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I'm wondering if anyone still plays games of 40k using any of the older edition rulesets/material?

I personally am still stuck in the 4th edition era, myself. I am (and always have been) a modeller and painter more than a gamer, so the models have always been where it's at for me more than the rules. Especially in the last several years, because I have mainly just painted/converted models off and on while following the state of the game on sites like this one, so I think that the two latest codexes I have bought were the "oldcrons" and the current 5th edition Eldar codex.

I do, however have a nearly complete collection of material for 3rd and early 4th editions, as I got into the game just at the tail end of 2nd edition. My best buddy has several armies from that period, but has since had two kids, so refuses to buy any of the modern material. And I think that it would be a complete waste to do away with all that huge amount of material that I have, when my area has absolutely no gaming community that I know of for me to have to "stay current with or be left behind".

So I find myself in the situation where my friendly games with the buddy and wife tend to go along these lines:

-4th edition rulebook as base rules
-Codexes and army lists as if it were still early 4th edition, where all the 3e material was being used with the new rules.
-Additional rules material from things like the Chapter Approved books, Codex: Armageddon, and Codex: Eye of Terror.
-Any new vehicles that come along, I can easily use the VDR rules from Chapter Approved to field.
-5th edition Eldar codex to replace the Eldar and Craftworld Eldar books from 3e.

I still buy new models, like the new Deathwing figures and the Terminators from Dark Vengeance, they are just utilized with the 3e Dark Angels Codex.

That being said, I have also been slowly amassing a useable collection of 2nd edition gaming material for any of my armies that would have existed in some way back then. I came in right at the last couple of years of that edition, so I never got to play any games of it, and would love to have some fun playing a couple of games just for fun. Plus the codexes make excellent reading material.

All of these early editions had their flaws, but friendly games are an excellent way of nipping that in the bud. For instance, one of my main armies is a growing Eldar collection. But I don't have to worry about the horrible Skimmer Spam rearing it's face, as my Saim Hann (and the only Eldar) army only fields a pair of Wave Serpents that can be changed into Falcons. On the other hand, any overpowered wargear and psychic powers will be limited by general consensus in 2nd Edition games.

Anyone else in a similar boat?

You are not the only one I assure you. My small group of friends that play got started late in 4th ed. and transitioned to 5th ed.. We are still playing according to 5th ed. since we all have families and rarely get a chance to make it to our local store. Only one of us has managed to buy the 6th ed. BRB.

My group still plays 5th occasionally. Mainly due to the necron player rage quiting and selling the necrons, he then pulled his SM of the shelf and refuses to play 6th.

Either way I don't care, you just play flyers as skimmers.

3rd ruinied the game for me and I quit after it came out. Playing a nostalgia game of 2nd Ed this coming weekend.

2nd edition still has quite a following. Its been that way since 3rd came out.

The rule books and codexes still sell for a decent amount too when you consider how old they are.

I have all my second edition books.

Scorpiodragon wrote:
My group still plays 5th occasionally. Mainly due to the necron player rage quiting and selling the necrons, he then pulled his SM of the shelf and refuses to play 6th.

Either way I don't care, you just play flyers as skimmers.

Hang on, i gotta ask. Why of all people did the person who played Crons ragequit? They are still a massively powerful army.

I detest 6th edition, it is as if an 11 year old wrote it. Cover is so worthless now as they have taken the abstraction away. Ran-dumb everything, nerf fleet (really hurts nids and orks), etc.

BTW, I noticed that you are calling the Eldar codex a 5th ed.product, I'm pretty sure that it was a 4th ed. Item as it came out shortly before the ork codex, which came out just before 5th. IIRC.

xraytango wrote:
I detest 6th edition, it is as if an 11 year old wrote it. Cover is so worthless now as they have taken the abstraction away. Ran-dumb everything, nerf fleet (really hurts nids and orks), etc.

BTW, I noticed that you are calling the Eldar codex a 5th ed.product, I'm pretty sure that it was a 4th ed. Item as it came out shortly before the ork codex, which came out just before 5th. IIRC.

Yes the Eldar codex was published in 2006 for 4th ed.

Yes the Eldar codex was published in 2006 for 4th ed.

Heh, see what I know? I could have sworn it was an early 5th ed codex, with what I know about 5th. I just know the points costs for units in there are much better than the 3rd ed ones, sometimes by nearly half, so it stands up better against the earlier books for the other armies.

2nd edition still has quite a following. Its been that way since 3rd came out.

The rule books and codexes still sell for a decent amount too when you consider how old they are.

I have been slowly searching for and buying 2nd Ed codexes as used from Amazon, other than the Ultramarines and Chaos ones that I bought back when they were in print when I was in junior high. Copies that are nearly perfect have run me less than ten dollars apiece, which makes the material for 2nd ed the cheapest in my collection while also being the "newest" in my collection, lol. I'm just glad I lucked out and found a good set of vehicle datafax cards on ebay, as those are hard to find for anything approaching a cheap price, and basically impossible to reproduce. Luckily I have the Chaos codex for some of my vehicles, because it has Land raider, Rhino, and Predator cards printed in it, which are identical in stats to Imperial ones besides the image on the card.

I thought I was royally screwed for Wargear and psychic powers cards, but then someone linked to a Scribd page here on dakkadakka, which has all that in text format. It's not like you actually needed the physical cards for Wargear, and a short time with templates on MSWord can make those from the text.

I'm not usually a fan of illegal data-sharing, but I frankly don't care in this instance as it's a pretty grey area. The only way I recon you could actually be "stealing" any 2nd edition material from the mouth of GW is with a time machine to go back 15 years. I recon it's basically abandon-ware.

I still pull out 2nd Edition from time to time. I actually like the overall direction 6th took, but some times I just want to have a nice small-skirmish in 2nd. So many fun effects going on throughout play, and always a story to regale people with over a pint when it is all said and done.