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Ihear a lot of people talk about shifts in 40k lore since its inception to 6th Edition. I was wondering if anyone who has knowledge of the game back to Rogue Trader could just give brief description of how the fluff changed in each edition.

Based on my limited knowledge this is what I have pieced together

Rogue Trader: Loose plot with more tongue and cheek humor
2nd edition: Less humor and a more solidified storyline
3rd edition moved to full “grimdark” with snippets of dark humor (mostly orks) and te basic architecture of the 40k universe and plot established with a more clear “good guys, bad guys” dynamic
4th Xenos and Chaos races histories altered to fit into a more unified storyline (less focus of pre 30k events)
5th Space Marines gradual image shake up reaches its zenith (more warrior monk, less hypnotized blood thirsty maniac)
6th Chaos repacked as more dangerous and a not just weirdo misfits.

Do I have this basically right or not? If not what would you say the basic changes were over the course of the editions have been?

I would say you are basically correct. A lot of what has changed since 2nd Ed. has been in tone rather than content as it was 2nd Ed that gave us the 40K we are all familiar with. Rogue Trader Marines for example were, in terms of biology and the like vastly different at the very, very start. The next big change I would say came with the first Necron Codex although, what they discussed has been extensively re-written in the latest book but it did mark another change in the 40K universe. A lot of the background also got covered in the various Epic scale games and then with Black Library there as another big shift in tone.

Rogue trader was more an all encompasing book for miniature skirmish and RPG'ing, there wasn't much humor but lots and lots of random tables!

Apologies: wall of text incoming.

Zookie wrote:

6th Chaos repacked as more dangerous and a not just weirdo misfits.

Where did you get this from?
In previous editions we had Chaos Legions and Chaos Undivided. Instead of warbands made of "marines -1" we had Legions gushing out of the Eye. Tens or hundreds of thousands of Chaos Space Marines, each one a veteran, with a common background. It was the end of the Imperium. Chaos, Necrons and Tyranids were nigh unstoppable when taken separately. All of them at the same time... there was no hope.

Now they are... "weirdo misfits". The only csm who is actually doing something is Abbaddon. And he keeps failing, over and over. Before 6th edition, there was no info about the black crusades. But now we know, and it is sad: it takes the full might of the Black Legion and thousand of years of preparations to attack a single planet or a single fortress, and they are always defeated and have to run, swearing eternal vengeance. Lost are the days when Chaos was a force to be feared. They are "villains of the week" now.

Rogue Trader was awesome, but.. different. It felt like playing a skirmish in an rpg. A big army could include ten models. I reread it some time ago and could not stand the amount of random stuff and the lack of coherence. It was chaotic. There wasn´t much humor (mostly related with the orks). And they had collected stuff from everywhere: Heinlein´s Space Marines fighting Tolkien´s Elves, stuff from Judge Dread and Heavy Metal comics... And there were mutants and robots. I really liked it.

5th Space Marines gradual image shake up reaches its zenith (more warrior monk, less hypnotized blood thirsty maniac)

This is by far the biggest change in the setting. And it didn´t stopped in 5th edition. For instance, in 6th edition Black Templars became reasonable, and the White Scars no longer mutilate themselves or collect skulls.

Also, I think many armies have been "background-nerfed" in order to allow the marines to save the day. There was no hope in third edition. Now a marine can talk with the Necrons and defeat anyone else with ease. And many not-marines codexes are full of descriptions of how awesome marines are. Only tyranids stand as a global threat.

Suggestion: keep track of the factions. Most changes involve Marines and Necrons. And the armies that are no longer there.

Necrons: In 3rd edition they changed everything. And in 5th edition they did it again. For some reason, GW uses Codex: Necrons as the "change-everything" codex.
Marines: from maniacs to heros. Countless sub-factions, new material every few months.
Chaos Marines: from vast armies from hell with lots of cultural/mythological references to lame pirates/renegades. This was a gradual change too.
Daemons: from mythology / Michael Moorcock to four (only 4) entities. Search for "flanderization". This is a BIG change, and it happened in 6th.
Tyranids: lost two subfactions: the Genestealer Cults (tyranids infiltrating worlds and creating religions, no less) and Zoats (tyranids preachers and vanguard, or refugees from the Hive Mind, pick your choice).
Lost and the Damned: we no longer talk about them. Only in the background, usually commanded by a Marine, and casually destroyed by Marines. They have become the PDF of Chaos.
Mutants (including Beastmen): we no longer talk about them.
Squats and Chaos Squats: we no longer talk about them.
Arbites, Imperial Robots, Astra Telepathica and many Imperial factions: we no longer talk about them. There is no longer need, we have marines.
Sisters of Battle, Adeptus Mechanicus: we talk about them, but not much. They survived the marine apocalypse and there is a chance for them to become a first-class faction again.
Inquisition: big in 3rd. Reduced to a foot-note in a Space Marine codex in 5th edition. They are coming back again. They survived the marine apocalypse and they are in their way to become a first-class faction again.
Orks: no big changes as far as I know. Wait... orks biology was shocking. There were female orks before.
Eldar / dark eldar: I don´t know. I think no big changes, but then again I do not play them. Dark Eldar got a big boost in 5th edition, and some people claimed they had changed the army (others did not).
Tau: no big changes as far as I know.
Imperial Guard: no big changes as far as I know.

Hope this help-

Thanks for the feedback. My knowledge of Rouge Trader is all second hand. But the early models looked more cartoony to me so I though their might have been more of a humor aspect.

As for my comment about 6th edition chaos it was a bit of an over statement But in 4th and 5th edition it seemed to me that the story line put a much larger roll on Xenos and less on the 10k years civil war between Chaos and the Imperium. 6th seemed to refocus the plot on this conflict.

Mutants, renegade forces, and imperial robots are still kicking, just over at Forge World.

Most of Rogue Trader-era humor were puns on the stuff they were blatantly lifting from other settings. The term is tongue IN cheek, by the way.

But yeah, the whole psychological indoctrination and brainwashing has been more or less dropped from the background, because it's a lot easier to write Space Marines as superpowered adolescents.

 Omegus wrote:

But yeah, the whole psychological indoctrination and brainwashing has been more or less dropped from the background

Snuh? Space Marines are absolutely brainwashed and psychologically programmed still. There's no bones about it and it's said specifically. It's just considered "positive" for them rather than some kind of torture.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Omegus wrote:

But yeah, the whole psychological indoctrination and brainwashing has been more or less dropped from the background

Snuh? Space Marines are absolutely brainwashed and psychologically programmed still. There's no bones about it and it's said specifically. It's just considered "positive" for them rather than some kind of torture.

I think he is right. Could you provide a quote?
This is from the 6th edition codex ("making of a Space Marine"):


So we have hypnotic suggestion, spiritual testing and meditation. In third edition we had brutal torture, excruciating pain, indoctrination, brain-washing and all forms of mad surgery with not properly understood techniques and no anesthesia. And they were children after all. It was not pretty.

 da001 wrote:
Search for "flanderization".

I did.

I ended up on TV Tropes.

There's two hours of my life I won't get back...

 da001 wrote:

physical and spiritual training

Yes, that's it. it's considered "positive" to them. It's still the same old conditioning and frequently fatal physical acts.

I'm not sure why you think "hypnotic suggestion" isn't brainwashing and mental programming?

Well then it is presented in a much more PG manner. Space Marines in general have become brighter figures. Look at the Grey Knights, they went from the last bastion of humanity fighting a hopeless losing battle, to Saturday morning cartoon heroes giving that nerd Tzeench a wedgie right after their daily breakfast of Khorne flakes.

Edit 5: I no drunk good when I spell

 Gogsnik wrote:

 da001 wrote:
Search for "flanderization".

I did.

I ended up on TV Tropes.

There's two hours of my life I won't get back...

Bwahahaha!!! It was a trap you fool!!!
Now a part of your soul is trapped FOREVER!!

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 da001 wrote:

physical and spiritual training

Yes, that's it. it's considered "positive" to them. It's still the same old conditioning and frequently fatal physical acts.

I'm not sure why you think "hypnotic suggestion" isn't brainwashing and mental programming?

The wording is quite different. More child friendly. I think a person reading "hypnotic suggestion" and "spiritual training" wouldn´t associate it with brainwashing someone and turn him into a psychotic bloodthirsty maniac unless the person is familiar with the old background.

I remember being really disturbed by the description of the making of a Dark Angels marine in a previous edition. It gave me nightmares. Partly because a part of me wanted to be a Space Marine, so it was shocking. There was a description of a blood soaked operating table with chains, and the apothecary didn´t know what he was doing (admech style), and no anesthesia. All the new wording provokes me is "meh", and I guess a new player would be like "ooohh so awesome". The wording is everything.

You are pretty much right. 2nd Editition we called "Hero Hammer", since a hero or commander could just wipe the board free of everything. But that's what we knew.

Rogue Trader, I don't know about tongue in cheek, but it was more of a small unit skirmish miniature game.

Rogue Trader was very much a "run what you brung" affair, if you could jacknife something into the rules it was OK. Build you own flyer, Blue Peter style.

For me, the time around White Dwarf 100-150 was best, they had a great mix of mega, mega articles (e.g. the IG army list), the HH was brought in as Adeptus Titanicus and they still had amusing and clever fluff bits built into the magazines, plus great artwork by the likes of Paul Bonner, whose Ork drawings are still the best ever produced, as well as loads of cool IG stuff.

Rogue Trader wasn't a war game. It was meant to be run with a game master in a scenario.

Well, I pave been playing the game since RT - I came in right at the end of it, and my memories differ quite a bit from some of the people above.

ROGUE TRADER was a glorious mess. I'd still say it was very grimdark - but it was also the most 'sci-fi' of settings. The Horus heresy hadn't really been fleshed out yet so the idea was more like a corrupt galactic empire where anything was possible. The influences were very obvious and a lot of the 40k books and fluff we take for granted now didn't exist - you just had the core book and a few supplements to go on.

A lot of the factions traded and shared technology (so marines could have shrunken catapults and tyrannies could have bolters). Marines were terrifying - convicts that were brutally brainwashed into psychopaths - there was an idea of them as brother-monks but it wasn't really the main point. Everything was a bit 'frontier planet'.

Chaos was also properly horrible, emphasising the massive corrupted hordes and gribble daemon bits - the two Realms of Chaos books helped this. There was a lot of humour, and the sense that this was just a one off silly game that happened to get added to again and again.

SECOND EDITION was a grand repackaging, and very obviously intended for a younger audience. The new Codexes allowed each army to be thought out and pruned. The art and action was MUCH more bright and cartoony - the dark bits of the fluff seemed like the bits they chose to carry over from RT.

Marines became token good guys and much more organised and military, the idea of warrior monks became much more prevalent, but they also seemed more 'special forces'. Still psycho conditioned but now this was an honourable lifestyle choice for kids rather than a punishment for convicts.

The different races were split a bit by the codex system - Eldar became more aloof and less likely to trade, tyrannies became a crazy bug swarm and lost a lot of their more human elements. The 'star trek' idea of a galactic trade empire disappeared and the idea of massive powers in contest more prevalent.

THIRD EDITION was another massive change in game system. Fluff wise, it seemed like this was when the whole universe was properly looked at, some bits dropped, and a real 'setting' developed. It felt like someone was looking at the bigger picture. Codex fluff decreased and lots of ideas were dropped, but this period also saw the rise of black library, and people keeping a tighter control over the fluff and the universe.

The imperium became much more medieval in tone, and the marines even more like knights. This was probably because two of the most high-tech races were introduced in this edition - Tau and Necrons (necrons has a brief appearance in 2nd as raiders but they weren't really developed until this point). Dark Eldar also made their first appearance.

It seemed like one of the main ambitions for third edition was to consolidate the universe and make all the factions really different from each other. Orks stopped using bolters and started using shootas. Eldar got lances instead of lascannon. The imperium became more evil as Tau were introduced as potential good guys. Eldar became more philosophical as Dark Eldar were introduced to offset this. This also meant that some factions, such as chaos, lost a lot of variety - thus was a complete reboot, remember.

FOURTH EDITION and the start of FIFTH seemed more concerned with refining the game than the background. Generally, the universe has stayed the same since third with occasional shifts to more or less grimdark, sometimes including more old options and sometimes simplifying. Chaos got some of their variety back by the end of third but lost bits again in fourth.

End of FIFTH and SIXTH EDITION are basically the same with a few changes.

In some ways, the concepts behind each faction seem to be simplifying - so grey knights end up as cartoon poster boys and blood angels have blood bolters and blood swords etc. It feels a little like it's being simplified for kids. This is balanced by a return to having a busy busy universe, with the references to old units, forge world really gaining speed, and digital Codexes meaning that it's easier to release extra factions.

The design studio seem to be having fun re-introducing old stuff from the early days, aware that the veterans will find it fun even if it makes the meta more complicated. There's also is idea of the doomy 'end of the imperium' which hasn't been seen since RT era.

Overall, it seems that third and fourth were a big consolidation that helped them really define the setting, and since then they've been playing with that setting and introducing all the fun complexity that the early editions had....

There was a creepiness and hopelessness to RT that I really liked. I also loved the randomness. Marines with shurikens firing at Slann warbands and their robot allies? Heck yeah! But yes, as stated earlier, it was a lot of random tables and RPG elements. (Which, come to think of it, I wouldn't mind a few RPG elements in the game.) As a whole, I do think that the fluff has solidified into something more coherent and more awesome. I love Rogue Trader, but I like the current stuff better.

Me and my brother would throw whatever we had into the game and called it good. That was fun times.

I do miss my tyranid warrior with power armor and plasma cannon, BUT i consider the new fluff and new rules far far superior. I honestly do think that 6th edition is the best one. The models and rules keep getting better and better. I enjoyed 1st and 2nd edition, but i hold no nostalgia. No looking back.

Really, the most dramatic shift was RT-2nd.

2nd Introduced nearly all of what is the "modern" 40K lore. Everything after that was just minor tweaks and some slight tonal shifts.

There were several additions to the lore post 2nd, but those things were integrated into the setting, rather than the setting fundamentally changed. 40K always had that loophole of "it's a vast galaxy" to facilitate new races like the Tau and Deldar.

Zookie, I'd say you've got the rogue trader. Not sure about your take on 5th and 6th, but others have already addressed that.

I would make mention that there was quite a bit of humor in RT, but it wasn't of the "funny ha ha" type, it was more dark british humor and satire. All very dark, and yet cartoony much the same way that AD2000 comics were at the time.

Also, there isn't exactly one flavor of RT fluff or rules. These days most fluff expansions and new rules comes from Codices and novels and the game remains fairly static between editions. Back then game rules and fluff was a much more evolving process and changes came mostly from White Dwarf magazine and the "Compilation" and "Compendium" books that compiled WD articles about the game.

By the time 2nd edition had come around much of the look, background and even weapons rules (remember the "battle book") of what folks think of as 2nd edition was already in place, but so was alot of other stuff that wouldn't make it into 2nd edition. 2nd edition just put it all together cleaned it up and did away with ALOT of what GW didn't consider useful for the new edition of the game.

Not to say that 2nd edition wasn't a major rebirth. It was a big change, but it wasn't an out-of-the-blue change. There were lots of signs.

There were two massive shifts in 40K... RT to 2nd Ed, and 2nd Ed to 3r Ed. 2nd Ed introduced us to what 40k was going to look like going forward; it moved away from narrative skirmish play, it organized factions into coherent armies, Squatted the Slann, and re-wrote some of the backstory into a format that is more or less is still with us. The humor was toned down slightly, but it was still present (and in the case of Orks, it was prevalent).

2nd to 3rd? Another big shift in tone. Most of the humor was removed (Orks went from being a 'komedy' army to being almost dead fething serious) Chaos went from being chaotic to being Space Marines with spiky bits (No cultists? No mutants? No variety? Where's the chaos?) and a bunch of stuff got Squatted hard. Like Genestealer cults. And most of Chaos. And Admech units on the battllefield. And fluff being put in the Codexes. And, well... Squats. We also saw NEW races added for the first time in a long time (I count the Necrons as a wholly 3rd Edition faction, as their appearance in 2nd only predated the arrival of 3rd Edition by like, thirty-six whole minutes... besides, if you look at their stat line in 2nd, they were clearly written with the 3rd Edition "Heroes have the same stats as a basic trooper" mentality that permeated the early 3rd Ed codexes). Also, GRIMDARK was invented in 3rd Edition. Yes, 2nd may have been grim, and it may have been dark, but Admech techpriests had not yet figured out how to hybridize 'grim' and 'dark' into the universe-destroying apex predator that it would become in 3rd Ed.

All 4th, 5th, and 6th did was shake up individual factions and change how certain units functioned on the battlefield; they didn't make fundamental changes to the flavor of the universe. Yeah, any direct or overt mention of sex was excised from the game, but that really only affected Slaanesh players.

I think it was part of how things were done back when 40k was created. It's like things could be dark but you were never really supposed to take it seriously. The pen and paper RPG Paranoia definitely fit this.

I was just thinking about the changes in artists affected the tone. Third edition saw the artwork and the story take a more dark and gothic turn. The game changed a lot that edition too.

What surprised me was that they seemed to want to market to kids more and yet they were embracing macabre and dark themes. I guess marketing dark and violent to kids is OK... Just as long as there is no sex.

Rogue Trader: Loose plot with more tongue and cheek humor

Yep. As someone else said the whole bit was very "Frontier Planet". there was even a character who was a half human/half eldar Space Marine who had served in the Eldar army as well as in several different Marine chapters. Everything was sort of fast and loose and felt like they were making it up as they were writing it. In game terms it was definitely more of a minis/RPG hybrid made more for narrative than anything else. There lots of things in the book (certain weapons for example) that had basic stats but lacked rules for who could have them or even how they could be deployed.

2nd edition: Less humor and a more solidified storyline

Well, sort of. It DID start us on the path to what we consider "modern 40k". It properly introduced the Heresy and all the main players, solidified many of the factions and generally allowed things to start taking shape. For the humor - I would argue that you had the same amount just in a different way. Most of the obvious humor got funneled to the Orks. Anyone who played a second ed Ork army will confirm this for you. They were hillarious. There was also a lot of more subtle dark humor added through historical references and satire (I'd go into more detail on that one but the last time we did it, it caused a political discussion that got the thread locked. lol). Still lots of random charts and some very cool damage tables. The game was still set up to be a squad on squad style skirmish game.

I basically agree with what you have for 3-5th. 3rd was definitely when the game began to really take itself seriously and a lot of the humor got stripped out (it figures that this would coincide with the edition that gave us Dark Eldar )

For 6th though - NO. If anything, as others have said, they have seen a gradual DECREASE in threat level as the editions have gone on (speaking in terms of fluff only here). This edition seems to have them shoe horned more into being random little warbands unless you're a IW, Corsair or BL trooper.

And he keeps failing, over and over. Before 6th edition, there was no info about the black crusades. But now we know, and it is sad: it takes the full might of the Black Legion and thousand of years of preparations to attack a single planet or a single fortress, and they are always defeated and have to run, swearing eternal vengeance. Lost are the days when Chaos was a force to be feared. They are "villains of the week" now.

Not quite. Abaddon has not failed 13 times. Where he has failed is in people thinking the goals of the Black Crusades have been to take Terra. These people, however, are wrong.

Aaron Dembski-Bowden wrote:

But a crusade is a crusade. That sounds obvious, but a lot of people miss the relevance of the word, and the intent of the warrior declaring it. Anyone thinking a single Black Crusade was to take Terra, or see the Golden Throne fall, is probably missing the point. After all, historically, crusades weren't declared to conquer the whole world, or to wipe out all of Islam. They were, variously, declared to recover territory; to take Constantinople; to capture and/or sack a certain city; with heavy side orders of political, social and financial gain. A crusade is a campaign targeted at achieving a certain goal - one that, say, requires a massive army.


To take the "Abaddon is the thematic Antichrist" trope one step further, the forces of Hell never "just appear and take over the world". Even with the Rapture, there's supposed to be years of war on Earth between angels and demons. To the Imperium, that's just happened. The Astronomican blinks on and off now, losing thousands of vessels in the warp, and the Golden Throne is failing. We have events called things like "The Night of a Thousand Rebellions". And Cadia, the unbreakable fortress world that guarded the Eye, was cracked open and the dam is broken: Because of Abaddon's last crusade, Chaos fleets enter the Imperium practically unopposed now, compared to how it's been the last 10,000 years...

... That's not to say they don't want the Emperor / Imperium to fall. It's just that that's a background theme to most of their lives, given their other interests, desires, allegiances and obsessions. It's a great overall objective, but doesn't apply to daily existence. That can be hard to grasp if all you ever see Chaos Marines as are essentially models based on stereotypes of Legions, but as a living, breathing soldier spending eternity in Hell, things would get a little different.


One of the core themes of 40K has always seemed to be "Every single one of these enemy races could (or probably will) wipe out the Imperium if they sped up and/or got their crap together". And as befits the end of the Dark Millennium, Chaos is one of them. The One, in fact. The greatest threat, but also because they're the enemy within, as well as the threat from without.


So, no. Abaddon isn't a failure. He's only a failure in, well, the "frequently espoused by younger player" terms of believing he wants to take Terra, and all anyone like him could be interested in was "Just killing the Emperor". Bit of a shallow overlook, that.

Tycho wrote: The game was still set up to be a squad on squad style skirmish game.

Closer to platoon on platoon. While the game got "bigger" in 3rd Edition, really only by 30 or 40%. Games still typically had 3-4 squads/vehicles in them in 2nd Edition at 1500 points or so.

But you're absolutely right, Orks were definitely still comic relief, and anyone saying differently has either had their memory fade with time, or never played 2nd Edition, lol. The Orks probably experienced the least tonal shift from RT to 2nd Edition. If any tonal shift at all.

All 2nd Edition really did, fluff-wise was make a decision about what the 40K universe looked like. It took some of the dissonant aspects of the fluff and created a coherent vision for them. Space Marines, for example. The idea of criminals and tribals went away when somebody realized the fluff says Space Marine implantation processes are supposed to start at like age 8-10. And thus the fluff shifted to the so-called "warrior monks" and away from deranged conscripts. The concept for 20 Legions was born, and the concept of "Foundings" derived from that.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

Closer to platoon on platoon. While the game got "bigger" in 3rd Edition, really only by 30 or 40%. Games still typically had 3-4 squads/vehicles in them in 2nd Edition at 1500 points or so.

I agree that 2nd edition was presented as platoon v platoon, the rules themselves were still detailed in a way that is really suited more for a small skirmish game with roughly one squad worth of figures. I still have my second edition books and over time acquired all the codicies. I tried a game of 2nd edition last year and it smashed all nostalgia for that edition of the game. Really slow and over-detailed at the platoon level. Sometime though I would like to try 2nd edition rules in a kill-team or Necromunda style skirmish, as the level of detail could work quite well.

3rd edition was the ruleset that really made it possible to play platoon level (and even company size games for horde armies orks, IG, nids, etc) in a reasonable amount of time. I'm a fan of streamlining, so in my opinion 3rd edition was a great development step. It was also a great value for someone entering the game because it had a mini-dex with point values for every army in the game.

Though perhaps I've wandered a bit from the OP's questions regarding fluff....

This is true, it was more of a traditional wargame where the focus was on the tactical interaction. 3rd Edition was a step away from wargaming to create a more easily consumed product. The focus on 2nd was the quality of a single game, where 3rd was more focused on the quantity of games that could be played. If you are into streamlined play, 3rd would definitely be more your bag.

I didn't see 2nd edition rules as being focused more on a single game or even tactical interaction. except possibly in that mission cards created the possibility for a little bit more diversity of objectives.

My beef with 2nd edition is that it's got squad-level complexity, but purports to be written for platoon level game. It had too much of RT in it to be a smooth playing platoon system. Ridiculously-layerd and powerfull uber-characters, sustained fire dice, rolling for scatter for each jump pack marine,etc, etc. These are the kind of mechanics that belong in squad level games, yet there they were in 2nd edition.

Whatever it's faults (like what happened to the movement stat ?), 3rd edition was at least a rulest that addressed platoon level combat with appropriate level of complexity. It could be just as tactical and just as "traditionally wargaming" (in terms of interesting well-scenario-ed, narrative battles) as any other edition you just had to create your own scenarios. But that's been the case for most everything post-RT anyway.

I think you just have different expectations. Most of the old school wargames had a fair amount of complexity to them and the prospect of spending a few hours to play the game is just normal. 2nd Edition was far from perfect, but it's idea was to create that skirmish level, platoon-sized game in a sci-fi setting that you could spend an afternoon playing with your friends.

3rd was "smooth" by comparison, but only because everything was dumbed down: movement rates were nearly doubled, firing ranges chopped down, and nearly all the unique units and wargear removed. Model-moving and dice rolling exercise. Not really a wargame anymore. Which made it significantly easier to consume for casual tabletop players, but more or less killed off any notion of tactical gameplay. It's no surprise that it gave birth to the Tau/IGuard gunline armies, lol.

The "dumbing down" was following a trend in gaming in general. In the 80s, there were more simulationist games. Lots of complexity, details, finicky rules, fine detail. If you had time, and liked that sort of game, it was a good time. But there were a lot of barriers to entry. It took time to learn all the rules, time to play, and they didn't scale well to large games. You had video games and CCGs enter the picture, and a drive for faster play. Not to say that the younger generation of gamers wouldn't play more complex games, but the industry was catering to the quick and easy, short attention span gamers. GW was no exception.

While 3rd was not balanced, it was a much more level playing field then 2nd. One of the perks of dumbing stuff down. RT wasn't supposed to be balanced, it needed a GM to keep things in line. More of a RPG then a war-game. 2nd codified stuff to try to make it so you could have balanced and equal forces duke it out in a non-moderated fight. But it also wanted to keep all the RT stuff. When you try to keep all the detail, you end up with too many moving parts to keep things balanced and running smoothly. With two people who wanted to have a fun game, you could; but a power gamer could just tweak it to brokenness.