Hey everyone! Adam, from TFG Radio, here to brighten your otherwise dull weekend with my extensive knowledge of useless facts in 40K!
I’ve played a lot of games of 40k over the <redacted> number of years. From making up rules using the strange numbers in the Rogue Trader rulebook, to now judging the largest tournaments in the country, there are a lot of old facts and rules that are still rattling around in my head. As we start really ramping up the tournament scene once again, let’s take a look at some of the old rules that may be gone, but not forgotten. At least by me.
Falling Forward
Back when the Black Templars were first given a real army list, they had a unique ability. In editions before 8th, when you took casualties, at the end of the player turn, you had to roll dice and roll below your leadership value. If you failed your unit fell back by moving towards your table edge in the shortest distance possible. There is more to it but that’s the shorthand version of it. Black Templars had a rule that if they failed a morale test they actually got to move towards the enemy. They basically got a free move during their opponent’s turn. Like an early version of the 8th edition soul burst for Ynnari. There were many times when you would debate shooting at them because you didn’t want them to get closer. This was especially true since morale used to be taken at the end of the turn so you had already done your assaults. I hope this doesn’t come back.
Jaws of the World Wolf
This power was very different than it is now. Imagine a power the doesn’t wound or damages your units but just removes them from the table. This psychic power did just that. In what, I believe, was just a sign of things to come, this power became a terror on the tabletop with very little ways to stop it. It was really out of your hands as your only hope, for most players, was that the Space Wolf player would fail the test. There was no such thing as a rule of 3, in fact you could get 4 Runepriests, and there was no restriction on how many times you could cast the power. Say goodbye to a majority of your army turn 1. Good thing they didn’t create more of these type of weapons that just removed models, am I right?
Stumbling Knights
Although I don’t really miss D Weapons on knights, I do miss what would happen when they died. When a knight died they always exploded, no need to roll. My favorite part, or least favorite, was when the knight would “fall” in a random direction. You would replace the knight with a large blast marker, roll the directional die and d6 in order to see where and how far it stumbles before exploding. You then rolled to see how bad the explosions was, with the large blast template being the strength of a D weapon. A D weapon was essentially the same as the old Jaws of the World Wolf in that models/units would just be picked up, depending on the roll. No save whatsoever. The best was watching a chain reaction of explosions when you had several knights closely packed together and each one sets off the other. Truly a wonderful sight to see, as long as it wasn’t your knights blowing up.
That’s all for this week. Hope you enjoyed the article. Let me know what you think, and if you miss anything from previous editions, in the comments section below. Don’t forget to visit our Facebook, Twitch, and Patreon pages to stay up to date on what we’re up to and when episodes drop!
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