2nd ED memories....

[AndrewGPaul]

More that they just don't make a great deal of sense 'as is', but that's the problem with a D6 system (even the best weapons will have to require an ammo roll at least 1 shot out of 6). The same stands for sustained fire, weapons shouldn't jam on 1 shot in 6... especially since the more dice you roll, the more likely the gun is to jam.

6 sided dice just don't allow a big enough 'chance scale'.

Changing the die type won't matter - even having the chance of a jam one shot in 20 would probably be unrealistic, and then it becomes too low a probability to be worth bothering about over the course of a game. Also, in Necromunda, sustained fire originally had no impact on ammo rolls - it was only the Underhive edition, which did away with the requirement for Sustained Fire dice, which made you roll to hit for each shot separately.

Of course, the jam and/or ammo roll mechanics are fairly abstract - they're only there to provide a downside to sustained fire weapons, and in Necromunda to provide an additional decision - cheap and flaky or expensive and reliable?

[onidemon]

Changing the die type won't matter - even having the chance of a jam one shot in 20 would probably be unrealistic, and then it becomes too low a probability to be worth bothering about over the course of a game.

Not sure how other's imagined it, but I always took the result of the Jam not to be just about a round actually getting stuck in the gun (IE: a real world jammed gun) and more about how often the firer has to stop and do something that prevents the weapon from firing. For instance, a heavy stubber's jams might mean an ammo belt has run dry, and now the gunner needs to go through the labor of un-spooling and loading a new one. The 2nd edition Assault cannon jammed constantly, which to my imagination was the gun emptying it's hopper so quickly that nearly constant reloading had to be attempted. And, unlike the smaller side arms, these were weapons that required work and time to reload. A multi-laser's capacitors might run dry, and require a moment to be recharged from the engine, and so forth.

And as for Storm Bolters... well, no one ever said changing a double wide clip with a power fist was easy.

[AndrewGPaul]

Yeah, that was how I pictured it. Perhaps it helped coming to 40k from Space Hulk - which is where the jam rules, and the assault cannon explosion rules, came from in the first place.

[hashrat]

Necromunda "jams" were explained as running out of ammo, or getting a dud power clip. Made sense too, they aren't using military grade weapons but caste offs and black market "junk".
Also, Necromunda is awesome! Wish my terrain had survived the years.

[AndrewGPaul]

Remember though, in Necromunda, getting a jam on a Sustained Fire dice (a temporary interruption in fire) was different from failing an ammo roll (which represented a permanent exhaustion of ammunition or a serious malfunction that couldn't be repaired immediately). One-in-a-Million weapons were immune to ammo rolls, but could still jam.

[jmaximum]

I miss Space Marines on frikkin overwatch!
I also miss that vehicles could move and shoot every weapon (Ima armored weapons platform, but if I move 6", now I suck at life just blows my mind now). I miss that you could have multiple saves: You could load up a Chaplain with his rosarius, termie armor, and a power field. For that matter I miss termie armor being a 3+ save on 2d6. For that matter; the 5th ed rules were screwed as you would pay for the chaplain with his rosarius, then upgrade with termie armor, but never get to use the rosarius save, so you were paying for gear you could not use. blah.
Really looking for ward to 6th ed. I am loving that assault marines w/jetpacks can actually damage those they land on!

PS I also miss that assault cannons had three dice that determined how many shot they took (up to nine total), you just had to hope you did not roll three jams or the thing blew up lol.

[hashrat]

I would have thought that missing all that Jmaximum, you might miss a Pshychic phase too.. I certainly do
Firing twice with a Basilisk was a hoot too

Not so much measuring to see if you fired beyong a certain range, so you could deduct some armour peircing from your impact. I always forgot that one

[Mr Zoat]

I miss that you could have multiple saves: You could load up a Chaplain with his rosarius, termie armor, and a power field.

A Chaplain could never use both the Conversion Field and the Power Field. He could have both, but the rules on multiple force fields made it clear that he would only be saving with one of them.

[Senbei]

That said, some models had dodge (or other misc) saves as well.

Edit: Ork Mega Armour and a power field allowed 2+, 4+ unmod, 2+ unmod. I think... maybe. Was the power field the 2+ one?

[Inquisitor D'selinas]

That said, some models had dodge (or other misc) saves as well.

Edit: Ork Mega Armour and a power field allowed 2+, 4+ unmod, 2+ unmod. I think... maybe. Was the power field the 2+ one?

Ork Mega Armour was a standard 2+ save with a 4+ unmodified save from the in built Medi-squigs.
The only unit in 2nd Ed to come with a power field I can think of was the Eldar War Walker, everyone else had to buy the Wargear card if they wanted one.
Don't know why anyone would buy one tho, no protection in hand to hand and the user suffers a penalty for being encumbered. All for fifteen points more than a Displacer Field.

[Senbei]

Yeah. Ork Warbosses and Bad Moon Nobz could have Mega Armour.... and also wargear cards so fields too.

[Sheena Easton]

Ork Mega Armour was a standard 2+ save with a 4+ unmodified save from the in built Medi-squigs.
The only unit in 2nd Ed to come with a power field I can think of was the Eldar War Walker, everyone else had to buy the Wargear card if they wanted one.
Don't know why anyone would buy one tho, no protection in hand to hand and the user suffers a penalty for being encumbered. All for fifteen points more than a Displacer Field.

I always gave one to my Shokk Attack Gun Mek.

[Freman Bloodglaive]

Don't know why anyone would buy one tho, no protection in hand to hand and the user suffers a penalty for being encumbered. All for fifteen points more than a Displacer Field.

Because with a couple of -1s to hit having a 2+ save made standing in the open a lot of fun.

Kill that Eldar Exarch? With what?

2nd edition was a shooting game with some assault bolted on (as you'd expect from a future military game) so being pretty much immune to shooting, and the closest target, was a good thing.

[Commissar von Toussaint]

Because with a couple of -1s to hit having a 2+ save made standing in the open a lot of fun.

Kill that Eldar Exarch? With what?

2nd edition was a shooting game with some assault bolted on (as you'd expect from a future military game) so being pretty much immune to shooting, and the closest target, was a good thing.

Note that you had your choice of closes or EASIEST. That second part sometimes tricked people.

As noted above, 2nd ed. was primarily a shooty game and this was what set it apart from WHFB. It was a pretty basic idea - "let's combine the fantasy world with a sci-fi universe."

Initially, this was somewhat uneven as not all the races fit in well and the rules were somewhat clunky.

But by 2nd ed. GW had cleaned things up to the point where it worked. I've probably said it before, but the other advantage of 2nd ed. was that it was compatible with fantasy, making it easy to go back and forth. Of course I think it is also clear that if you are going to use an IGO-UGO format, fantasy's system is the way to go - you have to have some sort of charge reaction. 2nd ed. did this through overwatch which - as we keep noting - was not nearly as complex as people claim.

It makes sense: GW already had a game that was all about melee, so now they had one that was all about shooting. Yes, there were dedicated melee troops and one army was particularly good at it, but you had to use some skill to get past the incoming fire.

This is why I believe it is an indisputable truth that 2nd ed. was more tactically demanding than its successor editions. The problems it presented are real ones and often there are no easy answers. How do I get my troops through that open ground and onto the objective without getting shot to pieces? How do I prevent those infiltrators from cutting off my forward elements? How do I preserve the integrity of my defensive line in the face of an armored assault?

Some players found it too hard - and hence the claim that it was boring. But it wasn't - it was simply realistic.

[xavos]

Strangely, talking about 2nd edition is more relevant now than it has been in the last 15 years, given that we are now seeing a revolution in random tables.

Fun times to be had with a 1500pt Ultramarines army consisting of Marneus Calgar, a lv4 Librarian, dreadnought and two tactical squads with veteran sergeants tooled up to the gills, facing an unstoppable Tyranid swarm. Two termagants could easily kill a space marine in close combat.

EDIT: I meant two Hormagaunts!

[Dr Morbius]

2 Hormagaunts can still easily

[Tethylis]

I still remember getting my warwalker brought down quite easily by just one of those critters back then...powerfield? what powerfield

[Commissar von Toussaint]

The thing with placing an emphasis on melee combat is that you should also provide rules for a formation - since that is the natural result of close combat. Fantasy includes this, and it does slow the game down as the units must be governed by special rules to reflect the difficulty of maneuvering.

40k has basically tried to be a "poor man's fantasy" by making shooting secondary but omitting the very real bonuses for flank and rear attacks. It is just another one of the ways in which the redesign was inadequate.

In 2nd ed., melee was regarded as the exception for most armies (tyranids being a notable exception), which makes sense - after all, why issue troops rifles if you expect them to use them as clubs?

I quit playing the current versions a while ago, so I admit I don't know what version they're even on, so maybe someone can clarify: Is there any reason that (all other things being equal) your average grunt wouldn't prefer a pistol/sword combo to that of a battle rifle? Crunching the numbers in 3rd/4th, that was the way to go.

[Bubble Ghost]

after all, why issue troops rifles if you expect them to use them as clubs?

Devil's advocate. Purpose-crafted melee weapons specifically inspired by seeing rifles used as clubs.

In the current edition, shooting is more "powerful" but an assault at the appropriate moment will win you a game where shooting can't. Personally, and I say this as a huge fan of 2nd ed, I think the balance right now is about right. Assault is not just a method of killing any more - it's a valid and sometimes necessary tactic, but an idiotic strategy.

[insectum7]

I quit playing the current versions a while ago, so I admit I don't know what version they're even on, so maybe someone can clarify: Is there any reason that (all other things being equal) your average grunt wouldn't prefer a pistol/sword combo to that of a battle rifle? Crunching the numbers in 3rd/4th, that was the way to go.

A: Because 40K is a gunfight, not a knife fight.

B: With a rifle you can start killing from farther away, and determine who gets to the knife fight if there is one.

C: In 4th Ed. you could doctrine your guardsmen to carry a pistol and knife instead of a rifle., should you choose.

D: Because the most common enemy for humans is Orks. You DO NOT want to fight Orks in CC. They are not the weenie human-esque-statwise Orks of 2ns Ed.


* 6th Ed. btw.