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i was looking at the 4th, 5th and 6th editions rulebooks and thought that they were really quite fun (especially 4th and 5th) as they used to give you templates, tutorials and the models were a bit more quirky and rather interesting. i found 5th quite fun as it was a transition between the slightly older 3rd and 4th and the newer version of 40k in 6th and then the 7th, newest one.
i was wondering which one was your favourite in terms of models, codexs and rule books?

I really liked 6th Ed. but 7th is for the most part better. They might have made a mistake with jink though.

7th, so far.

Much to my own surprise, 5th.

Each edition has had its flaws, and 5E's were glaring, but relative to the mess that 6E and subsequently 7E have turned into, 5E was by far the most functional ruleset I think 40k has ever had.

5th. I started in it, and I haven't been fond of the changes since I started.

I'd say some rosy-tinted amalgamation of 4th and 5th, more of the latter than the former.

7th has a lot going for it, but it still doesn't feel as... finished yet. Like, they added a bunch, and are still sort of figuring out how everything is shaking out. They've clearly gotten some things worked out better, but I don't feel like it's anywhere near its full potential yet.

It *really*does feel like an early draft work, not a finished product. There's all a number of rules, mechanics, and missions that just don't seem to work right or that seem like were forgotten to be updated once something else was updated (e.g. Scouring/Big Guns Never Tire).

2nd for the nostalgia, probably the best era in my nerd lifetime.

5th was when I started again after 3rd, and probably needed the least work to be a really good game. But they gave us 6th instead!

Actually, I say that for the lols, I don't actually hate the 6th/7th cycle of core rules (especially 7th) I believe most issues derive from codexes and not from the BRB. I think a cull of random tables and a flattening of the power curves of things which are currently decided by chance would probably give us a really decent core, then some work on the army books to sort them out, and we'd be golden (or Simpsons yellow at least)

But I've got to give it to 2nd for the happy memories.

5th was awesome, loved it, even the crazy end of 5th edition . start of 6th was kind of ok. Hating 7th a lot. Never played other editions.

4th edition. Hands down. I've been playing since RT and 4th beats 'em all. Kept the simplicity of 3rd, but toned down assault. Added those great area terrain and terrain height rules that precluded fiddly LOS arguments. Easy, simple casualty removal.

Yeah it had some problems, but I would have preferred refining 4th edtion, rather than what we have now.

I think 6th, mainly cos I started in 5th.

In terms of books, 6th by far. Full colour hardbacks, packed with artwork, and while I only have the BRB and C:SM in physical form, all of the books from that period are great fun to look through. On the other hand, I can't stand the catalogue-style 7th books, with unit profiles and artwork replaced with 'dataslates' and photos of mediocre minis just for the hell of it.

Game-wise, I have yet to really play with any of the major changes in 7th, but barring the psychic phase they seem to build on the solid foundation of 6th, so I'll go with that.

5th gets my vote for all time favorite, so many great games and bloody and savage swirling meles

Paradigm wrote:In terms of books, 6th by far. Full colour hardbacks, packed with artwork, and while I only have the BRB and C:SM in physical form, all of the books from that period are great fun to look through.

Ugh. 6th ed books are pretty, I'll give them that, but as a functional rulebook, they're awful.

Go back and read any 4th/5th ed codex. Yes, they're not all color and the binding has probably all fallen apart, and the older stuff didn't have anywhere near as much fluff, but everything else was SO much better. There was less fluff, but it was a lot tighter, rather than the droning rambling we have now. The rules were also MUCH better formatted. You looked at the unit you wanted, and there was almost everything you needed to know about it, right there in quick-reference format.

In 6th edition, you look at the units you want, and then it tells you what upgrades it can take. Then you have to go somewhere else in the book to find out how much those upgrades cost, and then you have to go somewhere else to find out what those upgrades do, and then if it has an army-specific general rule, you then have to go to yet a fourth place in the book to figure out the actual rules. It's a nightmare. Throw in allies, dataslates, and the gradual disintegration of the codex system, and finding out what your units do is more difficult than at any other time. Yes, I'm even counting the time where you needed playing cards.

Models-wise everything keeps getting better; rules-wise my favourite was 4e. There weren't quite so many contradictions, new systems weren't getting tossed into the rules out of nowhere, the gun escalation hadn't started so infantry were valuable, and they gave you interesting/versatile Codexes you could do lots of things with viably instead of today's single-competitive-build armies.

5th edition by far. It was the most functional the game has been in my time playing it and really didn't need a lot of work to get it to its full potential. Unfortunately we got 6th edition instead.

I do like 5th because it was more basic and functional, i also like how in 4th to 5th and a bit of 6th they included a lot of info about other armies especially sm (which i have always collected) and i think thats what 7th lacks. i do like it though but i just feel its a bit disjointed from what it used to be, also 4th had the older generation of marines and it is nice to look back on it but 7th works well on the gameboard. thanks :( :(

I have fond memories about both 2nd and 3rd. All I intuitively identify with 40k was in 2nd. Gameplay though, that has to be 3rd. You could just win your games with assault. These days everything is about area denial. Meh.

I enjoyed third. I missed fourth entirely, liked 5th. Dislike 6th/7th, but only for a few core rules like jink, flyers, allies, and ran-dumb tables for traits and powers. More because of some codex specific junk.

1st ed..and 4th..I miss the days of VDR fun..Chapter approved actually made WD worth buying.

1st was Just awesome, it WAS 40k but as gameplay goes i think 5th

 Vaktathi wrote:
Much to my own surprise, 5th.

Each edition has had its flaws, and 5E's were glaring, but relative to the mess that 6E and subsequently 7E have turned into, 5E was by far the most functional ruleset I think 40k has ever had.

This.

5th I think was the best ruleset.
But for pure nostalgia, I'll go with 2nd.

yeah 2nd was cool

I really liked the look of everything in 3rd- the lore was an interesting mix of dark and funny, lots of tongue-in-cheek sort of stuff. I also really enjoyed the artwork they used back then as compared to some of the current color art (although there is a lot of good color art from 6th and 7th).

As far as the game played, I think this period was just so much better. The game was still 40k, but the number of models you fielded in a typical game wasn't so mind-numbingly high. Games now feel like a competition to see who can spend the most money on the best and biggest kits, but in 3rd things like Ork Nobz with Powerklaws were a pretty big deal. That and they had restrictions on how armies could be constructed beyond the regular army- "0-1" was a typical unit thing...and of course that wasn't so big of a deal because you weren't looking at using three or more of the same damn kit to get a desired effect. Additionally, tactics were something that were lauded even by GW! I was reading the old 3rd edition Dark Eldar book today and was surprised to see even GW admitted the army was hard to play. I loved that! I don't need to be spoon-fed notes about how a given army is so awesome and cool, I enjoy the *game* aspect being so heavily promoted as compared to the current aspect of purchasing GW miniatures.

I played a lot more 4th than 3rd (only getting into 40k around the middle-period of third and still quite young), and I like that edition a lot. I remember an article about units being able to swamp vehicles they couldn't normally destroy, accompanied by a picture of a Black Templar dreadnought (converted and everything, something you never see from GW articles now) getting horded by a ton of Kroot. The game felt very positive, 4th seemed like an attempt to improve on 3rd which has admittedly reduced diversity in the goal of greater balance. 5th was IMO 40k's hayday, and something I don't think the current version of GW will ever be able to get back (if they even want it back).

It's hard to entirely say, I liked a lot of 3rd-5th. 6th was good initially but quickly started to show the direction the game was going in, and it's been going that way ever since. Strangely, the biggest benefit of 7th is that I have seen the most consideration ever for playing previous editions. Back in 4th-5th, I didn't meet people who were interested in playing old editions but nowadays, with the $135 minimum for rules (excluding eBay), people are looking at alternatives to playing their beloved 40k.

2nd Edition was the last time it was even close to a "wargame". Everything else has been edition 3.x, and 3rd Edition just turned it into an exercise of dice-rolling and model-removing by nearly doubling movement and often halving the effective range of shooting. 6th/7th seemed like a turn in the right direction at first, but then they didn't listen to the prophet Robert Downey Jr and went full... well, full Titan and full Challenge and full Fortification and full Flyer etc. And Centurions. Can't forgive that.

For fluff, 2nd. 3rd started nice but then came Codex: Necrons with that tiresome ancient astronauts narrative, pushing the Old Ones into every single story. Rules-wise it was a simplification, but in retrospect, I'd say it was a necessary one. I didn't play 4th edition. 5th was probably the most "stable" edition so far, but what it had in (apparent) balance it lacked in diversity: You could count the number of viable army builds with one hand, and you'd still have fingers left. By the end of its run 5th felt like a dead end. 6th started showing promise but it only took GW two codices to wreck it for good. Add the oh-so-exploitable allies rule and you have the recipe for disaster. Fluff quality improved slightly from 5th, but I don't think anyone was paying attention. 7th fixed some of the glaring issues of 6th (psychic powers, allies) toned down others (D Weapons) and, for the most part, consolidated the good ideas (fliers, formations) as well as the bad ones (random tables galore). Also introduced that Unbound nonsense, which I liken to playing 40k in debug mode. Fluffwise, 7th is the Ctrl+C Ctrl+V edition so far.

So, what edition emerges as winner IMHO?. 7th (yay, don't shoot). GW has reached the point where their game is as messy and confusing as the fluff it's based upon, and it's a really, really good thing. Like in the crazy old days of 2nd edition, utter chaos has paradoxically brought a semblance of balance to the game: For the first time in a long while, I can walk into the LGS and fight a different army everytime, not mere carbon copies of the be-all-end-all netlist de jour.

5th was the one I had the most fun with. 4th was pretty good. 6th was okay and it probably would have grown onto me if it weren't for escalation. 7th just felt sloppy from the get go for me, unbound lists I feel is just an attempt to force apoc list building into regular 40k, not a fan of the psychic phase...

5th, 4th and early 6th felt fairly sweet and to the point (random psychic powers and warlord traits were meh but other than that, okay) and allowed the larger games I loved (1850-2500) to be played and finished in a reasonable amount of time. Now it feels like a lot of 1500 point games take as long as 2000 point games back in 5th if not longer. Too much excess.

I started in VERY late 3rd. 5th Edition was the best version. The Blood angels codex kinda ruined it, but it was the best version, main book wise.

7th is my favorite. It's got some missteps and some gak I hate, but for the most part its a ton of fun