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3rd edition was awful, within a year of it coming out I had sold my old armies and left the hobby. 7th edition is an even bigger mess than 2nd ever was.

 Insectum7 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Well, 2nd Ed did become known as "Hero Hammer".

Largely because of MAD strategy. Simply taking tons of cheap stuff counters super characters nicely. Biggest issue comes from certain eldar exarch builds and psykers.

But bloodthirsters etc? Have fun killing cheap troops one model at a time.

I dunno about cheap stuff, as Marines weren't particularly cheap. My solution was usually something like a Dreadnought with Assault Cannon on Overwatch.

Level 4 psykers were the champions in my 2nd Ed meta for sure though. Lots of cheap troops would have either been Orks or Tyranids, anything else would have likely gotten Virus Grenaded.

Yeah 10 tac marines 300. Still bloodthirster costs how much? 10 tac marines takes 10 player turns(when standard game has 8...) for bloodthirster to kill short of LD issues(and marines had the shaken status to help there).

I played 3rd for a bit but went back to 2nd. It brutally cut the game back to the bone, it binned all the joy in the game and just became a lot more generic moving and rolling lots of dice. The psychic rules were barely evident, the psychology rules were all gone, no more 'frenzy' or 'stupidity'. Everything moves 6" now because we can't understand a movement stat. Loads of units were cut, Genestealer cults, the Orks lost all their cool clans and units (madboyz, Freebooterz), most artillary and Shokk Attack Gun, etc, their army was like a huge Gorkamorka mob. No Squats? Ok, well you'd not done anything with them in a while. Jeeze, what happened to Codex Chaos? Look at the 2nd edition copy, what the hell was that wafer thin thing made for 3rd? Vehicle rules were grossly simplified, I liked the Datafaxes of 2nd and it's fine for a few vehicles on the field, but there was barely anything left. Bikes needed simplifying but now they effectively just granted movement and toughness bonus. No grenades of any sort in the new game. Sigh, I can't remember the number of other units that became redundant, it seemed a lot.

I was 14 when 3rd edition was published and it looked like a horrible, dumbed down disappointment and put me off new editions of 40k permanently. I stick to RT and 2nd, and skirmish games like Necromunda. Love the modern models though, and even at the time the multipart Marines released for 3rd edition were incredible, but the game was gak.

Because OP of this thread is the same person who started "project Zeta", I treat this thread more like a "sister thread" intended to be a "general view on core goals" think-tank for a more detailed rules discussion in "zeta thread". And discussion here nicely shows why any attempt to create an "ideal 40k edition" is futile - there is nothing resembling "a single minded community". Not even creating a "different scale modes" in 8th ed will satisfy all possible 40k "tastes" created by three decades of this game existence. Just to name some broad categories, we have people who:

- would like 40K to be a tight, well balanced, small ruleset focused on tournament play, ideally without large number of fundamentally different factions, in which games last no longer than 2hrs...

- would like 40K to be well written ruleset enabling hassle free play with strangers, but want it be large enough for each faction to be largely unique in playstyle, so you can realy "feel" them being different and identify with.

- would like 40K to be huge and immersive experience, with loads and loads of possibilities and tiny details, with a ruleset "playable", but not realy demand perfect balance "built in", because they can always balance army lists on "per scenario" basis... Here is when things like lasgun guards, stormsurges and mighty psykers existing side by side are not really a problem.

Some of those expected qualities can even be directly contradictory or it can be very, very difficult to find an acceptable "middle ground" of complexity. For those who "lived through" the transition between 2nd and 3rd it is quite obvious, that every compromise will strip some feeling one way or another. Those who started in 4th-5th have every right to feel overhelmed and/or irritated by a "boated rules inflation" in 7th... At the same time a lot of 4th-7th ed players do fear AOS treatment applied to 40K, which is really a 2-to-3rd ed transition repeated once again...

tneva82 wrote:

Yeah 10 tac marines 300. Still bloodthirster costs how much? 10 tac marines takes 10 player turns(when standard game has 8...) for bloodthirster to kill short of LD issues(and marines had the shaken status to help there).

I don't remember the particulars of squads engaging in CC but I think the scenario you're describing didn't come up very often. I definitely know a model could charge multiple models, and follow up into multiple models. You might be able to string out the combat but then couldn't the opponent just fire into the unengaged models? Not to mention that cheap troops might break at the outset of CC anyways because the Bloodthirster caused Terror.

Bloodthirster was 300 I think. Bare bones Tac Squad was 300, but more like 350+ ish once you add a Special, heavy and/or something on the Sarge. I guess you didn't have to take weapons, but then something like a Dreadnought would just murder you.

Space models and he struggles to contact multiple. Then feed him one guy at a time. You obviously don't rush in with all. Well unless you have somebody who beats him.

Wn have been playing 2nd ed for over a year. Thirster is hardly a problem. Especially since it's squishier than in 7th ed. Tac marine with lascannon can kill it with one shot. And shooting into combat is a thing

A Bloodthirster can be dangerous, but it can be tied up (killing 2-3 marines per "turn"). Now, to be fair, a 300-something point daemon killing a 300 point tac squad during the course of a game is technically appropriate.

Close combat is something I'd change from 2nd edition...but not go full-slow like 7th. I chuckle when I see units with wargear in 7th making 12-16 attacks on the charge etc. That's beyond ridiculous. There is a middle ground somewhere.

I have been lucky enough to play every edition of 40k, even Rogue Trader.

And, with the fullness of time (and having played 2nd edition somewhat recently) I can say the 2nd edition is the winner by a mile in terms of narrative and fun. Things "feel" more intuitive and fun.

if you slam the accelerator down and drive full speed into a unit or Orks, they thunk off the ram-prow and die in a most satisfactory way. But, now you're going so fast you can't turn quick enough to avoid slamming into that ruin just behind them...

If you light those Terminators on fire with a flamer, they might just stay on fire all game... and not care, as the flames don't hurt them inside their armor, and they continue to walk about, reaping the world in two with their assault cannon.

It is an age of heroes and drama and tiny, tiny armies.

It is also utterly unplayable if either player is concerned with having the "best" army, or has ever even thought about their win/loss ratio. The army lists aren't balanced, and are easily exploited. Rules are vague, and depend on cooperative play to quickly resolve. (IE: If you shoot a lascannon into this close combat, we randomize who gets hit. And, you have three guys in close combat, and I only have one. But, mine is an Eldar Dreadnought, three times the size of your guys. So, on 1-2-3 one of your guys is hit, and 4-6 the dreadnought is hit. It's not in the rules, its just what makes sense)

But, the days when we could argue 2nd edition was too complex or not as streamlined as modern editions, died around the time the Universal Special Rules section of the rulebook grew larger than most 3rd edition codexes.

2nd ed was my introduction to min/maxing. As I've said, i never won once in 2nd.

 Elbows wrote:
A Bloodthirster can be dangerous, but it can be tied up (killing 2-3 marines per "turn"). Now, to be fair, a 300-something point daemon killing a 300 point tac squad during the course of a game is technically appropriate.

Close combat is something I'd change from 2nd edition...but not go full-slow like 7th. I chuckle when I see units with wargear in 7th making 12-16 attacks on the charge etc. That's beyond ridiculous. There is a middle ground somewhere.

Problem being getting thirster to battle(daemons donjt just start on table. Eiher you sacrifice hero adding to cost or get stuff to combat to get summoning points. Which doesn't happen turn 1 so thirster comes more likely turn 3 or 4 in 4 turn game). Then you can get splatted by lone lascannon

Hey, nobody's perfect. The Bloodthirster also had 10 wounds, so a lascannon (2D6 wounds) was still exceptionally rare to kill it in a single shot. You'd need at least two.

Definitely seems to me that there's a calling for two separate, but definitely linked games: a small-scale skirmish game for narrative-led gaming, and a large-scale warfare one that's balanced for tournament play.

Any ideas on how to make a rule-set that could support both?

Without making two rules sets? Nope.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Definitely seems to me that there's a calling for two separate, but definitely linked games: a small-scale skirmish game for narrative-led gaming, and a large-scale warfare one that's balanced for tournament play.

Any ideas on how to make a rule-set that could support both?

Somewhere around Inquisimunda for skirmish and something between refined 5th-7th ed for standard+apocalypse sized games would be fine, but those are nevertheless two separate rulesets (with a separate army construction rules for standard and apocalypse on top of "core rules"). For example, I don't see how you can have a working and detailed 1-on-1 CC duels and fast squad-vs-squad CC combat in the same system. And while writing those two sets of rules is "easy" enough, convincing people to learn and utilize two different rulesets with same minis is not trivial task at all.

 Elbows wrote:
Hey, nobody's perfect. The Bloodthirster also had 10 wounds, so a lascannon (2D6 wounds) was still exceptionally rare to kill it in a single shot. You'd need at least two.

Yeah but it was possible. Unlike from 3rd ed where 'thirster laughs at single lascannon(and then proceeds to wipe entire squads in one or two combat phase).

Balance problems rarely are because of expensive individual models in 2nd ed. It's too cheap heavy weapon platforms and psykers that are bigger issues.

tneva82 wrote:
Space models and he struggles to contact multiple. Then feed him one guy at a time. You obviously don't rush in with all. Well unless you have somebody who beats him.

I think realistically the threat is more that the Thirster could "follow up" out of Close combat in the space marine turn, and then be free to charge something more valuable. I think the reason I never saw what you describe is because the Thirster was either dead, or busy flipping a Land Raider on it's roof or murdering some hero.

tneva82 wrote:
Wn have been playing 2nd ed for over a year. Thirster is hardly a problem. Especially since it's squishier than in 7th ed. Tac marine with lascannon can kill it with one shot. And shooting into combat is a thing

That was more my point originally, that despite huge statlines they could be quite vulnerable in 2nd. When in effect, even if their stats were "dumbed down" for 3rd, the unit-to-unit paradigm and the CC mechanics (especially sweeping advance) made many MCs more dangerous than before. I remember seeing a Blood Angels army kill a Chaos army down to the last Champion, and then the Champion turned into a Bloodthirster and went on to wipe out the Blood Angels.

Although the real question for 2nd Ed. is why give a Tac marine a Lascannon when you could give him a Missile Launcher with Frag, Krak and Plasma missiles?

IMO, the way to use the same core rules for detailed skirmish game and large battle game, is simply to apply the rules to individual models in the skirmish game, and units in the battle game.

So the game turn, movement shooting and assault are resolved the same way,but the skirmish game uses detailed model interaction, and the battle game uses tactical unit interaction.

 Insectum7 wrote:
I think realistically the threat is more that the Thirster could "follow up" out of Close combat in the space marine turn, and then be free to charge something more valuable. I think the reason I never saw what you describe is because the Thirster was either dead, or busy flipping a Land Raider on it's roof or murdering some hero.

It charges another unit, it just chops another type of cheap troop. If you don't have big expensive model the 'thirster is suffering from serious case of hard time finding worthwhile target.

Much like I have never been particularly bothered about S weapons. Not much difference between S and S10 AP2(or S8 AP2 for that matter...). Not much targets S really is useful over S10.

Similarly in 2nd ed anything 'thirster can kill so can much cheaper models. And there's obviously more of those cheaper models...

tneva82 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
I think realistically the threat is more that the Thirster could "follow up" out of Close combat in the space marine turn, and then be free to charge something more valuable. I think the reason I never saw what you describe is because the Thirster was either dead, or busy flipping a Land Raider on it's roof or murdering some hero.

It charges another unit, it just chops another type of cheap troop. If you don't have big expensive model the 'thirster is suffering from serious case of hard time finding worthwhile target.

Much like I have never been particularly bothered about S weapons. Not much difference between S and S10 AP2(or S8 AP2 for that matter...). Not much targets S really is useful over S10.

Similarly in 2nd ed anything 'thirster can kill so can much cheaper models. And there's obviously more of those cheaper models...

Well I suppose that would work if your army was entirely built of cheap models, I just never saw an "all cheap model army" in 2nd. The little guys never seemed to last very long, even in droves. Too many Blast weapons or other area effects around in my group maybe, or maybe no one really wanted to commit to buying a whole bunch of little guys. The one time I remember a huge IG blob of infantry, it got Virus Grenaded and I think that was that. Maybe it could work with minimal, widely distributed squads, but I'm skeptical. If I ever get the chance to play 2nd again, it might be a fun experiment.

What army are/were you using, btw?

I agree, I'm not bothered by S D weapons either. They're the Vortex Grenade in 2nd, and the Wraithcannon in 3rd to me.

We have orks and various Imperium forces(IG, dark angels, blood angels and tiny space wolf forces along plus Inquisitor) in our main campaign. Eldars are eventually joining but finding time to paint(painted models only) has slowed that plan.

Lanrak wrote:
IMO, the way to use the same core rules for detailed skirmish game and large battle game, is simply to apply the rules to individual models in the skirmish game, and units in the battle game.

So the game turn, movement shooting and assault are resolved the same way,but the skirmish game uses detailed model interaction, and the battle game uses tactical unit interaction.

This approach doesn't work with CC. If I have a model with 50% chance of killing you in a single activation, and you have a model with 50% chance of killing me with a single activation, then if my initiative is higher and I strike first, you have only 25% chance of being victorious. 1-on-1 combat ideally reqires simultainous activation, like 2nd ed rules. Those same rules are total disaster in squad-vs-squad combat, which in turn work quite well with initiative sorting. Play some CC models only Kill Team games to see for yourself.

For modern Initiative sorting CC to be effective in 1-on-1 duels, there should be only a slight chance of striking a killing blow in each turn, and definite combat resolution should take a couple of activations, so you would have to make each individual model in skirmish mode multiwound and eternal warrior minimum, but doesn't guarantee any balance. Let the 7th ed Karandras vs Hive Tyrant be an example - if charging Karandras doesn't kill Tyrant in first activation (he must perform close to average to do so), he dies to Smash (average performance of CC tyrant with tail biomorph is required to do so). If Tyrant has Lashwhip and charges, Karandras does a single wound on 2+ then most probably die without striking back. Karandras vs Trygon is almost guaranteed to end up with dead Karandras and wounded Trygon.

tneva82 wrote:
We have orks and various Imperium forces(IG, dark angels, blood angels and tiny space wolf forces along plus Inquisitor) in our main campaign. Eldars are eventually joining but finding time to paint(painted models only) has slowed that plan.

Right on. I'll admit we never quite saw "horde" ork tactics, our ork player was all bout his Nobz in Mega Armor. Nor did we have a committed IG player either, this left the only real horde option as Tyranids, but I don't remember those battles too well, and they came along a little later anyways.

@nou.
Well that is exactly the reason why I would not use an 'all or nothing ' system like ' initiative' to determine combat resolution.

Alternating phase game turns, with simultaneous resolution modeling , would be my choice.

All combat is resolved by comparing the attackers stat to the targets stat on one table,( that covers the three stages of combat resolution.)

Attackers Shooting skill vs targets Evade skill, to determine D6 roll needed to hit.

Attackers Assault skill to the targets Dodge skill, to determine D6 roll needed to hit.

Attackers weapon AP to the targets Armour , to determine the D6 roll needed to save.

Attack Power to the target Resilience, to determine the D6 roll needed to cause damage /wounds.

(I intend to use the full range of stats from 1 to 10 with fully utilized table( Including automatic success as one end and auto fail at the other.)

We can add some modifiers to stats for equipment and situation, as required.(Make these more detailed in the skirmish game if we want to.)

The Initiative method is abstracting all the chances to hit and dodge and giving you an average of who would land the first blow.(After many swings and misses in the case of a frenzied ork! )
(This was one of many methods used to speed up combat between large blocks of troops in Ancient /Napoleonic based wargames like WHFB, back in the day.)

If you assign and compare these separate values directly and remove casualties at the end of the phase, (So all attacks are made.) It lets ALL the actions happen naturally, without artificial summery.

Lanrak wrote:
@nou.
Well that is exactly the reason why I would not use an 'all or nothing ' system like ' initiative' to determine combat resolution.

Alternating phase game turns, with simultaneous resolution modeling , would be my choice.

All combat is resolved by comparing the attackers stat to the targets stat on one table,( that covers the three stages of combat resolution.)

Attackers Shooting skill vs targets Evade skill, to determine D6 roll needed to hit.

Attackers Assault skill to the targets Dodge skill, to determine D6 roll needed to hit.

Attackers weapon AP to the targets Armour , to determine the D6 roll needed to save.

Attack Power to the target Resilience, to determine the D6 roll needed to cause damage /wounds.

(I intend to use the full range of stats from 1 to 10 with fully utilized table( Including automatic success as one end and auto fail at the other.)

We can add some modifiers to stats for equipment and situation, as required.(Make these more detailed in the skirmish game if we want to.)

The Initiative method is abstracting all the chances to hit and dodge and giving you an average of who would land the first blow.(After many swings and misses in the case of a frenzied ork! )
(This was one of many methods used to speed up combat between large blocks of troops in Ancient /Napoleonic based wargames like WHFB, back in the day.)

If you assign and compare these separate values directly and remove casualties at the end of the phase, (So all attacks are made.) It lets ALL the actions happen naturally, without artificial summery.

You realy have a close aproximation of this method in 7th, resolving CC of same initiative models. And it also has one huge drawback - in my Karandras vs Tyrant example, the most probable outcome of such simultanous duel is that both participants die in one or two turns of fighting. You could flip a coin realy instead of combat resolution. Same would be with squad-vs-squad combats if both squads are efficient enough in CC. And that effect doesn't realy depend on being d6 or d10 system, but relative efficiency of units. You would have to make some sort of modifiers for having initiative/charging/cover, that increase one sides efficiency considerably and then make all CC stats somewhat weak, so that moment manouvers/charging are most important in determining CC. Charging bonus works well for squads in 7th - models with same initiative and stats rely on this +1 attack for gaining a significant advantage (even up to 1/2 total number of attacks), but the same method fails for 1-on-1 duels of CC heroes, because the same mechanics gives them only a 1/5-1/10 bonus to efficiency. Or you could instead make that if two CC units clashes, then they intentionally fight for couple of turns, so that in effect, CC units are only usable against shooty units of significantly lower CC efficiency, but that significantly reduces overal CC-vs-shooting ballance and make charge targets predictable.

My problem isn't realy with particular method of CC resolution, but with meaningful scalability of CC combat from 1-on-1 to squad-vs-multiple-squads in the same system. CC-killing-machines like Swarmlord should have enough efficiency to not drown in cheap bodies in large scale battles, but be not deadly enough in 1-on-1 skirmish gameplay of equals, so that duels aren't autoresolvable or totaly flip-a-coin type random encounters.

3rd Edition was what I grew up and so I loved it, although I fully accept that this is likely 99% rose-tinted nostalgia talking.

Just to add some clear examples to my previous post on why just getting rid of initiative sorting doesn't really solve scalability problem:

- assault marines vs assault marines (same loadout): result hinges on who charges and how far (Hammer of wrath). Those additional attacks create the initial assymetry of casaulties/effectiveness in subsequent phases. You would make a dissordered charge in this setup only if it were for stopping enemy to score objective, because it is a flip-of-a-coin situation.

- Karandras vs Karandras: both deal one wound on 2+ before fight, hit on 4, wound on 2, bypass armour, charger has 6 attacks, defender 5, they both need to score two, with pretty much same probability (expected nr of wounds dealt is 2.6 for attacker, 2.1 for defender). This is pretty much pointless as disordered marine charge, but quicker, as they both die first turn.

- Asurmen vs Asurmen: they have counter attack and ommitable overwatch, so they pretty much always fight just like disordered. They have 3++ and Eternal Warrior, so they both have 5 attacks, hit on 4, wound on 3, save on 3, so they inflict about half a wound per turn each. The expected outcome of this is being stuck in a duel entire game.

Both Karandras and Asurmen examples are practically 50-50 scenarios, there is no situational advantage or cumulative degradation of effectiveness, but while you can predict the outcome of Karandras fight (sudden death or one man standing with last wound after a single turn), you cannot predict the exact outcome of Asurmen fight (it might end at any point of game, with any number of wounds on survivor, depending only on lucky rolls).

A perfectly scalable system should generate results between equals somewhere in between Assault Marines and Asurmen examples and not generate Karandras fights at all.

My question is - how exactly?

@nou.
If you are thinking in terms of 7th ed 40k mess of a rule set with the initiative method removed/revamped, please do not.

For a rule set to cover both skirmish and battle size games it would require a complete ground up re write , with new stat lines new values and only the background of 40k as a basis.
I would like to use some well known and accepted SIMPLE methods taken from the original 40k rules.
EG
3 stage damage resolution,(using a D6.)
Actions confined to clearly defined phases.(EG All movement happens in the movement phase.)
Comparing values on a table to find the score on a D6 required to succeed.

To be fair in the new rules..
Assault marines vs assault marines.The charging unit get an assault stat bonus of +1 for charging.

The combat only last ONE ROUND under the new rules.
The Winner may act normally next turn.
If the Winner has fallen below half strength , they may move and shoot normally.But must pass a morale check if they want to launch an assault .

The looser must withdraw from assault.(Compulsory move, in the next movement phase.)
They may shoot counting as suppressed next turn.(Suppression is lifted by passing a morale test in the Resolution phase.).

If the loser has fallen below half strength, they ROUTE away from the winner of the assault.(Compulsory double move in the nest movement phase.)
If routing units are assaulted they are destroyed.If the routing unit passes a morale test in the Resolution phase, the unit counts as suppressed.

I think assaults in 40k should be much more fluid and violent , than the big scrum of slow moving combat, that made sense in WHFB.

I may need to explain this a bit better?

I still fail to see how a single power fist assault marine vs single power fist assault marine skirmish under your rules would be any different than my Karandras example... Using equals as examples lets me completely forget about any detailed 7th ed rules (used only just as some numerical probability values in mutually known system in my previous post). Those were just three examples of some extremes. The layer on which I'm focusing is quite simple: in squad vs squad situations you have the cumulative effectiveness drop and reasonable "taking initiative" benefits. However, those very same rules (independent on what exactly they are), will generate completely different results of 1-on-1 encounters of single models, even with those very same stats as in squad-vs-squad sutuation.

This is why I'm insisting on my POV, that you need either two rulesets for CC depending on scale, OR two different STATLINES of every model. Your system of resolution would work just fine if every skirmish participant followed the rules for AOS monsters diminishing effectiveness due to damage and gained e.g. 5x normal wound stat, so it is highly unlikely that any duels end up with both sides dead. Under 7th ed rules my Karandras example works just fine if AP/save mechanics is reworked, so that ap2 vs 2+ save worsens only to 4+ save (a compromise between AP and rending mechanics I'm playtesting currently). This is why Asurmen example works just right out-of-the-box - he cannot be easily instagibed without very bad luck due to built-in inv save.

Oggthrok wrote:
I have been lucky enough to play every edition of 40k, even Rogue Trader.

And, with the fullness of time (and having played 2nd edition somewhat recently) I can say the 2nd edition is the winner by a mile in terms of narrative and fun. Things "feel" more intuitive and fun.

It was when I played 2,000-point games with thirty Marines. When I tried something bigger using all my minis, it lasted all day, was awkward to do because I didn't have fifty sets of templates to represent all the smoke/plasma/vortex, etc. For squad-level battles, use Rogue Trader (liberally house-ruled, as intended). For platoon-level games, use 2nd edition. For company-level or more, use 3rd, on a big table. In all case, don't bother with the Codex books. The exception would be to do a big vehicle-centric game; the current rules for vehicles aren't suitably granular, IMO, to work when not part of a combined-arms game. I like 2nd edition, but it's only better in certain circumstances.

As for Overwatch, it was hardly used round here. Most of the time, cover was sufficiently dense as to allow plenty of movement and flanking. Occasionally a heavy weapons squad would go on overwatch to cover an objective, but then they'd get wasted by Warp Spiders or Swooping Hawks (I hated Eldar ...) anyway. Or a Falcon with all the cheesy Vehicle Cards doing a pop-up attack. On the other hand, the assault cannon turned out to be one of the best anti-armour weapons in the game, which was perhaps not quite what the designers intended. Good for keeping Avatars of Khaine in their place, too. The melee queue being discussed happened occasionally (Abaddon the Despoiler killing an Imperial Guard squad one Guardsman at a time), but only because the Chaos player made a daft movement decision.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:


It was when I played 2,000-point games with thirty Marines. When I tried something bigger using all my minis, it lasted all day, was awkward to do because I didn't have fifty sets of templates to represent all the smoke/plasma/vortex, etc. For squad-level battles, use Rogue Trader (liberally house-ruled, as intended). For platoon-level games, use 2nd edition. For company-level or more, use 3rd, on a big table. In all case, don't bother with the Codex books. The exception would be to do a big vehicle-centric game; the current rules for vehicles aren't suitably granular, IMO, to work when not part of a combined-arms game. I like 2nd edition, but it's only better in certain circumstances

For all my 2nd ed love, I have to agree, it was a mess the second we started, oh, say, getting really into the psychic phase. And, you don't know frustration until you meet a 2nd edition Eldar D cannon battery and decide to charge a Carnifex at them.

But, everything felt so much more playful and granular. How I miss the days when a sniper round would take out the driver (and just the driver) of an Ork buggy, sending the buggy careening around the board out of control, while the unharmed gunner continued to hammer away with a looted Plasma cannon, screaming Waaagh the whole way...