffy armies and spending more time discussing tactics instead of min max options.

Maybe I'm wrong, but the again maybe you are. All I know is that if you wind up happy with the changes, thank Jervis.

No need to hate, especially as no one really knows what is actually going to happen.

However, I think we do know that if Jervis has his way, a lot of "confusing" options will go away, and every single race in the known galaxy (and beyond) will bow down before the wisdom of the Codex Astartes.

This is a silly thread.

The move away from 2nd ed came under the guide of other Andy Chambers and half the internet darlings of the GW design staff.

The term ‘bland’ has no useful information content when describing a game’s rules.

2nd ed wasn’t a very good game. It had plenty of fun elements was but was horribly unbalanced and almost unplayable in certain situations.

5th ed is still a set of rumours. Attempting to create a narrative based on a possible version of a possible revision is pointless. Especially when you don’t know who created 3rd ed.

Alpharius wrote:

No need to hate, especially as no one really knows what is actually going to happen.

I'm quoting myself to show you that yes, not only is this thread silly, but we already know this great knowledge that you've just imparted upon us!

sebster wrote:This is a silly thread.

And I'm quoting myself because you made it cool.

Hellfury wrote:

Fizzywig wrote:

Fizzywig wrote:

MWAHHAHAHA i win the quoting myself challenge.

on a other note, i am always surprised when people sing the praises of 2nd ed on the rooftops. it was not a bad game don't get me wrong but it was fundamentally different from the game as we play it today in terms of scale. a game of 4th ed 40k that takes about 2 hours to play would have in 2nd ed taken a whole day. when i started playing in 2nd ed me and my friends would spend an hour on our turns because that was just how long it took to play. (not to mention the time looking up all of the little rules minutia)

the 5th ed rumors do not to me seem like they are going back to the old 2nd ed roots. i mean i for one am hoping i don't need to bring d12's again with my army...

Simplifying and stupid-fying are two entirely different concepts.

Most of the rumors are utter dreck.

What'd be neat is if 8 guys (GW) could do a better job than 2 guys (FOW).

I suppose I'll wait to be astonished by the genius of it all.

I cannot agree more, that simplifying and stupid-fying are fundamentally diferent concepts.

Furthermore, how come that changes that makes the game quicker invariably seems to be hailed as something good?

Sure, simplifying -or clarifying- a confusing and/or broken rule obviously is for the better. But when I play WH40K it is for the enjoyment of the playing experience - not to get to the finishing line ASAP!

So when the simplification process has taken WH40K to the point where the actual playing time of a 1500 pts battle is about 15 minutes - has all the simplification really been for the better?

Stelek wrote:What'd be neat is if 8 guys (GW) could do a better job than 2 guys (FOW).

Because we all know rules made by compromise, committee and budget forecasts are better than those written by one or two authors with a united coherent vision.

As a 2nd edition fan, I really think that 5th edition is going the right way and is not over simplifying. I can live without the M stat (though it would be nice to do away with the fleet rule), and we have already got vortex grenades and the shokk attack gun back. That just leaves overwatch and the foot of gork template before everything I miss is back in 40k

I have not been playing 40k for very long, compaired to most. But I have been playing table tops for a very long time. Longer than I care to admit.

Every game, when it has an edition change, errata or FAQ, has engendered speculation and contention. Which all boils down to, the old vs. the new. It is a common theme for every single long lived game system out there.

Distill that basic truth even further, and we are left with the choice to accept the change or no, because it is coming anyway. The only way we can affect the change is if we continue playing, with the new rules. Otherwise, the game will die.

From what I can see, the game isn't particularly moving back towards second edition. I'd love to see 40K focused more on squad level combat and tanks to be honest.

dark-hamish wrote:Distill that basic truth even further, and we are left with the choice to accept the change or no, because it is coming anyway. The only way we can affect the change is if we continue playing, with the new rules. Otherwise, the game will die.

We can also affect the change by discussing them here and pointing out the consequences of poorly thought changes. GW is aware of internet forums like this one and fan reaction on the 'net does change things - examples: the Dark Angels revision in late 3rd and the Dark Elf partial rewrite.

I really hope some of the rumours are hoaxes, or have suffered from chinese whispers, or are only stupid out of context. I really feel that GW has been moving in a relatively good direction with the latest codices (mistakes like generic daemons and no LATD are definitely there, but apart from that I felt a lot of the various factions were getting closer to each other in terms of power.)

Tyfe wrote:I cannot agree more, that simplifying and stupid-fying are fundamentally diferent concepts.

Furthermore, how come that changes that makes the game quicker invariably seems to be hailed as something good?

Sure, simplifying -or clarifying- a confusing and/or broken rule obviously is for the better. But when I play WH40K it is for the enjoyment of the playing experience - not to get to the finishing line ASAP!

So when the simplification process has taken WH40K to the point where the actual playing time of a 1500 pts battle is about 15 minutes - has all the simplification really been for the better?

You've assumed all time spent playing the game is equal and that's not true. Time spent deploying forces and having a nice look at them arrayed on the field, and time spent moving troops, selecting targets... that's time spent enjoying the game. Time spent rolling for the scatter of six frag grenades, rolling for 10 or 12 individual melee results in a single squad on squad action, time spent looking up to see if the wording of your special piece of wargear would explicitly ignore the armour save from my special piece of wargear... that stuff really sucks, and for a lot of players it takes away from the fun had actually playing the game.

So yeah, a game that takes 15 minutes would suck, so it's a good thing no-one has ever suggested that's their ideal 40K game length. But a game lasting two hours, where 1 hour and 45 minutes of that time was taken up with thinking about and executing tactics, and only 15 minutes spent following through mechanical rules... that'd be a wonderful game. 40K is nowhere near that, but it's made steps in the right direction lately.

All in all, I’ve liked every new edition of 40k better than the previous one. 2nd edition brought around a collection of rules together in 1 (well ok 3) book rather than the scattered fragments of rules spread about two dozen issues of white dwarf. 3rd edition brought around games that could be played in an afternoon. 4th brought the end of rhino rush and cleared up some silly rules problems that existed in 3rd. Sure each one has had its problems but for the most part, each as been an improvement and I’ve had no significant desire to hold onto any of the previous editions.

But in the 2nd vs 3rd/4th argument, there are some things I do miss from 2nd edition:
1) Wargear cards. These things made it easy to look up your wargear quickly without having to dig through a book. They also limited the number of individual pieces of wargear you could have in your army since you had to have a card for each one you wanted to buy for your army and there were usually only 1 card per piece of wargear.

2) Flavorful vehicle damage charts. I was really fond of the damage charts from 2nd edition. The process could have been simplified a bit by not requiring a roll for location and then a roll for penetration and then a roll for damage result though. I wouldn’t mind seeing a return to the card system where vehicles have different damage charts, but I’d like to keep it to one location rather than several.

3) Movement stat. I liked the fact that some troops are faster than others.

4) Running. I liked the fact that any unit could give up their shooting to move again in the shooting phase. It made movement much more dynamic and really helped out hand to hand troops.

There are also a lot of things I was really glad to see in 3rd edition.

1) Squads shot at squads instead of models shooting at models. This was the single biggest speed increase in the game.

2) I was so happy that overwatch went away, I cried tears of joy.

3) I’m glad to see hiding went away.

4) I’m glad to see persistent blast markers went away. I can remember spending 45 min rolling out the effects of the blast templates my plasma missiles had after 4 rounds of dropping them all over the field with my dark reapers.

5) I’m really glad that characters are not the be all and end all that they were in 2nd edition. Sure they are still very strong, but they don’t wipe out squad after squad all by themselves anymore like they used to.

6) I’m glad transports are no longer rolling death traps for the troops inside.

7) I really like the tightening up of the ranges on weapons. No more “if I can see it, I can shoot it” like there was in 2nd edition.

Shorter ranges for weapons reduces the effects of overwatch.

My worry as a Tau player is that the rumoured "run" rule if combined with assault movement will allow enemy troops to get into H2H very quickly.

I hope there will be a bonus for shooting at running troops.

1st and 2nd edition were great for one reason and one reason only.

"House Rules"

It was more a game that need a gm of sorts.

Phoenix wrote:
4) I’m glad to see persistent blast markers went away. I can remember spending 45 min rolling out the effects of the blast templates my plasma missiles had after 4 rounds of dropping them all over the field with my dark reapers.

Haha, yeah, that was silly.

Remember setting guys on fire?

Phoenix wrote:All in all, I’ve liked every new edition of 40k better than the previous one. 2nd edition brought around a collection of rules together in 1 (well ok 3) book rather than the scattered fragments of rules spread about two dozen issues of white dwarf. 3rd edition brought around games that could be played in an afternoon. 4th brought the end of rhino rush and cleared up some silly rules problems that existed in 3rd. Sure each one has had its problems but for the most part, each as been an improvement and I’ve had no significant desire to hold onto any of the previous editions.

Though we differ slightly on the details I completely agree with the sentiment here. I feel each version has been an improvement over the last. For sure, I've lost some things I was attached to but over all I feel the game is far more enjoyable and less tedious.

40k has changed for sure and will continue to. I feel the game needed to be streamlined over the years. Look at an RTS with three or four races and see how often it gets patched to balance forces. 40k has ten races, some of those with variants (IG, SM and CSM). Games of this nature get changed and tweaked as the players/community get inventive or abusive.

I agree that Jervis blew it with Epic 40K, but he learned his lesson, I think. Of the rumored rules changes for 5th edition, there are few that I truly object to. The balance of power between different play style will change, but that's not, in the final analysis, a bad thing.

I would prefer a complete redesign from the ground up, but I accept that my preferred scenario simply isn't in the cards. I hope that Jervis is indeed in charge of writing the new 40K, as he has made some of the best games that GW has published.

Jinxman wrote:Back when 2nd edition gave way to 3rd edition I was one unhappy customer. Sure 2nd edition had it's myriad flaws but allowing Jervis to tear it down and rebuild a new game was a big mistake. There were plenty of things about 2nd that worked well and made for a very fun gaming experience. Fresh off his Epic 40k debacle, Jervis imposed his bland vision upon 40k and whipped up a rule-set that sucked the soul right out of the game. Now, to be clear, I like Jervis. I believe his heart was in the right place and he desperately lobbied for his new version to be accepted by the community at large. And for the most part it was. I remember him feverishly working the boards trying to keep the flamers at bay when 3rd was released. A few dropped out in disgust, while most drank the kool-aid. Shame and blame should be placed squarely on whomever gave him the green-light to do what he did. I still for the life of me can't imagine that Andy Chambers was at all happy with 3rd (or 4th).

Now 5th edition looms large and from the rumors I sense a shift in the direction back to my beloved 2nd edition. I know there are a large number of folks like me who recall the old days of 2nd fondly and look forward to the new changes. For those who weren't around for 2nd, you are in for a treat if 5th is half the game 2nd was - flaws and all.

OK. I never thought I'd be the one, but you're a little off base with some of your post.

Jervis isn't the one to blame for 3d edition.

It was a concert job by the whole team of developers, culminating in the same sort of game creep that we all now know and love, like an ugly child. Take off the rose colored glasses for a little while, and go back and remember WHY they changed it.

2nd edition's collective issue was that games revolved around your special FOTM character, from either everyones favorite Eldar Exarch Lords, to the goofy looking happy orks, to the IG's special bit of fun, Commisar Yarrick. Not to mention any of the countless SPAZZ MARRINES RUULE!!! special characters with thier one hit wonder weapons of doom, cleaving through at least half your army, before a bad roll killed them off.
If you were smart enough to geald the special characters , IE only use them in 2000 pt games and above, then they weren't that big a deal, because people would THEN overload thier vehicles with ridiculous amounts of special options, fill out thier las-plas tac squads with plasmagrenades, combi weapons, and vortex grenades for the veteran sgts, and the ever popular masses of scrapped together models that fell apart, halfway throught he game, just because you looked at them wrong.

A turn took almost an hour, if it was shorter, it was because you were running one of a myrid of smaller number, higher point value options that you used to be able to run around the table with. The reasoning behind 3d edition was as basic as the growth, ( and popularity of) GW itself. They wanted more models on the board, the only way that would happen is if you cut the point cost, chopped down the time a turn took, and MADE players have to go out and BUY more models.

This was GW's Golden era, if you will. To illustrate my point, I'm going to reference WD 226. GW had more in thier pocket then just little old 40k, and fantasy running around. Oh, whats that... a couple of skermish games...Chaos Gate, Gorkamorka, Plastic castle, forts and card scenery boxes , plastic trees, The Citadal Journal,Regiments of Renown, etc, etc, etc. There was pretty much Liquid assets to do things with. The plastic scenery, the regimental, and the battleforce boxes, etc. ALL had a hand in pushing the game over the edge. As with all things new and shiney, the " Improvements" were part of a campaign to simplify the rules and bring 40K into a company level game.
OF COURSE, we can pee and moan about the details, but the idea was to play a bigger game of 40K with more models, and streamlined rules, because of the little issue of fighting DIY vehicles, that were at this point of fact UNSTOPPABLE.

As for Epic being a debacle, I beg to differ. Epic was just OK, but as with all of the other SPECIALIST GAMES, it was a red headed stepchild as compaired to 40K and Warhammer Fantasy. Jervis was at the time slowly giving the riegns to the so called Young Turks that were beginning to exert more and more of thier own overly inflated egos, then over things that the " Big three, holy trinity" developers were taking care of up to at that point.

When you start bringing in more then a fair share of enthusiasm, and less clear headed thinking with an overall plan, this is now what we are left to pick up the pieces of, because of the guys like the likes of Gav Thorp, Adrian Wood, etc. and that is where lies the problem.
In the transition, the little issue of Continuality was lost, and regular players were left with the just pumped the cat look on thier face, while as the 3d edition developed into the eventual codex creep, lack of filler that it eventually became.

My beef with Jervis is a little more developed then yours, in that his changes at times have a little less then steller effect on the game as a whole, so I can appreciate bonified Jervis bashing when it is warrented, but as to the reasoning behind 3d edition, take a step back, go back and re-remember WHY the changes were warrented, the bad decision to scrap whole sections of thought out material, removing alot of reasons behind some of the changes from the 2d to 3d edition, and THEN go back and look at a little boxed set titled Dark Millinium, and the abortion that it became for the game.

The new game, ( If it really is going to be that new) will probibly be a cautious attempt to win back a fanbase. I have purposely stayed out of any speculation, and leaving it up to GW to deliver either a good semblence of a redemption, or thier Death bell toll...

The blame isn't just on Jervis, but he is an easy lamb to slaughter. Just make sure you get the right sacrifice next time, is all I'm saying.