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Which I’ve not argued. My memories of 3rd are tainted by it - but that’s not to say “therefore 3rd was the cause”.

I still think 2nd was the superior game and a lot more fun, but I have to account for outside influences on my opinion on 3rd as a whole.

A.T. wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:
Likewise, have you ever played Dawn of War? 1,2, or 3. Dreadnoughts (and lots of other large gribblies) feature in those games, and frequently end up in melee with smaller adversaries. And when said dreads / carnifex's try to leave melee in those games they're frequently unable; as a foe that wants to melee them is EASILY able to keep up with such a ponderous war engine. The only way to extract a dreadnought from a mob of screaming boyz is to have the dreadnought kill all those boyz, or have some nearby friendlies shoot them dead / until they run away.

Walkers just needed to be treated the same way as other vehicles - not locked in combat between rounds. They might still be unable to move away if surrounded but they could shoot and be shot at (the surrounding unit providing cover penalties as usual) and are still going to be attacked if base to base in the combat phase. Similarly the infantry can step away in their turn.
Walker/MCs could remain locked, perhaps excepting immobilised walkers.

It wasn't just a problem of dread being tied down by two screaming grots as you could also have entire units stuck indefinitely in combat with an armoured sentinel - for example the sanguinor himself leading a full squad of lightning claw terminators, Lemartes, and a sanguinary priest can do nothing against this unarmed tin-can except to fish for boxcars with a couple of krak grenades each turn.

I've been thinking more about the walkers comment I made before and I believe our, my group's, issue at the time was just miss understanding the difference between vehicles and walkers. as best I remember it. Vehicles couldn't be locked into close combat where walkers could. (I really need to look for my 3rd rule book. )

I think their could have been a good universal solution, some kind of test rolled by the player with the walker to let it leave combat or two check, one by each player rolled against each other with some kind of scale based on the number of models or their LD stats. Something reminiscent of the old Fear and terror rules back in 2nd but streamlined for 3rd. However this would have to be applied to evenly so things that were fearless or the equivalent would still have to roll because no one wants to get squished by a big angry brick trying to walk over them. A death or Glory would still be on the table for the models around the walker because why not, it's all in good fun.
How that would sake out I couldn't say.


As to the Net lists stiff. I find it a total yawn. My most competitive friend, some time referred to as skrumgrod, was addicted to perfecting his army list and constantly adjusting it ever so many games. I spend hours I'm sure crafting his doom. I feel like completive play and net lists were not hugely a positive in the end. The two merge together to the is it worth it attitude which I get but also feel is lazy. It just further sub divides the kinds of players out there. I enjoy a good win but I also enjoy a good game. I guess net lists reek of game store kids to me. You get to know them humor them some times but hope they grow out of their intense need to always win. It's just a personal preference, do what ever you want. I recall though that the less painted models they had the more that stuff irked me.

This has been the best thread on Dakka in months!


I really want to sell all of my stuff and get out completely. If my friends would ever decide to play older editions of try out the Prohammer I would gladly stay in for as long as we could ride that ride. I miss when 40K was fun.






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A.T. wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I can hand on heart say I never encountered such cheating shenanigans during 2nd Ed. But, as I wasn’t online then, my whole point is that 3rd Ed came unfairly tainted by greater communication with the wider community, many of whom just didn’t seem like fun opponents.

I guess it's going to be different for everyone - who they play against, what settings they play in, what influences they do and do not have access to.

But that's not the fault of the system. Could you imagine 2nd ed rules being the competitive play standard today?

In a sick way I would love to see that. Like watching a train wreck in slow motion or faces of death. A sick delight or a guilty pleasure.

I got out in 6th edition but "came back" in the last 5 years or so with Grimdark Future. I didn't have a group any more so I asked a non-wargamer friend to play, and he quickly took to GF. The OPR stuff is handy for that because it's so easy to learn. I'm having a great time making scenery and armies, and he's having fun playing with what I make.

So I'd say unless you need the money, if you're getting out pack your stuff up into storage rather than selling it. I'm glad I didn't sell too much of my stuff, I had loads of fun repainting some old metal 2e and 3e Imperial Guard minis that had long ago belonged to my older brother, that I had dragged around with me through many house moves and two moves to a different country!

My biggest regret was selling the predominance of my stuff for fantasy and 40K when the systems left me behind. It wasn't until my brother slapped some sense in Me by pointing out we could simply go to older editions where we enjoyed the game that I realized I had made a huge mistake.


On the plus side, I get to experience the joy of rebuilding some of these armies from the ground up. A daunting task from the sound of it, but it's been an actual Delight rebuilding my 6th edition fantasy stuff, and I'm thoroughly elated that I was able to get the 40K Ork Army I actually wanted instead of the one I had collected. Well, once I get six to eight trukks...

 Da Boss wrote:
I got out in 6th edition but "came back" in the last 5 years or so with Grimdark Future. I didn't have a group any more so I asked a non-wargamer friend to play, and he quickly took to GF. The OPR stuff is handy for that because it's so easy to learn. I'm having a great time making scenery and armies, and he's having fun playing with what I make.

So I'd say unless you need the money, if you're getting out pack your stuff up into storage rather than selling it. I'm glad I didn't sell too much of my stuff, I had loads of fun repainting some old metal 2e and 3e Imperial Guard minis that had long ago belonged to my older brother, that I had dragged around with me through many house moves and two moves to a different country!

As someone who has lugged hundreds of metal guardsmen around, I understand the pain of dragging it around. That stuff adds up in weight.

Even the plastic once you accummulate enough.

It's the old metal sentinels that really do you in!

I currently own about 5 armies. I could sell 2 and a half and be happy. My Ork army is massive and I have down sized at least twice in the last 5 or 6 years. I enjoyed building and painting a Primaris only army in as close to 2nd edition BA colors as I could get but I don't really want to keep it. If I could find a fan dex porting that over to 2nd I'd think about keeping it and I was given an old death Guard army back after a dear friend passed away in like 21'. ( His hart stopped I think.) I would like to get a few more HH/30K vehicles to round out that collection because that would be perfectly usable for any game edition I would like to play and I would keep my Imperial Guard it is a total kit-bash made from historical and 3rd party plastic models. I just never even get any of it out for any reason now and it's been like 3 years since I even looked at any of that stuff.
All my terrain is stuff I have made myself as well. I'm a hobbyist at hart.

I love my IG. as a project it was exactly what I had always wanted to do and an army that I would have loved to have had years ago.

Lots of green stuff. Bouski meets Moebius is the best way I would describe it. I still have a few sprues left to finish and then all of that needs to meet Blanche, just a little.

It feels more than a little over whelming to have all of that just sitting in boxes. Heck I would just sell at like a 10 dollars over nib price and be happy, if it becomes possible.

I'm still saving plastic bottles and other junk for building more terrain on the off chance I get in the mood to do so. I'd like to really push the grimdark feel and turn it more into Necromuna style terrain. I could almost justify that if I was able to play a small skirmish game but at this point have no one to roll dice with.
Sad face goes here.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Which I’ve not argued. My memories of 3rd are tainted by it - but that’s not to say “therefore 3rd was the cause”.

I still think 2nd was the superior game and a lot more fun, but I have to account for outside influences on my opinion on 3rd as a whole.

2nd is my fav version of the game, while RT is very close to my heart, 2nd played better.

The randomness of 2nd is what made the game hard to "solve" & also very, very fun.

Unfortunately back then(as so still today) the other person is the main variable in gaming fun. Play against someone that's the complete opposite (waac vs caac) and the experience will, more often than not be suboptimal. But play someone that is on a similar wavelength and the experience can be quite fun, even tho the game might not be "fair"(i.e. mauled).

"Playing against the spirit of the game", ie what would today be called competitively, was definitely a thing back when 2nd was current. White Dwarf used to tell people not to do it on a regular basis, oh how time changes things!

Dai wrote:
"Playing against the spirit of the game", ie what would today be called competitively, was definitely a thing back when 2nd was current. White Dwarf used to tell people not to do it on a regular basis, oh how time changes things!

Is the spirit of the game cooperative?
Because, as best I can see, it's a direct fight between two (or more) sides, with a defined winner and loser.

Obviously you should be sporting and, outside of actual tournaments, you should be doing your best to make sure everyone has fun. But it's still a competitive game.

Cooperative and Sporting.

Sporting is of course super subjective. I like a bit of banter and chit chat during the game. Not derogatory banter, just a bit of back and forth about our luck with the dice and “well, I didn’t see that coming” banter.

But I get that’s not to everyone’s taste.

I find people bemoaning their codex during a game unsporting, as it’s often done to the exclusion of allowing for my own impact. Even then, there’s degrees to it, isn’t there? Constant moaning isn’t the same “man in last edition I’d have had a better save” type stuff.

If my opponent is taking their time, then rushing me in their own turn, that to me isn’t being a good sport. Likewise if I’m being leisurely in my turn and then chivvying my opponent along, that’s rude and uncalled for.

It also depends on format and arena. If I’m at a tournament, I know I need to be more timely with my own turn/activation, because we’re both against the clock

And I have met opponents who’ve dallied then rushed me, and constantly bemoaned their codex, list and dice. I think the worst I’ve had of that was actually 8th Ed Fantasy, where I properly stomped my opponent with a series of carefully orchestrated flanking moves and other cunning manoeuvres. Only to be told I’d merely “diced” my opponent. No comment on my skill, or how I danced around his line to prevent charges he was hoping for in his next turn.

Proper bad loser/bad winner stuff.

 JNAProductions wrote:

Dai wrote:
"Playing against the spirit of the game", ie what would today be called competitively, was definitely a thing back when 2nd was current. White Dwarf used to tell people not to do it on a regular basis, oh how time changes things!

Is the spirit of the game cooperative?
Because, as best I can see, it's a direct fight between two (or more) sides, with a defined winner and loser.

Obviously you should be sporting and, outside of actual tournaments, you should be doing your best to make sure everyone has fun. But it's still a competitive game.

Doesn't really bother me if people play competitive, it's a very different game from 2nd edition which yeah I do feel was best played at least partly co operative to have a good time. I was just mildly amused how much things have changed.

 JNAProductions wrote:

Dai wrote:
"Playing against the spirit of the game", ie what would today be called competitively, was definitely a thing back when 2nd was current. White Dwarf used to tell people not to do it on a regular basis, oh how time changes things!

Is the spirit of the game cooperative?
Because, as best I can see, it's a direct fight between two (or more) sides, with a defined winner and loser.

Obviously you should be sporting and, outside of actual tournaments, you should be doing your best to make sure everyone has fun. But it's still a competitive game.

It was never really intended as a competitive game at the beginning, no. I mean, yes, you're battling an opponent in order for one side to win, but both the way the rules worked and the constant encouragement of the game's writers pushed players towards working together to make it fun, rather than just trying to win. And outside of tournaments, that's generally how I saw the game played. When rules issues cropped up during a game, it was always a toss-up between what made the most sense in the rules as written, and what seemed like it would be the most fun to play out on the table.

3rd edition was where the rules started to tighten up and the game started to be viewed more as a challenge to be won, rather than a cinematic experience to be enjoyed by both players.

 insaniak wrote:
It was never really intended as a competitive game at the beginning, no. I mean, yes, you're battling an opponent in order for one side to win, but both the way the rules worked and the constant encouragement of the game's writers pushed players towards working together to make it fun, rather than just trying to win. And outside of tournaments, that's generally how I saw the game played. When rules issues cropped up during a game, it was always a toss-up between what made the most sense in the rules as written, and what seemed like it would be the most fun to play out on the table.

3rd edition was where the rules started to tighten up and the game started to be viewed more as a challenge to be won, rather than a cinematic experience to be enjoyed by both players.

Yes, there was absolutely a shift in player attitude. I think one of the big factors was the issue of the psychic phase. If no players bring psykers, you don't even need to get the cards out, so it was important in 2nd to ask your opponent what kind of game they wanted to play. If psykers were going to be used, you knew things could get really wild and wacky, and it would be more of a WAAC environment.

If not, then things were going to be more "wargame" and less "space fantasy." The lack of fixed scenarios meant that you had to talk over mission cards, and while these could be a random draw, some required pre-game discussion ("Bunker Assault" needs a bunker, for example.) The same was true of strategy cards. There was actually a lot of pre-game discussion because the game required collaboration to work.

With 3rd you could just assume everyone was playing "Cleanse", set up and fight over the table quarters. Games became seen more as tournament prep, and the default response to someone complaining about a really lop-sided WAAC army was: "Well, yeah, but that would never survive in a tournament."

I guess another factor is that by the time 3rd Ed came out? I was a working man. Full time jobs mean your hobby time is now a premium.

As such, a single bad experience with an opponent hit that bit harder, because that’s one of maybe two games I’d get in that week rendered a chore, especially when more than ever, I was playing to relax.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
If psykers were going to be used, you knew things could get really wild and wacky, and it would be more of a WAAC environment.

I would disagree with this assessment. The groups I played with always used psykers, because psykers were one of the big things that made the 40K setting so cool and because we found the psychic phase a lot of fun. While it could certainly be abused, it was also often a good leveller for lop-sided armies, simply because the outcome was so unpredictable due to the cards and random chance.

Also, it was rare you got to choose your Psychic Powers.

Sure, with enough in your army drawing from a given power set you could guarantee a power appeared - but little good say, Vortex did you on a Lvl 2 Psyker compared to your Lvl 4. It could still be cast, but was easier to Nullify.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Might dig out my Dark Millenium tomorrow and remind myself what the various powers and discipline covered.

It was unfortunate that Imperial psykers wound up with such a broad pool of powers to choose from, as it allowed you to tailor your psykers in a way that just wasn't available to other factions.

In my homebrew edit I restrict psykers from every faction to their own decks, with only a single power chosen from any other. That vastly reduces the chances of Librarians and Astra Teles showing up with Vortex. Although I'm also tempted to allow psykers to each choose from a fresh deck, so you can't do the old multiple-psykers-to-guarantee-the-power trick. I've seen some other homebrew rules to just choose powers with points costs, as was done in some later editions, but I don't like that approach as much for 2nd ed as some powers would just become 'must take' options.

 insaniak wrote:
I would disagree with this assessment. The groups I played with always used psykers, because psykers were one of the big things that made the 40K setting so cool and because we found the psychic phase a lot of fun. While it could certainly be abused, it was also often a good leveller for lop-sided armies, simply because the outcome was so unpredictable due to the cards and random chance.

It doesn't matter if you agree, that was the way gaming went on around here. Everyone had psyker lists, it was just part of the negotiation - points, missions, psykers.

I think part of the aversion in these parts was that a lot of people got into 40k after burning out on herohammer, and so an optional magic system appealed to them.

Another factor (perhaps related) was that if you dropped the psychic phase, you could run more models in the same amount of time. People were always trying to find ways to push up point totals. The local culture seemed to have a lot of veteran miniatures players who jumped into GW because it was awash with opponents, unlike Micro-Armor or Napoleonics. That certainly described me.

In the larger picture, I think it speaks well of the design that games were fun with or without them.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
2nd and 3rd were proper wonky, and each in their own way.

However, 3rd had a hobbling that 2nd didn’t. And it’s not one I can lay at GW’s door.

The Internet.

3rd Ed got going just as I started to explore the Internet and Forums (oh hi, Portent!). As I’ve mentioned before, that indelibly coloured my view of it, as it was my first unpleasant brush with “WAAC and sod the background” gamers.

Now, I can’t and won’t say those sorts of folks didn’t exist in 2nd Ed. But I can and will say they never darkened my doorway or had any contact with me.

As such, my friends and opponents in the store just…fielded what we could afford. We didn’t know words like meta or tier. Well. We knew tier, but that was about Posh Cakes, understanding the more tiers the posher and fancier your cake was.

That is a lasting impression. And by no means a fair one. But add in it’s greatly simplified nature made 3rd pretty easy to Mathammer, and it felt like a flaw in the game at the time, even though I’m now conscious it mostly came from outside agencies.

Hmmm.....an interesting point. But the "internet" only became a problem down here (rural Appalachia and surrounding areas in Kentucky), in about late 4th/early 5th. So I'll consider that a problem based on region. But definitely an interesting point, Dok.

I'll be blunt: I never played 2nd. I DO however have a 2nd edition Chaos codex. It's quite nice, IMHO. I appreciate the lore, as well as the inclusion of non-astartes forces. But it leaves me cold. An Iron Warriors force is no different than a Night Lords force, or an Alpha Legion force. 3.5 fixed that. That's why I, personally, love 3rd (and most of 4th). THAT CODEX. Argue about core rules and such all you want, but that book will forever define 40k for me.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
An Iron Warriors force is no different than a Night Lords force, or an Alpha Legion force.

They could be, though. You could take a tank-heavy Iron Warrior army, or a troop-heavy, no daemon Night Lord army (although 2nd ed was before NL were really described as being particularly anti-daemon) or an infiltraty Alpha Legion force. It was just left up to the players, rather than defined in the book. Which, honestly, is preferable to me. Later codexes and indexes boring down on specific chapters in some ways took away choice from the players. Every Night Lords force, or Dark Angel force, or Ulthwe force doesn't need to be the same. Codexes should certainly allow for those specific, ultra-fluffy builds. But they should also allow the players the freedom to field footslogging White Scars or bike-heavy Salamanders, or Daemon-heavy Iron Warriors, or Blood Angels without Death Company.

While there were a few options in some codexes that were locked being Special Characters (not ideal!), for the most part the 2nd ed codexes allowed that freedom.

Also worth keeping in mind outside of Space Wolves who played very differently, the only real differences between Vanilla Marines, Dark and Blood Angels were some unique units.

Dark Angels tended to favour Terminators and Landspeeders, because of Deathwing and Ravenwing. Ravenwing were probably the most different, as we got not only special rules (extra -1 speed modifier, and we ignored at least our own speed modifier) but a much more shooty Landspeeder with HB and Assault Cannon.

Blood Angels, and I’m yet to review the Angels of Death Codex I got the other week, had Death Company and their special characters, with Mephiston being an absolute beast.

 insaniak wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
An Iron Warriors force is no different than a Night Lords force, or an Alpha Legion force.

They could be, though. You could take a tank-heavy Iron Warrior army, or a troop-heavy, no daemon Night Lord army (although 2nd ed was before NL were really described as being particularly anti-daemon) or an infiltraty Alpha Legion force. It was just left up to the players, rather than defined in the book. Which, honestly, is preferable to me. Later codexes and indexes boring down on specific chapters in some ways took away choice from the players. Every Night Lords force, or Dark Angel force, or Ulthwe force doesn't need to be the same. Codexes should certainly allow for those specific, ultra-fluffy builds. But they should also allow the players the freedom to field footslogging White Scars or bike-heavy Salamanders, or Daemon-heavy Iron Warriors, or Blood Angels without Death Company.

While there were a few options in some codexes that were locked being Special Characters (not ideal!), for the most part the 2nd ed codexes allowed that freedom.

In 3rd, such lists were generally presented as archetypes though, and there was always the default version of the list you could run if you wanted. For example, using the standard Codex: Space Marines list for footslogging White Scars, or having an Ulthwe army built on the Wild Riders list.

It gets a little wonky for loyalist Space Marines specifically due to a Chapter being a really small unit in its own right* and this somewhat applies to Chaos Space Marines, but for every other faction the variant lists are almost entirely an archetype that can be used by any subfaction.


*Lorewise, a thousand individuals doesn't give a lot of room for multiple specialisations in the same way an entire planet or craftworld does.

 Haighus wrote:
In 3rd, such lists were generally presented as archetypes though, and there was always the default version of the list you could run if you wanted.

There do seem to be two broad positions taken by players on this :
1) It's an evil sunz army so I have taken a lot of bikes, it's a bad moons army so I have taken a lot of flash gitz.
and 2) It's an evil sunz army because I get better bikes, it's a bad moons army because I get better flash gitz.

Though codex-set penalties/restrictions do limit potentially abusive wombo-combos where free choice books do not.

Yeah, the choice is: make a themed list, which due to the points system generally being based off of an "all comers" take a bit of everything army, will be skewed, sometimes good, sometimes bad because you took more of a unit they weren't expecting you to take so many of.

OR

They make the themed list for you, with special rules to compensate for the weaknesses of the skew list and perhaps limitations to tone down the strengths, bringing it into the realm of an "all comers force" despite being made of unusual units.

In my view, both are valid approaches, but I prefer the first. For one, it puts the ball in the player's court and makes them take ownership over their choices. In WFB 6th, 7th and 8th edition I often played a "common" orcs and goblins army. This meant no black orcs, no savage orcs and no night goblins. It also meant my list wasn't as strong as it could have otherwise been. I didn't really care, I felt it was thematic to have the "common" greenskins represented, and that the coalition of tribes represented by the more usual list should be the exception rather than the rule.

When the designers try to make compensatory skew lists people are invariably unhappy with them and often at least one list in that paradigm will be overpowered relative to the meta and will become really common in games.

I think stuff like Doctrines came the closest to getting this sort of idea right, but I'm not sure we should ever be trying to make an entire army of guys on motorbikes a fair, take all comers army because it's just sort of a silly concept. No offense, ravenwing players. It's a cool concept, but still silly.

A.T. wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
We all enjoy Bragging Rights, yeah? Gathering tales of victory and derring do.

As covered before, 2nd Ed gave you sagas to tell. Magnificent tales of genius and luck and the right turret landing on the right thing at the right time and making it go squish.

Different people have different criteria. I might joke about the time I won a game through sheer dumb luck but I don't consider a victory worth bragging about if I didn't earn it through my own skill.

But subtle strategic choices are often not all that interesting outside of the game itself, and for some people not inside the game either. The afore mentioned banshees for example being a circumstantially advantageous unit in 3rd compared to a massively skewed fist of god in 2nd.


I've had the turret smash myself - Imperial Guard squad leader with a bolt pistol, an ork vehicle, a 6" backflip and a dead warboss and retinue behind a building. There was also one time playing tyranids where the landraider just spontaneously caught fire and wiped out the whole crew before the game started while Brother Bethor, wielder of the standard of devastation, simply keeled over and dropped dead mid-deployment.

You got that same 2e experience playing apocalypse some times - like the game where an ork rok missed its target titan by about five feet and simply wiped 90% of another players army off the board instead. Certainly a magnificent tale of luck but not something to brag about IMO.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
3rd Ed? Because of the WAAC crowd? “Well I added tall billboards to my Ork Trukks because the rules don’t say I can’t and it allowed them to block LoS in such a way my opponent could barely target anything, aren’t I a tactical genius and not a cheating little scrote “

How was 2nd ed any different?

By the rules as written you could model your ork vehicles however you wanted and then 'shake off' orks on a drive by to strategically disembark them. Older editions of 40k and WHFB were full of insane shenanigans (god help anyone playing fantasy orcs with their formation wheeling loonie catapult).

Ah, the old "Fanatic Slingshot." Always heard about it but never saw anyone ballsy enough to try to pull it off.

And despite playing 3rd for its entirety and THEN some, I've never come across that "billboard" example or anything remotely like it. If that were the case you'd have seen infantry models all in the "prone" position instead of the combat rush pose we all know and love. I'm gonna say that one's solely a Forum Bogeyman - a hypothetical used as a condemnation of the system yet never actually appearing. Doc said it himself when he said that 3rd Ed. was the first edition that was highly visible and scrutinized online, you don't think there'd be BOOKS of posts about that? Hell, the "cigarette pack Rhino" still gets brought up to this day.

 Da Boss wrote:
When the designers try to make compensatory skew lists people are invariably unhappy with them and often at least one list in that paradigm will be overpowered relative to the meta and will become really common in games.

I think stuff like Doctrines came the closest to getting this sort of idea right, but I'm not sure we should ever be trying to make an entire army of guys on motorbikes a fair, take all comers army because it's just sort of a silly concept. No offense, ravenwing players. It's a cool concept, but still silly.

I'm firmly in the camp of "let player choice create the specialist lists." I feel the 2nd ed. Chaos lists had plenty of flexibility and your choice of Mark of Chaos, unit selection and they way you used them (actual doctrine, not a special rule) gave the army its flavor.

When you start creating micro-lists for every sub-faction, the temptation is exactly that - well, we chose not to give them bikes, so they get bonus artillery! Or they can't have heavy tanks, so their bikes are twice as good. It sells books and models, but it makes for a terrible situation in terms of rules.

What those lists did is create a situation where every list had an optimal function and because of that, everyone was pushed in that direction. Just simply taking a bike-heavy force without special rules was silly when there were armies built around the idea.

To put it another way, if I decide not to use tanks, why should I get special bonus bike rules? Isn't the choice good enough on it's own?

The books of 2nd ed. really had a ton of options in them (many of which GW never even supported with models), and the flexibility of army composion made it possible for players to run themed armies just fine. Watching the 31 flavors of Space Marines roll out in 3rd, even while other factions had no book, but were using get-you-by rules, was just awful.

I agree about the best solution to "Special" lists - let the players make them special, and make them responsible for dealing with the choices they've made in giving their force a theme.

I can see why designers would be tempted down the "special list" route, and I don't think it's entirely cynical. I think it's an interesting design challenge, but I also think they often half-assed it.

On the 31 flavours of Marines thing, look I really don't like any of the extra Marine codexes. I think it should be 1 codex for marines and grey knights should be a squad, not an army.

But come on. 2e had 3 Marine codexes out of 13, 3e had 4 out of 20 not counting reprints and campaign supplements, 5 out of 20 if you are counting Daemonhunters as a Marine codex (which I think is fair).
23% Marine books in 2e vs 25% Marine books in 3e is not that big of a difference.

The issue absolutely gets magnified because Marines ALWAYS get an update in every edition, including a bunch of new models, while other armies often had to wait 2 editions in the cold before getting an update.

But I don't lay the blame for that at 3e's door.

 Da Boss wrote:
But come on. 2e had 3 Marine codexes out of 13, 3e had 4 out of 20 not counting reprints and campaign supplements, 5 out of 20 if you are counting Daemonhunters as a Marine codex (which I think is fair).
23% Marine books in 2e vs 25% Marine books in 3e is not that big of a difference.

The issue absolutely gets magnified because Marines ALWAYS get an update in every edition, including a bunch of new models, while other armies often had to wait 2 editions in the cold before getting an update.

But I don't lay the blame for that at 3e's door.

There are a couple of differences, though. The 2nd ed. Marine books were spaced out over several years and - more importantly - they were mostly about background. How much of the Horus Heresy was sketched out through those three books? I had no interest in Angels of Death to play, but I did like reading the book. Same with Space Wolves.

The army mechanics were not that different. Space Wolves were somewhat unique, but the other three lists were almost identical in practice. Yeah, different special characters but Ravenwing and Deathwing were just special unit types, not a different way of fighting. A friend put it this way: Space Wolves get veteran heavy weapons, Dark Angels get veteran Terminators, Blood Angels veteran assault squads and Ultras get veteran tactical squads.

They were therefore quite balanced overall.

Now look at 3rd. For one thing, they cranked out three Marine books in the first few months: Space Marines, Black Templars and Blood Angels. Way to front-load the game, guys. The differences between the chapters went deeper now, and chapter special rules cut into org charts and such.

Add in the 3rd ed. trend towards specialization and it's very different.

Black Templars didn't get a "codex" until the Armageddon Codex came out, and it was, what, four pages maximum? Near the end of 3rd Edition? DARK ANGELS came out early on, but what little changed for those lists should have made the process easy to roll out. Gav Thorpe's inability to write simply balanced rules struck here, and Jervis Johnson's Dark Angels Codex was much more balanced despite having essentially three lists inside. You still had barely any difference between a normal Codex chapter and Dark Angels unless you went pure Ravenwing or Deathwing. Blood Angels were worse because of them being red, which gave them unpointed benefits and a "weakness" that was easily worked around. The problem wasn't the edition, the problem was them not reining in their more imbalanced writers.