WARHAMMER 40,000 SECOND EDITION

The Grim Darkness of the 41st Millennium finally started to take shape with this rangewide update. Lots of rules had been printed across magazines and boxed releases before this release, which set out to cement the foundations of the game’s mechanics and lore.

Second Edition pivoted the game to a much more traditional wargame. Gone were the roleplaying game aspects, with small squads and lots of different polyhedral dice. Now everything was centered around using d6s, forces looked a lot more like actual armies, with compilations for all of an army’s rules and miniatures (known as “codexes”) being published for each faction, weaponry is standardized to make playing games easier to read and independent characters are established as iconic figureheads for your force.

It was also the first rules edition to be released alongside a starter set, containing enough Space Marines and Orks to start two small armies, along with some so-so cardboard terrain and all of the rulebooks needed to play, making the game a lot more accessible to start. Notably these models were also plastic instead of lead, dropping the price and making the game more affordable as well as accessible.

The greater investment in Warhammer 40,000 helped accelerate the game’s popularity, as it slowly overtook Warhammer Fantasy as Game Workshop’s flagship system, where today it stands as their most popular release.