Looking at the pics from the 2nd minutes onwards, there was a lot GW staff members sporting pony tails. Like, all of them, the exception being ofcourse, Andy Chambers and his fearsome Mane (which i have no doubt had its own rules set and always won regardless). This is how 90s 40k should be remembered. Big tables. Big armies. Big Hair.
It is a vivid memory of mine that when two squads charged each other me and my friends would collectively sigh, roll our eyes and reach for the Fantasy rulebook because the combat resolution was much easier. We would generally only bother with the 40k close combat for single combats between characters.
I think that was the weakness of 2e close combat, it was hard to track when full-size units made contact. It was written for duels with 1-2 characters and 5 infantry models and maybe a single monster on each side.
That bit about old rules being balanced around small game sizes really makes sense. 40K in its early years was very much a low model count game. The kind of thing you'd probably call a "Combat Patrol" by today's standards, was just a normal engagement. Back when Snipe & Wib were doing their 2nd ed retrospective, I was amazed that a "500 pt game" was literally one box of space marines each. So a set of combat rules with lots of modifiers and comparing stats was more reasonable under those conditions. You might only have one or two sets of combat per battle round. You could afford to get into the weeds a bit. As armies grew larger, this became an albatross around the game's neck, badly in need of simplification.
I still remember the good old Ork strategy of dealing with a big model in combat of "right have the gretchin attack one after another and then Runtherd with Power Klaw go with all the bonuses!" Was quite effective.
Considering this is episode 3 of a ~4704 part series, I gotta say that your editing style and overall general video flow is amazing. I really appreciate you moving forward with the things that work and dropping some of the things that didn’t in the earlier videos. Awesome work as always.
Chaos dreadnought. "Only a powerfist you say, hold my Mk 1 plasma cannon". I miss when thunder hammers were not just to heavy for normal marines but the force unleashed on striking would have sent the marine and hammer flying. The line in the chaos codex about how it is only thanks to the march of Imperial technology that they have got them down to terminator size from dreadnought size was rather amusing to.
1:32 - This means that any model with an Attack characteristic of 1 can never get a critical hit because the +1 is added only for every '6' after the first. I house-ruled it for the games I run that ANY '6' rolled equals a Critical Hit. Thus, even a modest model with an A1 can still manage a critical hit.
On the topic of Primaris veterans, they come from two places, the first being formerly firstborn veterans that have drank the Cawl brand Kool Aid and crossed the rubicon primaris, the second being primaris that have been in stasis and basically trained on combat sims. Especially for the ultima founding (primaris only) chapters, veteran is much more a combat role than necessarily a reflection of a length of service. Also going off of the new rules it seems the jump pack intercessors don't need power swords since they're more than fine dealing damage by just body-checking whatever they get into combat with, reflected by them doing mortal wounds on the charge, zoomer marines are built different fr fr no cap. Also the combat system for 2nd edition is very cool, and it gets me excited for legions imperialis since they use a very similar system.
I'm also vaguely aware that some Primaris marines were sent on limited, secret engagements throughout the 10,000 years. So some of those officers could have seen actual combat action before Primaris were formally introduced.
Re the Evesor assassin bit: We always played it that while the stats were assigned on a scale between 1 to 10, modifiers could take them above and below. Given that the page displayed at 11:42 ends with a section on zero level characteristics, we assumed the quoted sentence was open to exceptions.
Like many other rules, the combat rules would survive into the skirmish games of Necromunda and Gorkamorka. Fighting a single model with high Weapon Skill was gnarly, even for a large group of lesser opponents. Winner takes all in this combat system, and a high WS is very hard to beat. It took some sacrifices to even start to even things out. In Necromunda, you didn't have large units of mobs to do this with, the duels were short and intense fights between about three or four models at most. Exactly the sort of small duels WS monsters like. A high-WS ork that managed to jump on top of an enemy vehicle in Gorkamorka would count as duelling every passenger of that vehicle, and the defenders would have to decide who went up first. A unit of elite close combat lads would have simlar advantages. It's hard to strike back on a group of assault marines barreling down with their jet packs and chainswords. They're not as individually gnarly as a champion but still nasty enough that they destroy or break the target unit with few losses. Of course the risk is aways that the neighbouring enemy unit with a heayv bolter or two starts to open up on them the next turn now that this assault squad has made itself the nearest target. I think the weak point of this system was larger scale assaults. Dividing a fight between four marines and six orks into four little duels (including two 1v2 duels) is easier to keep track of than ten assault marines slamming into a full-strength unit of 10-20 orks and using their jump packs to make sure every marine connects with someone.
Zodgrod for the Orks was a beast in combat. His Grabba-stikk got to make one attack BEFORE combat that always hit on a 4+. If it hit, the target took a S8 hit that didn’t allow a save AND had their WS reduced to 0 for the ensuing combat. Took down Jain Zar quite a few times with him.
Modern Kill Team with its genius modern game design is basically a simplified version of this combat (and a lot of Lord of the Rings rules, Rick Prestley for the win)
Amazing video, as always. Chaos Dreads in 2nd edition could have a thunder hammer, which combined with the double-auto cannon with re-roll ability ( reaper cannon rip off ) and also the havoc missile launcher, made them far superior to their loyal ex-friendos in many encounters.
Reminds me of when I worked in a Hotel. There was a massive table in one of the cellars and my friend and I had a 6500 point game that lasted an entire week around work. Chaos allied with the Orks and were fighting Space Marines allied with lots of Imperial Guard. So many dice.
When Thunder Hammers were added to 1st edition they could be overloaded, inflicting a hit that did d6xd6 damage before exploding, was that still in an option in 2nd edition? The 2nd edition melee rules were a weird period, 1st edition started with traditional Warhammer Fantasy-like melee rules that late on got changed in White Dwarf and the Battle Manual, with the new system carried on into 2nd edition before it was all undone in 3rd. My main memory of them was the weird way GW forgot in the examples that tactical marines carried bolt pistols and knives so they should have rolled two attack dice, not one.
Overloaded Thunder hammers and huge pie plate explosion of a full launch cyclone terminator missile launcher. 2 amazing things in old school 40k also hop-splat-gun.
@@mwnciboo Oh yes, the cyclone missile launchers. They held 12 krak missiles and not many people seemed to remember about the barrage fire function. Uses a blast marker with 0.5" radius for each missile in the barrage, so 4 missiles = 2" radius, all 12 missiles = 6" radius = 12" diameter = half the normal deployment zone. Strength 8, -6 save, D10 wounds, armour penetration D10+D6+8 (between 10 and 24). Can easily wipe out a quarter of whatever army you're facing in the first turn.
I hope you do an episode dedicated to field saves. Nothing more satisfying than your character being mobbed in combat, killing most of the attackers, and then displacing away before being beaten down because you chose to parry a weak opponent's roll of a 1.
We used to use the rule that say all 6 gretchen would instanty die against a space marine captain but then add all the extra dice and +1s to the goff or warboss for the combat to happen. sped the combat up alot and was realistic
So glad to have joined the hobby just in time to see the very tail end of 2nd edition. Equally happy to have found this channel. Off to purchase some merch, cheers.
One of my fondest game memories is taking out Jain Zar with an Attack bike Multi Melta shot that also wasted a hovering Fire Prism. Her last wound lost when it detonated in her face. Glorious!
The Simulations sir. And frankly the rule of "Whoever's not dead gets promoted!" Natural selection in combat once again. It's just like being a Space Marine Scout all over again! Pretty much the same way them new Chapters get Veterans even though they're brand new.
I assumed that most of the time when they make a new chapter, they split off a cadre from an existing oversized chapter. So the first generation of the new chapter (in normal 200 year space marine generations) will have officers, specialists and a veteran cadre of marines who were formerly ultramarines or something. They might be gifted a starter pack of minor relics and ships. Depends on how close ties the parent chapter keeps with all their little successor chapters.
Sneaking in special rules and abilities on top of other special rules is a GW specialty. Sometimes entering a whole new chart just for one weapon or character. Warmaster did their best to avoid Herohammer. Heroes do not personally stab through a regiment of troops. The role of heroes and generals in Warmaster is to command and control troops, making sure they're moving forward in the right direction. Gorkamorka had a fun addition to assaults: Boarding a moving vehicle! When two ork vehicles are close, models can decide to board them on their turn. Either rolling their measly ork Initiative that sends at least half the boarders face down in the sand or cunningly rig their trukk with boarding ramps to make it automatically. The boarders would be in close combat range of all enemy passengers and crew, and the defenders got to decide who stepped up to face the challenger first. All the while, both vehicles were still moving as the brawl raged on in the back seat. The brawl otherwise works like a normal close combat assault duel, the attacking model is probably chosen for the task because it is a WS beast, but each defender adds to the chance to overwhelm them. As a side note, orks in Gorkamorka (but not grots and later diggas and muties) do not pin. An ork can be shot at with a shotgun or have a grenade blow next to them and still cheerfully run towards the enemy.
I could only watch for an hour before I got cramp. PAHAHA. That went under the radar! Well done pal. Your tone, pacing, execution and style is much appreciated. Keep up the good work.
I was thinking it probably worked pretty well in necromunda before you mentioned it. The system in the current edition of Kill Team is a good fit for that size of game as well.
The scale in Necromunda and Gorkamorka was much easier to overlook. As a side effect it was also harder to overwhelm close combat WS monsters. You did not have a large mob yourself. And if you managed to sacrifice three models to give the last two models a good shot at the close combat monster, those three sacrifices was all it took to bring you close to a bottle check. The best option was usually to disengage any surviving models and start blasting. The other strategy of not giving the WS monster the fight they wanted. Try charging when you're constantly pinned. Guns hurt when Necromunda gangers in light imperial armour and barely T4 take hits. Boarding was a situational but viable tactic in Gorkamorka. Ork models could try to use their laughably low Initiative to jump over and assault another moving vehicle, or rig theirs with boarding planks to make it automatic. One boss making his way into the passengers could be a gnarly fight. Everyone was in automatic contact, and the defenders decided who got to face the boarder first. More fun if the boarders managed to knock out the driver eventually, and the whole vehicle started skidding into a crash with the vehicle the came from.
My memory of 2nd Edition is that special characters were often not allowed due to the power imbalances in the rules. Most of the 2nd Edition games I played in various shops prohibited them or used the models as proxies for their nearest regular equivalents. Vehicles were also often discouraged unless they were balanced in each side. Even as an Imperial Guard player I rarely got to use either.
Kill Team '21 has a fun implementation that seems a little like this 2e one: both fighters roll attacks at the same time, successful ones cancelling each other out, so it's like they're actually exchanging swings and parries. In 8e/9e/10e 40k, weapon skill is just "melee accuracy" in the same way that Ballistic Skill is "ranged accuracy." It's actually really rare for a model to make itself harder to hit in close combat, at least in 10e.
please do more of this style of video with explaining the rules of 2e! Played the 2 beginner missions piecemealed from what videos i could find on the armageddon book missions, but they were pretty fun and i want to play some larger games (i'm not sure what the average game size is though, I would assume 1000-1500 based on all the complexities of everything. If you did 2k it would take a full day)
MESBGs variant of these rules is probably my favourite. It's a bit streamlined to work with larger battles but instil the same feeling of two warriors clashing, trying to find a opening.
I"m really convinced interpretations of 2e rules was a regional thing or we just didn't read the rules close enough. I really forgot all the oddities and exploit-ability of it, maybe because we didn't power game it that much back then. Almost like we wanted to have fun or something
Ah, I was just thinking this weekend I wanted to relearn the rules to 2nd edition but I didn't want to actually have to read the rulebook. This is brilliant.
For the Primaris bit, you have to remember that quite a lot of firstborn hwere made into Primaris via the rubricon process (or some silly name like that). So Primaris Veterans are just Veterans who got a new set of fancy super steroids.
Well that and the fact that a lot of the Primaris Veterans exist late into or after the Indomitus crusade, which was if I recall correctly, 100 years long.
@@giraton1 From what I've heard, the relative "now" of 40K is currently something like 200 years or something after the Fall of Cadia. GW had to give the galaxy enough time for folks trapped on the far edge of the galaxy to get their Primaris marines. So folks near the core have had theirs for far longer. Not counting that since the Cicatrix Maledictim, the flow of time has apparently been extra wonky and inconsistent. For all we know, some places might have seen Primaris marines fighting for many centuries compared to others, even if they supposedly got the technology at the "same time". (All of this being a separate issue from the Imperial calendar being a hot mess.)
I miss these rules, though I understand they weren't good for bigger engagements. But, it's a far sight better than now... Where it's just fucking shooting in melee.
6:34 The answer I was given was that many of the marines Cawl pulled out of suspension had once been heresy and scouring era marines that he uplifted, some of which had achieved veteran status beforehand. Make of that what you will.
To my understanding, older Space Marines can be Primaris in lore, they just have to again survive the surgery, which is probably easier for them as thier bodies are less likely to reject new gene-seed compared to a fresh acolyte. Titus in the Space Marine game sequel is one such character.
One of your stills was a Blood Angel army with a Thud Gun, what happened to the Thud Gun? I’ve got a Blood Angel Thud Gun, probably inspired by that very picture! It came with a little Squat gunner! I’ve just bought a “made to order” servitor to stand next to it!
A big problem with the Talisman-style melee rules of 3nd edition was that the law of averages made having an Attack stat pf10 actually sort of bad. I found that the Avatar or a Bloodthirster rarely got critical hits because they kept getting cancelled out by fumbles. God forbid it was fighting against an IG commissar with a chainsword since that sword somehow could parry an Axe of Khorne larger than the Commissar himself.
I think assault marines should be that they can take any standard space marine melee weapon but they to pay extra for it while Vanguard Veterans or their equivalents can take standard power weapons for free but up to two of them can upgrade to take a chapter specific relic weapon for extra cost
I do enjoy the second edition combat rules but i dont want to think about my ten nobz with warboss charging a 28 strong guardsmen squad. Ill leave this more gritty melee to killteam and necromunda
Also it was never clear to me if a spacemarines combat knife, which they all had, could be used with a bolt pistol (which they all had - I think?) to give the extra dice.
hmm yeah always seem weird a marine against a goff with a an axe and bolt pistol usually losing the combat due to the average of 2d6 vs 1ds. likewise for terminantors (bar lightning claws)
This bought back memories of having the same questions myself. So, I just checked Codex Ultramarines and found they only had the bolt pistols. Weird. So I checked the Black Codex and found even at that stage they didn't have the knives, only bolt pistols! Was it that little blue summary card that both armies had in the box set? Checked and was surprised I still had that; nope, no knives there either! Where did we get this memory from?! Is it really just the fact that the models had little knife scabbards on??? This will now bug me for the rest of the day.
@@1985slipstreamif your marines (other than space wolf's) didn't manage to gun line the goffs coming towards them, then they deserved everything Gork gave them
I kind of miss this system. You could kill some mid-high powered characters with basic orks or guardsmen if you could get a 6 to 1 fight thanks to the outnumbering bonus. 3rd kind of sucked how a single character with a 2+ would solo entire units with no threat aside from wasting its time, unless you had hidden powerfists.
... they have veterans because theyve been around for hundreds of uears at this point. Not every space marine verteran has been fighting for 500 years, most probably have been around 50 or 70. More then enough time for certain primaris to get enough renown and experience.
6:40 - GW did a several century time jump after primaris were dumped out. Personally I really like the primaris from an "outside the letter of the lore" perspective because historically this kind of doubling down on a hideously inefficient waste of resources was exactly what flailing dying empires have done. "Mein Gott, ve are crucially low on ze steel and gasoline! And ze allies have total air superiority and massive amounts of Artillery with accurate air and radio spotting!!" "Nein to vorry Hans, ve have just ze thing! Ve have melted down all ze remaining steel and made a hundred or so extremely slow, gigantic heavy tanks! Ve should have just enough fuel to run zem for 10 minutes!" "Ve are saved! Hurrah!"
The lack of vertical engagement range in 8th edition made it possible to ignore enemies if you brought a trusts 1.5 inch box Now we have 5" vertical in 10th edition so the ork dreadnought can pull people through the ceiling of the building it is under
I can understand the Primaris HQ thing from a lore perspective for one it's not like all (though many) Primaris of Mars just crawled out of a vat, some there trained/did operations for a considerable time according to themselves. Secondly, nothing is saying those Primaris Captains weren't firstborn who did the rubiconwhatever and became pasta primavera themselves.
I charged a combat squad of Assault Space Marines into combat with a mob of genestealers once. An hour later they were all dead, but in my next turn the second squad massacred all the genestealers with massed bolt pistol fire. I never voluntarily went into combat again.
Got lured in by the clickbait title so I could rant about how jank this is to play in reality, but... no, you covered it all pretty well. The good, the bad, the "best for small scale"... it's why my eyes cross whenever i see people talking about a big 50+ model game of MESBG.
The question about primaris leadership is actually extremely silly if you think about it. Think about ww2 - how many of those leaders were as fresh as the troops beneath them? Many. And the novels touch on this, with the leaders being inexperienced and often chided and looked down on by the much older and more experienced squatties
The Primaris only chapters being the equivalent of combat toddlers has been raised in a BL book or two. Personally I think: giant man in tank armour go brrrr. Haha yay!
broken game mechanics were perfectly ok back before we were able to instantly access this knowledge via the internet. You could almost say OP/broken combos were almost balanced as it would take a lot of time and testing to figure this out by yourself, and as you could only mostly interact with those within proximate distance it wasn't as easy to just assemble a curb stomping army and find innocent, casual strangers to abuse every weekend.
4:23 did me in. That bloke is smug as heck over his tiny little chaos warband and you aren't even drawn to the models but his massively over-lengthed finger nails of which one has snapped off and instead of cutting the bloody things, he's left them all long except for Mr unfortunate nail snappage over here. One has to wonder just why that happy long haired fellow was growing his nails stupidly long in the first place because they aren't exactly glamorous looking, just 100% distractionary.
NGL, the 3rd ed style Assault phse was a massive improvement on 2nd, just a shame that they decided to throw the baby out with the bathwater with regard to the rest of the system
So glad Calgar got a mention. I once had him pulp an entire squad of genestealers (which were capable of 1v1 a captain back then). My single favourite memory from 2nd was my plucky jump pack chaplain who in one large battle at a GW store got absolutely mobbed and ended up having a Chaos dread with +5 attacks wail on him. And through some ridiculous rolls ended up with a wound left. I was then able to use assail psychic power to drag him out of combat and he jumped away to safety in the following turn.
That's of course your only last model was a chaos Lord in terminator armour with all 4 marks of chaos with a 2+ save in hand to hand with guardsmen. As I was once in this position I only had my chaos lord left and my opponent had nothing strong enough to get through his armour & with the GW stare at the time close to closing it would be safe to say that my only character left would have a slow drawn out massive h2h assuming that my opponent didn't hold back the rest of his army. Although I cant remember what he had left exactly other than a load of guardsmen's
As someone only just into double digits during 2nd edition the rules were... very confusing. They definitely wouldn't work at the scale modern 40k plays at.
Pffft, I really don't think most players want battles to be realistic! 😅 But I've now become the person who nitpicks the punchy opening of a very well made video, so who's winning really?
@@OldenDemon I more meant in terms of balance/ necessity when compared to generic HQs. How essential they are to armies and how that changed over time. Unless I’m mistaken it even used to be the case that both players had to accept the use of named characters beforehand.
i started with the 2. edit... as an eldar . a good friend of mine played blood angels. and mostly everything else. and yes i can remember jain zar. he had dante, mephiston and some other blood angel heroes but jain zar was something in her own league, and in the 4. edit i raped him with plasmacannons aka star cannons was there name i think. -4 on roling saves and marines hat 3 :D what a fun time to remember
Having actually played 2nd edition at the time, my opinion from experience was that is was terrible and 3rd edition was a huge advance that was a dramatic change for the better.
Yeah, I’ll pipe up on the Primaris bit too and say that it seems to be 1) some decent time has passed since the ‘all the Primaris are new arrivals in fresh armour out of the stasis pods’- that seems to have been the 8th edition launch box, and the Plague Wars. There’s actually been a pretty decent number of years since that, apparently. Most of those Mars-baked Primaris are now dead, and probably died a lot faster than firstborn (kinda like Clone Troopers), with those who survived being gradually assigned the best gear and the roles of leadership. And 2), there have definitely been a few firstborn veterans that have jumped the surgical gap, and retained their office and gained updated gear- like the updated Chapter Masters In short, though, I think it’s easy to fall into thinking these are still the same marines we saw in 8th. Most were killed in the following campaigns, and those who’ve survived have taken up their own characters, and started to form ‘Bladeguard squads’ and their own Sternguard and so on. Their introduction and execution was haphazard AS HELL, but I don’t resent them for it too much, and I think it’s kinda cool to see the fresh-faced recruits slowly stepping up into the veteran shoes, and taking on older helmets of their Firstborn mentors, and the like :)
