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I liked that if squads of infantry were being blown to gak in previous editions, it was done from the front working back, which would make sense. Not this selecting which models die. It makes zero sense to have a force shooting you full pelt and you start removing models from the back of the pack.

Rationalize it as people from the back ranks moving forward to fill the spots of their fallen pals, if you want.

I can see why they did it, myself. 1) so CC units could actually cross the board the be useful. Kinda sucks to have your 5" Move units, who are already crawling across the board, lose the first two ranks to shooting and how you got another 2"+ further to move before you can be useful. 2) so a lucky Overwatch doesn't make a Charge impossible, even though you started within 12".


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Course, it became less of an issue once everyone and their mother was teleporting and deepstriking everywhere, so it's a bit more of a valid complaint than it could have been.

Without Number. I loved being able to recycle dead gak troops to be able to put pressure on my opponent who could kill me wholesale, but at least I could stay in the game. Reminded me of the good old Tyranid Attack rules.

Flyers starting in reserves/flying off into Ongoing Reserves. It required vehicle facings to really matter but it also made them feel like airplanes that had to set up their shots instead of weird blimps wandering about the board in a square for some reason.

Nurglitch wrote:
Without Number. I loved being able to recycle dead gak troops to be able to put pressure on my opponent who could kill me wholesale, but at least I could stay in the game. Reminded me of the good old Tyranid Attack rules.

Recycling dead stuff (even if you had to pay extra before hand) was a fun mechanic. I just wish we didn't have to pay CP and reinforcement points to do it now.

Having only played in LATE 7th through to now, I don't have a wide range to work with. But my favorite is Headshot because it's swung so many games for me.

I feel like the Bullet Farmer whenever I use it.

"ONE ANGRY SHOT!"

 Nazrak wrote:
I think my fave rules that are no longer with us were:

• Area terrain blocking LoS unless you were inside it
• Having to shoot the nearest enemy unit unless you pass a Ld test

Were those both in 4th? I'm old and all the previous editions are kinda jumbled up in my head now. .

4th edition required you to shoot the closest unless you passed a LD test. 2nd edition required you to shoot the closest, with an allowance for heavies to target vehicles, or for anyone to ignore the closest enemy in favour of a mission objective.


Funnily enough, the 2nd edition version was just taken as part of the game, while the 4th edition version was almost universally reviled. I think largely because hinging it on a LD test just made it apply unevenly to different armies.

Super accurate deepstrike, a shame it has to be 9'' away.

 Elfric wrote:
I liked that if squads of infantry were being blown to gak in previous editions, it was done from the front working back, which would make sense. Not this selecting which models die. It makes zero sense to have a force shooting you full pelt and you start removing models from the back of the pack.

It was always intended to be an abstraction (the unit not actually being made up of motionless statues welded to giant discs) rather than representing the specific guys at the back dying. Casualties from the front seemed like a good idea on paper, but just led to characters and special weapons having to be buried at the back of the unit instead of up the front where they were actually useful and/or fluffy. With more streamlined Look Out Sir rules (and applying them to special/heavy weapons) it would have been fine, although would still lead to micromanagement of model placement.

Tanks flipping over when they died and landing on stuff from 2nd. Stupid. Hilarious.

Partly spiritually represented by Does It Blow Up? (aka Explodes) in 8th.

 Bobthehero wrote:
Super accurate deepstrike, a shame it has to be 9'' away.

That's what I don't get. Because of the 9" buffer zone (and now effectively no turn 1) it means that an army with proper screens will all but negate any chance of a deep strike on their side of the board so it just serves as a glorified late deployment (which in 8th means it sit out of shooting for a turn or two). In my mind that 9" buffer zone completely negates the purpose of a deep striking unit which is to put a unit in a place the opponent doesn't want or expect an enemy unit to appear.

Templates, definitely! Fun to use, and positioning actually mattered.

Also the old jump-shoot-jump- yes it was a balance problem, but also really flavorful for Eldar.

 Vankraken wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
Super accurate deepstrike, a shame it has to be 9'' away.

That's what I don't get. Because of the 9" buffer zone (and now effectively no turn 1) it means that an army with proper screens will all but negate any chance of a deep strike on their side of the board so it just serves as a glorified late deployment (which in 8th means it sit out of shooting for a turn or two). In my mind that 9" buffer zone completely negates the purpose of a deep striking unit which is to put a unit in a place the opponent doesn't want or expect an enemy unit to appear.

Yeah, GW didn't think it through. I think they playtest small games with marines or something, so they don't get how easy board control is at larger games and with fodder armies. It should be like a 6" zone or something.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Tanks flipping over when they died and landing on stuff from 2nd. Stupid. Hilarious.

Partly spiritually represented by Does It Blow Up? (aka Explodes) in 8th.

This is 1,000% the best part of 2nd, and honestly, if anyone has not played 2nd edition I recommend you do so at least once just to experience the glory of absolutely every unit from a bike up having a dedicated, customized "What the feth happens when you get hit by an antitank weapon" table.

Here's an example for y'all. This is just a Space Marine Whirlwind tank. Here's its defensive stats in 2nd edition:

Ram: Str 7, Dam D12, Save mod -5
Speed: 8" slow, 18" combat, 25" fast
Armor Locations:
D6 Result
1: Location Track. Front 15, Rear/Side 15
2-4: Location Hull. Front 20, Rear/Side 18
5-6: Location Turret. Front 20, Rear/Side 18

(To damage a vehicle in 2nd, you made a Penetration roll, which was typically the strength of your weapon plus the damage stat. So if you were ramming another tank with your Whirlwind, you would roll to see what location you hit, check which side you were on, and roll 7+D12 to see if you equaled or exceeded that location's armor value. Then, you would roll on one of these tables down below, which are different for EVERY VEHICLE)

Track damage table
D6 result
1: May only move at slow speed for the rest of the game
2-5: Track is blown off. Vehicle moves out of control next turn and then comes to a halt for the rest of the game.
6: Track is blown off and the vehicle is flipped over. Wreck comes to a rest D6" away in a random direction. Any model it lands on takes D6 S7 hits with a -2 to save modifier. Roll a D6 for each model aboard, on a 4+ they are slain in the crash. Surviving models may Disembark as normal.

(What? Passengers in a Whirlwind you ask? No sir, in 2nd edition your vehicles had fething CREWMEN who were unarmed space marines that came with the tank, one driver+1 for each gun. And if the tank dies, in some cases they might be allowed to get out and start punching melon-fethers.)

Hull damage table
D6 Result
1: Driver is slain. Unless his position is taken over, the vehicle moves out of control for the rest of the game.
2-3: Explosion rips through the crew compartment: Each crewmember must roll a 4+ on a D6 to avoid being slain.
4: Engine explodes, killing crew instantly. The vehicle is supun around to face a random direction, then comes to a halt for the rest of the game.
5: Fuel tank explodes, killing all models on board. Vehicles goes out of control next turn then explodes, every mdoeel within 3" suffers a hit from a heavy flamer.
6: Ammunition explodes and the vehicle is destroyed. Models inside are slain, and any model within 3" suffers D6 S10 hits with a -3 save mod.

Turret Damage Table
D6 Result
1: Multi-launcher is damaged, may not be fired indirectly, and may only be fired if you first roll 4+ on D6.
2: Multi-launcher goes haywire, fires a barrage at a random target. Roll a scatter die to determine the direction of the barrage. Place the 3" blast marker on the first model within range and in its path and work out the effects as normal. The rockets are expended and the multilauncher may not be fired until next turn.
3: Turret gunner is slain
4-6: Ammunition explodes; The vehicle is destroyed. All crew are slain and the turret is blown off, flying 2d6" in a random direction. Anything under the spot where it lands suffers D6 S9 hits with a -6 save mod.

It may not be especially high impact, but the way Ork Nobz interact with casualty attrition... "The beatings will continue until morale improves" indeed!

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Yeah, GW didn't think it through. I think they playtest small games with marines or something, so they don't get how easy board control is at larger games and with fodder armies. It should be like a 6" zone or something.

For my part, I like how charging immediately after deep-striking is possible, but not reliable. A 6-inch zone would make it too easy. (As you may guess, I say this as someone who's more often a target of deep strike than a user.)


I miss flamer templates. Or just templates in general (especially for Manticores!), though I also have some appreciation for the simplicity of the current system. Let's say I'm ambivalent.

A small, specific rule I really like is the Kabal of the Obsidian Rose's stratagem, Failure Is Not An Option: if you fail a morale test, choose which models will flee, and they get to attack or shoot one last time; if they kill anything, nobody runs!

.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
Super accurate deepstrike, a shame it has to be 9'' away.

That's what I don't get. Because of the 9" buffer zone (and now effectively no turn 1) it means that an army with proper screens will all but negate any chance of a deep strike on their side of the board so it just serves as a glorified late deployment (which in 8th means it sit out of shooting for a turn or two). In my mind that 9" buffer zone completely negates the purpose of a deep striking unit which is to put a unit in a place the opponent doesn't want or expect an enemy unit to appear.

Yeah, GW didn't think it through. I think they playtest small games with marines or something, so they don't get how easy board control is at larger games and with fodder armies. It should be like a 6" zone or something.

Strongly disagreed. It is well thought through. The risk-reward ratio is fantastic. It's not an easy roll to get a charge off, but there are ways to increase your chances. You can deep strike with precision, but your opponent can zone out areas and deny you good targets. An opponent that spends resources and effort to zone you out also probably doesn't have other units in their best positions. I think it's great because 40k is a game about positions right now, and the "best" place to be isn't always the same place from game to game or turn to turn or isn't even maybe where you think it is. Deep strike as it is right now, I think, is fantastic.

For reference, a 6+" DS would give a mob if Evil Sunz Boyz somewhere around a 92% chance of successfully charging. Even as an Ork player, I can't really argue that would be a good thing.

the_scotsman wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Tanks flipping over when they died and landing on stuff from 2nd. Stupid. Hilarious.

Partly spiritually represented by Does It Blow Up? (aka Explodes) in 8th.

This is 1,000% the best part of 2nd, and honestly, if anyone has not played 2nd edition I recommend you do so at least once just to experience the glory of absolutely every unit from a bike up having a dedicated, customized "What the feth happens when you get hit by an antitank weapon" table.

Here's an example for y'all. This is just a Space Marine Whirlwind tank. Here's its defensive stats in 2nd edition:

Ram: Str 7, Dam D12, Save mod -5
Speed: 8" slow, 18" combat, 25" fast
Armor Locations:
D6 Result
1: Location Track. Front 15, Rear/Side 15
2-4: Location Hull. Front 20, Rear/Side 18
5-6: Location Turret. Front 20, Rear/Side 18

(To damage a vehicle in 2nd, you made a Penetration roll, which was typically the strength of your weapon plus the damage stat. So if you were ramming another tank with your Whirlwind, you would roll to see what location you hit, check which side you were on, and roll 7+D12 to see if you equaled or exceeded that location's armor value. Then, you would roll on one of these tables down below, which are different for EVERY VEHICLE)

Track damage table
D6 result
1: May only move at slow speed for the rest of the game
2-5: Track is blown off. Vehicle moves out of control next turn and then comes to a halt for the rest of the game.
6: Track is blown off and the vehicle is flipped over. Wreck comes to a rest D6" away in a random direction. Any model it lands on takes D6 S7 hits with a -2 to save modifier. Roll a D6 for each model aboard, on a 4+ they are slain in the crash. Surviving models may Disembark as normal.

(What? Passengers in a Whirlwind you ask? No sir, in 2nd edition your vehicles had fething CREWMEN who were unarmed space marines that came with the tank, one driver+1 for each gun. And if the tank dies, in some cases they might be allowed to get out and start punching melon-fethers.)

Hull damage table
D6 Result
1: Driver is slain. Unless his position is taken over, the vehicle moves out of control for the rest of the game.
2-3: Explosion rips through the crew compartment: Each crewmember must roll a 4+ on a D6 to avoid being slain.
4: Engine explodes, killing crew instantly. The vehicle is supun around to face a random direction, then comes to a halt for the rest of the game.
5: Fuel tank explodes, killing all models on board. Vehicles goes out of control next turn then explodes, every mdoeel within 3" suffers a hit from a heavy flamer.
6: Ammunition explodes and the vehicle is destroyed. Models inside are slain, and any model within 3" suffers D6 S10 hits with a -3 save mod.

Turret Damage Table
D6 Result
1: Multi-launcher is damaged, may not be fired indirectly, and may only be fired if you first roll 4+ on D6.
2: Multi-launcher goes haywire, fires a barrage at a random target. Roll a scatter die to determine the direction of the barrage. Place the 3" blast marker on the first model within range and in its path and work out the effects as normal. The rockets are expended and the multilauncher may not be fired until next turn.
3: Turret gunner is slain
4-6: Ammunition explodes; The vehicle is destroyed. All crew are slain and the turret is blown off, flying 2d6" in a random direction. Anything under the spot where it lands suffers D6 S9 hits with a -6 save mod.

Never played 2e, since I joined in 5e. That said that sound like the old Avalon Hill game Tobruk which I have played.

It was definitely slow, and having like 30 lookup tables. IIRC first you consulted the firing factors table to know what your hit probability was against a given target at a given range. Then you rolled to hit, and consulted a chart and rolled again to determine the hit location on the vehicle. Then you rolled to penetrate, and if you did, checked the vehicle's damage matrix, referencing a table of the weapon and the hit location and another die roll to determine the effect, followed by sometimes another die roll to determine the severity of the effect or confirm the effect.

It was definitely slow, though the level of detail can make a game fun. That said, I also wouldn't call it depth, just detail.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Tanks flipping over when they died and landing on stuff from 2nd. Stupid. Hilarious.

Perhaps my best moment in 2nd - a particularly lucky guard sergeant blowing a skorchas front wheel off with a bolt pistol, only to then see it flip across the table, over the top of a bunker, and flatten the warboss and his retinue.

the_scotsman wrote:

(What? Passengers in a Whirlwind you ask?

In 1st edition, since a Whirlwind was just a Rhino with a multi-launcher bolted to the roof, it retained the transport capacity.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
From the point of view of gameplay, dropping templates is one of the best innovations.

From the point of view of narrative entertainment, the Tyranid pre-game charts from 2nd edition ("Jones is acting strangely …") or the Ork Shokk Attack Gun target effect tables from 1st edition. That was only one of the "roll on a chart to see which chart to roll on" mechanics that made playing Orks in late 1st edition almost impossible, but it led to such gems as snotlings teleporting inside a Terminator suit - leading to anything from a Fly--like fatal merging of snotling and target to the snotling defecting in the target's ear causing him to flail about randomly, to the target simply biting the snotling's head off and carrying on.

-Guardsman- wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Yeah, GW didn't think it through. I think they playtest small games with marines or something, so they don't get how easy board control is at larger games and with fodder armies. It should be like a 6" zone or something.

For my part, I like how charging immediately after deep-striking is possible, but not reliable. A 6-inch zone would make it too easy. (As you may guess, I say this as someone who's more often a target of deep strike than a user.)


I miss flamer templates. Or just templates in general (especially for Manticores!), though I also have some appreciation for the simplicity of the current system. Let's say I'm ambivalent.

A small, specific rule I really like is the Kabal of the Obsidian Rose's stratagem, Failure Is Not An Option: if you fail a morale test, choose which models will flee, and they get to attack or shoot one last time; if they kill anything, nobody runs!

.

My experience WRT to templates is that the more of them you used, the more glad you are they're gone.

As a Guard player, I can say that while it was emotionally satisfying to put the green circle over something, the new system has so many fewer arguments, hurt feelings, and is much faster. I would bring two yardsticks and roll right next to the target to make sure that I was close, and I've had people try to tell me that I was measuring wrong and it actually went off in a direction 45 degrees of from the way the die was pointing. I generally give my opponent the benefit of the doubt, since I've got like 15 of these things to go, but I won't be taken advantage of if you're claiming something ridiculous. Also, the old 4" scatter + radius 2.5" template over a tank 4" wide at it's narrowest point, and being told "that missed". I'm not stupid you know.

And then there's the Wyvern, which had 2 Heavy 2 Twin Linked Small Blast weapons, which took like 15 minutes to resolve each time it came up.


The viscerality of the blast has been traded for efficiency and ease of play, and I think it's a fair trade.

I'm also glad to be done with Templates.

I wish the solution had been...

Heavy 1: Blast 5 -> Roll 1 to-hit roll. If it hits, resolve 5 hits against the target unit.

Heavy 3: Blast 3 -> Roll 3 to-hit rolls. For each successful hit roll, resolve 3 hits against the target unit. (ie 2 successes = 6 to-wound rolls)

But that would have been my wishlist. For me, Blast weapons were more of an all-or-nothing kind of weapon. Instead of having an average number of hits, you went big or you went home.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

My experience WRT to templates is that the more of them you used, the more glad you are they're gone.

As a Guard player, I can say that while it was emotionally satisfying to put the green circle over something, the new system has so many fewer arguments, hurt feelings, and is much faster. I would bring two yardsticks and roll right next to the target to make sure that I was close, and I've had people try to tell me that I was measuring wrong and it actually went off in a direction 45 degrees of from the way the die was pointing. I generally give my opponent the benefit of the doubt, since I've got like 15 of these things to go, but I won't be taken advantage of if you're claiming something ridiculous. Also, the old 4" scatter + radius 2.5" template over a tank 4" wide at it's narrowest point, and being told "that missed". I'm not stupid you know.

And then there's the Wyvern, which had 2 Heavy 2 Twin Linked Small Blast weapons, which took like 15 minutes to resolve each time it came up.


The viscerality of the blast has been traded for efficiency and ease of play, and I think it's a fair trade.

Wyverns where probably the breaking point for a lot of people when it came to blast weapons. GW probably didn't playtest a squadron of them when they wrote the rules for them, especially at their point value. That said I always enjoyed using my Grotzooka Kanz who could potentially spew out 12 small blasts per unit. Coming from an Ork perspective, blast weapons where less about maximizing firepower against a single unit but instead being able to reliably deliver damage to something in an area, it just might not be to what I was originally aiming at.

As for the whole measuring thing, I tend to find that people who where shady about measuring blasts where also shady about measuring LoS, movements, charges, unit cohesion, determining cover, etc. Same thing for those who argue excessively about measurements.

 greatbigtree wrote:
I'm also glad to be done with Templates.

I wish the solution had been...

Heavy 1: Blast 5 -> Roll 1 to-hit roll. If it hits, resolve 5 hits against the target unit.

Heavy 3: Blast 3 -> Roll 3 to-hit rolls. For each successful hit roll, resolve 3 hits against the target unit. (ie 2 successes = 6 to-wound rolls)

But that would have been my wishlist. For me, Blast weapons were more of an all-or-nothing kind of weapon. Instead of having an average number of hits, you went big or you went home.

I always considered them a reliable mid performance weapon. It was a good, reliable option that rarely screwed up and almost always hit, but was hamstrung by the fact that a 203mm artillery shell that could flip a tank or tear its turret off couldn't put down a fleshy thing that should have been bloody gibbets.

Kind of the opposite of go big or go home: very consistent, but rarely stand-out.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vankraken wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

My experience WRT to templates is that the more of them you used, the more glad you are they're gone.

As a Guard player, I can say that while it was emotionally satisfying to put the green circle over something, the new system has so many fewer arguments, hurt feelings, and is much faster. I would bring two yardsticks and roll right next to the target to make sure that I was close, and I've had people try to tell me that I was measuring wrong and it actually went off in a direction 45 degrees of from the way the die was pointing. I generally give my opponent the benefit of the doubt, since I've got like 15 of these things to go, but I won't be taken advantage of if you're claiming something ridiculous. Also, the old 4" scatter + radius 2.5" template over a tank 4" wide at it's narrowest point, and being told "that missed". I'm not stupid you know.

And then there's the Wyvern, which had 2 Heavy 2 Twin Linked Small Blast weapons, which took like 15 minutes to resolve each time it came up.


The viscerality of the blast has been traded for efficiency and ease of play, and I think it's a fair trade.

Wyverns where probably the breaking point for a lot of people when it came to blast weapons. GW probably didn't playtest a squadron of them when they wrote the rules for them, especially at their point value. That said I always enjoyed using my Grotzooka Kanz who could potentially spew out 12 small blasts per unit. Coming from an Ork perspective, blast weapons where less about maximizing firepower against a single unit but instead being able to reliably deliver damage to something in an area, it just might not be to what I was originally aiming at.

As for the whole measuring thing, I tend to find that people who where shady about measuring blasts where also shady about measuring LoS, movements, charges, unit cohesion, determining cover, etc. Same thing for those who argue excessively about measurements.

Blasts were exceptionally subjective compared to other things to be shady about, though, and if I sit down with a parallelogram tool, it can always be claimed to be the angle (or that the scatter was touched)

Funny enough, I left Bolt Action when they introduced templates and started 40k with they stopped. I obviously can't comment on their use in either game. However, I can say that one of my least favorite mechanics in Dust Battlefield was templates.

Dust Battlefield kept it simple with unit coherency in that the squad (3, 5 or 6 man squads only existed in Battlefield) had to fit under a template. Which worked well enough when targeting a single squad. It became for involved when hitting multiple units which was a hassle. And all this was without scatter. What I never did like was the shooting around corners or through walls effect templates could as long as part of one visible unit was under the template.

I am so very glad 40k doesn't have them anymore.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I wasn't ever a fan of the old wound table. It just felt like something you memorized and got used to. I think the current wounding calculation is very elegant, though; I can see it just doesn't have the range to cover everything in 40k with at the volume of attacks units can sometimes throw out.

I mostly play Kill Team and the wound system works fine and is easy to explain to new players. I have introduced it a dozen times to new players and they rarely had any issues picking up it right way. I can see the issues it has in full 40k though.

Universal Special Rules

/thread


Automatically Appended Next Post:
2nd Mention
Horus Heresy Legion Book 1 - Betrayal
The Space Marine Legion Rules where good.

The entire 3.5 Chaos codex. Greatest thing GW ever wrote.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

My experience WRT to templates is that the more of them you used, the more glad you are they're gone.

Did anyone ever actually use smoke, blind or plasma grenades in 2nd edition? I certainly never did, because I didn't have ten sets of templates handy.

Yup, I loved me some blind grenades. I made up a whole bunch of extra templates in grey cardboard.

Flinging blind grenades about was 50% of the point of rhinos in 2nd edition. The only other thing they were good for was ramming enemy tanks...