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I have to say 5th edition, back in the days when my Guard tanks could actually take some hits before they got destroyed.

4th Fitted our local gaming group perfectly, so it got my vote.

I'd also say 5th.

In 5th, armies were still made up solely of the factions they represented, and books at least had the expectation of balance between each other. Allies arrived in 6th, but I would argue that they did not bring any true benefits to the game and largely detracted from it- *especially* with the advent of limitless CADs and the like. The benefits of allies (army diversity, fluff concepts) were all available in 5th by opponents making agreements with each other before games. All that codifying them into the game did was allow people to build super armies by taking components of different factions so that you end up with Riptide-Wraightknight forces with scatbikes to fill in the margins

7th took the issues that 6th had and just let the reigns go. Superheavies, allies, formations all just went bonkers. The game looks more like a MOBA with disparate factions fighting together against other disparate factions.

 Jayden63 wrote:
The best edition for me was 4th edition. That was when I played hte vast majority of the games I've played. I was having fun and so was everyone around me. Fifth edition brought in several rules that started the turn away from a game where the general mattered more than the list. Its pretty much been all down hill since then.

^This exactly. 4th was a definite improvement over 3rd, and you had the impression GW was seriously working on improving the game. The core rules just needed a few tweaks to be excellent, so I looked very forward to 5th, only to find GW was interested in lateral changes for there own sake. 5th was ok but marked the downward trend of simply shuffling rules around to "keep it fresh" than really improving the game. In a White Dwarf where they claimed the stupid wound allocation method was faster (not just better, which was debatable) than 4th's method (defender picked the casualties) I came to expect more dishonesty from these guys just to sell a buck.

4th or 5th. Probably 4th.

7th edition is simply forging the narrative at this point.

It depends what your criteria are.

Best small-scale narrative skirmish? Rogue Trader with a GM. It had all the things that Necromunda later used to great effect, and encouraged the use of a GM to control the narrative elements.

Best platoon-level game? 2nd edition. All that fiddly detail - to-hit modifiers, the vehicle rules, facings, etc, etc, works well at that sort of small-level game.

Best company-sized game? Probably 3rd edition, using only the rulebook. The game is nicely streamlined for using larger forces with many more models than 2nd edition, and without the Codexes you don't encounter many of the oddities that make the game wonky. Plus it had a wide variety of missions to play through. Later editions might have better rulebooks, but they lost the simplicity by requiring the use of the Codexes with all their many special rules.

I voted 5th because I think it was the best.
But I have more fonder memories of 2nd.
I loved RT but it was a mess.
Heck, I'd even put 6th in third place, but 7th kicked me out of the game completely.

Only been playing for a couple of years so had a choice between 6th and 7th. Even as a Psyker heavy Tzeentch player I voted 6th. The game has gone into an attrition war by getting rid of compulsory force organisation. I liked having to form a realistic army to capture objectives!

3Rd, cos we're still playing a variation of it lol.

Honestly, 5/6/7th for me, all have parts I liked and parts I hated.

I voted 7th because I love the RULES for 7th. However the Army construction of 6th ed was WAAAAAAAY better: 1 Force Org under 2000pts, 1 Allie, no LoW outside of Escalation.

NO COME THE APOC allies or UNBOUND!!!!.

If 7th had a similar army construction, I am pretty sure tons more people would vote 7th.