Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.
MDG, I think you can skip the chipboard and go right to cutting sheet styrene with the right settings.
I have used my similar tool (silhouette cameo) for various hobby adjacent tasks, and it is great as long as you remember how tightly the blade can cut (i.e. windows yes, imperial eagles no)
This thread was a nice trip down memory lane. Started with RT (only had the main book). I was able to get most of the RT books that I originally missed out on before the Oldhammer trend drove up the prices. I was never able to get my hands on the Ork books, unfortunately.
I have fond, nostalgia-tinted memories of RT, the endless possibilities of it. I have reverse nostalgia for 2nd, but that's undeserved because its only crime was not being RT (and my having the wrong people to play with). Well, I guess its one true crime was the monopose plastics that were a step down from RTB01 plastics. That was a bummer. I also remember the old Space Ork Raider set of metal models and feeling let down by the monopose dudes in the 2nd ed. boxed set.
I basically stopped at 5th, because I realized I was never going to keep buying new units, especially the flyers and big tanks and knights and whatever big Tau stuff was coming out. I like 40k as a smaller game, not 2000+ slogs. To each their own, but I'm happy here on the sidelines while the game evolves and moves on. I'm hoping to try One Page 40k as a quicker version of Kill Team (as an aside: Kill Team seems so poorly packaged...I'm in the hobby and I still have no idea what I need to play).
I do prefer the older fluff: the static universe of impending doom. It felt more like a writing prompt. Here's your starting point. Here are some key players. Here are some mysteries. Go nuts. ...and the humor, god I miss the humor and satire.
These days, I'm looking to get the rest of the codecies for 5th ed. (which also means a few from 4th too). What's the best place to find those these days in North America? I worried you're all going to say "Facebook groups," so I'm bracing myself. (If the answer really is "Facebook groups," can you tell me which ones?)
Fugazi wrote: This thread was a nice trip down memory lane. Started with RT (only had the main book). I was able to get most of the RT books that I originally missed out on before the Oldhammer trend drove up the prices. I was never able to get my hands on the Ork books, unfortunately.
I have fond, nostalgia-tinted memories of RT, the endless possibilities of it. I have reverse nostalgia for 2nd, but that's undeserved because its only crime was not being RT (and my having the wrong people to play with). Well, I guess its one true crime was the monopose plastics that were a step down from RTB01 plastics. That was a bummer. I also remember the old Space Ork Raider set of metal models and feeling let down by the monopose dudes in the 2nd ed. boxed set.
I basically stopped at 5th, because I realized I was never going to keep buying new units, especially the flyers and big tanks and knights and whatever big Tau stuff was coming out. I like 40k as a smaller game, not 2000+ slogs. To each their own, but I'm happy here on the sidelines while the game evolves and moves on. I'm hoping to try One Page 40k as a quicker version of Kill Team (as an aside: Kill Team seems so poorly packaged...I'm in the hobby and I still have no idea what I need to play).
I do prefer the older fluff: the static universe of impending doom. It felt more like a writing prompt. Here's your starting point. Here are some key players. Here are some mysteries. Go nuts. ...and the humor, god I miss the humor and satire.
These days, I'm looking to get the rest of the codecies for 5th ed. (which also means a few from 4th too). What's the best place to find those these days in North America? I worried you're all going to say "Facebook groups," so I'm bracing myself. (If the answer really is "Facebook groups," can you tell me which ones?)
Fugazi wrote: This thread was a nice trip down memory lane. Started with RT (only had the main book). I was able to get most of the RT books that I originally missed out on before the Oldhammer trend drove up the prices. I was never able to get my hands on the Ork books, unfortunately.
I have fond, nostalgia-tinted memories of RT, the endless possibilities of it. I have reverse nostalgia for 2nd, but that's undeserved because its only crime was not being RT (and my having the wrong people to play with). Well, I guess its one true crime was the monopose plastics that were a step down from RTB01 plastics. That was a bummer. I also remember the old Space Ork Raider set of metal models and feeling let down by the monopose dudes in the 2nd ed. boxed set.
I basically stopped at 5th, because I realized I was never going to keep buying new units, especially the flyers and big tanks and knights and whatever big Tau stuff was coming out. I like 40k as a smaller game, not 2000+ slogs. To each their own, but I'm happy here on the sidelines while the game evolves and moves on. I'm hoping to try One Page 40k as a quicker version of Kill Team (as an aside: Kill Team seems so poorly packaged...I'm in the hobby and I still have no idea what I need to play).
I do prefer the older fluff: the static universe of impending doom. It felt more like a writing prompt. Here's your starting point. Here are some key players. Here are some mysteries. Go nuts. ...and the humor, god I miss the humor and satire.
These days, I'm looking to get the rest of the codecies for 5th ed. (which also means a few from 4th too). What's the best place to find those these days in North America? I worried you're all going to say "Facebook groups," so I'm bracing myself. (If the answer really is "Facebook groups," can you tell me which ones?)
As I think I mentioned earlier, I came into wargaming in the 2e 40K / 5e WHFB 'Herohammer' era. Lately, I've been pursuing old RT army lists and such for hobby inspiration, and I have a question for the old timers who actually played RT in the day.
How much of the army list rules were actually followed? Like, did people actually roll for the characters' gear randomly, or was it more common to go, "I modeled this guy with a bolt pistol and power sword, I'll just pay the points for that out of the core book"? Did IG players stick to the "replace one weapon with another in a platoon, replace all types of the original in the platoon with the new one" or was it more, "I modeled this squad with a lascanon and this squad with a heavy bolter, so I'll just pay the points for those"?
I guess what I'm asking is, was it more common to follow the baroque and sometimes random army list selection rules, or was there more of a "this is close enough, now let's point up your mans and my mans and make them fight" vibe?
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2023/06/16 20:19:47
Psychopomp wrote: As I think I mentioned earlier, I came into wargaming in the 2e 40K / 5e WHFB 'Herohammer' era. Lately, I've been pursuing old RT army lists and such for hobby inspiration, and I have a question for the old timers who actually played RT in the day.
How much of the army list rules were actually followed? Like, did people actually roll for the characters' gear randomly, or was it more common to go, "I modeled this guy with a bolt pistol and power sword, I'll just pay the points for that out of the core book"? Did IG players stick to the "replace one weapon with another in a platoon, replace all types of the original in the platoon with the new one" or was it more, "I modeled this squad with a lascanon and this squad with a heavy bolter, so I'll just pay the points for those"?
I guess what I'm asking is, was it more common to follow the baroque and sometimes random army list selection rules, or was there more of a "this is close enough, now let's point up your mans and my mans and make them fight" vibe?
While not a useful answer: No.
We played RT as a RPG. There was a GM, he kitted out the OpFor as he saw fit. The players had 2 characters each, plus NPC mercenaries in the company we ran. Equipment was what we could buy or salvage.
We played RT as a RPG. There was a GM, he kitted out the OpFor as he saw fit. The players had 2 characters each, plus NPC mercenaries in the company we ran. Equipment was what we could buy or salvage.
No lists, no balance. Only War.
This actually jives with my suspicions. I read these rules and I get the feeling the same thing happened as what happened with what my friends and I were doing with AD&D 2e around the same time: a lot of little pockets of local groups, all playing THEIR Rogue Trader 40K.
I'd love to hear more descriptions of how others played Rogue Trader!
Same. We kinda ran one-off scenarios. Or linked scenarios with units getting upgrades or whatever. But if I recall correctly, when we ran chaos forces, we rolled randomly on the various mutations tables in Slave to Darkness, which was great fun. We didn't necessarily model those mutations but made a note on the army sheet for each character who had one or twelve.
Fugazi wrote: I have fond, nostalgia-tinted memories of RT, the endless possibilities of it. I have reverse nostalgia for 2nd, but that's undeserved because its only crime was not being RT (and my having the wrong people to play with). Well, I guess its one true crime was the monopose plastics that were a step down from RTB01 plastics. That was a bummer. I also remember the old Space Ork Raider set of metal models and feeling let down by the monopose dudes in the 2nd ed. boxed set.
They fit right in with the GW aesthetic of the time, though: cheap, quick-playing figures. And the value was great. A friend and I each bought the starter box, swapped figures and we had two decent-sized forces that needed minimal additions.
I basically stopped at 5th, because I realized I was never going to keep buying new units, especially the flyers and big tanks and knights and whatever big Tau stuff was coming out. I like 40k as a smaller game, not 2000+ slogs.
The emergence of 4th and the impending release of 7th convinced me that GW had turned the game into a treadmill (which it still is). I simply did not have the funds to "stay current" and I resented the transparent greed on display. That pushed me back into 2nd and I scratched my collecting itch by building a sample of every major faction from that edition and tracking down all the books. It has been very satisfying, and the games are still fun.
I look with bemused disinterest on the current commentary on 10th because it is now so familiar. Yes, the new edition destroyed your favorite faction, its units and the fluff. What else is new?
The advantage of "going retro" is that just about all the rules problems have a consensus fix for them by now, so more time is spent collecting, painting and playing and less on figuring out workarounds, waiting for models, and arguing about which rules interpretation is "current."
I lost touch with 40K around 2012, as I changed jobs, started my current career which for the first time in my life involved commuting to and from London.
Among many things that commute cost me, my hobby time was one of them. See, I’d have to get up at 6am, and would be lucky to be home by 6:30pm. Not only can my job be mentally exhausting, but by the time I’d eaten, changed clothes and felt ready to socialise in anyway? It was easily 8pm.
And so I just lost pace.
10th I’m genuinely looking forward to, as it’s so stripped back it’s a decent time to get back on the horse, as I’m no longer at a severe disadvantage to someone who really knows their Stratagems and CP Farming.
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
In RT proper, a GM provide the scenario and what forces you had (sometime proxies). They often also set-up the board too.
They then gave you a 1-pager with your forces, mission, and victory conditions. The two people played their forces while the GM arbitrated LOS, range, and other rules calls; and added in complications/events to the game.
I still like that style of play BUT it requires three people to play and 1 willing to GM.
Support Blood and Spectacles Publishing:
https://www.patreon.com/Bloodandspectaclespublishing
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: I lost touch with 40K around 2012, as I changed jobs, started my current career which for the first time in my life involved commuting to and from London.
Among many things that commute cost me, my hobby time was one of them. See, I’d have to get up at 6am, and would be lucky to be home by 6:30pm. Not only can my job be mentally exhausting, but by the time I’d eaten, changed clothes and felt ready to socialise in anyway? It was easily 8pm.
I'm thinking your mood was Sheena Easton, "Morning Train" (UK title "9 to 5").
A friend tried to get me into Rogue Trader, but the dude-on-dude scale did nothing for me, nor did the aesthetics. I was a board gamer, and wanted to send panzer armies blitzing into Stalingrad or sent Roman legions wandering around Parthia. Miniatures were not of interest.
It was only later on, after playing some Herohammer (which I came to loathe), that I saw the 40k tables at the local shop and thought: "That's like army men for grown-ups and looks fun!"
One of the (many) things I liked about 2nd was that it was built to accommodate dense terrain. In fact, it required it. I hated the way 3rd ed. boards looked, and dense terrain just wrecked the game because troops could move and charge you without any overwatch fire. I found it darkly humorous that they had to do a Cityfight book for something that 2nd had in the core rules.
And it's not just urban, it's skywalk urban, amirite? Elevated walkways between spires, so your troops truly have to defend three dimensions. This is where jump packs come into their own, and I just loved the tangled nightmare of hives.
I started out on 2nd ed. It was nice and bonkers and Virus Outbreak killed my whole guard army most of the times I played them.
3rd ed got rid of the crazy but at the cost of character.
I think they got a lot of that character back toward the end of 3rd and beginning of 4th. The Chaos Space Marine codex with rules for every legion and customizable demon prince followed by Space Marines with customizable chapter specific rules and the Imperial Guard codex with all the customization options were really great and had fantastic character.
Disillusionment with 40k 10th edition's "points" and just being sick of mortal wounds as a mechanic has had me looking back at my starting point of 4th edition.
I've been trying to get my hands on most of the 3rd/4th edition codexes at least for novelty's sake if not able to actually find anyone to play with.
I never even "properly" played 40k until 6th edition, but the way codexes were written in early 4th and the core rules of 4th/5th interest me far more.
The rules were fairly straight forward, yes. But having cut my teeth on 2nd, it was just so flavourless.
I can see what you mean when you're talking about the switch from 2nd to 3rd, but when you're going to 4th they had brought back a lot of what made 40k so colorful to begin with.
Maybe that's because I was a chaos marine player- in the late 3rd ed 'dex, every chaos legion had its own rules, you could make enormously powerful unique demon princes or even play Huron Blackheart's recent traitor legion, Thousand Sons and Emperor's Children were super weird and cool.
The 2nd ed chaos codex was cool with the way the fluff focused on all the different legions, but the rules really only got awesome when you flipped to the back and found the Cultist and Demon World armies (and the special character demon princes that came with them).
There's also the exchange for 'balance'- which 2nd ed really didn't have (at least for anyone who had to play against Eldar).
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/06/26 14:14:17
Dreadnoughts became super wimpy. Psykers became boring. Orks were completely gutted of anything resembling silliness. No Clans. No Supa-Wepons.
2nd Ed most definitely had its flaws. And I absolutely appreciate I Had No Other Frame Of Reference At The Time. But man. 3rd and 4th were a proper “baby with bath water” job.
It did need reining in, no dispute there. But this is like asking someone to pop a dog on a leash, and them instead having it put down.
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
Dreadnoughts became super wimpy. Psykers became boring. Orks were completely gutted of anything resembling silliness. No Clans. No Supa-Wepons.
2nd Ed most definitely had its flaws. And I absolutely appreciate I Had No Other Frame Of Reference At The Time. But man. 3rd and 4th were a proper “baby with bath water” job.
It did need reining in, no dispute there. But this is like asking someone to pop a dog on a leash, and them instead having it put down.
I couldn't get through the video you posted because I didn't share the author's confusion. It therefore became tedious and I was bored.
The chief flaw of 2nd was that the scale was inconsistent. On the one hand, it was about squad-level combats, but many of the rules were based on individual models (like setting them on fire).
The simple expedient of eliminating persistent effects (like being on fire) and also using common sense in terms of facing (what the designers were trying to do was create overlapping fields of fire) made the game very manageable and also allowed larger games with minimal time cost.
That is why so many people independently arrived at the same solutions because they were just obvious. In a less fallen world, GW would have recognized this, and 3rd would have been the Definitive Final Edition of 40k.
Alas, for our sins we're on the 10th iteration of a seemingly endless cycle.
Well, some of us are. I'm happily locked into 2nd, and working to further clarify the concepts to the point of streamlining the melee system into two single die rolls. Works great, and is consistent with the original math, so there.
Yes, I know we're talking about a 'squad level game' but the rules were pretty much always about resolving actions individually.
But I felt like that worked at the time. Games were smaller then (the move to 3rd cut most everyone's point value in half).
I remember it getting kind of clunky when you wanted to throw up a smoke screen of blind grenades (like in front of advancing Harlequins)
I would expect games with massive infantry forces to take longer as well, but I don't remember actually having a problem with those matches (and I played Imperial Guard most of the time).
There were some major balance issues in 2e. Eldar were unstoppable in the hands of a halfway decent player.
I never saw anyone actually play the Eldar to the upmost of their capacity (I considered starting an Eldar army just to show everyone how it should be done).
I have lots of fond memories playing 2nd edition. It arrived while I was starting college and I met friends through 40K which I still hang out with to this day.
The game had its flaws for sure, but also had so much character that I really enjoyed.
Just remove the double 'V'....Vortex and Virus grenades.
No earth shattering, thought provoking quote. I'm just someone who was introduced to 40K in the late 80's and it's become a lifelong hobby.
odinsgrandson wrote: There were some major balance issues in 2e. Eldar were unstoppable in the hands of a halfway decent player.
I never saw anyone actually play the Eldar to the upmost of their capacity (I considered starting an Eldar army just to show everyone how it should be done).
They were tough, but beatable. All the armies were. Eldar had speed and lethality and zero endurance. There's also the question of what type of game is being played. If there is a mission, it's a lot different that simply zapping enough points while hiding to gain a VP edge.
Indeed, I would say the hallmark of that edition was the overall balance between the armies. Everything was so nasty and deadly, it evened out in the end (especially if you got rid of known problems like virus grenades, etc.).
The simplified version we use (linked below) strikes a nice balance between the detail of 2nd and streamlining fiddly rules like rolling for template movement every turn of individual jump pack scatter. Using them has allowed us to scale up the game to about the platoon scale - 2,000 or 2,500 points that is playable in a reasonable session.
I don’t know what people are doing when playing 2nd Ed, makes me wonder if I’m missing some fundamental phase like I’ve lost some pages out of my rulebook or something!
I took a pal through his first game since the 90s the other night, 2,000 points, plenty of rules and stats checking, vehicular mayhem, hobby chat, trips to the fridge for beers, jump packs, blind grenades, and we were still done in a little other 3 hours.
When we have a games day we’ll get two 2,000 point games in in an afternoon as well. 2nd Ed being an unplayable odyssey over 1500 points is a real fable that’s taken on a life of its own on the net over the years.
Luke82 wrote: I don’t know what people are doing when playing 2nd Ed, makes me wonder if I’m missing some fundamental phase like I’ve lost some pages out of my rulebook or something!
I think it has two sources. Yes, there were a few people back in the day who genuinely were troubled by the tactical skill required by 2nd. In the rules, Space Marines come off as very hard to kill. That 3+ armor save looks really good.
But on the tabletop, that 3+ gets pretty badly abused by things like heavy bolters. Figuring out how to use cover appropriately, placing squads for mutual fire support and the proper use of overwatch really messed with a bunch of people.
I did see games basically stalemate because both players selected infantry-heavy forces and couldn't figure out how to advance into the open without being torn apart by hidden+overwatch units.
If you used leg infantry, little terrain, and no mission cards, it wasn't much of a game. And of course 3rd ed. came in to make having infantry standing out in the open a viable tactic.
That being said, GW itself worked to discredit 2nd quite a bit in the early aughts. On discussions about it, people with known ties to GW would enter discussions and really pour on the mythology about how the game was unplayable at any speed. Obviously there was a fear that players would refuse to "upgrade," and so a myth took root that 2nd is so broken, so terrible, one should not even look at it. No! No looking! I told you not to look!
That may seem like some myth-making of its own, but over at Warseer, there was a thread on 2nd (and why it was awesome) and people would come in and spout absolute nonsense, citing rules that didn't exist, etc., and many of these were known GW boosters. Where there wasn't a community of experienced 2nd ed. players willing to quote the books at them, their version took root.
And that's now part of the general lore of 40k, especially for younger players.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/07/05 11:20:30
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: As part of my appreciation of old editions, I'm doggedly building a collection of the 2nd ed. era White Dwarf magazines.
It really does evoke the era to see the announcements of now-ancient, out of print models. Call it my "happy place."
Hey, some of those models are still in print!
First WD on my shelf is the one introducing the Falcon. Still a sexy tank after all these years.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: As part of my appreciation of old editions, I'm doggedly building a collection of the 2nd ed. era White Dwarf magazines.
It really does evoke the era to see the announcements of now-ancient, out of print models. Call it my "happy place."
Hey, some of those models are still in print!
First WD on my shelf is the one introducing the Falcon. Still a sexy tank after all these years.
I think part of the reason I hated the Tau when they came out was that they were clearly moving in on the Eldar's turf.
After years of weird, comical "Space Elf" stuff, the Falcon finally looked sleek and high-tech.
And it (originally) had the rules to match. I love the 2nd ed. glass hammer Eldar, brutally lethal but if you can pin them down, they just crumble. Very satisfying to play or play against.
Ultramarines, 3rd Co. and friends, 16k+ 
4k 
4k Points
Competition Index
