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Which Edition of 40k was the most balanced/likable/not terrible? In your opinion, however humble it may be, what makes this particular edition the best?

Wow, did not expect my edition of choice to be leading this poll. 5th was awesome. It had its problems, but only needed a few tweaks here and there to really perfect it. Definitely the most functional the game has ever been, and didn't have all the craziness we have now.

The best edition for me was 4th edition. That was when I played hte vast majority of the games I've played. I was having fun and so was everyone around me. Fifth edition brought in several rules that started the turn away from a game where the general mattered more than the list. Its pretty much been all down hill since then.

5th edition was probably the best edition (as much as it pains me to say it). Probably had the most balanced overall core rules and fewest core game issues, though it certainly had some major problems as well (lol wound allocation).

My second pick would probably be 4th edition, but there were a couple of armies that absolutely simply did not function at all in that edition (e.g. Imperial Guard, Orks until they got their 4E book 6 months before 5E was released). Skimmer-spam & close combat armies reigned supreme, and if you couldn't do either you couldn't play effectively.

While there's many things about 7E that I do like (rapid fire weapon rules, ability to move and fire heavy weapons at a penalty, etc), they have so many issues, and particularly 7E's army construction, scale of play, and codex bloat, that it (coupled with the pricing) is simply killing the game. Pickup games are almost entirely dead at this point, local events that aren't part of an ITC circuit are dying, and really the only way to play it is to play with close knit gaming groups with limited choices of opponents and large numbers of house rules and restrictions (either implied or explicit) to essentially make it play more like 5th. 7th is simply an unholy mess that can't decide if it wants to be Epic or Necromunda, and tries to be both...very poorly, and has completely dropped the ball on the "in between".

With regards to the other editions, 6th wasn't much different than 7th, they can largely be considered the same edition in many respects. 3E was awkward and was still trying to find its legs before the much improved (though still extremely flawed) 4th edition was released. 2E and RT are basically entirely different games both from each other and every iteration of the game thereafter and it's hard to really compare them.

We had a poll on this a little while back, it'll be interesting to see how much the results have varied. I'm guessing the results will be similar, but 7th will be more popular in this one simply because a lot of the people who didn't like 7th aren't around to vote on it any more.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/606652.page

Considering the number of people that left the game and no longer play it, and there for probably aren't on a w40k forum to vote on a poll, it is very interesting how popular are 4th and 5th ed, compering to 7th.

I voted for 2nd Edition but I also had lots and lots of fun in 5th edition with my Tyranids.

Haven't played a game of 6th or 7th yet.

I've played every edition of 40K. Throughout the years, I did take a break from 40K for a year or so when 3rd edition was released. I really did not enjoy 3rd until GW released the Trial Vehicle rules and Trial Assault rules. GW released a game in which they had to massively revampe two entire sections of their rules.

I also quit for a year or so with 6th edition. It wasn't so much that I didn't enjoy the game, rather, the player base became very toxic. 6th edition was the push to essentially merge Apoc into mainstream 40K and the player base was really impacted. I backed out of the game as it just became too tiresome to be involved in all the negativity.

2nd Edition holds a special place for me, not because of the great rules, but there were great armies all around. Nearly every army had a codex and were simply fun to play.

5th edition felt like the most playable. The codexes were generally playable, however, the codexes were designed that went counter to the background of the army. Razorback spam Blood Angels and Henchmen Grey Knight armies were prime examples. Competitive armies, but lacking the soul of the 40K background. But, 5th edition did have a really good following.

I am enjoying 7th edition with some minor tweaks. I can play a straight rulebook game, but do not like the by the book mechanics determining who goes first, Maelstrom missions (by the book). I do like formations as I can build an army based on established fluff and still feel I will have a tight game.

Overall, it is hard to vote as the RT era introduced me to a hobby that I've enjoyed for over 25 years, but it definitely had a lot of flaws in rule mechanics. Also, being in my 40's makes me believe I'll be one of the few who actually played RT in the 80s-early 90s.

6th, in my opinion. The grenades change and addition of allies and buildings were all needed.

6th. 4th and 5th were too confusing for me to get into, and 7th is a bit too much power curve.

5th edition. When rapid fire weapons could only fire at half range after moving and the battle field was like a parking lot

3rd or 5th - the tank-tastic editions.

For better or worse, I prefer modern 40k to any of the previous editions.

I held my nose and voted for 5th.

 creeping-deth87 wrote:
Wow, did not expect my edition of choice to be leading this poll. 5th was awesome. It had its problems, but only needed a few tweaks here and there to really perfect it. Definitely the most functional the game has ever been, and didn't have all the craziness we have now.

5th was great. Good core rules, and for a time we had some decent codices being released. I remember with particular fondness the novel idea of certain character HQs that would make non-Troops choices into either troops choice, or at least scoring units.

Some power swings did kill the edition, especially towards the end (remember when everyone was talking about how Grey Knights were really a 6th Edition codex?).

5th ed GK. LULZ.

I really enjoyed 5th edition. All they had to do was fix wound allocation and add hull-points to vehicles.

Interesting that so far this poll is even more heavily biased toward 5th than the last poll (46% compared to 38%) with even less people voting for 6th and 7th.

But the last poll had 720 votes, this one is only up to 100 so far.

I'm on the fence between 5th and 6th. I haven't played any edition before that so I can't comment on earlier editions, but I do think 7th is a bit worse than 6th.

I'm amazed at how many people are voting for 7th, so far.

Eldar necron and tau players probably voting for 7th.

 Tainted wrote:
I'm on the fence between 5th and 6th. I haven't played any edition before that so I can't comment on earlier editions, but I do think 7th is a bit worse than 6th.

I dropped out for a bit between 5th and the release of 7th. What were the major changes from 6th to 7th? Or perhaps I should ask which were the ones you consider to be negative?

I really liked 6th. 5th edition was overly Transport / Assault focussed for my enjoyment. It was very well balanced, and it was my 2nd favourite edition for how well it played / how fun it was to play.

6th introduced a shootier version of the game, balanced out transport boxes, provided some more open ways to play [ie Allies] and didn't feel overly broken to me. It started to go downhill with the release of Knights...

7th is probably my least favourite version of the game. Busted out at the seams, one slap-dash pile of gak after another. While much of the core rules of 6th are similar to 7th... everything they changed has made things worse, in my opinion. I've never considered quitting 40k before, and I never thought I'd shelve my Guardsmen for over a year. I just want to build my own game right now, and be done with 7th.

Rules wise i prefer 6ed. Hull points were an important addition that normalized vehicle effectiveness (can't tell you how many times i've seen a transport take 5+ pens/glances and just not care) and allies allowed for new and interesting army combinations. 6ed only really suffered from legacy issues (such as how old "flyers" were way undercosted because they were made before flyer rules" and then the massive surge in codex power creep (such as 2++ rerollable deathstars).

Metawise 5ed was the best. Although i did have a hiatus right when DE and GKs dropped.

6E didn't really normalize vehicles, they obliterated the usefulness of non-skimmer vehicles while re-introducing the skimmer gap that 7E has reinforecd with the Jink mechanic, and introducing restrictions that broke the capability of generalist infantry units to assault anything effectively if they lacked open-topped transports. Non-ekimmer armies dropped vehicles en-masse literally overnight.

There wasn't anything wrong with vehicles as a whole in 5E, it was that transports (particularly cheap ones) didn't care about 5/6 glancing hit results and 50% of penetrating hit results. One will notice nobody ever complained about things like Hammerheads, Leman Russ tanks, Predators, Land Raiders, Fire Prisms, Hellhounds, Dreadnoughts, etc in 5E.

Hull points just made vehicles into MC's without armor saves, but with the damage table still there to cripple/kill them on top of that

I voted for 5th, it was easily the most "competitive" version of the rules. 7th ed could have been the best, but forcing Apoc into normal 40k was a major misstep, and the detachment rule turn army organization into an absolute joke. Other than that, it's non-rulebook issues that are killing 7th - too much bloat, Codices are wildly imbalanced, and formations are the absolute worst thing in the entire game.

 dusara217 wrote:
I'm amazed at how many people are voting for 7th, so far.

I'm amazed too, from my experience it doesn't fix any of 6th problems and introduced plenty if stuff that was blatantly unbalanced even by GW. Basically killed the game for me.

Voted 7th. Never played RT or 4th. Only played a demo game of 5th, so my vote wasn't fully informed. Perhaps I would have voted 5th (or 4th) if I paid more attention to it, but it didn't appeal to me at the time.

 sing your life wrote:

 dusara217 wrote:
I'm amazed at how many people are voting for 7th, so far.

I'm amazed too, from my experience it doesn't fix any of 6th problems and introduced plenty if stuff that was blatantly unbalanced even by GW. Basically killed the game for me.

I think some people vote for the current edition out of obstinance. Doing otherwise would mean that they aren't optimally happy with their experience, and that creates mental conflict. GW could come out with an 8th edition that got rid of points and allowed you to play AOS against 40k, and there'd still be a group praising it as the best thing GW's done.

Fifth, by far. Wasn't perfect, but goddamn was it balanced and fun.