Resisting the Siren's song

[SaintRigger]

The coming of 5th edition has finely broken the back of my ex brother-in-law. He has been playing since the Rogue Trooper days and has decided that with the rumors he is hearing about the changes that they have finally crossed the line for him. He is going to put his massive Ork army up for sale.

 

 

Hehe.. I have my own chapter of marines I'm working on, but I was helping a friend with his dark angels and they were loads of fun to paint, so I'd figure I'd do my own - I had the models laying about, and I grabbed lots of need fiddly bits to make them look more baroque.

 

Rogue Trooper was an awesome 2000AD comic strip (Bronze Age just released some Not-Rogue-Trooper miniatures). Rogue Trader was 40k before being called 40k. Rouge Trader is a game played with makeup :)

[Lars Porsenna]

Why is it whenever something like this happens, people throw up their hands and sell their minis??? You know, its not like you can't use them with other rule systems...besides, with proper care I'd bet my minis will outlast me...

 

Damon.

[Heisler]

Mmm, since he has patiently waded through some 20+ years of releases including maintaining his army while he worked as a teacher in Guam I would hardly call it throwing up his hands. More of an abject surrender. Why should he keep an army he no longer wants to play? Why shouldn't he get some cash for it and invest it in a miniatures system that he enjoys more?

[Brushmaster]

Let me know if he does decide to get rid of them but from what I've heard , 5th Ed will greatly benefit Orks .

[Gimp]

I have my Rogue Trader rulebook, and my 2nd, and 3rd.

 

Of those, my 3rd ed book gets the least use. I'm happy to play with the older editions, because I prefer them.

 

I understand someone selling an army if they get disgusted with the game, but it's a sad option if they enjoyed earlier versions, or might be willing to port the models over to a different system. No Limits is a free downloadable game that has several armies already built from 40K miniatures. The rules are not bad, especially for anyone who's dealt with GW rules.

 

I've met several people that were happy to have 'thrown off the yoke' of their 40K miniatures, but also several that really regret getting rid of something they had so much history with.

[Nanite]

Fluffwise the rumor is GW may be moving the timeline forward, with the Empire of man being beaten badly. Who knows though?

[kristof65]

Fluffwise the rumor is GW may be moving the timeline forward, with the Empire of man being beaten badly. Who knows though?

That'll be interesting, to see what/how they do it.

[Sergeant_Crunch]

I don't know if this warrants it's own thread or not, but over at TMP and in other various places I see Rogue Trader being spoken of with reverence reserved for religious cult leaders. I didn't get into gaming until 40k was in 3rd Ed and no too long before 4th was released. What was so great about Rogue Trader? Is it purely nostalgia? Do the rules still stand on their own compared to more recent non-40k rulesets? Or is it another case of the "old guard" at TMP being resistant to change and professing that the original was the best and anything else was a grab at our wallets.

[Nanite]

I don't know if this warrants it's own thread or not, but over at TMP and in other various places I see Rogue Trader being spoken of with reverence reserved for religious cult leaders. I didn't get into gaming until 40k was in 3rd Ed and no too long before 4th was released. What was so great about Rogue Trader? Is it purely nostalgia? Do the rules still stand on their own compared to more recent non-40k rulesets? Or is it another case of the "old guard" at TMP being resistant to change and professing that the original was the best and anything else was a grab at our wallets.

 

I think it's nostalgia more then anything else. The minis were cheaper then dirt back then, and that's got to influence positive memories. I see people cooing over old citadel designs, that honestly are not that good.

 

But any rules set with an amount of freeform design appears to gain an instant vocal minority.

 

I have no experience in the matter, so I shouldn't say.

 

Those new Apocalypse boxed sets sure are cheap though.

[robertsjf]

But any rules set with an amount of freeform design appears to gain an instant vocal minority.

 

I have no experience in the matter, so I shouldn't say.

 

I do, and as nostalgic as the memories are, 1000 point games of rogue trader ran upwards of 6 hours. Marathon games indeed....

[kristof65]

There are a couple of other things about Rogue Trader that were appealing that are missing today. It wasn't so much army or tourney focused, as it was skirmish/role-playing based - that was very appealing, particularly when compared to 3e. It also had a sense of newness and uniqueness to it that's long since been lost.

 

Overall, the rules were kind of sucky and exploitable, but I still have fond memories of many an RT game where the role-playing meant more than the die rolls.

[Sergeant_Crunch]

Gah! That's why I stopped playing Battletech.

[SaintRigger]

Rogue Trader is a fantastically fun game when played in the spirit of the game. The rules are broken however, and it isn't a tourny type game. One could juddle the numbers and min/max their forces to create something truly destructive and unfun.

 

The game most definitely had RPG and campaign elements to it as well, and had some neat vehicle design rules so you can use all sorts of models and gubbins to make playable tanks and skimmers.

 

It also was the start of the 40k fluff and universe which was pretty cool (a neat mashup of 2000AD, history and various other pup culture references)

[kristof65]

Rogue Trader is a fantastically fun game when played in the spirit of the game. The rules are broken however, and it isn't a tourny type game. One could juddle the numbers and min/max their forces to create something truly destructive and unfun.

Our group started out as a bunch of role-players who got into RT. About the time several members of the group got into the min/max'ng thing with RT, 2e came out, and basically "saved" our enjoyment of the game. We took all of the RP elements that we enjoyed from RT into 2e with us, and had a blast. That's probably the same reason that none of us really liked 3e as much, either - they made it that much harder to enjoy the RP element, and turned it into more of a tourney game.

[Joe Kutz]

Biggest thing that I liked about Rogue Trader was that it was beer and pretzels gaming. You didn't have too many of the hardcore tournie fanboys - but you had a lot of people who could laugh it up while playing a game. I still bring out the old Rogue Trader stuff from time to time (rebound a half dozen times now I guess) - and it remains fun still.

 

While the rules were not balanced - I never have been a huge fan of balanced rules... Reality isn't normally balanced, and although I never had an issue with people abusing rules and what not (usually game with friends, so it isn't so much about winning), when ever that has happened with other systems - they just stop receiving the invite and soon see the error of their ways.

 

However, I haven't seen anything yet which couldn't be abused with a person so inclined.

 

For the most part though, I have stopped playing the GW rules as they are now. I still use a lot of their miniatures and the overall feel of the Eldar are one of my favorite sci-fi armies (minus the cone heads). I use them in conjunction with several other rule sets as proxies (or when they include an army design system...as "Space Elves"). The fluff is interesting as well - and I harvest what I like from that for other games and campaigns.