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Just wanted to post some of my thoughts, these are just my opinions.
And by the way from the format of the website and the yellow and black lines this appears as I website I used to visit in the 90's back then it was a "website" or a blog as it later became known.

I tried playing 3rd edition but it really did not do it for me, too different for my tastes.
Gave 6th ed a cursory glance, I like a bunch of stuff in it, looks like they brought back overwatch too.
2nd ed had its bad points but it had its good points, in the current system it is somewhat "paper rock scissors" when it comes to armor penetration and saves.
In the 2nd ed all weapons had armor save modifiers. I do not remember exact numbers but for example you had a -1 to your save if you got hit with a bolt gun and I think around -4 to your save if you got hit with a lascannon. ( not real numbers I forgot actual stats)
Terminators rolled 2d6 and were generally tough to kill and cost a lot of points.

I just like the fact that weapons had graduated save modifiers versus "paper rock scissors" type situation. I think it is called AP value.

What I like about new edition, close combat is fast and feasable. In 2nd edition it was painfully slow.
It is made for large battles and I can field all those unites that I wanted to field without having an 8 hour game.

Which is better? Neither! One is a skirmish game, the other is a large scale battle game, both have their pros and cons.
I would like to see armor save modifiers for weapons back in the game, but that is just my pet peeve I guess you could say.
If you fail to have a good time with either of the rule set you need to find a new person to play with!
Oh yes some things never change, G.W. are still a bunch of *bleep* and *bleep* *bleep* upon them *bleep*

I agree with you, I'd love to see a return of armour save modifiers instead of AP values (or even a combination, where some weapons could ignore, say, 5+ armour saves but didn't affect 4+ at all, but some other weapon just had a flat -1 to saves), and the modern combat mechanics are much more intuitive.

Depending on your local group, it might be possible to find people to play 2nd Ed (if they've got the books), or alternatively create "house-rules" for 6th to make it more to your tastes.
If you just play pick-up games though, you're kind of stuck with the default rules.

I still think the change to the AP system was one of the worst moves GW made with 40k. It's terrible for game balance. I've heard people say the current system is more logical... I think they're both equally logical, but the 2nd edition system was way better for balance.

2nd edition definitely had it's flaws. I enjoyed the combat system, but it did hamstring the game to being purely skirmish. Playing against Tyranids at any decent amount of points was just painful.

GW kind of threw out the baby with the bath water when they went 2nd to 3rd. Things definitely needed to change with how close combat was handled and the game needed some tweaks, but other than that I really liked 2nd edition.

I've never been able to find people to get together and play 2nd, unfortunately.

2nd Edition always devolved into gunlines sitting in cover on overwatch waiting to be mullered by the massively overpowered characters. I much prefer the current edition to 2nd ed. The AP system actually allows heavily armoured troops to act as they should.

2nd edition was worse for MEQ armor then 3rd to present rules set, because anything better then a lasgun had at least a -1 to the armor save. Heavy bolters and assault cannons were the weapons of choice for ranged death vs troops. Terminator armor shrugged off anything less powerful then melta weapons and tank busting heavy weapons. Assault cannons were also really good at killing vehicles. Which made terminators a really good unit since they were one of the few that could carry assault cannons, along with the effective BS 7 Dreadnought.

Models got to take both armor and field (invulnerable) saves.

Vehicles could fire all their weapons each turn, and SM and Eldar vehicles all had targeters (+1 BS) making vehicle fire extremely deadly.

No instant death rule, but many weapons inflicted multiple wounds per hit, so they could effectively ID quite a few things.

Assault was brutal. Power weapons were cheap. Swords gave a parry. Combat was handled on model at a time, with multiple models in CC against one getting an advantage on the 2nd an following attacker. Character models were nastier in 2nd edition CC then in 6th. Especially if they were psykers. Evesor assassin where absolute nightmares.

There were tons of special rules scattered throughout the books that were often easy to miss. Two examples I remember painfully as a tyranid player was that if a model equipped with a conversion field (iron halo in modern terms) made a successful field save then a burst of light was emitted. Any unit within a radius equal to the str of the attack the field blocked that didn't have protected senses would be blinded ( until that player's turn after next? something like that) reducing the effected model's WS to 1. Then you had to dig through the rules just to find out what were considered units with protected senses. Another quick one was that jetbikes could avoid being charged by choosing to say they were hovering high enough to stay out of melee, never beat my friend's elder army after he found that rule and bought guardians with jetbikes.

6th edition has some very weird rules (especially when you add the FAQ in) but overall is better written and balanced. Not saying 6th is great, and there are aspects of it I really dislike, but 2nd edition had some big problems with it as well.

I played assault oriented armies in 2nd, Flinty, never had an issue with overwatch and I played in a wide variety of places.
I do miss the mark of Khorne giving a +1 on armor giving termies a 2+ armor save on 2d6.
My other favorite parts
-Displacer Field- make a save and teleport 1d6 inches away in a random direction
-Plague Wind- turning half my opponents troops into PlagueBearers, When I say half, in a fight vs Nids, I literally turned more of his armies into Plaguebeareres than I had models to represent them.
-Powerfist and chainsword combo on assault marines-hits with the powerfist and gets the parry of the chain sword. Everybody in the squad typically got this combo.

Yeah special characters were incredibly powerful to the point of stupidity. Me and my friends never used them.

Close combat was kinda slow and painful in 2nd ed.

I disagree about the terminators, plasma weapons las cannons and plenty of other things could ruin their day too.

To be honest I kinda really attached to them, they were an awesome and really tough unit.

How many here had terminators or played against terminators in 2nd ed?
Are they too powerful?

Terminators in 2nd were really powerful. As mentioned, they rolled 3+ save on 2d6, which meant you have to kill them with lascannons (other anti tank weapons didn't have a high enough save modifier - a battlecannon for example was only a -3) or power fist equivalents and even then they had a good chance to survive. That wasn't the bad part though - they were one of the few units with access to assault cannons.

Asault cannons had 3 sustained fire dice, and IIRC each die's sides were 1,1,2,2,3,jammed (jammed guns couldn't fire for 1 turn). Against armor, each hit was as effective as 1 krak missile, and dealing 1d10 wounds per hit it could absolutely murder greater demons and big critters. and Space Wolves could field a huge amount of them.

I had some very good 2nd edition games with a friend when we decided to use no psykers, no characters over X points, and use some line of sight blocking terrain at the center of the table.

The thing I miss the most from 2nd edition wasn't actually the modifiers to hit or ST, is the move stat. Especially for vehicles. Marine tanks were very fast and fun to use, compared to the 3rd-6th edition turtles.

Petrov wrote:
How many here had terminators or played against terminators in 2nd ed?
Are they too powerful?

They were pretty powerful. They were also pretty expensive, I think about 70pts each compared to a basic Marine that was around 30pts I think. Marines were the only thing with rapid fire back then, which allowed them to fire twice at full range and no penalty if they didn't move.

Overall I liked the 2nd edition rules, I think most the problems just came from the codices rather than the rules themselves.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Petrov wrote:
How many here had terminators or played against terminators in 2nd ed?
Are they too powerful?

They were pretty powerful. They were also pretty expensive, I think about 70pts each compared to a basic Marine that was around 30pts I think. Marines were the only thing with rapid fire back then, which allowed them to fire twice at full range and no penalty if they didn't move.

Overall I liked the 2nd edition rules, I think most the problems just came from the codices rather than the rules themselves.

And a pain in the if you needed to make more than a few saves. You rolled 2d6 for your saves. Imagain that now against that 50 Model Gaurd Blob with the "First Rank Fire!, Second Rank Fire!" Order.

2nd edition Nids, Eldar, and CSM all made the game virtually unplayable for everyone except those lists. The sonic blaster from 2nd STILL gives me the willies. I didn't win a single game of 2nd with BA. Not one. Actually, I didn't even get close. Sounds like 6th on steroids....

2nd edition was best with as much LOS blocking terrain as you could find.
That 50 model guard blob would be pretty useless against terminators, they could never all fire at the same target as models in their own unit block LOS.

Personally i like 2nd edition, however a lot of the extreme rules/units/wargear combos were FAQ'd to have better balance, im lucky that i have all the white dwarfs from back then, without them it wouldn't be as much fun.

3rd+ definitely plays faster, and allows you more models on the table, (lower model count of 2nd makes it a much cheaper game though!)

My gut feeling is that a revised and improved 2nd edition, would have been a better choice for the 3rd edition. They should have left large scale battles to the epic system.

Standard terminators were 63 pts/model, Deathwing 68 and Wolf Guard 64 (thats Storm bolter + power fist)

Wow. Terminators are only 23 pts cheaper than they were in 2nd. That's bad. Marines are 16 pts cheaper and started at 30. Teqs need a LOT of work in 6th.

machineuk wrote:
2nd edition was best with as much LOS blocking terrain as you could find.
That 50 model guard blob would be pretty useless against terminators, they could never all fire at the same target as models in their own unit block LOS.

Personally i like 2nd edition, however a lot of the extreme rules/units/wargear combos were FAQ'd to have better balance, im lucky that i have all the white dwarfs from back then, without them it wouldn't be as much fun.

3rd+ definitely plays faster, and allows you more models on the table, (lower model count of 2nd makes it a much cheaper game though!)

My gut feeling is that a revised and improved 2nd edition, would have been a better choice for the 3rd edition. They should have left large scale battles to the epic system.

Standard terminators were 63 pts/model, Deathwing 68 and Wolf Guard 64 (thats Storm bolter + power fist)

50 Guradsman blob? I dont think you could pull that off in 2nd ed, things were much more expensive. Plus you could put them on overwatch, that is a whole lot of shots

How much did 50 guardsmen cost in 2nd ed with all the acoutrements ?

10 man squad 100 points + heavy weapon 10-30, special weapon 6-10

5 squads need 2 command squads 75 points for the captains squad, 60 for a lieutenant + weapons for all.

Could just about squeeze it all into a 750 point army if you left out a few heavy weapons.

hmm, that left you enough to throw in a leman russ too?
Yeah I guess if you put in a perspective they were a "bit" overpowered

I still say that armor save modifiers need to make a comeback.

Petrov wrote:
hmm, that left you enough to throw in a leman russ too?
Yeah I guess if you put in a perspective they were a "bit" overpowered

I still say that armor save modifiers need to make a comeback.

Yay! Make 3+ saves even worse then they already are!

Petrov wrote:


How many here had terminators or played against terminators in 2nd ed?
Are they too powerful?

I played space wolves and had my "special terminator squad" for thos opponents who were to cheesy with special characters or nasty ally combo's. Even though they were very nasty every so often it was fun to play such a retardedly firepower bastion as that (with Azrael allied in if the opponent I played was a real TFG).

But, nothing was more fun that some termies with one or mroe heavy flamers in the unit and the rest with twin lightning claws. Up close and personal as it should be done with Space wolves.

In all honesty, I loved 2nd a lot more than the current rule set, even though the rules seemed like a huge mess they were mostly pretty well written with only a few really dumb things in it, which we in our regular playing group banned or houseruled.

If save modifiers were to make a comeback, id say there would need to be a lot of weapons with a 0 modifier (most basic weapons lasgun etc)

2nd Ed LRBT is 205 points

Martel732 wrote:

Petrov wrote:
hmm, that left you enough to throw in a leman russ too?
Yeah I guess if you put in a perspective they were a "bit" overpowered

I still say that armor save modifiers need to make a comeback.

Yay! Make 3+ saves even worse then they already are!

Never had problems with saves in 2nd ed, it affected EVERY ONE across the board so it evened out.
There was no paper rocks scissors effect like there is now with weapons.

As a vet of 2nd, I have to say I largely prefer the AP system, as modifiers really eroded the benefit of any armour other than TDA.

To Hit modifiers in lieu of cover saves however, is something I'd really get behind.

About the only thing I have a problem with about 2nd edition save modifiers is that too many guns that are "-1", should be "0", like basic ranged weapons for each army. I think the numbers for the heavy weapons were/are perfectly fine, but the low-end is not "low" enough.

I think 2nd edition is an awesome ruleset as long as you don't try to force it to handle armies of a size equivalent to modern editions, because that's where it breaks down. remember that points values in modern 40K are in many instances 50% of what they were in 2nd edition.

I refuse to believe that 2nd edition's rules were as much of a mess as many people "claim". when so many other people have nothing but praise for Necromunda, which uses nearly the exact same rules for hand-to-hand and ranged combat, though admittedly the game flows much faster with Necromunda-sized forces using those rules.

I actually encourage people to try out the 2nd edition rules with friendly games of 300-500pt forces and all rules governing squad cohesion removed. You pretty much end up with the fun of Necromunda with the other races of 40K involved (or at least those from the 2nd edition era, which rules out Tau and most of the Necrons' forces). The army section restrictions automatically limit how powerful vehicles and characters could otherwise be in such small games, too.

Yeah I guess the overall ap penalties could be reduced but still keep the system so there can be a gradient of a weapons power.

2nd edition was a bit more "tactical"
Every one was harder to hit if they were in cover.

Now it is a parade of power armor out in the open.

Martel732 wrote:Wow. Terminators are only 23 pts cheaper than they were in 2nd. That's bad. Marines are 16 pts cheaper and started at 30. Teqs need a LOT of work in 6th.

Marines were more capable back then with full range rapid fire that no one else had on their base troops. Their armour might have been less effective, but the enemy would have to survive a real torrent of fire.

machineuk wrote:If save modifiers were to make a comeback, id say there would need to be a lot of weapons with a 0 modifier (most basic weapons lasgun etc)

2nd Ed LRBT is 205 points

Yeah, some of the small arms that had a -1 modifier could probably do with no modifier. Though it didn't really bother me that Marines effectively had a 4+ save because most things were at least -1 (autoguns were 0 modifier though, which was meaningful to me as one of my main opponents took a lot of them with gretchin).

azreal13 wrote:As a vet of 2nd, I have to say I largely prefer the AP system, as modifiers really eroded the benefit of any armour other than TDA.

My main gripe with the AP system is that it is inherently unbalanced. Some weapons should be more effective against armour than others, yeah, but the AP system is unbalancing because a weapon with AP4 should really be worth a different amount of points depending on which army you are playing against. Against marines, AP4 is worth almost nothing, against an army that primarily has 4+ saves, it's worth a lot more.

It just makes the armies unbalanced relative to each other and favours list tailoring. Too rock-paper-scissors for my liking.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

My main gripe with the AP system is that it is inherently unbalanced. Some weapons should be more effective against armour than others, yeah, but the AP system is unbalancing because a weapon with AP4 should really be worth a different amount of points depending on which army you are playing against. Against marines, AP4 is worth almost nothing, against an army that primarily has 4+ saves, it's worth a lot more.

Changing cost based on the opponent sounds like the wrong way of balancing things.

If a unit comes stock with a crappy gun then that should be baked into the units cost and the cost of adding to the unit or upgrading the units weapons. You could just work out the stats of 10 Tac marines in a shoot out vs 10 Guardsmen. Who would win? Now keep adding Guardsmen till that balances out... That could work for an approx. baseline for points.

Anyways, as for 2nd Edition... I'd love a hybrid of overwatch from that edition and 6th. Basically you could take snapshots (6th) only if your unit didn't move or shoot (2nd) and plus I think 2nd required you to declare the unit was on overwatch.

gravitywell wrote:
Changing cost based on the opponent sounds like the wrong way of balancing things.

Exactly, that's my point, that's why I don't like the AP system. It's a system where weapons and troops have wildly varying values against different opponents. A Heavy Bolter is worth almost nothing against a Space Marine. It's worth heaps against Tyranid Warriors though. If we had a save modifier system instead of the AP system, you could make a Heavy Bolter -2 armour save, that way it has similar value against both a Space Marine and also against a Tyranid Warrior.

I miss to hit modifiers, coupled with modifiable armor saves and the abilit to roll an invulnerable and armor save. Don't forget marines and vehicals had targeters which gave plus one to hit. None of this ap 3 ignoring cover stuff that exists today. Oh yeah, I killed Abbadon with Dante in CC in 2nd Ed... Just sayin!

At the 2000 point level, 2nd Edition rules were a pain in the hoop to work through. Also, blind grenades. These little beauties left a persistant blast marker on the table that blocked shooting and LoS... and had a chance to drift in a random direction every turn. "That doesn't sound too bad" I hear you young 'uns say... but then, recall that EVERY vehicle in the IoM armory could get them, some Xeno vehicles could, quite a few infantry models had access to them, and they typically fired off in clusters of three templates.

Now, picture the table in a battle between two IoM factions... Marines v IG, lets say... around turn four, there could be upwards of forty or more 4" diameter blast templates blocking line of sight IN ADDITION to whatever terrain already existed on the board. It was not uncommon at our FLGS for players to run out of photocopied blind grenade templates during a battle.

And blind grenades were not the only things to leave persistent templates on the board; they were just the most common (plasma grenades/missiles were annoying, but vortex grenades were straight-up terrifying).

Hand to hand was an overly-complicated pain in the rear end that made it virtually impossible for anything that wasn't a SM Captain armed with two power swords to win combat against a basic Genestealer (WS6 and A4 on a basic troop model? That sounds perfectly reasonable!) because you added your highest Attack die roll to your WS and compared it to your opponent's roll. However many points you beat them by was how many times you HIT them; now roll to wound for each hit!

Armor save modifiers were horrible, as EVERYBODY's basic infantry gun had at least a -1 save. This meant SM were usually rolling 4+ instead of 3+, IG never got a save, even against Orks (who used Boltguns) Orks never got a save unless they were in Mega Armor, and any Eldar who wasn't an Aspect Warrior could safely assume he was dead in the first shooting phase (especially since Eldar were among the last armies to get a transport vehicle model for squishy infantry to hide in).

Sniper rifles wounded everything on a 4+, except for a laundry list of things that were immune to them (including ALL Tyranid/Genestealers, Daemons, Thousand Sons Marines, etc) which meant nobody ever took snipers except to fill out points (there was no such thing as "pinning" in those days... which made it about the only thing they didn't have a rule for, actually).

Characters could take any wargear off of an absolutely huge list (with the possibility of a FREE bonus item, if you drew the right Strategy Card before the game) which led to some very abusive combinations cropping up in the meta. Not to mention characters (not even special characters) could be fairly OP... the generic, non-temple Imperial Assassin was a certified murder machine with no brakes. I once killed 1000 points of a 2000 point Ork army with a single 300-odd point Assassin model.

And don't get me started on psychic powers... they were a hot mess from the word go.

Oh god, the horrors of 2nd Ed!

Oddly enough, as someone mentioned earlier, the exact same rules that made 2nd Ed a bloated nightmare of a platoon-level game made for a very good squad-based game in Necromunda. Although, that may have had something to do with the very limited selection of gear and weapons in Necromunda, which limited the number of OP combos you could get... also, nobody had more than 15 models on the board at a time, which helped things move quickly.

Third Edition was a much needed streamlining of the rules. The only thing I didn't like about 3rd edition was the way it nerfed vehicles hard. It used to be that a tank could move and shoot all of its weapons, as tanks were expensive models to field, and gosh, why the feth WOULDN'T a tank be able to move 6 meters and shoot every Emperor damned gun? Movement made it harder to hit your target, but at least you had the chance to TRY.

That was why I liked 4th Eds vehicle rules better than any edition since then.

Some people like to look back on 2nd Ed with rose-colored glasses and claim it was some kind of utopia of balanced rules and happy players and absolutely no rage, but they are all insane.

The rules were just as fethed-up then, only in different ways. The balance was just as much out of whack, only it benefitted different armies.

I will admit to missing the creative freedom and wide-open possibility of the armies in 2nd Ed... Admech troops? They had rules. Genestealer cults? They had rules (and models)! Chaos armies that felt chaotic? They had those (until the codex, anyway)! Beastmen and cultists in Chaos armies? They had those! Ork armies where the different clans you used actually affected your army? They had those! Squats? They had those!

Space Marines allied to Imperial Guard AND Orks because of a rule oversight? They had those!

I think all that 2nd ed needed to be a solid game, better than 3rd onwards, tweak the close combat system (it was actually a good system for a skirmish game, just not for 50+ models) and then rewrite the codices to be a bit less wacky and unbalanced. Oh, and the psychic powers needed to be changed. Save modifiers were fine, they just needed to change it so most basic weapons didn't have -1 armour save. Even the flashlight (lasgun) had -1 armour save from memory.

squidhills wrote:
At the 2000 point level, 2nd Edition rules were a pain in the hoop to work through. Also, blind grenades.

How could I forget the blind grenades. They (and flamers) were an excellent way to neutralize characters; is a model was inside a blind grenade he lost it's turn and had to move randomly some distance. Flamers had a chance (4+) to set models on fire, dealing automatic hits and, unless they were berserkers or had terminator armor, were forced to move randomly and do nothing.

Now I recall the mark of Khorne giving +1 to srmor ST, same as in WFB. 2+ in 2d6 terminator armor? Sure!

any Eldar who wasn't an Aspect Warrior could safely assume he was dead in the first shooting phase (especially since Eldar were among the last armies to get a transport vehicle model for squishy infantry to hide in)

HIding in transports was a really bad idea, as most of the hits on the hull meant the passengers were killed. No save, no roll of the die, straight up killed. I don't recall anybody using transports for more than one turn, The funny thing is, you could disembark from transports no matter how much it had moved, though doing so at high speeds caused a high Str hit. But if you had a character with a lot of wounds and a invulnerable save, you could ignore that and zoom in your rhino directly into the enemy's deployment zone (rhinos were fast those days)