Old School 40k

[Haruspex]

Does anyone remember the older edition of Warhammer 40,000? I think it was 2nd edition but I can't really remember and my rulebooks disappeared. The only material I can find nowadays is the 3rd and 4th edition stuff. I last played the old game in the 20th century so my memory's fuzzy, but I'm pretty sure in those days...

1. You could throw grenades as weapons in the Shooting phase. Except for meltabombs of course.

2. Rapid fire was limited to Space Marines, and only with bolters.

3. They had save modifiers instead of AP.

4. Each vehicle had it's own reference card and hit chart. In hindsight, the universal vehicle hit chart of later editions makes more sense.

5. Armor penetration worked differently; in the older rules vehicles had higher armor levels, up to 24 if I'm not wrong. Weapons had a "damage value" which was how many wounds per hit they did and how well they pierced vehicle armor.

6. No cover saves, terrain provided a negative modifier to the shooting roll.

7. You had to declare charges before shooting, though close combat was only resolved after shooting. I prefer the current system. Melee combat itself is more intuitive now.

8. There were special dice for firing more than one shot in a turn. "Sustained Firing Dice" IIRC. Plasma weapons could only explode when using these.

9. No organization chart. You needed a certain percentage of units, and had a points cap on characters and vehicles. Named characters had further limits. Other than that, I can recall no limits.

10. There was an extra column on the profile. "M" for movement speed in inches. Humans and Orks had 4, Squats had 3, and Eldar had 5 (I think). Now the baseline is 6, I guess the universe got faster or something. Vehicles had individual speeds too I think.

Any other old players remember those days? If you remember the even older edition (Rogue Trader?) that's better still since I know next to nothing about it.

[onasuma]

I think a large amount of that dissappeared to seperate it from fantasy. At least 4 out of the 10 things you mentioned before are still alive and well in that glorious game.

[SmartAlec]

The new edition is bringing some of the peculiarities back, such as being able to take cover (and increase your cover save), and vehicles being able to ram others.

[Wraith]

I remember that system well - As well as still having all my old rulebooks, it was the one I originally learned to play. I almost didn't learn 3rd edition, because I was one of 'those kind of people' who thought GW were trying to con us out of money by unnecessarily altering things.

I have since retracted that belief - 2nd Edition 40k was probably twice as hard to play, and could easily last twice as long. The close combat system was ridiculous, also - both players would roll their number of Attack dice, and pick the highest number. This was added to your model's WS, along with any 1's your opponent had rolled, and the difference between the two was how many hits the superior model landed on the other. Certain Characters (Not even SPECIAL characters, I might add) could often whip out 12 or even 14 hits in a single round, on a single opponent....
It basically meant that any model geared for Close Combat was guaranteed to slaughter the other so long as they got the charge, and there wasn't even the most vague chance of retaliation. Either you won the roll and hit the enemy, or you lost and they hit you. :smalleek:

Although there is something to be said for Percentage Allocations instead of the force organisation chart - it could be quite amusing to spend 2000 points on one character, one basic Squad and a single vehicle, if you were so inclined :smallwink:


5. Armor penetration worked differently; in the older rules vehicles had higher armor levels, up to 24 if I'm not wrong. Weapons had a "damage value" which was how many wounds per hit they did and how well they pierced vehicle armor.

Ah yes, back when the Lascannon was the single most frightening weapon in the game. Strength 9, doing d6 wounds per shot, hitting armour for a -6 modifier and having... what was it, something like 3d6+9 armour penetration?

And THAT was the one that made sense! There were some weapons that did d3 wounds, or used d3's, d4's and d8's for the penetration roll, despite these dice never being used at any other time in the entire game... :smallbiggrin:

[SmartAlec]

Funnily enough, 40K 2nd Edition's close combat system - well, something very much like it - is alive and well in GW's Lord of the Rings game.

[Bryn]

Though I've never played anything before 4th edition, I have heard a few horror stories about the early editions, such as virus weapons which would destroy the opposing army on the first turn, and various other massive imbalances. I also remember many mentions of the 'overwatch' rules allowing a unit to forgo its turn to automatically fire upon an enemy if it emerged, and its removal still seems to be a hot-button issue on other 40k boards.

From what has been described in this thread, I think I prefer the current edition, mainly due to its simplicity, but also due to the lack of, say, Zoats and Squats.

[Haruspex]

Yeah, the old rules while having a touch of nostalgia now were in fact rather clunky. My own response to the changes were rather subdued because when they occured I hadn't been playing for a while. When I look back it seems that the game's gotten a bit more serious for lack of a better term.

More:

11. The old codexes that I remember were as big as D&D splatbooks. My olde Codex: Chaos was the size of the 4th edition rulebook (40k that is). In comparison the new codexes look like magazines. Though you can still run an army out of them; maybe the old codexes were overloaded to begin with. Lots of fluff though. And pictures. I still wish I could paint like that...

12. Weapons that had to choose between moving and firing were labelled "move or fire". Descriptive, but "Heavy 1" is a lot shorter.

13. The use of psychic powers involved shuffling and dealing cards. Seriously.

Z-Axis: I actually don't recall seeing a single Squat in my local store though I did see their rules, fluff, and pictures among the various publications. Maybe their phasing out had already begun (in the 90s?). Ditto for Zoats.

Wraith: Yeah, the close combat system. In those days Initiative was pretty much meaningless. Tiebreaker only if I recall. I didn't like those obscure dice. The only one we had was a d20 the size of a snooker ball.

SmartAlec: Kewl. Now instead of just plowing into infantry and scaring them, you can actually hurt them.

[SmartAlec]

Oop, miscommunication: no, tank shock and scaring infantry with a tank charge is still in there. What I meant was, tanks can now ram other tanks.

[Haruspex]

SmartAlec: Damn, dashed my hopes are. But ramming other tanks is good too. Wonder how it'll work though. I imagine Orks get to put spiky bitz on the front of their vehicles for that very purpose. If you have a trukk, ramming is the Orky thing to do with it.

[Wraith]

I'd completely forgotten about the rules for Ramming. Hardly ever came up, unless you were playing Gorkamorka (anyone else remember that?) but it was always good for a laugh.


11. The old codexes that I remember were as big as D&D splatbooks. My olde Codex: Chaos was the size of the 4th edition rulebook (40k that is). In comparison the new codexes look like magazines. Though you can still run an army out of them; maybe the old codexes were overloaded to begin with. Lots of fluff though. And pictures. I still wish I could paint like that...

I agree with you about the painting - there's a distinct difference in style between the different 'eras' and you can usually tell 1st, 2nd and 3rd edition models apart quite easily.
Maybe I'm just pedantic, but in the old days everything was bold and colourful, standing out on the tabletop. Nowadays, the popular style (usually shown in White Dwarf, I mean) is wishy-washy in comparison, the same sort of dull colours you see through a mud-encrusted lense flare on something like Halo.
I'm sure everyone has their preference, and mine is the striking, colourful look - it's much more characterful and pleasing, to me. :smallsmile:


Wraith: Yeah, the close combat system. In those days Initiative was pretty much meaningless. Tiebreaker only if I recall. I didn't like those obscure dice. The only one we had was a d20 the size of a snooker ball.

I have one of that size, and it's made out of brass. I use it for a turn counter, and for scaring the crap out of people on the next table when I inevitably knock it off it's perch and rumbling into a pile of fragile plastic models... :smalltongue:

[Zorg]

I'd completely forgotten about the rules for Ramming. Hardly ever came up, unless you were playing Gorkamorka (anyone else remember that?) but it was always good for a laugh.

I dunno, I had a Land Raider run over a squad of guardians then ram the Avatar. First part worked great (didn't even scratch my marines in HtH with them) - second part, not so good.

That does bring up one thing I liked - vehicle crews could survive individually (and sometimes even get out and run around with nought but a pistol). This LR ended up on its roof, on fire (on top of a Dark Reaper Exarch), but one of the gunners survived so it was still spitting lascannony death.

Virus grenades were great fun, though in Rogue Trader my brother lost his entire Guard army in the first turn to one.

And Rogue Trader's best bit - giving a squad of guardsmen auxilary grenade launchers... loaded with vortex grenades.

Or for 2nd ed givign every Vet Sergeant a vortex grenade.

Some of my favourite RT bits:

Genestealers being seperate from Tyranids (I find that having everything related somewhat lessens the darkness of the galaxy - it's less 'everything's gonna kill you' and more like there are but a few menaces).

Beastmen in the IG.

Robots.

IG dreadnoughts, Land Raiders, Speeders and Rhinos.

Being able to field vehicles made out of a WWII tank kit with a new turret stuck on.

Mutants just being genetic mutants and not chaos related all the time.

Flight packs.

The Eye of Terror being home to Bob's Country Bunker (they've got country and western!).

Marines with T3 and 4+ save.

Dark Angels wearing black.


I agree with you about the painting - there's a distinct difference in style between the different 'eras' and you can usually tell 1st, 2nd and 3rd edition models apart quite easily.
Maybe I'm just pedantic, but in the old days everything was bold and colourful, standing out on the tabletop. Nowadays, the popular style (usually shown in White Dwarf, I mean) is wishy-washy in comparison, the same sort of dull colours you see through a mud-encrusted lense flare on something like Halo.
I'm sure everyone has their preference, and mine is the striking, colourful look - it's much more characterful and pleasing, to me. :smallsmile:

It's funny, as I disliked the transition towards the bold bright 'happy' colours of 2nd ed.


1. You could throw grenades as weapons in the Shooting phase. Except for meltabombs of course.

Once had a single marine kill three chaos terminators with krak grenades - their storm bolters kept coming up jams.


2. Rapid fire was limited to Space Marines, and only with bolters.

And they could fire at full range!


4. Each vehicle had it's own reference card and hit chart. In hindsight, the universal vehicle hit chart of later editions makes more sense.

Rogue Trader used a universal system - the individual charts allowed some vehicles to be more prone to certain damage than others.


8. There were special dice for firing more than one shot in a turn. "Sustained Firing Dice" IIRC. Plasma weapons could only explode when using these.

Plasma weapons never exploded, they had to recharge though. The Assault Cannon blew up on a tripple jam - a carry over from Space Hulk.

2nd Ed's biggest failing is that it was so complex but they dropped the one thing most people forget they reccomended in Rogue Trader - the GM! The RT rules suggest having a GM to keep track of things like radiation zones, mines, dangerous animals, plants and terrain on the board etc etc. It was also designed as a much smaller skirmish game (think the current combat patrol) at heart, but 2nd ed really ramped up the comlexity in some areas and with the Dark Millenium add on became quite unweildy (I recall an average game taking 5 or so hours...). Not that RT wasn't the same towards it's twilight.

And Zoats are cool - I'm possiably biased asI've read Ian Watsons Space Marine and there's a scene where the marines are in a Tyranid ship and a Zoat tries to negotiate with them to just surrender (it is implied with psychic shennadigans). I like them as the 'smart' part of the Tyranid organism that can interact with the Imperium.

And Squats too - they had tech and they new it was just machines. They even got the Mechanicus to come round and get some learning on how to fix and make things (back when the Mechanicus actually sought knowledge and information to better things, only keeping it from people because they knew of the terrible wars of the end of the Dark Age of Technology).

And lastly, that the Dark Age came to an end not because of a Dune rip off, but because humanity sucks and simply couldn't maintain the great, peaceful empire it had built and destroyed itself.

Ah, what a long and rambling trip down memory lane :smallsmile:

[Haruspex]

Zorg: Plasma weapons didn't explode in 2nd edition? :smalleek: There goes my rep, such as it is. You're right, it was assault cannons that exploded dammit. I do remember that the old cyclone missile launcher could fire multiple missiles at one, increasing the blast radius of the attack. You could end up with a really large template if I recall.

Oh, and CC weapons had Strength values separate from the wielder's. So a powerfist was S8 and a powersword was S5 regardless of who had them. I can understand the change though.

Didn't vehicles have a turning template of some kind?

[Zorg]

Don't forget that the cyclone could blow up too, haha!

The template was a 45 degree turn thingy. To quote the book:

"A card turn template is provided with this game. However, it is often easier not to use the template but to estimate the turn and ask your opponent to approve the move."

Possiably the thing I miss most is the layout of the books themselves. I find 4th ed so confusing to find anything in, and the contents and glossary are pretty useless... the black text on a kinda grey background is often hard to read, especially as I'm partly blind in one eye - it's like they're trying to make it hard for the older gamer! :smalltongue:

[Haruspex]

Don't forget that the cyclone could blow up too, haha!

The template was a 45 degree turn thingy. To quote the book:

"A card turn template is provided with this game. However, it is often easier not to use the template but to estimate the turn and ask your opponent to approve the move."

Possiably the thing I miss most is the layout of the books themselves. I find 4th ed so confusing to find anything in, and the contents and glossary are pretty useless... the black text on a kinda grey background is often hard to read, especially as I'm partly blind in one eye - it's like they're trying to make it hard for the older gamer! :smalltongue:

Happens to all gaming lines I suppose, especially the older ones. WH40k is what, twenty? Newer games naturally suffer less upheaval so their fans have less to complain about. Just ask the longtime D&D players. :smalltongue:

[Breltar]

Rogue Trader is what I cut my teeth on, and ever since then there has seemed to be something 'missing' as far as gameplay. I think its when they stepped away from the 'roleplay' and more into the 'gameplay'. Seemed when playing Rogue Trader you would have a bit more thought with things and it would hurt whenever you lost even one man. I think the diversity of what was offered helped too.

Today there is another page being turned as I had to quit 40k because the majority of the players around me bought 2 times their army size for this new style of play that again takes all day but uses probably a thousand dollars worth of miniatures. No thanks, I will use my money better than that. :smallconfused:

[SmartAlec]

What, Apocalypse? Apocalypse is a supplement. There's nothing wrong with playing small games of 40K.

[Eita]

Apocalypse is GW saying, "Hey, it's been a fun time. You've bought a lot of stuff from us. Want to actually use all of it at once?" and "BUY MORE MINIS!" at the exact same time.

[Haruspex]

I haven't touched Apocalypse since regular 40k is already kinda expensive for me. But when it was released I wondered who they were kidding. Warhammer isn't cheap by any means, and here they have the rich man's version of it. The rules sound fun, and I'm sure they are, but gamers like me will be hard pressed to "qualify" for Apocalypse games (3000 points minimum IIRC).

[Breltar]

Thats the funny thing though. I thought the same thing that it would fade in and out like the city fight codex (one of my favorites), but around here everyone at the shop is in a frantic rush to have their own apocalypse army...:smallfrown:

Sorry but the buy in for that is more than my real rifles, so I started selling my 40k stuff and am looking into other games.

[Inhuman Bot]

I remeber that my noise marines got gutars.