Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 JNAProductions wrote:

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

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

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

It isn't just a question of cooperative or competitive- there's a third category: Narrative.

A narrative game IS still competitive... It's just that competition is secondary to the narrative. Like you tried to win... You tried really hard to win. But sometimes the foot of Gork (or is it Mork?) just scatters into your best laid plans. And you KNEW that could happen when you chose to play the game, but you played anyway because it would make a cool story.

There's evidence to this day that GW doesn't actually play the game the same way customers do- they literally pick "rule of cool" narrative lists all the time and they thought that everybody did. It's weird, because yes, it is clear that they are mechanically catering to tournament play... But somehow they still seem to assume people will build narrative lists instead of optimized ones.

Rogue Trader reads like a roleplaying game that uses models,,, And while the shift in second was extreme, you can still see the RT roots. Now the only thing I remember about 3rd is the Witch Hunter dex, which is still one of the greatest books GW has ever produced. But see, as a Sisters player, we had to use that book in 3rd, 4rth and 5th. I think one of those had a WD Dex, which I did play once or twice, but the only thing I remember is Frateris Militia units.

The 3rd ed dex was compatible with the rules for all three editions, and it's what I used most often because it's the book I used to build the army... I should say armies because that's how it was built: 1500 point Penitent Legion led by Inquisitors and Arbites + 1500 Holy Choir army of nuthin but nuns. That book included it's own antagonist rules and units and narrative missions, that's how hardcore it was!

I think all the narrative rulesets that came after, whether it's Cityfight or BRB progression systems and minigames, I think they were all efforts to help players try to find their way to playing the game more like its designers played it. Strats, love'em or hate'em, marked a clear shift toward tournament friendly, as did so many other features of 8th-10th... But GW still tried to keep the narrative spirit alive with Crusade and campaign books.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

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

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

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

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

What're you on about exactly? An easy Google search would show you that SM related codex releases for every edition also span a # of years. 10 being no different btw - we're a year in & all we have Codex wise is SM & DA. Only 2/7 Marine factions currently being sold have their actual Codex so far & the edition ends July 2026....

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Now look at 3rd. For one thing, they cranked out three Marine books in the first few months: Space Marines, Black Templars and Blood Angels. Way to front-load the game, guys.

I think 20+ years is clouding your memory a bit.
SM (1998, right alongside the Dark Eldar), BA (98), DA (99) - then we go a whole year (April 2k) & 5 other Codexes before the next dose of SM, the SW, arrive.

So… to the post that said the first three Codecs were marines, your rebuttal is that they were?

Also, only 2/7 Space Marine factions have their books now.
How many factions do GSC have?
Nids? Eldar have three, but are probably only getting two Codecs (Harlequins in the Eldar one, most likely). CSM have four, admittedly-but they can’t intermix detachments like Loyalists can. Guard only gets one. Ad Mech only gets one.

Marines get way too much focus-though admittedly, that’s not an edition specific complaint. That’s a GW complaint.

 JNAProductions wrote:
So… to the post that said the first three Codecs were marines, your rebuttal is that they were?

Also, only 2/7 Space Marine factions have their books now.
How many factions do GSC have?
Nids? Eldar have three, but are probably only getting two Codecs (Harlequins in the Eldar one, most likely). CSM have four, admittedly-but they can’t intermix detachments like Loyalists can. Guard only gets one. Ad Mech only gets one.

Marines get way too much focus-though admittedly, that’s not an edition specific complaint. That’s a GW complaint.

Look, I get that this is a "sledge on 3rd" thread. I really do get it, but I also get that facts and data should be correct if used in an argument against something. That's the crux of it. The Templars left a PTSD level impression on CvT, and it's coloring his comments. I'll freely admit that they went WAY overboard with that codex, but I also am aware enough to not punish an entire edition for one codex. If that was the case, I'd sandbag 3rd over Chaos 3.5 alone.


Sledge away, by all means. But all I ask is that you sledge in good faith and that the facts don't get bypassed for preference.

 JNAProductions wrote:
So… to the post that said the first three Codecs were marines, your rebuttal is that they were?

Except, they weren't - ccs hasn't been too clear. Wikipedia maintains a list of Codex release dates, for some reason, and if we're willing to accept that as being an accurate source, it spells out the following as the release order:

- Codex: Space Marines (October 98)
- Codex: Dark Eldar (November 98)
- Codex: Blood Angels (December 98)
- Codex: Chaos Space Marines (February 99)
- Codex: Dark Angels (May 99)
- Codex: Orks (July 99)
- Codex: Assassins (July 99)
- Codex: Eldar (August 99)

The above extends to cover the full first year of 3rd ed, with books/pamphlets defined as "Codex Supplements" in italics. IG would appear in November 99, Catachans in February 2000, Space Wolves in April 2000, and Craftworld Eldar in June 2000, then Codex: Armageddon (with 4 supplemental lists in) in August 2000, before we get the next full Codex in February 2001 with the Tyranids. I'm guessing 2000 was a WHFB release year, given the lack of full Codex books, or the Armageddon campaign derailed things.

While the first three full Codexes in 3rd featured 2 in power armour - and 4 of the first 5, if you include the Angels of Death - it wasn't like GW was in a particular rush to get Codexes into peoples' hands. With BA, DA and SW being supplements to the main SM 'dex, rather than full books in their own right, I imagine the early two were released to allow the Studio to concentrate on CSM, Orks and Eldar, while still getting something out there. I do feel sorry for Tyranid players, though, needing to wait over two years to get a full Codex. In an idea world, the "core" Codexes for existing factions (plus Dark Eldar) should've been out first, and ideally all within a year.

 Dysartes wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
So… to the post that said the first three Codecs were marines, your rebuttal is that they were?

Except, they weren't - ccs hasn't been too clear. Wikipedia maintains a list of Codex release dates, for some reason, and if we're willing to accept that as being an accurate source, it spells out the following as the release order:

- Codex: Space Marines (October 98)
- Codex: Dark Eldar (November 98)
- Codex: Blood Angels (December 98)
- Codex: Chaos Space Marines (February 99)
- Codex: Dark Angels (May 99)
- Codex: Orks (July 99)
- Codex: Assassins (July 99)
- Codex: Eldar (August 99)

The above extends to cover the full first year of 3rd ed, with books/pamphlets defined as "Codex Supplements" in italics. IG would appear in November 99, Catachans in February 2000, Space Wolves in April 2000, and Craftworld Eldar in June 2000, then Codex: Armageddon (with 4 supplemental lists in) in August 2000, before we get the next full Codex in February 2001 with the Tyranids. I'm guessing 2000 was a WHFB release year, given the lack of full Codex books, or the Armageddon campaign derailed things.

While the first three full Codexes in 3rd featured 2 in power armour - and 4 of the first 5, if you include the Angels of Death - it wasn't like GW was in a particular rush to get Codexes into peoples' hands. With BA, DA and SW being supplements to the main SM 'dex, rather than full books in their own right, I imagine the early two were released to allow the Studio to concentrate on CSM, Orks and Eldar, while still getting something out there. I do feel sorry for Tyranid players, though, needing to wait over two years to get a full Codex. In an idea world, the "core" Codexes for existing factions (plus Dark Eldar) should've been out first, and ideally all within a year.

For further clarity, Codex: Armageddon is where Black Templars finally showed up in their own list. They didn't get a dedicated codex till 4th edition.

The other 4 lists in Codex: Armageddon were Ork speed freeks, Salamanders, mechanised Imperial Guard, and Armageddon PDF (yeah there are actually 5 lists in the book that states it contains 4, although the later two are pretty small tweaks to the standard IG codex and you can combine into a mechanised PDF force).

Codex: Armageddon is how I rough out a Salamanders list to this day.

So I guess I'll give ONE thing to 3rd in that arena

 Just Tony wrote:
Look, I get that this is a "sledge on 3rd" thread. I really do get it, but I also get that facts and data should be correct if used in an argument against something. That's the crux of it. The Templars left a PTSD level impression on CvT, and it's coloring his comments. I'll freely admit that they went WAY overboard with that codex, but I also am aware enough to not punish an entire edition for one codex. If that was the case, I'd sandbag 3rd over Chaos 3.5 alone.
Sledge away, by all means. But all I ask is that you sledge in good faith and that the facts don't get bypassed for preference.

The Black Templars were the epitome of that edition. They featured very prominently in the artwork on the box. I'm merely accepting GW's decision to use them as the flagship Marine chapter at its launch.

If my math is correct, there are 14 books listed and within them were rules for 7 flavors of space marine (which includes Chaos). That some hefty fan service for the boys in power armor.

And to reiterate - the 2nd ed. books were as much about background as anything else. The central narrative of the 40k universe is the Horus Heresy and its aftermath, so piecing it together via the perspectives of the various chapters is appropriate.

In 3rd, they were basically selling army lists, and to reiterate, each list got it special goodies that usually offset whatever disadvantage they got.

 PenitentJake wrote:
A narrative game IS still competitive... It's just that competition is secondary to the narrative. Like you tried to win... You tried really hard to win. But sometimes the foot of Gork (or is it Mork?) just scatters into your best laid plans. And you KNEW that could happen when you chose to play the game, but you played anyway because it would make a cool story.

There's evidence to this day that GW doesn't actually play the game the same way customers do- they literally pick "rule of cool" narrative lists all the time and they thought that everybody did. It's weird, because yes, it is clear that they are mechanically catering to tournament play... But somehow they still seem to assume people will build narrative lists instead of optimized ones.

The problem with giving GW the benefit of the doubt on this is that they were the ones pushing tournaments and going with hyper-legalistic rules arguments that blatantly violated the spirit of the rules. For example, the core rules say movement affects shooting, but some players twisted an ork upgrade to allow a vehicle to count as stationary while moving.

The sensible, "narrative-driven" approach would be to say "Guys, get a clue - stationary means it doesn't move. Stop using cheaty rules exploits!"

But that's not what GW did. They said that if you rolled well, your cheat worked. The company itself was endorsing rules exploits, and players picked up on that attitude.

Going to point out again that whilst Black Templars were the poster faction on the rulebook and in the starter set, they didn't actually get subfaction rules until a third of the way through the edition. Before that they were identical to Ultramarines in rules.

I also want to reiterate that I firmly think that 3rd edition had better quality lore than 2nd (on the whole), but I do agree the early codices in particular were significantly devalued with much less lore within them (although the lore they did have was great). However, across the sources* in the edition lore was fantastic and laid down more-or-less the current version of 40k lore to this day (pre-Great Rift). The 2nd edition versions were the foundations but substantially polished from 3rd onwards.


*Especially White Dwarf and the contemporary Black Library background books.

...


Really? That's it? One piece of artwork, maybe featured in the painting tutorial, and they're the poster child of the edition? Like how they were on the cover of the Space Marines codex? No, wait, that was the Crimson Fists. Like how they featured in every battle report? Not even close. They were rules wise identical to Ultramarines and every other non-deviant chapter until Codex Armageddon. I'm seriously curious now where the BT hate REALLY comes from.

And as far as the "Every list got goodies to offset the negatives?" That happened in 2nd Edition as well. Once again, every argument has thus far been sledging for the same things that your preferred edition did. Just say "super special bestest." It's what I do, and it's very liberating to make it clear you're showing a preference rather than attempting to frame it as empirical data.

 Just Tony wrote:
[spoiler]Really? That's it? One piece of artwork, maybe featured in the painting tutorial, and they're the poster child of the edition? Like how they were on the cover of the Space Marines codex? No, wait, that was the Crimson Fists. Like how they featured in every battle report? Not even close. They were rules wise identical to Ultramarines and every other non-deviant chapter until Codex Armageddon. I'm seriously curious now where the BT hate REALLY comes from.

No, it wasn't one piece of artwork, they were quite literally the POSTER CHILD of the edition. Rule book, boxed set, promotional materials.

And as far as the "Every list got goodies to offset the negatives?" That happened in 2nd Edition as well. Once again, every argument has thus far been sledging for the same things that your preferred edition did. Just say "super special bestest." It's what I do, and it's very liberating to make it clear you're showing a preference rather than attempting to frame it as empirical data.

So are you. You're trying to pretend that the Black Templars weren't the face of 3rd edition. That's empirical data. You want the starter box, you get Black Templars. Rule book? Black Templars. I'm not making them the face of the edition - they were an obscure paint job buried in one of the 2nd edition codecies prior to 1998. GW elevated them.

And as far as "empirical data," it's an indisputable fact that GW massively increased the amount of special rules, and each army came with it's own fun little trick. As was pointed out a page or so ago, you could create themed marine (or Chaos or Ork, or Eldar) armies in 2nd simply through your choice of units and style of play. You may want to review that, because it's the thrust of what I am talking about.

In 2nd, you made a "theme" army through unit selection; in 3rd you got special rules that allowed you to bypass the org chart and get "compensated" for not taking the units you didn't want anyway.

That pushed up the power curve and GW accelerated this process by abandoning common sense and embracing rules lawyering so that "stationary" vehicles can actually move.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
You want the starter box, you get Black Templars. Rule book? Black Templars. I'm not making them the face of the edition - they were an obscure paint job buried in one of the 2nd edition codecies prior to 1998. GW elevated them.

The cover was Templars, the rules and lore inside the book was not - the 'typical space marine army' (literally the name of the page in the rulebook) was ultramarines, as were the marines in the example battle report.

In the whole rulebook the Templars were only mentioned in passing amongst a list of chapters and in a few of the pictures of models. The space marine rulebook codex did have a section on variant chapter rules - the templars were not included.

They were the face of 3rd edition in the same way orks were the face of 5th edition - except you couldn't paint the orks blue and call them ultramarines :p