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Am I the only guy who still plays 5th edition 40k?
digging through this forum, and others like it, it appears that 99% of takers have moved on up to 6th edition.
my question is why? Is it for tournaments?
I don't see a need to keep throwing money at a game that I already have the materials for... even almost 2 years in, all I have bought for this edition was that monstrosity known as the daemon codex.

I see 40k like I see d&d, when a new edition rolls along I just shrug, and stick to what I know. (Basic dnd 1980s)
so when 6th came out, yeah I played it a bit, didn't like it, crawled into my hermit hole with my old wargaming buddies, and played whatever we felt like.. 4th, 5th whatever.

Anybody with me on this? Or am I alone?

Mate i still play 3rd and forth on occasion. Moving within 12" and rapid firing boxers is sweet, letting a single shot off and still assault, even better. I haven't played much 6th but i do still play 5th

How do you deal with new codices coming out then?
How do you gain new players?

the daemon codex is awesome...

I got into the hobby with the 6E starter kit, so I haven't ever had the opportunity to play anything else.

And I kind of hate it. Part of me wants to grab some of my friends who still have older edition rulebooks lying around and we'll just reverse engineer the 6E codices to work in a 5E world. There are a lot of things in 6E that are simply anti-fun. Like the guy I know who brings 4 Heldrakes. He doesn't even have fun because the games are over so quickly. Either all his flyers get shot down before the can wreak havoc, or he wins by turn 4. Kind of dumb.

Solution to 4 Heldrake guy: if even he isn't having fun, just don't bring 4 Heldrakes. Sounds like a case of guy manufacturing his own problems. Play lists not designed by TFG and you can actually have quite a bit of fun with 6ed, I think.

I agree with you, Mini. I play with a friend who's been around since 3rd Ed and we come up with our own story scenarios to play against each other. My Dark Angels are currently hunting his Nurgle Lord under suspicion he's part of The Fallen. Most recently we did a campaign which was a heroic last stand for my Deathwing on the planet. They'd already deployed in a previous matchup so we were like "Well they wouldn't teleport in AGAIN, would they?"

We started all my dudes in the middle of the table and I wasn't allowed to have reserves. He on the other hand escalated the danger of what he got every turn, starting with a horde of plague zombies and working on up to Nurgle marked marines to Plague Marines to finally his Nurgle Daemon Prince on turn 4. We said if I could kill the prince, I "won" that encounter.

I didn't win. Chaos prevailed. There was much sad to be had.

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
How do you deal with new codices coming out then?

Ignoring them is always an option... The old codex doesn't stop working just because a new one comes out.

Although tweaking a codex to be backwards compatible ultimately shouldn't be too much harder than making a 4th ed codex work with 6th edition...

As unlikely as it may seem, I personally think the OP's sentiment regarding new editions is GW's plan. In other words, I think that the reason we've seen all these releases so soon is an attempt to stabilize the game to a point where it will remain for many years. The FAQs and the rumors of "7th or 6.5 edition" coming this summer even more so support this.
Now, before you all go off a "GW is the antichrist" rant hear me out: it takes alot of money to pay designers. Making models is easy, printing books is easy. Sculpting and writing are more difficult, and more expensive. Christmas saw the release of one-off models and rules, and I think that those will continue. People are going to buy into the game as long as they can have fun. It doesn't really matter to a new player that the tyranids got a new book, to him it's all new. But would you rather get into a game where the rules change every 3 years, or one where there are a couple new pieces a couple times a year? And if you are trying to buy GW (aka Hasbro rumors), wouldn't you rather buy a stable game than one you'll have to pour time and people into on a regular basis?

In short, I think Games Workshop is attempting to stabilize 40K into a static game system with fewer updates in the long term, and it will probably be a version of 6th.

The vast majority of people play the latest edition of most games, it's not exclusively a GW/40k thing. I'm trying to think of an example of some game where most people didn't move to a newer version/edition, even amongst video games, but nothing really springs to mind. I bet someone in this thread will think of at least one though

 Cryogen wrote:
The vast majority of people play the latest edition of most games, it's not exclusively a GW/40k thing. I'm trying to think of an example of some game where most people didn't move to a newer version/edition, even amongst video games, but nothing really springs to mind. I bet someone in this thread will think of at least one though

Dungeons and Dragons?

D&D is probably going to be the best example I think!

I don't play D&D, and I don't really know much about that game,
but I play 6th edition 40k simply because that is what everyone else plays. If everyone around here would be playing 5th edition, I would be playing that. It is rather simple.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
I don't play D&D, and I don't really know much about that game,
but I play 6th edition 40k simply because that is what everyone else plays. If everyone around here would be playing 5th edition, I would be playing that. It is rather simple.

4th edition was awful and we shall not speak of it. It's how people who don't like 6th feel about 40k 6ed, except it was cripplingly dumbed down to the point of near unplayability. As opposed to being so ludicruously complex that we have constant arguments as to what the rules exactly mean or say, and what the meaning of is is in the third sendence of paragraph five concerning whether or not your MC can in fact fart during the enemy shooting phase. Or something like that anyway.

4thEdition was the best edition so far.

6th edition was written by the marketing department to sell models.

I'm waiting for 7th edition where they don't allow Allies anymore so everyone who bought a small force of another army has to buy more to make it a full army because Allies are out. Oh, and Flyers will suck and it will be all about tanks again.

GW will keep playing the music and players will keep dancing.

SRSFACE wrote:
I didn't win. Chaos prevailed. There was much sad to be had.

There's a lesson in there.

I myself still use 5th edition rules and books.

One thing about D&D and other RPGs is that they are generally played by closed, stable groups. Not a lot of flux in the players. The GM tells you what rules you are using at the start of the campaign, what books are allowed, etc. You then play that for a few months/years. You also only need one set of books. So if your group includes someone who wasn't playing when stuff was still in print, he does not need to scour e-bay for an OOP rulebook/codex. The GM can modify the rules, add new stuff, tweak old things to make them work better, etc.

With 40k, and war-games in general, I think there is more of an understanding that a pick up game at your FLGS is more the norm. And the assumption you should be able to make is that everyone is using the most recent version of the rules. If I'm heading up to the store for a game, I don't bring a 3rd/4th/5th edition list on the off chance that someone wants to play a retro game. But I can pack up a 6th ed list with the latest codex, walk into any store, and play a game.

From a store perspective, they want to sell the new stuff. They want to get new players into the game. To do that, you support the latest version.

If you and your friends want to keep playing the old version that's fine. But expanding your group might be rough, and as more things get released (some of which you may want to use) rules can be tough to wrangle. If you and your friends are having fun, keep at it. That's what's important.

Still on 5th at work club as its an Ork player who orginised the club… I mean, 5th is what everyone knows Elsewhere I play 6th.
I do find it hard to get crit on 5th ed lists these days though.

 Cryogen wrote:
The vast majority of people play the latest edition of most games, it's not exclusively a GW/40k thing. I'm trying to think of an example of some game where most people didn't move to a newer version/edition, even amongst video games, but nothing really springs to mind. I bet someone in this thread will think of at least one though

D&D 4.0 was largely ignored by the playerbase. While there are definitely people who play it, it is a very, very small percentage compared to those still playing 3E/3.5E

 Psienesis wrote:

 Cryogen wrote:
The vast majority of people play the latest edition of most games, it's not exclusively a GW/40k thing. I'm trying to think of an example of some game where most people didn't move to a newer version/edition, even amongst video games, but nothing really springs to mind. I bet someone in this thread will think of at least one though

D&D 4.0 was largely ignored by the playerbase. While there are definitely people who play it, it is a very, very small percentage compared to those still playing 3E/3.5E

My group switched to Pathfinder. Which I've heard referred to as 3.75. It's defiantly an iteration of the 3.x edition, rather then D&D 4.0, which was a completely different game.

Yeah, I was meaning the people who stuck with D&D. I've not played Pathfinder myself, but I've heard only good things.

Nope. I play 4th edition still.

I've been around since RT and I think 6th is the best edition so far.

Plus there's the real practical bit where if you go to a store for a game, everyone's gotta be on the same page. That would be the most recent edition.

My issue with the 6th edition of the game is the randomness. All of the new rules, combined with the 4-5 tables I need just to play a game...

And I'm not one of those power game tournament guys who doesn't like it because I can't build an über list, I don't like that I have to fight my codex, and worry about what gift does what to who and when... not to mention random psychic powers.... just annoying.

Then monstrous creatures rules... they get these 700 special rules, plus the 40 other rules from the codex, that reference another set of 10 more rules from the brb.... that all do the same thing.

To me it has become "my special rule beats your special rulehammer"

"Well all they did was take special rules from the codices and give them a name.." which is really Damn inconvenient thank you. " oh he gets smash? What does smash do.. flipflipflip... oh ok. He gets hammer of wrath? L... flipflipflip..."

After the 3 hours I spend arguing what a USR does, we can get on to the game. Which isn't even fun at this point, because of the prior disagreement.

I never had these problems 4th and 5th ed. It was very cut and dry, no need to argue about the latest faq or what a USR does... it said, in plain English, what the rules were.

I swear the new BRB is written in barkerese (look up de bellis antiquitatis to get that reference)

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:

 Cryogen wrote:
The vast majority of people play the latest edition of most games, it's not exclusively a GW/40k thing. I'm trying to think of an example of some game where most people didn't move to a newer version/edition, even amongst video games, but nothing really springs to mind. I bet someone in this thread will think of at least one though

Dungeons and Dragons?

Yeah, AD&D is fun as hell.

Nope skipped and went straight on to seventh

 kronk wrote:

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:

 Cryogen wrote:
The vast majority of people play the latest edition of most games, it's not exclusively a GW/40k thing. I'm trying to think of an example of some game where most people didn't move to a newer version/edition, even amongst video games, but nothing really springs to mind. I bet someone in this thread will think of at least one though

Dungeons and Dragons?

Yeah, AD&D is fun as hell.

I dabbled, but stuck with the BECMI

I play 2nd ed 40k

 Cryogen wrote:
The vast majority of people play the latest edition of most games, it's not exclusively a GW/40k thing. I'm trying to think of an example of some game where most people didn't move to a newer version/edition, even amongst video games, but nothing really springs to mind. I bet someone in this thread will think of at least one though

Here's a video game example. Gears of War 3 vs Gears of War Judgment. GoW3 gets more players over GoWJ everytime.

Also I started playing on 2nd edition. 3rd came out about a year later along with the D.Eldar. Getting back into it now and it is 6ed?! I am jumping on the newest ed while it is still relatively fresh

 Psienesis wrote:

 Cryogen wrote:
The vast majority of people play the latest edition of most games, it's not exclusively a GW/40k thing. I'm trying to think of an example of some game where most people didn't move to a newer version/edition, even amongst video games, but nothing really springs to mind. I bet someone in this thread will think of at least one though

D&D 4.0 was largely ignored by the playerbase. While there are definitely people who play it, it is a very, very small percentage compared to those still playing 3E/3.5E

And just like 40k people make up facts to justify there point. 6th ed tries to make 40k more heroic, 4th ed D&D did the same. Some people didn't like it, some people did. The world moves on, but some people are aggressively against 4th ed D&D and 6th Ed 40k, often for imagined reasons. It's amazing how many people haven't played any, or much, 4th ed D&D and claim it to be the worst thing ever, or complain about 6th ed with examples like the person bringing 4 Heldrakes and not enjoying it. It's a game. Stop trying to force it to be something its not, and if you don't like what it is, no one is stopping anyone playing something else. The insults and partisanship are just bizarre.

The truth is many people do play 4th ed, and many people do enjoy 6th ed. People just don't like change.