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Hey all. I'm seeing a lot of stuff about "why X edition is better than Y edition" However, as a largely 40k/lotr player that only really got into warhammer with 8th edition, can someone please tell me what the differences are between the editions. Particularly, what is the difference between 4th and 8th edition, what is the difference between 6th and eighth, and whats the difference between 7th and 8th? Like, I'm interested in having some games with my bro and perhaps some others so I want to know what the differences are so I can choose the best edition for me as a player. I'm not really interested in opinions, just solid facts.

There are a lot of differences, great and small, too numerous to mention and evaluate to the full.

To make a decision on whether you should try 4th, 6th ,7th or 8th,a more general approach apeears to be more useful than going too much into detail.

4th I have never played, but it is similar to 5th.
Grandpa, correct me if that is wrong.

4th edition armybooks, e.g. O&G, were used in 5th edition still.

So I can share what seems to me were the most obvious differences to 8th.(Assuming it was the same in 4th! As I said, please correct me if it's wrong!)

1. No limit in point costs to magic items, just a limit to the number of magic items allowed per model (Lord 3, Hero 2, Unit Champion 1). A vast selection of magic items usable by all armies

2. Army build: There were no categories such as core, special and rare. There were Character models, war machines, regiments, monsters and allies. You were allowed to field a percentage of x of you whole army of that type of units. You were allowed to take allies from certain other army books upt to a percentage of points, also 25 % I think.
You needed a minimum of I think 25 % for regiments.

3. Charges were done with double the movement speed.

4. No pre-measuring allowed of charge distances or for spell range or ranged combat. Shooting distances of many war machines had to be guessed, mostly those using templates.

5. no steadfast rule, no hordes, no step up, firing from one rank, no attack from the 2nd rank, 1 rank = 4 models wide.
To hit and to wound table was different

6. magic was done with a Card system, not with dice

7. if the general was killed, all units had to pass a LD-test or flee. Hold your ground of ASB was only for break tests, not for psychology tests. Many psychology rules were different (e.g. frenzy doubled attack number in unit profile...)

8.Units had a lot more weapon options (e.g. Orcs with morning stars, crossbows...) and character models a lot of mount options

9. some unit profiles vary strongly from those in 8th (See the example of Beastmen in another thread here, or compare the Balistic skill of Orc character models with the actual ones...)

6th Edition

1. point costs of magic items and selection is the same than in 8th, up to a certain point cost per character model in total. fewer magic items that were available to all armies, more focus on army specific magic items.


2. Army build: Introdution of the unit categories as still today in 8th, Lords, heroes, core, special and race choices. "Slot" system, no percentace system. e.g. at 2000 points you had 1 Lord slot, 3 hero slots (lord could be used as hero slot if you liked) 3 core units minimum, 4 special slots maximum, 2 rare slots maximum. When point costs increased, the limits and minimums went up each 1000 points. Sldiers of fortune were allowed in certain armies as rare choices.

3. charges same as in 4th/fth

4. measuring same as in 4th/5th

5. combat same as in 4th/5th, added +1 for having higher unit strength to combat result if I remember correctly. to wound table was different (if toughness was +4 than Strength wounding was impossible, eg. S3 hits couldn't wound a war machine with Toughness 7).

6. introdution of dice for using spells, dice were generated by the spellcasters, not rolled randomly, 2 6es were irresitible force => could not be dispelled, and 2 1s were a miscast.

7. Rules for General were the same than in 8th, hold your ground rule of ASB was just for break tests. Units in close combat were not immune to panic.

8. Weapons options reduced to what was seen as common for this kind of unit, as well as available mounts. Similar to 8th.

9. unit profiles were now basically the same as in 8th.

7. Edition:

Update of 6th edition, ranks had to be 5 wide now to count in for CR, some changes in psychology, no more soldiers of fortune in new army books.
Differences to 8th are more or less the same than in 6th.

Don't forget that in 7th a unit that finished its combat and pursued into an unfought combat could then fight in THAT combat as well.

 Just Tony wrote:
Don't forget that in 7th a unit that finished its combat and pursued into an unfought combat could then fight in THAT combat as well.

Right! That was a big change. It was limited to one extra combat, right? If they were, say, breaking the second unit and charging into a third, it was not allowed to fight in this CC. One of the rules that made the 7th ruleset inferior to 6th.

I liked the 5 ranks wide requirement for optical reasons, and the psychology impacts of fear & terror were also better in 7th from my POV.

I missed the ability to surround the enemy after a won combat round in 7th.

I loved that second combat rule, it made the combat phase feel less rigid and rewarded my Dark Rider / Cold One combo tactics.

Moscha wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
Don't forget that in 7th a unit that finished its combat and pursued into an unfought combat could then fight in THAT combat as well.

Right! That was a big change. It was limited to one extra combat, right? If they were, say, breaking the second unit and charging into a third, it was not allowed to fight in this CC. One of the rules that made the 7th ruleset inferior to 6th.

I liked the 5 ranks wide requirement for optical reasons, and the psychology impacts of fear & terror were also better in 7th from my POV.

I missed the ability to surround the enemy after a won combat round in 7th.

Lapping around? That was 6th. Had it used on me a few battle reports ago and wasn't really a fan. Awkward mechanic that was better left behind, and for me to say that about a 6th Ed rule that says something...

StygianBeach wrote:I loved that second combat rule, it made the combat phase feel less rigid and rewarded my Dark Rider / Cold One combo tactics.

It should have been a case where all flee/pursuit moves were made simultaneously so you would only crash into a resolved combat. It also rewarded sweeper units and gave the ability for Fear causing cavalry to close up from both flanks like a bear trap. It wasn't good for the game at all.

 Just Tony wrote:

Moscha wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
Don't forget that in 7th a unit that finished its combat and pursued into an unfought combat could then fight in THAT combat as well.

Right! That was a big change. It was limited to one extra combat, right? If they were, say, breaking the second unit and charging into a third, it was not allowed to fight in this CC. One of the rules that made the 7th ruleset inferior to 6th.

I liked the 5 ranks wide requirement for optical reasons, and the psychology impacts of fear & terror were also better in 7th from my POV.

I missed the ability to surround the enemy after a won combat round in 7th.

Lapping around? That was 6th. Had it used on me a few battle reports ago and wasn't really a fan. Awkward mechanic that was better left behind, and for me to say that about a 6th Ed rule that says something...

StygianBeach wrote:I loved that second combat rule, it made the combat phase feel less rigid and rewarded my Dark Rider / Cold One combo tactics.

It should have been a case where all flee/pursuit moves were made simultaneously so you would only crash into a resolved combat. It also rewarded sweeper units and gave the ability for Fear causing cavalry to close up from both flanks like a bear trap. It wasn't good for the game at all.

Yeah, I meant lapping around, didn't know the english term for it. I liked it for fluff reasons, not for the odd implications it could cause. Rule-wise, it was a good choice to have it removed.

And Tony points out why the 7th rule of having a second combat with one of these units was unwise to introduce. It rewarded the units that already were considered advantageous (fast moving, hard hitting units aka Cavalry...) and tipped the imbalance even further to the wrong direction.

The second combat required some set-up and lucky positioning.
I never had a game ruined by it even when it was used against me (Skinks / Jaguar Charm comes to mind).

Thanks for the information. I know a fair bit about 4th edition because I used to play Chaos Dwarves back in the day and they had a 4th ed army book but that really expanded my knowledge of the changes in game rules. The last thing I want to ask, is what is the advantage of playing 4th, 6th and 8th individually over the other 2 options (eg, why play 4th over 6th and 8th)?

Basically ask yourself what do you want to experience.


If 4th is anything like 5th, then it's about MSU support of uber killy characters with rather imbalanced stat lines.


6th is about the everyman having more of an effect, magic being less of a game changer, and characters being pulled down to a more realistic level.


8th is like 5th with a couple 6th penalties to army selection with rules to mitigate the lethality of troops as attacks/kills start to reach 40K levels instead of the small damage but significant psychological press of older editions.


Best possible option is to go on youtube and watch a battle report or five of each edition to see what "feels" right to you personally.

Thanks for the explanation, I might just do that, although I have a huge stash of white dwarves going back to '88 somewhere so I might peruse those instead. WD 200 has some good stuff for 4th ED from memory.

 jobalisk wrote:
Thanks for the explanation, I might just do that, although I have a huge stash of white dwarves going back to '88 somewhere so I might peruse those instead. WD 200 has some good stuff for 4th ED from memory.

Whoaaaa back to '88 is a long way!

'88 Chaos Dwarves that was... even before conehead helmets, right?

I

 Just Tony wrote:
Basically ask yourself what do you want to experience.

If 4th is anything like 5th, then it's about MSU support of uber killy characters with rather imbalanced stat lines.

6th is about the everyman having more of an effect, magic being less of a game changer, and characters being pulled down to a more realistic level.

8th is like 5th with a couple 6th penalties to army selection with rules to mitigate the lethality of troops as attacks/kills start to reach 40K levels instead of the small damage but significant psychological press of older editions.

I bought the 4E boxed set, uh, 24 years ago, but didn't really play the game at an army level until 5E. In retrospect, 5E was pretty much herohammer, with big cool things bombing around and magic dictated by holding onto the Irresistible Power card and plonking it down ftw. A strange, dumb time but the beginning of my minis career.

6E I played a single game of. After building 1000 points of Night Goblins (forever), I played my bro's Dwarfs and had my entire army panic off the board in his opening shooting phase, as a panicking unit caused tests in those around it, and so on down the line. I ended up bailing on the gobs and starting 40k 3E, which I played until 5E dropped and things started going sideways in that game.

7E I moved to NY and found a gaming club, so played a ton of this edition, including tournaments. Looking back, I'm happy to see 7E go, as it had some mechanics I really hated (only models in base get to fight, for example, and a very unbalanced magic phases due to how power / dispel dice were generated) and had some aggressive tiering of army books. Daemons were essentially Tier 0, followed by Dark Elves in Tier 1, Elves + Warriors + Undead (fear-outnumbering was SO broken :x) + Lizards? in Tier 2, most of the rest in Tier 3, then Ogres + maybe Beasts in Tier 4, IIRC. It was pretty rough there towards the end, and tournament packs twisted themselves in knots trying to comp out the extreme disparities in army books. These days when I hear about people wanting to play 7E, I have to assume they played Daemons or Dark Elves

8E introduced more randomness (a good thing) and more carnage (a great thing) to 7E, with the increase in number of models that got to fight, the emphasis on bigger units (including the 10-wide horde formation) and the introduction of unit killing spells. As the edition ground on, the meta experience became about, once again, getting off your mega spell with Irresistible Power (this time by rolling doubles rather than holding onto cards, although typically you would hold all your dice for a single big cast that couldn't be stopped, so basically the same one-sided concept as 5E) and typically creating a points-intensive 'death star' unit that was difficult to kill and protected the multiple heroes within it, as chaff or mega monsters roamed around it. Cannons were also gods in this edition, able to delete most monsters in a single shot and without needing to guess range as artillery had for I guess all previous editions. As I remember it, the marks of a good army book were: a) Does it have an easy-win spell and/or ways to get it through more reliably? b) Does it have a mega monster capable of withstanding 1-2 cannon volleys before engaging? c) Does it strike first and/or have an item that can protect a deathstar? d) How awesome is its monstrous cavalry? There was fairly extensive comping towards the end of 8E as well, but not to the extent of 7E.

A friend of mine last summer revived WHFB in his hometown, and we had many discussions about what edition to play. I strongly argued for 7E using Ravening Hordes or 8E with comps (few item bans, limits on character sniping, etc), but I think they went with full 7E until the Dark Elf player was winning too much, then moved to full 8E and all its mayhem. By all accounts they had fun, which is the point I suppose

FWIW I've been playing KOW for a few years now and love it. Basically took the core game of WHFB and ironed out all the irritating things I honestly have never felt the need to go back, despite all the calls for Oldhammer over the years.

 Moscha wrote:
.

And Tony points out why the 7th rule of having a second combat with one of these units was unwise to introduce. It rewarded the units that already were considered advantageous (fast moving, hard hitting units aka Cavalry...) and tipped the imbalance even further to the wrong direction.

The rule works very well for 9th age. There's no limit of combats so you can theoretically have a unit fight 3, 4 or even more combats per round.

It's quite hard to pull off, but rewards the use of combined charges and makes positioning and redirection critical.

One unit should never have the chance to delete an entire battle line. Ever. The thought that ANYONE would think that mechanic is a good idea is terrifying to me.

Where is your sense of grandeur and spectacle?

I love the thought of a unit of Grail Knights smashing through an sea of Goblins.

 Just Tony wrote:
One unit should ever have the chance to delete an entire battle line. Ever. The thought that ANYONE would think that mechanic is a good idea is terrifying to me.

Because it's epic. Because it punishes bad positioning. Because it's not one unit, it's several units working in concert. Because it requires considerable skill and a fair bit of luck to pull off.

I could probably think of a few more

StygianBeach wrote:Where is your sense of grandeur and spectacle?

I love the thought of a unit of Grail Knights smashing through an sea of Goblins.

That sense is right where it needs to be: in my head when I read fiction/watch media. A balanced game is not the moment for that. Once we go down that road we're basically playing Magic: The Gathering with models instead of cards. Kinda like what the current fantasy game for GW is as we speak...

jouso wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
One unit should ever have the chance to delete an entire battle line. Ever. The thought that ANYONE would think that mechanic is a good idea is terrifying to me.

Because it's epic. Because it punishes bad positioning. Because it's not one unit, it's several units working in concert. Because it requires considerable skill and a fair bit of luck to pull off.

I could probably think of a few more

Epic does not equate to good/balanced game design.

How much is TOO much in regards to punishing bad position? Two battlelines meeting is NOT a bad position but sets up the offending mechanic perfectly.

Now as far as "not one unit, it's several" and "it requires considerable skill" and "luck", I submit this example:

Stretch out nothing but zombie units as far as the eye can see, and put two Black Knight units on the ends. They don't even have to be kitted out with leaders and the nuclear option, just enough to cancel ranks, count as a flank, and hit hard. Commit the battle line with Knights potentially charging flanks of the outer units. This may take a turn of tarpit with the zombies, something they are built for. Now you stroll in and murder death kill on the flanks banking ridiculous Res. In 7th, you'd have snake eyes to keep from autobreaking if the Knights outnumbered you. A 10 man Knight unit guarantees that happening. Now you roll up the flank unit, probably outpacing them as you overrun into the combat that you purposefully don't resolve until the flanks are resolved. In 7th it ends after the second unit is deleted in that fashion from each Knight unit on the flank. Now eliminate that restriction and allow them into every combat. 1 turn of combats = the entire battleline rolled up. Tell me how THAT is balanced, or even fun? Yeah, it's epic. Epic in the sense that I'd consider it such an epic cheesefest that I'd never play the game again, and I doubt I'm the only one.

 Just Tony wrote:
up. Tell me how THAT is balanced, or even fun? Yeah, it's epic. Epic in the sense that I'd consider it such an epic cheesefest that I'd never play the game again, and I doubt I'm the only one.

You're speaking about 7th, I'm speaking of 9th age.

Outside of stupid setups it's almost impossible to happen. Wtf is a ranked unit doing on your flank? Where's your chaff/redirectors? How are you going to break steadfast?

It would be the warhammer equivalent of the scholar's mate.

I think we are all moving away a bit from the original topic.

The question was what are the objective differences between 4th, 6th, 7th compared to 8th.



Has anyone still something important to tell the OP?

I think I forgot to mention the kind of manouevres you are able to make in the other movements phase and after a combat is resolved are another important difference between all older edis and 8th.

In 8 th, you were able to move sideways or backwards with half the movement speed, in editions before you had to make a turn, move, and turn again. Also, a musician in 8th was giving you the possibility to make a full reform move if you made a successful leadership tests and let you still move afterwards. Also, you could choose to fully reform a unit after a victorious combat was resolved and you were able to stop your unit from routing the enemy.
After combat,

In editions before htat you could side step and move backward as well. You moved at quarter speed if you did that though. Its been since simplified to half.

It was very rare that anyone did side step and move backward because it was often as efficient to just do the turn.

 jobalisk wrote:
Hey all. I'm seeing a lot of stuff about "why X edition is better than Y edition" However, as a largely 40k/lotr player that only really got into warhammer with 8th edition, can someone please tell me what the differences are between the editions. Particularly, what is the difference between 4th and 8th edition, what is the difference between 6th and eighth, and whats the difference between 7th and 8th? Like, I'm interested in having some games with my bro and perhaps some others so I want to know what the differences are so I can choose the best edition for me as a player. I'm not really interested in opinions, just solid facts.

To the OP, each edition has its positives and negatives. Despite what some might say none are perfect. I have been playing since 3rd, I breezed over 4th, played 5th, was heavily into 6th and 7th (including many tournaments). I started 8th when it came out. I didn't care for the End times and was into other games at the time. I came back to 8th after the End Times and I have to say it is my favorite edition.

To me 8th brought something very important that was missing from prior editions. 8th made your basic troops matter. In prior editions all someone had to do was charge first (with fixed charges isn't difficult), kill the front rank and the unit was done. I love Empire Halberdiers, but in 7th backwards they were woefully bad. You would get laughed at by taking them to tournaments in 6th & 7th. Sames goes for basic Goblins, Bretonnian Men At Arms, Marauders, or any other light infantry. 8th changed that, Step Up!, Fight in 2 Ranks, and Steadfast, made those units matter. No longer could these units be swept aside as instant points for your opponent. Being able to hit back with these troops make them matter, they could not do what they were intended to do. They could hold flanks, push centers and act as a threat small elite units.

8th also made Musicians and Battle Standards matter as opposed to prior editions where it was really just the Champion and Unit Standard were important.

Don't believe the internet hyperbole. There are lots of cries of "unit killing spells", "units rolling whole armies with multiple combats". I have played a lot of 8th, I have also watched a lot of battle reports and I can count on one hand the number of times that you see these kind of things happen. If you want good material to watch look up MiniWargaming, Mountain Miniature Gaming, and Oncebitten360 8th ed battle reports on YouTube. Between the two you will find several hundred battle reports and see a lot of 8th in action. Very rarely do you see a spell wiping out anything other than small chaff or support units. Spells will hurt your main units but they very rarely take them off the board. Give the videos a watch.

Another thing to keep in mind that Miscasts are not as common as the internet would have you to believe. In 8th you are limited to 6 dice to cast a spell and you get both an irresistible force and a miscast on double 6, so it's not something you really want either.

Another misconception of the internet is that 8th is nothing but horde units, this is just not true. You don't have to play with hordes if you don't want to. If your group doesn't like them, the rules work just fine with 10, 20, and 30 man blocks that where used in prior editions.

As I said 8th is the version I like best, your millage may very. To decide what works for you don't just go off complainers on the internet. Watch some games and see how it is played. When it comes games like WH , it will really come down to what you like most from the core rules and your fellow players. No edition is better, they just have slightly different mechanics. 6th, 7th, 8th, and Kings of War are all very similar but just slight differences.

I want to add to what Baldrick said with regards to 8th. It is a good system, however we are allowed to play favourite with our hobbies and if you prefer another edition so be it.
Maybe in 8th the spells are random and powerful, but I had a look at 6th magic recently and found that the damage output was pitiful, wizards are expensive, random in outlay and random in performance. You need to really invest to get the spells you want and even then you might not cast them. It's a balance between 'You might as well pack up because I lucked out and rolled Dwellers on my level 2" vs "I paid 300pts to get a viable wizard and his spells blow farts at the enemy and maybe kill a goblin or two." I look at 6th and fined the core magic lores lacklustre, others might look at 8th and find the same lores broken. Maybe both are right and wrong at the same time.
Maybe its 'infantry now matter' vs 'only infantry now matters'. Fixed charges vs random charges. etc.

Let me put in my two pence now. I have a favourite Warhammer system also, I will play others but this is the one I gravitate towards and collect for: 9th Age 1.1. I will go as far as to say that it fixes pretty much everything wrong with old warhammer. Though from a base perspective of using 8th as the foundation, so if you are against the mechanics of 8th on basic principle, it might still not be for you. However it rounds out the advantages of 8th compared to other warhammer, and also mitigates the disadvantages of 8th compared to prior systems; and above all gives a comprehensive rebalanced only otherwise seen in Ravening Hordes, but without the inherent disadvantage of Ravening Hordes' thinness.
Now I have not seen every other post 8th fan edition so I cannot comment on 8.5, 8.9 or various iterations of post Warhammer. Most are improvements as most offer fans what they wanted in fixes as they were written by fans. 9th Age 1.1 is the best known though, had a wider dev team and has the advantage of old Warhammer in that it is also 'dead', though I prefer to use the word 'finalised', so there will be no further iterations on what is already released. Current 9th Age is nothing like it, it's a totally separate game, like Kings of War is, just as the lawyers intended.

So what, in my opinion, makes 9th Age 1.1 so good? First I will say that I do not compare it to later editions of 9th Age or Kings of War or Age of Sigmar, as they are all successors to but not true relatives of WHFB. So even if one of those there was subjectively better it would'nt count as a better version of WHFB, just a better fantasy wargame, and that field is so wide that we have to include Malifaux, Frostgrave, Mordheim, Warmachine/Hordes and numerous other games to provide a comparative review and I will not attempt that here.
So first I will talk about what is bad about 9th Age 1.1. First its not official Warhammer, so it doesn't have official weight, and its passed by by its own development team, though if you read between the lines this was something they had no choice over as it was so clearly WHFB-fixed that legal troubles were inevitable. You can still get it and its legal to play, you are not infringing copyright by distributing 9th Age 1.1.
The second problem is that you may need to rename a few things, if you want to re-sink into the lore, most not-Warhammer names are easy to guess and many of the items and nearly all the units are directly replicated. if it looks like Van Horstmann's Speculum, acts like Van Horstmann's Speculum, and is an Empire only special item, then I don't need to call it Locket of Sunna. It takes no effort to look at a 1.1 army book and know what you are looking at in terms of Warhammer world references. Now special characters are gone, as in completely gone, but the game dovetails into WHFB as well as any other different edition, so it takes no more problem importing a Warhammer character to 1.1 as it would to import one from an older army book, such as Bretonnians. In fact I do not know of any special character you could not just port straight over. Some special rules change, but where a special rule has a different wording just treat it as an edition change, if the special character does something different port it over word for word, it will fit. I generally leave points costs alone, for special characters they are broken anyway. Alternately just replicate a special character via the vanilla rules.
That is about it for downsides, there are one or two points mismatches but way fewer than any other edition, including Ravening Hordes, which is a respectable feat allowing for how many units there are.
9th Age 1.1 is strict on base sizes, officially, but as its officially superceded I just ignore that. So if you want to use newer plastic kits that dont fit on old school base sizes just use a base that fits the model. My Nurgle army has a plastic Great Unclean One on a custom 100x100mm base. To fit him on a n official 50x50mm (official for WHFB too as the kit was only released in AoS era!) my big fatty daemon would need to hop on one leg.

Now for whats good. I have covered it in other threads but to reiterate here: It fixes 8th. This might not be enough if you prefer 6th or 5th, but if you like 8th you will like 9th Age 1.1, and if you are not sure which is the best edition but its a balance of 8th and any of the others a fixed 8th might tip the balance in its favour.
How does it fix 8th. Lets raise the problems and deal with them.
1. Nuke spells - Yes they exist, and they can destroy units. However if you decide to sacrifice a wizard to five dice cast a nuke spell there is some mitigation. First you can dispel irresistable force, you can scroll it if you wish, its just another spell. Irresistable force simply means the casting value auto-succeeds because of the double 6. Normally this wont matter unless you also roll a string of 1s. However if you do dispel it you also save the incautious wizard from his miscast. Second if it is a spell that forces a save or die on every model in a unit you automatically pass the first failed roll. So roll for your characters first in the order you prefer, at least once character will get an autopass and survive.
2. Miscasts - Sad that your vampire lord died because he rolled a double 6 two dicing Nehek on turn one. This cant happen anymore. You need a 5 dice miscast for an instant death result to be possible, and a 4 dice miscast for a 50/50 on instant death. With a two dice miscast you cannot lose caster levels, that kicks in at 3 dice, and any damage rolls are also based on number of dice. For this reason rolling double six on two dice is actually very good, and passable on three dice most of the time, a two dice miscast only tickles.
3. Deathstars - There is maximum unit size for every unit, just as Bretonnians had for knights. Core infantry caps out at 50 models, which is as large as it gets (there are one or two exceptions gnoblars cap at 55, but that is just flavour), anything better has a smaller size cap. No more deathstars, but you can still have a block of 30 elite infantry and you can character them up and make them very nasty. The eggs in one basket approach is not banned, as you can stack characters, but it is no longer quite so excessive and employs a higher degree of risk.
4. Steadfast - Yes steadfast is still in the game, but you can no longer stack 100 goblins keep them in range of the general and tarpit all day. You can have fifty goblins, and you might face fifty elves.
5. Monster profiles - All models are combine profile, like a non character chariot or the Glottkin. there are comprehensive rules as to how characters on mounts are combined, and they are by and large fair.

On balance. Have to mention balance twice as its important. As I said it had even fewer points of imbalance than Ravening Hordes, and Ravening hordes is still liked decades later for that reason. I can make most of the army tropes for warhammer editions from the 1.1 army books, each of which is a no-fluff 20 or so page document with a full range of models, special rules and items. Points balance is pretty tight, with few subjective errors. There also balance limitations a lot of the overpowered stuff is essentially 0-1 limited, and that limit is often dictated indirectly. So for example blender vampires are available, but you cant spam them. Some units are listed as 'One of a Kind' but a direct 0-1 reference this was is rare, normally it is handled elsewhere in the mechanics. I can see all the flavour with less of the cheese. Want a wall of skavenslaves or zombies, you can, but you cant go overboard. Want to double dragon, you can, but you have to jump through some hoops. Want an artillery park, or a mass of chariots you can, but there are direct and indirect limits on the number of said models you can field, and the limit is fairly softly bordered, you can have more than usual or lots more than usual with different degrees of tailoring for balance you have to put up with.
As for the lists themselves they are clearly viable in multiple ways. MSU is possible, cavalry only Greenskins, Elves or Empire is possible, Bretonnians can have a viable peasant wall, daemon armies can go monotheistic for extra bonuses, and warriors of chaos are viable as undivided. Dwarfs get viable options to do something other than just stand and resist. Chaos Dwarfs are fleshed out with varied things to field and Beastmen have a fair chance of actually winning the game.

That is about it for the main differences, its still basically 8th and the core mechanics are the same, hence lawyers. Its a subjective difference whether you Yes there are random charge ranges, so if you don't like that 6th will be subjectively better for you, maybe. There are minor tweaks to most things. For example the "ASF" equivalent is toned down, it negates ASL for great weapons or grants +1 to hit if your initiative is higher, you don't actually get ASF itself. Killing blow equivalent also tones it down. If you roll that 6 you bypass armour saves, but you don't instant kill anything. Conversely there is no Heroic Killing Blow, 'Lethal Strike' can be used against any target.
Yes there are things I don't like, you can one channel role for your army and your wizards contribute to the single roll. You dont get to roll for each wizard to channel for themselves. Armour piercing is messy, it's astreamlined so that each instance of 'ignores armour saves' is written as gains 'Armour Piercing (6'), i.e reduces armour value by six. I can see why they did that it amalgamates two rules into one while allowing multiple penalty armour piercing to be a thing. Its a better mechanic but I prefer the feel of having a simple ignores armour saves rule.

I am quite convinced by 9th Age 1.1 and suggest you give it a go. But each to their own, I think it is best to accommodate your opponents preferences, I will offer 1.1 if I play, but will also play 8th, and bought all the army books available for 8th, so 6th for Brets 7th for rats etc, even for armies I never collected collect, and have both Ravening hordes and am slowly collecting all the 6th army books too, whether or not I play that faction. it is good to have a lore library, and good to accommodate others. If I play 1.1 my opponents get the 1.1 army book printout and the copy other 8th army book, and if they want to port in any special characters they can at 8th costs, there is no need to port in units, 1.1 has all the 8th stuff stuff including many Forgeworld specials like Idol of Gork.
A lot of people simply dont wan to move to an unofficial system, and consider 1.1 as no different to house rules. I am forgiving of that even if I dont consider the argument fair. If they want to play 8th, we play 8th. There aren't any 6th grognards in my local play group, but I am getting 6th ready, actually I have been for a long while but I dont have *all* the material, yet.
One thing to note is that GW released a number of scenario packs, the vast majority for 5th with one or two for 8th and one book for 6th. I collect those also, though I port over the 5th edition stuff. I could collect 5th, but its an extra chore to collect yet more books. I will play 5th if someone wants to give it a go, or earlier, but it will be up to them to supply the game aids.

Hey thanks for the heads up guys. I must say that I am a filthy traditionalist and wouldn't play 9th age solely on principle no matter how good it is. However you have made an interesting point for 8th edition. I've heard a lot about 6th edition too and a fair bit of why not to play 7th edition. Ravening hordes is great, but because dryads are not core in ravening hordes it just doesn't work with my army.

I was actually just speaking to someone who was having a game of 1st edition with some friends down in Hiroshima on the weekend and that sounds rather interesting, but of course those were in the dark ages of RPG Warhammer.

My last question is about 4th edition. I can see a lot of you have never played it, but what would you say about it. Do you have any reasons why one would or would not play it?

 jobalisk wrote:
Hey thanks for the heads up guys. I must say that I am a filthy traditionalist and wouldn't play 9th age solely on principle no matter how good it is. However you have made an interesting point for 8th edition. I've heard a lot about 6th edition too and a fair bit of why not to play 7th edition. Ravening hordes is great, but because dryads are not core in ravening hordes it just doesn't work with my army.

I was actually just speaking to someone who was having a game of 1st edition with some friends down in Hiroshima on the weekend and that sounds rather interesting, but of course those were in the dark ages of RPG Warhammer.

My last question is about 4th edition. I can see a lot of you have never played it, but what would you say about it. Do you have any reasons why one would or would not play it?

The nice thing about old systems is that as long as you have a mutual agreement with your opponent you can play whatever fits. Don't like Ravening Hordes? You have the Wood Elf book AND the Wood Elf list from Warhammer Annual/Chronicles to choose from.


As far as 4th, you can play any edition as long as you have an opponent. This is Auticus' problem currently, he is tied to a couple of options solely based on his player base and meta in his area. I don't play 4th solely because I found what I want in 6th. Probably the same with all the other posters and the editions they favor.

 jobalisk wrote:
Hey thanks for the heads up guys. I must say that I am a filthy traditionalist and wouldn't play 9th age solely on principle no matter how good it is. However you have made an interesting point for 8th edition. I've heard a lot about 6th edition too and a fair bit of why not to play 7th edition. Ravening hordes is great, but because dryads are not core in ravening hordes it just doesn't work with my army.

I was actually just speaking to someone who was having a game of 1st edition with some friends down in Hiroshima on the weekend and that sounds rather interesting, but of course those were in the dark ages of RPG Warhammer.

My last question is about 4th edition. I can see a lot of you have never played it, but what would you say about it. Do you have any reasons why one would or would not play it?

If I had the time and an opponent that is into the rules, then why not?

Playing 5th edition infected me with the Fantasy Virus, and if that was good enough for me in 1998 then it's damn sure good enough today!

I would still try to get my opponent to play Warhammer CE (Classic Edition, a fanmade system I play for some years now). I am too much of a fanboy for this ruleset as not to try it. As some others proposed 9th Age here, that would be my recommendation. But I try not to be too missionary about it in other people's threads

 Moscha wrote:

I would still try to get my opponent to play Warhammer CE (Classic Edition, a fanmade system I play for some years now). I am too much of a fanboy for this ruleset as not to try it.

Do tell.

 Moscha wrote:

As some others proposed 9th Age here, that would be my recommendation.

With strong caveats. If you looked for 9th Age now, and didn't specifically ask you will get to a fantasy wargame that bears no relation to WHFB, which is what is currently intended. You need 1.0 or 1.1 for a WHFB version.

 Moscha wrote:

But I try not to be too missionary about it in other people's threads

Rubbish! You are doing us a disservice if you DONT tell us what Warhammer CE is and why it should be our go-to.

Feel free to check out the rules of Warhammer CE.

http://armycreator.de/lrb/E_WarhammerCE-LRB-v1.05.pdf

in short: based on 7th rulebook, but mostly not the army books.

best balanced at 2000 points. almost every army and unit since 5th edition has an entry.
check out the golden rules on the first pages, if you agree with these, then you should give it a try. this living rule book. is stripped of all but rules, so i was told it has the Charme of a tax form. nevertheless, rules are rules, and I had the most fun with Warhammer since I played according to these.

I had a look over it and it didn't really seem me. anyway, back to my last question, is there anyone here who can give me a good reason to play 4th, like what is good about it because I've heard people say its one of the good ones but I can't find anyone what will tell me why.

I can't recall seeing anyone singing the accolades of 4th WFB. I've seen the rather large Oldhammer movement to go back to 3rd, i've seen an equal number of people regaling 5th, 6th, and 7th, and I've seen a large contingent staying in 8th or pushing T9A early versions. I don't remember a single person pushing 4th at all. Mechanically 4th wasn't much different than 5th. In fact, if memory serves, it was a similar situation to 6th vs 7th as the books for 4th were able to be used in 5th especially as there wasn't a sweeping rollout like with Ravening Hordes and 6th.