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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
And I don’t think my Rose Tinteds are particularly strong or vision skewing here. Yes they are absolutely on, but not to the point of nostalgic delusion.

Likewise Marine Dreadnoughts. They had better ranged weapons, could ignore the first jam on any sustained fire (but could still detonate their Assault Cannon), and could do a nifty rotate and tear attack in combat. Come 3rd Ed and they were lightly armoured, not terribly useful points sinks with very little special about them.

Since I still play 2nd, I can say you're recollections are rooted in fact, not nostalgia.

Dreadnoughts were useful in 3rd as mobile gun platforms. I chose the plasma/missile launcher combo for AP 2/3 maximization. I hated what they did to the assault cannon.

I guess one area where terminators got better in 3rd was that their mobility issue went a way. If you got in on a vehicle, it was initially impossible for them to run away! (Tanks could only move 12" so infantry could move 6" and assault 6" thereby keeping pace. Later on this changed this.)

The Assault Cannon was done dirty for 3rd, that's definitely true. But to be fair, in 2nd edition it was arguably the single best weapon in the game. Maaaybe a bit too good.

Incredibly fun though.

 Insectum7 wrote:
The Assault Cannon was done dirty for 3rd, that's definitely true. But to be fair, in 2nd edition it was arguably the single best weapon in the game. Maaaybe a bit too good.

Incredibly fun though.

Also very rare! Unless you were Dark Angels, you needed a Terminator unit to access it. And if you were Dark Angels, you had Deathwing and Ravenwing.

Oh. And I think Sentinels had them as well.

Speaking of Ravenwing? Master of the Ravenwing. Armour Piercing Ammo Wargear card. He’s the pilot, see. And the Pilot fires the underslung weapon. Amazing combo to make Nasty Things just….go away. Very quickly.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
it was a messy arsed game that was overly complex. But man did the design team go waaaaay too far.

Individually scattering all 10 Assault Marines.

And it was the beginning of GW's love affair with the rubber band effect.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
The Assault Cannon was done dirty for 3rd, that's definitely true. But to be fair, in 2nd edition it was arguably the single best weapon in the game. Maaaybe a bit too good.

Incredibly fun though.

Also very rare! Unless you were Dark Angels, you needed a Terminator unit to access it. And if you were Dark Angels, you had Deathwing and Ravenwing.

Oh. And I think Sentinels had them as well.

You missed Dreadnoughts! The best platform for the Assault Cannon.

Buuuuuut . . . Using the vehicle conversion rules in Dark Millenium you could swap Assault Cannons on to other platforms. I confess I occasionally ran a UM colored Ravenwing Land Speeder in 2nd using those rules.

 Insectum7 wrote:
You missed Dreadnoughts! The best platform for the Assault Cannon.

Buuuuuut . . . Using the vehicle conversion rules in Dark Millenium you could swap Assault Cannons on to other platforms. I confess I occasionally ran a UM colored Ravenwing Land Speeder in 2nd using those rules.

For a while we had a Land Raider Crusader in the collection here. We did the points from DM and it was...interesting.

Twin-linked assault cannon generating 6 sustained fire dice left quite a mark, but it rarely fired more than twice a game.

And all those storm bolters? Yeah. I sold it partly out of a desire to keep our 2nd ed. "pure" and partly because it didn't really work.

One could (and I will) argue that GW purposely wrecks weapons to sell other models. In 3rd, the assault cannon Dreadnought was next to useless. Against infantry, you were better off with twin-linked heavy bolters. Against power armor, plasma was the way to go.

I will say that I think it is perfectly appropriate to have a clearly superior weapon in any gaming system, especially if it is limited. That's how the world works.

Not to grind too many gears in transition, but when I looked at how to do melee weapons in Conqueror, I avoided any kind of GW-ish balancing and there is a clear hierarchy within the game, just as in real life. Pikemen can pretty much destroy swordsmen, which is why they replaced them. Against armored opponents, maces are better than swords. And so on - the trick is to make the points balance things out so you have a fun game.

Assault cannon were rare and wonderful items, but also finicky at awkward times.

So yes, both Terminators and Dreadnoughts in 2nd perfectly aligned with the fluff of them being rare and powerful weapons only used in special circumstances.

I think "powerful but rare" is a perfectly fine thing to have, but the 2nd ed Assault Cannon pushed the boundaries when each "shot" struck a vehicle with the same armor penetration as a Krak Missile.

And as for "rare", well . . . I'm sure you're aware of the Wolf Guard Terminators horrorshow. And even standard Marines could double up Assault Cannons on Dreadnoughts, and Dreadnoughts were comparatively cheap. Three Dreads with double Assault Cannons wouldn't be particularly prohibitive in points, and ye-gads the firepower!

I’ll need to check me Datafaxes, but I’m fairly sure you couldn’t field two assault cannon on Dreadnoughts.

But they’re under my bed. In my boudoir. And I’m in my boudoir, lounging on my bed. So that’s not happening,

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’ll need to check me Datafaxes, but I’m fairly sure you couldn’t field two assault cannon on Dreadnoughts.

But they’re under my bed. In my boudoir. And I’m in my boudoir, lounging on my bed. So that’s not happening,

It's not on the datafax, it's in the codex.

Well that’s in another room entirely!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Well that’s in another room entirely!

Sounds like a good Sunday!

The quick version is 115 for a Dreadnought, plus 45 points for each Assault Cannon. Then 5 for Auto Launchers because you alwats want Auto Launchers. 210 points.

Take four of those in your 2k army. 840

Or, screw it, a Dreadnought with quad Heavy Bolters is (115+30+30+5) 180. So howabouts 3 dual Assault Cannon 'Noughts and two Quad Heavy Bolter 'Noughts for 990 points, just under your 50% Support allotment. Fill the other 1k with approriate supporting assets and make many a 2nd ed player cry with 34 sustained fire dice, ignoring some jams, at BS 6+1.

Well spin my nipple nuts and send me to Alaska. Checked the Codex and you’re quite right!

There's lots to love about 2nd ed, and it's evocative in some ways that no subsequent editions ever matched. But you could do unbelievably cruel things in it, perhaps only matched by 7th edition in terms of potential lopsidedness.

As I’ve been spelunking into the Rogue Trader era over the past few years, the more it becomes apparent 2nd Ed was pretty much the true dawn of 40K as we know it.

The background was rationalised and codified. Most stuff made it through, but a bunch didn’t. And for the most part, I think they made the right calls on that.

The rules and general pecking order we know today comes predominantly from 2nd Ed, though Marines were toughened up over Rogue Trader’s run, they were set proper in 2nd Ed.

To use a customary crap analogy, 2nd Ed is the movie to Rogue Trader’s screen play. Yes some stuff it would’ve been nice to keep was excised, but for the sake of plot and pacing.

Though one book I am keen to get my hands on again is the rulebook for Inquisitor, as that represents a significant development in Imperial Mythos I’m nowhere near as familiar with as I’d like.

The 2E rules for the Thunder hammer were toned down somewhat from RT. In RT you had an alternate mode, a hail mary. you could expend all the power in one blow, resulting in an explosion, of d6" radius, with the same autowound -5 save, but causing d6 x d6 damage. the user might survive, since terminators in RT always saved on at least a 6.

Interestingly, the assault terminators weren't quite as survivable as standard terminators, some had a storm shield which gave an additional save, but Standard terminators could all take Refractor fields. In RT I recall invulnerable saves were incredibly uncommon, and you could layer saves sometimes. The displacer field save was taken before any armour save you had and was not modified (and then moved you away), and depending on how you or your GM ruled it, you could either add the save of 1 armour and 1 field together, or take them sequentially. Field saves were modified as usual (except displacer fields) so you could add your 5+ save to your terminators 2+ save, or take a 2+ followed by a 5+. If you combined them, you would end up on a 0+ save. and in RT, your armour saves did not fail on an unmodified roll of a 1. you would need some serious firepower to shift them. at 550 points for 5 (with refractor fields) they were a bit pricey (for comparison, 10 tactical marines with a standard loadout were 250 points)

As previous posters have said, in 3E plasma with AP2 killed terminators dead, even with the Crux Terminatis introduced about 1 year in, which is weird. In RT and 2E plasma were high strength fairly low AP (-2) giving them, without any field saves, a 50% chance of surviving a hit on 1d6 and an 83% chance on 2d6 for 2E.

If i recall, the only non heavy weapon, non close combat weapon that could reliably kill terminators was a meltagun. in RT it was move or fire, and in 2E it was a lethal short range face smasher. the short range being countered by the fact you had to get it into range of terminators, in RT and 2E your guys moved a lot slower, and they probably wouldn't let that happen anyway.


The closest i can remember in RT to a Chainfist being carried by power armoured troops was the las cutter. this was comically short ranged (3") automatically lethal to whatever it hit, and reduced your move by 3". both served the same function in games, basically to crack open bulkheads, possibly vehicles. but the chainfist on TDA was massively more mobile. Las Cutters needed either lots of suspensors, a dreadnought, robot, or other vehicle to get them round.

@Grotsnick: That's sort of right. 2nd ed 'hardened' 40k into it's full form in many ways. But the move from 2nd to 3rd did a number of very important things too. Races stopped sharing many weapon profiles, as Orks used Bolters in 2nd, and Eldar Lascannons. And a major shift happened to Orks, who gained a much more Assault-centric stat profile and a large aesthetic shift into what we have today, more or less. No more madboyz. No more BS 3. Etc. And it's a shame because a lot of that pre-3rd Orkiness was really special.

"Modern" orks are cool too, but it would have been nice to retain some more of the older design.

Orks got changed into "Generic Goffs" as a result of Gorkamorka, and lost so much of their flavour. It took a long time for the 'fun' of Orks to come back.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

One could (and I will) argue that GW purposely wrecks weapons to sell other models. In 3rd, the assault cannon Dreadnought was next to useless. Against infantry, you were better off with twin-linked heavy bolters. Against power armor, plasma was the way to go.

Are you aware that your theory describes the two weapons that were least available for Dreadnoughts?

I believe the metal 3rd edition dreads came with multi-meltas, assault cannons or lascannons. iirc only the Chaos dread had a plasma cannon and heavy bolter, and they were fat with Chaos iconography and difficult to convert for use on loyalist models. When the plastic dreadnought came out it came with lascannon and assault cannon.

In other words, your theory sounds dumb. They decided to obsolete assault cannon dreadnoughts and then continue releasing dreadnought kits without the weapons that you consider most efficient? (Another contention I disagree with, btw; the lascannon/missile launcher dread was the most efficient build from 3rd to 4th edition).

Agree on Twin-Las/Missile Launcher Dreads. Those were excellent in 3-4. The Assault Cannon also became viable again in 4th.

The Assault Cannon took a weird hit in 3rd. It went from almost being a multi-shot Krak launcher in 2nd Ed into something that just wasn't worth bothering with. Pity, too, as I always thought it was one of the coolest weapons in 40k at the time.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Orks got changed into "Generic Goffs" as a result of Gorkamorka, and lost so much of their flavour. It took a long time for the 'fun' of Orks to come back.

It still isn't there. They made a mistake trying to lift Doctrines and Purity straight from Space Marines and turning it into a straight jacket for Orks. Orks should have gotten something different that does similar but works for them.

To say that Orks don't have any of their fun returned because of their Klan special rules is a bit daft (and short sighted), especially in a world where there's a Dragster that uses a Shokk Attack Gun to teleport itself around the table, and we have Lootaz and Flash Gitz, and a proper Battlewagon back on the table.

When the Orks got Jervised in 3rd Ed (although you could argue that this time it was Andy Chambers' fault), they lost their flavour completely. The Klans were naught but paint jobs (assuming they showed up at all outside of Goffs). All their wacky equipment got replaced with the most bog-standard equipment around. All the various squad weapons they had went away*. Their artillery, a real source of comedy and danger - Splatter Kannons, Squig Catapults, Pulsa Rokkits, Smasha Gunz, Traktor Kannonz and even the Shokk Attack Gun - were replaced by the Kannon, Lobba and Zzapp gun. Whoa there! Don't have all the fun at once there GW. Kustom Kombi-Weapons? Telescopic Legs? Gyrostabilised monowheel? Gone! But it's ok, because we got... Stikkbombaz. Great.

What we have today is so far removed from the doldrums of 3rd Ed Orks that you just can't pretend that we still have no fun/flavour.


*As mentioned above, this to ensure that the various races weren't all using the same technology, but whereas the Eldar got new versions of everything that had previously existed (Lascannon --> Bright Lance, Heavy Plasma Gun --> Starcannon, etc.) the Orks got no great equivalencies. And they got Flanderized to boot, so everything was BS2 because "Orks are bad shots lol" even though was (and still is) a massive generalisation.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Agree on Twin-Las/Missile Launcher Dreads. Those were excellent in 3-4. The Assault Cannon also became viable again in 4th.

Hmmm. Mine was fist + multi-melta. Dropping in the backfield in a Dreadclaw (my first foray into fw). Gods, that was fun.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
To say that Orks don't have any of their fun returned because of their Klan special rules is a bit daft (and short sighted), especially in a world where there's a Dragster that uses a Shokk Attack Gun to teleport itself around the table, and we have Lootaz and Flash Gitz, and a proper Battlewagon back on the table.

That's a gimmick. Its a Thudd Gun Template. Purity was a mistake for Orks where the WAAGH attracts all kinds and each clan (I can't bring myself to use the K here) was more of a flavor specialist tied to an iconic unit. What they should have done is an If-Then-Else based on the Warboss's Clan. If your Warboss is X, then do this with these units/keywords if its not those units, do nothing - and then you'd get some bonuses and drawbacks that are fluffy. Each faction/subfaction should fit into the paradigm box they've built. Each faction/subfaction should also break that paradigm in a unique way. Orks probably should have done it with subfaction souping.

When the Orks got Jervised in 3rd Ed (although you could argue that this time it was Andy Chambers' fault), they lost their flavour completely. The Klans were naught but paint jobs (assuming they showed up at all outside of Goffs). All their wacky equipment got replaced with the most bog-standard equipment around. All the various squad weapons they had went away*. Their artillery, a real source of comedy and danger - Splatter Kannons, Squig Catapults, Pulsa Rokkits, Smasha Gunz, Traktor Kannonz and even the Shokk Attack Gun - were replaced by the Kannon, Lobba and Zzapp gun. Whoa there! Don't have all the fun at once there GW. Kustom Kombi-Weapons? Telescopic Legs? Gyrostabilised monowheel? Gone! But it's ok, because we got... Stikkbombaz. Great.

What we have today is so far removed from the doldrums of 3rd Ed Orks that you just can't pretend that we still have no fun/flavour.


*As mentioned above, this to ensure that the various races weren't all using the same technology, but whereas the Eldar got new versions of everything that had previously existed (Lascannon --> Bright Lance, Heavy Plasma Gun --> Starcannon, etc.) the Orks got no great equivalencies. And they got Flanderized to boot, so everything was BS2 because "Orks are bad shots lol" even though was (and still is) a massive generalisation.

That speaks to my point. Had they used Purity/Doctrines as a basic template but bent Doctrines to Orks instead of bending Orks to Doctrines, you might have seen something like Boys have the <Clan> Keyword. Lootas have the <Deathskulls> keyword. If your Warboss is Goff, the Boys get the Goff keyword and Goff bonuses (What doesn't really matter +1A, +2" Charge range, whatever its an example not a proposal), but the Deathskull Lootas always get the Deathskull keyword which gives an explicity cumulative +1 to hit to override the limit of 1 +1. If your Warboss is Deathskull the Boys get the Deathskull keyword and a Cumulative +1 there too - and maybe the Deathskull Lootas get a cumulative +2. The point is that Orks shouldn't have been pure, they should have been molded by the Boss.

None of that means that their fun hasn't come back.

You just disagree with how they've done Klan rules.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
None of that means that their fun hasn't come back.

You just disagree with how they've done Klan rules.

Not only that, but I blame how they've done those rules for what's a lot of what's happened to orks.
Remember the original point you made that I quoted:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Orks got changed into "Generic Goffs" as a result of Gorkamorka, and lost so much of their flavour. It took a long time for the 'fun' of Orks to come back.

And you pointed out:

Their artillery, a real source of comedy and danger - Splatter Kannons, Squig Catapults, Pulsa Rokkits, Smasha Gunz, Traktor Kannonz and even the Shokk Attack Gun - were replaced by the Kannon, Lobba and Zzapp gun. Whoa there! Don't have all the fun at once there GW. Kustom Kombi-Weapons? Telescopic Legs? Gyrostabilised monowheel? Gone! But it's ok, because we got... Stikkbombaz. Great

While your list of fun that's come back is:

there's a Dragster that uses a Shokk Attack Gun to teleport itself around the table, and we have Lootaz and Flash Gitz, and a proper Battlewagon

I'm not quite sure how you can rail against the homogenization of Orks, make a long list of the "fun" things that were taken away that is longer than the list of "fun" things that have been brought back, then object when someone else points to something that exacerbated the issue and points out they don't have all their fun back.

The new Orknbuggies are strong favourites of mine.

Not only are they Wacky Races in spaaaaace, but they’re just very Orky, showing off that a wealthy Ork can become utterly obsessed with one aspect of war, like a deranged Exarch.

My favourite remains the Rukka Trukk, because I personally am obsessed with Squigs, and weaponised Squigs are always hilarious.

Sure there’s no particular customisation allowed. And the kits remove the need to scratch build and kit bash. But removing is not the same as banning. Stick to the golden rule of “don’t take the piss” and you can still field your conversions and scratch builds.

Would I like to see more? Of course. Orks are great. But right now I’d say (rules entirely aside as those are easily fixed with the stroke of a pen if needed, and I couldn’t tell you if it is needed) Orks are in a really good position in terms of army aesthetic.

Now, next I’d like to see a Weirdboy Warphead in a mobile cell, so he can be driven to wherever the fighting is thickest, and prodded to unleash amusing effects. Or indeed away from them when he gets a bit overexcited and the Boyz start to feel a bit funny. Why yes, that should absolutely be driven by a Grot, who is less susceptible to ‘Ead Bangz…and most certainly can be trusted to definitely every time actually drive away, and serves no risk of hanging around for a bit of explodey head type vengeance on his bigger tormentors.

The closet current Orks get to fun is GW's idea that rolling dice is the most fun part of 40k.

 Altruizine wrote:
In other words, your theory sounds dumb. They decided to obsolete assault cannon dreadnoughts and then continue releasing dreadnought kits without the weapons that you consider most efficient? (Another contention I disagree with, btw; the lascannon/missile launcher dread was the most efficient build from 3rd to 4th edition). [Emphasis added]

That isn't the refutation that you think it is. GW made the worst weapon option the cheapest. If you wanted the optimum option, you had to either buy a Chaos metal kit and bash it or go through their bitz service (I chose the former option).

This is no different than making the Forgeworld variants better than the standard off-the-shelf stuff.

I should add that I was also quite fond of the lascannon-missile launcher version.

 Insectum7 wrote:
The quick version is 115 for a Dreadnought, plus 45 points for each Assault Cannon. Then 5 for Auto Launchers because you alwats want Auto Launchers. 210 points.

Take four of those in your 2k army. 840

Or, screw it, a Dreadnought with quad Heavy Bolters is (115+30+30+5) 180. So howabouts 3 dual Assault Cannon 'Noughts and two Quad Heavy Bolter 'Noughts for 990 points, just under your 50% Support allotment. Fill the other 1k with approriate supporting assets and make many a 2nd ed player cry with 34 sustained fire dice, ignoring some jams, at BS 6+1.

To do that, one would have to go through considerable effort. I never saw a dual assault-cannon dread, but I knew someone who saw one. (How's that for a reliable source?)

Look, the thing about 2nd was always that it was a collaborative game. The "tournament mentality" was in full force with 3rd, and led people to expect balance that simply wasn't there.

Yes, 20 Space Wolf terminators with assault cannons was legal, but was it actually useful? You have one giant unit that has to stay in cohesion and is incapable of being transported. Same with the Dreadnought variants - throwing that many sustained fire dice means jams - and you only get to ignore one.

BTW, the assault cannon was excellent, but not infallible. There was armor that krak missiles struggled against, which argued against going all-in on them.

On the other hand, there's something to be said for having the freedom to experiment and come up with scenarios. That mentality is long gone.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

That isn't the refutation that you think it is. GW made the worst weapon option the cheapest. If you wanted the optimum option, you had to either buy a Chaos metal kit and bash it or go through their bitz service (I chose the former option).

This is no different than making the Forgeworld variants better than the standard off-the-shelf stuff.

I should add that I was also quite fond of the lascannon-missile launcher version.

Qanon brain.

2nd edition released 4Q 1993.
The first metal castaferrum pattern dreads with assault cannons are from 1995ish and the rest of the metal editions came out over the next couple years.
3rd edition released 4Q 1998. At that time the DA dread, containing the optimum option (las/ml) for 3rd edition, was available (as well as the Chaos dread).
Plastic dreadnought released 1Q 2001, containing the optimum option (las/ml) for 3rd edition.
4th edition released 3Q 2004, making the other option in the plastic kit, the assault cannon, an excellent choice.

Your theory is that they intentionally broke assault cannons, which were not available until midway through 2nd edition, in order to encourage some unknown percentage of players (the subset of 2nd edition players who had bought non-DA, non-Chaos dread kits) to mail-order Forgeworld parts, but then abandoned this plan about a year later when the plastic Dreadnought was designed to come stock with the best options? Alpha plus intellect, brother.