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I started in 8th Ed. I was playing a fellow who has been in it for a while, and he was pulling some rules that I hadn't heard of . He said they were from earlier editions. My question is:

Do current edition rules supercede the older editions or are they added to them. If they are added, how can someone hope to stand a chance against someone with 7 previous editions behind them?

Rules from previous editions cannot be used in the current edition.
Which specific rules was he using from a previous edition?

Older editiion rules are dead unless you are playiing that edition.

Using old editiion rules intentionally without consent from both parties as a form of houserule would be considered cheating.

It's fairly common (anecdotally speaking) for long-term players to get confused and accidentally remember a rule as it existed in a previous edition, instead of how it plays now (as Vim says, previous rules bear no meaning really in 8th).

Although I would say is that they are sometimes useful to try and 'interpret' the intent of a rule, but even then sometimes rules are the polar opposite of what they were in previous editions.

The only things that you need to be aware of outside of the current edition's books are GW's FAQs (found here), which are errata, corrections and common questions on the rules.

A new edition = new rules in toto. There is no reason for old rules to apply to a new edition. If the designers wanted the old rules to apply they would have written them into the new rules.

It's also worth remembering that many of the abilities that models and weapons currently have were special rules with different names in previous editions. For instance, all Dark Eldar splinter weapons and most of their close combat weapons wound on a 4+, in previous editions this was called the Poison (4+) rule and most long time players still refer to this ability as Poison, despite the fact that it has no name now. For new players that have only come into the game in 8th and aren't as aware of the fluff of the army due to the lack of a codex, it can be a little confusing to see people reffering to our weapons having a Poison rule.

From 3rd through to 7th edition, each new edition was only a minor change to the previous edition, and the Codex books weren't always revised for each new edition (Dark Eldar players went through 3rd, 4th and 5th edition with the same book).

8th edition is a more major change; everything was revised and all the army lists were refreshed with a clean slate - the Index books and then the 8th edition Codex books. I'm not sure how you could bring in many rules from previous editions, given how much the basics changed from 7th to 8th editions.

If you feel like being a scumbag back, get a copy of Rogue Trader off Ebay and give your Librarian the Temporal Distort psychic power - take your whole turn (for your entire army) again! Or just buy a Vortex support missile and wipe out the entire tabletop in one shot.

I figured it was all superceded. I haven't read every single page in the rulebook that came with Dark imperium but it sounded strange. He had a flyer that would drop mortal wounds if it flew over my models. It happened. Once.

Stevencopley20063 wrote:
I figured it was all superceded. I haven't read every single page in the rulebook that came with Dark imperium but it sounded strange. He had a flyer that would drop mortal wounds if it flew over my models. It happened. Once.

Most of the rule book is for anything but rules. The main rules for 40K actually only comprise about 8 pages. As for the flyer dropping Mortal Wounds, quite a few factions have bombers and thats how they work, with the bombs almost always being a one use only item.

Stevencopley20063 wrote:
I figured it was all superceded. I haven't read every single page in the rulebook that came with Dark imperium but it sounded strange. He had a flyer that would drop mortal wounds if it flew over my models. It happened. Once.

Well, there are flyers in 8th Edition that do that (Dark Angels Dark Shroud, Ork Blitza-Bomber etc), so he may well have been playing correctly. The key thing, though, is that the 8th Edition rules and Index/Codex for the armies are the only sources - not old ones. The rules for the individual units are now found on the unit datacards and not as Universal Special Rules (USRs) in the main rulebook.

It is helpful to offer to explain your units to your opponent at the start of the game to prevent "gotcha" moments or misunderstandings.