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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
If memory serves, that battle report may slightly predate 2nd Ed.

Am most probably thinking of one with Space Woofs trying to rescue a Dark Angels Predator?

That battlecreport was published about a year earlier, in 1st edition. Although it was reprinted in the 2nd edition Space Wolves Codex.

The opening flavour text had Ragnar leading the Space Wolves with a massive hangover.

 xeen wrote:
2nd is where I got my start as a teen. However looking back it was a broken complex mess of a game. It was like half an role playing game with the detail it got into, and half a standard miniature game.

That's because the 1st edition was originally very much a roleplaying/wargame hybrid. You were supposed to have a game master who developed scenarios, balanced the forces and controlled hazards and wildlife. Everyone liked the army lists a lot so that was used more and more until the 2nd edition was finally published and crystallised into what we would understand as 40K.


At least 2nd edition skipped the lists for random generation of equipment.

So many great memories here. I had fun playing Orks with my younger brother playing marines (original boxed set) and my older brother playing Eldar.

Here are a few of mine:

Ork boar boyz on cyboars where you could push the big red button to juice your boar into a craze. I think you charged farther and got some buff. I just remember it being very effective.

The crazy shokk attack gun with tables for different target types and if you rolled the max when shooting at a unit in a bunker, the whole unit was instantly wiped out, no questions asked (if I remember right).

A Dark Reaper blowing the track off a fast-moving Land Raider, causing the whole thing to flip, wiping out most or all of the terminators inside.

Attacking an Avatar with six or seven gretchin in close combat before one of my Ork characters attacked so I could get a massive bonus and win combat.

Ork characters driving around on gyro-stabilized mono wheels shooting some kustom guns that rolled the artillery die for a Strength.

Orks could have Ogryn allies and the Ripper guns were great fun with their rapid Fire dice, for the first turn anyway, and then they were all jammed.

The sight of an 8x4 ft table where each entire long edge was covered in vehicle cards, wargear cards, psychic power cards, strategies, missions, etc. Although, the new edition is moving back in that direction...

A lot of great memories for sure.

Orks could have vaccine squigs. I *loved* the virus card until that happened. But yeah, some really OTT stuff in 2nd. I would be absolutely howling and spitting blood if gw released that as the current edition now. Not that they're far off, mind you, but omg it wasn't balanced *at all*.

 Ratius wrote:
Anyone remember the Nid pregame stratagem unit charts?
You'd roll a d6 for every squad, character and vehicle your opponent had with various effects kicking in. Some of them enough to really cripple your opponent before the game kicked off

Oh and yeah multiple batteries of Pulsa rockets were absolute game winners.

Jones, is something wrong?
Jones?
JONES!!!

Was that the edition where you had the option of multiple barrels for Ork Kustom weapons and you could just keep rolling as long as you paid the pts

My brother used to amass squads with about 30 gun barrels of all sorts of kind - so one Ork might be firing a lascannon/hv plasma gun/stub pistol/las pistol "gun" and his mates would be similar....

 Mr Morden wrote:
Was that the edition where you had the option of multiple barrels for Ork Kustom weapons and you could just keep rolling as long as you paid the pts

My brother used to amass squads with about 30 gun barrels of all sorts of kind - so one Ork might be firing a lascannon/hv plasma gun/stub pistol/las pistol "gun" and his mates would be similar....

I don't specifically remember the paying extra points but there was an Ork artillery called a Splatta kannon that was a Kannon shell covered in rockits that would fire and bounce and bounce and bounce with the artillery dice. so after the first shot who knows where it would go. My brother lobbed it at my IG squad, it hit and killed some of them and then bounced into another squad and after a bit went back at his army and killed some of his models before it stopped!

Also, the Deathskulls kustom shootas had a very cool simple mechanic --- they used the Artillery dice every time you fired. The result: Misfire, 2,4,6,8,10 --- determined the Strength of the attack and the Armour Save modifier (half of what you rolled) etc. A Misfire obviously hurt you.

Everything was just very Orky - I think that's why I enjoy the Obliterator rules for CSM, they remind me of stuff like that.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Was that the edition where you had the option of multiple barrels for Ork Kustom weapons and you could just keep rolling as long as you paid the pts

No, that was 1st edition.

Transport vehicles were moving coffins. No one took them because when they blew up, they were death traps.

I think the Carnifex had like 4 different armor saves or something.

The Nid Barbed Strangler would land, burst out vines, and kill everything it touched.

Heroes could tear through armies on their own.

Orks have a grot launcher, that would teleport a grot inside enemy vehicles and destroy them.

Orks trukks had a rule where you could transport as many orks in them as could physically fit on the trukk, so players would build giant nets and ferry around dozens of Orks.

Ork Trukks also had a rule that while moving, any ork model that falls off the vehicle and lands on the table top dies instantly.

Between two good friends, 2nd edition is still fun if you are using it for skirmish games between infantry forces, removing squad cohesion and buying models single at a very low points cap (like, 200-250pts). Ignore the normal rules for choosing squads and the percentage of total force rules, and just buy what feels fun but not overpowered. Add in the flesh wound rules from Necromunda, even. Psykers and the psychic phase can be an issue, so can be ignored as needed, same with special characters.

Makes for fun games without falling prey to larger 40k second ed. problems, like how melee gets horrific between large squads. As long as the interactions between models are kept small, the rules of 2nd edition play just fine, it ends up feeling just like Necromunda (no surprise given the rules sharing), but with main 40k races.

 jeff white wrote:

 Ratius wrote:
Anyone remember the Nid pregame stratagem unit charts?
You'd roll a d6 for every squad, character and vehicle your opponent had with various effects kicking in. Some of them enough to really cripple your opponent before the game kicked off

Oh and yeah multiple batteries of Pulsa rockets were absolute game winners.

Jones, is something wrong?
Jones?
JONES!!!

Falantir was moving closer to his quarry, they had been infiltrating this cold forest under the cover of darkness. To his right Elrania was perched on a tree bunch watching the Tyranid swarm as it closed in on the Eldar battleline, to his left Menelyth was checking the communication links were still operating. The sun had barely started to rise and the Falantir's squad of scouts was ready to engage. A brood of homugaunts, horrible fast moving almost locust shaped creatures could be seen appoaching. He heard a cough, why would someone ruin this well engineered stealthy operation. He turned back to the squad, it was Jones ... he looked unwel...

The forest exploded as the barbed strangler ripped apart Jones in a flurry of barbed tentacles, in a matter of moments the once proud eldar scout squad was dead, save for Menelyth. As he cursed Jones under his breath, ichor and eldar blood dripping off his cloak he looked up only to see a lot of sharp lance like claws and talons leaping towards him with ferocious alien speed!

 BuFFo wrote:


Heroes could tear through armies on their own.

Not at all. Heroes could rip apart other expensive single models but struggled to eat through a mob of boys over the course of a game. Pretty funny watching a Bloodthirster go to fumbletown with his 10 attacks.

 MarsNZ wrote:

 BuFFo wrote:


Heroes could tear through armies on their own.

Not at all. Heroes could rip apart other expensive single models but struggled to eat through a mob of boys over the course of a game. Pretty funny watching a Bloodthirster go to fumbletown with his 10 attacks.

Or simply be forced to kill one infantry grunt per combat phase(when game had 8 combat phase total)

Martel732 wrote:"2nd threads are just the best threads on this forum. 2nd was by far the best edition conceived by the designers. Just imagine a 40K game without offenders like super-heavy vehicles, flyers and primarchs. Other boons were an interesting psychic phase like the magic phase in WHFB and a Hiding & Overwatch (full BS with some modifiers) mechanic. You basically had in most cases two characters (beatstick & psyker), two to four infantry squads, an APC, Dreadnought and a tank. "

And it was still a white hot dumpster fire. 3rd ed was MUCH better.

Pretty much summed up my opinion. Granted. 2nd was better without wargear, but that was only a small improvement.

AegisGrimm wrote:Between two good friends, 2nd edition is still fun if you are using it for skirmish games between infantry forces, removing squad cohesion and buying models single at a very low points cap (like, 200-250pts). Ignore the normal rules for choosing squads and the percentage of total force rules, and just buy what feels fun but not overpowered. Add in the flesh wound rules from Necromunda, even. Psykers and the psychic phase can be an issue, so can be ignored as needed, same with special characters.

Makes for fun games without falling prey to larger 40k second ed. problems, like how melee gets horrific between large squads. As long as the interactions between models are kept small, the rules of 2nd edition play just fine, it ends up feeling just like Necromunda (no surprise given the rules sharing), but with main 40k races.

OR

Just play Necromunda.

 MarsNZ wrote:

 BuFFo wrote:


Heroes could tear through armies on their own.

Not at all. Heroes could rip apart other expensive single models but struggled to eat through a mob of boys over the course of a game. Pretty funny watching a Bloodthirster go to fumbletown with his 10 attacks.

I find that unlikely assuming A: the mob passed the terror test when charging, B: avoided the khorne whip attack, C: survived the round of combat (fumble or not they aren't really going to do any damage unless one of them has a power weapon, WS 3 vs WS 10, strength 3 +1 for an axe vs toughness 7 and the 3+ terminatord 2d6 armour save, plus multiple wounds.) Didn't break as they will lose of the lads in the encounter.

As a monstrous creature the Bloodthirster can just brush aside the boys after a round of hand to hand combat and go off to tear up something that is actually a threat without a penalty.

Now if they charged Fabius Bile or Marneus Calgar then yes they can bog them down.

 Shuma-Gorath wrote:

I find that unlikely assuming A: the mob passed the terror test when charging, B: avoided the khorne whip attack, C: survived the round of combat (fumble or not they aren't really going to do any damage unless one of them has a power weapon, WS 3 vs WS 10, strength 3 +1 for an axe vs toughness 7 and the 3+ terminatord 2d6 armour save, plus multiple wounds.) Didn't break as they will lose of the lads in the encounter.

As a monstrous creature the Bloodthirster can just brush aside the boys after a round of hand to hand combat and go off to tear up something that is actually a threat without a penalty.

Now if they charged Fabius Bile or Marneus Calgar then yes they can bog them down.

Point isn't to threat. Point is give him ONE model to fight with. Bloodthirster then kills 1 model. Repeat until game ends.

You don't care whether you kill it. You feed him 1 model at a time=max 8 models killed in game. As long as you don't have expensive single models expensive blood thirster struggles to do much.

But like he said monstrous creature can just walk away....dreadnoughts could do the same.

If you added 8th edition hth to 2nd (keeps obscene characters from butchering whole units per phase)

use 2nd edition rules/weapons ranges, etc.

Make overwatch a stratagem and add stratagems to 2nd.

I would probably add 8th edition movement as well.

Keep the datafaxes from 2nd edition and the wargear.

Make the psychic phase once per battleround not per players turn (this was suggested in a game just this past week)

If that was 9th edition I would sell/market that game to everyone who never heard of 40k and get them all to play it.

Oh throw in prepainted starter units. Yep they can use that to jump into the hobby and then become paintmasters later.

And where in rules that was?

Still no biggie. It goes out, charges another mob of grunts, gets 1-2 models into b2b contact. Grunt here or grunt there. Either way grunt dies.

Key is to not provide expensive models for target. Whether from unit or from army. And of course you can have your cheap champion with vortex grenade get rid of offensive blood thirster.

Every time, like clock work, the Malfunction Strategy Card was used to explode my Chaos Dreadnought's Plasma Cannon.

Hand Flamer template & Gork & Mork Foot were cool.

I liked the Assault Weapon Sprue that had las pistols & auto pistols on it.

I wished I had not given away the Orks & Gretchin that came with the 2nd Edition Boxed set.

I should have held on to My 2nd Ed. Khorne Berzerkers & Plague Marines. Oh Well.

Man so many good memories involving such a terrible rule set!

I started out with Eldar right after their codex was released and eventually ended up playing Dark Angels after the Angels of Death codex came out, I don't even remember what caught my eye but I've loved the DA since. I remember running two squads of terminators, and a dreadnought hunkered around Azreal and his 4+ invul field moving slowly across the board mowing just about everything down while my opponents tried to get through the 2+ on a 2D6 and the 4+ invul. While my Ravenwing bikers shot across the board in a single turn and had something like a -4 to be shot at due to how fast they went. Good times...

I also remember hating the insane Chaos Lords with all 4 marks in terminator armor, which made them a psychic, super tough, and super mean in CC. And they would hide in one of my opponents 6+ Rhinos with khorne berserkers filling up a few of the other ones and your opponent not having to tell you which units where in which rhinos. You'd just have to start popping them and see if anything came out.

The psychic phase after they released the expansion was insane! It took the already complicated game and just turned it up to 11. I still have most of the cards and stuff from 2nd, just couldn't bring myself to ever throw them out.

tneva82 wrote:
And where in rules that was?

Still no biggie. It goes out, charges another mob of grunts, gets 1-2 models into b2b contact. Grunt here or grunt there. Either way grunt dies.

Key is to not provide expensive models for target. Whether from unit or from army. And of course you can have your cheap champion with vortex grenade get rid of offensive blood thirster.

It's in the 2nd edition Tyranid Codex & Chaos Codex rule books.

Big forests or deathworld jungle terrain getting you down?, grab a missile launcher and get firing those anti-plant missiles. Soon the enemy won't be able to hide at all

Orks or Imperial Guard on mass causing you trouble, load up the hallucinogen grenades and watch them run screaming with laughter into a river or something.

Want to use the Heavy Webber in the wargear book? BAd luck as it has no points value or vehicle it can be added to listed anywhere.

My sole surviving Chaos Terminator chasing after my opponents Weirdboy Warphead. A Shokk Atakk Gun killed all his friends in one shot. First Heavy Flamer burst incinerated both of his handlers and set the Wierdboy on fire. The Wierdboy then spent the rest of the game running around wildly due to fire and firing off a random Psychic power each Psychic phase due to the deaths of his handlers. He even managed to Da Crunch my Predator into the ground while my Terminator hosed him down each turn til the Ork had had enough and ran off the board on the last turn. Still didn't manage to kill him ha!

Yes the narrative results of those games are told decades later.....

you don't have very much from 3rd or 7th or 8th other than I smashed' I'm or I got smashed or I survived with 1 model but won on points, etc

 admironheart wrote:
Yes the narrative results of those games are told decades later.....

you don't have very much from 3rd or 7th or 8th other than I smashed' I'm or I got smashed or I survived with 1 model but won on points, etc

Sad but true. The most exciting battles were fought in 2nd. Detail was a key element to it´s success.

So you consider having your list being chain pulsa-rokkitted to be fun and exciting? Good to know.

Oh I dunno. The details of 2nd did make for good storytelling. That's undeniable.

But I can think of stories from later editions as well. In 3rd I recall a BA army killing a chaos force down to the last champion, then that champion becoming a Bloodthirster, proceeding to murder the BA army on his own.

In 4th, drawing a space wolf army into the center of the field, then hopping into Land Raiders and driving away, leaving his army encircled and getting gunned down.

In 5th, a last ditch effort by Kharn to kill as many Necron Warriors as possible in a round of combat, forcing a break test, them failing, Kharn running them down and forcing the Crons to phase out.

In 6th, the Doom of Malantai melting my poor Space Marines as I was just starting out with my new army.

In 7th, full frontal assaults against Tau. Getting a Tactical Squad and Chaplain in base to base with both pathfinders and a Riptide, killing most pathfinders, forcing them and the Riptide into morale checks, and running them down.

 Shuma-Gorath wrote:
Big forests or deathworld jungle terrain getting you down?, grab a missile launcher and get firing those anti-plant missiles. Soon the enemy won't be able to hide at all

Orks or Imperial Guard on mass causing you trouble, load up the hallucinogen grenades and watch them run screaming with laughter into a river or something.

Want to use the Heavy Webber in the wargear book? BAd luck as it has no points value or vehicle it can be added to listed anywhere.

Or Rippers.

Yep, Ripper Swarms ate terrain they crossed during the game. Which is just as well, as they were pretty naff otherwise!

Yes, this is a bit of threadomancy.

I miss 2nd ed orks... had one big fight once over a shokk attack gun hitting a bunker and rolling the "everything dies result". Also miss the squig catapults and the buzz squigs roaming the table randomly afterwards.

Also played a few games with squats from the initial army book (similar to the 8th edition index)

Shot an opponents Hive Tyrant with a graviton gun... rules were that a hit (just a hit!) meant the target couldn't move shoot or attack the rest of the game...

Also remember sacrificing a cheap fodder character armed with only a vortex grenade to take out an Avatar of Khaine once. That caused a lot of grief.