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I haven't got the 6th edition rulebook, or any of it's codices. I play Chaos myself, and people complain a lot about it, which is putting me off 6th edition entirely. I also don't fancy travelling over a hundred miles to the nearest shop just to buy them either(I live near a small town with no wargaming community), so I figured that I might as well try out this second edition that people are always harping on about!

I picked up the following in a charity shop a while ago-

-2nd edition rulebook
-Warhammer 40,000 Battles
-Codex Imperialis(Two copies, no idea why anyone would have two!)
-Warhammer 40,000 Wargear
-Dark Millennium
-Codex Chaos
-Codex Space Wolves

They're all in good condition, aside from the chaos codex which is missing some wargear cards. I found them online though, so that should be a problem.

So could some helpful old vet help me figure out how to play this? I have a load of questions about how this is supposed to be played, such as:

-What the heck is the deal with wargear cards, and why can you cut them out? Are you supposed to put them in a deck and draw from it randomly or something?
-What's the deal with codex imperialis and not showing the points costs?
-Is it difficult to learn? It looks way more complicated with the weapon profiles, overwatch, sustained fire and half-a-million other rules! Although being able to take more than one mark of Chaos looks awesome.
-Is the Chaos Lord supposed to be broken? I've heard that he is, although I don't see why.
-Any tips for the Space Wolves codex?

Any tips for learning/playing will be greatly appreciated too by the way.

Cheers!

2nd edition is a completely different game from 6th (hell its a different game from even 3rd edition), my question to you is, if yiu have nobody tonplay 6th with, where are you going to get an opponent for 2nd?

chaos0xomega wrote:
2nd edition is a completely different game from 6th (hell its a different game from even 3rd edition), my question to you is, if yiu have nobody tonplay 6th with, where are you going to get an opponent for 2nd?

^ This. If you do find an opponent, they're probably playing 6th, and you'll be VERY hard pressed to find a tourney where 2nd is played. Honestly, Chaos isn't broken, and most of the complaining is from a few select units, Heldrakes being the biggest offender, with a recent FAQ making them ridiculously OP. Unless you have established players who play Second ED in your area, don't bother learning a new rules set that you'll never play.

It should be mentioned that I don't play in tournaments, nor do I take this game very seriously at all. I don't know many people who do play the game nearby, but I do know that those who do game, don't care much about the rules either.

In order words, as long as I know how to play, I know a few people who'll be up for a game.

Do you guys really think that I should just forget it and wait until some nearby shop gets the 6th edition books in?

Things in 2nd Ed bear a vague similarity to 6th ed, in that there are phases like Movement, Shooting, and Assault. And you roll d6.

That's... pretty much where the similarities end.

There is a lot of fun to be had with 2nd edition, if the people you play with are willing to play with you I say go for it.

2nd edition is very card heavy, there are cards for everything Dark Millennium is virtually useless without the cards that go with it, the same applies to vehicles.
Wargear cards are chosen in limited to characters
Codex imperialis is a background book only
It isn't that hard to learn how to play, the advantage of higher points costs means less models on the table.

Your best bet is to search the Internet for the 2nd edition Battle Bible, that's where most people with no experience of 2nd edition start.

Good luck

a fat guy wrote:
-What the heck is the deal with wargear cards, and why can you cut them out? Are you supposed to put them in a deck and draw from it randomly or something?

Wargear cards were additional items that could be chosen for characters (or anyone else with rules allowing them access to wargear cards... but IIRC, it was pretty much just characters). You chose them the same way that you chose items fro the armoury. Initially there was no particular point to them being cards as opposed to just a printed table, but a little way into 2nd edition's run they introduced rules in White Dwarf limiting the way the cards were used. Some cards were defined as 'common', which allowed you to use as many of that item as you wished in your army. Others were 'rare' and you could only use as many as there were cards in the Wargear deck (which in most cases was one).

If your rulebooks didn't come with a massive stack of cards, you'll need to track them down. Along with the army-specific cards in each codex, there were a couple of hundred Wargear cards, 4 or 8 psychic power cards for each race, a deck of 30 or so Strategy Cards, a bunch of Vehicle Datafaxes (a lot of the vehicles weren't in the codexes, you had to have the datafax for them) and vehicle Upgrade cards and the psychic deck used in the Psychic phase for generating warp power... although you can use a regular deck of cards for that.

-What's the deal with codex imperialis and not showing the points costs?

The Codex Imperialis isn't intended to allow you to build an army. It's just there to describe all of the different armies. The starter set came with a leaflet (often known as the 'Black Codex') which included army lists to get people by until the actual codex for each army was released.

-Is it difficult to learn? It looks way more complicated with the weapon profiles, overwatch, sustained fire and half-a-million other rules! Although being able to take more than one mark of Chaos looks awesome.

Not really any harder than the editions that followed, although it's certainly more important to keep the reference sheets handy for all the modifiers and weapon stats.

-Is the Chaos Lord supposed to be broken? I've heard that he is, although I don't see why.

Most codexes had the ability to create super-powered characters. Chaos had some particularly nasty combinations, but they still tended to fall down to lascannons like everyone else

-Any tips for the Space Wolves codex?

There were two particularly effective builds for Space Wolves:
- Entire army of Blood Claws with jump packs, armed with power fists and chainswords.
- Entire army of Wolf Guard Terminators with Cyclone Missile Launcher and Assault Cannon.

The second was later errata'd out of existence, as GW decided to limit the Wolf Guard to one heavy weapon each ... but both of those armies were practically unstoppable unless you tailored a list specifically to beat them.

Any tips for learning/playing will be greatly appreciated too by the way.

Start small... The assault phase in particular can take a while until you get used to the 'model by model' process.

Having played all the editions, my advice is to take a pass on 2nd.

If you do play it, dont allow the virus grenade card though.

Word of warning: Set fire to the Virus Outbreak card. Don't ask why, just do it.

JWhex wrote:
If you do play it, dont allow the virus grenade card though.

From my experience, nobody bothered to take the virus grenade, as it really only had any use againsts Guard, Orks and Tyranids. Well, and Squats, but very few people actually had them in 2nd edition anyway... For the other 3 quarters of your games, it was just wasted points on your army list.

The Virus Outbreak strategy card however, should be removed from the deck. This was errata'd out of the game in one of the White Dwarf FAQ's.

 insaniak wrote:

JWhex wrote:
If you do play it, dont allow the virus grenade card though.

From my experience, nobody bothered to take the virus grenade, as it really only had any use againsts Guard, Orks and Tyranids. Well, and Squats, but very few people actually had them in 2nd edition anyway... For the other 3 quarters of your games, it was just wasted points on your army list.

The Virus Outbreak strategy card however, should be removed from the deck. This was errata'd out of the game in one of the White Dwarf FAQ's.

Yeah thats the card I meant, I just couldnt be bothered to dig through my closet for the box and then dig through all the cards.

Anyway I think the best thing is to give 2nd edition a pass, its worse even than 6th. If I was going to play an obsolete edition I would go for 5th.

Ah, second edition, where 1 virus grenade could wipe out an entire non power armored army in one turn. I miss it not.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 insaniak wrote:

JWhex wrote:
If you do play it, dont allow the virus grenade card though.

From my experience, nobody bothered to take the virus grenade, as it really only had any use againsts Guard, Orks and Tyranids. Well, and Squats, but very few people actually had them in 2nd edition anyway... For the other 3 quarters of your games, it was just wasted points on your army list.

The Virus Outbreak strategy card however, should be removed from the deck. This was errata'd out of the game in one of the White Dwarf FAQ's.

The thing I really thought was hilarious back then was a game between Jervis Running Orks and Andy Chambers running Space Wolves. The bs nature of the battle report became apparent when it was stated a virus grenade killed only six Orks in a densly packed group.

a fat guy wrote:
It should be mentioned that I don't play in tournaments, nor do I take this game very seriously at all. I don't know many people who do play the game nearby, but I do know that those who do game, don't care much about the rules either.

In order words, as long as I know how to play, I know a few people who'll be up for a game.

Do you guys really think that I should just forget it and wait until some nearby shop gets the 6th edition books in?

Two things:

1 - if they don't care, go for sixth.

and regarding...

I play Chaos myself, and people complain a lot about it, which is putting me off 6th edition entirely.

2 - There will always be people who fear change and are not happy with things in life - these people are usually unhappy people, and often project their dissatisfaction over their own unfulfilled dreams upon things in the external world which do not meet their expecations - in other words - ignore them and enjoy your game.

It looks like Insaniak covered most of your questions, although I admit I'm just perusing.

Second Edition is Fantastic. And fortunately for your situation it's simpler (SORT OF) than 6th ed and therefore easier to pick up.

Before I get yelled at for saying that it's simpler, what I mean is that it's less complicated in other ways. The rules themselves are Simpler, but with more Depth.

Play second ed.

Play second ed.

Do it.

For great justice.

Try and find all the Errata, else you'll end up with Space Wolf Terminator squads with full CML and Assault cannons.

Also, Check eldar over a bit, they can easily produce some game-breaking combinations without error at times. (Usually involving shurikens and Warp Jump Packs)

2e was pretty awesome, just remember that everything was better at its one thing than they are now.