Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Does anyone else ever miss 4th ed? I do from time to time. Maybe my memory is just foggy but I remeber in 4th ed the armies I fought varied alot more then they do now. I went up and fought a pretty equal amount of biker armies,mech,gunline,DS as well as alot more armies that stuck with fluff. Now a days I feel like all I run into is mech armies and nothing else.

Anyone else feel the same way? 40k used to feel more tactical then it does now. Since alot of games just feel like games of chess with rhinos.

Anyone miss any other aspects of 4thed?

I miss it for the Doctrines for IG, but that's about it. the 4th ed IG codex was horrid.

I miss the old vehicle damage tables, where you didn't have to be Ap1 or Open-Topped to destroy a vehicle on a glance.

oh man I had actually forgotten all about that. How the vehicle damage chart was diffrent. Yeah I do miss when glancing a tank could actually result in some sort of damage.

As much as I use ordance weapons I dont miss what happened when you rolled a 6 with one on a transport. Was really crappy when you got a lucky shot on someones LR full of termis. Taking out 1/4 of there army in a single shot. It was a little un fair.

Mobbing vehicles was hilarious fun.

40 million hormagaunts on a tank, you can't even find it under the sea of models.

i miss the combat system a little. it was sorta unfair then XD

I miss the extremely clear, well-explained and highly logical area terrain/line of sight rules. What the %#*^!!! was wrong with those rules? And what drug were they on to replace them with the crap we have now?

I miss range/line-of-sight and kill-zone sniping.

Cambak wrote:I miss it for the Doctrines for IG, but that's about it. the 4th ed IG codex was horrid.

This. I briefly ran a Kanak Skulltakers army. Was good times beating up orks in close combat .

I totally missed 4th edition. I stopped playing during 3rd and am just now coming back.

No.

5th edition is amazing. God help us from another basic rules update, I hope it never comes.

There is so much I miss about 4th. Realistic sighting rules. Close combat that felt fair. No goofy wound allocation rules. My CSM codex....sigh. About the only thing I do like about 5th is the single vehicle chart. I thought glancing 6's were the most slowed thing in the game. "Look, my bolt pistol just destroyed a 70 ton battle tank with one shot! Yay, Me!"

Give it another 2 years. By that time you'll have 40k 6th edition which will bring back some rules from the 4th edition like the sighting rules, keep what is good from the 5th and add some new insanity in the new book.

Also I liked the combat! Because you could assualt one kill an entire squad. And move onto another. My army was rape then! No matter what they had my elite artifcer armored space marines charged and killed everything. And Terminators were worth taking -.-

not at all.

I too sort of miss the old terrain cover/LOS system of 4th ed. That's basically 1 thing out of a whole sea of garbage.

Hitting AV13 vehicles only on 6+ with shooting? Playing exactly one mission over and over? Having whole chunks of an army list being basically worthless? Endless close combat chains? Bolt pistols blowing up tanks? Close combats that never resolved?

I was really skeptical when 5th ed was first coming out. It didn't take long playing after a decent rules edition to came out for me to realise how genuinely awful 4th ed was.

I miss parts of 4th, but I also like 5th too.

The old LoS rules and consolidating into new combats are what I miss the most. However, I like 5th's missions, which make standard 40k a bit less uninteresting.

I definitely miss the old glance chart. Why? Sure, a Rhino was built to transport the greatest warriors of mankind, but nothing felt better than have a ton of Orks glance with their pistols and blow the thing up. Sure, it's possible now, but much harder.

I miss some of the goofiness of 2nd edition.

I don't miss 3rd or 4th ed at all, since 5th is the same game, but better.

I hate Apocalypse now. Because of all the damn rules with it. And Contractidicting rules. Like how 3 of the same Special Character was beening used at the same time! WTF? Is it the rule only 1 character of this type allowed on the field at one time.

I miss almost 100% of 4th. Not a big fan of 5th, but I am also scared of what 6th will bring. The pattern seems to be add one good thing, and then completely f everything else up.

Big time.

With the exception of entanglement. 4th ed was tons better than 5th ed could hope to be. It was by far more tactical and less point and click.

Jayden63 wrote: It was by far more tactical and less point and click.

I'm really surprised to see this comment about a rules edition that had no missions, units that could bounce endlessly between close combat without recourse and invincible skimmers.

In 4th ed. everyone built their list for the same purpose and either just sat there rolling dice and not moving, or driving everything straight forward and CCing everything nearby. In 5th ed, you need to balance your list for a variety of considerations, rather than min-maxing for none, and you actually need to move in order to win games (moving without units that are invincible because they had SMF or were in daisy-chained close combats).

5th ed is far less "point and click and gain VP" and it isn't a tactical joke like last edition.

I like the number four better than the number five because I have to use one less finger to count to it.

...what?

So the only thing tactical that was missing was the missions? That is an easy fix, GW could of just printed a book of missions... oh wait they had to do that with 5th as well.

As far as skimmer, not everyone had skimmers, and the daisy chained assualts were easy to stop. Spread your units out. Having your units more than 6 inchs front to front stopped that pretty hard. That is where the real tactics came in to play. How you deployed and how you used your units, and knowing which one to target first.

It is easier to march everything accross the board now, since EVERYBODY gets cover saves. not to mention the location of models in units made a difference. Your sarget w power weapon, Combiweapon and alot of other wargear is leading the way, and just happens to be the only guy in plasma range, well guess he is toast. Now the guy in the back a country mile from the shooter gets to take one for the team.

Or the fact that they (gw) wants to push this true line of sight crap, but if only one model is visible and in range of a whole unit, everyone in the receiving unit is at risk.

I didn't play 4th, but I miss quite a bit from my old 3rd Ed ork codex. The game now is much better overall, but there are certainly plenty of loopholes and loose ends they can fix in sixth. The main thing they need is clear, consistent rules language and in-depth FAQ support. The basic rules core is fine.

Skarboy wrote: The main thing they need is clear, consistent rules language and in-depth FAQ support.

We have been needing that since 2nd. Don't think 6th will help in that regard.

I miss 3rd; shortly after 4th, I quit for all the Stupid rules changes.

I came back in 5th for it's return to "true LOS"(while I do appreciate abstraction on Area terrain) if your model can see it he can shoot it makes sense.

The only thing I liked about 4th was the Create your Own chapter/regiment rules, Kill teams, and Combat Patrol.

YES I DO! 5th ed nerfed my Necrons with the new vehical damage chart and made those cool vehical damage dice obsolete!

Ailaros wrote:

Jayden63 wrote: It was by far more tactical and less point and click.

I'm really surprised to see this comment about a rules edition that had no missions, units that could bounce endlessly between close combat without recourse and invincible skimmers.

In 4th ed. everyone built their list for the same purpose and either just sat there rolling dice and not moving, or driving everything straight forward and CCing everything nearby. In 5th ed, you need to balance your list for a variety of considerations, rather than min-maxing for none, and you actually need to move in order to win games (moving without units that are invincible because they had SMF or were in daisy-chained close combats).

5th ed is far less "point and click and gain VP" and it isn't a tactical joke like last edition.

1) Movement was much more important in 4th ed. You had to chase after tau units instead of just shooting them through the trees. You had to deploy your guys more than 6" apart to avoid sweeping advance. You could position units to block LOS for character sniping (not easy and a powerful skill set if you learned how to do it.)

2) Shooting choices. Having to test for target priority ment you might have to waste a units shooting at that vehicle instead of the unit just behind it if you failed your LD check. Thus LD actually ment something outside of combat. Torrent of fire much better than current wound allocation for getting the same job done.

3) Combat - much more tactial. You can turn on/off special weapons. Killzones meant character/special weapon placement much more important. Casualty selection, If you didn't want to get swept, you kill off your front line. Chasing down. You could actually let the other guy escape if you wanted to. Hugely important.

Yeah, there were parts in 4th that got annoying. I don't miss entanglement, I don't miss unkillable eldar skimmers (the other races skimmers were never the problem.), I don't miss having to take last man standing checks. But over all I found 4th to be a much more thinking game. It required more planing at each stage and definantly had more options. The more choices the player could make if they wanted to, the more they felt like they controlled the army, not the other way around.

lowmanjason wrote:YES I DO! 5th ed nerfed my Necrons with the new vehical damage chart and made those cool vehical damage dice obsolete!

Lol. Yes, if I were a necron player I would DEFINITELY miss 4th ed.

Jayden63 wrote:1) Movement was much more important in 4th ed. You had to chase after tau units instead of just shooting them through the trees. You had to deploy your guys more than 6" apart to avoid sweeping advance. You could position units to block LOS for character sniping (not easy and a powerful skill set if you learned how to do it.)

Movement is WAY more important in 5th ed. Unlike last edition, it is now critically important to winning objectives games. In 4th ed, I saw lots of armies that never moved a model the whole game. You might as well have been playing yahtzee.

Now tau can't be braindead and hide behind trees and MSM without recourse - they have to actually be smart with them. Now you can no longer be cheeky with independent characters out in the open that you technically can't shoot for some reason. Now you actually have to be smart with combined arms when you assault and actually support your units rather than point-and-clicking them into a squad and then hoping to roll high for sweeping advances.

Jayden63 wrote:2) Shooting choices. Having to test for target priority ment you might have to waste a units shooting at that vehicle instead of the unit just behind it if you failed your LD check. Thus LD actually ment something outside of combat. Torrent of fire much better than current wound allocation for getting the same job done.

What? Because there was more that relied on Ld rolls, the game was more tactical? Shooting is now no longer based less on luck with Ld rolls. Consistancy allows for tactics, rather than luck.

Jayden63 wrote: The more choices the player could make if they wanted to, the more they felt like they controlled the army, not the other way around.

What choices? Why do you no longer feel that you control your army, but that your army controls you?

jbunny wrote:So the only thing tactical that was missing was the missions? That is an easy fix, GW could of just printed a book of missions... oh wait they had to do that with 5th as well.

With rare exceptions, I never saw anyone play anything but VP games. VP games were won by parking your butt and shooting long ranged weapons or charging everything forward in a straight line and hoping for the best.

jbunny wrote:As far as skimmer, not everyone had skimmers, and the daisy chained assualts were easy to stop. Spread your units out. Having your units more than 6 inchs front to front stopped that pretty hard. That is where the real tactics came in to play. How you deployed and how you used your units, and knowing which one to target first.

Yes, I suppose you needed to have "real tactics" in order to get around an obnoxious and broken rule. Hardly convincing, though.

jbunny wrote:It is easier to march everything accross the board now, since EVERYBODY gets cover saves. not to mention the location of models in units made a difference. Your sarget w power weapon, Combiweapon and alot of other wargear is leading the way, and just happens to be the only guy in plasma range, well guess he is toast. Now the guy in the back a country mile from the shooter gets to take one for the team.

Likewise, these were uneccessary and obnoxious rules that I really don't miss.

Jayden63 wrote:3) Combat - much more tactial. You can turn on/off special weapons. Killzones meant character/special weapon placement much more important. Casualty selection, If you didn't want to get swept, you kill off your front line. Chasing down. You could actually let the other guy escape if you wanted to. Hugely important.

The mere presence of options does not mean that combat was more tactical. Likewise, the reason that weapon placement was more important with regards to kill zones is because they had bad rules, not because they were trying to inspire tactics.

And close combat is much better now than it was before. Having to torture yourself over how to move your units lest they be stranded in your initiative phase requires more work, but it was more work for stupid reasons. I mean, if everyone always moved D6 instead of 6 in the movement phase, I suppose this would require more thought. It wouldn't be an example of "high tactics" but of "needless complexity".

In fact, that's one of the things I don't miss about 4th ed in general. Lots of things were needlessly complex that got streamlined in 5th ed so you could focus on the real, high-level strategy rather than constantly worrying about niggly little details.

Glad to see if you don't like a rule it is obnoxious and broken, but if you like the rule, then it's needed and adds depth to the game.

As to the obnoxious rule of only being able to shot a model that is in range, yeah i agree that is so not fair and goes completely agaisnt fluff and comman sense.
"No I should be able to kill the last guy in the unit. Being out of sight and out of range is no reason for my bullets not to reach him"