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My club is down right sick of 6th ed... and have been experimenting with older editions.

We know you cant outright tournament, or organize an older edition, but its still fun to play around with.

So what's your favorite edition of the game?

Which should we give a spin?

In general I have enjoyed every new edition as it forced to shift the meta and created a more balanced game (still newer books are better, but less extreme builds).

So for me 5th edition was my favorite as they went the opposite direction with 6th edition and went back and created a rock, paper, Flyer game.

If I could created a spin-off it would be 6th edition with instead of hitting Flyers on a 6 the shooter would receive a -1 to BS. But we'll have to wait at least until 7th until we again have a balanced edition.

6th, 5th, 3rd, 4th in that order.

6th overall is very enjoyable; it's got some slow parts, unclear parts, and fiddly bits, but then, so has every edition. 5th was the only edition which was a bit clearer and smoother, but 6th has more intuitive/less abusive wound allocation and save rules, and more reasonable vehicle rules, and so far it seems to be slightly more balanced overall, especially with the inclusion of allies.

5th was the quickest and smoothest-playing edition, and it was THE edition if you love transports, because they were superamazing.

4th was pretty good, but shooty tanks were a bit too good (especially the QUITE broken skimmers) and transports sucked (except for skimmers). Overall the design focus on Victory Points and damage dealt made balance a bit worse, as once a stronger army got a VP lead, that lead tended to build and become very difficult for the opponent to recover from. A huge improvement in 5th (and 6th) editions was the shift to holding objectives as the primary means of winning, with VP of damage being relegated to an optional tiebreaker.

3rd was the first relatively quick-playing and more company-level-focused (as opposed to skirmish, which previous editions were) edition. It was a lot of fun, but assault armies, especially in transports, were a bit unbalanced and excessive. 3rd also had two major updates to/alterations of the rules halfway through- the Trial Assault Rules and Trial Vehicle Rules, which amended how those sections worked. These were released in White Dwarf and then printed in a Chapter Approved compilation. They were largely improvements, but confused a lot of players, especially more casual players.

if i want to play a normal-sized large army game, I use 4th edition rules as if it were just after it was released, so I can use all my 3rd edition codexes (including Eye of Terror and Armageddon) and the extra material from the Chapter Approved books, like VDR rules, etc. The always claimed "broken-ness" of skimmers isn't a factor in our games, as I have the only army (Eldar) with skimmers, and only field 1-2 of them, even in 2000pt games. Hardly skimmer-spam

I am currently trying to scrounge enough of the official material to play smaller games with the 2nd edition rules. I especially like how they handled vehicles, aside from some of the bike rules being clunky. As long as the players involved are going into the game with the agreement to have fun, rather than be TFG, the rules are simply excellent for 1-2000 point games with that edition (which is roughly 2/3 or even half of the forces those points would represent nowadays)

My favorite edition is 4th.

But then again, I have only been alive through third.... so I never got to play the older editions.

6th and 5th.
I have had the pleasure of playing all the editions.
I have always played in private groups.

I have had the pleasure of playing all the editions.
I have always played in private groups.

Other than 6th ed, that is true for me, as well. Private group gaming has kept me from experiencing even a hint of the troubles with spam or game imbalance associated with any edition.

I voted 2nd since that's when I first started playing so nostalgia possibly tinting my view slightly. After 2nd it would be the current version.

2nd required way more time and various cards for every single vehicle due to them all having different damage tables but it had some good points too like the save modifiers and M stat for all models like you still get now in fantasy which to me is something the latest version could do with.

Assualt was a complicated and time consuming mess though if you were doing anything other than one on one assualts.

Up until a couple weeks ago I would have said 2E as well, I loved the skirmish style and all the intricacies of the rules, although it took a while to get your head around eg. the assault rules.

After playing a bit more 6E though I'm sold on it, I don't mind that it might randomly get dark during the game, don't mind that certain things are rolled for beforehand. They've fleshed out the weapons without needlessly complicating the rules, but without ridiculously oversimplifying things like they did in 3E (my least favourite - the edition stopped me playing for years).

coinbiter wrote:
I voted 2nd since that's when I first started playing so nostalgia possibly tinting my view slightly. After 2nd it would be the current version.

Same for me. I appreciate that 6e has brought back some 2e elements.

6e is as balanced as we've seen, with good wound-allocation rules, shooting/assault rules that make some sense, and general enjoyability.

Also, the new codices of 6e are looking to be on quite a consistent power-level.

Sure, it's not perfect, but meh.

Where could one get the books required to play 2nd ed? Id like to give it a spin.

You can get them used for less than ten dollars apiece off Amazon. It's what I am doing. The hard part is getting all the card accessories, like Vehicle datafax cards, psychic and wargear cards. Everything but the codexes and rules are a downright bitch to find/replicate, and are unfortunately just as required.

Although I did find a download on Scribd that has the psychic and wargear cards in text format if you are willing into the document for them (they are just as playable as text as with cards), but you have to at least pay the 1-day Scribd access fee. They might be able to be found elsewhere.

^wish I would have read this^ before I posted my most recent post, asking to find the stuff lol

Seems like some oldschool fun costs more than the current edition. Geez.

Actually, no. not by a longshot. It would take more effort than money, really. My recent 2e Eldar Codex cost me 8 dollars, shipped, and a pack of the vehicle datafax cards, which covers anything I can field for Eldar, Space Marines, Orks, and some assorted extras, was had off Ebay for $20.

All told I think I would value all the material below as less than it would cost for the rulebook and one codex for 6e (especially DA or Chaos):

-Ultramarines Codex
-Chaos Marines Codex
-Eldar Codex
-Rulebook
-Wargear Book
-Vehicle Datafax Cards
-$10 if I pay for the stuff I need off a file-sharing website

6th. I think every edition of this game has improved on the one before it. I truly enjoy my 6th ed games. One of the things I like most about Games Workshop is that they actually seem to give a damn about the quality of their game, and I think the edition changes reflect that with rules that genuinely show improvement rather than dramatic change for no compelling reason.

 Jimsolo wrote:
6th. I think every edition of this game has improved on the one before it. I truly enjoy my 6th ed games. One of the things I like most about Games Workshop is that they actually seem to give a damn about the quality of their game, and I think the edition changes reflect that with rules that genuinely show improvement rather than dramatic change for no compelling reason.

A lot of people have the exact opposite opinion.

I think it's kind of funny that we all have different opinions on this sort of thing.

here is the timeline to me: 1e: rpg skirmish game with lots of dice, focus on characters, 2e: med scale skirmish game, focus on troop abilities and characters, lots of dice, 3e super leap, battle game, not a lot of balance, very tactical, 4e army game, more balance, 5e doctored version of 4e, 6e combination of 5e and 3e, with a ton of rules....

I like 4e a lot, and want to try some of the older games.

Thats what I did with D&D and I still play BX.... but thats another discussion for another time

I like 6th. I think although parts of it are complicated, it's still the basic 40k with a few new rules. I haven't used allies yet but I'm excited to use some of my different armies together.

I can not truly say anything about 6ed since I have only managed to grab about 4 games so far. I usually play with a tight knit group of friends, most of which, have not the money to invest in the new edition. However I will say that I prefer 5ed over 4ed and will reserve my judgment on 6ed until I get to see new codices for my armies.

I preferred 2nd edition to 6th ed (and I played a grand total of 8 games of 2nd ed between 1992 and 1997.). I positively loathe 6th ed.

My club are sticking with 5th ed for club-level games. After this year's 40k tourney (our 11th annual) we will not be doing another 40k tourney due to the lack of interest in the latest version of the game at the club (no-one plays it and none want to TO a tourney for a game they don't play).

I can't help but feel all of the most egregious problems with 6th were championed by Ward, as they all just so happen to buff his pet Necrons while hitting every other top-tier codex with a nerfbat. It might have fixed the nonsense wound allocation rules, but then it went and nerfed melee and vehicles, in addition to just piling on a bunch of pointlessly random gibberish, and rules that are basically just random gibberish that seem torn from fantasy for no good reason (like challenges and random charge distance/overwatch). 6th has driven me away from the game, along with the ~40% price hikes in the past couple of years. At least Malifaux seems pretty nice, even if I've yet to actually play it...

2nd Ed.

Wasn't the best, but it was the one I had the most fun with.

5th Just cause i can have 32 genestealers and broodlord outflank and assault

2nd edition was the most enjoyable for me, but I prefer the modern design of todays minis. Still using a 2nd edition army as its the same minis.

Sabreguy wrote:
5th Just cause i can have 32 genestealers and broodlord outflank and assault

+1

I completely agree.

2nd edition by far for me. One of the most enjoyable parts of 2nd edition for me was the color of the game. When you opened the box up there were so many cards and templates and things and every single one of them had color. The blast markers and templates had pictures of fire on them, the vortex grenade had a swirling mass of energy that made it look like a vortex.

It was things like that that made the game enjoyable to play. It is one big reasons I haven't really enjoyed 40k as much since then. While I still enjoy it, I prefer all of the color that 2nd edition brought to the table. Every other edition just seems so bland compared to that.

I'm getting jealous of the vet players on here... wish I was around for 2nd edition.

We can select more than 1? Well sorry, but even if your club doesn't like 6th, I find it better than 5th was and better still than 4th. I can't speak about anything older though. Sorry about that.

As someone who entered the game in the rogue rmtrader days, I can honestly say I like this one best v

I'm assuming that 6th is getting so much praise because it drove off so many people, and they're not here to hate on it anymore. 6th is garbage. The random tables are frustrating, and I can't depend on my own abilities. The codexes have been boring, and have led to an environment that is either spamming troops, or spamming flyers. Overwatch killed the assault phase, which was my favorite part of the game. I'm really just biding time until 7th, and I can't wait.

5th was a more defined, and heroic game. I love elite armies, and 1500 point games that don't take 7 hours. I miss heroes, and tanks, and the game being fun.

As for the other editions, I never played much of them. My first tournament was the 5th edition release.