Which edition had the best core ruleset?

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**Vaktathi**

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
hobojebus wrote:
I honestly don't get how people like 6th and 7th both are utter garbage.

Probably because both opened up several list building opportunities that you don't need your opponent's permission to run?

It isn't like the core rules of 7th are bad. Just make a few tweaks like:
1. You can charge out of a stationary transport
2. Swarms have EW outside of any blast or template
3. Allow Blasts to target open ground inside that enemy squad
4. Soul Blaze is done on a D6
5. ATSKNF gives a reroll to Fear tests rather than ignoring them

Bam. That's pretty solid.

There's a whole lot not to like about the core rules, the random rolls for everything for one, from terrain effects to warlord traits and mysterious objectives and maelstrom objectives and how much maelstrom objectives are worth and psychic powers and on and on. Then there's issues gobs of other issues, such as with skimmers vs non-skimmers (again...), wound allocation funkyness, things like Invisibility and Shifting Worldscape, etc ad nauseum.

There list building opportunities really just seems to be utilized for breaking thing game more than really creating interesting forces drawn from the background material. For every interesting and lovingly crafted background adherent army, there's three dozen abominations built from 3 different armies and 7 different rules sources that have no basis in the background material at all.

**Slayer-Fan123**

Vaktathi wrote:
Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
hobojebus wrote:
I honestly don't get how people like 6th and 7th both are utter garbage.

Probably because both opened up several list building opportunities that you don't need your opponent's permission to run?

It isn't like the core rules of 7th are bad. Just make a few tweaks like:
1. You can charge out of a stationary transport
2. Swarms have EW outside of any blast or template
3. Allow Blasts to target open ground inside that enemy squad
4. Soul Blaze is done on a D6
5. ATSKNF gives a reroll to Fear tests rather than ignoring them

Bam. That's pretty solid.
There's a whole lot not to like about the core rules, the random rolls for everything for one, from terrain effects to warlord traits and mysterious objectives and maelstrom objectives and how much maelstrom objectives are worth and psychic powers and on and on. Then there's issues gobs of other issues, such as with skimmers vs non-skimmers (again...), wound allocation funkyness, things like Invisibility and Shifting Worldscape, etc ad nauseum.

There list building opportunities really just seems to be utilized for breaking thing game more than really creating interesting forces drawn from the background material. For every interesting and lovingly crafted background adherent army, there's three dozen abominations built from 3 different armies and 7 different rules sources that have no basis in the background material at all.

That's 5 points. That's not a lot. Those are just things I'd like to see fixed, two of which (small blasts and swarms) have had issues for multiple editions.
Yeah things like Invisibility could use a WC bump, but are you REALLY complaining about Shifting Worldscape? It's already WC3 and doesn't always get a lot of use in the first place.

I'll give you Maelstrom. Those cards are a mess!

**Selym**

Still got faaar too much random in the game to even be playable. And still got formations and GMCs etc

**Jayden63**

Vaktathi wrote:
Jayden63 wrote:
I had the most fun playing 4th ed. Yeah, entanglement sucked and was a little too harsh, but LOS, wounding allocation, HTH resolution, vehicle damage tables, etc. all seemed very fair and streamlined.
Vehicle tables were fair if you were running skimmers (and particularly skimmers that had wargear which mitigated or removed the downside of being skimmers), but otherwise vehicles were very poor in 4

Let's not even get started on non-skimmer transports (oh, your transport took a single penetrating hit? 50% chance of vehicle death straight away, and if it survives it's automatically stunned and probably immobilized or losing a weapon to boot and now you have to disembark and take a pinning test, skimmers get to ignore all this entirely, huzzah!).

That said, I did like 4E wound allocation and Victory Points (Kill Points were the worst thing 5E introduced and they still suck).

The vehicle rules were really rough on transports. But MBTs and naturally skimmers were much better off. AV13-14 actually meant something. Keeping yourself obscured to get a chance of glancing hits easier with area terrain, and even better with actually blocking LOS terrain like forests. Also the move and shoot was pretty well handeled with the introduction of secondary weapon systems. As it is I currently play a modified version of 4th edition where most of the really rough parts have been removed. The game flows and is actually fun once again.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

insaniak wrote:
4th Editions' hybrid (True LOS sometimes - Abstracted LOS sometimes) LOS system spawned more rules debates over the life of the edition than just about any other rule I can recall in the last 20 years... it was a mess, because people just didn't understand how it was supposed to work.

I must have played with a pretty sharp set of guys as I really don't remember having that many conflicts about it. That or maybe we all just played them wrong the same way naturally.

**Akiasura**

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
hobojebus wrote:
I honestly don't get how people like 6th and 7th both are utter garbage.

Probably because both opened up several list building opportunities that you don't need your opponent's permission to run?

It isn't like the core rules of 7th are bad. Just make a few tweaks like:
1. You can charge out of a stationary transport
2. Swarms have EW outside of any blast or template
3. Allow Blasts to target open ground inside that enemy squad
4. Soul Blaze is done on a D6
5. ATSKNF gives a reroll to Fear tests rather than ignoring them

Bam. That's pretty solid.

I think you'd have to do a lot more then that...
Redo cover saves for MC. Redo their whole wounds and toughness profile, they are way too strong.
Change HPs and the tank damage table. Anything with AV is awful unless its free, and it stems from this.
Overwatch.
Some USRs are balanced while some are awful.
Rapidfire increasing shots so much made the game tilt further for shooting.
Random Charges
Str D table
Haywire (fixed since hawks really, but still pretty bad)
Look Out Sir is too strong and creates deathstars
7th has a LOT of problems.

**Selym**

The allies chart that is supposed to be for fluff purposes but prevents a lot of fluffy alliances and makes unfluffy ones too good.

**Silverthorne**

Vaktathi wrote:
Probably 5E.

I want to often put 4E in place of 5E, but the ridiculously hard to kill Skimmers vs the almost completely unsusable non-skimmer vehicles (and especially non-skimmer transports) coupled with the area terrain LoS rules and ability to consolidate into new combats made for some rather absurd

I totally disagree about the abstracted vs true LOS. Abstracted LOS eliminated probably the most common cause of arguments in a game while encouraging maneuver over gun lines and giving mobile short ranged armies or assault armies a good chance to prevail against a static shooting force. Removing it was a huge step backward that the game has never really recovered from.

A bunch of the survivability and mobility buffs we see today like jink or stormshields for everyone, etc, are just band aids on the real problem of true LOS. Abstracted LOS made it much more possible to achieve a local superiority which made the game more tactical and fun. Now that almost nothing totally blocks LOS in a meaningful way, persistent long range fire support can eliminate the entire meta game of achieving local concentrations, which used to be the funnest part of the game.

**insaniak**

Silverthorne wrote:
Abstracted LOS eliminated probably the most common cause of arguments in a game...

Except it didn't.

It provided a way for area terrain to block LOS... but other editions have done that just as well. The problem there wasn't the removal of the abstract system, it was allowing models to draw LOS through elements of area terrain that had previously blocked LOS that caused issues.

What the abstract system did was spawn a whole bunch of arguments about just how and when it was supposed to be used... because a lot of players didn't understand that outside of area terrain and close combats, 4th edition still used true LOS.

Now that almost nothing totally blocks LOS in a meaningful way, persistent long range fire support can eliminate the entire meta game of achieving local concentrations, which used to be the funnest part of the game.

A problem that can be resolved by putting more terrain on the table...

From my experience, the vast majority of players have always used too little terrain. This has a fairly massive impact on the game, and always has done.

**ManSandwich**

I loved 5th, I really haven't enjoyed 7th. Too many supplementary rule sets to keep a track of and the only way to make assault armies work in 7th in my opinion have been either land raider spam or using formations, neither of which really appeal to me.

Which really upsets the ork and/or berzerker in me.

**Xca|iber**

I'll say 5E, prior to the last few months after the new GK codex dropped (despite that codex being the one that motivated me to actually start a GK army like I'd always wanted).

I remember being very frustrated throughout a lot of 5E, on account of playing Black Templars (a 3E 'dex) vs my friends' much more powerful 4/5E 'dexes; getting tabled (or nearly so) was a common occurrence. However, the game was still mostly enjoyable and I usually felt like I had a chance to win, even if I was at a disadvantage.

The moment I noticed this start to change was the first time I fielded my (new) GK against my friend's Daemons and Warp Quaked him off the table T1. It seems like every new 'dex after that point just made things more and more needlessly complex and much more open to abuse. Even though I was winning so much more frequently than before, it felt less like I was making good decisions (both army-construction-wise and game-wise) and more like the units in my codex just out-powered everything from any older book.

This was obviously bad from a "balanced, enjoyable game" perspective, but it was also bad from the perspective of knowing that my army's strength, based on "this unit is just strictly better than your equivalent," would eventually turn against me, as newer 'dexes got released. Which is exactly what happened once 6th Ed Tau/Eldar became a thing.

Makes me wish there was a 5E ruleset back then with every 'dex from that time-period equalized at the 5E level (so bring GK down from their "6E-but-not-quite", and bring up the 3-4E books to parity).

**adamsouza**

insaniak wrote:

From my experience, the vast majority of players have always used too little terrain. This has a fairly massive impact on the game, and always has done.

OMG This !!

Spoiler:

**Selym**

adamsouza wrote:
insaniak wrote:

From my experience, the vast majority of players have always used too little terrain. This has a fairly massive impact on the game, and always has done.

OMG This !!

Spoiler:

If your table looks like this, you deserve to have your army blown off the board turn 1

True-ish, but a lot of shooty army players will argue for hours over the amount of terrain on the board, and only play on planet bowling ball with a few barricades.

Ideally:

Spoiler:

**Nerak**

Thinking back I have to go with 4th because it was the edition I had the most fun with. I do not think it was the most balanced though, mostly since assult was so strong and shooting fell behind. That being said there's 3 main reason I preffered the 4th edition. One thing I don't include is that the game seemed to run smoother and quicker in 4th, but I don't want to put that down because I'm not 100% if I remmember that wrong or not.

1: Deployment.
Deployment in 4th followed the matrix where heavy support unit was deployed first and fast attack last. Each players took turns to deploy one unit at a time and did it with a 24" area of denial. After this it got changed to "one side deploys then the other". Something I found far less entertaining, less tactical and less interactive. After deployment you had a roll of for who would go first, and I just thought the whole phase offered lots of depth.

2: Codexes
I always felt like 3.5e and (early) 4e codexes represented the lore better then any other edition, with the possible exception of 2e. Pretty much every army had doctrines of army specefic upgrades/changes for points, the FOC was limited to represent skirmish, the warger sections was immense and filled with items that where there more to represent the lore then to offer game balance. 5th saw the start of the special character focus that would come to dominate 40k in all the comming edditions, as well as a drop of the wargear section. In 4th you still had the rules that stated you could only take special characters if your opponent agreed and on a certain point level, usually 1750p+. Also no cross codex shenanigans (with the exception for the inquisition codexes). Also, point per model. Not per squad, per model.

3: Kill team/campaigns/combat patrol/fliers
This is a bit of a cheat but I had great time with this stuff. The old flier rules where cool. Fliers would arrive from reserve and you'd add 12" to the range once your weapon reached the base of it. You also put the model on the board edge one turn before it arrived to represent it comming before it got in range, whereupon it could be shot down by AA weapons. Kill teams was a blast and a nice lite addition to the game, I recall having great fun modelling and putting togheter my 160p squads. Combat patrol was very welcome to help new players out. Finally the 4th campaign rules gave your units increased exp during a campaign which gave them special rules or stats increase. You had a rooster for your army and all units that survived earned exp.

I realise theese are not "core rules" since that's more a question of the rulebook itself, but 40k for me has always been more then just a game. It's a hobby where I put many hours into every single part of a game, whenever it's the rules, the models or the terrain. Somehow I thought that with the effort 4th made to give you opportunities to have fun and see in lore justifications for all your equippment that made the game all the more enjoyable, despite it not being the best released ruleset so far.

**Ketara**

Phanixis wrote:
Here are some of the bigger problems 5e introduced:

Alpha Strike Armies: The is just my opinion, but alpha strike armies suck. Getting crippled before turn 1 should not happen and yet this happens all to often in 40k, and 5e is where this truly began. True LOS made it nearly impossible to hide larger and often more important units from LOS even for a single turn, so combined with the increased codex power in 5e armies the army with first turn could now pound its opponent from across the board with little effort. Combine this with the newly introduced drop pods and crazy scouting units like the Vendetta and Baal Predator and you are often looking at one army placing troops with nasty weapons like meltaguns and flamers in their opponents deployment zone and destroying key units before the opponent gets a single turn. This problem has only become worse in later editions.

Easy Access to Invulnerably Saves: Ok, arguably the first offender was the awful Choas Deamon codex at the tail end of 4e, although you could make the Ork codex argument that this was a codex built in anticipation of 5e. But I feel that Stormshields cemented this trend. Inv saves should have never been made available in anything better than a 4+ except in the rarest of circumstances, but stormshields turned 3+ inv into a stock upgrade. Even if the unit itself isn't consider that strong I still feel that this set a bad precedent.

Tank Squadrons: In 4e, every faction was essentially limited to an absolute maximum of three main battle tanks by the FOC and thus tanks were limited as supporting elements to an infantry based army, as was fitting for a skirmish level game. There existed only one exception to this rule, the awful Nidzilla builds that were possible because Nid players were allowed to take MCs in three separate force org slots when they should have been limited to the heavy support slot just like every other army. But otherwise, this rule held in check. When 5e rolled around, IG got Leman Russ Squadrons plus Vendetta skimmer tanks in the fast attack slot, Nids got Carnifex Squadrons and Blood Angles could field fast attack Predators. While these weren't always the strongest choices (see Carnifex squadrons) it established a clear precedent that it was now acceptable for armies to just spam massive amounts of their largest and strongest models.

Flyers: "But it was 6e that introduced flyers!" you say. While technically true, the first flyer models, such as Valkyries, Stormravens and Nightscythes were introduced in 5e, and all on unique bases that clearly separated them from skimmers. Did anyone honestly expect them to remain skimmer tanks indefinitely? And even as skimmer tanks, they kind of let the Imperials intrude upon xenos territory, for whom skimmer tanks were supposed to be their unique a powerful centerpiece units. In any case, I think the blame for flyers should be squarely placed here.

Codex Arms Race: Admittedly I never played 3e so this might have been a 4e problem as well, but 5e codices were clearly more powerful than their 4e counterparts, giving the newer codices and edge over their opposition. And I am certain it was not just compatibility with the new rules. Units often got cheaper in 5e codices while gaining new assortments of special rules (this seemed to be the edition of new army wide special rules such as "tactics" and "orders"), especially basic troops, and armies often got new very powerful tools such as drop pods, scouting predators and vendettas that radically altered how you had to fight against them, and these tools were often grossly undercosted.

Wouldn't you agree though, that many of the above problems are to do with the codex writing than the core rules? Things like tank squadrons after all, are, I think a good idea as an option for light vehicles (sentinels, buggies, tetras, and so on), it's only when it gets given as an option to things like Vendettas it becomes problematic. And even then, it only becomes problematic when they're costed too cheaply. Same again for multiple cheap invulnerable saves, and units with the ability to deep strike in turn 1 (IIRC you could only deep strike from turn 2 normally in 5th). If you wrote the codex with those flaws in mind, they could be easily edited out without changing the core ruleset.

**hobojebus**

Selym wrote:
Still got faaar too much random in the game to even be playable. And still got formations and GMCs etc

Oh I despise the random rolls it's the hallmark of devs that clearly don't give a damn about making a proper rule set.

**insaniak**

hobojebus wrote:
Selym wrote:
Still got faaar too much random in the game to even be playable. And still got formations and GMCs etc

Oh I despise the random rolls it's the hallmark of devs that clearly don't give a damn about making a proper rule set.

To be fair, it's alternatively just the 'hallmark' of devs who like a bunch of random events in their games.

Not being to everyone's taste doesn't automatically make it bad game design.

**Selym**

It does if the objective is to create a "Tactical Wargame".

**insaniak**

What makes you think that was ever GW's objective?

Based on 20-odd years of watching the GW studio, I'm reasonably confident that their goal is simply to produce a game that they personally find fun to play.

**hobojebus**

insaniak wrote:
What makes you think that was ever GW's objective?

Based on 20-odd years of watching the GW studio, I'm reasonably confident that their goal is simply to produce a game that they personally find fun to play.

When what they should of been doing was make a game their customers would find fun to play.

These are the guys that thought no points and zero balance was a good idea don't forget.

**Selym**

insaniak wrote:
What makes you think that was ever GW's objective?

Based on 20-odd years of watching the GW studio, I'm reasonably confident that their goal is simply to produce a game that they personally find fun to play.

Never said it was their objective. But it should have been. I would be a lot happier about buying 40k stuff and getting other to buy into it if it was a good game.

Sadly, 40k is only good for making you lose friends.

**jeffersonian000**

Accolade wrote:
jeffersonian000 wrote:
While everyone seems to love 5th, I found 6th to be the best core rule set by far. It felt dynamic, openned up more options than the stale CAD and AD, and had actual terrain rules. Definitely the best core rule set.

SJ

I remember 6th having a hopeful tone when it first came out, and that lasted for a period until things like Escalation started coming out.

We are talking about core rules, not supplements. As a core ruld set, 6th was the most inclusive and complete set. The problem with 6th occured when GW decided to start releasing 7th Ed codexes and supplements a year into 6th, follow by releasing 7th way too early. 7th is not well written, unlike 6th. There is no doubt in my mind that if 6th had it's full run, it would have been the most balance edition.

SJ

**Blacksails**

You don't think its weird to call 6th the most inclusive and complete when it had the most expansions that affected the core rules, like Escalation and Stronghold?

**Tycho**

Based on 20-odd years of watching the GW studio, I'm reasonably confident that their goal is simply to produce a game that they personally find fun to play.

Regardless of which edition you prefer, I think this statement has always applied. I think it's maybe less true of 3rd ed (even Gav Thorpe is on record as having said that they went too far in simplifying the game from 2nd-3rd), but over-all I've always felt like the studio has always made the game for themselves first. I think that's partially to blame for quite a bit of the disconnect over the years.

We are talking about core rules, not supplements. As a core ruld set, 6th was the most inclusive and complete set. The problem with 6th occured when GW decided to start releasing 7th Ed codexes and supplements a year into 6th, follow by releasing 7th way too early. 7th is not well written, unlike 6th. There is no doubt in my mind that if 6th had it's full run, it would have been the most balance edition.

IMO you're right about 6th being a very inclusive and relatively "complete" core set. I really enjoyed it at first as it felt like a slight return to the 40k "glory days" of 2nd ed. Unfortunately, I think 7th was the logical conclusion to 6th regardless of when it came out. I agree that 7th was rushed out too early, but I don't think delaying it would have really made that much of a difference. Where 6th ed wedged its toe in the door in terms of concepts like formations, unbound, random random because reasons, etc, 7th beat the door down with a battering ram and stormed into the room with a shotgun.

Once you open that gate of allowing "more" it gets very difficult to close it back up again which makes it important that you do it properly right from the start. Unfortunately, while I mostly enjoyed 6th, I think it made several key mistakes that allowed the beast that is 7th to exist.

**jeffersonian000**

Blacksails wrote:
You don't think its weird to call 6th the most inclusive and complete when it had the most expansions that affected the core rules, like Escalation and Stronghold?

Previous to Escalation, Superheavies were Apocalypse units; can you honestly say Escalation added to the core rule set? Stronghold Assault added updated building rules; again, were those rules adding to the core? 7th rolled both into the core, while dropping detailed core rules that were needed to make fortifications and superheavies more balanced, such as rules for levels that existed in 6th but disappeared in 7th, or point level restrictions in core rules that would have effected Superheavies.

Not sure why people don't understand the difference between core rules and supplementary rules.

SJ

**Blacksails**

jeffersonian000 wrote:
Blacksails wrote:
You don't think its weird to call 6th the most inclusive and complete when it had the most expansions that affected the core rules, like Escalation and Stronghold?

Previous to Escalation, Superheavies were Apocalypse units; can you honestly say Escalation added to the core rule set?

Yes, yes I can. Seeing as that supplement literally added rules and units that were previously only allowed in Apoc to the game base core rules, I think its pretty fair to say Escalation added to the core rules.

Stronghold Assault added updated building rules; again, were those rules adding to the core?

Yes, same as above.

7th rolled both into the core, while dropping detailed core rules that were needed to make fortifications and superheavies more balanced, such as rules for levels that existed in 6th but disappeared in 7th, or point level restrictions in core rules that would have effected Superheavies.

If 7th rolled them all in, wouldn't that make it more inclusive and complete than 6th?

Not sure why people don't understand the difference between core rules and supplementary rules.

SJ

Because those line have always been blurred, seeing as how those books effectively grant a blanket permission for anyone to use the contents of the book, which in 40k terms, is effectively the same thing as being in the core rules.

**Purifier**

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

5. ATSKNF gives a reroll to Fear tests rather than ignoring them

Bam. That's pretty solid.

What? How much do you have that relies on causing fear? Because that is not the strong part of ATSKNF. The strong part is that they regroup automatically and they stand and fight if charged while falling back.
It feels like such a weird change to have as one of your 5 bullet points to fix the game when them being immune to fear is so rarely even used. I wouldn't even pay 5 points for *that* part of ATSKNF.

**Selym**

Purifier wrote:
Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

5. ATSKNF gives a reroll to Fear tests rather than ignoring them

Bam. That's pretty solid.

What? How much do you have that relies on causing fear? Because that is not the strong part of ATSKNF. The strong part is that they regroup automatically and they stand and fight if charged while falling back.
It feels like such a weird change to have as one of your 5 bullet points to fix the game when them being immune to fear is so rarely even used. I wouldn't even pay 5 points for *that* part of ATSKNF.

It's not even worth 1.

Especially given that without ATSKNF, space marines have leaderships 8-10 pretty much exclusively.

**Silverthorne**

insaniak wrote:
Silverthorne wrote:
Abstracted LOS eliminated probably the most common cause of arguments in a game...

Except it didn't.

It provided a way for area terrain to block LOS... but other editions have done that just as well. The problem there wasn't the removal of the abstract system, it was allowing models to draw LOS through elements of area terrain that had previously blocked LOS that caused issues.

What the abstract system did was spawn a whole bunch of arguments about just how and when it was supposed to be used... because a lot of players didn't understand that outside of area terrain and close combats, 4th edition still used true LOS.

Now that almost nothing totally blocks LOS in a meaningful way, persistent long range fire support can eliminate the entire meta game of achieving local concentrations, which used to be the funnest part of the game.

A problem that can be resolved by putting more terrain on the table...

From my experience, the vast majority of players have always used too little terrain. This has a fairly massive impact on the game, and always has done.

I don't see how there would be any argument-- it was like 1.5 pages worth of rules, you only had to memorize the depth into which models in large area terrain could see out of it, and the length of terrain through which LOS could be drawn. Literally 2 pieces of information. If that was too much to grasp and the group had frequest arguments about it, I'd be curious as to how they managed to utilize the far more complicated parts of the ruleset. Unfortunately what you say doesn't jive with the facts about the LOS rules in 4th, and this is easily verifiable.

The "not enough terrain" canard is pointless. You could literally cover a board with jungle terrain and it would still be possible to draw true LOS through almost any distance of it when you get a model eye view. Blocking true LOS neaningfully doesn't just require buckets and buckets of terrain (which, by the way, had an entire other set of consequences for the game you are not even considering for some reason, like heavily nerfing tracked vehicles, totally boning armies without lots of grenade access, and making horde armies a massive chore to play) it really requires specially built terrain with large, slabby, windowless buildings. This is fail for several reasons, not the least of which is that it makes terrain set up a part of the metagame. The 4th ed solution was elegant, it allowed ruins to be use able and simultaneously block LOS from distant shooters against targets positioned behind the terrain. It was also much more realistic and true to life than the grot with his BS 2 being able to shoot through the jungle, through the crack in the ruined wall, through the .1" gap in between the 2 rhinos, over the rock pile and under the prometheium pipes, nothing but net.

**Phanixis**

insaniak wrote:
4th Editions' hybrid (True LOS sometimes - Abstracted LOS sometimes) LOS system spawned more rules debates over the life of the edition than just about any other rule I can recall in the last 20 years... it was a mess, because people just didn't understand how it was supposed to work.

See my experience was exactly the opposite. LOS arguments increased by about four fold when I switched to 5e and probably accounted for a least half of all rules related arguments I had in 5th edition. And how could it be any other way? Implementing TLOS on the table top was just downright finicky, constantly having to check "model's eye" viewpoint, grab laser pointers, crouch down to get weird view angles of the table and the like. Its a rule that looks great on paper but is terrible in practice.

insaniak wrote:

Silverthorne wrote:
Abstracted LOS eliminated probably the most common cause of arguments in a game...

It provided a way for area terrain to block LOS... but other editions have done that just as well. The problem there wasn't the removal of the abstract system, it was allowing models to draw LOS through elements of area terrain that had previously blocked LOS that caused issues.

How exactly does one prevent LOS from being drawn through terrain without abstracting it in some way? Given that most terrain are things like forest, ruins with plenty of windows and holes, stacks of debris and the like you almost always going to be able to physically see through the terrain piece, even if you are using your model's vantage point. The only way to block line of is to say something to the effect of: "although you can see through those windows in the ruins, you can't draw LOS through it" at which point you have abandoned TLOS for the purposes of said window and abstracted the way you draw LOS.

Ketara wrote:

Wouldn't you agree though, that many of the above problems are to do with the codex writing than the core rules? Things like tank squadrons after all, are, I think a good idea as an option for light vehicles (sentinels, buggies, tetras, and so on), it's only when it gets given as an option to things like Vendettas it becomes problematic. And even then, it only becomes problematic when they're costed too cheaply. Same again for multiple cheap invulnerable saves, and units with the ability to deep strike in turn 1 (IIRC you could only deep strike from turn 2 normally in 5th). If you wrote the codex with those flaws in mind, they could be easily edited out without changing the core ruleset.

Yes, I did include the codex rules in with the core rules but honestly its kind of hard to distance the impact of the codices from the rest of the game, as the codices and the core rules quickly become intertwined. Also remember that this argument cuts both ways, the much maligned holo-falcons of 4e are a combination of 4e skimmer rules and Eldar wargear. Without the likes of holofields, spirit stones and vectored-retro thrusters for the Eldar codex the falcon would have average survivability, benefiting only from the fast skimmer rule. But even if you want to just look at core rules in isolation, its hard to go wrong with abstract LOS, sensible wound allocation, victory points and other staples of 4e. The only glaring problem 4e seemed to have was glass jaw vehicles. There were a few additional changes from 5e I also liked such as the new deployment rules, but I still felt that for every step 5e took forward it took two steps back.

**Polonius**

Fourth edition is an underrated rule set, and in many ways the easiest to fix. However, the major flaws of 4th are crushing to play experience. Even leaving out codex imbalance, as it's not the topic, you had virtually unplayable transports, overpowered skimmers, and fairly limited options for deployment/reserves. It lead to a lot of static shooting mixed with droppod or monstrous creature spam. The reason I like 5th more is that it's flaws were exploits, notably wound allocation and AV spam, while 4th's flaws were limits. You simply could not build a really good mechanized list.

You could do a lot worse than 4th for a basis of a fan remix, but if I had to play an edition out of the book, I'd take 5th.