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What it says on the tin, what edition of 40k is your favorite and why, please don't argue with each other, just say your thing regardless of what other opinions are, I don't want this thread locked and that could happen with a topic like this.

Well I've only played a bit in 5th and mostly 6th, but I think I prefered 5th of the two. A ton of issues in both, but playing orks, 6th made some changes I didn't like since I like using hordes of boyz.

2nd. No hesitation. And for the rose tinted glasses people, I played it a couple years ago just to see.

I've been playing since 2nd edition. You know what? 6th is my favorite. It has just the right amount of macro and micro to give the game its trademark apocalyptic scope, while allowing for great character duels and heroic moments. The codification of all the special rules in a unified, thorough manner keeps the codices in line with the core rules in ways that previous editions simply failed at. I'm still on the fence about Lords of War, but as long as people don't bring the super duper cheese boxes I don't think they actually hurt the game. The "rules sprawl" of 6th is also a welcome change after several years of GW stalling out on releases for months at a time, and I'm looking forward to what comes out after all the current races have been released for 6th ed.

Space Hulk. Wait...does that even count?

I've been playing since RT and 6th is my favorite so far.

2nd Edition is my favourite but to be fair I have not played the game since 4th (I think) - whenever the last World Wide Campaign was.

I've got Dark Vengeance on order so I'll be able to see how the game works now but until I get it I have no clue just how different 6th is to 3rd.

I played hundreds of games of 2nd at my local GW and I had some pretty good times. 3rd certainly tidied a lot of the game up but then, I kinda liked some of the scruffiness of 2nd and I've heard about people going mad with heroes and vortex grenades back then but I never saw any of that when I played.

I really like 6th. It's interesting and did a lot of new stuff. 5th wasn't really a good edition at all in my opinion, but 4th was really fun because they had kill team rules in the main rulebook!

Having loved 2nd, dropped out a little while into 3rd and returned for 6th, I'd say 6th is my current favorite. Not to say there's not plenty of things I would like to see changed or improved, but it provides me with quick, easy, fun games using my little figures with my friends.

What more could i ask for?

I like 6th, but don't care for allies, and flyers.

I don't think it was perfect, and I don't really think 40K has ever been all that well made, lol. But 2nd Edition was my favorite.

It just had so much more flavor than the current game, and the interactions of the individual models meant more than they do now.

I mean, there are the usual cavalcade of complaints against 2nd Edition, but they're mostly jibberish because the more recent editions of the game are no better balanced, and no better written. They're just dumbed down and quicker to play. So it depends on what kind of game you wanted to play.

6th ed for me... i only played 2nd and 6th..
but 6th feels a lot more real and so many options..

2nd edition was my favourite, I loved the wargear book' yes it was far too complex but a lot of things in it did make sense.

The vehicle turning template was ingenious it made the whole thing so much simpler. I also like the fact that Space Marines were actually only movement 4!

6th is the best edition.

I have the best memories about 2nd though. Thats nostalgia for you perhaps.

The main consensus seems to be that 6th is best, why does everyone complain about it then?

Your sample is imperfect explains the large amount of people saying 6th.

I am torn between 2nd edition and 4th edition.

-2nd Edition scratches more of the "skirmish" itch for me, as you took to the battlefield with about half the models you do now, as points have dropped so far over the years blatantly just to get people to buy many more models, that units in 2nd edition are fully 200% of the cost of 6th edition (10 plain Space Marines with bolters, with no weapon upgrades= 300pts!)

If I want to get down to the Kill-Team level of skirmish focus, I find that I can so easily mod 2nd Edition to play like Necromunda it's not even funny. Remove squad cohesion, play with armies of approx. 500 pts, and done. You now have a game that plays like games of Necromunda (with slightly larger model counts than gangs), but with all your favorite races of 40K (save Tau and Dark Eldar). the way weapons work is dramatically better for a skirmish scale than the editions of 3rd edition and on, because they were so streamlined from 2nd ed.

There are no rose-colored glasses here for me. I have always loved Necromunda, and Gorkamorka, which use the 2nd edition ruleset, and absolutely noone I play with is "that guy" who wrecks everyone's fun with min-maxed lists of cheese.

-4th edition, taking the above in to consideration, is my go-to edition for larger games. I have nearly everything for the edition, which was dramatically more than there is for 6th edition. All-Kroot mercenary armies? Check. Space Wolf 13th Company forces with their special Wolfen units, elite (even for Space Marines) troops who can all infiltrate and no vehicles other than bikes? Check. Do I want to use all the cool vehicles from 6th edition like Triarch Stalkers and Riptides and Wraithknights? That's what I have the Vehicle Design Rules for. Cities of Death. Special Codexes based on summer campaigns. Actual Deathwatch teams that aren't just Kantor-induced Sternguard troops, etc.

4th edition had bad things like Skimmers being very powerful, but I am the only Skimmer (Eldar) player, and I field what... two skimmer tanks?

Only played during 5th and 6th, but 5th out of the two. Mainly because playing Black Templars in 5th edition didn't mean you had to put up with one disaster after the other from GW.

Started playing in 3rd, and every edition has been better than the edition that preceded it. 6th is the best so far.

All the editions are actually playable until the fething army books come out. 6th looked awesome until the books started dropping.

Well I like the 4th edition era codices best generally but 6th has rules for more stuff so. I guess have to say 6th since the rulebook is separate from the codices and would probably work just fine if the armies were more balanced.

 Rautakanki wrote:
Well I like the 4th edition era codices best generally but 6th has rules for more stuff so. I guess have to say 6th since the rulebook is separate from the codices and would probably work just fine if the armies were more balanced.

That's all I'm saying.

Hey sweet! Why hasn't anyone made this thread before??

In order:

6th
2nd
5th
3rd
4th

I played RT, but I don't really count that as an edition.

Can we judge the editions separate from the army books? Because the books made 2nd the most unplayable mess that I have ever seen. I still have nightmares about 2nd edition hormagaunts.

Like many people, 6th edition rules. Codices look awesome now... but content is lame (including fluff) so 3-4th edition codices.

6th followed by 2nd

2nd, although I haven't played much of 6th.

6th is my favorite, but I'm one of the few that preferred 3rd edition to 2nd. Not that I didn't have loads of fun in 2nd, but games just took forever, and I was forced to play at our local game stores back then.

3rd edition came out right before I bought my first house, and so we played in my basement and later the spare bedroom. The speed of the game was such a huge boon (to me anyway). I was able to get so many more games in than before....and it made Orks (my army back then) a true close combat army instead of just hinting at it in the fluff like 2nd edition did.

I liked 2nd edition rules more for Necromunda than 40K. It fit better, because in my area, even though units were priced higher, we just played bigger points. 2K points was the stock standard at Dewayne's World of Comics during the 2nd edition days.

3rd was much better than 2nd. But they way overpowered meqs. I wish we had camera phones back then, because my friend's Nid list in 2nd would make these 2nd lovers never want to play it again. Hormagaunts were the brokenest of the broken.

Martel732 wrote:
3rd was much better than 2nd. But they way overpowered meqs. I wish we had camera phones back then, because my friend's Nid list in 2nd would make these 2nd lovers never want to play it again. Hormagaunts were the brokenest of the broken.

2nd edition Nids in general were pretty broken. 2nd edition codices were kind of bizarre, in that they started off with Space Wolves, a totally broken fethed-up mess, then they sort of reset and were reasonable for a few releases, and then the power creep kicked back in.