What was your favourite / best edition of 40k?

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.

**Ratius**

Taking off the rose tints and looking at things objectively what was your fav or best edition of 40k?

I enjoyed 5th quite a bit, although Im not sure, looking back, it was because I played it the most (barring 2nd but that was a looong time ago).
6th was fun but it just seemed to come and go and then 7th dropped quickly afterwards. Im enjoying 7th with maelstrom and more psychics and despite the hate I like the way there is no meta at the moment and you can ally/choose from a huge range of armies/lists.
I never played 3rd, had dropped out at that point so cant comment.
4th was simpler to a degree which was nice but I always felt it didnt have that "ooomph" factor.
I played 2nd probably the most during my school days with time to burn and whilst fun it did have glaring craziness to it. However it did have a nice scale to it and some of the mission cards were very nice as in tactics wise.

Do you think taking the best bits from each edition would make a "perfect" game, are you happy with 7th or was there an edition you felt was spot on?

**VanHallan**

there was a thread about this semi recently and it seems that 5th is the favorite edition with 7th being second. i assume many who might vote for other editions are abstaining from voting.

**Ratius**

I see, I missed that thread, apologies =/

**BlaxicanX**

All my "good memories" are from 6th edition.

But objectively, 5th was the most functional edition out of the latest three.

**Gunzhard**

Rogue Trader began the enchantment for me and still holds so many great memories... but I've been loving 7th so far.

**Mr.bacon**

5th edition for me

**Grimtuff**

5th.

It had a few niggling problems. Namely wound allocation with a couple of corner case (and unfortunately popular) units and kill points to an extent.

Other than those things (and a few niggling codex specific problems. Nothing to the extent that 7th has) you had pretty much the basis for a perfect edition of 40k.

So what does GW do? Well, we saw what they did...

**Chumbalaya**

5th was the best edition by a pretty fair margin. There were a few problems, namely wound allocation and vehicle damage, but all it would take is a little fix to leave us with a tight, fluid system that's suitable for tournament and narrative play.

**Paradigm**

6th by a long shot, although the new army selection mechanics from 7th are awesome. I don't care for the new Psychic system, and have yet to try malestrom, but conversely I love every change between 5th and 6th.

**jreilly89**

I like 7th a lot. Psychic is really gimmicky, so I'm not sure, but I like the new vehicle damage. Unbound is fun, but I'm not completely sold on it. Maelstrom is a blast though

**Jimsolo**

Sixth. Overwatch was a desperately needed component of the game. I loved the rules changes overall, and seventh is only slightly worse.

**Torga_DW**

If i had to pick one i'd say 5th as well.

**insaniak**

I started in 2nd edition, so it's always going to compare favorably to what came after... But 5th is by far my favourite.

I would have liked to see the revamped (but completely written) psychic rules, Warlord Traits and a more reasonably version of Hull Points added to that system rather than the re-worked mess that we got with 6th/7th instead.

**Toofast**

I like 5th even though it was rhino rush/tankhammer 40k. 7th would be my favorite if they removed some of the randomness, apoc models, wound allocation from the front, unbound and maelstrom.

**AllSeeingSkink**

Here be the poll we had recently:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/606652.page

Overwhelming victory to 5th with 37%, then 4th with 22%, 7th came in with only 18%, then a tie between 2nd and 3rd each with 8%, 6th with only 5% and Rogue Trader came in last with 1%.

**Vaktathi**

5th was probably the most functional, playable, and balanced. Also the best supported by FAQ's.

That's not to say it didn't have issues, it did have them and they were very large issues indeed (Kill Points, Wound Allocation, etc), so much so that I still find myself surprised to vote for it.

However, next to the other editions, and certainly next to the current edition, it was the one I found people had the most fun with in general.

7th is nice in that it allows people to run wild with their imaginations, but it's also horrifying in that way as well. For every lovingly crafted, well thought out, and cleverly built unique force I've seen with the expanded army creation rules, there's a hundred fluff abortion power builds. There are simply far too huge gaps in effectiveness between certain units types (e.g. flyer vs non-flyer, skimmer vs non skimmer, MC's vs Vehicles, etc) and too many ways to abuse army construction to make it a consistently fun and portable experience.

**vipoid**

I'm just going to quote what I said in the last thread, because my feeling haven't changed:

vipoid wrote:
Has to be 5th for me.

I started near the end of 3rd, but I don't remember much of 3rd or 4th. Possibly I didn't play as many games of them, or I just didn't have much to compare them to.

Anyway, 5th just had the most stuff that I liked - it was built around some very solid core rules, the randomness was pretty limited and assault elements had a reasonable place (even if they were second to shooting).

It did have its problems - Wound Allocation was a pain (though pretty rarely, as I recall), Vehicles were a bit too hard to destroy, TLoS seems like a step backwards. Also, it suffered a bit from power creep, which was unfortunate.

6th edition brought about a ton of changes, virtually none of which i liked. I appreciate Hull Points... that's about it. Fliers can sod off and die, snapshots can come back when they're a BS modifier, and the best way to improve the random tables would be to set them on fire. Also, did you want your assault units to have some impact on a game? Well enjoy random charge range, overwatch, and casualties removed from the front. Oh, and all your power weapons have been made worse. Good luck.

Also, the wound allocation really doesn't feel like an improvement over 5th. With all the extra crap they're adding, I'd really rather not have to constantly micro-manage the position of every model in every squad as well. And, whilst it solved 5th's problem, it then replaced it with an even stupider one. Do you have a resilient character? Just stick him at the front of a squad and watch as he soaks up all the wounds - even ones from flamers and blasts. Oh, and if there's a weapon that might actually put him in danger, just LoS it - because every squad member telepathically knows which of the hundreds of incoming shots he needs to intercept.

7th. Are your games going too quickly? Well, enjoy wasting an extra 5-10 minutes each turn on a completely unnecessary psychic phase as we try to turn this game into Fantasy-40k. Plus, did we hear requests for more randomness? No? Well, have more randomness anyway! Look, with our new mission system, even victory points are random!

Oh, and were you concerned that allies were unbalancing the game? Well, not to worry, now you can use anything and everything you want! That ought to balance everything out, right? Well, regardless, enjoy paying full price for an errata's worth of additions to your 6th edition rulebooks.

**tgjensen**

I'd say 5th, from my experience as well. 6th fixed a lot of the problems that 5th had, but the pendulum swung too far. Shooting was a bit too weak in 5th compared to assault, but - from an Ork player's perspective - introducing Overwatch and random charge distance and removing casualties from the front and challenges and the ability to target models in a unit not in cover were too many changes in shooting's favor.

**Kilkrazy**

As a Tyranid player I found 5th rather challenging playing against IG armies, especially gun lines.

**obithius**

2nd is still my favourite. We were running a demo game of 2nd ed at the Battleground show last weekend!

**Blacksails**

5th

**Tannhauser42**

2nd Edition
It's when I started, so, yes, there is a pretty big nostalgia factor there. But it's also when GW was a company that actually liked its customers and produced multiple game systems. Sure, it had its problems, but I think the atmosphere of playing 2nd Edition was far better than today.

**pm713**

6th I think the Sniper, Vector Strike, FMC and Psychic rules were much better.

**Veteran Sergeant**

obithius wrote:
2nd is still my favourite. We were running a demo game of 2nd ed at the Battleground show last weekend!

I'm in the midst of a revamp of 2nd Edition 40K mechanics to utilize some of the better aspects of some modern games.

Really, 2nd Edition's main faults were a clumsy psychic phase and some poor list balance. In terms of its base mechanics, it's far better than any version of the game since. Really the only thing the current game might do better is assault.

**insaniak**

Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Really, 2nd Edition's main faults were a clumsy psychic phase and some poor list balance. In terms of its base mechanics, it's far better than any version of the game since. Really the only thing the current game might do better is assault.

I don't recall the psychic phase being particularly clumsy. The assault phase was a far bigger problem, particularly in larger games.

**vipoid**

tgjensen wrote:
Shooting was a bit too weak in 5th compared to assault

See, this is something I struggle to understand.

Even in 5th, shooting always seemed stronger than melee. Not by a huge amount, but certainly enough to give shooting armies a definite edge.

**Veteran Sergeant**

insaniak wrote:
Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Really, 2nd Edition's main faults were a clumsy psychic phase and some poor list balance. In terms of its base mechanics, it's far better than any version of the game since. Really the only thing the current game might do better is assault.

I don't recall the psychic phase being particularly clumsy. The assault phase was a far bigger problem, particularly in larger games.

The card dealing and such seemed to add about an hour to a four turn game. Perhaps clumsy wasn't the best word. Just more time consuming than anything else.

My LGS had a few tournaments that banned psykers in order to make the games playable within the scope of a day.

**EVIL INC**

This comes up every week or so. 5th is the favorite of the very vocal players. Doesnt mean it was the favorite of the most, just the most vocal.
These threads always end up going off topic with insults going back, well they always end up only going in one direction,

In the end different "types" of players (playstyles as well as personality as the two are usually closely related) preffered different editions for different reasons.
Some preferred different editions for fluff reasons while others preferred it for nostalia reasons. In the end, its a purely personal and subjective question with the same for answers.

**Grimtuff**

EVIL INC wrote:
This comes up every week or so. 5th is the favorite of the very vocal players. Doesnt mean it was the favorite of the most, just the most violently vocal.
These threads always end up going off topic with insults going back, well they always end up only going in one direction,

In the end different "types" of players (playstyles as well as personality as the two are usually closely related) preffered different editions for different reasons.
Some preferred different editions for fluff reasons while others preferred it for nostalia reasons. In the end, its a purely personal and subjective question with the same for answers.

Decries thread due to it always ending in insults

Insults a load of people.

Oh Evil, you never learn do you?

**vipoid**

Grimtuff wrote:
EVIL INC wrote:
This comes up every week or so. 5th is the favorite of the very vocal players. Doesnt mean it was the favorite of the most, just the most violently vocal.
These threads always end up going off topic with insults going back, well they always end up only going in one direction,

In the end different "types" of players (playstyles as well as personality as the two are usually closely related) preffered different editions for different reasons.
Some preferred different editions for fluff reasons while others preferred it for nostalia reasons. In the end, its a purely personal and subjective question with the same for answers.

Decries thread due to it always ending in insults

Insults a load of people.

Oh Evil, you never learn do you?

You took the words right out of my mouth.