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As the title says. I think it definitely fits in the "Unsupported games" category, lol.

I recently found an updated copy of the 2nd ed "Battle Bible" online. I really needed it for all the wargear and psychic cards (or at least the texts of them) to supplement my growing collection of material needed to play in 2nd edition (I already have big things like the vehicle datafax cards), but now I have a nice one-stop access to all the material i need to play games in the edition that I was just barely too young to play.

Anyone else have stories of enjoying this ruleset? While I plan on using it for army-level wargaming, I'm actually thinking of taking all the points values of individual troops and characters, and simply eliminating the squad coherency rules. Put a small points cap, like 150-200 points, and I think I'll actually be able to play it as a workable skirmish-level game (I loved playing Necromunda/Gorkamorka when they first came out, but always wanted to visit the wider universe and it's armies, just with the same rules, and for some reason never got the game when it was originally out.

What are you guys' opinions?

Its slow clunky and dominated by HQs, But better then 6th from a narrative point of view. I still miss the use of armor save modifiers and the card based psychic system I however do not miss vortrex grenade spam at all.

I bought the rule books and Codexes from Ebay, mainly for source material and for something to flick through. I haven't actually played 2nd Ed for many, many years and I can't actually remember anything about it. I seem to remember lots of card datasheets, as was GW's wont at that time. I haven't got any of the card datasheets now - just the rulebooks so I am thinking I wouldn't be able to play it even if I wanted to.

I've never moved from 2nd...

Though I still play Rogue Trader.

The Battle Bibles you can download online actually have all the material that was on the cards for the vehicles and wargear. The one I have is 250 pages of literally every bit of rules text you would need from all the main rulebooks, and every codex that was mainstream-even Squats.

HQs are only as dominating as you and your playing partner want them to be, especially in smaller games. My current fledgling Ork army has two squads of Boyz, a squad of Gretchin, with a Warlord to lead them and a Mechaniak (a Mekboy nowadays). So I don't think that's very overpowering at all.

I am actually thinking of moving towards a Necromunda hybrid, with the removal of 40K squad coherence and the addition of Necro bottle tests, aiming for game sizes of about a squads-worth of infantry spread out plus a character. I actually think 2nd edition might get more fun the smaller each player's army is.

Remember I am planning on playing very friendly games. So no vortex or virus spam, or characters with 16 different weapons. Wolf Guard in termie armor with both Assault cannons and missile launchers? Um, no. All the grief out, leaving only sweet, sweet nostalgia.

Its no more 'overpowered' than the current 40k.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Wolf Guard in termie armor with both Assault cannons and missile launchers? Um, no. .

For the latter half of 2nd ed's lifespan, that combo was illegal anyway...

If the information you have doesn't include the various White Dwarf FAQs, I would recommend trying to track them down, as they made some fairly significant changes. The biggest would be the limitation on how many of each Wargear card you could include in your army (which quite nicely prevented the aforementioned Vortex and Virus spam) and the change to only allowing models to have a single 'field' save.... so no giving a model a conversion field and a displacer field, for example.

I think the Battle Bible I downloaded already has the changes to Wargear cards integrated. I don;t know what they used to be, but in there they are all assigned a "rarity" on the card, and you can only have so many of each rarity.

I'm pretty stoked. Right now i am painting some Orks so hopefully this weekend I can have a *teeny tiny* skirmish with my wife to get her feet wet with the rules. Basically a game of 200pts, with squad cohesion removed, and min-limits of squads removed. So essentially it'll be 5 marines with some gear against 10 Orks, incl. a Nob, and a burna (flamer) and a 'Eavy Shoota (Heavy Stubber). So Necromunda, really, just with 40K races.

Then on to bigger squads, with some bikes, and then later maybe a vehicle or to. But the smaller size will help me re-learn the 2ed close combat rules, where it'll usually only be a couple of models fighting in each combat.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I think the Battle Bible I downloaded already has the changes to Wargear cards integrated. I don;t know what they used to be, but in there they are all assigned a "rarity" on the card, and you can only have so many of each rarity.

Yeah, that's the change they made in WD. Originally, there was just the whole slew of cards, some of which had multiples, and it was a little unclear as to whether you were supposed to stick to the number of cards available or not. Assiging them a rarity fixed that.

I'm looking to get into 2nd edition. I recently bought a couple of the books from eBay. In fact I also just won an auction for Dark Millennium... its just missing a couple psychic cards... I'm hoping the copy that my friend has will make up for what I have missing.

I'm buying the codexes that are available off amazon for the huge fluff value and nostalgic pictures, but the cards are getting harder and harder to get as originals- vehicle datafaxes most of all, especially those printed in White Dwarf issues like Falcons, Scorchers, and Trukks.

Apologies for the necromancy, but a friend and I played a quick game of 2nd edition last week; an Ultramarines tactical squad with missile launcher, plasma gun and veteran sergeant with a chainsword and graviton gun (from the new Tactical Squad box set) against a Dark Angels tactical squad with heavy plasma gun, plasma gun and veteran sergeant with master-crafted plasma pistol and a chainsword, and krak grenades for everyone to bring the points up. 400 points a side.

We added the rules for Flesh Wounds/Down/Out of Action and Pinning from Necromunda. We ruled that because they were Space Marines that the first Pinned result only meant that the Marine could not move towards the enemy, with a second Pin required to render him completely useless. Sergeants counted as Leaders for the purposes of Pinning tests.

Much fun was had. My Dark Angels were lacking in cover, and in a foolhardy dash from cover, two were immobilised by the sergeant's graviton gun (turns out that in the hands of a model with BS5, it's well worth its 40 points!), and only the Dark Angel sergeant made it into melee. He did beat up a Tactical marine, but the rest of the squad surrounded him and shot him to death with bolt pistols. The other combat squad demostrated repeatedly that they'd got a duff heavy plasma gun; missing repeatedly despite the targeter. Mind you, the enemy's plasma gun did manage to jam one of the few times it hit, so it wasn't all bad. Still, my Dark Angels were given an ignominious trouncing by the sons of Ultramar. :(

Next time, more interesting forces; some Imperial Guard? Sisters of Battle? Adeptus Arbites? Or perhaps a Genestealer cult.

That's pretty much exactly what I am planning on doing for some small games. Use just a squad or two with the main 40K 2nd ed rules and points, but throw in the skirmish play style of Necromunda, where you don;t need to keep coherency and as you did, pinning/flesh wound/etc style damage.

I think that's one of the most awesome things about Necromunda and how it uses the 2nd ed rules as the base, because it makes it super easy to reverse it to have Necromunda-style games in the wider 40K universe, with great things like Squats, Sisters of Battle, Genestealer Cults, etc.

No squad coherency?Well I know where the best game that GW still makes but doesn't support(Here's a hint:We stole a whole white dwarf in December)

Keep the points extremely low (300 maybe?), and basically use the Necromunda rules with the 40K codexes to give points costs and stats for wargear not covered in Necromunda. I'd call that pretty much the best way to play a game of skirmish 40K, barring complications with close combat if you are not a fan of the 2nd edition melee rules (but that's something I find that a low points/model count game automatically mitigates).

We still play in our club. If fact, I think we have as many 2nd ed players at 6th.
I find it requires a more...I don't know the word,maybe mature?...approach to the game. You need to take time to create a game that both players will enjoy, rather than turn up with a killer army to beat your opponent with. A narrative to the games makes them better anyway.

Pretty sure I still have complete 2nd Ed and Dark Milleniums in my parents' loft. I have most of each one, anyway.

Hi All,
Unless you are playing in a tournament or where only a specific rules set is used, why not alter a set closest to what you like and usie that.
I like altering the basic rules for 5th edition, (which I think is the best of what I have played, 3rd thru 6th). No unit coherency, and use the same charts, weapons ranges and melee rules and we really enjoy it. I have posted some Battle reports like this on in the 40K Battle Reports: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/538298.page
Feedback is welcome and perhaps if there is interst I will post them here since they were not that well recieved by the masses that throw their money at GW and only play the flavor of the day.
Regards,

I would actually do that with 4th edition, which is the most current I have which I also have tons of extra material for, but I actually like the weapons and how they affect their targets better in 2nd edition, especially armor penetration. There are a lot of things about 2nd ed and Necromunda that mesh well with skirmish play.

Lots of things about 2nd edition that people don't like (complicated melee combat, long play time, how lots of vehicles bog down play) are hugely mitigated by only having a small number of models and only one or two vehicles on the board per side (or what is "small" for a given army, anyway, in the case of Orks and Tyranids).

My brother and I play 2nd Ed exclusively. It's still a great game, and with a few tweaks here and there it makes for a great TT game.

A quick re-write of some of the more, ummmm, esotoric rules, and it's good to go. As others have stated, the large points values and the small number of miniatures needed for a game make it ideal in these 'money tight' times.

With the added bonus of Squats...

I'm purchasing some Mantic Forgefathers for a 750pts 2nd Ed Army, and very much looking forward to it, as it'll cost less than £50, including delivery. Yay!

The Genestealer Cult Army though, not so cheap

I'd be interested to know which tweaks you've made, and which rules you've rewritten! I'm trying to rewrite the rulebook incorporating all the FAQs for our gaming group, it's a task and a half...

I think my biggest complaint from 2nd Edition was the psychic phase. As a tyranid player I quickly found my army almost shut out from being able to do anything. Problem came from a few sources.

1) Even distribution between players of generated warp cards. This meant as a tyranid player if I had a tyrant and 3 zoanthropes, and my opponent had one lvl 4 psysker we rolled a total of 5 dice (one for each psyker), total being number of cards drawn and then evenly divided between players, despite I was generating 4 cards for each of his. The solution should have been that you roll as normal but then give one card to the player who's turn it is for each psyker they have, then do the same for the other player, going back and forth until all the cards for the turn are distributed.

2) Psychic Hoods - Allowed the player to reroll his nullify roll. And against even lvl psykers that was a 4+ with a reroll. Maybe it was just my local meta but a lvl 4 psyker could swing a game hugely, so everyone took one. And everyone took a psychic hood to give themselves the best chance to nullify their opponents power (nullifies where cards in the warp deck). Except tyranids couldn't take one, so were at a big disadvantage.

3) Force Staff - Let the psyker store up to 3 force cards. Another huge advantage that almost everyone took because it could allow you to push through a power after your opponent had used up all his nullifies. Except tyranids again had no access to a similar ability.

Taking the above 3 in combination with tyranids either having very weak psychic powers for their tyrant (the only lvl 4 they could have) with the exception of Catalyst, and the zoanthropes having a good psychic attack but being lvl 2 psykers and thus easily nullified it made for some very frustrating turns.

But genestealers and carnifexes were true terrors back then, so it wasn't all bad.

Rumbleguts wrote:I think my biggest complaint from 2nd Edition was the psychic phase. As a tyranid player I quickly found my army almost shut out from being able to do anything. Problem came from a few sources.

1) Even distribution between players of generated warp cards. This meant as a tyranid player if I had a tyrant and 3 zoanthropes, and my opponent had one lvl 4 psysker we rolled a total of 5 dice (one for each psyker), total being number of cards drawn and then evenly divided between players, despite I was generating 4 cards for each of his. The solution should have been that you roll as normal but then give one card to the player who's turn it is for each psyker they have, then do the same for the other player, going back and forth until all the cards for the turn are distributed.

2) Psychic Hoods - Allowed the player to reroll his nullify roll. And against even lvl psykers that was a 4+ with a reroll. Maybe it was just my local meta but a lvl 4 psyker could swing a game hugely, so everyone took one. And everyone took a psychic hood to give themselves the best chance to nullify their opponents power (nullifies where cards in the warp deck). Except tyranids couldn't take one, so were at a big disadvantage.

3) Force Staff - Let the psyker store up to 3 force cards. Another huge advantage that almost everyone took because it could allow you to push through a power after your opponent had used up all his nullifies. Except tyranids again had no access to a similar ability.

Taking the above 3 in combination with tyranids either having very weak psychic powers for their tyrant (the only lvl 4 they could have) with the exception of Catalyst, and the zoanthropes having a good psychic attack but being lvl 2 psykers and thus easily nullified it made for some very frustrating turns.

But genestealers and carnifexes were true terrors back then, so it wasn't all bad.

It wasn't all bad for you at all. When I got into 40k with my cousin, he bought the newly released Tyranid Codex and I bought the Ultramarine codex. I spent the next few years getting my ass handed to me on a regular basis. I remember 3, 60pt infiltrating Lictors deploying right in front of my tactical and devastator squads (or anything that could shoot) and either tying them up for the whole game, or just chopping everything up. Don't think I ever won a game.

AndrewGPaul wrote:Apologies for the necromancy, but a friend and I played a quick game of 2nd edition last week; an Ultramarines tactical squad with missile launcher, plasma gun and veteran sergeant with a chainsword and graviton gun (from the new Tactical Squad box set) against a Dark Angels tactical squad with heavy plasma gun, plasma gun and veteran sergeant with master-crafted plasma pistol and a chainsword, and krak grenades for everyone to bring the points up. 400 points a side.

We added the rules for Flesh Wounds/Down/Out of Action and Pinning from Necromunda. We ruled that because they were Space Marines that the first Pinned result only meant that the Marine could not move towards the enemy, with a second Pin required to render him completely useless. Sergeants counted as Leaders for the purposes of Pinning tests.

Much fun was had. My Dark Angels were lacking in cover, and in a foolhardy dash from cover, two were immobilised by the sergeant's graviton gun (turns out that in the hands of a model with BS5, it's well worth its 40 points!), and only the Dark Angel sergeant made it into melee. He did beat up a Tactical marine, but the rest of the squad surrounded him and shot him to death with bolt pistols. The other combat squad demostrated repeatedly that they'd got a duff heavy plasma gun; missing repeatedly despite the targeter. Mind you, the enemy's plasma gun did manage to jam one of the few times it hit, so it wasn't all bad. Still, my Dark Angels were given an ignominious trouncing by the sons of Ultramar. :(

Next time, more interesting forces; some Imperial Guard? Sisters of Battle? Adeptus Arbites? Or perhaps a Genestealer cult.

Andrew, I want in on this next time you do it. Speak to you on Tuesday.

Oh to be playing 2nd edition again. Much fun and my most favourite 40k edition!

The carnage you could cause to a packed group of ork warbikes - one explodes and causes the rest to either go out of control, go out of control and explode, go out of control, flip upside down and then explode and the rest to come tearing through the devastation with autocannons firing 2 sustained fire dice per bike at you. Much fun

Now that's some old school. I haven't run into anyone at the LHS that plays older editions. I feel it's probably the drawback of having to re-invest in hunting down old books and cards. I'd love to see some of the older stuff re-done, though.

The old quotes in the books and pictures. Good times.

So many fond memories of 2nd ed. Def the most fun I've had in any 40k editions. Unfortunately as an adult now... just can't find the time to actually complete a 2nd ed game. I've replaced that urge with skirmish games using generic rules sets.

at the moment i only play 2nd edition, its what i played as a kid and after a large gap its what i came back to playing. For me playing with a small well chosen force on a table full of terrain is not only challenging and rewarding but creates plenty of memorable moments, (most of them coming from rolling hit and misfire on the scatter and artillery dice!) rarely are there massively one-sided games and there is plenty of customisation to be found.
On a side note my brother and I will soon be playing through the Storm of Vengeance campaign pack which i hope to be able to post some battle reports from.

I'd love to play 2nd Ed again, but I have to try to convince my gaming group. 2nd had so much more of a narrative theme to it I thought.

My son and I got out my old Dark Millennium box - I keep all the old Second Edition cards and datafaxes in it - and played a squad of Ultramarines with a Librarian versus a squad of Blood Angels with a similarly-powered Librarian. I had forgotten how much fun the 2nd Edition psychic phase could be!

If you can get your hands on Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate and a computer old enough to run it, it's a fairly close approximation of the Second Edition rules. It's Ultramarines vs. Chaos presented as a turn-based isometric battle game, much like the original X-com games.

My friends and I have been playing 2nd edition for about a year now. The following items are changes we've made that we think has improved the battles.

Before I start I should clarify that 2nd seems to work best with an obscene amount of terrain.

Like Cities of death cluttered. This helps mitigate the extreme power of heavy weapons and relegates overwatch to covering key stretches of the table as opposed to having free reign to destroy anything you want.

1) Deployment:
The army with the higher strategy rating chooses their table edge and whether they wish to deploy a unit first or second.

Each player takes a turn placing a unit (support batteries are deployed together as one choice as are characters. Transports are placed simultaneously with their squad. Transports may not be purchased without a corresponding squad. (this is to prevent spamming of empty transports to abuse the closest target shooting rules)

Both players roll off to determine who gets first turn adding the strategy rating of their commander (the player who finishes deployment first gets an additional +1)

2) Vehicles:
Units may charge out of transports by declaring a charge at the beginning of the movement phase. The vehicle can only move 12" and may only use 2 45* turns or one 90* turn while en-route. The unit disembarks within 2" of an access point and may make a 6" assault move. This gives transport borne infantry a very similar threat radius to jump infantry.

All results on the vehicle damage charts that refer to instant death for passengers has been changed to the following. All passengers are wounded on a 4+ and receive their full armor save against the damage. Survivors are deployed within 2" of the wreck and may not charge or shoot in their following turn (or phase if destroyed by overwatch) though they may move as normal.

Vehicles are not always automatically hit in close combat. The following to hit rolls are required based on the current speed.
stationary:auto
Slow: 4+
Combat: 5+
Fast: 6+

3)Infantry:
Jump infantry can always move at least 12" even when moving over 2 story+ buildings. Normally they lose 6" per story of building. This was felt to be too severe and made the transport assault alternative too superior.

4)Close Combat:
2nd uses a Panic system (Ie 25% losses equals a break test in close combat) Not a fan. The following has replaced it.

Each side totals the wounds caused. If one side outnumbers their opponents they receive +1. The loser takes a break test at -1 leadership per point they lost the fight by.

The following changes were made to account for the strength of varying unit types.
Bikes/Cavalry: 2 per model.
Dreadnoughts: 8
Monstrous creatures: 1 per starting wound.

If broken in hand to hand units flee for the nearest cover at a speed determined by their movement speed. 1-6=2D6 7+=3D6. Bikes and jump infantry count as 7+. The victorious unit with the highest unit strength may pursue using the same system.

5) Various broken problems
Assault cannon wounds caused reduced to D4 against non vehicle units

The Multi-Melta: This gun is beyond over the top. it is the best choice for destroying anything in the game regardless of target type. It has been changed as follows.

Same ranges
Strength 8
causes D6 wounds at long range 2D6 at short.
Against Vehicles rolls 2D6 +8 at long range 3D6+8 at short
Save modifier unchanged.
Template reduced to 1 1/2" template

Vortex grenade removed
Anything with Virus in the title removed.

6) Common sense

This one works for us but you might want to take the time to actually remove and replace all the potential abuses in the codexes.

Don't take an army of all Wolf Guard with Cyclones/Assault cannons
Don't spam Photon flash grenades against Orks/Tyranids/Guard
Various unscrupulous wargear load-outs.
Etc.

2nd Edition is a very free wheeling and open game system. This is great in that you can have a lot of freedom to come up with diverse forces. This however can be badly abused. Our group is really good about setting the expectations of what we want in any given match. Sometimes it's fun to see if you can take on the all wolf guard cheese army (Note Ravenwing land speeders are quite good against it lol)