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Started in 5th and enjoyed it then.

Didn't like many of the changes 6th brought.

Dislike even more the changes 7th brought.

I voted 5th. The core rules were the cleanest, and the fluff at the time was still solid.

Well I voted 7th even though I have not gotten to play with it yet.

Rouge Trader: Was a blast and I had fun the few times I got to play it. Mostly because most of my gaming group was only interested in D&D and nothing else. I loved the dynamic nature of the game and the fact you could do anything you wanted. [I even made a AT-AT out a Markova to represent an old BattleMech design I liked using.[

2nd Edition: This and was also a blast and I got games in because of the local Tournament Scene. [My highlight was I had a single Grot Model kill off 3 Khorne Berserkers in Melee, two by himself.]

3rd Edition: I got a few games in, but don't remember much of it other than...well nothing really good comes to mind [I did gain a Pass at a local Tournament because a guy refused to play me Primer Grey Space Wolves because they were not Space Wolf Grey, but that might have been in second]

4th Edition: Nothing good came out of this edition, not because of the rules, but the players. [I had an Eldar Player table me on turn two with the New 4th Edition Codex and some BS moves in a practice game. When I asked for a rematch he told me "I don't Practice and you should play better, come back when you are Good!"]

5th Edition: I must admit I had the most fun with because I got the most games in after finding a better group. [This is when I went from WAAC to a fluffy casual gamer after a fist fight almost broke out at a Tournament.]

6th Edition: I loved 6th, it fit my play style and it started to get more dynamic. [My only problem was we lost half our group when 6th came out before the book was released. "This is just GW trying to get more of my $$$ and nothing will ever be fixed" was there reason. I think it was them not liking change.]

7th Edition: Like I stated I have not gotten to play it, but to me is has that old Rouge Trader/2nd Edition feel to it. I am going to have to change how I play a little (I am big on Gunlines). It looks like there will be a lot of maneuvering and risk taking to win a game. As far as the randomness, a lot of that can be removed by both player deciding just not dealing with "All" of the random charts. As soon as RL gets out of my way I think 7th is going to be a blast.

I picked fourth.

I started in third and liked it well enough, but didn't play enough to get any strong impressions about it.

Fourth is the edition I played the most and loved almost everything about that edition, other than my poor Dark Eldar's codex being so outdated.

Fifth was ok but I did not like the change to the cover rules at all. Fourth cover rules were much better. I also felt that fifth did things to take away uniqueness of some armies like equalizing speed more amongst the armies. Eldar, nids and to a lesser extent orks should be faster and shine if that was lost.

Stopped playing during fifth, but kept an eye on the game. Sixth looked to me to be a disaster in terms of it having potential to be a game I would want to play which is too bad because new wraithguard options greatly interest me (played a lot of Iyanden in fourth/fifth). Flyers are something I have absolutely no interest in having as part of a standard game 2000 points and below. Same goes for knights and the like. They were just putting way too much into the core game instead of leaving it as ancillary options.

Seventh doesn't fix my biggest concerns in sixth so no interest in starting to play again with those rules.

Best game for me would be fourth with some tweaks borrowed from other editions.

Has to be 5th for me.

I started near the end of 3rd, but I don't remember much of 3rd or 4th. Possibly I didn't play as many games of them, or I just didn't have much to compare them to.

Anyway, 5th just had the most stuff that I liked - it was built around some very solid core rules, the randomness was pretty limited and assault elements had a reasonable place (even if they were second to shooting).

It did have its problems - Wound Allocation was a pain (though pretty rarely, as I recall), Vehicles were a bit too hard to destroy, TLoS seems like a step backwards. Also, it suffered a bit from power creep, which was unfortunate.

6th edition brought about a ton of changes, virtually none of which i liked. I appreciate Hull Points... that's about it. Fliers can sod off and die, snapshots can come back when they're a BS modifier, and the best way to improve the random tables would be to set them on fire. Also, did you want your assault units to have some impact on a game? Well enjoy random charge range, overwatch, and casualties removed from the front. Oh, and all your power weapons have been made worse. Good luck.

Also, the wound allocation really doesn't feel like an improvement over 5th. With all the extra crap they're adding, I'd really rather not have to constantly micro-manage the position of every model in every squad as well. And, whilst it solved 5th's problem, it then replaced it with an even stupider one. Do you have a resilient character? Just stick him at the front of a squad and watch as he soaks up all the wounds - even ones from flamers and blasts. Oh, and if there's a weapon that might actually put him in danger, just LoS it - because every squad member telepathically knows which of the hundreds of incoming shots he needs to intercept.

7th. Are your games going too quickly? Well, enjoy wasting an extra 5-10 minutes each turn on a completely unnecessary psychic phase as we try to turn this game into Fantasy-40k. Plus, did we hear requests for more randomness? No? Well, have more randomness anyway! Look, with our new mission system, even victory points are random!

Oh, and were you concerned that allies were unbalancing the game? Well, not to worry, now you can use anything and everything you want! That ought to balance everything out, right? Well, regardless, enjoy paying full price for an errata's worth of editions to your 6th edition rulebooks.

What I find surprising is how 6th edition is even less popular than 7th.

How's that, people? In 6th you had the last semblance of oldskool balance left before 7th threw all that out the window.

IMO 6th was still the last "old era" edition before 7th started a whole new generation and concept of 40k play.

I wonder if this little free piece of market research will weasel it's way back to the GW HQ? People always say you can't please everyone in defense of 6E and 7E, but it seems like the previous vein of the game, 3E through 5E, has a much bigger pool of fans associated with it.

 Sir Arun wrote:
What I find surprising is how 6th edition is even less popular than 7th.

How's that, people? In 6th you had the last semblance of oldskool balance left before 7th threw all that out the window.

IMO 6th was still the last "old era" edition before 7th started a whole new generation and concept of 40k play.

I think most people who prefer 6th to 7th also didn't really like 6th and so voted for one of the earlier editions.

IMO 4th edition could be seen as a better ruleset than 5th, but OTOH 5th is closer to the present, so most armies had nicer, shinier units and codexes than during the 4th ed era. (I'm looking at you, Dark Eldar! Same goes for Orks)


So if we remove Matt Ward out of the equation, by the end of 5th, had GKs and Necrons been rebalanced a little but, and had GW released SoB instead of moving on to 6th, I think for the first time ever, we would have had a balanced, self-contained edition where all armies had been updated (yes, it was a mixture of 4th edition and 5th edition codices for most armies, but you couldnt physically differentiate between the codices unless you knew about their release date).

Now, however, we once again CAN differentiate between 6th ed and 7th ed codices, even though they are both the same hardback 105 page format - 7th has no armylist section and no unit artwork, but pwetty pictures ._.

 Sir Arun wrote:

So if we remove Matt Ward out of the equation, by the end of 5th, had GKs and Necrons been rebalanced a little but, and had GW released SoB instead of moving on to 6th, I think for the first time ever, we would have had a balanced, self-contained edition where all armies had been updated (yes, it was a mixture of 4th edition and 5th edition codices for most armies, but you couldnt physically differentiate between the codices unless you knew about their release date).

Now, however, we once again CAN differentiate between 6th ed and 7th ed codices, even though they are both the same hardback 105 page format - 7th has no armylist section and no unit artwork, but pwetty pictures ._.

Fluff aside, Mat Ward is actually one of their better rules writers. As much flak as he gets for Grey Knights, that codex and the Necrons are still solid books across three game editions. He wrote powerful characters, but points costed them appropriately for the most part. His books contain very few "eh, maybe never" units. So if Ward had written the 'Crons and GK for a 5E ruleset versus the 6E style, I feel like you'd have the closest to perfect edition possible. It was the units designed with 6E in mind, mainly the Paladin-star, that made 5E bad at the end. Once you saw them work in the new rules framework, they snapped back into "powerful, but not OP" mode. I enjoyed my Draigowing in 6E a lot. They still crushed people on their first fight, but I could see players get savvy fighting them a second and third time.

So I say +1 for Mat Ward. His books have stood the test of time unlike many others.

 Sir Arun wrote:
What I find surprising is how 6th edition is even less popular than 7th.

How's that, people? In 6th you had the last semblance of oldskool balance left before 7th threw all that out the window.

IMO 6th was still the last "old era" edition before 7th started a whole new generation and concept of 40k play.

bs. 6th was a horrid mash of what *should* have been experimental rules, shoddily implemented. On top of that it was play spamhammer or verdunhamner (gunlines) or don't bother actually getting out your models. 7th cleaned up a lot of the trial and error crap. Yea there is a lot more randomness, no I don't like that either, but at least most of its optional.

 PhillyT wrote:
I like 7th.

Why do you like 7th edition?

Hah, you want to see something neat? Look at the results of this poll and compare it to the results of the poll of the edition people started playing 40k in:



This implies a few possible things. One of them could mean that people don't actually have a bias towards the edition they started in.

But if we assume that there is a bias, then that really tells you a lot about the quality of the edition. About as many people started 3rd, 4th, and 5th, but very few people selected 3rd edition as their favorite. That means that 3rd edition was worse than 5th edition by at least as much as however much bias we're assuming.

And even if we don't, the first graph gives us valuable information into the second. One could make the argument, for example, that rogue trader is scoring lower because it's older, and so fewer people played it. That's incorrect, though, because of the people who played rogue trader (we know because they said they started then), 88% of them then went on to vote for some other edition as being the best.

Meanwhile, correcting for the differentiation of gross numbers (only 5/6ths of the people voted in the first poll as the second), we can see that of those people who played at least one edition of 40k before 5th edition came out, half of them would still go back and play 5th edition or later, rather than go back to an earlier edition.

 Ailaros wrote:
Hah, you want to see something neat? Look at the results of this poll and compare it to the results of the poll of the edition people started playing 40k in:



This implies a few possible things. One of them could mean that people don't actually have a bias towards the edition they started in.

But if we assume that there is a bias, then that really tells you a lot about the quality of the edition. About as many people started 3rd, 4th, and 5th, but very few people selected 3rd edition as their favorite. That means that 3rd edition was worse than 5th edition by at least as much as however much bias we're assuming.

And even if we don't, the first graph gives us valuable information into the second. One could make the argument, for example, that rogue trader is scoring lower because it's older, and so fewer people played it. That's incorrect, though, because of the people who played rogue trader (we know because they said they started then), 88% of them then went on to vote for some other edition as being the best.

That's a good comparison, but it would seem that one could also conclude that the game was gaining momentum from 3E through 5E and is losing it in the later editions. Or one could surmise that of course you start playing the game in the edition you like the most. Why would you pay to start playing a game you didn't like as a better way of putting it.

That's not how statistics or studies work. You'd be correct if the same people answered both questions.

Hollismason wrote:
That's not how statistics or studies work. You'd be correct if the same people answered both questions.

This is as close to scientific study as we get. We can take a guess that there is overlap just by comparing the posters between the two threads. We will never get a statistical consensus on the matter (and does it really warrant one outside of GW having a financial interest?). But it certainly paints a picture for which we can couch conjecture and have some fun.

I would say the other data sets we have on how the player base for 40k is shrinking along with sales that correlates to this and draw some reasonable hypothesis. Nothing more.

 TheKbob wrote:

Hollismason wrote:
That's not how statistics or studies work. You'd be correct if the same people answered both questions.

This is as close to scientific study as we get. We can take a guess that there is overlap just by comparing the posters between the two threads. We will never get a statistical consensus on the matter (and does it really warrant one outside of GW having a financial interest?). But it certainly paints a picture for which we can couch conjecture and have some fun.

I would say the other data sets we have on how the player base for 40k is shrinking along with sales that correlates to this and draw some reasonable hypothesis. Nothing more.

It's about as much a scientific statistical study as Ian Duncan Smiths track record on statistics. If you want to make any sort of sense then you should really create a questionnaire where you can cross-reference participents between the questions.

Oh, it can definitely be MUCH more rigorous, of course.

That said, it's still data. Sloppy, but still pointing to trends.

This is something I quickly knocked together which would give a much better data pool:
http://kwiksurveys.com/app/rendersurvey.asp?sid=is5ahib2fz9hoy8396253&refer=

Thoughts?

 Daedleh wrote:
This is something I quickly knocked together which would give a much better data pool:
http://kwiksurveys.com/app/rendersurvey.asp?sid=is5ahib2fz9hoy8396253&refer=

Thoughts?

Assuming you can get enough people to take it, I got bored about a third the way in and stopped

 Sir Arun wrote:
What I find surprising is how 6th edition is even less popular than 7th.

How's that, people? In 6th you had the last semblance of oldskool balance left before 7th threw all that out the window.

IMO 6th was still the last "old era" edition before 7th started a whole new generation and concept of 40k play.

I think [this my opinion] that more people like 7th over 6th is just the flexibility. Balance for our group come in lower on our priority than Fluff or just the ability to play what we want.
One of our players has one SoB Squad that he can now just attach to his Marines that have always been part of the Fluff for his Home Brew Chapter or play an all Dreadnaught army.
Unbound lets us do that without issue.

At least that is how the group I play with feels.

 Anpu42 wrote:

I think [this my opinion] that more people like 7th over 6th is just the flexibility. Balance for our group come in lower on our priority than Fluff or just the ability to play what we want.
One of our players has one SoB Squad that he can now just attach to his Marines that have always been part of the Fluff for his Home Brew Chapter or play an all Dreadnaught army.
Unbound lets us do that without issue.

At least that is how the group I play with feels.

Not trying to be nasty here and please npte that this is also"purely my opinion".

7th and 6th are for all intents and purposes the same. There really isn't enough difference for there to be the difference shown by the poll.

While there are some whom truly enjoy the non-game activity that 40k currently is, I believe that there are others who just want to play with their models.
Imo, in such instances, it is a case of the "Sliding Baseline Effect". A case where GW lowered the bar for what was acceptable in 6th and then doubled down on it for 7th.
By doubling down on the mess that was 6th ed GW knows that a portion of the playerbase will lose hope and become resigned to the game as it is. Basically GW's attitude is that we will knuckle under and just accept the new status quo.

I feel that this is observable in this thread where some of the posters have noted that they grudgingly picked 7th because it was a little better than 6th.

I've also noted that some seem to think that the poll numbers are some for of consensus that 7th is a success.
From past polls I'd say that this is not the case. Usually a new release beats any previous release in polls like this.

 Daedleh wrote:
This is something I quickly knocked together which would give a much better data pool:
http://kwiksurveys.com/app/rendersurvey.asp?sid=is5ahib2fz9hoy8396253&refer=

Thoughts?

This poll implies that you can't see it as a two-player strategy game without sacrificing narrative.

:|

Still, I filled it in.

I like 3rd, i have a fond recollection for it and I remember enjoying it immensely. It also has the benefit of having a complete set of updated codexes released for it. I do acknowledge that there were some quite serious rules flaws with it, even for a casual gamer like me so I think if i were to make the choice about choosing an edition to play now, it would probably be 4th or 5th.

For me it's 5th, without question.

I started at the end of 4th, which was fun (if a little more wacky than I liked, but it had a nice comforting feel to it), then I properly got in to 40k with 5th.
5th was a time in which Daemon Princes were played with pride, Battlecannons were the most badass guns around, you could bring a knife to a gunfight and still expect to come out on top, and Mattard hadn't massacred the fluff (much). There were some parts of 5th that irked me at the time (all my fights were against tanks, and one of my early purchases was a LRC), but for the most part the game was straightforward and fun.

Then 6th hit, and basically turned my armies to mush, and then proceeded to kick mud in my face with each new release.

And 7th has pissed me off.

I voted 2nd edition, as I still love the extra detail when dealing with skirmish-sized games, and because it's my first love. Hard to beat that just for pure nostalgia's sake. I will totally agree that it falls apart when the points go above 2,000, though.

I came in on 5th ed some time before the Dark Eldar update but don't remember exactly how far in. I also played Tau, but remember it as being a far fairer and more diverse meta than what we see now.

6th I don't think had that many problems outside of FMC and Flyers being a bit too durable. Things like random spells and warlord traits were an annoyance and really more of a sign of what was to come. The updates in the time were insane for balance issues (I have never seen mutilators once and don't see DA used anymore). The ally rules needed work but were actually fun, but battle brothers seemed a bit too abusive.

7th fixed FMC and Taudar. By fixed Taudar I mean that it limited Battle Brother abuse to Imperial forces only, so it's good they get to run rampant with battle brother and no xenos army for some reason. The maelstrom missions are honestly a mess and I can't see how people actually enjoy that system. Psykers are a mix this edition. I have seen 4 games with GKs and for the most part the other side was completely shut down and too many spells were being cast to really have any effect with countering. I've yet to see the deamon factory list, and probably won't. This is probably the edition that broke my interest in the game.

I started in 3rd and voted 4th. 5th was very similar to 4th but dumbed down the vehicle damage tables, introduced TLOS which ruined a great part of tactical movement and also had the hideous wound allocation system. 6th and 7th are merely forgettable abominations of randomized bs mixed with excessive clutter. Bon apetite!

5th for me. 76 games in one year.

6th...I played two games.

7th I haven't been to my local GW since it dropped.

I think that although 5th is the best edition so far, 4th was my favourite. This may have something to do with the fact that 4th was harsh to vehicles and favoured assault , and considering I play foot assault lists this suited my armies nicely. But other things, like no pre-measuring, terrain levels and not being able to target models who were deep in terrain, they were things I enjoyed for some reason. Or actually being able to do something to vehicles with missiles.

Now with a few more games under my belt, definitely 4th again. No premeasurement and no TLoS along with no wound pools speed the game up a LOT and make it a much more enjoyable overall experience.