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Made in us
Insect-Infested Nurgle Chaos Lord






 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Those works better in 4th imo. :p and the GSC list got reprinted in the big Chapter Approved books (I fondly remember the limousines).

Feral Orks and Kroot Mercenaries were available in the same fashion.


The Tim Huckleberry GSC list (the one I'm referring to) was never printed in CA, it was only in the Journal. Same goes for the Harlequin list of the same era.


Games Workshop Delenda Est.

Users on ignore- 53.

If you break apart my or anyone else's posts line by line I will not read them. 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






Springfield, VA

 Grimtuff wrote:
 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Those works better in 4th imo. :p and the GSC list got reprinted in the big Chapter Approved books (I fondly remember the limousines).

Feral Orks and Kroot Mercenaries were available in the same fashion.


The Tim Huckleberry GSC list (the one I'm referring to) was never printed in CA, it was only in the Journal. Same goes for the Harlequin list of the same era.


Interesting; I'm fairly certain the old CAs I have (the 2002, 2003, and 2004 megabooks) have a GSC list in them. I may be misremembering another article or something. I will have to go look through them.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/11/28 16:52:50


 
   
Made in us
Imperial Guard Landspeeder Pilot




On moon miranda.

5th is probably the most functional edition of oldhammer taken as a whole. None of them are perfect, they all have gaping flaws, and for everything a core edition gets right the codex releases will bork. Which is best will probably depend on what army you play. If you're an Eldar player, 3E and 4E will be golden years, if you're a Guard player, 5E will be remembered fondly, if you play Blood Angels, 3E will have been halcyon days.

With 5th, that introduced Kill Points instead of the old Victory Points, Wound Allocation is deeply flawed, everything gets 4+ cover all the time, etc.

With 4E, if your transport has tracks it's a non-functional deathtrap and if your vehicle doesn't fly expect it to be pretty easily killed, anything that's a Skimmer however is going to be an unholy nightmare to kill, particularly anything Eldar and to a lesser extent Tau. Enjoy flying MC's hiding behind area terrain and diving into close combat turn 2, eating a unit ever fight phase, and never getting to be shot at the whole game. If you're playing with mission levels or strategy ratings, expect one side to get hard screwed by the mission guidelines.

3E is super barebones, has most of the drawbacks of 4E and even clunkier rules, particularly CC related.

 Grimtuff wrote:
PenitentJake wrote:
Crumbum wrote:
5th edition is the best. If you include the Imperial Armour and other addendums you have access to all the factions, including Feral Orks and Genestealer cults.



Really?

I never purchased any of the Imperial Armour books, but I certainly don't remember seeing any GSC models on forgeworld's site. Do you mean "there was a doctrine that allowed you to field IG + Purestrains + the Space Hulk Patriarch?"

If so, I'd say that while it's certainly better than nothing, I'd hardly call that a Genestealer Cult.

But as I said, I'm pretty much in the dark when it comes to Imperial Armour- Forgeworld, with it's higher-priced, online only, exclusively resin range never seemed particularly accessible to me, so I never bothered.


If by "other addendums" they mean the Citadel Journal, then there was a GSC list in issues 40 and 41. Fully compatible with 5th as it was written during 3rd ed.
Feral Orks appeared in White Dwarf then in one of the Chapter Approved books.
In all fairness, the Citadel Journals probably would have been even more inaccessible by the time 5E rolled around than anything FW, if for no other reason than most never knew it existed

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/11/28 18:26:31


IRON WITHIN, IRON WITHOUT.

New Heavy Gear Log! Also...Grey Knights!
The correct pronunciation is Imperial Guard and Stormtroopers, "Astra Militarum" and "Tempestus Scions" are something you'll find at Hogwarts.  
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






Springfield, VA

[quote=Vaktathi 801764 11263386 2639c6bd2a42e714227b06646829d6ea.jpg
With 4E, if your transport has tracks it's a non-functional deathtrap and if your vehicle doesn't fly expect it to be pretty easily killed, anything that's a Skimmer however is going to be an unholy nightmare to kill, particularly anything Eldar and to a lesser extent Tau. Enjoy flying MC's hiding behind area terrain and diving into close combat turn 2, eating a unit ever fight phase, and never getting to be shot at the whole game. If you're playing with mission levels or strategy ratings, expect one side to get hard screwed by the mission guidelines.


I play Imperial Guard and vastly prefer 4th - and the army I built for it is Armageddon Steel Legion. I'm ostensibly playing right into the "drawbacks" of the edition.

I think the biggest thing going back for me is playing my Armageddon in 4th and in 9th. People say transports are deathtraps in 4th, but 9th is even worse... 4th feels like my Chimeras are actually Chimeras...

I also play Armored Company, which was way cooler in 4th than Armored Battlegroup was in fifth. The only Armored Battlegroup list I liked as much as the 4th Armored Company list was the sixth edition one with Beast Hunter shells, because it made vanquishers not trash.
   
Made in de
Battlefield Tourist






Nuremberg

My memories of the editions are tied really strongly to how Orks played in them. So for most of 3e and 4e I was frustrated with my slightly janky codex with lots of options there were no models for, or really old models for.
End of 4e start of 5e was my favourite time as I had a decent book and a good model selection to work with, and I consider that peak 40K. 5e gradually got derailed in my view with the introduction of flyers and ever more ridiculous codices in the latter half (much like 7e Fantasy, which started really well and was my favourite edition, but then became borderline unplayable by the end due to the Daemon and Dark Elf books, and yeah probably Vampire Counts as well).

I don't think I'll ever play with my 40K stuff the way I did back in 5e again. That was the only time that I was regularly attending multiple tournaments a year and playing at a shop. Up til then it had always been cheap and cheerful club games or games at my house.

I'm going back to that now, just playing with a friend from work, and it's a much more enjoyable experience because I can just pick whatever minis I feel like playing with and whatever rules suit me best. Hopefully we'll get a few more people interested and make a small group, but honestly 4-5 people would be plenty I reckon.

Modern 40K has fixed a lot of the problems I used to have with the older versions, but it seems like it's introduced a whole bunch more, and I'm just not a fan of strategem style "Disassociated mechanics" in my wargames.

   
Made in us
Enigmatic Chaos Sorcerer




The dark hollows of Kentucky

4th edition beats 5th on codex quality alone. Or at least up until 2007 it did.
   
Made in pt
Inquisitorial Keeper of the Xenobanks






your mind

Anything 2nd to and including 4th. If I were able, that is in the States or the UK, I would start buying used books from all of these and RT for reference. PDFs are great but paper is more memorable and easier to sort through. At the same time, I would try Mezmorki’s Prohammer.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/11/28 19:40:35


   
Made in us
Imperial Guard Landspeeder Pilot




On moon miranda.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

I play Imperial Guard and vastly prefer 4th - and the army I built for it is Armageddon Steel Legion. I'm ostensibly playing right into the "drawbacks" of the edition.

I think the biggest thing going back for me is playing my Armageddon in 4th and in 9th. People say transports are deathtraps in 4th, but 9th is even worse... 4th feels like my Chimeras are actually Chimeras...
I guess I just don't see how chimeras were functional, at all in 4E. I ran them that edition as well, running a mech Stormtrooper list. Just giving them the minimum kit they come with in 5E (smoke, searchlight, guns), they're almost 100pts compared with like 55 in 5E. Don't get me wrong the Chimera is hideously overpriced currently in 9E, but they were insanely expensive in 4E.

More importantly, the 4E transport rules were just insanely punitive.

Penetrate a transport? 50% chance it's dead straight up and inflicting damage on and auto-pinning the survivors for a turn. If the doesn't die, the passengers have to disembark anyway and then take a pinning test, and on top of that the transport now either is immobilized or out a gun, and isn't moving or shooting at all the next turn because it's stunned anyway. If anyone used the top hatch to shoot out, the transport died or was immobilized on 5/6 results. With those side AV10 flanks and the opportunity for even glancing hits to kill, Chimeras were just awful. Literally the first game I ever played with a Chimera in 4E it died to infiltrating Plague marines' bolter fire.

If you're a skimmer though, you can't be penetrated effectively (at least not after auto-take wargear upgrades) in 4E, so units like Devilfish and Wave Serpents never had to worry about it, and had side armor of 11 or even 12 to boot.


I also play Armored Company, which was way cooler in 4th than Armored Battlegroup was in fifth. The only Armored Battlegroup list I liked as much as the 4th Armored Company list was the sixth edition one with Beast Hunter shells, because it made vanquishers not trash.
I could be mis-remembering, but the only 5E AB list I recall was the DKoK one in IA7, otherwise there just wasn't one for 5th, but was otherwise very similar to the 6E one. That said, I'm not sure why the 4E one would be superior, the vehicles broadly would have been less capable and with less variety and fewer unit options if I recall correctly. Not that the DKoK list or 6E list was free of issues, but it was more expansive. I think the biggest issue with the 6E list was the fact that it had to deal with HPs. Ultimately none of the lists were particularly great competitively due to the vehicle rules in each edition and the 5E DK rules being poop for anything involving an actual Krieg unit (that wasn't something generic like a Russ). Likewise, half the mission variants in 4E would have forced the AC to sit in reserve, coming on piecemeal starting turn 2, allowing opponent's to destroy your force in detail a couple units at a time. I just found 4E to be intensely frustrating for IG and especially anything vehicle related for IG in 4E, and they were competitively awful in rankings.

IRON WITHIN, IRON WITHOUT.

New Heavy Gear Log! Also...Grey Knights!
The correct pronunciation is Imperial Guard and Stormtroopers, "Astra Militarum" and "Tempestus Scions" are something you'll find at Hogwarts.  
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






Springfield, VA

Agree to disagree.

Personally, the weakness of transports forces the infantry and mech to work together (like real life) rather than the Chimeras being bunkers and the infantry never needing to disembark until they died.

The 4th Armored Company list had doctrines, whilst Armored Battlegroup did not, meaning you could make your dudes Your Dudes as well as giving the vehicles additional capabilities (e.g. tank shock hurts the enemy / improved side armor / ace gunners).

Lastly, vehicles feel like they use their armor for durability rather than the Damage Chart. For me, in 5th, a Chimera felt durable because it was hard to damage it effectively on the chart, whilst the armor looked like swiss cheese (because as you yourself note, it was bad).

You had absurd situations where you would get like 11 penetrating hits on a Chimera and shake it 7 times, blow off two guns, and stun it three times. That was much MUCH less lily in fourth.

This, in turn, increases the value of armor protection. When the durability of vehicles comes from a lenient damage chart, all vehicles are pretty much as durable as any other (a stun is a stun whether it happens 3 times because your armor is hard to penetrate or 6 times because it is easy).

Also, damage results not punishing passengers meant that Mechanized Infantry ended up being more like Mechanized (sometimes infantry but only if a transport dies) units. Imperial Guard squads became 60 point upgrades to Chimeras, rather than actually having to dismount and participate on their own, in conjunction with their vehicle.

This makes it feel more realistic to me.
   
Made in us
Gore-Soaked Lunatic Witchhunter







The transport buffs in 5th were pretty excessive; individually changing the disembark-on-damage mechanic and the damage table and dropping prices on all the transports were reasonable ideas to make an underused unit type more relevant, but in aggregate they swung way too far the other way and produced transport parking lots.

Balanced Game: Noun. A game in which all options and choices are worth using.
Homebrew oldhammer project: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/790996.page#10896267
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I would use 4th ed as the core and tweak only those bits that were sub optimal.

I liked the Ld test to shoot further away units in 4th and the real world LoS it had (rather than the 'true' los that we have now which is nothing like the real world).

4th over all had the best bones. Tweaking some aspects without changing things would be the best option imo.

5th had improved some bits, but its bones were failing and the codexes made it worse.


   
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St. George, UT

 Hellebore wrote:
I would use 4th ed as the core and tweak only those bits that were sub optimal.

I liked the Ld test to shoot further away units in 4th and the real world LoS it had (rather than the 'true' los that we have now which is nothing like the real world).

4th over all had the best bones. Tweaking some aspects without changing things would be the best option imo.

5th had improved some bits, but its bones were failing and the codexes made it worse.



I agree. 4th was my favorite edition by a lot. We tweeked the whole entangled transport damage issues and the game ran very smoothly. The real problem was when there were drastic swings in codex power and point costs.

See pics of my Orks, Tau, Emperor's Children, Necrons, Space Wolves, and Dark Eldar here:


 
   
Made in us
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On moon miranda.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The transport buffs in 5th were pretty excessive; individually changing the disembark-on-damage mechanic and the damage table and dropping prices on all the transports were reasonable ideas to make an underused unit type more relevant, but in aggregate they swung way too far the other way and produced transport parking lots.
The Rhino in particular was the big offender here, the changes to cover and smoke (and its free inclusion) coupled with the vehicle table changes and the drop in cost, particularly relative to their far more expensive cargo, made them auto-takes.

The other issue is that there just often wasn't anything to do for infantry outside of vehicles. 40k doesn't have mechanics like other games do where infantry can dig in and build field fortifications, spot for artillery, reload weapons, interact with equipment, search for objectives or intel, etc. I think the issue was less with the resiliency of most 5E transports (barring some ubiquitous 4+ cover stuff), more the fact that there wasn't any need to get out of them once they got to where they needed to go unless you wanted to get into CC.

One can look at a game like Dropzone Commander, where your infantry may ride into battle in APC's carried in dropships, but they have to get out and actually do things like search office buildings for intel, or Flames of War where idle infantry can always dig foxholes or clear mines or whatnot, stuff that requires them to be out of a transport doing something of value that isn't necessarily fighting. 40k just never thought that far, "yeah just drive on top with your tank and you claim the objective as long as Troops infantry unit was stuff inside" was as deep as it got, and for the most part still is

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Agree to disagree.

Personally, the weakness of transports forces the infantry and mech to work together (like real life) rather than the Chimeras being bunkers and the infantry never needing to disembark until they died.
Recalling 4E, aside from phyically body blocking to keep away charges there's not much they can do to provide actual support (automatic weapons don't pin anything in 40k, lasguns certainly didn't hurt much, especially not at 6ppm and without FRFSRF, their bodies aren't providing a cover save, etc), there just isn't a whole lot of mechanics the game (particularly 4E) provides for that, and if anything they'd just provide an assault springboard to an opponent to consolidate through, and much of the time the Chimera was the most expensive, more valuable asset anyway which made things even more awkward.

The 4th Armored Company list had doctrines, whilst Armored Battlegroup did not, meaning you could make your dudes Your Dudes as well as giving the vehicles additional capabilities (e.g. tank shock hurts the enemy / improved side armor / ace gunners).
Eh, I kinda feel for the doubling or trebling in vehicle count and unit options and massive adjustment in costs, particularly given how situational and expensive those upgrades were, the later lists more than compensated, though I guess that's subjective.

Lastly, vehicles feel like they use their armor for durability rather than the Damage Chart. For me, in 5th, a Chimera felt durable because it was hard to damage it effectively on the chart, whilst the armor looked like swiss cheese (because as you yourself note, it was bad).

You had absurd situations where you would get like 11 penetrating hits on a Chimera and shake it 7 times, blow off two guns, and stun it three times. That was much MUCH less lily in fourth.
Sure that could happen, but you'd be literally orders of magnitude more likely to explode it on the first shot instead even in 5E. That said, even with the 5E damage scheme, you were more likely to kill a 5E Chimera with a Lascannon in one shot than you were a 4E Devilfish unless the 5E Chimera was in cover.


This, in turn, increases the value of armor protection. When the durability of vehicles comes from a lenient damage chart, all vehicles are pretty much as durable as any other (a stun is a stun whether it happens 3 times because your armor is hard to penetrate or 6 times because it is easy).

Also, damage results not punishing passengers meant that Mechanized Infantry ended up being more like Mechanized (sometimes infantry but only if a transport dies) units. Imperial Guard squads became 60 point upgrades to Chimeras, rather than actually having to dismount and participate on their own, in conjunction with their vehicle.

This makes it feel more realistic to me.
Ultimately I guess to me, regardless of realism, it comes down to the fact that a Chimera actually functioned as a light tank and transport in 5E, and just...didn't in 4E

~90-100pts (or more depending on upgrades) for a heavy bolter and a multilaser wasn't particularly cost effective for a light tank at BS3 even back then.

An AV10 box with one AV12 facing that doesn't get SMF+VectoredEngines or SMF+Decoy Launchers was just mechanistically a transport that only worked if nobody shot at it, they had more in common with a Trukk in terms of resiliency than a Wave Serpent or Devilfish, but were far closer to the cost of the latter, with the mobility of none of the above and in some cases substantially less firepower to boot as well. Oh, and unlike the Wave Serpent or Devilfish, the disembarking Chimera passengers can't sit and hide behind their transport and shoot through it without penalty, the Chimera has to swing its booty around and point its single good armor facing away from the enemy in order for troops to not have the tank be blocking LoS, making both the passengers and transport far more difficult and dangerous to use.

There's an argument for 5E that they went too far in some regards, though I don't think that's anything unique to the Chimera (and I'd argue the Rhino is by far the greatest offender of that edition), but in 5E a Chimera could get your guardsmen across the field in the face of some resistance, or could be fielded in sufficient numbers to ensure something made it, and I just never found such to be the case in 4E, and there's a reason Chimeras never showed up in what passed for competitive IG lists at the time.

The issue with 4E isn't unique to the Chimera either. The core game rules in 3E and 4E, as well as 6E and 7E, really had this awkward gap between Skimmers and tracked/walker vehicles. It was expressed differently (SMF downgrading Pens to Glances and then wargear further mitigating damage results vs the later Jink mechanic), but that gap has been very stark and present throughout a lot of 40k history. GW keeps trying to express defense through mobility as being difficult to hurt, and it's never quite worked right.

Anyway, just my remembrance on that slice of 4E, I'm obviously fairly opinionated on the Chimera 5E certainly also had its warts, wound allocation was really absurd and gimmicky, the changeover from VP's to KP's, etc, and with Tau and Eldar having been so tightly written to those 3E/4E vehicle mechanics, those armies certainly ran into issues during 5E in turn just as IG had issues in 4E.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/11/29 09:16:52


IRON WITHIN, IRON WITHOUT.

New Heavy Gear Log! Also...Grey Knights!
The correct pronunciation is Imperial Guard and Stormtroopers, "Astra Militarum" and "Tempestus Scions" are something you'll find at Hogwarts.  
   
Made in pt
Inquisitorial Keeper of the Xenobanks






your mind

 Vaktathi wrote:
Spoiler:
 AnomanderRake wrote:
The transport buffs in 5th were pretty excessive; individually changing the disembark-on-damage mechanic and the damage table and dropping prices on all the transports were reasonable ideas to make an underused unit type more relevant, but in aggregate they swung way too far the other way and produced transport parking lots.
The Rhino in particular was the big offender here, the changes to cover and smoke (and its free inclusion) coupled with the vehicle table changes and the drop in cost, particularly relative to their far more expensive cargo, made them auto-takes.

The other issue is that there just often wasn't anything to do for infantry outside of vehicles. 40k doesn't have mechanics like other games do where infantry can dig in and build field fortifications, spot for artillery, reload weapons, interact with equipment, search for objectives or intel, etc. I think the issue was less with the resiliency of most 5E transports (barring some ubiquitous 4+ cover stuff), more the fact that there wasn't any need to get out of them once they got to where they needed to go unless you wanted to get into CC.

One can look at a game like Dropzone Commander, where your infantry may ride into battle in APC's carried in dropships, but they have to get out and actually do things like search office buildings for intel, or Flames of War where idle infantry can always dig foxholes or clear mines or whatnot, stuff that requires them to be out of a transport doing something of value that isn't necessarily fighting. 40k just never thought that far, "yeah just drive on top with your tank and you claim the objective as long as Troops infantry unit was stuff inside" was as deep as it got, and for the most part still is

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Agree to disagree.

Personally, the weakness of transports forces the infantry and mech to work together (like real life) rather than the Chimeras being bunkers and the infantry never needing to disembark until they died.
Recalling 4E, aside from phyically body blocking to keep away charges there's not much they can do to provide actual support (automatic weapons don't pin anything in 40k, lasguns certainly didn't hurt much, especially not at 6ppm and without FRFSRF, their bodies aren't providing a cover save, etc), there just isn't a whole lot of mechanics the game (particularly 4E) provides for that, and if anything they'd just provide an assault springboard to an opponent to consolidate through, and much of the time the Chimera was the most expensive, more valuable asset anyway which made things even more awkward.

The 4th Armored Company list had doctrines, whilst Armored Battlegroup did not, meaning you could make your dudes Your Dudes as well as giving the vehicles additional capabilities (e.g. tank shock hurts the enemy / improved side armor / ace gunners).
Eh, I kinda feel for the doubling or trebling in vehicle count and unit options and massive adjustment in costs, particularly given how situational and expensive those upgrades were, the later lists more than compensated, though I guess that's subjective.

Lastly, vehicles feel like they use their armor for durability rather than the Damage Chart. For me, in 5th, a Chimera felt durable because it was hard to damage it effectively on the chart, whilst the armor looked like swiss cheese (because as you yourself note, it was bad).

You had absurd situations where you would get like 11 penetrating hits on a Chimera and shake it 7 times, blow off two guns, and stun it three times. That was much MUCH less lily in fourth.
Sure that could happen, but you'd be literally orders of magnitude more likely to explode it on the first shot instead even in 5E. That said, even with the 5E damage scheme, you were more likely to kill a 5E Chimera with a Lascannon in one shot than you were a 4E Devilfish unless the 5E Chimera was in cover.


This, in turn, increases the value of armor protection. When the durability of vehicles comes from a lenient damage chart, all vehicles are pretty much as durable as any other (a stun is a stun whether it happens 3 times because your armor is hard to penetrate or 6 times because it is easy).

Also, damage results not punishing passengers meant that Mechanized Infantry ended up being more like Mechanized (sometimes infantry but only if a transport dies) units. Imperial Guard squads became 60 point upgrades to Chimeras, rather than actually having to dismount and participate on their own, in conjunction with their vehicle.

This makes it feel more realistic to me.
Ultimately I guess to me, regardless of realism, it comes down to the fact that a Chimera actually functioned as a light tank and transport in 5E, and just...didn't in 4E

~90-100pts (or more depending on upgrades) for a heavy bolter and a multilaser wasn't particularly cost effective for a light tank at BS3 even back then.

An AV10 box with one AV12 facing that doesn't get SMF+VectoredEngines or SMF+Decoy Launchers was just mechanistically a transport that only worked if nobody shot at it, they had more in common with a Trukk in terms of resiliency than a Wave Serpent or Devilfish, but were far closer to the cost of the latter, with the mobility of none of the above and in some cases substantially less firepower to boot as well. Oh, and unlike the Wave Serpent or Devilfish, the disembarking Chimera passengers can't sit and hide behind their transport and shoot through it without penalty, the Chimera has to swing its booty around and point its single good armor facing away from the enemy in order for troops to not have the tank be blocking LoS, making both the passengers and transport far more difficult and dangerous to use.

There's an argument for 5E that they went too far in some regards, though I don't think that's anything unique to the Chimera (and I'd argue the Rhino is by far the greatest offender of that edition), but in 5E a Chimera could get your guardsmen across the field in the face of some resistance, or could be fielded in sufficient numbers to ensure something made it, and I just never found such to be the case in 4E, and there's a reason Chimeras never showed up in what passed for competitive IG lists at the time.

The issue with 4E isn't unique to the Chimera either. The core game rules in 3E and 4E, as well as 6E and 7E, really had this awkward gap between Skimmers and tracked/walker vehicles. It was expressed differently (SMF downgrading Pens to Glances and then wargear further mitigating damage results vs the later Jink mechanic), but that gap has been very stark and present throughout a lot of 40k history. GW keeps trying to express defense through mobility as being difficult to hurt, and it's never quite worked right.

Anyway, just my remembrance on that slice of 4E, I'm obviously fairly opinionated on the Chimera 5E certainly also had its warts, wound allocation was really absurd and gimmicky, the changeover from VP's to KP's, etc, and with Tau and Eldar having been so tightly written to those 3E/4E vehicle mechanics, those armies certainly ran into issues during 5E in turn just as IG had issues in 4E.


I took a break from reading for work, thinking something light, but this was the most interesting and informative discussion I have seen all day.

I liked that the earlier editions were generally smaller. Vehicles were special models that required expensive counters (lascannons were pricey, iirc, often on vehicles which were similarly fragile and expensive) and it wasn't always easy to get at them. There was risk involved, at least it felt that way, especially with smaller games.

Personally, I would prefer 2nd e.g. facings, templates, model-level granularity, remove nearest model, with some of 4th e.g. missions, leadership tests to shoot at more distant units, and limit game sizes to maybe today's 1250 or 1500pts on a 6x4 board.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/11/29 10:05:38


   
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Waaagh! Ork Warboss




Italy

 Da Boss wrote:
My memories of the editions are tied really strongly to how Orks played in them. So for most of 3e and 4e I was frustrated with my slightly janky codex with lots of options there were no models for, or really old models for.


Yes, I had the same feeling. During 3rd playing orks the way they were supposed to be played at competitive levels was flat out impossible due to lack of models/wargear and the fact that you had to buy tons of blisters just for the basic stuff: gretchins, their runtherd, nobz and special weapons for the boyz squads, tankbustas, burnaboyz etc... In fact just to play an average optimized list I had to buy something like 30 blisters(3-6 killa kanz, 5ish nobz with the desired loadout, 8+ blisters of gretchins, runtherd, warboss, 8+ blisters of special weapons guys, etc...), on top on regular plastic boxes, which was unreasonably expensive and to scratch build a battle wagon, in an era of no internet at home (so no tutorials, no 2nd hand market, no online shops for plasticard and such, etc...).

I've played 3rd edition much recently, during 7th era, and with the appropriate collection of models orks were extremely fun to play in that edition. 5th was definitely much easier to master due to the massive release of new models and at that time optimized lists could have been played 100% out of the boxes.

 
   
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Springfield, VA

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Agree to disagree.

Personally, the weakness of transports forces the infantry and mech to work together (like real life) rather than the Chimeras being bunkers and the infantry never needing to disembark until they died.
Recalling 4E, aside from phyically body blocking to keep away charges there's not much they can do to provide actual support (automatic weapons don't pin anything in 40k, lasguns certainly didn't hurt much, especially not at 6ppm and without FRFSRF, their bodies aren't providing a cover save, etc), there just isn't a whole lot of mechanics the game (particularly 4E) provides for that, and if anything they'd just provide an assault springboard to an opponent to consolidate through, and much of the time the Chimera was the most expensive, more valuable asset anyway which made things even more awkward.

There's a couple of things wrong here - well, one big thing and then an unwillingness to consider how a Chimera can be used. Strength 6 and below are defensive weapons in 4th, meaning it can move and shoot either twin HF or a Multi-Laser and a heavy bolter and STILL shoot a Hunter-Killer too.

So I use them like Soviet BMPs - a very tough heavy weapon/atgm team within the squad that can move up with advancing infantry and still put out a good amount of fire (6 shots is no joke, nor is 2 flamer templates).

They can body block, yes, but they also can tank shock, which can restore mobility to an otherwise deadlocked situation. If I run into a foe like Orks who can't easily/reliably pen the vehicle with a unit, I can close, do some damage, then hop in the Chimera and tank shock through. This means the Ork player needs to allocate dedicated AT assets to killing the Chimera because Close Combat only hits the facing the unit was in when it charged.

Additionally, one does not consolidate after wiping out non-WS vehicles.
 Vaktathi wrote:

The 4th Armored Company list had doctrines, whilst Armored Battlegroup did not, meaning you could make your dudes Your Dudes as well as giving the vehicles additional capabilities (e.g. tank shock hurts the enemy / improved side armor / ace gunners).
Eh, I kinda feel for the doubling or trebling in vehicle count and unit options and massive adjustment in costs, particularly given how situational and expensive those upgrades were, the later lists more than compensated, though I guess that's subjective.

I prefer a game to be about My Dudes, and raw vehicle count means nothing when an Armored Company in lore has 10 tanks, no more, no less. I could bring more support in a cheaper list, but the tanks are more "mine" in an Armored Company list (rather than just generic Russes that could be anyone's). You could convert your tanks to match the doctrines too (side skirt armor, plasma sponsons on the basic Russ, etc).
 Vaktathi wrote:

Lastly, vehicles feel like they use their armor for durability rather than the Damage Chart. For me, in 5th, a Chimera felt durable because it was hard to damage it effectively on the chart, whilst the armor looked like swiss cheese (because as you yourself note, it was bad).

You had absurd situations where you would get like 11 penetrating hits on a Chimera and shake it 7 times, blow off two guns, and stun it three times. That was much MUCH less lily in fourth.
Sure that could happen, but you'd be literally orders of magnitude more likely to explode it on the first shot instead even in 5E. That said, even with the 5E damage scheme, you were more likely to kill a 5E Chimera with a Lascannon in one shot than you were a 4E Devilfish unless the 5E Chimera was in cover.

Methinks you are too bitter about skimmers.

I have a regular Tau opponent and he isn't that hard to deal with. A skimmer had to move more than 6" to get the "only-can-glance" bonus, and this meant:
1) no passengers disembarking
2) no guns firing (unless it is also Fast)

The Devilfish could get a thing that made it count as Fast but that made it so much more expensive than a Chimera that it isn't funny (something like 130 points to the Chimera's appx 100 when kitted) - at least if you bought it any useful guns to warrant firing at all. The base Pulse Carbine Drones and Burst Cannon are worse than any of the Chimera weapon loadouts.

The real problem was Eldar skimmers, who were fast by default and had Holofields.
 Vaktathi wrote:


This, in turn, increases the value of armor protection. When the durability of vehicles comes from a lenient damage chart, all vehicles are pretty much as durable as any other (a stun is a stun whether it happens 3 times because your armor is hard to penetrate or 6 times because it is easy).

Also, damage results not punishing passengers meant that Mechanized Infantry ended up being more like Mechanized (sometimes infantry but only if a transport dies) units. Imperial Guard squads became 60 point upgrades to Chimeras, rather than actually having to dismount and participate on their own, in conjunction with their vehicle.

This makes it feel more realistic to me.
Ultimately I guess to me, regardless of realism, it comes down to the fact that a Chimera actually functioned as a light tank and transport in 5E, and just...didn't in 4E

~90-100pts (or more depending on upgrades) for a heavy bolter and a multilaser wasn't particularly cost effective for a light tank at BS3 even back then.

An AV10 box with one AV12 facing that doesn't get SMF+VectoredEngines or SMF+Decoy Launchers was just mechanistically a transport that only worked if nobody shot at it, they had more in common with a Trukk in terms of resiliency than a Wave Serpent or Devilfish, but were far closer to the cost of the latter, with the mobility of none of the above and in some cases substantially less firepower to boot as well. Oh, and unlike the Wave Serpent or Devilfish, the disembarking Chimera passengers can't sit and hide behind their transport and shoot through it without penalty, the Chimera has to swing its booty around and point its single good armor facing away from the enemy in order for troops to not have the tank be blocking LoS, making both the passengers and transport far more difficult and dangerous to use.

There's an argument for 5E that they went too far in some regards, though I don't think that's anything unique to the Chimera (and I'd argue the Rhino is by far the greatest offender of that edition), but in 5E a Chimera could get your guardsmen across the field in the face of some resistance, or could be fielded in sufficient numbers to ensure something made it, and I just never found such to be the case in 4E, and there's a reason Chimeras never showed up in what passed for competitive IG lists at the time.

The issue with 4E isn't unique to the Chimera either. The core game rules in 3E and 4E, as well as 6E and 7E, really had this awkward gap between Skimmers and tracked/walker vehicles. It was expressed differently (SMF downgrading Pens to Glances and then wargear further mitigating damage results vs the later Jink mechanic), but that gap has been very stark and present throughout a lot of 40k history. GW keeps trying to express defense through mobility as being difficult to hurt, and it's never quite worked right.

Anyway, just my remembrance on that slice of 4E, I'm obviously fairly opinionated on the Chimera 5E certainly also had its warts, wound allocation was really absurd and gimmicky, the changeover from VP's to KP's, etc, and with Tau and Eldar having been so tightly written to those 3E/4E vehicle mechanics, those armies certainly ran into issues during 5E in turn just as IG had issues in 4E.


I mean, I am playing the Chimera, 10 of them, right now, in 4th, against a variety of opponents (including Tau) and having a blast.
If we moved up to 5th, I would have less of a blast, because I wouldn't be playing Steel Legion Mechanized Infantry, I would be playing Steel Legion Never Comes Out Of Mobile Bunkers. Whatever your memories are, I'm playing it NOW and it works way better in 4th than (especially) 9th.

I'm not playing competitively, but it isn't like we aren't trying to win.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/11/29 12:34:04


 
   
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I agree that the biggest offenders for the skimmers moving fast was eldar. The Tau decoy launchers just allowed for reroll on immobilized results only. A far cry different than the holofields which were roll two dice for damage and pick the lowest.

We changed to to act like the dead venerable ability. You can get a reroll. However there is also the added bit where if a skimmer moves over 12" and is immobilized, it is instead destroyed. We have found this balance for skimmers to be very acceptable, and even the eldar player doesn't object as he realized just how bad it was back then.

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1st and 2nd. For sure.

Mind you, it's not for the ruleset. Temporal Distort was a game-breaking loophole, but there are TONS of cool weapons, doo-dads, and various fascinating stuff that only show up in 40k RPG's, if you've read the 1st edition.

Even if you never plan on playing it, every rabid 40k fan should own a copy of 1st edition at least for bathroom reading.
   
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Sorry this got way longer than I intended it to be, apologies for formatting

jeff white wrote:

I took a break from reading for work, thinking something light, but this was the most interesting and informative discussion I have seen all day.

I liked that the earlier editions were generally smaller. Vehicles were special models that required expensive counters (lascannons were pricey, iirc, often on vehicles which were similarly fragile and expensive) and it wasn't always easy to get at them. There was risk involved, at least it felt that way, especially with smaller games.

Personally, I would prefer 2nd e.g. facings, templates, model-level granularity, remove nearest model, with some of 4th e.g. missions, leadership tests to shoot at more distant units, and limit game sizes to maybe today's 1250 or 1500pts on a 6x4 board.
GW never quite nailed vehicles, they were always wonky, from 2E's templates to the never-quite-working-right tables of 3E-5E and the awful "you have both a damage table *and* wounds but no save!" system of 6E/7E. In the modern game they at least cut out the balance issues of trying to treat vehicles as something different from monsters and large creatures, but it does feel less realistic and detailed.

In older editions it worked a lot better as noted with fewer hulls on the field, when having a Dreadnought and a couple transports and maybe a Predator would have been a lot of vehicles, that tactical detail worked a lot better. When the game can have two dozen hulls on a field and its scope creeps to try and encompass Titans in the same ruleset that's trying to make a single Grot's pistol a relevant weapon, detail has to give for functionality's sake as GW creeps the scope of the game ever upward.

Unit1126PLL wrote:
Spoiler:

Unit1126PLL wrote:
There's a couple of things wrong here - well, one big thing and then an unwillingness to consider how a Chimera can be used. Strength 6 and below are defensive weapons in 4th, meaning it can move and shoot either twin HF or a Multi-Laser and a heavy bolter and STILL shoot a Hunter-Killer too.
Aye they could move and shoot with both weapons, which was probably the one highlight of the 4E ruleset I really did like (especially relative to 5E) , but that's a 100pt AV12/10/10 tank without any upgrades and a single-one use BS3 S8 shot, that's a really anemic firepower output for that level of investment. They also can't split fire, so whatever they're shooting that HK at, everything else has to shoot at too, and they're usually not complementary weapons.

A Devilfish can match that firepower (albeit without as much range) with greater mobility, side AV11, Multitracker Fast shooting, side access hatches, SMF+Decoy Launchers, Skimmer Movement to hop over intervening terrain, and still have a Tau equivalent HK missile, for a 105pts. Another 5pts more with a Targeting Array makes it BS4 to boot.

Even a relatively barebones Wave Serpent at 110pts with no upgrades except replaceing the Shuricats with a Shuricannon (to give it 6 S6 shots) at is getting side AV12, Fast Movement, SMF defensive bonus, the ability to hop over terrain, half its shots are Twin Linked, and anything hitting its front/sides is limited to S8 and 1D6 armor pen (no melta bonus, Railguns don't get to use their S10, etc). That's a *lot* for 10pts over a Chimera.

Relative to either of these transports at the same price point, the Chimera leaves a *lot* wanting, and brings nothing to the table these don't except the ability for the occupants to shoot out of it at increased risk, though the Skimmer occupants can disembark in safety behind their transport and shoot through it without penalty.

So I use them like Soviet BMPs - a very tough heavy weapon/atgm team within the squad that can move up with advancing infantry and still put out a good amount of fire (6 shots is no joke, nor is 2 flamer templates).
I totally feel ya there, that's how I'd often attempt to use mine. Unfortunately 6 shots at BS3 with little AP at BS3 isn't a stellar amount of firepower unfortunately in and of itself. A single such Chimera is killing on average, two guardsmen, or 3/4ths of a Space Marine with a ML/HB combo. It's not nothing, it's more than the squad of embarked guardsmen are typically doing, but for what the Chimera costs it's not a lot of firepower output in and of itself.

With regards to heavy flamers, I was able to make good use of them in 5E, but in 4E a 100pt Heavy Flamer that had trouble crossing a field just didn't work well for me. I also usually ran a Hellhound for that particular need, though they weren't great in 4E either (still having to roll to hit)

They can body block, yes, but they also can tank shock, which can restore mobility to an otherwise deadlocked situation. If I run into a foe like Orks who can't easily/reliably pen the vehicle with a unit, I can close, do some damage, then hop in the Chimera and tank shock through. This means the Ork player needs to allocate dedicated AT assets to killing the Chimera because Close Combat only hits the facing the unit was in when it charged.
Sure but that's nothing about that is unique to 4E, and it probably works better in 5E all told. Ulitmately the infantry however don't have much in the way of mechanism to support the armor, and aside from body blocking and forcing paths, the primary support the Chimera provides is shelter, and for 100pts relative to other transports of the same cost, it's really not good at that.

Additionally, one does not consolidate after wiping out non-WS vehicles.
Aye, but unembarked infantry attempting to provide some sort of screening or support can be.


I prefer a game to be about My Dudes, and raw vehicle count means nothing when an Armored Company in lore has 10 tanks, no more, no less.
I was referring more to the breadth and type of vehicles, you probably weren't bringing more than 10 Russ tanks in either list, but the access to types and upgrades in the latter list was far more expansive.

I could bring more support in a cheaper list, but the tanks are more "mine" in an Armored Company list (rather than just generic Russes that could be anyone's). You could convert your tanks to match the doctrines too (side skirt armor, plasma sponsons on the basic Russ, etc).
The plasma sponsons on the basic Russ became a universal option with 5E, and I much prefer having the Russ tanks just naturally upgraded to side armor 13 in 5E than having to buy it as an upgrade. The 5E FW AB list was DKoK Specific, so it was kinda niche, but the 6E AB list replicated the function of many of the remaining things into either Tank Orders or other upgrades that fill similar roles (e.g. Artificer Hull for +1HP in 6E vs Forge Crafted for a table reroll in 4E)



I have a regular Tau opponent and he isn't that hard to deal with. A skimmer had to move more than 6" to get the "only-can-glance" bonus, and this meant:
1) no passengers disembarking
2) no guns firing (unless it is also Fast)
The restriction on Disembarking was for moving over 12", not 6" in 4E so it didn't impact transport typically. Likewise, all Skimmers were Fast, or had wargear to make them functionally so (e.g. Multitrackers) with the sole exception of the Monolith as far as I can recall.

The Devilfish could get a thing that made it count as Fast but that made it so much more expensive than a Chimera that it isn't funny (something like 130 points to the Chimera's appx 100 when kitted) - at least if you bought it any useful guns to warrant firing at all. The base Pulse Carbine Drones and Burst Cannon are worse than any of the Chimera weapon loadouts.
Alas it was a mere 10pt upgrade, and in 4E the Devilfish starts at only 10pts more than a Chimera, and isn't needing to pay for its guns or drones like the Chimera does. A Wave Serpent likewise is only 10pts more than a Chimera after minimum kit

You could *make* a Devilfish or Wave Serpent that expensive, certainly, but they don't need to be, and when they are that expensive, they're solid gunboats/medium tanks.

You can also make a Chimera that expensive. 70pts base, heavy bolter and multilaser for 90, track guards for 10 to treat Immobilized as Stunned on a 4+, 3pts for Smoke to downgrade Pens to Glances in exchanges for not shooting, Pintle Heavy Stubber for 10, rough terrain mod for 5 to bulldoze through terrain, extra armor to keep moving when stunned, 1pt for Searchlight, and 10pts for a HK missile sets us 1pt shy of 130.

A 130pt Devilfish starting at 80pts could have Smart Missile Systems to hit out of LoS targets with 4 S5 shots to replace its Drones for 20, Multitracker to shoot as Fast for 10, Targeting Array for BS4 for 5, Decoy Launchers to reroll immobilized (dead with SMF) results for 5 (half the price and infinitely more value than track guards), and a Seeker Missile.

The Chimera can hit out at a bit further static distance, but in every other respect the Devilfish is markedly superior.

The real problem was Eldar skimmers, who were fast by default and had Holofields.
They absolutely were by far the bigger offenders, particularly in terms of transport resiliency between Wave Serpent Energy Fields and Falcons with Holofields, but the gap between skimmers and non skimmers in general was really pronounced. A Fire Prism or Hammerhead are simply markedly superior units in every way to a Russ or Predator in that edition for example.



I mean, I am playing the Chimera, 10 of them, right now, in 4th, against a variety of opponents (including Tau) and having a blast.
If we moved up to 5th, I would have less of a blast, because I wouldn't be playing Steel Legion Mechanized Infantry, I would be playing Steel Legion Never Comes Out Of Mobile Bunkers. Whatever your memories are, I'm playing it NOW and it works way better in 4th than (especially) 9th.

I'm not playing competitively, but it isn't like we aren't trying to win.
Great! I not trying to take away from your fun at all and I hope it's awesome, genuinely so.

That said, from my experiences, I have difficulty seeing how 1000pts of Chimeras, works at all in that edition as anything other than a punching bag army. Just adding 3 barebones platoons and a barebones HQ command squad to fill those, that's 1520pts before any infantry/command/wargear upgrades, or any support units like Russ tanks. What sort of list do you run? I built my mechanized IG in 4th as a labor of love and passion for the concept, running 7 Chimeras, a Hellhound, and a trio of Russ tanks with sixty Stormtroopers with a near nekkid command squad, but never had much success with it in even intentionally causal settings, and rolled out the Chaos Marines for events/tournaments. With S10 Broadsides around, SMF Hammerheads, and Move-Shoot-Move Crisis Suits with 36" S7 missiles, I found Tau to be an insurmountable opponent with such an IG list in 4E, my own Tau army (that I just gave away recently because after 4E I didn't want to rebuild it using giant walkers instead of skimmer tanks and it sat in a box for years ) just crushed that IG list every time.


Jayden63 wrote:I agree that the biggest offenders for the skimmers moving fast was eldar. The Tau decoy launchers just allowed for reroll on immobilized results only. A far cry different than the holofields which were roll two dice for damage and pick the lowest.
Holofields (particularly with Vectored Engines) were by far the worst offender, however the Decoy Launchers were no joke for their trivial 5pt price that you'd auto-take on literally every vehicle every time. Because you could only Glance skimmers, they could only be killed on a 6 or a 5 immobilized result. Rerolling that 5 effectively increased the average number of shots needed to achieve a kill result by 50%. That's some powerful mojo. On top of that for 5pts they could take Disruption Pods that would effectively remove their turn 1 or stationary weakness, again forcing them to only be glanced if shot at from over 12" away.

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I genuinely can't remember ever really having issues when dealing with Devilfish though, for some reason. Maybe because they were still easy to suppress with Shaken/Stunned while Eldar would have Spirit Stones to help avoid the same suppression. Foggy memory regarding that.

@Unit, didn't Secondary weapons cut off at S5 (not 6)? I recall it being odd that Heavy Bolters were Secondary weapons while Shuriken Cannons were not.

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 Insectum7 wrote:

@Unit, didn't Secondary weapons cut off at S5 (not 6)? I recall it being odd that Heavy Bolters were Secondary weapons while Shuriken Cannons were not.

I actually checked a little earlier because I thought the same thing and happen to have both BRBs handy - in the 4e BRB, Defensive Weapons are "S6 and lower" (and weapons with multiple profiles count as Defensive or not depending on which profile they use, strangely - the example given was that a Missile Launcher firing frag would be Defensive but firing krak would not). That changed to "S4 or lower" in the 5e BRB.
   
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 Insectum7 wrote:
I genuinely can't remember ever really having issues when dealing with Devilfish though, for some reason. Maybe because they were still easy to suppress with Shaken/Stunned while Eldar would have Spirit Stones to help avoid the same suppression. Foggy memory regarding that.

@Unit, didn't Secondary weapons cut off at S5 (not 6)? I recall it being odd that Heavy Bolters were Secondary weapons while Shuriken Cannons were not.
Regarding Devilfish, it's not so much that they, in and of themselves, were huge issues, they're just a good illustrator of how how Skimmers tended to have a plethora of (often cheap) wargear that removed or mitigated their downsides while enjoying substantial benefits over tracked/legged vehicles, and particularly illustrating just how bad the Chimera was in 4E.

Defensive weapons cutoff was definitely 6 in 4E, HB's and Shuricannons were both secondary weapons.

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Disruption Pods count as obscured on a 4+, same as being behind terrain (and it doesn't stack).

My Tau opponent takes them all the time, and also ends up being obscured by terrain from my shooting so often that he thinks they are a waste of points.
   
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 Vaktathi wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:
I genuinely can't remember ever really having issues when dealing with Devilfish though, for some reason. Maybe because they were still easy to suppress with Shaken/Stunned while Eldar would have Spirit Stones to help avoid the same suppression. Foggy memory regarding that.

@Unit, didn't Secondary weapons cut off at S5 (not 6)? I recall it being odd that Heavy Bolters were Secondary weapons while Shuriken Cannons were not.
Regarding Devilfish, it's not so much that they, in and of themselves, were huge issues, they're just a good illustrator of how how Skimmers tended to have a plethora of (often cheap) wargear that removed or mitigated their downsides while enjoying substantial benefits over tracked/legged vehicles, and particularly illustrating just how bad the Chimera was in 4E.

Gotcha. Yes I would agree that 4e transport rules might have been too punishing. But I don't think I had huge issues with skimmers outside of the Eldar ones. Even then I felt it was best handled by killing everything else though.


Defensive weapons cutoff was definitely 6 in 4E, HB's and Shuricannons were both secondary weapons.
Huh, cool. I wonder why I have such a strong memory for the other case.

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The Disruption pods were a funny one. In 4th they were situational, there for turn 1 damage mitigation (as you could be pen'd if you hadn't moved yet) or if you'd gotten stunned, but otherwise SMF just did the same thing. Decoy Launchers was what you lived and died by to reroll that deadly immobilized result.

Then in 5E with the death of the old SMF mechanic and change to damage table, Decoy Launchers lost the bulk of their utility, and suddenly every Tau vehicle had Disruption Pods and a 5pt 4+ cover save against anything further than 12" away, almost single-handedly keeping that army functional in 5E

 Insectum7 wrote:

Huh, cool. I wonder why I have such a strong memory for the other case.
You're not the only one, I know it was S6 but I keep recalling something about S5 somewhere, maybe from one of the leaked playtest editions.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/11/30 00:05:08


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 Vaktathi wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:
I genuinely can't remember ever really having issues when dealing with Devilfish though, for some reason. Maybe because they were still easy to suppress with Shaken/Stunned while Eldar would have Spirit Stones to help avoid the same suppression. Foggy memory regarding that.

@Unit, didn't Secondary weapons cut off at S5 (not 6)? I recall it being odd that Heavy Bolters were Secondary weapons while Shuriken Cannons were not.
Regarding Devilfish, it's not so much that they, in and of themselves, were huge issues, they're just a good illustrator of how how Skimmers tended to have a plethora of (often cheap) wargear that removed or mitigated their downsides while enjoying substantial benefits over tracked/legged vehicles, and particularly illustrating just how bad the Chimera was in 4E.

Defensive weapons cutoff was definitely 6 in 4E, HB's and Shuricannons were both secondary weapons.


Going off of a 50 point Rhino, I've always felt that most other base transports were overpriced. The Chimera with its base load out shouldn't be more than 65 points (if not just 60). The Devilfish 65-70 (not 80), heck that even includes the Wave serpent. A basic transport shouldn't cost 100+ points ever, even when fully upgraded.

Secondary weapons should have been at S5, in all additions, some races didn't even have a S4 option for a vehicle weapon (Tau and Orks come to mind)

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I am with Vaktathi on this one. other than the wonky wound allocation system. the second most thing i see complaints about is the "parking lot" from the 5th ed detractors.

The reality was that in 4th unless you were a skimmer you were better off walking behind the transport than being in it.

The big rub was the eldar and to a lesser extent tau skimmer. space marine skimmers were limited to land speeders that died to everything being only AV 10 and no option for extra armor unless you wanted to drop the points to give them the POTMS upgrade.

Eldar skimmers almost never died and the base transports were also capable main battle tanks. devil fish were fine anti-infantry platforms and continued to be so in 5th

The changes to 5th made vehicles worth taking (But the assault rules were more tactically challenging in 4th which is why our group still uses them). now that doesn't make the infantry 40k players happy but vehicles became what they were supposed to be. it was a balancing act. AT weapons became more available as a result across all armies. In the hundreds of games i got in 5th ed ( i played on average 3 every week for 4 years) dealing with vehicles has never been a problem and still isn't now that we have gone back to playing 5th with a few rules fixes.

We just did a 5th ed game last weekend and i lost both my land raiders to A. railguns and B. haywire grenades. it was a game where both sides ran plenty of vehicles (i had 8 counting the lucius drop pods, but they don't actually do anything after they land so i don't really count them.) and he had 4. The Tau won that game quite handily.

The defensive weapons strength was 6 in 3rd and it dropped to 5 in 4th and to 4 in 5th IIRC. our group went back to 5 because it made sense as S5 weapons are primarily defensive anti-infantry mounts-burst cannons, heavy bolters etc...


One side note since he mentioned it, i recommend you go back and look at the original rules for warhounds and other "titan" class vehicle before apocalypse ever got released.

FW made them over costed, centerpiece models that were understandably harder to kill but in reality, didn't do that much damage because they were made with normal 2K scale games in mind. my warhound with a plasma blast gun/vulkan mega bolter clocks in at a 5th ed astounding points cost of 810, has a single 5" template weapon and a slightly longer range assault cannon with 10 shots instead of 4. Both weapons also had a 12" minimum range they could not fire within. they also were only BS4 not 5.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/11/30 07:30:38






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I started in 5th, but I honestly thought 6th improved things. I played very little 7th and it seemed to add a bit too many extra things. 8th is just a trainwreck with the stat changes.
   
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Well, you are a rare exception. 6th is nearly universally despised. the numbers bear it out. it nearly killed the game and got quickly replaced in just over 1 year (14 months). i know a few people who started with 6th and felt a big improvement in 7th until they started spamming formations.

8th and by extension 9th are a completely different game. it may say 40K on the box but it feels nothing like 40K of the previous 5 editions that had many identical core mechanics.

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The game changed completely from 3-7 to 8-9.

It was a design change in what they intended to represent on the field.

Until 7th, the game was trying to be a WW2 in space. Armor facings, transports, suppression, vehicle damage charts, FOC... all things that would look good in a game like Flames of War.

If you played imperium factions, and especially IG, then you are guaranteed to prefer these older edition to the newer ones. Those rules were made with human warfare in mind.

The problem of those editions was that they worked very badly once applied to something as vast as 40K. Everything non-human or at least humanish felt very tacked on. It was incapable of properly representing stuff like demons and bugs, because it tried to cage them into human war mechanics.

In fact one of the common complaints of those editions is that all factions felt a bit samey in the way you faced them. This is a skimmer, that is an heavy vehicle and this is an AT weapon... factions didn't really have a strong flavor.

8th and 9th edition have a lot less realistic feel. They don't even try to look like a standard wargame. They use rules which are as generic as possible. Like the fact that they do not make any difference between vehicles and monstrous creatures.
This makes the edition a lot more flavorful but pays with a lot more complexity on codex level. The game was made generic, so it is very bland without the additional seasoning given by the specific factions and units.
In these editions, the factions truly play with different rules and feel very different on the field. Playing against death guard or against thousand sons is a completely different experience. Fighting Admech or Necrons couldn't be more different. This is what these modern editions contributed to the game.
If you care strongly for the flavor of your army and want the peculiarities of your faction to feel very special and make the game turn around them, then you are probably going to like the modern editions.

Different designs for different tastes.

This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2021/11/30 11:33:47


 
   
 
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