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 lord_blackfang wrote:

It also had a 150 page community FAQ and different comp rules in every town, making it utterly impenetrable for new players wanting to come in in the second half of the edition. It's interesting that most folks' favourite editions of both 40k and WHFB existed in the time when GW's policy was to just not touch the rules after publication, at all, until the next edition. And now we can't survive a month with an undercosted unit in the meta.

There's a bit of survivorship bias at play in this kind of nostalgia. You'll often find that when people insist a specific edition was the best you can make a pretty clean guess what they were playing. At the time, you'll find a lot of the forums or what have you full of people complaining about the undercosted units of the day.

 LunarSol wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:

It also had a 150 page community FAQ and different comp rules in every town, making it utterly impenetrable for new players wanting to come in in the second half of the edition. It's interesting that most folks' favourite editions of both 40k and WHFB existed in the time when GW's policy was to just not touch the rules after publication, at all, until the next edition. And now we can't survive a month with an undercosted unit in the meta.

There's a bit of survivorship bias at play in this kind of nostalgia. You'll often find that when people insist a specific edition was the best you can make a pretty clean guess what they were playing.

Really? Give it a shot. Pretend I'm claiming each of these editions was the best. Personally I really like 9e/10e.
What was I playing (the most of) in:
RT: I only had 1 army at that time
2e:
3e:
4e:
5e:
6e:
7e: I'll give you this one as I only accidently played 1 game & it was with Khorne demons. I didn't even realize I was playing a different edition!
8e: My return to 40k after being away since mid 6e - mid 8e, not counting that one 7e game - I only played 1 army (the rest were in deep storage).
9e:
10:

Not something I can do for 40k or really any GW games. They're stuff I play as a tertiary thing at best with 10th being the first time I've liked it enough to bump it up to a secondary game.

The point though is this idea that complaining about the state of the meta and demanding change isn't a modern thing. People have been complaining about OP stuff for as long as games exist. That's a huge part of why the industry has shifted to tools that can better manage updates.

Peak by games-

40K-

i call it the golden age-3rd-5th edition, 3rd was a bit clunky but you could see the general improvement over those 3 editions. while i feel 5th generally had the best rule set modifications the slide away from lore based rules found heavily in 3rd/4th ed codexes was a negative even though there were a few really good 5th edition exceptions.

Warmachine-

core rules wise it is MK III, although i know most players liked MK II the best.

Infinity-

N2 was the best, the tables were big (6X4) the game was long enough to work out grand plans (6 turns) and the level of crunch was fantastic. N3 added a few good things like terrain stats but really screwed up hacking devices by making them way over complex even for infinity.

warhammer fantasy-

Easily 6th ed. although the more i play of old world it is growing on me.

DUST-

easily when Andy Chambers made the 3d terrain rules which was DUST battlefield "tactics" although that carried stright over to 1947 so it basically is the same thing.

BFG-

when they released the final update in 2010 that added even more thematic ways to play your fleets

CLASSIC BATTLE TECH-

Well this is hard to quantify because battle tech has really never had an official "edition" it was more along the lines of what optional official rules your group chooses to play with.

I think the best overall era is probably civil war early jihad before the tech base gets silly. so 2002-2005. since the core rules have basically been the same for 40 years with the exception of catalysts "new editon rules changes disaster" that is trying to turn classic into "alpha strike light".

Most of the other games i play never had an edition churn to worry about or i have not played them long enough for it to matter.

 tauist wrote:
Unpopular opinion - The first editions were peak, regardless of GW game. Rest is just capitalism doing what it does best, reselling you what you already had, time and time again. Second editions are usually tolerable, at times they even manage to "fix" the worst aspects of 1st edition, but anything beyond 2nd edition is already a different game than the original 1st edition most times, and rarely for the better

Original Space Hulk. 2nd Edition Blood Bowl. 1st and 2nd edition 40k (1st edition for the skirmish RPG, 2nd for wargaming). 1st and second edition of Space Marine. 1st edition of KT21 (Elliott Hamer's baby is already being watered down by committee). etc etc

I think in terms of freshness of ideas, yes, certainly. But later editions often improve on things. I think the temptation is to change radically. Its interesting you have Space Marine in your example, as the rules for that are completely different with each edition, 1st through 4th.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:
WHFB 6th edition is probably the most complete version of the game ever developed by GW. It had rules for Skirmish, Campaigns everything. Yeah there were a few broken builds but nothing so extreme as later editions, or earlier ones for that matter.

It also had a 150 page community FAQ and different comp rules in every town, making it utterly impenetrable for new players wanting to come in in the second half of the edition. It's interesting that most folks' favourite editions of both 40k and WHFB existed in the time when GW's policy was to just not touch the rules after publication, at all, until the next edition. And now we can't survive a month with an undercosted unit in the meta.

150 page community FAQ that was, frankly, not really needed. Rules comp in every town was a creation of the internet and no, it really didn't make it impenetrable to new players. I know, I was a new player at the time.

Frankly GW not touching the rules is ultimately a good thing. The constant patching is what makes modern GW games harder to get into. Why even buy a book when it gets patched and FAQed day 1.

The videogameification of miniature games has been significantly more negative than positive.

Honestly the peak of any given game tends to be the first edition of it that I played.

But I sit back and wonder how truthful is that? Or is it because I entered the game all starry eyed and blown away by the cool interesting newness of it. And then as I played it more and more/more and more editions those positives just became "normal" and those little niggles dragged?

I think the only exception to this is Horus Heresy, which I think has just gotten stronger with each new edition.

I'd say 5th edition was the best 40k has ever been, even when I think back today I do genuinely believe the trend since than has been downwards. Although I've not actually played 5th since I was but a starry eyed tween and definitely don't remember it 100%.

I think the only exception to this is Horus Heresy, which I think has just gotten stronger with each new edition.

I feel the complete opposite. it's 1.0 or nothing in my book. Alan Bligh did it the best.

Flames of War reached its peak during v2 and v3, so long ago....

Now it has like... disappeared ...

 aphyon wrote:

I think the only exception to this is Horus Heresy, which I think has just gotten stronger with each new edition.

I feel the complete opposite. it's 1.0 or nothing in my book. Alan Bligh did it the best.

You say that right up until you meet a Solar Aux or Iron Warriors list and your entire army vapourises on turn 1 to all the cheap Strength 10 AP2 Large Blasts they're throwing out

2.0 redressed the imbalances of 1.0, and changed some mechanics (then completely failed to address the imbalances those mechanical changes created). But as strong as Contemptors and Lascannons were they were still no 1.0 Medusa!
3.0 has redressed *those* imbalances and generally improved the mechanics. There's not really anything that 3.0 has done where I think "the game would be better if they hadn't". Although there's still a few refinements.


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SU-152 wrote:
Flames of War reached its peak during v2 and v3, so long ago....

Now it has like... disappeared ...

The main complaint I heard about V4 was that it only launched with [iirc] midwar and basically invalidated huge swathes of content they had built up over years of V3? And now they've rereleased all those eras and stuff I hear V4 is good again?

I'm saying this as someone who bought a second hand force a couple years ago intending to get to it, and it's just sat in the to-do pile since. In my defence it has recently migrated from the "unbuilt" pile to the "built" pile, so it's getting there!
And I hear my city has a decent scene, but generally more meeting amongst themselves rather than any organised club(s).
So I'm genuinely curious about the state of the game.

I started 40k in 3rd edition and I liked 3rd to 5th edition the best. The differences between 3, 4 and 5 are just details, compared to challenges, flyers, super heavies, formations and stratagems of later editions.

Codex wise mid 3rd to end of 4th was the best, when GW was still releasing rules in WD that you were supposed to kitbash at home.

It felt like GW genuinely cared about making a good game and cool fluff for you to explore, instead of pushing out things because "everybody needs a subfaction and every subfaction needs x items and y stratagems and z ..."

 kirotheavenger wrote:
here's not really anything that 3.0 has done where I think "the game would be better if they hadn't". Although there's still a few refinements.

I absolutely can think of things. They nerfed chainswords and the units using them (which were units that were already weak, generally), with Assault Squads in particular being an off-meta fluff choice that was absolutely obliterated by 3.0 (lost charge attack, lost wound rerolls, lost line in exchange for vanguard that they will never score, removed sweeps which means they will be stuck in chaff all game).

They also deleted a huge chunk of stuff. I am not a Sisters of Silence player, but those who committed to their incredible 2.0 list were brutally rug pulled by 3.0, and I am furious on their behalf. In general, 3.0 deleted everything that never had a dedicated model (even from Legacies), and started the awful process of gradually boxlocking the game with the Marine Consuls (a scourge that does not belong in 30k).

Deep strike was also beyond crushed. I get that mass deep strike in 2.0 was seen as polarising, but Blood Angels drop lists and the like didn't deserve to have their source code deleted from existence like this.

3.0 challenges are a cute idea that is monstrously blown out of proportion and is a vampire on the rest of the game. So many unique character traits are just gambits now.

Actually, characters are a criticism to itself. They are so dulled down. Compare the shenanigans Alpharius could get up to in 1.0 and 2.0. 3.0 Alpharius is a husk of his former self. The flavour loss is felt across the game.

Faction special rules have also been dulled down. Compare the subfaction rules for 1.0 and 2.0 Dark Angels to their 3.0 version. Big meh.

The rules writing is a mess. It tries to be extremely clear and straightforward to the point of satire (why does everything have to be capitalised? Is there really any argument about what a Model and a Unit is?) and yet it's rushed in many places, as if bogged down by its own complexity, resulting in rules questions that to this day remain unclarified. What happens if you shoot a S10 weapon into an AV10 vehicle and a roll a 1 on your Armour Penetration Test? A 1 always fails in a Test and no exemption is granted here, so what happens? If a character joins a unit with the Endless Horde rule, the unit dies but the character remains, does the rule trigger? In fact characters are super unclear in general, how do characters interact with things like Blackshield Oaths? Can a character join two units at once? How does the Magos rule that gives FNP during challenges work, since the step where FNP rules take effect never happens in challenges to begin with?

(Sure, previous editions also had their rules mishaps, but 3.0 is certainly not better).