A question about 2nd ed Wh40k...

[AranaszarSzuur]

Mainly to those who were into RT at that time...

What was your reaction to it and most importantly to artwork, miniature designs, etc? They look very kitsch to me. I wonder what it was like to see all that stuff after experiencing works of Wil Rees, Ian Miller and others .

Also, does anyone know the history of its making? How it ended up like this?

 

[dieselmonkey]

Mainly to those who were into RT at that time...

What was your reaction to it and most importantly to artwork, miniature designs, etc? They look very kitsch to me. I wonder what it was like to see all that stuff after experiencing works of Wil Rees, Ian Miller and others

Tbh, the design and everything else related to it was the reason I stuck with RT. It probably didn't help that I'd left GW just before 2nd Ed came out, but I didn't really like it at all. Although I never really defined myself with the term 'Oldhammer', and don't now, I just carried on with the version I liked, and collecting models from that earlier era.

The 'Red' period put me off GW for a long time, it went beyond caricature into comedy cartoon models, which I just couldn't get on with.

 

[Mr Papafakis]

Tbh, the design and everything else related to it was the reason I stuck with RT. It probably didn't help that I'd left GW just before 2nd Ed came out, but I didn't really like it at all. Although I never really defined myself with the term 'Oldhammer', and don't now, I just carried on with the version I liked, and collecting models from that earlier era.

The 'Red' period put me off GW for a long time, it went beyond caricature into comedy cartoon models, which I just couldn't get on with.

There is no way on this here god's green earth that I could have put it better myself dieselmonkey

 

[Galadrin]

I absolutely loved the 2nd Edition aesthetic. I ran into a guy recently who said he hated 2nd Edition when it came out because of the plastic models. Notwithstanding the fact that Rogue Trader ALSO had plastic models, I couldn't help but feel "dude, you are a grown man playing with little, painted dollies, complaining about cartoony artwork and sculpts... if only you could see yourself from where I am standing!"

Andy "Dr. Bargle" Bartlett once had an excellent article about the old school "pathetic aesthetic" (a must-read, if you haven't seen it). In the article, he argues that old school games are fun because they put your little toy soldiers or players characters etc. in impossible situations, while you watch helplessly as terrible things happen to them (i.e., dice rolls). If my little toy-men are going to be blown to bits, chewed to pieces, burnt to ashes and ripped limb from limb, you better believe that I want my Orks grinning and my beefcake Space Marines in fist-pumping poses. We are grown men (and women!) playing with toys, it is time we act like it!

 

[dieselmonkey]

Tbh, the design and everything else related to it was the reason I stuck with RT. It probably didn't help that I'd left GW just before 2nd Ed came out, but I didn't really like it at all. Although I never really defined myself with the term 'Oldhammer', and don't now, I just carried on with the version I liked, and collecting models from that earlier era.

The 'Red' period put me off GW for a long time, it went beyond caricature into comedy cartoon models, which I just couldn't get on with.

There is no way on this here god's green earth that I could have put it better myself dieselmonkey

Lol, thanks!

Thinking about it further, another thing that seriously put me off was the descent from narrative gaming into the generic helhole that was 'Team Good Vs Team Evil walking towards each other across a table' Tournament play.

 

[Zhu Bajie]

Nothing in the aesthetic of 40K2E holds any appeal to me.

I'd lost interest in Warhammer towards the tail-end of the Rogue Trader period - each release seemed to be taking it further and further from what I'd originally liked about it (some exceptions, I really liked the Eldar Aspect warriors and the background work done on them, still do), so didn't notice 40K2E when it was released. I do remember picking up one of the Toy Box range in my local bookshop, must have been mid 90s? and thinking oh well, not interested in this anymore and buying some Lovecraft collected paperbacks.

Also, does anyone know the history of its making? How it ended up like this?

After the management buy-out GW had no money, and owed their investors big-time, so had to make the cheapest stuff possible as fast as possible. They simply couldn't afford to commission artwork or take years in development.

 

[Legiocustodes]

To be fair I liked them both for different reasons. Sometimes I find it better if I treat them as 2 separate entities. For me the key thing was that second edition really refined all the additions for RT (battle manual, vehicle manual, compendium, compilation) in one place. Overall it was an easier game to play. I think the difference was quite fluid between these two editions..... Unlike third edition that came out of nowhere and ruined everything!

 

[daddyorchips]

2nd ed came out around the time i discovered sex drugs and rock and roll (or at least, the pretence thereof), so i never got the box set. i wasn't a fan of the plastic space marine from the box, compared to the RTB01s and the Space Marine Strike Force marines. These days I like them a lot more.

The game itself seemed to be developing well. The rules changes for vehicles and Space Marines seemed much improved. The introduction of Space Wolves and World Eaters made for some exciting new armies and Eldar seemed very serious and mythic too.

I didn't like the art that much. It seemed too brash and cartoony, too childish for a very serious totally grown up adult man like I thought I was at 16.

Any further thoughts I had are lost to time.

 

[AranaszarSzuur]

Also, does anyone know the history of its making? How it ended up like this?

After the management buy-out GW had no money, and owed their investors big-time, so had to make the cheapest stuff possible as fast as possible. They simply couldn't afford to commission artwork or take years in development.

That would be very sad .

The wikipedia article on GW claims that:

Following a management buyout by Bryan Ansell in December 1991, Games Workshop refocused on their most lucrative lines, namely their miniature wargames: Warhammer Fantasy Battle (WFB) and Warhammer 40,000 (WH40k). The retail chain refocused on a younger, more family-oriented market. The change of direction was a great success and the company enjoyed growing profits, but in the move, the company lost some of its old fan base.

I think it would be a better explanation for all the kitsch stuff.

 

[Zhu Bajie]

That's a complex one mate. The Wikipedia article isn't very well sourced, and has multiple factual issues - for example the management buyout in 91 was led by Tom Kirby, if I'm not mistaken. The idea that they moved to a more "family orientated games" is an opinion, probably from a fanboy rather than any critical or studio-internal viewpoint. I'm not saying they didn't re-focus on the younger end of the market, but the 54mm Fighting Fantasy Figures, Heroquest and Space Crusade weren't targeted at the adult hobbiest either.

We also have Rick Priestly saying:

"The trouble with the 92 version (4th) was we didn’t have any money because we’d just had the GW management buy out and suddenly we owed the venture capitalists £10M – so there was just no spare cash for anything. We’d gone to an early dtp system, which wasn’t as professional as the old typesetter (but reduced costs as it meant we didn’t need the extra staff), we had fewer artists, and we couldn’t afford the colour (the colour sections were exerted from WD to save money). There were also fewer design staff actually working on the game – pretty much just me with Jervis, Andy and Nigel helping. For 3rd we had half a dozen dedicated writers and another half dozen willing bodies – so we were able to do a lot more." via Orlyggs interview with Rick Priestly

Granted he's talking about WFB but the same business and studio conditions would also have applied to the creation of WH40K2E - which as noted was pretty much a re-editing of the supplemental materials.

 

[dieselmonkey]

I'm not saying they didn't re-focus on the younger end of the market, but the 54mm Fighting Fantasy Figures, Heroquest and Space Crusade weren't targeted at the adult hobbiest either.

I think HQ and SC were a bit of a red herring there, they weren't created out of any desire to appeal to a younger market, they were pretty much created as part of an agenda to sell off GW to MB Games. They were a cynical attempt to make GW appeal to a company that traditionally made board games.

Um, allegedly.

 

[Erny]

By this satge I palyed most of my games with my brother. I'd reached the sex and drugs and rock and roll years but never saw a reason to give up on the miniatures unlike all my other opponents. This meant there were far fewer armies about to play with and we jumped on the boxed set mainly to get the cheap new miniatures.

The Ork aesthetic wasn't really that different to 'ere we go. The marines were better than the space crusade ones we had been using and very similar to the metal with plastic arms ones we had collected a few of. I liked the codices visually they were clean, clear and simple. Obviously they were different to RT which I also still loved though a mate had managed to, "lose", my copy by this stage I think the two still merged into one in our minds. I hated the stories in the codices, they were really bad fiction and I began to loath the special rules that crept in over time. Loads of our games didn't use the codices at all. It is perfectly possible to do RT with 2nd ed.

That said we mainly played our 3rd/4th ed fantasy mashup which was a constant battle between how much each edition trumped the other rules wise.

 

[Galadrin]

The fact that there was little money after the buy out meant that Warhammer Fantasy Battle 4th Edition was designed very quickly (over holiday, in fact) by just one person, Rick Priestley. Note, he also has publically said that 4th Edition was his all time favorite version of the game, due perhaps to how simply and elegantly it captures the core of Warhammer.

However, this had little to do with limiting or changing the artwork. In fact, 40k 2nd Edition had so much artwork that they had to pour the unusued stuff into a special collector's art book by John Blanche (who turned around a massive volume of artwork extremely quickly for the project). The majority of artwork in 40k 2nd Edition is Blanche, and you can't get more "40k" than that, in my opinion.

 

[AranaszarSzuur]

That's a complex one mate. The Wikipedia article isn't very well sourced, and has multiple factual issues - for example the management buyout in 91 was led by Tom Kirby, if I'm not mistaken. The idea that they moved to a more "family orientated games" is an opinion, probably from a fanboy rather than any critical or studio-internal viewpoint. I'm not saying they didn't re-focus on the younger end of the market, but the 54mm Fighting Fantasy Figures, Heroquest and Space Crusade weren't targeted at the adult hobbiest either.

Space Crusade and the 1990+ Rogue Trader was was already kinda kitschy, though.

We also have Rick Priestly saying:

"The trouble with the 92 version (4th) was we didn’t have any money because we’d just had the GW management buy out and suddenly we owed the venture capitalists £10M – so there was just no spare cash for anything. We’d gone to an early dtp system, which wasn’t as professional as the old typesetter (but reduced costs as it meant we didn’t need the extra staff), we had fewer artists, and we couldn’t afford the colour (the colour sections were exerted from WD to save money). There were also fewer design staff actually working on the game – pretty much just me with Jervis, Andy and Nigel helping. For 3rd we had half a dozen dedicated writers and another half dozen willing bodies – so we were able to do a lot more." via Orlyggs interview with Rick Priestly

Granted he's talking about WFB but the same business and studio conditions would also have applied to the creation of WH40K2E - which as noted was pretty much a re-editing of the supplemental materials.

Could also be a reason why they tried to market Wh40k to kiddies.

 

[Count Von Bruno]

Being in my mid 30's now I got into 40K proper in the last few months of Rogue Trader, so yeah I just came in to say that I love 2nd edition 40K a lot, particularly the early period.
Even though I have all the books and clobber now I think it's still the most fun to just use the black CODEX ARMY LIST for your forces.

 

[area23]

I got into 40K with 'Ere we Go! and the Lost and the Damned. I can only talk about the aestetic because I never played 2nd (and RT once or twice!) I always collected the miniatures and the books and passed my time painting, reading and inventing armies frothing over catalogue pages.
I didn't lke the plastic orcs that came with game, and neither the orcs Kevin Adams did with the new style Goffs and after. It wasn't long before he left GW I think.
I didn't like the extremely clean look of Everything either but many of the painted minis in the rulebook are very nice.
it also was the only thing available so it wasn't an available choice really. I liked miniatures and they sild 40K 2nd Ed. When Grenadier released Future Warriors though I thought those were amazing and much better.

 

[AranaszarSzuur]

That's a complex one mate. The Wikipedia article isn't very well sourced, and has multiple factual issues - for example the management buyout in 91 was led by Tom Kirby, if I'm not mistaken. The idea that they moved to a more "family orientated games" is an opinion, probably from a fanboy rather than any critical or studio-internal viewpoint. I'm not saying they didn't re-focus on the younger end of the market, but the 54mm Fighting Fantasy Figures, Heroquest and Space Crusade weren't targeted at the adult hobbiest either.

Space Crusade and late (1990+, except for the second part of RoC) Rogue Trader were already kitsch, though.

The Ork aesthetic wasn't really that different to 'ere we go.

'ere we go was a part of the problem. Orks turning from generally loathsome Tolkien-style orks without redeeming qualities into lovable crazies - the niche that used to be filled by Squats. Kitsch colours, etc.

 

[dieselmonkey]

The Ork aesthetic wasn't really that different to 'ere we go.

'ere we go was a part of the problem. Orks turning from generally loathsome Tolkien-style orks without redeeming qualities into lovable crazies - the niche that used to be filled by Squats. Kitsch colours, etc.

Spot on. 'Ere We Go really was the beginning of the end for the original Rogue Trader aesthetic, as far I was concerned. It was straight comedy, not a RT expansion.

 

[Zhu Bajie]

Could also be a reason why they tried to market Wh40k to kiddies.

I was 12 when Rogue Trader came out and got it on release loved it. There's a photo in one WD of a 10 year old cosplaying as a marine sergeant from the RT era. From my POV it was always marketed at kiddies. However, I think it took an approach that did not talk down to the audience, and expected them to accept complexity both in game and aesthetic terms.

A bit of an aside, I was used to seeing fantasy undead that looked like:

That was in a children's book (The Warlock of Firetop Mountain) . Marketed by a children's publisher (Puffin), for children.

In the 90's GW started to produce stuff that looks like:

Aesthetically these are chalk and cheese. BUT I really don't think we can say one was marketed to kiddies and the other not. We could talk about stylisation, exaggeration, detail, realism, subtlety, nuance, emotion, atmosphere, halloween costumes, decoration and symbolism, the use of colour or even the "pathetic aesthetic" vs. "teh awsum". Or indeed we could talk about what we expect of children and their interests and assumed tastes. Some people will like one and not the other, some will like both, some will read meaning into the differences others will think it's all pretty arbitrary. Although Sibbecks RT cover vs. John Blanches WH40K cover would probably be more on topic.

40k 2nd Edition had so much artwork that they had to pour the unusued stuff into a special collector's art book by John Blanche (who turned around a massive volume of artwork extremely quickly for the project).

Which supports the idea that WH40K2E was cheaper. Hiring a dozen or more freelance artists, commissioning them to produce large, often full-color artwork as they did for RT costs significantly more than paying one persons salary for a year, especially when they had other duties in the company. Indeed having one person "turn around a massive volume of artwork extremely quickly" suggests the budget was small. It's all about lowering the cost of production.