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.

I would say the biggest issue with older editions was that the monstrous creature rules were barebones and thus MCs were either overpowered or underpowered with not a lot of middle in it.

And as a Tyranid player that loves monsters, 5th sucked.

The one advantage of equalizing vehicle and MCs rules in modern 40k is that monsters are part of the standard weapon balancing and design instead of breaking the system just by existing.

As a tyanid player who played during 4th and 5th originally with nids-who currently plays 5th i could not disagree more.

The 4th ed codex used originally halfway through 5 is a fantastic codex and works well in 5th ed. the biomorph options are far from bare bones and the fact synapse grants eternal warrior is just icing on the cake. It is also quite easy to back compatible all the new monsters from 6th/7th into the 4th ed codex.

Even then i never needed those new units. my entire army was basically brood lord/genestealers, leaping warriors, heavy carnifexes, and zoanathropes. I have played it since and it still works fine in our 5th ed games.

The 4th Ed codex is a fantastic codex, it is also one lacking effective role options.*

It cannot play the monster heavy gunline I like to play. It played well shock infantry lists with dakkafex support, but I don't want to play that.

*Sure it has a lot of customizability with its biomorphs. None of those biomorphs is going to make a viable long range tank hunter like the modern Rupture Cannon Tyrannofex (plus I find Toughness 6 on a Tyrannofex offensive).

Admittedly part of the issue is that the 6th and 7th rules also sucked. Bad back compatible rules are still bad (again, I find Toughness 6 on a Tyrannofex offensive... And also the AP4 on the Rupture Cannon).

But anyway my point was more that the core rules for MCs were barebones, with no damage tables or other forms of suppression aside of killing. That meant that hard to kill MCs like Riptides and Wraithknights outright broke the game and led to the grav escalation nonsense.

It is telling that for all the barebone nature of modern rules, modern MCs are in a better place than in 5th by having damage rules and the damage characteristic. The changes to Toughness also benefitted them as there is a higher variance of usable values and the changes to the interactions with both Grav and Poison rules means they are not being trivially removed by grav centurions or Dark Eldar.

 aphyon wrote:
Also we adopted the later editions ability for all units to score objectives unless the vehicle was immobilized or there were troops contesting the objective

Troops or universal scoring was always kind of a marmite thing - on the one hand troops only put a huge burden on armies with poor troops choices, on the other hand universal scoring allowed for greater min/maxing by sitting heavy/artillery units on your home objective, scoring with big mega-deathstar units, and far more options for last turn objective grabs with fast units.


As for 5e nids, they had the misfortune of drawing Cruddace who unlike Ward was clearly playing favourites. I wouldn't say it was bad so much as poorly considered in places - like stealers losing their ability to assault through cover despite that being kind of their thing.

I get the biomorphs being pulled back as they were the same kind of 'flavour' as csm 3.5 - 90% of them never used, the other 10% clearly optimal. But they pulled back too far and wound up making a faction where everything elite was either T4 multiwound or T6, 3+, no invulnerable in a game of increasing S8 AP3 and poisoned weapons. The later 6e wound allocation was also brutal to them.