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Beastmen as in Fantasy-Types? (I.E. Half Men/Beasts?)

Cryonicleech wrote:Beastmen as in Fantasy-Types? (I.E. Half Men/Beasts?)

Yup, as seen here.

http://www.solegends.com/citcat89/c894010impguard-m.htm

I have the top one with the chainsword, plasma pistol and IG breastplate. The imperial guard also had suicide bombers, soldiers with packs of explosive strapped around their waists. I imagine we won't see the likes of them again!

I started in second ed, and that seemed to take years to play a game. Maybe that was my fault. I still remember when marines could walk 4" or run 8", and tyranids had a base movement value of 8". They were fast.

I'm glad the models and tanks have evolved into really great minis. Nostalgia always makes old things seem rose tinted.

Aaahhh, That's what they mean.

Yes, I've heard of the infamous Human Bombs, sounds like fun.

I agree that the look of the mini's is much more defined, though the rules are much more streamlined.

I think the difference back then was that the 40k universe wasn't well defined, most things were unclear or simply not expanded upon and gamers were encouraged to make up skirmish games of mercenaries and Marines led by Rogue Traders and it was supposed to be a blast with people sawing up plastic kits to make a variety of flying craft and tanks, few vehicles were specific to a certain army. Now it's far more constricted, there's room for the imagination to creat new things, but people tend to design a new Space Marine Chapter or build an obscure army like Ad Mech. It's still following the fluff and they are designed to fit published army lists even if only as "counts as" lists. Back when Rogue Trader was made there was little in the way of defined army lists, that only started to appear later. At first you just threw together warbands led by a Rogue Trader, later on you could do the same for Chaos warbands. And you didn't 'buy' Chaos gifts, you rolled them randomly on a table to find out what guns and attributes you got before the game. It was less of a competitive game and more bonkers, unpredictable fun. That's not everyone's cup of tea admittedly.

Howard A Treesong wrote:The imperial guard also had suicide bombers, soldiers with packs of explosive strapped around their waists. I imagine we won't see the likes of them again!

Well they were just Penal legion, so they are still around, even if not in the complete same shape. Also they had the explosives around their necks, like in that old movie

Kind of a shame really, as it made the Imperium a bit more grim and brutal.

The minis were very cheap, and 10 Tactical Marines in a Rhino was half of a 1,500 point army.

Nowadays, the minis are very expensive, and 10 Tactical Marines in a Rhino is less than an 8th of a 1,500 point army.

I'm pretty familiar with 2nd ed, but never played rogue trader myself. How much difference was there in the transition from RT to 40k?

Spiky Norman wrote: models on hover (power) boards surfing around throwing vortex grenades.

How very dare you sir! That carefully planned stratagem has seen me through these past twenty years of combat and no doubt a few score more. Note: For aspiring tactical genius' this also works with jump packs.

On a serious note if you want fast, competitive, organised play where two people who've never met before can turn up and have a game in a few hours - play 5th. If you want a deep, customisable, roleplay/wargame which will take serious input but is ultimately rewarding - play RT 40k. Even if only once.

Either way read RT if you get the chance - all the GW developers will have; and many new ideas are often re-imaginings of print from this era. It will inspire you....... no matter what your playing style or interest

(puts pipe down, arranges slippers and stumbles off to bed muttering...........)

It was in it's own way glorious, mostly in the absurdity of what was possible. Psykers were very dangerous... potentially as their powers were randomly determined. There was one called Rout which forced a unit to take a break test, however you could apply additional psychic points to modify this test to the point where they couldn't pass the check. At this time if a unit broke and ran nearby units would have to test to do the same. You could see someone's whole army running off the table.

I only played after the first army lists had come out, but it was a good time. Blood Axe orks taking Ogryn with all Ripper Guns, Ripper guns that could not miss at close range. Storm boyz scattering 20 ways to Sunday when they jumped.
Marines with shuriken catapults as special weapons. only one kind of Loyalist marines... you had chapter names and paint schemes but everyone used exactly the same list.

I miss squat heavy weapon trikes and their 180 degree turn template as they would skid in front of the enemy to fire.

By no means was it a perfect or glorious era, it was as open to abuse as anything and as others have suggested really needed a gamemaster if not using army lists and even then so much of it was randomly determined you really needed an unbiased 3rd party to go over everything.

Rogue Trader should not be seen as the Golden Age of 40k, it was a beginning but it wasn't perfect. There really wasn't anything like it on the market at the time though.

dementedwombat wrote:I remember the 3rd edition rules had army lists for everyone in the back. They weren't very complete (wargear and weapons were generally "counts as [Imperial equivalent]) but they let you try out an army before you bought their codex. I liked that a lot. They're doing something similar for the new rulebook but it's not nearly as comprehensive. 3rd edition had points values and everything.

3rd edition was enough of a shift in the basic game mechanics that all previous Codices were invalidated when it came out, which is why there were fully usable army lists in the back of the book. For a while, those were the only army lists people had!

Spiky Norman wrote:

Howard A Treesong wrote:The imperial guard also had suicide bombers, soldiers with packs of explosive strapped around their waists. I imagine we won't see the likes of them again!

Well they were just Penal legion, so they are still around, even if not in the complete same shape. Also they had the explosives around their necks, like in that old movie

Kind of a shame really, as it made the Imperium a bit more grim and brutal.

The Human Bombs were different from Penal Legion guys. Penal Legion troopers had the explosive neck collars to prevent them from escaping-- Human Bombs had an explosive harness and were indeed suicide bombers. The fluff was that, as soon as you strapped on the harness and accepted the task of being a Human Bomb, you were absolved of whatever sins you had committed. A small percentage of the harnesses were intentionally rigged not to explode, and a Human Bomb who had such a harness and survived the battle was still pardoned and able to return to normal life. I personally thought that was a cool piece of backstory, but I can see why that sort of thing isn't in modern 40k!

I never played since when I bought it, nobody was into it. But what I remember, there were many psychic powers, different levels of psychic powers, make your own vechicles, planes etc.

Tyranids were in there, eldar, orks SM, Imperial Guard. I have the book somewhere, so can look up info if you want.

"What was Rogue Trader like?"

I remember Rogue Trader being about options. Lots and lots of options. Everything had a list of options, and even the options had options. A lot of the options you didn't get to choose, you rolled a die and hoped for the best - unless you were playing Orks, in which case, you rolled a die and Har Har Har!'d a lot. And there were charts for everything.

Book of the Astronomican brought us army lists in 1988, and the yellow Compendium brought us more in 1989. With the Compendium came my favorite army the Genestealer Cult.

Even though we had some Ork lists, it wasn't until 'Ere We Go and Freebooters that Orks really came into their own. Orks were fun. Pure fun. Stormboyz were scattering all over like a fist full of bottle-rockets, Madboyz were rolling madness every turn, Weirdboyz were sucking up the Waargh! and vomiting warpflames, Mekboyz were constantly adding one of a kind options to vehicles or building crazy weapons for the Nobz, Painboyz were nailing Bioniks to Nobz, and Shokk Attak guns were teleporting Snotz into enemy troops bodies. It was a lot of fun to play Orks.

With Realms of Chaos Lost and the Damned and Slaves to Darkness came Chaos goodness. RT was supposed to be a Role Playing Wargame, (a lot like how Inquisitor was presented) with stories being told and battles being fought, and no other books really captured this in my opinion. The RoC books were a story telling dream.

Things could get out of hand though - for instance, one of my 2500 point armies consisted of an Imperial Ordo Malleus Inquisitor and two Imperial Assassins, all kitted out. I would destroy the Eldar Pirates every time, and be about 50/50 with the Craftworld Eldar and Imperial Guard armies. 3 miniatures 2500 points. However, no one in the group I played with ever called Unfair! though, because unrealistic armies could happen to anyone. And my Inquisior/Assassin "army" was only really fun once or twice. It got boring fast. And it wasn't about exploiting the rules for us, it was about creating truly chock full of flavor armies. That was the beauty of Rogue Trader to me.

The more homogenized the lists got with each incarnation, the more flavor the game lost. I absolutely rebelled against 3rd edition when it came out. To me, that was the end of 40k. I more or less stopped playing 40k at that point, except in instances where we would fight with 2nd ed rules - which happened less and less as we moved into 4th edition.

Cryonicleech wrote:So I ask those Dakka members old enough to have been around during this mythical age, what was Rogue Trader like?

This is what I remember about the old days.

Marines all had jumppacks and moved 24".

Following fire let you keep rolling to hit until you rolled a 1.

You could dual wield plasma pistols.

Heavy webbers were cheezy and overpowered.

You could but shadowsword guns on a dreadnought -- but it occupied nearly all their hardpoints.

The Imperium of man had robots.

Marines had a toughness of 3.

Virus gernades would kill any unit not in a sealed suit. Most gaming stores outlawed them.

Vortex gernades would spin madly across a table.

Teenagers were less annoying (thats because I was one)

Chaos mutations used a d1000 chance. There was no sense of balance whatsoever.

Terminators rolled 2d6 for armor saves

There was only one land raider variant

There were rainbow marines

Dark angles wore black armor

Eldar were generally considered overpowered.

Shuriken catapults were special weapons for marine squads

Digital weapons were a lot more common -- and gave more than just +1 attack

Plastic models were not common and poor quality

Metal models were made of lead, and much cheaper than today.

There was no internet for people to troll on, or discuss tactics

Independent characters were harder to kill and more powerful.

You could put your models in overwatch and fire on your opponents turn

Every squat on the board could have a heavy bolter

And they still sucked.

You rolled to see what psychic powers you got

Ah, yes....virus grenades. The all-in-one 5 point method for killing *any* ork army. IIRC, a non-vacuum sealed (i.e., not in power/terminator armor) model was killed on a 4+, which instantaneously spread to every other model within d6 inches. For orks, this meant that any given model may have to test several times as they were in overlapping radii.

I also remember two lvl 4 psykers with the "have another phase of your choice" being the "i win" button, as one of 'em would keep redoing the psychic phase while the other would keep giving you additional shooting phases.

And then there was the Lost And The Damned. "What's that? Oh, that's a genestealer, possessed by a bloodthirster. Oh, and his sword is also possessed by another, different bloodthirster. The genestealer hybrid next to him is only possessed by a bloodletter, though..."

Man, sounds like this old game was a crazy fun mess of a game.

CatPeeler wrote:
And then there was the Lost And The Damned. "What's that? Oh, that's a genestealer, possessed by a bloodthirster. Oh, and his sword is also possessed by another, different bloodthirster. The genestealer hybrid next to him is only possessed by a bloodletter, though..."

And if you killed the model with the sword, didn't that sword have a chance for the bound bloodthirster to break out onto the battlefield?

ah RT and Madboyz

Loosing boots
Hiding so they got a cover save
Moving towards the nearest enemy unit to ask if they had seen the lost boots?

Playing mixed games with RT and fantasy models.

ZacktheChaosChild wrote:Man, sounds like this old game was a crazy fun mess of a game.

This.

It was a jumbled hodgepodge of colossal charts to roll for everything. You would pay to roll on a chart and it was a gamble, your marine captain could get something excellent, average or poor (grenades for example... Vortex and melta frag n crack antifoliant... ). We spent far more time rolling on charts and buggering about with the different rules and the army lists than we ever did playing. I remember my dark angels (cos they were black with red eyes, so cool) who then became black legion (black with red eyes and funky stuff as well) and rolling on the charts to create daemons. I remember a game with my black legion against the eldar and the GM had 6 ambulls wandering about for annoyance value, only attacking if we came into a certain range.

But it was an innocent time and the massive rules systems were being written up and churned out in haphazard order by nerd for nerds, there was no sly miniature sales pitches via troop viability.

I loved the company then, if the interwebs had existed back then I'd have been the most foam-mouthed rabid fanboi on it. All things must change. The game is far more playable now, faster and easier to pick up, but I do miss the company of before, they were freaking awesome.

I really do need to get my hands on the RT book, this sounds awesome. T3 Marines sounds interesting, Virus grenades sound sweet. The idea of being given so many options is mind boggling, IMHO.

I need to dig out my 'Ere We Go book and try to find the RT main book and give it a whirl

Everyone should read through Rogue Trader at least once. There is much more to 40k than Grimdark.

RT was great because you could equip squads in so many different ways.

and

Orks weren't the mindless killing machines of todays 40K, you could mix and match forces such as Ork Mercenaries with your IG army and nobody thought any thing of it as long as you had a good story.

Anthour good thing about it, it had Zoats.

Oh I forgot Zoats. Or what a about Jakaro (I don't know if I spelled that right) - now that was a fun unit too. Any unit that could take a couple of bolters duing the middle of a battle and combine them to make a heavy bolter. That was just fun.

Wow, I had REALLY forgotten how much detail there were in those books...*sighs* I even pulled out my 3rd ed. Chapter Approved, and looked through all of the awesome and fun extra rules that were in it. Seriously, what happened to that mindset at GW? Back when I first started playing, there was all sorts of neat experimental army lists floating around, Harlequins, Feral Orks, Armored Company...The VDR, a new scenario pretty much every other WD.

I think the death of WD has hurt the hobby a lot...turned into a $9 paid ad for GWs stuff from an awesome monthly update.

I'm thinking about using some of the scenarios from the CA for my next tourny.


On a side note, anyone have a copy of Waaagh the Orks that they wanna get rid of?

And say if your SM found an eldar weapon on the ground, he could use it if his Intelgence was enough and you rolled to succede in using it.

And I loved making my own speeders and vechicles and flyers. That was so much fun.

The 30 marines in a box weren't just that bone colour.

They came in dark blue or green as well, depending on what batch they were (GW had it sub-contracted to the mob that did inserts for Matchbox cars - the plastic bits inside the cars).

It was two Raiders or three rhinos in a box, though.

As to the old suicide bombers.
They were called "human bombs" as opposed to the regular penal legionaires (called simply 'penitents').

Penitents wore the collars and could be command detonated by their commanding officers - those that failed ran away after the battle. Penitents carried lasguns and could even have heavy weapons.

Human bombs wore chest harnesses laden with explosives and were otherwise unarmed. Their job was to run at the enemy and explode (with a blast radius).

I wasn't born during Rogue Trader but after researching, I fell in love with the setting.

On Scribd you can find a good amount of RT material:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/7831208/Rogue-Trader-Waaargh-the-Orks (The fluff book for Space orks. Yes, an entire book devoted to fluff about Orks. A very funny read!)
http://www.scribd.com/doc/7831693/Warhammer-40k-Codex-Orks-Ere-We-Go-Rogue-Trader-Era (The actual rules for Space Orks.)
http://www.scribd.com/doc/4964072/Realms-of-Chaos-Slaves-to-Darkness (Slaves to Darkness, this has the famous d1000 table for Chaotic mutations and attributes. There is also a d1000 table for Chaotic weapons!)
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3985516/Rogue-Trader-Book-of-Astronomican (This has a campaign, Imperial marine Spacewolves versus Space Orks. Also has some other random stuff.)

I didn't get into Warhammer until a few years ago, and honestly, I love RT. I wasn't there so maybe I'm just getting all the rose-tinted nostalgia but at the same time, after reading through these 4, I want to buy the rulebook and play a game.

I remember well genestealer armies that featured terminator armored troops and beastmen in gasproof suits.
Vehicles were deathtraps if they got destroyed(and they often did), since anyone in them got smoked when they blew.
Running or facing a Chaos army after the Chaos books came out resulted in some of my favorite games I remember to this day.
There was definitely a lot more color to the game, even if it went outside the lines a lot.