Switch Theme:

The Madness Of 2nd Ed - a retrospective, rose tinted discussion.  [RSS] Share on facebook Share on Twitter Submit to Reddit
»
Author Message
Advert


Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
  • No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
  • Times and dates in your local timezone.
  • Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
  • Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
  • Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.




Made in us
Ultramarine Chaplain with Hate to Spare






Some guys came over and wanted to play against us with their armorcast Reaver Titan. I don't remember the rest of their army because it doesn't matter.

The only thing that does matter is the Eldar Exarch with a holo-field and Dodge(?) on a jetbike that makes a bee-line for the Titan. The titan gets some shots off, and the Exarch plus Bike, plus speed, plus overwatch (or something) makes it a -6 to hit the thing.

One shot goes through, easily penetrates the armor and. . Nope! Ablative Armor was on the bike, so no effect.

Exarch gets through and completes his charge to the Titan. Easily wins the combat and "Disarms" the Reaver with his second Exarch power. Goodbye Plasma Destructor or whatever it was.

Middle fingers were had.

And They Shall Not Fit Through Doors!!!

Tyranid Army Progress -- With Classic Warriors!:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/743240.page#9671598 
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut





 admironheart wrote:
We still play as many of my friends refuse to play post 3rd.

I love 8th but our 2nd edtion games are a blast.

ShadowSword, Baneblade, Stormblade Tempest super heavies. Warhound and Revenant scout titans. Destroyer Knight Titan, Phantom and Reaver titans and lots more. The Mega Ork Gargant was like 18" tall and 20" or more round!!!!!

They did restrict you to 25% of your armies cost could not exceed the Lords of War stuff. So that kept things like all Super Heavy list from dominating.

Chaos super characters with 2+ rerolls on 2d6 terminator saves with 3+ Displacer Saves and some psychic/chaos shenanigans meant that it took like 120 to 150 lascannon shots to kill some of those characters on average.

chaos would take a unit of orks with Pulsa rokkets and boom you were hurting.

I remember 2 lovely events. One was when my Revenant Scout Titan Reactor overloaded and made a 24" diameter Vortex explosion that destroyed everything inside.

The other was an ork nobz unit inside a thunderhawk gunship...cant remember but it was 2 vs our 3 chaos armies.

Pulsa rockets knocked all our super character to the ground. The Thunderhawk laid like a 36" mega blast of grenades and then landed...the ork nobz jumped out killed everyone but a couple nurgle marines and 1 super khorne character. That was like 50 of our guys dead and next turn they jumped back in and 'dusted off' and the rest of their army was free to shoot us like ducks. OUCH.

exploding vehicles....models getting moved outside of blast templates and falling off cliffs/roottops, Vehicles with no guns ramming other vehicles or running down troops to win the game.....Things and flavor that you can never get out of 3rd+

One player said it seems in new 40K the actual miniature doesn't mean much to the game as all the intricate rules for 2nd ed...."it is a miniature game right...so why don't the miniatures matter much"

I tend to agree..strategems are fun but it seems more of a power combo card game now than the old fashioned miniature game it used to be.

Is the Mega Gargant still a thing or did it disappear after 2nd?

We're gonna need another Timmy!

6400 pts+ 8th
My Gallery
____________________________
https://www.patreon.com/kaotkbliss
 
   
Made in nz
Boom! Leman Russ Commander




New Zealand

take those warp spiders against 2e chaos and watch them get possessed and replaced by daemons every time they attempt a warp jump. certainly made marines think twice about deep striking as well

5000
 
   
Made in us
Screaming Shining Spear





USA

kaotkbliss wrote:

Is the Mega Gargant still a thing or did it disappear after 2nd?


GW pulled all the copyrights from Armorcast and Epicast. They had a few months to continue production and they made tons of boxed items. Then they had to sell those pieces by a certain date and then only 3rd party market had them. After I quit 3rd ed I remember seeing the $150 Phantom go over $500 on ebay for new and $80 War hounds s and $150 Reavers were well over 700 apiece for a while. Even the old Wave Serpent sold for $200 on average when you could find one.

Only a guy from Norway had the DeathStalker, DoomWeaver and Wave Serpent collection at the same time...some of those models were never to be seen on ebay.

for a good read check out the history:

http://www.collecting-citadel-miniatures.com/wiki/index.php/Resin_Vehicles_%26_Titans

 koooaei wrote:
We are rolling so many dice to have less time to realise that there is not much else to the game other than rolling so many dice.
 
   
Made in gb
Basecoated Black





England

I grew up on 2nd edition 40k so it is my favourite way of playing the game, I admit if you went deep, with unbalanced armies designed only with a desire to win then the game didn't hold up. However for story telling and fun using balanced fair armies the game is great.

Not so keen on nightmare encounters like an Lvl 4 Mastery Inquisitor Lord in termie armour with Psycannon, combat drugs and other wargear, which wrecked my normal ork army without breaking too much of a sweat.

Was keen on the bizarre army creations a chaos army could field with World Eaters, cultists and minotaurs armed with boltguns running about, the sheer amount of options an army could have and the fact apart from the above mentioned uber charcters everything had a weakness.

One highlight (which I believe now isn't possible according to the battle bible rules, but perfectly acceptable with the original rules) was getting the special issue strategy card and pulling Jain Zar's "Silent Death" boomerang as an Ork Player. Giving this to an Ork Freebooter Kaptain 'Boomerang' and have him wandering around mowing down guardsmen with his squad acting as his own personal orky shield was a great moment.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Another example? Hey kid? Ever seen 16 War Walkers taken out by a single Bolt Pistol? I have. Whole mob of them coming down one flank. They’d just cleared a bottleneck of terrain, so were inevitably bunched up tight. Single Blood Claw takes a crack, and kills a pilot (to be fair, they had a 2+ invulnerable save. They whiffed it). That sent the bipedal menace spiralling...right into two more. Collision damage took them out, and the rest fell like dominoes. Utterly cool, but also very, very silly.


That sounds like fun, out of control vehicles crashing and creating memorable events were always a highlight of 2nd Edition 40k. I usually associate it with ork warbikes not the generally reliable Eldar and certainly not the war walkers who had that wonderful 2+ save.



   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut





Didn't something similar happen with Thunderhawk Gunships?
GW scratchbuilt one for Games Day or something like that and it was so popular another company made a few of them, then stopped but I think now Forgeworld is making them, or did so pretty recently.

2nd Ed was really cool and going back through old WD mags looking for rules really brought back some memories.

The sad part is, issues I've read could easily have been fixed. Such as creating static gunlines with smoke launchers. (units would throw smoke grenades then wait for the opponent to get tired of waiting and charge through the smoke to get to the units on the other side.

Easily fixed by
1, letting units shoot through the smoke at -1 to hit and
2, Instead of random movement after the first turn, just have it last 1 turn, then dissapear

We're gonna need another Timmy!

6400 pts+ 8th
My Gallery
____________________________
https://www.patreon.com/kaotkbliss
 
   
Made in us
Twisting Tzeentch Horror





2nd is where I got my start as a teen. However looking back it was a broken complex mess of a game. It was like half an role playing game with the detail it got into, and half a standard miniature game. It also used more than D6 dice, but D10, D12, D10, D4 etc. If every player was on the same page with list building, you did not use some of the worst wargear, and you did not use some of the most complex unnecessary rules (like set on fire, or everyone throwing a grenade) only then was is a pretty decent game. But quite frankly, even in my group of just friends playing (not random opponents at game shops) it was hard for everyone to be on the same page, especially my one friend with his Eldar. Ultimately I think the game is much better now than then.
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut





Yeah, we only used the basic rules when we played back in the early to mid 90s. The game was a blast and moved along at a pretty normal pace

I ended up setting up a 4x4 table in my bedroom dedicated to the hobby. (scenery making, model painting, small games, etc.)

It was 1 of 4 pieces of furniture there. A bed, a dresser, the table and a shelf to hold all my Warhammer stuff I wasn't working on.

We're gonna need another Timmy!

6400 pts+ 8th
My Gallery
____________________________
https://www.patreon.com/kaotkbliss
 
   
Made in fi
Freaky Flayed One





I played Orcs
   
Made in us
Hardened Veteran Guardsman



Tampa, Florida

A few highlights from the good ol' bad days:

Eldar mudstomping every army out there for like 6 months straight until one of my buddies got his hands on like 5 Space Wolf Terminators with cyclone missile launchers. He gets first turn and proceeds to completely wipe out the Eldar army in one turn of shooting. The Eldar player cried.

Ork Kommandos getting into a WWI style grenade throwing contest in a trench line with some Chaos Terminators. The mission was to take the highest point on the battlefield and after chucking about 80 grenades they cleared the way to a watchtower to win the game.

The best assault unit I can ever remember facing was a few Ogryns in a Chimera. Somehow they got off like a 35" charge and proceeded to dismantle my all guns, no choppas Ork army.

A five or six turn game where not a single model moved or fired a weapon. If you put your guys into overwatch they fired in the opponent's movement phase. My friend put his entire army in overwatch because he was waiting for me to come to him so in response I put my entire army into overwatch. This continued back and forth until the game ended.

The transport capacity of an ork battlewagon. It could hold as many models as you could physically pile on top, but if during the course of the game anyone fell off they were dead. This resulted in near fistfights as my opponent kept bumping the table to knock guys off.

Come to think of it, most of our games ended in near fistfights. Miraculously, I'm still friends with all those guys 20 years later...

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/11/08 17:31:03


 
   
Made in ie
Norn Queen






Dublin, Ireland

Anyone remember the Nid pregame stratagem unit charts?
You'd roll a d6 for every squad, character and vehicle your opponent had with various effects kicking in. Some of them enough to really cripple your opponent before the game kicked off

Oh and yeah multiple batteries of Pulsa rockets were absolute game winners.

Dman137 wrote:
goobs is all you guys will ever be

By 1-irt: Still as long as Hissy keeps showing up this is one of the most entertaining threads ever.

"Feelin' goods, good enough". 
   
Made in fi
Locked in the Tower of Amareo





IandI wrote:
A five or six turn game where not a single model moved or fired a weapon. If you put your guys into overwatch they fired in the opponent's movement phase. My friend put his entire army in overwatch because he was waiting for me to come to him so in response I put my entire army into overwatch. This continued back and forth until the game ended.


Neat trick seeing standard game length was shorter than that.

But guess not much in terms of terrain there either. Enough terrain + scenario that means sitting on home=lose=that issue sorts out. You sit there, maybe blow something but enemy moves into objective and bang you lose.

2024 painted/bought: 109/109 
   
Made in gb
Dakka Veteran





Despite drawing our psychic powers at random me and my regular opponent cheated each other to death and always got teleport and vortex, pretty much ensuring carnage.
Additionally we'd always give our special characters extra wargear making them nigh on unkillable killing machines.
Troops were just chaff, usually not moving and sitting on overwatch waiting for something else to move (we both played marines)
It's strange thinking back on how I used to play that the game still holds any appeal

I've been playing a while, my first model was a lead marine and my first White Dwarf was bound with staples 
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka






 DarknessEternal wrote:
kaotkbliss wrote:
Primarchs? Space wolves had one in 2nd LOL
Although, I was never able to pick up the figure

http://www.beastsofwar.com/wp-content/uploads/forumfiles/leman-russ-2nd-ed.jpg

This model pre-dates 2nd edition. It is also not a Primarch, there weren't Primarchs yet. Yes, it is still Leman Russ. He was just some generic captain in the Space Wolves.


We’ve had this discussion before. That model is based on the Jes Goodwin artwork and accompanying flavour text from WD 127 (I think) - by which point he was most definitely a Primarch.

He never had official stats in any edition.

See if you can find the first 2nd edition battle report; that has an army of fewer than 30 Marines against an Ork army which had no squads greater than ten models. That’s what 2nd edition is designed to cope with.
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut







I still want to give 2nd ed a go, just so I can experience its insanity. What's a good way to drum up enthusiasm for this?
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




As people have said my memory of 2nd wad that it was really characterful but got progressively worse as our group optimised our lists. By the end it was just stupid. As Eldar or Tyranids I felt I had to really try not to curbstomp people. Marines versus Orks was okay.
   
Made in nz
Trigger-Happy Baal Predator Pilot



New Zealand

On the vortex spell card the front was different to the other spell cards. It had an additional star near the top title. I had a mate who always seemed to get vortex, for his librarian biker with vortex grenade.

I once faced 20 Wolfguard terminators with assault cannons, different friend than above. He shot at my BA terminators. I lost 2 terminators, he lost 7 (triple jams).

I once had yet another mate, who after my Dreadnought slaughtered his bike squad with my assault cannon, had one bike career out of control into my dreadnought. He damaged my assault cannon which set off a secondary explosion that blew up my dreadnought.
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka






If we're talking now about "weird edge cases in 2nd edition 40k", then ...

The first time I fielded my scratch-built baneblade - it got destroyed in turn 2 by a glancing hit from a wraithguard.

Fielding a squadron of three Land Raiders. The first one got hit by a D-cannon, and teleported backwards and underground - the resulting explosion blew up the second one.

Ragnar Blackmane is locked in combat with an Eldar Farseer, when a vortex scatters onto them. Ragnar passes his 4+ dodge and escapes, the Farseer ... doesn't.

(possibly in the same game) my Iron Priest used the Special Issue strategy card in a game vs Eldar, and ended up with a Firepike.

Space Wolves scouts (back then, Space Wolves Scouts were rookies like everyone else's) holding off Deathwing terminators for several turns with shotguns; each turn, the Deathwing advanced over the hill , only to be fired upon by the Scouts with shotguns, which knocked the Terminators down, behind the ridge line.

Finding out that the then-new plastic Eldar Guardian jetbikes just fitted under the levels of the Necromunda card terrain (with a millimetre or so to spare).

Vehicle movement was simple, BTW. A vehicle had three speeds - Slow, Combat or Fast. You can change speed by one band per turn (so on turn 1 if you're at Slow speed, in turn 2 you can come to a halt or acceleratge to Combat speed). At slow speed you can make as many turns as you like. At Combat speed, 2 45degree turns. At Fast speed, one 45degree turn. That's what the template was for, but no-one used it.That's all, other than special rules for motive types (skimmers ignore obstacles, tracked vehicles can move over obstacles at slow speed, wheeled vehicles can't enter woods) and how to work out collisions, rams and boarding/leaving a moving vehicle.

It's no more or less insane than any subsequent edition. Just remember that Rogue Trader is basically a squad-level game, 2nd edition is a platoon-level game and subsequent editions are company-level games, and you should understand why they abstract things differently.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/11/09 01:13:03


 
   
Made in kr
Inquisitorial Keeper of the Xenobanks






your mind

 Elbows wrote:
Not really.

2nd ed. was great, but more breakable than almost any edition. This was of little concern being in high school as none of our budgets would afford 20+ Wolf Guard terminators with assault cannons, etc.

I still play a modified version of 2nd, and it's excellent. We skip the majority of time-consuming stuff, but if you want an exceptionally narrative detailed Hollywood movie of a game? 2nd is right up your ally.

Also, believe it or not - despite all of the crazy rules it was much easier to play then today's game (simply because everyone abided by the same rules - most armies used similar weapons, and far fewer units had special rules of their own).

The biggest issues which sucked? A lengthy Psyker phase (something we've fixed), and close combat was very dynamic but uselessly complex for large units and became a nightmare - never intended really for th scale the game was growing to, even in 2nd ed..

If anyone is interested here is my blog for 2nd ed. --- lots of resources available:

http://projectanvil.blogspot.com/


Gonna check that out!

2nd ed was built for RPG minded players with smaller collections.
Nobody liked the guy with 30 dark reapers.
Yeah, some things were badly thought out, but these could be ignored/removed.

Basically, if you had played Traveler, and brought the mindset that your models represented actual characters,
then you were less likely to use combat drugs and so on, because they 1) didn't necessarily suit the character and 2) had potential to damage said character.
This sort of thinking was reinforced with Necromunda, and I had always hoped that GW would release 40k with similar rules adding to the sense of narrative and history that each model represented.
However, GW went the route of plastic-model-pusher rather than games designer/world creator, and dropped the ball on most everything redeeming about the original games imho,
ending up with a bad massed battle game.

There is a recent thread in dakka discussions re skirmish format games.
IMHO, some of this movement is due to the failure of GW to incorporate the rpg elements that make (some) skirmish games also appealing to some of us into 40k generally.
And, I stand by the claim held now 25years or so, that if GW did deliver these rpg elements into the 40k system, they would have a big winner on their hands.
SWA is testimony to that, for example.
But, such would maybe run contrary to their current style, monopose unique character models and even troops that require either difficult conversions for basic weapons swaps or the purchase of another, special model...

Anyways, 2nd ed was all about this potential, for a model collection to embody a history of its own on the tabletop, and this was made explicit in original Necromunda for example, but such a sensibility has since been I suppose lost to people raised on CCGs and "You died! Play again?" video games.
Maybe it will come back?
I hope so...

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/11/09 05:06:02


   
Made in no
Drop Trooper with Demo Charge




I never played 2nd ed, but I did play a lot of Necromunda. The original Necromunda rules were pretty much the same as 2nd ed 40k rules, with the same templates and grenade rules and everything. With small gangs of ~5 models, the rules really did work great.
They were updated a few years back though, but it was mostly minor fixes, like not relying on odd OOP dice or templates any more. The 2" blast and hand flamer templates at my old local club were falling apart near the end...

I started 40k earlt in 3rd, and the first Leman Russ tanks I bought actually came with a 2nd ed vehicle data sheet. I remember being really fascinated with how realistic they seemed, with different armor values and damage tables for hull, turret and tracks.

On a holy crusade to save the Leman Russ Vanquisher 
   
Made in fi
Freaky Flayed One





I guess this "model" is still legal since it's an official GW product.
I dare someone to field an Orc army filled with these at the LVO.

   
Made in gb
Basecoated Black





England

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
 DarknessEternal wrote:
kaotkbliss wrote:
Primarchs? Space wolves had one in 2nd LOL
Although, I was never able to pick up the figure

http://www.beastsofwar.com/wp-content/uploads/forumfiles/leman-russ-2nd-ed.jpg

This model pre-dates 2nd edition. It is also not a Primarch, there weren't Primarchs yet. Yes, it is still Leman Russ. He was just some generic captain in the Space Wolves.


We’ve had this discussion before. That model is based on the Jes Goodwin artwork and accompanying flavour text from WD 127 (I think) - by which point he was most definitely a Primarch.

He never had official stats in any edition.

See if you can find the first 2nd edition battle report; that has an army of fewer than 30 Marines against an Ork army which had no squads greater than ten models. That’s what 2nd edition is designed to cope with.


Sounds like White Dwarf 194 where Dark Angels (Gav Thorpe) failed to beat the Orks, losing due to a terminator getting shoved back by a Kop Dis psychic power on the final turn denying the Angels the objective.

   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka






No, it was the very first report in WD 166 (I think) - Blood Angels (with the original early 90s Blood Angel captain in gold armour) and their shiny brand-new "Castraferrum"-pattern dreadnought against the Orks. That became the battle in which Tycho suffered his injuries from a Weirdboy attack, although the Orks were ultimately defeated.
   
Made in gb
Ridin' on a Snotling Pump Wagon






If memory serves, that battle report may slightly predate 2nd Ed.

Am most probably thinking of one with Space Woofs trying to rescue a Dark Angels Predator?

   
Made in gb
Dakka Veteran





 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
If memory serves, that battle report may slightly predate 2nd Ed.

Am most probably thinking of one with Space Woofs trying to rescue a Dark Angels Predator?


I think I remember this one, 5 man squads of grey hunters each led by a single wolf guard terminator, I believe their dreadnought got destroyed first turn by an Ork shokk attack gun

I've been playing a while, my first model was a lead marine and my first White Dwarf was bound with staples 
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut





I'm almost positive there were rules for him somewhere, yet I still can't find them LOL
I remember something about his stats getting adjusted if 1 and/or both of his wolves were killed or something like that.

We're gonna need another Timmy!

6400 pts+ 8th
My Gallery
____________________________
https://www.patreon.com/kaotkbliss
 
   
Made in gb
Pewling Menial





princeyg wrote:
Or how about the freakishly powerful warp spiders... i shoot you, i roll a die.. if i roll higher than your initiative...you are dead...yes dead regardless of wounds....but.. i get +1 to my total for every other one that has hit you this turn that you have managed to survive... on a weapon with A HEAVY FLAMER TEMPLATE!!!!!!!


I had orks. 'Friend' had eldar. So much this....

But Shokk attack guns were awesome/infuriating/hilarious.
   
Made in us
Bonkers Buggy Driver with Rockets






TonyL707 wrote:
princeyg wrote:
Or how about the freakishly powerful warp spiders... i shoot you, i roll a die.. if i roll higher than your initiative...you are dead...yes dead regardless of wounds....but.. i get +1 to my total for every other one that has hit you this turn that you have managed to survive... on a weapon with A HEAVY FLAMER TEMPLATE!!!!!!!


I had orks. 'Friend' had eldar. So much this....

But Shokk attack guns were awesome/infuriating/hilarious.

I’ve seen OOP non-Bigmek models with SAGs on eBay. You could run SAGs as heavy weapons in squads, right?

40k drinking game: take a shot everytime a book references Skitarii using transports.
 
   
Made in gb
Torture Victim in the Bowels of the Rock




Thorne, S.Yorkshire

 Cmdr_Sune wrote:
I guess this "model" is still legal since it's an official GW product.
I dare someone to field an Orc army filled with these at the LVO.



I did, a couple of years ago when I was getting back into 40K and was trying Oaks instead of my Dark angles. The store manager of my local GW shop was not impressed.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/11/10 01:24:37


Men are basically smart or dumb and lazy or ambitious. The dumb and ambitious ones are dangerous and I get rid of them. The dumb and lazy ones I give mundane duties. The smart ambitious ones I put on my staff. The smart and lazy ones I make my commanders.
Attributed to Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.
:dark angels: Far too many 
   
Made in de
Longtime Dakkanaut





princeyg wrote:
Lets not forget 2nd ed Eldar d-cannons ( or distortion cannons to give em the full name) Utterly bonkers damage chart that could rematerialise your target 10 feet underground causing a sort of matter/anti-matter thermonuclear detonation.... i still to this day remember landing a predator ON TOP OF a land raider (yes you could teleport stuff up as well as down) . Treating the resultant mess as a vehicle ram, the land raider was unharmed but the predator was immobile..net result...landraider now has effectively three more sponson weapons.......

Or how about the freakishly powerful warp spiders... i shoot you, i roll a die.. if i roll higher than your initiative...you are dead...yes dead regardless of wounds....but.. i get +1 to my total for every other one that has hit you this turn that you have managed to survive... on a weapon with A HEAVY FLAMER TEMPLATE!!!!!!!

Come to think of it, the 2nd ed eldar book was truly truly horrifically powerful..(Jain zar being able to decimate armies with her spiky boomerang thingy is another one I,ve just remembered)

Fun yes....hilarious certainly...balanced IN NO WAY WHATSOEVER


Two Warp Spider antidotes:
1. Overwatch
2. Teleport Jammer
   
 
Forum Index » 40K General Discussion
Go to: