With rumors of 8th edition looming next year, and it sounding like we might not see any more 7E codexes, which edition of 40K do you think "got it right"? Most importantly, why do you believe it was "right" - best rules, best codexes, best balance?

Although I've been happy to collect what I can of the hardbound 6E/7E codices, I have several older editions lying around. Being somewhat disgruntled with the state of 7E's ruleset, I'm curious if I might be happier with an older ruleset - and most importantly, why.

(As an aside, I have Marine, Tau, Tyranid, Necron, Imperial Guard, Eldar and Ork armies to fitz with for prior editions).

2nd edition.

Probably 5th. Not perfect by any means, it had a couple awful rules issues, but probably the best core rule edition all around. Codex issues began to plague it towards the end, but they were absolutely minor next to what we hve now.

I want to like 4th more, but the overly punitive vehicle rules, completely nonfunctional transport rules, and LoS/consilidation issues, I think 4E just had too many fundamental core rules issues.

7E is by far my least favorite edition between the absurd power creep, incoherent ruleset thats trying to be 3 or 4 different games at the same time (and failing), and the botched army construction rules the whole thing is just, awful. Also the fluff is now almost entirely devoid of anything worth reading.

Edit: 3E I feel was never fully fleshed out and we've basically been trying to fix this edition for nearly 18 years. 6E felt like it overcurbed 5E, a drastic overreaction to a few 5E issues while exacerbating others (and missing some of the big problems entirely) and, in concert with introducing the things that borked 7E so hard, ultimately overshadowed what 6E got right.

My favorite was 6th. I liked the addition of Allies rules, and preferred much of the 6e system over the changes that happened in 7e.

I only play forth edition now. Granted the rules have had some serious editing, like the whole sale removal of entangled when a transport blows up, but with just a few other tweeks here and there the game has actually become fun to play again. After all, no reason why you shouldn't customize a game three editions old to fit your personal liking.

I'd say Fifth edition, minus the Sisters minidex.

As a wargamer I'd probably say 2nd as the rules were more in depth, shooting modifiers made sense, combat was one on one (but took an age), tank movement was more lumbersome, but they were dangerous etc. The game took a long time to play and a lot more referring to tables, but it was a great game, and lots of fun.

As a collector of miniatures, 7th ed, as it has a much broader range of armies to choose from, and freedom to build fluffy armies without compromise. The only downside for me is the balance issues over such a big range, and people who can't see unbound as anything other than a power gamers domain.

5th, before the GK and Necro codexes.

Absolutely, unequivocally 5th edition. It's the most functional the game has ever been. I only had two problems with 5th:

1. The wound allocation shenanigans in complex units (easily fixable with a bullet point to address this, just forbid the player from putting a wound into a new wound group if there are any models not at full health)

2. Non-transport vehicles were almost totally useless because of how easy it was to stun lock.

It was a very simple, fun, and intuitive edition. All of the USRs fit on two pages, there was no obnoxious diagonal deployment, and you didn't have the insanity you have now. It also knew, mostly, what it wanted to be. 5th edition was much more a mass battle game than 7th edition, as all the skirmishy stuff was tacked on in 6th like challenges, by-model rather than by-unit cover and movement rules, closest-to-furthest wound allocation, precision shots, etc. I sincerely hope 8th edition brings us back to the simplicity of 5th. The game needs it real bad.

 Generalstoner wrote:
2nd edition.

+1. I'm strictly 2nd ed player these days. Sure it's not perfect, nothing ever is, nothing ever can be, but it takes lot less effort to get it working for us than any of the newer editions.


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 JamesY wrote:
As a wargamer I'd probably say 2nd as the rules were more in depth, shooting modifiers made sense, combat was one on one (but took an age), tank movement was more lumbersome, but they were dangerous etc. The game took a long time to play and a lot more referring to tables, but it was a great game, and lots of fun.

As a collector of miniatures, 7th ed, as it has a much broader range of armies to choose from, and freedom to build fluffy armies without compromise. The only downside for me is the balance issues over such a big range, and people who can't see unbound as anything other than a power gamers domain.

Remove persistent effects and 2nd ed becomes lot faster. Combat took time but a) guns were main thing and you didn't have generally two big armies in huge melee(plus model count is smaller) so that helps. There's also handy quicker method of resolving combat with just 1 die per side that results in averages pretty much what standard rules did. I did not invent this, I just borrowed the idea:

WS + d6 + 2 for each parry +1 for each additional model after the first +1 for the model with the higher number of attacks.

That results in combats going in a swing!

For me the best edition was the 4th one: at that time I was a student a with my group of friend we had a lot of spare time. I liked the allocation rules and the area terrain rules with the different height that make the games very fast.
But at the moment I rediscovered 3rd edition: You can start playing 3rd with just the rulebook and the games are very streamlined, then you can pick all the books and you understand that you can play almost with every single model GW produces now; you have all current army, including Harlequins and Sisters of Battle, you have 3 Capter Approved books with vehicle design rules and you have campain rules. I remeber that during 3rd ed they used to be big FAQs documents and I don't have them anymore, but with the FAQs included in Capter Approved books you can play a friendly game easily. The best playing thi edition now is you can have proper models for Drop Pods and Wave Serpents that there were not available.

Whatever edition I started in, because I'm a human being affected by nostalgia for the period when I first got into a thing and I've convinced myself the thing changing is what's caused it to cease giving me such big pleasure highs.

Thing sucks now. Thing should go back to the way thing was when I first got into thing, and it should never have changed from that.

 Jimsolo wrote:
My favorite was 6th. I liked the addition of Allies rules, and preferred much of the 6e system over the changes that happened in 7e.

I agree. Although I do like the changes to the Psychic Phase of 7th, the army construction was WAAAAAYYYY better in 6th. Unbound and Come the Apoc allies should not be allowed. Part of the fun of the hobby is Army construction, but once you are free to do pretty much anything there really doesn't seem to be a point.

the_scotsman wrote:
Whatever edition I started in, because I'm a human being affected by nostalgia for the period when I first got into a thing and I've convinced myself the thing changing is what's caused it to cease giving me such big pleasure highs.

Thing sucks now. Thing should go back to the way thing was when I first got into thing, and it should never have changed from that.

Whatever edition is out right now, because I love GW wayyy too much to ever publicly admit that they screwed up a ruleset. My unconditional love of GW has convinced me that every new thing they put out is vastly superior to the old thing because GW is infallible and would never release something worse than what it replaced.

Old thing sucked, give GW all your money for new, better thing.

8th, because there is still hope.

7th. I like how Psychic powers are handled and I love formations, since they grant special rules, increasing the diversity of army building options.

I'm also particularly nostalgic for 2nd edition, since that was the edition I really started playing with, but I honestly probably wouldn't play it again for anything longer than a one off.

the_scotsman wrote:
Whatever edition I started in, because I'm a human being affected by nostalgia for the period when I first got into a thing and I've convinced myself the thing changing is what's caused it to cease giving me such big pleasure highs.

Thing sucks now. Thing should go back to the way thing was when I first got into thing, and it should never have changed from that.

I think there is a lot of people guilty of this that are unable to admit it to themselves.

The only other place I've encountered this mentality is the D&D community. I've had straight up face palm moments with 1E players who've never even played 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or 5th who insist 1E is the best.

6th has been my favorite so far. It felt the most complete set of rules with the least amount of conflicting rule match ups. The terrain rules were concise and easy to use. The Psychic rules had PMLs and leadership rolls rather than conflicting Psychic units and Warp dice. Allying was handled in a reasonable manner, not the mix and match nightmare we currently have. 7th would have been much better if it was an extension of 6th rather than the failed cut and paste we ended up with.

SJ

For me probably early 6th ed, I think at that point the game had addressed some of the issues that plagued late 5th ed, but had not yet gone power creep crazy, and the first few books were fairly toned down. While I felt in needed some work it felt like it was going in the right direction. Then GW took a hard left and ended up where we are now.

5th Edition was the best. The rules were straightforward enough that there was no confusion and didn't have the bogus rules that came in later like taking casualties from the front. 6th did bring in good points like challenges and much need special rules but much was unnecessary like psykers and vehicle changes.

5th also had the best codex format. Not necessarily the best rules but the layout and selecting of armies. Everything had a single slot at the back of the book and there was no flipping back and forth between entries, wargear entries and armoury.

I loved 6th. You got the hardback codices with the lavish production and great art, it introduced a lot of cool rules in a time before things got as bloated as they are now, and the models were getting incredible. It also brought back armories which I really liked, and after how stagnant 5th edition had become, it was a welcome change.My best memories of the game are largely from 4th and early 5th edition, but 6th is the ruleset that I think was the best.

Among my favorite things in 6th:
- Very few and not as powerful formations
- Lower power scale (at first anyway)
- Psychic mastery levels and power cards without the clunky magic system they bolted on from Fantasy
- More limited allies options
- Introduction of hull points, meaning vehicles won't get stunlocked for 6 turns anymore
- Multiple power weapon types with drawbacks and benefits for each
- Fortifications, even if I only ever used the Aegis + quadgun

 Deadshot wrote:
5th Edition was the best. The rules were straightforward enough that there was no confusion and didn't have the bogus rules that came in later like taking casualties from the front.

Don't care what people say about this one. I like this rule.

It prevents shenanigans, makes things more predictable for the person who's firing the weapon and actually makes the movement phase more important.

Oh, you put your very important, but very squishy, HQ in the back of that squad? Lemme deep strike these melta havocs real quick...

Oh, you surrounded your HQ with marker light drones? Sweet. Lemme surround that squad with these AP 4 dudes...

It also prevents the "Ok, he'll take a wound, he'll take a wound, he'll take a wound...AND NOBODY DIES" nonsense. [In fact, it annoys me that you can still do this with swarms.]

The 5th edition wound allocation rules were so obnoxious, I was more than happy to see them gone.

Every edition had wound allocation issues. I particularly disliked 5th’s due to the shenanigans that could be pulled. It just felt gimmicky and cheep. I prefer what we have now to it. Although the “who’s closest?” and look out sir! stuff slows down gameplay more then I’d like. While 3rd might not have been the best (the guy getting shot chose who died) where nothing relevant died until the last men, at least it was quick and easy, with no arguments.

RT/2nd were packed with special rules. All that was cut in 3rd, which made for a much smoother fast-paced game. I liked that. Ever since then, we’ve been slowly creeping back to the complexity of the old days.

My nostalgia glasses tell me 3rd is the best. Objectively, I’d probably say 5th. But every edition has it’s flaws. I’m happy with 7th, and if/when 8th comes, I’m sure I’ll be fine with it. The will fix some things, break others. Just like every time they come out with new rules.

 Traditio wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:
5th Edition was the best. The rules were straightforward enough that there was no confusion and didn't have the bogus rules that came in later like taking casualties from the front.

Don't care what people say about this one. I like this rule.

It prevents shenanigans, makes things more predictable for the person who's firing the weapon and actually makes the movement phase more important.

Oh, you put your very important, but very squishy, HQ in the back of that squad? Lemme deep strike these melta havocs real quick...

Oh, you surrounded your HQ with marker light drones? Sweet. Lemme surround that squad with these AP 4 dudes...

It also prevents the "Ok, he'll take a wound, he'll take a wound, he'll take a wound...AND NOBODY DIES" nonsense. [In fact, it annoys me that you can still do this with swarms.]

This is a terrible rule that means your important guy simply gets sniped and makes the unit useless. Oh, your squad has a missile launcher? I'll plonk these deepstrikers down and kill him so the unit will never do anything. PLus those unique models are always the favourites, most unique and best painted. Especially when it means your HQ has to tank everything because the chumps in front of him were cut down and he goes down like a bitch to bolter fire instead of being the disgustingly tough to kill SOB he's supposed to be. I enjoy cinematics but the guys in front aren't always the first to die. Bullets can miss and hit guys behind, and its always always always the hero let standing at the end when his comrades are dead behind him.

You want someone to die? Hit them with more stuff. It means those heroic deathstar units just vanish and we have chump troops everywhere, unless those Deathstars aren't deathstars but in fact F22s that hit fast and hard enough they don't need to worry about anything.

Also it means those short ranged weapons like Meltas and Flamers never get used unless you deep strike them. Many many times has it been where a meltagun finds itself just out of range and then killed immediately because he failed penetrate AV14 on 1D6 or misses and immediately dies before doing anything useful.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Traditio wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:
5th Edition was the best. The rules were straightforward enough that there was no confusion and didn't have the bogus rules that came in later like taking casualties from the front.

Don't care what people say about this one. I like this rule.

It prevents shenanigans, makes things more predictable for the person who's firing the weapon and actually makes the movement phase more important.

Oh, you put your very important, but very squishy, HQ in the back of that squad? Lemme deep strike these melta havocs real quick...

Oh, you surrounded your HQ with marker light drones? Sweet. Lemme surround that squad with these AP 4 dudes...

It also prevents the "Ok, he'll take a wound, he'll take a wound, he'll take a wound...AND NOBODY DIES" nonsense. [In fact, it annoys me that you can still do this with swarms.]

This is a terrible rule that means your important guy simply gets sniped and makes the unit useless. Oh, your squad has a missile launcher? I'll plonk these deepstrikers down and kill him so the unit will never do anything. PLus those unique models are always the favourites, most unique and best painted. Especially when it means your HQ has to tank everything because the chumps in front of him were cut down and he goes down like a bitch to bolter fire instead of being the disgustingly tough to kill SOB he's supposed to be. I enjoy cinematics but the guys in front aren't always the first to die. Bullets can miss and hit guys behind, and its always always always the hero let standing at the end when his comrades are dead behind him.

You want someone to die? Hit them with more stuff. It means those heroic deathstar units just vanish and we have chump troops everywhere, unless those Deathstars aren't deathstars but in fact F22s that hit fast and hard enough they don't need to worry about anything.

i preferred second ed. in the group i played with then we played smaller games. every thing could be upgraded and buffed. lots of ways to over come the god like unit. heavy weapons could shoot at armor units instead of what the others were shooting at. LOS meant something, you could build your own vehicles. and we had true overwatch.

 Traditio wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:
5th Edition was the best. The rules were straightforward enough that there was no confusion and didn't have the bogus rules that came in later like taking casualties from the front.

Don't care what people say about this one. I like this rule.

It prevents shenanigans, makes things more predictable for the person who's firing the weapon and actually makes the movement phase more important.

hrm, between Look Out Sir and "take from the front", there's more shennanigans possible than ever. More to the point, for a game fundamentally built around units, not individual models, and played at a platoon or company (or in some cases almost *battalion*) scale, this level of micromanagement and "tactical" finagling of individually equiped infantry is completely inappropriate and out of place.

In a skirmish game built around individual model actions, it could work and make sense. But 40k is very much not that.

 Generalstoner wrote:
2nd edition.

This was actually the worst game.

Vaktathi wrote:hrm, between Look Out Sir and "take from the front", there's more shennanigans possible than ever.

Like what?

More to the point, for a game fundamentally built around units, not individual models, and played at a platoon or company (or in some cases almost *battalion*) scale, this level of micromanagement and "tactical" finagling of individually equiped infantry is completely inappropriate and out of place.

In a skirmish game built around individual model actions, it could work and make sense. But 40k is very much not that.

Ultimately, as I said, I don't really care.

For me, it's a matter of what cuts out shenanigans and prevents power gaming. Even if it's inappropriate for the scale of the game, if it "sticks it to the power gamers," I'm cool with it.

 Traditio wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:hrm, between Look Out Sir and "take from the front", there's more shennanigans possible than ever.

Like what?

More to the point, for a game fundamentally built around units, not individual models, and played at a platoon or company (or in some cases almost *battalion*) scale, this level of micromanagement and "tactical" finagling of individually equiped infantry is completely inappropriate and out of place.

In a skirmish game built around individual model actions, it could work and make sense. But 40k is very much not that.

Ultimately, as I said, I don't really care.

For me, it's a matter of what cuts out shenanigans and prevents power gaming. Even if it's inappropriate for the scale of the game, if it "sticks it to the power gamers," I'm cool with it.

It doesn't really stick it to power gamers because power gamers will always exist and always find a way to abuse the system, its in the nature. Even if the game was 3 units that may not have the same loadout, power gamers will bring 3 of the best unit possible with the only difference being one has a melta bomb and one has a melta bomb and defensive grenades.

For a skirmish rule set, 2nd ed that GW published.(But the 3rd ed the GW Dev's developed , that corporate would not publish,would have been much better. )

Out of the 40k battle games ,4th and 5th ed sort of tie.As the issues could have been corrected with adjustmetns to core rules and codex books.

After the game devs gave up on game play in 6th edition, its just been about selling bigger kits for more profit since then.

As players have ALWAYS been able to make stuff up and fight big narrative battles.
Why do GW seem to feel the need to provide the sort of rules any group can hash out between themselves?

And leave out all the really difficult part of game development, writing rules,( with enough game play depth and balance suited ,) for enjoyable pick up games?

Deadshot wrote:This is a terrible rule that means your important guy simply gets sniped and makes the unit useless.

As I said: I'm fine with this.

You don't want your dude to get sniped? Move your dudes better.

Oh, your squad has a missile launcher? I'll plonk these deepstrikers down and kill him so the unit will never do anything.

You say this like it's a bad thing. I'm not entirely sure why.

That's part of "strategy," DS.

The alternative is:

I plonk these deepstrikers down here. Fire these high strength, low AP weapons, but they conveniently don't hit the missile launcher guy. Which means that I've wasted that deepstrike and their weapons.

You don't like losing guys to deepstrike? Deploy your dudes better.

PLus those unique models are always the favourites, most unique and best painted. Especially when it means your HQ has to tank everything because the chumps in front of him were cut down and he goes down like a bitch to bolter fire instead of being the disgustingly tough to kill SOB he's supposed to be. I enjoy cinematics but the guys in front aren't always the first to die. Bullets can miss and hit guys behind, and its always always always the hero let standing at the end when his comrades are dead behind him.

You want someone to die? Hit them with more stuff. It means those heroic deathstar units just vanish and we have chump troops everywhere, unless those Deathstars aren't deathstars but in fact F22s that hit fast and hard enough they don't need to worry about anything.

I'm fine with all of this. It's precisely this mentality of "let's build these unkillable deathstars" that I think the "from the front" wound allocation system seriously hurt (but didn't go far enough in damaging) and which I'd very much like to see gotten rid of.

You remember that time when Robert E. Lee and a small squad of confederate soldiers moved straight up the middle of the battlefield? When Robert E. Lee just tanked cannonball fire left and right, just smacking them away like volley balls? And then they got to the enemy lines and single handedly cut down an entire platoon?

Yeah. Me neither. That never happened.

 Traditio wrote:

Deadshot wrote:This is a terrible rule that means your important guy simply gets sniped and makes the unit useless.

As I said: I'm fine with this.

You don't want your dude to get sniped? Move your dudes better.

Oh, your squad has a missile launcher? I'll plonk these deepstrikers down and kill him so the unit will never do anything.

You say this like it's a bad thing. I'm not entirely sure why.

That's part of "strategy," DS.

The alternative is:

I plonk these deepstrikers down here. Fire these high strength, low AP weapons, but they conveniently don't hit the missile launcher guy. Which means that I've wasted that deepstrike and their weapons.

You don't like losing guys to deepstrike? Deploy your dudes better.

PLus those unique models are always the favourites, most unique and best painted. Especially when it means your HQ has to tank everything because the chumps in front of him were cut down and he goes down like a bitch to bolter fire instead of being the disgustingly tough to kill SOB he's supposed to be. I enjoy cinematics but the guys in front aren't always the first to die. Bullets can miss and hit guys behind, and its always always always the hero let standing at the end when his comrades are dead behind him.

You want someone to die? Hit them with more stuff. It means those heroic deathstar units just vanish and we have chump troops everywhere, unless those Deathstars aren't deathstars but in fact F22s that hit fast and hard enough they don't need to worry about anything.

I'm fine with all of this. It's precisely this mentality of "let's build these unkillable deathstars" that I think the "from the front" wound allocation system seriously hurt (but didn't go far enough in damaging) and which I'd very much like to see gotten rid of.

You remember that time when Robert E. Lee and a small squad of confederate soldiers moved straight up the middle of the battlefield? When Robert E. Lee just tanked cannonball fire left and right, just smacking them away like volley balls? And then they got to the enemy lines and single handedly cut down an entire platoon?

Yeah. Me neither. That never happened.

Except its not puny human sitting back. Its CAPTAIN AWESOME OF THE AWESOME MARINES that you've spent x hours painting to watch him cinematically duel LORD WADER OF THE EVIL MARINES to the death in glorious combat only to watch some chump vaporise him with a lucky 6. 40k is a sci-fi universe that exaggerates things and puts focus on the heroes, so not letting them be heros and do their job as heroes is bad. For example, Paladinstars. Paladins are bodyguards to the Grand Master and shield him with their own bodies to the death. So they should be able to form up as this squad of heroes that wades through fire and draws the entire army just to kill him because that's their intention. 6th is more realistic to modern day warfare but this isn't modern warfare, this is the glorious silliness of the far future. Next you'll tell me Luke Skywalker shouldn't have been flying Snowspeeders into the enemy's teeth or that Aragorn should be sending his armies in to fight while he sits back and watches.

 Traditio wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:
5th Edition was the best. The rules were straightforward enough that there was no confusion and didn't have the bogus rules that came in later like taking casualties from the front.

Don't care what people say about this one. I like this rule.

It prevents shenanigans, makes things more predictable for the person who's firing the weapon and actually makes the movement phase more important.

It gave just new shenigans. Specifically near invulnerable guy at the front soaking up all the shots that could hurt normal guys and magically dodging every shot that might threaten him.

Shenigan is a shenigan. Even if type of shenigan changed.

tneva82 wrote:It gave just new shenigans. Specifically near invulnerable guy at the front soaking up all the shots that could hurt normal guys and magically dodging every shot that might threaten him.

Shenigan is a shenigan. Even if type of shenigan changed.

You can at least avoid these shenanigans, though, if you maneuver properly. "The near invulnerable dude is at the front? Cool. I'll move this rhino past that squad and deploy my dudes at the rear of the squad. Do those non-character terminators get look out sir rolls? They don't? Oh...that's too bad. These shots are AP 2, just so you know."

I mean, don't get me wrong. 6th and 7th didn't kill deathstars.

But it did make shenanigans more predictable and avoidable.

Here's hoping that 8th finally puts the last nails in the coffin for death stars (likely won't happen, but a man can dream).

 Traditio wrote:
You remember that time when Robert E. Lee and a small squad of confederate soldiers moved straight up the middle of the battlefield? When Robert E. Lee just tanked cannonball fire left and right, just smacking them away like volley balls? And then they got to the enemy lines and single handedly cut down an entire platoon?

Yeah. Me neither. That never happened.

Yet that's how 40k is right now. Deathstars. With tankers at the front soaking up cannonballs.

 Brother SRM wrote:
I loved 6th. You got the hardback codices with the lavish production and great art

The problem was that this came at a dramatically increased price and weight (no more carrying a backpack with every codex) with most of the art just being photoshop colorized B&W art.

Introduction of hull points, meaning vehicles won't get stunlocked for 6 turns anymore

Lets not forget that this made them so easy to kill that vehicle heavy armies, particularly non skimmer vehicle armies, became practically nonexistent. Tracked tanks and walkers have never recovered from this change and largely continue to show very poorly into 7th (except when theyre free like in a Gladius... )

Multiple power weapon types with drawbacks and benefits for each

in a game where such a miniscule detail really has very little purpose or benefit at the scale it is played, with only 1 or 2 options ever really used if there's a choice

 Traditio wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:hrm, between Look Out Sir and "take from the front", there's more shennanigans possible than ever.

Like what?

Have you played against something like a TWC deathstar? The wound allocation gimmicks possible with units like that far exceed anything possible in previous editions.

More to the point, for a game fundamentally built around units, not individual models, and played at a platoon or company (or in some cases almost *battalion*) scale, this level of micromanagement and "tactical" finagling of individually equiped infantry is completely inappropriate and out of place.

In a skirmish game built around individual model actions, it could work and make sense. But 40k is very much not that.

Ultimately, as I said, I don't really care.

For me, it's a matter of what cuts out shenanigans and prevents power gaming. Even if it's inappropriate for the scale of the game, if it "sticks it to the power gamers," I'm cool with it.

except that it does nothing of the sort, in fact it does just the opposite, it dramatically enhances the functionality of powergamey builds like deathstars. It's fundamentally bad game design that curbs very little, dramatically increases time spent on gimmickery, and further enhances powergaming potential.

2nd Edition...with a handful of caveats.

THE GOOD:

+A game developed by geeky gamers. The geeks ran the show and the company was struggling and in financial shambles...and it was awesome.

+Wonderful codices. Arguably the best to date. Even modern players should buy the 2nd edition codex if you want some fantastic imagery, modeling examples, great fluff, and some pretty damn good writing. You also got way more bang for your buck than modern codices.

+Super gigantic vehicles/creatures were available...but only as special pieces and they rarely showed up. If you did, it was for a big event, and it was something special. The tabletop was dangerous but not the infantry-crushing quagmire it's become in later editions.

+Orks were properly hilarious. The fluff was rich, the weapons were wonky, clans actually mattered and you could human-shield your characters with gretchin...on purpose.

+The model line was generally quite good. For a while I thought multi-part plastics were the way of the future, but there is something very simple/attractive to nicely sculpted one-piece metals and I vastly prefer preparing/painting them.

+Vehicles were tough...until they weren't. Because of the vast range of armour, things like Bikes and Land Raiders were HUGELY different (not six points different) and many weapons had vastly different armour penetration rolls. The scope in armour penetration rolls was extreme...meaning every attack was a chance at destroying a vehicle, but nowhere near as guaranteed as it is now.

+Armour damage tables were unique for vehicles and this was pretty damn fun, particularly with the orks. Datafaxes were a pretty cool way to do vehicles - simple cards with everything you needed in one place. You only needed a couple for your army and you were good to go.

+Movement values. This was a stupid thing to remove. It allowed you to simply have faster units and slower units without having to compound everything with special rules to modify a generic movement value.

+Weapon ranges were greater, so the fact that many things moved a bit slower didn't impact the game nearly as much.

+Because of the reduced number of armies and forces you had some things in the game which were categorically better in certain aspects of the game. Genestealers? You simply ran away from them because they were nearly impossible to defeat in close combat.

+Psykers had some really cool/clever spells...though the psyker phase was terrible (see below).

+The atmosphere during 2nd was pre-tournament craze. While we had campaigns and some campaigns were going on, there wasn't much meta. Sure people power-gamed and cheesed out ridiculous army lists...but armies weren't ever seen as "obsolete" etc.

+All the armies played quite differently. The lack of generalized rules for many units meant that each army had a very unique flavor. Imperial Guard had the tanks...the best tanks, and lots of them. There wasn't a need for every army to have matching abilities (ie. we all need heavy tanks...we all need heavy walkers). Many armies simply didn't have certain types of equipment and it was fine.

+Because Games Workshop wasn't an all-conquering business at the time White Dwarf was superb. Genuine hobby articles aimed at gamers and geeks alike. Good stories, good battle reports, actual articles showing how to kitbash vehicles/kits that GW didn't produce (ie. "Here's how to make a Land Raider out of a WW1 tank since the kit is no longer available) etc. It wasn't blasphemy...it was hobby/gaming.

+Actually being able to hide in cover...to the point that people had to ferret you out or they could only shoot template weapons at you (ie. "I think I saw something...fire some frag missiles into those woods!")

+People normally collected armies and not lists. You like Imperial Guard? You bought a bunch of Imperial Guard models, often building up a large army. You actually (gasp!) played a different list for almost every game. No one built to a list, or had numerous tournament forces they'd abandon as new codices came out. Players were far more prone to sticking with a single army...constantly increasing in size, than jumping from army to army etc.

THE BAD:

-Psyker phase. Poorly handled, while neat. Took an age if you had a lot of psykers on the board.

-Hand to hand combat was extremely lengthy and handled in single combats etc. While it was neat to see an Eversor Assassin fight an Eldar Avatar in close-combat for five full turns...overall it was a huge quagmire which slowed the game immensely.

-Lingering effects. Inspired by the Rogue Trader days, many of the rules in 2nd edition were aimed at smaller games...and when you started filling up the table with models you had to eliminate or ignore some of these. You could have a lot of units on fire, running around mad from sickness, results of spells etc. It became a lot of book keeping.

-Power cheese gaming. Still around and very susceptible depending on who you were playing. I had a friend who insisted on a Chaos Champion riding around on a Steed of Slaanesh with a power field, power fist, plasma pistol, vortex grenade and some blessings...making him impossible to kill and supremely good at killing damn near anything in the game. It was still possible and happened...much like the vaunted 30+ Wolf Guard Terminators who could carry something like 15 assault cannons. If you wanted cheese..it could happen. As models were expensive and there wasn't a huge proliferation of these kinds of things - but it existed.

-Allies...as a support option you could take allies and sometimes this could exacerbate cheese. You have your cheesy Wolf Guard with Assault Cannons super squad...backed up by Leman Russ tanks...aaaaack!

-Vortex grenades. Dangerous precedent to put into a game...particularly if you brought an armorcast Gargant to the game.

-Stuff was expensive. Simply put, all metal models for most things meant you had no cheap starter-box goodies outside of basic space marines. Without the internet, you had to find a local hobby store which sold the stuff. Rarely at discount, so armies could get expensive. No cheap ebay options at the time.

-As things scaled up some of the more skirmish-esque rules could take time - such as every jump pack scattering etc. There were some rules you needed to polish or remove to get a big 3000+ point game going.

-Time. If you want a 1.5 hour quick bash...tough. 40K was very much an "afternoon event". I personally don't mind this at all but I see people constantly complaining about a game taking more than hour or hour and a half. This was a full afternoon hobby.

______________

As a whole the game was more fun to me. It took a real beating when 3rd edition came out. It went from Chess to Checkers almost overnight and the unique fluff and feel of the armies was almost eviscerated. It sounds like they've tried to stuff that back into play over the next four editions by cramming more and more special rules into it...but for me 2nd is still my choice.

Now, having said that...my buddies and I are working on stream-lining the few bad portions of 2nd and it's working out quite well. We've simplified the psyker phase and we're experimenting with alternate types of unit activations. We simply don't use some of the super fiddly wargear which leads to too much book-keeping etc.

 Elbows wrote:
Now, having said that...my buddies and I are working on stream-lining the few bad portions of 2nd and it's working out quite well. We've simplified the psyker phase and we're experimenting with alternate types of unit activations. We simply don't use some of the super fiddly wargear which leads to too much book-keeping etc.

Yeah some tweaking is benefiticial but less than newer editions. We tweaked CC already, got rid of tons of persistent effects and now are looking at should something to be done for transports that are quite a deathtrap. We don't dare to use rhinos at least in transport role. What's your experience with those? Seems like huge risk to put squad of tacticals clocking in 400+ pts when single lascannon has pretty darned good chance of fragging entire squad in one shot...(IIRC about 13% chance of hit fragging rhino and entire squad in one go. Plus decent chance of half the squad dying just like that if you got lucky and avoided total destruction).

Albeit MAYBE we are overcautious. Since we don't actually have much of transport MODELS except chimeras there's not been much in form of trying transports in game.

Yep, agreed. Rhinos are dangerous. It's always a bit of a crap shoot. That being said, Rhinos also can move to where you need them in a single turn...while moving fast (negative to hit). Stop the next turn and deploy --- I think they even have some firing ports.

In general transporting is pretty dangerous. It's such a crapshoot.

You may miss...
You may hit something useless...
You may fail to penetrate...
You may get a lucky shot and blow the whole thing up with everyone in it...

Good luck! I think we'll be sticking with them for now. We're concentrating on activations being different so transports would be a bit safer if you don't have an entire 3000 point army shooting at them during one turn I suppose.

"The edition that looks best under my rose tinted goggles"

Really, it's the same argument as 'which zelda game is the best' or 'which saturday morning cartoon was the best'. It's far to based in nostalgia to fairly judge.

I love 7th edition. It's got so much more to play with, and it's much more 'complete' than previous editions.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Brother SRM wrote:
I loved 6th. You got the hardback codices with the lavish production and great art

The problem was that this came at a dramatically increased price and weight (no more carrying a backpack with every codex) with most of the art just being photoshop colorized B&W art.

Introduction of hull points, meaning vehicles won't get stunlocked for 6 turns anymore

Lets not forget that this made them so easy to kill that vehicle heavy armies, particularly non skimmer vehicle armies, became practically nonexistent. Tracked tanks and walkers have never recovered from this change and largely continue to show very poorly into 7th (except when theyre free like in a Gladius... )

Multiple power weapon types with drawbacks and benefits for each

in a game where such a miniscule detail really has very little purpose or benefit at the scale it is played, with only 1 or 2 options ever really used if there's a choice

The new art in 6th was really damn good. They did colorize some old B&W art for it, yes, but there was lots of lovely new art. The art in 7th has largely been pretty uninspiring, including a lot of actual tracings of photos of models, and the least inspiring color plates in codices ever. Seriously, the ones in the Space Marines codex are dire and look like they were done in Flash in 5 minutes.

Vehicles are easier to kill, but they're also better at getting to do their jobs. While my Rhino might not live til turn 6 anymore, it will actually get to move those first two turns to get the guys inside into position.. I play a lot of vehicle-heavy armies and I've had no complaints with the hullpoints system at all. It's even made models with the repair rule semi useful!

I like it because it can lead to more unique units and you can further customize characters to suit your preferences. if they reverted it to the old power weapon rules I wouldn't mind too much, but I like that they're there.

 Brennonjw wrote:
"The edition that looks best under my rose tinted goggles"

Really, it's the same argument as 'which zelda game is the best' or 'which saturday morning cartoon was the best'. It's far to based in nostalgia to fairly judge.

Dunno. Obviously the best edition for each person is the one they are playing.

I like the current one best. I've played every edition of the game since it came out. 7th is the best system for the rules, army compositions, and missions.

It's not perfect, but it is the best of the 7ish. It's hard to say seven total editions, as 1st was really at least two, as was 3rd. We're actually on the 9th ruleset.

 Brennonjw wrote:
"The edition that looks best under my rose tinted goggles"

Nope. I've been saying fifth edition was the best edition to 40k since fifth edition's Codex: Space Marines came out. Claiming it's rose tinted glasses when I've been consistent over the years is lame.

 Melissia wrote:

 Brennonjw wrote:
"The edition that looks best under my rose tinted goggles"

Nope. I've been saying fifth edition was the best edition to 40k since fifth edition's Codex: Space Marines came out. Claiming it's rose tinted glasses when I've been consistent over the years is lame.

consistancy does not mean that there is no nostalgic bias though :(

I fully under nostalgic bias, and I can see where it applies to a lot of things.

I have a large nostalgic attraction to the "feel" of 2nd edition 40K. I don't think it's a brilliant rules set but the armies/codices etc. are excellent.

That being said, people who prefer older editions are not always being nostalgic. While technology has improved dramatically and allowed us a lot of things (PDF codices, dice apps, better computer designed plastic kits for vehicles etc.) there hasn't been a technological advance in the development of game rules or fluff. That stuff is essentially untouchable by tech and doesn't necessarily "get better" as editions develop.

Now, categorically stating that everything beyond 1992 is garbage and that this:



...is somehow a brilliant sculpt and nothing after it was ever worthwhile...yeah. That's rose-tinted-goggles in the extreme.

Nostalgia (by definition): a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations

While I had a great time as a teenager playing 2nd edition, I still thoroughly enjoy it today. My enjoyment of the game has very little to do with nostalgia...it's not as if the game is crap and I'm merely playing it to relive my youth. I genuinely enjoy the game.

Elbows, I absolutely agree with you about every point, both positive and negative, about 2nd edition. So much frigging fun.

Also an absolute blast (and easy) to make into a very small skirmish game (like Necromunda, with obvious reasons as it was based off 2nd edition core rules).

2nd edition did what it did originally very well-where an army is a couple of squads, a hero or three, and a couple vehicles. It eventually became hugely bogged down for the exact same reasons as 6/7th. Too much stuff jammed in.

Hmm...it sounds like I need to take closer look back at my 2E stuff (that's the one that had the Dark Millennium box set, right?) and 5th (on the latter, sounds like I should avoid the 5E Necron book and use the older one).

For those who are playing older editions do you allow units from newer editions (ex., Riptide or Centurions - not that I'd necessarily use them, but as obvious examples) into the older game, and if so, how do you handle the rules?

 Elbows wrote:

...is somehow a brilliant sculpt and nothing after it was ever worthwhile...yeah. That's rose-tinted-goggles in the extreme.

Nostalgia (by definition): a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations

While I had a great time as a teenager playing 2nd edition, I still thoroughly enjoy it today. My enjoyment of the game has very little to do with nostalgia...it's not as if the game is crap and I'm merely playing it to relive my youth. I genuinely enjoy the game.

Yeah. Model wise it's harder to claim quality hasn't gone up and hey I do buy current models rather than seek 2nd ed models just because. Though while technically new models beat old ones hands down sometimes style has taken backward step. Too much bling and while for example AOS models are technically awesome they are too much WOW style I don't like.

But beauty with this is I can take whatever models I like. Just because I play 2nd ed doesn't mean I can't buy current models!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Stormonu wrote:
Hmm...it sounds like I need to take closer look back at my 2E stuff (that's the one that had the Dark Millennium box set, right?) and 5th (on the latter, sounds like I should avoid the 5E Necron book and use the older one).

For those who are playing older editions do you allow units from newer editions (ex., Riptide or Centurions - not that I'd necessarily use them, but as obvious examples) into the older game, and if so, how do you handle the rules?

Yes. Since we aren't playing current official rules we can say screw "officialdom" House rules! For example IG has got bunch of russ variants that didn't exists. Should we throw models away?

I got idea of making daemon world army(mostly out of good laugh for being able to incorporate chaos warriors, trolls and beastmen models into 40k). Now daemon world army REQUIRES daemon prince. All those are special characters(no generic daemon prince). There's 4 in codex but codex itself ENCOURAGES you to create your own(daemon world army required concent from opponent anyway). So now I'm thinking up my own daemon prince. Probably either tzeentch or khorne as those daemons I have(you can only take daemons of god whose daemon prince you have)

I like 7th the best, and I started in 3rd. Though I was sad when 7th nerfed my two bloodthirster three daemon prince army.

I feel that 5th was the best "overall" edition. While some codex's were better prior/after, the basic core rules worked best with the fewest major flaws in 5th. Every edition fixes some things while breaking others. 5th had IMO the fewest issues compared to others.

I started out in 2nd edition. I'd love to play that one again.
3rd was..different. It was ok. Hand to Hand sucked. youd bassicly make a chain of power weapon/killy dudes to kill anything that could hurt a power fist or thunder hammer, kill everything near those so they could bat cleanup with out being threatened, if I remember.
3.5 and 4th editions were an improvement for Hand to Hand.
My Orks were fantastic. The the 4th edition codex came out and 5th edition followed a few months later. 5th was Ok, but had a massive problem. Hand to Hand combat and combat resolution. I started to stop finding 40K fun about half way through. I didn't like that, as I felt at the time, 40K forced you to wring out your codex until only a few good units came out.
But that codex was crap. How can I play Orks with out fielding Orks.. I took a long brake 6th cam out I played maybe 10 games of 6th. it seemed ok. I wasn't a fan of allies at all. I didn't like them because there were none I wanted to use. I just wanted more slots for more Ork units. But as most people will remember things like 1999+1 came around to keep armies from having access to a second foc. Which I felt at the time Orks needed. An easy fix would have been just giving some armies access to the allied slots in stead of allies. Then 7th came out. and here we are. It feels like second ed to me some times. I enjoy it for the most part. If we could just get the 4th edition hand to hand back I think I would like it better. even with random charge range. which did save me big time last Saturday. A large squad of Dark Furies in terrain 2" away and they rolled a total of 3. Brilliant!
I have no expectations for 8th edition we either will or wont play it.

I guess the 2nd ed nostalgia doesn't include games where you didn't even get a turn. I saw loyalist marine lists tabled one turn 1 by both Eldar and CSM. Great game.

I don't understand the 2nd edition nostalgia. Well, I do; it's nostalgia.

That game was fundamentally terrible though. It was outrageously over-complicated and featured armies that consisted of one-man and his bullet sponges.

I was a 4th starter, 5th I liked for the 'charge from outflank' scout army I had until scouts were nerfed the first time around and I still sometimes miss the 'fearless means you take more wounds in CC' factor which should have been kept. I don't miss the "roll to hit for blast weapons" at all, nor the wound allocation shenanigans of the nob bike period.

Frankly 7th is Fine for me. Though my 15 liters of tanks aren't as good as they were when I bought them, since i've now grown out of the club competition stage of the hobby it's no big deal.

That and 7th is actually fairly viable at handling the type of game I play most, i.e. 5k+ thanks to massive power spikes everywhere which removes double integer percentages of the table per turn.

3rd edition was the most streamlined, but really had to be played with the Trial Assault Rules and Trial Vehicle Rules. However, it had the worst imbalance of codexes. That said, the missions were simple, the game plays intuitively, and while wound allocation wasn't really realistic (the owning player simply chose casualties), it was smooth and fair.

Fifth edition had probably the best overall ruleset. There was pretty consistent power creep among the codexes, wound allocation was really dumb, and vehicles were probably a touch overpowered. It centralized a lot of USRs, and the post 3rd edition universe was mature enough that for the most part, units and armies played like they should.

7th edition, for me, is the worst edition I've played (3rd-7th), because the game has become more complicated for no real gain in tactical depth or strategic choice. The amount of randomness in the game now is a bit bizarre, with random psychic powers, warlord traits, mysterious objectives, etc. That all being said, there are plenty of elements I like, such as hull points, overwatch, and the greater freedom to build armies. The psychic phase is a push for me, in that I like the resource allocation aspect, as its one of the few areas in the game where additional rules lead to interesting choices, but in practice psychic powers are either a pleasant bonus, or an engineered effort to secure one of the handful of mega powers.

The best aspects of 7th edition could easily be ported into 3rd or 5th edition, and the game would play faster, be less frustrating, and still allow for tactical choices.

Yes, 2nd edition was kinda strange. Hand to hand wasn't very practical from my experience. I think it would have been much better with slight changes to unit coherency Space Marines had it rough. Elday Orks and IG I think had it better.
Warpspiders were the robot devil.

I have no nostalgia for 2nd ed as I still play it. I find it far less complicated than 7th, and most criticisms I get are from people who never played it.

 obithius wrote:
I have no nostalgia for 2nd ed as I still play it. I find it far less complicated than 7th, and most criticisms I get are from people who never played it.

I played it. It sucked badly.

ALL editions of 40k are over complicated.2nd edition had more 'character' and tactical depth than later editions.

However, games companies have managed to develop much better rules for all scales of games over the last 18 years or so.

Compared to other rule set ALL editions of 40k are awful , in terms of clarity brevity and intuitive functional game play.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
I don't understand the 2nd edition nostalgia. Well, I do; it's nostalgia.

That game was fundamentally terrible though. It was outrageously over-complicated and featured armies that consisted of one-man and his bullet sponges.

Apart from psykers whom? Even biggest nastiest guys have one pretty bad flaw that keeps them from killing much. They can only kill in CC those in BB. Good luck scything through 10 IG troopers. Short of break test failing that will take...10 close combat phase. BTW that's longer than game that has whopping 8 close combats assuming you get 1st turn and can 1st turn charge(ain't happening).

Good luck for your blood thirster one manning IG army. Yes he can bust tanks fast but army isn't tanks only. And even then it's 3 tanks as max pretty much.

(especially vs IG that's going to happen. If chaos player starts there's no tanks available so you CANNOT 1st turn charge any tank no matter what)

And 1st turn wipeouts? Happen lot more in 7th with all the ignore cover, D pie plates etc.

Even worst balance difference in 2nd edition wasn't as horrible as it's now. Good luck for low-tier armies vs wraithknights and scatlasers...

tneva82 wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:
I don't understand the 2nd edition nostalgia. Well, I do; it's nostalgia.

That game was fundamentally terrible though. It was outrageously over-complicated and featured armies that consisted of one-man and his bullet sponges.

Apart from psykers whom?

Yes, those guys. It seems like you have it all worked out.

tneva82 wrote:

Even worst balance difference in 2nd edition wasn't as horrible as it's now. Good luck for low-tier armies vs wraithknights and scatlasers...

Who mentioned balance? I didn't, it didn't exist then, just like it doesn't exist now. I mentioned mechanics.

In this thread...

People who are somehow angry because other people enjoy something they didn't (and obviously played with different players).

Yup all that "you're having fun wrong" stuff that goes around on forums.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
I don't understand the 2nd edition nostalgia. Well, I do; it's nostalgia.

That game was fundamentally terrible though. It was outrageously over-complicated and featured armies that consisted of one-man and his bullet sponges.

It was more skirmish level than massive army battle, and if you came from a RPG background it had the right amount of grit. The only thing about 2nd edition that was terribly clunky was the Hand to Hand rules.

Up until recently, 2nd edition was the last time we had Genestealer Cults and Adeptus Mechanicus lists. Oh, and let's not forget Squats fell into the warp after 2nd edition.
Genestealers used to be hardcore in 2nd edition, They've been crap ever since.

This thread is kinda worthless without a poll.

For sheer playability, I'd go with 5E rules and 3E rulebook armies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Polonius wrote:
3rd edition was the most streamlined, but really had to be played with the Trial Assault Rules and Trial Vehicle Rules. However, it had the worst imbalance of codexes. That said, the missions were simple, the game plays intuitively, and while wound allocation wasn't really realistic (the owning player simply chose casualties), it was smooth and fair.

Fifth edition had probably the best overall ruleset. There was pretty consistent power creep among the codexes, wound allocation was really dumb, and vehicles were probably a touch overpowered. It centralized a lot of USRs, and the post 3rd edition universe was mature enough that for the most part, units and armies played like they should.

7th edition, for me, is the worst edition I've played (3rd-7th), because the game has become more complicated for no real gain in tactical depth or strategic choice. The amount of randomness in the game now is a bit bizarre, with random psychic powers, warlord traits, mysterious objectives, etc. That all being said, there are plenty of elements I like, such as hull points, overwatch, and the greater freedom to build armies. The psychic phase is a push for me, in that I like the resource allocation aspect, as its one of the few areas in the game where additional rules lead to interesting choices, but in practice psychic powers are either a pleasant bonus, or an engineered effort to secure one of the handful of mega powers.

The best aspects of 7th edition could easily be ported into 3rd or 5th edition, and the game would play faster, be less frustrating, and still allow for tactical choices.

I'm just gonna QFT this.

I would note that 4E is basically 3E + TAR + TVR + FAQ, and 5E is basically 4E + FAQ. The 3E wound allocation is the most sensible of all the editions I've played.

Agree on the 5E rules being the best and the 5E armies suffering from creep.

Agree on 7E being a messy disaster, with randomness for randomness' sake. Of all the 7E innovations, only Formations and Unbound are of any real interest to me.

I've played every edition since 2nd. My preference is for 5th. I see 40K as having three "eras": RT & 2nd; 3rd - 5th; and then 6th - 7th. While I loved the late 80's punk aesthetic of early 40k, and had a lot of fun with 2nd, I think the 3rd - 5th era was 40k at its best. I'm not sure why 6th seemed like such a turning point to me, but it was the beginning of a steady decline until the present. I'm hoping 8th will reinvigorate my interest, but, if it doesn't, there are plenty of other games I enjoy.

I personally enjoyed 5th edition the most. Sure Vehicles were almost stupidly durable back then, but the Psychic phase didn't exist (and powers were a fair bit simpler), and my Guard had access to a fair bit more cool vehicles and characters

Stormonu wrote:

For those who are playing older editions do you allow units from newer editions (ex., Riptide or Centurions - not that I'd necessarily use them, but as obvious examples) into the older game, and if so, how do you handle the rules?

We play fourth edition and allow all fifth edition.codecs to be used. But all have been hit with the red ink of house rules. For example.elder holofield now only allow a 5+ inv save instead of making you roll two dice and taking the lowest. Psy-ammo of all kinds has had it's cost increased by 10 points across the board in the GK codecs. Grey hunters cost +1 points each and have to buy their second special weapon. Bloodclaws, however cost -1 points. Nobody really complains as we all know what really was the broken gak i n each codec, after all, these have now been playtested for years.

As for new stuff 6th edition or later, anything considered a apoc level before 6th ed dropped is right out. SD Weapons gone. New units each get a look over and points, foc slot, etc. Get adjusted as necessary. Again nothing new here, we know where the cheddar is. All flyers get busted down to fast skimmers, that can't be assaulted except by jump/jet infantry.

5th Edition was my favorite. I started at the end of 3rd. By 5th it had become something pretty awesome.

 adamsouza wrote:

Up until recently, 2nd edition was the last time we had Genestealer Cults and Adeptus Mechanicus lists.

Genestealer Cult had an army in 3rd edition. I have an actual copy of the Citadel Journal right here.

I really liked 7th edition, until they've made it a "formations only, casuals go home" game. Formations aside, it still has the best balance. I think.

2nd edition is hard to compare with modern editions, as it approached things quite differently.

As for modern editions, it sure was fun when there were less than 25 USR's on 3 pages of the rulebook. I would never try to push the mess that is 7th edition on a new player.

4th/5th editions were by far the best ones for larger battles, and they also didn't have the rules spread piecemeal across so many different formats like now.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
2nd edition is hard to compare with modern editions, as it approached things quite differently.

True, but the overall complexity, randomness, and fiddliness is essentially similar to 7E.

Or rather, the overall compexity, randomness and fiddliness of 7E has regressed back to the mess we had in 2E.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
2nd edition is hard to compare with modern editions, as it approached things quite differently.

True, but the overall complexity, randomness, and fiddliness is essentially similar to 7E.

Or rather, the overall compexity, randomness and fiddliness of 7E has regressed back to the mess we had in 2E.

In a lot of ways even surpassed it. Stuff like vehicles and CC aren't as complex, but the number of special rules, random tables, and especially army construction, is insane. 2E is starting to look relatively simple by comparison

How about just playing a game. Holy crap. We were playing a game of 7E, and the whole process of just setting up to play starts to become painful. 7E is becoming something of a chore to play.

7E CC not complex? random charges? challenges? the whole initiative pile-in and attack stuff? plus casualty removal?

You raise good points...man 7E is just...awful.

My idea was to try some throwback games of 2e, but with super low (250-500) points, no squad cohesion, and just select a force made from individual fighter purchases that would make a fun skirmish force (so 30pts for a single Space Marine, etc) Try to get that intimate Necromunda feel, but with Orks, Eldar, and Space Marines, etc. Like a 2e version of the BoLS Kill Team.

Then the 2e melee combat is not much worse than Necromunda, because you are not trying to resolve much more than a couple of fighters at a time rather than whole squads, and things like even just a single terminator/mega-Armor/wraithguard in a warband feel suitably tough as the heavy weapon side of things would be quite light. (though psykers would probably get left totally out of such small conflicts, or only show up if there is one on each side of a fight to balance things.).

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:

Up until recently, 2nd edition was the last time we had Genestealer Cults and Adeptus Mechanicus lists.

Genestealer Cult had an army in 3rd edition. I have an actual copy of the Citadel Journal right here.

The magazine with all the unofficial and fan made rules ?

Up until 7th edition, 2nd edition was the last time we had official Genestealer Cults and Adeptus Mechanicus lists.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
2nd edition is hard to compare with modern editions, as it approached things quite differently.

True, but the overall complexity, randomness, and fiddliness is essentially similar to 7E.

Or rather, the overall compexity, randomness and fiddliness of 7E has regressed back to the mess we had in 2E.

Not really. There's just one house rule needed to make 2nd ed simple: Remove all persistent effects.

Simple and then 2nd ed is darn simple game as far as rule complexity goes.

7E is nowhere near as random as 2E was.

Remember Hop-Splat guns ? I had a single hop spat gun take out most of an enemy force than bounce back to my side of the board and kill the crew that launched it.

Sustained Fire dice ? Let roll dice to see how many dice you roll.

Now that I think of it, pretty much every piece of Ork artillery had a random factor to it.

 Traditio wrote:
[In fact, it annoys me that you can still do this with swarms.]

You can't do this with swarms. Swarm specifically has a rule that makes all wounds go to a wounded base first regardless of what is closest

 CrownAxe wrote:

 Traditio wrote:
[In fact, it annoys me that you can still do this with swarms.]

You can't do this with swarms. Swarm specifically has a rule that makes all wounds go to a wounded base first regardless of what is closest

Not quite, that only applies if multiple swarm bases could be considered the closest model. If the most wounded base isn't the closest it won't take the wounds first.

Hmm... I was a newb who never won a game during 3rd. I skipped most of 4th due to psychiatric issues. 5th was a lot of fun. 6th had Allies, which I liked since I always wanted to play two different armies, but I started to play less during it so I guess I didn't like it much. And 7th I've barely played at all, so I probably hate it too.

I never played during RT or 2nd.

So I guess my favorite is 5th?

Ork stuff has been random for random's sake for about as long as I can remember, so it hardly counts. I look at things like Warp Spiders in 2E and 7E, and miss the simplicity of 3E.

Where 7E gets completely out of control is the sheer variety and keyword overload. Compare the number of entries in C:SM 2E vs 7E. How about the number of Power Weapons available? And don't forget that 7E adds GMCs and Superheavies directly into the game, along with Formations and Allies.

An 7E is almost unplayable from a RAW mechanics stanpoint, what with the whole "closest first" rule. That's some ridiculously ticky-tack gak there that pervades the entire fething game.

 Brennonjw wrote:
"The edition that looks best under my rose tinted goggles"

Really, it's the same argument as 'which zelda game is the best' or 'which saturday morning cartoon was the best'. It's far to based in nostalgia to fairly judge.

No, anyone can take off their goggles anytime and pick up the older editions to see if it really was as good as they remember.

I did it 18 months ago with 2nd ed. 20 years of tinting didn't change a thing.

Martel732 wrote:
I guess the 2nd ed nostalgia doesn't include games where you didn't even get a turn. I saw loyalist marine lists tabled one turn 1 by both Eldar and CSM. Great game.

Yeah, I stopped believing your imaginary anecdotes over a year ago

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
... miss the simplicity of 3E.

Where 7E gets completely out of control is the sheer variety and keyword overload. Compare the number of entries in C:SM 2E vs 7E. How about the number of Power Weapons available? And don't forget that 7E adds GMCs and Superheavies directly into the game, along with Formations and Allies.

You see this is where the crutch of our disagreement is going to be.

I utterly hated how cut down 3E was. I appreciate that it did stream line 40K mechanics into something more suited for larger armies, but it did so at the cost of making everything generic. Psychic powers, Characters, Genestealer Cults, and Super Heavies were all things I used in 2nd edition and they all got punted in 3rd edition. 7E adding all the cool stuff back to the game is why I like it.

You can always agree not to use offical things you don't like in your games.
You can't use things that don't exist in offical rules, in anything other than homebrew games that you've convinced someone to let you use.

It is better to have an option and choose not to use it than to not have the option at all.

 MarsNZ wrote:

 Brennonjw wrote:
"The edition that looks best under my rose tinted goggles"

Really, it's the same argument as 'which zelda game is the best' or 'which saturday morning cartoon was the best'. It's far to based in nostalgia to fairly judge.

No, anyone can take off their goggles anytime and pick up the older editions to see if it really was as good as they remember.

I did it 18 months ago with 2nd ed. 20 years of tinting didn't change a thing.

Martel732 wrote:
I guess the 2nd ed nostalgia doesn't include games where you didn't even get a turn. I saw loyalist marine lists tabled one turn 1 by both Eldar and CSM. Great game.

Yeah, I stopped believing your imaginary anecdotes over a year ago

Whatever. I was there. The weaponry available to CSM and Eldar was nuts. Give your marines a lot of gear in 2nd ed, and you have a tiny army with no additional defenses. Do the math.

If you take a really small army, and your enemy has lots of guns, and you're evidently playing with insufficient cover, you can get tabled turn 1. Unfortunately for your ancedote, this is possible in every edtion. Do the math.

 adamsouza wrote:
If you take a really small army, and your enemy has lots of guns, and you're evidently playing with insufficient cover, you can get tabled turn 1. Unfortunately for your ancedote, this is possible in every edtion. Do the math.

I understand that as well. However, I saw it in 2nd ed more often than any other. The disparity of quality of weapon systems between Imperium and non-Imperium was even larger than today.

Martel732 wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:
If you take a really small army, and your enemy has lots of guns, and you're evidently playing with insufficient cover, you can get tabled turn 1. Unfortunately for your ancedote, this is possible in every edtion. Do the math.

I understand that as well. However, I saw it in 2nd ed more often than any other. The disparity of quality of weapon systems between Imperium and non-Imperium was even larger than today.

Is possible that your friends were terrbile at 40K ?

Orks had the same guns as Space Marines.
IG had the same big guns as Space Marines, plus Battle Cannons.
Eldar had cooler guns, but with shorter range than space marines.
Tyranids were not winning games in the shooting phase.
Squats had the same guns as Space Marines.
Chaos Marines had the same guns as Space Marines.
Genestealer Cults had the same guns as Space Marines.

Can you provide an example, because I'm just not seeing it.

 adamsouza wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:
If you take a really small army, and your enemy has lots of guns, and you're evidently playing with insufficient cover, you can get tabled turn 1. Unfortunately for your ancedote, this is possible in every edtion. Do the math.

I understand that as well. However, I saw it in 2nd ed more often than any other. The disparity of quality of weapon systems between Imperium and non-Imperium was even larger than today.

Is possible that your friends were terrbile at 40K ?

Orks had the same guns as Space Marines.
IG had the same big guns as Space Marines, plus Battle Cannons.
Eldar had cooler guns, but with shorter range than space marines.
Tyranids were not winning games in the shooting phase.
Squats had the same guns as Space Marines.
Chaos Marines had the same guns as Space Marines.
Genestealer Cults had the same guns as Space Marines.

Can you provide an example, because I'm just not seeing it.

Example: Eldar using vypers, artillery guns, and falcons vs loyalist marines. Move, hose down marines with shuriken cannons with 2 sus fire dice and *-3* armor save.

CSM did NOT have the same weapons. Every CSM list I saw was terminators with reaper autocannon/blastmaster and noise marines with sonic blasters. Sonic blasters were 32" -2 armor save 2 sustained fire dice.

And course there were IG tablings with the good old virus grenade.

Further absurdities: Tyranids didn't table anyone with shooting, but the hormagaunt made them damn near impossible to beat.

A huge problem with 2nd was that transports were utter death traps and so no one meched up.

We weren't terrible at 40K, we were good at breaking it.

 adamsouza wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
... miss the simplicity of 3E.

Where 7E gets completely out of control is the sheer variety and keyword overload. Compare the number of entries in C:SM 2E vs 7E. How about the number of Power Weapons available? And don't forget that 7E adds GMCs and Superheavies directly into the game, along with Formations and Allies.

You see this is where the crutch of our disagreement is going to be.

I utterly hated how cut down 3E was. I appreciate that it did stream line 40K mechanics into something more suited for larger armies, but it did so at the cost of making everything generic. Psychic powers, Characters, Genestealer Cults, and Super Heavies were all things I used in 2nd edition and they all got punted in 3rd edition. 7E adding all the cool stuff back to the game is why I like it.

You can always agree not to use offical things you don't like in your games.
You can't use things that don't exist in offical rules, in anything other than homebrew games that you've convinced someone to let you use.

It is better to have an option and choose not to use it than to not have the option at all.

Those options, with their mandatory dozen special rules and sub-rules and sub-sub-rules are pure gak, and you know it. They are fething unplayable.

And quite frankly, the "generic" 3E rules for supers were just fine. GMCs / SHVs can fire all weapons each turn, at whatever targets they desire. Only SHVs need Hull Points. And so on. Simple and playable.

Making every fething thing a special snowflake makes them all not-special.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Those options, with their mandatory dozen special rules and sub-rules and sub-sub-rules are pure gak, and you know it. They are fething unplayable

Your dislike of them doesn't make them unplayable for the rest of us.

This is like D&D Grognards talking about how D&D 1E is superior to Pathfinder because it has less rules.

From a game design point of view.RT and 2nd editions both a clearly defined games scale and scope.And also a clearly defined game play.
Both were over complicated, but the tactical depth and character sort of made up for it.

However, 2nd edition was seen as a genuine attempt to improve the game functions and game play.

I am sure if the devs were allowed to publish the refined large skirmish rules they had been working on for years,for 3rd edition 40k .
40k would have been in a much better place right now.

Unfortunately the 11th hour rush job that GW sales made the devs publish for 3erd ed.Totally lost focus on the game scale and function .
And this loss of focus on actual game scale scope and function has caused the 40k rules to devolve into a short term sales focused 'special snowflake rules snowstorm.'

I am aware some people prefer the way GW currently write the rules for 40k. However these are the extreme ends of the potential customer base.

The 'over competitive' types who just buy and play the latest over powered/under costed units.And the 'collectors' who do not play, or do not care about the rules anyway.

All the companies that growing their market share are writing rules with enough tactical depth to allow varied game play. And with enough balance to provide fun pick up and play games.I just wish GW would do the same for 40k.

I think it's hard to push 7th as the best edition when even GW acknowledges it is a lame duck (6th as well, given the two-year turn around in rules).

 adamsouza wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Those options, with their mandatory dozen special rules and sub-rules and sub-sub-rules are pure gak, and you know it. They are fething unplayable

Your dislike of them doesn't make them unplayable for the rest of us.

This is like D&D Grognards talking about how D&D 1E is superior to Pathfinder because it has less rules.

I would argue that when nobody plays the game exactly how it's written, and every event out there runs a huge list of house rules, house restrictions, and house FAQ's, the game there's a good argument to be made that it's playability is broken when everyone has to rewrite and reorganize the rules themselves. To be fair, there's always been house FAQ's to cover some things, but nothing to the current extent, and especially the rules changes and army construction restrictions.

 Vaktathi wrote:

I would argue that when nobody plays the game exactly how it's written, and every event out there runs a huge list of house rules, house restrictions, and house FAQ's, the game there's a good argument to be made that it's playability is broken when everyone has to rewrite and reorganize the rules themselves. To be fair, there's always been house FAQ's to cover some things, but nothing to the current extent, and especially the rules changes and army construction restrictions.

Just so we are clear you are making 2 assertions there:
1.) "nobody plays the game exactly how it's written" which is hyperbolic and simply not true
2.) "there's a good argument to be made that it's playability is broken when everyone has to rewrite and reorganize the rules themselves." which relies heavily on your first assertion, and then mentions tournament FAQs being more extensive than they've previously been.

7th Edition is on a whole LARGER than any previous edition. More Codexes, more supplements, more Formations, more fortifications, more flyers, more monstrous creatures, etc...... There is exponentially more interactions between rules and therefore more frequently asked questions generated because of it.

Tournament's are a breeding ground for WAAC rules lawyering. Extensive FAQ's give TO's a valuable tool to curb shenanigans.

Correlation and causation are not the same thing. Confirmation bias is a real thing.

 adamsouza wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

I would argue that when nobody plays the game exactly how it's written, and every event out there runs a huge list of house rules, house restrictions, and house FAQ's, the game there's a good argument to be made that it's playability is broken when everyone has to rewrite and reorganize the rules themselves. To be fair, there's always been house FAQ's to cover some things, but nothing to the current extent, and especially the rules changes and army construction restrictions.

Just so we are clear you are making 2 assertions there:
1.) "nobody plays the game exactly how it's written" which is hyperbolic and simply not true

I've never seen a game where people played everything exactly the way the rulebook describes it. This may be skipping over things like terrain setup, "mysterious" terrain rules, rerolling literally impossible Maelstrom objectives, common unspoken conventions against Unbound armies, etc. I can honestly say I don't think I've seen a single game of 7E where everything was played *exactly* as the rulebook describes it.

2.) "there's a good argument to be made that it's playability is broken when everyone has to rewrite and reorganize the rules themselves." which relies heavily on your first assertion, and then mentions tournament FAQs being more extensive than they've previously been.

7th Edition is on a whole LARGER than any previous edition. More Codexes, more supplements, more Formations, more fortifications, more flyers, more monstrous creatures, etc...... There is exponentially more interactions between rules and therefore more frequently asked questions generated because of it.

Tournament's are a breeding ground for WAAC rules lawyering. Extensive FAQ's give TO's a valuable tool to curb shenanigans.

Correlation and causation are not the same thing. Confirmation bias is a real thing.

The sheer volume of FAQ however, even unrelated to all the codex books and supplements and whatnot, just for the core rules (which aren't actually all that much larger than previous editions) is huge.

More to the point, it's the actual rules changes and restrictions (which you neglected to mention) that are key. Go back to 5E, and about the only rules changes and restrictions you'll see is "no Forgeworld". Go back to 3E and it might be "no Forgeworld or Special Characters, troops must be 40% of the army" That was about it. Now you can look at any event and you'll find army construction restrictions on detachments, allies, banning of SH/GC units with specific types of weaponry, rules changes for psychic powers, changes to formation rules and functionality, changes to D weapons, completely re-written mission objectives, etc ad nauseum.

Tournaments are extensively re-writing rules, not something they did in previous editions beyond the above couple exceptions (which were usually imposed by GW themselves for their own events).

There is no need for 7th to be exponentially larger than 5th, to say nothing of 3rd, and that is where much of the problem comes from. 40k is supposed to be a B&P game, and the sheer rules volume works completely against that. There is absolutely no reason for any unit in 40k to require more than a Magic card's worth of rules and stats. With a picture. Yet 40k has bloated the game with loads of superfluous rules to no real point. Also Vak is 100% right about people not playing RAW mysterious objectives, mysterious terrain, and impossible Maelstrom objectives being the obvious issues. Not to mention the massive amount of tournament house rules banning unbound and unlimited force selection, nerfing S(D) and so forth. The game is a mess, period.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
40k is supposed to be a B&P game, and the sheer rules volume works completely against that.

40K has never been a Beer and Pretzels game. It's never been that simple, and it probably never will be.

You can wish it to be 3rd or 5th all you want, but GW is in the business of selling new models, and new models NEED new rules, which GW will be happy to sell to you for $50 a hard cover book.

Epic second edition followed by Epic Armageddon.

Easy to setup and play, lots of different units, and nearly all relevant rules could be explained on a few note cards and Stat pages.

8th edition. Because it will fix everything

CHANGE. HOPE. BELIEVE.
Warhammer 40k -- 2017

Damn, it's getting a little hot in here.

Personally I have some bad memories of 2E; I continued collecting models, but stopped playing after a brutal beatdown on my poor (Ultra)marines by a chaos force. That game, as well as my first attempt at playing WHFB is one reason I don't ever play GW games with named characters (and never will).

I have the rules and several codexes for 5E, I think I'll give it a shot with my regular opponents and see how it works out. Specifically, I have Tau, Necron, Tyranid, Imperial Guard, and generic Space Marine ("One of everything", with about 3-4 squads troops at least). My regular opponent (i.e., my son) has Chaos Space Marines and Necrons. And I have an Orc army and Eldar army "spares" to fitz around with.

The reason I'm being so specific is if anyone could warn me about units or rules that will make things unfun for us in 5th I'd like to know before the models hits the table. Thanks!

 Stormonu wrote:
Damn, it's getting a little hot in here.

"Yeah man, but it's a dry heat!"

 Stormonu wrote:
The reason I'm being so specific is if anyone could warn me about units or rules that will make things unfun for us in 5th I'd like to know before the models hits the table. Thanks!

Well, the Tau codex was written for 4th edition, so it kinda sucks for 5th. There's even wargear in the book that literally does nothing (CNC node was one of them, I think), and others that people used to argue should do nothing because they referenced old 4th edition rules (like passing a target priority test to use it, which didn't exist anymore). And there's none of the fun stuff 5th had like "Take this HQ to unlock this unit as a troops choice", either. They weren't unplayable, but they weren't that good. Everything else as far as I'm aware had an up-to-date 5th edition book.

 Talys wrote:
8th edition. Because it will fix everything

Or be the last nail in the coffin.

Sorry, but 3E (rulebook) 40k was definitely a B&P game.

 Stormonu wrote:
Damn, it's getting a little hot in here.

Personally I have some bad memories of 2E; I continued collecting models, but stopped playing after a brutal beatdown on my poor (Ultra)marines by a chaos force. That game, as well as my first attempt at playing WHFB is one reason I don't ever play GW games with named characters (and never will).

I have the rules and several codexes for 5E, I think I'll give it a shot with my regular opponents and see how it works out. Specifically, I have Tau, Necron, Tyranid, Imperial Guard, and generic Space Marine ("One of everything", with about 3-4 squads troops at least). My regular opponent (i.e., my son) has Chaos Space Marines and Necrons. And I have an Orc army and Eldar army "spares" to fitz around with.

The reason I'm being so specific is if anyone could warn me about units or rules that will make things unfun for us in 5th I'd like to know before the models hits the table. Thanks!

The problem units in 5th edition, at least in my particular meta, were: Grey Hunters, Long Fangs, Imperial Guard Veteran squads, and Vendettas. The points-to-kill ratio for these units was head and shoulders above anything else I saw in my meta. Jaws of the World Wolf, a psyker power in the Space Wolves codex, was also particularly nasty if you were a Tyranid player. Now I'm not saying never to field the above 4 units, they certainly weren't meta breaking in the way that Wraithknights and scatter bikes are now, I'm just saying that they're very much the cream of the crop if you're going to be playing 5th edition games. Oh, and if anyone plays Necrons, for the love of god just... don't ever let them field Imotekh. His ability to turn the sun on and off was just... so fething stupid.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Sorry, but 3E (rulebook) 40k was definitely a B&P game.

I'm going to agree to disagree, but just for the sake of argument let's say it was.
3rd edition is 1 edition out of 7 editions. 6 out 7 editions of 40K were not a B&P game.
40K has exited for 30 years, and 3rd edition lasted for about 5 years. 25 years out of 30 years 40K has not been a B&P game.
3rd edition has been done since 2004, and it's 2016.

 adamsouza wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Sorry, but 3E (rulebook) 40k was definitely a B&P game.

I'm going to agree to disagree, but just for the sake of argument let's say it was.
3rd edition is 1 edition out of 7 editions. 6 out 7 editions of 40K were not a B&P game.
40K has exited for 30 years, and 3rd edition lasted for about 5 years. 25 years out of 30 years 40K has not been a B&P game.
3rd edition has been done since 2004, and it's 2016.

If it's not B&P what it is then? It's markedly not competive game either so what classification it then falls into...

The game doesn't know what it wants to be aside from a sales mechanism.

It's not a B&P game, it's not a competitive tactical combat game, and it's certainly not a very good "pickup" game.

It tries to encompass the detail of a skirmish game with things like challenges and different blade types on power weapons but then stuffs things like Titans, air-to-air combat engagements, and tank formations with whole companies of infantry on top of that granularity. It's got rules detail suited best for RPG's and Skirmish games while increasingly wanting to play at what really should be a 10mm Epic scale.

Ultimately, it's a mess is what it is.

Good thing 2nd ed is more clear on what it tries to be And no matter what model you bring you are hard pressed to find one that CANNOT be insta blown by even humble lascannon. Even baneblade cannot ignore a threat of lone guardman with a lascannon!

Funny that. Even super heavies don't feel quite so out of whack when they don't have tons of special rules making them work totally differently to regular tanks. They are just bit more survivable tanks with more guns. Doesn't feel like playing with different game alltogether.

Or like space marine captain(chapter master in 7th ed). You need to be seriously lucky to survive even single lascannon that gets by any inv save you have. In 7th ed you need to get past savies 3 times to frag him.

Carnifex? That gets better. It can get 4++ and needs 2 hits past to kill in average. Then it has the regeneration thingie that keeps it fighting unless you really pour down fire on it. Still compare to 4+ you need to kill it in 7th ed...And carnifex is weak MC survivability wise 7th ed.

(and then factor in carni is lucky or require co-operation from opponent to kill more than handful models. Suddenly feels lot less scary when you realize that)

 Accolade wrote:
I think it's hard to push 7th as the best edition when even GW acknowledges it is a lame duck (6th as well, given the two-year turn around in rules).

The way I see it is 6th is to 2nd ed basic wheras 7th is to 2nd ed (including FAQ and Dark Millenium).

I've enjoyed all edition's I've played (2nd, 3rd, 6th and 7th). To be honest, I think I might have enjoyed 3rd most because I never felt bogged down in rules, leaving me free to FORGE THE NAARRRATTIIIVE!

 Vaktathi wrote:
Ultimately, it's a mess is what it is.

QFT.

Okay, I took a minute to get perspective and it occurred to me arguing with anyone here about the best edition of 40K is like arguing with them about which flavor of ice cream is best. It's pointless, as no one is going to be won over to the other side.

What I am going to say in conclusion is that, 40K abandoned the bare bones approach of 3rd edition 12 years ago, and 8th is likely going to be closer to 7th than to 3rd in all the ways that matter.

Fantasy got a reboot because it's sales were terrible, it's IP was too generic to protect, and Mantic was doing "fantasy" better with Kings of War.

40K's sales are strong, they've rebranded everything they couldn't control the IP for, and no one does scifi tabletop wargaming better.

What 40k has going for it is inertia. It's the big dog that's been around forever and is well known and widespread.

There are certainly better functioning games out there that are both far better balanced and flavorful, but they dont have decades of inertia to rely on. Games like Dropzone Commander.

Lets be real, if 40k was just now coming out as a new game, if it had never existed before 2016, would you be playing 40k or something else? I think 40k's playability issues would kill it before it ever saw 2017. Infinity, Dropzone Commander, Warmahordes, etc, would all be much stronger contenders if 40k hadnt been the only game in town for so many years.

If 40K had never existed before 2016 I would likely not be playing tabletop miniatures battles games at all.

Infinity, Dropzone Commander, Warmahordes, etc, would all be much stronger contenders if 40k hadnt been the only game in town for so many years.

Yes. If their number 1 competition, and the game that possibely inspired them to make a miniatures game in the first place, didn't exist they would likely fill a larger portion of the market than they currently do, if they existed at all.

Just like we all be watching more Youtube if TVs didn't exist, but somehow Youtube still did.

40k is not the only scifi miniatures game out there, the existence of the hobby does not owe itself to 40k. 40k has played a large role in what it is today, both good and bad, but it is not the entirety of tabletop gaming. It's been the 800lb gorilla for a long time, but it's no longer the only player in the room anymore.

Ultimately, setting the existential question of the nature of the tabletop gaming hobby aside, if 40k didnt have the inertia it does, practically obody would be playing it over the competition. I have yet to see disagreement with that statement from anyone. As such, there's a very good argument to be made that others *do* in fact do tabletop scifi wargaming better.

 Vaktathi wrote:
40k is not the only scifi miniatures game out there, the existence of the hobby does not owe itself to 40k. 40k has played a large role in what it is today, both good and bad, but it is not the entirety of tabletop gaming. It's been the 800lb gorilla for a long time, but it's no longer the only player in the room anymore.

Ultimately, setting the existential question of the nature of the tabletop gaming hobby aside, if 40k didnt have the inertia it does, practically obody would be playing it over the competition. I have yet to see disagreement with that statement from anyone. As such, there's a very good argument to be made that others *do* in fact do tabletop scifi wargaming better.

Though I agree that the game's inertia helps it keep going, I think the lore and setting of 40k really keeps it alive. It's also, ironically, what makes it so hard to actually turn into a tabletop game, given the scale of it.

 adamsouza wrote:

40K's sales are strong, they've rebranded everything they couldn't control the IP for, and no one does scifi tabletop wargaming better.

Strong but dropping. They are suffering from same problem salewise that FB did. Starting point was simply higher...

If your initial sales are 10, 1 year later 9 then you are dropping. Then if you have another line that was 100, then 90 you are still dropping and even at the same rate. Just because you sold 10x more doesn't mean situation is neccessarilly good and DEFINITELY not sustainable.

40k has been a beer and pretzels game for me as long as I've been legally allowed to purchase and consume alcohol. Before then, it was simply a pretzels game

I do agree with the sentiment I've seen around that 7th ed is a rough time for a beginner - I've been at this game for over a decade and I can't keep track of all the formations and supplements and new units in 7th. It's frankly kinda nuts. I'd really like a 3rd ed-style cleanup and streamlining, as we're at 2nd ed levels of bonkers now.

40k has been called a 'beer and pretzel game'for as long as GW could use this as an excuse to hand wave away poor game development and shoddy rules writing.

Most true 'Beer and Pretzel' games have rules that fit on one side of A5 paper.(Pass the Pigs , Zombie Dice etc.)

When a rule set has more pages of rules than detailed combat simulation games, calling it a 'beer and pretzel' game is a massive stretch at best and a down right lie at worst.

40k is a beer and pretzels game. And it's a bad one at it.

Most things defined as beer and pretzels have about 25% the rules volume as 40k. 40k is far too complicated now to play in an extremely casual manner. Now a game like One Page 40k? That's a beer and pretzels game, and better for it.

Hell, I'd go so far as to say that beer and pretzels games by their very nature do not need pages-long Errattas and FAQ's.

I started off at the end of 2nd and my group enjoyed it so much that we refused to move on to 3rd and 4th. It just seemed too much had been lost in those editions. We did finally convert when 5th came out. I actually find 5th to be my favorite edition. It was by no means perfect, but is seems to be the best mix of simplicity and playability we have seen. 2nd, while enjoyable, just took too long to play. I have been out of the hobby for a couple of years, but am just starting to get back in and teaching my son to play. After taking a look at 7th, I have decided to start him off in 5th. Will stick with that until 8th comes out and make a decision.

 Vaktathi wrote:
The game doesn't know what it wants to be aside from a sales mechanism.

It's not a B&P game, it's not a competitive tactical combat game, and it's certainly not a very good "pickup" game.

It tries to encompass the detail of a skirmish game with things like challenges and different blade types on power weapons but then stuffs things like Titans, air-to-air combat engagements, and tank formations with whole companies of infantry on top of that granularity. It's got rules detail suited best for RPG's and Skirmish games while increasingly wanting to play at what really should be a 10mm Epic scale.

Ultimately, it's a mess is what it is.

Its a mess because its all chucked on the table together. 40k has the potential to be great, but not as a pick-up game where one side is a skirmish but one is a tank battalion. But if the two sides discuss and agree on the style of game then its great. Its great because a single ruleset allows you to make tiny 500pt skirmish forces led by a Scout Sergeant vs a master Eldar Ranger, or huge battles of dozens of tanks, and now even Titan vs Titan warfare, all within a single rulebook and ruleset. Its just when the two clash the issue flares up.

I enjoyed 5th edition.

Super heavies, fliers, and gargantuan creatures stayed in Apocalypse games.

Everyone followed the CAD.

No unbound lists.

Much fewer supplements.

Wound allocation shenanigans could be annoying (looking at you, Nobs!) but I'll take it all back!

 Deadshot wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The game doesn't know what it wants to be aside from a sales mechanism.

It's not a B&P game, it's not a competitive tactical combat game, and it's certainly not a very good "pickup" game.

It tries to encompass the detail of a skirmish game with things like challenges and different blade types on power weapons but then stuffs things like Titans, air-to-air combat engagements, and tank formations with whole companies of infantry on top of that granularity. It's got rules detail suited best for RPG's and Skirmish games while increasingly wanting to play at what really should be a 10mm Epic scale.

Ultimately, it's a mess is what it is.

Its a mess because its all chucked on the table together. 40k has the potential to be great, but not as a pick-up game where one side is a skirmish but one is a tank battalion. But if the two sides discuss and agree on the style of game then its great. Its great because a single ruleset allows you to make tiny 500pt skirmish forces led by a Scout Sergeant vs a master Eldar Ranger, or huge battles of dozens of tanks, and now even Titan vs Titan warfare, all within a single rulebook and ruleset. Its just when the two clash the issue flares up.

Except 1 ruleset to rule them(whether scale or time) all never works. Style of battles always change so rulesets should change to reflect that.

There's reason no-one has made one ruleset that works for everything yet...

@Deadshot.
The 'Jack of all trades master of none' approach is not working out that well for 40k or GW.

When GW sales team let the game developers get on with developing a wide range of games that appealed to a wide range of customers. GW experienced its largest period of growth.

After the sales team tried to make one 40k rule set cover everything from detailed skirmish to epic battles,( to replace the 3 separate rule sets.)
40k and GW have suffered continues drop in sales volumes year on year.

So GW need to pick the scale and scope of the game 40k is supposed to be , and re-write the rules focusing on that particular game play requirement.

A big book of cool sounding ideas that you have to sort out your self is not what most gamers expect a rule book to be...
(As no other company but GW sell you the easy stuff , and leave out the difficult stuff like provable levels of game balance, and coherent well defined game play! )

tneva82 wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The game doesn't know what it wants to be aside from a sales mechanism.

It's not a B&P game, it's not a competitive tactical combat game, and it's certainly not a very good "pickup" game.

It tries to encompass the detail of a skirmish game with things like challenges and different blade types on power weapons but then stuffs things like Titans, air-to-air combat engagements, and tank formations with whole companies of infantry on top of that granularity. It's got rules detail suited best for RPG's and Skirmish games while increasingly wanting to play at what really should be a 10mm Epic scale.

Ultimately, it's a mess is what it is.

Its a mess because its all chucked on the table together. 40k has the potential to be great, but not as a pick-up game where one side is a skirmish but one is a tank battalion. But if the two sides discuss and agree on the style of game then its great. Its great because a single ruleset allows you to make tiny 500pt skirmish forces led by a Scout Sergeant vs a master Eldar Ranger, or huge battles of dozens of tanks, and now even Titan vs Titan warfare, all within a single rulebook and ruleset. Its just when the two clash the issue flares up.

Except 1 ruleset to rule them(whether scale or time) all never works. Style of battles always change so rulesets should change to reflect that.

There's reason no-one has made one ruleset that works for everything yet...

Well they have, its called 40K. When the players are in the same mindset for what type of game they want. If they have agreed beforehand that they want a huge battle representing an all out war and are on the sae page with regards to Superheavies and Flyers and that stuff, its great. And if both are happy to take a few scout-type squads and fight a small insurgence force battle, its great. But when one guy pulls up with his "Quick Response Imperial Guard Recon Force" consisting of Rough Riders, a few Chimeras with Infantry and a few Scout Sentinels, and runs into a full decked out Eldar Warhost with a giant Wraithknight, what would you expect to happen? The style of the battle makes no difference to the core rules of WS, BS, etc, unit types, Move Shoot Assault. That stuff always stays the same as they are the core of the game. 40K is a narrative game, as the FORGE THE NARRATIVE keeps trying to press they are trying to make things work like fluff. So in the fluff if 4 tactical squads and an Autocannon Predator come up against a Titan, they are fethed. As it should be.

I actually can't believe I'm saying this, but what is needed is either; "Superheavies cannot be used in games below 2000pts without agreement of all players."

Or the two players simply discuss the scenario. 500pts? Ok, I'll bring a knight and 2 small support units and you can bring your anti-Titan squads and we'll fight a battle.

 Deadshot wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The game doesn't know what it wants to be aside from a sales mechanism.

It's not a B&P game, it's not a competitive tactical combat game, and it's certainly not a very good "pickup" game.

It tries to encompass the detail of a skirmish game with things like challenges and different blade types on power weapons but then stuffs things like Titans, air-to-air combat engagements, and tank formations with whole companies of infantry on top of that granularity. It's got rules detail suited best for RPG's and Skirmish games while increasingly wanting to play at what really should be a 10mm Epic scale.

Ultimately, it's a mess is what it is.

Its a mess because its all chucked on the table together. 40k has the potential to be great, but not as a pick-up game where one side is a skirmish but one is a tank battalion. But if the two sides discuss and agree on the style of game then its great. Its great because a single ruleset allows you to make tiny 500pt skirmish forces led by a Scout Sergeant vs a master Eldar Ranger, or huge battles of dozens of tanks, and now even Titan vs Titan warfare, all within a single rulebook and ruleset. Its just when the two clash the issue flares up.

The problems with this are legion however. The game doesnt handle any of these different scales well in their own right, the game's fundamental mechanics have the detail for a skirmish game but are built on the unit funcionality of a company level wargame (i.e. unit vs unit not model vs model) and then tries to further apply such unwarranted granularity to things like Titans. If you're looking for a skirmish game, there are far better rulesets. If you're looking for a Titan vs Titan game, there are far better rulesets. If you're looking for tank company vs tank company combat, there are far better rulesets. If the only advantage to 40k is that you can do all of these with ine ruleset, but none work together well, whats the point?

Additionally, GW has been going out if its way to mash these different scsles together instead of keeping them separate to make the issue even worse. The different scales clash all the time and GW goes out of its way to encourage that.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The game doesn't know what it wants to be aside from a sales mechanism.

It's not a B&P game, it's not a competitive tactical combat game, and it's certainly not a very good "pickup" game.

It tries to encompass the detail of a skirmish game with things like challenges and different blade types on power weapons but then stuffs things like Titans, air-to-air combat engagements, and tank formations with whole companies of infantry on top of that granularity. It's got rules detail suited best for RPG's and Skirmish games while increasingly wanting to play at what really should be a 10mm Epic scale.

Ultimately, it's a mess is what it is.

Its a mess because its all chucked on the table together. 40k has the potential to be great, but not as a pick-up game where one side is a skirmish but one is a tank battalion. But if the two sides discuss and agree on the style of game then its great. Its great because a single ruleset allows you to make tiny 500pt skirmish forces led by a Scout Sergeant vs a master Eldar Ranger, or huge battles of dozens of tanks, and now even Titan vs Titan warfare, all within a single rulebook and ruleset. Its just when the two clash the issue flares up.

The problems with this are legion however. The game doesnt handle any of these different scales well in their own right, the game's fundamental mechanics have the detail for a skirmish game but are built on the unit funcionality of a company level wargame (i.e. unit vs unit not model vs model) and then tries to further apply such unwarranted granularity to things like Titans. If you're looking for a skirmish game, there are far better rulesets. If you're looking for a Titan vs Titan game, there are far better rulesets. If you're looking for tank company vs tank company combat, there are far better rulesets. If the only advantage to 40k is that you can do all of these with ine ruleset, but none work together well, whats the point?

Additionally, GW has been going out if its way to mash these different scsles together instead of keeping them separate to make the issue even worse. The different scales clash all the time and GW goes out of its way to encourage that.

Except those are 3 different rule sets. GW's advantage is that its a single ruleset applied across the entirely of the game. In Titan level battles that level of detail makes it fun as it feels model vs model. You can play model vs model as well, simply remove the unit coherency rule. The 40K ruleset is flexible in that way.

GW have gone out of their way to mash those styles for money. Titans weren't selling because people felt they were "add-ons" to the main game and so many didn't play them alongside the whole "FW isn't legal in games" debacle. They through these in to say "yes they are, play them, buy them." But ultimately its up to the players to do things their way. GW is closer to old style GMed RPGs like D&D in that sense, that an actually competitive ruleset. In fact they were founded by the same guys who originally wrote the Wizard of Firetop Mountain series of RPG books, who always encouraged fun over a hard ruleset.

On top of that, ever remember the complaints way back in 5th and before where all these different playstyles were seperate and it cost 50 for the rulebook, 50 for the FW IA book, 40 for Apocalypse, and 400+ for the models.

7th Ed is a master tome. Its "here's the core rules for all possible units in the game, go buy she codex for specific rules." Its certainly not "Here's every rule in the game you must use them all or suffer eternal damnation." Just talk with your opponent what you want to play, I'm putting anecdotal first hand experience down here to say that a 10 minute conversation before list-writing to discuss what you both want to play makes things immensely more fun.

You don't even need a 10 minute conversation. Pick a point level and if you aren't optimized it is your own fault.

While I can understand GW's desire to increase sales by removing the restrictions on massive-scale units, I fear the side effect may be a decrease in the player population overall. That sort of attempt at general appeal that leaves an increasing number of people unsatisfied. Especially when the investment for 40k is so great, the game doesn't seem to be in any sort of sustainable position. Then again, that's probably part of why GW believes 7th edition is a lame duck (per sad panda).

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You don't even need a 10 minute conversation. Pick a point level and if you aren't optimized it is your own fault.

Not everyone wants to optimise though. 40K is a broad game able to do everything from competitive play down to "let's create X novel on the tabletop."

@Accolade
I can understand why they feel that given the vast majority of players on forums are angry competitives mad at something just to be mad because their style of play didnt rolfstomp every player.

 Deadshot wrote:


Except those are 3 different rule sets.

The problem is that they're not, it's one ruleset trying to be all three, but just being poor at everything.

GW's advantage is that its a single ruleset applied across the entirely of the game.

Except the different scales dont interact together well at all and other games do each aspect better, thats not a great advantage.

In Titan level battles that level of detail makes it fun as it feels model vs model.

the game is very poor at dealing with such battles. The rules are written from the perspective of infantry, and using infantry centric rules for battles between non infantry mega vehicles is very clunky.

You can play model vs model as well, simply remove the unit coherency rule. The 40K ruleset is flexible in that way.

anything is flexible if you intentionally alter the rules. That said, this breaks down very rapidly once you get beyond a very small number of models, as actions still really are built around unit vs unit combat, and most models and weapons are as well, and this makes infantry functionality on is own both clunky and time consuming.

GW have gone out of their way to mash those styles for money. Titans weren't selling because people felt they were "add-ons" to the main game and so many didn't play them alongside the whole "FW isn't legal in games" debacle. They through these in to say "yes they are, play them, buy them." But ultimately its up to the players to do things their way. GW is closer to old style GMed RPGs like D&D in that sense, that an actually competitive ruleset.

and the problem here is that the rules, particularly things like missions and force creation, are still built around a pickup/competitive style of gaming (just very poorly) with little or no attempt at GM or narrative functionality.

In fact they were founded by the same guys who originally wrote the Wizard of Firetop Mountain series of RPG books, who always encouraged fun over a hard ruleset.

Yes, though almost none of those guys remain, and of any that do remain none are involved with game design any longer.

On top of that, ever remember the complaints way back in 5th and before where all these different playstyles were seperate and it cost 50 for the rulebook, 50 for the FW IA book, 40 for Apocalypse, and 400+ for the models.

aye, though now we have 60+ books instead of 20. The big issue is that instead of trying to keep everything in proper scale and adapting mission, army construction, and core rules to fit everything in nicely, they just used preexisting mechanics to try and encompass additional scales of play that just dont fit.

Having rules that allow for the occasional inclusion of a Knight or Baneblade in a company level wargame is one thing. Trying to adapt comoany level wargaming to cover entire Knight armies while simultaneously trying to encompasse skirmish aspects like Challenges and what type of blade a powerweapon has, just doesnt work very well.

7th Ed is a master tome. Its "here's the core rules for all possible units in the game, go buy she codex for specific rules." Its certainly not "Here's every rule in the game you must use them all or suffer eternal damnation." Just talk with your opponent what you want to play, I'm putting anecdotal first hand experience down here to say that a 10 minute conversation before list-writing to discuss what you both want to play makes things immensely more fun.

which is nice when youre playing with close pals on tight gaming groups. This doesnt work so well with pickup gaming or leagues or tournaments or other events. If you show up for game night with a casual fun list and your opponent brought a Knight army, neither player likely has the ability to change their army enough to make for a fun game, they usually just didnt bring the models to change it up, and thats assuming at least one is willing to change what they brought to play in a style they werent looking for when they showed up.

 Deadshot wrote:
Well they have, its called 40K.

Yes you CAN play whatever. Badly. That's the point. It's BAD ruleset except for up to company size if that game.

You want to play huge apoc scaled battles 40k rulesystem creaks up. It's not designed for that. You don't simulate large battle by throwing up more models in platoon scale rules. With that big games attention turns from individual squads and characters to platoon and companies.

You should be looking game more akin to epic. Not 40k.

One ruleset trying to cover up every base JUST DOESN'T WORK. Lot more talented game designers than at GW have tried that for DECADES. It's flat out impossible.

 Deadshot wrote:

I can understand why they feel that given the vast majority of players on forums are angry competitives mad at something just to be mad because their style of play didnt rolfstomp every player.

I believe GW, like any other company, looks at the success of the game based on sales. Their image of the game certainly isn't based on opinions of the Internet.

 Deadshot wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You don't even need a 10 minute conversation. Pick a point level and if you aren't optimized it is your own fault.

Not everyone wants to optimise though. 40K is a broad game able to do everything from competitive play down to "let's create X novel on the tabletop."

@Accolade
I can understand why they feel that given the vast majority of players on forums are angry competitives mad at something just to be mad because their style of play didnt rolfstomp every player.

I bring Tyberos a lot to games. That argument doesn't work on me here, or for TCG's I used to play (MTG and Yugioh).

You always have the option to do what you want. Tyberos dies a lot but I like using him anyway.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:


Except those are 3 different rule sets.

The problem is that they're not, it's one ruleset trying to be all three, but just being poor at everything.

GW's advantage is that its a single ruleset applied across the entirely of the game.

Except the different scales dont interact together well at all and other games do each aspect better, thats not a great advantage.

In Titan level battles that level of detail makes it fun as it feels model vs model.

the game is very poor at dealing with such battles. The rules are written from the perspective of infantry, and using infantry centric rules for battles between non infantry mega vehicles is very clunky.

You can play model vs model as well, simply remove the unit coherency rule. The 40K ruleset is flexible in that way.

anything is flexible if you intentionally alter the rules. That said, this breaks down very rapidly once you get beyond a very small number of models, as actions still really are built around unit vs unit combat, and most models and weapons are as well, and this makes infantry functionality on is own both clunky and time consuming.

GW have gone out of their way to mash those styles for money. Titans weren't selling because people felt they were "add-ons" to the main game and so many didn't play them alongside the whole "FW isn't legal in games" debacle. They through these in to say "yes they are, play them, buy them." But ultimately its up to the players to do things their way. GW is closer to old style GMed RPGs like D&D in that sense, that an actually competitive ruleset.

and the problem here is that the rules, particularly things like missions and force creation, are still built around a pickup/competitive style of gaming (just very poorly) with little or no attempt at GM or narrative functionality.

In fact they were founded by the same guys who originally wrote the Wizard of Firetop Mountain series of RPG books, who always encouraged fun over a hard ruleset.

Yes, though almost none of those guys remain, and of any that do remain none are involved with game design any longer.

On top of that, ever remember the complaints way back in 5th and before where all these different playstyles were seperate and it cost 50 for the rulebook, 50 for the FW IA book, 40 for Apocalypse, and 400+ for the models.

aye, though now we have 60+ books instead of 20. The big issue is that instead of trying to keep everything in proper scale and adapting mission, army construction, and core rules to fit everything in nicely, they just used preexisting mechanics to try and encompass additional scales of play that just dont fit.

Having rules that allow for the occasional inclusion of a Knight or Baneblade in a company level wargame is one thing. Trying to adapt comoany level wargaming to cover entire Knight armies while simultaneously trying to encompasse skirmish aspects like Challenges and what type of blade a powerweapon has, just doesnt work very well.

7th Ed is a master tome. Its "here's the core rules for all possible units in the game, go buy she codex for specific rules." Its certainly not "Here's every rule in the game you must use them all or suffer eternal damnation." Just talk with your opponent what you want to play, I'm putting anecdotal first hand experience down here to say that a 10 minute conversation before list-writing to discuss what you both want to play makes things immensely more fun.

which is nice when youre playing with close pals on tight gaming groups. This doesnt work so well with pickup gaming or leagues or tournaments or other events. If you show up for game night with a casual fun list and your opponent brought a Knight army, neither player likely has the ability to change their army enough to make for a fun game, they usually just didnt bring the models to change it up, and thats assuming at least one is willing to change what they brought to play in a style they werent looking for when they showed up.

You misunderstood, I was referring to the supposedly superior systems for tank, titan and infantry level combat. Three different rules systems, whereas 40k is one.


They aren't supposed to, that's what I'm saying, but te option is there for organise play where everyone knows the score, instead of a 2Troop/HQ TAC for pick up. Its a not a TAC game.


I've done Titan vs Titan (4 Warhounds and Reaver vs equivilent in Stompas) it works very well its very fun. 90% of "this works this doesn't" is anecdotal and based in local meta.

There's 60+ books but 40 of those are optional supplements. The core rules are contained in 1 rulebook and 1 codex. Everything else is optional.


Again, that's why I recommend that 10 minute discussion. Having that felxibility to move between 1v1 intricacy with different types of power weapons, challenges, or have a zoomed out wider battle between platoon or company level forces is great. Trying to stuff it all is the issue. Unbound exists to allow you that flexibility, but has this dirty reputation due to ability to spam competitive units.


That is unfortunate, but again, its not hard to solve. The other day I met another player using Dakka's player finder. Just said "looking for a game, nothing super competitive just fun and fluffy" and he wrote back "I'm your guy." I played a decent but not competitive Blood Raven force, he played an Amoured Infantry IG list including a Malcador of all things. It was great. But before that I was forced to play a pickup game (as I was early) against a Angels of Death White scars force including the tooled up Storm Shield grav gun Command Squad and a Librarius Conclave on bikes with Invisibility. Vs my pickup list. It was horrendous. But the game we had arranged was sctually fun and enjoyable because it was arranged and organised. Its not exactly difficult to make a Facebook page and post up "Looking to come to game night, bringing a competitive Knights list." Or "No thanks, I like to play fluffy it would be one-sided affair." 40K is as simple as having a 5 minute chat beforehand.

There are some issues, psychic powers and vehicles and powerful vs weak units. CSM are certainly shafted at every corner. But scale of the game is certainly not an issue from anything I've experienced, and 40k has taken up more than half my life.

If you tried to do the same with transport vehicles as GW have done with the game rules you would see how bad it really is.

If you had the front of a motorbike and the back end of a coach with airplane wings bolted on top.

Is it as fast and maneuverable as a motorbike?
No

Is it as good at getting larger amounts of people efficiently across long distances over land as a dedicated coach?
No

Is It as good at moving large amounts of people very long distances efficiently like a jet plane?
No.

But you can pretend it is a super good vehicle, for pretending you have the very best at everything.(As long as you ignore the motorbikes coaches and jet planes other people make.... )

i loved the orks in 2ed, hopsplat guns, were lots of fun and jam dice (all armies) made the game fun. i never saw a army destroyed on turn one, but guess it could be done. saves were weaker and everyone had crazy stuff in the wargear cards. hand to hand was harder than 7 ed i think. but 2ed terrain and position of model on board mattered more. all in all i would say the big advantage 2ed had over 7th is the limited amount of buy a new model and get a op unit. more balance in 2ed i think. it also seemed the attitude of players then was different than now. today's new player seems more concerned with winning.

5th was the closest thing we've ever had to a tournament ruleset.

Early 6th was good too.

Lanrak wrote:
40k has been called a 'beer and pretzel game'for as long as GW could use this as an excuse to hand wave away poor game development and shoddy rules writing.

Most true 'Beer and Pretzel' games have rules that fit on one side of A5 paper.(Pass the Pigs , Zombie Dice etc.)

When a rule set has more pages of rules than detailed combat simulation games, calling it a 'beer and pretzel' game is a massive stretch at best and a down right lie at worst.

This^^ GW is a liar and all you dan boys need to wake up!