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I played only for like half a year in 6th edition, had to quit for a while due to personal stuff (Shadowspear brought me back!)

But as far as I can remember, 6th was the most fun I'd had since 2nd edition. 3rd edition was the worst ever, and 4th and 5th were merely serviceable, often producing "meh" games. (Anyone remember Cityfight™, worst rules garbage ever printed by anyone ever?)

Note that I have yet to have a game of 8th, but I like what I'm seeing in some aspects, like armour save modifiers especially.

What really amped up my fun in 6th were the allies. I had been pining for allies since 2nd edition. It just wouldn't make sense for Imperium and Tau, or anything similar, to keep fighting eachother with a Tyranid invasion landing on their heads.

What was your reason to hate 6th, if you were among those who did?

LoftyS wrote:
What was your reason to hate 6th, if you were among those who did?

Not hate as such, but instead of pulling in the codex creep of 5th it doubled down, and the local gaming group slowly drifted away.

I'm not sure what it was specifically. Perhaps the paper/scissors/stones gameplay being disrupted by the have and have-nots of fliers, more powerful psychic abilities, etc. I remember the last local tournament that was run in which I was paired (doubles game) with a ironfather player who pretty much won the games by himself, steaming through army after army with his deathstar.

Knights and wraithknights and taudar and more. As 7th rolled in with its formations it was just beating a dead horse here.

A.T. wrote:
the have and have-nots of fliers

Aaaah, I remember reading fliers were taking over back then. I guess I was in luck to play in a group where nobody used flyers apart from my single Razorwing (I mostly played Tau and Tau GW fliers not only are awful models but had gak rules)

LoftyS wrote:
Aaaah, I remember reading fliers were taking over back then. I guess I was in luck to play in a group where nobody used flyers apart from my single Razorwing (I mostly played Tau and Tau GW fliers not only are awful models but had gak rules)

The first game I played with a 6e codex I took chaos vs orks, or as it should have been called "two helldrakes and their cheerleaders" vs orks.

Hull Points are a big one. A second overlapping kill system for vehicles on top of the damage chart basically turned them all into W2 or W3 models without saves...with predictable results of vehicles cratering in terms of utility unless they were skimmers or flyers

Jink is another, as this ability in 6E and 7E was stupidly abuseable and reintroduced the Skimmer vs Non Skimmer vehicle gap that had plagued 3E and 4E so much.

Flyers were also an issue as introduced, their rules were really janky and AA weapons were limited in availability and capability.

Psychic powers like Invisibility and the emergence of 2++ rerollable saves this edition created some of the most unkillable and least fun lists in the game's history.

Then of course we had army books like Necrons that were written to fit the new rules to a T while many other armies got phoned in updates and codex creep ramped alot.

The allies mechanic was also really awkward and gave a lot of advantages to lists that had them and left behind those that didn't have allies, starting a trend GW has only recently tried to tone down.

Superheavies and scale creep also strarted in *hard* in 6E.

6E also introduced lots of really unnecessary stupid random rolls that ate time and required record keeping but added relatively little, stuff like Mysterious terrain and Mysterious Objectives.

Random charge rolls and overwatch (as it functions now) were also something begun with 6E and that's caused various levels of consternation ever since.

Also, the much dreaded Formations that eventually drowned 7E started with 6th.

Tau and Eldar. Not much fun to play against.

No charging with outflanking units
Random charge + Overwatch + Wound allocation to the closest models
Fighting last when charging into/through terrain without "assault grenades"
Fleet USR no longer giving run + charge
etc.

A lot of things that were developed without concern for nonstandard armies like Nids, and a lack of proper Nid updates during the period. The codex from that period was an abomination, copy &pasting the previous codex (also an abomination) and making it even worse.

Bear in mind that about half of it went by without the updated T'au Dex. And more than half with CWE being bad.

6th didn't last that long and gets easily mixed with 7th, which was a refined version of 6th.
6th edition had very weak vehicle rules. The introduction of hull points made it so that tanks/ vehicles became basically the squishiest unit type in the game. 7th improved that a little, but not enough.
CC was very weak in both editions. Taking casualties from the front was one big reason for that. Introducing overwatch, too. Random charge ranges, as well. Challenges were somehow an interesting mechanic but I remember that 7th had to refine these, too to make them less frustrating.
6th edition was also when universal special rules and unit types became pretty bloated and tedious. 6th edition also had random warlord traits, psychic powers and Daemon equipment, what were they thinking?
Hordes were overall pretty weak in that edition, because everything could kill them easily.

6th edition also was a dark age for Chaos Space Marines, their Codex was mediocre at the start of the edition and became worse and worse. I remember Orks having the problem of getting an actually weaker codex than the prior one.

LoftyS wrote:
I played only for like half a year in 6th edition, had to quit for a while due to personal stuff (Shadowspear brought me back!)

But as far as I can remember, 6th was the most fun I'd had since 2nd edition. 3rd edition was the worst ever, and 4th and 5th were merely serviceable, often producing "meh" games. (Anyone remember Shittyfight™, worst rules garbage ever printed by anyone ever?)

Note that I have yet to have a game of 8th, but I like what I'm seeing in some aspects, like armour save modifiers especially.

What really amped up my fun in 6th were the allies. I had been pining for allies since 2nd edition. It just wouldn't make sense for Imperium and Tau, or anything similar, to keep fighting eachother with a Tyranid invasion landing on their heads.

What was your reason to hate 6th, if you were among those who did?

Maybe it has to do with personal preference then, as I would say every one of that editions was better than 6th. I disliked the randomness of potentially good stuff. Random Warlord traits and psychic powers come to mind. I was not a big fan of random charge ranges at that time, even though my main army was Imperial Guard. Introduction of Knights and Flyers, which for me should be reserved for Apocalypse games and should be excluded from regular 40k. Awesome models, though and I do own a Knight, but I don't use it unless my co-player wants to bring a similar powerful model, too.

A lot of meat and potatoes here, and it's dawning on me more and more that I was probably spared the worst stuff because I played mostly Tau.

Like, most of these complaints are good things for Tau. I do remember Hammerheads being crap though.

Random warlord traits were annoying and I bet random psyker ones must have been infuriating.

I can also remember the Chaos player in the group not showing up to play much. The Ork player did though.

Oh! Fleet and no charge was a bugbear for my Kroot, that I remember being annoyed with.

I do want the ally matrix back whenever Eldar get a mere mortal non-OP codex next however. We had so much fun exploring the combinations.

IIRC, the biggest issues with 6th at my LGS were that it was a decent set of core rules with a couple significant flaws (vehicles were inherently too fragile and a couple special rules were abusable) but the main issue was that none of the codices seemed balanced either for the edition or to fight each other. Many armies only got band-aid solutions if they got anything at all.
Meanwhile, the introduction of Allies meant, at the time, that some armies could just spam better than others. Since most Fliers were horribly undercosted considering their relative power, armies that could take four fliers were often at an advantage over those who could only take three, and at a massive advantage over those who could take none.

It was the Flier issue easily, but also the fact melee armies got it harder with transport (and less durable) rules.

6th edition was an incomplete game, liek a Beta edition for 7th (6.5) to finish. balance was pant on head slowed.

One thing I distinctly remember disliking in 6th was the challenge system. I was primarily an ork player, and I would consistently have a nob with power klaw in my ork squads. Whenever I was in combat, I would either be stuck with the choice of having my nob accept and get killed by whatever character was tied to the squad since he was initiative 1, or have him not fight at all. This was even worse when I charged a lone character - if they challenged and I wanted my nob to fight, the character would easily kill my nob and the rest of the boyz were stuck in cheerleader mode and were unable to attack.

This was mostly fixed in 7th, but due to some complex wording about every other game I had people argue that only my nob was allowed to attack their character if they challenged.

Virtually every part of 6th edition was flawed. The core rules emphasized randomness and simple kludges "everything hits on 6s." It had arguably the worst Vehicle rules of any edition, with most basic vehicles being fragile. Codex design was all over the place, with some being incredibly strong, and others being laughably weak. Allies were often exploitable. There were combinations that could produce insanely durable units (2++ saves, often with rerolls!). Fliers, Psychic powers, and superheavies all lead to skew lists. GW kept calling for us to "forge the narrative" which in practice meant "roll on a chart" for a ton of unnecessary outcomes.

patman1440 wrote:
One thing I distinctly remember disliking in 6th was the challenge system. I was primarily an ork player, and I would consistently have a nob with power klaw in my ork squads. Whenever I was in combat, I would either be stuck with the choice of having my nob accept and get killed by whatever character was tied to the squad since he was initiative 1, or have him not fight at all. This was even worse when I charged a lone character - if they challenged and I wanted my nob to fight, the character would easily kill my nob and the rest of the boyz were stuck in cheerleader mode and were unable to attack.

This was mostly fixed in 7th, but due to some complex wording about every other game I had people argue that only my nob was allowed to attack their character if they challenged.

I literally shelved my orks for most of the edition, they were literally unplayable. nob get challenged... unless there is a warboss in the squad as well eh dies... now you have 29 str 3 boyz with low leadership and a tshirt save... they fail leadership and run away.... 7th was rough for orks too don't get me wrong but it was not AS bad

It was 7th, but dumber. Not as busted, but definitely dumber. Making a character invincible in a challenge for example was super dumb. As were AV 11 vehicles exploding to assault cannons.

Pretty much all of the above.

Stupid psychic rules which meant that gk, tzeench dameons and eldar had dozens of powers and could deny anything anybody else was trying to cast, vehicles made of paper, invincible 2++ rerollable deathstars, insibility, flying circus (both nids and daemons), challenges which either got your nob killed or forced him to crush one of seven sergeants in a guard blob while the boyz were forced to watch.
The insanely powerful eldar and tau codices were the final nail to its coffin.

6th made a lot of changes to the foundation that was laid in 4th + 5th but in classic GW fashion they did a relatively poor job of making those changes without breaking things. 7th was basically 6.5 in their attempt to fix some of the stupid bits but they did too little and ruined any progress made with the power creep (more like leap) going on. That said despite all of 6th/7th flaws, it's still a vastly more interesting game than 8th.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Hull Points are a big one. A second overlapping kill system for vehicles on top of the damage chart basically turned them all into W2 or W3 models without saves...with predictable results of vehicles cratering in terms of utility unless they were skimmers or flyers

Jink is another, as this ability in 6E and 7E was stupidly abuseable and reintroduced the Skimmer vs Non Skimmer vehicle gap that had plagued 3E and 4E so much.

Flyers were also an issue as introduced, their rules were really janky and AA weapons were limited in availability and capability.

Psychic powers like Invisibility and the emergence of 2++ rerollable saves this edition created some of the most unkillable and least fun lists in the game's history.

Then of course we had army books like Necrons that were written to fit the new rules to a T while many other armies got phoned in updates and codex creep ramped alot.

The allies mechanic was also really awkward and gave a lot of advantages to lists that had them and left behind those that didn't have allies, starting a trend GW has only recently tried to tone down.

Superheavies and scale creep also strarted in *hard* in 6E.

6E also introduced lots of really unnecessary stupid random rolls that ate time and required record keeping but added relatively little, stuff like Mysterious terrain and Mysterious Objectives.

Random charge rolls and overwatch (as it functions now) were also something begun with 6E and that's caused various levels of consternation ever since.

Also, the much dreaded Formations that eventually drowned 7E started with 6th.

I think your starting to role 6th and 7th into one there. I can see why, 7th was only a slight variation on 6th, but Decurion and Invisibility weren't a thing in 6th so it's a bit unfair to hold that against it.

 Imateria wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Hull Points are a big one. A second overlapping kill system for vehicles on top of the damage chart basically turned them all into W2 or W3 models without saves...with predictable results of vehicles cratering in terms of utility unless they were skimmers or flyers

Jink is another, as this ability in 6E and 7E was stupidly abuseable and reintroduced the Skimmer vs Non Skimmer vehicle gap that had plagued 3E and 4E so much.

Flyers were also an issue as introduced, their rules were really janky and AA weapons were limited in availability and capability.

Psychic powers like Invisibility and the emergence of 2++ rerollable saves this edition created some of the most unkillable and least fun lists in the game's history.

Then of course we had army books like Necrons that were written to fit the new rules to a T while many other armies got phoned in updates and codex creep ramped alot.

The allies mechanic was also really awkward and gave a lot of advantages to lists that had them and left behind those that didn't have allies, starting a trend GW has only recently tried to tone down.

Superheavies and scale creep also strarted in *hard* in 6E.

6E also introduced lots of really unnecessary stupid random rolls that ate time and required record keeping but added relatively little, stuff like Mysterious terrain and Mysterious Objectives.

Random charge rolls and overwatch (as it functions now) were also something begun with 6E and that's caused various levels of consternation ever since.

Also, the much dreaded Formations that eventually drowned 7E started with 6th.

I think your starting to role 6th and 7th into one there. I can see why, 7th was only a slight variation on 6th, but Decurion and Invisibility weren't a thing in 6th so it's a bit unfair to hold that against it.

Invisibility was a thing in 6th, albeit it worked a bit differently (4+ cover in the open, +3 to cover saves if in actual cover IIRC making it 2+)

Likewise, Necrons needed no Decurion in 6th, Wraiths were almost as unkillable as 7th, they had spamable tesla flyer transports (in an edition with minimal AA weapons) that basically eliminated or mostly mitigated all the downsides of jink and being a flyer transport, quantum shielding made them immune or extremely resistant to mid strength multishot HP stripping weapons (on top of Jink of course giving them a cover save against low RoF actual AT guns and their basic dedicated transport getting a 4th HP shared by almost nothing else in the game except the Land Raider), gobs of HP stripping Tesla and Gauss, and enhanced rear vehicle armor on everything that made their vehicles much sturdier than everyone else's in assaults. Their 5E book was written with the new 6E core rules details very much in mind (and debuted only a few months earlier).

The Decurion in 7th just doubled down on all that

6th edition destroyed melee as an army strategy. It was only revived with immaculate deathstars in 7th.

6th introduced random charge ranges. This resulted in the "average" charge going up by 1 inch, but introduced disturbingly high rates of failing 'standard' charges at 6" and below. It also knee-capped units which had extra charge ranges (such as Beasts).

6th introduced challenges, a mechanic which doesn't fit thematically (a Hive Tyrant, from the most alien race in the setting, with no concept of honor, morality, or duty.. suddenly cares about honor, morality, and duty). It also only functioned to give non combat oriented units a means of mitigating the damage from imbedded characters.

6th began a blitzkrieg of "no first turn charges," which quickly compounded into "no charges on turn of arrival." Deepstrike, outflank, and other similar tools were already weaker for melee armies due to their threat range. 6th decided to pile inability to actually function on turn of arrival ontop of that. The only things to escape this shitstorm were super specific rules from older codexes (Zagstrukk's deepstrike rule).

6th introduced casualties-from-the-front. No brainer for why this hurts melee.

6th removed the ability to charge after running.

There are others, but as it stands every single one of these rules was implemented to specifically hamper melee. Formerly fast & slippery melee armies now had to weather, at the bare minimum, one full turn of dakka before they had any chance of getting to grips with your foes. Units specifically designed to drop in behind enemy lines and swiftly engage in combat (Stormboys with their t4 6+ tshirt save) were now only allowed to drop in behind enemy lines and pick their noses while they got blasted off the board.

Melee were left foot-slogging it across the entire board in order to get to grips with the foe.

As a result, ranged certainly suffered too right? You can't chop the legs out from under melee armies, put mandatory timers on how quickly they can get into combat, and then leave shooting as strong as it was.. Right?

Absolutely true. That's why they buffed shooting.

6th introduced overwatch. Shoot in your enemy's assault phase. Especially lethal when combined with random charge ranges and removing casualties from the front, often meaning that you only needed to kill 1 model to prevent a charge.

6th introduced snapshots. Shoot your heavy weapons even when you move. Sure they suffer greatly, but you could never do this before... So blanket buff.

6th introduced fliers. Massively powerful vehicles that shot things to hell.. and were completely immune to melee.

Shooting sustained few changes than melee, but when you combined nothing but buffs for shooting and nothing but nerfs for melee, you wind up with a very lopsided game.

I'd argue that challenges are thematic for some factions.

6e botched the roll-out of:

-Hull points. A necessary answer to the nigh-indestructible massed cheap vehicles of 5e, but they didn't give anything enough hull points and didn't correct armour values to account for the degree to which they'd been pushing rate of fire so glancing things to death became trivial and vehicles in general got to be mostly pretty bad for a couple of editions.

-Revised psykers and warlord traits. Cool in theory, but the requirement to roll for known psychic powers and warlord trait meant that you couldn't actually build your list because there might be big chunks of it that relied on this one big pre-game roll. "Seize the Initiative!" was another product of this randomness-for-all design philosophy.

-Flyers. They wouldn't have been a problem if GW had gone back and back-fitted Skyfire onto some older models, but they decided that the only things that should get Skyfire would be the new kits released in 6th, so while a lot of people had flyers at launch (most of the plastic flyers were originally released in 5th as skimmers) nobody had non-flyer counters to them for a while and they just felt like a massive cash grab.

-Escalation. Superheavies in standard-sized games can work, but they work when you get one Knight or Baneblade or whatever at 2,000pts+, and GW decided to go all-in on the Knights ("let's make a standalone Codex of all superheavies!") and didn't bother putting any restrictions on taking superheavies in smaller games.

-Jink. Brought in to replace skimmers' no-penetrating-hits protection from 4e/5e they gave them a cover save if you moved fast enough on your last turn, then they went and re-priced a bunch of stuff around having Jink, but if you didn't get turn one or your opponent was playing Tau you just lost because of the aforementioned problem of hull points.

-Allies and multiple detachments. In 4e/5e your army was built according to the Force Organization Chart (1-2 HQ, 2-6 Troops, 0-3 each of Elites/Fast Attack/Heavy Support). If you were playing a game that was so big you'd fill up the org chart it was Apocalypse and there was no org chart. In 6e they formalized the idea that the org chart is a "detachment" and you can take as many as you like, which led to min/maxxing from people with low minimum-detachment tax and complaining from people with high minimum-detachment tax. On top of this they let you mix and match army books for the first time, but the manner in which they did that (characters joining friendly squads) led to an explosion of broken deathstar combos they were never able to get under control, which is why all buffs in 8e are faction-locked.

Most of the problems with the game today can be traced back to 6e. There were hints in 5e, but 6e was when they threw out any hint of testing or common sense in favour of "BIGGER BETTER BUY MORE MODELS".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

pm713 wrote:
I'd argue that challenges are thematic for some factions.

With all the xenos thrown into the mix the manner in which they did challenges just stuck you with any character from Codex A always going before any character from Codex B, which means (for instance) an Eldar character can never win a challenge against a Space Marine character, because it'd be unfair if he got to do any damage because he always gets to go first, and then the Space Marine just swings back and pastes him

Challenges are great in 30k because they keep a really tight lid on the stats to make for an interesting set of trade-offs (do I try and attack first or hope I survive so I can hit harder?) and choices in equipping your characters for challenges, but 6e introduced challenges without asking itself any questions about the implications of doing so or adjusting anything about any characters' equipment or stats to account for it.

Challenges.
Challenges.
Oh and also, challenges.

Again, Ork player so I was either Init 1 and dead, or not fighting at all. At the end of 6th I had shelved all my Nobz.

If they ever bring that back, I'll qui again in a moment.

Flyers. The most broken ass thing to ever get introduced in 40k had the laughably MOST broken rules that ever existed. Can only be shot on 6's, if it was a Hell Turkey or a Monstrous Creature with wings it could flyby attack anything it flew over without recourse.

Tau had gotten the Riptide which was even MORE op and abusive than it is now.

And my tank heavy CSM list became pure garbage as 6th edition introduced hull points which made ground vehicles have the armor of wet cheese paper. Land Raiders and Vindicators were getting wrecked left and right, but that damn stormraven full of Furioso Dreadnaughts and Death Company Veterans would land in your back lines completely unscathed to drop death off at your doorstep and there was NOT A THING YOU COULD DO ABOUT IT.

The ONLY thing you could do about it, was either join and buy a flying circus of your own, or buy an expensive fortification to MAYBE help you take down 1 flyer per turn.

6th Edition was the worst cash grab I have EVER seen GW produce (And I played 8th edition WHFB), it was just so bad I had to quit for years until the game seemed fun or balanced enough in 8th edition.

 Nym wrote:
Challenges.
Challenges.
Oh and also, challenges.

Again, Ork player so I was either Init 1 and dead, or not fighting at all. At the end of 6th I had shelved all my Nobz.

If they ever bring that back, I'll qui again in a moment.

Chaos was even funnier because you were forced to challange people if i remember correctly.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Nym wrote:
Challenges.
Challenges.
Oh and also, challenges.

Again, Ork player so I was either Init 1 and dead, or not fighting at all. At the end of 6th I had shelved all my Nobz.

If they ever bring that back, I'll qui again in a moment.

Chaos was even funnier because you were forced to challange people if i remember correctly.

You bet your Aspiring Champion with Power Sword had to issue or accept challenges. In no way was he ever going to lose to completely healthy Belial in single combat. That champion has the power of Chaos on his side AND a power sword. What does Belial have?

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Nym wrote:
Challenges.
Challenges.
Oh and also, challenges.

Again, Ork player so I was either Init 1 and dead, or not fighting at all. At the end of 6th I had shelved all my Nobz.

If they ever bring that back, I'll qui again in a moment.

Chaos was even funnier because you were forced to challange people if i remember correctly.

You bet your Aspiring Champion with Power Sword had to issue or accept challenges. In no way was he ever going to lose to completely healthy Belial in single combat. That champion has the power of Chaos on his side AND a power sword. What does Belial have?

Otoh i had a cultist champion beat up calgar.
He got spawndom though