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If you dig around on the net you can probably still find the 2nd edition Battle Bible pdf, which collected all the rules together into something you can easily search through.

Insularum wrote:

5. Every player eventually going for a level 4 psyker with force rod plus a battery of level 1's.

Nah, I never bothered with anything less than a level 4 psyker... My regular Marine army generally included a Chief Librarian and a level 4 Inquisitor Lord.


Also worth mentioning that rhinos tended to be of far more use as mobile Blind launchers and for ramming enemy tanks than as troop transports...

There are loads of simple house rules that could iron 2nd edition into running smoothly - in fact they were halfway through doing this (to make a third edition of 40K) when ownership and direction changed and they were told to cancel it...and change over to a much simpler/faster/more model policy....that's why 3rd edition was very rushed. It's also why the codices etc. for third edition were so scant, etc.

Just random stuff that has disappeared from 2nd edition that people who are "newer" to 40K may not understand:

1) Targeting the closest unit (either infantry or vehicle/monster) was a rule.
2) No re-rolls of...anything. That was not a game mechanic. Roll the dice, do the thing.
3) Vehicle speed bands and turning limits.
4) Crew inside vehicles being able to do a task, and even leave the vehicle, forming a small squad of crappy infantry.
5) If you teleported into the game or around the game...and you were facing Chaos with daemons..your units might teleport and show up as a daemon...unless you're Grey Knights.
6) Weapons losing armour penetration over long distances
7) No measuring pretty much anything - declare or don't.
8) Being able to hide, and having to detect enemy units which are hiding.
9) Model facing mattered and if someone moved outside of your 90 degree frontal arc, you couldn't overwatch them, etc.
10) Greater Daemons and Avatars actually being fething awesome.
11) Terminators being very tough to crack unless you're dumping heavy weapons into them.
12) Being able to limber and unlimber artillery pieces to most vehicles - also a rule called "Orky Unlimber" where you cut the gun loose mid-drive and it spun to a random direction.
13) Orks being far more random and crazy than they ever were again...Shokk attack guns could shoot snotlings inside dreadnoughts or terminator armour....that's a thing.
14) Even back in 2nd edition you had a decent table of veteran abilities you could assign to Imperial Guard - making/designing your own special infantry.
15) Necrons existing as a scenario/NPC small army that was tough as feth...far tougher than they ever were again.
16) The Chaos powers still had daemonic animosity and if daemons from opposing powers got too close they'd disappear to go fight in the immaterium...
17) Chaos armies building summoning points by doing different things; depending on their chosen god
18) Eldar having Exarchs, Warlocks, and Farseers who were actually incredibly competent characters and could hold their own against most Space Marine characters instead of being weak and hapless dickbags like they become.
19) Force Swords and weapons being able to store force cards and burn them for additional strength, meaning a Psyker could slash through a tank with a crazy lightsaber...
20) Having grenades and missiles that could eliminate natural terrain (killing off tall grass, bushes and trees...) etc.

If you've only played 3rd-7th and maybe now 8th...you missed out on a truly bizarre and special game. I'd have never gotten into 40K if it hadn't been for the absolute hilarity of 2nd edition.

 Elbows wrote:

2) No re-rolls of...anything. That was not a game mechanic. Roll the dice, do the thing.

Not entirely true. Some of the Guard Veteran abilities, for example, let you re-roll shooting or attack rolls.

But it certainly wasn't as common as it is now, and was often confined to re-rolling a single die rather than everything.

I would actually play 2nd edition again, all naysaying aside. Two players who were willing to have a good time made that edition really fun.

Martel732 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I played 2nd with completely ruthless gamers. Lots of turn 1 tablings.

Oof, yeah, heartless competitive gamers can really poison an environment no matter the game.

It works better in most games than 2nd ed 40K.

Or 3rd ed 40k, or 4th ed, 5th ed, 6th ed, 7th ed, 8th ed for that matter....
Why it's almost like this game has never been designed/intended for competitive play.

 insaniak wrote:

 Elbows wrote:

2) No re-rolls of...anything. That was not a game mechanic. Roll the dice, do the thing.

Not entirely true. Some of the Guard Veteran abilities, for example, let you re-roll shooting or attack rolls.

But it certainly wasn't as common as it is now, and was often confined to re-rolling a single die rather than everything.

Fair, even when I typed it I assumed there was something or a wargear card somewhere which allowed it...but in general it's not something you'd consider a game mechanic from 2nd edition. By comparison you could argue re-rolls are a giant game mechanic in 40K as of late.

Bring whatever army you want of how many points. I'll bring one model: Phoenix Lord Baharroth. Might as well have a roll off and whoever wins, wins.

I really like plasma missiles My brother used to field 8 or more gretchen. Thank goodness for plasma missiles going critical!

Looking back ...ahem.. 25 years to second edition, it in some ways seems less complicated than the current rules. The core is certainly more variable, but is actually pretty straightforward. The current rules are much simpler but with a thick layer of stuff on top. The current complexity is in the card gamey/video gamey command point stuff/strategems. 2nd edition never made me feel like I would need a spreadsheet to keep track of things, but this edition does.

The counter for the vortex grenade was a vortex detonator (which any army had access to, because wargear).

The virus outbreak HAD no counter except being a space marine.

Toss the virus outbreak card out. The vortex grenade card can stay. They get larger, sometimes breed, and wander around the battlefield eating terrain, units, vehicles and wandering small children.

Weapons Jamming was also a thing. A Sustained Fire Dice (SFD) was basically a D3 with 6 as a jam. You had to spend a turn to clear a jam.

Assault cannons were basically 3xSFD krak missile launchers. But if you rolled 3 jams it exploded and killed the user. Each Wolf Guard could have terminator armour (regular sergeants not so) and be equipped with any terminator weapon. This included Assault Cannons and Cyclone missile launchers - at the same time. Did I mention they could have 20 in a unit.

I once faced 20 Wolfguard Terminators with Assault Cannons. I lost 2 Blood Angel Terminators in one shooting phase. He lost 7 in that shooting phase; remember the triple jam.

When they revamped Necromunda - which uses pretty much 2nd ed rules - but before the current version they changed the weapons. No more DnD dice assortment as they were D3's and D6's. And no more SFD. Instead of SFD you rolled to see how many shots you had based on the weapon (Autocannons were D3) and rolled to hit that many times. And for every 6 you rolled you took an ammo test; again based on the weapon. They should of gone further that route rather than 3rd.

Those wolf guard terminators could take and assault cannon AND a cyclone on each marine. It a viable list, it was amusing once. This was also when cyclone could fire its whole payload of 12 Missiles in one shot with like a 6” blast Krak missile shot.

 Tamwulf wrote:
Bring whatever army you want of how many points. I'll bring one model: Phoenix Lord Baharroth. Might as well have a roll off and whoever wins, wins.

The Imperial Guard remains no more impressed by 2e Baharroth today than it was back then. So let's roll all the dice.

 chromedog wrote:
The vortex grenade card can stay. They get larger, sometimes breed, and wander around the battlefield eating terrain, units, vehicles and wandering small children.

Plasma was the one that got larger. Vortex was a 1.5" template that just wandered around until it randomly disappeared.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Either/Or wrote:
Those wolf guard terminators could take and assault cannon AND a cyclone on each marine. It a viable list, it was amusing once. This was also when cyclone could fire its whole payload of 12 Missiles in one shot with like a 6” blast Krak missile shot.

They could initially. GW errata'd it to one heavy weapon per terminator eventually, but by that point most people just refused to play against Wolf Guard Terminators anyway.

The other nasty Space Wolf combo was the entire army of Jump-packing Blood Claws with chainswords and powerfists. Faced that in a tournie once, and it did not end well.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ccs wrote:

 Tamwulf wrote:
Bring whatever army you want of how many points. I'll bring one model: Phoenix Lord Baharroth. Might as well have a roll off and whoever wins, wins.

The Imperial Guard remains no more impressed by 2e Baharroth today than it was back then. So let's roll all the dice.

Rolling all the dice doesn't do much against a unit that spends the entire game alternating between not being on the board, and being in close combat with you.

Sure, but even a mega-lord of death...could only kill one or two models per turn - far less than the "chop through a horde" style of more modern games of 40K.

God forbid two unkillable things got into close combat; it'd never be resolved.

Which is why named characters were permitted only on special occassions and by agreement.
Though 2nd may be called hero hammer, I saw fewer actual heroes on the table while today every game has a Magnus on one side and a primarch on the other... not an improvement imho.

2nd ed had its problems but it was not trying to be the kind of game people expect these days.

I actually think it would've been a great killteam ruleset instead.

To she some light on the melee system, it had problems but was also pretty well designed in its own right.

You rolled your attacks and added the highest number to your WS. Additional 6s beyond the first added +1. 1s were added to your opponents score (the statistics here weren't favourable to high attacks, so I usually said that the 2nd 1 after the first 1 and so on).

Your opponent did the same. Whoever got higher won the combat and hit their enemy a number of times equal to the difference. So if you win by 4 pts, you score 4 hits. This was possible for any model, so a Lucky guardsman could get Max 10 (ws3+6 +1marine fumble) and an unlucky marine could get 4 (4 and a d6 roll of 1 given to the guardsman), meaning the marine was then hit with 6 S3 attacks.

If the guardsman Had charged, they'd get +1. If they had the high ground +1 etc.

Marines were 30 pts each while guardsmen were 10pts. So 3 could be fighting that 1 marine.

And each additional fighter got +1ws and +1a. So by the time you reach the third guy he's rolling 3 attacks and is already ws5.

And this is why characters weren't as crazy as they're made out to be.

You could only get 6 models in btb by the 4th Guardsman (so 40 pts) you've got a ws6 a4 model. It only does S3 hits, but it can easily do multiple in one round.

The 6th guardsman is ws8 with a6. 60pts of tarpit that might actually injure the character costing far more.

I used to get a lot of satisfaction using the plastic gretchin to kill characters by swamping them...

Marneus Calgar broke the melee rules by denying the outnumbering bonus to his opponents, something that bloodthirsters or avatars couldn't do. I think this rule shouldn't exist in 2nd Ed at all.

This combat isn't fast, but had some fun moments (massive fumble bloodthirsters dying to veteran sergeants).

There are many ways to improve this combat system but I liked the outnumbering.

Hey guys thanks for reply, it has been fun to read all the comments. So apparently some house rules are needed, and that's ok. As i've been playing 40k from 3rd to 8th edition, i'll have to agree 8th being best version (and 7th probably worst because of mess of special rules).

 insaniak wrote:

Insularum wrote:

5. Every player eventually going for a level 4 psyker with force rod plus a battery of level 1's.

Nah, I never bothered with anything less than a level 4 psyker... My regular Marine army generally included a Chief Librarian and a level 4 Inquisitor Lord.


Also worth mentioning that rhinos tended to be of far more use as mobile Blind launchers and for ramming enemy tanks than as troop transports...

Unlimited vehicle cards was another fun use for cheap vehicles, racks of HK missiles or lots of extra stormbolters that could be rapid fired

 Spreelock wrote:
Hey guys thanks for reply, it has been fun to read all the comments. So apparently some house rules are needed, and that's ok. As i've been playing 40k from 3rd to 8th edition, i'll have to agree 8th being best version (and 7th probably worst because of mess of special rules).

I was never able to get into 8th... After the mess of 6th/7th, 8th moved too far towards a game that I just had no interest in playing. Of the editions from 3rd onwards, 5th is still easily my favourite, but I'm currently working on getting back into 2nd with a mate of mine who I played it with back in the day. Guard army in progress here, using Maelstrom's Edge minis because I'm not interested in paying GW prices for horde armies these days...

Great .

Btw, did the squats have their own codex?
I'm thinking about buying New sisters of battle and playing with 2nd edition rules with them

Squats never got a full codex, only the list in the black 'Codex Army Lists' booklet that came in the boxed game. Although that list was pretty good.

 chromedog wrote:
The counter for the vortex grenade was a vortex detonator (which any army had access to, because wargear).

The virus outbreak HAD no counter except being a space marine.

Toss the virus outbreak card out. The vortex grenade card can stay. They get larger, sometimes breed, and wander around the battlefield eating terrain, units, vehicles and wandering small children.

See, it's comments like this which are simply false and as a result give 2nd a bad name.

Read the virus card again. It's powerful but doesn't ruin the entire game. It can be compared to a barrage in later editions. Best way to minimize damage is to have "social distancing" between your squads of more than six inches. Problem solved.
How deadly is it? Affected troops are killed on 1 & 2 on a D6 roll and casualties will spread the disease (D6 inches).

Who can be affected? Every unit which hasn't a completely sealed suit, armour or inbred immunities:
Space Marines (Power Armour), Terminators, Aspect Warriors, Tyranids and enclosed vehicles can't be harmed.

Orks can counter the virus by taking a vaxxine squig (50 pts.) which will vaccinate the whole army and give models absolute immunity against virus effects.

Funnily, the devs didn't give Necrons an immunity but this is easily rectified by another house rule.

It's a noisily unbalanced, hot mess.

Martel732 wrote:
So, it's the best after you rewrite half the rules?

I don't care for the only one fighter gets hits in melee system.

Exaggeration will get you nowhere. In addition, I still play a house-rule version which is a combination of essentially 3rd to 6th which also includes the above mentioned changes, if applicable. Otherwise it stays an unplayable mess.

Though the most important feature is alternate activation by far. If you don't include it, have fun with your one turn ROFL-stomp games as artillery shells pound one force into oblivion while it's commander can only remove the casualties. LOL!, setting up the game takes longer than actually playing it.

 Strg Alt wrote:
Read the virus card again. It's powerful but doesn't ruin the entire game.

The initial virus kills on a 3+, and then spreads on a 4+ from every single individual model. Those not killed the first time around are hit again, and again, and again as long as at least one model dies.
Good luck keeping your melee ork army spread out with a 6" gap between every squad when your opponent can pull out the card at literally any time, anywhere on the board. And it's a permanent fixture once placed that keeps re-hitting models later in the game.

Ultimately it's a 50pt tax on orks and even worse for some others.

 Strg Alt wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
So, it's the best after you rewrite half the rules?

I don't care for the only one fighter gets hits in melee system.

Exaggeration will get you nowhere. In addition, I still play a house-rule version which is a combination of essentially 3rd to 6th which also includes the above mentioned changes, if applicable. Otherwise it stays an unplayable mess.

Though the most important feature is alternate activation by far. If you don't include it, have fun with your one turn ROFL-stomp games as artillery shells pound one force into oblivion while it's commander can only remove the casualties. LOL!, setting up the game takes longer than actually playing it.

You made some pretty critical changes. I could really improve 8th with a similar-sized list of changes. And yes, our games took longer to set up than play.

For some reason I remember both a virus outbreak and a virus grenade. Maybe these rules are different and being misattributed? One being far worst than the other?

Looking back I think the virus problem was over reacted to. I see it more as putting the game on a clock, the affected army can still win via mission conditions. I also see it as better suited for a more narrative, less competitive, game.

Insularum wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

Insularum wrote:

5. Every player eventually going for a level 4 psyker with force rod plus a battery of level 1's.

Nah, I never bothered with anything less than a level 4 psyker... My regular Marine army generally included a Chief Librarian and a level 4 Inquisitor Lord.


Also worth mentioning that rhinos tended to be of far more use as mobile Blind launchers and for ramming enemy tanks than as troop transports...

Unlimited vehicle cards was another fun use for cheap vehicles, racks of HK missiles or lots of extra stormbolters that could be rapid fired

Yup, there's something to be said for loading a Rhino with 10 naked Tacs and giving it 10 PMSBs.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 insaniak wrote:
Squats never got a full codex, only the list in the black 'Codex Army Lists' booklet that came in the boxed game. Although that list was pretty good.

There was also the lists from Inquisitor Magazine which gave them a bit more flavor than just "Biker Dwarves".