I'm curious. Which edition of 40K does everyone think had the most balanced and fun core ruleset and why? I'm leaving 1st and 2nd out as waaay too far back though.

5E without question.

Mostly balanced, and the things that were out of whack could be houseruled back to normalcy within two sentences.
Assault was as viable as shooting, and most armies were at least somewhat able to compete with eachother..

Yeah zero surprise 5th is so far ahead it had some issues but it was fun same can't be said for the last two.

Oh how people tend to have nostalgic feelings and utterly forget all the bad and just look at the good.

5E had just as many balance issues as 7th, just with less actual options around it was not as easy to notice them.

So I'll take the version with more options over the one that is highly restrictive, as both are just as imbalanced either way.

5th. It at least pretended to have a ruleset that matched the scale of the game.

All the tedious random rolling and small skirmish rules 7th introduced while increasing the size of the game was almost universally a step backwards.

Interesting results thus far, because I would have said 5th as well, having played since 4th. It would seem that 5th was the most popular generally.

5th was the last edition I enjoyed.
Of the options listed, it was the most "fun" for me - but still less fun than either RT or 2nd ed.

I didn't enjoy 5th very much. it was ok. Probably 3rd was better. but I preferred hand to hand in 4th over 3rd.
If it had been the same in 5th and some how caped or removed the combat resolution to fearless units 5 would have been so much more fun.

Played one game in 4th and I only had daemons; I was forced to deep strike the whole army, and deep strike was very harmful. 5th gave me a chance, and was the edition my friends who had been playing a while all said was better too. I got 6th when it released and hated it. 7th cleans it up, but there are SO MANY BOOKS!! It just feels like there's too much going on. 5th had some issues, yes (blood angels super powerful, grey knights vs daemons=auto win), but it was manageable. And the codexes could easy make for good "counts as" armies; a SW book leaving out priests could easily make for a kickass Khorne army. Grey Knights could make for an awesome T-Sons list. And you only needed one book to do it. Now? You need three. I'm not including the big rulebook either.

So far, 5th is winning 3/4 votes.

I disliked the difficulty in killing light vehicles in 5th, but that could be easily rectified.

And I know what you mean, there's so many formations/expansion, and so much allying go on these days that it's really difficult to keep track of.

2nd edition had the best core rules to my mind, not the most balanced edition, but that was a peripheral problem IMO, the core rules were good and only needed minor tweaking.

All the editions that have come since are flawed at their core IMO.

Maaan, this is bumming me out because I picked the game back up like a week before 6th ed came out and thus got in exactly one game of 5th

5th was pretty good, but overly assault focussed for my taste and vehicles were just needlessly difficult to actually destroy. That and wound allocation. What a stupid feth-around that was.

6th was my vote... specifically early 6th prior to the Imperial Knights becoming a thing. I liked the mechanics, assault never actually died in my metagame. It just became a tool instead of a total strategy. Some people like smashing dudes into dudes, but I figure that's what fantasy settings are for. I want to shoot stuff in the distant future, regardless of the knights in space thing.

I'm in favour of *limited* allies. I'm not a big fan of formations. I also liked having more missions in the core book, most of which were balanced well in their time. You didn't HAVE to play a hyper-mobile army to compete, you could play slower moving units without being handicapped.

5th was my second favourite edition. I started in 2nd. It was crap.

Only played 2nd, and the end of 3rd and beginning o 4th. Haven't played since.

Didn't like 3rd/4th, so I'll sit this one out.

I voted 3rd edition because, at it's core, every edition since then has been basically a patchjob on top of that. I only played maybe one game under those rules, but they were far simpler so less confusing stuff.

Also I would like to point out that 3rd and 4th probably had the most support from GW (being willing to actually change the rules as written in the codexes like the nerfs to Obliterators), whereas even in 5th edition they seldomed seem to care about consistency and rules, and flat out didn't care after 6th edition. Every edition had it's flaws but at least GW made an attempt to fix the two earlier ones.

Something between 4th and 5th. 4th made vehicles death traps so naturally 5th made them too strong. That pendulum swung back again too far, as usual.

5th brought about the beginning of horrible wound allocation shenanigans which has only gotten worse with all the 'look out sir' baloney and 'nearest model' kludge. Barf.

Probably 5E.

5E wasn't perfect, Wound allocation, Kill Points, vehicle weapons shooting (e.g. move a predator and only 1 lascannon of 3 can fire at all), transports being a little too "point and click" (some of the 7E mechanics involving stunned vehicles requiring Ld tests by passengers would have been a good fix) and almost *all* cover being 4+ were issues. However, the rest of the core rules were probably the best all around core rule set that 40k has ever had. The 5E core ruleset probably had the least bias towards any one subset of armies, aside from the aforementioned issues, almost all other problems were codex related issues.

I want to often put 4E in place of 5E, but the ridiculously hard to kill Skimmers vs the almost completely unsusable non-skimmer vehicles (and especially non-skimmer transports) coupled with the area terrain LoS rules and ability to consolidate into new combats made for some rather absurd shennanigans.

3E has similar problems to 4th, only moreso (hooray rhino rush assault spam!), but I liked the concept of all the army lists in one book.

6E seemingly took what was great about 5E and borked it, added a couple good additions (e.g. the Rapid Fire changes), and then added a whole bunch of extra complexity and random rolls for no real good reason, and reintroduced the Skimmer vs Non-Skimmer gap.

7E is a complete disaster. It doubled down on the bad elements of 6E and then vaulted right over that shark. It has no idea what it wants to be, is absurdly overstuffed with needlessly complex rules and pointless additional rolling, has lost all sense of scale, and at this point is just a sandbox for insanely overpowered rules designed to push web bundles and a "yeah, just buy anything and you can use it with anything else" mentality.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Oh how people tend to have nostalgic feelings and utterly forget all the bad and just look at the good.

5E had just as many balance issues as 7th, just with less actual options around it was not as easy to notice them.

5E had it's issues. It was not perfect by any means. It had some crazy broken stuff. It did not however have anything near the balance issues of 7E. Grey Knights having cheap autocannon upgrades to S8 was bad. It was not "I get 600 free extra points just because I took X units in Y configuration" bad, or was it "Yeah my 81pt minimum sized Troop squad is outmatching your purpose built heavy support battle tank for firepower" bad, nor was it "here's my entire army of superheavies with D weapons" bad.

I probably had the most fun with 2nd ed but that ruleset was ultimately not sustainable so my vote for over all best is 5th. As others have pointed out, it still had its fair share of "stupid", and it had some minor balance issues towards the end, but nothing like what we have now. For me, coming from RT and 2nd ed, 3rd edition felt like going from chess to tic-tac-toe. While it was a faster game, it was not one that I enjoyed. Forth ed I mostly sat out but 5th imo found a balance between interesting complexity and streamlining for a faster game.

I initially liked 6th because it felt like a slight return to the fun of 2nd ed but 6th got out of control quickley. 7th is a complete fail imo. I actually find it difficult to play. Too many rules all over the place and I HATE the idea of putting out campaign supplemnts instead of updating codexes. Thats a terrible precedent that will ultimately only make the game more expensive and more complex. If 8 doesnt fix the issues of 6/7 ill be sitting it out.

 Vaktathi wrote:
5E had it's issues. It was not perfect by any means. It had some crazy broken stuff. It did not however have anything near the balance issues of 7E. Grey Knights having cheap autocannon upgrades to S8 was bad. It was not "I get 600 free extra points just because I took X units in Y configuration" bad, or was it "Yeah my 81pt minimum sized Troop squad is outmatching your purpose built heavy support battle tank for firepower" bad, nor was it "here's my entire army of superheavies with D weapons" bad.

I think that's it in a nutshell. Yes, there were a handful of units that were more cost-efficient than others. Yes, wound allocation was a pain. Yes, there were various other issues.

But when you got down to it, it was still downright playable. There were a handful of power lists at tournies(nob bikers or lash prince anyone?), but outside of that? Most armies could fight each other with a reasonable chance of success. If a guy chucked down a list filled with the most cost effective unit spammed, you could still field a reasonably fluffy army and hope to win if you were a better player. There were a dozen or so codexes to learn, and that was it, making it easier to memorise what could do what. Combat and shooting, or a mix of the two were both viable strategies. I could charge without dealing with overwatch and variable charge distance, and units could shoot without having to deal with invulnerable/cover saves on every other model with a special rule.

It was quicker, cleaner, and generally speaking, there was a lot less differential in power between units. If you tweaked 5th a little bit to account for those minor rules problems, and wrote a balanced set of codexes, you'd actually have a pretty fine game.

I feel like this question comes up every week now. I'm going to defer to Vaktathi, he said it better than I could. 5th was easily the best edition, and I hope 8th is much more in line with that than what we have now.

6th.

5e was the easier rule set to play and learn.

7e is a reasonably (I've played 40k since 4e and have been gaming for 36+ years) good rule set, far more complicated than 5e, but made even more cumbersome by the codex shenanigans referred to by Vaktathi and others.

Given a choice, I'd still pick up the 7e rule book and the 7e armies ... except 5e Dark Eldar. I miss 4+ FNP wyches, with 24 Dark Lances.

5th edition had its faults, but was by far the best edition so far, for me.

2nd edition runs a close second... The rules had all sorts of issues (not least being the close combat was just painfully slow) but it was fun.

5th edition with transport vehicles toned down a little, wound allocation simplified, and with (selectable) Warlord Traits, Snap Shots (including Blast Weapons) and Overwatch (as an alternative to shooting in the shooting phase) would have been just about perfect, rather than the mess that we got instead with 6th edition.

5th aside from the vehicle killing difficulty... though cackling madly with oldcron monoliths was admittingly very pleasurable

2nd ed. Most logical and balanced by far. After 3rd ed it's been just bandaids in an attempt to hide issues with the core rules.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
Oh how people tend to have nostalgic feelings and utterly forget all the bad and just look at the good.

5E had just as many balance issues as 7th, just with less actual options around it was not as easy to notice them.

5E had it's issues. It was not perfect by any means. It had some crazy broken stuff. It did not however have anything near the balance issues of 7E. Grey Knights having cheap autocannon upgrades to S8 was bad. It was not "I get 600 free extra points just because I took X units in Y configuration" bad, or was it "Yeah my 81pt minimum sized Troop squad is outmatching your purpose built heavy support battle tank for firepower" bad, nor was it "here's my entire army of superheavies with D weapons" bad.

There isn't anything INHERENTLY unbalanced at getting free upgrade and/or transports as your formation rewards.
Its just that the formation itself, and the things it gifts, are the issue.

HAD the strike force only gave full 10 man squads the transport, and it was only rhino/drop pod, it wouldn't be any issue what-so-ever. its the fact its specifically razorbacks and requires just 5 man squads for it that causes the issue. most formations are a good, healthy thing. they encourage mixed forces and cross-unit synergy. its a tiny minority that I can count on one hand that are a problem, and the common themes for all the problem formations is either that the benefit is ovewhelming compared to the trouble getting it, or that the formation is made of a single unit type.

Superheavies as well, and D weapons, are not inherently a problem. in fact, most superheavies AND most D platforms never even reach the competitive table as it is THAT obvious they are just not worth the trouble. its a few, highly specific ones that are too good compared to the baseline, and it that notion, not any different form 5th that had its own set of "clearly over the top" units, it was just different units that were OP for different reasons, and were just as toxic. all the "fixes" needed, are not in the system itself, but in a handful of units-and in most cases, a mere point re-calibration is enough.


No idea what sort of 81 point minimum troop squad has serious AT power though. you mean scatterbikes? that's again a local issue in a codex, not an edition problem. (also, they brake light transports, but can't touch actual tanks)


Any complaint anyone ever has on 7th can be easily rolled into the same handful of specific units/formations that have rules that are just too much. a handful that is a tiny fraction of the overall total. (and the outdated codices having issues competing with the better designed newer ones, but that always been that way at any point in time)
And while that handful dominated the competitive scene as in that scene only the best matters, it does not change the fact that the game, as a whole, is bigger, more versatile and enables you to truly play the way YOU WANT to play, rather than shoehorn you into a few specific builds. (because lets admit, the CAD is actually the least versatile "formation". it encourages to spamming the best stand-alone unit in each slot and nothing else)

"(also, they brake light transports, but can't touch actual tanks)"

They kill IKs.

6+D6 = 7 to 12 Armour Pen roll

Anything with Av12 or less is gon git fethed.

And we should be including rear armour on this, as it's hardly difficult to reach on a jetbike.

So down go Predators, LRBT, Baneblades (iirc they have av12 rear), IK, and MC or GMC...

2+ armor MCs and GMCs are fine vs scatbikes. They are actually inefficient targets for them. As are T8 targets.

Still susceptible when needed. Especially when combo'd with a farseer for rerolls to hit and wound (two different powers)

 BoomWolf wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
Oh how people tend to have nostalgic feelings and utterly forget all the bad and just look at the good.

5E had just as many balance issues as 7th, just with less actual options around it was not as easy to notice them.

5E had it's issues. It was not perfect by any means. It had some crazy broken stuff. It did not however have anything near the balance issues of 7E. Grey Knights having cheap autocannon upgrades to S8 was bad. It was not "I get 600 free extra points just because I took X units in Y configuration" bad, or was it "Yeah my 81pt minimum sized Troop squad is outmatching your purpose built heavy support battle tank for firepower" bad, nor was it "here's my entire army of superheavies with D weapons" bad.

There isn't anything INHERENTLY unbalanced at getting free upgrade and/or transports as your formation rewards.
Its just that the formation itself, and the things it gifts, are the issue.

You can make this argument about practically anything that was broken in the previous editions.
There isn't anything inherently broken about wound allocation in 5th, certain multiple wound units are the issue.
There isn't anything inherently broken about sweeping into a new assault in 3rd, certain combat units are the issue.
There isn't anything inherently broken about the ally matrix, certain synergies are the issue.
While you do have a point that the codexes caused these issues to be so...frequent, the main rulebook is what allowed the abuses to be created in the first place. You don't see wound allocation problems as frequently, formations were not a feature of other editions, combat units aren't seen as a problem anymore... so on and so forth.

 BoomWolf wrote:

HAD the strike force only gave full 10 man squads the transport, and it was only rhino/drop pod, it wouldn't be any issue what-so-ever. its the fact its specifically razorbacks and requires just 5 man squads for it that causes the issue. most formations are a good, healthy thing. they encourage mixed forces and cross-unit synergy. its a tiny minority that I can count on one hand that are a problem, and the common themes for all the problem formations is either that the benefit is ovewhelming compared to the trouble getting it, or that the formation is made of a single unit type.

Most formations are terrible for game balance. There are a few broken ones that you see constantly (Gladius, Riptide wing, Decurion) and the rest are awful relatively speaking and never see play.
While what they encourage might be good, they certainly have not made the game state a better place. What they have done is take already powerful codexes and place them further out of reach for their weaker cousins. Some armies don't need them (eldar) but even an Aspect host is extremely difficult for the weaker armies to deal with. The decurion has been seen as a problem for a very long time. The gladius can just win against some armies who lack that level of AT. They are a skew in a game that rewards skews.

 BoomWolf wrote:

Superheavies as well, and D weapons, are not inherently a problem. in fact, most superheavies AND most D platforms never even reach the competitive table as it is THAT obvious they are just not worth the trouble. its a few, highly specific ones that are too good compared to the baseline, and it that notion, not any different form 5th that had its own set of "clearly over the top" units, it was just different units that were OP for different reasons, and were just as toxic. all the "fixes" needed, are not in the system itself, but in a handful of units-and in most cases, a mere point re-calibration is enough.

Again, you can make the inherently a problem argument against anything. 7th still introduced Superheavies and D weapons to the table this frequently, and they are a problem.
Look at the armies that get Superheavies and Str D weapons. It's usually the stronger armies outside of a few exceptions (Stompa) and the options for the weaker armies are usually considered to be quite good. SH and Str D weapons skew the game way too much. They require you to bring a weapon that can target them and other units in the case of SH (So Grav and Str D weapons end up getting taken, and the armies that can spam them rise to the top) and Str D weapons cause normal tanks to disappear outside of cheap transport spam (which strongly effects Orks BW lists, Guard, Chaos Marines...a lot of lists actually).

It just causes a skew towards certain lists that are already OP, and they are certainly a feature of this edition. Knights aren't strong, but an all knight list can cause non marine and eldar players a lot of problems if they aren't ready for it. The reason you don't see them taken is grav and str D removes them pretty easily, and the two strongest armies in the game always take some form of grav or D weapons.

 BoomWolf wrote:

No idea what sort of 81 point minimum troop squad has serious AT power though. you mean scatterbikes? that's again a local issue in a codex, not an edition problem. (also, they brake light transports, but can't touch actual tanks)

If he's talking about scat bikes agree that's not 7th's fault. Scatbikes would be powerful in any edition.

 BoomWolf wrote:

Any complaint anyone ever has on 7th can be easily rolled into the same handful of specific units/formations that have rules that are just too much. a handful that is a tiny fraction of the overall total. (and the outdated codices having issues competing with the better designed newer ones, but that always been that way at any point in time)

Exactly, so it's a terrible argument to make.
For example, I can say that would allocation in 5th was fine, it was Nob Bikers and Paladins that were the problem. Everyone who played 5th knows that the core rules enabled these units to be broken though.
Sweeping into a unit in 3rd wasn't a problem, it was the rhino rush that was an issue. But everyone who played 3rd knows it was more complicated then that.

But, we have to be real here, formations and the breaking of the CAD are bad for the game. It's gotten out of control, with formations either being terrible or over the top. Few, if any, come to mind as balanced and fair. They are allowed by 7th.
The D weapon tables and tank damage tables in general, when compared to MC's, is a problem in 7th that stems from the core rule book.
Super heavies being allowed in the base game is a feature of 7th, and they have not been healthy for the game as well.
Psyker powers are in the core rule set, and I think they are a big step down in terms of balance from what was there previously. Formations just make them worse. Brotherhood of psykers also seems like a problem to me.
Overwatch is a problem.
Random charging is a problem.
Rapid fire getting stronger is a problem.
LoS is a problem.
Jetbikes/Skimmers+Jink is a problem.
Ignores Cover USR is a problem.

Many of these are not unique to 7th, they were in 6th, but 7th could have addressed these and chose not to.

I actually quite liked some of the abstract stuff regarding LoS and terrain in 4th ed. It was definitely a bit silly by times but there was less arguing over what units could actually see what and who actually got a cover save. Also the assault rules were a big improvement from 3rd ed., especially since codex changes meant Ork boyz could no longer tear through Terminators like butter! I don't doubt 5th ed was excellent but my local meta got a bit rubbish with terrain campers so I ended up moving over into WHFB full time.


I only played a tiny bit of 6th and none of 7th ed, but from a relatively outside perspective, the rules look bloated as hell. It used to be the case that 40k had a simple core system and most of the more complex (i.e. unit/army specific) rules were in the codices. WHFB on the other hand had a complex core rule set and relatively simple army books. The current rules just seem run a complex core rule set into complex codices with a smattering of the overpowered apocalypse units thrown on top. I've seen heavily amended legislation that was less complex looking than the current 40k rule set and that's worrying

For me 4th was the greatest.

5th for me was annoying. But I credit that mostly due to the Codexes and not the core rules.

Really hate the True Line of Site rules.

Akiasura made some good points but I'll address these as well.

 BoomWolf wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
Oh how people tend to have nostalgic feelings and utterly forget all the bad and just look at the good.

5E had just as many balance issues as 7th, just with less actual options around it was not as easy to notice them.

5E had it's issues. It was not perfect by any means. It had some crazy broken stuff. It did not however have anything near the balance issues of 7E. Grey Knights having cheap autocannon upgrades to S8 was bad. It was not "I get 600 free extra points just because I took X units in Y configuration" bad, or was it "Yeah my 81pt minimum sized Troop squad is outmatching your purpose built heavy support battle tank for firepower" bad, nor was it "here's my entire army of superheavies with D weapons" bad.

There isn't anything INHERENTLY unbalanced at getting free upgrade and/or transports as your formation rewards.

Getting stuff for free is inherently imbalanced. Like, by definition.

If two armies show up to play each other at an agreed points level and one has stuff it's not paying for, then, fundamentally, it's unbalanced.

One can argue it might be less imbalanced with different conditions, but no matter what, fundamentally free stuff you're not paying for isn't balanced.

Superheavies as well, and D weapons, are not inherently a problem.

If we're talking about something like a single Baneblade in an 1850pt game, sure. If we're talking about a Warhound or Revenant Titan in an 1850pt game, or 5 Knights in an 1850pt game, that's another story altogether.

in fact, most superheavies AND most D platforms never even reach the competitive table as it is THAT obvious they are just not worth the trouble.

In large part this is because most events, particularly ITC events, change the way D weapons work to make them dramatically less powerful and/or have restrictions on the type and numbers of Superheavies one can take. Most events won't allow you to take an all Knight army or use D weapons at full "as-written" power. Such events actually change the rules for how these work and what you can take.

its a few, highly specific ones that are too good compared to the baseline, and it that notion, not any different form 5th that had its own set of "clearly over the top" units, it was just different units that were OP for different reasons, and were just as toxic. all the "fixes" needed, are not in the system itself, but in a handful of units-and in most cases, a mere point re-calibration is enough.

The majority of new superheavy units and increasingly both cheaper and killier than such units were in previous editions and being pushed into smaller and smaller games where the tools to successfully engage them may simply not be available. Many SH's/GC's aren't a problem, but generally, these are also older units with rules from editions past that also have expensive FW models that nobody is using. Likewise, having entire armies composed of nothing but superheavies is just not something many armies can successfully engage with "generalist/TAC" lists.

No idea what sort of 81 point minimum troop squad has serious AT power though. you mean scatterbikes? that's again a local issue in a codex, not an edition problem. (also, they brake light transports, but can't touch actual tanks)

I didn't say they had AT firepower, just lots of firepower, compared to something like a Dakkapred or LR Exterminator/Punisher or the like. Sure, I'd gran that's more a local codex issue, but it's also one that highlights the general power insanity inherent in 7th edition that allows things which once were realm of internet hyperbole that never would have existed in 5E.

Stuff like Scatterbikes, 2++ rerollable invuls, psychic powers that move terrain pieces, invisibility, etc just were not things that 5E and older editions would have found within the realm of possibility.

Any complaint anyone ever has on 7th can be easily rolled into the same handful of specific units/formations that have rules that are just too much.

One can make the same potential claim of any edition. 7E has far more than any other edition I can think of however.

And while that handful dominated the competitive scene as in that scene only the best matters, it does not change the fact that the game, as a whole, is bigger, more versatile and enables you to truly play the way YOU WANT to play, rather than shoehorn you into a few specific builds.

Except when the power level has ramped up to the level that such is simply not true from a practical standpoint anymore unless playing with close pals of similar mind. If you're talking pickup play, league play, tournament play, etc, just "playing how you want to play" is often going to lead to pre-determined one-sided curbstomps over and over to a far greater degree than previous editions. The scale of the potential power gap between armies has never been as big as it is now.

The possibilities to allow for things which people have no answer to, or to bring absurdly overpowered things, is enormously more possible than in any previous edition.

(because lets admit, the CAD is actually the least versatile "formation". it encourages to spamming the best stand-alone unit in each slot and nothing else)

And formations don't do the exact same thing? Sure, they may force you to take a unit or two you wouldn't otherwise take, but it's incidental, and most formations are used because they either give the best bonuses or allow spam of the best units. At least with the old FOC everybody was on something of an even board in terms of force composition allowances.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Probably 5E.

5E wasn't perfect, Wound allocation, Kill Points, vehicle weapons shooting (e.g. move a predator and only 1 lascannon of 3 can fire at all), transports being a little too "point and click" (some of the 7E mechanics involving stunned vehicles requiring Ld tests by passengers would have been a good fix) and almost *all* cover being 4+ were issues. However, the rest of the core rules were probably the best all around core rule set that 40k has ever had. The 5E core ruleset probably had the least bias towards any one subset of armies, aside from the aforementioned issues, almost all other problems were codex related issues.

I agree with this. Fifth edition was a very mature game, and models had more options than in 3rd/4th, with the ability to run, improved rapid fire, outflank, and eliminating infiltrate/deep strike as mission rules. Vehicles, especially light vehicles, were absurdly tough for their points, but that's because they had been priced that way in late 4th edition, when they were deathtraps.

And people forget that while 5th edition allowed for some nasty wound allocation shenanigans with multi-wound models, it did a pretty good job of allocating wounds among squads. It allowed torrents of fire to potentially kill heavy weapons or sergeants. A quick errata that wound models must be assigned wounds prior to any models at full strength would have resolved the Nobs/Paladins nightmares.

There isn't anything INHERENTLY unbalanced at getting free upgrade and/or transports as your formation rewards.
Its just that the formation itself, and the things it gifts, are the issue.

As others have already said, that's complete nonsense.

Any complaint anyone ever has on 7th can be easily rolled into the same handful of specific units/formations that have rules that are just too much. a handful that is a tiny fraction of the overall total. (and the outdated codices having issues competing with the better designed newer ones, but that always been that way at any point in time)
And while that handful dominated the competitive scene as in that scene only the best matters, it does not change the fact that the game, as a whole, is bigger, more versatile and enables you to truly play the way YOU WANT to play, rather than shoehorn you into a few specific builds. (because lets admit, the CAD is actually the least versatile "formation". it encourages to spamming the best stand-alone unit in each slot and nothing else)

Actually, my complaints CAN'T be rolled into the same handful of specific units/formations. My issues with 7th are the insane scale creep, rules sprawl and disorganization that make it nearly impossible for me to quickly and easily introduce a new player to the game. My issues are with things like adding entire new phases to a game that was already taking too long. My issues stem from the fact that, at any point in time, if I visit three different stores, I will see three completely different versions of the game being played due to the amount of house ruling 7th requires (this has been an issue in some other editions as well but never this bad imo). My issue is with with the fact that I just saw a guy play an army that involved two codexes three white dwarfs two army supplements a data slate AND a campaign supplement. That's ridiculous and a large contributor to why 2nd ed had to be pruned back.

SO, TL;DR:

No, my issues with 7th don't involve calling out specific units or rules imbalances. They involve being handed a ruleset that by any other manufacturer's standards would be considered "draft" at best.

Let's also add some other flaws with 7th as a core ruleset.

-Wound allocation: The way 5th did it (minus multi-wound model units with unique upgrades) was faster, has the same amount of abstraction, and is fundamentally simpler while fitting the scale of the game far better. The current system of from the front and/or random allocation is sloppy, slow, tedious, and doesn't add any depth to the game. Plus, for those who are fans of hero-hammer, we can do away with the absurdity that is LoS! and just let players run the characters at the front for the visual appeal and not have to worry about rolling for a guy to jump out in front.

-Vehicles vs. MCs: The core rules for these two units are just off. There's no way around it, and one or the other needs a re-work so they work more similarly. The issues are only worsened in the codices.

-The psychic phase: A poorly worded mess that changed a perfectly working system into a complicated waste of time. So many dice for so little impact. That and moving to random powers was a step backwards for the game. Speaking of random...

-Increase in random: From warlord traits to powers, the increase in randomness has not helped the issues with the game. Random powers and traits was a lazy cop out by the designers who couldn't be bothered to either make all the options equally balanced, or just assign a points cost for them, but letting players select either way. Random charging is still a change that was unnecessary, especially given how it works with overwatch if you fail. The issue is worsened within the codices, especially ones like Orks and Chaos. Oh, and I almost forgot about mysterious terrain.

-Maelstrom: Speaking of random, GW took a great idea (asymmetric missions) and took the easy method of just letting the dice decide. Not to mention that if you play Maelstrom exactly as written, some players can get screwed over simply due to army choice. Good luck casting that psychic power, Tau. From random card draws with wildly different ease of accomplishment, to random VPs on several of them, the whole game type is a random mess that struggles to make sense within GW's oft parroted 'Forging of a Narrative'. Let the players forge their own narrative instead of a random deck telling to run over there, no, wait, now go over there, oh, and shoot down that flyer that's off the table.

-Army construction: Still a hot, confusing mess. Unbound is a joke, CADs are fairly underwhelming compared to a number of formations, detachments and formations are complicated and a barrier for new players to break into.

-Finally, a confused scale of game: One of the reasons I enjoy 40k is that its a 28mm game with vehicles and some large gribblies. It makes for a cool visual table and the models are great. However, the rules don't reflect at all what the game is, and are often contradictory. From model to model wounds and movement, to keeping track of all the things that have gone wrong with your vehicles and tiny wargear options to tracks, the game screams small scale skirmish. But the addition of Lords of War with GMCs and SHVs with destroyer weapons and a constant downward trend of model points costs, the game is also screaming to be apocalypse/epic. Really, it should either be split into two games, or just pick one and do it and right. If it wants to be a 28mm version of Epic, then do away with vehicle charts, model by model wound allocation, piddly wargear differences and excessive dice rolling. If it wants to be a more standard 28mm oversized platoon/understrength company scale game, then drop all Lords of War, flyers, and re-tool the game so that an average model count is recommended in the BRB and point values are adjusted to match.

Exalted.

While everyone seems to love 5th, I found 6th to be the best core rule set by far. It felt dynamic, openned up more options than the stale CAD and AD, and had actual terrain rules. Definitely the best core rule set.

SJ

Khadorstompy wrote:
For me 4th was the greatest.

5th for me was annoying. But I credit that mostly due to the Codexes and not the core rules.

Really hate the True Line of Site rules.

This. Almost exactly.

4th's LoS rules were my favorite by far.

I 'm not sure any core set can blamed as much as codices. 2nd ed was reasonable even until tyranids eldar and csm.

When was "consolidating into close combat" removed? Removing that small but valuable aspect of assault phase was frustrating.

Congrats! you just destroyed the unit you were fighting! Reward? oh, you're getting shot to gak.

 Sal4m4nd3r wrote:
When was "consolidating into close combat" removed? Removing that small but valuable aspect of assault phase was frustrating.

Congrats! you just destroyed the unit you were fighting! Reward? oh, you're getting shot to gak.

It wasn't in 5th ed. So I'm guessing between 4th and 5th.

Yeah, consolidation was removed with the introduction of 5E. And for 5E that was fine, CC was still quite potent and assault oriented armies could work rather well, you just couldnt eat an opponents army without ever getting shot at. It was the post 5E "no assaulting out of any reserves, no assaulting out of even stationary transports, charge distance is now random, and oh here's overwatch again" that was the kick in the teeth.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Yeah, consolidation was removed with the introduction of 5E. And for 5E that was fine, CC was still quite potent and assault oriented armies could work rather well, you just couldnt eat an opponents army without ever getting shot at. It was the post 5E "no assaulting out of any reserves, no assaulting out of even stationary transports, charge distance is now random, and oh here's overwatch again" that was the kick in the teeth.

5th ed was still a shooting edition. It was the beginning of the 7th ed mea.

Martel732 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Yeah, consolidation was removed with the introduction of 5E. And for 5E that was fine, CC was still quite potent and assault oriented armies could work rather well, you just couldnt eat an opponents army without ever getting shot at. It was the post 5E "no assaulting out of any reserves, no assaulting out of even stationary transports, charge distance is now random, and oh here's overwatch again" that was the kick in the teeth.

5th ed was still a shooting edition. It was the beginning of the 7th ed mea.

It was more shooting oriented than 4E (which was a heavily assault oriented edition), but it was *far* more assault oriented than 6E or 7E, and probably the best balanced all around.

As an example, my CSM army was tournament playable through most of the edition and relied on CC for the bulk of its killing power and was 40 CSMs, a flying khorne DP, 4 Rhinos, 12 Terminators, and 6 Oblits. The shooting was there to crack transports and neutralize key targets while everything else was destroyed through assaults. That worked fine barring matchups against the absolute worst power matchups.

Is everyone misreading the poll?

Core ruleset, 5th ed was the WORST.
Every army had uniquely named rules, weapons, tests, powers, etc.....

How was that the "best" core ruleset??????

The poll was not, "Do you like formations?"

 sfshilo wrote:
Is everyone misreading the poll?

Core ruleset, 5th ed was the WORST.
Every army had uniquely named rules, weapons, tests, powers, etc.....

How was that the "best" core ruleset??????

The poll was not, "Do you like formations?"

We just don't agree with you.

 sfshilo wrote:
Is everyone misreading the poll?

Core ruleset, 5th ed was the WORST.
Every army had uniquely named rules, weapons, tests, powers, etc.....

How was that the "best" core ruleset??????

how is that different, and in fact not even *more* true, in the current edition aside from having some common psychic power schools?

Uh-huh, the 5E brb was easy to wrap your head around.

In 2007 I bought AoBR. Went home, snap-fit the models, and taught myself how to play from the book. I was about 11 at the time.

Even taking into account the codex imbalances, 5E was by far the most stable ruleset for 40k I have seen from GW.

I have to agree with the majority here. Even though I liked 6th ed better (mostly due to the codices), 5th ed was the best core ruleset.

 sfshilo wrote:

Every army had uniquely named rules, weapons, tests, powers, etc.....

As opposed to 7th...?

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
While everyone seems to love 5th, I found 6th to be the best core rule set by far. It felt dynamic, openned up more options than the stale CAD and AD, and had actual terrain rules. Definitely the best core rule set.

SJ

I remember 6th having a hopeful tone when it first came out, and that lasted for a period until things like Escalation started coming out.

I honestly don't get how people like 6th and 7th both are utter garbage.

5th had issues but it didn't have the atrocious allies system or the nonsense that is formations.

I mean c'mon 6th drove alot of the community away from GW.

I had the most fun playing 4th ed. Yeah, entanglement sucked and was a little too harsh, but LOS, wounding allocation, HTH resolution, vehicle damage tables, etc. all seemed very fair and streamlined.

5th edition introduced several core issues that I feel the game has just not recovered from.

I agree with Jayden, 4e was the best rule set by far. It had its problems sure, namely holo-falcons, glass jaw vehicles, Nidzilla and Lash of Submission, but if your looking for perfection you aren't going to get it out of 40k. Abstracted line of sight played faster and made positioning more important because it was easier to deny LOS under that system. Wound allocation was simple, did what it needed to do and could not be exploited. There were no deathstars, little in the way of the codex arms race (at least until the end) and the each army seemed unique and filled their individual niche well.

The runner up for best edition is 5e, but I feel it falls short of 4e in a lot of respects. I feel 5e was the last edition were generalship was more important than list building, but I also feel it is responsible for many of the problems prevalent in 6e and 7e. This is where the cracks really started to form. Here are some of the bigger problems 5e introduced:

Alpha Strike Armies: The is just my opinion, but alpha strike armies suck. Getting crippled before turn 1 should not happen and yet this happens all to often in 40k, and 5e is where this truly began. True LOS made it nearly impossible to hide larger and often more important units from LOS even for a single turn, so combined with the increased codex power in 5e armies the army with first turn could now pound its opponent from across the board with little effort. Combine this with the newly introduced drop pods and crazy scouting units like the Vendetta and Baal Predator and you are often looking at one army placing troops with nasty weapons like meltaguns and flamers in their opponents deployment zone and destroying key units before the opponent gets a single turn. This problem has only become worse in later editions.

Wound Allocation Shenanigans: Unnecessarily complicated wound allocation rules both slowed down the game and lead to a host of abuses and exploits. Partially fixed in 6e, but the fix introduced a separate set of problems and is far too detailed for a skirmish level game. Wound allocation should just be a system for removing casualties, not a minigame in and of itself.

Death Stars: 5e saw the introduction of death stars with the infamous biker nobz. While technically a unit pulled for a late 4e codex, although arguable one made in anticipation of 5e, it was 5e wound allocation exploits that ultimately put them over the top as the games first real death stars. Other deathstars, such as the thunderwolf cavalry deathstar, soon followed.

Easy Access to Invulnerably Saves: Ok, arguably the first offender was the awful Choas Deamon codex at the tail end of 4e, although you could make the Ork codex argument that this was a codex built in anticipation of 5e. But I feel that Stormshields cemented this trend. Inv saves should have never been made available in anything better than a 4+ except in the rarest of circumstances, but stormshields turned 3+ inv into a stock upgrade. Even if the unit itself isn't consider that strong I still feel that this set a bad precedent.

Tank Squadrons: In 4e, every faction was essentially limited to an absolute maximum of three main battle tanks by the FOC and thus tanks were limited as supporting elements to an infantry based army, as was fitting for a skirmish level game. There existed only one exception to this rule, the awful Nidzilla builds that were possible because Nid players were allowed to take MCs in three separate force org slots when they should have been limited to the heavy support slot just like every other army. But otherwise, this rule held in check. When 5e rolled around, IG got Leman Russ Squadrons plus Vendetta skimmer tanks in the fast attack slot, Nids got Carnifex Squadrons and Blood Angles could field fast attack Predators. While these weren't always the strongest choices (see Carnifex squadrons) it established a clear precedent that it was now acceptable for armies to just spam massive amounts of their largest and strongest models.

Flyers: "But it was 6e that introduced flyers!" you say. While technically true, the first flyer models, such as Valkyries, Stormravens and Nightscythes were introduced in 5e, and all on unique bases that clearly separated them from skimmers. Did anyone honestly expect them to remain skimmer tanks indefinitely? And even as skimmer tanks, they kind of let the Imperials intrude upon xenos territory, for whom skimmer tanks were supposed to be their unique a powerful centerpiece units. In any case, I think the blame for flyers should be squarely placed here.

Codex Arms Race: Admittedly I never played 3e so this might have been a 4e problem as well, but 5e codices were clearly more powerful than their 4e counterparts, giving the newer codices and edge over their opposition. And I am certain it was not just compatibility with the new rules. Units often got cheaper in 5e codices while gaining new assortments of special rules (this seemed to be the edition of new army wide special rules such as "tactics" and "orders"), especially basic troops, and armies often got new very powerful tools such as drop pods, scouting predators and vendettas that radically altered how you had to fight against them, and these tools were often grossly undercosted.

5th edition has several other problems, such as transport spam and kill points, but I don't feel those problems persisted and grew in 6e and 7e like the above ones did. The last thing I will mentioned about 5e though is that I felt it was a very Imperium centered edition. The first year of codex releases were all Imperials (Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Space Wolf), the first xenos release fell flat followed by the strong Blood Angles. The Dark Eldar codex was solid but its a rarely played army and was eclipsed by the very strong Grey Knights codex. It was not until the very end of 5e that we had Necrons, the only strong xenos presence in 5e outside of perhaps the Orkz. The 5e codices were clearly more powerful than their 4e counterparts, and I honestly don't know if the Imperial players at the time understood how much of an advantages they have over their opposition. I think a lot of the praise for 5e might be from Imperium players who simply enjoyed riding high on strong codices.

It's either 3rd 4th or 5th to me. They all had a few things I didn't like that made the game unfun, but its a lot better than today

3rd, Rhino Rush being allowed and HTH being too strong for the most part. Eldar were the only shooty counters.

4th, Hiding the entire game and dashing forward at the end to win games. With eldar, I won a 1.5k game against 2 opponents with equal lists using this

5th Vehicle damage table and Wound allocation. With those two fixes, a lot of the broken items would have been fine and the game would have been excellent.

4th Editions' hybrid (True LOS sometimes - Abstracted LOS sometimes) LOS system spawned more rules debates over the life of the edition than just about any other rule I can recall in the last 20 years... it was a mess, because people just didn't understand how it was supposed to work.

 Jayden63 wrote:
I had the most fun playing 4th ed. Yeah, entanglement sucked and was a little too harsh, but LOS, wounding allocation, HTH resolution, vehicle damage tables, etc. all seemed very fair and streamlined.

Vehicle tables were fair if you were running skimmers (and particularly skimmers that had wargear which mitigated or removed the downside of being skimmers), but otherwise vehicles were very poor in 4

Let's not even get started on non-skimmer transports (oh, your transport took a single penetrating hit? 50% chance of vehicle death straight away, and if it survives it's automatically stunned and probably immobilized or losing a weapon to boot and now you have to disembark and take a pinning test, skimmers get to ignore all this entirely, huzzah!).

That said, I did like 4E wound allocation and Victory Points (Kill Points were the worst thing 5E introduced and they still suck).

hobojebus wrote:
I honestly don't get how people like 6th and 7th both are utter garbage.

Probably because both opened up several list building opportunities that you don't need your opponent's permission to run?

It isn't like the core rules of 7th are bad. Just make a few tweaks like:
1. You can charge out of a stationary transport
2. Swarms have EW outside of any blast or template
3. Allow Blasts to target open ground inside that enemy squad
4. Soul Blaze is done on a D6
5. ATSKNF gives a reroll to Fear tests rather than ignoring them

Bam. That's pretty solid.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
I honestly don't get how people like 6th and 7th both are utter garbage.

Probably because both opened up several list building opportunities that you don't need your opponent's permission to run?

It isn't like the core rules of 7th are bad. Just make a few tweaks like:
1. You can charge out of a stationary transport
2. Swarms have EW outside of any blast or template
3. Allow Blasts to target open ground inside that enemy squad
4. Soul Blaze is done on a D6
5. ATSKNF gives a reroll to Fear tests rather than ignoring them

Bam. That's pretty solid.

There's a whole lot not to like about the core rules, the random rolls for everything for one, from terrain effects to warlord traits and mysterious objectives and maelstrom objectives and how much maelstrom objectives are worth and psychic powers and on and on. Then there's issues gobs of other issues, such as with skimmers vs non-skimmers (again...), wound allocation funkyness, things like Invisibility and Shifting Worldscape, etc ad nauseum.

There list building opportunities really just seems to be utilized for breaking thing game more than really creating interesting forces drawn from the background material. For every interesting and lovingly crafted background adherent army, there's three dozen abominations built from 3 different armies and 7 different rules sources that have no basis in the background material at all.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
I honestly don't get how people like 6th and 7th both are utter garbage.

Probably because both opened up several list building opportunities that you don't need your opponent's permission to run?

It isn't like the core rules of 7th are bad. Just make a few tweaks like:
1. You can charge out of a stationary transport
2. Swarms have EW outside of any blast or template
3. Allow Blasts to target open ground inside that enemy squad
4. Soul Blaze is done on a D6
5. ATSKNF gives a reroll to Fear tests rather than ignoring them

Bam. That's pretty solid.

There's a whole lot not to like about the core rules, the random rolls for everything for one, from terrain effects to warlord traits and mysterious objectives and maelstrom objectives and how much maelstrom objectives are worth and psychic powers and on and on. Then there's issues gobs of other issues, such as with skimmers vs non-skimmers (again...), wound allocation funkyness, things like Invisibility and Shifting Worldscape, etc ad nauseum.

There list building opportunities really just seems to be utilized for breaking thing game more than really creating interesting forces drawn from the background material. For every interesting and lovingly crafted background adherent army, there's three dozen abominations built from 3 different armies and 7 different rules sources that have no basis in the background material at all.

That's 5 points. That's not a lot. Those are just things I'd like to see fixed, two of which (small blasts and swarms) have had issues for multiple editions.
Yeah things like Invisibility could use a WC bump, but are you REALLY complaining about Shifting Worldscape? It's already WC3 and doesn't always get a lot of use in the first place.

I'll give you Maelstrom. Those cards are a mess!

Still got faaar too much random in the game to even be playable. And still got formations and GMCs etc

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Jayden63 wrote:
I had the most fun playing 4th ed. Yeah, entanglement sucked and was a little too harsh, but LOS, wounding allocation, HTH resolution, vehicle damage tables, etc. all seemed very fair and streamlined.

Vehicle tables were fair if you were running skimmers (and particularly skimmers that had wargear which mitigated or removed the downside of being skimmers), but otherwise vehicles were very poor in 4

Let's not even get started on non-skimmer transports (oh, your transport took a single penetrating hit? 50% chance of vehicle death straight away, and if it survives it's automatically stunned and probably immobilized or losing a weapon to boot and now you have to disembark and take a pinning test, skimmers get to ignore all this entirely, huzzah!).

That said, I did like 4E wound allocation and Victory Points (Kill Points were the worst thing 5E introduced and they still suck).

The vehicle rules were really rough on transports. But MBTs and naturally skimmers were much better off. AV13-14 actually meant something. Keeping yourself obscured to get a chance of glancing hits easier with area terrain, and even better with actually blocking LOS terrain like forests. Also the move and shoot was pretty well handeled with the introduction of secondary weapon systems. As it is I currently play a modified version of 4th edition where most of the really rough parts have been removed. The game flows and is actually fun once again.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 insaniak wrote:
4th Editions' hybrid (True LOS sometimes - Abstracted LOS sometimes) LOS system spawned more rules debates over the life of the edition than just about any other rule I can recall in the last 20 years... it was a mess, because people just didn't understand how it was supposed to work.

I must have played with a pretty sharp set of guys as I really don't remember having that many conflicts about it. That or maybe we all just played them wrong the same way naturally.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
I honestly don't get how people like 6th and 7th both are utter garbage.

Probably because both opened up several list building opportunities that you don't need your opponent's permission to run?

It isn't like the core rules of 7th are bad. Just make a few tweaks like:
1. You can charge out of a stationary transport
2. Swarms have EW outside of any blast or template
3. Allow Blasts to target open ground inside that enemy squad
4. Soul Blaze is done on a D6
5. ATSKNF gives a reroll to Fear tests rather than ignoring them

Bam. That's pretty solid.

I think you'd have to do a lot more then that...
Redo cover saves for MC. Redo their whole wounds and toughness profile, they are way too strong.
Change HPs and the tank damage table. Anything with AV is awful unless its free, and it stems from this.
Overwatch.
Some USRs are balanced while some are awful.
Rapidfire increasing shots so much made the game tilt further for shooting.
Random Charges
Str D table
Haywire (fixed since hawks really, but still pretty bad)
Look Out Sir is too strong and creates deathstars
7th has a LOT of problems.

The allies chart that is supposed to be for fluff purposes but prevents a lot of fluffy alliances and makes unfluffy ones too good.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Probably 5E.

I want to often put 4E in place of 5E, but the ridiculously hard to kill Skimmers vs the almost completely unsusable non-skimmer vehicles (and especially non-skimmer transports) coupled with the area terrain LoS rules and ability to consolidate into new combats made for some rather absurd

I totally disagree about the abstracted vs true LOS. Abstracted LOS eliminated probably the most common cause of arguments in a game while encouraging maneuver over gun lines and giving mobile short ranged armies or assault armies a good chance to prevail against a static shooting force. Removing it was a huge step backward that the game has never really recovered from.

A bunch of the survivability and mobility buffs we see today like jink or stormshields for everyone, etc, are just band aids on the real problem of true LOS. Abstracted LOS made it much more possible to achieve a local superiority which made the game more tactical and fun. Now that almost nothing totally blocks LOS in a meaningful way, persistent long range fire support can eliminate the entire meta game of achieving local concentrations, which used to be the funnest part of the game.

 Silverthorne wrote:
Abstracted LOS eliminated probably the most common cause of arguments in a game...

Except it didn't.

It provided a way for area terrain to block LOS... but other editions have done that just as well. The problem there wasn't the removal of the abstract system, it was allowing models to draw LOS through elements of area terrain that had previously blocked LOS that caused issues.

What the abstract system did was spawn a whole bunch of arguments about just how and when it was supposed to be used... because a lot of players didn't understand that outside of area terrain and close combats, 4th edition still used true LOS.

Now that almost nothing totally blocks LOS in a meaningful way, persistent long range fire support can eliminate the entire meta game of achieving local concentrations, which used to be the funnest part of the game.

A problem that can be resolved by putting more terrain on the table...

From my experience, the vast majority of players have always used too little terrain. This has a fairly massive impact on the game, and always has done.

I loved 5th, I really haven't enjoyed 7th. Too many supplementary rule sets to keep a track of and the only way to make assault armies work in 7th in my opinion have been either land raider spam or using formations, neither of which really appeal to me.

Which really upsets the ork and/or berzerker in me.

I'll say 5E, prior to the last few months after the new GK codex dropped (despite that codex being the one that motivated me to actually start a GK army like I'd always wanted).

I remember being very frustrated throughout a lot of 5E, on account of playing Black Templars (a 3E 'dex) vs my friends' much more powerful 4/5E 'dexes; getting tabled (or nearly so) was a common occurrence. However, the game was still mostly enjoyable and I usually felt like I had a chance to win, even if I was at a disadvantage.

The moment I noticed this start to change was the first time I fielded my (new) GK against my friend's Daemons and Warp Quaked him off the table T1. It seems like every new 'dex after that point just made things more and more needlessly complex and much more open to abuse. Even though I was winning so much more frequently than before, it felt less like I was making good decisions (both army-construction-wise and game-wise) and more like the units in my codex just out-powered everything from any older book.

This was obviously bad from a "balanced, enjoyable game" perspective, but it was also bad from the perspective of knowing that my army's strength, based on "this unit is just strictly better than your equivalent," would eventually turn against me, as newer 'dexes got released. Which is exactly what happened once 6th Ed Tau/Eldar became a thing.

Makes me wish there was a 5E ruleset back then with every 'dex from that time-period equalized at the 5E level (so bring GK down from their "6E-but-not-quite", and bring up the 3-4E books to parity).

 insaniak wrote:

From my experience, the vast majority of players have always used too little terrain. This has a fairly massive impact on the game, and always has done.

OMG This !!

 adamsouza wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

From my experience, the vast majority of players have always used too little terrain. This has a fairly massive impact on the game, and always has done.

OMG This !!

Spoiler:

If your table looks like this, you deserve to have your army blown off the board turn 1

True-ish, but a lot of shooty army players will argue for hours over the amount of terrain on the board, and only play on planet bowling ball with a few barricades.

Ideally:

Thinking back I have to go with 4th because it was the edition I had the most fun with. I do not think it was the most balanced though, mostly since assult was so strong and shooting fell behind. That being said there's 3 main reason I preffered the 4th edition. One thing I don't include is that the game seemed to run smoother and quicker in 4th, but I don't want to put that down because I'm not 100% if I remmember that wrong or not.

1: Deployment.
Deployment in 4th followed the matrix where heavy support unit was deployed first and fast attack last. Each players took turns to deploy one unit at a time and did it with a 24" area of denial. After this it got changed to "one side deploys then the other". Something I found far less entertaining, less tactical and less interactive. After deployment you had a roll of for who would go first, and I just thought the whole phase offered lots of depth.

2: Codexes
I always felt like 3.5e and (early) 4e codexes represented the lore better then any other edition, with the possible exception of 2e. Pretty much every army had doctrines of army specefic upgrades/changes for points, the FOC was limited to represent skirmish, the warger sections was immense and filled with items that where there more to represent the lore then to offer game balance. 5th saw the start of the special character focus that would come to dominate 40k in all the comming edditions, as well as a drop of the wargear section. In 4th you still had the rules that stated you could only take special characters if your opponent agreed and on a certain point level, usually 1750p+. Also no cross codex shenanigans (with the exception for the inquisition codexes). Also, point per model. Not per squad, per model.

3: Kill team/campaigns/combat patrol/fliers
This is a bit of a cheat but I had great time with this stuff. The old flier rules where cool. Fliers would arrive from reserve and you'd add 12" to the range once your weapon reached the base of it. You also put the model on the board edge one turn before it arrived to represent it comming before it got in range, whereupon it could be shot down by AA weapons. Kill teams was a blast and a nice lite addition to the game, I recall having great fun modelling and putting togheter my 160p squads. Combat patrol was very welcome to help new players out. Finally the 4th campaign rules gave your units increased exp during a campaign which gave them special rules or stats increase. You had a rooster for your army and all units that survived earned exp.

I realise theese are not "core rules" since that's more a question of the rulebook itself, but 40k for me has always been more then just a game. It's a hobby where I put many hours into every single part of a game, whenever it's the rules, the models or the terrain. Somehow I thought that with the effort 4th made to give you opportunities to have fun and see in lore justifications for all your equippment that made the game all the more enjoyable, despite it not being the best released ruleset so far.

Phanixis wrote:
Here are some of the bigger problems 5e introduced:

Alpha Strike Armies: The is just my opinion, but alpha strike armies suck. Getting crippled before turn 1 should not happen and yet this happens all to often in 40k, and 5e is where this truly began. True LOS made it nearly impossible to hide larger and often more important units from LOS even for a single turn, so combined with the increased codex power in 5e armies the army with first turn could now pound its opponent from across the board with little effort. Combine this with the newly introduced drop pods and crazy scouting units like the Vendetta and Baal Predator and you are often looking at one army placing troops with nasty weapons like meltaguns and flamers in their opponents deployment zone and destroying key units before the opponent gets a single turn. This problem has only become worse in later editions.

Easy Access to Invulnerably Saves: Ok, arguably the first offender was the awful Choas Deamon codex at the tail end of 4e, although you could make the Ork codex argument that this was a codex built in anticipation of 5e. But I feel that Stormshields cemented this trend. Inv saves should have never been made available in anything better than a 4+ except in the rarest of circumstances, but stormshields turned 3+ inv into a stock upgrade. Even if the unit itself isn't consider that strong I still feel that this set a bad precedent.

Tank Squadrons: In 4e, every faction was essentially limited to an absolute maximum of three main battle tanks by the FOC and thus tanks were limited as supporting elements to an infantry based army, as was fitting for a skirmish level game. There existed only one exception to this rule, the awful Nidzilla builds that were possible because Nid players were allowed to take MCs in three separate force org slots when they should have been limited to the heavy support slot just like every other army. But otherwise, this rule held in check. When 5e rolled around, IG got Leman Russ Squadrons plus Vendetta skimmer tanks in the fast attack slot, Nids got Carnifex Squadrons and Blood Angles could field fast attack Predators. While these weren't always the strongest choices (see Carnifex squadrons) it established a clear precedent that it was now acceptable for armies to just spam massive amounts of their largest and strongest models.

Flyers: "But it was 6e that introduced flyers!" you say. While technically true, the first flyer models, such as Valkyries, Stormravens and Nightscythes were introduced in 5e, and all on unique bases that clearly separated them from skimmers. Did anyone honestly expect them to remain skimmer tanks indefinitely? And even as skimmer tanks, they kind of let the Imperials intrude upon xenos territory, for whom skimmer tanks were supposed to be their unique a powerful centerpiece units. In any case, I think the blame for flyers should be squarely placed here.

Codex Arms Race: Admittedly I never played 3e so this might have been a 4e problem as well, but 5e codices were clearly more powerful than their 4e counterparts, giving the newer codices and edge over their opposition. And I am certain it was not just compatibility with the new rules. Units often got cheaper in 5e codices while gaining new assortments of special rules (this seemed to be the edition of new army wide special rules such as "tactics" and "orders"), especially basic troops, and armies often got new very powerful tools such as drop pods, scouting predators and vendettas that radically altered how you had to fight against them, and these tools were often grossly undercosted.

Wouldn't you agree though, that many of the above problems are to do with the codex writing than the core rules? Things like tank squadrons after all, are, I think a good idea as an option for light vehicles (sentinels, buggies, tetras, and so on), it's only when it gets given as an option to things like Vendettas it becomes problematic. And even then, it only becomes problematic when they're costed too cheaply. Same again for multiple cheap invulnerable saves, and units with the ability to deep strike in turn 1 (IIRC you could only deep strike from turn 2 normally in 5th). If you wrote the codex with those flaws in mind, they could be easily edited out without changing the core ruleset.

 Selym wrote:
Still got faaar too much random in the game to even be playable. And still got formations and GMCs etc

Oh I despise the random rolls it's the hallmark of devs that clearly don't give a damn about making a proper rule set.

hobojebus wrote:

 Selym wrote:
Still got faaar too much random in the game to even be playable. And still got formations and GMCs etc

Oh I despise the random rolls it's the hallmark of devs that clearly don't give a damn about making a proper rule set.

To be fair, it's alternatively just the 'hallmark' of devs who like a bunch of random events in their games.

Not being to everyone's taste doesn't automatically make it bad game design.

It does if the objective is to create a "Tactical Wargame".

What makes you think that was ever GW's objective?


Based on 20-odd years of watching the GW studio, I'm reasonably confident that their goal is simply to produce a game that they personally find fun to play.

 insaniak wrote:
What makes you think that was ever GW's objective?


Based on 20-odd years of watching the GW studio, I'm reasonably confident that their goal is simply to produce a game that they personally find fun to play.

When what they should of been doing was make a game their customers would find fun to play.

These are the guys that thought no points and zero balance was a good idea don't forget.

 insaniak wrote:
What makes you think that was ever GW's objective?


Based on 20-odd years of watching the GW studio, I'm reasonably confident that their goal is simply to produce a game that they personally find fun to play.

Never said it was their objective. But it should have been. I would be a lot happier about buying 40k stuff and getting other to buy into it if it was a good game.

Sadly, 40k is only good for making you lose friends.

 Accolade wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
While everyone seems to love 5th, I found 6th to be the best core rule set by far. It felt dynamic, openned up more options than the stale CAD and AD, and had actual terrain rules. Definitely the best core rule set.

SJ

I remember 6th having a hopeful tone when it first came out, and that lasted for a period until things like Escalation started coming out.

We are talking about core rules, not supplements. As a core ruld set, 6th was the most inclusive and complete set. The problem with 6th occured when GW decided to start releasing 7th Ed codexes and supplements a year into 6th, follow by releasing 7th way too early. 7th is not well written, unlike 6th. There is no doubt in my mind that if 6th had it's full run, it would have been the most balance edition.

SJ

You don't think its weird to call 6th the most inclusive and complete when it had the most expansions that affected the core rules, like Escalation and Stronghold?

Based on 20-odd years of watching the GW studio, I'm reasonably confident that their goal is simply to produce a game that they personally find fun to play.

Regardless of which edition you prefer, I think this statement has always applied. I think it's maybe less true of 3rd ed (even Gav Thorpe is on record as having said that they went too far in simplifying the game from 2nd-3rd), but over-all I've always felt like the studio has always made the game for themselves first. I think that's partially to blame for quite a bit of the disconnect over the years.

We are talking about core rules, not supplements. As a core ruld set, 6th was the most inclusive and complete set. The problem with 6th occured when GW decided to start releasing 7th Ed codexes and supplements a year into 6th, follow by releasing 7th way too early. 7th is not well written, unlike 6th. There is no doubt in my mind that if 6th had it's full run, it would have been the most balance edition.

IMO you're right about 6th being a very inclusive and relatively "complete" core set. I really enjoyed it at first as it felt like a slight return to the 40k "glory days" of 2nd ed. Unfortunately, I think 7th was the logical conclusion to 6th regardless of when it came out. I agree that 7th was rushed out too early, but I don't think delaying it would have really made that much of a difference. Where 6th ed wedged its toe in the door in terms of concepts like formations, unbound, random random because reasons, etc, 7th beat the door down with a battering ram and stormed into the room with a shotgun.

Once you open that gate of allowing "more" it gets very difficult to close it back up again which makes it important that you do it properly right from the start. Unfortunately, while I mostly enjoyed 6th, I think it made several key mistakes that allowed the beast that is 7th to exist.

 Blacksails wrote:
You don't think its weird to call 6th the most inclusive and complete when it had the most expansions that affected the core rules, like Escalation and Stronghold?

Previous to Escalation, Superheavies were Apocalypse units; can you honestly say Escalation added to the core rule set? Stronghold Assault added updated building rules; again, were those rules adding to the core? 7th rolled both into the core, while dropping detailed core rules that were needed to make fortifications and superheavies more balanced, such as rules for levels that existed in 6th but disappeared in 7th, or point level restrictions in core rules that would have effected Superheavies.

Not sure why people don't understand the difference between core rules and supplementary rules.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
You don't think its weird to call 6th the most inclusive and complete when it had the most expansions that affected the core rules, like Escalation and Stronghold?

Previous to Escalation, Superheavies were Apocalypse units; can you honestly say Escalation added to the core rule set?

Yes, yes I can. Seeing as that supplement literally added rules and units that were previously only allowed in Apoc to the game base core rules, I think its pretty fair to say Escalation added to the core rules.

Stronghold Assault added updated building rules; again, were those rules adding to the core?

Yes, same as above.

7th rolled both into the core, while dropping detailed core rules that were needed to make fortifications and superheavies more balanced, such as rules for levels that existed in 6th but disappeared in 7th, or point level restrictions in core rules that would have effected Superheavies.

If 7th rolled them all in, wouldn't that make it more inclusive and complete than 6th?

Not sure why people don't understand the difference between core rules and supplementary rules.

SJ

Because those line have always been blurred, seeing as how those books effectively grant a blanket permission for anyone to use the contents of the book, which in 40k terms, is effectively the same thing as being in the core rules.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

5. ATSKNF gives a reroll to Fear tests rather than ignoring them

Bam. That's pretty solid.

What? How much do you have that relies on causing fear? Because that is not the strong part of ATSKNF. The strong part is that they regroup automatically and they stand and fight if charged while falling back.
It feels like such a weird change to have as one of your 5 bullet points to fix the game when them being immune to fear is so rarely even used. I wouldn't even pay 5 points for *that* part of ATSKNF.

 Purifier wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

5. ATSKNF gives a reroll to Fear tests rather than ignoring them

Bam. That's pretty solid.

What? How much do you have that relies on causing fear? Because that is not the strong part of ATSKNF. The strong part is that they regroup automatically and they stand and fight if charged while falling back.
It feels like such a weird change to have as one of your 5 bullet points to fix the game when them being immune to fear is so rarely even used. I wouldn't even pay 5 points for *that* part of ATSKNF.

It's not even worth 1.

Especially given that without ATSKNF, space marines have leaderships 8-10 pretty much exclusively.

 insaniak wrote:

 Silverthorne wrote:
Abstracted LOS eliminated probably the most common cause of arguments in a game...

Except it didn't.

It provided a way for area terrain to block LOS... but other editions have done that just as well. The problem there wasn't the removal of the abstract system, it was allowing models to draw LOS through elements of area terrain that had previously blocked LOS that caused issues.

What the abstract system did was spawn a whole bunch of arguments about just how and when it was supposed to be used... because a lot of players didn't understand that outside of area terrain and close combats, 4th edition still used true LOS.

Now that almost nothing totally blocks LOS in a meaningful way, persistent long range fire support can eliminate the entire meta game of achieving local concentrations, which used to be the funnest part of the game.

A problem that can be resolved by putting more terrain on the table...

From my experience, the vast majority of players have always used too little terrain. This has a fairly massive impact on the game, and always has done.

I don't see how there would be any argument-- it was like 1.5 pages worth of rules, you only had to memorize the depth into which models in large area terrain could see out of it, and the length of terrain through which LOS could be drawn. Literally 2 pieces of information. If that was too much to grasp and the group had frequest arguments about it, I'd be curious as to how they managed to utilize the far more complicated parts of the ruleset. Unfortunately what you say doesn't jive with the facts about the LOS rules in 4th, and this is easily verifiable.

The "not enough terrain" canard is pointless. You could literally cover a board with jungle terrain and it would still be possible to draw true LOS through almost any distance of it when you get a model eye view. Blocking true LOS neaningfully doesn't just require buckets and buckets of terrain (which, by the way, had an entire other set of consequences for the game you are not even considering for some reason, like heavily nerfing tracked vehicles, totally boning armies without lots of grenade access, and making horde armies a massive chore to play) it really requires specially built terrain with large, slabby, windowless buildings. This is fail for several reasons, not the least of which is that it makes terrain set up a part of the metagame. The 4th ed solution was elegant, it allowed ruins to be use able and simultaneously block LOS from distant shooters against targets positioned behind the terrain. It was also much more realistic and true to life than the grot with his BS 2 being able to shoot through the jungle, through the crack in the ruined wall, through the .1" gap in between the 2 rhinos, over the rock pile and under the prometheium pipes, nothing but net.

 insaniak wrote:
4th Editions' hybrid (True LOS sometimes - Abstracted LOS sometimes) LOS system spawned more rules debates over the life of the edition than just about any other rule I can recall in the last 20 years... it was a mess, because people just didn't understand how it was supposed to work.

See my experience was exactly the opposite. LOS arguments increased by about four fold when I switched to 5e and probably accounted for a least half of all rules related arguments I had in 5th edition. And how could it be any other way? Implementing TLOS on the table top was just downright finicky, constantly having to check "model's eye" viewpoint, grab laser pointers, crouch down to get weird view angles of the table and the like. Its a rule that looks great on paper but is terrible in practice.

 insaniak wrote:

 Silverthorne wrote:
Abstracted LOS eliminated probably the most common cause of arguments in a game...

It provided a way for area terrain to block LOS... but other editions have done that just as well. The problem there wasn't the removal of the abstract system, it was allowing models to draw LOS through elements of area terrain that had previously blocked LOS that caused issues.

How exactly does one prevent LOS from being drawn through terrain without abstracting it in some way? Given that most terrain are things like forest, ruins with plenty of windows and holes, stacks of debris and the like you almost always going to be able to physically see through the terrain piece, even if you are using your model's vantage point. The only way to block line of is to say something to the effect of: "although you can see through those windows in the ruins, you can't draw LOS through it" at which point you have abandoned TLOS for the purposes of said window and abstracted the way you draw LOS.

 Ketara wrote:


Wouldn't you agree though, that many of the above problems are to do with the codex writing than the core rules? Things like tank squadrons after all, are, I think a good idea as an option for light vehicles (sentinels, buggies, tetras, and so on), it's only when it gets given as an option to things like Vendettas it becomes problematic. And even then, it only becomes problematic when they're costed too cheaply. Same again for multiple cheap invulnerable saves, and units with the ability to deep strike in turn 1 (IIRC you could only deep strike from turn 2 normally in 5th). If you wrote the codex with those flaws in mind, they could be easily edited out without changing the core ruleset.

Yes, I did include the codex rules in with the core rules but honestly its kind of hard to distance the impact of the codices from the rest of the game, as the codices and the core rules quickly become intertwined. Also remember that this argument cuts both ways, the much maligned holo-falcons of 4e are a combination of 4e skimmer rules and Eldar wargear. Without the likes of holofields, spirit stones and vectored-retro thrusters for the Eldar codex the falcon would have average survivability, benefiting only from the fast skimmer rule. But even if you want to just look at core rules in isolation, its hard to go wrong with abstract LOS, sensible wound allocation, victory points and other staples of 4e. The only glaring problem 4e seemed to have was glass jaw vehicles. There were a few additional changes from 5e I also liked such as the new deployment rules, but I still felt that for every step 5e took forward it took two steps back.

Fourth edition is an underrated rule set, and in many ways the easiest to fix. However, the major flaws of 4th are crushing to play experience. Even leaving out codex imbalance, as it's not the topic, you had virtually unplayable transports, overpowered skimmers, and fairly limited options for deployment/reserves. It lead to a lot of static shooting mixed with droppod or monstrous creature spam. The reason I like 5th more is that it's flaws were exploits, notably wound allocation and AV spam, while 4th's flaws were limits. You simply could not build a really good mechanized list.

You could do a lot worse than 4th for a basis of a fan remix, but if I had to play an edition out of the book, I'd take 5th.

 Silverthorne wrote:

I don't see how there would be any argument-- it was like 1.5 pages worth of rules, you only had to memorize the depth into which models in large area terrain could see out of it, and the length of terrain through which LOS could be drawn. Literally 2 pieces of information. If that was too much to grasp and the group had frequest arguments about it, I'd be curious as to how they managed to utilize the far more complicated parts of the ruleset. Unfortunately what you say doesn't jive with the facts about the LOS rules in 4th, and this is easily verifiable.

The arguments largely came from the fact that a lot of players read the rules and thought that the size categories applied all of the time, when they actually just applied to area terrain and close combats with the rest of the game using TLOS.

The "not enough terrain" canard is pointless. You could literally cover a board with jungle terrain and it would still be possible to draw true LOS through almost any distance of it when you get a model eye view. Blocking true LOS neaningfully doesn't just require buckets and buckets of terrain (which, by the way, had an entire other set of consequences for the game you are not even considering for some reason, like heavily nerfing tracked vehicles, totally boning armies without lots of grenade access, and making horde armies a massive chore to play) it really requires specially built terrain with large, slabby, windowless buildings.

In earlier editions, forest bases blocked LOS through them... models could shoot in and out, but not through. That allowed forest bases to serve as LOS blockers without the need for Size categories. And it's not at all difficult to make buildings, hills, rocky outcrops, piles of equipment, statues, and any number of other things that block LOS without resorting solely to 'slabby, windowless buildings'.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Phanixis wrote:

See my experience was exactly the opposite. LOS arguments increased by about four fold when I switched to 5e and probably accounted for a least half of all rules related arguments I had in 5th edition. And how could it be any other way? Implementing TLOS on the table top was just downright finicky, constantly having to check "model's eye" viewpoint, grab laser pointers, crouch down to get weird view angles of the table and the like. Its a rule that looks great on paper but is terrible in practice.

TLOS has formed the core of the LOS rules in every edition of 40K to date. It wasn't something new to 5th edition. The only things that have really changed from edition to edition are how area terrain works with the LOS rules, and the specifics of when to treat models and/or units as being in cover.


While it certainly has its issues, frankly, I think the complaints about it being 'finicky' are generally somewhat overblown.

Why were RT and 2nd excluded from even being options on the poll? O.o

Also, I voted 5th. I played the most games and had the most fun in that edition. I'm not skilled enough to speak to balance or even effectiveness of individual units though.

Vaktathi wrote:3E has similar problems to 4th, only moreso (hooray rhino rush assault spam!), but I liked the concept of all the army lists in one book.

I can't stand everyone calling it the Rhino Rush. EVERYONE could fling forward like that, and Eldar were probably the most vicious with it. Blood Angels had the one transport that could travel more than 12" and deploy charging troops, not every Marine player was a Blood Angels player.

Sal4m4nd3r wrote:When was "consolidating into close combat" removed? Removing that small but valuable aspect of assault phase was frustrating.

Congrats! you just destroyed the unit you were fighting! Reward? oh, you're getting shot to gak.

I got consolidated into once, I never let my squads stand within 6" of each other ever again.

 Just Tony wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:3E has similar problems to 4th, only moreso (hooray rhino rush assault spam!), but I liked the concept of all the army lists in one book.

I can't stand everyone calling it the Rhino Rush. EVERYONE could fling forward like that, and Eldar were probably the most vicious with it. Blood Angels had the one transport that could travel more than 12" and deploy charging troops, not every Marine player was a Blood Angels player.

Sal4m4nd3r wrote:When was "consolidating into close combat" removed? Removing that small but valuable aspect of assault phase was frustrating.

Congrats! you just destroyed the unit you were fighting! Reward? oh, you're getting shot to gak.

I got consolidated into once, I never let my squads stand within 6" of each other ever again.

But wasn't consolidation in 3rd 2d6 inches? Or am I mis-remembering. I remember the updated Assault rules (the basis of 4th edition) reduced the range, but didn't eliminate it..

Could have sworn consolidation was 3", I mean, why would you pursue if consolidation was the same distance? I'll have to check the main book when I can.

 Just Tony wrote:
Could have sworn consolidation was 3", I mean, why would you pursue if consolidation was the same distance? I'll have to check the main book when I can.

Consolidation may have been, but the abused rule in 3rd edition was sweeping advance. It was set up like fantasy where anytime you broke or wiped out an enemy unit you made a 2d6" sweeping advance which could be used to contact other units. This move was reduced to 1d6" in fourth edition.

I'm pretty sure.

 insaniak wrote:

In earlier editions, forest bases blocked LOS through them... models could shoot in and out, but not through. That allowed forest bases to serve as LOS blockers without the need for Size categories.

But that is still not TLOS, now is it? Its a form of abstracted line of sight, just implemented slightly differently. In 4e terms this would just be the equivalent of setting all of your area terrain to size 3. At the end of the day, there needs to be a mechanism by which you can block line of sight through a terrain piece even though you can physically see through it, and for 5e and beyond this mechanism is entirely absent. If you don't have numerous terrain pieces with solid walls several inches in both length and height you simply aren't going to break up LOS properly under TLOS rules.

Fifth. It was only really made worse by power creep, but it's not like later or earlier editions were any better in that regard.

Phanixis wrote:

But that is still not TLOS, now is it? Its a form of abstracted line of sight, just implemented slightly differently.

Sure. I don't have a problem with certain things being abstracted where there is a valid reason for it (in the case of area terrain, it's useful because of the impossibility of building properly representational terrain that is still functional for placing miniatures)

My issue with 4th edition wasn't with area terrain LOS being abstracted, it was with the way it was done being needlessly complicated. A rule that says 'You can't draw LOS through area terrain' is functionally much more efficient than implementing a Size Category system that doesn't actually matter because all of your area terrain is the same Size anyway...

At the end of the day, there needs to be a mechanism by which you can block line of sight through a terrain piece even though you can physically see through it, and for 5e and beyond this mechanism is entirely absent. If you don't have numerous terrain pieces with solid walls several inches in both length and height you simply aren't going to break up LOS properly under TLOS rules.

There doesn't need to be... There's no specific reason that area terrain has to block LOS (there are other terrain options for that, like buildings or rocks), it's just something that a lot of players prefer.

 docdoom77 wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
Could have sworn consolidation was 3", I mean, why would you pursue if consolidation was the same distance? I'll have to check the main book when I can.

Consolidation may have been, but the abused rule in 3rd edition was sweeping advance. It was set up like fantasy where anytime you broke or wiped out an enemy unit you made a 2d6" sweeping advance which could be used to contact other units. This move was reduced to 1d6" in fourth edition.

I'm pretty sure.

The rule for sweeping advance allowed you to rush forward 2D6 after a fleeing foe, or towards the enemy after destroying a unit. The down side to this was that the ENTIRE ARMY could shoot the unit that swept into enemy troops. I personally had a unit of Veterans shot to ribbons because of a sweeping advance.

 Just Tony wrote:

 docdoom77 wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
Could have sworn consolidation was 3", I mean, why would you pursue if consolidation was the same distance? I'll have to check the main book when I can.

Consolidation may have been, but the abused rule in 3rd edition was sweeping advance. It was set up like fantasy where anytime you broke or wiped out an enemy unit you made a 2d6" sweeping advance which could be used to contact other units. This move was reduced to 1d6" in fourth edition.

I'm pretty sure.

The rule for sweeping advance allowed you to rush forward 2D6 after a fleeing foe, or towards the enemy after destroying a unit. The down side to this was that the ENTIRE ARMY could shoot the unit that swept into enemy troops. I personally had a unit of Veterans shot to ribbons because of a sweeping advance.

Are you sure?
I don't remember that ever happening, and sweeping advances were well...everywhere in 3rd. If your whole army could fire everytime I did a sweeping advance, the strategy would have fallen apart. With my hawks I've sweeping advanced through an ID line before, they would have been decimated if you got free shots.

Consolidations were 3", 2d6" directly towards the enemy unless the enemy died.
In 4th I believe it was d6+Init. It was how transports were impacted that killed the rhino rush, not CC. Many powerful CC units were still seen commonly in 4th edition. It wasn't until 5th that the game began to tilt heavily towards shooting.

Akiasura wrote:

Are you sure?
I don't remember that ever happening, and sweeping advances were well...everywhere in 3rd. If your whole army could fire everytime I did a sweeping advance, the strategy would have fallen apart. With my hawks I've sweeping advanced through an ID line before, they would have been decimated if you got free shots.

It wasn't a free shot, Overwatch-style... It just allowed the enemy in their next shooting phase to target the sweeping unit even if they were in base contact with a new enemy.

Can't remember off the top of my head if that was 3rd or 4th edition, though.




The fun bit was coming across the occasional opponent who thought that sweeping into another enemy unit allowed them to fight another round of combat immediately... You still see the occasional person who thinks that a single unit could go through an entire enemy army in a single assault phase... The rules were admittedly not as clear on this as they could be, but even for GW that would have been just a tad too over the top

 insaniak wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

Are you sure?
I don't remember that ever happening, and sweeping advances were well...everywhere in 3rd. If your whole army could fire everytime I did a sweeping advance, the strategy would have fallen apart. With my hawks I've sweeping advanced through an ID line before, they would have been decimated if you got free shots.

It wasn't a free shot, Overwatch-style... It just allowed the enemy in their next shooting phase to target the sweeping unit even if they were in base contact with a new enemy.

Can't remember off the top of my head if that was 3rd or 4th edition, though.




The fun bit was coming across the occasional opponent who thought that sweeping into another enemy unit allowed them to fight another round of combat immediately... You still see the occasional person who thinks that a single unit could go through an entire enemy army in a single assault phase... The rules were admittedly not as clear on this as they could be, but even for GW that would have been just a tad too over the top

That sounds like 4th but I could be wrong, I do remember my swooping hawks being nicknamed the sweeping hawks. They could easily destroy 4-5 units a game with their fast speed and access to sustained assault, which was flat out a broken ability and not in theme on them. But a lot of fun. If you could shoot at them they would have been awful, but I stopped using them in 4th since skimmers became king.

I don't remember running into any opponents who thought that, but it was nice seeing combat units earn 2-3x their points if you could deliver them right. And watching IG players have to carefully consider their troop placement since moving hurt rapid fire but you really did NOT want someone consolidating or sweeping into unit after unit and destroying 3-4 units with their one melee guys. Now it feels that, with attrition through overwatch and deadlier guns, I'm lucky if my melee units make their own points back once delivered if they aren't a death star. A sad change.

5th was great, formations and money hammer didn't rule the game. The only imbalance was armies like the dark angels having a long out of date and poor quality codex.

They should have stuck with 5th and just released updated army codex books... with no formations. Keep formations in apocalypse where they belong, along with super heavies, low, flyers, etc.

insaniak wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

Are you sure?
I don't remember that ever happening, and sweeping advances were well...everywhere in 3rd. If your whole army could fire everytime I did a sweeping advance, the strategy would have fallen apart. With my hawks I've sweeping advanced through an ID line before, they would have been decimated if you got free shots.

It wasn't a free shot, Overwatch-style... It just allowed the enemy in their next shooting phase to target the sweeping unit even if they were in base contact with a new enemy.

Can't remember off the top of my head if that was 3rd or 4th edition, though.




The fun bit was coming across the occasional opponent who thought that sweeping into another enemy unit allowed them to fight another round of combat immediately... You still see the occasional person who thinks that a single unit could go through an entire enemy army in a single assault phase... The rules were admittedly not as clear on this as they could be, but even for GW that would have been just a tad too over the top

It was indeed 3rd, though 4th may have contained the same rule. Basically if you swept you would get shot by damn near the entire army the following term, unless the sweep happened on the opponent's turn.


And as far as fighting combat twice being far too OP for GW? Read 7th Ed. WFB.

I'm having a hard time remembering, mainly because you had 3rd edition...3rd edition with trial assault rules (commonly referred to as 3.5) and then 4th which adopted those rules. So somewhere in there...

I do remember occasionally have an Eldar unit move 6", fleet another D6 (6") assault (I think this moved another 6") and then sweeping advance 2D6" (occasionally rolling 10-12"). It meant some units ended up absurdly far up the table...mostly by accident.

 Just Tony wrote:

insaniak wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

Are you sure?
I don't remember that ever happening, and sweeping advances were well...everywhere in 3rd. If your whole army could fire everytime I did a sweeping advance, the strategy would have fallen apart. With my hawks I've sweeping advanced through an ID line before, they would have been decimated if you got free shots.

It wasn't a free shot, Overwatch-style... It just allowed the enemy in their next shooting phase to target the sweeping unit even if they were in base contact with a new enemy.

Can't remember off the top of my head if that was 3rd or 4th edition, though.




The fun bit was coming across the occasional opponent who thought that sweeping into another enemy unit allowed them to fight another round of combat immediately... You still see the occasional person who thinks that a single unit could go through an entire enemy army in a single assault phase... The rules were admittedly not as clear on this as they could be, but even for GW that would have been just a tad too over the top

It was indeed 3rd, though 4th may have contained the same rule. Basically if you swept you would get shot by damn near the entire army the following term, unless the sweep happened on the opponent's turn.


And as far as fighting combat twice being far too OP for GW? Read 7th Ed. WFB.

I just double checked my 3rd edition rulebook, and I'm not seeing ANY rule to that effect. All it says if you touch another unit you count as engaged with that unit in close combat, which would prevent shooting. I checked my 4th edition rulebook too, just to make sure, and didn't see anything there (page 43, sweeping advances/consolidation). In fact, in 4th, it specifically says you can not fire.
I checked BRs from back then too, and don't see any mention of this what so ever. ]

I mainly played Wolves, Eldar, and Nids in 3rd. If this is a real thing I can't believe I never encountered it, or don't remember it. My Hawks should have died over and over.

I remember the major rule changes being everyone in 2" can swing, can't move the unit after the transport moves, sweeping advances are I+d6, consolidate is d6 even if unit is wiped. I played a lot in 3rd, and I really can't recall this rule ever existing. It would have made assault armies awful if it did, since they could kill, at best, one unit. That and you lacked fire points...half the unit could fire. I would think that would have been the strategy if you could fire into assault. It was easy for a fast unit like warp spiders to surround a transport, detonate it, and every model inside dies automatically since it can't be placed.

Tbh I remember firing into assault being a Skaven thing only, and every IG player wishing they could do it since it's fluffy.

I'm not sure about your reference to 7th WFB. Magic has been broken in WFB for several editions now, mainly suicide mages casting IF top tier spells like Purple Sun or something similar. Nothing like init save or die under a template when you play ogres or lizards.

Akiasura wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

insaniak wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

Are you sure?
I don't remember that ever happening, and sweeping advances were well...everywhere in 3rd. If your whole army could fire everytime I did a sweeping advance, the strategy would have fallen apart. With my hawks I've sweeping advanced through an ID line before, they would have been decimated if you got free shots.

It wasn't a free shot, Overwatch-style... It just allowed the enemy in their next shooting phase to target the sweeping unit even if they were in base contact with a new enemy.

Can't remember off the top of my head if that was 3rd or 4th edition, though.




The fun bit was coming across the occasional opponent who thought that sweeping into another enemy unit allowed them to fight another round of combat immediately... You still see the occasional person who thinks that a single unit could go through an entire enemy army in a single assault phase... The rules were admittedly not as clear on this as they could be, but even for GW that would have been just a tad too over the top

It was indeed 3rd, though 4th may have contained the same rule. Basically if you swept you would get shot by damn near the entire army the following term, unless the sweep happened on the opponent's turn.


And as far as fighting combat twice being far too OP for GW? Read 7th Ed. WFB.

I just double checked my 3rd edition rulebook, and I'm not seeing ANY rule to that effect. All it says if you touch another unit you count as engaged with that unit in close combat, which would prevent shooting. I checked my 4th edition rulebook too, just to make sure, and didn't see anything there (page 43, sweeping advances/consolidation). In fact, in 4th, it specifically says you can not fire.
I checked BRs from back then too, and don't see any mention of this what so ever. ]

I mainly played Wolves, Eldar, and Nids in 3rd. If this is a real thing I can't believe I never encountered it, or don't remember it. My Hawks should have died over and over.

I remember the major rule changes being everyone in 2" can swing, can't move the unit after the transport moves, sweeping advances are I+d6, consolidate is d6 even if unit is wiped. I played a lot in 3rd, and I really can't recall this rule ever existing. It would have made assault armies awful if it did, since they could kill, at best, one unit. That and you lacked fire points...half the unit could fire. I would think that would have been the strategy if you could fire into assault. It was easy for a fast unit like warp spiders to surround a transport, detonate it, and every model inside dies automatically since it can't be placed.

Tbh I remember firing into assault being a Skaven thing only, and every IG player wishing they could do it since it's fluffy.

I'm not sure about your reference to 7th WFB. Magic has been broken in WFB for several editions now, mainly suicide mages casting IF top tier spells like Purple Sun or something similar. Nothing like init save or die under a template when you play ogres or lizards.

The rule definitely existed at some point. Whether it was 3rd, 3rd with new assault rules, or 4th, I can't remember. You could only do it if the opponent sweeping advanced into a unit on their own turn (maybe it's in the shooting rules... I'm at work and bookless). So if they swept the same turn they charged, they counted as a viable unit to shoot on your turn. If they swept on the enemy's, turn this rule didn't apply.

Also, keep in mind that shooting wasn't as powerful in 3rd. You could only rapid fire or shoot 24" with a basic weapon if you were stationary. So, if you chose to target the heck out of that unit, you were giving up a lot of mobility. And there was nearly as much AP2 and AP3 shooting. Marines surviving after getting shot a bunch was more common.

Hm. It could be 3rd with new assault rules, I don't have that book in front of me, but I'm looking at 3rd and 4th right now and don't see it. Unless it's not in the combat section. Those books were a bit all over the place, and near the end of third I had a ton of extra material on me.

I'm not speaking about marines, I played assault eldar and nids as well. My swooping Hawks died to a light breeze being t3 with a 4+ save, yet they rolled combat lines and were my mvp. It's the only edition i got to use them so much. I used gene stealers as well, and those aren't much tougher.

Still, a leman Russ firing into combat would devastate a marine squad. Star cannons would do the same if enough fired as well. Assault cannons could do damage as well, I have a hard time believing this never came up in any br in 3rd or 4th.

Is quoting from a book verbatim against the posting rules here? As soon as I can get to my 3rd Ed. book, I will post the exact rules. Right now, though, my book is a 45 minute drive from me, even if I wasn't at work.

For old editions I don't see why it would matter

Since qoting is the only way to solve questions on YMDC, no.

Just don't put in everything about that rule, just the relevant line. And especially not the whole page.

5E for me was the most enjoyable, followed by 7th.

I didn't mind the wound-allocation shenanigans either...

For me, I'm hoping that in 8th edition:
-vehicles and MC becomes more resilient... somehow.
-5E Fleet rule (run/assault in same turn)
-bloody clarify the psychic phase
-5E opentop vehicles/disembarkment rules (ie, DE skimmer moves 12", and allows 3" disembarment)... may have to tweak assault rule (still rolling 2D6 to charge?).

 Elbows wrote:
I'm having a hard time remembering, mainly because you had 3rd edition...3rd edition with trial assault rules (commonly referred to as 3.5) and then 4th which adopted those rules. So somewhere in there...

I do remember occasionally have an Eldar unit move 6", fleet another D6 (6") assault (I think this moved another 6") and then sweeping advance 2D6" (occasionally rolling 10-12"). It meant some units ended up absurdly far up the table...mostly by accident.

Pfft. That's slow.

Blood Angel Rhino moves 18". Men inside get out 2". They shoot. Then they charge 6". Then they sweeping advance 2d6".

Didn't vehicles suffer Black Rage as well? IIRC, they do, so add D6 to the pre charge travel.

Part of the reason why I liked 4th edition the best was it seemed the most tactical to me. Generalship was important, not list design.

A few examples - Character sniping. Yes, by using vehicles and the like block LOS to a unit except the heavy weapon guy, then shoot at the unit and usually take him down do to just forcing enough saves.

Yes, some players hate sniping, but it was a skill, involving moving units and vehicles to line up that shot. Movement mattered.

2" kill zone - My favorite tactic was making a HTH character that could wipe out his killzone, but not kill the entire unit in the turn they charged. Then the next phase knock out the rest of the unit in your opponents turn. Thus saving the unit from return fire.

Again, this took tactical thinking. Back then you could choose to not use special weapons you armed your charcter with. So you ajusted the character to fit the unit you were attacking if it was an elite squad or a blob squad.

You could still assault out of a transport, provided it didn't move that turn. So if you were worried that the nearest enemy unit was going to kill your transport thus making you subject to entanglement, you just disembarked behind it. It made you have to think about what might happen.

The target priority rule was pretty good. Your units had to pass a leadership test if they wanted to shoot at a smaller model over a larger one if the larger one was closer. This made units have to shoot at that AV14 battlewagon if it was closer than the mob of boys behind it (if they failed their LD check). Which was kind of cool as it made the LD stat important for all armies and not ignored like anything fearless or with ATSKNF.

I remember my biggest butt hurt moment in 5th when I had a unit of CSM locked in combat with some SM. The CSM won the combat, the SM failed their LD check, so we had to sweep. Well, back in 4th edition you could choose to just let the unit go, but in 5th you were forced to sweep. Thus if we caught them, we stay locked, but if we loose they run and we can then consolidate into the objective thus winning the game.

In short, the only way I could win the game is if I fail all my rolls. That just seemed wrong on many levels. 5th removed many of the choices that helped the game feel like the general mattered.

I really don't think your first two examples are good examples of tactical thinking or generalship. Its gamesmanship. Its finding loopholes and exceptions and extenuating circumstances in the rules to create a very specific outcome using those rules. There's nothing inherently tactical about lining up vehicles in such a specific fashion to force saves on one model, nor does moving an assault model in such a way to abuse a particular way the assault rules function.

A real tactical element would be to look at naval wargames. You can play a naval wargame with zero terrain because the primary outcome is decided by who out-maneuvers the opponent at the right time in their optimal firing arcs and range. That is generalship and tactics. Predicting where your opponent will be three turns in advance by forcing him into an area you want through placement of torpedoes and small flanking elements, just to bring the big guns to bear during the right turn so you maximize damage before he can dish it back. None of this looking for weird glitches in the rules to pluck out a single model that happens to carry a bigger gun.

Tactics should be a skill someone can use in the game without having such a deep knowledge of the rules as to use mechanics that are frankly counter-intuitive. I can drop someone into an X-wing game, and the rules being as simple as they are leave only the player's ability to out-think their opponent. There's no moment where a player has to stop and ask "is that how the rules work?" or "that seems weird and doesn't make much sense".

Its the same way people talk about how 7th introduced a tactical layer to the game by going back to model by model movement and casualty removal. As if micro-managing a blob of 30 guardsmen so that the special weapons happen to be one line of guardsmen after the front rank is a particular breath-taking or deep tactical skill. Its rules knowledge, nothing more.

40k has always been tactically shallow. The board is too small for the weapon ranges, the terrain requirements have never been strict and frankly wouldn't be followed anyways, the movement has barely mattered when you combine board size with weapon ranges, and the game has progressively removed player involvement by adding in random charts and dice rolling. For 40k to even pretend to be a tactical exercise of any note, you'd need to either dramatically reduce the model count of an average game and triple the average LoS blocking terrain, then allow players to have reactionary actions in the opposing players turn, or double the playing area, and alter weapon ranges so that ranges make sense, but offer significant modifiers for optimal or combat ranges. Choices that have repercussions. Decisions that matter that don't require a random dice roll. But I've literally described several other games, which are all universally considered to be not only simpler to play, but offer more tactical depth.

Character sniping by moving rhinos perfectly isn't a tactic or a skill. Its a loophole.

 Jayden63 wrote:
Part of the reason why I liked 4th edition the best was it seemed the most tactical to me. Generalship was important, not list design.

A few examples - Character sniping. Yes, by using vehicles and the like block LOS to a unit except the heavy weapon guy, then shoot at the unit and usually take him down do to just forcing enough saves.

Yes, some players hate sniping, but it was a skill, involving moving units and vehicles to line up that shot. Movement mattered.

2" kill zone - My favorite tactic was making a HTH character that could wipe out his killzone, but not kill the entire unit in the turn they charged. Then the next phase knock out the rest of the unit in your opponents turn. Thus saving the unit from return fire.

Again, this took tactical thinking. Back then you could choose to not use special weapons you armed your charcter with. So you ajusted the character to fit the unit you were attacking if it was an elite squad or a blob squad.

Hrm, most of this feels like gaming the artificialities rules more than anything else, as Blacksails noted.

You could still assault out of a transport, provided it didn't move that turn. So if you were worried that the nearest enemy unit was going to kill your transport thus making you subject to entanglement, you just disembarked behind it. It made you have to think about what might happen.

This mostly boiled down to just not using transports if you weren't a skimmer army, because a single penetrating hit forced a disembarkation and a pinning test and cover saves didn't exist, best you could get is a 4+ roll to downgrade to a glancing hit.

The target priority rule was pretty good. Your units had to pass a leadership test if they wanted to shoot at a smaller model over a larger one if the larger one was closer. This made units have to shoot at that AV14 battlewagon if it was closer than the mob of boys behind it (if they failed their LD check). Which was kind of cool as it made the LD stat important for all armies and not ignored like anything fearless or with ATSKNF.

It also made playing armies like IG absurdly hard, because the armies that relied most on shooting were also the ones that were easiest to bungle Target Priority on, while the armies that generally had very high Ld also generally relied far less on that shooting. It also made no sense for units that didn't have weapons capable of hurting the closer big thing.

I remember my biggest butt hurt moment in 5th when I had a unit of CSM locked in combat with some SM. The CSM won the combat, the SM failed their LD check, so we had to sweep. Well, back in 4th edition you could choose to just let the unit go, but in 5th you were forced to sweep.

I can't remember this situation myself, but looking at the 4E rulebook on page 43 where it describes sweeping advances, it doesn't look like there was a choice in 4E either.

 Blacksails wrote:
I really don't think your first two examples are good examples of tactical thinking or generalship. Its gamesmanship. Its finding loopholes and exceptions and extenuating circumstances in the rules to create a very specific outcome using those rules. There's nothing inherently tactical about lining up vehicles in such a specific fashion to force saves on one model, nor does moving an assault model in such a way to abuse a particular way the assault rules function.

A real tactical element would be to look at naval wargames. You can play a naval wargame with zero terrain because the primary outcome is decided by who out-maneuvers the opponent at the right time in their optimal firing arcs and range. That is generalship and tactics. Predicting where your opponent will be three turns in advance by forcing him into an area you want through placement of torpedoes and small flanking elements, just to bring the big guns to bear during the right turn so you maximize damage before he can dish it back. None of this looking for weird glitches in the rules to pluck out a single model that happens to carry a bigger gun.

Your navel battle is exactly what was happening on the table in those first two examples. The movement phase mattered. You needed to know your gun ranges and be able to estimate them so you can snipe the only models that you wanted to hit. No pre measuring, you pretty much had to know what 12, 24, and ,36" looked like. It's a skill. You had to move your unit so that when your hth guy assaulted he only got stuck in with the.models he could kill and limit the back lash. So instead of weapon ranges you needed to pretty much know how to stop exactly 5.5" away so when you charge you have a better command of who is fighting. Back then the movement phase mattered, especially since there was no running or enemy pile in moves on your assault. Just like your navel battles. It was all about positioning and limiting return fire.

40k has always been tactically shallow..

I would never dream of refuting this statement. 40k never has been overly deep and you right that a lot of it is knowing the rules and how to exploit them to your best advantage. However having said that, earlier editions had a greater impact or should I say importance on model placement and what each of those models.could do than the current rule set of roll the dice and see if you even get to make the choice in the first place.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Jayden63 wrote:

The target priority rule was pretty good. Your units had to pass a leadership test if they wanted to shoot at a smaller model over a larger one if the larger one was closer. This made units have to shoot at that AV14 battlewagon if it was closer than the mob of boys behind it (if they failed their LD check). Which was kind of cool as it made the LD stat important for all armies and not ignored like anything fearless or with ATSKNF.

It also made playing armies like IG absurdly hard, because the armies that relied most on shooting were also the ones that were easiest to bungle Target Priority on, while the armies that generally had very high Ld also generally relied far less on that shooting. It also made no sense for units that didn't have weapons capable of hurting the closer big thing.

I realize that it effected some armies more than others. My chaos guys rocking the Ld10 didn't feel the pinch nearly as often as my Ld7/8 Orks. But those were codec issues not core rule issues. Tau could even spend a markerlight hit to ignore having to make the check with their low leadership. And while some people complained that it forced guys to shoot with guns incapable of hurting it, these are also the same guys who failed their LD check... So yeah, maybe that huge tank with all the guns right in front of them did unnerved them enough to make a poor choice. Where as the unit next to them steeled themselves enough to pick a better target, represented by making their LD check. But you want to talk about unfair. Fifth edition introduced the idea that exploding vehicles actually had a strength value. Thus higher T models got an innate advantage over lower T models. No points adjustments were ever made. And you could argue a fluff reason for the elegance of the 4+ for everyone in that vehicle designers take their passengers into consideration and add in safe guards against.catastrophic explosions to protect their living cargo.

It was even worse making perils a S6 hit. Sucks to be Eldar with the whole double T instadeath.

I have to go with 7th.

5th was good, it played relatively smoothly, but there was far too much BS. Everything was 4+ cover, rampant 4+ FNP, wound allocation shinanigans, vehicle rules were a complete joke, blah blah blah.

7th feels better overall. Each edition has its issues for sure, but for me 7th, albeit a little bloated, has far less issues.

If a new edition were to use a core rules set as a template, 7th would be the way to go. Take a scalpel to it, cut things like Look Out Sir! and a swath of the special rules and you would end up with a very good core rules set.

My point being, 5th edition requires complete rewrites to a fair amount of its core machanics, 7th just needs some fat trimmed off and some minor clarifications.

What each of these editions has in common is that it's the codex's that are causing the biggest problems.

I would argue that it was 5E's core set that needed editing, and that 7E needs damn near a full rewrite. Just take a look at the psychic phase and psy powers - that stuff is not only impossible to balance, but it removes player input in favour of randomly selected powers. Some days you could have the best army in the world, others the worst.

7E is an inherently unstable ruleset. The psy phase alone contains ~6,000 words, making for some obscene rules bloat (not saying 5E didn't have rules bloat, but it did have a lot less).

3rd for me, while it wasn't perfect, seemed just far simpler than all the editions that followed and at least knew what it was. Also all the army lists being in the book was great!

Never played 2nd or RT so can't comment on those.

I'm also someone who voted for 4th mainly for the LOS rules. As a broke teenager, who couldn't always afford huge amounts of terrain, it was a great band aid. Instead of buying hundreds of trees, you could mount three or four on a base and it counted as a forest. Building some card ruins, it didn't matter if there were technically no windows or access points, because it wasn't a literal representation, it was just to convey the idea, that yes, there is dense ruins here.

I mean even when Cities of Death was released, along with all the GW plastic terrain; You can't tell me those models are an accurate representation of ruined cities? Oh yeah all of these buildings fell down, minus this one or two sections of wall, and yet there is no rubble to be found. Of course not, it's just an abstract representation, so why do we have to use them as if they were a literal representation. It did a lot more for "forging a narrative" In my mind than a lot of subsequent rules have. Much less frustrating than, oh I can see through this tiny window slot, that you are 8 inches away from on the other side, but I'm going to shoot you with a battlecannon and it's going to hit you spot on, because Tanks have mad sniper skills. While ironically most sniper units are actually terrible.

However, I will say that I agree, that 5th was the most streamlined, easy to learn rule set. I can't agree that it was the best though, because I easily think it was the most boring addition. Most tables just looked like parking lots, terrain became even less important because literally everything gave 4+ saves. It was also the edition that GW started to homogenise armies. Suddenly every faction started to get Skimmers, or fast vehicle options, or MSU deepstike units. So, guard, Eldar, Marines, could all be played in seemingly the exact same way if you wanted to. Tau were regularly out shot and outmanoeuvred by Guard. BA/SW regularly carved through CSM in combat, despite CSM always being a slightly more CC focussed version of Marines. Space Wolves actually being the best gunline army for a long time. Elite units like Stormtroopers and Chaos Termies were just suicide squads. Obviously this was more down to Codex design but I thought it did a lot to blandify the game, by taking away a lot of army unique traits and making them standard fare.

I can't comment on 6th because I never played it. Seventh seems like GW got over zealous trying to fix the boring gameplay issues of fifth, but they went over board and got too complicated.

One thing I did like about 5th was that it was ultra easy to show new people how to play, and as a casual gamer myself, I could jump in and out of it without any major problems remember rules. I've recently got into 7th purely so I can play 30k. And it's insane how many similar sounding rules there are that have slight variations of rules for similar roles. Like, Sunder/Tank Hunter, shred/rend Shroud/stealthetc. In 3rd, 4th and 5th, I found it easier. There was one rule that was strong against infantry, another would help against vehicles, another improved mobility etc. Now I constantly have to go back and check which one it is and what it does, and I don't play enough games to really burn those rules into my mind.

I only played a couple of games of third and I just remember my 13 year old self thinking "I'm nids, the close combat army with the least guns but scary monsters, should be a fun match up against those well armed marines" Turn 2 "How did he just wipe out my army in CC without losing a single unit?"

Not one edition was perfect, but to me, 4th felt like it had more charm than 3rd or 5th but far less bloat than the latest editions.

Voted for 5th.

Started playing with that and despised 6th.

I dislike the bloat that came with 7th, but I feel like it improved on many things that turned me away from the game at 6th. Just remove formations, unbound, LOW, and a lot of the randomization for everything...and 7th would be really decent.

docdoom77 wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:3E has similar problems to 4th, only moreso (hooray rhino rush assault spam!), but I liked the concept of all the army lists in one book.

I can't stand everyone calling it the Rhino Rush. EVERYONE could fling forward like that, and Eldar were probably the most vicious with it. Blood Angels had the one transport that could travel more than 12" and deploy charging troops, not every Marine player was a Blood Angels player.

Sal4m4nd3r wrote:When was "consolidating into close combat" removed? Removing that small but valuable aspect of assault phase was frustrating.

Congrats! you just destroyed the unit you were fighting! Reward? oh, you're getting shot to gak.

I got consolidated into once, I never let my squads stand within 6" of each other ever again.

But wasn't consolidation in 3rd 2d6 inches? Or am I mis-remembering. I remember the updated Assault rules (the basis of 4th edition) reduced the range, but didn't eliminate it..

Akiasura wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

insaniak wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

Are you sure?
I don't remember that ever happening, and sweeping advances were well...everywhere in 3rd. If your whole army could fire everytime I did a sweeping advance, the strategy would have fallen apart. With my hawks I've sweeping advanced through an ID line before, they would have been decimated if you got free shots.

It wasn't a free shot, Overwatch-style... It just allowed the enemy in their next shooting phase to target the sweeping unit even if they were in base contact with a new enemy.

Can't remember off the top of my head if that was 3rd or 4th edition, though.




The fun bit was coming across the occasional opponent who thought that sweeping into another enemy unit allowed them to fight another round of combat immediately... You still see the occasional person who thinks that a single unit could go through an entire enemy army in a single assault phase... The rules were admittedly not as clear on this as they could be, but even for GW that would have been just a tad too over the top

It was indeed 3rd, though 4th may have contained the same rule. Basically if you swept you would get shot by damn near the entire army the following term, unless the sweep happened on the opponent's turn.


And as far as fighting combat twice being far too OP for GW? Read 7th Ed. WFB.

I just double checked my 3rd edition rulebook, and I'm not seeing ANY rule to that effect. All it says if you touch another unit you count as engaged with that unit in close combat, which would prevent shooting. I checked my 4th edition rulebook too, just to make sure, and didn't see anything there (page 43, sweeping advances/consolidation). In fact, in 4th, it specifically says you can not fire.
I checked BRs from back then too, and don't see any mention of this what so ever. ]

I mainly played Wolves, Eldar, and Nids in 3rd. If this is a real thing I can't believe I never encountered it, or don't remember it. My Hawks should have died over and over.

I remember the major rule changes being everyone in 2" can swing, can't move the unit after the transport moves, sweeping advances are I+d6, consolidate is d6 even if unit is wiped. I played a lot in 3rd, and I really can't recall this rule ever existing. It would have made assault armies awful if it did, since they could kill, at best, one unit. That and you lacked fire points...half the unit could fire. I would think that would have been the strategy if you could fire into assault. It was easy for a fast unit like warp spiders to surround a transport, detonate it, and every model inside dies automatically since it can't be placed.

Tbh I remember firing into assault being a Skaven thing only, and every IG player wishing they could do it since it's fluffy.

I'm not sure about your reference to 7th WFB. Magic has been broken in WFB for several editions now, mainly suicide mages casting IF top tier spells like Purple Sun or something similar. Nothing like init save or die under a template when you play ogres or lizards.

Akiasura wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

 docdoom77 wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
Could have sworn consolidation was 3", I mean, why would you pursue if consolidation was the same distance? I'll have to check the main book when I can.

Consolidation may have been, but the abused rule in 3rd edition was sweeping advance. It was set up like fantasy where anytime you broke or wiped out an enemy unit you made a 2d6" sweeping advance which could be used to contact other units. This move was reduced to 1d6" in fourth edition.

I'm pretty sure.

The rule for sweeping advance allowed you to rush forward 2D6 after a fleeing foe, or towards the enemy after destroying a unit. The down side to this was that the ENTIRE ARMY could shoot the unit that swept into enemy troops. I personally had a unit of Veterans shot to ribbons because of a sweeping advance.

Are you sure?
I don't remember that ever happening, and sweeping advances were well...everywhere in 3rd. If your whole army could fire everytime I did a sweeping advance, the strategy would have fallen apart. With my hawks I've sweeping advanced through an ID line before, they would have been decimated if you got free shots.

Consolidations were 3", 2d6" directly towards the enemy unless the enemy died.
In 4th I believe it was d6+Init. It was how transports were impacted that killed the rhino rush, not CC. Many powerful CC units were still seen commonly in 4th edition. It wasn't until 5th that the game began to tilt heavily towards shooting.

insaniak wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

Are you sure?
I don't remember that ever happening, and sweeping advances were well...everywhere in 3rd. If your whole army could fire everytime I did a sweeping advance, the strategy would have fallen apart. With my hawks I've sweeping advanced through an ID line before, they would have been decimated if you got free shots.

It wasn't a free shot, Overwatch-style... It just allowed the enemy in their next shooting phase to target the sweeping unit even if they were in base contact with a new enemy.

Can't remember off the top of my head if that was 3rd or 4th edition, though.




The fun bit was coming across the occasional opponent who thought that sweeping into another enemy unit allowed them to fight another round of combat immediately... You still see the occasional person who thinks that a single unit could go through an entire enemy army in a single assault phase... The rules were admittedly not as clear on this as they could be, but even for GW that would have been just a tad too over the top

docdoom77 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

insaniak wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

Are you sure?
I don't remember that ever happening, and sweeping advances were well...everywhere in 3rd. If your whole army could fire everytime I did a sweeping advance, the strategy would have fallen apart. With my hawks I've sweeping advanced through an ID line before, they would have been decimated if you got free shots.

It wasn't a free shot, Overwatch-style... It just allowed the enemy in their next shooting phase to target the sweeping unit even if they were in base contact with a new enemy.

Can't remember off the top of my head if that was 3rd or 4th edition, though.




The fun bit was coming across the occasional opponent who thought that sweeping into another enemy unit allowed them to fight another round of combat immediately... You still see the occasional person who thinks that a single unit could go through an entire enemy army in a single assault phase... The rules were admittedly not as clear on this as they could be, but even for GW that would have been just a tad too over the top

It was indeed 3rd, though 4th may have contained the same rule. Basically if you swept you would get shot by damn near the entire army the following term, unless the sweep happened on the opponent's turn.


And as far as fighting combat twice being far too OP for GW? Read 7th Ed. WFB.

I just double checked my 3rd edition rulebook, and I'm not seeing ANY rule to that effect. All it says if you touch another unit you count as engaged with that unit in close combat, which would prevent shooting. I checked my 4th edition rulebook too, just to make sure, and didn't see anything there (page 43, sweeping advances/consolidation). In fact, in 4th, it specifically says you can not fire.
I checked BRs from back then too, and don't see any mention of this what so ever. ]

I mainly played Wolves, Eldar, and Nids in 3rd. If this is a real thing I can't believe I never encountered it, or don't remember it. My Hawks should have died over and over.

I remember the major rule changes being everyone in 2" can swing, can't move the unit after the transport moves, sweeping advances are I+d6, consolidate is d6 even if unit is wiped. I played a lot in 3rd, and I really can't recall this rule ever existing. It would have made assault armies awful if it did, since they could kill, at best, one unit. That and you lacked fire points...half the unit could fire. I would think that would have been the strategy if you could fire into assault. It was easy for a fast unit like warp spiders to surround a transport, detonate it, and every model inside dies automatically since it can't be placed.

Tbh I remember firing into assault being a Skaven thing only, and every IG player wishing they could do it since it's fluffy.

I'm not sure about your reference to 7th WFB. Magic has been broken in WFB for several editions now, mainly suicide mages casting IF top tier spells like Purple Sun or something similar. Nothing like init save or die under a template when you play ogres or lizards.

The rule definitely existed at some point. Whether it was 3rd, 3rd with new assault rules, or 4th, I can't remember. You could only do it if the opponent sweeping advanced into a unit on their own turn (maybe it's in the shooting rules... I'm at work and bookless). So if they swept the same turn they charged, they counted as a viable unit to shoot on your turn. If they swept on the enemy's, turn this rule didn't apply.

Also, keep in mind that shooting wasn't as powerful in 3rd. You could only rapid fire or shoot 24" with a basic weapon if you were stationary. So, if you chose to target the heck out of that unit, you were giving up a lot of mobility. And there was nearly as much AP2 and AP3 shooting. Marines surviving after getting shot a bunch was more common.

Akiasura wrote:Hm. It could be 3rd with new assault rules, I don't have that book in front of me, but I'm looking at 3rd and 4th right now and don't see it. Unless it's not in the combat section. Those books were a bit all over the place, and near the end of third I had a ton of extra material on me.

I'm not speaking about marines, I played assault eldar and nids as well. My swooping Hawks died to a light breeze being t3 with a 4+ save, yet they rolled combat lines and were my mvp. It's the only edition i got to use them so much. I used gene stealers as well, and those aren't much tougher.

Still, a leman Russ firing into combat would devastate a marine squad. Star cannons would do the same if enough fired as well. Assault cannons could do damage as well, I have a hard time believing this never came up in any br in 3rd or 4th.

Basically tying every quote I could think that was relevant to this.



On page 69 (heh) of the main 3rd Ed. rulebook the rules for consolidation state it is a 3" move. To the right of that rule on the same page there is a grey blurb box on the edge discussing shooting into close combat. THAT is the block that explains being able to shoot sweeping advancers. The page prior states you can advance or consolidate if the enemy is destroyed. In the back of the book in the section named The Ultimate Secrets of the Galaxy Revealed is the rule stating you can consolidate into combat, basically with neither side counting as charging, so no +1A. However, nothing stops you from moving and charging in the next turn.

 KorPhaeron77 wrote:
You can't tell me those models are an accurate representation of ruined cities? Oh yeah all of these buildings fell down, minus this one or two sections of wall, and yet there is no rubble to be found. Of course not, it's just an abstract representation, so why do we have to use them as if they were a literal representation.

I always found it baffling that people struggled so much with abstract terrain. Part of it seemed to be that no one ever fully read through that section of the BRB, or that they didn't quite understand the idea that everything on the table, including the terrain, was just an abstract representation, but there also certain players who had a deliberately selective understanding of the rule. These players would be fine with the abstract LoS aspect when it came to hiding their Defiler or Basilisk behind a building on one corner of the board, but it suddenly became an issue when it came to shorter range shooting through terrain footprints. Back in the day at my local GW most of the arguing around area terrain was to do with footprints because people were desperate to deny cover saves to their opponents. True LoS made people a little less selective of their understanding of the LoS rules, but didn't end any arguments over who could see what.

You'd think that TLOS would solve most arguments, but no...

I've had battles where I got a thin stick and was able to have one end of the stick touching one model, and the other nearly touching the other model, thus proving TLOS. I still got told that the model couldn't see.

Best core rules for a fun game: Warhammer fantasy 4th edition
Best core rules to build a cool army: 40k 7th edition.

Iiked 6th the most. 5th edition had funky wound allocation shenanigans. As short as 6th was, I remember it being pretty nice core rules wise.

 Just Tony wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:3E has similar problems to 4th, only moreso (hooray rhino rush assault spam!), but I liked the concept of all the army lists in one book.

I can't stand everyone calling it the Rhino Rush. EVERYONE could fling forward like that, and Eldar were probably the most vicious with it. Blood Angels had the one transport that could travel more than 12" and deploy charging troops, not every Marine player was a Blood Angels player.

I seem to recall a lot of Dark Angels and Ultramarines suddenly getting the red thirst and sprouting death companies as well as a healthy number of BA successor chapters in that edition because the BA codex was so good compared to running marines vanilla. It kind of felt like every marine player was Blood Angels player.

Though in 5th Edition, it felt like every Marine player...and even CSM player was a Grey Knight.

SW's were the big bandwagon army of 5th, GK's only had their book for about the last year of 5E's lifespan.

BA and BT were the big draw in 3rd. SW to an extent. Pretty much any non-vanilla codex SM army was the draw. I basically handicapped myself by sticking with CF.