Warhammer 40,000 2nd edition

This article or section is about something oldschool - and awesome. Make sure your rose-tinted glasses are on nice and tight, and prepare for a lovely walk down nostalgia lane.

Warhammer 40,000 2nd Edition is rather unlike those after it. The first edition to have codexes proper, it attempted to streamline a lot from 1st edition but was still known for a lot of oddities. TBD.

Notable Things about 2nd Edition

• Generally Smaller Scale: In 2nd, the "standard" game was 1500 points, the humble Guardsman was 10 points, and the Space Marine was 33(!) points; as a result, games had a lot less models compared to contemporary 40k.

• Army Percentages/no FOC: Unlike 3rd Edition onward, 2nd does not have a normal Force Organization Chart of HQs/Troops/etc. Rather, units are organized as Heroes, Core or Support. A minimum percentage of your points must be spent on Core while you are not allowed to spend more than a certain percentage of your points on Supports or HQs.

• Standardized Weaponry: Compared with later editions that add unique variations what are ultimately similar weapons, there are relatively less "unique" faction weapons in 2nd. Rather than Mega Kannons, Starcannons, Plasma Calivers, etc. a Heavy Plasma Gun is a Heavy Plasma Gun, whether wielded by an Eldar, Ork, or Imperial.

• Active Overwatch: In 2nd edition, Overwatch is a choice made during your movement phase; you forfeit moving (note that vehicles can move and overwatch) and shooting in your turn in order to be able to interrupt the opponent's movement phase to shoot at a -1 penalty.

• Wargear Cards: Wargear Cards are similar to Relics in more recent editions of 40k though arguably more sophisticated; certain models have a certain number of slots for Wargear Cards; a lowly unit champion may only be allowed to take 1 Wargear Card, while a Lord of Chaos could take up to 4 Wargear Cards. A lot of Wargear are "common" and not tied to any specific faction, while others are more like standard Relics.