I'm sure I have made one of these posts before in the past but I guess come a new edition, a new poll to gauge responses.
Some background - I have quite an extensive 40K collection now, built up over many, many years and over many, many editions, stretching right back to 2nd Ed. At this point, I have pretty much an army of every single 40K race at or above at least 2000 points. One of the main annoyances whenever GW release a new edition is that I then have to get all the various codexes to play all my armies (I know, first world problems and all that) and it can get quite expensive. Obviously, this is not an issue right now as 10th has released with indexes for all armies, I gather, but I suspect it is only a matter of time before codexes start trickling in and the cycle starts all over again.
So at this point, I can either jump to the new edition or I can play whatever edition I want to - the only downside being that the further one goes back in time, edition-wise, the more my model collection gets invalidated, as all these shiny new models no longer have rules.
Having said all that, I figured what better than to litmus test the Dakka hivemind to see what is the favoured edition and why so please answer the poll and pop a comment down below as to what you picked and why. Full disclosure - all my games are played at home against my son so no need for competitively balanced rules or anything like that; I am purely looking for the enjoyment factor, ease of use, slick rules writing and all that good stuff.
Voted Rogue Trader, for me thats where I joined the insanity.
it has a flavour and the way the background is written is very much "of its time", which I like
yes you needed either a GM or a cooperative opponent but for small scale games and small campaigns it was excellent, through in the Space Hulk corridors and Judge Dredd or similar floor plans and you had a lovely way to play small raids etc. Adding Advanced Space Crusade floor tiles just added to the mayhem
couple with the compatibility with WHFB 3rd edition and for me it wins hands down as the edition I had the most fun win
A.T. wrote: Early 5th. Codex creep was brutal and uneven though.
I really liked 5th, but I don't think I could go back to it. Blast markers were such a bad game mechanic that we are now free of. They slowed down the movement phase so much, with all the worry over coherency. I played infantry heavy Guard though, so I know I was an outlier. Also, scatter dice were almost perfectly designed to cause arguments. It is almost physically impossible for two people to look at a scatter dice and see the same result, so people in good faith would both think the other was wrong. Parallax is a cruel mistress.
You are right about the codex creep though. Complex wound allocation is one of the worst things that has ever darkened the game of 40k. Draigo paladin blobs were just stupid.
Personally, I have no idea which edition I think is best. Nostalgia probably warps any memories I have. Maybe early 7th? It is a bit of a blur with all the nonsense that came later in that edition. I may even say 10th, although it needs a lot of the rough edges worked out with FAQs, and the lack of wargear points is a real problem for me.
Not really a fan of 40K, KT21 is my main game, I only play 40K because thats what most of the people in our gaming group are into. Therefore, when it comes to 40K, the 1st edition original is the one I prefer, just because it is the ground zero for all things 40K. Its also the edition which lore resonates with me the most
9th edition- specifically Escalation-style, Crusade campaign-based play. I like it because it is the best facilitator of narrative campaigning
that I've ever had from 40k.
I also liked 2nd because it lasted longer than any other edition, and I hate the concept of edition churn more than I dislike any particular rules set.
i started in 3rd and played through early 8th, then went back to 5th with some house rules fixes, because as good as 5th was it did have problems that are easily fixed by using some rules from other editions (like the wound allocation system, 4th is easier and more fun so we use that instead). it also helps that all 3rd -7th ed codexes are cross compatible. so you can use whichever ones are your favorite.
40K was best when it was games of epic thematic battles in the 40K universe. with the right attitude it is a fantastic game. if you are looking to play tournaments and start worrying about "balance" classic 40k really isn't a good game in that setting.
Atm, 9th.
Because:
1) Crusade
2) the BS of constant updates, balance tweaks, etc is finished.
3) nearly every model I own has 9e rules & can be fielded as what it was intended to be.
4) The Detachment system - wether from the rulebook or AoO.
The edition numbers have all pretty much melded together for me - but it was the one with Demi Companies or two for a full company -
I really like the idea of a full company coming down from their strike cruiser and fighting the battle. I wish they started all their edition points balancing by saying 2,000 points is a full, average SM Company with reasonable support from the Armory, Librarium etc. - and then balancing the other armied around that with their 2,000 points per army.
Had the most fun from 3rd to the end of 5th edition.
I did vote for 3rd though, as that was the peak for me in regards to additional (great) fluff content in WD with wonky rules that seldomly were any good on the table.
You might want to give "onepages rules grimdark future" a quick google.
Aside from that I'd say 3rd/4th edition, because that's when you could build your own hive fleet/chapter/whatever. There were even some imperial armor(?) rules for building custom creatures, up to and including murderous plantlife.
Edit: I don't remember much regarding how balanced those early editions/codexes were though
I haven't played enough of 10th yet to decide whether it's better than 9th. 10th fixes many of the big problems that 9th had, and the game itself is much more fun. The indexes have some pretty glaring big issues though.
9th brought regular dataslates, crusade, official campaigns and boarding action, so despite the bloat and jungle of stratagems it wins against 5th edition, my third choice, by a landslide.
Genuinely felt like playing in the universe aside from some glaring flaws....
... But rather than incrementally iterating on those flaws, 5th edition threw out a bunch of stuff and added a bunch of random stuff, and then the random "throw out the good ideas and add bad ones" escalated until we are here today.
Genuinely felt like playing in the universe aside from some glaring flaws....
... But rather than incrementally iterating on those flaws, 5th edition threw out a bunch of stuff and added a bunch of random stuff, and then the random "throw out the good ideas and add bad ones" escalated until we are here today.
More like throw out the good design team and replace them with drones. early 5th was when everybody in the old guard started leaving the company.
We solved that problem by melding the good stuff from 3rd and 4th to 5th but also not using the bad ones from those earlier editions that 5th actually did fix.
I played every edition and it is a toss up between 4th and 5th edition. My memory gets a bit hazy, but I recall having my best play experiences with those two.
4th edition for me. Fixed most of the assault/combat phase issues with 3rd, best era for codexes (3.5-4th), had the best terrain rules, and did not have the TLOS and wound allocation nonsense from 5th.
Some simple house rules like not allowing Eldar skimmer defensive upgrades and changing Rending weapons to rend on Wound rolls instead of Hit rolls can solve the most glaring issues of 4th edition.
Genuinely felt like playing in the universe aside from some glaring flaws....
... But rather than incrementally iterating on those flaws, 5th edition threw out a bunch of stuff and added a bunch of random stuff, and then the random "throw out the good ideas and add bad ones" escalated until we are here today.
I feel the same.
The wording in 4th was terrible and required dozens of pages of FAQ (which GW at the times refused to even do and we had to make fan FAQs) but the mechanics themselves were the best they've ever been and the factions that were lucky enough to get a Codex during this brief window were the most characterful and flexible of all time as well.
lord_blackfang wrote: The wording in 4th was terrible and required dozens of pages of FAQ (which GW at the times refused to even do and we had to make fan FAQs) but the mechanics themselves were the best they've ever been
IIRC a warlord titan (size 4+) standing on a hill (size 3) could not shoot a target standing behind a area of low rubble (size 2) ... unless it stepped down off the hill first :p (or so the old 4e FAQ would suggest).
I get what they were trying to do with the 5e rules though. In 4e there were so many shenanigans relating to blocking your own line of sight, placing models at precise distances (being able to accurately eyeball range was a cheat code), and of course the disconnect between 4e line of sight being 'true' line of sight for cover but abstract line of sight for area cover.
Though they overcooked it with the 5e change trying to rework the whole mixed armour/characters in units rules from 4e into something... else.
The big issue we ran into with 4th ed size categories was mostly by people trying to cheat, or misunderstanding how they worked with vehicles.
The size class of a vehicle was for the player to know what size piece of area terrain could actually hide the vehicle. page 20 of the rules designated TLOS when trying to see past a vehicles hull. some players understood it to be size 3 and "infinitely tall". like a stand of forest.
Since Andy Chambers had a hand in writing the 3d terrain rules for DUST he included the 4th ed rules where area terrain blocked LOS and the unit had to be inside it and within a certain distance of the edge to shoot out.
Without the reaction mechanic in DUST i do not actually experience any problems with 5th ed 40K terrain rules. we just include various levels of area terrain for movement restrictions and hard covers saves along with large solid LOS blocking terrain to keep the table interesting.
filbert wrote: I'm sure I have made one of these posts before in the past but I guess come a new edition, a new poll to gauge responses....
...So at this point, I can either jump to the new edition or I can play whatever edition I want to - the only downside being that the further one goes back in time, edition-wise, the more my model collection gets invalidated, as all these shiny new models no longer have rules....
... Full disclosure - all my games are played at home against my son so no need for competitively balanced rules or anything like that; I am purely looking for the enjoyment factor, ease of use, slick rules writing and all that good stuff.
Don't go back, go better. If your priorities are slick rules writing and not having your army invalidated, and you don't have to worry about finding outside opponents, switch to Grimdark Future. Every 40k unit is covered, the online army builder is fantastic and the rules are free. Then you can draw you fluff from whatever version suits you.
My son and I have been enjoying the heck out of this combo.
I went with 8th. Specifically, that pre-marines-getting-doctrines period of 8th. 8th was never perfect, but it was frequently "good except for that one overpowered thing you should probably refrain from taking."
It was an experimental edition with lots of room for improvement, sure. But if you avoided the known problem combos, you could have a close game using a wide variety of units with the freedom to mix in allies to represent a lot of fluffy lists.
9ths' base rules were an improvement over 8ths, but the layers up on layers of submechanics combined with the 7+ mission objectives to track each game made actually playing kind of exhausting.
RAPID FIRE NOTES ON OTHER EDITIONS:
7th - Started okay, but formations and power creep made the end result really absurd. Late 7th is definitely the silliest version of 40k I've played. Also, invisibility was just game breaking.
6th - Just way too much random rolling and bookkeeping. Things like attaching special rules to objectives and giving warlords traits were fun ideas that were spoiled by making them random.
5th - My first edition. Parking lots for days. Bad times if you want to play anything other than vehicles. They also only let troops score that edition which meant you were in for a bad time if your troops weren't durable or cheap.
3rd and 4th - Have books for them. Never played. I suspect these would be my favorite editions if I ever game them a shot. My impression is that they leaned into smaller game sizes (what we'd think of as being about 1000-1500 points now) with strong unit customization (even if GW didn't sell models for all the options you could take).
2nd - Neat. Too whacky rules to keep track of for my taste, but neat.
6th - Just way too much random rolling and bookkeeping. Things like attaching special rules to objectives and giving warlords traits were fun ideas that were spoiled by making them random.
Ohh, I forgot about that! Yeah that was the edition I took Sicarius in every game, partially because it meant I had a fixed Warlord trait.
Probably 4th, or a "best of" amalgam of 4th and 5th.
I would have loved to see how those editions would have turned out if the designers of that time had been allowed to make updates, revisions, and points adjustments with the same frequency as the 9th/10th updates. The biggest problems with those earlier editions is that very little was ever fixed when it proved broken.
4th was the last edition that felt to me like it was still trying to be a wargame and not the Codex writers doing fanfic one-upmanship. There were a couple of changes in 5e that helped, but 5e was also a big slash-and-burn of non-current-plastic models, and a big push away from list-building choice towards bloat, and the beginning of the push to sell big centerpiece models over making the game work.
4th edition, as the core rules were good enough and it includes my favorite terrain and scenario rules out of any edition of 40K. 5th was fine, but the codices made it a little messy.
While 7th edition was not great rules-wise it's probably the most fun I had in any edition, as I mostly played with a small group of friends and our collective vision allowed us to make the most out of the edition's flexibility and avoid anything annoying or abusive. I would occasionally attend tournaments (or even grand tournaments), resigned to having one terrible game and hoping to have enough fun my other games to balance it out.
I want 8th, with vertical engagement range and 10th edition terrain, Detachments and Stratagems. I don't love 8th or 9th enough to go back, but 8th wins out so far. Hopefully 10th becomes my favourite, 2 index games is too little to tell. No experience prior to 5th or with HH. Not a fan of 1page40k, it misses the 40k flavour in favour of making the cleanest possible ruleset that is also legal.
I played in three 8th, 9th and 10th. And out of the them 9th was the most fun. 8th was horrible, 10th is meh, because in order to play I have to do a milion things and my army still hits like a wet noodle.
I've only played a little over the years (RT, 2nd, 5th, 6th, 8th), but 8th was just fast enough with small armies (1K points) that I could stomach it.
I wish I hadn't built up such huge armies of models. It takes an afternoon for me to put together a roster & dig through my models to set up, four hours to play and then the evening putting things back. And that doesn't count the hours I've spent assembling and painting beforehand.
8th Edition, though I didn't feel like that when I actually played 8th Edition It's just that 9th edition refinements didn't really work out and the game became far too lethal.
8th was a huge improvement to the bloated system I got to know when I started the game in 5th. CC for example was vastly improved because it included actual decisions and a wider spread of WS than before (in 5th to 7th you always hit on 3 or 4, no matter there were 10 different WS). All of the vehicle rules had become useless the moment hull points were introced. Terrain and morale were the big problems in 8th, though Cities of Death improved the former a bit.
But what I really liked about 8th was that GW gave you the feeling that they're actually listening to player Feedback. There were Betarules, errata, designer's commentary and so on. It also didn't feel as tournament focused like 9th but was more of a sandbox. Again, 9th could have been an improvement, but it started with a points revision out of nowhere when it could have been built on 8th foundation and went downhill from there.
It wasn’t just the system. It was that time in my life. Those odd years between school exams and Proper Adulthood. Where you have lots of time, little else to do (I’m 16 yeah, but I cannot drink in pubs*) and with even a part time job more money than you’ve ever had and the lowest overheads you’ll ever have.
Yes it was clunky. No it didn’t scale terribly well. But….we had bugger all else to do!
And it was pre-internet, so our opinions were our own. Nobody reading something by Johnny Ten Thousand Posts trying to pass second hand opinion off as wisdom.
Just genuine halcyon days of life.
My least favourite? 8th and 9th. Not in a grumpy Grognard way. Just….by that point I was so out of the loop, stratagems played such an important part and were so scattered across different books, I found it impenetrable.
6th - started fairly early during the edition. I spent most of it figuring out the game in general. I was annoyed by flyers, and monsters being vastly superior to vehicles, but it was playable for the most part.
7th - hated it. The introduction of Destroyer weapons and formations on top of all the broken stuff from 6th rendered it horrible, and it almost made me quit WH40k.
8th - liked it. It was a much welcome improvement and change from the previous two. Sure, it was rough around the edges, but it was enjoyable and in retrospect, my favourite one so far.
9th - started well as a refinement of 8th, but became overwhelming because of all the chapter tactics and warlord traits and relics and stratagems and stratagems and even more stratagems. Didn't get to play it much, but it could've been even better than 8th without all the bloat.
10th - have yet to play a game. Seems okay, but I really hope we'll see some hotfixes and the return of granular points for upgrades and additional equipment. Cautiously optimistic for now.
lord_blackfang wrote: The wording in 4th was terrible and required dozens of pages of FAQ (which GW at the times refused to even do and we had to make fan FAQs) but the mechanics themselves were the best they've ever been
IIRC a warlord titan (size 4+) standing on a hill (size 3) could not shoot a target standing behind a area of low rubble (size 2) ... unless it stepped down off the hill first :p (or so the old 4e FAQ would suggest).
I get what they were trying to do with the 5e rules though. In 4e there were so many shenanigans relating to blocking your own line of sight, placing models at precise distances (being able to accurately eyeball range was a cheat code), and of course the disconnect between 4e line of sight being 'true' line of sight for cover but abstract line of sight for area cover.
Though they overcooked it with the 5e change trying to rework the whole mixed armour/characters in units rules from 4e into something... else.
Again. For the Nth time. This was ONLY and ONLY for area terrain. 40k had used TLOS since day 1 and it suddenly becoming a thing in 5th edition is a myth perpetuated by the internet.
3rd ed. Rulebook page 36- "Sometimes it may be hard to tell if a LOS is blocked or , so players must stoop over the table for a "model's eye view". This is the best way to see if LOS exists...
Enemy models and all vehicles, friend or foe, do block a unit's LOS if they are in the way, just like buildings and other terrain. enemy models will block the LOS to other models up to twice their height."
2nd ed. rulebook page 26- "However in some cases it will be difficult to tell if a LOS is blocked or not, and players must stoop over the table for a model's eye view. This is always the best way to determine if LOS exists- some players even use small periscopes or mirrors to check the views from their models!..."
- Overwatch with full BS.
- Hiding mechanic.
- Dedicated psychic phase.
- Wargear cards.
- Low amount of models needed.
- Persistent weapon effects on table (e.g. smoke grenades) or on models (e.g. burning, blinded, etc.).
- Each vehicles came with a specific damage table.
- WHFB Chaos army could be fielded in this edition.
Result: A ton of fun with wacky Hollywood explosions.
3rd addition because of balance. I'd also like to caveat that 3rd Edition playing the codexes inside the rulebook is the most balanced 40K you'll ever play in your life.
It wasn’t just the system. It was that time in my life. Those odd years between school exams and Proper Adulthood. Where you have lots of time, little else to do (I’m 16 yeah, but I cannot drink in pubs*) and with even a part time job more money than you’ve ever had and the lowest overheads you’ll ever have.
Yes it was clunky. No it didn’t scale terribly well. But….we had bugger all else to do!
And it was pre-internet, so our opinions were our own. Nobody reading something by Johnny Ten Thousand Posts trying to pass second hand opinion off as wisdom.
Just genuine halcyon days of life.
My least favourite? 8th and 9th. Not in a grumpy Grognard way. Just….by that point I was so out of the loop, stratagems played such an important part and were so scattered across different books, I found it impenetrable.
2nd here too, for a lot of the same reasons, as it sounds like the Dok & I are of similar vintage.. RT at the tail end was where I started but it was practically unplayable in the real world. Battle Manual fixed a lot of this stuff but it needed tidying and 2nd did that... it was what I played right the way up to discovering girls...
8th & 9th Jim & I gave a go but the morale rules always felt a bit weird. Haven't tried 10th yet but looking forward to giving it a shot and seeing how my Blood Angels fare against Hive Fleet Imprudens...
lord_blackfang wrote: The wording in 4th was terrible and required dozens of pages of FAQ (which GW at the times refused to even do and we had to make fan FAQs) but the mechanics themselves were the best they've ever been
IIRC a warlord titan (size 4+) standing on a hill (size 3) could not shoot a target standing behind a area of low rubble (size 2) ... unless it stepped down off the hill first :p (or so the old 4e FAQ would suggest).
I get what they were trying to do with the 5e rules though. In 4e there were so many shenanigans relating to blocking your own line of sight, placing models at precise distances (being able to accurately eyeball range was a cheat code), and of course the disconnect between 4e line of sight being 'true' line of sight for cover but abstract line of sight for area cover.
Though they overcooked it with the 5e change trying to rework the whole mixed armour/characters in units rules from 4e into something... else.
Again. For the Nth time. This was ONLY and ONLY for area terrain. 40k had used TLOS since day 1 and it suddenly becoming a thing in 5th edition is a myth perpetuated by the internet.
3rd ed. Rulebook page 36- "Sometimes it may be hard to tell if a LOS is blocked or , so players must stoop over the table for a "model's eye view". This is the best way to see if LOS exists...
Enemy models and all vehicles, friend or foe, do block a unit's LOS if they are in the way, just like buildings and other terrain. enemy models will block the LOS to other models up to twice their height."
2nd ed. rulebook page 26- "However in some cases it will be difficult to tell if a LOS is blocked or not, and players must stoop over the table for a model's eye view. This is always the best way to determine if LOS exists- some players even use small periscopes or mirrors to check the views from their models!..."
TLOS. Pre 5th. Waddya know?
5th added the "True" to LOS when its rules punched through all those forests, ruins (and height X terrain) in what has to be one of the absolute dumbest moves ever. It was essentially "if you can see it, you can shoot it". Hence the "true".
But it made for awful battlefields where one could shoot practically anywhere.
Tyran wrote: 9th, if only because I consider the 9th Ed Tyranid codex the best Tyranid codex.
I guess you never played with the Phil Kelly 4th ed Codex?
Kill Phil Kellt 4th ed Codex didn't had a Tyrannofex that could one-shot a Land Raider from the other side of the table.
I gravitate more towards the shooty end of the Tyranid roster (Tyrannofexes, Exocrines, Zoanthropes, Hive Guard, Biovores, whatever I can put a venom cannon) and the 4th ed codex was bad at building that kind of Tyranid swarm (plus like half of the above didn't exist in 4th).
Moreover I really liked how the 9th ed made synapse an actual web by allowing to chain buffs through synaptic link.
Tyran wrote: 9th, if only because I consider the 9th Ed Tyranid codex the best Tyranid codex.
I guess you never played with the Phil Kelly 4th ed Codex?
Kill Phil Kellt 4th ed Codex didn't had a Tyrannofex that could one-shot a Land Raider from the other side of the table.
I gravitate more towards the shooty end of the Tyranid roster (Tyrannofexes, Exocrines, Zoanthropes, Hive Guard, Biovores, whatever I can put a venom cannon) and the 4th ed codex was bad at building that kind of Tyranid swarm (plus like half of the above didn't exist in 4th).
Moreover I really liked how the 9th ed made synapse an actual web by allowing to chain buffs through synaptic link.
?
The most effective unit in the 4th edition Tyranid book was the "gunfex" (a Carnifex with a VC and BS). The Hive Tyrant version was also powerful. And I think that was also the era of the 113 point "dakkafex" with devourers (and the corresponding dakkatyrant build).
Tyranids have only had 3 good Codices: 2nd Edition, the 4th Ed one that birthed Nidzilla, and the 9th Ed one.
As for which edition. I think I voted 3rd? Third is certainly the one I had the most fun with (once the Trial Assault Rules were in place). Certainly had the most freedom with armies and choice (and not just because of the 3.5 Chaos Codex). The 3.5 Guard Codex was one of the most fun things in the world to play with. We had Craftworld Eldar, a million Marine Chapters, and the Tau were at their absolute worst (once defeated a Tau army with a single Jump Pack Chaplain!). We skipped out on 4th not long after it began, and tried 5th for a bit but gave up. Tried to get into 6th, but by the time I had opened the rulebook 7th was out. Played enough 7th to know that I never wanted to touch it again. Played 8th just as it was about to die. Pandemic prevented much 9th play... and now we're here at 10th. 2nd Ed was where I started, and I love that game, but it didn't work as a wargame.
So my fav version of 40k is 1st Edition Necromuda, as that took 2nd Ed's ruleset and applied it to a game where it was basically perfect.
Kill Phil Kellt 4th ed Codex didn't had a Tyrannofex that could one-shot a Land Raider from the other side of the table.
Funnily enough an equal points amount of Zoanthopes in 4th ed had a much better chance of 1-shotting a Land Raider than a Tyrannofex did in 9th ed, and the 2x venom cannon Carnifex has basically the same odds as the Tyrannofex.
Kill Phil Kellt 4th ed Codex didn't had a Tyrannofex that could one-shot a Land Raider from the other side of the table.
Funnily enough an equal points amount of Zoanthopes in 4th ed had a much better chance of 1-shotting a Land Raider than a Tyrannofex did in 9th ed, and the 2x venom cannon Carnifex has basically the same odds as the Tyrannofex.
I don't think 2x venom cannons was a legal build. At best you had a S9 cannon and a S8 strangler, which could both hurt a Land Raider (something we struggled with).
Kill Phil Kellt 4th ed Codex didn't had a Tyrannofex that could one-shot a Land Raider from the other side of the table.
Funnily enough an equal points amount of Zoanthopes in 4th ed had a much better chance of 1-shotting a Land Raider than a Tyrannofex did in 9th ed, and the 2x venom cannon Carnifex has basically the same odds as the Tyrannofex.
I don't think 2x venom cannons was a legal build. At best you had a S9 cannon and a S8 strangler, which could both hurt a Land Raider (something we struggled with).
It was, it’s even listed as one of the ‘example builds’ on the unit entry. The venom cannon was also strength S+2, so 4x S10 shots.
The most effective unit in the 4th edition Tyranid book was the "gunfex" (a Carnifex with a VC and BS). The Hive Tyrant version was also powerful. And I think that was also the era of the 113 point "dakkafex" with devourers (and the corresponding dakkatyrant build).
And said "most effective unit in the 4th edition" couldn't ignore basic Marine armor, its VC could only glance non-open topped tanks and the BS being S8 also didn't fare that much better. Also hitting on 4+, because GW was allergic to giving Tyranids anything better than BS 3 outside of Hive Tyrants and Zoanthropes (and later Hive Guard).
A 9th edition Tyrannofex gives a much better image just by the fact that hits on 3+, and its attacks will punch through pretty much anything that isn't an invulnerable save.
So my fav version of 40k is 1st Edition Necromuda, as that took 2nd Ed's ruleset and applied it to a game where it was basically perfect.
Couldn't agree more. Even after all those years and many, many "advances" in game design, I still enjoy original Necro far more than Newcro and many other "streamlined&fast paced" AA games.
2nd Ed Overwatch was the best not (necessarily) because it was full BS, but because it was - I reserve the right to delay my shooting until your movement phase like a normal person would because I know you're just around that corner.
You didn't get more shooting that had to be nerfed into the ground that you might not even be able to use because they were out of sight before and after moving. You could just say - pause: I'm shooting my shot. (Overwatch).
It was 2 shots twin-linked, because Tyranids treated having two of the same gun as twin-linked.
Oh yeah. Still, the odds aren’t that dissimilar, it’s 12.5% vs roughly 15%.
And you could almost get 2 single venom Carnifexes for the points cost of a Tyrannofex
The 9th ed Tyrannofex has the advantage that its chances increases better with numbers, 2 have a 50% chance, 3 almost have 80%. And of course the 9th codex can further buff them with extra AP, re-rolls, etc. (Admittedly part of the reason 9th was a shitshow in terms of lethality).
Meanwhile 4th ed gunfexes only go as high as 37.5% with 3.
So my fav version of 40k is 1st Edition Necromuda, as that took 2nd Ed's ruleset and applied it to a game where it was basically perfect.
Couldn't agree more. Even after all those years and many, many "advances" in game design, I still enjoy original Necro far more than Newcro and many other "streamlined&fast paced" AA games.
I'd agree with this. Classic Necromunda is fantastic and the best possible use of early 40k mechanics.
I will say that the "Necromunda Community Edition" on Yaktribe does a phenomenal job of cleaning up a few of the game's weak spots while changing nothing that made the game great. I'd play it anytime.
The most effective unit in the 4th edition Tyranid book was the "gunfex" (a Carnifex with a VC and BS). The Hive Tyrant version was also powerful. And I think that was also the era of the 113 point "dakkafex" with devourers (and the corresponding dakkatyrant build).
And said "most effective unit in the 4th edition" couldn't ignore basic Marine armor, its VC could only glance non-open topped tanks and the BS being S8 also didn't fare that much better.
Also hitting on 4+, because GW was allergic to giving Tyranids anything better than BS 3 outside of Hive Tyrants and Zoanthropes (and later Hive Guard).
A 9th edition Tyrannofex gives a much better image just by the fact that hits on 3+, and its attacks will punch through pretty much anything that isn't an invulnerable save.
I'm not comparing it to a T-fex, which did not exist, I'm pointing out that competitive 4th edition Tyranid armies leaned heavily on "the shooty end of the Tyranid roster" that you said you preferred. Even if I was comparing it to a T-fex the Marine armour comment seems misplaced. You shoot your rupture cannon at marines? Does any version of the rupture cannon to date do more damage to marines than a S8 large template would've in 4th?
Point, but I do shoot Exocrines and venom cannons at marines and being able to reduce or even ignore their armor feels better that trying to fish for failed 3+ saves (which was how the old dakkafex killed marines).
And admittedly my memories are tainted by the 5th edition damage table that made venom cannons worthless.
Insectum, as HBMC and i are big fans of the matter of TLOS is not as big as a problem as you think if you as a players bring enough terrain including stuff that is solid and blocks TLOS as well as looks like it belongs on the battlefield. with current real world experience with 5th ed. there is more than enough terrain that provides good cover and/or blocks LOS.
On the matter of the tyranid codex 4th is still the best, sure it doesn't have the newer bugs like mawlocks, trygons, and hive guard (those are easy enough to import into the codex), what it does have is useful and meaningful biomorph options, synapse that gives eternal warrior. and not stupid instinctive behavior rules that punish your army like making your carnifex run off the table like in the 5th ed codex. while it does limit long range anti-tank, you have more than enough close combat that does the job just as well if not better.
P.S. S10 venom cannons that glance land raiders on a 4+ are not worthless. the vehicle damage glance chart still does stuff.
Yeah, just ditch all terrain you have for L shaped cardboard, never use ruins, forests and it is all fine. In fact considering intent play is so big in some places, why not just make cloth of paper cut outs of terrain and agree that all of them are higher then a WK with both wright cannons rised above his head. Easy fix.
Our forests have been, put in to a big box at the start of 8th ed, and not taken out till the store closed in 9th ed. Only forests I see are those for AoS and historicals/sci fi historicals.
Cut out forests, buildings walls etc which are just a pice of cloth on the table seems to be a warmachine thing though.
Karol wrote: Cut out forests, buildings walls etc which are just a pice of cloth on the table seems to be a warmachine thing though.
It was more of a 4e terrain joke.
Actual dense vision-blocking area terrain forests were rarely used in my experience as they were too awkward to put models in, so you'd get outlines or bases with a couple of trees - which of course meant that models could see perfectly well through an actual tree on the edge of the area but couldn't draw line of sight through a wide barren gap in the middle.
Fantasy was even worse when you were supposed to be keeping all of your models base to base, very much a case of marking the area with something flat and taking the trees away as required.
Actual dense vision-blocking area terrain forests were rarely used in my experience as they were too awkward to put models in, so you'd get outlines or bases with a couple of trees - which of course meant that models could see perfectly well through an actual tree on the edge of the area but couldn't draw line of sight through a wide barren gap in the middle.
aphyon wrote: Insectum, as HBMC and i are big fans of the matter of TLOS is not as big as a problem as you think if you as a players bring enough terrain including stuff that is solid and blocks TLOS as well as looks like it belongs on the battlefield. with current real world experience with 5th ed. there is more than enough terrain that provides good cover and/or blocks LOS.
Yes it's true, one can just build/buy big solid LOS blockers.
The problem I have with that is twofold.
1: Much of the commonly available terrain from GW or other manufacturers is ruins, or otherwise "visually perforated".
2: Imo the bigger issue is that "solid" blockers are generally the sort of thing that also blocks movement. Having movement blocking terrain is fine to a point, but being able to block LOS while still allow models (especially infantry) to move about is a great feature to have.
Ah but that is the beauty of 3d printed terrain. many of my large LOS blocking buildings have interiors and removable roofs. won a 5th ed game last year that way by sneaking my scouts through the marine HQ building (dawn of war from war scenery) to score an objective.
A few weeks back one of the guys had just played a game of 9th ed and we reset the table for 5th and he was going on about how there wasn't enough terrain on the table. i can understand since 9th required random mirrored terrain that doesn't make any sense give the actual terrain mat layout. i had to remind him how much different terrain worked in 5th ed games with blocking LOS and hard cover saves. it was more than enough terrain for a game of 5th 40K. the reason why LOS blocking area terrain is way more important in games like DUST and infinity is because of the reaction mechanics that exist in both games.
aphyon wrote: Ah but that is the beauty of 3d printed terrain. many of my large LOS blocking buildings have interiors and removable roofs. won a 5th ed game last year that way by sneaking my scouts through the marine HQ building (dawn of war from war scenery) to score an objective.
Sure, but I don't want every table to be a ruined (or not ruined) city, and options for vehicle movement is nice too. Forests or similar pieces ideally block LOS, give cover to models within, and still allow big models to push through them. And for ease of use having flat templates (even fabric) to define forest extents, then having a collection of individually based trees that you can move around so models can be placed appropriately, is great.
In the end tournament probably are going to rule that first floors are not see through no matter how many doors or windows are on the actual terrain. And if that doesn't work, then people are going to start using abstraction. Point at X terrain it is now infinite in hight. Rubble and some other stuff will be used with the odd sudo True LoSGW so loves, while big ruins, buildings, forests etc will be higher then a warlord titan, in game terms.
It does kind of blow my mind that for all the ways that 10th edition feels like its full of modern game design touches, its measuring, terrain, and LOS rules are just woefully outdated.
LunarSol wrote: It does kind of blow my mind that for all the ways that 10th edition feels like its full of modern game design touches, its measuring, terrain, and LOS rules are just woefully outdated.
What, exactly, feels "modern" about 10th edition? It just looks like another iteration on the 8th edition paradigm, to me, with an absolute garbage take on unit/options pricing.
Just so folks know, a lot of 4th edition mechanics came back in the second edition of Horus Heresy:
1) vehicle defensive weapons (iteratively improved upon to do new things!)
2) Army leadership mechanics (needing to have a radio C3 structure for Solar Auxilia or a special rite for Marines)
3) Leadership actually mattering
4) Reduced cover saves
5) 4th edition wound allocation
They blended this forwards with some new systems (Reactions, which make the game far more interactive, are an example) and some iteratively improved older systems (Warlord traits remain but typically function in an actual warlord-y role, affecting C2, leadership, and behavior of an entire army on the battlefield).
Insectum7 wrote: 1: Much of the commonly available terrain from GW or other manufacturers is ruins, or otherwise "visually perforated".
The old cities of death and planetstrike terrain that was around during 5th was actually quite good for the most part. Buildings tended to have solid walls along the ground floor, the shrine had similarly blocked LoS for the lower level, bastions were tall LoS blockers as was the fortress of redemption, and the whole trench/bunker/fortification set from the start of 6th edition was solid.
Line of sight was so heavily blocked by those kits that the cities of death rules let players shoot without LoS.
Not to mention, HH could be the best, most balanced game in the world, but without Xenos and Sisters, it ain't worth jack to me, and that goes double for Epic.
PenitentJake wrote: Not to mention, HH could be the best, most balanced game in the world, but without Xenos and Sisters, it ain't worth jack to me, and that goes double for Epic.
Couldn't agree more.
Doesn't have me 'Nids, so I don't care. The minis are nice though.
I think 4th and 5th had pretty good rules, but 5th is when the ward era of marinewank went insane and I hated the background.
The main thing I didn't like about 3-7 was the all or nothing ap system.
If they'd tweaked it to something like 'if ap=sv, make test at -1. If lower, no test can be made'.
So at least you would had a bit more balance across weapons and saves. You could keep the ccwap rules if you did something like that.
I prefer abstract los, because tlos is ironically not very true to the events being depicted. It's true to the models, but that's a dumb metric.
'True to the events' is better covered by abstraction, because real soldiers crouch, take cover and do things not reflected by models on tactical rocks.
I would have also changed how bs worked, making it an opposing roll and using the full 1-10 range rather than 1-5. Using initiative also means speed armies get representative defence.
The main thing I didn't like about 3-7 was the all or nothing ap system
That is one of the things i love the best about it. if i wanted AP reduction i play WHFBs 40K hard cover saves made up for the all or nothing AP system.
GW used to use the other dice (other than d6s) in the original RT/2nd ed days. it doesn't work outside a skirmish system since it would slow the game down way to much above about 500 points.
Hellebore wrote: The main thing I didn't like about 3-7 was the all or nothing ap system
It was fast and decisive, but relied on sensible distribution of weapon AP, invulnerables, and the strength of cover saves (4+ was far too easy to get in 5th).
It fell over when you had things like 3e eldar and dark eldar bringing more AP2/3 shots that the opponent had models, and they could never quite get the price of 4+ armour saves right IMO...
The main thing I didn't like about 3-7 was the all or nothing ap system
That is one of the things i love the best about it. if i wanted AP reduction i play WHFBs 40K hard cover saves made up for the all or nothing AP system.
GW used to use the other dice (other than d6s) in the original RT/2nd ed days. it doesn't work outside a skirmish system since it would slow the game down way to much above about 500 points.
Well, they do use D12's in their Apokalypse system that starts at around 5000points if you go by the rulebook
Hellebore wrote: The main thing I didn't like about 3-7 was the all or nothing ap system
It was fast and decisive, but relied on sensible distribution of weapon AP, invulnerables, and the strength of cover saves (4+ was far too easy to get in 5th).
It fell over when you had things like 3e eldar and dark eldar bringing more AP2/3 shots that the opponent had models, and they could never quite get the price of 4+ armour saves right IMO...
It also relied on sensible distribution of armor saves.
It doesn't quite work when a few factions hoard all the 2+/3+ saves while others are lucky to get a 4+
Insectum's picture sums it up nicely. Doing away with Area Terrain (as the idea of a gradient where models become more obscured the further they are) is what killed meaningful positioning play, which has turned out to be so essential to having a good game that the tourney scene went over GW's head and effectively reinstated it, through the ugly L shaped ruin corners, which functionally mimic the role of Area Terrain back then - LOS blocking but not movement blocking so that melee armies have a chance to walk up the board.
I do not understand this idea that CC was hard to get to or pull off in 5th ed. or the problems dealing with massed armored vehicles, as somebody who still plays it every weekend with a large pool of players with various armies. not only is it not game breaking. getting into close combat happens all the time. especially if you bring units in your force that-deepstrike, get summoned, infiltrate, outflank, or just use assault vehicles. in fact one of the banes of our guard armored company player is dealing with assault units.
aphyon wrote: I do not understand this idea that CC was hard to get to or pull off in 5th ed. or the problems dealing with massed armored vehicles, as somebody who still plays it every weekend with a large pool of players with various armies. not only is it not game breaking. getting into close combat happens all the time. especially if you bring units in your force that-deepstrike, get summoned, infiltrate, outflank, or just use assault vehicles. in fact one of the banes of our guard armored company player is dealing with assault units.
"The system not rewarding clever maneuvering doesn't matter because some melee units teleport"
aphyon wrote: I do not understand this idea that CC was hard to get to or pull off in 5th ed. or the problems dealing with massed armored vehicles, as somebody who still plays it every weekend with a large pool of players with various armies. not only is it not game breaking. getting into close combat happens all the time. especially if you bring units in your force that-deepstrike, get summoned, infiltrate, outflank, or just use assault vehicles. in fact one of the banes of our guard armored company player is dealing with assault units.
"The system not rewarding clever maneuvering doesn't matter because some melee units teleport"
okay.
One could argue that such "teleporting" is a form of 'off-table" maneuver, and that "on-table" maneuver is a great way to counter it (and it is!).
Hellebore wrote: The main thing I didn't like about 3-7 was the all or nothing ap system
It was fast and decisive, but relied on sensible distribution of weapon AP, invulnerables, and the strength of cover saves (4+ was far too easy to get in 5th).
It fell over when you had things like 3e eldar and dark eldar bringing more AP2/3 shots that the opponent had models, and they could never quite get the price of 4+ armour saves right IMO...
No the problem is that it only has two states, on or off. The front loading of ap2/3 is just marines feeling what every non marine army felt against any other AP value.
AP is either useful or useless. 5+ saves almost never got used, but if you stripped the ap5 out of armies, then it would become a useless rule. You might as well have given guard no armour save and made bolters ap-. And because each ap affects the saves above it the same, ap2 was ap5 against sv5+. MArine players didn't like having to play like other armies where their save was ignored.
I always found it hilarious when people complained about ap2 when the rest of the game spent most of their time just removing models because everything was stacked against them. There's a reason it still works in HH - because sv3+ is the only thing that actually functioned in that paradigm.
So no, I'd much rather a system that had a sliding scale so everyone had an opportunity to use their save. save modifiers can actually be balanced through reduction, but static AP is either too effective or not effective enough.
Hence why I'd be ok with a static ap system that used a middle ground where the ap=sv reduces armour saves. That means that guard could still be making saves and it means that ap could be relaxed somewhat.
The only armies that functioned in the fixed ap paradigm was the sv3/2 armies, because they ignored most of the ap, making the concept pretty pointless. Remove 3+ saves from the game and AP immediately swings to being too effective and making the save stat pointless instead.
Came into the game for 3rd, really started playing in 5th though, and playing Space Wolves at that. So perhaps I'm biased in saying that 5th ed was a lot of fun, felt like the best balance between the core game mechanics at the time before 6th and 7th really created some wildly unfun imbalances.
That said... I honestly think that 9th might go down as the best that the game has been. Yes, it's bloated and there's too much to actually remember, but they've done a great job of dealing with balance issues in a reasonable manner, especially compared to how the game has been historically, and the amount of army personalization is pretty much unseen since 2nd or 3rd ed.
As with most things, it was the execution that failed the past and present AP systems, not the systems themselves.
For the all or nothing style of 3rd-7th, there majority of armies people played were Sv3+, which meant most people took AP3 (or, really, AP2, because Plasma was the most common) weapons to deal with them. It meant that no other armour type was worth a damn, and APs 4 and 5 were so prevalent that those armour saves weren't worth anything. It only got worse with the introduction of AP values on melee weapons, as now only certain melee weapons were worth bothering with in a world where most people were Sv3+.
For 2nd Edition, and later 9th Edition, the modifier system was fine, but the sheer amounts of modifiers was what killed them. In 2nd Ed even Lasguns had a -1 Save Mod, and most things bigger certainly did, so a Marine never actually got to take a 3+ save unless they were fighting Gretchin! In 9th we know that there were too many save mods, and that's why 10th has such a big reduction on that front.
Concept vs execution is GW's constant eternal Achillies heel, and AP systems are a massive victim of that.
The binary ap has an inherent disadvantage in implementation. Being binary limits what you can do.
You could strip all ap from weapons and only have it on special/heavy weapons, and it would have very little impact. Anything with ap3 or 2 would be preferred due to the army skew.
Both systems have their advantages and disadvantages. I liked the binary method as armour saves meant something. I have often retold the story at my utter shock during the first game of 3rd I ever saw and how Marines not only got to take an armour save, but got to take it at 3+, something just unheard of in 2nd Ed.
But, as stated, it is binary, which brings with it a whole host of problems and issues with granularity.
Those more knowledgeable than me might be able to answer this: Is it true in HH that AP3 wouldn't ignore Sv3+, just reduce it by -1?
If the above is true, that could be an interesting middle ground. It does make Sv2+ supremely effective though.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Both systems have their advantages and disadvantages. I liked the binary method as armour saves meant something. I have often retold the story at my utter shock during the first game of 3rd I ever saw and how Marines not only got to take an armour save, but got to take it at 3+, something just unheard of in 2nd Ed.
But, as stated, it is binary, which brings with it a whole host of problems and issues with granularity.
Those more knowledgeable than me might be able to answer this: Is it true in HH that AP3 wouldn't ignore Sv3+, just reduce it by -1?
If the above is true, that could be an interesting middle ground. It does make Sv2+ supremely effective though.
It is not true.
What I think would be good is a combo system.
Probably with the binary AP system, and a special rule "High Impact X", where you reduce armor save rolls by X.
aphyon wrote: I do not understand this idea that CC was hard to get to or pull off in 5th ed. or the problems dealing with massed armored vehicles, as somebody who still plays it every weekend with a large pool of players with various armies. not only is it not game breaking. getting into close combat happens all the time. especially if you bring units in your force that-deepstrike, get summoned, infiltrate, outflank, or just use assault vehicles. in fact one of the banes of our guard armored company player is dealing with assault units.
"The system not rewarding clever maneuvering doesn't matter because some melee units teleport"
okay.
.....er no if anything there is more "clever maneuvering" especially since we still use the 4th ed vehicle assault rules in our 5th ed games. the direction you assault from and how fast the vehicle moved the previous turn matters. as does the placement of gunline infantry units when things sneak up on you.
2nd edition, because I like my orks to be characterful and fun, big things to still be able to use cover, bright colours to be at the forefront of painting and not having everything revolve around The Imperium vs Chaos.
Hellebore wrote: No the problem is that it only has two states, on or off. The front loading of ap2/3 is just marines feeling what every non marine army felt against any other AP value.
No, the front loading of AP2/3 broke the fundamental principle behind the system. It was supposed to be 'right tool vs right target' - but cheap mass AP2/3 (including early rending) was the right tool against every target.
Armour 5 - served to reduce the base lethality of close combat and differentiate the cheapest horde/chaff units when they faced off
Armour 4 - halved the efficiency of small arms. Usually miscosted.
Armour 3 - protection from light anti-tank/heavy anti-infantry (typically all templates and most multi-shot high strength weapons)
Armour 2 - protection from artillery
In an ideal world each step down the chain would make the correct AP weapon more cost effective than mass application of a lower AP weapon, while the cost of heavier weapons would make them inefficient against lighter targets.
IMO they never quite got the armour 4 balance right (usually too expensive, far too many 'light' blast weapons were AP4, and of course the 4+ cover in 5e rendering it pointless) and were all over the place with weapon pricing. But it was a fast system if nothing else, each individual dice roll was worth more.
As someone who doesn't play a Sv 3+ army in the Heresy (Solar Auxilia are Sv 4+) I think people are overlooking a lot about the binary system of armor pen in the game that actually iteratively improved on the concept.
Things like Rending or Breaching affect the AP on the weapon side, and can mean some wounds ignore armor while some don't (so a HH plasma gun gives a Marine a save on about 40% of its wounds, but doesn't give a Solar Auxiliary a save ever). Other weapon keywords like Brutal can do multiple wounds (and force multiple saves, but only on a single model).
Then you have things like the Heavy unit type, that lets you re-roll armor saves against blasts (Solar Auxilia void armor functions this way).
Then you have Damage Mitigation saves - feel no pain style saves that are no longer limited to just Feel No Pain (e.g. Shrouded, which is most commonly gained through a Reaction).
This means that by clever use of reactions, cover, and armor, you can actually use the save system whether you have a 3+ or not.
THAT SAID, it still has the same "Marine Problem" as 40k, where weapons that aren't AP 3 or better are not taken just because they are judged to be worthless. That, ironically, helps to protect my Solar Auxilia because they are often fighting weapons that are inefficient at harming them.
5th edition was the best set of core rules (and also the last time GW actually tried to improve the game rather than just adding stuff to buy or making changes to justify a new edition).
Where it always goes off the rails is with the Codexes and the mid-edition design shift: and 5th went off the rails like it was a train full of chemicals in a East Palestine.
Lord Damocles wrote: 5th edition was the best set of core rules (and also the last time GW actually tried to improve the game rather than just adding stuff to buy or making changes to justify a new edition).
Where it always goes off the rails is with the Codexes and the mid-edition design shift: and 5th went off the rails like it was a train full of chemicals in a East Palestine.
I largely agree, though some "improvements" read less like a seriously considered iterative improvement on 4th and more like a "throw everything out and start with my preconceived notion of how things should go".
- I prefer 4th's Terrain Rules, which had some very clear flaws that could've been iteratively improved upon but instead they were just outright thrown out in favor of the most extreme TLOS I have ever seen and the whole "7 of my conscripts are conga-lined in cover on the left, 15 are conga'd in the open in the middle, and 8 of them are conga'd in cover on the right in a wholly separate terrain piece. Yay a 4+ save" problem.
- I preferred 4th's vehicle damage charts. The rules for what happened to transported passengers when the transports went up needed improvement (no-save "entangled" was harsh!). But we didn't need to make things like they were in 15th where a Rhino could fearlessly tank 15 Vanquisher shells on the face. The damage chart was more responsible for vehicle survivability in 5th than its armor was (which is why Light Vehicle Spam became the hallmark of the edition). It's worse because this effect led directly to Hull Points, and then to the current paradigm we have now in a tracible through-line.
- I preferred 4th's movement and shooting rules. The lack of run without Fleet meant that units had to maneuver very deliberately and battles were a cross between plans that had to begin executing early, and reactions that inhibited plans. The game was slower, both from a maneuver and a lethality perspective, which increased the relative value of "teleport"-style maneuver such as Deep Strike, justifying the "mishap" risk inherent in the latter.
Unit1126PLL wrote: ...and the whole "7 of my conscripts are conga-lined in cover on the left, 15 are conga'd in the open in the middle, and 8 of them are conga'd in cover on the right in a wholly separate terrain piece. Yay a 4+ save" problem.
IIRC that worked in 4e as well - more models behind cover than out = all models get saves.
The run move... mixed feelings. 3 turns to cross the half way point, 4-5 turn while moving through cover. As much as I dislike how fast the game has become I got the appeal of the uncertain mid-game run of scoring reinforcements between objectives or the chance of the unit who got entangled in their flanking transports wreckage turn 1 to actually make it back into the game at some point.
4e transports were flaming coffins of death, 5e transports were bunkers on wheels. 6e did not find the happy medium between the two.
Tyran wrote: 9th, if only because I consider the 9th Ed Tyranid codex the best Tyranid codex.
Expanding on this, 8th and 9th and 10th are inherently better rulesets when it comes to MCs.
The existence of Damage and expanded wound table means you can have much larger stats. T8 W12 would be a ridiculous thing in classic 40k but it isn't in 8th-9th and actually kinda weak in 10th.
Also no stupid limitation on number of guns fired, which is appreciated for monsters that can carry 3-4 guns.
Unit1126PLL wrote: ...and the whole "7 of my conscripts are conga-lined in cover on the left, 15 are conga'd in the open in the middle, and 8 of them are conga'd in cover on the right in a wholly separate terrain piece. Yay a 4+ save" problem.
IIRC that worked in 4e as well - more models behind cover than out = all models get saves.
Yes, but the models behind cover were more often than not outright out of line of sight, due to the LoS rules. So they actually don't count towards having the "majority of the unit" in cover. Doing the conga trick is much harder in this case, on a reasonable board. (Only models partially visible to the firer granted cover in 4th).
The run move... mixed feelings. 3 turns to cross the half way point, 4-5 turn while moving through cover. As much as I dislike how fast the game has become I got the appeal of the uncertain mid-game run of scoring reinforcements between objectives or the chance of the unit who got entangled in their flanking transports wreckage turn 1 to actually make it back into the game at some point.
I think entanglement wasn't great, but running in general just lead to weird results. In 4th, if you want to reinforce folks on an objective, you either had to plan ahead or desperately charge the enemy (or, shockingly, have the maneuverability a transport provides. Benefits and drawbacks I suppose). In 5th, units could sprint right up to an enemy unit and come to a screeching halt 1" away, and be 100% safe about it. In 4th, this could happen only across a very short distance (in the movement phase only) and was much rarer.
4e transports were flaming coffins of death, 5e transports were bunkers on wheels. 6e did not find the happy medium between the two.
Flaming coffins of death is what most transports turn into within a hundred yards of an equipped enemy's positions - in order to approach that closely mounted IRL, most transports would have to use obscurants, cover, and supporting fire from other assets.
There's no reason "flaming coffins of death" is a bad thing, necessarily, so long as there are other benefits to bringing them and they are costed correctly.
My only issue was with Entanglement, because being auto-pinned really stung and was one drawback too far imo.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Both systems have their advantages and disadvantages. I liked the binary method as armour saves meant something. I have often retold the story at my utter shock during the first game of 3rd I ever saw and how Marines not only got to take an armour save, but got to take it at 3+, something just unheard of in 2nd Ed.
But, as stated, it is binary, which brings with it a whole host of problems and issues with granularity.
Those more knowledgeable than me might be able to answer this: Is it true in HH that AP3 wouldn't ignore Sv3+, just reduce it by -1?
If the above is true, that could be an interesting middle ground. It does make Sv2+ supremely effective though.
The 3rd-7th AP system was for me just too extreme.
For instance, unless you were 3.5 CSM with Tank Hunters? Auto cannons were just crap. Barely tickled Marines. Not enough Strength to overly concern most tanks. Too low a rate of fire to worry big blob units.
I much prefer my traditional 2nd Ed armour modifiers. Not necessarily a given iteration of them like. But it’s a more flexible rules concept than All Or Nothing.
Likewise I much prefer Cover being a to-hit modifier than an extra armour save.
Which does rather question why I like HH so much. But then I never said I’m not a hypocrite when it suits me
Unit1126PLL wrote: My only issue was with Entanglement, because being auto-pinned really stung and was one drawback too far imo.
The forced disembarking to any penetration (complete with 50% casualties and a pinning test) also somewhat discouraged the use of transports - along with the automatic death of the entire squad (no saves) should it stray within encircling distance of a fast unit or take an unlucky ordnance hit. Emperor help you if you didn't disembark everything you had at first sight of a siren prince or similar.
Encircling was easier in 5th of course but far less lethal.
The removal of entanglement led to an amusing loophole in later editions - the Dark Eldar 'assault ram' tactic, deliberately annihilating their own transport with a long range move as they were only prohibited from assaulting out of their vehicle that turn, not out of a crater...
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: For instance, unless you were 3.5 CSM with Tank Hunters? Auto cannons were just crap. Barely tickled Marines. Not enough Strength to overly concern most tanks. Too low a rate of fire to worry big blob units.
Popularity ebbed and flowed. They were excellent weapons for stripping hull points from transports for example - dirt cheap and multiple shot.
Even in earlier editions they were startistically more likely to penetrate AV11 than a missile launcher. Now you'd almost always want the launcher for other reasons but I quite favoured them on chimeras - and being able to arbitrarily assign the most situationally beneficial veteran upgrade to any given squad wasn't something all factions had in their pockets :p
Tyran wrote: 9th, if only because I consider the 9th Ed Tyranid codex the best Tyranid codex.
Expanding on this, 8th and 9th and 10th are inherently better rulesets when it comes to MCs.
The existence of Damage and expanded wound table means you can have much larger stats. T8 W12 would be a ridiculous thing in classic 40k but it isn't in 8th-9th and actually kinda weak in 10th.
Also no stupid limitation on number of guns fired, which is appreciated for monsters that can carry 3-4 guns.
I don’t like that gigantic monstrous creatures often only have something weak like AP -2 on their attacks. The old ones ignored armour saves and they were much more efficient at cracking open vehicles with the 2D6 penetration. A Carnifex does a pitiful amount of wounds to a Land Raider in combat now. 4 crushing claw attacks do about 3 damage (lol). In older editions it had a really good chance of destroying it in one attack.
I think my opinion is somewhat skewed but here goes:
3rd - This is the edition I started with. However, I only played a few games before the changeover, so I don't remember the differences between 3rd and 4th.
4th - Most of my memories of this edition involve using Necrons, whilst my friend used CSM. Every battle would end the exact same way - a nigh-invulnerable deamon prince massacring my units because most of my firepower was bolters and the rest just bounced off, WBB didn't work in melee, and Necrons - even the Lords - weren't worth a crap in melee. Oh and the daemon prince could kill one unit and then consolidate into another to avoid all shooting.
Had I been using a different army, I might have felt differently.
5th - For all of its issues, this is probably the edition I had the most fun playing. I liked all the books for the various factions I played and it was one of the last editions where they still had a decent number of options and actual wargear.
Hell, my Dark Eldar had more units in 5th than they have ever had since.
6th - The worst edition I've played (though 10th is intent on taking that title).
7th - Weirdly, this might be my 2nd favourite edition after 5th. Not because of the core rules, which were utterly atrocious, but because it contained my beloved Corsairs, doomed to never again exist as any sort of standalone army.
8th - A really mixed bag. I liked some of the changes (e.g. characters not needing to attach to units, AP being a modifier, Warlord Traits no longer being random, the psychic phase not aping 8th edition WHFB), but hated others (stratagems, the loss of initiative, changes to cover saves, auras etc). The armies were a mixed bag, to say the least.
9th - The core rules were a glorified errata and many of the changes made seemed unnecessary. The same went for the codices. In fact, pretty much every aspect of 9th was one step forward, two steps back. I'm not sure there was a single thing it managed to improve without ruining something else.
In terms of fun, I'd actually rate it lower than 8th. Taking into account the codices, I think it made more changes for the worse than for the better.
I don’t like that gigantic monstrous creatures often only have something weak like AP -2 on their attacks. The old ones ignored armour saves and they were much more efficient at cracking open vehicles with the 2D6 penetration. A Carnifex does a pitiful amount of wounds to a Land Raider in combat now. 4 crushing claw attacks do about 3 damage (lol). In older editions it had a really good chance of destroying it in one attack.
It had the downside of making cheap MCs simply way more efficient. Necron Spiders and Riptides were absurdly good at melee and there was almost no point in giving claws to a Carnifex when even a dakkafex had a good chance of wrecking a tank in melee.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: For instance, unless you were 3.5 CSM with Tank Hunters? Auto cannons were just crap. Barely tickled Marines. Not enough Strength to overly concern most tanks. Too low a rate of fire to worry big blob units.
I completely disagree. I played Guard more than I played Chaos, and Autocannons were my bread and butter.
My guys hit 50% of the time, and you mean I can get a gun that mitigates that by firing twice a turn out to really long range and can hurt everything that isn't AV14? And then once they hit 24" I can throw in a further S7 shot? If you were firing them at Marines you weren't using them correctly.
Battlecannons were for Marines. Artillery were for Marines. Autocannons were for stopping transports, and they were fantastic at it.
H.B.M.C. wrote: As with most things, it was the execution that failed the past and present AP systems, not the systems themselves.
For the all or nothing style of 3rd-7th, there majority of armies people played were Sv3+, which meant most people took AP3 (or, really, AP2, because Plasma was the most common) weapons to deal with them. It meant that no other armour type was worth a damn, and APs 4 and 5 were so prevalent that those armour saves weren't worth anything. It only got worse with the introduction of AP values on melee weapons, as now only certain melee weapons were worth bothering with in a world where most people were Sv3+.
For 2nd Edition, and later 9th Edition, the modifier system was fine, but the sheer amounts of modifiers was what killed them. In 2nd Ed even Lasguns had a -1 Save Mod, and most things bigger certainly did, so a Marine never actually got to take a 3+ save unless they were fighting Gretchin! In 9th we know that there were too many save mods, and that's why 10th has such a big reduction on that front.
Concept vs execution is GW's constant eternal Achillies heel, and AP systems are a massive victim of that.
Plasma weapons with AP2 killed Terminators during 3rd-7th. One of my buddies playing Dark Angels at the time called his Deathwing dudes "White Elephants" to illustrate how easily they would fold under fire. He never played 2nd and listened to my war stories with big eyes when Terminators would shrug off plasma pistol and plasma gun fire like it was nothing with a 3+ save on 2D6. Only heavy weapons with large ASM scores were a credible threat.
What people often forget when addressing poor SM power armour saves during 2nd is that only SM & CSM had the "Rapid Fire" rule meaning doubling the shots of bolters when being STATIONARY. Also to-hit penalties were a thing. So being in cover and having only to weather a couple of shots meant that SM didn´t just die like flies. For this to achieve you had to break the game and bring the most cheesiest combos or have the misfortune of being shot by a dreadnought which had a very high BS score. Playing also the game in a relaxed atmosphere like in those nostalgia battle reports which popped up in the last two years on youtube demonstrates that not everything was doom and gloom.
I'd have to say 4th. I started learning 2nd when 3rd dropped, and overall I appreciated the changes. A lot of a person's enjoyment depends on how much abstraction is suitable to their tastes.
While 5th was decent for the most part, it introduced too many lateral changes for my liking. It was then I understood this was GW's business model. I really hated the convoluted and generally stupid wound allocation system, though several others after that were equally as stupid. Their so-called 'true line of sight' was another bad implementation.
Since then we've played our own hybridized version of 40K, borrowing elements we liked from subsequent editions and adding plenty of our own rules. It certainly is interesting to see the roller coaster of rules sets GW produces.
On a side note, several have discussed the old AP vs armor save dilemma. Some have said it's too 'binary', and too much all-or-nothing. I can understand that perspective - you want at least partial credit for your armor, right? I think it works. Yeah, it's a shock to not get any save when your marine gets punked by a krak missile (though we did give marines a 6++ invulnerable). But you are rolling for saves anyway. So the result isn't as binary as perceived. Having saves denied completely makes sense if a weapon is simply too powerful. But the attacker is already rolling to wound - isn't that silly if you hit a grot in the open with a battle cannon and roll a 1? All these rolls are intertwined abstractly to reach a reasonable result. Specific outliers can muddle one's perspective.
As far as realism goes, weapon penetration against armor IS pretty binary, especially for ballistic weapons. In melee, armor matters quite a bit more but frankly we had little interest in introducing the kludge of AP values for all melee weapons in this scale of a game.
The idea of adding +1 to a save roll on the exact AP vs armor save seems reasonable, but is it? This is heavily slanted toward the original armor, and really makes a 2+ save too good. If you really wanted to find a happy median between getting a save or not when the armor value is equal to the AP, just allow half the number of saves to made and rest automatically fail. No need to invent more mechanics.
On the AP thing, I didn't mind the all-or-nothing AP of older editions.
- Units like Guardsmen and Kabalites didn't get saves against even basic weapons, but this encouraged them to stick to cover when not in transports. It also made bolters feel a little more impactful.
- AP2/3 was the gold standard but (at least early on) it was generally rare enough that most armies had difficulty spamming it (save perhaps for on melee troops, but then that also gave melee more of a defined role).
- Moreover, the fact that units had relatively few wounds and cover saves didn't improve armour meant that you could very often make up for a lack of AP with volume of fire. Apart from anything else, this meant that basic infantry weapons would usually do something, even if they weren't as good as plasma or the like.
- It also helped to speed up the game, because units weren't forever rolling 5+ or 6+ saves even against high-AP weapons.
I don't claim that all-or-nothing AP was perfect. However, IMO it was only in and after 6th edition that we started to see real issues with it. Primarily:
- Drastic increase in AP. A lot of the newer units (particularly fliers, should-be-vehicles like the Dreadknight and Riptide, super-heavies etc., but also smaller units with e.g. Grav weapons) had substantially more AP than had been available previously. Not just in terms of raw numbers but also the availability on things like torrent flamers and/or large blast templates (giving them the ability to delete whole units of MEQ with a single shot). This skewed things way to far, as did the escalation of toughness/saves (which meant you needed over 100 guardsmen in rapid-fire range to take down a single Necron Wraith).
- Extreme imbalance in AP distribution. As above, many armies/units saw huge increases in the amount of high-AP weapons available. At the same time, other factions were left scrabbling in the trash pile looking for some. Especially when power weapons no longer ignored armour saves, so an awful lot of weapons that should have been good against armour could no longer scratch 2+ saves. IIRCDE didn't have a single AP2 melee weapon available for their generic characters (and prior to his deletion, not even Vect himself was allowed an AP2 melee weapon!). Monstrous creatures notwithstanding, I seem to recall Tyranids being in a similar position.
In short, some factions were very heavily favoured over others when it came to AP, and a lot of new units/weapons really skewed the balance of AP in the 'have' armies way too much towards the AP2-3 range.
I've often felt that the all-or-nothing AP system would have worked better in a game with a more even distribution of save values. In a game where some 50-75% of armies in any given shop are 3+ or better across the board, it establishes clear breakpoints and causes optimization headaches for armies on the receiving end of hard-counters (read: taking MEQs against a plasma-out-the-wazoo leafblower list was no fun).
Or somehow work in a more graceful degradation. It never sat right with me that an autocannon at AP4 pinged off a Marine's armor just as often as a lasgun at AP-, and it caused some annoying side effects- why's an autocannon so much better at killing Rhinos than it is at killing the Marines in them?
Anyways. I think my favorite era over the years was probably early 5th Ed, using 4th Ed codices. Solid edition for the most part, but the later codices made it silly.
7th is my preferred mostly due to having the most experience with it. I still find 7th fun to play over the newer editions (haven't played 10th yet). Regardless, 7th has A LOT of issues with how GW went insane with power creep and nonsensical game balance. That said the 3-7th core rules system is something I greatly value over the paper thin mess that was 8th and 9ths core ruleset. During 7th, I focused on having relatively balanced matchups which resulted in bypassing a lot of the frustrating aspects of the edition instead of fielding my army list completely blind to what my opponent was using.
While the codexes were generally trash due to bad balance decisions, there were a lot of good ideas in there with formations as they actually added a lot of gameplay mechanics and styles of play. A lot of the fun mechanics of the formations got lost in the scramble to power creep with net lists running out of control while 80% of formations never saw much gameplay usage. The abundance of options had a great mix of fluff and crunch for making thematic army lists with gameplay mechanics to support the themes.
IMO 7th could be best summed up as having good ideas executed in some of the worst ways possible and with an inherent lack of understanding of what makes for game balance. Despite all of that, it's still superior to 8th and 9th for me due to the fundamental core gameplay of the newer editions being devoid of fun gameplay while 7th could be fun if you get a balanced matchup of army lists.
Frankly I feel a lot of the discussion about 7th gets tied up in how bad the edition turned out due in large part to the horrible codex balance. Because of that, it becomes a situation where everything 7th is automatically bad instead of digging deeper to identify what parts of 7th's core where the issue and what stuff could of worked if the codex balance wasn't so horrid.
Somehow, these threads reappear every now and then, and somehow, I always read them because I love reading people's memories anecdotes and rants. Truly feels like an insight into the history of the game if you ask me.
As far as I am concerned I dunno, I started in 6th, even though it isn't really anymore. We did houserule it beyond all recongnition by pouring in rules, profiles and equipments from 3rd to 7th, plus rules we made ourselves. Is fun though.
But we never jumped onto another edition though we considered it a few times. Didn't want to go with 7th cause formations were horrid. Tried my hand at 8th with the free primer and datasheets in the boxes but finally couldn't spent more on new rulebooks so postponed and forgotten. My brother has experience with 9th but he was disappointed with strategems. And fianlly I don't know enough about ten to know whether buying the books is worth.
There's also lore issues, I don't like newer lore as of Gathering storm so I moslty pretend it never happened and have little interest in following up events.
Might convince buddies to give 4th a go though, because reading about it truly looks fun and I already have got most of the era's books for collection purposes.
Altima wrote: Now in a vacuum, it might seem like MEQs would get shafted switching to the save modifier system, but while generic small arms might be more potent against them, the weapons everyone crammed in their armies were now significantly less effective. In addition to that, the game shifted to make things significantly better for MEQs--cheaper units, more free stuff, more forgiving rules, etc.
It's worth noting that an AP-1 applied to a 3+ save has significantly more impact than one applied to a 5+ save. It's far from an uncommon opinion that the proliferation of AP-1/AP-2 in 9th Ed significantly increased the vulnerability of Marines, even if they were occasionally getting 5+ or 6+ saves from historically anti-Marine weapons.
Having anti-MEQ weapons be nearly as effective as before, while substantially increasing the effectiveness of small arms, made it a lot easier to put wounds down. As well, the change in cover system meant that those heavy anti-Marine weapons were still reducing them to poor saves, whereas before they could reliably claim a 4+ cover save in ruins.
I think with 10th Ed GW finally realized that in a game with 3+ saves out the wazoo, that first point of AP is substantially more valuable than succeeding ones. Removing easy access to AP-1 and reducing AP in general across the board has done a lot to make armor relevant again, with the hard-cap on cover bonuses ensuring that it doesn't become oppressive. It's a decent resolution, but it still feels odd to me that a Guardsman gets a save against a heavy bolter. I never minded not getting a save on my Gaunts or Guardsmen; it let Marine small arms be effective without needing a ton of shots or special rules, it gave me a reason to hug cover, and it made that 3+ save (or 4+ on my Stormtroopers) feel special.
I would have liked to see an iterative middle-ground sort of system. Start with the all-or-nothing as a base, but work in an edge case where the AP is significant enough to degrade the armor but without circumventing it entirely. Force saves to be re-rolled if the AP is equal to the armor, or something along those lines.
I think with 10th Ed GW finally realized that in a game with 3+ saves out the wazoo, that first point of AP is substantially more valuable than succeeding ones. Removing easy access to AP-1 and reducing AP in general across the board has done a lot to make armor relevant again, with the hard-cap on cover bonuses ensuring that it doesn't become oppressive.
Then they should have also removed the extra wounds they gave to Marines to compensate for the extra lethality.
I would have liked to see an iterative middle-ground sort of system. Start with the all-or-nothing as a base, but work in an edge case where the AP is significant enough to degrade the armor but without circumventing it entirely. Force saves to be re-rolled if the AP is equal to the armor, or something along those lines.
Perhaps the old flat AP system with rules like Breaching (X+) or Rending (X+) where if you roll an X+ to wound the shot ignores your armor; the designer could adjust the X+ to figure out what "percentage" of wounds pierced different armor classes, letting certain minis (better than the AP of the weapon of course) get their saves against the rest of the wounds... Hmmm.
I would have liked to see an iterative middle-ground sort of system. Start with the all-or-nothing as a base, but work in an edge case where the AP is significant enough to degrade the armor but without circumventing it entirely. Force saves to be re-rolled if the AP is equal to the armor, or something along those lines.
Perhaps the old flat AP system with rules like Breaching (X+) or Rending (X+) where if you roll an X+ to wound the shot ignores your armor; the designer could adjust the X+ to figure out what "percentage" of wounds pierced different armor classes, letting certain minis (better than the AP of the weapon of course) get their saves against the rest of the wounds... Hmmm.
They did that with the Choppa/Chainaxe rules in 3rd. I'm not opposed to it until we see that rule proliferate across all weapons and essentially make 3+ meaningless.
Bobthehero wrote: 6th. Because otherwise I couldn't have played my army of Stormtroopers.
There was an all-Stormtrooper/Kasrkin army in 3rd.
I started at the tail end of 5th (with Krieg), so I missed that. Also, AP3 Hellguns are neat.
Edit: I think that early 6th, or late 5th, was also when the Hades Breaching Drill was a its best, while the Krieg's artillery was at its best in 6th, too.
I would have liked to see an iterative middle-ground sort of system. Start with the all-or-nothing as a base, but work in an edge case where the AP is significant enough to degrade the armor but without circumventing it entirely. Force saves to be re-rolled if the AP is equal to the armor, or something along those lines.
Perhaps the old flat AP system with rules like Breaching (X+) or Rending (X+) where if you roll an X+ to wound the shot ignores your armor; the designer could adjust the X+ to figure out what "percentage" of wounds pierced different armor classes, letting certain minis (better than the AP of the weapon of course) get their saves against the rest of the wounds... Hmmm.
They did that with the Choppa/Chainaxe rules in 3rd. I'm not opposed to it until we see that rule proliferate across all weapons and essentially make 3+ meaningless.
The current HH edition handles plasma (and other weapons) this way. Plasma is AP4 now, but Breaching (4+), so if you roll a 4+ To Wound it's AP2. This means that Plasma is still a fantastic weapon against Marines, but they get their saves against the wounds about 40% of the time (33% of which they still fail, of course).
Breaching and Rending are still somewhat inflexible with the issue they can only upgrade to AP2.
They should have a second input that determined the AP of the breaching or rending hit. E.g Breaching (3, 5+) in which it only upgrades to AP3 on a 5+ to wound as an example.
Otherwise it becomes tricky to balance breaching against 2+ and 3+ saves at the same time.
Tyran wrote: Breaching and Rending are still somewhat inflexible with the issue they can only upgrade to AP2.
They should have a second input that determined the AP of the breaching or rending hit. E.g Breaching (3, 5+) in which it only upgrades to AP3 on a 5+ to wound as an example.
Otherwise it becomes tricky to balance breaching against 2+ and 3+ saves at the same time.
I don't disagree that it would open up more design space, but as it stands that's not been a problem so far. 2+ saves are very strong in the Heresy ATM. If it swings against them, I think you're right.
I would have liked to see an iterative middle-ground sort of system. Start with the all-or-nothing as a base, but work in an edge case where the AP is significant enough to degrade the armor but without circumventing it entirely. Force saves to be re-rolled if the AP is equal to the armor, or something along those lines.
Perhaps the old flat AP system with rules like Breaching (X+) or Rending (X+) where if you roll an X+ to wound the shot ignores your armor; the designer could adjust the X+ to figure out what "percentage" of wounds pierced different armor classes, letting certain minis (better than the AP of the weapon of course) get their saves against the rest of the wounds... Hmmm.
I understand why they did it the way they did for HH2.0, but I strongly dislike the practice of kludging special rules onto only certain weapons to address game-wide issues with the mechanics.
I return to autocannons as the perfect example: There's nothing particularly exotic about them that warrants special rules, but otherwise Marine armor being just as likely to stop an autocannon shell as an autopistol round doesn't sit right with me.
HH being a Marine-heavy game exposes the limitations of the all-or-nothing system pretty starkly. I think they did the best they could with 2.0 short of throwing it out and completely redoing it, but the AP modifier system actually suits Horus Heresy better than it does 40K.
If you have to add special rules to an autocannon to make it behave 'correctly'- not a volkite death ray, or a grav gun, or a conversion beamer, or any of the other weirdness in the setting, just a big plain self-loading cannon- something's wrong with the core rules.
Tyran wrote: The other solution that I don't think have seen anyone seriously propose is having AP vs Armor tables.
When the current edition eliminates the WS v WS table, I don't think replacing the armor save with an Armor v AP (effectively creating a second S v T style stat, but for the defender to roll) would be a viable option. Especially since you'd really want to go through and change all of the Armor and AP numbers to make the chart feel right.
I mean, a Damage vs. Armor roll works fine in Infinity, but that's a D20 system and they don't need to use a chart to figure out what the necessary roll is going to be.
catbarf wrote: Maybe I phrased it poorly, but that was my point.
If you have to add special rules to an autocannon to make it behave 'correctly'- not a volkite death ray, or a grav gun, or a conversion beamer, or any of the other weirdness in the setting, just a big plain self-loading cannon- something's wrong with the core rules.
Well, what really happened IMO is that moving the rules towards realism exposed the weakness of the Space Marines, so they had to tone it back.
Last edition, it was extremely obvious that the Space Marines, genetically engineered superhumans in power armor, could be smashed to a paste by artillery and tank cannons just as readily as a regular human (even if the paste is chunkier and slightly more viscous).
Rather than changing the lore, they really had to rethink how weapons as basic as an autocannon, tank cannon, artillery cannons, siege mortars... etc. worked. It is an abstraction I appreciate to keep Marines playable, and I am privately amused that it was necessary.
I would have liked to see an iterative middle-ground sort of system. Start with the all-or-nothing as a base, but work in an edge case where the AP is significant enough to degrade the armor but without circumventing it entirely. Force saves to be re-rolled if the AP is equal to the armor, or something along those lines.
Perhaps the old flat AP system with rules like Breaching (X+) or Rending (X+) where if you roll an X+ to wound the shot ignores your armor; the designer could adjust the X+ to figure out what "percentage" of wounds pierced different armor classes, letting certain minis (better than the AP of the weapon of course) get their saves against the rest of the wounds... Hmmm.
I understand why they did it the way they did for HH2.0, but I strongly dislike the practice of kludging special rules onto only certain weapons to address game-wide issues with the mechanics.
I return to autocannons as the perfect example: There's nothing particularly exotic about them that warrants special rules, but otherwise Marine armor being just as likely to stop an autocannon shell as an autopistol round doesn't sit right with me.
HH being a Marine-heavy game exposes the limitations of the all-or-nothing system pretty starkly. I think they did the best they could with 2.0 short of throwing it out and completely redoing it, but the AP modifier system actually suits Horus Heresy better than it does 40K.
I agree with this point somewhat. There's still the rolling-to-wound aspect of the weapon that's part of the "does this weapon do damage?" question, and the old system held the Autocannons wounding on a 2 while the pistol wounds on a 5 (and the two shots), so once you put it all together the big gun is still far more likely to do result in a kill. But while those relationships work, they still feel a little funny.
I always felt like 4+ armor in that paradigm sorta got the worst of it. While AP 3 weapons were comparatively rare, it still felt like troops with "fancy" 4+ armor were still dealt with a little too casually simply because Heavy Bolters, Shuriken Cannons, Whirlwinds, ets. ets. were all AP 4 and would just cut those units down real fast.
catbarf wrote: If you have to add special rules to an autocannon to make it behave 'correctly'- not a volkite death ray, or a grav gun, or a conversion beamer, or any of the other weirdness in the setting, just a big plain self-loading cannon- something's wrong with the core rules.
catbarf wrote: If you have to add special rules to an autocannon to make it behave 'correctly'- not a volkite death ray, or a grav gun, or a conversion beamer, or any of the other weirdness in the setting, just a big plain self-loading cannon- something's wrong with the core rules.
Or a limitation of a D6 system.
Imo40K can't really be anything else, the D6 is just too accessible. They/we just have to work around it.
catbarf wrote: ...but otherwise Marine armor being just as likely to stop an autocannon shell as an autopistol round doesn't sit right with me.
It's the nature of the 'paper/scissors/stone' design.
Modifiers and 'roll X to ignore armour' make having the wrong tool for the job is less costly.
The latter I think they put into HH2 because any non-marine gun is pretty much always the wrong tool for the job compared to the spread armies you might expect to face with an all-comers list at the start of 3rd.
Tyran wrote: I was thinking more about weapons like the battle cannon that a lot of people have been complaining it is basically useless in HH.
You could give it breaching but that may make it too good against Sv2+ and IIRC a lot blast weapons are stuck in a similar situation.
the battlecannon is emblematic of the designers overcorrection of artillery to boost armies torwards terminators (even slogging ones) and dreadnoughts. Hence why armies that primarly relied upon artillery because they had to, to attack 3+ or 2+ saves are right now struggling.
Incidentally a better system would have been to tier the breaching number for artillery and ordnance weapons as follows.
Calliope mortar (rocket artillery) breaching 6 +
Thunderblast (normal cannon) Rending 5 +
Earthshaker and BC rending 4+
Medusa and demolisher Rending 3+.
Alternativly you can increase the blast size again for demolishers and battlecannons to 5" again but use lower rending numbers.
I think the general issue is that armies that could tailor against Marines WOULD tailor against Marines, and in real life, the appropriate weapon for the job will reliably destroy it's target.
In HH2.0, they made it so there's almost NO appropriate weapon for marine killing, to try to fight this phenomenon and make Marines the stars.
Unfortunately, this has resulted in anti-TANK weapons becoming spammed, not because tanks are such a huge problem but because they're the next-most-appropriate tool for the job against Marine armies. The Vanquisher cannon is the best Russ against Marines, not because of all it's specific anti-tank and anti-monster special rules, but because it's the only AP2 tank gun on the Russ chassis. 10 men Lascannon squads aren't taken because you need a volley of 10 lascannons to kill a tank. It's because 10 lascannons will kill Marines and Terminators better than krak missiles and volkite culverins.
It's more proof for the axiom that "when marines are the most common enemy, then the best weapons will be the ones that kill Marines most efficiently" - even in a world where the Designers have gone out of their way to remove the entire category of "elite infantry killing weapons" - people just shifted to anti-tank.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I think the general issue is that armies that could tailor against Marines WOULD tailor against Marines, and in real life, the appropriate weapon for the job will reliably destroy it's target.
In HH2.0, they made it so there's almost NO appropriate weapon for marine killing, to try to fight this phenomenon and make Marines the stars.
Unfortunately, this has resulted in anti-TANK weapons becoming spammed, not because tanks are such a huge problem but because they're the next-most-appropriate tool for the job against Marine armies. The Vanquisher cannon is the best Russ against Marines, not because of all it's specific anti-tank and anti-monster special rules, but because it's the only AP2 tank gun on the Russ chassis. 10 men Lascannon squads aren't taken because you need a volley of 10 lascannons to kill a tank. It's because 10 lascannons will kill Marines and Terminators better than krak missiles and volkite culverins.
It's more proof for the axiom that "when marines are the most common enemy, then the best weapons will be the ones that kill Marines most efficiently" - even in a world where the Designers have gone out of their way to remove the entire category of "elite infantry killing weapons" - people just shifted to anti-tank.
No, no, Unit. Clearly the solution is to make Marines tougher than tanks so that not even anti-tank weapons will penetrate their pauldrons.
As far as rules, 4th was my favorite. 5th was ok but not really s good as 4th. with a few changes it would have been a really good edition.
I was still neck deep into Orks back then and the 3rd ed codex was for the most part superior to the 4th ed codex. If they had kept more from the 3rd ed codex i would have been a very happy camper.
Rules wise The way fearless units were made to suffer if they lost close combat was very poorly done. That is the big stand out I recall from 5th, I hated that.
Close combat in 4th was basically perfect.
It's been too long and I have forgotten most of my grievances with 5th. I just know everything after 4th has been less and less enjoyable.
Unit1126PLL wrote: It's more proof for the axiom that "when marines are the most common enemy, then the best weapons will be the ones that kill Marines most efficiently"
I've not played HH2.0 - what are heavy weapon costs like, still mirroring the big price crash from 5th?
Lascannons and plamas cannons were 35pts each until late 4th and 35pts for the pair by mid 5th edition. As I recall the subsequent HH 1.0 ruleset dropped heavy weapon costs lower still.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I think the general issue is that armies that could tailor against Marines WOULD tailor against Marines, and in real life, the appropriate weapon for the job will reliably destroy it's target.
In HH2.0, they made it so there's almost NO appropriate weapon for marine killing, to try to fight this phenomenon and make Marines the stars.
Unfortunately, this has resulted in anti-TANK weapons becoming spammed, not because tanks are such a huge problem but because they're the next-most-appropriate tool for the job against Marine armies. The Vanquisher cannon is the best Russ against Marines, not because of all it's specific anti-tank and anti-monster special rules, but because it's the only AP2 tank gun on the Russ chassis. 10 men Lascannon squads aren't taken because you need a volley of 10 lascannons to kill a tank. It's because 10 lascannons will kill Marines and Terminators better than krak missiles and volkite culverins.
It's more proof for the axiom that "when marines are the most common enemy, then the best weapons will be the ones that kill Marines most efficiently" - even in a world where the Designers have gone out of their way to remove the entire category of "elite infantry killing weapons" - people just shifted to anti-tank.
I feel this speaks to the "point costs for upgrades" thread as well. Weapons can theoretically have different "roles" and be sidegrades, but those big, high AP weapons always wind up feeling more worthwhile because of the array of high-value targets one can meaningfully engage. If you don't have decent AT, anit-MC, or anti-Elite weapons, you can basically find yourself to be **** out of luck. Whereas if you take a plethora of them, they'll basically always be useful because you can remove those big-time threats in short order, and then pound away at MEQs or anything else dangerous, while whatever small arms in your force deal with the rest.
Unit1126PLL wrote: It's more proof for the axiom that "when marines are the most common enemy, then the best weapons will be the ones that kill Marines most efficiently"
I've not played HH2.0 - what are heavy weapon costs like, still mirroring the big price crash from 5th?
Lascannons and plamas cannons were 35pts each until late 4th and 35pts for the pair by mid 5th edition. As I recall the subsequent HH 1.0 ruleset dropped heavy weapon costs lower still.
It depended on the squad, but yeah. Lascannons and PCs were 35 points for Devastators. Missile Launcher and Multimeltas 20, then HB at 15. Fort he Tactical Squad the costs were 15, 10 and 5 in the same order. The big premium for the Heavies made you really think about their deployment.
Insectum7 wrote: I feel this speaks to the "point costs for upgrades" thread as well. Weapons can theoretically have different "roles" and be sidegrades, but those big, high AP weapons always wind up feeling more worthwhile because of the array of high-value targets one can meaningfully engage. If you don't have decent AT, anit-MC, or anti-Elite weapons, you can basically find yourself to be **** out of luck. Whereas if you take a plethora of them, they'll basically always be useful because you can remove those big-time threats in short order, and then pound away at MEQs or anything else dangerous, while whatever small arms in your force deal with the rest.
Partly, IMHO one of the requirements for a sidegrades approach to function is that you need a wide variety of targets in the meta. It goes without saying 40k has never been good at achieving that.
If horde was viable then anti-horde weapons could be true sidegrades AT weapons.
That being said it does feel there is some degree of "sidegradeness" between AT weapons and anti-elite weapons at the moment.
If I was forced to pick an edition, I think 4th edition was the best overall in terms of core rules, and the 3.5ed and 4th ed codexes were pretty solid and had some of the best customization options ever. I played the most by far during 4th edition.
Presently, I'm playing ProHammer (see signature) exclusively within our group. It's been a while since I talked about it, but as a general reminder, ProHammer started out as a mashup of 4th and 5th core rules, with a host of compatibility rules to let you use any codex from 3rd-7th edition within the ruleset. We also layered on some new elements (e.g. proper overwatch, crossfire rules, etc.), cleaned up a bunch of rule oversights (e.g. a way properly determine vehicle facings), tweaked core rules for balance (AP system, vehicle damage, deep strike, etc.) and tried to make the whole thing an homage to what we always wanted to the game to be.
Insectum7 wrote: I feel this speaks to the "point costs for upgrades" thread as well. Weapons can theoretically have different "roles" and be sidegrades, but those big, high AP weapons always wind up feeling more worthwhile because of the array of high-value targets one can meaningfully engage. If you don't have decent AT, anit-MC, or anti-Elite weapons, you can basically find yourself to be **** out of luck. Whereas if you take a plethora of them, they'll basically always be useful because you can remove those big-time threats in short order, and then pound away at MEQs or anything else dangerous, while whatever small arms in your force deal with the rest.
Partly, IMHO one of the requirements for a sidegrades approach to function is that you need a wide variety of targets in the meta.
It goes without saying 40k has never been good at achieving that.
If horde was viable then anti-horde weapons could be true sidegrades AT weapons.
That being said it does feel there is some degree of "sidegradeness" between AT weapons and anti-elite weapons at the moment.
It'd be great to see some true hordes hit the meta again. Some of my favorite games were against this Ork player who would field 140 Boyz or something. It's fun to see the battlefield smothered in troops, and it has at least occasiinally offered a unique challenge to play with/against.
I have 120 painted Gants waiting for the opportunity.
But most units have access to more than one anti-horde weapon, and more than one anti-tank weapon, and if everything is free then you're always going to take the better of the respective choices. Not everything can (or should) be a sidegrade. Some things are upgrades, and should cost as such.
First. Its really the only one I'll play. After that, though there were still some good new ideas (I remember the original necrons) it largely became a money-grab. But more importantly, that was the one edition in which you were really free to do wshat you wanted.
Sure, you could buy your boxed set of space marines and the land raider, but you could also buy half a dozen minis of whatever type and go exploring the galaxy as a navigator, rogue trader, inquisitor, whatever. If it hadn't been for 1ed, I really think the game would have been a flash in the pan.
I was also looking at the poll. Its interesting how 4ok's popularity seems to peak at 5th ed, and then rapidly goes flatline.
a_typical_hero wrote: 6th saw the introduction of fliers, many still deem unreasonable to fit into the scale of 40k.
Aircraft were introduced in 3rd edition, maybe 4th at the latest. 6th is just when they went from being heavily abstracted bombing/strafing runs to being treated as normal on-table models, starting the process of making their rules increasingly bland and unrealistic to force them into a role they weren't suited for.
There is also the argument that 40k hasn't been a squad level infantry game for a long time now (with the squad level rules being legacy rules because GW gonna GW).
Tyran wrote: There is also the argument that 40k hasn't been a squad level infantry game for a long time now (with the squad level rules being legacy rules because GW gonna GW).
I guess you could play division, army, planetary, whatever level with 28mm figs at 1:1 scale, but I'd think things would become increasingly divorced from reality that way.
NapoleonInSpace wrote: I was also looking at the poll. Its interesting how 4ok's popularity seems to peak at 5th ed, and then rapidly goes flatline.
Why so? Not being snarky, I really don't know.
Could just be luck of timing, economics, alternative entertainment, etc - but...
By the end of 4th edition GW had been busy streamlining the old style of books and faction rules and followed through with the 5e book consolidating a lot of stuff and making rule changes that were - if not necessarily better - far easier to understand for young and new players. Things like build-a-bear units and extra rules scattered to the four winds made way for radical new ideas like clear page references and a summary in the back of each codex.
The 4e-5e transition also did a reasonable job of reigning the shenanigans, arguably at the start of 5th edition you could pick any faction (save perhaps pure grey knights) and be able to put up a decent showing against any other.
The 5e-6e transition on the other hand did nothing to address suggestions that the game was lacking oversight on what the codex writers had been smoking, the gap between the have and have not factions grew wide and 6e just piled on a whole bunch of ill-advised changes and random dice rolls to make things worse.
6th was a short-lived edition that was mostly forgotten in the transition to 7th. It didn't do much that was particularly bad but it didn't really do anything that made it stand out as a good edition to anyone.
7th was a raging dumpster fire of formation nonsense, invulnerable death stars, etc, that made a serious attempt to kill the game and GW as a company. This was the height of "anything but 40k" driving people to non-GW games and I doubt many people remember it fondly.
8th and 9th got the rules bloat and emphasis on buff stacking over on-table tactics to such a bad state that another full reset of the game was required. It wasn't as bad early in the cycle but I think recency bias skews the perception and people are voting based on the end state of 9th.
So that leaves the older editions with a heavy bias towards being the favorite for anyone who was around to remember them.
a_typical_hero wrote: 6th saw the introduction of fliers, many still deem unreasonable to fit into the scale of 40k.
Aircraft were introduced in 3rd edition, maybe 4th at the latest. 6th is just when they went from being heavily abstracted bombing/strafing runs to being treated as normal on-table models, starting the process of making their rules increasingly bland and unrealistic to force them into a role they weren't suited for.
Yes, both fliers and superheavies went from "something special somebody bought from Forgeworld (heavily stigmatised at the time), that we are going to use in a big battle, were we agreed to bring out exotic stuff" to "just another selection in your codex, don't even bother announcing it in advance".
6th was a short-lived edition that was mostly forgotten in the transition to 7th. It didn't do much that was particularly bad but it didn't really do anything that made it stand out as a good edition to anyone.
7th was a raging dumpster fire of formation nonsense, invulnerable death stars, etc, that made a serious attempt to kill the game and GW as a company. This was the height of "anything but 40k" driving people to non-GW games and I doubt many people remember it fondly.
8th and 9th got the rules bloat and emphasis on buff stacking over on-table tactics to such a bad state that another full reset of the game was required. It wasn't as bad early in the cycle but I think recency bias skews the perception and people are voting based on the end state of 9th.
So that leaves the older editions with a heavy bias towards being the favorite for anyone who was around to remember them.
Iirc 6th introduced vehicle hull points and did away with the damage chart. This was a drastic redesign of vehicle durability, meaning stats for weapons and vehicles had to be rethought to accommodate it. Which gw didn't do (sigh), leading to vehicles getting their hp stripped by rapid firing medium strength weaponry. I'm not sure what else 6th did wrong anymore, it was seen as a failure and quickly replaced by 7th.
shortymcnostrill wrote: Iirc 6th introduced vehicle hull points and did away with the damage chart. This was a drastic redesign of vehicle durability, meaning stats for weapons and vehicles had to be rethought to accommodate it. Which gw didn't do (sigh), leading to vehicles getting their hp stripped by rapid firing medium strength weaponry. I'm not sure what else 6th did wrong anymore, it was seen as a failure and quickly replaced by 7th.
6th still had the damage chart but single-hit destruction was made harder while the hull points just ensured that a vehicle was dead after three glancing or better hits regardless of damage suffered or weapon used.
But you also had 'from the front' wound allocation, all the random charts and extra USRs, challenges, and tremendously lop-sided allocation of aircraft, anti-air, superheavies and d-strength, and the warp-dice based psychic phase. Quite a few of the new areas were written as their own counter so you were screwed if you weren't one of the fortunate ones. Flyers countered fliers, superheavies countered other superheavies, the psychic phase was owned by whoever had the most psykers.
It didn't help that Ward had been pre-emptively codex creeping his books to be double-plus broken when 6th landed.
You know, I think I prefer mid-4th (before things like the Daemons book and the travesty of late 4th chaos) because it was the most recent time that the game felt like it had a unified design goal.
That's probably more correct than wading into the weeds about what specifically I liked.
I think people thinking of warp dice in relation to 6th are misremembering that you had to roll for your psychic powers. You couldn't choose.
Other things that 6th did:
- differentiated power weapons into sword, axe, maul and glaive. For example, Axes went to S+2 and I1 like a powerfist. This retroactively punished modeling choices that had been purely cosmetic before. Dante spent this edition on the shelf as a consequence.
- fortifications. Suddenly everyone needed a bastion or aegis defense line with an AA gun. Led to silly things like Fire Dragons parked on the bastion roof so the crack shot Exarch could man the AA gun.
- allies. Neat concept probably intended to encourage folks to start smaller second armies, led to a host of problems.
- changed wound allocation rules to allow you to kill any model in a unit even ones out of range.
Unit1126PLL wrote: You know, I think I prefer mid-4th (before things like the Daemons book and the travesty of late 4th chaos) because it was the most recent time that the game felt like it had a unified design goal.
Weirdly I always felt like mid 4th - specifically around the 4th edition chaos and dark angels, but arguably 4e Eldar and Tau - was the last time they had a unified goal. There was a clear shift to a new pricing standard, unit compositions, etc.
Early 4th and late 3rd felt more like the codex writers were freestyling with no cross-codex consistency - there are few similarities between the structure of the chaos legion/unit construction rules, the marine chapter traits, tyranid 'build your own unit' rules, eldar craftworlds, and so on. The same rule would be priced differently between books and sometimes within the same book (i.e. CSM spikey bits were just better mastercrafted weapons with a 5 point discount... which could also be mastercrafted), units were mismatched, USRs were erratic, there were about half a dozen different types of psychic power..
I suppose 'rule of cool' is technically a unified goal.
The earlier editions (3rd to 5th-ish) will always hold a special place in my heart, but I absolutely do not miss the feeling of hoping your faction will be lucky enough to get a codex this edition.
At one point, the game was absolutely Space Marines codex>Xenos codex>Space Marines again>Xenos codex>Yet More Space Marines>Xenos, Xenos>More and More Space Marines>Xenos>New edition. Several armies went multiple editions without rule updates.
And then, of course, when they did get an update, if the rules were gak, well, have fun waiting again.
And this was when editions felt like were 5+ years apart.
Interestingly there also aren't a lot of people left to vote for WWI as their favorite war to fight in.
Not quite sure what this ^^ means, but it can be taken two ways.
One would be that the generation who would have been interested is long gone, but far more likely, I think, is that games of infantry running into a meat grinder are just no fun.
But that isn't really fair either. WWI was VERY popular for its dogfights.
Albert Ball VC. Albert Ball was one of the United Kingdom's highest-scoring air aces. ...
Andrew Beauchamp-Proctor VC. ...
William 'Billy' Bishop VC. ...
Georges Guynemer. ...
Max Immelmann. ...
Edward 'Mick' Mannock VC. ...
James McCudden VC. ...
and, of course, who can forget:
Manfred von Richthofen aka 'The Red Baron'
The war in the air had all the grandeur and chivalry that the trenches lacked.
For the same reason, I think a reboot of 1e, with things cleaned up a little might be very popular. A skirmish game with just enough simplicity to not quite be an rpg was what I always loved about it.
MinscS2 wrote: Its too early to tell, but I think 10th may very well become my favorite edition actually, unless the codicies absolutely feth it up.
Other than that, I think 5th is my favorite edition, but it might be nostalgia talking and I might've forgotten everything I didn't like about it.
It is not nostalgia. our FLGS group STILL plays 5th with some rules fixes (mostly re-instating some rules from other editions to fix things like wound allocation shenanigans and flyer rules from FW) and the game has never been better and more fun to play. once you start doing what we are doing you won't give a GAK what GW is doing other than maybe snagging a new model here and there...but do you really need to do that very often when you can get 3d printed ones that are better looking and far cheaper?
MinscS2 wrote: Its too early to tell, but I think 10th may very well become my favorite edition actually, unless the codicies absolutely feth it up.
Other than that, I think 5th is my favorite edition, but it might be nostalgia talking and I might've forgotten everything I didn't like about it.
It is not nostalgia. our FLGS group STILL plays 5th with some rules fixes (mostly re-instating some rules from other editions to fix things like wound allocation shenanigans and flyer rules from FW) and the game has never been better and more fun to play. once you start doing what we are doing you won't give a GAK what GW is doing other than maybe snagging a new model here and there...but do you really need to do that very often when you can get 3d printed ones that are better looking and far cheaper?
I'm glad to hear you're having a good time, but I'm always surprised when people express fondness for 5th as it was my first and least-favorite edition. I'm wondering if you've added any houserules to address my personal pet peeves:
* Only scoring with troops was rough for armies (like my eldar) whose troops were neither super cheap, super durable, or good at tankbusting. This also weirdly turned a lot of games into troop hunting where you'd semi-ignore the enemy's more threatening pieces so you could finish off random guardsman squad number 6.
* Vehicles everywhere. Definitely the parking lot edition. Which was too bad for those of us who found the infantry kits more interesting than tanks. This also lead to lower list diversity as you had to make sure you crammed enough anti-tank guns into your list to deal with those parking lots. So no taking striking scorpions unless you've grabbed your mandatory fire dragon squads already. No flamers until you have more meltas than you can count.
* Random end of game scoring. That awkward, gamble where you have to decide whether to try and hold an objective on turn 5, wait until 6, or hold out until 7, knowing that your squishy troops won't be likely to survive more than a single turn.
* The missions in general. There were only 3 missions in the main book as I recall. One of them basically screwed over melee and heavy weapon units (Dawn of War), and the Kill Points mission strongly favored elite, durable armies over squishy MSU armies.
I also recall the following getting griped about a lot, although I didn't personally mind them as much:
* Taking extra damage at the end of the Assault phase because you're Fearless.
* Initiative being pretty feels-bad for I3 and I2 armies.
* Skimmers being nigh-unhittable if they'd moved that turn.
* Being stuck in melee with a walker or other tarpit and not having the option to fall back.
Do you do anything to address any of the above? I'm also curious about what your local meta looks like. I tend to think that people who like 5th edition are probably playing imperial armies; probably with lots of tanks. I'm curious to know if your local crowd bucks my stereotype.
It means anyone who played Rogue Trader would be 100+ years old by now and not many of them are voting in polls.
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Wyldhunt wrote: * Random end of game scoring. That awkward, gamble where you have to decide whether to try and hold an objective on turn 5, wait until 6, or hold out until 7, knowing that your squishy troops won't be likely to survive more than a single turn.
* The missions in general. There were only 3 missions in the main book as I recall. One of them basically screwed over melee and heavy weapon units (Dawn of War), and the Kill Points mission strongly favored elite, durable armies over squishy MSU armies.
TBH these are features, not bugs.
Random game length is there to mitigate the "take minimum troops, hide them while you kill stuff, and run onto objectives at the very last minute" strategy. You don't know when the final turn will be so you need a more sustainable way to claim objectives. If you treat scoring as a complete afterthought and dedicate 95% of your list to killing you're at the mercy of the RNG and can't reliably win.
Kill points favoring expensive units is the whole point of kill points. The other two missions strongly favor MSU, having a third mission that penalizes MSU forces you to think about balance in your list instead of spamming pure MSU. TBH this is why all the competitive players hated it, they couldn't win in the list building phase as easily and lobbied hard to remove kill points and make "buy MSU" the easy correct solution.
I'm glad to hear you're having a good time, but I'm always surprised when people express fondness for 5th as it was my first and least-favorite edition. I'm wondering if you've added any houserules to address my personal pet peeves:
* Only scoring with troops was rough for armies (like my eldar) whose troops were neither super cheap, super durable, or good at tankbusting. This also weirdly turned a lot of games into troop hunting where you'd semi-ignore the enemy's more threatening pieces so you could finish off random guardsman squad number 6.
For Eldar the trick was Guardians with a Warlock with Conceal. The power was always on and granted a 4+ cover save. Add in a Farseer with Fortune and you've got a re-rollable 4+ which is statistically better than a 3+. The funny thing, is that your opponent would usually ignore said Guardians in favor of the more lethal elements of the army. So they were actually quite durable in the mech/anti-mech meta of 5th. Firing a Melta at a Guardian is such a waste.
A 10-man Guardian squad with Scatter Laser platform and Conceal Warlock was 135 points. A barebones Farseer with guide was 75, but the 150 point version with Runes of Witnessing, Runes of Warding and Spirit Stones was preferred. Eldrad was the best because he could cast 3 powers, usually Fortune twice and then Guide.
* Vehicles everywhere. Definitely the parking lot edition. Which was too bad for those of us who found the infantry kits more interesting than tanks. This also lead to lower list diversity as you had to make sure you crammed enough anti-tank guns into your list to deal with those parking lots. So no taking striking scorpions unless you've grabbed your mandatory fire dragon squads already. No flamers until you have more meltas than you can count.
Well, you wouldn't ever actually need flamers . EML/ BL Wraithlords/ War Walkers were often enough to do the trick. Warp Spiders were very effective transport poppers too. But, yes, it was a very mechanized meta and that did serve as a forcing function for list building.
* Random end of game scoring. That awkward, gamble where you have to decide whether to try and hold an objective on turn 5, wait until 6, or hold out until 7, knowing that your squishy troops won't be likely to survive more than a single turn.
I thought this was a neat mechanic since the game had an equal chance of ending on turn 5, 6 or 7. In a tournament though, you'd rarely see turn 6 or 7 simply because of time.
* The missions in general. There were only 3 missions in the main book as I recall. One of them basically screwed over melee and heavy weapon units (Dawn of War), and the Kill Points mission strongly favored elite, durable armies over squishy MSU armies.
Dawn of War was a deployment type. The missions were annihilation (kill points), seize ground (D3+2 objectives), and capture and control (1 objective per side). The 3 deployments were the aformentioned Dawn of War where it was table halves for deployment plus night fight for turn 1. Spearhead was opposite table quarters. Pitched battle was long table edges with a 24" no man's land between them. The combinations of deployments and missions gave us 9 possibilities for random pick up games.
I also recall the following getting griped about a lot, although I didn't personally mind them as much:
* Taking extra damage at the end of the Assault phase because you're Fearless.
Only if you lost the combat. I don't remember it being a huge deal in 5th until tyranid warriors and raveners went to 3 wounds and lost eternal warrior. This meant a single powerfist wound would instagib a warrior and count as 3 wounds for combat resolution. One of the reasons my Nids saw less table time after the 5th edition codex dropped.
* Initiative being pretty feels-bad for I3 and I2 armies.
There's lots of feels bad in 40k. Not sure why this is particularly egregious, but maybe I'm wrong and this is why the initiative stat went away.
Right, a deployment type that forced you to start off the table with most of your army and severely penalized heavy weapons (which couldn't move and shoot) and melee (which had to start at the back edge and take forever to get into charge range).
Random game length is there to mitigate the "take minimum troops, hide them while you kill stuff, and run onto objectives at the very last minute" strategy. You don't know when the final turn will be so you need a more sustainable way to claim objectives. If you treat scoring as a complete afterthought and dedicate 95% of your list to killing you're at the mercy of the RNG and can't reliably win.
Ah. See, in my case it didn't encourage me to take more troops because the ones I had already felt like a tax. Instead, it encouraged me to invest as little into troops as possible and focus entirely on trying to defang my opponent via offense. Bad eldar troops is why you saw things like the DAVU falcon being spammed. I didn't want to be that guy and thus didn't run these very often, but it's telling that the best use of an eldar troop in 5th was to basically pretend that they were a heavy support vehicle instead.
Kill points favoring expensive units is the whole point of kill points. The other two missions strongly favor MSU, having a third mission that penalizes MSU forces you to think about balance in your list instead of spamming pure MSU. TBH this is why all the competitive players hated it, they couldn't win in the list building phase as easily and lobbied hard to remove kill points and make "buy MSU" the easy correct solution.
See, I feel like that kind of falls apart when some armies are just really built for MSU rather than chunky units. Dark Eldar, for instance, tended to give up tons of kill points. I could all but table my opponent, have a good chunk of my army left, and still lose. Which felt weird in the "kill stuff better than your opponent" mission. 5e kill points just seem like a clear downgrade compared to things like PL kill points or oldschool "how many points of models did you kill?" victory points. Although the latter is admittedly a little time-consuming to calculate.
Plus, you could argue that encouraging people to take a small number of durable units is partly why you saw 5th edition's version of deathstars. I remember people not being wild about facing paladin blobs towards the end of 5th.
Right, a deployment type that forced you to start off the table with most of your army and severely penalized heavy weapons (which couldn't move and shoot) and melee (which had to start at the back edge and take forever to get into charge range).
My bad. Deployment type. Not mission. So a 1 in 3 chance of having all your snipers or devastators or melee army or whatever screwed over.
The missions were basically:
* The one where you lost if you didn't spam troops.
* The one where you lost if you played MSU.
* The one where you always tied.
Right, a deployment type that forced you to start off the table with most of your army and severely penalized heavy weapons (which couldn't move and shoot) and melee (which had to start at the back edge and take forever to get into charge range).
Yeah, ok. Not sure why this a huge deal since it impacted both players and with night fight rules in place shooting was limited to 2D6x3" (6-36"). First turn was largely a wash for most, but there were some interesting tactical choices given that there wasn't any separation of the deployment zones. The player going first could line up on the center line and push the second player's forces back to within 6" of the board edge in order to maintain 18" separation. But to do that put those 3 units at risk being so far ahead of the rest of his army.
Interesting to see hate for kill points. I didn't care one way or another, but in my local meta there were a lot of people who just preferred long board edges and kill points (Pitched Battle/ Annihilation). They liked to, as Rick Priestly would say, "line 'em up and go."
Interesting to see hate for kill points. I didn't care one way or another, but in my local meta there were a lot of people who just preferred long board edges and kill points (Pitched Battle/ Annihilation). They liked to, as Rick Priestly would say, "line 'em up and go."
It's because, as the upthread poster noted, kill points were really rough for some armies. DE Raiders were easy points, as were Ork Trukks. It was a crappy way to tally "value destroyed".
A 30 pt. Trukk being worth the same as a 250 point Terminator Squad makes even less sense than Power Level
It's because, as the upthread poster noted, kill points were really rough for some armies. DE Raiders were easy points, as were Ork Trukks. It was a crappy way to tally "value destroyed".
A 30 pt. Trukk being worth the same as a 250 point Terminator Squad makes even less sense than Power Level
I get that. But being disadvantageous for some armies doesn't automatically translate into universal hatred. And it seems in this discussion at least, that kill points are seen specifically as a 5th ed problem, but they were ported over to 6th edition too. And anyway, like I said my local scene had lots of players who didn't want to roll for the mission, place objectives or anything. They just wanted to have a fight. This far removed from that time, I can't remember if there was a pattern in the armies that these guys played.
Having missions where you could have lots of your army starting off the table was normal back in the day.
There was a lot more mission variety, not necessarily from a deployment zone perspective (that certainly grew over the years), but from a "what you were doing" perspective.
I think the last set of interesting missions came out in 8th. Now, even with 10th's improvements, they'll all variations on capturing 4-5 arbitrary spots on the table and then getting points for it.
I miss the days where winning or drawing a table-quarters mission coming down to whether a combi-bolter on a Chaos Rhino could down a Vyper.
It's because, as the upthread poster noted, kill points were really rough for some armies. DE Raiders were easy points, as were Ork Trukks. It was a crappy way to tally "value destroyed".
A 30 pt. Trukk being worth the same as a 250 point Terminator Squad makes even less sense than Power Level
I get that. But being disadvantageous for some armies doesn't automatically translate into universal hatred. And it seems in this discussion at least, that kill points are seen specifically as a 5th ed problem, but they were ported over to 6th edition too. And anyway, like I said my local scene had lots of players who didn't want to roll for the mission, place objectives or anything. They just wanted to have a fight. This far removed from that time, I can't remember if there was a pattern in the armies that these guys played.
I'm sure it wasn't universally hated, but I imagine the people who don't hate it probably play marines or some other army that is comfortable fielding a small number of expensive units. For armies like dark eldar or orks, it just felt like kind of a lazy, thoughtless mechanic that was willing to throw some factions under the boss to spare people the trouble of counting up individual model costs.
Which is why I preferred the later PL-as-kill points approach. Even if PL isn't perfect, it's usually at least in the right ballpark. So killing 10 gretchin and killing 10 terminators aren't rewarded to the same degree. I get that 5th edition kill points were basically just a way to reward people for killing things without having to calculate 4th edition victory points, but it's weird to me that people wouldn't prefer something like PL kill points now that the concept exists.
Again, not trying to game shame anyone. Do what you find fun. The old KP system was just such a sore spot that it seems genuinely weird to me that it has defenders.
Which is partly why I asked earlier what the meta looks like for those still playing some version of 5th. Do you have, for instance, a lot of ork players, and are they not bothered by things like being at a disadvantage when playing Kill Points or when the DoWar deployment comes up? I tend to think of 5th edition as a good edition for imperial players while most other factions were left with outdated or awkward rules.
(5th edition dark eldar codex is still the best codex ever written though.)
Insectum7 wrote: A 30 pt. Trukk being worth the same as a 250 point Terminator Squad makes even less sense than Power Level
It makes perfect sense given the context: that it's a balancing mechanism to offset the advantages eight trukks have against a single terminator squad when playing the objective missions. Penalizing MSU lists is the entire purpose of it.
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Wyldhunt wrote: Which is why I preferred the later PL-as-kill points approach. Even if PL isn't perfect, it's usually at least in the right ballpark. So killing 10 gretchin and killing 10 terminators aren't rewarded to the same degree.
But then how do you balance MSU? Under that system 2/3 missions actively reward MSU while the third is neutral, meaning there's little or no reason to play anything but full MSU.
Wyldhunt wrote: Which is why I preferred the later PL-as-kill points approach. Even if PL isn't perfect, it's usually at least in the right ballpark. So killing 10 gretchin and killing 10 terminators aren't rewarded to the same degree.
But then how do you balance MSU? Under that system 2/3 missions actively reward MSU while the third is neutral, meaning there's little or no reason to play anything but full MSU.
What was the problem with playing MSU again? Was it just that you could have more targets than your opponent could deal with? If so, the easiest solution would probably just allow units to split fire like they can now. Especially in the context of 5th edition where taking a few casualties here and there could make squads fall back and potentially fall off the table, it seems like that's a pretty simple solution. Plus, having to waste bolter marine shots when you want to shoot your tac squad meltas at an enemy vehicle was always annoying anyway, so adding split fire as a universal rule is probably just a good move in general.
Aside from that, if we accept that MSU was a problem, you still have:
* Wargear options that only get unlocked when you take enough bodies.
* Limited force org slots. So if you want to squeeze more elites into your list, you may have to take a 10-man squad of tankbustas instead of 2 5-man squads.
* More efficient use of buffs like psychic powers and pain tokens. Granted, iirc there were a lot fewer buffs back then than there are now.
* Bodyguard units for characters were harder to burn through meaning larger squads offered more protection. Or the mini-version of that: sergeants with expensive gear are less likely to get unlucky and bite the dust. Especially vs MSU shooting that will generally generate smaller numbers of wounds at a time (meaning you can opt not to assign wounds to the sergeant as long as you have more bodies than incoming wounds.)
But honestly, I remember MSU armies being preferable to the alternative back in 5th edition. If someone was piling a bunch of points into one unit, it usually meant that unit was undercosted and being spammed, or that they'd found some gnarly combo that was worth piling a bunch of points into a single unit. I don't think people generally enjoyed facing Eldrad and Yriel and their 10-man wraithguard bodyguard or the expensive seer council on the flank or the nob biker star across the table.
Wyldhunt wrote: What was the problem with playing MSU again?
Nothing. The problem is when MSU is the only choice, when if you have a choice between a 10-man squad or two 5-man squads you always choose the two 5-man squads unless you're out of FOC slots because the two units are better in every way. Kill points counting one dead unit = 1 point was a way to balance that out and add some incentive to bring the larger units.
I don't think this would be true in 10th, btw, now that OC is a thing instead of having objectives controlled by whoever has the most units on them regardless of unit size.
Wyldhunt wrote: What was the problem with playing MSU again?
Nothing. The problem is when MSU is the only choice, when if you have a choice between a 10-man squad or two 5-man squads you always choose the two 5-man squads unless you're out of FOC slots because the two units are better in every way. Kill points counting one dead unit = 1 point was a way to balance that out and add some incentive to bring the larger units.
Well, first of all, is there something innately wrong with having two 5-man squads instead of one 10-man squad? In the context of 5th edition, that basically meant that you had more tactical flexibility, more interesting decisions to make, etc. Plus, your opponent would probably feel better about successfully wiping out a 5-man terminator squad rather than half of a 10-man terminator squad. Feels less bad to lose 5 incubi at a time to incoming fire than 10 incubi too.
Second, if we accept that both MSU and large squads should be viable, basically handing an auto-win to the non-MSU army whenever they face dark eldar and orks seems like a subpar way to "balance" things out. Especially because the Kill Points mission existing didn't really make dark eldar players field large squads; it just punished them for playing an army that was still more efficient when you took MSU despite auto-losing a third of your games.
Third, as mentioned previously, there are upsides to fielding larger squads. In addition to the benefits I mentioned before, there's also the fact that you can't share transports in 5th edition. So if you field a rhino and only use a 5-man squad, you're theoretically paying for 5 unused seats.
Fourth, if the existing benefits of running larger squads aren't enough of an incentive, and if we really, really want large squads to be equally viable with small squads for some reason, then you can always add additional incentives. Ex: Use OC instead of the 5th edition scoring rules which I maintain were kind of crummy, charge a discounted points cost for extra models in a large squad to offset any inherent disadvantages (HH style), or expand on wargear incentives for large squads (ex: maybe 20-man guardian squads get 3 heavy weapons instead of 2).
So I'm not convinced MSU was a problem to begin with. But even if it was, there are probably better ways to deal with it than making 1/3rd of the missions hard-mode for certain armies.
EDIT: It's also worth noting that part of the appeal of MSU in 5th edition was that it synergized with the parking lot problem for some armies. Instead of 1 big grey hunters squad, you could take 2 5-man squads and thus unlock two razorbacks to go with them. And spamming razorbacks was an effective plan in 5th. Which is one of the things I disliked about 5th and one of the reasons I find it weird that you like 5th if you want to encourage larger squads.
Wyldhunt wrote: Well, first of all, is there something innately wrong with having two 5-man squads instead of one 10-man squad?
There isn't. The problem is, like I said, when it is always the best choice. In 2/3 missions MSU was extremely heavily favored, the third mission gave it some drawbacks so it was less of an auto-take. That's why tournament players hated kill points so much and wanted it removed, it made it harder to win in the list building phase by mindlessly spamming a bunch of 5-man squads in Razorbacks.
Second, if we accept that both MSU and large squads should be viable, basically handing an auto-win to the non-MSU army whenever they face dark eldar and orks seems like a subpar way to "balance" things out. Especially because the Kill Points mission existing didn't really make dark eldar players field large squads; it just punished them for playing an army that was still more efficient when you took MSU despite auto-losing a third of your games.
Orks had the ability to take larger units. DE were a problem I guess, but did they even have a real codex at that point? It seems like the problem here is less kill points and more DE having a bad codex.
Third, as mentioned previously, there are upsides to fielding larger squads. In addition to the benefits I mentioned before, there's also the fact that you can't share transports in 5th edition. So if you field a rhino and only use a 5-man squad, you're theoretically paying for 5 unused seats.
Except in practice being able to fit into a Razorback and have a gun tank instead of just a Rhino was an advantage, not a drawback. And then you took a second Razorback for your other 5-man MSU squad, until you had a full parking lot.
Fourth, if the existing benefits of running larger squads aren't enough of an incentive, and if we really, really want large squads to be equally viable with small squads for some reason, then you can always add additional incentives.
Sure, but those incentives weren't there in 5th and that's the context the mechanic existed in. I already said that the penalty wouldn't be necessary in 10th because of how OC works.
I find it weird that you like 5th if you want to encourage larger squads.
FYI: I did not endorse 5th as a whole, I was just explaining the misconceptions with kill points and why it was a good mechanic despite people (mostly tournament players who wanted to win in the list building phase) hating it.
While I'd never say 40k has had a good ruleset, 4th edition definitely felt felt like it had the most effort put towards achieving that goal. And therefor got the closest.
While it did have issues (fish of fury, huge risk on transports, arguably consolidating into combat) it definitely had the best rules at a baseline. Transports having a noticeable risk attached, skimmers being harder to hit than just dudes on the ground, actually defined roles in that melee was for eliminating high-armor targets where as ranged was more about safety and volume of fire. That's to say nothing of the decent attempts at actually adding tactical depth in the form of target priority, choices between shooting or charging, and various other things which made the game more than "I advance my wall of death, shoot al the things, and then charge to mop up."
6th edition is definitely the worst core-rules 40k has ever had. By a wide margin. The introduction of challenges, precision attacks, wounds from the front, and numerous other mechanics absolutely decimated a fair number of factions. This was then further exacerbated by the haves vs have-nots in terms of stuff they added such as flyers / anti-air and super heavies (and directly resulted in orks and guards being locked in a fierce competition for worst-faction-in-the-game). Also the stupidity of allies.
7th was substantially better than 6th in the core rules department. At least in terms of it being "better" to be forced to eat a gak-filled burrito that comes with salsa and a side of nachos, vs just gak in a tortilla. Then the mid-edition pivot into Decurian style formation madness made it the worst balance (not core rules, but balance) 40k has ever seen by a huge margin. With guard and orks once again duking it out at the bottom of the garbage pile to see who was the absolute worst of the worst.
MinscS2 wrote: Its too early to tell, but I think 10th may very well become my favorite edition actually, unless the codicies absolutely feth it up.
Other than that, I think 5th is my favorite edition, but it might be nostalgia talking and I might've forgotten everything I didn't like about it.
It is not nostalgia. our FLGS group STILL plays 5th with some rules fixes (mostly re-instating some rules from other editions to fix things like wound allocation shenanigans and flyer rules from FW) and the game has never been better and more fun to play. once you start doing what we are doing you won't give a GAK what GW is doing other than maybe snagging a new model here and there...but do you really need to do that very often when you can get 3d printed ones that are better looking and far cheaper?
I'm glad to hear you're having a good time, but I'm always surprised when people express fondness for 5th as it was my first and least-favorite edition. I'm wondering if you've added any houserules to address my personal pet peeves:
* Only scoring with troops was rough for armies (like my eldar) whose troops were neither super cheap, super durable, or good at tankbusting. This also weirdly turned a lot of games into troop hunting where you'd semi-ignore the enemy's more threatening pieces so you could finish off random guardsman squad number 6.
* Vehicles everywhere. Definitely the parking lot edition. Which was too bad for those of us who found the infantry kits more interesting than tanks. This also lead to lower list diversity as you had to make sure you crammed enough anti-tank guns into your list to deal with those parking lots. So no taking striking scorpions unless you've grabbed your mandatory fire dragon squads already. No flamers until you have more meltas than you can count.
* Random end of game scoring. That awkward, gamble where you have to decide whether to try and hold an objective on turn 5, wait until 6, or hold out until 7, knowing that your squishy troops won't be likely to survive more than a single turn.
* The missions in general. There were only 3 missions in the main book as I recall. One of them basically screwed over melee and heavy weapon units (Dawn of War), and the Kill Points mission strongly favored elite, durable armies over squishy MSU armies.
I also recall the following getting griped about a lot, although I didn't personally mind them as much:
* Taking extra damage at the end of the Assault phase because you're Fearless.
* Initiative being pretty feels-bad for I3 and I2 armies.
* Skimmers being nigh-unhittable if they'd moved that turn.
* Being stuck in melee with a walker or other tarpit and not having the option to fall back.
Do you do anything to address any of the above? I'm also curious about what your local meta looks like. I tend to think that people who like 5th edition are probably playing imperial armies; probably with lots of tanks. I'm curious to know if your local crowd bucks my stereotype.
I have an entire topic here on dakka for what we did- but to hit the questions
1. all units can score including vehicles unless they are immobilized, but "troops" gain OBSEC.
2.vehicles have never been a problem and we see no need to address it beyond bringing a well rounded army that can deal with a bit of everything. we are not tournament players so we try to make our forces fit the theme of the universe as much as possible. even superheavies see regular play because we use the old IA rules for them circa 3rd/4th where they were designed to be played in normal games and thus were not stupidly overpowered.
3. we LOVE end of game scoring and random turn length. it makes both players actively involved until the very end and can swing the game either way. it usually leads to some very close games which are always the best.
I have the main rule books for 3rd-6th (used to have them all but gifted them to others) along with all the FW books so finding a mission or creating our own is not difficult to do. just for objectives alone you have.
.king of the hill-center objective
.movable objectives
.mysterious objectives
.d3+2 objectives.
.attack/defend objectives
.table quarters
etc....
with -slay the warlord, first blood and linebreaker retained as tie breakers.
.fearless uses the old 3rd/4th rules-extra wounds was dumb
.I2/3 armies are fine, it adds flavor, if you get into CC with say tau (not that i have not seen them win) then they probably made a mistake somewhere.
.the big problem with skimmers was 4th where they could only be glanced (especially eldar with upgrades) 5th ed rules work just fine they suffer the same damage as any other vehicle and if you mean turbo boosting for a 4+ jink.....well we have hydras for that. it is seriously no different than a predator sitting in a ruined building.
.stuck in combat is fine, if you brought the right equipment as mentioned before, then you should have a chance in most cases even against a walker....like only a silly person would charge a dread into CC with a squad of tau with EMP grenades or a eldar unit with haywire, especially since we use 6th/7th ed overwatch and grenade throwing rules. overall breaking and running and being cut down is fine as it makes marines ATSKNF or ork mob rules actually mean something.
The local scene by army off the top of my head-some players have more than 1
.X2 dark eldar 4th ed codex
.X1 chaos khorne 3.5 codex
.X1 chaos word bearers with heavy demon representation 3.5 codex
.X2 iron warriors 3.5 codex
.X4 ork 4th ed codex
.X3 tyrand codex 4th/5th/6th ed codexes
.X2 inquisitorial armies 3rd/5th ed codexes
.X4 imperial guard 3rd/4th/5th ed/FW codexes
.X2 tau 4th/7th ed codexes
.X1 admech-7th ed codex
.X2 necron 5th/FW codexes (orpheus)
A mix of marines, mostly 3rd-5th ed index astartes/codexes-iron hands, dark angels, blood angels, crimson fists, salamanders, ultra marines, angry marines (we homebrewed a rule set for them for the LOLs)
Insectum7 wrote: A 30 pt. Trukk being worth the same as a 250 point Terminator Squad makes even less sense than Power Level
It makes perfect sense given the context: that it's a balancing mechanism to offset the advantages eight trukks have against a single terminator squad when playing the objective missions. Penalizing MSU lists is the entire purpose of it.
It might have been their goal to mitigate MSU, but Kill Points as implemented was huge overkill for that.
Consolidating into combat has been brought up a few tiimes now. In 3rd you could only consolidate 3", was that different in 4th? It's been so long that I can't remember. DEFINITELY can't remember what 5th did.
Just Tony wrote: Consolidating into combat has been brought up a few tiimes now. In 3rd you could only consolidate 3", was that different in 4th? It's been so long that I can't remember. DEFINITELY can't remember what 5th did.
In 3e you could consolidate 3" or sweeping advance 2d6" towards the fleeing unit and anyone else in that direction - the latter had a kind of 'overwatch' clause where the advancing units could be shot at even though they had locked their target in combat.
Jump units, cavalry, and bikes advanced 3d6".
4th was a 3" colsolidate or 1d6" if you wiped out the other unit. Advancing units were no longer valid targets for shooting.
5th was always 1d6", and no consolidation into combat.
4th edition -> Sweeping advance does not move the unit from its current position.
3rd edition -> Sweeping advance moves 2D6 towards the fleeing enemy. If you get in base contact with any enemy model, it counts as a charge including the bonus attack.
a_typical_hero wrote: 3rd edition -> Sweeping advance moves 2D6 towards the fleeing enemy. If you get in base contact with any enemy model, it counts as a charge including the bonus attack.
3rd ed also had crossfire.
Random grot wandering across the board in the path of your retreating units? Wipeout, no saves. And path in this case was a corridor as wide as your unit directly back to your deployment zone - though you still rolled for distance.
So spacing your units out STILL negated the whole consolidation thing in later editions? Why was it a problem? Was it the meta at the time to group your entire army that closely together? I don't remember that happening at all in the wild. Once I got consolidated into, and I never had my units close enough to each other to ever allow it to happen again. I was simply the buffoon who was addled enough to let it happen to them in the first place, apparently.
Just Tony wrote: So spacing your units out STILL negated the whole consolidation thing in later editions? Why was it a problem? Was it the meta at the time to group your entire army that closely together? I don't remember that happening at all in the wild. Once I got consolidated into, and I never had my units close enough to each other to ever allow it to happen again. I was simply the buffoon who was addled enough to let it happen to them in the first place, apparently.
I didn't play pre-5th, but the understanding I have of consolidation being a problem is that it functionally stunlocked big chunks of your army when it did work. So maybe it didn't happen often but was memorably annoying when it did?
Rapid fire was also much more restrictive back in the day, so I imagine it was pretty normal to clump units up within 12" of the enemy to maximize shots. But maybe I'm wrong.
It's because, as the upthread poster noted, kill points were really rough for some armies. DE Raiders were easy points, as were Ork Trukks. It was a crappy way to tally "value destroyed".
A 30 pt. Trukk being worth the same as a 250 point Terminator Squad makes even less sense than Power Level
I get that. But being disadvantageous for some armies doesn't automatically translate into universal hatred. And it seems in this discussion at least, that kill points are seen specifically as a 5th ed problem, but they were ported over to 6th edition too. And anyway, like I said my local scene had lots of players who didn't want to roll for the mission, place objectives or anything. They just wanted to have a fight. This far removed from that time, I can't remember if there was a pattern in the armies that these guys played.
It's funny, because that's exactly what the 'their's no strategy in 40k' people are talking about. They were literally just lining up and removing models.
Just Tony wrote: So spacing your units out STILL negated the whole consolidation thing in later editions? Why was it a problem? Was it the meta at the time to group your entire army that closely together? I don't remember that happening at all in the wild. Once I got consolidated into, and I never had my units close enough to each other to ever allow it to happen again. I was simply the buffoon who was addled enough to let it happen to them in the first place, apparently.
I didn't play pre-5th, but the understanding I have of consolidation being a problem is that it functionally stunlocked big chunks of your army when it did work. So maybe it didn't happen often but was memorably annoying when it did?
Rapid fire was also much more restrictive back in the day, so I imagine it was pretty normal to clump units up within 12" of the enemy to maximize shots. But maybe I'm wrong.
People who were good at manipulating Pile in and Consolidation could potential end up in combat with a unit as far as 5-6" away from the unit they were charging. More, if it was a large unit that charged.
Do a test deployment trying to keep your units all more than 6" away from each other. It's pretty hard, to be honest.
Wyldhunt wrote: Rapid fire was also much more restrictive back in the day, so I imagine it was pretty normal to clump units up within 12" of the enemy to maximize shots. But maybe I'm wrong.
12" maximum range when moving, even if you had rapid fire 30" like the tau. You really noticed it when the unit was spread out to avoid blasts and templates.
There were three main types of consolidation into combat -
1) the 3rd edition sweeping advance (removed in 4th) - anything directly between the unit and the table edge for 12-18" was a potential target, randomly rolled distances.
2) the two for one assault - hit a unit, win combat, hit another unit within 3" / d6" (or more)
3) the ongoing threat - ongoing combats could end at any time. Movement around them was slow, non-fleet units couldn't run until 5th and heavy weapons couldn't fire if they moved away.
Staying out of consolidation range when trying to reach an objective or simply get into range with many weapons could be impractical once things got tied up, depending on your lists.
5e swung too far the other way IMO.The two for one assaults could have been weakened with 3e-style shooting exceptions and/or disorganised charges while the run rule meant that units caught behind assaults had an extra option for moving around.
Wyldhunt wrote: Rapid fire was also much more restrictive back in the day, so I imagine it was pretty normal to clump units up within 12" of the enemy to maximize shots. But maybe I'm wrong.
12" maximum range when moving, even if you had rapid fire 30" like the tau. You really noticed it when the unit was spread out to avoid blasts and templates.
There were three main types of consolidation into combat -
1) the 3rd edition sweeping advance (removed in 4th) - anything directly between the unit and the table edge for 12-18" was a potential target, randomly rolled distances.
2) the two for one assault - hit a unit, win combat, hit another unit within 3" / d6" (or more)
3) the ongoing threat - ongoing combats could end at any time. Movement around them was slow, non-fleet units couldn't run until 5th and heavy weapons couldn't fire if they moved away.
Staying out of consolidation range when trying to reach an objective or simply get into range with many weapons could be impractical once things got tied up, depending on your lists.
5e swung too far the other way IMO.The two for one assaults could have been weakened with 3e-style shooting exceptions and/or disorganised charges while the run rule meant that units caught behind assaults had an extra option for moving around.
Sweeping advance wasn't consolidation. They were two separate mechanics, which is why your entire army could freely target the sweeping unit. Consolidation into combat happened when you were either out in the open after wiping a unit and used the move to tie up a unit that was next to the wiped out unit, (This is specifically the one that caught me, and why I spread my armies out whenever I'm playing nowadays) or when you finished the combat and were moving unengaged troops into base contact. Both are incredibly hard to do if you keep any amount of space between your units.
Just Tony wrote: Sweeping advance wasn't consolidation. They were two separate mechanics, which is why your entire army could freely target the sweeping unit.
It was half and half. You could sweeping advance into units other than the one you were chasing and you would lock them in combat - complete with the +1 attack for charging.
Sweeping units did not benefit from the usual immunity to ranged attacks in the next shooting phase but you couldn't move away from them either.
A sweeping advance was NOT a consolidation, there's no half and half here. Period. More often than not the great wailing about consolidation into fresh units would reference the 2D6" movement, which indicates it was an advance regardless of whether there was still a unit there to sweep or not.
At the end of the day, in 3rd Ed. you wouldn't get consolidated into if you spaced your army out enough.
I really liked 6th/7th. I play casually with friends. We just ignore all the stupid list building rules and pick fluffy armies.
It still feels like a wargame, i.e trying to simulate actual combat.
Everything I've seen from 8th onwards is painfully gamey, and all about ability combos.
Well, first of all, is there something innately wrong with having two 5-man squads instead of one 10-man squad?
Not directly - but there is something innately wrong with a system that rewards one over the other. People are/were being nudged/pushed/influenced into MSU 5/10 instead of 10/20 based on the ruleset. 6 Primary Objectives in a game where you wouldn't have 6 10 man squads has rules for one sort of game, and army construction of another. If army construction worked out to a full Company of 100 Marines + Support (and reasonable parallels in other factions) then 6 Primary Objectives (1 per Battle Line) makes some sense.
Tamereth wrote: I really liked 6th/7th. I play casually with friends. We just ignore all the stupid list building rules and pick fluffy armies.
It still feels like a wargame, i.e trying to simulate actual combat.
Everything I've seen from 8th onwards is painfully gamey, and all about ability combos.
This must have been stated a trillion times over but at the end of the day, I'm confident that turning any edition casual and essentially throwing dice for the lore and the giggles let's you more or less enjoy it regardless of how well written it is. Unlike video games, you can virtually bend it to any of your whims.
Only problem is it is only true within a group of buddies playing against one another regularly. People who rely on stores to play, I suppose, can't really do that.
Best ruleset: 2019 Apocalypse. At regular 40k game sizes, it works amazingly well.
Codexes/Army Rules: Probably 5th or so, just before Chapterhouse. A lot of codexes had an amazing depth of flavor and choice back then.
I began w/ 5E and played it quite a bit so I suppose I was lucky, since it is so revered.
I didn't play 6E or 7E, luckily. I played a few games of 8E and 9E. Have yet to play 10E. So given all of that, it's an easy vote for 5E. I like a lot of the things they changed in the 8E/9E, but 9E felt too bloated and I simply just enjoyed my time in 5E more, maybe b/c I played it way more. So 5E got my vote.
Tamereth wrote: I really liked 6th/7th. I play casually with friends. We just ignore all the stupid list building rules and pick fluffy armies.
It still feels like a wargame, i.e trying to simulate actual combat.
Everything I've seen from 8th onwards is painfully gamey, and all about ability combos.
This must have been stated a trillion times over but at the end of the day, I'm confident that turning any edition casual and essentially throwing dice for the lore and the giggles let's you more or less enjoy it regardless of how well written it is. Unlike video games, you can virtually bend it to any of your whims.
Only problem is it is only true within a group of buddies playing against one another regularly. People who rely on stores to play, I suppose, can't really do that.
Sadly that didn't work for me with 8th (9th didn't address the issues I had with 8th). Despite playing with friends and regulars, the core rules being gutted ruined all the fun of the game. There just isn't enough meat on the bone to enjoy it without having to just homebrew an entire core ruleset to add back on more tactical gameplay.
It's why I continue to stand by the opinion that 7th was a decent game edition ruined by horrible codex balance and broken edge cases. You could avoid the many pitfalls and establish an agreement to field roughly similarly strength lists to get enjoyable gameplay experiences. 8th by contrast is like a saltine cracker and the entire release cycle of 8th and 9th was trying to layer more stuff to hide how bland the base game/cracker is until eventually it becomes a sloppy mess.
Tamereth wrote: I really liked 6th/7th. I play casually with friends. We just ignore all the stupid list building rules and pick fluffy armies.
It still feels like a wargame, i.e trying to simulate actual combat.
Everything I've seen from 8th onwards is painfully gamey, and all about ability combos.
This must have been stated a trillion times over but at the end of the day, I'm confident that turning any edition casual and essentially throwing dice for the lore and the giggles let's you more or less enjoy it regardless of how well written it is. Unlike video games, you can virtually bend it to any of your whims.
Only problem is it is only true within a group of buddies playing against one another regularly. People who rely on stores to play, I suppose, can't really do that.
Sadly that didn't work for me with 8th (9th didn't address the issues I had with 8th). Despite playing with friends and regulars, the core rules being gutted ruined all the fun of the game. There just isn't enough meat on the bone to enjoy it without having to just homebrew an entire core ruleset to add back on more tactical gameplay.
It's why I continue to stand by the opinion that 7th was a decent game edition ruined by horrible codex balance and broken edge cases. You could avoid the many pitfalls and establish an agreement to field roughly similarly strength lists to get enjoyable gameplay experiences. 8th by contrast is like a saltine cracker and the entire release cycle of 8th and 9th was trying to layer more stuff to hide how bland the base game/cracker is until eventually it becomes a sloppy mess.
True that sometimes the amount of efforts needed to end up with a set of rules you enjoy is not necessarily worth the effort, my brother also had a weird card game experience with the stacking of strategem and buffs, he didn't like it. Guess some people will obviously but that's not how we enjoy the game. If we wanted to house rule it, for us that'd mean shifting the entire focus of the game design and that's to much efforts.
So if you're fine with house ruled 7th, that's just neat. Won't throw stones at you since a myself am stuck in my homebrewed 6th edition as stated earlier.
Wasn't 7th ed the edition where GW almost killed itself and where the entire meta was shaped by eldar to such an extent that half the armies weren't even worth playing, and non were worth playing after they intreduced Inari?
Karol wrote: Wasn't 7th ed the edition where GW almost killed itself and where the entire meta was shaped by eldar to such an extent that half the armies weren't even worth playing, and non were worth playing after they intreduced Inari?
Eldar have been strong in every edition except 5th.
7th though nothing really challenged the top Eldar lists except for some of the daemon shenanigans and the occasional necron army and gladius/wolfstar/riptide skew lists.
Eldar have been strong in every edition except 5th.
There is a reason why the memes exist.
The big thing about Eldar is they are glass hammers that are super specialized. they were not as forgiving as marines and didn't usually have the numbers of horde armies and thus took a bit more finesse to use in older editions.
Eldar have been strong in every edition except 5th.
The big thing about Eldar is they are glass hammers that are super specialized. they were not as forgiving as marines and didn't usually have the numbers of horde armies and thus took a bit more finesse to use in older editions.
Absolute horse gak.
Eldar have been easy in basically every edition to use. The whole "but everything is specialized" means literally nothing. All lies that Eldar players tell themselves to make themselves feel better with their Kelly favoritism.
Eldar have been easy in basically every edition to use. The whole "but everything is specialized" means literally nothing. All lies that Eldar players tell themselves to make themselves feel better with their Kelly favoritism.
Look, it's not Phil Kelly's fault the lore he wrote says that Eldar are specialized in "being best at everything".
Eldar have been strong in every edition except 5th.
The big thing about Eldar is they are glass hammers that are super specialized. they were not as forgiving as marines and didn't usually have the numbers of horde armies and thus took a bit more finesse to use in older editions.
Absolute horse gak.
Eldar have been easy in basically every edition to use. The whole "but everything is specialized" means literally nothing. All lies that Eldar players tell themselves to make themselves feel better with their Kelly favoritism.
It may very where you were at but in my area they tended to be a very unforgiving army if you made a mistake compared to all arounders like marines or horde armies who had bodies to fall back on. it took a rare player to play them but they usually were very dedicated, even more so with dark eldar players.
Eldar have always been that way. thematically the 4th ed codex is still the best as you could build every craftworld as it is portrayed in the lore.
aphyon wrote: it took a rare player to play them but they usually were very dedicated
10/10, best post on the forum.
Really though Eldar advantages have been that certain units have been significantly undercosted in just about every edition.
Exarch delivery systems. Seer Council and Starcannon spam. Unkillable Falcons. Wave Serpent spam. WK+Scatbikes. Ynnari Reavers/Spears and Flyers. 9th was reasonably balanced, but certainly post Codex Eldar were riding high. And scarcely a month into 10th, despite already getting one round of nerfs they seem to still be at a 70% win rate.
5th was the weak one, and that's because there wasn't an obvious power unit you could just ride to victory.
In every edition its been possible to make a "bad Eldar list" - with units that are notionally just as specialized, but are in turn overcosted relative to wider 40k. But why would you?
aphyon wrote: It may very where you were at but in my area they tended to be a very unforgiving army if you made a mistake compared to all arounders like marines or horde armies who had bodies to fall back on. it took a rare player to play them but they usually were very dedicated, even more so with dark eldar players.
I had a 3.5 DE list i'd bring out from time to time in early 5th edition.
Five scoring units, 19 dark lances/disintegrators, a scattering of blasters, horrorfexes, nightshields, and about as much finesse as a dreadsock :p
1000pts. After that you'd start looking at character-delivery units and kind of run out of codex somewhere around 1500... Their replacement 5e book was surprisingly well balanced for an edition of rampant codex creep.
aphyon wrote: It may very where you were at but in my area they tended to be a very unforgiving army if you made a mistake compared to all arounders like marines or horde armies who had bodies to fall back on. it took a rare player to play them but they usually were very dedicated, even more so with dark eldar players.
Maybe if you took lore-accurate Eldar armies with a bunch of random units. The problem was that outside of casual kitchen table games not many people did that, they took the obvious overpowered stuff that was good at everything. Oh look, it's max squads of scatter laser jetbikes buffed with full re-rolls, in an edition where mass S6 shooting is good against pretty much everything. Or when someone thought it would be funny to let Eldar psychic powers buff Riptides. Or the 10th edition launch, where everyone took the obvious Wraithknights and Fire Prisms with full fate dice alpha strike buffing because who cares if that one random melee unit in the index is a fragile specialist when you can point at something and say "that takes 50 mortal wounds" without even bothering to roll dice.
One of the more brutal armies to face back during 3rd was Miller's Biel Tal Reaper spam army. That thing was a blight in our club until that one guy took him down with a Legion of the Damned force from the 1st army list. You know, the one from the Eldar codex issue of White Dwarf. Not the garbage tier Cursed Founding list.
Yeah, that guy was the hero we needed AND deserved...
5th was the weak one, and that's because there wasn't an obvious power unit you could just ride to victory.
The 5th edition Eldar codex was weak because it didn't exist. They were using the 4th edition one throughout 5th.
ThePaintingOwl wrote: Maybe if you took lore-accurate Eldar armies with a bunch of random units. The problem was that outside of casual kitchen table games not many people did that, they took the obvious overpowered stuff that was good at everything. Oh look, it's max squads of scatter laser jetbikes buffed with full re-rolls, in an edition where mass S6 shooting is good against pretty much everything. Or when someone thought it would be funny to let Eldar psychic powers buff Riptides. Or the 10th edition launch, where everyone took the obvious Wraithknights and Fire Prisms with full fate dice alpha strike buffing because who cares if that one random melee unit in the index is a fragile specialist when you can point at something and say "that takes 50 mortal wounds" without even bothering to roll dice.
I think there is another aspect, which is that 'fluffy' Eldar armies had many of the the strongest builds, because very often it was the better-known and/or 'universal' units that were the most powerful.
Farseers, for example, are one of the best known Eldar units and in many editions ranked among the best psykers in the game, despite also being relatively cheap. Then you have units like the Wave Serpent, which has been strong in multiple editions - whether because its upgrades made it nigh-invulnerable or, as in 7th, because it combined great defence with spectacular firepower, relative to its cost and role. And since Wave Serpents were the key transport for Eldar, it made sense for fluffy armies to potentially field several of them.
5th was the weak one, and that's because there wasn't an obvious power unit you could just ride to victory.
The 5th edition Eldar codex was weak because it didn't exist. They were using the 4th edition one throughout 5th.
Glad someone said it.
ThePaintingOwl wrote: Maybe if you took lore-accurate Eldar armies with a bunch of random units. The problem was that outside of casual kitchen table games not many people did that, they took the obvious overpowered stuff that was good at everything. Oh look, it's max squads of scatter laser jetbikes buffed with full re-rolls, in an edition where mass S6 shooting is good against pretty much everything. Or when someone thought it would be funny to let Eldar psychic powers buff Riptides. Or the 10th edition launch, where everyone took the obvious Wraithknights and Fire Prisms with full fate dice alpha strike buffing because who cares if that one random melee unit in the index is a fragile specialist when you can point at something and say "that takes 50 mortal wounds" without even bothering to roll dice.
I think there is another aspect, which is that 'fluffy' Eldar armies had many of the the strongest builds, because very often it was the better-known and/or 'universal' units that were the most powerful.
Farseers, for example, are one of the best known Eldar units and in many editions ranked among the best psykers in the game, despite also being relatively cheap. Then you have units like the Wave Serpent, which has been strong in multiple editions - whether because its upgrades made it nigh-invulnerable or, as in 7th, because it combined great defence with spectacular firepower, relative to its cost and role. And since Wave Serpents were the key transport for Eldar, it made sense for fluffy armies to potentially field several of them.
I think ThePaintingOwl has it about right here. In most editions, most of the units in the eldar codex are actually fine or even a little underpowered. It's just that there's usually at least one build that's too strong for one reason or another. Like, 7th edition had wraithguard, wraithknight, warp spider, and scatbike nonsense, but I had lots of fun and balanced games using things like dire avengers and swooping hawks. 8th had flyer spam and ynnari reaper castles, but those were about the only over the top units that come to mind. I didn't play a ton of 9th post-codex, but people didn't generally seem to mind facing banshees and spiders and war walkers.
Hating on eldar is sort of a meme. One that's not entirely undeserved, but most non-eldar players don't know the army well enough to realize whether they're actually facing an overtuned list or not. I had an 8th edition game where a guy complained that my howling banshees (possibly the weakest unit in the codex) were overpowered because two units of them were able to take out a single squad of tac marines.
That said, 10th edition eldar (at least pre-nerf) are one of the gnarlier incarnations in a while. It's a special kind of feels-bad when your opponent doesn't even have to roll to see if his attacks land and then you don't get saves because mortal wounds or whatever.
I can't recall a time when Eldar weren't powerful, and I've been playing since 2nd Ed. I'd even go so far as to say that no faction it the game has given me as much trouble as the Eldar.
The phrase "cheating bloody Eldar" is common among everyone in our group. It was coined by the main Eldar player we had at the time, if that tells you anything.
I think ThePaintingOwl has it about right here. In most editions, most of the units in the eldar codex are actually fine or even a little underpowered.
You got half of that right, half horrible wrong.
Eldar do generally have one - maybe two - absolutely broken lists which lean hard into a couple of horrifically undercosted / overpowered units. But the codex beyond that isn’t anything but bad.
It’s just not game breakingly strong.
For example: Try taking any combination of units in the 7th ed Eldar codex into a tyranid list which isn’t abusing detachments to spam 4+ flyrants, and the nids will get absolutely dumpstered. Take a lore friendly smattering (or the weakest smattering you can genuinely put together) of 8th ed Eldar into Gray Knights, Dark Eldar, or a pre coded 2.0 marine army running something other than a guilieman parking lot. You’ll se similar results.
This cycle repeats. Codex after codex, edition after edition, Eldar have a codex full of good units which they call trash because their entries are beside the straight up best units in the game. Yet 5th was the only edition where Eldar couldn’t dunk on numerous other codex with a list assembled from a dart board. Because Eldar are consistently, pervasively, gamebreakingly, and frankly depressingly overpowered. The people saying Eldar require skill share a demographic with proud hunters of wiley fish in small barrels.
Eldar have been strong in every edition except 5th.
The big thing about Eldar is they are glass hammers that are super specialized. they were not as forgiving as marines and didn't usually have the numbers of horde armies and thus took a bit more finesse to use in older editions.
Absolute horse gak.
Eldar have been easy in basically every edition to use. The whole "but everything is specialized" means literally nothing. All lies that Eldar players tell themselves to make themselves feel better with their Kelly favoritism.
Gotta admit, I did prett well in 1ed against Harlequins by arming my IG with as many graviton guns as the rules allowed, but that was about the best I could do.
EviscerationPlague wrote:Ah yes, the super balanced Dire Avengers and Swooping Hawks with their BS5, super duper balanced.
Maybe I'm forgetting something. Were people genuinely having trouble with hawks and avengers in 7th? The Aspect Host formation making them BS 5 was unnecessary and annoying, but I don't remember hawks and avengers being the units people tended to include in those hosts. I *do* remember hawks and avengers being moderately-effective anti-infantry units whose ability to move-shoot-move made them interesting-if-squishy options. I remember wishing that all units in 7th were roughly as points-efficient and interesting to use as avengers.
I think ThePaintingOwl has it about right here. In most editions, most of the units in the eldar codex are actually fine or even a little underpowered.
You got half of that right, half horrible wrong.
Eldar do generally have one - maybe two - absolutely broken lists which lean hard into a couple of horrifically undercosted / overpowered units. But the codex beyond that isn’t anything but bad.
It’s just not game breakingly strong.
I mean... Did you have a lot of success with howling banshees in 8th edition? We can debate whether various units were "a little underwhelming" or "a little too good," but my point is that you can field a pretty tame version of eldar in most editions by simply avoiding the flavor of the week super combos.
For example: Try taking any combination of units in the 7th ed Eldar codex into a tyranid list which isn’t abusing detachments to spam 4+ flyrants, and the nids will get absolutely dumpstered.
I mean, I did. One of my most frequent opponents alternated primarily between orks and 'nids, and we had plenty of close games including plenty where I lost. Granted my own experience is anecdotal. Did you play a lot of games of eldar vs 'nids where the eldar player intentionally avoided fielding the nastier options in the book?
Because Eldar are consistently, pervasively, gamebreakingly, and frankly depressingly overpowered. The people saying Eldar require skill share a demographic with proud hunters of wiley fish in small barrels.
The "eldar require skill" thing usually held more water if you weren't playing flavor of the month armies. Spamming scatbikes and serpent shield shots was pretty point-and-click. Figuring out how much firepower to commit to cracking open a transport so you could charge with the right number of banshees to win combat against the passengers without being likely to sweep them (so that you avoid being exposed to return fire) required a smidge more thought. Having played both eldar and marines in various editions, eldar definitely tend to take more thought and consideration than marines in the sense that a marine unit that fails to crack open a tank with its meltaguns can just ask the other squad in the area to take a stab at it. And then they could both charge in and take another swing at it with krak grenades or S4 punches if that failed. Whereas if you don't commit enough anti-tank shooting from your eldar, you end up with a squad of banshees standing around awkwardly out in the open and totally unable to hurt the transport or its passengers.
Granted, eldar have moved away from that in recent editions.
The issue with Eldar is that thematically they are the supermagitech ancient psychic race, and in gameplay that means a lot of invulnerables, special rules, psychic powers and when available D weapons.
And GW has never been good at balancing special rules vs stats.
EviscerationPlague wrote:Ah yes, the super balanced Dire Avengers and Swooping Hawks with their BS5, super duper balanced.
Maybe I'm forgetting something. Were people genuinely having trouble with hawks and avengers in 7th? The Aspect Host formation making them BS 5 was unnecessary and annoying, but I don't remember hawks and avengers being the units people tended to include in those hosts. I *do* remember hawks and avengers being moderately-effective anti-infantry units whose ability to move-shoot-move made them interesting-if-squishy options. I remember wishing that all units in 7th were roughly as points-efficient and interesting to use as avengers.
I think ThePaintingOwl has it about right here. In most editions, most of the units in the eldar codex are actually fine or even a little underpowered.
You got half of that right, half horrible wrong.
Eldar do generally have one - maybe two - absolutely broken lists which lean hard into a couple of horrifically undercosted / overpowered units. But the codex beyond that isn’t anything but bad.
It’s just not game breakingly strong.
I mean... Did you have a lot of success with howling banshees in 8th edition? We can debate whether various units were "a little underwhelming" or "a little too good," but my point is that you can field a pretty tame version of eldar in most editions by simply avoiding the flavor of the week super combos.
For example: Try taking any combination of units in the 7th ed Eldar codex into a tyranid list which isn’t abusing detachments to spam 4+ flyrants, and the nids will get absolutely dumpstered.
I mean, I did. One of my most frequent opponents alternated primarily between orks and 'nids, and we had plenty of close games including plenty where I lost. Granted my own experience is anecdotal. Did you play a lot of games of eldar vs 'nids where the eldar player intentionally avoided fielding the nastier options in the book?
Because Eldar are consistently, pervasively, gamebreakingly, and frankly depressingly overpowered. The people saying Eldar require skill share a demographic with proud hunters of wiley fish in small barrels.
The "eldar require skill" thing usually held more water if you weren't playing flavor of the month armies. Spamming scatbikes and serpent shield shots was pretty point-and-click. Figuring out how much firepower to commit to cracking open a transport so you could charge with the right number of banshees to win combat against the passengers without being likely to sweep them (so that you avoid being exposed to return fire) required a smidge more thought. Having played both eldar and marines in various editions, eldar definitely tend to take more thought and consideration than marines in the sense that a marine unit that fails to crack open a tank with its meltaguns can just ask the other squad in the area to take a stab at it. And then they could both charge in and take another swing at it with krak grenades or S4 punches if that failed. Whereas if you don't commit enough anti-tank shooting from your eldar, you end up with a squad of banshees standing around awkwardly out in the open and totally unable to hurt the transport or its passengers.
Granted, eldar have moved away from that in recent editions.
This has been my experience too, playing them since 3rd/4th. There are usually a handful of units that are op and/or severely undercosted each edition that give the eldar their reputation for being broken. The rest of the units in the codex tend to be ok or weak. Which units are powerful tends to shift randomly between editions.
I too tried to make howling banshees work for edition after edition (and striking scorpions, and swooping hawks, and storm guardians, and...). There used to be a repeated joke about banshees forgetting their power swords at home and wielding pool noodles, and for a reason. This "all eldar units were always uber powerful" stuff is not based in reality. It makes me wonder if these guys even played against eldar back then or if they're just parrotting the stereotype. Marines have had an op build practically every edition too, why don't they have the same reputation?
Agreed also on the latest editions making the army simpler. I think that's partly due to the core mechanics becoming less and less capable of portraying an army such as this (e.g. removing initiative and speed-based defenses).
shortymcnostrill wrote: Marines have had an op build practically every edition too, why don't they have the same reputation?
Because when marines are dominant it tends to be because there's a point cost error with a unit and something is too efficient, not because they break basic rules of the game and leave you wondering "what idiot thought that combo was fair". And marines tend to go in and out of fashion while it's rare that Eldar aren't at least near the top of the tier list.
I'm still a 3rd - 5th edition guy. It's my dream to have a Warhammer Classic edition with the best features of these 3 editions, and codexes combined with the best elements from these 3 editions.
Jarms48 wrote: I'm still a 3rd - 5th edition guy. It's my dream to have a Warhammer Classic edition with the best features of these 3 editions, and codexes combined with the best elements from these 3 editions.
There are fan-books but without official support they aren't something you can easily play outside of a local group. Of course GW wouldn't want to release a ruleset that invalidates the majority of their own model line.
And the fan made stuff never matches up in what constitutes best. Prohammer for example includes many later rules like snapfire, overwatch, etc for compatability with later 6e/7e books, Simplehammer(if I ever get around to it) is based around speeding up the game by trimming the rules/rerolls, a_typical_hero was working on alternating activation, etc. Which is good if you can find one you like but then you have to find opponents.
shortymcnostrill wrote: Marines have had an op build practically every edition too, why don't they have the same reputation?
What would you use an an example from 3rd to 5th from the core 'ultramarines' line-up?
Though with marines the bad reputation tends to focus around how they are the favoured faction getting vast swathes of releases while others languish.
Jarms48 wrote: I'm still a 3rd - 5th edition guy. It's my dream to have a Warhammer Classic edition with the best features of these 3 editions, and codexes combined with the best elements from these 3 editions.
As AT mentioned Mezmorki has his own version. our group started about 6 years ago when 8th dropped however unlike Mezmorki our group did not create any of our own rules. we went out of our way to avoid that. we just picked a base edition (5th) and pulled some better versions of the rules from 3rd-7th and worked them into 5th.
We still play it every weekend. with no problems cross fighting codexes from every edition from 3rd-7th.
We have a regular player base of over a dozen players with over a dozen different factions being represented.
Our group is having the best of times now that we do not care what GW is doing to the game. because the rules and models we have will never get GAKed and we play for epic battles and thematic armies. with the correct mind set it is a fantastic game in our library of things we play at the FLGS.
That TSOALR comic is so funny. Is that still gone and buried I take it? I did really used to like them.
On the subject of Eldar, I remember them being a tricky army to play even back in 2nd. They had a lot of annoying tricksy psychic powers which 'doomed' your units, or gave their own re-rolls to wound etc. In some ways the in-game Farseers were foretelling what the 40k game itself would become, with re-rolls and yet more re-rolls..
I guess I should have flagged that yes, Eldar had the same book in 5th as 4th, and it just didn't hold up as well in the face of changing rules and newer releases. Sort of similar (although not as extreme) to how Guard were +/- the best book for half or so of 8th, but fell off dramatically with Marines 2.0, and were hopeless for the majority of 9th.
I feel Marines are hated when they are on the up - but as people say, they tend to have a 2 years on, 1 year off sort of relationship. Or did in 7th, 8th, 9th. Good initial start, then fall off in the face of codex creep. But GW intervene with formations, supplements and free stuff to push them back up.
I expect Marines will have 6 months in the sun when their Codex drops (and a more severe round of nerfs falls on Eldar etc). They'll then start to wilt in the first half of 2024 and be considered bad in the second half. For a brief moment of 2025 they'll genuinely be unplayably rubbish - but at some point GW will buff them back to top tier.
And the fan made stuff never matches up in what constitutes best. Prohammer for example includes many later rules like snapfire, overwatch, etc for compatability with later 6e/7e books, Simplehammer(if I ever get around to it) is based around speeding up the game by trimming the rules/rerolls, a_typical_hero was working on alternating activation, etc. Which is good if you can find one you like but then you have to find opponents.
Also none of them are meant for balanced play meaning you are entirely relying on self-restraint and also means they will be immediately discarded by the competitive/tournament crowd and are not fit for the casual pick-up game crowd.
And the fan made stuff never matches up in what constitutes best. Prohammer for example includes many later rules like snapfire, overwatch, etc for compatability with later 6e/7e books, Simplehammer(if I ever get around to it) is based around speeding up the game by trimming the rules/rerolls, a_typical_hero was working on alternating activation, etc. Which is good if you can find one you like but then you have to find opponents.
Also none of them are meant for balanced play meaning you are entirely relying on self-restraint and also means they will be immediately discarded by the competitive/tournament crowd and are not fit for the casual pick-up game crowd.
And as a pick-up gamer through and through you just hit on the reason why I don't touch any of the fanmade systems. They're made to cater to either the Win At All Costs players or the Narrative At All Costs players, and I have no interest in either type of game.
Tyran wrote: Also none of them are meant for balanced play meaning you are entirely relying on self-restraint and also means they will be immediately discarded by the competitive/tournament crowd and are not fit for the casual pick-up game crowd.
Just Tony wrote: And as a pick-up gamer through and through you just hit on the reason why I don't touch any of the fanmade systems. They're made to cater to either the Win At All Costs players or the Narrative At All Costs players, and I have no interest in either type of game.
Custom40k is totally meant to be a balanced experience. The only thing where you have to restrain yourself is making a bad army list. Feel free to give it a try with one of your buddies. I'd recommend two "balanced" forces for the start where you bring a bit of everything (anti infantry, anti tank, a bit chaff, a bit elite, a bit vehicles, ...) to get a feeling for the system, before you lean into more skewed armies. Especially the AV system for vehicles and that most hero units start out naked catches people unfamiliar with older editions off guard. Make sure to play the standard mission from the core rules. Just setting up on two opposing sides of the table and shooting each other is not how the game is meant to be played.
Tyran wrote: Also none of them are meant for balanced play meaning you are entirely relying on self-restraint and also means they will be immediately discarded by the competitive/tournament crowd and are not fit for the casual pick-up game crowd.
Just Tony wrote: And as a pick-up gamer through and through you just hit on the reason why I don't touch any of the fanmade systems. They're made to cater to either the Win At All Costs players or the Narrative At All Costs players, and I have no interest in either type of game.
Custom40k is totally meant to be a balanced experience. The only thing where you have to restrain yourself is making a bad army list. Feel free to give it a try with one of your buddies. I'd recommend two "balanced" forces for the start where you bring a bit of everything (anti infantry, anti tank, a bit chaff, a bit elite, a bit vehicles, ...) to get a feeling for the system, before you lean into more skewed armies. Especially the AV system for vehicles and that most hero units start out naked catches people unfamiliar with older editions off guard. Make sure to play the standard mission from the core rules. Just setting up on two opposing sides of the table and shooting each other is not how the game is meant to be played.
I thank you for the info but as I have at least 2 regular 3rd Ed. opponents I have no reason to try this.
shortymcnostrill wrote:
Agreed also on the latest editions making the army simpler. I think that's partly due to the core mechanics becoming less and less capable of portraying an army such as this (e.g. removing initiative and speed-based defenses).
Yeah. Agreed. I liked 8th edition overall, but I think that's where eldar kind of stopped feeling properly space-elfy. No more speed-as-defense outside of a a couple stratagems. Initiative had its problems, but it did create room for my (dark) eldar to feel like they could be dangerous in melee without having to match marine strength/durability. And while we got it back in 9th (and lost it again in 10th), this is also where battle focus went away, so no move-shoot-move shenanigans. Plus, removing things like turbo boosting from skimmers meant that we weren't ever that much faster in a sprinting contest than armies like marines.
So with no option to be sneaky/agile, we were kind of stuck just trying to trade blows efficiently. So you saw things like ynnari reaper castles (maximized offense) and Alaitoc flyer spam (maximized defense). We didn't have the option to be squishy and hide behind walls with battle focus or trade next turn's offense for this turn's defense with jink or anything like that.
Which is one of the reasons our 10th edition index has me a little concerned about how GW will handle craftworlders going forward. We're back to having most of our maneuverability and speed-as-defense tied up in stratagems, and Strands of Fate and our detachment ability all tell us that we're just supposed to punch the enemy as efficiently as possible without much nuance or maneuvering.
Pacific wrote:That TSOALR comic is so funny. Is that still gone and buried I take it? I did really used to like them.
On the subject of Eldar, I remember them being a tricky army to play even back in 2nd. They had a lot of annoying tricksy psychic powers which 'doomed' your units, or gave their own re-rolls to wound etc. In some ways the in-game Farseers were foretelling what the 40k game itself would become, with re-rolls and yet more re-rolls..
Yeah, there were plenty of threads complaining about it, but 8th edition marines really kind of felt like they ate our lunch. Where rerolls used to kind of be the eldars' "thing," marines were doing it even better with auras. And then you had specialized primaris units like the eradicators who killed tanks better than fire dragons, for cheaper, and were tougher while doing it. Back in the day, you could sort of get away with representing eldar as being "high tech" by giving them entire squads full of meltaguns or powersword and maybe mixing in some nifty exarch powers. But eventually the designers realized that having to pay for ablative bolter marines in a meltagun squad wasn't as points efficient, so we got primaris units right around the same time they reduced the differences between skimmers and non-skimmers.
4th or 10th... voted 10th. If they can bump some of the weapon profiles so a heavy bolter can compete with a plasma cannon (for example), then this SYSTEM really good work well.
Voted 10th for the potential, but since I've collected most of my 40k factions at the company level (3 companies of Ultramarines, 2 of Dark Angels, 2 of Guard, etc) since the RT days... I know its probably foolish optimism
And the fan made stuff never matches up in what constitutes best. Prohammer for example includes many later rules like snapfire, overwatch, etc for compatability with later 6e/7e books, Simplehammer(if I ever get around to it) is based around speeding up the game by trimming the rules/rerolls, a_typical_hero was working on alternating activation, etc. Which is good if you can find one you like but then you have to find opponents.
Also none of them are meant for balanced play meaning you are entirely relying on self-restraint and also means they will be immediately discarded by the competitive/tournament crowd and are not fit for the casual pick-up game crowd.
Mmm...
I don't want to derail this, but define "best."
One of the reasons that I still love 1st above all others, is that it is the most individualized, and most useful for rpging and skirmish level play. Does that make it "best?" From my perspective it does. From the perspective of the guys who want to field hundreds of miniatures per army on the same battlefield at the same time, it certainly doesn't.
Who's right? God alone knows, I guess.
My present "army" consists of a Navigator, his mutant girlfriend/ second in command, and their robot Julian. They just had to raid an ork asteroid mine, run mostly by gretchin slaves, because their dinictarium grav-simulator konked out in deep space, and they needed to jury rig something to make it back to the Imperium. They are presently being pursued by an ork frigate, which is just about to to catch and engage in a deep space battle.
However, Imperial forces in the form of a few fighters are closing in, and, if the crew can do something clever to hold out for awhile (purging radioactive waste in the path of their pursuers? Hmm... Maybe...) they might just survive the few hours necessary.
Will they make it home to the Navigator's Household world of Rajinagara? Who knows?
That's the stuff hero tales are made of!
Of course, if what you're into is massive Horus Heresy level battles where whole planets are being blown away by armies of billions, and perhaps random slaps by the gods, it wouldn't interest you at all.
BuFFo wrote: 4th... Because I loved having my Wyches charge into combat, wipe out a unit, then consolidate right into a new combat.
That was both 3rd and 4th, and quite impossible if your opponent was intelligent enough to keep his battle line far enough apart that you couldn't travel the 3" you were allowed to consolidate.
of constant updates, balance tweaks, etc is finished.
if anything there is more "clever maneuvering" especially since we still use the 4th ed vehicle assault rules in our 5th ed games. the direction you assault from and how fast the vehicle moved the previous turn matters. as does the placement of gunline infantry units when things sneak up on you.
