Old Skool 40K

[Gurth]

WT40K?!

A few weeks ago, a few of us at the Fantusian Dragons game club in the Netherlands decided we wanted to play a game of really old-school 40K. I started playing this game in 2002 in the third-edition era, but have collected a fair number of first- and second-edition books and thins, including the rulebook for first-edition 40K (commonly known as "Rogue Trader") and some expansion for it. Another player, Luuk, has a PDF of the Rogue Trader main rules which he'd read, so we decided to see how the very first edition differed from the current one.

On the day, 30 November 2013, we found a third player, Gyan, who was at the game club but didn't have anything to do, so he joined us in this endeavour. Since we had three players but two armies, and only two of the players actually knew the rules, we rolled dice to decide whether Luuk or I would actually play; that roll left yours truly to serve as impartial umpire, uplooker of rules and battle report scribe.

Opposing Forces

The game was to be between Space Marines and orks, as we figured that to be the archetypal 40K game. This being Rogue Trader, we decided to play by the book and roll up random equipment for both sides. Due to the twenty-odd years that passed since the rules were written, we wouldn't find suitable models for absolutely everything, so some had to be proxied with other models. However, we did attempt to use old models wherever possible.

The Space Marine forces consisted of two squads of ten men each, amounting to 458 points altogether. The models used for the Space Marines were mainly the plastic models from the second-edition 40K boxed set and the metal-bodies-with-plastic-arms from the same era, plus a few assorted other models as necessary. Most of the orks were from Gorkamorka, mainly the plastic models that came with the set and a metal one as a squad leader. A few other metal orks of first- and second-edition vintage were also used. The gretchin mostly came from the old MB/GW game Space Crusade, which includes fourteen of them (and I happen to own three sets … ) plus a hero that I had long ago converted from a third-edition ork warboss.

We worked out all the stats in the week before the game, and soon discovered that we were lucky we did, as in some e-mails back and forth between Luuk and myself we not only had to tweak things so the two sides would be approximately fairly matched, but both of us spotted mistakes the other had made. Had we decided to make up some army lists the night before the game, it would have been one big mess. No doubt this was largely because neither of us had any actual experience with the rules — doing this a few times would probably streamline it a lot.

Since the orks were to have some vehicles, we used the Vehicle Manual for those, largely because the vehicle rules in the main rulebook are very generic and appear to be somewhat difficult to use. The Vehicle Manual includes a lot of the vehicles we take for granted in 40K nowadays, though the game rules for them are rather more detailed.

Random chance (holding out both hands, closed and with a model of each side in them, and letting a player choose) determined that Gyan would play the Space Marines and Luuk therefore the orks and gretchin.

Young Men's Imperial Ass'n Squad 1 (257 points)

• Champion with bolt pistol, power glove, crack grenades and powered armour
• 5 Marines with bolt pistol, bolt gun and powered armour
• 1 Marine with bolt gun and powered armour
• 1 Marine with bolt gun, frag grenades and powered armour
• 1 Marine with bolt pistol, conversion beamer¹ and powered armour
• 1 Marine with bolt pistol, graviton gun (proxied by a meltagun) and powered armour

¹ And no, this weapon didn't even need to be proxied — Space Crusade to the rescue!

Young Men's Imperial Ass'n Squad 2 (201 points)

• Champion with bolt pistol, bolt gun, chainsword, frag grenades and powered armour
• 7 Marines with bolt gun and powered armour
• 1 Marine with bolt pistol, flamer and powered armour
• 1 Marine with bolt pistol, heavy bolter and powered armour

The orks and gretchin had three squads and some vehicles, for a total of 457¾ points.

Eppelstaars Squad 1 (144½ points)

• Ork minor hero with bolt pistol, chainsword, plasma pistol, powered armour and communicator (the whole proxied by an ork in mega armour)
• 7 orks with bolt gun and mesh armour
• 1 ork with bolt pistol, flamer and mesh armour (proxied by the oldest model on the table, an ork with a whip and a spanner)
• 1 ork with bolt pistol, heavy plasma gun and mesh armour (proxied by a model with a big shoota)

Eppelstaars Squad 2 (149½ points)

• Ork champion with bolt pistol, power axe, plasma pistol, flak armour and communicator
• 7 orks with bolt pistol, bolt gun, frag grenades and mesh armour
• 1 ork with bolt pistol, missile launcher with crack missiles (normal) and flak armour
• 1 ork with bolt pistol and plasma gun (proxied by a model with a bolt gun)

Eppelstaars Squad 3 (88¾ points)

• Gretchin minor hero with bolt pistol, chainsword, power axe, bolt gun, crack grenades and mesh armour
• 9 Gretchin with muskets, frag grenades and flak armour

Eppelstaars Vehicles (75 points)

• Ork Warbike (proxied by a Gorkamorka/2nd–3rd edition ork biker nob)
• Ork Wartrak (lascannon proxied by a twin-linked big shoota)

Battlefield

The table was set up as a square area filled mainly with (ruined) walls, trees and difficult terrain, since we wanted to avoid using buildings due to the fairly complex rules for them in the book.

For those keeping score, the terrain pieces are walls, sandbags and craters by GW, ruined buildings by Gale Force 9, generic trees from a model railway shop, and a statue of Frater Phillipus made from a slightly-modified Inquisitor model named in honour (?) of the club president. The line of hedges in the back of the photo was just to delimit the battlefield.

Plot

In order to turn this into more than just a straight-up shooting match, we rolled up a random plot using the tables in the Advanced Gamer section of the rulebook. The roll told us that …

A farming world is under alien attack and its governor has requested aid in dealing with the aliens before vital crops are destroyed.

This fitted perfectly, as we had invading orks and gretchin, Space Marines called in as aid to fight them, and a table set up with two main terrain features: walls and pine trees. It being 30 November when the battle was fought made it obvious that what the orks were after, were the Christmas trees from this plantation planet! The orks and gretchin got the job of attacking trees in hand-to-hand combat (actually, only making a damage roll against Toughness 5), and we'd work out scoring for the trees etc. at the end of the game.

Setup

Since there are no setup rules that we could find in the Rogue Trader rulebook, we rolled a die and the high roller picked a table edge. He could set up on a quarter of the width of the table (not the old-style table quarters), the opponent getting the quarter of the width against the opposite table edge. Gyan won the roll and picked the side with the most trees, as that would give the orks fewer opportunities to cut them down.

He split his squads into four five-men ones, mostly putting them behind walls and sandbags for cover. (Truth be told, what he actually did was only split one of his squads, because he got the special weapons mixed up. When we discovered he had one squad with both the flamer and the graviton gun in it, we ruled that that meant he had four squads of five men instead of two of five and one of ten.)

Luuk then put one squad of his orks on his right and one in the middle, with the gretchin on his left and one vehicle on each flank.

(There is no photo of the armies right after setup, because I forgot to take one. However, the situation shown after the first half of in turn 1, below, is almost identical — just imagine the orks etc. a little further to the right and the frontmost Space Marines more to the left, behind the ruin.)

To War!

Turn 1

Rolling a die told us Luuk went first, which he did by simply moving everything he had forward. Since all the models on foot had a movement of only 4″ per turn, that didn't go as quickly as we're used to; on the other hand, the bike and wartrak were much faster, allowing them to cover half the table or so in a single move. The few shots he managed to make didn't do anything, though he did chop down a tree in the hand-to-hand phase.

Gyan followed this by moving his "ten-man" squad forward, leaving his heavy weapons in cover, and then firing at the wartrak with his conversion beamer. Despite being an area-effect weapon that rolled two hit locations against a vehicle, the beamer missed entirely.

Net result of the turn: one tree in the orks' favour.

Turn 2

Rogue Trader allows units to split off models and given them written orders to perform some or another task, effectively putting the models under the gamemaster's control until the task is done (or the player decides to have the models rejoin the unit). Luuk wanted to split his missile launcher and heavy plasma gunners off from their squads, giving them orders to stand still and "shoot at anything pink, not anything green" on the basis that this would spare both the precious Christmas trees as well as his somewhat more disposable orks. Unfortunately for him, we remembered at this point that orks have the Hate special rule against "all enemy on the games table" … failing the rolls for both squads had them move at full speed toward the enemy instead of spending the turn doing nothing so the heavy weapons could get orders. He did kill two exposed Space Marines with the plasma gun, however.

The warbike then showed exactly why I had wanted to include it in the game: it was in a good position to fire its potentially devastating autocannon volley against the (still) ten-man squad of Space Marines. However, warbikes have the special rule that you roll a die before firing, and on a 1 or a 6 it is turned by 45 degrees (left or right, respectively) by the recoil of the guns — before working out what you can hit, and what you need to roll to do so. And indeed, Luuk rolled a 1, so his potential shots at a couple of Space Marines without any cover turned into a shot against a maximum of two models behind a thick wall (−2 to hit). Though the shots of his remaining models all missed their targets as well ("they're orks alright") he did chop down two more trees in the hand-to-hand phase.

By now we had realised Gyan's mistake in splitting his squads, so he suddenly found himself with four units instead of three. Not that this mattered: he simply had all eight charge the warbike. The squad with the conversion beamer spent the turn doing nothing so the beamer model could split off, with orders to fire at the wartrak that was parked some distance away and had been taking ineffectual shots with its lascannon. The heavy bolter squad didn't manage to do much of anything, while the (remains of the) two squads charging the bike only just managed to pull the ork off his bike and kill him — the first squad of three barely hit him, and what his they did, caused no damage; the sergeant with his power sword missed equally, and the other four troopers caused exactly one unsaved wound … Still, that was the autocannon threat gone.

Turn 3

Luckily for Luuk, not all his orks suffered from hatred this turn, but enough did that it stopped him cutting down any more trees. The gretchin now showed they can be a force to be reckoned with: moving forward brought them into range for throwing frag grenades against the Marines who had just killed the biker. Though most of their grenades did little or nothing, the few that did, and the orks' heavy plasma gun, took out all but one of the eight Marines.

Gyan first had the lone Space Marine who survived the grenades make a move with a deliberate detour so he could make use of the reserve move rule (Rogue Trader has a second movement phase, after hand-to-hand combat, in which models that haven't done anything and are more than 4″ away from an enemy can move) to get into cover behind a wall that had orks and gretchin approaching from the other side.

On the other side of the table, he focussed his efforts on the wartrak: the conversion beamer scored an engine hit, which had the brilliant effect of making it move forward by 1D6″ despite having spent the turn stationary. A roll of 6 caused it to crash into the wall the Space Marines were using for cover, but no further damage was done. However, the Space Marines' bolt guns finished off the two orks on the Wartrak, which had the further silly effect of tipping the vehicle over when the driver got killed.

Turn 4

Luuk again moved most of his orks and gretchin forward, with his ork hero climbing over the wall to get to the lone Space Marine in order to kill him in hand-to-hand combat a bit later in the turn. His fire against the squad with the heavy bolter didn't achieve much of anything against the Space Marines, but the attempt to fire a flamer into them by having it shoot at the ground at its maximum range in the hope of scattering into the Marines had the hilarious effect of scattering in the exact opposite direction and landing directly on a tree … That was duly replaced with a smoke cloud.

Gyan now rejoined the conversion beamer model to its squad and had that move forward in an attempt to get line of sight at some orks, now that the wartrak had been put out of action but good. His fire from his remaining models did manage to kill some orks and wound their hero (who had two wounds in all), but achieved nothing important.

Turn 5

Looking at the clock, we decided this would be the last turn. It consisted mainly of Luuk doing his best to kill more Space Marines, but only succeeding in killing two of the models in the beamer squad while the one with the heavy bolter withstood tremendous explosions from volleys of frag grenades, muskets and assorted other firepower without so much as a scratch. Unfortunately their return fire proved equally ineffective.

Outcome

By the end of the battle, the Space Marines had lost twelve models, including a squad leader, flamer and graviton gun — not to mention three valuable Christmas trees. Set against this were the orks' losses of two gretchin, three orks, a warbike and a wartrak.

We didn't add up points or even try to put a value on the trees, as it was fairly obvious the orks had won the battle.

Concluding Thoughts

All in all, this was an enjoyable game, though we found that if you're used to "modern" 40K (that is, third edition and later, which changed many rules quite drastically) there is plenty to keep in mind during the game. It's certainly slower than current 40K games, due to the greater detail, and things don't seem terribly balanced — despite that we used the points values, the orks come across as more powerful (as was pointed out during the game: a lascannon costs 45 points, but a wartrak with that weapon on it only 40 … what gives?!) On the other hand, players have more options because of the greater detail. However, I would suggest Rogue Trader is best played with a gamemaster who knows the rules, as it looks like that speeds up the game a bit.

On the whole, it was an enjoyable game and probably worth repeating sometime. Not next time we're at the club, though, since we'll be playing one of 40K's predecessors then: Laserburn

Edit: changed images to being inline so you don't need to click them a couple of times to see them with any detail.

[librisrouge]

Wow, cool.

 

If you play anymore games of this please post them. It was a very fun read.

[Kierdale]

I'm glad you had such a good time.

Nice to see RT being replayed. :)

[JeffTibbetts]

Thanks for posting! Just the hedges bring me back… More hedges! 

[Slave to Darkness]

Try and get the 40k Complation and Compendium, space marines go up to T4, and get a propper army list that isnt as random as the rogue trader lists, and try get Ere We GO and Freebooterz for Ork Clan lists, the Ork stuff is amazing, you get funky cards for vehicle malfunctions and weapons that fall apart or blow up when you use them, the books are available online for those who look hard enuff. 

[Gurth]

I’ve got the Compendium as well as Chapter Approved, but decided not to use them for this game since we wanted to keep the number of books low — it’s hard enough remembering how the rules go from just one or two books you’re not familiar with, never mind if you start adding more expansions and contradictions to that

[Slave to Darkness]

Id stay away from the realms of chaos books then lol. they were a nightmare. good to see some one playing rogue trader again, i prefer the 'feel' of it (atmosphere, background etc) compared to current 40k. whens your next game??? i think you should do the scenario in the rulebook,. :D

[Gurth]

Id stay away from the realms of chaos books then lol.

Chances are good I’ll buy up a copy if I come across one for what I consider a reasonable price

whens your next game???

Of Rogue Trader? Quite possibly never, since the above-mentioned Luuk and I have this habit of playing one-off games of all sorts of rulesets we happen to own (see the comment at the end of the report about Laserburn — which we did play two weeks later). It’s likely we’ll give second edition a go in the not-too-distant future, however.

[Slave to Darkness]

what are the lazerburn rules like? i got them on my hard drive but not really had a chance to go through them, 

[Gurth]

I suppose you could see them as a kind of proto-40K, since a lot of the weapons and equipment in it would pretty much be recycled in 40K/Rogue Trader. Ruleswise, though, it’s quite different, with almost everything resolved by a D100 roll rather than a D6. The rules feel half like a roleplaying game and half a wargame, written by your typical English game-rules author (you know, the type of guy who knows how the rules work but seems incapable of explaining them in a clear and logical manner Try some Dystopian Wars to see that things haven’t changed much in thirty years). They’re also unnecessarily complicated and could quite easily be simplified, but this is par for the course, really, if you read old rules sets.

However, we had fun with it, and I would recommend them to any 40K players interested in seeing what came before

[Slave to Darkness]

written by your typical English game-rules author (you know, the type of guy who knows how the rules work but seems incapable of explaining them in a clear and logical manner

 

yes thats us english  for you :D

 

think Ill give it a go then, could be fun

[Gurth]

yes thats us english for you

It’s probably just that I got started in this hobby with FASA games, which has probably resulted in me having much higher expectations of any subsequent rules I read than people whose first (war)game was more along the lines of what GW produces

[Slave to Darkness]

Ill Look into the FASA games, fancy tryng out some new stuff.