Just Tony wrote: That reminds me that I still need to chase down the Dark Eldar revised codex for 3th edition
What was revised for that one? Is it the same content that's in the Chapter Approved?
There were a few other corrected data points, but that was the most important part. I wish they had stuck with the early beta fix where Hellions came with Punishers...
Our crimson fist player wanted to give the Logan Grimnar/wolf guard themed list army a go from the 5th ed codex.
I based my army on the 3rd ed Dark angels codex.
I do not remember all that he had as there were wolf guard all over the place. in drop pods, in land raiders, in terminator armor etc...
he did have a redeemer and phobos pattern land raider, the stormfang gunship and a long fang pack.
My force was a combination of the chapter
Azrael w/deathwing terminator command squad
In his personal land raider prometheus- Angelis Imperator
X2 venerable deathwing dreadnoughts with plasma cannons.
.ravenwing land speeder tempest
.land raider ares
Spoiler:
the table
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
There were 5 objectives, with a 12" deployment.
The wolves seized the initiative. and went to work dismantling the land raider ares.....something about it made them afraid.
surprisingly during the entire game i only managed to overheat/kill one space marine by my own plasma.
The plasma cannons did help when dealing with one of his terminator squad. the other got dealt with my Azreals command squad.
By games end objective wise it was a win for the Dark angels on turn 5 that turned into a draw on turn 6. the wolves won on tie breakers-slay the warlord (azrael failed a 2+ save against a KRAK missles) and first blood.
there was quite a bit of carnage.
Space wolves losses-mostly wolf guard units-
.2 terminator squads,
.tac squad
.drop pod,
.land raider phobos,
Following the link H.B.M.C. provided I see that it's published in 2003. I have the Chapter Approved 2004, which has four pages dedicated to Codex Eldar updates, so I'm going to assume what I have is complete.
. . .
One can knock on 3rd ed all they like, but the Chapter Approved books from that era were totally awesome. New units, adjusted points, new wargear, new armies, Q&A, trial rules. . . It was a good time.
And oh yeah, one of them has an ad for the Codexes and supplements. US$14.99 a Codex, and Supplements US$9.99. What a time to be alive!
Insectum7 wrote: @y'all: Cool, thanks! That's quite a difference!
. . .
One can knock on 3rd ed all they like, but the Chapter Approved books from that era were totally awesome. New units, adjusted points, new wargear, new armies, Q&A, trial rules. . . It was a good time.
And oh yeah, one of them has an ad for the Codexes and supplements. US$14.99 a Codex, and Supplements US$9.99. What a time to be alive!
That's why I will knock them - when I buy a rule book, I don't feel I should pay for the corrections. Both with 40k and WHFB, GW was essentially making people pay them for more playable lists that should have been available on the first try. The rule book and codex soon required several volumes of updates. I think there were two large WHFB supplements that you had to carry besides the rule book and the army book in order to play.
Given GW's resources, ability to playtest and crowdsource, that was just terrible customer service, but it did make them a lot of money, which is nice.
That's why I like 2nd ed. All the rules are there, you don't have worry about units being wrecked, and at this point, all the known bugs have been worked out.
That's why I will knock them - when I buy a rule book, I don't feel I should pay for the corrections. Both with 40k and WHFB, GW was essentially making people pay them for more playable lists that should have been available on the first try. The rule book and codex soon required several volumes of updates. I think there were two large WHFB supplements that you had to carry besides the rule book and the army book in order to play.
None of the Chapter Approved nor Warhammer Chronicles books were required for play unless you were playing things from those books. Chapter Approved back then didn't just mean "FAQs and Errata" like it does today, it meant optional and additional rules and ways to play designed by GW. Chapter Approved was Armageddon Ork Hunters, Cursed Founding Chapters, Kroot Mercenaries, etc. The WHFB supplements were Dogs of War, the trial Wood Elves list before they had their book that entirely redefined how the faction looked and played, new scenarios, and an entire book on Campaigns.
I was playing in events and tourneys back then and never once needed to own or bring any of those books during 3rd.
None of the Chapter Approved nor Warhammer Chronicles books were required for play unless you were playing things from those books. Chapter Approved back then didn't just mean "FAQs and Errata" like it does today, it meant optional and additional rules and ways to play designed by GW. Chapter Approved was Armageddon Ork Hunters, Cursed Founding Chapters, Kroot Mercenaries, etc. The WHFB supplements were Dogs of War, the trial Wood Elves list before they had their book that entirely redefined how the faction looked and played, new scenarios, and an entire book on Campaigns.
I was playing in events and tourneys back then and never once needed to own or bring any of those books during 3rd.
On the Fantasy side of the house, the books were necessary because of various clarifications and such. If I didn't need 'em, I wouldn't have brung 'em.
On the 40k side, there were also "quality control" issues with the various codices, hence the editions with an edition.
Platuan4th wrote: May have been a regional thing. I never saw them used beyond certain army lists all through the gulf south.
Yeah, in terms of 40k, it was not much of an issue. In those days I played Vanilla Marines and never bothered with anything other than my codex and book.
It was kind of funny watching a bunch of folks add red paint to their marines to capitalize on the Blood Angels super power, only to go monochrome when the Black Templar lists was released.
I was speaking on the Fantasy side of the aisle, which of course is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
Insectum7 wrote: @y'all: Cool, thanks! That's quite a difference!
. . .
One can knock on 3rd ed all they like, but the Chapter Approved books from that era were totally awesome. New units, adjusted points, new wargear, new armies, Q&A, trial rules. . . It was a good time.
And oh yeah, one of them has an ad for the Codexes and supplements. US$14.99 a Codex, and Supplements US$9.99. What a time to be alive!
That's why I will knock them - when I buy a rule book, I don't feel I should pay for the corrections. Both with 40k and WHFB, GW was essentially making people pay them for more playable lists that should have been available on the first try. The rule book and codex soon required several volumes of updates. I think there were two large WHFB supplements that you had to carry besides the rule book and the army book in order to play.
Given GW's resources, ability to playtest and crowdsource, that was just terrible customer service, but it did make them a lot of money, which is nice.
That's why I like 2nd ed. All the rules are there, you don't have worry about units being wrecked, and at this point, all the known bugs have been worked out.
There were many additions and corrections for 2nd ed too. Multiple WD issues with clarifications and answered questions, added options etc. When I went to tournaments I definitely brought several post BRB and Codex publications with me. There was a particular big FAQ one, the Attack Bike release which had specialized wargear, and possibly the issue with custom Chapter Masters and individual Combat Squads.
Insectum7 wrote: There were many additions and corrections for 2nd ed too. Multiple WD issues with clarifications and answered questions, added options etc. When I went to tournaments I definitely brought several post BRB and Codex publications with me. There was a particular big FAQ one, the Attack Bike release which had specialized wargear, and possibly the issue with custom Chapter Masters and individual Combat Squads.
There is no question that 2nd edition was a work in progress. GW had a surprise hit in Rogue Trader and was trying to rationalize it's new hot property.
For many of us, the advent of 3rd ed. was a profound disappointment. We expected it to be the long-awaited clarification/rationalization of scattershot rules.
And let there be no doubt, a full revision was needed, with updated codicies and streamlined rules that eliminated the tension between the super-detailed Rogue Trader and the larger battles that 2nd ed. could clearly support. Who wants to roll scatter for every jump pack trooper?!
My point is that the passage of 20 years has allowed 2nd ed. to solidify into a stable rules set, with generally agreed-upon conventions.
Insectum7 wrote: On the one hand, yes. On the other hand, "consensus" is easier when its no longer supported and rarely played outside of niche groups.
When Portent was still a thing, there was a thread on the 'fixes' people used in 2nd.
Spoiler alert: there was an overwhelming agreement on what should have been done. It was wild. It was one of those threads that was boring because everyone kept saying "yeah, that's what my group is doing, too."
In the years since then, I've found a striking conformity on what people wanted. They loved the core rules, appreciated mechanics like Overwatch, found psykers distracting and generally agreed that a simplification/rationalization was needed to reduce needless and fiddly mechanics (roll for plasma ball expansion every turn? No thanks.)
This is exactly the opposite of what one would expect, btw. You'd expect much more "consensus" in a fully supported game because the publisher is basically there to create it.
Spoiler alert: there was an overwhelming agreement on what should have been done. It was wild. It was one of those threads that was boring because everyone kept saying "yeah, that's what my group is doing, too."
You're talking about gamers understanding basic game design. it is not a surprise that they all come to the same basic place. it is no different between my group and Mezmorki's pro-hammer project to fix 3rd-7th edition for a unified rule set. many of the fixes we came up with are mostly the same.
Spoiler alert: there was an overwhelming agreement on what should have been done. It was wild. It was one of those threads that was boring because everyone kept saying "yeah, that's what my group is doing, too."
You're talking about gamers understanding basic game design. it is not a surprise that they all come to the same basic place. it is no different between my group and Mezmorki's pro-hammer project to fix 3rd-7th edition for a unified rule set. many of the fixes we came up with are mostly the same.
Given the contentious (and often acrimonious) debates over various GW games, it was surprising to see the level of agreement.
On the other hand, the people in question were clearly drawn not just to GWs latest offering, but to a particular style of game play.
I don't think there's any question that the tactics and flow of 2nd ed. stands apart from what came before or after. Rogue Trader was a work in progress, and 2nd ed. was realization of that work. The Warhammer world was being translated into space and serious thought was finally being applied to how to visualize that form of combat. The answer was: firepower. Lots of firepower. Terrain-dense battlefields were necessary to keep things from becoming the Western Desert in 1942.
At the same time, mechanics were created to allow brutal close combats, and this was the core tension of that system.
The split - such as it was - was between those who found 2nd too fiddly and (if I may be blunt) tactically demanding. If you're going to close to melee range in an age of plasma cannon and heavy flamers, it's going to take some finesse.
What 3rd ed. did was simplify things, but it also created an instability that (as far as I know) persists to this day. Should armies be able to blast their opponents off the tabletop or slam into them and cut them to pieces with chainswords?
I think 2nd ed. found that sweet spot - firepower had the edge, but with some skill, you could get within "the wire" and rip the gun line to pieces. That was what made it fun.
Okay, that and turrets blowing off tanks and landing on the army commander.
Insectum7 wrote: On the one hand, yes. On the other hand, "consensus" is easier when its no longer supported and rarely played outside of niche groups.
When Portent was still a thing, there was a thread on the 'fixes' people used in 2nd.
Spoiler alert: there was an overwhelming agreement on what should have been done. It was wild. It was one of those threads that was boring because everyone kept saying "yeah, that's what my group is doing, too."
In the years since then, I've found a striking conformity on what people wanted. They loved the core rules, appreciated mechanics like Overwatch, found psykers distracting and generally agreed that a simplification/rationalization was needed to reduce needless and fiddly mechanics (roll for plasma ball expansion every turn? No thanks.)
This is exactly the opposite of what one would expect, btw. You'd expect much more "consensus" in a fully supported game because the publisher is basically there to create it.
Hard disagree on Plasma Plama and it's effects played a major role in my toolkit back in the day.
Edit: As was setting exarchs on fire, which I also read had been removed.
Hard disagree on Plasma Plama and it's effects played a major role in my toolkit back in the day.
Same here. When those were the official rules, plasma balls as 'created terrain' were a neat thing to use.
However, what 3rd ed. did was create a faster, leaner system, and that caused a lot of players of 2nd ed. to think: "yeah, if we cut out some of these fiddly details, we'd have the best of both worlds."
It's a tradeoff, right? Do you want to start every turn rolling for models still on fire, plasma ball expansion, or just get on with the game? The less fiddly details, the bigger the forces you can use, which is always more fun.
A month ago I met a guy who happened to be into 2nd (in my Guard unit of all places; small world). And we got to chatting and what do you know, we were nodding rapidly on all the things that our gaming groups were doing. Weird how this guy I never met had somehow come to similar conclusions about a game that's been out of print since 1998.
I do think there is a 40k sweet spot that borrows from each paradigm (2nd, 3rd, 8th), but I disagree that if the community became as large as 40Ks is today, that you'd find a consensus. I think the main reason for similar thoughts about 2nd are that the major sticking points are pretty glaring. The CC phase being one of the most obvious problems.
But take today's playerbase and plop them in 2nd? You'd probably get a riot about Marines having only 1 W and Lasguns leaving them with a 4+ save after their -1 mod. And after that everyone would be gnashing their teeth about OP Eldar, Wolf Guard and Ork Pulsa Rokkits. There's a lot to love about 2nd ed, but it needs to be played with care if you want a good game out of it. There are many ways to break it even with revised rules.
Guard unit? I retired from the Indiana National Guard back in January 2021 after 23 years of service. VERY small world...
I know it's been addressed but I want to reiterate that 2nd was not nearly as amendment free as you make it sound. It took almost as much fan patching as AOS 1.0 and was flat out replaced when GW had the chance to simply amend it.
3rd had supplements, yes, but what errata you needed could be printed off their website, cut out, and glued into your codex. Same for 6th WFB. I didn't need to drag out everything just to play the game, only what was pertinent.
Just Tony wrote: Guard unit? I retired from the Indiana National Guard back in January 2021 after 23 years of service. VERY small world...
If you were in the 38th ID, we were in the same outfit for a few months. Then I got a brain and switched to the Air side.
I know it's been addressed but I want to reiterate that 2nd was not nearly as amendment free as you make it sound. It took almost as much fan patching as AOS 1.0 and was flat out replaced when GW had the chance to simply amend it.
3rd had supplements, yes, but what errata you needed could be printed off their website, cut out, and glued into your codex. Same for 6th WFB. I didn't need to drag out everything just to play the game, only what was pertinent.
I don't think I've ever claimed 2nd was not a work in progress, it very much was. That made it frustrating since major releases were not in the codex, but also gave it sense of a living thing. I expected the 1998 revision to be a cleaning up of the rules, not a major reconsideration of them.
As for today, yes, Oldhammer is a great option (whatever flavor you choose) because once you have all the books, you have all the books. That's it. No new errata, no next edition which wrecks your army, you're good for a long as you want to play.
As for today, yes, Oldhammer is a great option (whatever flavor you choose) because once you have all the books, you have all the books. That's it. No new errata, no next edition which wrecks your army, you're good for a long as you want to play.
That is one of the high points, you are off the rollercoaster. additionally, all the old codexes are incredibly affordable. usually averaging below $10
In addition to the main rulebooks i have amassed quite a collection of 3rd-7th edition codexes including all the 3rd ed index astartes books and chapter approved
Even if they never got any edition quite "right" i find much more enjoyment in those older codexes especially when the design team obvious had a lot more love for the universe they created.
Hah, a grunt! I was supposed to be a cannon cocker, HHB, 1-119 FA
And my point was that none of the older editions are any worse than the others as far as patches. GW never did get a game right out the chute.
I think the disappointment was that 2nd was at the time seen as a "breakthrough" edition, and that by 1998, a lot of the bugs and issues had been worked out. A thorough cleanup and revision was necessary, expected and feasible.
Instead, GW embarked on what is now a system of planned obsolescence. They make a new version, don't properly playtest it, offer muddled fixes and then start the cycle over again.
Hah, a grunt! I was supposed to be a cannon cocker, HHB, 1-119 FA
And my point was that none of the older editions are any worse than the others as far as patches. GW never did get a game right out the chute.
I think the disappointment was that 2nd was at the time seen as a "breakthrough" edition, and that by 1998, a lot of the bugs and issues had been worked out. A thorough cleanup and revision was necessary, expected and feasible.
Instead, GW embarked on what is now a system of planned obsolescence. They make a new version, don't properly playtest it, offer muddled fixes and then start the cycle over again.
At least you weren't Cav or MP...
And I'll go ahead and state that, having played 2nd, if the only 40K I could ever play again was second I'd sell everything I own in a heartbeat.
Heh. The worst are the MPs who go into Public Affairs. Ask me how I know...
And I'll go ahead and state that, having played 2nd, if the only 40K I could ever play again was second I'd sell everything I own in a heartbeat.
Well, I felt the same way about late 3rd/early 4th. I burned out on it hard, and sold off everything but my Space Marines, mostly out of nostalgia. I still had the 2nd ed. rules and one day my nephew suggested I just play that version. Smart kid.
The nice thing about Oldhammer is you can play what you want and don't have to worry about GW wrecking your fun with the latest update.
This is likely the best place to ask, but do any of you fellow past-edition appreciators have access to the 5th faqs & errata? I play that edition mostly with my pals anymore, but we have none of the ancillary documents, only our physical books plus a few Imperial Armour pdfs.
Were you looking for something specific? as a no longer supported edition there really is no point to worrying about FAQs or erratas. i know i have a few on PDF but we never use them as we find the core rules and prefered codexes work as is. it is up to your group is you find some problem and want to "fix" it. like what we did with wound allocation shinanegans.
Did you try the Wayback Machine? We have a link to it over at www.classichammer.com that leads directly to the last 6th Ed. WFB update. If you know what date 5th wrapped up, you could probably find that on there.
aphyon wrote:Were you looking for something specific? as a no longer supported edition there really is no point to worrying about FAQs or erratas. i know i have a few on PDF but we never use them as we find the core rules and prefered codexes work as is. it is up to your group is you find some problem and want to "fix" it. like what we did with wound allocation shinanegans.
In general I'd like to know what the designers intended, since that does not always come through cleanly in the language - as I'm sure we all realize. There are only two specific notes that immediately come to mind:
1. Does the Thunderfire Cannon have Barrage in 5E? Codex says no, but all publications afterwards in the 3E-7E paradigm say yes. Perhaps the change was only made after the 5E codex, but I don't wonder.
2. How do No Retreat wounds (5E again) interact within multiple-combats? In a recent game of my Crimson Fists against my friend's Tyranids, there was an assault with two Tactical Squads vs. an Exocrine (we just use the 6E rules ported directly back) and a swarm of Genestealers. Marines did very poorly and lost combat by 8, using Combat Tactics to try and break away. Both units were caught by the Genestealers and so took 8 wounds apiece. RAW that seems to be how it works and is/was pretty nasty to be on the receiving end. The Red Book however does not do a great job making that clear, as we had to scour the Assault and Morale rules to figure that out.
Just Tony wrote:Did you try the Wayback Machine? We have a link to it over at www.classichammer.com that leads directly to the last 6th Ed. WFB update. If you know what date 5th wrapped up, you could probably find that on there.
I find the Wayback Machine bothersome to fiddle with, and as I was pretty young back and just starting to get into 40k around 2008 I doubt I would be able to track them down. That said, the Classic Hammer forum will be an asset I am sure! Thank you for bringing it to my attention.
As for today, yes, Oldhammer is a great option (whatever flavor you choose) because once you have all the books, you have all the books. That's it. No new errata, no next edition which wrecks your army, you're good for a long as you want to play.
That is one of the high points, you are off the rollercoaster. additionally, all the old codexes are incredibly affordable. usually averaging below $10
In addition to the main rulebooks i have amassed quite a collection of 3rd-7th edition codexes including all the 3rd ed index astartes books and chapter approved
Even if they never got any edition quite "right" i find much more enjoyment in those older codexes especially when the design team obvious had a lot more love for the universe they created.
Just consider the art itself in the codexes. I guess they used photos of minis when 6th came around.
In general I'd like to know what the designers intended, since that does not always come through cleanly in the language - as I'm sure we all realize. There are only two specific notes that immediately come to mind:
That has been hotly contested for decades. since the designers are/were brits and originally did not design the game for hardcore tournament minded players there have been quite a few instances where things were interpreted in a way they even admitted they never considered in some interviews. the rule of thumb is generally-if it looks like the rule could be interpreted to give you an unfair advantage-do not use it in that way.
1. Does the Thunderfire Cannon have Barrage in 5E? Codex says no, but all publications afterwards in the 3E-7E paradigm say yes. Perhaps the change was only made after the 5E codex, but I don't wonder.
It depends on what version of barrage you are talking about-indirect fire or template flipping. rules wise in 5th edition it does not. codex always takes precedent for special rules. it is a heavy 4 blast meaning you roll for each shot/scatter separately (an improvement in my experience) but it cannot fire indirect.
2. How do No Retreat wounds (5E again) interact within multiple-combats? In a recent game of my Crimson Fists against my friend's Tyranids, there was an assault with two Tactical Squads vs. an Exocrine (we just use the 6E rules ported directly back) and a swarm of Genestealers. Marines did very poorly and lost combat by 8, using Combat Tactics to try and break away. Both units were caught by the Genestealers and so took 8 wounds apiece. RAW that seems to be how it works and is/was pretty nasty to be on the receiving end. The Red Book however does not do a great job making that clear, as we had to scour the Assault and Morale rules to figure that out.
If you look back at the first page i discuss how we also port new units back into older codexes, works just fine. a bit expensive at times but having chaos a helldrake with parasitic possession from the 3.5 codex makes it far more interesting.
They are all one big combat and the result effect all participants, however i think you are mixing up a different rule-no retreat applies to units that are fearless not units with ATSKNF (and they shall know no fear). it is a reason we house ruled fearless back to what it was in 3rd and 4th edition (and became again in later editions-the fearless unit just auto passes moral and keeps fighting without taking the extra wounds).
The order of the event you describe after combat is resolved should be-
.apply LD modifiers to the loosing unit(s) taking the highest LD value available in the combat.
.if the losing side fails the check (always passes on double 1s) or in this case chooses to fail with combat tactics- they fall back 2d6 inches or 3d6 for jump and bike units
.the winning unit(s) can try to catch the fleeing units by rolling a D6 + initiative (using the highest stat for each side). if the fleeing unit does not roll higher it is caught
.for any non-marine unit without ATSKNF they are immediately destroyed as they are cut down as they turn to run,
.for units with ATSKNF they turn and keep fighting as if combat was tied. they also do not make the fall back move.
In your situation it is still bad for the marines as being in CC with stealers and a monstrous creature is not a great place for tac squads, but they would not take any extra wounds/make saves for being caught.
Just consider the art itself in the codexes. I guess they used photos of minis when 6th came around.
Not just the art, i miss the grim dark feel of the older books. you always had liner notes and quotes-
take this excerpt from the witch hunters codex
++"Heretics crave the cleansing fire of absolution. they need not fear, for we shall deliver"++
That has been hotly contested for decades. since the designers are/were brits and originally did not design the game for hardcore tournament minded players there have been quite a few instances where things were interpreted in a way they even admitted they never considered in some interviews. the rule of thumb is generally-if it looks like the rule could be interpreted to give you an unfair advantage-do not use it in that way.
Not only that, but you had disputes between and within the design teams over the direction of the game.
By 1998, 40k was outstripping their flagship fantasy line of games and figures. It was popular, but a hodge-podge of official books, magazine articles and various official pronouncements. The focus of the game had also shifted, from very detailed squad on squad action (rolling scatter for every jump pack move, models hit with flamers could catch fire and move randomly each turn, etc.) to a larger-scale combat with less detail. There were tons of weird an complex mechanics, including mole mortars and the Thudd gun. A revision was desperately needed.
A larger question was how to approach the rules themselves. Was GW going to create a standard, refined and long-lasting rules set or do something different? In fact, I don't think any game company before or since has embraced their concept of planned obsolescence. D&D has been around far longer than 40k and has half as many revisions (ironically the latest bring it closer to its original edition than any since).
This is the biggest obstacle to a geezer like me getting "current," because I'll only be current for a three years before the next iteration comes out. At least by playing Oldhammer I know what I've got, and the edition I chose was big enough that I still haven't explored it fully, which says a lot about the scope of its design space.
In general I'd like to know what the designers intended, since that does not always come through cleanly in the language - as I'm sure we all realize. There are only two specific notes that immediately come to mind:
That has been hotly contested for decades. since the designers are/were brits and originally did not design the game for hardcore tournament minded players there have been quite a few instances where things were interpreted in a way they even admitted they never considered in some interviews. the rule of thumb is generally-if it looks like the rule could be interpreted to give you an unfair advantage-do not use it in that way.
Hence my desire for access to old errata and FAQs. Surely there is some documentation somewhere, as I remember in my youth seeing such documents, that would be a start for clearing up some of the uncertainties. If you go too far in creating your own version, there comes a point where you may as well be making your own game - a la ProHammer.
1. Does the Thunderfire Cannon have Barrage in 5E? Codex says no, but all publications afterwards in the 3E-7E paradigm say yes. Perhaps the change was only made after the 5E codex, but I don't wonder.
It depends on what version of barrage you are talking about-indirect fire or template flipping. rules wise in 5th edition it does not. codex always takes precedent for special rules. it is a heavy 4 blast meaning you roll for each shot/scatter separately (an improvement in my experience) but it cannot fire indirect.
Yes, I know the 5E codex does not list Barrage on the Thunderfire, that was the point of the query. Later codices do make the Thunderfire a Barrage weapon. As the Thunderfire Cannon was introduced in the 2008 5E Space Marine Codex I am wondering whether it was supposed to have Barrage from the first, as it was obviously changed to be so in time. An errata document might answer the question.
2. How do No Retreat wounds (5E again) interact within multiple-combats? In a recent game of my Crimson Fists against my friend's Tyranids, there was an assault with two Tactical Squads vs. an Exocrine (we just use the 6E rules ported directly back) and a swarm of Genestealers. Marines did very poorly and lost combat by 8, using Combat Tactics to try and break away. Both units were caught by the Genestealers and so took 8 wounds apiece. RAW that seems to be how it works and is/was pretty nasty to be on the receiving end. The Red Book however does not do a great job making that clear, as we had to scour the Assault and Morale rules to figure that out.
If you look back at the first page i discuss how we also port new units back into older codexes, works just fine. a bit expensive at times but having chaos a helldrake with parasitic possession from the 3.5 codex makes it far more interesting.
They are all one big combat and the result effect all participants, however i think you are mixing up a different rule-no retreat applies to units that are fearless not units with ATSKNF (and they shall know no fear). it is a reason we house ruled fearless back to what it was in 3rd and 4th edition (and became again in later editions-the fearless unit just auto passes moral and keeps fighting without taking the extra wounds).
The order of the event you describe after combat is resolved should be-
.apply LD modifiers to the loosing unit(s) taking the highest LD value available in the combat.
.if the losing side fails the check (always passes on double 1s) or in this case chooses to fail with combat tactics- they fall back 2d6 inches or 3d6 for jump and bike units
.the winning unit(s) can try to catch the fleeing units by rolling a D6 + initiative (using the highest stat for each side). if the fleeing unit does not roll higher it is caught
.for any non-marine unit without ATSKNF they are immediately destroyed as they are cut down as they turn to run,
.for units with ATSKNF they turn and keep fighting as if combat was tied. they also do not make the fall back move.
In your situation it is still bad for the marines as being in CC with stealers and a monstrous creature is not a great place for tac squads, but they would not take any extra wounds/make saves for being caught.
I recommend you check the 5E Codex again, because Space Marines do in fact suffer No Retreat losses when ATSKNF kicks in vs Sweeping Advances. I cannot speak to 3E, 4E, or etc. but in the 5E 2008 book it very clearly says so on page 51 under the ATSKNF heading: "If this happens then the unit is subject to the No Retreat rule in this round of close combat..." Personally I prefer this wording of ATSKNF and Fearless, as it makes such Special Rules not complete invalidations of the Morale penalties for losing in close combat. When certain factions, such as Space Marines, Tyranids, big mobs of Orks, 3.5E CSM, and so on broadly ignore Morale in many circumstances it can feel as though you are playing two different tiers of the game with some clear winners and some clear losers.
In the aforementioned situation, the SM lost combat by a total of 8 wounds and merely used Combat Tactics to auto-fail the Ld. check rather than risk passing and being forced into another round of combat. Being caught by the Sweeping Advance, both SM units took 8 wounds due to No Retreat as previously said. The difficulty of the situation was in ascertaining that yes indeed both units took a total of 8 additional wounds each (rather than the 8 wounds being somehow divided between them) because Combat Results are shared universally across all friendly units within a multi-assault. Be cautious with your multi-assaults is the lessen, as you can lose to a much greater degree than you might expect.
I recommend you check the 5E Codex again, because Space Marines do in fact suffer No Retreat losses when ATSKNF kicks in vs Sweeping Advances.
We solved that problem entirely by removing the mechanic from our games by going back to 3rd/4th ed rules. fearless units auto pass, stubborn units take no LD modifiers, ATSKNF just stay locked and keep fighting.
Surely there is some documentation somewhere
As to their idea of rules as intended? i do not think such an explanation exists.
The only time i have seen that is when they did personal interviews at events.
looking though the combined 5th ed IGFAQ/errata
The FAQ side just answers a few questions like can multiple advisors stack modifiers?
the other side just fixes typos like pointing out in the rules the Valkyrie has 3 access doors not one (even though we clearly know that by looking at the model).
Later codices do make the Thunderfire a Barrage weapon. As the Thunderfire Cannon was introduced in the 2008 5E Space Marine Codex I am wondering whether it was supposed to have Barrage from the first,
Very clearly NO, it doesn't matter what they changed it to later, the 5th ed codex takes precedent if that is the book you are using for your army it is a heavy 4 small blast. granted your group can choose to make it barrage if they so choose. again as an older edition there is no GW police coming to tell you you cannot play it how you like if you all agree. just like removing the no-retreat rule above.
Colonel Bork wrote: Both units were caught by the Genestealers and so took 8 wounds apiece. RAW that seems to be how it works and is/was pretty nasty to be on the receiving end. The Red Book however does not do a great job making that clear, as we had to scour the Assault and Morale rules to figure that out.
This is correct under 5th edition rules - both units take wounds equal to the combat result against them, saves allowed, as per no retreat on page 51 of the marine book (and page 41 of the 5e rulebook).
In this instance the marine unit would not move.
Under earlier edition rules the marines would have fallen back the full distance and any unit that caught up to them would have been treated as charging them, but with no more casualties inflicted.
Colonel Bork wrote: This is likely the best place to ask, but do any of you fellow past-edition appreciators have access to the 5th faqs & errata? I play that edition mostly with my pals anymore, but we have none of the ancillary documents, only our physical books plus a few Imperial Armour pdfs.
I've sent you a PM for my old errata dropbox archive, 3rd to 5th edition.
Very clearly NO, it doesn't matter what they changed it to later, the 5th ed codex takes precedent if that is the book you are using for your army it is a heavy 4 small blast. granted your group can choose to make it barrage if they so choose. again as an older edition there is no GW police coming to tell you you cannot play it how you like if you all agree. just like removing the no-retreat rule above.
When we initially shifted back to 2nd, there were a certain amount of "orphaned" gear that we had to account for. Most of it translated okay because there were equivalent weapons available. Over time, however, it was easier to either retrofit the models or sell them and buy edition-appropriate replacements.
The latter option was quite profitable since people were dumping 2nd ed. stuff for cheap and the constant price increases kept the secondary market booming. It also solved the problem of weapons systems that only worked in a 3/4 edition environment. The Land Raider Crusader was bristling with shooty weapons to compensate for the reduced effectiveness of missile fire. In the 2nd ed. environment, it got an insane amount of sustained fire dice, which meant it got to shoot at full effect once per game.
After that it was clearing jams. Same with the Baal Predator. Six sustained fire dice and then...clearing all the jams.
I'm sure the new owners are quite happy with them.
Later codices do make the Thunderfire a Barrage weapon. As the Thunderfire Cannon was introduced in the 2008 5E Space Marine Codex I am wondering whether it was supposed to have Barrage from the first,
Very clearly NO, it doesn't matter what they changed it to later, the 5th ed codex takes precedent if that is the book you are using for your army it is a heavy 4 small blast. granted your group can choose to make it barrage if they so choose. again as an older edition there is no GW police coming to tell you you cannot play it how you like if you all agree. just like removing the no-retreat rule above.
I think you're missing my point. I know that the 2008 Codex does not list the Thunderfire Cannon as Barrage - it's right there in black and white. I was merely wondering if any of the FAQs/errata documents from that time made such an adjustment, since in all later publications (6E/7E) the weapon does have the Barrage rule. The question was whether that was originally intended for the 2008 book, or if some designer made the decision later. As A.T. has helpfully provided me with the FAQs/errata I was looking for, I can now confirm that the latter was the answer.
A.T. wrote:
Colonel Bork wrote: Both units were caught by the Genestealers and so took 8 wounds apiece. RAW that seems to be how it works and is/was pretty nasty to be on the receiving end. The Red Book however does not do a great job making that clear, as we had to scour the Assault and Morale rules to figure that out.
This is correct under 5th edition rules - both units take wounds equal to the combat result against them, saves allowed, as per no retreat on page 51 of the marine book (and page 41 of the 5e rulebook).
In this instance the marine unit would not move.
Under earlier edition rules the marines would have fallen back the full distance and any unit that caught up to them would have been treated as charging them, but with no more casualties inflicted.
Yes, this is the eventual conclusion we reached in the game, though it took us a bit of time to determine that. I think my opponent may have been pitying me as, he maintained that it worked differently and each unit took only as many No Retreat wounds as they individually lost the combat by! Suffice to say, the Marines did not fare well, but that is fine.
A.T. wrote:
Colonel Bork wrote: This is likely the best place to ask, but do any of you fellow past-edition appreciators have access to the 5th faqs & errata? I play that edition mostly with my pals anymore, but we have none of the ancillary documents, only our physical books plus a few Imperial Armour pdfs.
I've sent you a PM for my old errata dropbox archive, 3rd to 5th edition.
Thank you again, this is just what I was looking for.
I've been slowly rebuilding my general dark angels centered around the 3.5 mini codex.
with everything i have i am up to around 3,800 points. with a big chunk being in land raiders...back when i used to own all the variants that were available at the time.
I am also trying to stay with old school theme of swords and plasma weapons. i was given a squad of guardians of the covenant so i am toying with adding more successor representation.
aphyon wrote: I've been slowly rebuilding my general dark angels centered around the 3.5 mini codex.
Nice. Are those metal or plastic dreads? I know bases subsequently became "a thing," so it's hard to tell.
I was big into dreads back in the day and they were a mainstay of my 3/4 marines. I see some razorbacks, which were also the backbone of my force.
No photos yet, but I'm about done with the squad of Noise Marines for my 2nd ed. force and I'll update my thread on the scratch-built Chaos Rhinos soon. One annoying thing about scratch-builds: you forget stuff. We had nice weather two days ago, so I primed and base coated them and then realized that I needed to add a few bits. That doesn't happen when you've got instructions!
Indeed, i have owned many of these minis since around 2001.
I love the old FW spaced armor, long since discontinued.
The metal venerable dread would really hurt if you got hit with it.
I am running the deathwing terminator squad as Azrael's command squad so i got an apothecary and techmarine in there. fun things you could do back in the day.
The prometheus specifically i am running as the named personal land raider of the supreme grand master from the Vraks book-Angelis Imperator as a relic vehicle i thought is should remain in old legion colors.
aphyon wrote: Indeed, i have owned many of these minis since around 2001.
I love the old FW spaced armor, long since discontinued.
The metal venerable dread would really hurt if you got hit with it.
All four of my space marine dreadnoughts are metal. Indeed, that army is largely "frozen in time," in terms of model vintage.
It looks great. I had a lot of fun with 3rd ed., but it did wear me out in the end. Plus, knowing I'd have to buy new books all over again at a time when I had little kids and a million other expenses caused me to bail out.
I'll cop to being ignorant on the plastic dreadnought features since I never had one and I'm also prone to mixing and matching parts from all over the place. I've got surplus metal smoke launchers tacked onto all sorts of scratchbuilt stuff.
I'll cop to being ignorant on the plastic dreadnought features since I never had one and I'm also prone to mixing and matching parts from all over the place. I've got surplus metal smoke launchers tacked onto all sorts of scratchbuilt stuff.
Yeah the only noticeable difference between the metal and plastic Dreadnoughts is the auto-launchers. For some odd reason they decided to make them much smaller (and much inferior, imo). I have all plastic Dreads but I managed to get them all hooked up with the metal auto launchers to look right.
Insectum7 wrote: Yeah the only noticeable difference between the metal and plastic Dreadnoughts is the auto-launchers. For some odd reason they decided to make them much smaller (and much inferior, imo). I have all plastic Dreads but I managed to get them all hooked up with the metal auto launchers to look right.
Can the plastic ones pivot at the waist? That's one of the things I like about my metal ones - I can turn the torso various ways and - if it gets blown up - split it in two with "smoke" coming out.
Most (but not all) of my scratch-built stuff can pivot their weapons at least, but doing the partial disassembly thing is beyond my patience. At a certain point I want to just play with the toy already.
The waist of the plastic ones is a ball-and-socket, rather than the "plug" of the metal, so it's more poseable, but likely to tumble off . . . Unless you employ the magic of magnets! All of mine (3) are magnetized.
Insectum7 wrote: The waist of the plastic ones is a ball-and-socket, rather than the "plug" of the metal, so it's more poseable, but likely to tumble off . . . Unless you employ the magic of magnets! All of mine (3) are magnetized.
Oooh. Fancy.
I thought about making working running gear for my Chaos Rhinos but failed my saving throw vs laziness.
They will have rubber tracks, so I will take pride in that.
All my old dreads are glued together at the waste, it wasn't until mid 2008 when i started building my salamanders successors for 5th ed that i discovered the magic of magnets. of course, all the arm sets are peg/hole so they just pop on and off no problem.
So did a combination of 2 versions of the game this weekend.
I broke all my epic armies into legal 2k points 5th ed style armies and we played a 10 turn center objective battle with ranges and movement halved.
The other player wanted to use the 3rd edition IG armored company list. i randomly rolled off to choose his opponent. he got the admech 7th edition list.
all those breachers glanced him all over the place and managed to kill several tanks. in the end it was to no avail as we were both pushed too far away from the objective to win outright. so, we had to go to tie breaker. he won that with first blood.
First off both our games were using our hybrid 3rd-7th ed rules.
The first game was against a guard armored company courtesy of the 3rd edition chapter approved-8 leman russ's of various loadouts and 2 baneblades.
My side ran craftworld eldar for iyanden with a farseer on a jet bike, 3 squads of wraithguard/spirit seers in wave serpents, 3 fire prisms, a linx, revenant titan and 3 crimson hunters.
We both brought the tools to hurt each other and even with all the damage we were doing it was a bunch of turns (the game was set at 10 given the scale) of basically knocking each other around but not killing anything. fortunately since we allowed snap firing there was still loads of action.
The eldar seemd to be behind for the first half of the game and slowly started killing or neutering guard tanks near the end, but it wasn't enough to pull them ahead. i only took 2 structure off one baneblade and one off the other but i did manage to destroy both demolisher and baneblade cannons. it was a very fun game, and it really didn't take very long to play.
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Now for part 2-
Standard scale 2k game blood angles 5th ed VS dark angels 3.5 ed.
this was a test game for the blood angels. with a few stand in proxies
BA astorath the grim
X3 5 man death compay with power fist/infernus pistol in assault cannon razorbacks.
.5 man scout sniper team
X2 baal predators
X3 vindicators
X1 deathcompany dread with claws in a lucius drop pod.
Spoiler:
VS
.azrael
.interrogator chaplain in terminator armor
.deathcompany command squad
in a land raider crusader
.2 squads of plasma pistol/gun/cannon in las/plas razorbacks
X3 venerable dreads (2 plasma/2 assault cannon) 2 lucius pattern drop pods.
Spoiler:
Dark angels managed to go first, with turn 1 being a bit lackluster, only immobilizing one vindicator and killing some scouts.
It was actually a pretty good fight, i was surprised how long my razorbacks lasted...the land raider not so much. the death company dread super overkilled the tactical squad it assaulted but then got immobilised by overwatch fire when it tried to assault a razorback. the back and forth went on like this for a while.
when the dust cleared the blood angles had a narrow 2 point lead when the game ended turn 5 with a roll of 2.
Tonight's game was an interesting mix. a DIY chapter using the 4th ed trait system that felt like a mix of raven guard and alpha legion, heavy on the infiltration and close combat VS my 3.5 dark angels.
The game was 2K, with 5 objectives.
I ran the same list for the dark angels that i used last time......and i actually made the roll to "hunt the fallen". his tech marine was designated as the character holding the information.
I managed to win the roll for first turn. i savaged both his infiltrating 10 man squads. forcing one to break and run then, get stuck in CC for a turn with one of my podding dreads.
There was a whole lot of me making my cover saves, my las cannons not being able to roll above an 11 for armor pen and a few instances of vehicles getting stunned and shaken.
I did manage a moral victory by slaying the tech marine in CC giving me 2 extra victory points. however, the game ended on turn 5 with him using troops to OBSEC away a contested point giving him 4 VP to my 3. it was turn 5 where i started to actually do damage killing 2 of his dreads. if i had another turn i think i would have turned it around.
A tough game to the wire.
Next time we are planning a silly game using a combination of the death company rules (blood angels 5th ed) with blood frenzy (3.5 khrone berserkers), righteous zeal (4th ed black templar) and a couple other silly rules to make a proper "angry marines" army list. i am looking forward to it.
The dark angels came out one more time before i rotate them out.
tonight's game was against imperial guard. why may you ask would the emperors finest strike a blow against the guard? why when they consort with abhumans of course. specifically storm troopers of the catgirl variety.
The game-
2k points, 4 objectives 12" deployment.
Dark angels side 3.5 codex
.azrael
.X2 plasma cannon/plasma gun TAC squads in las/plas razorbacks
.X1 missile/flamer TAC squad+flak ammo
.X3 venerable dreads (2 with plasma cannon/1 with assault cannon)
.X2 lucius pattern drop pods
.land speeder tempest
.landraider helios w/hyperios AA missile upgrade.
IG side-5th ed codex
.company command
.lord commisar
.pask in a leman russ executioner
.X2 vet squads with melta
.X2 storm trooper squads
.X1 infantry squad
.autocannon squad
.X2 chimera
.griffon mortor
.armored sentinel
.standard leman russ
X2 vendetta gunships.
DA won the first turn and managed to take down the normal russ and take the main gun off Pask's executioner. the melta squads got revenge on the podding dreads in the following turns, including a lucky melta hit in overwatch. . Azrael was taken down to 1 wound but managed to bring the emperors wrath to the feline troopers one they showed up. he managed to shrug off hits from las cannons, plasma and melta.....but not the wall of flashlights,
Both vendettas were taken down by the land raiders las cannons. one after it had dropped off it's passengers, the other took a catastrophic visist to the ground at high speed.
When the smke cleared at the end of turn 5 both sides were holding a single objective.
the tie breakers were.
.slay the warlord-to the guard.
.first blood and linebreaker to the Dark Angels.
Giving a narrow victory to the 1st.
Loss wise
Dark angels
.azrael
.14 marines
.2 dreadnoughts
.1 razorback
with
one razorback immobilized with no weapons.
It was just one las cannon on Pask the other russ ran afoul of the podding dreadnought. although i only did have 2 regular las and 2 twin linked. the darn chimera (the green one not the tan one) was indestructible. it shrugged off so much fire thanks to low dice rolls or cover saves.
Set up wise we go really old school with a slight modification. 1-roll to see who gets to choose to set up first or second (effectively letting you choose table sides VS seeing where the enemy deploys), then you set up your entire force, 2. then we roll off to see who gets to go first (keeps it interesting) and then 3. the seize the initiative roll for the looser.
aphyon wrote: 2. then we roll off to see who gets to go first (keeps it interesting) and then 3. the seize the initiative roll for the looser.
Why do this when it's mathematically identical to skipping the seize roll and just rolling off for first turn? The seize roll only exists when you do something between rolling for first turn and rolling to seize.
aphyon wrote: 2. then we roll off to see who gets to go first (keeps it interesting) and then 3. the seize the initiative roll for the looser.
Why do this when it's mathematically identical to skipping the seize roll and just rolling off for first turn? The seize roll only exists when you do something between rolling for first turn and rolling to seize.
aphyon wrote: It was just one las cannon on Pask the other russ ran afoul of the podding dreadnought.
Combination of bad luck and positioning then. One in three to hit, one in twelve to penetrate past cover, 50/50 to do meaningful damage thereafter. Guard have the range and bodies to try and castle-out drop pods - i'm assuming it was an underslung meltagun.
Aecus Decimus wrote: Why do this when it's mathematically identical to skipping the seize roll and just rolling off for first turn?
If i'm not mistaken it's functionally a 4+ seize unless you choose to not contest the first coin flip. I suppose incentive to not set up in the ultra-aggressive vs ultra-defensive style of 5th.
Combination of bad luck and positioning then. One in three to hit, one in twelve to penetrate past cover, 50/50 to do meaningful damage thereafter. Guard have the range and bodies to try and castle-out drop pods - i'm assuming it was an underslung meltagun.
Pask failed his 4+ cover and i managed a weapon destroyed result, don't remember if it was a glance or pen.
The other russ had not moved so a dread coming out of a lucius pattern drop pod for turn 1 assault against side armor with 3 auto hits at S10 is a pretty high chance for damage. He got his revenge though with the vet squads. it was a really close game that was decided by tie breakers so it wasn't like it was one sided.
Close games are always the best in my book.
I suppose incentive to not set up in the ultra-aggressive vs ultra-defensive style of 5th.
It is a tactical trade off assuming you win the roll off.
-do you really want one side of the table VS the other or do you want to know where your enemy is deployed?
aphyon wrote: It is a tactical trade off assuming you win the roll off.
-do you really want one side of the table VS the other or do you want to know where your enemy is deployed?
That isn't quite the trade-off I was thinking of.
5e usually had a very clearly defined defender and attacker in any given game. The first player could choose their table edge, position for maximum firepower and aggression, and was almost always going to be first to act. The second player then set up to mitigate it, and the one in six seize was the wildcard that punished 'no plan B' kind of setups.
With a 50/50 chance of going first though setup is much more of a gamble. You don't know if you have the initiative until it is too late to do anything about it so setup becomes a choice of conservative vs risk - a bit like playing American Football and both teams have to send their quarterbacks out not knowing who the ref will hand the ball to until the play starts :p
aphyon wrote: 2. then we roll off to see who gets to go first (keeps it interesting) and then 3. the seize the initiative roll for the looser.
Why do this when it's mathematically identical to skipping the seize roll and just rolling off for first turn? The seize roll only exists when you do something between rolling for first turn and rolling to seize.
Because we think it is fun. isn't that enough?
But why is it fun? Why does resolving who gets first turn by rolling 2D6 instead of a single D6 make it more fun? If rolling more dice is more fun then why not roll 3D6? Or 10D6? You aren't the first person who has used this weird sequence and I've never understood why anyone thinks it's worth doing.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
A.T. wrote: If i'm not mistaken it's functionally a 4+ seize unless you choose to not contest the first coin flip. I suppose incentive to not set up in the ultra-aggressive vs ultra-defensive style of 5th.
I'm talking specifically about the roll for first turn followed immediately by a roll to seize. How it used to work was that you rolled for first turn, deployed the armies, and then rolled to seize. And yeah, the intent was exactly what you said: the 1/6 chance of not going first like you thought you would provided some incentive to not deploy 100% aggressively and be over-extended if your opponent rolled a 6, mitigating alpha strikes a bit. But what Aphyon is doing is rolling for first turn after deployment and then immediately rolling to seize, without anything happening between the two rolls. The seize roll is mathematically redundant and has no reason to exist at that point.
Last night I played a 2nd ed. game with my daughter, 1,000 points, she with Sisters of Battle, me with Da Orks. My group tends to use narrative play and structured scenarios so this was a meeting engagement (all units had to have transport, no leg infantry) and my mission was Dawn Raid while hers was Engage and Destroy.
It was a close game, and partly instructional for her (we haven't played in years), but still fun. The highlight was when she had her Seraphim drop down next to a packed Battlewagon and incinerate everyone on it - except the lucky one who fell out (which by rule meant he had existed the vehicle). He survived the fall, and made a sprint for the table edge but couldn't outrun the jet packs.
Since folks are talking about starting, I enjoy the way 2nd has fixed strategy ratings. In this case the Orks set up first due to their lower rating, but then had the edge when seeing who got the first turn because they double it for turn order rolls. Just a fun little quirk to reflect the relative agility of the various armies.
I'm talking specifically about the roll for first turn followed immediately by a roll to seize.
It is probably a more psychological thing. snatching first turn victory at the last second kind of thing.
We all like the older 3rd/4th ed roll to set up and another roll for first turn, they added the seize mechanic in there after they went to one roll to set up/go first and it kind of stuck.
I'll probably make a dedicated post about this too.... but going back to a conversation from last year, there was a discussion about battle reports and how much fun they were (or not) to watch.
One of the points that stuck with me was that in a usual battle report video, there is a lot of wasted time watching die rolls and other stuff in real-time. There haven't been many cases of people going back to make videos that discuss the gameplay outcomes and decisions after the fact. I've also always struggled with typical video battle reports to get a sense of the actual BATTLE and what was happening where.
So the video my friend and I made (below) was an attempt to try something different. The video covers a rather large battle at the climax of our year-long map based campaign. It got a little longer than intended (but we also covered more up front stuff outside of the battle itself), and if we do this again we'll try to get more focused and tighten things up (also do a smaller battle).
Anyway, please take a look at the video we made. Any and all feedback on the format, presentation, style, approach, etc. would be awesome. We're curious where we can go with this format. Enjoy!
reduced the number of infiltrators to 7 so i could fit in 5 fulgorite electro priests to ride in the termite assault drill.
this is also my first outing with the station forge 3d printed dune crawler variant miniatures,
Spoiler:
It was getting late when we started this game so we just went quick and dirt -2km 12" deployment kill points.
My friend was running his normal 3.5 iron warriors list.
As it always happens i did not kill a single one of his predators. took off weapons, immobilized them etc... but all that just grew back thanks to parasitic, and he ignored all the stunned/shaken results thanks to being controlled by a demon.
All 3 dune crawlers got immobilized on my side and my infiltrators failed their charge, getting deleted by the basilisk.
I did manage to survive all but one of his 9 obliterators. and the fulgerites were victorious against his marines.
I lost 3 units
.cataphron breachers
.assault drill
.infiltrators
he lost 5
.X3 tac squads
.X2 obliterator units.
Game ended on a roll of 2 at the end of 5. i probably would have lost had it gone on, but still a fun game.
First report tonight was a little training game i assisted in-
A new player who tried one game of 9th earlier in the night and decided to give oldhammer a try using the 3rd ed armored company list
The game was 2K IG on IG. the other guard player had run an armored company earlier in the night (report on that next) so he decided on a more "normal" guard army.
The game was 2K points, king of the hill center objective with table quarters deployment.
Creed was on the non-red side and decided to let one of the 2 macharius's outflank from reserves.
It actually took quite a while to wear down all the infantry. the game went to turn 6, with the armored company list parking 2 russes on the objective which by this time was hard to dislodge given the reduction of the other guards play AT units.
The new guy really liked the old hammer rules with a decided dislike of stratagems from his earlier test game. he had to really think over his movement this game weighing his firing arcs VS vulnerabilities in facings. overall though he had a good game and pulled off a victory.
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
The first game was slightly larger by 120 points with 3 objectives and end to end deplyment.
It was a different armored company list VS an admech force.
My admech force-lucius forge world with macharius support-
Spoiler:
This game could have swung either way. the admech is a pretty hard counter to armored company especially with all the cataphrons carrying either the haywire guns or the heavy grav cannons.
I actually managed to destroy the bane blade turn 1 with cascading damage. but since we are using the old FW rules he managed to make a save with his onboard tech priest to save the last structure point....so i proceeded to spend the rest of the game immobilizing it and ripping off weapons. by turn 5 my outflankers had caused havoc in his back field destroying his russ punisher, an armored fist squad and his medusa.
By turn 5 it was a tie leaning in my favor with first blood and linebreaker, it went to turn 6 and he managaged to turn in around and take the lead on objectives. giving him a narrow victory.
We had a new group come in last week playing 9th age and some one page rules grim darkness. they found out how we play old hammer and wanted to come back, unfortunately only one made it back in as the others got sick or otherwise had life happen.
silly life getting in the way of gaming.
So we got a game in of 4th ed tau VS 7th ed admech.
The game
2K points, table quarters deployment with 5 objectives.
The table
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
the game started out a bit slow, neither of us killed much turn 1 with a few stunned vehicles and a few infantry killed....then dice happened. even without marker lights his tau were shooting extremely well (including overwatching my fulgerites)....and i was failing my saves in comparative dice rolls.
the other big problem for me was having 2 of my outflanking units come in on the wrong end of the table...turned out it wasn't all bad his kroot made the mistake of trying to take down my sicarian infiltrators and i locked his command squad of crisis suits in CC eventually destroying them.
But those were the only 2 bright spots for me, a very strong tau victory holding 3 objectives to my 2 (and nearly tabling me) when the game ended.
Dice rolls aside it was a really fun game and we were both in good humor. the way 40K should be played.
Had a regular tau opponent late in 4th and though the half of 5th that was always fond of early turn devastation from broadside units but struggled to back them up when the distance closed.
IIRC bare bones flamer crisis suits worked surprisingly well.
Some crazy person did a list of every 40k release by date. The Eldar are... old. Baharroth's wings might be the oldest thing GW produces at this point.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Some crazy person did a list of every 40k release by date. The Eldar are... old. Baharroth's wings might be the oldest thing GW produces at this point.
Taking over from the long time champion - the 1989 terminator inquisitor.
A game that is so very 40K, ordo hereticus (inquisitor lord Karamozov 3rd ed witch hunters) allied with 7th ed admech VS ordo malleus-a storm trooper themed demon hunter army.
A single center objective, 2K point game.
He had 50 storm troopers at the start of the game with 5 chimeras in addition to a dreadnought, some grey knights and a grand master with terminator retinue. he also brought along a vindicare assassin.
I ended up bringing along the Culexus assassin in my force. i was hoping he could come in and abuse the GKs but he came on the table from outflank against the storm troopers.
The vindicare on his side was more in luck managing to pick off my tech priest dominus before he went down.
I also lost my breachers and assassin, but i managed to kill 45 storm troopers and 2 chimeras with the remaining 3 in various states of damage. it came down tot he bottom of turn 7, if his remaining storm troopers sitting on the object ran, i could win via tie breakers as i had first blood, line breaker and slay the warlord VS his slay the warlord......but they passed and stuck around giving him the main objective.
Fun game. he needs to tweak his list a bit, but overall a good fight.
Brand new guy stopped by last week and found out we played old hammer 40K and said he would come back, and he did. He brought his dark eldar with him this time (apparently he has many different 40K armies to choose from). he started with a smaller game against some iron hands and then we got a game in.
We did a 1,500 point game with 3 objectives and standard deployment just get him re-familiarized with the rules.
Since i was running a cataphron themed ADMECH army his poison 4+ weapons really helped him deal with my across the board T5 army.
I ended up pushing him hard on the left flank and that is also where my sicarian infiltrators showed up taking that objective, but i didn't fair so well on the right. where both his characters got into CC with my dominus and his squad. he took the game 2 to 1 on objectives.
He also is super happy he can play with us and really enjoy 40K again since he can use all his old armies in his favorite edition and not have to chase the meta of constant updates from GW. He was also not a fan of the direction of the game with 8th/9th ed.
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Interestingly we now have 2 regular players who play dark eldar, rather odd considering how rare the army was to see back in 4th and 5th edition when it was current.
Well they did miss out on codex updates between several editions. the 4th/5th ed one was actually quite good and is the one we like to use. but i do agree they did not get much love from GW when it came from model options.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Speaking of old things 40k, this popped into my feed yesterday and I thought I'd share it as this was literally the first GW product I ever bought:
^I've got that set! It was one of the things that inspired me to make my all-old-Warrior Nid army. It's also one of the reasons I keep my models on 25mm bases
Many moons ago, when I decided I wanted to get Space Hulk, and had to get it on eBay (both 1st and 2nd Ed, including both of 1st's expansions), one of the auctions I won (yes, back in the days before Buy It Now) contained an entire Tyranid Attack set, including a double lot of miniatures. Don't ask me how, but it's how I ended up with so many old-style plastic Tyranid Warriors. Not nearly as many as you, but certainly enough for a good sized force.
The best part is that those big Tyranid Attack tiles are completely compatible with the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Edition Hulk tiles. You can make some very big layouts with those things. Great for the various 40kRPGs.
So I'm finally dusting off some Ork Nobs that have been in my "to do" list for...a long time, and plan to build them based on the 4th edition codex. Any thoughts on fun loadouts for them? I don't need min maxed optimal, but I'd also rather not build it out to be complete trash either.
I'm figuring Painboy (which since this is out of one of the old Start Collecting sets I just have one of the models for), 1 power klaw for some oomph while not breaking the bank, and then ????. I kind of like the idea of Big Choppas to make them into a bully unit vs low toughness enemies and maybe puncture the odd vehicle on the charge, I'm just not sure if the extra costs for them is worth it considering how pricey the unit is in the first place.
Are any of the gun options really worth it on them? Seems like a risky use of points considering BS2, except maybe the twin-linked shoota - but even then, that is 1/4 of the points of a whole extra Nob.
Like I said, I don't mind suboptimal, I just want to avoid complete trash essentially.
kurhanik wrote: So I'm finally dusting off some Ork Nobs that have been in my "to do" list for...a long time, and plan to build them based on the 4th edition codex. Any thoughts on fun loadouts for them? I don't need min maxed optimal, but I'd also rather not build it out to be complete trash either.
The 4e codex was pretty good for making many different types of ork lists viable, at least against the other early-mid 5e codex line-up.
Bikes were the most popular of course but for infantry nobz IIRC Painboy, powerklaw, bosspole, and the occasional waaaugh banner.
Under 5e wound allocation rules it was common to throw in the odd suit of eavy armour, a big choppa or two, and so on purely for the purpose of spreading wounds around but that isn't a consideration for other wounding rulesets.
Notably 4e nobz could take battlewagon transports so you'd also see them as part of the 'meme' battlewagon-wedge lists. Five tooled-up red-painted battlewagons placed wheel to wheel (so that only the flanking vehicles could take hits to the side armour) and they'd just roll up the board like a hammer with death rollas and boarding planks beneath a kustom force field - with a few deffkoptas, lootas, and grots filling the list out.
Some days you'd get manticored right off the line, other days you'd land like the foot of an angry Gork (or possibly Mork). Certainly something you'd want a goff rocker and kitbashed ork 'party wagon' for.
I’d keep some Nobz fairly bare bones. As a unit they’re quite potent, so are going to drawn inevitable firepower. So packing in some ablative wounds makes sense. No point giving them all a Power Klaw when you can’t guarantee they’ll all survive the initial couple of rounds.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: I’d keep some Nobz fairly bare bones. As a unit they’re quite potent, so are going to drawn inevitable firepower. So packing in some ablative wounds makes sense. No point giving them all a Power Klaw when you can’t guarantee they’ll all survive the initial couple of rounds.
One per squad was probably enough, otherwise there were meganobz.
Yeah, I was planning on going for 1, maaaaaybe 2 Klaws, for the exact reason of it being so expensive fast to just go klaw swarm. I can see the point on taking a couple barebones in the group as well to be wound soakers.
Good point on the skorcha, throwing one into the squad could help with the bully nature of it, soften up some lower armored enemies before the charge.
I was thinking, since I've got 10 of them due to grabbing 2 Start Collecting sets on sale waaaay back in the day (plus looks like some barebones slugga + choppa ones from the short lived Vedros set), of going 2x Klaw, 7x Big Choppas and a Painboy. Maybe throw in 1-2 Kombi Skorchas or Twin Linked Shootas (not both), since all the melee weapons remove the bonus attack for ccw + pistol anyways. Worst comes to worst, can turn it into two squads using the Vedros Nobz as damage sponges.
I am actually surprised at how many Orks I have, just idly counting up the points I have between 1,000 and 1,250 points in various states of being built, albeit that includes some rogue trader, 2nd edition, and normal ork boyz. Now mind you, it would be a TERRIBLE list - its a random assortment of shoota boyz, slugga boyz, a single deff kopter, 2 deff dreads, a group of nobs, and apparently 20+ kommandos (some of which are 3rd party). I'm just surprised I have collected that many over the years.
As for other stuff, I don't have any Battlewagons, and probably won't be grabbing anything else for the orks until such a point as I at least build what I have on hand (and ideally get a few more of them painted up).
kurhanik wrote: So I'm finally dusting off some Ork Nobs that have been in my "to do" list for...a long time, and plan to build them based on the 4th edition codex. Any thoughts on fun loadouts for them? I don't need min maxed optimal, but I'd also rather not build it out to be complete trash either.
If you’re taking a 10 man squad in 4th ed style you want anywhere from 4 to 6 klaws, zero ‘uge choppas, and no combo weapons. You also want a pain boy and to be bikers.
The reason is that a nob with a klaw costs as much as a mega nob but is significantly easier to kill, so you want about half the squad to be “extra” nobz who are there to die to protect the klaws. You don’t want to give those ones ‘uge choppas because one they’re meant to die, two you’d be paying points to make them no more deadly against most targets (they already have furious charge to put them up in strength on most targets toughness; and the trade off of bonus strength at the cost of your extra attack for choppa + slugga is a wash), three you’re packing enough klaws to one-round krump carnifex, terminators, monoliths, or anything tough you’d actually come up against. You don’t take gun upgrades because this is an expensive melee unit and 4th ed had fixed charge ranges, so spewing out some powerful shots gave your target the opportunity to remove models closer to you and lose yourself the charge. You want bikes because it makes your nobz immune to most forms of ID (str 8) ineffective, meaning your nobz get to soak better and the pain boy gets to work. Most importantly taking bikes actually allows a unit of nobz to not just be mega nobz but worse for more points, as it gives you the speed to engage desired targets in addition to a significant durability upgrade.
Kombi weapons and armor start to come into play once you hit 5th ed and their allocation shenanigans (but still not really for shooting), while kombi flamers become an okay choice (if you have extra points) in 6th ed with Wall of Death.
Haighus wrote: Bikes specifically did not raise the ID threshold, which is why the T was listed as 4(5). Makes 'em much tougher against small arms though.
Smoke cloud.. Don't ever forget the smoke cloud.
biker nobs were mean, basically capable of turning basically every single fight into an highspeed bar brawl and with the capabilities to win said brawls by sheer toughness and punch.
And the armour - warbikers were had 4+ saves on top of their 4+ cover, and of course the dakkaguns, and scoring, and feel no pain, and WS5 with the banner, and the strength 10 powerfist wielding warboss out front...
Cost an arm and a leg but you certainly saw your investment in action.
The 4th ed codex is great! we use it in our oldhammer 5th ed centric games. we use the old 4th ed wound allocation so the wound shenanigans of 5th are not a problem (wounds are allocated by the owning player and wounded models must be removed first). in my current experience fighting them, i would recommend lootas, and storm boyz led by zagstruk. i once faced an army of boys where the guy took mad doc grotsnik and spent a bunch of points cyborking all his orks.....made them stupid hard to kill.
For funzies i recommend acquiring the old FW imperial armor book "the raid on kestral novum" for even more fun silly ork units.
The dark eldar player came back with even more stuff. apparently his excitment over playing 5th ed again has led his down the rabbit hole of ebay rescues to get his hands on come classic metal minis.
I was reffing this game to refamiliarize the players with the rules.
This time out it was 2k game end to end with 3 objectives VS imperial guard. both players were running infantry hordes. this was a slog of a game with only one immobilized raider left out of the vehicles in the game. the game went 6 turns with the guard nto having enough dakka at the end to kick the eldar off the center objective. eldar win 2/1
big highlights-the dark eldar archon failed his 2+ invul save on a S6 attack and got instant death for his troubles. the lord commissar charged a squad of calabite warriors and beat them enough to make them flee.....only to get himself gunned down in the next turn.
A before and after shot including the craters of dead vehicles.
kurhanik wrote: I just got the foot slogging nobz so unfortunately no bikes, though man I've heard the legends of how tough the bikers can get.
Gonna go with a couple more klaws than planned, and fewer big choppas. Its sad that big choppas seem not the best, as I rather like the looks of them.
If you mean the multi part plastic nobz that dropped in 5th or 6th, they’re great bikers. Their legs and stance look literally perfect when you stick them on a warbike (or looted Marine bike) and it’s easy to line one bike arm (holding the handlebars) up to them.
big highlights-the dark eldar archon failed his 2+ invul save on a S6 attack and got instant death for his troubles.
That is just how shadowfields worked. It will bounce every hit except strength 6 which it will fail the first time.
Indeed, just like characters dying to massed lasgun fire. but that is one of the great things about classic 40K epic things happen, when guardsman #36 kills a named character or an HQ in this case an archon..... the players have a a bit of fun ribbing.
I forgot to take pictures from last week’s game but World Eaters vs Dark Eldar was a seriously fun back n forth. After my Defiler got blown up it was curtains for me though.
Highlights:
“Why aren’t you running your cultists AROUND the dangerous terrain?”
Cause they are dumb Khorne cultists.. straight line!
Said dumb cultists making it through the forest to surround, frag and blow up a transport, only to ALL die in the ensuing explosion. LMAO
The Helldrake being an absolute boss with it’s baleflamer till it’s death
My opponent learning what happens when a Rhino with dozer blades makes a suicide ram at his squads.
Playing World Eaters by leaning into the lore is fun.. I don’t need to make “wise” tactical decisions, just go for more blood and skulls!
It was a big 40K game night this weekend there were 4 games of classic 40K involving necrons, blood angels, guard, chaos and my admech.
My game was 2k points, 4 objectives end to end deployment against an imperial guard armored company.
turn 1 we both basically rolled in vain as nothing really happened other than some stunned vehicles. inquisitor lord karamozov died mostly to small arms fire (as it always happens being only a T5 monsterous creature) and my dune crawler with the ikarus array finally managed to take down a flyer. it ended up being a really close game with a 2 VS 1 objective swing that came down to a single kataphron breacher not loosing his final wound. victory for the admech.
The admech needed a break after about 6 months in the battlefield.
It is time to break out my salamanders DUY chapter again.
This time around i went for a very aggressive assault themed force.
.breyarth ashmantle/lucius pod
.terminator lybrarian
.scouts in a land speeder storm
.ironclad dread talon
.assault squad
.storm eagle gunship
.death storm drop pod assault cannon variant
I was up against an armored company list with veteran and storm trooper infantry support.
i pushed hard in the beginning and took heavy casualties. breyarth and the storm eagle came in turn 3 and really turned things around. giving me a very close win. it would have been a tie that went in his favor with slay the worlord and first blood, but he decided to risk a hope for turn 7 and moved off his objective to attack one of my units.
2 of our IG players were setting up for a 1,500 point game so i offered to be the opposition with my marines.
We ended up play X2 1,500 IG armies VS my 3K space marine for, i ended up having to use everything i brought with me to get to 3K. since we were playing above 2,500 points as per 5th ed rules there was no FOC it was effectively a classic apocalypse game.
That being the case one guard player ran a tank company including a hell hammer baneblade, a malcador and a laser destroyer super heavy tank.
they also brought along a master of the fleet that kept my reserves off the table till turn 4. fortunately for me the game went all the way to turn 7 and i went second. it allowed me to get 2 of the objectives and contest the 3rd of 4 giving me 2 to 1 victory. all 3 of my venerable hellfire dreads survived as did 2 of my ironclads. both my forge masters went down as did my land speeders. but i did manage to take out 2 veteran squads, most of a storm trooper squad a russ and both the baneblade and malcador. My terminator librarian died to las gun fire of course.
Did another game against the guard player, this time around i decided to give him more infantry to shoot at in the form of all my scouts. i reduced the vehicle section to X2 venerable dreads, an ironclad in a lucius drop pod and brey'arth in a lucius pod. with a storm hawk interceptor to deal with is air threats.
We had 5 objectives this time around and he did a better job of things, managing to kill all my infantry save the librarian terminator and half my dreadnoughts. in the process however he lost all his tanks (except his command chimera), and his command squad leaving him holding 2 objectives to my 3. with his vulture and vendetta being his MVP units.
In slightly different news, I had a trial test of "HexHammer" last night with a buddy.
What is this you ask?
Basically, this is playing 40k but using Epic Scale figures. We're using the ProHammer rules as a basis, but you could in theory adapt this to any 40k ruleset. I'll be working on getting the actual rules drafted up for this in a dedicated topic, but here's roughly how it works:
* Game is played on a Hex Grid (roughly 1" size hexes) where each hex represents roughly a 3" x 3" area of a normal board. So each hex represents 3" of range/distance.
* Uses epic-scale miniatures. Each hex has a stacking limit of up to 6 infantry sized models, 3 bikes/beasts/mounts, or 1 vehicle/monstrous creature.
* You use a record sheet (working on a nice template that we'll share) to track casualties on a base (you can also remove individual models from the base if that's your will)
* Rules work pretty well. Anything that asks you check a distance basically divide it by 3 to get the number of hexes to measure.
* We'll provide some details on things like how vehicle facing is determined/measured, when bases can count a cover bonus, etc.
* For our trail game, we used some old Battletech maps we had lying around, which actually worked pretty well! The idea is to create some multi-hex modular boards that we an arrange in various ways before each game.
* Played a mirrior match with space marines vs space marines. About 1,200 and we played in barely over an hour! It was..... Epic!
What I love about this idea is the following:
(A) It's cheap. You can build an 40k army using epic scale figures for a fraction of the price.
(B) It's portable. You can fit a map (and/or board tiles) plus your army in a really small box! The modular boards will make it easy to bring a ton of terrain with you "on the go." The footprint fits on like a 24" x 36" size matt very easily.
(C) It's fast. Not having to fuss with individual models, wobbly models, meticulously checking line of sight and distances, etc. makes it much snappier to play, without really looking much from a tactical decision-making standpoint in the process.
One of our regulars has decided to expand into chaos using the 3.5 codex in our retro 5th ed games so he wanted to try out a few ideas.
we did a couple 500 point small games that didn't go so well for him as chaos tends to really suffer at low points. so we bumped it up to 1K so he could bring some vehicles. i just tossed some silly stuff against him and while i put up a good fight he did a board wipe by turn 5. he learned a bit and has some new ideas to test out.
aphyon wrote: we did a couple 500 point small games that didn't go so well for him as chaos tends to really suffer at low points
I always found anything below 1000pts was a bit tight for games, even with the combat-patrol style limitations as there were some factions far less limited by them.
Of course without restrictions at 500pts you could bring a siren prince and a pile of daemonettes, and good luck fighting that :p
I have been wainting to get this game in and it was a good slog.
3.5 grey demon hunters joined some marines in an attack/defend mission against a khorn army. table quarters deployment 2k points.
It was the first game out for the lovely new Scarbrand model. and he did not disappoint....killing a full terminator retinue and grand master.
His obliterators actually had a great scatter and ended up just behind the dreadnought defending my objective, later killing it and sitting on the objective. my counter assault killed the defiler defending his objective but the ironclad that pulled off the feat got immobilized in return and was unable to contest the outcome of the game. Kharn also managed to get locked in combat with a single remaining fellow berserker and out of all his attacks still managed to roll a single 1 killing his ally...as it should be.
I ended up running game master on a massive retro hammer game.
On one side we had grey knights (5th) imperial guard (5th) with an aquila strongpoint, and iperial knights (7th)
VS
iron warriors and word bearers from 3.5 with some demons worked in from the 4th ed demon codex.
There was an objective in the guard command bunker chaos was trying to seize.
Some of the funny highlight Scarbrand failed his 4" charge and got punked by Drago, the keeper of secrets turned one member of the guard command squad into a spawn....much sillyness ensued. a single obliterator nearly destroyed the biggest knight on the table with a couple well place power fist hits.
the aquila strongpoint was a hard nut to crack with AV 15 and a couple void shield generators. it took some S10 CC attacks to finally wreck it.
At the end of the game it came down to tie breakers with chaos scoring line breaker but the imperial forces taking fist blood and slay the warlord.
Daba wrote: Were there any FAQs in 2nd edition regarding force field wargear and a model's own unmodifiable save?
There was an FAQ that bundled together all of the various field-type saves and ruled that a model could only ever benefit from one of them at a time.
Near the end of 2nd ed. there was a massive online compilation called the "Battle Bible" that purported to consolidate all of the various books, articles and rules into a single, massive Word document.
Perhaps in an effort to avoid copyright infringement, the core rules were paraphrased based on the author(s)' misinterpretation of the rules. Similarly, the army lists had some issues.
That being said, the FAQs were faithfully reproduced. Another useful item was the comprehensive list of wargear/vehicle upgrade cards.
The field FAQ wasn't reproduced in the Battle Bible - I think they tried to incorporate it by rewording the various rules entries for the fields in question. The actual FAQ said this:
ENERGY FIELDS: According to page 66 of the Wargear book a model can only have one energy field activated at a time. How does this work, and what counts as an "energy field"?
The rule is actually quite straightforward, and simply means that a model may only ever have one energy field. With hindsight, Using the word -activated- in the sentence was a poor choice, as it implies that a model may have several energy fields and choose which to use by turning them on and off'. This isn't actually the case at all, and the rule is that a model may only have a single energy field and that's all! A good rule of thumb as to what qualifies as an energy field is that if the item has the word "field" in its title, and/or the item offers an unmodified saving throw, then it is an energy field. If it doesn't, then it isn't an energy field. The following list includes all of the things which are counted as energy fields at the time of going to print. No model or character can ever have more than one item from the list. Note that the list does not include suppression shields, holo- suits, or fields produced by psychic powers (other than the Tyranid Warp Field), none of which count as a field for the purposes of this rule. We are also very well aware that this will make characters, especially Eldar Farseers, much more vulnerable, but we think that this is a good thing, as allowing characters multiple unmodified saves simply makes them far too difficult to kill.
Eldar Rune Armour
Power Field
Yarrick's Force Field
Refractor Field
Storm Shield
Kustom Force Field
Conversion Field
Daemonic Aura
Zoanthrope Warp Field
Rosarius
War Walker Power Field
Tyranid Biomorph Voltage Field
Displacer Field
The Lion Helm
Tyranid Biomorph Warp Field.
insaniak wrote: The field FAQ wasn't reproduced in the Battle Bible - I think they tried to incorporate it by rewording the various rules entries for the fields in question. The actual FAQ said this:
What I liked about 2nd was that it was the last time GW actually took a sensible approach to rules interpretation. This is a great example.
Right after 3rd came out, there was a rules question regarding ork wargear. They had some sort of rocket attachment to vehicles ("boosta rokkit"?) that added d6 inches to its movement, but didn't incur firing penalties for movement (this was when moving vehicle limited the number of weapons that could fire).
So people were declaring the ork vehicle stationary, but firing the rockets, resulting in a "free" d6 inch "creep" forward.
GW could have said "C'mon, use your brains," but instead they parsed the rule to say that if the die roll is a 3 or less, no penalty, more than 3, counts as moved. And that became the way GW operated from that moment forward, rewarding rules exploits rather than appealing to fair play and common sense.
That in turn was a big factor in my decision to quit the "current edition."
They also used fluff justification for incorrect rules interpretation in 3rd.
Daemonic Flight was an upgrade CSM characters could get. The description said that it could represent everything from a Jump Pack to leathery daemonic wings. It was most often seen as wings of Daemon Princes.
Someone asked GW if Blood Rage would make a character with Daemonic Flight go faster.
"Being angry doesn't make a Jump Pack go faster."
Well I was certainly afflicted with Blood Rage after that absurd answer. Same damned FAQ where they said T5 Obliterators was a "mistake".
H.B.M.C. wrote: Daemonic Flight was an upgrade CSM characters could get. The description said that it could represent everything from a Jump Pack to leathery daemonic wings. It was most often seen as wings of Daemon Princes.
Someone asked GW if Blood Rage would make a character with Daemonic Flight go faster.
"Being angry doesn't make a Jump Pack go faster." Well I was certainly afflicted with Blood Rage after that absurd answer.
The entry for Blood Rage in the codex stated "do not roll for vehicles, Dreadnoughts, bikes, or models using Daemonic flight"
So I suspect it was a poorly worded response to players saying "my character doesn't have daemonic flight, it has a jump pack (gained from daemonic flight) and so that rule doesn't apply to me"
Well i like to think that dreadnoughts get their own version on a 1 with a little love from Khorne...or Tzeentch takes them on a 6 and they go on a fire frenzy.
The weirdest IMO was the enginseer servitor ruling that directly contradicted the reprint of the 3.5th Guard codex and also made the "only one servitor can carry a plasma cannon" sentence pointless when that would also apply to a multimelta servitor as they cost over half the 50pt wargear allowance too.
In terms of FAQ weirdness the daemonhunter and witch hunter errata was always out of sync.
And of course the big round of 5e update errata to old books which took an... interesting approach to setting costs, Though in fairness it did broadly achieve the goal of bringing the WH, BT, and DA books into a better place for casual 5th edition play.
Haighus wrote: The weirdest IMO was the enginseer servitor ruling that directly contradicted the reprint of the 3.5th Guard codex and also made the "only one servitor can carry a plasma cannon" sentence pointless when that would also apply to a multimelta servitor as they cost over half the 50pt wargear allowance too.
One of the (many!) advantages of 2nd ed. is that it actually lasted a long time, so a lot of the kinks were ironed out of it before it was rendered obsolete.
A lot of players were really hoping that 3rd ed. would be the definitive edition of the game, a needed revision that cleared out some of the Rogue Trader-era fiddly details and creating a more streamlined system capable of sustaining larger battles.
Well, the model count went higher, but the system was in many ways unrecognizable, and GW dumped one set of problems for a new, larger set. And the Tau. I'll never forgive them for the Tau.
Haighus wrote: The weirdest IMO was the enginseer servitor ruling that directly contradicted the reprint of the 3.5th Guard codex and also made the "only one servitor can carry a plasma cannon" sentence pointless when that would also apply to a multimelta servitor as they cost over half the 50pt wargear allowance too.
Haighus wrote: The weirdest IMO was the enginseer servitor ruling that directly contradicted the reprint of the 3.5th Guard codex and also made the "only one servitor can carry a plasma cannon" sentence pointless when that would also apply to a multimelta servitor as they cost over half the 50pt wargear allowance too.
This one rings a bell. What did it say again?
Servitors were listed as wargear in the armoury. In the original print of the codex, it did not state if they counted towards the wargear limit of 50pts or not. The FAQ stated they did, but the reprint of the codex stated they did not.
A techpriest could have up to 4 servitors. For reference, a technical servitor was 10 pts, a heavy bolter servitor was 25pts, a multimelta servitor was 35pts and a plasma cannon servitor was 45pts. The latter stated you could have only one... but took up almost the entire wargear allowance itself making that sentence redundant.
Worst "lore as rules" FAQ was the 5th edition inquisition rules where the anti-plasma relic which (IIRC) made all plasma weapons only hit on 6s applied to Tau pulse weapons because deep in some obscure piece of lore somewhere it said they use plasma somehow.
ThePaintingOwl wrote: Worst "lore as rules" FAQ was the 5th edition inquisition rules where the anti-plasma relic which (IIRC) made all plasma weapons only hit on 6s applied to Tau pulse weapons because deep in some obscure piece of lore somewhere it said they use plasma somehow.
That was a great ruling IMO, it made a useless bit of kit into something situational but still challenging to use. Made perfect sense for an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor to carry. The gear was the Ulumeathi plasma syphon.
The range was still only 12", it wasn't game-breaking.
ThePaintingOwl wrote: Worst "lore as rules" FAQ was the 5th edition inquisition rules where the anti-plasma relic which (IIRC) made all plasma weapons only hit on 6s applied to Tau pulse weapons because deep in some obscure piece of lore somewhere it said they use plasma somehow.
That would be the tau codex, under the entry for pulse rifle.
"The pulse rifle uses an induction field to propel a particle, which reacts by breaking down to create a plasma pulse as it leaves the barrel."
Lack of 'type' tags on weapons caused a number of oddities. For example the avatar was protected from 'melta weapons, flamers, and heavy flamers' - but RAW not hand flamers or inferno cannons. Meltabombs were not melta weapons for the purposes of ceramite armour. Starcannons were plasma weapons, Starlances were not, Disintegrators were... kind of?
Haighus wrote: The weirdest IMO was the enginseer servitor ruling that directly contradicted the reprint of the 3.5th Guard codex and also made the "only one servitor can carry a plasma cannon" sentence pointless when that would also apply to a multimelta servitor as they cost over half the 50pt wargear allowance too.
One of the (many!) advantages of 2nd ed. is that it actually lasted a long time, so a lot of the kinks were ironed out of it before it was rendered obsolete.
A lot of players were really hoping that 3rd ed. would be the definitive edition of the game, a needed revision that cleared out some of the Rogue Trader-era fiddly details and creating a more streamlined system capable of sustaining larger battles.
Well, the model count went higher, but the system was in many ways unrecognizable, and GW dumped one set of problems for a new, larger set. And the Tau. I'll never forgive them for the Tau.
I always thought 3rd threw out the baby with the bathwater. It was too sparse and shoddy of a base system, yet it's variations lasted the longest of any.
I'd imagine that if he'd won, 40k's edition changes would be more along the lines of BattleTech's: Small tweaks to the rules and no wholesale non-iterative changes. Certainly no churn.
And yes, I'm sure some smart alec is going to come along and say that new editions are a big money spinner and that if their rules weren't constantly being changed that they would've gone out of business years ago (and I can even guess exactly which person would say that): You can still do new Starter boxes, even if the rules haven't changed much (or at all). You can still refresh codices and miniature lines without taking a scorched Earth approach to previous edition rules and concepts.
Haighus wrote: That was a great ruling IMO, it made a useless bit of kit into something situational but still challenging to use. Made perfect sense for an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor to carry. The gear was the Ulumeathi plasma syphon.
The range was still only 12", it wasn't game-breaking.
It's not the balance that was the issue, it's that it was a fundamentally stupid ruling. It turned lore into rules and "interpreted" the rule in a way that could not possibly be correct based purely on the rules text. No amount of reading or thinking about the rules could get you to the conclusion, you had to go read unrelated lore text and make guesses about how GW meant the technobabble interactions between the two to function in-universe. And they dared to call it an "FAQ" instead of the clear errata that it actually was.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
H.B.M.C. wrote: And yes, I'm sure some smart alec is going to come along and say that new editions are a big money spinner and that if their rules weren't constantly being changed that they would've gone out of business years ago (and I can even guess exactly which person would say that): You can still do new Starter boxes, even if the rules haven't changed much (or at all). You can still refresh codices and miniature lines without taking a scorched Earth approach to previous edition rules and concepts.
The whole "new editions make $$$$$$$$$$" thing isn't even a very good argument. Most players don't stick around long enough to buy multiple cycles and most long-term players pirate all the rules. At best you're selling new books to a handful of tournament players who need to provide proof of purchase at official events. TBH I'd be surprised if edition cycling didn't cost GW profit because of how the cost of the books drives away potential customers. It just does so in a way that doesn't show up on some middle manager's quarterly performance evaluation so we're stuck with it.
H.B.M.C. wrote: 3rd was meant to be the definitive edition, or would have been if Andy Chambers had got his way.
In some ways 7th edition was still 3rd edition, with a lot of accumulated bloat on top.
Some of which made perfect sense and would have happened as either 4th, 5th, etc or 3.1, 3.2, 3.3. USRs as a collation of the shared special rules from the codex books, tweaks based on playtesting such as not assaulting out of moving vehicles. It just built up over time.
ThePaintingOwl wrote: It turned lore into rules and "interpreted" the rule in a way that could not possibly be correct based purely on the rules text
It's the eldar avatar question all over again - immune to melta and flamer weapons, but what about inferno weapons or incinerators...
Both FAQs gave effectively the same answer, that flamer/melta/plasma weapons under a different name (as per their armoury page description) were still flamer/melta/plasma weapons for rules purposes.
Though RAI whether or not Matt Ward had even considered the tau when he created the wargear is a question only he could answer.
I always liked the Daemon Hunters FAQ which answered the question 'are Nemesis Force Weapons one- or two-handed?'by saying that they're obviously one-handed because look at the models; while those same models have clearly one-handed Storm Bolters which were actually two-handed according to the rules...
Lord Damocles wrote: I always liked the Daemon Hunters FAQ which answered the question 'are Nemesis Force Weapons one- or two-handed?'by saying that they're obviously one-handed because look at the models; while those same models have clearly one-handed Storm Bolters which were actually two-handed according to the rules...
The 3e errata had that distinct 'copy and pasted from a white dwarf mailbag article' look to them. i.e. the Blood Angels FAQ has : "A. I'm sure that no reasonable opponent would object to using a house rule that stops dozer blades affecting this test. When not playing against reasonable opponents, you’ll just have to let them have the re-roll and grin and bear it!"
In the 4e FAQ for the same codex it was simply a bullet point that read "Dozer blades do not allow you to re-roll the dice when using over-charged engines", similarly the GK force weapon entry was reduced to "Nemesis force weapons are one-handed weapons"
A.T. wrote: It's the eldar avatar question all over again - immune to melta and flamer weapons, but what about inferno weapons or incinerators...
Both FAQs gave effectively the same answer, that flamer/melta/plasma weapons under a different name (as per their armoury page description) were still flamer/melta/plasma weapons for rules purposes.
It was the avatar problem but worse. At least with the avatar it was pretty intuitive that "this flamer template weapon with flamer stats and a model that looks like a giant flamer is in fact a flamer", with pulse weapons there's no way you could get the correct answer without reading the right fluff bit. They didn't have stats like any other plasma weapon and didn't have models like plasma weapons, not even the Tau plasma weapons.
ThePaintingOwl wrote: ...with pulse weapons there's no way you could get the correct answer without reading the right fluff bit. They didn't have stats like any other plasma weapon and didn't have models like plasma weapons, not even the Tau plasma weapons.
The same is true of the Eldar starcannon.
And while that certainly needed an FAQ for people who didn't read the full armoury entries it was not an errata - Tau pulse weapons have always been plasma weapons, it's just that 'plasma' isn't a rule in of itself.
The Avatar on the other hand was an actual errata as RAW it was only immune to flamers and heavy flamers. Damned if you do and damned if you don't - list the weapons and you miss some (or more get added), don't list the weapons and people disagree on what counts.
H.B.M.C. wrote: I'd imagine that if he'd won, 40k's edition changes would be more along the lines of BattleTech's: Small tweaks to the rules and no wholesale non-iterative changes. Certainly no churn.
And yes, I'm sure some smart alec is going to come along and say that new editions are a big money spinner and that if their rules weren't constantly being changed that they would've gone out of business years ago (and I can even guess exactly which person would say that): You can still do new Starter boxes, even if the rules haven't changed much (or at all). You can still refresh codices and miniature lines without taking a scorched Earth approach to previous edition rules and concepts.
Back when sites like Portent were breathlessly reporting inside GW gossip, the battle between the designers and Kirby's management style was a frequent point of discussion.
One of the points I made back then based on GW's own sales figures plus anecdata from ICV2 was that given the massive price rises taking place in the GW product lines, sales had to be in steep decline. There was simply no way to reconcile a cumulative 100% price increase in the space of a few years and double the model count with growth that maybe hit 10%.
GW was selling less and less product to fewer and fewer customers, and for a while the LotR line covered that up, but the thread in the "news" forum that GW got hit by a cash crunch that almost did them in rings true.
And yes, Battle Tech provided a good counterexample of growing through player expansion rather than finding and fleecing whales.
Gore Child’s Teeth wrote: Aphyon… I have a friend who’s just beside himself with angry excitement to meet your army.
That's like a more respectable version of that horridly bad green stuff scorpion "Land Raider" in Joe Orteza's army that was featured in White Dwarf decades ago. I would have had no problem refusing to play against Orteza's atrocities, but THIS I would gladly play against.
Hey, I assume this is a place to ask questions regarding older editions of the game?
I'm just getting re-aquainted with 2nd edition, Bought the 2nd edition starter from ebay and have the 2nd ed bible which already is a great resource, but was looking towards being able to include more modern 40K units to the game.
Is there any resource online somewhere with rules for 2nd edition 40K, for stuff such as drop pods, T'au & AdMech? Alternatively, do you suppose it would be trivial to port 3rd edition 40K codexes to work with 2nd edition? 2nd Edition rules with 3rd edition codex support could sound ideal, at least in theory..
Asking for cajual play obvsly, I'm all about that Garagehammer
You would have to really stretch to make it work. 2nd was more like necromunda, much more complex for small skirmish armies ideally with a game master running as a referee. it is much like how 8th ed+ is not really compatible with 3rd-7th asides as "counts as".
aphyon wrote: You would have to really stretch to make it work. 2nd was more like necromunda, much more complex for small skirmish armies ideally with a game master running as a referee. it is much like how 8th ed+ is not really compatible with 3rd-7th asides as "counts as".
I know the scale of 2nd edition is different from modern times. I am envisioning games comparable to modern Combat Patrol in terms of model counts/size. I am pretty sure someone has already made some attempts at bringing more modern units to 2nd edition, I just need to find them on the WWWs
I am not expecting to field Knights or superheavies in 2nd edition (unless its a special snowflake mission where one army faces a single "boss"), just need datasheets for basic troops, most common support/auxilaries and transports for all modern factions. This is just so other players in my group could also consider participating with models from their existing collections
Actually, thinking about it, datasheets for current 40K Combat patrols would be precisely what I'm after
EDIT: Found some more datafexes from this resource (Killed by Covid, apparently..?):
So now I'm sorted on the remaining Astartes rules (these include Drop Pod and current HH dreads), all that I'm missing are the Admech, T'au & Drukhari.. Admech will be tricky, I'll need to look up 3rd edition dexes for T'au & Drukhari and see if they could be just shoehorned in somehow
tauist wrote: Hey, I assume this is a place to ask questions regarding older editions of the game?
I'm just getting re-aquainted with 2nd edition, Bought the 2nd edition starter from ebay and have the 2nd ed bible which already is a great resource, but was looking towards being able to include more modern 40K units to the game.
Is there any resource online somewhere with rules for 2nd edition 40K, for stuff such as drop pods, T'au & AdMech? Alternatively, do you suppose it would be trivial to port 3rd edition 40K codexes to work with 2nd edition? 2nd Edition rules with 3rd edition codex support could sound ideal, at least in theory..
Asking for cajual play obvsly, I'm all about that Garagehammer
Thanks!
As noted before 2ed is a different beast compared to what we have in today's iteration of 40K. There are still plenty of folks who like 2ed and are willing to play it. Take a look at the signature for Commissar von Toussaint just a few posts above on this. Sending him a PM may be a good idea as well.
Yeah, I've checked that site and have read his suggestions for improving the game. But I dont yet have enough knowledge about the ins and outs of the edition so cannot form an informed decision about the suggested changes.
I'm coming to 2nd ed from the POV of a "veteran" Kill Team player, who just wants to expand a bit from squad vs squad level into Combat Patrol size games featuring walkers, beasts and vehicles. I specifically do not want to reproduce modern 40K style larger battles, nor participate in herohammery cheesefests, just a couple squads of troops with a HQ and a couple larger models, and sticking to rather modest wargear choices. No virus bombs, Assassins, named characters nor power swords on every Ork boy, thanks.
I have located all the codexes ever written for 2nd edition, will take some time to plow through it all + Dark Millennium + all the FAQs and GW developer comments from the latest Battle Bible. I think especially the collected FAQs will need thorrough reading, in order to clear up common misconceptions new players might have regarding the rules. Then there is the task of reformatting all the documentation, adding sensible indexing etc.. Fair to say I have my work cut out for me for a while
AdMech did have some units in the 'Black Codex' army list booklet that came with the 2nd edition box, although the current admech lineup is quite different.
Dark Eldar had (I think) two Citadel Journal lists, but again, quite different to how they were presented when they finally got a proper codex. At least one of the Journal lists had them as Slaanesh cultists.
There are some fan-made codexes floating around online for the various armies that were introduced from 3rd ed onwards (Google turned up a Tau codex on Scribd) but a lot has sadly been lost, like the Pan Fo, to the mists of time and the graveyard of Geocities.
If you want to have a go yourself, you would potentially be better off trying to convert 5th edition and onwards codexes rather than 3rd ed, as power creep and additional options make them a little closer to how they might have looked in 2nd ed. Converting 3rd ed lists would wind up with rather underpowered characters and a severe lack of wargear options.
tauist wrote: Yeah, I've checked that site and have read his suggestions for improving the game. But I dont yet have enough knowledge about the ins and outs of the edition so cannot form an informed decision about the suggested changes.
When my gaming group decided to "go retro", we agreed to limit ourselves to the armies of that edition. It was easier and we felt that the armies provided plenty of design space for whatever we wanted to do.
We did, however, allow "modern" (3-4th edition) models to play, but we found they didn't work very well. The Baal Predator got one, maybe two (very big!) shots per game. The rest of the time it cleared jams. All of which is to say that the weapon rules were different, so the vehicles of that edition were optimized for them in a way later editions weren't.
You mention the Tau, and while I'm sympathetic to people who like the aesthetic, their design space belonged to the Eldar. The Eldar "look" is a bit selective, and my Eldar armies use VOID figures, which give them a sleeker, more high-tech and less weird look, while preserving the sense of advanced hover technology.
I'd suggest playing the game "as written" with in-edition armies for a bit, before doing conversions. There are fewer armies, but I feel they have more depth.
tauist wrote: Yeah, I've checked that site and have read his suggestions for improving the game. But I dont yet have enough knowledge about the ins and outs of the edition so cannot form an informed decision about the suggested changes.
When my gaming group decided to "go retro", we agreed to limit ourselves to the armies of that edition. It was easier and we felt that the armies provided plenty of design space for whatever we wanted to do.
We did, however, allow "modern" (3-4th edition) models to play, but we found they didn't work very well. The Baal Predator got one, maybe two (very big!) shots per game. The rest of the time it cleared jams. All of which is to say that the weapon rules were different, so the vehicles of that edition were optimized for them in a way later editions weren't.
You mention the Tau, and while I'm sympathetic to people who like the aesthetic, their design space belonged to the Eldar. The Eldar "look" is a bit selective, and my Eldar armies use VOID figures, which give them a sleeker, more high-tech and less weird look, while preserving the sense of advanced hover technology.
I'd suggest playing the game "as written" with in-edition armies for a bit, before doing conversions. There are fewer armies, but I feel they have more depth.
There's a Necron player and an Admech player in our group, they dont have any other models. I'll need to come up with something.
And Baal predators? Aint no need to use such a thing, regular predators, land raiders and rhinos will do fine.
I dont need to have datafexes for every exotic unit out there, just need fexes for the classics
PS: Agree to disagree on the T'au. AFAIK, Eldar aint exactly useless in melee.. no drones neither
There's a Necron player and an Admech player in our group, they dont have any other models. I'll need to come up with something.
Codex Army lists, released with the 2E boxed set has ad mech units in the imperial agents section, since they weren't a fully fleshed out faction.
They could take:
Magos
Enginseer
Tech Priest Squads (essentially imperial guard but with lots of special weapons)
Electro priests
Servitors
Support weapons
and any vehicles that space marines and imperial guard could take. bear in mind this is before mass access to unique vehicles so its a limited selection.
Agents were intended to be allies, but you could work it into a full army.
Necrons were originally released in 2E (Forget which White Dwarf the rules were in) and had a very limited unit selection.
Lords
Warriors
Immortals
Destroyers
Scarabs
They were intended more as a neutral faction under control of a third player than as a fully fleshed out faction, but they could work
madtankbloke wrote: Necrons were originally released in 2E (Forget which White Dwarf the rules were in) and had a very limited unit selection.
WD 217 (warriors and scarabs) and 218 (lords, destroyers, army list IIRC)
If you had the wrong list against them they were unstoppable - the battle report pitting them against 2e sisters of battle was so absurdly one-sided that it led to the Sanctuary 101 background event, even with the sisters catching a big early break in the game when the scarabs blew themselves up (IIRC if they had run into combat with the sisters instead they would have been entirely immune to attack and would have effectively ended most of the sisters shooting as well).
A.T. wrote: If you had the wrong list against them they were unstoppable - the battle report pitting them against 2e sisters of battle was so absurdly one-sided that it led to the Sanctuary 101 background event, even with the sisters catching a big early break in the game when the scarabs blew themselves up (IIRC if they had run into combat with the sisters instead they would have been entirely immune to attack and would have effectively ended most of the sisters shooting as well).
Supposedly Necrons were developed for 3rd and a crude set of rules was thrown together to bring them into 2nd.
They did not work well. I played against them a couple of times and it was really boring because they were almost impossible to kill.
I'm sure there are modifications for 2nd out there somewhere.
Does anyone know where/when the rules for the 3rd edition Ork warboss on bike appeared? It was for the Speed Freeks army list in Codex: Armageddon, but wasn't included in the original list.
The rules had appeared by February 2004, because the Chapter Approved article on Ork Clanz references them as an option for Evil Sunz armies using the normal Codex: Orks + supplementary clan rules. However, I cannot find them in the three Chapter Approved annual compendiums (2nd, 3rd, and 4th Books of the Astronomicon).
Haighus wrote: Does anyone know where/when the rules for the 3rd edition Ork warboss on bike appeared? It was for the Speed Freeks army list in Codex: Armageddon, but wasn't included in the original list.
Haighus wrote: Does anyone know where/when the rules for the 3rd edition Ork warboss on bike appeared? It was for the Speed Freeks army list in Codex: Armageddon, but wasn't included in the original list.
There's a Necron player and an Admech player in our group, they dont have any other models. I'll need to come up with something.
Codex Army lists, released with the 2E boxed set has ad mech units in the imperial agents section, since they weren't a fully fleshed out faction.
They could take:
Magos
Enginseer
Tech Priest Squads (essentially imperial guard but with lots of special weapons)
Electro priests
Servitors
Support weapons
and any vehicles that space marines and imperial guard could take. bear in mind this is before mass access to unique vehicles so its a limited selection.
Agents were intended to be allies, but you could work it into a full army.
Necrons were originally released in 2E (Forget which White Dwarf the rules were in) and had a very limited unit selection.
Lords
Warriors
Immortals
Destroyers
Scarabs
They were intended more as a neutral faction under control of a third player than as a fully fleshed out faction, but they could work
Great info, thanks! I think we could "counts as" modern admech troops as tech priest squads. Regarding Necrons, its ok for them to be a lil OP, I will increase their points cost as handicap
4th you can take Imperial Guard with the Engineseers and bionics doctrines (plus whatever others you want - probably Iron Will)
As a bonus you can then take Leman Russes like Skitarii do in the background.
You could take Inqusitors with [stuff] if you want some more wacky techpriests. Karamazov as a Cawl-alike?
Lord Damocles wrote: 4th you can take Imperial Guard with the Engineseers and bionics doctrines (plus whatever others you want - probably Iron Will)
As a bonus you can then take Leman Russes like Skitarii do in the background.
You could take Inqusitors with [stuff] if you want some more wacky techpriests. Karamazov as a Cawl-alike?
My only issue with guard is the 0-1 limit on Tech-Priests in the 'dex...
Lord Damocles wrote: 4th you can take Imperial Guard with the Engineseers and bionics doctrines (plus whatever others you want - probably Iron Will)
As a bonus you can then take Leman Russes like Skitarii do in the background.
You could take Inqusitors with [stuff] if you want some more wacky techpriests. Karamazov as a Cawl-alike?
That is in 3rd ed too, the Codex was released in 2004 before 4th edition.
Lord Damocles wrote: 4th you can take Imperial Guard with the Engineseers and bionics doctrines (plus whatever others you want - probably Iron Will)
As a bonus you can then take Leman Russes like Skitarii do in the background.
You could take Inqusitors with [stuff] if you want some more wacky techpriests. Karamazov as a Cawl-alike?
My only issue with guard is the 0-1 limit on Tech-Priests in the 'dex...
The 0-1 limit does include up to 2 techpriests plus servitors, so not as bad as it seems at first glance.
Lord Damocles wrote: 4th you can take Imperial Guard with the Engineseers and bionics doctrines (plus whatever others you want - probably Iron Will)
As a bonus you can then take Leman Russes like Skitarii do in the background.
You could take Inqusitors with [stuff] if you want some more wacky techpriests. Karamazov as a Cawl-alike?
That is in 3rd ed too, the Codex was released in 2004 before 4th edition.
Lord Damocles wrote: 4th you can take Imperial Guard with the Engineseers and bionics doctrines (plus whatever others you want - probably Iron Will)
As a bonus you can then take Leman Russes like Skitarii do in the background.
You could take Inqusitors with [stuff] if you want some more wacky techpriests. Karamazov as a Cawl-alike?
My only issue with guard is the 0-1 limit on Tech-Priests in the 'dex...
The 0-1 limit does include up to 2 techpriests plus servitors, so not as bad as it seems at first glance.
Right, it's not as bad as it seems but it could be better. Six would speak"mechanicus" to me more than 2! And they aren't super good so it isn't like it's op, I don't think
Lord Damocles wrote: 4th you can take Imperial Guard with the Engineseers and bionics doctrines (plus whatever others you want - probably Iron Will)
As a bonus you can then take Leman Russes like Skitarii do in the background.
You could take Inqusitors with [stuff] if you want some more wacky techpriests. Karamazov as a Cawl-alike?
That is in 3rd ed too, the Codex was released in 2004 before 4th edition.
Lord Damocles wrote: 4th you can take Imperial Guard with the Engineseers and bionics doctrines (plus whatever others you want - probably Iron Will)
As a bonus you can then take Leman Russes like Skitarii do in the background.
You could take Inqusitors with [stuff] if you want some more wacky techpriests. Karamazov as a Cawl-alike?
My only issue with guard is the 0-1 limit on Tech-Priests in the 'dex...
The 0-1 limit does include up to 2 techpriests plus servitors, so not as bad as it seems at first glance.
Right, it's not as bad as it seems but it could be better. Six would speak"mechanicus" to me more than 2! And they aren't super good so it isn't like it's op, I don't think
That is fair! It depends a bit on whether you want to use some of the other elites options- stormtrooper rules can be good for skitarii units and hardened veterans could also be used for a special weapon-heavy skitarii unit. The biggest issue with stormtroopers is they don't benefit from doctrines so you cannot give them cybernetics or sharpshooters to give that tech-guard feel. Veterans do benefit from doctrines so you can get a cybernetic, accurate, hard-hitting unit of elite skitarii to support your techpriests.
Could have ogryn servitors too- I'd personally use the Krourk ogryns unit for berserker servitors if going this route.
Unit1126PLL wrote: My only issue with guard is the 0-1 limit on Tech-Priests in the 'dex...
Allied daemon or witch hunters gets you two inquisitors (one lord and one regular) which can be solid stand-ins for tech priests, including servitor retinues and landraiders. The inquisitorial stormtroopers are also reasonable skitarii troops (and are actual troops choices), at a stretch your could even field some counts-as newer units (i.e. seraphim as Pteraxii).
Unit1126PLL wrote: My only issue with guard is the 0-1 limit on Tech-Priests in the 'dex...
Allied daemon or witch hunters gets you two inquisitors (one lord and one regular) which can be solid stand-ins for tech priests, including servitor retinues and landraiders. The inquisitorial stormtroopers are also reasonable skitarii troops (and are actual troops choices), at a stretch your could even field some counts-as newer units (i.e. seraphim as Pteraxii).
True, though you can get more Techmarines with the Space Marine book
Does anyone know where the rules for the Rogue Trader Inquisitor in Terminator Armour and Ordo Malleus Daemonhunter in Terminator Armour were published?
The (metal) miniatures came out in the Rogue Trader era, and I had a vague recollection that the rules were either in Slaves to Darkness or the Compilation. But looking online that doesn't look to be the case. The Ordo Malleus and Grey Knights are in Slaves to Darkness, but that was pre-Terminators. Grey Knight Terminators are in the Compilation, but I don't see the Inquisitor or Daemonhunter...
I have had this FW model for probably 10 years and i finally have a reason to use him-
Ordo xenos inquisitor Solomon Lok from the Anphelion project book.
I recently also picked up some wonderfully painted deathwatch so i threw a little list together using our house 5th ed rules in the style of the demon hunter/witch hunter allies.
The list-
primary army-salamanders 5th ed
.Breyarth ashmantle/lucius drop pod
.tac squad fist/flamer/las cannon
.scout sniper squad/heavy bolter/cammo
.techmarine with servitors
.thunder fire cannon X2
.land raider achillies
Allied force-Anphelion project/7th ed death watch
.inquisitor Lok and retinue
.deathwatch veteran squad with a mix of things-frag cannon/infernus heavy bolter/storm shields/combi weapons etc.. in a drop pod.
my opponent is just rebuilding his 4th ed black templar list so he was was running a mostly foot slogging black templar list. it is the first time i have ever run a list that had 3 thunder fire cannons in it and against infantry even space marines it was pretty devastating. his one land raider got hit by brey'arth and destroyed and his terminators came in late from deep strike. they did however manage to take out the entire deathwatch unit.
I am going to have a game of 4th edition with 3rd edition codex's this week.
We will play 500 points and roll for a random mission.
I will use Blood Angels (1 Chaplain, 2 Tactical Squads, 1 Scouts), my opponent will use Dark Angels.
We will use premeasuring for the game.
My 40K experience consists of 1 game of 5th edition, so I am blind to the intricacies of most of 40K.
Any 'essential' house rules out there for 4th? I understand that this was the time of Rhino Rush, but apart from that I am ignorant.
Rhino Rush was bigger in 3rd ed than 4th, as 4th introduced rules forcing everyone on board to jump out and stand around for a turn every time the vehicle took any damage.
Also bigger in 5th, because they dropped that rule and made glances no longer have a chance of destroying vehicles and let you charge out of a Rhino that hadn't moved before you disembark and dropped the base price from 50pts to 35pts, because on some level GW decided that they needed to apply 40k-appropriate levels of overkill to buffing the poor Rhino.
AnomanderRake wrote: Also bigger in 5th, because they dropped that rule and made glances no longer have a chance of destroying vehicles and let you charge out of a Rhino that hadn't moved before you disembark and dropped the base price from 50pts to 35pts, because on some level GW decided that they needed to apply 40k-appropriate levels of overkill to buffing the poor Rhino.
The disembark and assault from a stationary vehicle was also in 4th edition, but not much use as bunkering up in 5e was viable whereas bunkering up in 4e was best case entangled and worst case a total loss of the squad with no saves ...
IMO Chimera rush overshadowed rhino rush in 5e though, going from 85 points with one (high risk) firing point carrying BS3 guardsmen to 55 points with five firing points and carrying BS4 scoring veterans with multiple special weapons.
AnomanderRake wrote: Also bigger in 5th, because they dropped that rule and made glances no longer have a chance of destroying vehicles and let you charge out of a Rhino that hadn't moved before you disembark and dropped the base price from 50pts to 35pts, because on some level GW decided that they needed to apply 40k-appropriate levels of overkill to buffing the poor Rhino.
All part of the GW design pendulum. Everyone took transports in 3rd because they were so good... So they were toned down in 4th, and in GW style they took the changes too far so everyone stopped using transports. So for 5th, they made them even better than they had been in 3rd.
Sometimes I wonder if they put two teams on the whole "find a solution for big problem" and then combine their results for that double hit of nerfing or boosting.
Overread wrote: Sometimes I wonder if they put two teams on the whole "find a solution for big problem" and then combine their results for that double hit of nerfing or boosting.
For 5e rhinos that was what happened.
The price cut happened back in the 4e chaos codex to try and make them a little more attractive in an era of them being near suicidal to use. Then the new vehicle rules came in alongside the 5e marine book while retaining the band-aid price fix.
With the scoring bikers, drop pods, and generally weak tactical marines I think it was a while before people really stopped to consider rhino walls as a strategy.
Overread wrote: Sometimes I wonder if they put two teams on the whole "find a solution for big problem" and then combine their results for that double hit of nerfing or boosting.
I think they throw a dart at a coin in mid-air as it's being flipped.
dreadblade wrote: Does anyone know where the rules for the Rogue Trader Inquisitor in Terminator Armour and Ordo Malleus Daemonhunter in Terminator Armour were published?
The (metal) miniatures came out in the Rogue Trader era, and I had a vague recollection that the rules were either in Slaves to Darkness or the Compilation. But looking online that doesn't look to be the case. The Ordo Malleus and Grey Knights are in Slaves to Darkness, but that was pre-Terminators. Grey Knight Terminators are in the Compilation, but I don't see the Inquisitor or Daemonhunter...
I think the Ordo Malleus Terminator was in 3rd ed ed Daemonhunters Dex; it had rules in 8th- I forget with it were in the White Dwarf minidex or the PA- Pariah book. I think it may have been reprinted digitally during the Arks of Omen/ end of 9th campain, and I think it even had a 10th Index Card too, although it might be in Legends.
As for RT Terminator Inquisitors, I'm not sure about them. I think they appeared in a White Dwarf- I may be able to find the issue number once I have better access to my resources but I'm not at home right now.
I have an inquisitor model with force staff, psycanon, which looks like a sniper dragon rifle of some sort and a inquisitor wearing a DA style hood. I think the model is 2ed, because he is even smaller then 5 really gold metal grey knight termintors , which themselfs are smaller then the rest of metal termintors in my army. Dude is smaller then a Cadian , and he is in terminator armour.
Karol wrote: I have an inquisitor model with force staff, psycanon, which looks like a sniper dragon rifle of some sort and a inquisitor wearing a DA style hood. I think the model is 2ed, because he is even smaller then 5 really gold metal grey knight termintors
The two terminator inquisitor models were released September 1989, the orginal metal grey knights were May 89.
dreadblade wrote: The Ordo Malleus and Grey Knights are in Slaves to Darkness, but that was pre-Terminators. Grey Knight Terminators are in the Compilation, but I don't see the Inquisitor or Daemonhunter...
I'm not sure about them. I think they appeared in a White Dwarf- I may be able to find the issue number once I have better access to my resources but I'm not at home right now.
Thanks that would be great. I remember running them in 1st edition but now I have no idea where I'd have got the rules from.
dreadblade wrote: The Ordo Malleus and Grey Knights are in Slaves to Darkness, but that was pre-Terminators. Grey Knight Terminators are in the Compilation, but I don't see the Inquisitor or Daemonhunter...
I'm not sure about them. I think they appeared in a White Dwarf- I may be able to find the issue number once I have better access to my resources but I'm not at home right now.
Thanks that would be great. I remember running them in 1st edition but now I have no idea where I'd have got the rules from.
insaniak wrote: All part of the GW design pendulum. Everyone took transports in 3rd because they were so good... So they were toned down in 4th, and in GW style they took the changes too far so everyone stopped using transports. So for 5th, they made them even better than they had been in 3rd.
Typical of GW, they were good and terrible. They were terrible because they were slower than walking, couldn't fire main guns ("ordnance") and other weapons and had to be stationary to do it and dreadnoughts got wrecked.
On the other hand, the Rhino Rush was a dominating tactic. My response was to mount my marines in old school Razorbacks with tac squads either firing out of the doors or using them as mobile cover. Either way, the AP3 you could put out that way was superb, and since everyone was doing rhino rushes, getting effectively two lascannons per squad was vital to stopping it.
3rd edition was a paradox for me. I was really, really good with my marines, far better than I ever was in 2nd. I only lost two games with them, and one was to my wife (who used asymmetrical warfare to defeat me). But I didn't like the play style, it didn't feel right. It was just min-maxing and running the percentages. The other game I lost was where the percentages simply didn't come through. The tactics were textbook, wouldn't have changed a thing, I just needed to roll better.
I switched to IG, which was much more interesting, and Chaos Marines for a bit, but it just wasn't the same, so I quit for a while and then went back to 2nd.
dreadblade wrote: Does anyone know where the rules for the Rogue Trader Inquisitor in Terminator Armour and Ordo Malleus Daemonhunter in Terminator Armour were published?
The (metal) miniatures came out in the Rogue Trader era, and I had a vague recollection that the rules were either in Slaves to Darkness or the Compilation. But looking online that doesn't look to be the case. The Ordo Malleus and Grey Knights are in Slaves to Darkness, but that was pre-Terminators. Grey Knight Terminators are in the Compilation, but I don't see the Inquisitor or Daemonhunter...
Realm of Chaos, Slaves to Darkness- the Dark Millennium Section, Pgs 246-250; also had Space Hulk rules (no source listed, but probably White Dwarf); artwork (and maybe some rules?) appear in WD 135.
Rhino rush was a defining facet of 40k back in the day. Hell, some entire Guard strategies revolved around stopping the rush before it could happen (and it's why the Autocannon was superior to the Missile Launcher). That was a fun time of efficient use of firepower, firing hierarchies, and almost using a flow-chart for each shooting phase. It was a challenge from back in my more competitive times.
I'm pretty late to this thread but I started playing 40K when 5th edition just came out with the two player set Assault on Black Reach. I played a few games and loved it and honestly wish I could continue just playing 5th edition. 8th edition was alright. I didn't really care much for 9th edition, mainly because my opponents were more obsessed with stratagems and didn't let the dice Gods take the wheel.
During those times I played games of 4th edition and a few of 5th edition. I loved them both. Recently I ordered a copy of 3rd edition because I noticed a facebook group I was in have been reminiscing. Soon I saw pictures of their 3rd edition games and that piqued my interest.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Rhino rush was a defining facet of 40k back in the day. Hell, some entire Guard strategies revolved around stopping the rush before it could happen (and it's why the Autocannon was superior to the Missile Launcher). That was a fun time of efficient use of firepower, firing hierarchies, and almost using a flow-chart for each shooting phase. It was a challenge from back in my more competitive times.
That's what I mean, you could grid out your army on a firepower matrix and simply select optimal loads for any given situation.
Because the Rhino Rush was so prevalent, having an army that could creep backwards while firing at full power each turn was highly useful, and the use of Razorbacks, tac squads with lascannon and even a AT dreadnought created crippling attrition.
Yet even that wasn't enough! They still made contact! That when when my veteran assault squad without jump packs surged into the fray, shadowing the point of impact like a linebacker stalking a QB. It was fun to figure it out, and then it was figured out.
My IG army was different and used a bunch of rules exploits to keep opponents off balance. Yes, I had a parade-ground formation, but key parts where an assassin, sentinels and their pre-game move, a basilisk hammering away from the far corner...
It was more challenging, less successful, but it looked neat. I did XXIV Praetorians in Boer War khaki. It was a cool army. I sold it off and got a good price for it. No regrets, I hope the current owner enjoys it.
To be fair, I fought against Eldar more than I did Marines, so Wave Serpents rushing at me were more of a factor.
I liked the option to either keep the enemy in combat and rush everyone else nearby away (dooming the squad in combat, but whatever; they're Guardsmen!) or just swarming them with nearby squads to overwhelm them with sheer weight of numbers.
Thanks for the replies, our game is tomorrow and it is Blood Angels (Chaplain and Death Company on jumpacks, 2: 6 man Tactical squads with Plasma gun, and 5 man scouts) vs Fallen Angels (Cypher, 5 Fallen Vets, 10 Chaos Marines, 1 Dreadnought).
According to the Chaos book the Cypher list is illegal, but that is not a problem for us.
Is there a better fallen list somewhere for 3rd edition?
dreadblade wrote: Does anyone know where the rules for the Rogue Trader Inquisitor in Terminator Armour and Ordo Malleus Daemonhunter in Terminator Armour were published?
The (metal) miniatures came out in the Rogue Trader era, and I had a vague recollection that the rules were either in Slaves to Darkness or the Compilation. But looking online that doesn't look to be the case. The Ordo Malleus and Grey Knights are in Slaves to Darkness, but that was pre-Terminators. Grey Knight Terminators are in the Compilation, but I don't see the Inquisitor or Daemonhunter...
Realm of Chaos, Slaves to Darkness- the Dark Millennium Section, Pgs 246-250; also had Space Hulk rules (no source listed, but probably White Dwarf); artwork (and maybe some rules?) appear in WD 135.
Fugazi wrote: What a resource! Thanks for sharing. Did you print them yourself?
I have a friend with 3d printers that does all my stuff. the buildings are nice with PLA since it is fast, inexpensive and doesn't require higher levels of detail needed for resin. i just had him do a project from corvus gaming terrain for all my infinity buildings-
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: Because the Rhino Rush was so prevalent, having an army that could creep backwards while firing at full power each turn was highly useful, and the use of Razorbacks, tac squads with lascannon and even a AT dreadnought created crippling attrition.
The 5th edition rhino rush was ironically something of a vicious circle. Heavy weapons to pound on the transports kept getting cheaper leading to greater incentive to hide your troops in transports to avoid being blown away by the greater number of heavy weapons.
3e rhino rush on the other hand was the Blood Angels player charging you on turn 1...
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: Because the Rhino Rush was so prevalent, having an army that could creep backwards while firing at full power each turn was highly useful, and the use of Razorbacks, tac squads with lascannon and even a AT dreadnought created crippling attrition.
The 5th edition rhino rush was ironically something of a vicious circle. Heavy weapons to pound on the transports kept getting cheaper leading to greater incentive to hide your troops in transports to avoid being blown away by the greater number of heavy weapons.
3e rhino rush on the other hand was the Blood Angels player charging you on turn 1...
Yep, the BA codex essentially broke people's perception of 3rd. I was far more worried about Wave Serpent Rush, Trukk Rush, and Raider Rush as Incubi could roll up a unit viciously.
And that Veteran Squad in Rhino mentioned earlier? It was almost 350 points kitted out.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: Because the Rhino Rush was so prevalent, having an army that could creep backwards while firing at full power each turn was highly useful, and the use of Razorbacks, tac squads with lascannon and even a AT dreadnought created crippling attrition.
The 5th edition rhino rush was ironically something of a vicious circle. Heavy weapons to pound on the transports kept getting cheaper leading to greater incentive to hide your troops in transports to avoid being blown away by the greater number of heavy weapons.
3e rhino rush on the other hand was the Blood Angels player charging you on turn 1...
Yep, the BA codex essentially broke people's perception of 3rd. I was far more worried about Wave Serpent Rush, Trukk Rush, and Raider Rush as Incubi could roll up a unit viciously.
And that Veteran Squad in Rhino mentioned earlier? It was almost 350 points kitted out.
In fairness, at least those are all very lore-friendly, more so than the very prevalent deathstar lists in later editions.
My 2nd edition box arrived and I just finished stripping all the models that came in the box. Anyone interested in grabbing the models, check out my swap shop posting on the subject. These monopose dudes need a new home where they'll be appreciated!
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/811667.page#11593612
If posting this violates some guidelines, my apologies and you have my permission to delete this post
Just did some calculations, it should cost about 200€ to replace the Ork minis from this box with modern equivalents (Ork Battleforce + 4 boxes of Gretchin). Marines are sorted already with my remaining AoD beakies and extra weapons from the HH2 upgrade sprues. Oh yes, I saw some nifty 2nd ed plastic tokens on ebay the other day, might as well grab a set soon
I'll be playing some 10th edition games at Warhammer World in a couple of weeks, but I've reserved copies of Rogue Trader and the Realm of Chaos books to pick up while I'm there. I'm super-excited to be getting a nostalgia overload (and of course the 1st edition army lists for GK and TSons).
I don't know if my question should be it's own thread. But I'm curious if people still play older editions?
A vast majority people in my area are brand new to 40K. They only know 8th edition up to 10th. There are a few that have been around since 3rd or 4th edition. But they refuse to play an earlier edition of 40K whether for competitive or casual play.
The meta tends to chase the new hotness. I have a very small group that plays 3rd and there are several people in this forum who also play older editions as well.
Just Tony wrote: The meta tends to chase the new hotness. I have a very small group that plays 3rd and there are several people in this forum who also play older editions as well.
I recently picked up a copy of 3rd edition after talking to a friend who told me he missed the earlier editions. Since we don't get to play often we figured that we should go back to 3rd edition. No worries about rule changes or faq's.
I couldn't help but noticed your banner promoting older editions of Warhammer both fantasy and 40K. I'll check it out!
Grensche wrote: I don't know if my question should be it's own thread. But I'm curious if people still play older editions?
A vast majority people in my area are brand new to 40K. They only know 8th edition up to 10th. There are a few that have been around since 3rd or 4th edition. But they refuse to play an earlier edition of 40K whether for competitive or casual play.
That is kind of the point of this entire topic. everything prior to 8th edition is a very different game. since most players are just playing with randoms at a store they pretty well have to play whatever is current. when you get into veteran groups who have been playing together for years or decades you run into players who enjoy other editions rather it be 6th or 8th ed fantasy or one of the older editions of 40K. i have been playing 40K pretty well non-stop from 3rd-5th, a bit of 7th and early 8th then went back to 5th because our group like it best. watching people play 10th makes me want to beat my head on the table.
Just Tony wrote: The meta tends to chase the new hotness. I have a very small group that plays 3rd and there are several people in this forum who also play older editions as well.
I recently picked up a copy of 3rd edition after talking to a friend who told me he missed the earlier editions. Since we don't get to play often we figured that we should go back to 3rd edition. No worries about rule changes or faq's.
I couldn't help but noticed your banner promoting older editions of Warhammer both fantasy and 40K. I'll check it out!
Good to hear, and feel free to check out that link in my sig. We could use the membership/traffic and there are a few goodies to read over there as well, including some BatReps I posted.
JesusFreak wrote:Are there many people still playing 2nd edition?
Am keen to get back into it...not super interested in 10th.
Several people post about their games in 2nd in this thread, and my memory may be going shoddy but I seem to recall someone with the same flag as you discussing it.
Grensche wrote: I don't know if my question should be it's own thread. But I'm curious if people still play older editions?
A vast majority people in my area are brand new to 40K. They only know 8th edition up to 10th. There are a few that have been around since 3rd or 4th edition. But they refuse to play an earlier edition of 40K whether for competitive or casual play.
That is kind of the point of this entire topic. everything prior to 8th edition is a very different game. since most players are just playing with randoms at a store they pretty well have to play whatever is current. when you get into veteran groups who have been playing together for years or decades you run into players who enjoy other editions rather it be 6th or 8th ed fantasy or one of the older editions of 40K. i have been playing 40K pretty well non-stop from 3rd-5th, a bit of 7th and early 8th then went back to 5th because our group like it best. watching people play 10th makes me want to beat my head on the table.
I don't play as often as I used to anymore. Trying to keep up with GW's release schedule isn't worth it to me. Nu-40K just doesn't feel like 40K to me. I agree, I would like to stay with an edition or two and just learn those and have fun.
Grensche wrote: I don't know if my question should be it's own thread. But I'm curious if people still play older editions?
A vast majority people in my area are brand new to 40K. They only know 8th edition up to 10th. There are a few that have been around since 3rd or 4th edition. But they refuse to play an earlier edition of 40K whether for competitive or casual play.
That is kind of the point of this entire topic. everything prior to 8th edition is a very different game. since most players are just playing with randoms at a store they pretty well have to play whatever is current. when you get into veteran groups who have been playing together for years or decades you run into players who enjoy other editions rather it be 6th or 8th ed fantasy or one of the older editions of 40K. i have been playing 40K pretty well non-stop from 3rd-5th, a bit of 7th and early 8th then went back to 5th because our group like it best. watching people play 10th makes me want to beat my head on the table.
I don't play as often as I used to anymore. Trying to keep up with GW's release schedule isn't worth it to me. Nu-40K just doesn't feel like 40K to me. I agree, I would like to stay with an edition or two and just learn those and have fun.
Grensch: It looks like both you and Aphyon are in the same region of the country. I suggest that guys start DMing each other and see if it is possible to set something up. It seems like Washington State has a lot of folks who are into playing classic editions of 40K. As a reminder JT and I are both on the same forum for older games. Don't know of anyone else in your area, but please feel free to sign up.
Did a 2k game with our house 5th ed rules as always.
the terrain was space marine outpost via war scenery's dawn of war terrain series.
there were 5 objectives. i decided to change things up a bit and went infantry heavy and tosses in a firestorm fortification because i knew he was bringing air cav with valkyries and vendettes.
Spoiler:
it was a tough fight with both sides down to about a dozen infantry left alive on each side.
it came down to objectives with the guard squeezing out a win by 1 my scouts were 1" to far away to score the center objective.
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Game 2 we had to drop it o 1,500 but kept the 5 objectives. to work in his 10th ed predators we made sister versions from 30K relic predators with melta cannons and 3 heavy bolters. i went with some dreads, thunderfire cannons, and even a master of the forge on a bike with a conversion beamer.
It was a good fight forcing a tie breaker with the slamanders squeezing out a win by slay the warlord and line breaker.
Those DoW-"inspired" scenery pieces look really good.
-----------------
I am trying to collate all of the various published 3rd edition and 4th edition 40k rules (incl. optional rules). Current focus is on 3rd edition (which is quite a task!).
I was not involved in 40k till the tail end of 4th, so this is all new territory for me. So far, I have identified the following as having 40k rules:
The main rulebook (3rd edition).
25 codices and expansions (including two each of Chaos and Imperial Guard codices and the three versions of Chapter Approved annuals).
White Dwarf (issues 226-296)- I know there are a variety of articles with rules, some in defined segments like Chapter Approved and others ad hoc. Not all the Chapter Approved articles made it into the annuals either. This is the part I have least access to currently and a lot of content seems to be there.
The Citadel Journal (issues 29-50)- even includes some Chapter approved stuff (Arbites), covers lots of older stuff like genestealer cults and harlequins.
GW websites- the main website and the global campaign sites for the 3rd War for Armageddon and the 13th Black Crusade are the main ones I am aware of. There are additional rules on these sites. A lot can still be accessed via the Wayback Machine.
Fanatic- I am not clear how much is here that is not covered by the above.
Interesting stuff. I always enjoy seeing the photos.
5th ed. was after my time, so I'm not sure how much it differed from 3rd, but it seems thin on terrain to my aged 2nd ed. eyes.
It's often hard to figure out how to place models without doing volley fire on turn 1, and something we do is use 'field works' if it's appropriate to the scenario. Basically, we have squad-sized fighting positions that players plop down during deployment. The assumption is that unless it is a meeting engagement, the troops would have dug in upon coming into contact. The start of the game represents orders arriving and the battle commencing. I've got a game coming up, so maybe I'll get some photos of what one of our boards looks like for contrast.
Unit1126PLL wrote: If my group picks up 3rd/4th, what do folks recommend for an Admech army? Almost looks more like they were playing in 2nd and got dropped till 7th
Sisters of Battle for Skitarii with Imperial Guard for allies should cover most of the bases. More suiting for how the Admech are supposed to function in terms of durability and firepower than the actual Admech army now too. Alternatively Space Marines but only using Scouts for infantry.
Unit1126PLL wrote: If my group picks up 3rd/4th, what do folks recommend for an Admech army? Almost looks more like they were playing in 2nd and got dropped till 7th
Sisters of Battle for Skitarii with Imperial Guard for allies should cover most of the bases. More suiting for how the Admech are supposed to function in terms of durability and firepower than the actual Admech army now too. Alternatively Space Marines but only using Scouts for infantry.
Good thinking, that also lets inquisitors as some of the whackier tech-adepts with a couple enginseers. That should be mighty fine!
Unit1126PLL wrote: Good thinking, that also lets inquisitors as some of the whackier tech-adepts with a couple enginseers. That should be mighty fine!
The official ia2-update.pdf (2008) is worth digging out to bring the vehicles in-line with 5th edition rules. There were no major FAQ changes for the books.
To the best of my knowledge neither codex was updated alongside the other outdated books like the templars in the 2009 sweep, probably because the GK codex was on the horizon and the sisters were about to get Cruddaced.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote:Interesting stuff. I always enjoy seeing the photos.
5th ed. was after my time, so I'm not sure how much it differed from 3rd, but it seems thin on terrain to my aged 2nd ed. eyes.
It's often hard to figure out how to place models without doing volley fire on turn 1, and something we do is use 'field works' if it's appropriate to the scenario. Basically, we have squad-sized fighting positions that players plop down during deployment. The assumption is that unless it is a meeting engagement, the troops would have dug in upon coming into contact. The start of the game represents orders arriving and the battle commencing. I've got a game coming up, so maybe I'll get some photos of what one of our boards looks like for contrast.
Wyzilla wrote:
Unit1126PLL wrote: If my group picks up 3rd/4th, what do folks recommend for an Admech army? Almost looks more like they were playing in 2nd and got dropped till 7th
Sisters of Battle for Skitarii with Imperial Guard for allies should cover most of the bases. More suiting for how the Admech are supposed to function in terms of durability and firepower than the actual Admech army now too. Alternatively Space Marines but only using Scouts for infantry.
H.B.M.C. wrote:
Unit1126PLL wrote: Good thinking, that also lets inquisitors as some of the whackier tech-adepts with a couple enginseers. That should be mighty fine!
I mean, you should be able to reverse engineer the AdMech rules from latter 6th/7th, right? It's the same rules base, after all.
.5th ed has hard cover saves so there is more than enough LOS blocking terrain and area cover terrain. there is also no 2nd ed camping version of overwatch.
As for admech, i use a 7th ed admech/skitarii army in our 5th ed games. it is a direct port into 5th as long as you use 5th ed core rules. IE converting special rules that did not exist into ones that did (USRs) IE dune strider becomes move through cover. otherwise they work just fine.
witch hunters 3rd ed codex works just fine. we are even able to run the new predator as something sisters would use-namely a relic predator with a melta cannon or a flamestorm cannon. it can even have a "pintle mount" heavy bolter to make the model more or less WYSIWYG.
remember also that both the witch hunter and demon hunter codex allow for some interesting allies options thanks to inquisition rules. the sisters can even bring inquisitorial land raiders as dedicated transports for some units.
Unit1126PLL wrote: If my group picks up 3rd/4th, what do folks recommend for an Admech army? Almost looks more like they were playing in 2nd and got dropped till 7th
Sisters of Battle for Skitarii with Imperial Guard for allies should cover most of the bases. More suiting for how the Admech are supposed to function in terms of durability and firepower than the actual Admech army now too. Alternatively Space Marines but only using Scouts for infantry.
Good thinking, that also lets inquisitors as some of the whackier tech-adepts with a couple enginseers. That should be mighty fine!
If you are happy to use optional rules (and it is 3rd edition), Citadel Journal 32 includes rules for fielding Adeptus Mechanicus support weapons, with a techpriest leading servitor-crewed Tarantulas (these are mobile anti-grav platforms rather than the later static sentry guns), Rapiers with twin multilasers, Thudd guns, and Mole mortars. This could be combined with the later Rapier rules in Citadel Journal for an anti-tank version with a laser destroyer.
The Tarantula or Rapier is probably the closest 3rd edition option to Kataphron servitors.
aphyon wrote: .5th ed has hard cover saves so there is more than enough LOS blocking terrain and area cover terrain. there is also no 2nd ed camping version of overwatch.
Camping! Haven't heard that term in a while.
Our most recent game was a meeting engagement between scout elements, so between dive-bombing Swooping Hawks and bike squadrons careening across the board at 30" a turn it was pretty wild.
The next game will be in an urban environment, so a little more subtlety will be required.
I dusted off my old Word Bearer chaos list from 7th and found that although the Scrolls of Magnus are fun, removing it let me build something a little more MSU-ish.
For 1850 pts, it ends up being (approx, so some omissions):
A Chaos Lord of Tzeentch on Disc, w/ melee gear and Scripts of Erebus
A Palanquin Sorcerer of Nurgle w/ Malefic Tome
Two units of 5 CSM, w/ Melta, Combimelta, and Dozerblade/Dirgecaster Rhinos
Two units of Combiplasma Termicide
Two min-strength units of Bikes, with Mark of Slaanesh, and Powersword Champ
2 Helbrutes
2 units of 20 Cultists
3 solo Spawn of Chaos
3 Heralds of Tzeentch on Disc, w/ one Lesser Gift each
The end result looks...scrappy is the best word. The first turn normally involves summoning two units of Flesh Hounds or Screamers, depending on the opponent (or summoning Horrors for additional Warp Charge support). If I get Sacrifice or Possession on the Heralds, all the better.
dreadblade wrote: I'll be playing some 10th edition games at Warhammer World in a couple of weeks, but I've reserved copies of Rogue Trader and the Realm of Chaos books to pick up while I'm there. I'm super-excited to be getting a nostalgia overload (and of course the 1st edition army lists for GK and TSons).
I've been geeking-out on the Realm of Chaos books these last few days. Whilst the game is clearly not as well developed/balanced as 10th edition, these books are so much more interesting to read than current codexes. I was slightly nervous about revisiting them in case they weren't as good as I remembered, but I've not been disappointed.
There are always the takes saying "old editions were bad, you are just looking at them through rose tinted glasses" but the fact remains, some of the background books of 1st edition were clearly labours of love
Those were imo still the best codexes ever produced. The black and white art is so much more atmospheric than the mass produced product illustrations we get these days.
Those were imo still the best codexes ever produced. The black and white art is so much more atmospheric than the mass produced product illustrations we get these days.
Personally, I prefer the 3rd ed stuff. Same style of black-and-white artwork*, but also crammed full of in-universe lore snippets from various denizens of the galaxy.
Take the last page before the inside cover of the 2nd Imperial Guard codex of 3rd. It has a bunch of missives and letters piled on (presumably) the desk of some high-ranking officer or official in the 3rd War for Armageddon. However, over half the letters are partially covered by letters on top of them. So they went to the effort of creating all these lore snippets even though you wouldn't be able to read much of it, just to create this cool atmosphere and sense of mystery.
H.B.M.C. wrote: The 3rd Ed books were basically pamphlets. The Ork one didn't even have all the rules.
Initially, from a rules perspective and overall length, yes. But I think they had the best lore and visual presentation. The books also evolved during the edition to be much superior by 2002-2003.
H.B.M.C. wrote: The 3rd Ed books were basically pamphlets. The Ork one didn't even have all the rules.
Initially, from a rules perspective and overall length, yes. But I think they had the best lore and visual presentation. The books also evolved during the edition to be much superior by 2002-2003.
I agree that the in universe material was really evocative in those early 3rd ed codexes.
But that's all there was. They were 48 pages for a codex, or 24 for a supplement and it lost ~12 pages to photos, leaving 36 for everything else.
As soon as they started writing longer ones again, beginning with the tau codex, they went back to the 2nd ed style longer format, encyclopaedia bestiary and 3rd person narration. Most of the in universe stuff didn't come over.
H.B.M.C. wrote: The 3rd Ed books were basically pamphlets. The Ork one didn't even have all the rules.
Yes, I recall the crushing disappointment that was the 3rd ed. Space Marine Codex. Nothing like the depth and fluff of 2nd, which had neat little vignettes and even strategy guides for how to play them!
A 2nd ed. reprint with all the subsequent releases inserted I would definitely buy. Having the grav tanks in the Eldar Codex or Razorback rules for the marines would be great!
I've felt a little like that with the last two codex from GW. They've stripped out a lot of those unit lore pages that I was really starting to enjoy and I felt gave a depth of feeling to the army not just the faction. Plus they went into what those weapons and units were in the game, lore and on the tabletop; helping bringing it to life.
Oh look, the 3rd Ed ones certainly got better as time went on, and thicker with more details (it started with Chaos 3.5, IIRC, and carried into Eye of Terror, Guard 3.5, and so on), but those initial ones were so bare bones. The Craftworld Eldar one has rules for all the Craftworlds, but is as thin as Imperium Magazine!
H.B.M.C. wrote: Oh look, the 3rd Ed ones certainly got better as time went on, and thicker with more details (it started with Chaos 3.5, IIRC, and carried into Eye of Terror, Guard 3.5, and so on), but those initial ones were so bare bones. The Craftworld Eldar one has rules for all the Craftworlds, but is as thin as Imperium Magazine!
The Dark eldar one bothered me beyond all reason. Here's a brand new faction that they just made up and its... a handful of pages of background. Lots of pics and unit entries and a few fluff snippets, but mostly just 'rar, we is murder elfs'
H.B.M.C. wrote: Oh look, the 3rd Ed ones certainly got better as time went on, and thicker with more details (it started with Chaos 3.5, IIRC, and carried into Eye of Terror, Guard 3.5, and so on), but those initial ones were so bare bones. The Craftworld Eldar one has rules for all the Craftworlds, but is as thin as Imperium Magazine!
Well, tbf, the craftworld dex for 3rd was just a supplement, added on to the main eldar dex.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Oh look, the 3rd Ed ones certainly got better as time went on, and thicker with more details (it started with Chaos 3.5, IIRC, and carried into Eye of Terror, Guard 3.5, and so on), but those initial ones were so bare bones. The Craftworld Eldar one has rules for all the Craftworlds, but is as thin as Imperium Magazine!
Well, tbf, the craftworld dex for 3rd was just a supplement, added on to the main eldar dex.
Yes, it provided as much rules content and variety from the core list as the Chapter Approved article in WD290 for Ork clans. I suspect if they'd released the latter earlier in the edition it would have been as a codex ala Codex: Craftworlds.
However, even the pamphlet-codices are jammed full of lore snippets that are frequently still core to modern lore.
H.B.M.C. wrote: The 3rd Ed books were basically pamphlets. The Ork one didn't even have all the rules.
Initially, from a rules perspective and overall length, yes. But I think they had the best lore and visual presentation. The books also evolved during the edition to be much superior by 2002-2003.
I agree that the in universe material was really evocative in those early 3rd ed codexes.
But that's all there was. They were 48 pages for a codex, or 24 for a supplement and it lost ~12 pages to photos, leaving 36 for everything else.
As soon as they started writing longer ones again, beginning with the tau codex, they went back to the 2nd ed style longer format, encyclopaedia bestiary and 3rd person narration. Most of the in universe stuff didn't come over.
I partially agree. They added 3rd person narration, but kept a similar number of quotes and reports and in-universe stuff (the books being longer to accommodate both). In addition, the narration was not as "omniscient" as later editions (more akin to the style FW used in the HH black books, sort of as if written by an Imperial historian). For example, in the second IG codex of 3rd, there is a bit where they talk about "Hylgar's Hellraisers", and how the information must be incorrect because it contains units not seen since the early days of the Imperium. There are unknowns and postulations in a way we do not see in the much more authoritative modern narration.
The structure of the army lists was largely consistent too, with a small lore vignette adjacent to the unit entry and a separate armoury section. The arrangement of the sections did change (the armoury moved from the end of the book to just prior to the army list).
Just Tony wrote: If I want to read a damn novel, I'll buy a damn novel.
I loved the layout of the 3rd Ed. codexes and would love it if they offered a slimmed down "rules only" option for every edition.
See I don't want to see that because if there's one thing I've noticed its that fluff/art and other elements very easily get passed over as purchases for "more models". What can happen when you split rules and lore is that your die-hard fans are fine ;but your casual players suddenly lose a lore connection entirely. That is a huge thing to lose because how many of us come back for lore or because we like the theme of an army; not just the models. Even the light content in codex's defines an army for many and grounds them in the setting - its the hook that might draw them in further than just models and rules.
I think the best approach would be if GW went back to 3rd or 4th ed style codex in information layout (seriously at some point GW either gave up/lost the skill or don't care because several recent editions are sheer nightmares for rules layout); and then produced 1 product of a codex for rules and a codex for fluff in separate books but always bundled together.
Or perhaps 3 books. 1 combined codex (Cheaper) and then a split which has both rules and fluff in two separate publications but always combined sale.
That way you can have the choice of everything in one; or your rules only book that you only need for games and a lore book. Plus by only selling them together you keep that same hook that the codex right now (and always have been) which is a fantastic lure for the lore and details.
~I know GW sells the big rulebook with a rules only version onw (sometimes even ringbinding it!) however the core rulebook is almost a little different because
a) it is so massive
b) it also gets massive discounts early in the sales period with the starter sets and such. So it gets thrust onto the market very aggressively. Codex could do the same if GW did a big discount box with basically a free codex every edition, but I feel like it wouldn't work quite the same
Esp because everyone needs the core, but not everyone needs an army codex for every force. So you could quickly end up with some being overly abundant and others being very hard to source
The codexes should just be books full of background, organisational detail, unit markings and colour schemes etc.
Then they wouldn't need to be replaced every three years (if you're lucky).
The rules should be free PDFs. Then they can be easily updated if necessary.
Lord Damocles wrote: The codexes should just be books full of background, organisational detail, unit markings and colour schemes etc.
Then they wouldn't need to be replaced every three years (if you're lucky).
The rules should be free PDFs. Then they can be easily updated if necessary.
If anything this should be reversed.
Because GW will never sell enough of the type of Codex you envision to make it worth producing even 1 of them, let alone 20some.
Lord Damocles wrote: The codexes should just be books full of background, organisational detail, unit markings and colour schemes etc.
Then they wouldn't need to be replaced every three years (if you're lucky).
The rules should be free PDFs. Then they can be easily updated if necessary.
If anything this should be reversed.
Because GW will never sell enough of the type of Codex you envision to make it worth producing even 1 of them, let alone 20some.
The RULES though.... Those they know will sell.
And this is why the two should always go together as a sold product.
People focus on the game side as a priority purchase; whilst everything else is optional. Cut out the fluff and art from the rules - separate them - and it will work in the short term. Long term what will happen is new players will potentially have less and less interest in lore and art and side products. Furthermore you lose the connection so there might be less of a pull to draw them back once they take a step outside of the hobby (for whatever reason).
Cutting out lore and just having rules focuses on one type of customer; whilst having both hits far more customers over a broader spectrum. That helps encourage sales of that particular product and it helps generate interest and hype. Plus its a great way for GW to soft introduce a lot of people to their lore which might turn into BL book purchases and such.
There's a reason you see every other game that starts taking itself seriously start also producing lore and rule books and bundling bits of lore into the rules. The two are inseparable when the game you play is partly based on the story and imagination of the setting not just the raw tactical nuts and bolts of the game.
Overread wrote: There's a reason you see every other game that starts taking itself seriously start also producing lore and rule books and bundling bits of lore into the rules. The two are inseparable when the game you play is partly based on the story and imagination of the setting not just the raw tactical nuts and bolts of the game.
One of the most epic wargames ever was West End Games' Imperium Romanum II. Yeah, boring, whatever, but each rule was prefaced by a relevant quote from an ancient historian. Suetonius, Livy, Tacitus - it was brilliant.
GW is coasting on the genius of its first 20 years. They put the lore in the codex and then showed you how it was reflected in the rules. It was intuitive and immersive.
GW has been able to skimp on that because 40k was so wildly successful as to become somewhat mainstream. There are memes and pop culture references. Heck, Chronicles of Riddick was a love-letter to the Chaos Marines.
I admit that even though I have not bought a single GW novel, I have been known to curl up with the 2nd ed. codexes just to re-read the background material.
Overread wrote: And this is why the two should always go together as a sold product.
Yeah I'm totally with Overread on this. I think a separate rulebook would certainly sell, but a fluff book on its own would sell a fraction of what the rules would.
I wish that we had bigger fluff sections. They've gotten thinner and thinner over the years (well, since the 3rd Ed pamphlets were done away with, that is). I think it was Orks 6th where there was a shift to pages of full photos for units, and their rules, and next to no fluff. Even now, each unit gets a tiny paragraph on its dataslate. The lists of units and what each one was and how they fit into the universe are long gone. Ditto going over the equipment/wargear of factions.
I admit that even though I have not bought a single GW novel, I have been known to curl up with the 2nd ed. codexes just to re-read the background material.
I still need to grab a 2nd ed Tyranid codex; my first is now a well worn 3rd edition.
And yeah I was a gamer for ages before I ever tried a BL book. Which I think really helps highlight how easy it is to miss the lore when you don't "have" to buy it to game and why the codex as they are is oh so important. Heck I really hate how in the last 2 codex editions GW has cut out the unit lore pages. I really liked those and loved to see how they describe new units and models as well as get little tid bits of further info on earlier ones as they modified and adapted the entries.
The variations you could do through biomorphs in that book were wild too. A squad of Tyranid Warriors all with Bio-Plasma or Warp Fields? Pretty fun.
And the pre-game Tyranid effects were just fantastic. "Jones is acting strangely" of course, but also the various effects of your troops being exhausted and run down at the start of the battle because it's assumed that they've already been fighting a brutal campaign.
Lord Damocles wrote: The codexes should just be books full of background, organisational detail, unit markings and colour schemes etc.
Then they wouldn't need to be replaced every three years (if you're lucky).
The rules should be free PDFs. Then they can be easily updated if necessary.
If anything this should be reversed.
Because GW will never sell enough of the type of Codex you envision to make it worth producing even 1 of them, let alone 20some.
The RULES though.... Those they know will sell.
And this is why the two should always go together as a sold product.
People focus on the game side as a priority purchase; whilst everything else is optional. Cut out the fluff and art from the rules - separate them - and it will work in the short term. Long term what will happen is new players will potentially have less and less interest in lore and art and side products. Furthermore you lose the connection so there might be less of a pull to draw them back once they take a step outside of the hobby (for whatever reason).
Cutting out lore and just having rules focuses on one type of customer; whilst having both hits far more customers over a broader spectrum. That helps encourage sales of that particular product and it helps generate interest and hype. Plus its a great way for GW to soft introduce a lot of people to their lore which might turn into BL book purchases and such.
There's a reason you see every other game that starts taking itself seriously start also producing lore and rule books and bundling bits of lore into the rules. The two are inseparable when the game you play is partly based on the story and imagination of the setting not just the raw tactical nuts and bolts of the game.
I know this & do not disagree. Damoles though is being short sighted
But the lore doesn't have to be in the codex. Why can't it be on the Community site. Old books that are out of print, why can't GW make them a free or 1`cent download. Why can't prior year movies from Warhammer TV, be put on the GW YT channel (not the entire series, just single episodes). Lore channels, painter and hobby channels are popular enough on YT for people to quit their jobs and become full time Youtubers. Why can't GW work with those people. The idea that in this day and age, where w40k is in the mainstream, people only can get their lore or w40k hobby from a codex is just wrong. There is a ton of specilised channels that help with that, there are YT shorts, lore Tiktoks etc.
If there was an option to just get rules, for an already VERY expensive hobby, it would not kill the game. Or at least not as long as the actual game is fun. The lore, hobby etc seems to often be used a crouch, when the core of the game which is the actual game is not working.
Yeah... they used to release citadel compendiums with rules and background stuffs from CJ and the first 40K compendium was taken from White Dwarf articles. All that rules and wargear lists and the story about Avatar of Khaine in 40K were all from WD issues (also the background books Index Astartes I&II, not the 8E/9E were also this, but collects the Index Astartes WD articles only). So in terms of practicality it's not impossible to do and in actuality, digital pulbications of these files would also be trivial. Hell, do this with BL like Cubicle 7 is doing on their side, offer physical prints but also digital downloads, and physical prints can be made-to-order to lower overhead and invenotry levels as well.
But why should they? First they ain't gonna curate a bunch of novel stories, because that's a monumental task if I ever hear one; then if they collects all the background unit fuffs, chapter backstories, timelines etc. from codex and core rulebooks, and compile them into separate volumes, it may mean hobbist like me would simply choose not to buy their rulebooks (which is one, heavy-ass tome, and expensive too).
Far easier to just sprinkle tiny bits of lore here and there, with a few new pieces of artworks, and charge you out the ass for it. Hey, you'd all pay for it!
And for that matter, there are quiet some nuances in the lore, like in 4th/5th edition Craftworld Eldar codex it was written that the Craftworlds were driven by solar sails -- and thus can only sail at sub-light speed because they are too big to fit into even the largest known webway gates; instead, their fleet must protect this relatively vulnerable target in space, and the Craftworlds themselves had webway portals on them that can transport their ships if need be.
I had compiled a document of notes around the end of 6E with lore bits and citations, and I just checked that file last week, so it's there. But this, this particular detail is no longer mentioned in later edtitions, making it seem impossible to invade a Craftworld without this information, if they can just vanish into the webway.
I've taken to compile WHFB timelines in recent years, the timeline events by themselves are often decently aligned, but if one digs into the relevant stories in the same army book, there are often contradictory information between editions too. How should a 40K version of such lore background info be organized? What format to host on this community website? Ultimately, it'd be work done for little gain for GW and I don't see them try.
Also, file hosting can be costly, with them continuously updating their backlogs, it'd be a full-time job to keep such an archive running; they shut down those specialist sections on their website as well as free campaign PDF sections for a reason. Warhammer-Community is now just a promotion website with new articles only now. Oh also get you to pay for their streaming services
Lord Damocles wrote: The codexes should just be books full of background, organisational detail, unit markings and colour schemes etc.
Then they wouldn't need to be replaced every three years (if you're lucky).
The rules should be free PDFs. Then they can be easily updated if necessary.
If anything this should be reversed.
Because GW will never sell enough of the type of Codex you envision to make it worth producing even 1 of them, let alone 20some.
The RULES though.... Those they know will sell.
And this is why the two should always go together as a sold product.
People focus on the game side as a priority purchase; whilst everything else is optional. Cut out the fluff and art from the rules - separate them - and it will work in the short term. Long term what will happen is new players will potentially have less and less interest in lore and art and side products. Furthermore you lose the connection so there might be less of a pull to draw them back once they take a step outside of the hobby (for whatever reason).
Cutting out lore and just having rules focuses on one type of customer; whilst having both hits far more customers over a broader spectrum. That helps encourage sales of that particular product and it helps generate interest and hype. Plus its a great way for GW to soft introduce a lot of people to their lore which might turn into BL book purchases and such.
There's a reason you see every other game that starts taking itself seriously start also producing lore and rule books and bundling bits of lore into the rules. The two are inseparable when the game you play is partly based on the story and imagination of the setting not just the raw tactical nuts and bolts of the game.
I know this & do not disagree. Damoles though is being short sighted
I'm not convinced Damocles is being shortsighted, but they definitely aren't thinking of shareholders. I strongly suspect that what is good for the long-term success of the game and setting and what is good for GW's financials for the next couple of quarters are not the same, although they could overlap. Codex churn definitely burns out older players, and GW is relying on recruiting enough new blood to offset that whilst squeezing remaining whales whilst they can. I suspect this is not sustainable in the long term, but GW may change tack before they run into that issue. I understand the rationale- rushed rules stuffed into books with mostly recycled lore are going to have a higher profit margin than models.
With that in mind, a living, free ruleset (with good base rules) would retain more players IMO. I don't think this needs to be devoid of lore. Likewise, lore-only books do sell (see how many times GW has released the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer as an example), but the volume will be much lower than the forced rulebook churn.
Karol wrote: If there was an option to just get rules, for an already VERY expensive hobby, it would not kill the game. Or at least not as long as the actual game is fun. The lore, hobby etc seems to often be used a crouch, when the core of the game which is the actual game is not working.
GW is the one making the hobby expensive. The ugly truth is that they used to offer better value for money.
Haighus wrote: With that in mind, a living, free ruleset (with good base rules) would retain more players IMO.
Even leaving aside the practical benefits of an online living ruleset, if being able to see the rules for a faction for free leads to someone buying even a single box of models for a faction they don't already collect, then it's already more profitable than selling that player a codex.
Anecdotally, I have seen more players read rules on Wahapedia or the free indices and decide they want to start another army than I've seen players buy codices and not end up playing the faction at all. Free rules are a functional sales strategy.
Haighus wrote: With that in mind, a living, free ruleset (with good base rules) would retain more players IMO.
Even leaving aside the practical benefits of an online living ruleset, if being able to see the rules for a faction for free leads to someone buying even a single box of models for a faction they don't already collect, then it's already more profitable than selling that player a codex.
Anecdotally, I have seen more players read rules on Wahapedia or the free indices and decide they want to start another army than I've seen players buy codices and not end up playing the faction at all. Free rules are a functional sales strategy.
Thing is GW doesn't want to advertise that way and they don't have too. A lot of smaller game firms do because they simply do not have much of a budget to advertise with.
GW can. They have stores on the highstreet; they have a VAST number of youtube and other streaming channels of players generating play content every day; they have their own 365 day a year marketing material on their main website; they have Warhammer + and the upcoming Amazon TV show; they have Video games (several of which are major hits); they have gamers building websites to talk about their game (And business advice).
GW don't need to give away their rules for free to advertise their game. They've got multiple avenues to advertise through whilst still profiting from their rules material. Plus the healthy sale of their rules material allows them to justify investing money into a quality product.
Free rules is very much an approach to marketing. It's not the only one, but its certainly a very good way especially when a firm has very limited resources
Overread wrote: Thing is GW doesn't want to advertise that way and they don't have too. A lot of smaller game firms do because they simply do not have much of a budget to advertise with.
GW can. They have stores on the highstreet; they have a VAST number of youtube and other streaming channels of players generating play content every day; they have their own 365 day a year marketing material on their main website; they have Warhammer + and the upcoming Amazon TV show; they have Video games (several of which are major hits); they have gamers building websites to talk about their game (And business advice).
GW don't need to give away their rules for free to advertise their game. They've got multiple avenues to advertise through whilst still profiting from their rules material. Plus the healthy sale of their rules material allows them to justify investing money into a quality product.
Free rules is very much an approach to marketing. It's not the only one, but its certainly a very good way especially when a firm has very limited resources
They don't need to now. But that assumes their current business model is sustainable. I suspect it is not, albeit over a fairly long time period. Bearing in mind that sustainability does not matter one bit to shareholders, profits in the short term do. To me, GW seems to be in its engakification stage and I worry* they could run into real trouble in the next decade if they stick the current course.
*Worry because they are the owners of a setting I am very attached to and enjoy, rather than any loyalty to the company itself.
Overread wrote: Thing is GW doesn't want to advertise that way and they don't have too. A lot of smaller game firms do because they simply do not have much of a budget to advertise with.
GW can. They have stores on the highstreet; they have a VAST number of youtube and other streaming channels of players generating play content every day; they have their own 365 day a year marketing material on their main website; they have Warhammer + and the upcoming Amazon TV show; they have Video games (several of which are major hits); they have gamers building websites to talk about their game (And business advice).
GW don't need to give away their rules for free to advertise their game. They've got multiple avenues to advertise through whilst still profiting from their rules material. Plus the healthy sale of their rules material allows them to justify investing money into a quality product.
Free rules is very much an approach to marketing. It's not the only one, but its certainly a very good way especially when a firm has very limited resources
They don't need to now. But that assumes their current business model is sustainable. I suspect it is not, albeit over a fairly long time period. Bearing in mind that sustainability does not matter one bit to shareholders, profits in the short term do. To me, GW seems to be in its engakification stage and I worry* they could run into real trouble in the next decade if they stick the current course.
*Worry because they are the owners of a setting I am very attached to and enjoy, rather than any loyalty to the company itself.
Right now I'm not worried about GW, heck they are in a very strong position now as a company. Don't forget all their investments come from profits not loans, so even if all their Warhammer TV costs go belly up, GW are simply left with wasted investment not debt hanging around their necks dragging them down. This means if they poorly invest they can just move on without baggage.
My main worry about GW right now is that they keep leaning into so many expansion books as a concept which I think will (and is)burning people out. I get a sense that GW is starting to realise this and might make adjustments. I think that they walk a tightrope between wanting people to buy their books and not wanting to shove that so much down people's throats that they choke and give up.
I think they are in a healthier position than, say, Magic the Gathering where you can 100% see the short term cash-cow marketing going on ($1000 for a handful of cards that can't even be used in games - so purely targeting rich collectors and "investors").
I do think that under Kirby GW focused a lot on short term profits and GW suffered for it and I think they realised that. Don't forget after the pandemic their stock sunk in value and there wasn't a massive panic move to try and raise it up again. GW enjoyed a rapid rise to fame and stock market power and then a decline because they are not a firm that can keep making record breaking expansion at that rate (so all those investors sold up which lowered the stock value for a time).
Could GW burn out or falter - possibly. That said one could argue that GW getting a bit weaker is a good thing for the market overall in some ways as it would give room for others to rise up. I think if GW weakened but others rose to fill the gap then we'd have the best of both worlds - GW supporting its stuff and a slightly bigger market with more choice and variety. Accepting though that Gw is very much a gateway firm in terms of getting a lot of new fresh blood into the hobby in many countries.
No way I can believe any public traded company today to expand using money they made instead of investments. No way any public-traded company today can build a whole factory and hire additional workers without outside investments. Nah, I ain't buying that, even if it's straight from the horse's mouth, it'd still be lies.
Their stock ain't flying this high without VC money flooding it, not possible. I can concede that their finance might be better than IT startup and "unicorns", but only because unlike those companies, GW does actually have products to sell, but I don't believe for a moment they have the liquidity to invest in a factory, nor do I believe their management would even consider using their own liquidity instead of using investment money and loans.
Overread wrote: Right now I'm not worried about GW, heck they are in a very strong position now as a company. Don't forget all their investments come from profits not loans, so even if all their Warhammer TV costs go belly up, GW are simply left with wasted investment not debt hanging around their necks dragging them down. This means if they poorly invest they can just move on without baggage.
The lack of debt almost sank GW (details on another thread) because when you have no debt and no existing credit relationship, when you need to borrow money on short notice, it can trigger a run on your stock.
One of the great questions of old was how much actual product does GW move given their relentless price increases and the much larger scope of the game.
The model count doubled from 2nd to 3rd, but the starter box had half as many figures. The product line has probably at least tripled in terms of offerings, and they are exponentially more expensive. So it's possible they make more but sell much less.
As for me, I like the feel of the old editions because (as we now know) the game designers were dedicated to producing a better product, and when they were repeatedly thwarted, they left, and you can see the resulting loss of quality.
I can't see how you can argue that GW are selling less when right now there's products that people want which are out of stock and GW only semi- recently built a whole new factory on their main site.
Overread wrote: I can't see how you can argue that GW are selling less when right now there's products that people want which are out of stock and GW only semi- recently built a whole new factory on their main site.
A new plant may simply be wanting to discard legacy machinery and methods. GM built a new plant west of Lansing - after closing three of them only a few miles away.
And as I said, no one knows the quantity of sales. GW has always, always been opaque about that sort of thing.
As for products being out of stock, that's just terrible supply management. If you only sell one model of a given type a year, you may not bother restocking it for a while. It is entirely possible that GW sales are a mile wide but only an inch deep - they have massive catalog, but a tiny fraction of it sees sales of any appreciable volume.
Again, how many factions/flavors of 40k are there at this point? I honestly don't know. Through years of effort and the skillful deployment of alternate lines of figures (including historicals), I've got a reasonable force for every major faction of 2nd edition 40k: Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Tyranids, Chaos Marines, Orks, Eldar, Sisters of Battle. Not only have the factions expanded, the sub-factions and time periods have also increased. It's not surprising that amidst that massive catalog there would be shortfalls.
Heavy support
.land raider achillies
.deredeo dreadnought with plasma cannonade/aiolos missile launcher/heavy flamers
The first game was a 5 objective match with an end to end deployment.
I was facing a double force org imperial guard armored company (forgeworld list) with iron hands marines.
All game the guard had the range advantage, i ended up having to focus on the objectives and try to stay alive. it was hard to pull off but my opponent managed to roll poorly enough for me to eek out a win holding 3 of 5 objectives.
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
The second game i was fighting against his 3.5 chaos iron warriors.
We left the table objectives the same but used a dawn of war setup.
This match saw him on par with my ranges and a large number of infantry on his side. he started out very strong but i managed to turn it around on damage output and his unlucky dice rolls to pull off a pretty impressive victory.
lcmiracle wrote: No way I can believe any public traded company today to expand using money they made instead of investments. No way any public-traded company today can build a whole factory and hire additional workers without outside investments. Nah, I ain't buying that, even if it's straight from the horse's mouth, it'd still be lies.
Their stock ain't flying this high without VC money flooding it, not possible. I can concede that their finance might be better than IT startup and "unicorns", but only because unlike those companies, GW does actually have products to sell, but I don't believe for a moment they have the liquidity to invest in a factory, nor do I believe their management would even consider using their own liquidity instead of using investment money and loans.
In the US, "Publicly Traded" companies have to issue annual statements that detail all the debt and investments they have. If there was VC money flooding the company and that wasn't on the annual statements, they would be in big trouble. I'm pretty sure the UK has similar laws.
Regarding the books being mixed with rules, lore and art, I suspect this was originally done out of sheer passion, but has since remained in effect as an effective copyrights enforcement method. If the books contained only rules, copyrighting their content would be much less enforcable legally.
With regards to GW debt, it wouldn't actually surprise me if they would not have much if any. Would certainly explain their glacial pace in upgrading their logistic infrastructure
lcmiracle wrote: No way I can believe any public traded company today to expand using money they made instead of investments. No way any public-traded company today can build a whole factory and hire additional workers without outside investments. Nah, I ain't buying that, even if it's straight from the horse's mouth, it'd still be lies.
Their stock ain't flying this high without VC money flooding it, not possible. I can concede that their finance might be better than IT startup and "unicorns", but only because unlike those companies, GW does actually have products to sell, but I don't believe for a moment they have the liquidity to invest in a factory, nor do I believe their management would even consider using their own liquidity instead of using investment money and loans.
In the US, "Publicly Traded" companies have to issue annual statements that detail all the debt and investments they have. If there was VC money flooding the company and that wasn't on the annual statements, they would be in big trouble. I'm pretty sure the UK has similar laws.
I know GW releases annual reports but I haven't kept track for years. According to Marketwatch.com, Games-Workshop's total liability in 2023 Q2 (June-May, how they wrote it, not me) is 91M GBP. Which is against their 326.8M total assets. Their Q2 total liability to total assets ratio was 28%. Their total liability is generally growing in the past 5 years, but so has their assets, so their finances do look good.
On the other hand, they have no SEC filing because they ain't in the U.S., I guess
lcmiracle wrote: No way I can believe any public traded company today to expand using money they made instead of investments. No way any public-traded company today can build a whole factory and hire additional workers without outside investments. Nah, I ain't buying that, even if it's straight from the horse's mouth, it'd still be lies.
Their stock ain't flying this high without VC money flooding it, not possible. I can concede that their finance might be better than IT startup and "unicorns", but only because unlike those companies, GW does actually have products to sell, but I don't believe for a moment they have the liquidity to invest in a factory, nor do I believe their management would even consider using their own liquidity instead of using investment money and loans.
In the US, "Publicly Traded" companies have to issue annual statements that detail all the debt and investments they have. If there was VC money flooding the company and that wasn't on the annual statements, they would be in big trouble. I'm pretty sure the UK has similar laws.
I know GW releases annual reports but I haven't kept track for years. According to Marketwatch.com, Games-Workshop's total liability in 2023 Q2 (June-May, how they wrote it, not me) is 91M GBP. Which is against their 326.8M total assets. Their Q2 total liability to total assets ratio was 28%. Their total liability is generally growing in the past 5 years, but so has their assets, so their finances do look good.
On the other hand, they have no SEC filing because they ain't in the U.S., I guess
If GW were taking vast amounts of VC or any investment money and not declaring it they'd be sitting on a time bomb before the taxman game and everything would fall apart.
I seem to recall the new faction was a £9million investment for them (or might have been £12million) though that might also have been bundled along with some warehouse improvements as well.
Honestly you sound like you're going down the rabbit hole of scams being the only way GW could support itself and sure they could be telling lies in every annual report and such. But on the other hand maybe they just have an older view to business that's proven to work in the long term for them more so than more "modern" practice which can load a company with debts and sink them when things get a little rough (just look at how many big highstreet named stores in the UK have crashed and burned over the years).
Overread wrote: Honestly you sound like you're going down the rabbit hole of scams being the only way GW could support itself and sure they could be telling lies in every annual report and such. But on the other hand maybe they just have an older view to business that's proven to work in the long term for them more so than more "modern" practice which can load a company with debts and sink them when things get a little rough (just look at how many big highstreet named stores in the UK have crashed and burned over the years).
I get what you're saying but there's a long and well-documented history of companies thought to be squeaky clean whose dirt was only discovered after their downfall.
I think that's where the old-school pessimism comes from. If you look at gaming companies, there are lots of examples of visionaries who fudged the books or lost track of what was going on and crashed and burned despite phenomenal success. SPI, Avalon Hill, TSR...the list is pretty vast. Then there are the product licensees who got knee-capped by losing the IP. West End Games and Decipher come to mind.
Getting back to something close to the OP topic, I think what a lot of us old-timers miss is the sense of adventure and innovation that defined "early" Games Workshop. They were genuinely having fun, and it showed. One-off games, weird variants in the magazines, what would later be called "specialist" games launched into the void without a second thought - this was the GW many of us fell in love with.
In that context, ragged rules and esoteric fluff was a feature, not a bug. The enduring appeal of 2nd comes in part from the understanding that it was truly a work in progress. The chaos of Rogue Trader was finally being brought under control, but there were rebel enclaves amidst the game design that stubbornly resisted assimilation.
The editions that came after were thoroughly homogenized. All of the little creative gremlins had been exteriminated, and while there were inconsistencies and rules exploits, it was more a product of bureaucratic carelessness than a surplus of creativity.
I'm going to stake out what is likely a hugely unpopular position, but I have no interest in the Rogue Trader stuff because it was before my time. Any nostalgia would be fake - I'd be retrofitting memories that aren't mine. Yes, I did play a game of Rogue Trader back in the day and didn't like it. It feels pretentious to pretend that I was a fan.
The materials of 2nd are plentiful and provide good depth, and so I'm content with collecting that era.
This may be surprising from a history nerd, but I suppose it's inspired by the depth of my loyalty to "my" edition.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: I'm going to stake out what is likely a hugely unpopular position, but I have no interest in the Rogue Trader stuff because it was before my time. Any nostalgia would be fake - I'd be retrofitting memories that aren't mine. Yes, I did play a game of Rogue Trader back in the day and didn't like it. It feels pretentious to pretend that I was a fan.
The materials of 2nd are plentiful and provide good depth, and so I'm content with collecting that era.
This may be surprising from a history nerd, but I suppose it's inspired by the depth of my loyalty to "my" edition.
I don't think that's unpopular, it just sounds normal. You don't have a nostalgic connection to something you didn't really enjoy/engage with as much way back when and you found something else that you better connected with.
For some of us who didn't get the RT era stuff it was "before our time" as gamers or as Warhammer Gamers and part of wanting to own it is having some history and being able to see and read and experience that even though we have no nostalgic connection to it. Nostalgia is powerful, but its not all there is.
You see it in all areas; heck there are "retro gamers" who were never around for the "retro era" who love collecting and playing the old games as much as those who came from that era. Meanwhile there are "old gamers" who can't stand the old games and only love the brand new stuff.
I doubt I'll ever play RT again, and I'm enjoying 10th, but I did play as a teenager back in the day, and it does hold a significant amount of nostalgia for me.
I had all 3 of those books, and of course the Realm of Chaos books include the original army lists for 2 of my 3 armies. The other didn't exist back then of course.
lcmiracle wrote: No way I can believe any public traded company today to expand using money they made instead of investments. No way any public-traded company today can build a whole factory and hire additional workers without outside investments. Nah, I ain't buying that, even if it's straight from the horse's mouth, it'd still be lies.
Their stock ain't flying this high without VC money flooding it, not possible. I can concede that their finance might be better than IT startup and "unicorns", but only because unlike those companies, GW does actually have products to sell, but I don't believe for a moment they have the liquidity to invest in a factory, nor do I believe their management would even consider using their own liquidity instead of using investment money and loans.
In the US, "Publicly Traded" companies have to issue annual statements that detail all the debt and investments they have. If there was VC money flooding the company and that wasn't on the annual statements, they would be in big trouble. I'm pretty sure the UK has similar laws.
I know GW releases annual reports but I haven't kept track for years. According to Marketwatch.com, Games-Workshop's total liability in 2023 Q2 (June-May, how they wrote it, not me) is 91M GBP. Which is against their 326.8M total assets. Their Q2 total liability to total assets ratio was 28%. Their total liability is generally growing in the past 5 years, but so has their assets, so their finances do look good.
On the other hand, they have no SEC filing because they ain't in the U.S., I guess
Why does it matter what's reported? You just said you don't & won't believe it.
