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Give it a long, hard think.

Not just the rules, but the entire meta at the time as well, aka powerlevels of all armies, overall balance, games you have played, experiences had etc.


I joined the game 4th edition onwards, so I cannot say much about previous editions, but so far I have to say 5th edition was the best for me - it had a fine balance between ranged and assault; and with only troops being able to score, gave them more importance as well, because previously most people were loading on up elites and heavy support.

Back then most armies were more or less matched as well - only toward the end did GK and Necrons shake up the meta, but you cant fault them because their old codexes were literally piles of poo - Necrons had like less than 10 different units in total, making for a very boring and predictable army, and GK were Daemonhunters and struggled against anything other than Chaos.

4th edition, of course, is a good runner up for me, because not everybody was able to run back then, giving agile armies like D/Eldar, Tyranids etc. more significance; you had even more power for assault oriented armies due to them being able to sweep into other units and the meta was less mechanized compared to 5th due to vehicles not being as hard to destroy (but for that Eldar vehicles were nigh unkillable)

6th edition shook the game way too hard IMO, introducing a whole array of complicated new rules like different melee weapons, FoC shenanigans (2000+ points), allies, flyers, overwatch etc. and 7th IMO basically said "screw it guys, this is just one huge fragfest now, bring all your toys to the table", while giving special emphasis to the chaos daemons.

2nd. Good scale and model count, in depth but generally sensible rules and it definitely allowed the forging of a good narrative. Beset by the perennial GW issues of poor balance, in some cases extreme inbalance, and cluncky rules but I enjoyed it far more than any later editions.

6th. Much better than 5th, and I have no desire to move to 7th when 6th does exactly what I need it to.

2nd had my favourite core rules. The game was quite unbalanced still, but definitely my favourite basic rules structure. It also had the potential to be balanced, IMO 3rd-7th edition are unbalanced right to the core, you can tweak the armies and get it better than it is now, but I feel like the core rules encourage imbalance more than they encourage balance.

7th. I can now use my Lords of War and Maelstrom games mean every turn counts, and is exciting. I have loads more options for creating fluffy armies.

Having said that I only started in 5th so can't talk about the ones before.

2nd, because I can still remember the rules (to the extent that I still make mistakes like trying to throw grenades) and I still have the card stock scenery.

I voted 2nd because its the set that blew me out of the water. No other set has come close to impressing me until 6th. I am sure most peeps today look at 2nd and its models and want to laugh, but you have to understand that after Rogue Trader, tons of books, and endless White Dwarf articles on the evolving game, 40k was in bit of a mess and really kept me from enjoying it. the 2nd edition box set changed all that by resetting everything and giving everything you needed for awhile in one box. Its hard to explain unless you went thru it. Its kind of clunky today with all of the cards, but small games are a blast to play. Its the last time 40k was colorful and fun, whereas today its all very dark and serious.

Also, each member of a squad could shoot at whatever the hell he wanted. What the hell happened to that. Geez.

7th for me. I started playing in 5th edition and although I enjoyed it, my experience was very limited. I played a lot against necrons, who were very weak back then with their old book, some against marines and a bit of eldar, but that's it.

I kept playing for a while, but I wasn't having that much fun somehow. At around the same time, a bunch of real life stuff came up and I ended up dropping 40K eventually. I don't think 5th edition was awful mind you, but the me back then couldn't for the life of him decide what kind of ork army he really wanted, which made things frustrating.

Now I'm back and I'm liking 7th edition a lot. Maelstrom of war and the inclusion of LoW, fortifications, multi-CAD and unbound makes for great beer and pretzels games, which is what I'm looking for.

Hmm, I guess 7th isn't the train wreck everyone worried about after all. I voted for 7th because it can be whatever you want it to be. If you want apoc with ridiculously OP super heavies, you can have that. If you want to use riptides, wraith knights and flyrants in the same army, you can do that too. If you want to play "standard" 40k with normal force organization, that's also fine. I have yet to run into an issue where people abused the open rules of 7th. It's not great for pick up games but I would much rather play with a group of people I know who won't do anything super cheesy unless that's the kind of game I'm looking for.

Toofast wrote:
Hmm, I guess 7th isn't the train wreck everyone worried about after all.

72% think it's inferior to previous editions - it's about as bad as expected.

 Yonan wrote:
72% think it's inferior to previous editions - it's about as bad as expected.

Math doesn't really work like that.
One could say that 75% think 5th edition is inferior to previous editions.
Does that mean 5th was also a train-wreck?

You're working really hard to portray the numbers in a way that ignores the fact that it is the most preferred edition in this poll. The last time I saw someone skew numbers like that was in the national unemployment rate...

I'm surprised 2nd is so popular given that, being that it's been 16 years since 3rd came out, I figured most people playing now would never have played it.

Toofast wrote:
You're working really hard to portray the numbers in a way that ignores the fact that it is the most preferred edition in this poll. The last time I saw someone skew numbers like that was in the national unemployment rate...

You're working really hard to ignore the fact that GW obviously doesn't make enough overall improvements to their product each edition, given that 72% of people preferred the product in some form previous to its current one.

Toofast wrote:
You're working really hard to portray the numbers in a way that ignores the fact that it is the most preferred edition in this poll. The last time I saw someone skew numbers like that was in the national unemployment rate...

The poll is rather simplistic, you have to take in to account many of the people who don't like 6th and 7th would have quit and thus no longer be on the forum to vote and the fact that 72% of people think the current edition isn't the best is more significant than 74% of people thinking an edition that was replaced 2 years ago isn't the best.

I understand that many have quit, but I think a lot of them still visit the forum (mostly to talk about how GW killed Kennedy, brought the twin towers down, lead a satanic cult, and sacrifice orphaned children to the throne of the emperor). I'm also aware that it is a fairly small sample size and probably not a good measure of the community at large yet. However, reading the popular opinion on this forum and others, I did not expect 7th to be leading or even close to it. I think people, especially wargamers, have a tendency to over exaggerate the potential downside of things and ignore the good side. Many people who bash 7th haven't even played a single game. Everyone I've talked to that actually gave 7th a chance has enjoyed the open ended aspects of the rules.

Plenty of people have been praising 7th ed as well as condemning it, I don't think 30% approval is surprising given the amount of people who praise 7th.

The current 7th is the edition im enjoy the most, 6th got me having fun with the game again but 7th has just boosted that a little more.

5th was my favorite. The game was as balanced as it's ever been, tournaments and events boomed and things were great overall. It could have been better, sure, but compared to everything else it's no contest.

7th was my favorite edition but I loved my 5th-6th Ed Drop pod Nid army list. I never lost with it so that was my favorite army.

You know what, I play 40k for fun. I like to win, I play to win and I design my army list as well as I can. But I'm not "competitive" in a Tournament way or even a "butthurt if I lose" way.

What I find fun is the fact 7th edition lets you do what you want, within reason. It's going more Skyrim rather than Call of Duty singleplayer.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Toofast wrote:
I understand that many have quit, but I think a lot of them still visit the forum (mostly to talk about how GW killed Kennedy, brought the twin towers down, lead a satanic cult, and sacrifice orphaned children to the throne of the emperor). I'm also aware that it is a fairly small sample size and probably not a good measure of the community at large yet. However, reading the popular opinion on this forum and others, I did not expect 7th to be leading or even close to it. I think people, especially wargamers, have a tendency to over exaggerate the potential downside of things and ignore the good side. Many people who bash 7th haven't even played a single game. Everyone I've talked to that actually gave 7th a chance has enjoyed the open ended aspects of the rules.

This, wrapped up in a pretty bow.

I'll admit that the tactical objectives and the maelstrom of war weren't my cup of tea, but after getting used to it, I'm not going back to Eternal War.

most people that quit the game, quit it, they sell the armies, what for would they go to forums about stuff they don't own.

5th was the best for me . 6th was imbalanced becuase of ally matrix. 7th is MSU spam and random galor, not much of a game when losing is due to how good you draw missions cards.

Makumba wrote:
most people that quit the game, quit it, they sell the armies, what for would they go to forums about stuff they don't own.

The people who quit 40k but still come back to the forums tend to be the ones who are still hopeful it will get better or still have money/time enough invested they don't want to walk away. Most my friends who have played and quit over the past 18 or so years don't touch it anymore, they don't come to forums, a couple still have their armies packed away in boxes most have sold them.

Those are the people who's vote aren't being heard.

Nice to see 7th getting some love!

Toofast wrote:
Many people who bash 7th haven't even played a single game.

While I agree playing a game and forming an opinion is better than not, for many people who have been gaming for a while they know without having to play a game what they will and won't like. I must be psychic or something because it took me exactly zero games to decide what aspects of 3rd ed I didn't like and 16 years later and many games later, those aspects still irk me. It took me exactly zero games to decide the aspects of 8th ed Fantasy I didn't like it as much as 7th, my opinion hasn't changed. I'm currently reading through Bolt Action and I'm already picking up things I do and don't like about it, I'm guessing that after several games those things will remain the same.

When it comes to 7th edition, where it's basically just a reworked 6th edition, forming an opinion when you haven't played it but do have experience with previous editions is totally valid.

Maybe other people are just more perceptive than you

I actually really enjoyed 5th. 7th is also fantastic!!! 6 was terrible

Any edition where you actually played your own codex, not some melting pot crap mix of 5 armies. You know..... back when winning was determined during the game, not during list creation.

Toofast wrote:
You're working really hard to portray the numbers in a way that ignores the fact that it is the most preferred edition in this poll. The last time I saw someone skew numbers like that was in the national unemployment rate...

Me thinks that maybe you spoke a bit too soon on this one...

PhantomViper wrote:

Toofast wrote:
You're working really hard to portray the numbers in a way that ignores the fact that it is the most preferred edition in this poll. The last time I saw someone skew numbers like that was in the national unemployment rate...

Me thinks that maybe you spoke a bit too soon on this one...

Ouch, almost twice as many prefer fifth over seventh and just as many prefer fourth. Only 1 in 5 find the latest edition to be the best.

So far its 7th with minimal psychic insanity.