So about a year ago if you asked the majority of gamers whether they liked 5th or 6th better most would say 6th. New models. Allies. New psychic powers. But now, being betrayed by GW, quite a few players and tournament goers are quitting or sadly sticking to it due to years and years of investment. So after a few months of GW pushing us around do we really like 6th that much? Why not switch back to something we know worked? We could even add in the allies chart if we need some meta diversity and get the best of both worlds. Why not? Magic the Gathering has edition dependent tournaments and players thrive in knowing that their meta will never change and yet are still able to enjoy throwing together a vast array of interesting combinations. Wouldn't it be a breathe of fresh air if we were still playing 5th when the rules were designed for us? Bring on 5th edition tournaments! (maybe with allies so the meta doesn't stagnate). Everyone's army could be competitive again!

You mean 4th, right? That's the one that worked.

When somebody says 5th edition, I remember mech parking lots, Leafblower Imperial Guard, Biker nobz, Musical wounds paladins, and grey knights sweeping every damn tournament.

It's hardly better.

if i were going to play an old edition id go back further than 5th thats for sure.

I object to the idea that fifth edition's rules were "designed for us".

 Kain wrote:
When somebody says 5th edition, I remember mech parking lots, Leafblower Imperial Guard, Biker nobz, Musical wounds paladins, and grey knights sweeping every damn tournament.

It's hardly better.

Right, there was a lot wrong with the meta of 5th but wouldn't adding the allies chart fix that?

 lord_blackfang wrote:
You mean 4th, right? That's the one that worked.

So back to Fish of Fury, Necron Doom marches, and invici-skimmers?

I like 6th edition. I just play without Escalation.

 Melissia wrote:
I object to the idea that fifth edition's rules were "designed for us".

Sure. I'm not saying that 5th was necessarily perfect for the everyday gamer but it certainly wasn't as sales oriented as 6th not to mention the current imbalance of codexes (we were imbalanced in 5th too but not to the same extent as today plus the inclusion of the allies chart would fix that, No?).

 KrakenLord86 wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
I object to the idea that fifth edition's rules were "designed for us".

Sure. I'm not saying that 5th was necessarily perfect for the everyday gamer but it certainly wasn't as sales oriented as 6th not to mention the current imbalance of codexes (we were imbalanced in 5th too but not to the same extent as today plus the inclusion of the allies chart would fix that, No?).

The game was never balanced and is essentially unfixable without major changes.

You can either redesign the game from the ground up or acknowledge that the Taudar and Daemons are broken, and thus make every army equally as broken as they are and throw away any hint of restraint.

 KrakenLord86 wrote:
Sure. I'm not saying that 5th was necessarily perfect for the everyday gamer but it certainly wasn't as sales oriented as 6th

I believe there is a meme that encapsulates my response to this assertion:



Ah, yes, there it is.


But seriously no, 5th edition was hilariously focused on sales.

Every edition has problems. Pick the one that irritates you (and your friends) the least. Or just toss some house rules onto 6th.

 usernamesareannoying wrote:
if i were going to play an old edition id go back further than 5th thats for sure.

Touche, sir. I guess my point was really why not switch to a previous edition in order to insure a closed system that tournament players could agree upon that isn't dependent on GW's current shenanigans.

Tournament players aren't dependent on GW's current shenanigans. The TOs can allow or disallow whatever they want. And, as it happens, that's exactly that they've been doing since GW stopped running tournaments.

 Melissia wrote:

 KrakenLord86 wrote:
Sure. I'm not saying that 5th was necessarily perfect for the everyday gamer but it certainly wasn't as sales oriented as 6th

I believe there is a meme that encapsulates my response to this assertion:



Ah, yes, there it is.


But seriously no, 5th edition was hilariously focused on sales.

Sure they were. But have they ever been this bad? Don't think so. And as players adopting a previous edition it's not like we would get into a time machine and re-live our irritation at sales. By the way, I was thinking about resolving tournament meta. Not friendly games where a social contract will always remain prevalent.


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 kronk wrote:
Tournament players aren't dependent on GW's current shenanigans. The TOs can allow or disallow whatever they want. And, as it happens, that's exactly that they've been doing since GW stopped running tournaments.

TOs have indeed always been able to allow or disallow whatever they want. Most notably Forge World and the inclusion of non-GW models. But have they really banned units (other than Forge World) altogether? Banning Forge World is one thing (not really an issue anymore) but TO's are now faced with banning rules and units that would make the very game of 40k indistinguishable from one tournament to another.


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 kronk wrote:
I like 6th edition. I just play without Escalation.

By the way, I play Eldar and love the new models as i like 6th edition as well. I'm just trying to find a solution to save (preserve in this case) the game we all love. And I don't want to deter anyone from playing 6th if they like it. I just think we should check our options if 40k dies in the next year as it has already died for other players.

 Kain wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
You mean 4th, right? That's the one that worked.

So back to Fish of Fury, Necron Doom marches, and invici-skimmers?

Don't forget deathtrap transports. It was also the edition with the most poorly worded rules.

Still, despite its issues, it was the last edition where on-table tactics had anything much to do with your win ratio.

Further back we have BA Rhino Rush and "SM flavour of the month" via Index Astartes. Was fun at the time, but probably only because we didn't know any better.

By the way, I still think that adding the allies chart would fix the any meta archetypes that previous editions may have had. Wouldn't that solve the majority of previous meta issues anyway?

 KrakenLord86 wrote:
By the way, I still think that adding the allies chart would fix the any meta archetypes that previous editions may have had. Wouldn't that solve the majority of previous meta issues anyway?

Allies are one reason that this edition is so mind bogglingly stupid.

Helloooo rose-colored goggles.

I find many of us have a soft spot for the rules we started the game with.

I read-up 2nd edition but only got to start playing in 3rd and I am sure I got the rose colored goggles with that rule set.

6th I think is good, the ability to use psychic powers on other allied units has created some truly nasty combos but liberal use of the nerf hammer would fix a few things if GW could be bothered to create "balance".

I am still partial to the rules for Necromunda so anything I would have to say would be suspect...

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 KrakenLord86 wrote:
By the way, I still think that adding the allies chart would fix the any meta archetypes that previous editions may have had. Wouldn't that solve the majority of previous meta issues anyway?

Allies are one reason that this edition is so mind bogglingly stupid.

Allies are a fun and flavorful way to mix up your army. They are also an excellent way to min/max power lists to the extreme. People will always find the most powerful, most broken things. Allies just give them a bigger toolbox to work from, and make the gap between tuned and casual lists wider. From a casual player POV, I’m glad they are baked into the rules. From someone who keeps tabs on the competitive side of the game, I wish they weren’t.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
You mean 4th, right? That's the one that worked.

Eh, some things worked. Consolidation into combat was a bit ridiculous (see: hopping Harlequins), last man standing (if that's the name for it. I can't remember anymore) was a bit of a drag imo, and three vehicle damage tables was a bit of a handful.

Then again, at least that book had a hobby section and decent rules for wound allocation. No idea why they had to change those into something so convoluted.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 KrakenLord86 wrote:
By the way, I still think that adding the allies chart would fix the any meta archetypes that previous editions may have had. Wouldn't that solve the majority of previous meta issues anyway?

Allies are one reason that this edition is so mind bogglingly stupid.

I know how you feel. Up until recently I was a purist and only played one dex at a time due to my firm belief that the allies chart was a sales ploy to make us buy more armies. And yet I am still a firm believer that a single dex army can still totally work (I still play pure Wolves every now and then). I was just thinking that adding allies to a previous edition would make up for the fact that we would be playing in a closed system without the possibility of new rules/units.

 KrakenLord86 wrote:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 KrakenLord86 wrote:
By the way, I still think that adding the allies chart would fix the any meta archetypes that previous editions may have had. Wouldn't that solve the majority of previous meta issues anyway?

Allies are one reason that this edition is so mind bogglingly stupid.

I know how you feel. Up until recently I was a purist and only played one dex at a time due to my firm belief that the allies chart was a sales ploy to make us buy more armies. And yet I am still a firm believer that a single dex army can still totally work (I still play pure Wolves every now and then). I was just thinking that adding allies to a previous edition would make up for the fact that we would be playing in a closed system without the possibility of new rules/units.

I can certainly agree with this, and with Nevelon's post.

Perhaps the solution then is a generic friendly rule set, and a more restricted competitive rule set. Sort of like how Infinity handles certain units, mercenaries, etc.

Completely lost my mind for a moment:

"5th where rules were made for us"??

Cannot let that go unanswered:

That was the time where they were solidifying the concepts of AP and double your toughness insta-death. This was a time where they were leaning heavily on making rules where most codex entries focused on how it ignored certain rules. A rather lazy method.

5th was a time of just taking 4th with a small update with little thought of how to make cool things inside the rule set.

Kirby saved heavily on his R&D budget with that rehash.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
You mean 4th, right? That's the one that worked.

Eh, some things worked. Consolidation into combat was a bit ridiculous (see: hopping Harlequins), last man standing (if that's the name for it. I can't remember anymore) was a bit of a drag imo, and three vehicle damage tables was a bit of a handful.

Then again, at least that book had a hobby section and decent rules for wound allocation. No idea why they had to change those into something so convoluted.

At least the threat of sweeping advances made you deploy intelligently and not cram a whole army behind one Aegis. It was only a problem for people who couldn't learn to keep their garbage units 7" apart. Now there's no pressure - the whole system is designed to strand melee units in the open after butchering one throwaway unit no matter what.

 Talizvar wrote:
Completely lost my mind for a moment:

"5th where rules were made for us"??

Cannot let that go unanswered:

That was the time where they were solidifying the concepts of AP and double your toughness insta-death. This was a time where they were leaning heavily on making rules where most codex entries focused on how it ignored certain rules. A rather lazy method.

5th was a time of just taking 4th with a small update with little thought of how to make cool things inside the rule set.

Kirby saved heavily on his R&D budget with that rehash.

As previously stated,when I say that "5th was designed for us" this is in comparison it to our current edition.

 KrakenLord86 wrote:

 Talizvar wrote:
Completely lost my mind for a moment:

"5th where rules were made for us"??

Cannot let that go unanswered:

That was the time where they were solidifying the concepts of AP and double your toughness insta-death. This was a time where they were leaning heavily on making rules where most codex entries focused on how it ignored certain rules. A rather lazy method.

5th was a time of just taking 4th with a small update with little thought of how to make cool things inside the rule set.

Kirby saved heavily on his R&D budget with that rehash.

As previously stated,when I say that "5th was designed for us" this is in comparison it to our current edition.

It is still incorrect. 4th ed is more applicable, as at least that edition's rulebook tried to encourage the hobby, with instructions for building your own table or making your own craters. 5th ed and on-wards is now "buy our new gaming table. Forget about building your own. We certainly aren't going to help."

The problem with all the editions is that they all have their own benefits.

From 6th I like allies.
From 5th I liked the changes to blast weapons.
From 4th I prefer the line of sight, none of this silly 'I can fire a Demolisher cannon through a crack in a stain glass window.'
From 3rd I like the sweeping into combat turn after turn. Oh, and having all the army lists in the main book.
I didn't play 2nd, but I like the idea of cards with Warhammer.
From RT? I like the beards.

The rules have changed. A few make you think more in order to successfully play. allies were screwed up by the battles brothers aspect and it being abused. Beyond that, a vast improvement over what was before.
get rid of battle brothers and it is golden.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 KrakenLord86 wrote:

 Talizvar wrote:
Completely lost my mind for a moment:

"5th where rules were made for us"??

Cannot let that go unanswered:

That was the time where they were solidifying the concepts of AP and double your toughness insta-death. This was a time where they were leaning heavily on making rules where most codex entries focused on how it ignored certain rules. A rather lazy method.

5th was a time of just taking 4th with a small update with little thought of how to make cool things inside the rule set.

Kirby saved heavily on his R&D budget with that rehash.

As previously stated,when I say that "5th was designed for us" this is in comparison it to our current edition.

It is still incorrect. 4th ed is more applicable, as at least that edition's rulebook tried to encourage the hobby, with instructions for building your own table or making your own craters. 5th ed and on-wards is now "buy our new gaming table. Forget about building your own. We certainly aren't going to help."

Ok. I can agree with that. The important thing in my mind is just the idea of having an edition dependent tournament that uses a previous edition in order to avoid the disorder of the current one. To be honest I took a big break in 5th. The majority of my playing (and admittably my best games) was back in 3rd and 4th.


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 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 KrakenLord86 wrote:

 Talizvar wrote:
Completely lost my mind for a moment:

"5th where rules were made for us"??

Cannot let that go unanswered:

That was the time where they were solidifying the concepts of AP and double your toughness insta-death. This was a time where they were leaning heavily on making rules where most codex entries focused on how it ignored certain rules. A rather lazy method.

5th was a time of just taking 4th with a small update with little thought of how to make cool things inside the rule set.

Kirby saved heavily on his R&D budget with that rehash.

As previously stated,when I say that "5th was designed for us" this is in comparison it to our current edition.

It is still incorrect. 4th ed is more applicable, as at least that edition's rulebook tried to encourage the hobby, with instructions for building your own table or making your own craters. 5th ed and on-wards is now "buy our new gaming table. Forget about building your own. We certainly aren't going to help."

Ok. I can agree with that. The important thing in my mind is just the idea of having an edition dependent tournament that uses a previous edition in order to avoid the disorder of the current one. To be honest I took a big break in 5th. The majority of my playing (and admittably my best games) was back in 3rd and 4th.

You are looking at 5th through some seriously rose-colored glasses. By the end of 5th edition people were bored. Absolutely bored.

If there is one thing you can say now... no one is bored!

I was bored! Then I tried fifth 5th edition! Where you have to finish a fifth of Vodka before round 5 ends!

Ok. I can agree with that. The important thing in my mind is just the idea of having an edition dependent tournament that uses a previous edition in order to avoid the disorder of the current one. To be honest I took a big break in 5th. The majority of my playing (and admittably my best games) was back in 3rd and 4th.

Then go start your own 5th-Ed-Only Tournaments?

... but realize that it cuts a bunch of armies out of the picture, or leaves them stranded with a Codex that was, at the time, 2 editions old.

5th Edition made us realize GW wasn't interested in fixing 4th Edition as much as just changing the game...again. So we "fixed" the things we didn't like in 4th and have added what we liked in 5th and 6th as well as implemented tweaks of our own. We'll probably never buy GW rules again, much less play them.

I personally enjoy 6th edition for the most part. Admittingly, there are some rules that irk me but I tend to house rule those in the casual setting (I'll let my bro still assault with his genestealers off an outflank/infiltrate, if there were ever a unit that should be able to do so, it's them and lictors imo).

I generally like 6th edition rules better.
If only GW would cut some of the "Battle Brothers" crap, 40K would be a much better place.
Random charge length and no charge from unmoved vehicles are the current rules i particularl dislike

The bones of 6th is good, you can see some lessons learned there from prior rule sets.
.
The issue is that the pressure of the marketing department is forcing changes on the developers where they may not have been needed or at least given proper time to develop (Death from the skies: you need more fliers! honest!, Escalation: You want all those big plastic models!, Stronghold Assault: Just in time for that TON of new defensive terrain).

Since Apocalypse has been an underwhelming success incorporating these new models into the core 40k rules is a stroke of genius: now you cannot play WITHOUT THEM! We call them "gods of war" after all...

My first army is Chaos Marines and I still cannot bring myself to buy the "Khorn Mower"... $190 ye gods!

It really is getting more critical to enter a negotiation of terms prior to creating an army list with your opponent.

My only challenge is running into people who have the view "I can play whatever I want according to the rules, how dare you try to impose limitations!!!"... Okayyyyy, X-wing it is.

Armor was absurd in 5th. Now MCs are absurd. Can we just get a rules set where NOTHING is absurd?

 amanita wrote:
5th Edition made us realize GW wasn't interested in fixing 4th Edition as much as just changing the game...again. So we "fixed" the things we didn't like in 4th and have added what we liked in 5th and 6th as well as implemented tweaks of our own. We'll probably never buy GW rules again, much less play them.

You use the term "we" so much that I've started to think that you're all some sort of fungoid hive mind (based on your avatar), it's off topic, but it's an amusing conception I've developed of you.

 kronk wrote:
I like 6th edition. I just play without Escalation.

Here here!

 KrakenLord86 wrote:
Sure they were. But have they ever been this bad?

Yes.

In fifth edition, in fact.

Martel732 wrote:
Armor was absurd in 5th. Now MCs are absurd. Can we just get a rules set where NOTHING is absurd?

Armor in and of itself wasn't absurd in 5th. Nobody complained about Predators, Land Raiders, Leman Russ Tanks, Hammerheads, etc. It was ultra cheap transports that honked people off. Instead of addressing those in the relevant codex books, they just hamfisted all vehicles

Likewise, MC's now aren't absurd by dint of the core MC rules, it's having MC's with huge numbers of wounds and outstanding saves, often in multiples and available in every FoC slot, that's absurd

 KrakenLord86 wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 KrakenLord86 wrote:
Sure. I'm not saying that 5th was necessarily perfect for the everyday gamer but it certainly wasn't as sales oriented as 6th

I believe there is a meme that encapsulates my response to this assertion:



Ah, yes, there it is.


But seriously no, 5th edition was hilariously focused on sales.

Sure they were. But have they ever been this bad? Don't think so. And as players adopting a previous edition it's not like we would get into a time machine and re-live our irritation at sales. By the way, I was thinking about resolving tournament meta. Not friendly games where a social contract will always remain prevalent.


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 kronk wrote:
Tournament players aren't dependent on GW's current shenanigans. The TOs can allow or disallow whatever they want. And, as it happens, that's exactly that they've been doing since GW stopped running tournaments.

TOs have indeed always been able to allow or disallow whatever they want. Most notably Forge World and the inclusion of non-GW models. But have they really banned units (other than Forge World) altogether? Banning Forge World is one thing (not really an issue anymore) but TO's are now faced with banning rules and units that would make the very game of 40k indistinguishable from one tournament to another.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kronk wrote:
I like 6th edition. I just play without Escalation.

By the way, I play Eldar and love the new models as i like 6th edition as well. I'm just trying to find a solution to save (preserve in this case) the game we all love. And I don't want to deter anyone from playing 6th if they like it. I just think we should check our options if 40k dies in the next year as it has already died for other players.

Yeah. Yeah it was this bad. Need I remind you of the fact that daemons had a high chance of being auto tabled turn one against GK?

Second Edition is great as a skirmish ruleset between friends who agree not to abuse the rules, but does not handle large forces or the trust needed to play other people at a LGS.

4th edition is my absolute favorite if I want the full-scale 40K experience. Skimmer spam is a problem, but I would be the only skimmer guy, and I have a troop-and jetbike heavy Eldar army with a whopping two grav-tanks involved- so not an issue. 4th edition just fixed the things wrong with 3rd, like the assault rules.

5th edition was just the road to 6th as far as I am considered. Lots of the same stuff wrong, but then 6th edition went and invented new additional stuff to be wrong, too.

... also realize that the Necron Codex that came out just before the end of 5E was written with 6th in mind, and caused a lot of people to flip their lids when it came out. Looking back, that seems almost quaint now.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Armor was absurd in 5th. Now MCs are absurd. Can we just get a rules set where NOTHING is absurd?

Armor in and of itself wasn't absurd in 5th. Nobody complained about Predators, Land Raiders, Leman Russ Tanks, Hammerheads, etc. It was ultra cheap transports that honked people off. Instead of addressing those in the relevant codex books, they just hamfisted all vehicles

Likewise, MC's now aren't absurd by dint of the core MC rules, it's having MC's with huge numbers of wounds and outstanding saves, often in multiples and available in every FoC slot, that's absurd

Nobody gripes about TMCs even though we had monstrous creatures before it was cool.

 Psienesis wrote:
... also realize that the Necron Codex that came out just before the end of 5E was written with 6th in mind, and caused a lot of people to flip their lids when it came out. Looking back, that seems almost quaint now.

Flying croissant spam is still pretty dangerous. Nothing quaint about the Necrons.

There is much less ass-chappery directed towards the Necrons than other armies. That is what I find quaint.

It's simple: the Necrons usually win against me, but don't table me. Tau and Eldar with some solid rolling can table marines and make it clear that I never had a chance.

cvtuttle wrote:You are looking at 5th through some seriously rose-colored glasses. By the end of 5th edition people were bored. Absolutely bored.

If there is one thing you can say now... no one is bored!

Oh very this.
I was incredibly bored.
To the point I so bored, I basically stopped playing Dark Eldar in the few months before 6th was released and how bored I was with them in that edition (literally every single game was identical), and it tainted my interest in them so badly that I'm only JUST starting to take them off the shelf again.

At the end of the day, I like 6th. If you're not some WAAC douchebag, and you're not playing Tournaments (which aren't going to be fun.
Literally no seriously competitive scene I've gone to has been anything aproaching fun. It's called seriously competitive for a reason. People are there to win and nothing else.)

But generally, in pick up games, they've all felt close, they've all been interesting, and I've felt like I've been in it the whole 5-7 turns with a chance regardless of the outcome.
You can now use damn near anything, Forgeworld is widely accepted, and you can create more interesting combinations.

I mean really, you can draw from the following list of source material:34 Army Lists and 24 Chapter Tactics to draw from.
There's a huge variety of armies, units and fluffy stuff to choose from.

And you can take these in a large variety of ways:The 0+ formations is a bit silly, but otherwise, I find it nice and open allowing for very interesting lists.

5th was a good, intuitive edition. The only thing I hated there was 20 gants behind a wall and one among them visible - you can shoot all of them. I was enthusiastic about 6th at some point but atm I find it being just a chore also luckfest.

 Kain wrote:

 amanita wrote:
5th Edition made us realize GW wasn't interested in fixing 4th Edition as much as just changing the game...again. So we "fixed" the things we didn't like in 4th and have added what we liked in 5th and 6th as well as implemented tweaks of our own. We'll probably never buy GW rules again, much less play them.

You use the term "we" so much that I've started to think that you're all some sort of fungoid hive mind (based on your avatar), it's off topic, but it's an amusing conception I've developed of you.

You...will be...assimilated!

Yes, well actually I refer to the regular group of players (fun guys?) I play with...in a dank basement. Sorry for the confusion.

We play 6th here and love it.

We play no allies, superheavies or dataslate formations and it is awesome!

5th Edition made us realize GW wasn't interested in fixing 4th Edition as much as just changing the game...again. So we "fixed" the things we didn't like in 4th and have added what we liked in 5th and 6th as well as implemented tweaks of our own. We'll probably never buy GW rules again, much less play them.

I feel the same way. 4e seemed both better balanced and far more tactical (in no small part due to having no TLOS so terrain actually broke up LOS). That isn't to say it didn't have its problems, the vehicle damage rules weren't very good as many posters have already pointed out, and you also had other silly rules like last man standing checks and target priority checks that I am glad they did away with. I also like increase mission variety the new editions have brought. Unfortunately, with each improvement they made it seems they take an even bigger step back. Line of sight, wound allocation (well at least that got better going from 5e to 6e), kill points, vehicle shooting rules, and assault consolidation all got screwed up big time. I also felt the 4e codices were better balanced against each other than those that came later.

If I have to be fair though, most of the faults I find with 40k relate to the rules transition between 4e and 5e. I am not really bother by most of the changes going from 5e and 6e, and I even approve of some of them, such as hull points and no assaulting out of reserves (I know its and assault nerf and an edition were assault suck, but I do not think assault should be fixed by letting assaulters charge out of outflank/deepstrike or anything similar). LOS was botched in 5e and hasn't really been changed. Wound allocation is awful, but it was even worse in 5e. Kill points are still around, but now they only account for 1/6 of the missions. My biggest problem is flyers, and that has more to do with the balance across codices than the flyer rules themselves, although I think it is ridiculous a normal vehicle can only fire a single weapon at full BS if it moved at all versus a flyer firing four under any condition. Feels like the normal vehicles were crippled in favor of flyers.

The one thing I did like about 5e is I felt the codices they released were interesting and lended themselves to a good variety of playstyles. Too bad they release schedule was so slow, and that the majority of them were Imperium codices, and they weren't balanced against all the 4e codices that half the armies still used. However, the 5e rules in and of themselves were absolutely rubbish, and 5e was by an large an edition where Imperium armies got to curb stomp non-Imperial codices by playing 5e dexes against 4e dexes.

As with most cases when people as this question on the forum, it really isn't the edition that sucks. More likely, it's your meta that sucks.

Phanixis wrote:
...(in no small part due to having no TLOS so terrain actually broke up LOS). ...

You were playing it wrong then... 4th edition had TLOS, it just used a different system for area terrain and close combats. A lot of players misread the LOS rules, though, and either accidentally or deliberately (because they preferred it that way) applied the size categories to the whole game.


True LOS has been the core of the shooting system since Rogue Trader. It's just the specifics of how it is applied that have changed. For my money, the 5th edition system of 'If you're partially obscured, you're in cover' was the best to date, since every other edition has required some sort of percentage of the model to be covered, which is just painful.

The funniest part of the original post here is that "GW betrayed us" by putting out lots of new stuff rapidly - just like we asked for.

 Gunzhard wrote:
The funniest part of the original post here is that "GW betrayed us" by putting out lots of new stuff rapidly - just like we asked for.

While I'm not entirely sure whay he meant by the 'betrayal', the original post doesn't mention rapid releases as being the problem at all.



The problem with 6th edition isn't the pace of the new releases. It's the quality of them.

Phanixis wrote:
...(in no small part due to having no TLOS so terrain actually broke up LOS). ...

You were playing it wrong then... 4th edition had TLOS, it just used a different system for area terrain and close combats. A lot of players misread the LOS rules, though, and either accidentally or deliberately (because they preferred it that way) applied the size categories to the whole game.


True LOS has been the core of the shooting system since Rogue Trader. It's just the specifics of how it is applied that have changed. For my money, the 5th edition system of 'If you're partially obscured, you're in cover' was the best to date, since every other edition has required some sort of percentage of the model to be covered, which is just painful.

What happened was that most players simply defined all the terrain on the board as area terrain, thus essentially turning the whole board into abstracted line of sight. The fact that this was such a wide practice and so popular with the vast majority of players (area terrain was pretty much used by everyone without exception were I lived) should have been a less than subtle hint at which set of rules were superior and which direction to take future editions in. It vastly improved tactical play by breaking up lines of fire and preventing alpha strikes, and made assault units more practical. Losing the ability to run abstracted terrain was probably the worst thing that happened to this game, TLOS lends itself to static gunlines and just using volume of fire in place of actual maneuvering. I would love to see the game taken in the opposite direction, not only restoring area terrain but using an entirely abstracting system so terrain can play a bigger role in the game.

Phanixis wrote:What happened was that most players simply defined all the terrain on the board as area terrain,....

Maybe where you were playing. My experience, and most discussion on the forums at the time, suggests otherwise.

It's not a matter of opinion that 6th Edition has thus far proved to be a massive cash-grab compared to 5th edition.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that 5th edition was better.

5th edition was a mess of rules. you read the rules along with other stuff the rules where put into the middle of, then spend 3-40mins(yes 40mins arguing was the longest my LFG argued on one rule)

6th edition is a mess of rules, you read the rules along with other stuff the rules where put into the middle of.........<.<..........>.>.........*whisper's* but unlike the 5th the rules in this edition are in bold letters, taking away most of the arguments.

 insaniak wrote:

Phanixis wrote:
...(in no small part due to having no TLOS so terrain actually broke up LOS). ...

You were playing it wrong then... 4th edition had TLOS, it just used a different system for area terrain and close combats. A lot of players misread the LOS rules, though, and either accidentally or deliberately (because they preferred it that way) applied the size categories to the whole game.


True LOS has been the core of the shooting system since Rogue Trader. It's just the specifics of how it is applied that have changed. For my money, the 5th edition system of 'If you're partially obscured, you're in cover' was the best to date, since every other edition has required some sort of percentage of the model to be covered, which is just painful.

Woods and ruins were area terrain by default, I'm pretty sure. And area terrain blocked LOS. Units also blocked LOS to units of the same or smaller size class. Most importantly, models there were not in LOS could not be killed. There was actually a reason to maneuver. You're telling me that 5th's "doesn't matter where you stand, you can always, always be shot, so the guy with the bigger gun wins" is better?

5th edition era was in many ways very straightforward. There were lots of abstractions in the rules which were designed to simplify the game but made very little sense (aforementioned "see one molecule from the squad -> shoot everyone". Scenarios were very simple. All the rules were in the Codeci, which were often quite simple (though they got more complex towards the end): there were no Chapter Approved, no White Dwarf rules, ForgeWorld was usually banned etc.

On the other hand, there were weird quirks in the rules. Such as horrible Wound allocation, or confusing close combat rules regarding IC's. FAQs were very poor until they hired some new guy mid-edition to take care of them. Lots of people thought that 5th edition was too "slick". Most Codices designed for 5th edition felt bland, boring and simplified. Missions were very simple. There were no equivalent for old WD or modern ebook supplements.

I suspect many feel GW has gone too much to other extreme by jumbling the game with boatloads of new stuff. But make no mistake, very much opposite feelings were in place over much of the 5th.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Woods and ruins were area terrain by default, I'm pretty sure.

They were, yes. Most other terrain wasn't.

Units also blocked LOS to units of the same or smaller size class.

Only if they were in close combat.

The rest of the time, infantry didn't block LOS at all, and vehicles blocked LOS by their actual profile, as they do now.

You're telling me that 5th's "doesn't matter where you stand, you can always, always be shot, so the guy with the bigger gun wins" is better?

If that was your experience with 5th edition, you weren't using enough terrain.

Early in the 5th edition, there was widespread bemoaning how shooty armies were nerfed. 4+ cover save was easy to get and since Wound allocation allowed you to remove models from the back, it was much easier to get units into combat. This was especially true for then-new Ork Codex, which swept the floor with Tau and Space Marines. Multi-assault was particularly devastating.

 insaniak wrote:

Only if they were in close combat.

Right, I was thinking of 3rd I guess? 4th had target priority tests.

If that was your experience with 5th edition, you weren't using enough terrain.

And by terrain you mean huge, solid bricks? Because that's the only thing that makes a difference in 5th and 6th, and only if it's big enough to completely hide the whole unit behind. Because if even a single elbow is sticking out, everyone in the unit can be killed.

And no, I didn't like 4th just because I was "playing it wrong" nor do I hate 5th and 6th just because I'm "playing it wrong". We always had the amount of terrain as prescribed in the book and of mixed types (area terrain of different heights, flat difficult ground, solid bricks). Did you?

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Right, I was thinking of 3rd I guess? 4th had target priority tests.

3rd edition, models just blocked LOS up to twice their own physical height.

And by terrain you mean huge, solid bricks?

Enclosed buildings, large hills, tall wall sections... yes, stuff that actually blocks LOS. The rulebook even told players to use some of this sort of terrain in the mix.

And no, I didn't like 4th just because I was "playing it wrong" nor do I hate 5th and 6th just because I'm "playing it wrong".

I never said that you did.

We always had the amount of terrain as prescribed in the book and of mixed types (area terrain of different heights, flat difficult ground, solid bricks). Did you?

Usually. I've always had a tendency to cram as much terrain on the board as possible, because in every edition since I started (which was 2nd ed) I've found that it made for a better game. Some of the tournaments I played in were a bit light on... but the prevalence of easy cover saves generally made up for it in 5th ed.

My experience from 5th, and what seemed to be the general opinion online, was that 5th was much more geared towards assault, even with the LOS rules you disliked.

 welshhoppo wrote:
The problem with all the editions is that they all have their own benefits.

From 6th I like allies.
From 5th I liked the changes to blast weapons.
From 4th I prefer the line of sight, none of this silly 'I can fire a Demolisher cannon through a crack in a stain glass window.'
From 3rd I like the sweeping into combat turn after turn. Oh, and having all the army lists in the main book.
I didn't play 2nd, but I like the idea of cards with Warhammer.
From RT? I like the beards.

Just not the Warp Deck for getting warp points and nullifies.. Dear gods, please never bring that back.
I do kind of miss the old strategy cards from 2nd though, horribly unbalanced and completely broken against a few armies.

 insaniak wrote:

My experience from 5th, and what seemed to be the general opinion online, was that 5th was much more geared towards assault, even with the LOS rules you disliked.

I wasn't even really thinking of shooting/assault balance, though. My complaint is that TLOS (especially coupled with its one particular exception, removal of casualties from outside LOS) made maneuvering irrelevant. I long for the days where a fast, fragile army could use terrain to isolate enemy units (for either shooty or choppy death) and minimize return fire. Not with TLOS. There's no room on a 4x6 for a brick that could physically hide a whole DE Raider, or a decent bike squadron. And GW keeps compensating by adding more and more passive defenses (Jink, Flicker Fields, etc...) that in turn make it even less relevant where you are in relation to your attacker, increasing the reliance on lucky save rolls instead of good tactics, and makes all armies play the same. Roll to hit, roll saves. Done.

Rumbleguts wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:
The problem with all the editions is that they all have their own benefits.

From 6th I like allies.
From 5th I liked the changes to blast weapons.
From 4th I prefer the line of sight, none of this silly 'I can fire a Demolisher cannon through a crack in a stain glass window.'
From 3rd I like the sweeping into combat turn after turn. Oh, and having all the army lists in the main book.
I didn't play 2nd, but I like the idea of cards with Warhammer.
From RT? I like the beards.

Just not the Warp Deck for getting warp points and nullifies.. Dear gods, please never bring that back.
I do kind of miss the old strategy cards from 2nd though, horribly unbalanced and completely broken against a few armies.

Just a few, and they patched out a few (Though the Nid cards were scary always..Especially the one that was basically you psykers)

 insaniak wrote:

Phanixis wrote:
...(in no small part due to having no TLOS so terrain actually broke up LOS). ...

You were playing it wrong then... 4th edition had TLOS, it just used a different system for area terrain and close combats. A lot of players misread the LOS rules, though, and either accidentally or deliberately (because they preferred it that way) applied the size categories to the whole game.

Actually they were not wrong. The 4th ed rule book says that it was up to players to define terrain before the game started. So if people decided to declare all terrain "area terrain" then it was perfectly acceptable. Which is what TOs in my area did to avoid any problems during tournaments. The 4th ed size system was also very easy to follow.


Like many around here I started playing back in 2nd ed and played regularly through all of the following edditions. When 6th hit, it pretty much killed 40k in my area which has 3-4 stores to play in depending on how far you want to drive. Now people dropped off for a variety of reasons, but the majority of them were due to the overly complex and random rules of 6th. In the past year I have seen a lot of people switch to warmahordes, x-wing, and Attack Wing, favoring less complicated rules systems.

I have been rereading some of the older BRB lately and in all 4th does seem like the best basic system at 91 pages of rules. 5th is not bad at 98 pages of rules, I prefer its vehicle rules, but its terrain and wound allocation rules drag out the game and lead to disputes. 6th drags out too much with its 200ish pages of redundant complexity.

To the OP I for one would love to see some retro 4th ed tournaments.

I don't think any of the previous editions were more 'straightforward' but they were certainly more stable - meaning you had to wait several months before anything changed; and at the time nobody perceived that as a good thing. Careful what you wish for yeh?

 Mr. S Baldrick wrote:
Actually they were not wrong. The 4th ed rule book says that it was up to players to define terrain before the game started. So if people decided to declare all terrain "area terrain" then it was perfectly acceptable.

Yes and no... Every edition of the game has mentioned a need for players to discuss terrain before the game to avoid misunderstandings. But that's intended to make sure that both players are looking at stuff the same way, not so that you can class stuff as something completely inappropriate.

If you're playing exclusively with area terrain, that's one thing... but classifying stuff that shouldn't be area terrain as area terrain leads to weirdness.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
There's no room on a 4x6 for a brick that could physically hide a whole DE Raider, or a decent bike squadron.

Not that will hide it from the entire rest of the table, no... but nor should there be.

Any decent sized ruin will give such units temporary cover though.

 insaniak wrote:

 Mr. S Baldrick wrote:
Actually they were not wrong. The 4th ed rule book says that it was up to players to define terrain before the game started. So if people decided to declare all terrain "area terrain" then it was perfectly acceptable.

Yes and no... Every edition of the game has mentioned a need for players to discuss terrain before the game to avoid misunderstandings. But that's intended to make sure that both players are looking at stuff the same way, not so that you can class stuff as something completely inappropriate.

If you're playing exclusively with area terrain, that's one thing... but classifying stuff that shouldn't be area terrain as area terrain leads to weirdness.

What is wierd about it? You can see 6 inches in and 6 out. No matter the size you cannot see completely through. Terrain X is size 3, terrain Y is size 2, terrain Z is size 1 apply saves as prescribed in the book. Out side of terrain is LOS.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
You mean 4th, right? That's the one that worked.

I think you mean 2nd. A cleaned up version would be most welcome.

Am I the only one that likes the codexs coming out in a timely manner?

Granted, I don't like the low quality lately, but the speed of releases is not something I take an issue with. Quite the opposite in fact.

 MWHistorian wrote:
Am I the only one that likes the codexs coming out in a timely manner?

I think it's for the better.

 Melissia wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
Am I the only one that likes the codexs coming out in a timely manner?

I think it's for the better.

Ask the Tyranid players about that.

 MWHistorian wrote:
Am I the only one that likes the codexs coming out in a timely manner?

Granted, I don't like the low quality lately, but the speed of releases is not something I take an issue with. Quite the opposite in fact.

Faster codex release is amazing, I like the way new books are going too. Less "end all" rules being seen. In 5th edition, instant death and eternal warrior were everywhere. Feel no pain and removed from play could be found all over as well. Removed from play was just a giant cluster gak (in my area at least).
6th edition has removed a LOT of the EW and instant death. Seems like only the best of the best get EW, and very few weapons are straight up instant death. Feel no pain was toned down and cleared up, and removed from play seems to be getting removed from the game. While there are still some inconsistency, 6th has been a lot easier to pick up an army and play than 5th was. To me, 5th was the nightmare of parking lots (I can only imagine how invincible my necron AV13 list would have been)


Everything looks great through rose tinted glasses.

Martel732 wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
Am I the only one that likes the codexs coming out in a timely manner?

I think it's for the better.

Ask the Tyranid players about that.

That's probably why I said I don't like the low quality of certain releases.

 Mr. S Baldrick wrote:
What is wierd about it? You can see 6 inches in and 6 out. No matter the size you cannot see completely through. Terrain X is size 3, terrain Y is size 2, terrain Z is size 1 apply saves as prescribed in the book. Out side of terrain is LOS.

The weird part comes with treating enclosed buildings or hills as area terrain, since it allows models to move through them.

It's also a little peculiar for free-standing 'scatter' terrain (individual wall sections, piles of crates, rocks, sort of thing) that don't cover any actual significant real estate to be treated as area terrain.

 insaniak wrote:

 Mr. S Baldrick wrote:
What is wierd about it? You can see 6 inches in and 6 out. No matter the size you cannot see completely through. Terrain X is size 3, terrain Y is size 2, terrain Z is size 1 apply saves as prescribed in the book. Out side of terrain is LOS.

The weird part comes with treating enclosed buildings or hills as area terrain, since it allows models to move through them.

It's also a little peculiar for free-standing 'scatter' terrain (individual wall sections, piles of crates, rocks, sort of thing) that don't cover any actual significant real estate to be treated as area terrain.

why would closed buildings be a problem, both sides can only see up to 6 inches and take difficult terrain to move through them, just deside before hand what level it is. As for hedges, pipes, and sandbag type stuff just use it as is, terrain. I even believe there is a recommendation in tje book to not count anything less than an inch or 2 wide are regulare terrain.

Martel732 wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
Am I the only one that likes the codexs coming out in a timely manner?

I think it's for the better.

Ask the Tyranid players about that.

Better yet, ask the Sisters players their opinion on not getting a codex out in a timely manner.

No, seriously, ask. I need a good laugh.

 Palindrome wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
You mean 4th, right? That's the one that worked.

I think you mean 2nd. A cleaned up version would be most welcome.

2nd? The one with the Plague Card, Tyranid pysker exploding card, and where flying jetpack equipped Eldar conquered the day?

 Mr. S Baldrick wrote:
why would closed buildings be a problem, both sides can only see up to 6 inches and take difficult terrain to move through them, just deside before hand what level it is.

It's an issue when a model tries to finish its movement inside the terrain. And while moving through buildings isn't that way out (although they were generally treated as impassable) moving right through a hill certainly is.

As for hedges, pipes, and sandbag type stuff just use it as is, terrain. I even believe there is a recommendation in tje book to not count anything less than an inch or 2 wide are regulare terrain.

The book also had recommendations for what should and shouldn't count as area terrain. If you're ignoring the rulebook recommendations and just counting everything as area terrain, that doesn't help much.

Although I am far from happy with 6th edition, the whole discussion of which edition is better is a rather subjective issue.
The fact that all editions have had severe balance and codex creep issues makes the enjoyment of he game largely dependant on your meta.

Personally my vote goes to 4th edition.
The rules were streamlined, most if not all armies had a codex, supplements were abundant, and the hobby element reigned supreme.
And most importantly it was affordable!
Even as a economically challenged student I owned almost every codex and supplement.
A feat I'm not likely to manage in 6th.
Sure they didn't have the fluff content the current codices have, but that was what the WD was for!

 Frank&Stein wrote:
The rules were streamlined, ...

And yet somehow still appalingly full of holes.

4th edition was the edition that made me pack everything away and wait it out to see if the next one would be better. The sheer quantity of rules issues that cropped up in that edition was just too off-putting.

That's what put me off 6th as well. 5th was already super hard for me to learn everything for, and 6th seems to have just made it worse.

 insaniak wrote:

 Frank&Stein wrote:
The rules were streamlined, ...

And yet somehow still appalingly full of holes.

4th edition was the edition that made me pack everything away and wait it out to see if the next one would be better. The sheer quantity of rules issues that cropped up in that edition was just too off-putting.

I'm guessing your stuff is still packed away then.

 gwarsh41 wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
Am I the only one that likes the codexs coming out in a timely manner?

Granted, I don't like the low quality lately, but the speed of releases is not something I take an issue with. Quite the opposite in fact.

Faster codex release is amazing, I like the way new books are going too. Less "end all" rules being seen. In 5th edition, instant death and eternal warrior were everywhere. Feel no pain and removed from play could be found all over as well. Removed from play was just a giant cluster gak (in my area at least).
6th edition has removed a LOT of the EW and instant death. Seems like only the best of the best get EW, and very few weapons are straight up instant death. Feel no pain was toned down and cleared up, and removed from play seems to be getting removed from the game. While there are still some inconsistency, 6th has been a lot easier to pick up an army and play than 5th was. To me, 5th was the nightmare of parking lots (I can only imagine how invincible my necron AV13 list would have been)


Everything looks great through rose tinted glasses.

Does Ignore Cover count as "end all"?

Otherwise I agree, the faster pace of releases is great. Its pathology is dataslates though.

 Frank&Stein wrote:

I'm guessing your stuff is still packed away then.

Very close to it. 5th edition got me back into the game, in a big way. It still had its share of rules issues, but not to the same extent as 4th edition. But then 6th ed came along, and after a promising start, as the 6th ed codexes started coming out I found it a lot harder to maintain an interest. If it wasn't for an unexpected opportunity to get over to Adepticon again this year, I would have probably either dropped the game until 7th ed, or reverted to a slightly modified 5th ed and just stuck to playing at home with friends.

 Frank&Stein wrote:
Although I am far from happy with 6th edition, the whole discussion of which edition is better is a rather subjective issue.
The fact that all editions have had severe balance and codex creep issues makes the enjoyment of he game largely dependant on your meta.

Personally my vote goes to 4th edition.
The rules were streamlined, most if not all armies had a codex, supplements were abundant, and the hobby element reigned supreme.
And most importantly it was affordable!
Even as a economically challenged student I owned almost every codex and supplement.
A feat I'm not likely to manage in 6th.
Sure they didn't have the fluff content the current codices have, but that was what the WD was for!

I find this comment very strange - I actually thought the 4th Ed ruleset was quite nice, but I remember, most armies NOT having a codex and waiting painfully long for the slightest whisper of an update/FAQ. The game/meta had evolved so much between codex that the creep-effect was huge.

At least around here tournaments/events came to a grinding halt. But you are right about one thing, at least compared to today - it was more affordable. I bought several armies that I am only just now building during that time.

I prefer 6th Edition over all others. They should keep the Allied chart except get rid of "Battle Brother's option" and give Nids some allies.

 fables429 wrote:
I prefer 6th Edition over all others. They should keep the Allied chart except get rid of "Battle Brother's option" and give Nids some allies.

Sounds good to me...

You're telling me that 5th's "doesn't matter where you stand, you can always, always be shot, so the guy with the bigger gun wins" is better?

If that was your experience with 5th edition, you weren't using enough terrain.

It is not the amount of terrain that is the problem, but rather what you are using for terrain. For instance, a forest, which under 4e area terrain rules could easily be used to conceal a vehicle from LOS, is absolutely useless for denying LOS under TLOS. It is just a few trees on a flat base after all. You could fill the board with forest and it wouldn't matter, you could still fire clean across the board and the only consequence would be that your opponent would claim either a 4+ (5e) or 5+ (6e) cover save. If this problem was just limited to forest it wouldn't be a problem, but you can shoot through almost anything: forest, craters, debris fields, walls/hedges, etc. Hills would work if they were even remotely to scale, but most I have encountered only go up to about shoulder height and small based models, which is at most a cover save. Ruins are probably your best bet, but even they are filled with windows and you only need to see part of an enemy model through a single window to establish LOS. The only time I encounter proper LOS denying terrain is from handmade models made by local players, they will often be made from boxes and cans with solid bodies that actually obstruct LOS, but most terrain that is actually purchased (especially GW terrain) is terrible for blocking LOS.

I don't think any of the previous editions were more 'straightforward' but they were certainly more stable - meaning you had to wait several months before anything changed; and at the time nobody perceived that as a good thing. Careful what you wish for yeh?

This had less to do with the need for constant change and more to do with the desire for a level playing field. Codex creep is a very real thing in this game and the codices released in 5th edition, especially ones like IG and SW, just utterly crushed older 4e codices. When players asked for an accelerated release schedule, what they were really asking for is a 5e codex for their army, so they did not get curb stomped every time they went up against one of the stronger 5e codices. Under 5e, you got 2 maybe 3 codex releases a year, and every other one was always a Space Marine variant, so those needing codex updates to keep up with the 5e armies, such as Dark Eldar, Necrons and Tau, ended up waiting a very long time to be brought in line.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of being able to shoot through forests either, but this:

Phanixis wrote:
If this problem was just limited to forest it wouldn't be a problem, but you can shoot through almost anything: forest, craters, debris fields, walls/hedges, etc.

...isn't true from most of my gaming. The tournaments I played in regularly had ruins, walls, rocky outcrops, crystal growths, and all sorts of other LOS blocking terrain. For my games at home, I have a number of Land Raider or larger sized ruins that perform the same job.

Hills would work if they were even remotely to scale, but most I have encountered only go up to about shoulder height and small based models, which is at most a cover save.

That's not a hill then, that's a mound

Yeah, I'm not a fan of being able to shoot through forests either, but this:
Phanixis wrote:
If this problem was just limited to forest it wouldn't be a problem, but you can shoot through almost anything: forest, craters, debris fields, walls/hedges, etc.

...isn't true from most of my gaming. The tournaments I played in regularly had ruins, walls, rocky outcrops, crystal growths, and all sorts of other LOS blocking terrain. For my games at home, I have a number of Land Raider or larger sized ruins that perform the same job.

That is some quality terrain. I wish that type of terrain was common were I game, sadly I have to make do with smaller or more porous (for lack of a better word) terrain that just doesn't cut it in TLOS environments.

Hills would work if they were even remotely to scale, but most I have encountered only go up to about shoulder height and small based models, which is at most a cover save.

That's not a hill then, that's a mound

I have to agree with you here. Sadly, I just never seem to encounter anything that approximates a proper hill. I have seen some good hill models in Flames of War, but never in 40k.

The thing is, this isn't something that should be a regional quirk. The game needs a certain amount of decent LOS-blocking terrain. So if the venues you're playing at don't have such terrain in the mix, make an issue of it. Or make some terrain and donate it, if you're playing in a regular club or group.

Nobody should have to play on Planet Bowling Green.

 insaniak wrote:

 Mr. S Baldrick wrote:
What is wierd about it? You can see 6 inches in and 6 out. No matter the size you cannot see completely through. Terrain X is size 3, terrain Y is size 2, terrain Z is size 1 apply saves as prescribed in the book. Out side of terrain is LOS.

The weird part comes with treating enclosed buildings or hills as area terrain, since it allows models to move through them.

It's also a little peculiar for free-standing 'scatter' terrain (individual wall sections, piles of crates, rocks, sort of thing) that don't cover any actual significant real estate to be treated as area terrain.

Maybe things work different down there in Oz, but I have never seen anyone make an argument to move through a hill. You go over the hill. It is also important to read the wording of the rules. In the 4th ed book it specifically states that the "hill crest" grants cover. Once you were on top of the hill you were in the open, unless someone placed another piece of terrain on the hill.

Enclosed buildings should have been treated as area terrain, that's the whole idea a defined area. A building is perfect for that, but if there was difficulty in taking the roof off or standing models up, it is not har to say "this piece is impassible", problem solved.

4th also had a much better system for removing models and mechanics to keep people from killing your squad leaders before the can swing. Blast weapons were way more effective. Vehicles were a mixed bag, but considering how well everything else in the eddition worked you could forgive that. Stille better than 3rd vehicle rules and not as unforgiving as 5th.

It wouldn't matter how far you go back... People would still find something to piss and moan about.

 LiveForTheSwarm wrote:
It wouldn't matter how far you go back... People would still find something to piss and moan about.

I 2nd that

 Mr. S Baldrick wrote:
Maybe things work different down there in Oz, but I have never seen anyone make an argument to move through a hill.

You apparently didn't spend much time on forums during 4th edition then, because it was discussed every single time someone mentioned wanting to treat all their terrain as area terrain... which was fairly frequent.

In the 4th ed book it specifically states that the "hill crest" grants cover. Once you were on top of the hill you were in the open, unless someone placed another piece of terrain on the hill.

Except that if you alter the rules to cause the hill to be area terrain, you get cover just for being inside the boundaries of that terrain.

The thing is, this isn't something that should be a regional quirk. The game needs a certain amount of decent LOS-blocking terrain. So if the venues you're playing at don't have such terrain in the mix, make an issue of it. Or make some terrain and donate it, if you're playing in a regular club or group.

Nobody should have to play on Planet Bowling Green.

I can't even convince my local gaming shops to dremel those bloody skulls off the roof tiles on the ruins (I have broken more models because they fell off ruins because the skulls prevented their bases from remaining level), so this suggestion might be a bit of a stretch. Don't get me wrong, large and intricate terrain pieces are awesome, but the fact of that matter is they may not be available for any number of reasons. Under those circumstances, the only way to avoid playing on a game on what might as well be planet bowling green is to have the option to define area terrain, so what terrain you do have on hand with break up LOS.

 insaniak wrote:

 Mr. S Baldrick wrote:
Maybe things work different down there in Oz, but I have never seen anyone make an argument to move through a hill.

You apparently didn't spend much time on forums during 4th edition then, because it was discussed every single time someone mentioned wanting to treat all their terrain as area terrain... which was fairly frequent.

Yyyyep!

This was alos the same on Bolter and Chainsword as well.

 insaniak wrote:

You apparently didn't spend much time on forums during 4th edition then, because it was discussed every single time someone mentioned wanting to treat all their terrain as area terrain... which was fairly frequent..

No you are right I didn't spend much time on forums during 4th. Instead I was actually playing the game against real people 4-5 nights a week and going to tournaments every other weekend at the US headquarters store, where ridiculous arguments like moving through a hill were not tolerated.

But hey what do I know

 Mr. S Baldrick wrote:
[..., where ridiculous arguments like moving through a hill were not tolerated.

And here's one thing at least we can agree on - being allowed to move through a hill would indeed be ridiculous. But the point that seems to have been lost somewhere along the way is that this isn't just something silly that someone thought up to break the game. It's something silly that results from changing the rules without adequate thought as to the consequences.

The fact that nobody (apparently) in the area in which you were playing realised that this was one of the side effects of counting all terrain as area terrain doesn't change the fact that it was. And was a fairly well known one at the time. People just chose to ignore it, because for the most part counting all of their terrain as area terrain worked for them.

Other players in other areas went with the actual rules of the game instead, either just because they preferred not to use house rules unless absolutely necessary, or because counting everything as area terrain was a little boring and potentially absurd.

 insaniak wrote:

 Mr. S Baldrick wrote:
[..., where ridiculous arguments like moving through a hill were not tolerated.

And here's one thing at least we can agree on - being allowed to move through a hill would indeed be ridiculous. But the point that seems to have been lost somewhere along the way is that this isn't just something silly that someone thought up to break the game. It's something silly that results from changing the rules without adequate thought as to the consequences.

The fact that nobody (apparently) in the area in which you were playing realised that this was one of the side effects of counting all terrain as area terrain doesn't change the fact that it was. And was a fairly well known one at the time. People just chose to ignore it, because for the most part counting all of their terrain as area terrain worked for them.

Other players in other areas went with the actual rules of the game instead, either just because they preferred not to use house rules unless absolutely necessary, or because counting everything as area terrain was a little boring and potentially absurd.

It wasn't a house full. From the RAW the crest of the hill only granted a cover save the hill itself was open ground unless something else was on top of it.

Back in those days the HQ was a large and diverse group of players. We had bits in the building back then so we would get players from all across the eastern US for tournaments. There was even a regular group of guys that would charter a bus from N.Y. a few times a year.plus we had the rules boys down the hall and promotions who regularly received advanced copies rules and books for play testing.

In all despite some minor disputes a fewnareas may have had, you do have to give that the 4th ed rules were much more stream lines than the current 6th ed. Sometimes minor issues are made bigger on the internet then they actually are in the game. The cloud of internet anonymity keeps things stirring.

 Mr. S Baldrick wrote:
It wasn't a house full. From the RAW the crest of the hill only granted a cover save the hill itself was open ground unless something else was on top of it.

Sure, if you're using the normal rules. (Although there is no 'only'... just a rule that says you get a 5+ cover save for being partially behind the crest).

Once you house rule the hill to be area terrain, then being anywhere on the hill will grant you a cover save, because you are in area terrain. So you need another house rule for that to not be the case.

In all despite some minor disputes a fewnareas may have had, you do have to give that the 4th ed rules were much more stream lines than the current 6th ed.

Sure, they were more streamlined. Just full of holes and conflicts along with it.

I think that our original points were lost somewhere during this discussion of whether 4th ed. was bad because some people on the other side of the world allegedly used area terrain wrong.


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Though I agree that 4th had the most poorly worded rules, they were the best when used as intended and played much better than anything since.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Though I agree that 4th had the most poorly worded rules, they were the best when used as intended

Oooh, RAI vs RAW. Let's have THAT debate again for the fifty bajilionth time!

(Hint: Not everyone can agree on RAI, either.)

 Melissia wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Though I agree that 4th had the most poorly worded rules, they were the best when used as intended

Oooh, RAI vs RAW. Let's have THAT debate again for the fifty bajilionth time!

(Hint: Not everyone can agree on RAI, either.)

Back then we didn't have to because we got regular FAQs.

RAW/RAI is also more of a theoretical issue that doesn't happen in real life nearly as often as the internet would have you believe. In a typical local hobby group (the kind GEW games are designed for) gaming conventions evolve organically and people just simply know better than to resolve hits against every model on every table in the building when a Pyrovore explodes. It's hard to believe, I know.

Yeah, 5th edition rules would actually be a step back for me. I liked 4th edition a lot more.

The one thing I could totally do without in 6th edition is hull points. They make a tank a paperweight. I have played a few games where we agreed not to use hull points and it was very, very different. To the point where we started changing army lists.

I'd be perfectly fine with seeing 4th or 5th back, just as long as 5th edition Deep Strike rules were in effect. That's all my daemons care about. 4th brings back my soul grinders, 5th brings my princes. And yes, I want to go back to the old Daemon book that hit at the end of 4th. No white dwarf update, nothing. Not many people knew how to handle them and they were good (I don't care how the Internet rated them).

Each edition thus far has had major issues. 4E had invinci-skimmers and paper tracked tanks along with armies able to be defeated by a couple units consolidating up a line from combat to combat, having never been shot at thanks to the area terrain rules. 5E had very bad wound allocation rules, the incredibly stupid Kill Point mechanic that 6E has almost managed to extricate itself from, etc.

To me, 6E has the most issues of any edition, but i won't get into that here. Ultimately, no edition has been perfect, each has had notable glaring issues and must be viewed as such. I certainly wouldn't be too enthused about playing IG in 4E again, or playing Necrons in most of 5th edition, etc.

Mainly because 5th was an inferior set of rules. The current set is designed for the actual players and allows for much more blance and fun. Well, get rid of the battle brothers part of allies of course.

5th edition quickly turned into two parking lots of tanks shooting S6 to 9 at each other.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Each edition thus far has had major issues. 4E had invinci-skimmers and paper tracked tanks along with armies able to be defeated by a couple units consolidating up a line from combat to combat, having never been shot at thanks to the area terrain rules. 5E had very bad wound allocation rules, the incredibly stupid Kill Point mechanic that 6E has almost managed to extricate itself from, etc.

To me, 6E has the most issues of any edition, but i won't get into that here. Ultimately, no edition has been perfect, each has had notable glaring issues and must be viewed as such. I certainly wouldn't be too enthused about playing IG in 4E again, or playing Necrons in most of 5th edition, etc.

Skimmers were not that bad in 4th. The only big thing was if they moved over 6 inches you could only glance them, however on the old glancing hit table if they moved over 6 immobilized counted as destroyed. They could also never claim benifits for terrain and nothing blocked LOS to them. It was the Eldar codex, not the BRB that made their skimmers better than the rest. Space marines land speeders, dark eldar raiders, and tau tanks were all quite squishy.

 Vaktathi wrote:
armies able to be defeated by a couple units consolidating up a line from combat to combat,

Only against the most incompetent gunline players. How hard is it to predict where an assault unit is going to be next turn and move your gak 7" apart?

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
armies able to be defeated by a couple units consolidating up a line from combat to combat,

Only against the most incompetent gunline players. How hard is it to predict where an assault unit is going to be next turn and move your gak 7" apart?

Quoted for truth. This is doubly true for those saying that 5th edition was some how assaulty. No consolidating into another combat = your guys died like slime to double taps and/or counter assaults on the following turn.

tha only happened if you asaulted a single unit by itself. a smart assault player had multiple units assaulted at once so the retaliation fire on the enemy turn if you won the fight on your own was non-existant. Likewise, even if they were somehow able to, the fire would be desultery at best because of the target saturation and being forced to address more threats than they could handle Just as with the current edition.
Now even more than ever before strategy and tactics are playing a larger and larger role in the game. Many players just never learned the skils and are being left behind. Rather like comparing tic tac toe to chess.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
armies able to be defeated by a couple units consolidating up a line from combat to combat,

Only against the most incompetent gunline players. How hard is it to predict where an assault unit is going to be next turn and move your gak 7" apart?

Also it didn't happen all that often, because the only way to go 6 inches was to "massacre" the enemy and roll a 6, other wise you only consolidated 3 inches. If your units were that close together then bad placement.

 EVIL INC wrote:

Now even more than ever before strategy and tactics are playing a larger and larger role in the game. Many players just never learned the skills and are being left behind. Rather like comparing tic tac toe to chess.

These "skills" would be list writing, a deep wallet for DLCs and rolling up the right psy power?

A smart assaulter (as you guys are aware) assaulted from a direction (or wrapped around ) that allowed them to have "models in the back" that were only a single inch from other units at the end of combat even if they were spaced 12" inches apart or farther. So actual spacing of your units meant next to nothing once an assault army hit your lines.


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 lord_blackfang wrote:

 EVIL INC wrote:

Now even more than ever before strategy and tactics are playing a larger and larger role in the game. Many players just never learned the skills and are being left behind. Rather like comparing tic tac toe to chess.

These "skills" would be list writing, a deep wallet for DLCs and rolling up the right psy power?

actually, they would include list writing. deep wallets might not fit in your pocket. They only need to be deep enough that your money does not stick out and become lost or damaged. If you have to reach in to yur elbow to get a dollar out, it is not worth it because not only woudl it not fit in your pocket but you would lose what you put in. Besides, that much extra leather would make it way more expensive. Although in each and every single edition from RT to today, the person who has the most money and is willing to spend it always has had an advantage. Today is no different.
Aother skils would include terrain placement, distance geometry, model spacing, directions of assault and geometry, timing, a long list of different items that we could spend weeks and hundred of pages discussing.