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 warhead01 wrote:
This got me thinking about the virus outbreak card having been "banned" via the WD. I got thinking that the game was 5 turns so did it really need to be banned? Sadly I never pulled it but we may have removed it from the deck. I can't recall. But in a 5 turn game just how much hurt would that even bring. I remember SM's were sealed troops so they were far less likely to be bothered than most anything else. In a mission like take and hold I think that card would make for a very dynamic game, especially if the table was chocked full of terrain. Thoughts on that or any experience with that card?

It has been many, many years for me, but I remember virus outbreak or an assassin (or swooping hawk exarch?) with a virus grenade being devastating (in an unfair way) to Orks and Imperial Guard armies.

I remember getting the RTB01 box for $20 for 30 marines. Which adjusted for inflation is about what you pay for a 10 man box today.

Quality has gone up a bit though…

Started with 2nd (and a bit of RT). So many shenanigans, micromanagement, and crawling overwatch. Picked up again with 4th but the 'golden age' locally was early to mid 5th where the local guard player wasn't good enough to take proper advantage of the book and just about everything else was close enough to even that we'd play mirror matches, army swap tournaments and the like and people would generally feel that their choices rather than their codex mattered the most.

Speed, range, and 'generic-ness' was what did it. You could read the board in a rough paper/scissors/stones kind of way were rewarded for plotting out things turns in advance.

 warhead01 wrote:
This got me thinking about the virus outbreak card having been "banned" via the WD. I got thinking that the game was 5 turns so did it really need to be banned? Sadly I never pulled it but we may have removed it from the deck. I can't recall. But in a 5 turn game just how much hurt would that even bring. I remember SM's were sealed troops so they were far less likely to be bothered than most anything else. In a mission like take and hold I think that card would make for a very dynamic game, especially if the table was chocked full of terrain. Thoughts on that or any experience with that card?

Virus grenades and outbreaks had the potential to end the game by themselves, which is why they were yanked. Space Marines could resist the virus, but orks and IG were notoriously vulnerable.

For Orks it just meant a mandatory 50 point Wargear card "Vaccine Squig". The only army I saw get really hit by a Virus Grenade was Imperial Guard. But it was devastating. probably 50+ dead from a single grenade throw.

 Insectum7 wrote:
For Orks it just meant a mandatory 50 point Wargear card "Vaccine Squig". The only army I saw get really hit by a Virus Grenade was Imperial Guard. But it was devastating. probably 50+ dead from a single grenade throw.

Yeah, it was something you either automatically countered (if you could) or it would just win the game. Very poorly thought out rule.

I remember back when you'd never see special characters. They had point limitations (usually "army must be over X number of points, but a few were under) to keep them out of most games, and while they were often-times good a codex wasn't designed around taking them.

It's super annoying how Abaddon, Girly-Man, Ghazzy, and any number of super-duper-uber-extra-special characters seem to be on every battlefield where their respective army shows up.

 morganfreeman wrote:
I remember back when you'd never see special characters. They had point limitations (usually "army must be over X number of points, but a few were under) to keep them out of most games, and while they were often-times good a codex wasn't designed around taking them.

It's super annoying how Abaddon, Girly-Man, Ghazzy, and any number of super-duper-uber-extra-special characters seem to be on every battlefield where their respective army shows up.

^1000% agree!!! Fielding your own characters with your own options is much better, and locking builds behind "must-take" special characters is really annoying.

I was once in a tournament where the final 2 armies were both Black Legion led by Abaddon because he was basically a must-take.

I miss Rogue Trader. Or more specifically I miss the friends I had in those days and the games we played. Sucks getting old and cancer's a .

I missed 3rd so much that I went back to it. No more random charge lengths or stratagems for me, sir.

Billy i don't have nostalgia...i live it

Our group plays a combined old hammer based loosely around 5th ed with large helpings of 3rd/4th ed rules. there is no meta there is no churn, there is only war...... and dice and minis and most of all fun times.

P.S. 3.5 oblit weapons-

.twin linked melta gun
.twin linked plasma gun
.missile launcher (frag)
.auto cannon
.heavy bolter
.las cannon
.flamer
.power fist

Strangely enough they are modeled with an assault cannon, but they cannot use it.....maybe it was supposed to be a rotor cannon?

Imperial Guard sergeants with storm bolters.

 aphyon wrote:
Strangely enough they are modeled with an assault cannon, but they cannot use it.....maybe it was supposed to be a rotor cannon?

Probably just the rules and model being out of sync.

Flamer nozzle, bolter nozzle, assault cannon, chainfist, and lightning/power claw - if not for the melta nozzle (instead of a grenade launcher) it would have been the complete set of standard terminator armour weapons, though perhaps they were angling for a combi-bolter look there as the launcher was more of an Imperial thing.

Would have been quite a different unit and perhaps a few less 3e Iron Warriors if they had only 4 heavy slots instead of 7 :p Though early edition assault cannons were brutal.

I think it's more the idea that Oblits grow any type of weapon, so having an assault cannon protruding out looked cool. I don't think the idea was ever to have WYSIWYG Oblits.

Still, I did love the tactical options you got with Oblit weapons, rather than the generic "Jervis'd" homogenised abstracted weapon rules.

Never forget the game where an Oblit switched to the TL-Melta gun for a Farseer my opponent left a little too close. He was not happy about losing his Guide/Fortune machine.

The good old days of Space Marines with Shuriken Catapults, Eldar Guardians with Lasguns and squads of Imperial Commissars. Ork Battlewagons with actual buckets modeled onto them to exploit the unlimited transport rule. The original "Eddy" and "Fury" robots, before they became dreadnought loadouts.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I think it's more the idea that Oblits grow any type of weapon, so having an assault cannon protruding out looked cool. I don't think the idea was ever to have WYSIWYG Oblits.

And to be fair the oblits did actually have assault cannons in the 3.0 codex. I forgot how much of a crazy power-up they got going into 3.5.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 warhead01 wrote:
This got me thinking about the virus outbreak card having been "banned" via the WD. I got thinking that the game was 5 turns so did it really need to be banned? Sadly I never pulled it but we may have removed it from the deck. I can't recall. But in a 5 turn game just how much hurt would that even bring. I remember SM's were sealed troops so they were far less likely to be bothered than most anything else. In a mission like take and hold I think that card would make for a very dynamic game, especially if the table was chocked full of terrain. Thoughts on that or any experience with that card?

Virus grenades and outbreaks had the potential to end the game by themselves, which is why they were yanked. Space Marines could resist the virus, but orks and IG were notoriously vulnerable.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Insectum7 wrote:
For Orks it just meant a mandatory 50 point Wargear card "Vaccine Squig". The only army I saw get really hit by a Virus Grenade was Imperial Guard. But it was devastating. probably 50+ dead from a single grenade throw.

Yikes! I really should have gotten off my butt and found those cards. I hadn't expected them to work so fast or really do that much damage. I thought it had just been an over reaction. But I guess 40K got more tame in later editions. I can see how they would give the feels bads. Which wouldn't have bothered me back then because of my one opponent and having never beaten him in a game. I think he was a bit of a dice cheater. That and our terrain situation was garbage.

Terrain was key to a good game, still is, but his house his rules. Not much fun in being pinned down by Dark reapers and then shredded by Warp spiders with no chance of leaving your deployment zone because you're too poor to afford a few vehicles. There were other issues too, 2000 points in 2nd never went very far.

I really miss real Corsairs, 7th Corsairs is the reason why we have detachments and subfactions now. They played extremely well (As in balanced and just worked how it was supposed to). They got some hate for being a FW army, but really it was a fluffy and fun way to play CWE/DE that actually worked unlike DE at the time.

I truly believe 40k will never be as fun for me as Corsairs were.

 warhead01 wrote:


Terrain was key to a good game, still is, but his house his rules. Not much fun in being pinned down by Dark reapers and then shredded by Warp spiders with no chance of leaving your deployment zone because you're too poor to afford a few vehicles. There were other issues too, 2000 points in 2nd never went very far.

A lot of the problems people had with 2nd was that they didn't place enough terrain. A lot of the criticism of the Overwatch rule was based on the fact that the cover was insufficient. If the center of the table is open, you are going to have both sides hunker down and wait for the other one to move, especially if the forces are infantry-centric.

Our FLGS had an excellent collection of terrain, much of it donated by the players. I gave all my first-gen terrain to the store as my modeling skills improved. They also had several sets of the cardboard buildings from Necromunda and the campaign packs.

So there's another nostalgia item - multi-story cardboard buildings from GW that you could rearrange as needed. They looked cool, and they were modular. I'm still kind of pissed that I loaned a friend my set so he'd have more terrain at his place and when he got out of the hobby, he gave them to the store. No! That was a loan!




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 morganfreeman wrote:
I remember back when you'd never see special characters. They had point limitations (usually "army must be over X number of points, but a few were under) to keep them out of most games, and while they were often-times good a codex wasn't designed around taking them.

It's super annoying how Abaddon, Girly-Man, Ghazzy, and any number of super-duper-uber-extra-special characters seem to be on every battlefield where their respective army shows up.

Well, special characters used to be conditional. The books actually said "if your opponent agrees, you can take..."

I miss those mutual consent requirements for certain rules.

I enjoyed 3rd Ed. One of the highlights for me was that Abaddon had one single attack with Drachnyen and pretty much if it hit, it killed the model it hit, no saves etc.

I've played since 3rd edition. There are certainly elements of every edition I can look back on fondly, but I wouldn't go back and play any of them. Definitely don't miss the Vehicle Damage table, and endlessly 'shaking' or 'stunning' the same tank over and over again, or all the arguments on the direction the arrow was pointing on scatter dice.

 cuda1179 wrote:
I know this is going to stir some controversy, but I kinda miss aspects of the model/terrain "size" categories and magic cylinder.

Yes, it's a little more abstract, but it allowed people to model figures in cool poses without worrying about "modeling for advantage". Standard infantry size 1, Terminators/Ogryn/Tyranid warriors size 2. They can hide behind terrain at least their size category. Easy to understand, quicker to play.

I remember playing with this system, I thought it worked well.

If there were excessive nitpicking arguments over the direction of the scatter dice the problem wasn't the game...

 Just Tony wrote:
If there were excessive nitpicking arguments over the direction of the scatter dice the problem wasn't the game...

Completely true. We still use scatter dice and templates without any issue. When we did have problems it was because 'that guy' was playing at the time. If you played and these things were always an issue, there's a good chance you are 'that guy'.

 amanita wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
If there were excessive nitpicking arguments over the direction of the scatter dice the problem wasn't the game...

Completely true. We still use scatter dice and templates without any issue. When we did have problems it was because 'that guy' was playing at the time. If you played and these things were always an issue, there's a good chance you are 'that guy'.

Just paint one of the "rays" on the blast marker, line that one up with the arrow and then move it.

 Just Tony wrote:
If there were excessive nitpicking arguments over the direction of the scatter dice the problem wasn't the game...

In my experience, it wasn't so much that people were actually arguing about it. It was more that you and your opponent probably had slightly different ideas of where the proper place to scatter was, and you were both too polite to make a big deal about it, but every time the blast hit a couple more of your models than you personally thought it should have, it rankled just a bit. So in my case, at least, the benefit of leaving behind scatter dice is that I don't have those little twinges of annoyance when I opt not to squabble about how many dudes my opponent "should" be hitting.

That said, I did once have a doubles game where one of my opponents was getting increasingly flustered and argumentative about my team's scatters. I ended up just telling him to tell me where he thought my deepstrikers were supposed to land so we could skip the part where he gets cranky about it. He looked very embarrassed and was much less argumentative for the rest of the game. He was a nice enough guy on the whole and not trying to be "that guy," but an honest difference in interpretation could lead to bad feelings, as seen in this anecdote.

Like I said, the only time we had issues with scatter was when it was a powergamer/cheater. Any other time we rolled the die right next to the template and aligned from there. No issues with any reasonable players.



Maybe the issue wasn't the rules but that we weren't a bunch of WAAC feltchers.

Aaah. Back when Krieg was its own army... I miss it.

And AP 3 Hellguns, I always thought that was pretty great for Stormtroopers, a short range, low Str weapon, but in return, it had excellent AP and was carried by models who -could- drop very close to their targets and take full advantage of what they carried. I think it was a pretty unique combo, and much superior than the boring 24'' Ap 5 version of pre-5th ed and the current version of 9th.

Just Tony wrote:Like I said, the only time we had issues with scatter was when it was a powergamer/cheater. Any other time we rolled the die right next to the template and aligned from there. No issues with any reasonable players.



Maybe the issue wasn't the rules but that we weren't a bunch of WAAC feltchers.

We never had any real issue with it, since we are fun gamers if there is every any "conflict" i always let the other player decide how many dudes are under a template or place the scatter.

Bobthehero wrote:Aaah. Back when Krieg was its own army... I miss it.

And AP 3 Hellguns, I always thought that was pretty great for Stormtroopers, a short range, low Str weapon, but in return, it had excellent AP and was carried by models who -could- drop very close to their targets and take full advantage of what they carried. I think it was a pretty unique combo, and much superior than the boring 24'' Ap 5 version of pre-5th ed and the current version of 9th.

Our krieg player still uses his FW book from 7th ed for our hybrid 5th ed games. So, they are still very real to us as well.

The Krieg's 5th Ed list has more options. I'd use that one for an hybrid game

 Just Tony wrote:
If there were excessive nitpicking arguments over the direction of the scatter dice the problem wasn't the game...

Don't forget armour facing.