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2nd edition is easily my favorite edition of the game. First of all, it's got the nostalgia value of being the edition that was around when I first started in the hobby. Playing a game of 2nd edition, or even thumbing through the rulebooks and codexes, takes me right back to being 13-14 years old, putting together those giant heavy white metal Space Marine Dreadnoughts, and reading in White Dwarf about how to make Wave Serpent turrets out of plastic spoons and the Shuriken Cannons from Vypers.

Second, while fun, the vehicles in 2nd edition could be pretty clunky to work with during games, with all the additional rules and charts that don't exist now. Though the added bonus of having things go out of control, dreads go crazy, and the like is great.

BUT....the rules governing how all the other models work together make for awesome skirmish rules. I have loved Necromunda and Gormamorka since they first came out for the same reasons, and it's very easy to take a little bit of the additional rules from Necromunda like removing all squad cohesion, and make buying models singly from the codexes more like the latest Heralds of Ruin kill-team rules does it, all with a very small points-cap.

Suddenly you have a great way to field squads that are made up of a Veteran Sergeant, a couple of Space Marines, one with a special or heavy weapon, a couple of assault marines, and maybe a bike or two. An Eldar force might hinge around a Warlock and a pair of Wraithguard for a bodyguard, with several Guardians, a ranger or two as snipers, and a much more mobile heavy weapon carried by a Dark Reaper.

It's insanely fun. About the only clunky thing is the psychic phase, but that can be completely ignored in games where neither player has psykers. I also feel so lucky that I have one of the Battle Bibles found online that have all the wargear cards described, because those are a great addition to the game, too.

3rd and 4th were my favorite core rulesets for major rules. All subsequent editions have been a regression.

Except... I think that the "extraneous" rules have gotten a lot better since 4th edition. People have mentioned 4th edition skimmers - a couple of paragraphs of rules that had an enormous negative effect on the game. There was a lot of that in 4th edition.

5th edition felt pretty good, but towards the end we just started to see the same army lists over and over. As much as the balance is out of whack right now, I feel like we actually see a lot more variety in number of viable armies in 7th edition.

Codexes are all over the place, and have been forever. The transition to 3rd edition was probably the best time for codex balance, but I didn't play more than a handful of games during that time. Weirdly enough, I really liked playing during the first few months of 6th edition when all we had were 5th edition codexes. The 7th edition power creep in the codexes is insane by comparison.

So... favorite edition? If I had to just pick an edition, it would be 7e. If I could mix and match books, I would probably play 7e with 5e codexes. If I could do some weird amalgamation of rules, it would mainly be a mix of 4e and 7e rules. Some ideas from 2e would be worth using, but for the most part I think that game should be ignored for the purposes of making a company-level wargame.

Balancing the codexes would be the biggest way to make the game fun. I have had a lot of fun with every edition. The times when I had the least amount of fun was when the codexes were severely imbalanced (e.g., when Grey Knights were dominating in 5th).

MarsNZ wrote:

In last years game a bright lance sliced an arm off my dreadnought causing a chain of explosions to spread through the torso and immobilising it. Rather than dying, it became enraged, wiping out a squad of Guardians and Dark Reapers with its twin-linked heavy bolters (which back then, were scary - up to 6 shots and d4 damage per wound)

Man, I loved that, even though my space elves were dropping like flies. Turn after turn of bolter fire ripping a line across the battlefield.

Speaking of, you good for any weekend coming up soon? 1500 pts right?

6th. The codices in that edition had a very nice layout.

Liked 6th edition a hell of a lot

For me it is first and second, Second was very character heavy and psychic powers were kinda overpowered, but nothing my chaos lord with deamon sword and collar of khorne couldn't handle

Reynard-Miri wrote:
6th. The codices in that edition had a very nice layout.

I think 6th had the best codices by far.

4th was the best edition, despite the misgivings that bad gunline players had with it. Or maybe that's exactly why it was the best edition.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
4th was the best edition, despite the misgivings that bad gunline players had with it. Or maybe that's exactly why it was the best edition.

4th was one of the hardest editions to abuse.
I had a lot of fun with it

Thanks
Austin