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Man that de force would just get rolled by that speeder especially and it usually devolved into whipping eachother with the little red rulers, which hurt like a bitch.

Duncan, please, I can only get so excited! I hope this becomes a regular feature.

slip wrote:
Man that de force would just get rolled by that speeder especially and it usually devolved into whipping eachother with the little red rulers, which hurt like a bitch.

Two squads of Warriors with two Splinter Cannons each, that Speeder is toast. Anyone who understands where the true strengths of the Dark Eldar lie are truly tough opponents.

A.T. wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
Has anyone here got any 2nd edition projects on the go?

The old 'battle bible' was a complete 2nd edition reference.

House rules required.

Thanks yes I have the Battle Bible, but I love reading through the Codex for the background and painted mini picks.

Was also listening to the Crown of Command podcast where they were talking about the 'DBAD' (don't be a d*** ) ruleset - sounds pretty interesting. I mean at this stage of the game you probably wouldn't do the whole polymorph assassin in terminator armour thing but it's just some limitations around characters to make the game less 'hero hammer' - max 2 wound characters for example, sounded pretty interesting.

Reviewing old stuff from 7th, I came across an unusual rule interaction that just seemed to have edgecase written all over it.

Should a vehicle performing a Tank Shock end its movement 'atop' a Swooping Flying Monstrous Creature, or a Zooming Flyer, you instead move the vehicle the 'shortest distance' needed to be away from the flyer, almost as if though the vehicle itself had been displaced by a Tank Shock but without any other stipulations about coherency, not being on top of other units, etc.

This is one of those 'haha-cute' sort of interactions with the rules, except in the case of certain unusual combinatorics. I am of course, talking about the Genestealer Cult Goliath Rockgrinder and its ability to inflict D3 S10 AP 2 hits via Tank Shock, and the ability to take Flyrants as Allies of Convenience. See, Zoom your Flyrant about 9.6" in front of the Rockgrinder and the moment it does a Tank Shock, it gains a few extra inches of movement to perhaps catch an enemy off-guard.

Now, the real lolwat could be what happens when you use two Flyrants (or Valkyries/Vendettas if you use allied Guardsmen) to accelerate a Rockgrinder's Tank Shock move. In a form of a retroactive "YMDC", you could end up with a situation where the 'shortest distance' to clear the first Flyrant puts the Rockgrinder in contact with the second Flyrant, thus needing to displace the Rockgrinder the shortest distance needed to clear it.

Worst-case scenario is that the game breaks as the Rockgrinder gets trapped in an infinite loop of displacement between the two Flyrants. However, you the player hopefully know a little more about what you are doing, and so will instead set up the Flyrants at diagonals, such that displacement of the Rockgrinder will be accelerated by both Flyrants for a truly inspiring ride.

That said, the effects of Tank Shock only apply once the vehicle reaches its final position. You could not, for example, Tank Shock an enemy unit 1.1" away from your Flyrant, clip a few hits on it, then displace your Goliath to clip a few more hits on another unit. That said and done, it's impressive that the rules properly handled this unorthodox rules interaction, however unintentional it was.

So a peasant railgun except for Genestealers?

 BaconCatBug wrote:
So a peasant railgun except for Genestealers?

Essentially yes. The key thing was that a Tank Shock is not declared 'against a unit', so much as it's 'pick a direction, and how fast you want to move'. This loverly MSPaint example shows what would happen when a Rockgrinder does this, as its 'center' ends up closer to the opposite end of the Flyrant. Mind, the Rockgrinder is about 4.74 inches in length, and you have to displace it 1" away from the enemy flyer, so you're gaining about an extra 3.3 inches out of this (less 'per' Flyrant if you wish to use multiple Flyrants at diagonals). It's still less threat range than a Dreadnought's Multimelta, but every inch counts when it comes to drilling an unsuspecting opponent.

Up until a few months ago, I had all of my 3rd ed books.

I gave the lot away when a local club member wanted to get back to "his roots" with it (he was one of those kids who started with 3rd in High School. I was just about to hit my 30s when 3rd came out).

Rulebook, cheat cards, templates, whippy sticks and about 14 codices. I was helping to run tourneys back in those days, so I needed to know the armies.

I've still got my rulebook and codices for 5th ed (but those are limited to my eldar, my sm and my GK). Going to be playing some retrohammer 5th in the new year. Eldar v CSM.

My club also usually does a 2nd ed day early in the year. With the exception of a couple of pieces, my eldar can still quite easily be used for 2nd ed (no night-spinner or shadow weavers, but the falcon, fireprism, d- and v- cannons are fine to use as is.)

 chromedog wrote:
Up until a few months ago, I had all of my 3rd ed books.

I gave the lot away when a local club member wanted to get back to "his roots" with it (he was one of those kids who started with 3rd in High School. I was just about to hit my 30s when 3rd came out).

Rulebook, cheat cards, templates, whippy sticks and about 14 codices. I was helping to run tourneys back in those days, so I needed to know the armies.

I've still got my rulebook and codices for 5th ed (but those are limited to my eldar, my sm and my GK). Going to be playing some retrohammer 5th in the new year. Eldar v CSM.

My club also usually does a 2nd ed day early in the year. With the exception of a couple of pieces, my eldar can still quite easily be used for 2nd ed (no night-spinner or shadow weavers, but the falcon, fireprism, d- and v- cannons are fine to use as is.)

...

Why oh why can't I find someone with a free stockpile like that? I still have MORE than a few 3rd Ed. books to chase down...

 chromedog wrote:

My club also usually does a 2nd ed day early in the year. With the exception of a couple of pieces, my eldar can still quite easily be used for 2nd ed (no night-spinner or shadow weavers, but the falcon, fireprism, d- and v- cannons are fine to use as is.)

I think the original (late 1st edition?) Eldar are possibly the only GW range that still stand up well compared to their later incarnations. They are just absolutely beautiful sculpts.

WD127 was my first ever issue and the lore in there for the Eldar is just amazing, really fleshed out the whole race and in many ways I don't think that background has changed much even today.

There was quite a cool tribute that Gav Thorpe wrote about on his blog, is worth a read and it also has scans to pages of WD127 for anyone that hasn't had a chance to look at it - has all the original artwork, background and a fantastic story that covered a battle of Eldar against Chaos.

https://gavthorpe.co.uk/2017/05/10/white-dwarf-127/

 Pacific wrote:

A.T. wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
Has anyone here got any 2nd edition projects on the go?

The old 'battle bible' was a complete 2nd edition reference.

House rules required.

Thanks yes I have the Battle Bible, but I love reading through the Codex for the background and painted mini picks.

Was also listening to the Crown of Command podcast where they were talking about the 'DBAD' (don't be a d*** ) ruleset - sounds pretty interesting. I mean at this stage of the game you probably wouldn't do the whole polymorph assassin in terminator armour thing but it's just some limitations around characters to make the game less 'hero hammer' - max 2 wound characters for example, sounded pretty interesting.

You might want to leave your Lvl4 psykers at home but characters with a lot of wounds are no problem because even a heavy bolter does D4 damage.

Yes that is very true!

Remember Marine Commanders looking super indestructible until they take a multi-melta to the chest

Perhaps a better limit is around max pts spend on wargear and a few other items being removed - the virus outbreak strategy card for example and vortex grenade (although the latter would cost a lot of points if you did have a wargear pts limit, not leaving enough for a displacement field etc.)

 Pacific wrote:
Yes that is very true!

Remember Marine Commanders looking super indestructible until they take a multi-melta to the chest

Perhaps a better limit is around max pts spend on wargear and a few other items being removed - the virus outbreak strategy card for example and vortex grenade (although the latter would cost a lot of points if you did have a wargear pts limit, not leaving enough for a displacement field etc.)

Even virus outbreak & grenade had limits. Necrons & Tyranids were immune and Orks could field a Medi-Squig to give each model a 2+ save vs. the effect.
Other factions had access to power armour, similar or better gear which also negated the effects of the virus.
And what about the remaining factions which haven't been mentioned so far? Well, those were susceptible but 2nd was a WHOLE different animal than all following editions. The model count was FAR lower so that sensible positioning (social distancing) could limit the effects of the virus.

Also remember that the Outbreak card had to be randomly drawn and that the grenade couldn't be stuffed into a grenade launcher for easy delivery.

There were some other funky things with 2nd ed, that a cursory analysis of the rules would let one find much amusement with.

One of the big ones was the fact that vehicles had crew stats, and though Techmarines/equivalents could act as 'replacement' crew, they could not actually start the game crewing said vehicles; this was sadly somewhat of a shame when it came to wanting to use them for their superior BS/ability to provide Wargear Card assistance to their rides, but it was a blessing in disguise considering how easy it was for certain weapons to kill vehicle crew...

Gate of Infinity was not an insta-teleport but placed two portals down, which either player could use. Shotguns inflicted a 1" push-back...though utterly impractical to pull off in a game, you 'could' theoretically go Aperture Science on Kharn the Betrayer and Shotgun him through one Gate of Infinity, to another one that exited from a really tall cathedral spire...splaaaaaaat.

For folks who really wanted to live out their Captain Falcon fantasies, Land Speeder crew had access to the "assault weapon" list, which combined with Hit&Run rules allowed a Land Speeder to pull off the drive-by Power Fist...a feature which was sadly removed from 3rd ed and never seen since.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
...For folks who really wanted to live out their Captain Falcon fantasies, Land Speeder crew had access to the "assault weapon" list, which combined with Hit&Run rules allowed a Land Speeder to pull off the drive-by Power Fist...a feature which was sadly removed from 3rd ed and never seen since.

Sammael's speeder kind of did that, but it's always disappointed me that even when they added the Chariot type for melee-capable vehicles in later editions they never bothered to give it to Land Speeders.

The master of the ravenwing speeder drive by was a great bit of fun(along with the other wargear). the 3.5 mini dex is still my favorite way to play pure ravenwing or deathwing.

Strg Alt wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
Yes that is very true!

Remember Marine Commanders looking super indestructible until they take a multi-melta to the chest

Perhaps a better limit is around max pts spend on wargear and a few other items being removed - the virus outbreak strategy card for example and vortex grenade (although the latter would cost a lot of points if you did have a wargear pts limit, not leaving enough for a displacement field etc.)

Even virus outbreak & grenade had limits. Necrons & Tyranids were immune and Orks could field a Medi-Squig to give each model a 2+ save vs. the effect.
Other factions had access to power armour, similar or better gear which also negated the effects of the virus.
And what about the remaining factions which haven't been mentioned so far? Well, those were susceptible but 2nd was a WHOLE different animal than all following editions. The model count was FAR lower so that sensible positioning (social distancing) could limit the effects of the virus.

Also remember that the Outbreak card had to be randomly drawn and that the grenade couldn't be stuffed into a grenade launcher for easy delivery.

Yes but you could easily still have 60-70 miniatures on the board with Orks and infantry-heavy Imperial Guard. I admit I only saw someone 'tabled' by it once (good chunk of the army gone on 1st turn, let's start again) but there was no real point in it at all. And like you say with the high propensity of Marine armies, Tyranids being immune a lot of the time it was useless anyway.

I actually remember Andy Chambers writing an "I'm so sorry" message in a White Dwarf about the card. Almost like a newspaper editorial stating a mistake they had made, funny stuff

MagicJuggler wrote:There were some other funky things with 2nd ed, that a cursory analysis of the rules would let one find much amusement with.

One of the big ones was the fact that vehicles had crew stats, and though Techmarines/equivalents could act as 'replacement' crew, they could not actually start the game crewing said vehicles; this was sadly somewhat of a shame when it came to wanting to use them for their superior BS/ability to provide Wargear Card assistance to their rides, but it was a blessing in disguise considering how easy it was for certain weapons to kill vehicle crew...

Gate of Infinity was not an insta-teleport but placed two portals down, which either player could use. Shotguns inflicted a 1" push-back...though utterly impractical to pull off in a game, you 'could' theoretically go Aperture Science on Kharn the Betrayer and Shotgun him through one Gate of Infinity, to another one that exited from a really tall cathedral spire...splaaaaaaat.

That's really hilarious about the gate!

Good point about vehicle crew, remember that being really cool with a techmarine jumping into a rhino when the crew had been wiped out by some means (maybe a Harlequin's kiss).
Never give an Ork dreadnought an Orky power field as there was a chance it would fry the gretchin inside (much less of a problem for a battlewagon!)

I got hold of a handful of original, Jes Goodwin sculpt Dark Reapers in a really good deal on the 'Bay. A cleanup job of dried glue (guess the kid that owned it must have followed my method of gumming stuff in place with enough super glue until it sticks, so it ends up looking like the walls of an Alien habitat!) and then bath in paint stripper. Loved painting it, think the Eldar are probably the only range that you can say (hand on heart) that still look at least as good as the current ranges, if not better.

Really want to make an army up of these guys, something I wanted to do as a teenager but didn't have the money. Hopefully go for a 2nd edition force, should be no more than 25-30 miniatures so will be quite doable.

I am waiting for vanguard to do wraithguard in epic scale so i can do a proper 4th ed iyanden army without killing my bank account. he already has released wave serpents, falcons/prisms, wraith seers etc... to build the list.

I am thinking about a full FOC with 6X10 troop wraithguard, 3X5 in serpents for the elites all led by wraith seers, a couple farseers on bikes for HQs with 2 fire prisms/ 1 fire storm backing them up,

No clue on the 3 fast choices i was thinking the wasp class war walker was fast since it jumps but it is an elite.....guess i can always keep my fingers crossed for them to eventually get around to hornets or planes in 6mm.

All my recent 40K projects have really switched over to epic scale now as i have everything i need to play 5th ed in 28mm scale. after having built 6mm versions of my dream armies- elysians, DKOK armored company, a massive infantry admech force, and my salamanders for a fraction of what it would cost for a single 2k army in normal scale for all of that, i am pretty addicted to going small.

Bonus is transporting them super is easy.

I’m a big fan of 2nd and 6th ed myself. Just had a rather good game of 1000pts 2nd ed bad moons orks va iyanden eldar yesterday.

I miss the old story-based equipment from the Witch Hunter/ Daemon Hunter dexes- stuff like excrutiators, psyocula, hexagrammatic wards, etc. Also the retinue options Inquisitors lost.

Some of this stuff has been retained in spirit, becoming a strat or a WL trait or something; but somehow it always felt more tangible as equipment.

Having said all that though, while I do get nostalgic for elements of previous editions, I've been waiting for Crusade since 1989, and now that it's here, I could never go back to playing disconnected games and static armies that don't grow.

Well that's not exactly correct, 40K has always had a "grow your army" gameplay scene because lets face it it takes a while to build up to a full 1,500 + point level army-but it wasn't an official game mode (well aside from the 4th ed rulebook that had rules for kill team and combat patrols etc...)., more something championed by game clubs/leagues.

There was a lot more granular detail of individual miniatures within a unit (certainly in 2nd edition). As such a 'combat patrol' game of 500pts and even just a few squads was perfectly playable and good fun.

As the miniature count and level of abstraction increased over later editions (to the point where really you could put units on big bases and have a shared wound count) then you lose that detail and the individual unit level - hence the need for other forms of game, emergence of Kill Team and things like that.

 Pacific wrote:
There was a lot more granular detail of individual miniatures within a unit (certainly in 2nd edition). As such a 'combat patrol' game of 500pts and even just a few squads was perfectly playable and good fun.

As the miniature count and level of abstraction increased over later editions (to the point where really you could put units on big bases and have a shared wound count) then you lose that detail and the individual unit level - hence the need for other forms of game, emergence of Kill Team and things like that.

Indeed. Take Rogue Trader for example, a Marine squad of 10 could be split TWICE into 4 units of 2-3 models. This takes the game almost into Kill Team / Necromunda territory.

I still long for a modern 40K ruleset which is optimized for combat patrol sized games like 2nd ed. That's the sweetspot for me. Killteam is _almost_ there, when played @ 150pts but still lacks vehicles.

tauist i suggest you get a hold of the 4th ed main rulebook if that's what your after. they have combat patrol missions.

It is 250 points and effectively kill teams with light vehicles. of combined front/side/rear armor 33(was 32 until the new necron vehicles came out in 5th so we adjusted it since all necron vehicles are base 11/11/11 thus not allowing them to take any vehicles)

So you can bring things like land speeders (AV 10/10/10=30) chimeras (AV 12/10/10=32) etc...

It really makes the light vehicles shine since they are not outdone by the big hitters.

Well great news finally got to get together for some games again and got a 2k salamanders VS crimson fists battle with our hybrid 5th ed

I was running a test list with a fully mechanized force VS a sternguard heavy list (he forgot to put his scouts out)









The battle was played on my new forges of mars mat with my new terrain.

 aphyon wrote:
The battle was played on my new forges of mars mat with my new terrain.

That seems like a really narrow table. Intentional to have close in games or just what is available?

It is a standard 6X4 the angled terrain is probably throwing off your perspective.

 aphyon wrote:
Well great news finally got to get together for some games again and got a 2k salamanders VS crimson fists battle with our hybrid 5th ed

I was running a test list with a fully mechanized force VS a sternguard heavy list (he forgot to put his scouts out)

[snip]

The battle was played on my new forges of mars mat with my new terrain.

[snip]

Two Comments. I like what your opponent is doing with his CF color scheme. That is some awesome terrain as well. I would like to see a batrep if you are able.

Uh, well i think i can remember enough to give you a super short version.


To start off with we haven't played any games at all in a couple months due to new lockdowns and he specifically hasn't played this army in even longer (i think the last 5th ed 40K game that he did was a battle against khorne with his iron warriors).

His list is more focused on killing infantry so it was a bit of a struggle for him against what i was running, normally i run more of an air cav list but i wrote this one up as an alternate to face off against the previously mentioned khorne player as he tends to play mechanized.

His list off the top of my head-
.pedro kantor(makes his sternguard scoring and the army stubborn)
.cato sicarius
.X2 las/melta tac squads
.X1 10 man scout snipers(he forgot them this game)
.X2 sternguard squads with X2 heavy flamer and 8 combi-meltas
.X2 drop pods
.land raider redeemer

My list was-
.master of the forge w/4 servitor
.brey'arth ashmantle in a lucius drop pod
.scout squad in a LS storm
.tac squad-fist flamer in a las.plas razorback
.ironclad dread talon(troops choice-badab war special formation-not that it matter much since i could have also taken them as elites in this list.)
.land speeder typhoon
.land raider achillies
..vengence weapons battery (automated BS2 battle cannon) fortification

Since we were shaking the rust off we just decided to do a "standard" 12" deployment maelstrom of battle (kill each other) with no objectives. This game came down to hot and cold dice really.

He seized and went first but his first sternguard squad scattered wide and was out of optimal melta range to hurt the bunker. breyarth dropped on his land raider and immobilised it on his side of the table(this is pretty much where he considered the game a loss since it always seems he fails if his land raider can't get at least halfway across the table). i pretty well kept him there to tie up pedro and the terminators the entire game(he did loose an arm and get immobilized but he did the job).
the real tough nut to crack of course was my land raider (and it should be at 300+ points) since it had armored ceramite and feramatic unvulnrability(reduces damage results by 1) his sternguard had to switch focus to my ironclads/ leaving the las cannons to try and kill it. he hit it several times but i either made my cover saves, or the result was a stunner/shaken. with the POTMS and the fact we use 7th ed snapfire rules it was still participating.

The battle cannon only ever had 1 good shot and killed half a tac squad but i had stupid luck with the thunderfire cannon(achillies) scoring 17 hits on my first volley decimating most of the other tac squad(he was rolling statistically off with many hot/cold 1s and 6s). the sternguard were the only things that really hurt me as they dropped close and zapped 2 of my ironclads. i think he called it on turn 4 or 5
at that point he had lost both tac squads, pedro, 2 terminators, 1 and 1/2 sternguard squads and the fact he forgot about his snipers.(didn't realize this till after the game was over)

My losses were the damage to brey'arth a shaken typhoon and 2 dead ironclads, my scouts didn't do much as they outflanked on the empty side of the table and just had to try and hot foot it back to where the battle was.


Now if i had been facing his iron warriors or his jakero inquisiiton list he would have likely tabled me quite easily.