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Hi, my group is trying to get back into 40k, and none of us are inspired to get into 10th, and we're looking to get back in with some 8th or 9th edition codexes on the cheap and with some existing collections (newer players prefer the rationalized vehicle rules).

So, my question is, with possibly minor tweaks, which do you think would be the more enjoyable edition for some casual players to get into? None of us are interested in power gaming or anything, looking for some decent balance here. We're leaning towards 9th because crusade looks like it could be fun, but have heard there's way too many stratagems and would be prepared to house rule these down etc.


The armies involved:
-Marines (non-primaris, probably ultras or custom)
-Chaos (wants night lords but recognizes the subfaction is often terrible so may end up proxying)
-Imperial Guard (pretty decent mix of infantry and tanks, with some storm troopers and inquisition from ages past)
-Eldar (Saim-Hann or maybe Ynnari)

Thanks in advance!

...I mean, if you have to stick to the 8th-9th era, for casual play you might be best-off just taking the 8e Indexes and ignoring everything that came afterwards, possibly with some fixes to the obvious typos (e.g. 17pt Dire Avengers). 9e is probably the most extreme era of bloat/power creep in the history of Warhammer thus far, and yes, I know someone is going to pop in and say "but 7e Eldar...", and they're wrong.

If you can talk the holdouts over vehicle rules around, though, rolling back further to 5e core/4e Codexes is a much better casual game, particularly if you've got a player in the group interested in the Inquisition (they got completely gutted in the 5e GK book and have never recovered to the point they could be actually played as an army without using 3-4 Codexes and jumping through the requisite detachment hoops). 40k has gotten vastly more bloated, less forgiving, and more lethal over the years, and even rolling back to 8e Indexes you'll probably find a lot of games are over with one person getting blown off the table in 2-3 turns. Crusade also isn't a new invention, there were campaign rules with battle honors that worked basically the same way as far back as the 4e core rulebook that could easily be tweaked/expanded on.

My first recommendation would probably be 8th edition. It's closer to 10th edition than previous editions. The number of stratagems isn't *too* crazy. Crusade rules existed if you want some fluffy missions to play with. A lot of my best/closest games were 8th edition.

The main downsides were things like knights + the loyal 32, eldar flyers, etc. But those are all easily avoidable by a casual group. I'd probably recommend using the first space marine codex instead of the second as Marines 2.0 were where 8th started to kind of go off the rails. The Psychic Awakening books have some neat content (I love the exarch powers for Eldar), but you can potentially wander into power creep territory if you're not careful.

Going index-only isn't an awful option, but the indexes (indices?) weren't perfect, and you might find your factions feel a little bland without the codex options.

* If you're going pre-8th, I'd actually recommend 7th edition with the caveat that you should either avoid formations entirely, or else be really judicious with which ones you use. The core system of 7th was pretty decent overall. It's just that formations were a major source of powercreep, and the books weren't always especially well-balanced. But both of those problems are easily avoided by just *not taking the OP stuff.*

For instance, 7th edition eldar are notorious for their scatter laser jetbike spam, wraith knights, and warp spider headaches. But if you avoid those units (or take the non-wraith knights in moderation), most of the rest of the codex was actually in a pretty healthy place. CSM also got a really great supplement at the tail end of the edition (that it saw so little play is a tragedy), and marines had some decent rules with lots of interesting options from Forge World chapters and some flavorful chapter-specific stuff in their late-edition splats. Again, you'll want to be careful with which formations you use specifically, but you'll probably be fine so long as you aren't taking the formation that gives you 200 points of free vehicles.

And if you're going further back than that, I'd recommend 4th edition (which I have *not* played) over 5th (which I have played). Mostly because only troops could score, vehicle spam was unpleasant, and the missions/deployments had some stinkers. From what I hear, 4th edition was mostly better on the whole, with the exception that some stuff was pretty OP. But again, just don't take the OP stuff.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
...* If you're going pre-8th, I'd actually recommend 7th edition with the caveat that you should either avoid formations entirely, or else be really judicious with which ones you use. The core system of 7th was pretty decent overall. It's just that formations were a major source of powercreep, and the books weren't always especially well-balanced. But both of those problems are easily avoided by just *not taking the OP stuff.*...

Addendum on 7e: The full list of modifications required to make the game work all right is:
--CAD only, no alternate detachments or formations
--Eldar Jetbikes can buy one scatter laser or shuriken catapult per three models, not one per model
--+100pts to the cost of Wraithknights
--Play with the Heresy variant of Invisibility (WC2 Malediction, target enemy unit within 12" only hits enemies on 6s until your next turn)
--Play with the Heresy variant of the Destroyer rule (wounds on 2+, auto-penetrates vehicles, always does Instant Death, but that's it, no special fancy table of bonus hull point damage and ignore Invs on 6+)
--Play with the Heresy "no single unit may be more than 25% of your points" rule
--That one Tzeentch Daemon robe of +Inv is banned

With those changes it isn't a perfect game, but it's a lot better than playing what GW published.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
...* If you're going pre-8th, I'd actually recommend 7th edition with the caveat that you should either avoid formations entirely, or else be really judicious with which ones you use. The core system of 7th was pretty decent overall. It's just that formations were a major source of powercreep, and the books weren't always especially well-balanced. But both of those problems are easily avoided by just *not taking the OP stuff.*...

Addendum on 7e: The full list of modifications required to make the game work all right is:
--CAD only, no alternate detachments or formations
--Eldar Jetbikes can buy one scatter laser or shuriken catapult per three models, not one per model
--+100pts to the cost of Wraithknights
--Play with the Heresy variant of Invisibility (WC2 Malediction, target enemy unit within 12" only hits enemies on 6s until your next turn)
--Play with the Heresy variant of the Destroyer rule (wounds on 2+, auto-penetrates vehicles, always does Instant Death, but that's it, no special fancy table of bonus hull point damage and ignore Invs on 6+)
--Play with the Heresy "no single unit may be more than 25% of your points" rule
--That one Tzeentch Daemon robe of +Inv is banned

With those changes it isn't a perfect game, but it's a lot better than playing what GW published.

I largely agree with all that. I'd be tempted to go a step further and say just don't play with wraith knights or any superheavies at all, but wraithknights and imperial knights are definitely the worst offenders. And if you do that, I'm not sure Destroyer weapons necessarily need to be changed. They'd mostly only exist on wraithguard at that point. Not that there's anything wrong with the proposed changes.

EDIT: I'd also maybe discourage people from playing Tau at all. I love Tau, but their 7th edition incarnation was just a gunline combined with a bunch of ways to shut down counterplay with gunlines. (Intercepting reserves, super overwatch, cover-cancellers, etc.)

 AnomanderRake wrote:
...I mean, if you have to stick to the 8th-9th era, for casual play you might be best-off just taking the 8e Indexes and ignoring everything that came afterwards, possibly with some fixes to the obvious typos (e.g. 17pt Dire Avengers). 9e is probably the most extreme era of bloat/power creep in the history of Warhammer thus far, and yes, I know someone is going to pop in and say "but 7e Eldar...", and they're wrong.

If you can talk the holdouts over vehicle rules around, though, rolling back further to 5e core/4e Codexes is a much better casual game, particularly if you've got a player in the group interested in the Inquisition (they got completely gutted in the 5e GK book and have never recovered to the point they could be actually played as an army without using 3-4 Codexes and jumping through the requisite detachment hoops). 40k has gotten vastly more bloated, less forgiving, and more lethal over the years, and even rolling back to 8e Indexes you'll probably find a lot of games are over with one person getting blown off the table in 2-3 turns. Crusade also isn't a new invention, there were campaign rules with battle honors that worked basically the same way as far back as the 4e core rulebook that could easily be tweaked/expanded on.

Hey, apologies for the delay, but you convinced us.

I managed to dig up a few old codexes I still had from that era and we're going to try Prohammer: thanks (and thanks, Wyldhunt) for the recommendation re: an earlier hybrid edition.

It's been ages since I played any of these though... I dug up the 3.5 codex chaos which I remember being OP but loads of fun, and I have the Eldar + Craftworlds and later Imperial Guard book from around that era, and we'll probably grab one or both of the old 3.5 -hunter codexes. I remember vanilla Marines being pretty mediocre (power and interest both) in their first 3rd edition codex (the Crimson Fists one) which I don't have anymore. Do you have any thoughts on which edition of Marines codex would be reasonably balanced with those others?

I suspect it's going to be less a matter of power/balance and more a matter of compatibility, no?

ProHammer will work with any Codex from 3rd-7th edition. It makes some base changes to things that somewhat reign in power differences between the various supported editions. We've had great games with all manner of different codex eras taking the field against each other.

I think Index 8th might be a good jumping-off point, but with some judicious tweaks – when 9E first came along, I was initially very excited as it revised some of the things about 8th that never quite landed for me (eg the revisions to army composition/CP generation)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also it should be pretty easy to pick up the 8E Indices on the cheap.

6th edition +Swedish Comp was perfect for our casual group. The game went downhill after that.

I'm gonna throw out a different suggestion - have a look at One Page Rules: Grimdark Future.

Its a free ruleset that is very simple (fits on one page) but is nicely tactical and plays really well and quickly - perfect for a group getting back into the hobby.

They have army lists allowing you to use any kind of 40K model you want (the trademarked names are filed off but its easy to see what is what) and there is a free army builder app that outputs your lists into super readable and easy to use play aids.

Over all its great - doesn't have the full depth of full 40K but not everyone needs that and it really helps if you lean into personal narrative style games.