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Hi,
I am a novice in this forum. But after the good response of my first post I feel encouraged to ask some more.
I played Warhammer fantasy battles back in the 90´s thanks to a friend. We played 2 battles in 4th edition if I remember correctly. I decided to make a Khorne chaos army, but soon I saw that it was a money pit and at the time I didn´t have the money to spend. In the overall I liked the game and the idea of fantasy battles, however I saw some drawbacks:
1. at times it slowed down a lot due to dice throws, rules to remember, etc
2. I have been playing historical wargames (boardgames) and I am not too fond of Magic. I find Magic in Warhammer a very random factor it can go horrible well or horribly wrong making strategic decisions a wild guess. Thats why I dont like armies based on magic that much (even though I like the undead army a lot !)
3. And the worst offender: the Herohammer factor . I really did not like the fact that half of the points went to a hero and the rest of the army is just dummies ready to take a whooping.

So I am back to the hobby, just that this time I am buying units that I like (old and new). I dont follow any army list or tournament ready army. I heard about Oldhammer and I like the philosophy as I dont like what warhammer has become: two armies in either side of the table that beat each other with a certain point limit. So my question is to you more experienced gamers.
Which set of rules edition (warhammer or other company) can fit better to my requirements:

1. Battles are streamlined and dont drag forever but have some depth
2. Unit over hero/combination of magic objects, etc
3. reward is given to Strategic thinking (flanking, etc) rather than "I have the best item combo of them all"
4. Balanced army lists
5. The rulebook should handle small and big confrontations

For example I heard good things of WFB 3rd Edition but people say that battles can be long at times and it seems that you need a GM.
So please let me know your thoughs. And thanks in advance

Honestly, 8th edition is pretty solid.

They've streamlined a lot of the process, so things clip along at a decent pace (not including rules references; that's just on you).

The "power creep" that effects so many games, where each New Thing is better than all the old stuff, has leveled off, for the most part.

Characters can't single-handedly win you the game, anymore.

There's a huge emphasis on "chaff" units and the Movement phase (easily the most important phase of the game)

The rulebook gives several scenarios beyond the "pitched battle", where two armies line up and slug it out, as well as some guidelines for creating new stuff yourself.

Army books aren't perfectly balanced, but there aren't any that are so much better or worse than the others that a given matchup is hopeless.

There really aren't any awesome magic item combos. Magic, on the other hand, is very much a thing, capable of determining the entire game within a single turn, in some instances. It's still very much random, but the likelihood that it decimates the opposition on its own is very slim.
Moreover, the most useful spells aren't usually the ones that blow people up, but the ones that improve or hinder troops. So that sort of adds another tactical layer.
And it's not exactly easy to dominate the magic phase; there aren't that many ways to increase your die pool.
If you really hate magic, though...what about Warhammer Ancients?



EDIT: I typed all this out, was notified that the thread was old, went to cancel...and posted it instead. Stupid phone.

6th Edition, it's also the most complete edition with viable lists for every army and a TON of supplementary material.

 Just Tony wrote:
6th Edition, it's also the most complete edition with viable lists for every army and a TON of supplementary material.

I would say go with 6th edition for the majority of the army books, but I prefer the 7th edition core rules.

Bretonnia and Wood Elves have very powerful books and High and Dark Elves have underpowered books.

The 7th edition Empire book is better than the 6th edition one and does not outclass the other 6th ed books, so I would say use the 7th ed one.

A house rule you may want to tinker with are limiting the maximum power dice (and dispel dice) that can be generated in a magic phase. 6th and 7th encouraged an all or nothing approach to Magic. However I think this reached its peak with 7th edition Vampire Counts and 7th edition Empire with regards to dispel dice.

7th didn't allow you to use one mage's generated PD for another mage ie. the Skink Shaman power battery squad for the Slann. I'd adopt that to 6th as a house rule. I'd also throw in Insane Courage.

Past that, every other change from 6th to 7th was worse. 5 for a rank instead of 4? Fight in two close combats a turn simply by timing your combats right? Swarms crumble like undead? Yeah, no. Sure there is more, but I can't remember it.

And I'd draw the line personally before the Dwarf 2.0 book. All the 7th Ed. books had power creep compared to the 6th stuff. All.

 Just Tony wrote:
7th didn't allow you to use one mage's generated PD for another mage ie. the Skink Shaman power battery squad for the Slann. I'd adopt that to 6th as a house rule. I'd also throw in Insane Courage.

Past that, every other change from 6th to 7th was worse. 5 for a rank instead of 4? Fight in two close combats a turn simply by timing your combats right? Swarms crumble like undead? Yeah, no. Sure there is more, but I can't remember it.

And I'd draw the line personally before the Dwarf 2.0 book. All the 7th Ed. books had power creep compared to the 6th stuff. All.

I liked the change to 5 models per rank. I always thought that 1 extra guy next to the command group looks out of place, plus it made Bretonnians lances look much more epic.

I also liked that a well placed overrun could net you a tonne of advantage.

Mentioning Swarms as an edition killer is a bit lame though.

I'm not naming one specific snowball in the avalance as the killer, I'm naming the avalance as a whole. With the exception of two good things about the edition.

 Just Tony wrote:
I'm not naming one specific snowball in the avalance as the killer, I'm naming the avalance as a whole. With the exception of two good things about the edition.

Fair enough.

I would propose that the main avalanche was the army books though.

I think the only rule from 6th that I missed in 7th was redirecting, but then we got that back in 8th.

I have made my peace with 9th Age, once I renamed everything back to restore my fluff.

Can't do 9th, can't do 8th. Barely tolerated 7th, but it wasn't a sweeping enough change to get me to basically quit, which 8th did.

 Just Tony wrote:
Can't do 9th, can't do 8th. Barely tolerated 7th, but it wasn't a sweeping enough change to get me to basically quit, which 8th did.

6th was Tuomas Pirinnens reboot and it started well. As 7th and 8th are direct extensions of 6th, you can cherry pick in those rules from which improved the game and ignore the rest.

Personally, 8th was my favourite edition as far as being able to produce massive battles on a scale I enjoy.

Based on your preference I would say maybe try out 6th edition, which was also really good.

I kind of enjoy both of these editions the most, but for opposite reasons.