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I'm going to record a series of podcasts on the history of 40k starting with 1st edition and up to 7th. My own personal experience only goes back to 5th edition, so I'd love your insight into the game as it evolved through each edition. I have read all the rulesets and some army books, but its no substitute for personal experiences.

Some questions for you: Which edition did you start with? What were games like with that edition? What were considered the "top" armies within that edtiion? How has the game evolved over time? What were some of the crazy moments you remember? What was the community like when you played? Any personal insight is greatly appreciated!

Oh, and this is absolutely not meant to digress into what edition was "best" and why "X" edition sucks. I understand the complaints about 40k as it sits now, and I agree with lots of them, so there is no need to rehash them here. If you have a favorite edition, please tell me why and give me some reasons. But what I am most interested in is your personal experiences and insight.

My podcast is called "The Battlehosts" if you are interested by the way.

Best memories: My Kroot taking on a unit of Deathwing Terminators and winning. My Lictor jumping out of some bushes and eating a unit of Space Marine Scouts. My unit of Eldar War Walkers shooting a Hive Tyrant and his bodyguards to death. The time my Wraithlord slew a Carnifex in close combat, then consolidated into a bunch of Termigaunts, won, and swept them, and then consolidated into another unit of Gaunts, won, swept them, and consolidated into another unit... The time my one remaining Blood Claw with a power fist managed to get into close combat with a unit of Fire Warriors and win, sweep, consolidate into combat into another unit of Fire Warriors, win, sweep and finally fail to get into close combat and died. The time my Swooping Hawk Exarch managed to get 24 hits on a Tactical Squad with his Web of Skulls. The time my Deathwing Terminators with the Assault Cannon blew up a Land Raider with a Chaos Space Marine Lord and his bodyguard in it. My unit of Necron Warriors glancing a Land Raider to death. That perfectly placed Space Wolves Drop Pod with the Grey Hunters in it (won me the game!). Space Wolf Scouts coming in right behind a full unit of Leman Russ battle tanks. Captain Tycho and Stern Guard in a Drop Pod- best unit in the game as far as I was concerned. The time my Grey Knights basically got shot off the board except for Draigo and his unit of Paladins- that then went on to mulch the other army and win the game for me. Murderfang getting into close combat with a bunch of Orcs. My Blood Angels Furisio with Blood Claws getting into close combat and eating a unit of Space Marine vets.

Then there are all the Hail Mary shots- a Bright Lance destroying a Necron Monolith. Bolt Pistol killing a Crisis Suit Commander. A Farseer using Mind War on a Deamon Prince of Khorne, winning, and killing the Deamon. The Predator Lascannon Sponson that took out a Stormraven with a unit of BA Death Company and a Death Company Dreadnought- my opponent conceded the game after that shot.

Heck, I've been playing this game so long, I could go on for pages and pages. For every good memory, there is a bad one though. And those seem to always stick around.

I remember Codex: Cityfight and a lot of the 3.5 books being pretty amazing at the time. Yeah, there was power creep but at the same time it was a nice shift from the Codices being pretty restrictive to allowing us to make all sorts of fun armies.

When the Cityfight rules came out I really thought they should replace the main rules no matter what the setting.

Started proper with 2nd Ed, and being young and broke, desperately trying to assemble a battle ready force from stuff like Space Hulk and it's expansions.

Man my Genestealer Cult was rubbish!

Too much to put into a post I suppose, but I started (as most GW fans) at around the age of 10-12 --- originally with Hero Quest, then Battlemasters, then picked up a few funky looking space guys (plastic Marines) and then stumbled into 40K in my high school years at the height of 2nd ed. (very much the "Golden Era" of GW by many standards).

If you're looking for 2nd edition information, try my blog:

http://projectanvil.blogspot.com/

Lots of information, break down of all the codices, dice, etc. Only started a few months ago but probably plenty of info you can use in there.

Awesome stuff guys, thanks for contributing. And thanks Elbows for the link to your blog!

My question is, what was it about 2nd edition that made you want to expand it out into a project like that? What aspect of the gameplay made it the "golden age" of 40k for you?

Going back to the rules for second, it really was the last edition that had certain elements, like facing, and split fire and a movement value. It felt like a much more detailed tactical game, but this is me looking at them and not knowing how different armies worked.

Vashones wrote:
I'm going to record a series of podcasts on the history of 40k starting with 1st edition and up to 7th. My own personal experience only goes back to 5th edition, so I'd love your insight into the game as it evolved through each edition. I have read all the rulesets and some army books, but its no substitute for personal experiences.

Some questions for you: Which edition did you start with? What were games like with that edition? What were considered the "top" armies within that edtiion? How has the game evolved over time? What were some of the crazy moments you remember? What was the community like when you played? Any personal insight is greatly appreciated!

Oh, and this is absolutely not meant to digress into what edition was "best" and why "X" edition sucks. I understand the complaints about 40k as it sits now, and I agree with lots of them, so there is no need to rehash them here. If you have a favorite edition, please tell me why and give me some reasons. But what I am most interested in is your personal experiences and insight.

My podcast is called "The Battlehosts" if you are interested by the way.

I'm also a 5th edition baby. Most of my games tended to be against whatever the flavor of the month was, and the flavor of the month was inevitably whatever the newest (usually marine) book was. When I started playing, drop pod lists lead by Vulkan were a big deal until space puppies, BA, and GK came out. Those last 3 tended to be the tournament winners for much of 5th edition. The dark eldar got their best codex yet in 5th edition shortly after the first "TMC" statline units like tervigons and mawlocs came out. Neither of these armies got much mention in tournament talk from what I recall. Books came out slower, so marines making up half of the 5th edition releases chafed more because every new color of power armor meant another 6 months before your xenos army had a chance to get an update.

Vehicles were everywhere. My first army was eldar meaning I generally had one or two anti-tank units in my army that died upon delivery, and then I was stuck shooting BS3 bright lances and ramming things with wave serpents. Because I was too broke to buy a seer council and too prideful to take Dire Avenger Upgrade Falcons that ran around in circles until dog piling on objectives in the last turn.

The community was pretty much the same as it is now. People constantly complained that army X was OP (though army X was generally a marine army), forecasted that GW would be bankrupt within 2 years, etc.

Oh! And the missions were a greater source of frustration because there was a 1 in 3 chance that you'd roll Dawn of War which basically screwed over any non-mobile shooty army.

6th edition is a bit of a blur both because it was short and because I played less. The introduction of flyers, a new psychic system (though not the system we have today), and abundance of random charts, and a handful of other core rule changes meant that people had a lot of new material to digest. And I'm not sure most people really did get a chance to grasp all of it before 7th edition came around.

I can't say it was the golden age of 40K, but it was the golden age of GW. That's a separate tangent.

40K was just a substantially different game than 3rd-7th (all evolutions of 3rd edition). Scale was smaller, rules were chunkier, game expectations were longer and - gasp - the designers expected more of the gamers who played it. It was a geek-built game set with minimal commercial considerations. The company was still being run by geeks (and probably in severe financial straits). Games came with a lot more content, more depth, larger books, more bestiaries and were supported by loads of secondary material (like Deathblow Magazine, Citadel Journal, Town Cryer, etc.). These books provided heaps and heaps of content - often featuring user created and submitted materials. There was huge support and encouragement from GW to produce your own stuff. Codexes and army books were released with plenty of options which didn't exist as models - the answer? Make your own. They had articles in White Dwarf of how to make a Land Raider out of a WW1 tank etc. The atmosphere/feeling from GW was far less commercial.

40K itself was chunky. It had plenty of rules everyone ignored and it was terribly confusing in close-combat, but the game delivered more atmosphere. Armies felt far different than they did when the mass generalization occurred for 3rd. A lot of people wouldn't have liked the chunk, but I loved it. I liked when you manipulated the crewmen inside your tank - shifting priorities as gunners were killed during the game. Want to ditch your Falcon and run you two Eldar crewman around with laspistols? Go for it. The scale of the game was much smaller though you could still play large games (it would just take 8 hours). There was littler consideration for tournaments, and no net-lists for obvious reasons. The game was just as breakable, but that didn't occur with poor high schoolers.

While the rules were far more in-depth they were easy to master. As high school kids we had no issue doing (gasp!) basic mathematics which people seem to fear so terribly. Even after a fifteen year hiatus of playing I can tell you what stats a Guardian is, what his shuriken catapult does and what a Space Marine's armour save would be against one. There was not the huge, overwhelming amount of special rules (the direct result of rules simplification) that is present now. You got a lot more bang for your buck out of materials you purchased (codices had far more rich content than currently). It was just a good time to be gaming.

I thought maybe it was all rose-tinted nostalgia but we've been having a riot playing 2nd edition again (admittedly our own version - with randomized activations and some other streamlines). My entire gaming group of 14+ people all ditched out of GW shortly into 3rd/4th edition. Maybe we're all just grognards but we love the fluff/universe the game just left us cold.

Started out in 2nd ed, Getting dunked by my mates 1. Who had Spacecrusade and expansion so had a heavy weapon hvy list the other who played Eldar and had parents the buy him everything... And me struggling with my small Tyranids force

2e: tanking a lascannon shot on a terminator (3+ on 2d6 with modifiers of -6 i think)

3e: necrons scarabs surround a rhino full of plague marines. Shoot tank. It dies. Marines inside cannot get out so they too die. Club banned scarab swarms because of it.

4e can't remember

5: lol why

6e: opponents deepstriking blood angel land raider full of death. Mishaps. He forgets his corbulo re-roll

Thanks for all the responses guys, really really helpful!

In reading the rulebooks, it really seems like 2nd to 3rd edition was a huge change in the rules. I can read the 3rd edition and see the basics of what 40k is now, but 2nd and especially 1st was very different. What was it like when you were playing when the change happened? This was when the Sisters of Battle codex was invalidated by 3rd, right?

Vashones wrote:
Thanks for all the responses guys, really really helpful!

In reading the rulebooks, it really seems like 2nd to 3rd edition was a huge change in the rules. I can read the 3rd edition and see the basics of what 40k is now, but 2nd and especially 1st was very different. What was it like when you were playing when the change happened? This was when the Sisters of Battle codex was invalidated by 3rd, right?

Every codex was invalidated in the 3rd ed change.

For myself I started around 2000 I think inspired by armageddon campaign so earlish 3rd ed. That time all rage was BA rhino rush, space wolves with their hidden fists(regular guys rather than sergeants like most armies so they couldn't be singled out so were quaranteed to survive to the last), black templars with hidden fists, 96'ers(5 tactical marines, lascannon, plasma gun. 96 pts exact hence the name) and eldar.

First army was(horribly) painted space marine army. Similar scheme to black templars though don't think I used their rules. Later got bored with loyalists so converted models into chaos army and painting went even WORSE when I went to red&white. White too hard to paint for the me then.

4th and 5th ed came, I played around with world eater force, imperial guard and orks. Have also had tau army at one point as well as deathwing during 5th ed.

6th ed and I slipped into hibernation. 7th ed small wake up and then switched back to 2nd ed. Recently started working on Horus Heresy army though.

Wyldhunt wrote:
The community was pretty much the same as it is now. People constantly complained that army X was OP (though army X was generally a marine army), forecasted that GW would be bankrupt within 2 years, etc.

Well there's one huge difference - you don't hear people complaining about how marine armies are OP anymore, even when they are

Well call me old, all you youngsters...



Rogue Trader (1st edition)...
What happened to having to spend 1/2" of your movement to turn the model to the left or right, with true facing? Or movement rate penalties for being equipped with heavy weapons without suspensors?
What happened to the Turn Radius Ratio, where a vehicle moved at set speeds (and could accelerate or decellerate) which influenced their turning radius? Want to make a tighter turn? Go slower!
What happened to Push-back in melee, when you beat, but not killed, your opponent's models?
What happened to the Rogue Trader Space Marines who could pick up a Shuriken Catapult, as they had enough Int (8) to te able to use Tech Level 8 equipment? But still had Toughness 3 before a White Dwarf erratum as they were basically human...
What happened to Rogue Trader era Imperial Guard with Jump Packs and twin Bolt Pistols and Flak Armour? Or their Jetbikes? Or their shoulder mounted heavy weapons?
What happened to Squats? Or Zoats? Ambulls? Psychneuein? Enslavers? Catachan Devils (yes, they were statted in the RT core book, for small, medium and large specimens)?
What happened to resting for a turn to regain Psi-Points so your psyker could have a go at some more psychic powers?
What happened to the Orgus Flyer? The City Car? Or the Stegatank?

And far, far, more.

Currently playing 3rd with some friends. Expect results in a tale of 6 gamers we are doing. Rose coloured nostalgia aside, its great fun but rules are insane with gaps in logic and oversight. We've accidentally subbed in rules we thought we're in the edition because they made sense, only to realise vertical movement in buildings isnt a thing and shenanigans occured.

Game is a lot more abstract than I remember but the humour later editions removed is great to see. Also vet sgt lysander was a thing.

Yeah, people would be shocked to see Space Marines in Rogue Trader (1st ed.), back when they were not only Toughness 3, power armor was a 4+ save!

As said though, they did get a free +1T which happened even before they got their own army list. I'm another one whose first experience's were in the Rogue Trader days. Edit: Just to clarify, this is all from memory so may not be 100% correct.

On the plus sides, I can recall the old army lists allowing for quite a bit of freedom in army composition. So long as you picked your minimum troop types (as an example, Marines only had to take a Lieutenant, a Medic and a Librarian) after that you take take pretty much what you wanted up to certain maximums in some cases. There was also a fair bit more customization in characters, with the player typically being able to chose between 3 basic stat lines and the choice of taking Basic equipment, upgrading to Standard equipment or paying for rolls on random equipment charts (you could roll for Heavy weapons for your characters for some reason).

Some of the more questionable stuff though was the ability for some armies to make their characters almost unkillable. Taking Marines as an example, if you had a top level Librarian you could give a character a 2+ unmodifiable save in addition he could also have a 2+ unmodifiable power field save, if you manage to get through that and his power armour and kill him, if you can get a medic to him you could restore him to 1 wound. IIRC jump packs (which were very cheap points wise) allowed your figures 18 inches of movement and could be given to pretty much everyone in a Marine army, so keeping a medic within jumping distance wasn't difficult.

The following fire rule could also be devastating particularly to poorly armoured low toughness units, basically with a FF weapon you just carried on shooting until you missed, or ran out of targets (it may have required you to wound as well, I can't really recall), but it wasn't terribly difficult for something like an Assault Cannon Terminator to wipe out a squad or two of Guardsmen by himself.

There was also a fair bit of stuff that just didn't get used in most cases, but I think a fair bit of that was a result of RT being a kind of hybrid RPG/Skirmish game. That's without considering that as most weapons had at least a -1 armour save, Flak armour was pretty much useless.

4th ed: space marine stands behind a hedge up to his shins and gets a cover save, if a gretchin were to stand in front of the hedge you wouldn't be able to shoot at the space marine without also passing a leadership test.

3rd ed, maybe 4th, not sure. Back when Ordnance had it's own damage chart and you had to fire Indirect Fire before anything else due to guessing range before measuring anything. Baltimore GT, first shot of a game, Basilisk direct hit on my opponent's Land Raider, loaded with his uber-command squad. Penetrating 6, destroyed the vehicle and everyone inside it...

Actually, the Space Marine army list appeared in WD 105, while the upgrade to T4 (and free Suspensors for every Marine!) only happened in WD 129.

OK, pedantry out of the way ...

I started with GW games and the 40k setting by reading the Space Hulk rulebook and Mission book, then old (110 - 12-odd) White Dwarf magazines at the age of 11. My first game as actually 1st edition Space Marine, and I moved on to 40k in 1992-ish. I began as many others probably did - with the rulebook and the venerable RTB01 box set of 30 plastic Marines.

I didn't have the Compendium with the army list; I used the league army list from WD 130 (which only included Tactical, Assault and Devastator squads, a Captain and allied Imperial Guard and Squat infantry squads; you think tournament forces are too samey these days? Back then everyone had to use Space Marines!). I also had some Orks - the box of 36 plastic Boyz, a Battlewagon and the Warboss on warbike. Again, I had no army list, just the excerpts from Freebooterz in various White Dwarf magazines - and the rules in WD 133 or 136 for malfunctions and repairs, using several charts and a deck of cards.

That's the thing I remember about Rogue Trader; the core rules are pretty straightforward, if a little clunky, but they really loved adding extras all over the place. The random equipment charts weren't so bad - you did all that before the game - but Orks had pages of charts for the Shokk Attack Gun, more charts for Madboyz (including charts that told you which of the other charts to roll on), charts for kustom weapons and bionics, firing the autocannon on a warbike or one of the field guns had a random roll for how the bike/weapon slewed, etc. At the time, it never seemed too bad (because I didn't own a Shokk Attack Gun, any madboyz, warbikes or field guns), but it must have been a nightmare for an actual Ork player.

Actually, 1st edition has two very distinct phases; there's "early" Rogue Trader which focused on RPG-like warbands of pirates, Inquisitors, or Army squads getting into bar brawls, punch-ups in alleys or drive-by shootings, and then the later phase when the army lists were published and it settled down into more of a wargame. Then there was experimental "end time" RT, where they rewrote most of the rules. The Vehicle Manual and Battle Manual basically replaced the Shooting Phase, Close Combat Phase, armoury and equipment sections of the rules, and just looked much more like 2nd edition would - they typefaces and visual design.

My regular opponent had Eldar, using the then-new Craftworld army list. I remember one game where his "I really rolled all these stats and abilities, really!" Avatar managed to literally wipe out my Space Wolves army single-(bloody-)handedly in one Close Combat phase.

Then 2nd edition came out. By that point, I had a decent army of Space Wolves - one each of the metal box sets. That's when it took off for us. As well as my Eldar nemesis, I had another opponent with Tyranids and Genestealer cultists (who also thrashed me regularly. Many a battle was fought over the cardboard bunker and defence line from WD articles. As well as Space Wolves, I branched out into Valhallan and Cadian Imperial Guard.

When 3rd edition came out, I think it was more a matter of poor timing; we all started university at that point, and lost interest and time. I didn't really get back into things until 6th edition came around. I still play in the mindset of early editions, though. If a tactic doesn't seem like the sort of thing the army would "really" do, I try not to do it, and I much prefer using the equipment the models have to best effect than proxying or magnetizing for "optimal " setups.

Guess Range weapons... Liked those. Up to a certain point. That certain point being having to face an opponent on modular terrain boards, which, due to their length and width being a known factor, made the guessing part a whole lot easier. The only thing people had to account for then, was the diagonal.
But the idea was cool.

I don't know ... I knew exactly how big all the tables I played on were. Still couldn't hit anything with mortars.

Started in 2nd Edition. Space Wolves and Eldar were two of the biggest power armies at the time. Biggest headache back in those days (to me) was figuring out which units had protected senses in order to avoid the blinding effect of conversion fields and which units where immune to certain wargear/ tactic card effects, like virus grenades viral outbreak cards.

Favorite moment was when my friend, who played eldar, decided to take his Avatar against my tyranids. Ended up getting a unit of 10 to 12 catalyst (yup, that power has existed in name since 2nd, although it was much different back then ... and more powerful) powered genestealers close and charged him. By the end of the round the Avatar was dead and I still had a few stealers left.

About 2nd to 3rd ed shift: it was so massive, that many, many players dropped out in the following months, as gameplay experience was utterly different. Nowadays people complain about increasing power creep or that minor BRB rules changes between editions influence the meta, making some units obsolete or OP in tournament context. With 2nd-to-3rd shift, EVERYTHING went out the window. You had to relearn every rule, every single unit had their usability changed, sometimes drastically. Many codex entries just ceased to exist anymore. Scale of the game changed, you could not customise your force to such extent anymore and FOC was introduced, so many 2nd ed players had to buy new models because they had no now mandatory Troops choices at all. Many players (myself included) lasted only to a moment when codices started appearing, because they thought that codices will bring at least some of the old experience back. They didn't, and new codex format was a dissapointment in its own regard, changing from insightfull publication about a faction to a mere stats leaflet.

It doesn't mean, that 2nd ed was flawless, but it was a completely different experience.

Started with Heroquest/Space Crusade which led into 2nd Edition 40k.

Although there a lot of rules to remember, games were fun and varied with a vast array of potential stories that could be told just by rolling the dice especially for an Ork player. For example an ork bike could be shot at and damaged meaning it would move 3d6 in a random direction before blowing up. This could then cause it to hit other bikes blowing them up and causing a chain reaction of utter madness.

Other fun things were anti-plant missiles, putting models on fire, firing any of the ork artillery, dropping your jaw at the sheer power and toughness of a Tyranid Scremer Killer. Bizarre psychic powers like Force Dome, Da Krunch (complete with foot shaped template) or The Gate.

Other moments I remember include a bunch of Grey Knights teleporting in only to have a vortex grenade lobbed at them killing four and the other failing to rally thus being wiped out. The imperial guard Hellhounds very large flamethrower but also explosion when it was destoryed. Bharroth the eldar swooping hawk phoenix lord getting a special issue wargear of ork teleskopic legs. Oh and of course "Jones is acting strangely" and the rest of the things that happen when you take on tyranids.

Top armies of 2nd edition? Space Woves and Eldar probably, maybe Necrons. It was a vey casual game really when we played it.

I gave 3rd edition a solid go, but was overall disappointed with the simplification of the rules thus didn't play any of the subsequent versions. The 2nd edition Chaos codex is an amazing book full of both flavor and army ideas, with so many options for chaos (want to field a squad of gun totting beastmen well you can ). Compared to the bare bones 3rd edtion chaos codex. All the power weapons being lumped together annoyed me. AP instead of save modifiers. The cool vehicle destruction tables, grenades, movement stat and psychology being removed and the fact big monstrous creatures like a bloodthirster could now be killed by a standard marine.

Speaking of daemons all the actual normal daemons had the same statline except for a slight tweak depending on which god there were aligned too, hey who needs character when they are all the same bar a point of toughness here. Pink horrors stopped splitting into blue horrors and terminator armour went from great to terrible. 2+ on 1D6 lol.

2nd Edition has its flaws but this was an extreme cull for a game enjoyed by many.

Began playing 87-88.

Things over time I recall that were different.

Making my own vehicles
WD having plans to make super heavy tanks from plastic sheeting.... bit like a tailors pattern... trace and build.
Rainbow warriors my first ever marine chapter now dust and gone.
Imperial guard land speeders and bald conscripts
Human bombs being a legit troop choice........ well prior to today's politically correct environment
Eldar that looked like wasps
My first army was 18 metal harlequins.... 3 death jesters 1 high avatar 1 high warlock 1 solitaire and the troupes including warlocks. Came in a hard styro box with awesome art..... up against terminators.....
deadly grenades. Ie; virus killing every guard figure on the table.
Robots required you to learn more rules than anything else
Sgts for the imperial army had sigmar fireballs on their chest breastplate proudly
Commissar platoons were insanely expensive.... 10x blister packs.... ouch


Then as things changed.....

Running scared of nids! Unless you had zero terrain and could shoot your way clear.
The olde spacewolf cyclone and autocannon terminator figure trick..... yes two heavy weapons one figure
Bright crisp green Ork piraates.... well before the grimdark
Calgar and his brilliant strategy rating
Metal lead dreadnought that if thrown could kill
Praetorian guard limited release.... the best gw idea ever

Then we went grimdark

Necrons which were chaos androids to me.... appeared and gauss became the meta game win
Genestealers were deadly
Storm troopers went from berets to riot gear
And we learnt that the golden throne was failing.....

Those are my memories.... along with

35 au for my first rt era box of marines....
4.99 au for a blister of multiple imperial guard bikes
Nobody built or painted terrain.... it was books and soda cans
Paint colours made sense.... blood red.... dark angel green.... codex grey... skull white....

Started with Warhammer Fantasy and picked up 40K I think towards the back of 2nd ed. Took a hiatus from then until 6th.

The huge difference with 40k in the 90's that no one has really mentioned, was that back then, Warhammer Fantasy was by far the more popular GW game and lead product. 40K was 80% Warhammer Fantasy in space and meant to be so. Stuff like the Chaos gods they didnt even bother changing. The similarity between The Empire and Imperial Guard were striking and deliberately so. 40K was basically a fantasy setting imagined as science fiction. That's changed in a huge way, if anything is flipped in the other direction.

Collecting GW was always expensive and people always complained about the price. If anything it was tougher as you could only buy 1-3 guys at a time really in a blister pack. A fully customizable squad in a box for cheap was a pipe dream. Games were far more at the skirmish level with maybe 1-2 tanks in an entire battle, not running multiple units of 3, each squad having a transport and stuff like that.

From then to now, the game has gotten far more larger in scale. This is only partly the rules (points creep is huge and real, in 2nd ed a single tac marine was 30p), its ultimately the fans that decide that they're going to play 2K + games will all the bells (free transports) and whistles.

I Warhammer in the 90's is a bit like music in the 60's. It's good, but if you were there for it, you probably think its far better then it actually was. Young players of today should recognize grognard nostalgia for what it is. The game has never been better.

I guess I'll toss in some of the better memories from 2nd ed. games...

-A ratling sniper thinking he was safe from harm sitting 4" up in a building...until my Eldar Dreadnough walked up and casually engaged him in close-combat (he's more than tall enough!)

-Playing numerous horde games against my friends' fathers beautifully painted Tyranid army (he and son went on to win Golden Demon stuff for painting).

-A crippled Leman Russ with half crew left desperately firing its cannon and sponson at a Carnifex (Screamer Killer) running across the board. Took about three turns but the Carnifex made it and sliced up the tank.

-A Tyranid wave game where my Farseer and my buddy's Space Marine captain ended up back to back surrounded by dozens of stealers/gaunts as they fired/cast as much as they could before being eaten.

-Launching a squad of five Stormboyz on their jump packs. One flew off the table, two explodes, and two more were caught by Overwatch ...no one landed.

-My buddy's cheesed out Aspiring Champion of Chaos on a Steed of Slaanesh with power fist, power field, vortex grenade and plasma pistol (and blessings)...the bastard.

-Painted up my first ever squad of guardians...was super happy - went to the local GW store for a bring-n-battle (there were two stores in the U.S. and I lived between them!). Placed my guardians on the board. First turn, an Ork warbuggy came racing across the board, another player shot it on overwatch - it veered out of control, ran into my guardians, blew up, killing three of them, the others broke and fled off the table before ever firing a shot. I painted their shoulder pads black and they were forced to run suicidally across the board for the rest of their 40K careers. Every game they were sacrificed...

 Elbows wrote:

-A Tyranid wave game where my Farseer and my buddy's Space Marine captain ended up back to back surrounded by dozens of stealers/gaunts as they fired/cast as much as they could before being eaten.

That sounds seriously epic

My favorite memory from 4th Edition was tabling a Grey Knights (Daemonhunters) player entirely through overwhelming Ork dakka. My army was far more choppy than shooty, but I rolled a lot of sixes and he rolled a lot of ones. Also, this was back when warbikes could fire in the shooting phase AND when they charged in the assault phase. That was nuts. It made fall in love with random Orky shooting.

My favorite memory from 3rd Edition was just starting playing with my little brother. We had a small number of Gorkamorka orks and a small unit of Space Marines from a GW paint set. We basically made our own Kill Team style skirmish game using the 3rd Edition BRB that had rules for all the armies in the back. Good times were had.