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Wound Allocation shenanigans from 5th.
Split-Firing Long Fangs
Psyflemen Dreadnoughts
IG Leafblower Hydra lists

Units like Marines, Fire Dragons, Tankbustas etc. actually being able to use grenades with all their unit members against vehicles in CC.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Units like Marines, Fire Dragons, Tankbustas etc. actually being able to use grenades with all their unit members against vehicles in CC.

Follow-up: Anti-tank grenades in general. They seem to have largely disappeared in favor of using buff stacks to make knives effective anti-tank weapons.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Units like Marines, Fire Dragons, Tankbustas etc. actually being able to use grenades with all their unit members against vehicles in CC.

Follow-up: Anti-tank grenades in general. They seem to have largely disappeared in favor of using buff stacks to make knives effective anti-tank weapons.

Oh yeah. Gosh I even forgot about that. Grenades can't be used at all in CC anymore, can they.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Units like Marines, Fire Dragons, Tankbustas etc. actually being able to use grenades with all their unit members against vehicles in CC.

Follow-up: Anti-tank grenades in general. They seem to have largely disappeared in favor of using buff stacks to make knives effective anti-tank weapons.

Oh yeah. Gosh I even forgot about that. Grenades can't be used at all in CC anymore, can they.

That being said I actually liked all of the abstract grenade benefits like ignoring cover or getting a defense bonus. Throwing them and actually doing damage is fun, but I can count on one hand how many models I actually killed using grenades since 8th edition.

Daemonhunter Force Weapons are always a classic. Force Weapons were updated to cause Instant Death at the start of 5th Ed (I think it was 5th), but the Daemonhunter wording remained as "the target is slain outright" or along those lines, so it essentially had the equivalent of the Vortex rule against anything that wasn't a vehicle.

Again with the Daemonhunters, in that particular edition you couldn't pre-measure anything, but taking a Targeter for your units allowed you to do just that which is a substantial benefit. The best part is, they only cost a single point per unit.

Speaking of Daemonhunters, in 4th/5th your opponent got to declare that they were playing an 'adversary' army, and have one of their HQ choices be possessed by a Greater Daemon who could emerge during gameplay.

It was very transparently a ploy to get non-Chaos players to buy Greater Daemons, but it was also a fun and fluffy way to justify Grey Knights being deployed against xenos forces.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Units like Marines, Fire Dragons, Tankbustas etc. actually being able to use grenades with all their unit members against vehicles in CC.

Follow-up: Anti-tank grenades in general. They seem to have largely disappeared in favor of using buff stacks to make knives effective anti-tank weapons.

Oh yeah. Gosh I even forgot about that. Grenades can't be used at all in CC anymore, can they.

That being said I actually liked all of the abstract grenade benefits like ignoring cover or getting a defense bonus. Throwing them and actually doing damage is fun, but I can count on one hand how many models I actually killed using grenades since 8th edition.

I liked those effects too, and they paired pretty well with the use in CC. Being able to throw a grenade works fine as a mechanic. I've definitely used them from time to time, especially Krak against Custodes and Frag against GEQs in 8th. I remember knocking the final wound off a Helldrake in 6th or 7t too. Imo all those mechanics could coexist comfortably.

Back in 3rd edition Assault Squads could purchase Blind grenades they could throw to give themselves a 5+ cover save, iirc.

Ogryn and Wraithguard/lord "stupidity" - in older editions you had to make checks to see if these units would be able to take actions. For ogryns, it was truly stupidity but for the wraiths they got lost in reminiscing or seeing through the eyes of the spirit world and being unable to act.

And I'm surprised no one has mentioned Creed and his ability to hide a Baneblade behind a nearby lamppost.

Finally, sustained fire dice - a "push your luck" mechanic for assault cannons and other machine guns where you could attempt to fire as many times as you want - until you jam the gun or blow it up somehow.

 Stormonu wrote:
...And I'm surprised no one has mentioned Creed and his ability to hide a Baneblade behind a nearby lamppost...

Hiding Titans behind lampposts is a 1d4chan meme. The rule let him give any one unit Outflank, which isn't that exciting.

Scatter, templates, facings, pinned and go to ground/ take cover, old overwatch, using chits to mark orders, declaring unit actions and intended targets using said chits at the beginning of the turn a la Epic, non random charge distances, ...

Lots of stuff listed by other posters, e.g. grenades...

 Valkyrie wrote:
Daemonhunter Force Weapons are always a classic. Force Weapons were updated to cause Instant Death at the start of 5th Ed (I think it was 5th), but the Daemonhunter wording remained as "the target is slain outright" or along those lines, so it essentially had the equivalent of the Vortex rule against anything that wasn't a vehicle

Force weapons were standardised in the 4th edition main rulebook - but daemonhunters were 3e.
Of course none of the grey knights force weapons were actually force weapons aside from the one carried by the grand master, and even he could only use it every other assault phase. It was still handy though as Gav Thrope made the entire daemons codex immune to force weapons in 4e.

The witch hunters codex had a similar adversaries ruleset that allowed the opponent to designate on of their HQ characters as a psyker. This was not necessarily a good idea for the opponent.

Looted wagons for Orks. It really allowed a player to get creative with their conversions.

Necron Phase Out rule. If your opponent managed to destroy 75% of your models with the Necron rule, you autolost the game at the start of your turn after We'll Be Back (similar to Reanimation Protocols) rolls were made.

I think that Pariahs, Monoliths, Tomb Spyders (Canoptek Spyders now), C'tan and Scarab Swarms didn't have the Necron rule. This left your opponent with Necron Lord, Immortal, Warrior, Destroyer, Flayed ones, and Wraiths to target for Phase Out.

Does anyone remember the original metal Necron "army" from White Dwarf? Like Scarabs that would eat armor value from vehicles? Sure, they would die when the vehicle they were munching on blew up, but they were so cheap it was worth it!

Or how about when enemies got -1 to BS for every Necron Warrior squad within like 6 inches? I remember literally marching my army across across the battle field, stopping three inches from an IG gunline, and just shooting them for three rounds. The IG had a negative BS because of all the units and literally could not shoot back. And since both my opponent and I were iffy on 2nd edition's close combat rules, neither of us dared to initiate melee. So it was just a matter of time until the IG squads failed leadership and ran off the table.

<edited for bad grammar>

 KidCthulhu wrote:
Does anyone remember the original metal Necron "army" from White Dwarf? Like Scarabs that would eat armor value from vehicles? Sure, they would die when the vehicle they were munching on blew up, but they were so cheap it was worth it!

Or how about when enemies got -1 to BS for every Necron Warrior squad within like 6 inches? I remember literally marching my army across across the battle field, stopping three inches from an IG gunline, and just shooting them for three rounds. The IG had a negative BS because of all the units and literally could not shoot back. And since both my opponent and I were iffy on 2nd edition's close combat rules, neither of us dared to initiate melee. So it was just a matter of time until the IG squads failed leadership and ran off the table.

<edited for bad grammar>

Back when they had 2+ saves and autopassed all morales, even ones you couldnt save for. The special rule for Warriors is called Disruptor Zone, and it was a -1 to hit penalty for EACH NECRON within 6". Straight from WD 217. DZ also had a few other abilities, namely Vehicles or Dreadnaughts wiwthing 6" of a necron at the start of its turn must roll a 4+ on a D6 in order to move at all, and only moved half its movement if it succeeded. Also, enemies in close combat against necrons couldn't use the STR of their weapons, only of the base model.

I could talk for DAYS about all the cool stuff necrons had in 2e and 3e. I miss them. I don't miss only having 11 units to choose from though. Screw that.

Edit: For anyone interested, Necron in 2e had rules that originally appeared in WD 217, had a list in 218, and had some other misc stuff in 220, 230, and 239. 3e got them a codex and a bunch of WD features. The rest is history.

 Irkjoe wrote:

-tank shock and death or glory.

Loved these - force a unit to displace or leave a lone hero/victim to try to destroy the tank through phenomenal luck

crazysaneman wrote:

 KidCthulhu wrote:
Does anyone remember the original metal Necron "army" from White Dwarf? Like Scarabs that would eat armor value from vehicles? Sure, they would die when the vehicle they were munching on blew up, but they were so cheap it was worth it!

Or how about when enemies got -1 to BS for every Necron Warrior squad within like 6 inches? I remember literally marching my army across across the battle field, stopping three inches from an IG gunline, and just shooting them for three rounds. The IG had a negative BS because of all the units and literally could not shoot back. And since both my opponent and I were iffy on 2nd edition's close combat rules, neither of us dared to initiate melee. So it was just a matter of time until the IG squads failed leadership and ran off the table.

<edited for bad grammar>

Back when they had 2+ saves and autopassed all morales, even ones you couldnt save for. The special rule for Warriors is called Disruptor Zone, and it was a -1 to hit penalty for EACH NECRON within 6". Straight from WD 217. DZ also had a few other abilities, namely Vehicles or Dreadnaughts wiwthing 6" of a necron at the start of its turn must roll a 4+ on a D6 in order to move at all, and only moved half its movement if it succeeded. Also, enemies in close combat against necrons couldn't use the STR of their weapons, only of the base model.

I could talk for DAYS about all the cool stuff necrons had in 2e and 3e. I miss them. I don't miss only having 11 units to choose from though. Screw that.

Edit: For anyone interested, Necron in 2e had rules that originally appeared in WD 217, had a list in 218, and had some other misc stuff in 220, 230, and 239. 3e got them a codex and a bunch of WD features. The rest is history.

+1 to that. I miss the old Necrons.

And although they had fewer units, I preferred them more. I haven't been to fond of the unit additions to them overall.

Crossfire: If an enemy unit falls back into your unit, it is automatically destroyed.

Annihilate APC: Roll well enough on your vehicle damage table and both destroy the transport and kill everyone inside.

 KidCthulhu wrote:
Does anyone remember the original metal Necron "army" from White Dwarf? Like Scarabs that would eat armor value from vehicles? Sure, they would die when the vehicle they were munching on blew up, but they were so cheap it was worth it!

They had toughness 8 and enemies in hand to hand combat didn't get any bonuses from their weapons. If your model didn't have a basic strength characteristic of at least 5 you didn't even get to roll to wound them. They also had a 16" move (flying) and a 2+ save.

They cost as much as a bolter-armed tactical marine.

Having a separate Ordinance Vehicle Damage chart. The peach was the #6 result which detonated the entirety of the transport, wiped out everyone embarked, AND radiated damage 6" from the hull.

Summoning through malefic discipline.

It was similarly one of the greatest concepts and poorest executions:Supposedly A high risk psy discipline only available to some with a high potential reward.
Except that GW fethed up, allowed eldar to summon daemons and made the rules containing the possibility to create in essence more summoners...

Adaptable / customizable units.
IA13 renegade list could viably represent all off the following:
Mass uprising, Mutant uprising, Chaos infiltration cult, Traitor guard regiment, Bloodpact assault formation, Dark mechanicus, PDF.

And with just 3 troop choices, which were your bread and butter for the army. At a time where you'd normally would avoid the fielding of troop units like the plague. And the best of it all, it was all going over your points, instead of right now were we just get piles of rules beeing attached to a paintscheme making some marines f.e. far superior to other ones...

Doctrines, yea, oldshool IG doctrines. Your friendly neighbourhood light infantry regiment played diffrently then grenadiers which played diffrently then mechanized, came with stipulations aswell.

Duel Chart for chaos. Yes your champions once got rewarded for duelling, yes this is chaos. Should've been restricted to HQ's though instead of all champions all the time forcing duels

Old school gauss got named.

Oldschool fearless, never search for cover but never step back was kinda awesome, especially when a Khorne berzerker champion whacks a catan splinter after having his squad wiped.

Old school lictor perfect ambush... Simultaniously why now that all can DS like him DS became an issue... I wonder why?

Catbarf mentioned the Grey Knights, I have to say I always see that codex as sort of the death knell of Xenos in 40K. It was a pretty open acknowledgement that Xenos were NPC factions and our stories didn't matter.
Grey Knights should have stayed an optional squad or two for Imperial forces in narrative battles, and not been their own faction that forced Xenos players to have been manipulated by Chaos "all along" to have a game that made in universe sense. Displayed an attitude at GW of Marine faction as Protagonist and Xenos faction as NPC where as Chaos is the True Threat that I think is still with us to this day, sadly.

That said, I loved the Greater Daemon rules when the Greater Daemon had to explode out of an Aspiring Champion or other Character, and how you could end up consuming your Chaos Lord to unleash a bloodthirster. Great mechanic.

 Da Boss wrote:
Grey Knights should have stayed an optional squad or two for Imperial forces in narrative battles, and not been their own faction that forced Xenos players to have been manipulated by Chaos "all along" to have a game that made in universe sense.

I think that is a little unfair on the daemonhunters book as the adversaries rules were for pre-set narrative games and similar to the enslaver rules - you had to actually pay points and build your FoC slots around the daemons and heretics. 3e DH was a glorified allies book wrapping up some of the missing 2nd ed imperial agents units.

I feel like they used to do way more of 'Take this HQ unit and this other Elite unit becomes a troop choice', which I always liked.


I also miss units with such a high WS/BS that they got an extra roll if they missed.

A.T. wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Grey Knights should have stayed an optional squad or two for Imperial forces in narrative battles, and not been their own faction that forced Xenos players to have been manipulated by Chaos "all along" to have a game that made in universe sense.

I think that is a little unfair on the daemonhunters book as the adversaries rules were for pre-set narrative games and similar to the enslaver rules - you had to actually pay points and build your FoC slots around the daemons and heretics. 3e DH was a glorified allies book wrapping up some of the missing 2nd ed imperial agents units.

I think it should have just remained an allies book that stapled it's units onto proper Imperial Armies rather than being a stand alone book in it's own right. Because specialist daemon hunters don't make any sense outside of scenarios where you are fighting daemons. I am the sort of player that likes to name my characters and chronicle their deeds so that their battles are an ongoing story. It always felt dumb to me that whenever I played against my friends Daemonhunters my Warboss was suddenly being manipulated by Chaos All Along and it sort of signalled clearly that the "main" faction of 40K is the space marines, and the antagonist is Chaos, and Xenos is the NPC faction. Wasn't a good feeling.

I'll throw out some basic ones that I think are worthy of note:

Armor and cover and invulnerable saves - I like saves, they make me the defending player feel like I'm doing something rather than sitting there soaking up fire. I'd love cover saves to come back, maybe with a basic "you get one save, with a +1 if you have cover" for the times when armor saves are better than cover.

Rapid Fire > range modifiers - when 3rd hit GW explained that rather than modifiers they gave players more shots at short ranges. Easy rule, encouraged getting close, accomplished the same thing as bonus to close range in a more fun way, since we all like rolling more dice. The problem was it was inconsistent, a bolter got more shots at close range but not a melta or lascannon.

A bolter is a bolter is a bolter - No one cares if you have a drum mag, or a laser sight, or a bayonet. There's 100 people on the board, we just care which gun you have. Of course this fell apart early and is getting worse with, what? 15 kinds of bolter now?

Infantry have 1 wound - GW really needs to go back to this. I'd prefer T5 marines to 2 wound marines just for bookkeeping. Save multiple wounds for monsters and tanks.

Oh that is a good one for the last point. 2W becoming the standard for infantry is a bit nuts for a mass battle game.

Oh and if you want original Necron rules...

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/224922.page

Like others have mentioned the original necrons were fun as were the 2nd Ed location damage tables for vehicles like when the wraithlord took the worst result to the head and potentially killed any nearby Farseers and Warlocks.

The D-Cannon had a host of fun rules too as it might not damage the target it might just displace the target, which then came with another table to roll on with results like the target is inverted so if it's infantry it has to spend the next turn standing up and if it's a vehicle with a turret it's now immbolised and can't use the turret gun.