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I've only played 2'nd, 3rd(for 3 months), 5th(for 6 months), and 6th now for a year. And I have to say I like 6th way better than 3rd/5th and maybe a little better than 2nd. 2nd edition holds a lot of nostalgia as that's how I got into the game playing CSM vs space marines. I'm a big fan of hero hammer so I like seeing come back more in 6th.

I started at the end of 2nd and didn’t care for it. 3rd got me hooked. I think 4th was the best because it fine toned 3rd though in both vehicles were too easy to kill. There were no rediculouse arguments about modeling for advantage. The 4th ed rule book actually said to use any size base you want, just don’t go smaller than it came with. I think 5th did vehicles the best but they started tinkering with things that should have been left alone like wound allocation and blast weapons scattering.

6th is just over complicated. Too many tables, and unless you have a flyer vehicles are tissue paper. Challenges are just silly and unrealistic. True line of site is a terrible idea for an abstract game. It’s like we are back to 2nd and playing an RPG, which is not my cup of tea. I prefer strategy to role playing, but to each his own. However I think the chart for allies was long over due.

I was looking at my old BRB the other night and counted the pages of actual rules. 4th & 5th had around 90 were as 6th has about 135, a staggering difference. In 3rd & 4th, at least in my area, it was much easier to pick up a game at the local store. Everyone knew what they were doing, you made a list and played. Now you make a list, role for this, role for that, 15-20 mins later start. Then role for more random crap and have about 3-5 debates about line of site issues. 6th is just too different of a game.

Technically started 3-4th but don't really remember anything as i was a child

Voted 5th and god i hated it. Also played tau against necrons mostly

At a casual level I have had more fun playing 6th edition than I ever have playing 5th. Win or Lose, heavy casualties all around, and pretty exciting games.

My big problem with 6th is that when you start taking it competitive it just SUCKS. Dealing with 3 heldrakes is a pain in the ass as by the time you kill them all all your troops are dead. Vendettas are horrendously undercosted, and Scythe Spam just breaks the game straight up. The game has really turned into flier spam, which gets shot down by Tau. Certain lists and builds are painfully unfun to play against, and really the competitive scene for 40K in my area has lost a lot of players because of it.

Casually however in games with friends with few-no fliers, everything has been a lot of fun.

I find 6th edition codexes to be much more balanced, although a couple things really tick me off (say, flyers and/or hull points)

 DeffDred wrote:
I was a fan of 3rd.

...

No Tau!!!! Sisters had rules in the main book! Tyranids got sexy! DIAZ DAEMONETTES!

3rd edition Tyranids were fething hideous with a few exceptions - notably the plastics, and Tau were introduced in 3rd edition.

Lol. I like how the most common praise of 3rd edition is that it was a version of 40k that didn't include Tau. Sadly, I can actually see the appeal of this position.

Also I think it's interesting that people like the edition they started with the most. I guess it shouldn't be that surprising, but still. While I technically started 40k in 3rd edition, I really cut my teeth in 4th edition, which, as best as I can tell, was the overall worst edition so far.

 -Loki- wrote:

 DeffDred wrote:
I was a fan of 3rd.

...

No Tau!!!! Sisters had rules in the main book! Tyranids got sexy! DIAZ DAEMONETTES!

3rd edition Tyranids were fething hideous with a few exceptions - notably the plastics, and Tau were introduced in 3rd edition.

Tau were introduced at the tail end of 3rd. So for years I didn't have to deal with them.

I love the metal Tyranids of that age. Old One Eyes is still one of my favorite models. I also liked the Xenomorph Queen Hive Tyrant. Aren't Lictors and Zoanthropes basically the exact same models?

The Tyrant Guard however... ugh. The new ones almost made me pick the army up again.

 Cryogen wrote:
Tbh I found 2nd too slow, and too complex. It worked superbly for Necromunda, though, which remains my favourite GW game of all time...

...3rd was a massive change. I loved the change, the first time I played was a game with my brother, and we were both floored with how fast the game played and how much more it felt like you could achieve.

Just goes to show the massive challenge GW developers have in keeping us all interested

2nd Ed. is slow and complex, but I like it that way (sometimes). When I first played 3rd Ed. it streamlined my experience so arbitrarily that I hated it, i.e. lightning claws and thunder hammers are now actually powerfists . When the Codex entries began fixing these issues the Ed. picked up and, as, I mentioned, Armageddon was a hoot.

I only started in 5th, but I feel like that one was a lot more of an all-arounder game. You could do well with a gunline, you could succeed with assault very well. Tanks could be taken out quickly but they couldn't be whittled down.

To quote a Black Templar player in my group, 6th is very much a shooting man's game. No matter how much you enjoy assault, many rules give shooting that little extra edge, and it shows. All in all, I really have been enjoying 6th, but I'd like a shift back to a balance of shooting and assault.

Each edition has had its own issues. RT gets *real* complicated and awkward *real* fast and technically is supposed to have a 3rd player, a GM, and isn't suited to anything but small games, though it did have better rules for flyers and air to air combat than we do now . 2nd Edition was the first edition that could be played as a "pick up" game, but was nothing even resembling balanced. 3rd ed cut all the fun stuff and much of the variation out of the game and became dominated by assault lists and plasma spam. 4E kinda reinforced that except that Skimmers became even far too capable and tracked tanks, especially tracked transports, were largely useless. 5E fixed a lot of those issues and was the first edition where vehicles were pretty universally useful, but then had really bad issues with things like wound allocation and Kill Points and the like. 6E has added a ton of random stuff for its own sake just to be random, and while fixing many of the issues of 5E went off and largely broke what 5E fixed with regards to vehicles.

2nd was a bit of a mess, but it was such an awesome, characterful, fun mess.

I'd say RT, but I think 2nd polished up a lot of RT's flaws but kept most of its good parts.

Modern 40K has an entirely different feel and style from the classic games. Sometimes in a good way, usually in a bad way.


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 Cryogen wrote:
Tbh I found 2nd too slow, and too complex. It worked superbly for Necromunda, though, which remains my favourite GW game of all time.

3rd was a massive change. I loved the change, the first time I played was a game with my brother, and we were both floored with how fast the game played and how much more it felt like you could achieve.

3rd was faster because you could do so much less in the game, lol. Part of what made 2nd Edition "slow" was that it was a skirmish game, and the individual models were more important.

In 3rd, it was a dice rolling exercise. Set up models, roll dice, remove models, finish.

I have and have played all editions

At present am enjoying 6th Ed - although not the prices :(

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
2nd was a bit of a mess, but it was such an awesome, characterful, fun mess.

I'd say RT, but I think 2nd polished up a lot of RT's flaws but kept most of its good parts.

Modern 40K has an entirely different feel and style from the classic games. Sometimes in a good way, usually in a bad way.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Cryogen wrote:
Tbh I found 2nd too slow, and too complex. It worked superbly for Necromunda, though, which remains my favourite GW game of all time.

3rd was a massive change. I loved the change, the first time I played was a game with my brother, and we were both floored with how fast the game played and how much more it felt like you could achieve.

3rd was faster because you could do so much less in the game, lol. Part of what made 2nd Edition "slow" was that it was a skirmish game, and the individual models were more important.

In 3rd, it was a dice rolling exercise. Set up models, roll dice, remove models, finish.

RT was a RPG
2nd was a skirmish game.
3rd was the first time I felt that the game was about two armies fighting it out. Not just herohammer where troops were just mooks to be cashed in rolls by the uber-heros that was 2nd.
4-6th are just refinements of 3rd. Some things get fixed, others broken in each revision. I do think that 6th is the best overall, but it is not a perfect system by any means.

Would you combine any of the editions to have the best of both, or more, editions?

 gnoise wrote:
Would you combine any of the editions to have the best of both, or more, editions?

Balance is a ghost. 40k has many different parts, not just in the core rulebook, but how each army interacts. When something gets tweaked to fix one problem, it is going to cause problems elsewhere. And there is not perfect solution. Look at wound allocation. Do you want to go with the missile launcher is always the last man to die? Multiple wound model allocation shenanigans? Or Look out Sir! tricks? All have issues, it's a matter of personal preference what to go with. Same thing with transports. Rhino rush? Death traps?

At the end of the day it's a fun enough game to play. I just read the current edition, figure out what aspects of the game are in ascendence, and tweak my army for that. If you want perfect balance, play chess. 40k might be broken in spots, but still makes for a fun afternoon.

The way the meta shifts does keep the game quite fresh and enjoyable. I find it most enjoyable personally when people play for flavor and aren't super competitive, although those games are fun too. Like, make a balanced list that isn't min/maxing, you know?

 gnoise wrote:
Would you combine any of the editions to have the best of both, or more, editions?

You bet! That's what we've already done. Our version is a blend of mostly 4th and 5th with a couple things from 6th mixed in, with our own rules to smooth over things we didn't believe GW ever got right. Over time with each passing edition our rules will grow further from the mainstream WH40K mechanics, I'm sure. No regrets there! If something good pops up we'll find a way to incorporate it.

I prefered 2nd ed as the last 'skirmish game' of 40k.
For large battle games the Epic rule sets are far better than mutated WHFB rules,( 40k STILL uses), can ever be.

EA. covers ALL the game play found in 40k, Apoc, PS,COD, etc, AND ALL the army lists in just 138 pages.

5th edition remains my favorite. A nice Edition 5.5, with wound allocation and armored vehicle fixes, but without the idiotic random tables, would be perfect.

The randomness makes zero sense.

1) The warlord, the guy behind the entire army...he doesn't know what he's good at until he gets to the battlefield. WTF?

2) The psyker, the guy who spends his entire life studying psychic disciplines, doesn't know what he has learned until he gets to the battlefield. WTF?

3) Night fight. Should always have been mission dependent. Pretty much all missions should have an Attacker and a Defender. Defender gets to go first, Attacker gets to decide night fighting and gets some bonus to reserve rolls or something like that. Never should have been left up to a random die roll except in very specific missions (2 patrols running into one another accidentally). Currently makes zero sense.

4) Random charge distances. I've heard people say, "It's supposed to represent the unit getting beaten back by fire!". OK...then explain to me why a Bloodthirster, the nastiest melon-fether in the galaxy, can end up with a charge distance of 2 trying to reach a vehicle that can't even fire overwatch. Derp. Mechanic makes absolutely zero sense. Overwatch alone makes this random enough (i.e., killing off the front-most model).


Random for the sake of random is NOT a fun game mechanic. Most metas I've seen choose to house rule this stuff.

I started in 5th and I miss it, mech spam dominated it, yes but at least we didn't have auto-take flyers (vendetta) and ADLs everywhere. I also dislike all the random tables in 6th and I despise challenges because it made power fists on characters pointless, and as a result I had to rip off a lot of arms.

When I think back to 5th, I think of wound allocation bs and constant 4+ cover for everyone, all the time. So I don't miss it too much.

Yes 6th edition has its flaws, but when combined with the new balanced codexes, I think it's head and shoulders above 5th.


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 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

4) Random charge distances. I've heard people say, "It's supposed to represent the unit getting beaten back by fire!". OK...then explain to me why a Bloodthirster, the nastiest melon-fether in the galaxy, can end up with a charge distance of 2 trying to reach a vehicle that can't even fire overwatch. Derp. Mechanic makes absolutely zero sense. Overwatch alone makes this random enough (i.e., killing off the front-most model).

Explain to me how 3 space marines can miss the side of a Land Raider from 2 inches away. Derp. Mechanic makes absolutely zero sense.

Except it does. Guarenteeing the charge usually guarentees a win for the charger, since assault units are specialised and far more effective in a single round than shooting units.

 BryllCream wrote:
When I think back to 5th, I think of wound allocation bs and constant 4+ cover for everyone, all the time. So I don't miss it too much.

Yes 6th edition has its flaws, but when combined with the new balanced codexes, I think it's head and shoulders above 5th.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

4) Random charge distances. I've heard people say, "It's supposed to represent the unit getting beaten back by fire!". OK...then explain to me why a Bloodthirster, the nastiest melon-fether in the galaxy, can end up with a charge distance of 2 trying to reach a vehicle that can't even fire overwatch. Derp. Mechanic makes absolutely zero sense. Overwatch alone makes this random enough (i.e., killing off the front-most model).

Explain to me how 3 space marines can miss the side of a Land Raider from 2 inches away. Derp. Mechanic makes absolutely zero sense.

Except it does. Guarenteeing the charge usually guarentees a win for the charger, since assault units are specialised and far more effective in a single round than shooting units.

First, I direct you to this study...http://www.theppsc.org/Staff_Views/Aveni/OIS.pdf

People notorious suck at shooting, even at close range targets. The probability of your 3 "Space Marines" missing that Land Raider, if you take a human example, is not really out of question. Those same 3 Space Marines somehow running 2 inches, when the game physics afford sufficient time that they *could* run 12 inches, is lunacy.

One skill (marksmanship) relies upon many factors - target position, target speed, shooter position, stress of the shooter as measured on the Yerkes-Dodson stress-performance curve, condition of the weapon, distractions, etc.

Another skill (moving) is based upon your ability to cover X given T time. You will see a very large standard deviation in measurements of the first skill, and very small standard deviation within subjects in measurement of the second.

Long story short, the random charge distance mechanic is a moronic brainchild that should have been aborted with a coat hanger. Instead, Fantasy's droppings somehow ended up on 40k's plate and now every competitive build that relied upon assault has to wait another X amount of years until GW produces 7th edition or goes out of business. The mechanic (combined with other 6th ed changes) made assault-based armies essentially worthless in competitive environments, and makes no sense from the perspective of real-world logic. Let's bear in mind that "science fiction" means that aspects of reality are fictitious...concepts like "time", "velocity", and "distance" are assumed to be taken at face value here. That said, I don't really care about the "real world logic" of a little toy soldier game beyond the fact that "real world logic" actually suggests that P(miss) is actually > 0 in ALL shooting situations, especially in close range shooting encounters.

For what it's worth, my main 40k army (IG) doesn't rely at all upon the assault mechanic to function, so that's not the source of my issues with the mechanic. It's just a shame to see the game become entirely unidimensional (i.e., based in shooting).

5th Edition was leaps and bounds ahead of its predecessors, for me. I played 3-6. 3rd was where mlee armies just ate you. 4th was where melee armies could stall you but shooters finally could at least HOPE to fight another round. 5th Edition made the game feel like I kind of envisioned it from the get go. Models bacame supremely awesome near the end of 5th. I felt they got it right. the wound allocation never ceased to bother me but you got used to it and just moved on to other things tocomplain about.

In 6E they have obviously made a conscious attempt to make it more of a simulation than it was. they also brought the game close to Fantasy terms in some ways without allowing itself to lose that distinction.

I am torn on whether 5 or 6 is better but I leaned towards 6 just because wounding makes way more sense now and the game now includes more stuff.

Actually, it's the disparity that bothers me with 6th.

You have random charge range, but you don't have random shooting range. You have an entire class of targets that can't be targeted with close combat (fliers), but you don't have an entire class of targets that can't be targeted with shooting. You get a free shooting attack against someone charging you, but you don't get a free close combat attack against people shooting you.

40k was already imbalanced against assault, and the things they did to it in 6th ed seem to go beyond balancing, beyond punitive, all the way past just idiotic (especially with fliers- who can't be targetted by close combat - getting to use close combat attacks on stuff... without even getting into close combat), to rules made by throwing darts at a dartboard.

Perhaps that's why there's so much randomness in the game... perhaps the rules themselves were determined randomly...

 Ailaros wrote:
but you don't get a free close combat attack against people shooting you.

...I have no idea how this should work.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:
When I think back to 5th, I think of wound allocation bs and constant 4+ cover for everyone, all the time. So I don't miss it too much.

Yes 6th edition has its flaws, but when combined with the new balanced codexes, I think it's head and shoulders above 5th.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

4) Random charge distances. I've heard people say, "It's supposed to represent the unit getting beaten back by fire!". OK...then explain to me why a Bloodthirster, the nastiest melon-fether in the galaxy, can end up with a charge distance of 2 trying to reach a vehicle that can't even fire overwatch. Derp. Mechanic makes absolutely zero sense. Overwatch alone makes this random enough (i.e., killing off the front-most model).

Explain to me how 3 space marines can miss the side of a Land Raider from 2 inches away. Derp. Mechanic makes absolutely zero sense.

Except it does. Guarenteeing the charge usually guarentees a win for the charger, since assault units are specialised and far more effective in a single round than shooting units.

First, I direct you to this study...http://www.theppsc.org/Staff_Views/Aveni/OIS.pdf

People notorious suck at shooting, even at close range targets. The probability of your 3 "Space Marines" missing that Land Raider, if you take a human example, is not really out of question. Those same 3 Space Marines somehow running 2 inches, when the game physics afford sufficient time that they *could* run 12 inches, is lunacy.

One skill (marksmanship) relies upon many factors - target position, target speed, shooter position, stress of the shooter as measured on the Yerkes-Dodson stress-performance curve, condition of the weapon, distractions, etc.

Another skill (moving) is based upon your ability to cover X given T time. You will see a very large standard deviation in measurements of the first skill, and very small standard deviation within subjects in measurement of the second.

Long story short, the random charge distance mechanic is a moronic brainchild that should have been aborted with a coat hanger. Instead, Fantasy's droppings somehow ended up on 40k's plate and now every competitive build that relied upon assault has to wait another X amount of years until GW produces 7th edition or goes out of business. The mechanic (combined with other 6th ed changes) made assault-based armies essentially worthless in competitive environments, and makes no sense from the perspective of real-world logic. Let's bear in mind that "science fiction" means that aspects of reality are fictitious...concepts like "time", "velocity", and "distance" are assumed to be taken at face value here. That said, I don't really care about the "real world logic" of a little toy soldier game beyond the fact that "real world logic" actually suggests that P(miss) is actually > 0 in ALL shooting situations, especially in close range shooting encounters.

For what it's worth, my main 40k army (IG) doesn't rely at all upon the assault mechanic to function, so that's not the source of my issues with the mechanic. It's just a shame to see the game become entirely unidimensional (i.e., based in shooting).

How is it fair that a unit relying on shooting, still has to hit and miss, whereas an assault force is guarenteed the kill if it can close the difference? Random charge range rectifies that disparity, and the increased pile-in move and +1 attack for the entire squad, compensate for this.

If I could have the models we have now in 4th I'd be a happy camper. I mean aside from the PDF codex I had to suffer through for the later half I loved 4th.

 BryllCream wrote:


How is it fair that a unit relying on shooting, still has to hit and miss, whereas an assault force is guarenteed the kill if it can close the difference? Random charge range rectifies that disparity, and the increased pile-in move and +1 attack for the entire squad, compensate for this.

Wut? Since when does an assault GUARANTEE a kill? Still have to hit and miss I'm pretty sure. Unlike shooting, assault always puts the attacker into harm's way. Even lopsided victories tend to whittle down assaulting forces even if a slight amount. Random charges ARE stupid. If you don't think attackers should get a bonus attack then fix that, not create a system where the charging unit has a variable range of SIX TIMES from low to high.

Assault moves 3D3+ initiative