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For the skirmish scale it was intended for I preferred 2nd edition, with its wargear, grenade throwing and so on.

For the larger battle stuff, I preferred 6th edition; it was fairly clean and streamlined, and I liked the uncertainty with assaults. I've never played using/against LoW, Escalation, Fliers or Fortifications though, so they aren't factored in. I don't like the complete disregard for balance in 7th Ed.

I didn't have any real problem with 4th or 5th Ed either, but didn't like the change going from 2nd -> 3rd since it seemed to lose a lot of depth.

I had a lot of fun with 5th.

6th was OK.

I don't like LoW in 7th.

I'd say 5th or early 6th for me. 5th for nostalgia value and (at least to me) it didn't feel very unbalanced.

When 6th came, the rules I thought felt more complex (something I love in tabletop games), and had some new rules I found pretty fun (purchase fortifications in army list, psyker disciplines, etc.)

Late 6th felt a little sour to me though, considering I thought they made Tyranids more or less unplayable (or wouldn't play well with my play style). Learning and realizing the power creep wasn't very good to my perspective either.

I can't vote objectively because I've played only 7th edition games (I thought about getting in since 5th, but wasn't able to stomach the prices, then prices went up ). I've heard 5th was parking lot 40k though.

 Random Dude wrote:
I've heard 5th was parking lot 40k though.

It ended up becoming that way because the core rules had far more survivable vehicles, coupled with codices that had cheap, effective transports and tanks that were better than foot slogging equivalents.

The rule set itself was a lot cleaner, almost purely because of the unit by unit treatment instead of the model by model rules we have currently.

But yes, vehicles were probably one of the worst parts (or best if you were Guard) of 5th, as well as wound allocation shenanigans in multi-wound models.

Vehicles in and of themselves weren't a huge problem in 5th, in fact 5th was the only edition where they were universally useful for all races and the only edition where the skimmer/tracked tank gap didn't exist.

The problem was a few super cheap transports. It also didn't help that infantry equivalents also were painfully overcosted and/or were absurdly easy to get rid of, especially for IG.


Nobody complained about Predators, Defilers, Land Speeders, Hammerheads, Leman Russ Tanks, Sentinels, Land Raiders, Wave Serpents, Hellhounds, Fire Prisms, Ravagers, Battlewagons, Basilisks, Dreadnoughts, etc in 5th.


It is interesting to see how heavily 5th is favored in this poll however.

Wow, only 25% between 6th and 7th and a whopping 60% for 4th and 5th combined. That is strongly the most popular era it would seem.

Yeah, I have always said that they were "ok" editions, but the general feel of the era made the game more than the rules.

Im surprised about the 5th. honestly was an annoying one for me as a tau player :/ (never won a game of 5th)

I voted for 4th edition, it was the edition that I played the most (at least a game a month).

Started with small games with proxies in 2nd, in my buddies basement.

Seriously started playing in the tail end of 3rd (maybe three or four games played)

Played 6 or 7 games in 5th.

Never played 6th.

And I have not even purchased the 7th edition book.

7th for me. I am surprised about how cool the objectives cards are. They level the playing field in a fun and challenging way and demand army versatility.

T

I remember most of my games were in 5th edition and 6th edition. I've only played 1 7th edition game and it was ok I guess but between 5th and 6th I thought people would choose 6th over 5th, I'm surprised by that. Maybe it was the introduction of allies that people didn't like. Anyways I LOVED 6th edition. It was great gameplay, rule changes, interestingly new techniques and tactics, and desperately needed codex updates.

Also with 7th there is no "can't"

Tommie Soule wrote:
Also with 7th there is no "can't"

Sure there is, as the pole itself shows, a very large number of people can't stand that edition.

Tommie Soule wrote:
Also with 7th there is no "can't"

Sure there is. With 7th you can't play balanced games without houseruling the bejesus out of it..

Toofast wrote:
I voted for 7th because it can be whatever you want it to be.

Like a balanced pickup game?

 60mm wrote:

Tommie Soule wrote:
Also with 7th there is no "can't"

Sure there is. With 7th you can't play balanced games without houseruling the bejesus out of it..

You totally can

Its called identical lists

 Desubot wrote:

 60mm wrote:

Tommie Soule wrote:
Also with 7th there is no "can't"

Sure there is. With 7th you can't play balanced games without houseruling the bejesus out of it..

You totally can

Its called identical lists

Fourth edition for me. I started with third and felt that natural maturation to 4th was very well done. I enjoyed the tactical flexability that the game offered. I like the terrain rules and actually thought that target priority was an awesome rule as it actually added an element to the game that made LD stats matter.

Escalation was also good, in that it forced you to think how 1/3 of all your games are going to start heavy in reserves.

Yeah there was some OTT wargear out there in a few codexs that made a bit of a sore spot in peoples hearts but as for the basic rule set, I felt it worked very well and was enjoyable.

Heck I even didn't mind entangled, I still used transports and so did most everyone I played against. You just remembered to place your models behind the wrecked vehicle that often offered blocked LOS.

I almost started a new thread, but I thought it might be better to ask it here!

In a month I am going to play Apocalypse with 6 other players.
Four of them haven't played 7th and we have three rulebooks.
I am certainly able to explain the biggest differences, but I am curious if anyone might have a summary of all the rules that are either new or changed.
We once made such a list for 5th > 6th because the majority of our group kept using rules from 5th edition.

Something like:
-Charging through Difficult Terrain
-Jink before rolling to-hit.
-Vehicle Damage Table.
-etc, etc.

I've been looking for over an hour and all I can find are blogs where people giving their opinions.
And "vehicles are buffed" or "The new XX-change sucks!" isn't really helping.
Such a list might be a great tool to have a quick reference guide so people don't accidentely use rules from 6th edition.

The best I could find so far was from dakkadakka: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/596657.page
But it has too many opinions which I don't care about and it lacks certain changes.
Another good start might be: http://bloodofkittens.com/blog/2014/05/22/network-news-7th-edition-telling/

Or would it be best if I create a new thread and keep the first post updated; thoughts?

I think this is a pretty good list of changes:

http://www.3plusplus.net/2014/05/first-look-7th-edition/

Also, some more specific articles:
Jink - http://www.3plusplus.net/2014/05/summary-of-7th-edition-changes-jink/
Vehicles - http://www.3plusplus.net/2014/06/drive-me-forward-7th-edition-and-vehicles/
Psychic Phase - http://www.3plusplus.net/2014/05/summary-of-7th-edition-changes-psychic-phase/
More on the Psychic Phase - http://www.3plusplus.net/2014/06/7th-edition-friendship-is-warp-charge/

Hope these help.

The op says that all armies were balanced in 4th edition? Tau.

Started with 4th... mostly played 5th... touched a smidgen of 6th... fell in love with 2nd...

There's something wicked awesome about 2nd ed.

I have yet to try out 7th but from what I'm reading I like it so far.

Ventiscogreen wrote:
The op says that all armies were balanced in 4th edition? Tau.

Yeah, there was never an edition where all armies were balanced. Tau, Eldar and Necrons were ace in 4th, while IG were, well, not taken particularly seriously to put it kindly.

And even then, for as much as tau players liked to whine about themselves, I recall through the entirety of 5th edition an army that had a practically indestructible pile of TL S10 Ap1 at their disposal, back when both of those things meant more than they do now. Not to mention deepstrike+MSM melta/no-burn plasma.

Tau gave me nearly as much trouble in 5th ed as it did in 4th.

 60mm wrote:

Tommie Soule wrote:
Also with 7th there is no "can't"

Sure there is. With 7th you can't play balanced games without houseruling the bejesus out of it..

Toofast wrote:
I voted for 7th because it can be whatever you want it to be.

Like a balanced pickup game?

Go grab an off the shelf MTG starter deck and play against someone with a tournament level deck. If you can't play a balanced pick up game against 99% of the armies out there, you need a better list. Unbalanced games are not unique to 40k no matter how much people on dakka try to pretend that is the case.

Gonna have to go with the last edition i played, which was 3/3.5... much simpler time, armies were relatively balanced, assault was WAY more productive, and it was just generally a pleasant experience overall. Also it was when the modular units were introduced... yay no more static clone armies! Ah good times...

It was a hard choice. I ended up picking 3rd because its what got me into the game. The rules were easy for me to remember, the models looked awesome, the game was fun to play, almost all my fondests memories are from 3rd. I played tournaments, my dad played still and there were plenty of people to play pick up games with. The crowd was far vast back then. We also had more stores to host game days.

5th was the close call for me. 5th ed is when we picked up 40k again after a bit of a break. I did not play at the local stores as much as I once did, by this time I mainly played against my brother and friend.

Toofast wrote:


Go grab an off the shelf MTG starter deck and play against someone with a tournament level deck. If you can't play a balanced pick up game against 99% of the armies out there, you need a better list. Unbalanced games are not unique to 40k no matter how much people on dakka try to pretend that is the case.

Stop comparing a card game to a miniature game, the two have nothing in common.

Also:

If you can't play a balanced pick up game against 99% of the armies out there, you need a better list.

That is the exact opposite of what balance means...

I started with 5th edition. GW only needed to add a few things from 6th to 5th and what an excellent rulebook we will have now.

My breakdown is as follows"

Rogue Trader:
More of a roleplaying game and either needed a GM or two players who were really committed
to playing WITH one another rather than against. Only played a few games of it but it was kind
of a clunky mess.

2nd ed:
This was my favorite as well as the edition I played the most. The boxed set was brilliant and the
rules kept alot of the fun wackiness that was RT while also keeping them playable by two people without the need for a GM. It had balance issues (looking at you virus grenade, and hi Abbadon and your terminator body guards), but it was (imo) the most fun and colorful edition. I remember having a game where my Armorcast Reaver Titan got hit by a shok attack gun. The result was that the grots were hanging off the pilot's head causing the Titan to go out of control. I had also thrown a vortex grenade on the previous turn so on one side of the board you had this swirling vortex template that immediatley destroyed anything it touched (no rolls of any kind and you even removed scenery) and on the other side was a giant titan bouncing around out of control. The turn ended with the "Foot of Mork". A gaint green ectoplasmic foot the descended out of the heavens (the template was actually shaped like a ork foot) and wiped out a Terminator squad. Good times. I haven't had a game that fun in any edition since.

3rd:
Didn't play it. 2nd ed had a ton of faults and needed streamlined but I felt 3rd went too far so I sat it out.

4th:
collected stuff and watched games but didn't play

5th:
Got back in full time. Good quick rule set but I felt like it could have used a little more depth. Probably the most over-all balanced edition.

6th:
was a fun throw-back to 2nd ed and it's what my flgs is primarily still playing (it took us a while to really get it worked out but we are really enjoying it now).

7th:
Still on the fence ...