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slade the sniper wrote:
I suspect that my experiences are very very different than that of other players in that I have never played in any competitive game, and every battle was driven by lore than points... so full narrative on my part.
Points are great, but rather like CR in DnD, BV in Battletech, I consider points in 40k to be guidelines, not something to be followed to the number so if my SoB have too many infernos, oh well, or if my GK are underpointed, I don't really care. My particular OCD is in damage modeling in RPGs, not list building in wargames. For this reason, I really like uneven historical or asymmetrical games and scenarios.

-STS

I think this is a very important point. I approached 3rd with an open mind, but besides the way it handled AP/cover the org charts were very off-putting. I get that there was a notion to make the game more balanced in a competitive setting, but in the process it really undercut the concept of collaborative gaming where people talked about scenarios and forces before playing, and that in turn led to horrendous levels of abuse.

There were limits to certain kinds of troops prior to 3rd, but it was more based on the lore rather than game balance and of course if your opponent agreed, you could field whatever you wanted. Even with the larger forces in 3rd, it was still within the bounds of realism to have an all-terminator army or an equivalent elite force because we're talking platoon-sized elements in a much larger battle.

No one took box-checking units in 2nd because you didn't need to. The IG had a more rigid table of organization, but that was fluff, not game balance.

And ultimately, mandatory choices just became one more thing to be gamed, and various lists offered exceptions that were eagerly exploited. Depending on how recent your book was, you might be burdened with boat anchor point sinks or 100% efficiency, which was frustrating.

Put simply, it offered one more mechanic of the game for GW designers to screw up in the name of a yet-to-be-achieved game balance.

 catbarf wrote:


I still advocate for 5th Ed core rules with 3rd/4th Ed codices as the best of Oldhammer. Most of the problems associated with 5th really were the result of the codices. You don't get leafblower nonsense using the 3.5Ed Guard codex.

You do still have wound allocation shenanigans, but that can be alleviated by threat of dreadsock.

I'm still annoyed 5th directly nerfed the primary 4th edition Tyranid damage dealing rule that was rending (going from rending on hits to wounds was a massive nerf) while also making it impossible for venom cannons to destroy vehicles (because they could only glance).

I played from Rogue Trader.

1st if you want skirmish narrative
2nd if you want small armies, 3-4 vehicles - 3-4 squads then it struggle.
Small armies to massive battles 3rd edition blows all others away.
Movement simple and intuitive.
Great Codexes with huge variety - I once took a sisters of battle without SOB army to a GT:
1 inquisitor
Priest
Callidus Assassin
120 Zealots in 6 units with IIRC 18 eviscerators to help anti-armour and anti-tank
2 exorcists
It was spectacular to play.

Battles looked and felt like a battle between 2 armies as opposed to the current cowering behind L or box shaped buildings to stand on cirlces.
Mission objectives were limited and made sense.
Almost no paperwork/cards to play in game making the game flow.

Also, it didn't have the bloat the game does now, but you could customise characters or unit weapons and points values for those weapon/armour/ability changes actually meant something.

A.T. wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
So most of our troop choices evaporated to bolters/flamers, and I was a broke kid who couldn't afford to spam jetbikes

For eldar I think it was more lack of firepower. In 5e you wanted troops you could attack with so that it was practical to take a lot of them.
Inquisition stormtroopers, veteran guardsmen, dark eldar warriors, etc. No more durable than avengers, less durable than jetbikes, but absolutely premium troops choices.

From what I recall, storm troopers and guard vets had the advantage of being able to pack a bunch of meltaguns into a relatively small, cheap unit. Which kind of ties back into the parking lot thing. If everyone spams a million vehicles, the guy who can throw out a dirt cheap squad with multiple meltaguns has the edge.

Kabalite warriors were cheap *and* could bring an anti-tank gun, but critically, they got to shoot that anti tank gun while riding around inside a transport. So where their craftworld cousins were spending however many points avengers cost to turn a tank into a scoring unit, drukhari were spending similar points, turning a vehicle into a scoring unit, *and* adding a handful of guns to its profile at the same time. The lack of fire points was kind of a stealth factor in how frustrating eldar troops were, I think. Because in addition to being squishy, they also only got to contribute their special gun shooting if you exposed them to danger. Whereas marines or even kabalites could hide out in their transports.

My foggy memory breakdown of eldar troops in 5th is something like:

Dire Avengers: The best troop choice by far. Zero ability to hurt most vehicles. Had rad exarch powers that made them fun to use outside of a transport, but you were better off leaving them inside the transport all game to turn it into a scoring unit.

Guardian Defenders: Guardsmen, but make them more expensive and take away their plasma/flamer/melta gun slot. Could technically threaten vehicles with their heavy weapon, but like, one shot hitting on 4+ wasn't much to write home about.

Storm Guardians: Can take two okay guns, and the rest of the squad is ablative wounds for those two guns. Can spend extra points to take a warlock who makes them pretty okay actually. But also you need to take a wave serpent for this squad or they'll accomplish nothing. Meaning you had to buy 4 boxes (storm guardian weapons were a separate upgrade sprue) of stuff to make these guys work as one of your mandatory troop tax units. So viable if you were okay spending $100+ (in 5th edition money) on them.

Rangers: Fun. Flavorful. Neat for what they were. Also got auto-deleted by a single flamer or any melee unit more threatening than guardsmen, and couldn't *really* threaten vehicles. (But rend made it fun to try.) These guys were nifty, but they weren't really good at scoring (too easy to delete; too exposed outside a transport) or at helping against the vehicle meta.

Windriders: Kind of in ranger territory. Flavorful. Quirky. Fun. Not bad as a unit that you hid all game and then turbo boosted at the end in hopes of the game ending and letting you score a hard to reach objective. But being 1 shuriken cannon per 3 bikes at the time meant they weren't actually all that scary to vehicles. Nor were they all that survivable; thus the hiding and tubo boosting while praying for the game to end on the turn you exposed them.

Wraithguard: Sort of a technicality, but you could field these guys as troops if you took a unit of 10 with an upgraded warlock that cost something like 300 points. These guys were a solid way to go, but that was also the sort of playstyle/unit you had to build your whole list around. Plus, this was before there was a box of plastic wraithguard, so collecting a unit like that was prohibitively expensive.

So with all that in mind, craftworld troops really just felt like they weren't designed for 5th. Drukhari troops could be a cheap investment that could be used from inside a transport (kabalites) or else could counter the vehicle meta with haywire grenades (wyches), or else could be sorta kinda durable for their points (wracks). Whereas craftworld troops were some combination of expensive (wraiths), couldn't really participate against the vehicle meta (avengers, rangers, arguably defenders and bikes), or simply couldn't synergize with transports the same way, and also those transports cost way more than the competition.

And then you had marines that could choose between shooting from the safety of their transports (fire point son rhinos; not sure about razorbacks), or they could march around being fairly durable outside the transport to bring their anti-tank weapons to bare. And then if they didn't shoot the enemy tanks to death, they had their choice of either krak grenading the enemy or just punching its rear armor in melee.

EDIT: If craftworlders had learned the advanced technology that was fire points and/or had access to something like a dark eldar venom, I think their troops might have had a better time in 5th.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Kabalite warriors were cheap *and* could bring an anti-tank gun, but critically, they got to shoot that anti tank gun while riding around inside a transport / Whereas marines or even kabalites could hide out in their transports.

I tended to find that the troops jumping out is when the damage was done. Light vehicles in 5e were routinely shaken and if you didn't disembark once you closed in you'd just get encircled and 'no escaped'.
Eldar vehicles were actually trying to survive, and were costed as such. Made for poor ablative wounds.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
And then you had marines that could choose between shooting from the safety of their transports (fire point son rhinos; not sure about razorbacks), or they could march around being fairly durable outside the transport to bring their anti-tank weapons to bare.

5e tactical marines were competing with cruddace-sisters and 3e power armoured GK as the absolute worst troops choices available.

Minimum 10 man squad for a single special and heavy weapon, 170+pts not including a transport. You'd get two squads of rangers for that and chill out behind 2+ cover saves after infiltrating into position... well except for the other thing that eldar troops were not good for - screening against drop pods :/

All the other marines were good though - scouts good, chaos marines good, bikers good, wolves good, BA assault marines good, 4e las/plas templars good, 4e DA terminators good, etc.

 RustyNumber wrote:

 Eilif wrote:
Grimdark Future.
Fast and fun and finally my games of "40k" play out with a speed and ease that I always wanted them too. Yet it still "feels" like the 40k universe. Grimdark easily accommodates MASSIVE apocalypse'ish battles (I love ridiculously huge battles) in a reasonable amount of time. Also it's basically free...

I too play OPR, fast simple and I don't like current 40k. However it is very much too lean on the crunch to make me completely satisfied. I wish they'd at least add more than two unit stats.

I'd be interested in your experience with the apoc scale battles if you've had any, the idea of using the "use squad leaders as the only measure marker for the unit" is interesting. I also wonder if you could adapt it to the GW apoc rules where you resolve damage at the end.

Wish I had the time to try 5th with my mate (we both started in 5th) but being busy adults OPR is just too handy to play instead when we get together twice a month.

For OPR Apocalypse size games, we pretty much just played them as-written. It's such a streamlined ruleset that nothing really needs to be changed. The squad leader as measure marker is a good idea. I probably wouldn't bother trying to bring in any GW apoc rules, though I'm willing to raid any GW product if it has interesting scenario ideas. I recently bought the Levithan rulebook and cards as potential scenario fodder.

I get the appeal of 5th, but it really offers nothing that I want that OPR doesn't offer. I'm sure those who desire more crunch would differ but I'm fine with two stats as honestly, I'm just looking for a way to get my figures on the table and battling as easily as possible.

Here's a big battle where I commanded 6000 points of Dark Angels vs two other players. Almost apocalyptic...
https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/2024/05/aar-12000-point-grimdark-future-battle/

Played since Rogue Trader. Gave up when 10th came out before I'd even had a game of 9th, invalidating the dozen or so books I'd bought for 9th, due to covid (I'm a carer for a vulnerable relative so had to essentially shield with them for a couple of years).

4th edition for me. Basically a refined 3rd edition. Still had proper area terrain rules and IIRC height levels, rather than 5th edition's TLOS. No stupid wound allocation shenanigans. It was by no means perfect - there were some oddities, like the way similar units could be wildly different in effectiveness depending on whether they were a vehicle (could be one shotted or stun-locked) or monster (fought at full effectiveness until they lost their last wound).

3.5/early 4th edition codexes were the best, with marine chapter traits, guard regimental doctrines etc, giving an unparalleled level of 'your dudes'. I just wish they'd managed to do all the armies in that style before the paradigm changed in 5th to stripping out all the customisation, and making things like chapter traits dependent on including special characters.

Never entirely got on with the post-8th paradigm, especially with things like vehicles no longer having facings, as I found that quite immersion breaking. The over-reliance on rerolls and strategems along with very abstract missions seemed to make it very 'gamey' and less like a battle. There were a couple of things I liked, like monstrous creatures having degrading profiles, putting them more on a par with vehicles.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 Eilif wrote:
If I had to choose a GW ruleset for the 40k universe, I do like Necromunda 95 and Shadow War Armageddon (and also Mordheim). Those games take the 2nd edition mechanics and keep them at the small scope of game that they work best at. When you're only dealing with a kill-team-per-player it's no problem to have slightly crunchier old-school mechanics.

Yes. It's interesting to go through the Wargear book in 2nd and see just how much stuff never appeared in subsequent books. It was just too fiddly and not appropriate to a game that was moving beyond the squad level to the platoon. That is why I looked at ways to cut out the non-essential elements like models being on fire, rolling for plasma diameter, jump pack scatter, etc. Because of the granularity, there is still a practical limit, but if you do things like resolve close combats without re-rolls, it goes a lot faster.

Yeah, RT and Second edition are both crunchier than necessary for the sizes of games that players ended up playing. GW essentially wrote rules best suited for armies of a couple squads when players were doing platoon and then for a platoon when folks were moving toward a whole Company.

The war gear book and lists are great for Necromunda 95, but allot of that was never even going to be used even in 2nd edition.

RT is basically an RPG and that legacy carries through to 2nd Edition.

Only played Fantasy as a child, got started in 40K with the 6th edition starter box. 6th and 7th are probably still my preferred editions. They were when I managed to get the most gaming in too - I've probably played more 6-7th than I have 8-10th.

If I was going to bring in stuff from 40K into OPR it'd be blast templates and flamer templates and I'd think about some way to incorporate facings into vehicles and monsters. Maybe something as simple as -1 defense from the rear.

But I'm also just playing Grimdark Future these days.

For me, I think my favourite edition is very different for casual and competitive.

For competitive, I actually think it's the current 10th edition. Aside from my Kroot army being a real army for the first time since 3rd/4th edition, and actually being good for the first time, I do think the overemphasis on the competitive scene has led to a tightly balanced and controlled experience if that's what you're looking for... but it's rarely cinamatic or narrative on that front.

For narrative, I think 5th was my favourite. I loved the Battle Missions book that was released that edition with special scenarios for each major factions as well as a few bonus ones, as well as the introduction of Kill Team, and some other interesting game variants that never caught on as well. I've lost count of the amount of times I've played All Around Defense, or first Tryanid mission whose name I don't recall of the top of my head. They were great little narrative levels that really lent well to stories forming on the tabletop.

A.T. wrote:
5e tactical marines were competing with cruddace-sisters and 3e power armoured GK as the absolute worst troops choices available...

All the other marines were good though - scouts good, chaos marines good, bikers good, wolves good, BA assault marines good, 4e las/plas templars good, 4e DA terminators good, etc.

Fair. I seldom saw anyone fielding vanilla marines once the SW and BA books were out except maybe as part of some salamanders drop pod shenanigans. But my point still stands. Even "bad" troops like the humble tac marine at least had the ability to threaten vehicles (in multiple phases no less!) with all the usual durability that came with being a marine while also having the option to hide inside a cheap rhino without giving up their important guns' shooting. And all of those traits were pretty important in an edition where you needed troops to stay alive to the end of the game and also ideally wanted them to contribute to killing the parking lots full of enemy vehicles.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tawnis wrote:
For me, I think my favourite edition is very different for casual and competitive.

For competitive, I actually think it's the current 10th edition. Aside from my Kroot army being a real army for the first time since 3rd/4th edition, and actually being good for the first time, I do think the overemphasis on the competitive scene has led to a tightly balanced and controlled experience if that's what you're looking for... but it's rarely cinamatic or narrative on that front.

That's a good distinction to draw, and agreed that 10th edition is probably the best choice to date for relatively balanced competitive games; if that's your cup of tea.

For narrative, I think 5th was my favourite. I loved the Battle Missions book that was released that edition with special scenarios for each major factions as well as a few bonus ones, as well as the introduction of Kill Team, and some other interesting game variants that never caught on as well.

Battle Missions was pretty nifty. Technically, Kill Team started in 4th edition if I'm not mistaken though. Back when you had bosses and brute squads and claxon counters.

I actually think 10th does narrative just fine; its just that in older editions the lack of engaging competitive scenarios meant people were experimenting more since there wasn't a tried and true path that resulted in reliably fun games.

I think if you want narrative you just need to put in that same kind of effort you used to. Make maps and objective markers that are important to your story. Play the asymmetrical missions that most people toss out of the deck. Give a side a random bonus based on how an earlier game of Kill Team played out. Narrative has always required meeting it half way. It's just harder to do when competitive has a nice smooth path all laid out for you.

 LunarSol wrote:
I actually think 10th does narrative just fine; its just that in older editions the lack of engaging competitive scenarios meant people were experimenting more since there wasn't a tried and true path that resulted in reliably fun games.

I think if you want narrative you just need to put in that same kind of effort you used to. Make maps and objective markers that are important to your story. Play the asymmetrical missions that most people toss out of the deck. Give a side a random bonus based on how an earlier game of Kill Team played out. Narrative has always required meeting it half way. It's just harder to do when competitive has a nice smooth path all laid out for you.

You're not wrong, but I feel like presentation is, in and of itself, a bit of a hurdle when it comes to narrative stuff. Like, a really simple example: older editions didn't tell you exactly where to place objectives; they just said to take turns placing them, sometimes with some parameters. So it was common in my 7th and 8th edition games for us to go, "This belltower is tall and looks cool. It *must* be where your vox operators are hiding out and coordinating the war front." And bam. You've got a little tidbit of story to go with your mission. In contrast, 10th tells you exactly where to put your objectives, and we tend to build (often symmetrical) battlefields around those positions. Which instantly makes it feel like I'm trying to build a symmetrical map for a video game rather than stumbling upon a bespoke battlefield with its own quirks and challenges.

Putting the asymmetrical cards in the latest mission deck has helped a lot, I've found. It saves a group of people (who may be a bit socially awkward) form having to have that extra step of pregame conversation and kind of "legitimizes" the asymmetrical deployment rather than making it feel like you're putting someone out by asking to imbalance the game for the sake of your narrative preferences. (Not criticizing people for using asymmetrical deployments; I'm pointing out that it can *feel* awkward to request to use them if they're not included in the default mission deck.)

And presentation aside, 10th *has* taken away a lot of the tools I used to use to give my characters their own stories and personalities. I have a succubus conversion that I did up to look mandrake-y to go with my edgy fluff about a creepy alliance my cult has with mandrakes. In 10th edition, she lost the ability to attach to mandrake squads. (A thing that was sub-optimal but fit my fluff.) As of the new drukhari codex, she's lost her gun, meaning the flaming mandrake hand I previously represented with blast pistol rules is purely for decoration now.

A.T. wrote:
5e tactical marines were competing with cruddace-sisters and 3e power armoured GK as the absolute worst troops choices available.

Minimum 10 man squad for a single special and heavy weapon, 170+pts not including a transport. You'd get two squads of rangers for that and chill out behind 2+ cover saves after infiltrating into position... well except for the other thing that eldar troops were not good for - screening against drop pods :/

All the other marines were good though - scouts good, chaos marines good, bikers good, wolves good, BA assault marines good, 4e las/plas templars good, 4e DA terminators good, etc.

Gotta disagree about Tacs. 5e gave them some nice boosts. They gained Bolt Pistols, Frag and Krak as default wargear, and then gained the Combat Squads ability. With Bolt Pistols they could shoot before Assaulting, which definitely helps against more numerous, lighter troops. Frag helps against troops in cover, and Krak meant every basic Marine became a pretty serious threat to Vehicles. Combat Squads gave you flexibility in deployment, though I forget if you were able to mix squads in vehicles in 5th.

I came into 5th halfway through it after a brief hiatus from 40k (mostly due to proffessional life). It took me about 6 months to find my footing and start winning regularly again, but when I did it was using Tac-heavy lists with at least 3 full squads.

For my money, Necron Warriors got hit harder for 5th. The change in the Vehicle Damage chart meant they couldn't kill vehicles with their Gauss Rifles anymore, iirc, because they only Glanced. The combat resolution changes hurt as well, making kills matter more for Ld modifiers and making it more likely that they would run (and therefore get Sweeping Advanced on, which they couldn't WBB from).

 Insectum7 wrote:
Gotta disagree about Tacs. 5e gave them some nice boosts. They gained Bolt Pistols, Frag and Krak as default wargear, and then gained the Combat Squads ability.

This cracked me up because that was standard equipment in 2nd. Gotta love GW: everything old is new again, again, and again!

7th because it had the 6th Ed CSM rules with the Boon Table, 6th Ed Daemons with Rewards and Warp Storm table, and the Khorne Daemonkin Codex which is the single most fun I've ever had playing Warhammer ever.

Not a single Chaos ruleset has come close since then and every book is an exercise in stripping the fun of CSM to the bone but making pretty models at the same time.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Gotta disagree about Tacs. 5e gave them some nice boosts. They gained Bolt Pistols, Frag and Krak as default wargear, and then gained the Combat Squads ability.

This cracked me up because that was standard equipment in 2nd. Gotta love GW: everything old is new again, again, and again!

Yeah they stripped Bolt Pistols out for 3rd to force harder delineations between troops. They could still buy Frag and Krak though, although few did. 5th just made them standard equipment again.

What I always actually wanted was for Assault Squads to have open access to wargear like they did in 2nd. Unfortunately that never came about. We got "Vanguard" with more options, but no access to Special Weapons. 2nd ed Assault Squads with Plasma Pistols, Hand Flamers, Power Swords/Axes/Fists and two Flamers/Meltaguns/Plasmaguns were where it's at.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 catbarf wrote:

I still advocate for 5th Ed core rules with 3rd/4th Ed codices as the best of Oldhammer. Most of the problems associated with 5th really were the result of the codices. You don't get leafblower nonsense using the 3.5Ed Guard codex.

You do still have wound allocation shenanigans, but that can be alleviated by threat of dreadsock.

That switch over to TLOS for forests/ruins/etc. was real rough. The changes to the vehicle damage table/s was pretty hard on some armies too. The other thing that comes to mind is Kill Points which really punished certain types of build, though that was mission specific iirc.

There's a near perfect combo somewhere in there, though...

 Wyldhunt wrote:

And presentation aside, 10th *has* taken away a lot of the tools I used to use to give my characters their own stories and personalities. I have a succubus conversion that I did up to look mandrake-y to go with my edgy fluff about a creepy alliance my cult has with mandrakes. In 10th edition, she lost the ability to attach to mandrake squads. (A thing that was sub-optimal but fit my fluff.) As of the new drukhari codex, she's lost her gun, meaning the flaming mandrake hand I previously represented with blast pistol rules is purely for decoration now.

This is where I'm at as well.

I despise the philosophy of 10th, which just seems aggressively anti-player and, frankly, lazy.

If 10th had a motto it would be 'No, you can't have that because we can't be bothered even trying to balance it.'

Hence why we no longer have Points but Power Level in all but name.

Hence why wargear/artefacts have been heavily stripped down (and most of them are just repeats of the same handful of rules).

Hence why armies are only permitted a single faction mechanic. Thus, Eldar no longer have Battle Focus and why DE Wyches are in rehab unless you use one specific subfaction.

Hence why characters can only join ZE DEZIGNATED UNITS.

I appreciate the value of balance but not when it comes at the exclusion of everything else. Especially in a game like 40k, which used to be sold on the narrative aspect and that had heavy emphasis on customisation and Your Dudes.

Now they're ever and only GW's Dudes and you'd better not forget it.

 Insectum7 wrote:

That switch over to TLOS for forests/ruins/etc. was real rough. The changes to the vehicle damage table/s was pretty hard on some armies too. The other thing that comes to mind is Kill Points which really punished certain types of build, though that was mission specific iirc.

There's a near perfect combo somewhere in there, though...

I'm in a similar boat in that I'd lean towards 5th as being the best overall, albeit with some undesirable defects.

Though, I'll admit that the wound allocation was never really an issue for me. There were maybe a handful of units in the entire game that could take advantage of it, and most of those weren't exactly top tier to start with.

I agree on TLoS, though. Having recently got into a game with abstracted LoS, it's amazing how simple and straightforward it is by comparison.

As for other editions, I didn't play enough of 3rd/4th to comment. All I remember of 6th was getting rolled over by Taudar. 7th I considered pretty awful, with a convoluted rulebook that was trying to account for a myriad of units that had no business being in a game of this scale. Knights and Fliers were especially egregious in this regard. The psychic system was absolutely dire, with psyker-heavy armies being able to just do whatever the hell they wanted unless their opponent was equally psyker-heavy, and the powers themselves were 'balanced by randumb' (same as warlord traits, incidentally, though those at least never reached the levels of Invisibility or the like).

Incidentally, I know I said above that balance shouldn't be the be-all and end-all, but 'balance by randumb' is the worst of both worlds - you have horribly-unbalanced powers that are rarely fun to play against, but you also can't ever build towards a particular theme.

All that said, 7th did have the Corsair Codex, which I would consider the best codex Dark Eldar never got. An absolute blast to play and a tragedy that it was wiped from reality in 8th onwards. I guess GW want to ensure that we don't ever overdose on fun,

8th edition had a very rough start but it did get into a good place towards the end, with the designers having found a sweet spot for the cost of most wargear . . .

. . . whereupon they just binned all of that in 9th and went with 'everything is a multiple of 5pts'. It also added so much extra stuff that many armies felt cluttered with too many stratagems and layers of rules. There were some neat ideas buried in there - e.g. Lead Roles for Harlequins were a great way of making a small number of characters feel much more diverse. However, overall I'd consider it more of a sidegrade than anything else.

And then 10th arrived on the scene like a falling septic tank. I won't go though all the reasons why I despise this edition - I've already alluded to some of them above. Suffice to say I'm not a fan.

 Da Boss wrote:
If I was going to bring in stuff from 40K into OPR it'd be blast templates and flamer templates and I'd think about some way to incorporate facings into vehicles and monsters. Maybe something as simple as -1 defense from the rear.

But I'm also just playing Grimdark Future these days.

Heck yeah to blast templates. I just think they're fun. I've thought about this many times for Grimdark but never actually tried it.

-1 defense from the rear is a very good idea. Very much in the spirit of OPR taking a multi-aspect mechanic and abstracting it for easy game playability.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
I'm happy for those who enjoy(ed) 5th edition, but it's shocking to me that so many people still seem to like it. Between the parking lot spam, unkillable vehicles, troop tax, only troops being able to score objectives, the limited missions (including the Dawn of War deployment that really screwed over certain units), etc., it really sticks out in my mind as the worst edition I've played in terms of core rules.

Like, 6th had more randomness than I'd like, and 7th got bonkers due to power creep codices and formations, but I still think of the core rules from both of those editions as waaaay less frustrating than 5th edition. So even if you don't like the overall vibe/stratagem focus of 8th onward, 5th still seems like the worst version of the pre-8th forms of the game to me.

EDIT: I feel like a version of the game that used 7th as a base, made an actual effort to balance things, used the 3rd-5th edition psychic system, and brought in some of the more popular changes from 8th (split fire, fall back voluntarily, etc.) would be pretty snazzy.

Just to comment, since you brought it up and it's something that was very much a lesser object on my radar, but only troops being able to score has been a big improvement in our games; from my personal perspective. It make you troops count go well beyond the "troops tax" and cuts down on the toys-before-boys nature of 40k. It's not the ideal fix for this problem, as that would likely require a fundamental shift in the combat model of 40k away from "the rifleman exists to score points" to make the rifleman and infantry fire team much more of the core fighting element rather than cheerleaders watching with peashooters while all the heavy lifting done by the support, but its a big step up. This is definitely a "your mileage might vary" type thing, however, based on how you want to play 40k, and isn't a plus for everyone.

Fair enough and to each their own. I started the game in 5th with eldar as my first army. So most of our troop choices evaporated to bolters/flamers, and I was a broke kid who couldn't afford to spam jetbikes. Avengers were cool (and my first troops), but they, too, were squishy in 5th. So if you wanted to win games with eldar in 5th, you ended up doing that DAVU thing where you just flew tanks full of MSU dire avengers around in circles so that you didn't auto-lose by having no troops. So functionally, the more you invested in units that could stay alive to score points at the end of the game, the less of your army that was actually *fighting* and doing cool space elf power ranger stuff. Whereas 6th edition onward encouraged me to field units that were survivable or cheap enough to be good choices as scoring units, but I didn't have this "keep the avengers in the tanks alive" mini-game hanging over my head the whole time.

When people tell me they liked 5th edition, I half-jokingly ask them which army they played: Marines or guard.

I play IG, Witch Hunters, Space Wolves, and Daemonhunters [i specify because I use the WH and DH codecies]
My friends collectively represent CSM [x2], Eldar, Tyranids, Orks [x2], SM, and Necrons, plus doubling up on Daemonhunters. So you're right, I do play IG.

That also said there's definitely an experience that were looking for that's putting our bars in different places, and that's ok. Everyone wants different things, and the editions have changed over time to cater to different visions of what 40k should be. I'm looking for armies where the bulk of your fighting force is the rifle squad [which includes their carrier/IFV if applicable], and "toys" exist to support them. I've got that in 5e, the bulk of the work I'd done by my 120 guardsmen, 30 Grey Hunter & Razorbacks, Sisters of Battle in Rhinos, etc. Seraphim, Leman Russ Vanquishers, and Vindicators can add capability to pick off threats my infantry cant or aren't in position to handle, but I'll lose if my army consists entirely of "cool stuff" because I wont be able to score.

It sounds like you're looking for an experience more centered around the power units than platoons of infantry, which might make you partial to editions where you don't really need to worry about basic infantry and take more cool stuff to clash with.
I would also not color myself surprised that having infantry without support weapons makes them feel less effective or more vulnerable than a similarly fragile squad with one meltagun and one heavy bolter. There's a good reason that rifle squads have machineguns and AT-4's. There's a good reason that infantry squad tactics changed to center around those machineguns going from WWI to WWII, a movement that is explicitly mirrored in-lore with the codex astartes and post-heresy reorganization of the fighting forces, capturing a movement from "the valour of the rifleman with rifle and bayonet" to a more "find-fix-flank-finish" type model of combat, at least in the minds of military planners in the Imperium. This is part of why I hate what has been done with Primaris Marines. While 40k rules has never really done a good job with combat modelling and never really captured that model of infantry combat, it felt real enough.

I also dont see a problem with Mechanized Infantry [so called parking lot]. I have found that factions that are canonically mostly or fully mechanized, like Space Marines, DEldar, SoB, etc. are well rewarded for being so, while factions that do field large numbers of light infantry, like Necrons, IG, Orks, and Tyranids can field infantry kn foot very effectively.

That also said there's definitely an experience that were looking for that's putting our bars in different places, and that's ok.

Totally, and I'm glad what you're playing is working for you and your group. Definitely not here to yuck anyone's yum.

I also dont see a problem with Mechanized Infantry [so called parking lot]. I have found that factions that are canonically mostly or fully mechanized, like Space Marines, DEldar, SoB, etc. are well rewarded for being so, while factions that do field large numbers of light infantry, like Necrons, IG, Orks, and Tyranids can field infantry kn foot very effectively.

I don't have a problem with it in theory. I just remember 5th edition games where I'd send out multiple squads of fire dragons and storm guardians with some war walker support, and each of those units would kill or stun a vehicle... and then my guard opponent still had half their vehicles remaining, killed my squishy infantry, and I ended up with basically no anti-tank remaining in the second half of the game. And that's after scribbling out all the elite options in my 'dex other than fire dragons to try and deal with the meta.

I didn't really do the seer council thing, but I get why it was such a default part of 5th edition eldar lists: it didn't die to a stiff breeze, and its weapons were effective against tanks.

 Gert wrote:
7th because it had the 6th Ed CSM rules with the Boon Table, 6th Ed Daemons with Rewards and Warp Storm table, and the Khorne Daemonkin Codex which is the single most fun I've ever had playing Warhammer ever.

Not a single Chaos ruleset has come close since then and every book is an exercise in stripping the fun of CSM to the bone but making pretty models at the same time.

This is funny to me because the degree to which your play group would have to babysit you for any of that to matter in 7th is hilarious. Especially by the time the KDC book dropped.

'Yeah, so this will be great as long as you bring Sisters of Battle but with no Celestine or Exorcists using their 6th edition codex rules and Dark Eldar with no special characters. Mike can bring catachan guard with no more then 3 tanks. Everybody good?'


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For me, anything before 8th edition was uninteresting. Especially considering the first REAL sisters of battle book didn't come out until 8th. No, Witch Hunters doesn't count.

I started in 6th, which was terrible.

Moved on to 7th that was fun for a while, but very quickly became much worse than 6th.

8th edition index era had some absolutely bonkers crap that had to be sorted out, but once it did was extremely fun. It was also the first edition where Sisters of Battle had a rulebook you weren't actively embarrassed to play.

8th edition codex era was fun for the majority of the time.

9th was solid, but was WAY too up and down. Every codex release was Russian Roulette.

10th is probably the best overall edition. They've had a couple 'oh god, we're all gonna die!' armies come out, but they were fixed quickly enough that it didn't really hurt anything too much.

ERJAK wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:
For me, anything before 8th edition was uninteresting. Especially considering the first REAL sisters of battle book didn't come out until 8th. No, Witch Hunters doesn't count.

I started in 6th, which was terrible.

Moved on to 7th that was fun for a while, but very quickly became much worse than 6th.

8th edition index era had some absolutely bonkers crap that had to be sorted out, but once it did was extremely fun. It was also the first edition where Sisters of Battle had a rulebook you weren't actively embarrassed to play.

8th edition codex era was fun for the majority of the time.

9th was solid, but was WAY too up and down. Every codex release was Russian Roulette.

10th is probably the best overall edition. They've had a couple 'oh god, we're all gonna die!' armies come out, but they were fixed quickly enough that it didn't really hurt anything too much.

As a 6e+ player I gather you aren't familiar with 2e.
The 2e SoB codex was decent enough for its time & the edition it was produced for..

ccs wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:
For me, anything before 8th edition was uninteresting. Especially considering the first REAL sisters of battle book didn't come out until 8th. No, Witch Hunters doesn't count.

I started in 6th, which was terrible.

Moved on to 7th that was fun for a while, but very quickly became much worse than 6th.

8th edition index era had some absolutely bonkers crap that had to be sorted out, but once it did was extremely fun. It was also the first edition where Sisters of Battle had a rulebook you weren't actively embarrassed to play.

8th edition codex era was fun for the majority of the time.

9th was solid, but was WAY too up and down. Every codex release was Russian Roulette.

10th is probably the best overall edition. They've had a couple 'oh god, we're all gonna die!' armies come out, but they were fixed quickly enough that it didn't really hurt anything too much.

As a 6e+ player I gather you aren't familiar with 2e.
The 2e SoB codex was decent enough for its time & the edition it was produced for..

Yeah, I kind of feel sad for players that started "late" as they wouldn't see how much better that GW used to be as a company... sure their rules were wonky af and it wasn't a set of great rules, but as a game it was fun, and I think a lot of that fun has been lost in later editions as the "rules" became more important than the "game" and the competitive scene edged out the goofiness of older armies that existed because you couldn't get X model so you sort of just used what you had and called it good enough.

-STS

Played RT/1st to death, I remember the stat change to marines and the impact it had plus will always love the old style army list design and look.

But absolutely loved 2nd, went to the first GW international tourneys and everything. To me was the right level of models and rules for 28mm. Plus the insanity of cheap space crusade models (and battlemasters for fantasy) and many cool vehicles.

3rd killed off the gaming group. While the continued expansion of model ranges and background was cool, the rules just turned everyone off for different reasons (for me it was the movement stat changes and the prospect of benny hill style chases of guardsmen by genestealers). We tried again for the eye of terror campaign and ultimately ended up doing Epic and BFG battles for it.

Bunch tried again at 8th, but now I don't think anyone is playing, dropping out towards the end of 8th and 9th not taking off.

ccs wrote:
As a 6e+ player I gather you aren't familiar with 2e.
The 2e SoB codex was decent enough for its time & the edition it was produced for..

It has a ton of fluff and it's quite effective. Is it a "full" codex? Insofar as it doesn't assume that every army has to have an artillery park, air component, catering service, etc., I suppose not.

But the concept behind it was fun and they are fun to play that way.

I will add that 2nd ed. models and rulebooks are now really, really expensive. It's cramping my style in a major way. Everyone needs to go back to hating 2nd again.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
I just remember 5th edition games where I'd send out multiple squads of fire dragons and storm guardians with some war walker support, and each of those units would kill or stun a vehicle... and then my guard opponent still had half their vehicles remaining, killed my squishy infantry, and I ended up with basically no anti-tank remaining in the second half of the game.

Sounds about right for the era, especially at higher points levels when the guard could 'cheat' the FoC.

Late 5e eldar had things like the warp hunter, hornets, and wasps to mix things up. Never got around the limitation that while two eldar anti-tank mechanised squads had more speed and firepower than three imperial/chaos/etc melta mech units they also cost three to four times as much, at least against late 4e/5e codex costs and that doesn't work when you are trading out unit for unit.

6e 'fixed' this by giving the wave serpent enough firepower to simply blow away the enemy vehicles from the far side of the board. That they could transport units was just gravy.

Played 5th 6th and 7th, have not played much since. Combination of my collection is getting discontinued, and life happening has precluded me from playing the 10th so far. I may join an escalation league and bring out some Orks to see what I really think, but we'll see. Of the ones that I actually played, I liked the 5th the best even with the overpowered lists. These days good opponents will self regulate, and if they don't, I ghost them with extreme prejudice.

However, I do want to go back and play a few games in the 4th, and perhaps the 3rd.

RE: Narrative

I use the Crusade rules to fix a lot of the narrative shortcomings of 10th... But that only works if you're campaigning. Stand-alone narrative games have far fewer tools to work with.

I use a few homebrew generic requisitions- so for example, for 1 RP you can add a unit to the list of units this character can join. That would give Wyldhunt's Succubus her Madrakes again. But he'd have to campaign to use it.

I'm okay with 10th, but I don't think I could play it if Crusade didn't exist. Just far too simple to entertain me.