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How do!

Afraid this is a bit of a rant thread. And given it’s about something that happened….jebbus, 27 years ago? Very much shrieking into the abyss. But as the title says? I hate 3rd Edition. Not just in hindsight. I hated it at the time. Because I’m not a Hobby Hipster. I was there. I came, I saw, it sucked. And not just because I got started on the crazy ape bonkers hatstand 2nd Ed. I mean, that’s a lot to do with it, but it’s far from the whole of the thing.

Much as I still have great affection for 2nd Ed? It wasn’t the neatest of games to begin with, and only got wonkier and dafter as it went along. But it was fun. And it was the first time 40K was properly codified, becoming the setting we know and presumably love to this day.

But between clunky rules, lots of cards, no more than that. More still. Bit more. There you go. And rules being spread between Codex and White Dwarf, it was a colossal mess at the end. So you’ll get no argument from me that an overhaul was overdue. Not just to make the rules make sense, but to allow us to use more of our ever growing collections in a game within the space of an afternoon.

What we got though? That was a travesty. A game which not only decided to cut out the background, but became so…..incredibly dull tactic wise.

In 2nd and subsequent editions, cover made you harder to hit. In 3rd Ed? It was an alternative save. Great for Guard, utterly, utterly pointless for Marines. At least at first.

The different rules for damaging models with a Toughness and Tanks, and how what used to be save modifiers, lead to a lack of subtle differences between weapons. For instance? The Autocannon. Pretty decent against Light Vehicles. Crap against everything else, unless you had some special rule. See….S7 was laughed at by most battle tanks. AP4 saw Big Stuff like Wraithlords and Carnfiex talk about it behind its back in most unkind terms. And Heavy 2 meant it just couldn’t throw enough down range to really worry…anything.

And so either “lots of shots” or “high strength, low AP” became the order of the day for pretty much everyone. Because such weapons punched above their weight. It also meant Marine players had an easier time, because of the golden combo of pretty decent anti-infantry firepower, accuracy and unit resilience. This more than anything lead to MEQ being the norm, and so that in turn influenced what other armies fielded, further compounding that the weapon rules left a significant No Mans Land far, far too many weapons occupied.

Psychics became all but non-existent, turning what had been a potentially make or break phase into a big old lump o’nuffink.

Formerly fearsome units, such as Aspect Warriors, Dreadnoughts and Terminators were completely de-fanged, and rendered less than average. Now I’ve no problem with a game wanting you to focus your strategy on the Little Guys taking and holding ground, but what happened to Elites was embarrassing. They used to be lynchpin units of a line or army. The guys you could rely on to, outside of disastrous generalship, at least punch their weight or see the enemy play keep away.

Battle Tanks became pillboxes, because if you moved at all? One Gun For You. And nothing that really goes bang either, because screw you.

But. Credit where it’s genuinely due? At least Transports ceased being Snazzy Squad Sized Coffins.

Now back on the grump. Ork Clans? What Ork Clans?. You’re all a drab brown now, with no thematic perks on offer anywhere. Oh and your crazy artillery? Now you just get worse versions of Pretty Standard Heavy Weapons. Because screw you. Sure you get some gorgeous new models which would redefine Orks forevermore. But no nice rules for you. Except Choppas, which will beat the snot out of Marines and Terminators, but have no special effect on someone running around in their undies because that makes for a cinematic battle, dunnit.

Psychology received the mother of all Valium. Because it just…..went away. No more fear, terror or panic, nor stupidity, hatred or frenzy. If a Carnifex devoured your squad, you now waited in an orderly line, offering polite applause.

It all felt so….half arsed. And worse? So very incredibly dull. Like all the colour of game and universe had been muted, watered down into an Asylum Movie version of 2nd Ed’s blockbuster.

The biggest example of all these flaws? Dark Eldar. On paper, a very fast, very fragile Glass Hammer army was always gonna require a bit of finesse to get the most out of it, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Except….for the most part? You could either move fast….or shoot. Sure your Skimmers could only suffer glances when moving, but not only can Bolters and upwards plink away at you? But Skimmers wound up with two results on the Glancing Hit chart that could destroy it. Destroyed, duh. But also immobilised, which would destroy a Skimmer. Oh and because “everyone now moves 6” because bollocks to subtlety”, your infantry really aren’t that fast. You do have decent Initiative though so you can strike first for the most part. But you have to temper that with the fact you’ll bounce off most things, because screw you. And having been tantalised by the thought and occasional mention of Chaos Eldar in the waning days of 2nd Ed? Double Screw You Because Background In Codexes Is Now Forbidden Because Screeeeeeeeeeeew You!

I am genuinely, genuinely amazed 3rd Ed didn’t kill the game, let alone somehow allowed it to grow. Because it was crap. Really crap. It took a big old steaming dump on everything that made even the wonkiest of rules fun to play with.

Booooo! Boo I say! Booooooooooooooooo! And that’s the bad boo, not the fun spooky boo.

I actually like the Cover system of 3rd-7th, mostly because it promotes the kind of fantasy that fits 40k, in my opinion.

Guardsmen, Cultists, and other lightly-armored models hug cover. They need it to survive against even small arms fire from most factions.
Marines, Immortals, and other heavily-armored models don't. Their armor is more than enough until the big guns get brought out.

Not saying it was perfect, for sure, but it worked well enough.

To-hit modifiers managed that really well though, as your protection came from being less likely to be hit - and everyone benefitted from that equally. It also meant higher BS was a more desirable trait than in 3rd.

In 3rd? Nope. Pretty much a one-way street of most benefit to light and squishy stuff.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
To-hit modifiers managed that really well though, as your protection came from being less likely to be hit - and everyone benefitted from that equally. It also meant higher BS was a more desirable trait than in 3rd.

In 3rd? Nope. Pretty much a one-way street of most benefit to light and squishy stuff.

It did not benefit everyone equally.
A BS4 model suffered a 25% reduction in hits.
A BS2 model got their hit rate halved.

And, to me, Marines generally not needing cover fits their aesthetic. They SHOULDN'T need to duck and cover against a couple of Lasguns.

8th and 9th Edition were definitely the worst, though.

Squad of 10 Cultists? Takes 24 Autogun hits to kill.
Add Cover? 30.

Squad of 5 Marines, at two wounds apiece? Takes 90 Autogun hits to kill.
Add Cover? 180.

Against the lightest, least armor-piercings weapons, Marines got the biggest benefit from Cover. That's just ass-backwards.

I agree with you and will take it one step further. The rules for 8,9,10 are just far superior to the 3-7 rules. I know a lot of people have fondness for 5th (Of the earlier editions my fav is 6th) but ultimately the rules were to complex for the number of models that continuously grew and grew and grew on the table. I know a lot of people are going to give me flak for that statement, but that is just my opinion. A lot of the more complex rules were cool, but in practice just bogged the game down for very little results. Also if you are going to pick on an older edition specifically, 4th was the worst. Remember having to shoot the closest unit? dumb dumb dumb.

Example:
Blast weapons is a cool idea and arguably more thematic than the current blast rules. And it was not an issue if someone brought one or two. But play someone with 6 or so blasts and all of a sudden the shooting phase becomes a 1 1/2 slog, with some of the weapons, like frag missiles, taking all this time to measure, move the blast etc., only to kill like one model.

Vehicle facings is also arguably more thematic, however, models don't interact with terrain the same way as in real life, so positioning could be difficult on boards with terrain, and then the incessant arguments over front v side shots would ensue. Again, one vehicle with a clear facing, not a problem. 5 eldar tanks whose front and side blend together neatly, more of an issue.

Also Vehicle armor v. Toughness was not the best. Armor would either never die, or get one shot killed. There were situations where being a monster with T was just superior to a vehicle, and made for some pretty weird classing by GW, like a riptide being a monster and a dreadnought being a vehicle. and as thematic as it is for small arms to be unable to harm a heavily armored tank, for a game, having half your armies weapons completely useless (as opposed to functionally useless) against a bunch of targets (or all of them when knights came out or for tank armies) is just not fun and engaging. at least now, while it may be unlikely to harm a land raider, at least there is a potential to do some damage with small arms if it comes down to that.

Fixed AP was awful. It was ok early on, but by 5th most units that were even somewhat elite had ap3 weapons, which made marine armor more of a points liability than an actual advantage. The lack of use of modifiers in general is baffling to think about now, as it lead to situations were maybe you want to make something harder to hit or shoot at and instead of just -1 to hit, they had to do mental circles to make things like snap fire so only hit on sixes, can't move and shoot, etc.

Finally the worst part of the 3-7 experience is not even the game rules. It was the complete lack of any quality control or support by GW. This is why when people complain about there being to many rules updates or points updates I just want to claw my eyes out. The alternative is FAR FAR worse. Units that were straight broken would be so for years. Meta lists, like "leaf blower" or "dual lash prince" would dominate tournaments forever until the next broken thing came out. And the casual game would suffer immensely due to this. If your opponent showed up with even one or two meta units, and you were playing one of the many factions that could not compete, you would just get curb stomped. When Eldar got BROKE in 6th, I would play lists trying to handicap myself and still crush some armies best builds. Quite frankly I am surprised 40k survived this as well. And god forbid you had units you liked that were over costed or under powered. They would stay that way for years while you waited for a new codex.

Anyway, that is my rant to follow your rant, and again this is just my opinion, feel free to disagree, tell me how much better 5th edition was etc. But personally I am quite happy with the game at this moment. Could there be improvement? always. but overall this is the most fun I have had in 40k since I started in 2nd.

I think that, as a base, 3rd-7th is superior to 8th-10th.
But your point here...

 xeen wrote:
Finally the worst part of the 3-7 experience is not even the game rules. It was the complete lack of any quality control or support by GW. This is why when people complain about there being to many rules updates or points updates I just want to claw my eyes out. The alternative is FAR FAR worse. Units that were straight broken would be so for years. Meta lists, like "leaf blower" or "dual lash prince" would dominate tournaments forever until the next broken thing came out. And the casual game would suffer immensely due to this. If your opponent showed up with even one or two meta units, and you were playing one of the many factions that could not compete, you would just get curb stomped. When Eldar got BROKE in 6th, I would play lists trying to handicap myself and still crush some armies best builds. Quite frankly I am surprised 40k survived this as well. And god forbid you had units you liked that were over costed or under powered. They would stay that way for years while you waited for a new codex.

That's the kicker. If they had put the same effort to FAQ, errata, patch, and all that into the earlier editions, they would've been a lot better.

yeah, can't disagree with Grotsnik on anything really, I missed granularity, I missed that scale of mid-level skirmishing, and the relentless enbiggening of 40K has definitely made things less tactical.

2nd edition armies were roughly half the size of 3rd edition ones. Smaller armies meant they were more maneuverable, could make better use of cover, and the rules could be more detailed and characterful. some of that crept back in in later editions but early 3rd was bland as all hell. It didn't matter too much that 2nd edition made you keep track of individual cyclone missiles, or that some game effects and strategy cards took a while to work out, because each unit could be afforded that extra time for its rules.

Didn't hurt that the largest thing you saw in regular play for most armies was their dreadnought-equivalent (unless you knew That Guy with the RT Land Raiders, or That Other Guy with the metal thunderhawk, but nobody ever played him). With a smaller scale of models the power disparity between them could be emphasized.

Dreadnoughts could be imposing wrecking balls that it took concentrated fire to take down because there weren't a hundred things bigger than it that the game system also had to accommodate, so you could have things like a whole page of rules for how Dreadnought heavy weapons were just plain better than the infantry versions (multimeltas having a Heavy Flamer mode, ignoring jams on sustained fire weapons, heavy plasma guns firing on max power every turn without recharging, Salvo-firing missile launchers...)

There was a lot to miss about 2nd edition, but the greatest loss I think was the overall sense of specialness. Zooming out the scope of the game made each of your guys feel less like a battle-hardened warrior who could turn the tide of a battle if he could only rally one more time, and more like one in a sea of faceless mooks there to support the Big (expensive) Stuff or acting as ablative wounds for a character.

EDIT - Thread moved on whilst typing. This is a response to Jnap. Currently working my way through the others.

I’ve not played since….erm…I honestly forget, but maybe 7th? Tail end of 6th? It was 2010 any road due to work, and two years later commute put the proper kibosh on it. So I’m afraid I can’t really comment.

I don’t disagree that thematically, Marines shouldn’t need to hug cover. Indeed among my faint praise for 3rd Ed I’ll concede that unless your opponent min-maxed Las-Plas type combos, it was cool to be able to do that.

But not having to, and getting no benefit whatsoever when your moving behind or through cover isn’t the same thing.

For instance? I might be lining up to give a large, squishy squad a bit of a shoeing. But I realise they’re pretty large, and if I blob it their firepower could overwhelm me. There, I may want to shoot from behind cover to mitigate any and depending on angles, all return fire.

But not in 3rd Ed. Not unless they’re packing loads of AP3 from somewhere.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and among the other things completely de-fanged?

The Assault Cannon.

Once a pretty reliable Jack of all Trades. Not the best range, and relatively (just loyalist Terminators, Dreadnoughts and specifically Ravenwing Landspeeders, I think? Oh wait. Imperial Guard Sentinels of all things!) rare. But an impressive rate of fire, respectable strength and save modifier. And importantly? Multiple wounds.

To……drivel. Which still exploded on occasion, with none of the risk/reward of 2nd Ed.

S6? Crap! AP4? Crap! 3 shots? Yeah OK not too shabby. Shame S and AP gave it no preferred prey. But you could still definitely totally whoopsadoodle kill yourself.

Oh and fun fact? I’ve never, ever, ever had an Assault Cannon explode on me. Ever. Not once.

 xeen wrote:
I know a lot of people have fondness for 5th (Of the earlier editions my fav is 6th) but ultimately the rules were to complex for the number of models that continuously grew and grew and grew on the table.

The books in 5th were certainly expanding but there was a difference between clunky and complex.

5e was clunky in that you had to muck around positioning blasts, portioning out dice for wounds, and so on, but with so many similar statlines, shared rules, and yes/no conditions rather than modifiers it was quite easy to ballpark the odds of an action, and similarly you could glance at a board and gauge what the situation was, what threats were now and in future turns, and so on without needing to know the odds of the opponent stacking fifteen different conditional modifiers or pulling exodia the forbidden one out of their deck.

Different strokes for different folks of course but I always liked that you would play a style or paintscheme because it matched your faction theme rather than a mechanical bonus - the orks never lost their clans, the Red Sunz were the red ones with lots of bikes not the ones that were statistically 8% more value per point because of their unique stratagem.

But they did lose their Clans. And since ‘Ere We Go and Freebooterz, Orks got some kind of special stuff for speccing into a given Clan.

What happened to Orks in 3rd Ed is a travesty matched only by the fact Eldar didn’t get a Waaargh! The Orks or Realm of Chaos equivalent in Rogue Trader.

You might be able to tell I’m really big on the background 🤣🤣🤣

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
But they did lose their Clans. And since ‘Ere We Go and Freebooterz, Orks got some kind of special stuff for speccing into a given Clan

They didn't lose the clans, just the clan bonuses.

3e competitive CSM players didn't take Iron Warriors because they liked their background and half the Alaitoc players probably thought their craftworld colour was drab green, but a 3e Goff ork player was an honest Goff :p

Paintjob doesn’t equal Clan, Craftworld, Chapter.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Paintjob doesn’t equal Clan, Craftworld, Chapter.

More than most arbitrary bonuses.

Unique units are a special case, but beyond them I feel that if players want to play Salamanders (for instance) they should take flamers because it fits the theme, not because it gives them rerolls or the like.

What irritated me the most about the 3rd ed rules engine, was that it disproportionately advantaged marines over any other army, because of the AP system.

It also condensed other armies, like the eldar, into tshirt wearing idiots making suicidal charges with pistol ranged guns.

I was enraged that the shuriken catapult went from a storm bolter with better AP, to a 2 shot bolt pistol.

GW really started riding the marinewank train at this point, trying to make them the best and any better technology was never actually better.

By removing to hit modifiers, it also overly focused the game on purely toughness and armour, again the two best things marines had.

Where in 2nd ed, nids and eldar could get away with poorer armour because if they ran they were at -1 to hit. Speed as defence, the supposed philosophy of the eldar completely ditched for 3rd, whilst still being sold as their aesthetic...



However, I'm not a big fan of the engine for the 8th ed paradigm either.

The game has further devolved into purely toughness, wounds and saves as the man defensive capability. Which only represent a few armies.

They've relied on giving out invulnerable saves to get around this fundamental limitation.

IMO if your mechanics can't represent all the factions equally, instead of focusing on one particular type of play (ie marine wound tough save), then it's a failure.


It would be like creating a game with no wounds, saves or toughness, where shooting auto wounds and only modifiers to hit are used.

You represent the quicksilver eldar with their ability to dodge bullets just fine, but then have to do some weird handstands to explain how a to hit modifier reflects the physical toughness and damage capacity of a marine.

Charax wrote:

Didn't hurt that the largest thing you saw in regular play for most armies was their dreadnought-equivalent (unless you knew That Guy with the RT Land Raiders, or That Other Guy with the metal thunderhawk, but nobody ever played him). With a smaller scale of models the power disparity between them could be emphasized.

I was a guy with 2 Land Raiders. I knew people, (and became one myself later on), who had armorcast Titans.

I distinctly remember Disarming (Exarch power) one Reaver of it's Turbo Laser Destructor in a round of combat, lulz!

I think HH 2.0 is the pinnacle of what the framework laid down in 3rd edition evolved into. But it took them a long time 'till they got there. And some things they'd never touch in the 40K version, like the AP system you mentioned (with the introduction of hull points in 6th the system reached its all time low as it killed tanks entirely and turned all the pages about vehicles into useless bloat that would be gunned down by any S6 or S7 weapon, no matter what armour you had.) Or the aweful WS table. Sure, you had values reaching from 1-10, but the table made sure that in 90% of cases you rolled a 3 or a 4.
So I'm also in the camp of preferring the framework from 8th-10th, these editions are just mostly held back by GWs desire to kill the edition every three years. Give 10th edition a rework by the FW Team like HH2.0 had and you might end up with GWs best system, yet.

Background wize I only know the Ork and Chaos Codex from 3rd. Chaos 3.5 is still praised rightfully so for its rules, but actual Background in it is slim. The Ork codex features the infamous report of a Magos about the Orks, laying the foundation of "Ork weapons only work because they believe so", an internet meme that some still hold true.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Charax wrote:

Didn't hurt that the largest thing you saw in regular play for most armies was their dreadnought-equivalent (unless you knew That Guy with the RT Land Raiders, or That Other Guy with the metal thunderhawk, but nobody ever played him). With a smaller scale of models the power disparity between them could be emphasized.

I was a guy with 2 Land Raiders. I knew people, (and became one myself later on), who had armorcast Titans.

I distinctly remember Disarming (Exarch power) one Reaver of it's Turbo Laser Destructor in a round of combat, lulz!

I mean, they were around, and they were fun... but they weren't common. I played a lot of 2nd ed over its lifespan, in a bunch of different clubs and tournies in several different locations, and encountered a grand total of 2 Land Raiders in that time. Partly because they were a sizeable whack of points, and partly because most of the 2nd ed players I came across had started in 2nd, and the Land Raider hadn't been available to buy since the closing days of Rogue Trader.

And the only Armorcast titans I came across were in shop windows.




I would largely agree with the Doc's assessment of 3rd ed. I played a lot of it because it was still the game to play, and I had a lot of free time back then. But really, the only thing it had going for it was that it was faster to play than 2nd ed. I hated how much stuff they stripped out.

Edit: overly aggressive post. I apologize. I'll just like to remind others that 3rd edition was a time in which many factions received their most iconic codes

I also started in 2nd and it is a lot of fun. I've got extremely fond memories of reading the three books from the starter and our wacky games as young teenagers.

But I prefer 3rd edition. It was the first time any game I played had an "update" like that, and although at first I didn't like the change, it grew on me for many reasons.

I liked the "move, shoot, assault" paradigm more than the old style. I liked the more streamlined rules that let you get larger model count games done in a reasonable time. I much preferred the close combat rules.

And I have to say, I felt that the rules for Orks finally represented their background a bit better - it never sat well with me that this army that was talked about as though it had a real preference for close combat was basically a bunch of guardsmen with T4. 3e's switch to their statline made them play as I thought they should, and Brian Nelson's Ork Boyz are still my absolute favourite design for Orks. This edition made me an Ork player and I've stayed an Ork player ever since!

In a broader sense, 3e was exciting because we got Necrons getting their own book, the big campaigns with their own books (including Speed Freaks and Lost and the Damned, two excellent small army lists) and the introduction of a whole new faction in the Tau.

There were misteps, but overall it was a great edition. My main unhappiness back then was in waiting for my Orks to get updated for such a long time, and waiting for models to represent the entries in the book. We were practically in 5e before we got our 4e book. Another point of unhappiness was the introduction of Grey Knights as a full army, never sat well with me from a background POV. And of course, 2e codices are vastly superior to 3e ones when it comes to background.

3rd and 4th were my favorite editions. 5th was okay. Didn't play 6-9 really. Just a few games at home with friends.
It was the artwork from the margins in the unit entries that got me into the game. Specifically the Obliterator with the cannon in his chest from Codex: Chaos.
I never played 2nd but I was reading the codexes for a few weeks before 3rd arrived. 2nd seemed cartoony and goofy compared to 3rd.
I spent almost the entirety of 3rd edition playing daily at Dakka Dakka. I miss those days.

I agree whole heartedly with mad dok, 3rd felt so beige and dull after the joy of second edition. But the biggest crime was what happened to ORKS. My beloved ORKS. It wasn’t just all the flavour being sucked out of the army, it was your whole collection being invalidated overnight. The entire structure and composition of your army, the models you had lovingly built and painted being rendered useless.

I remember going through my mobs and. Trying reconfigure them into workable units for the new edition and how sad it was that they just had to go.

Consider the rage now when a unit gets moved to legends, imaging that to your whole army, but with no legends to back it up, just gone.

Big disclaimer- I didn't play 3rd at the time.

However, I think 3rd in 1998 and 3rd in 2004 are very different beasts. The rulebook lists are indeed very bland and I can see why this was jarring from 2nd, but a lot changed over the 6 years. Essentially they kind of released 3rd in beta.

As an example, Orks did have clan rules by the end of 3rd, with effectively 6 distinct lists (in addition to the basic list, Speed Freeks, and Feral Orks).

Andykp: I can totally understand where you are coming from. They definitely radically changed Orks and could have done more to make older models usable.

When I read the 2e Codex Imperialis, the two sections I read over and over were the Ork section and the Squat section. I was a huge tolkien nerd and orcs and dwarves were my favourites back then (and today!) so the idea of sci fi orks and dwarves really tickled my fancy.

The Ork background back then was really creative and fun. But I wasn't that impressed with most of the models or the way the army worked on the table. So for me, 3e was where I really enjoyed playing Orks. But I can totally see if you loved the older aesthetic and playstyle, your army was basically gone.

Hellebore wrote:What irritated me the most about the 3rd ed rules engine, was that it disproportionately advantaged marines over any other army, because of the AP system.

*snip*

GW really started riding the marinewank train at this point, trying to make them the best and any better technology was never actually better.

You really need some therapy for this persecution complex of yours.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:Or the aweful WS table. Sure, you had values reaching from 1-10, but the table made sure that in 90% of cases you rolled a 3 or a 4.

Just for clarity, is your problem with it the concept of the table (as opposed to fixed to-hit values), or just the range of values they used at the time?

Sgt. Cortez wrote:The Ork codex features the infamous report of a Magos about the Orks, laying the foundation of "Ork weapons only work because they believe so", an internet meme that some still hold true.

You say meme, but has it ever actually been rolled back?

Andykp wrote:I agree whole heartedly with mad dok, 3rd felt so beige and dull after the joy of second edition. But the biggest crime was what happened to ORKS. My beloved ORKS. It wasn’t just all the flavour being sucked out of the army, it was your whole collection being invalidated overnight. The entire structure and composition of your army, the models you had lovingly built and painted being rendered useless.

Going to play devil's advocate here for a second - acknowledging that you might have to end up with mixed-Clan mobs, what models were actually rendered useless in 3rd compared to 2nd?

The "ork tech only works because they believe in it" theory is presented as an in universe comment by a Tech Priest who doesn't understand how Ork tech works. That doesn't mean it's "true" in universe, because the Tech Priest might just not be as smart as a Mekboy.

It is a bit of a rant.

I'm looking the other way. I started in 3rd, and much later, looked back to 2nd. NUTS! is being kind... VERY flavourful, but you had to have the right mood on the right day. I think of 2nd as a sort of mushroom enhanced prequel to kill team - am I wrong?

 Da Boss wrote:
The "ork tech only works because they believe in it" theory is presented as an in universe comment by a Tech Priest who doesn't understand how Ork tech works. That doesn't mean it's "true" in universe, because the Tech Priest might just not be as smart as a Mekboy.

It is corroborated by the (equally unreliable) memoirs of Commissar Cain, where he recalls a techpriest assessing a stock of captured Ork gear when behind enemy lines. She stated that half of the gear shouldn't be functional, but the humans had been using it to fight Orks anyway (and continued to do so).

Personally, I subscribe to the "psychic lubricant" theory, where Ork stuff is generally functional, but just needs a bit of help to smooth over some of the lax tolerances on Ork production. So bullets that are slightly too big for the gun still fire etc.

Again, just another tech priest who doesn't understand Xenos tech. It's not like tech priests generally understand their own tech that much.

 Da Boss wrote:
Again, just another tech priest who doesn't understand Xenos tech. It's not like tech priests generally understand their own tech that much.

No, but in the Cain example they are talking about sluggas and buggies not shokk attakk gunz and gargants. The impression given is very much that basic gear is frequently so poorly made it shouldn't work, but does. The same techpriest was also able to keep said buggies running for months.

I agree it is still unconfirmed even by 40k standards, but it is very plausible. Especially as we know Orks are an inherently psychic species.

Yeah, I think it can go either way. I just prefer to believe that Mekboys are smarter than techpriests