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2nd edition wasn’t an RPG, but was so much more characterful than any of the editions that followed, not just in army design but in the way it played too. So many more of those magic moments you always look back on fondly and forge the narrative of your troops. I still have characters now defined things they did in second edition, it makes up there back story. so it felt like an RPG.

Where it went wrong was when douches tried to power game the system. It was designed for like minded fun players to have fun. The rules allowed you freedom to do the things you wanted, but when that was abused the game didn’t work. From 3rd on they have tried to box in and pander to the waac competitive element and thus reigned in creativity. That’s why I like 8th and 9th. The core rules are like a sand box that you can add what you like to, simple enough to add the layers you want, remove bits you don’t like and make up rules very easily.

Andykp wrote:
Where it went wrong was when douches tried to power game the system. It was designed for like minded fun players to have fun. The rules allowed you freedom to do the things you wanted, but when that was abused the game didn’t work. From 3rd on they have tried to box in and pander to the waac competitive element and thus reigned in creativity.

Abuse of freedom was still very much a central thing in 3rd - a lot of little options to cherry pick and combine into something more powerful than their cost reflected.
As editions rolled on and combination options were removed things were simply under or over costed in of themselves, and then formations and later aura and strategem stacking created the out of control combos again.

One of the things I liked about the game around start of 5th edition is that there was little need for a 'don't power game the system' rule - worse case scenarios were lash princes and nob bikers. And then came Cruddace, the 5e guard, and any hope that GW might keep on a level track for a whole round of updates.

To me the difference between 3rd and 2nd was about the scale of the game as others had mentioned. I missed some of the granularity and wacky stuff that could happen, but I vastly preferred how 3e managed close combat, the 2e version was fun for small skirmishes but very clunky for larger units.

I think 3e went too far in certain places, I think to hit and armour save modifiers were simple and would not have slowed the game down at all, and moving to flat saves and cover saves was not an improvement. It also made 3e feel a lot like it was designed around marine equivalents, which wasn't great for marine players when everyone had to meta plan their list with stuff to deal with them and also wasn't great for non marines when you sometimes felt like you were playing a game that wasn't designed with you in mind.

Andykp wrote:
2nd edition wasn’t an RPG, but was so much more characterful than any of the editions that followed, not just in army design but in the way it played too. So many more of those magic moments you always look back on fondly and forge the narrative of your troops. I still have characters now defined things they did in second edition, it makes up there back story. so it felt like an RPG.

Where it went wrong was when douches tried to power game the system. It was designed for like minded fun players to have fun. The rules allowed you freedom to do the things you wanted, but when that was abused the game didn’t work. From 3rd on they have tried to box in and pander to the waac competitive element and thus reigned in creativity. That’s why I like 8th and 9th. The core rules are like a sand box that you can add what you like to, simple enough to add the layers you want, remove bits you don’t like and make up rules very easily.

Yes I actually think one of the criticisms of 2nd edition was that it removed a lot of those RPG elements (rolling on tables for weaponry/armours, mutations etc.) and the looser overall structure of the game that had encouraged scenarios to be created by players, vs. the organised missions of 2nd edition. I guess it's just as well those people couldn't see what lay further down the road lol...

My experience of people powergaming and going for cheese lists was pretty limited. I think we banned virus grenades, but I didn't ever see any of the horrendous combinations you read about now; the wolf guard terminator squads with assault cannon and cyclone missile launchers, or the eldar guardian suddenly polymorphing into an assassin wearing terminator armour and riding a bike. I think it probably helped that the internet didn't really exist, you didn't have the netlisting and automatic proliferation of math-hammer and 'optimum' list choices, which I think have served to suck all of the fun out of casual, pick-up gaming.

Several fun games tonight

Did a game of our retro 5th ed era kill teams. one of our regulars was back in town so we added some scions to the list. and some chaos. So it was iron hands VS tempestus scions VS chaos (mostly khorne) VS salamanders. 5 objectives of which 4 were mines/boobytraps. the actual objective can only be moved a max of 6" per player turn once found.







Nobody ended up winning this one as we managed to kill all the guys on the objective for the full 7 turns the game went.

Then i got in a 2k game of BFG for a little chaos on chaos love.
The khorne fleet was themed running the conqeror as it's BB.

My fleet was mostly centered on the thousand sons, But since i spent the points to bring abaddon i decided to stick him in the planet killer as it was the only appropriate ship for him to lead from.

We rolled up a closing engagement with a wedge VS enveloping fleet scenario.











While we were doing that our iron hands player using the index astartes (3rd ED) army list went up against the 3.5 chaos iron warriors






From the sounds of the battle things turned brutaly against the iron hands.

I might not have won, but I still claim victory.
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!

Gore Child’s Teeth wrote:
I might not have won, but I still claim victory.
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!

Well you did manage to kill one of my devestations while i just crippled several of your ships...not that it matters to khorne who bleeds

The scenery definitely has that retro 'no GW scenery exists yet' feel to it.

Question - do you run a custom FoC or mix old supplements with newer books? Index Astartes Iron Hands were 0-3 elite dreadnoughts and 0-1 HQ dreadnought IIRC.

A.T. wrote:
The scenery definitely has that retro 'no GW scenery exists yet' feel to it.

Question - do you run a custom FoC or mix old supplements with newer books? Index Astartes Iron Hands were 0-3 elite dreadnoughts and 0-1 HQ dreadnought IIRC.

I get the scenery from a variety of places, i wanted a factory feel for this table so i got quite a bit of the district 12 terrain that is quite nice, but i also recently discovered war scenery that does STL designs based off of the gothic grim dark 40k style and also much of the dawn of war inspired buildings.

If i had the transport space(and i had found them first) i am sure i would be giving more love to war scenery.

That's the problem with so many game mats of various terrain for various games i play. i have loads of rural farmland type terrain for my bocage table i have for use with DUST 1947 most of which comes from ESLO hobby out of germany since they have such great finished terrain.

As for the FOC

We are playing core 5th ed but the themed lists still apply for 3rd ed index astartes vs 4th ed SM codex traits for iron hands the difference was the HQs otherwise they are nearly identical.

IA allows you to take a venerable dread as an HQ and gives your master of the forge an effective iron halo. where as the 4th ed book buffs the master to have up to 3 wounds and anything they want out of the armory, but you loose the HQ dread. the dread talon troops choice is from imperial armor 11(badab war) so it still fits within the FOC chart with specific restrictions, as well as the master of the forge/iron father unlocking dreads for both elites and heavies. the elites however always must be venerable dreads if you use the IA rules.

Hope that clears things up

 aphyon wrote:
I get the scenery from a variety of places, i wanted a factory feel for this table so i got quite a bit of the district 12 terrain that is quite nice

It's a definite step up from the polystyrene scenery and miniature christmas tree forests my local group was using in 5th.

 aphyon wrote:
the dread talon troops choice is from imperial armor 11(badab war) so it still fits within the FOC chart with specific restrictions, as well as the master of the forge/iron father unlocking dreads for both elites and heavies. the elites however always must be venerable dreads if you use the IA rules.

Ah, the 5e siege assault vanguard list, I remember it being tricky with the extra objective.

I did use it once myself with the update pdf right at the start of 6th edition as part of a doubles tournament, Red Templars and Solomon Lok. The siege master could grant the interceptor rule to a single unit - in this case a squadron of hunter tanks. As it turned out the top team were running some kind of Necron flyer shenanigans due to the general lack of anti-air in the early edition and couldn't salvage their ground game (my team-mate was running some kind of deeply unfair Iron Hands 'Smashfather' biker that had in an earlier round punched his way through not one but two non-Iron Hands biker captains and their escorts at the same time).

Ah the dreaded smash captain. i recall our iron hands player using that.

Cannot really blame him though he has always been hands player through thick and thin.

I started out in 3rd with the dark angels myself because it was a great way in 3rd to have 3 distinct armies in one mini dex between the standard marine list, pure deathwing and pure ravenwing. i was new to the game and lore so it wasn't until later that i fell in love with the salamanders. i still have a bit of the boys in robes but not enough to make an effective army above say 1k points i switched my focus over to my salamanders successors in 5th and recently to mechanicus and i cannot be bothered to give GW any more money considering how much stuff i already own, or that i only play 5th, epic or BFG when it comes to GW games. so i pay more attention to terrain now.

⟟ really like 2nd and 3rd edition! They’re my favs! I’m saving up for ⏃ 2K point marine army just for that.

 Matoro99 wrote:
⟟ really like 2nd and 3rd edition! They’re my favs! I’m saving up for ⏃ 2K point marine army just for that.

We will of course require pictures and battle reports in future.



Also rest in the assurance that GW will never ever again your armies over with codex creep, rules updates or edition changes

 aphyon wrote:
While we were doing that our iron hands player using the index astartes (3rd ED) army list went up against the 3.5 chaos iron warriors

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

From the sounds of the battle things turned brutaly against the iron hands.

Given it was the 3.5 Chaos codex I'm not a bit surprised...

 Just Tony wrote:

 aphyon wrote:
While we were doing that our iron hands player using the index astartes (3rd ED) army list went up against the 3.5 chaos iron warriors

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

From the sounds of the battle things turned brutaly against the iron hands.

Given it was the 3.5 Chaos codex I'm not a bit surprised...

It was actually dice more than anything else. the IW player has notoriously good luck with dice rolls to the point we make him use other peoples dice and it still doesn't matter. i watched him roll four 6s and a 5 in a row for his las cannon damage against the venerable dreads. It has become kind of a running joke between the 2 of them every time they play. the index astartes lists were made in the same era as the 3.5 chaos dex and are just as viable.

 Just Tony wrote:
Given it was the 3.5 Chaos codex I'm not a bit surprised...

I think it's just two skew lists running into each other - both lists would have fallen flat against something that wasn't an armour on armour shootout, assuming lists are not known ahead of time. The old 3.5 siren list for instance could have dropped 45 rending attacks on each tank at around 1000pts and they likely wouldn't have even got a shot off.

 aphyon wrote:
the index astartes lists were made in the same era as the 3.5 chaos dex and are just as viable.

Just from the images I would guess a basilisk, three mutated hull and possibly possessed las-predators (tough as a landraider to the front, more heavily armed, unshakable, and under 200pts), and some regular marines possibly with the tank hunters veteran skill.

Las-dreads wouldn't stand a chance, their odds are something like 5% per turn to deal meaningful damage, half that with cover saves. The predator return fire would be ten times as effective. Luck is always good but with those odds you don't need so much of it.

pretty close, X3 las/plas chaos squads, lord, basilisk w parasitic/mutated hull, X3 las/heavy bolter preds with mutated hull, parasitic possession and demonic possession. 3 X3 obliterator squads.


The dreads actually have a better chance than you think, i used to run a mostly dread army in 5th with 7 + a land raider, the problem lies in how the other player decided to build his list. his fire support dreads had CCWs and he didn't put his ironclads in reserve so he could have them for counter charge units when the oblits arrived among other tactical mistakes i would never have done with my list.

 aphyon wrote:
The dreads actually have a better chance than you think

Only because the preds have heavy bolters I think, makes weapon destroyed temporarily effective. Then again if he didn't know he was facing dreads the anti-infantry weapons would have been useful.

In terms of chances - 3+ to hit, 4+ cover, 6 to penetrate, 5+ to actually wreck the vehicle, 50/50 every turn for any lost weapons to regenerate and immune to shaken/stunned.
That's 2.5% per dread to do anything that matters, walking up the board into potentially 21 lascannons, a dozen twinlinked or tank-hunting meltaguns, and heavy artillery. Getting into 4th edition falcon squadron odds there.

We do not change our lists when we change opponents. his preds have HBs because we use defensive strength weapons at s5 so he likes to be able to move and shoot all his guns at normal BS. especially when infantry are afoot.

Slight modifier to your numbers, half his dread were venerable with TLLC so 2+ to hit with re-roll. cover saves also varied on the table from 3+-5+ (fortified walls, walls/buildings and trees)

 aphyon wrote:
Slight modifier to your numbers, half his dread were venerable with TLLC so 2+ to hit with re-roll. cover saves also varied on the table from 3+-5+ (fortified walls, walls/buildings and trees)

Ah, ok. I was thinking of the old 4e venerable dreads(used to play templars) and they were BS4 so he must be using them from a later book.
2.7% rather than 2.5%.

Massed dreadnoughts and other walkers were always a bit hit and miss. In 5th I had a 9 penitent engine list literally run over a khorne army (the opponent thought a 'penitent' list meant I was bringing massed zealots and list tailored for the wrong unit type), but equally i've had things like battlewagon lines literally run over the massed walkers. The old FoC tries and doesn't always succeed in stopping things getting skewed like that.

Tonights game was a table quarters set up, for those of you unfamiliar with the mission objectives. players start in opposite corners with a 24" bubble of no-mans-land in the middle. your own quarter is worth nothing to you but the opponents corner is worth 2 points while the other two quarters are worth 1 each. for a max possible victory score of 4.

This was a bit of a challenge for my force since i am really good at killing marines and vehciles with all those arc rifles and heavy grav cannons.

What really hurt me was the fact my sicarians outflanked on the wrong table side and all of his units did not. darn heavy flamer sentinels and sneaky leman russ's coming in behind me(darn sneaky Creed).


He managed to seriously damage the warhound but i repaired it enough to keep it in the fight.

He still mauled me pretty good taking the 2 side quarters and locking me in mine.

Great game and loads of fun.

The table/outpost-



The starting armies (on the table part)








The battle

I've played with old edition warhounds before, weren't they four large blasts of cover ignoring, armour ignoring, automatically wounding instant death per turn?

A.T. wrote:
I've played with old edition warhounds before, weren't they four large blasts of cover ignoring, armour ignoring, automatically wounding instant death per turn?

Nope that's all post apocalypse stuff the rules we are using are from 3rd when the rules were made for normal games of 40K.

The warhound clocks in at a massive 810 points. AV 14/13/12 with 2 void shields 3 structure an onboard tech for a 5+ repair and void shields come back on a 6+ (they didn't come back on till turn 7 )

the BS is 4 so they shoot like marines and there is a 12" min range for all guns. they get 1 stomp attack at I1 WS1 so they always need a 5+ to hit but it hits everything in base to base contact at S6 AP2 and 2d6 against vehicles.

i was running a mega bolter-12-36" heavy 10 S6 AP4 w/rending so super assault cannon. and a plasma blast gun-12-54" S8 AP2 large blast S8+2d6 for armor pen.

the russes got so close i had to let my breachers deal with them while i killed the sentinels and veteran guardsmen with melta guns.

Some more old edition fun-One of our regular players got to build his dream list, since i own a copy of the 3rd edition chapter approved. the imperial guard armored company.

This was also his first official game of 5th edition.

We did an overrun mission(think of it like a rush map on battlefield 3)

Thematically since it was a guard outpost i let him be the defender, i would have probably done better if i had been, but it would not have looked as cool.

the table-




The start-




The battle-

I know that's not what they're representing, but I invented a race for 40k called the Kyarie (even managed to sneak a few references to them into the 40k RPGs!), and they're represented on the table by the Therian AT-43 miniatures.

It's weird seeing someone else using them long before I've managed to organise my Therians into a proper force of Kyarie.

Are there any adaptive rules for newer models out there? Namely for 2nd/3rd ed Genestealers and CWE.

I wish players near me (northern VA) played older editions. My club soundly refused, and as much as I enjoy the burgeoning 30k group here, there's some things about 4th that I absolutely miss.

 ProfSrlojohn wrote:
Are there any adaptive rules for newer models out there? Namely for 2nd/3rd ed Genestealers and CWE.

Depends on what you are trying to do exactly

As long as it is a compatible codex entry (3rd-7th) it is easy enough to adapt into any edition, we just use 5th as our core. our chaos player uses his hell drake in conjunction with his 3.5 chaos dex.

 aphyon wrote:

 ProfSrlojohn wrote:
Are there any adaptive rules for newer models out there? Namely for 2nd/3rd ed Genestealers and CWE.

Depends on what you are trying to do exactly

As long as it is a compatible codex entry (3rd-7th) it is easy enough to adapt into any edition, we just use 5th as our core. our chaos player uses his hell drake in conjunction with his 3.5 chaos dex.

Just trying to make some new models fit into the older editions, the Spiritseer for example. How difficult would you say it is? Just adapt weapon changes and such? Or is it more complicated than that?

 ProfSrlojohn wrote:

 aphyon wrote:

 ProfSrlojohn wrote:
Are there any adaptive rules for newer models out there? Namely for 2nd/3rd ed Genestealers and CWE.

Depends on what you are trying to do exactly

As long as it is a compatible codex entry (3rd-7th) it is easy enough to adapt into any edition, we just use 5th as our core. our chaos player uses his hell drake in conjunction with his 3.5 chaos dex.

Just trying to make some new models fit into the older editions, the Spiritseer for example. How difficult would you say it is? Just adapt weapon changes and such? Or is it more complicated than that?

Spiritseer just looks like a Farseer with a Witchblade. I think you're good to go with that, and here's hardly any translation required.