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My general metric for whether I like a game or not is if tournament matches are as close as possible to casual matches. I think 8th edition scores pretty well on this metric.

I actually had lots of fun playing 7th edition casually because my opponents and I could figure out what sort of armies we wanted to play and go from there. I had considerably less fun playing in tournaments because so many armies were not only overpowered but also bizarre amalgams that were brought forth to prove that their creator was 'smart' even if they weren't especially effective.

Even though I never set out to win grand tournaments and knew that my armies were not the most competitive, though I managed to place from time to time, it still stung to have games where my opponent and I were playing completely different games. I've experiences this before while playing historical games like DBM that, due to the odd arrangement of their rules, encourage their players to make 'gamey' decisions and strive to prove how smart they are by twisting the rules into a pretzel. These strange moves aren't always the most effective moves (indeed, the seldom are, based on how often my Crimson Fists or Wraithblades smashed internet-approved opponents in 7th) but they subvert an average opponent's expectations by producing ridiculous outcomes. In time the in crowd comes to expect and demand these tricks as a way to signal how in the know they are, even if this social pressure to conform ends up distorting the game in something less than fun.

Will 8th edition be able to survive these pressures? I don't know yet, but the rules are simple enough that they can't be easily distorted and, more importantly, the promise of frequent rules updates implies that any glaring imbalances will be smoothed out. I can't say yet that 8th is the best edition yet, but consider me cautiously optimistic.

I don't know if its the best or not, but I do know that I absolutely hate 8th.

I don't know anything about Editions before 7th, so I can't truly say which Edition is best, but I've just started reading the rules for 8th and already have some things that I really hate and make the Edition bad. For example: Every Psyker getting Smite by default and every unit being able to hurt every other unit on some roll regardless of strength and toughness. I would say that given GW tried to simplify the ruleset, 7th Edition - at its core - is better, but needed to be tweaked rather than added to (i.e all the supplements) or simplified (i.e. 8th Ed)..

 Crablezworth wrote:
8th is a garbage fire. 7th was fine, needed a bit of tweaking. I can say that because it works great for 30k, and anyone's complaints about 7th are inextricably linked with the factions and lack of balance (formations) not core stuff like a flamer NOT shooting down a plane and so on.

Yeah, when you need every single faction nearly needing to be same you can achieve balance!

I haven't seen a Solar Army in forever, not that I don't like HH, I think it works in spite of 7th because most everyone is on a ... Mostly average playing field as a result and with a willingness to balance over time given the fact they've changed point costs for some of the worst offenders.

8th is solid, definitely a huge improvement over 6th and 7th.

Early 5th gives 8th some pretty stiff competition, but 8th feels more playable (silly cover rules aside, although 5th was no walk in the park for that, either).

it is fun so far but the extreme number of bubblewrap buffs you have to remember and the possibility of rolling over 100 dice to resolve just 1 unit of shooting+ wounds+ saves, etc is ridiculous.

Way too many dice rolling.

2nd edition is still my favorite although the CC was a huge mess and time of play could drag on in larger games if players did not know their armies or the ruleset

8th ed is my close 2nd fave. I did like the VDR in 3rd edition. For the first time since RT players were actually creative as a group again.

 admironheart wrote:
it is fun so far but the extreme number of bubblewrap buffs you have to remember and the possibility of rolling over 100 dice to resolve just 1 unit of shooting+ wounds+ saves, etc is ridiculous.

Way too many dice rolling.

That used to be considered the fun bit. In 5e people played Orks because they would be throwing hundreds of dice per turn.


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 IllumiNini wrote:
For example: Every Psyker getting Smite by default and every unit being able to hurt every other unit on some roll regardless of strength and toughness

I like those parts...
Given the armaments basic troops get in the 40k-verse, it makes sense that after 400-700 rounds fired (in terms of game mechanics) you'd manage to take out a vehicle. And it also makes sense that a battle-psyker would be able to punch the living daylights out of someone because mind bullets. There's an awesome quote from the 5e C:SM, which goes:

"I can pulp your flesh and snap your bones in less than a second. What is the power of technology compared to that?" - Vel'cona, Chief Librarian of the Salamanders

Having had a Wave Serpent of mine shot at by a mix of Tactical Marines and Razorbacks with Assault Cannons (I call them Saltybacks), I found it quite fun to watch a massive wall of bullets slowly chip away at the tank until it suffered a satisfying amount of damage and ceased to be functional.
Meanwhile, my Farseer found that she quite liked ripping the soul out of a hapless Ultramarine who was harassing her.

With the right allocation of points costs (and perhaps some mechanics tweaking), there is little issue in terms of game balancing with these mechanics, and I see no reason to find them unfluffy.

 Selym wrote:
That used to be considered the fun bit. In 5e people played Orks because they would be throwing hundreds of dice per turn..

After playing a week of 8th edition....I could not believe I was saying this when we had our 3v3 2nd edition game this past weekend...but I actually uttered the words that playing 2nd edition was smoother and easier on the brain with less rules to keep track of.

That is a rare thing for 2nd. I am sure that after I make some psychic cards and get some nice wound/vp/cp trackers and learn 8th inside and out it wont feel that way, but right now it does.

 admironheart wrote:

After playing a week of 8th edition....I could not believe I was saying this when we had our 3v3 2nd edition game this past weekend...but I actually uttered the words that playing 2nd edition was smoother and easier on the brain with less rules to keep track of.

Perhaps its just that 8e is a completely alien ruleset to the recent editions. Having played 5e, 6e and 7e, I can honestly say that 8e is by far the easiest to play edition I have seen. The only hiccough being in army creation. The mechanics make sense, most things are somewhat consistent in function, and as long as you have an Index to hand, there's nothing particularly taxing on the memory.

Looking at 6e and 7e, that gak was a mess of nonsensical random tables, "flavour of the week" releases, every damn piece of terrain functioned differently and had gakky special rules, every unit that GW wanted to sell that month had an army of special rules that just bogged the game down...
More time was spent arguing about how a model could move than was spent playing the dang game for me.

 Yarium wrote:
Going to give best set to 3rd, .

Yeah, bring back Blood Angels moving 18" in their Rhinos, jumping out 2", double shooting their bolters, charging with +1 S/I, wiping out a unit, then running into another unit. Best rules ever...

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Yarium wrote:
Going to give best set to 3rd, .

Yeah, bring back Blood Angels moving 18" in their Rhinos, jumping out 2", double shooting their bolters, charging with +1 S/I, wiping out a unit, then running into another unit. Best rules ever...

Ya BA weren't fun to play against in 3rd, their combat phase was fueled by energizer.



I think we can all do the rose colored glasses routine but a lot of the excitement and hype of 8th was the complete reset of all factions and the ability to access everything for about $100. It's raw meat for hours and hours of review and analysis from blogs to youtube, from loyal fans of 40k all the way to people who've stepped out an edition or two wanting to get a sense of this new edition. I see far more content discussing and reviewing factions than gushing over the brilliance of the core game.

 Crablezworth wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Yarium wrote:
Going to give best set to 3rd, .

Yeah, bring back Blood Angels moving 18" in their Rhinos, jumping out 2", double shooting their bolters, charging with +1 S/I, wiping out a unit, then running into another unit. Best rules ever...

Ya BA weren't fun to play against in 3rd, their combat phase was fueled by energizer.

"Red Bull gives you wings" - Sanguinius

 Vaktathi wrote:
8E is better than 7E, no question, it's even dramatically better than 6E, but I don't think it's better than 5E (which was itself a far from perfect ruleset with heaps of issues).

What I do think 8E does however is offer a better fundamental base for balance than we've seen in a while.

This is largely my basic feeling. Rules-wise 8E is obviously better than 6E, to say nothing of the gakshow that was 7E. That said 5E is still the most truly "40k" of all the editions, the best version of the game to play. Too bad about the 5E Codices...

If we combine game rules + army rules, then pure rulebook 3E (using rulebook lists, not Codices) is actually the best game. By far.

Jury is still out, I've only gotten in one full game so far. But it does seem way better than 6th/7th. Tyranids have definitely improved, or my play has.

I still have several armies and iterations to go through. Let me get back with you in about a year, but I'm optimistic. I am slightly concerned, however, that the upcoming codexes may undo the initial work that's been done to balance things.

 Stormonu wrote:
Tyranids have definitely improved, or my play has.

From the battle reports I've seen they do pretty well, I'm sure it's liberating feeling the speed increase.

 Stormonu wrote:
I am slightly concerned, however, that the upcoming codexes may undo the initial work that's been done to balance things.

Yeah I must say I share the same apprehension for what codex's and their release schedules will bring, especially considering they may throw a curve ball at command points system which right now is one of the more positive benefits of the homogenization. That could get bespoked up real fast.

Its way better.

I voted No.
It is way too simple/open and leads to a lot of interpretations.

The worst things are the cover rules (woods and ruins are apparently all of a suddon transparent if you are not within the base of the terrain), a grot being able to block a tank , all weapons have an 360 firing arc and a lot of other smaller idiotic things.
Just read through the forums...

Second was best. I was excited by the reception that Shadow War got and was hoping the gw went with that flow ... Instead they psyched me right the EFF out and went in the opposite direction. Sure. Some AoS ing of 2nd might be good ... Updating. Off three genuinely different ways to play. Say alternate activation or standard or narrative depending on scale maybe. Who knows. The had thirty years to figure it out. Guess too much turn over in the deep thinker department...

Tough one. They've all kinda sucked in their own way, depending on how you played. I voted no, as I enjoyed 5th a great deal, but also acknowledge that I didn't have to deal with what apparently was the weird meta that edition warped into towards the end. Had some good games when 6th dropped before it started getting weird with all the flyers, super heavies, Death Stars, etc... Even from the people who usually kept it really casual. Then 7th, well, was 7th. I was introduced to the game in its second edition but didn't really get into it until 5th, as I was too busy with WFB back then.

Still, tough call, after coming off the disaster I felt 7th turned into. Despite some obvious positives, I find 8th to clean and playable compared to previous ones but also boring after my first few games.

The change to the psychic phase is a massive benefit for me.

I remember 7th edition games, where people who knew their stuff, still took almost an hour to complete their psychic phase. Absolutely terrible for people fielding and playing against psychic heavy armies, whether at tournaments (just didnt work) or casual

The reason 5th was so great, was that It introduced the general take objectives at the end of the game mechanic, but limited scoring units to troops. which made the game, much more strategic than it had been before, and after the scoring troop limitation was removed, much more tactical and strategic than it would ever be again.

Transports were also workable, but had their limitations.

The big downsides of 5th (msu dominance and wound allocation shenanigans on nobs and paladins) , would have been solved by 6ths implementations of hull points, and 8ths wound allocation method. Thats all we needed IMO

No, I don't think so.

Big plus of 8th edition are the new scenarios right in the rulebook. Even with maelstrom and ever changing army lists 7th became a bit boring after a while, now we have numerous different missions to play through. Combined with the stratagems I think this makes it the best edition for me.

There are still things I had hoped would improve, but they didn't. Stuff like Oblits and Possessed with random profiles every round shouldn't exist. Dancing around within 1" seems also open to abuse.
Once my Death Guard gets its own codex this will be my favourite edition.

I value a few things in 40k:
-How much "individual customization" is there in the game?
-How much of the game "makes sense" versus how much of the game works by "game logic".
-How much does the game promote mobility over hiding in your deployment zone.
-How much does the game promote a mixed force over spam.

Different editions do this differently, and my overall verdicts are:
-Customization: Late 3rd and Early 4th. You had Guard Doctrines, Xhapter Traits, Daemon Gifts out the wazoo and super-tricked out Carnifexes. Yes, internal balance was a joke, but not being locked into "paint by lines" builds was great. By contrast, GW post-Chapterhouse wholeheartedly embraced the "We only create rules for our models" policy, with 7e Dark Eldar being the most notable example where only very specific units could get very specific melee weapons.
-"Makes sense", this one varies for me. I liked the 7e shooting/cover mechanics the most of all the editions from 4th onward, as Lash Sniping wasn't a thing, nor was 50% cover/torrent. Other than that, it's a tossup, with any edition veinf being better than 8th.
-5th was the most "control the midfield" edition, the main exception being certain matchups (Eldar vs foot armies) where a 24" tankshock could push/contest objectives. 7e comes close in terms of "midfield control" due to universal scoring+obsec. I skipped on most of 4th but remember the "5-man" Lasplas squads of cover-camping. Likewise, I remember a lot of 6e being a "no mans land" due to super-restrictive vehicle scoring. Static Gunlinehammer bores me to tears. :( 8th is "better" than those, but its mobility is now about bubblewrap and piece-trades.
-Sadly, most editions of 40k haven't done this, though in theory a single FOC should have helped. In practice, this became more of another barrier to separate armies with good troops from armies with bad troops. 8th may potentially be the worst edition for spam though since the super-flex detachments are essentially Unbound-lite. Already we're seeing Stormraven Spam, Dronespam, Razorwing Flockspam...the lists themselves being far more "copypaste" than even armies like the infamous Warp Spider spam. Ironically I would probably say 7th came "closer" than most other editions to allowing mixed armies to have a level shot against copypaste armies. People hate on the War Convocation for example, but take away its bonuses and such an army would be laughed at as a noob Battleforce. Likewise, the Decurion was also painfully durable but it at least enforced running a mixed army.

Mordian2016 wrote:
Hey all,

I love 8th edition, i think the game flows so much better than previously. However I am aware of a couple of downsides and am sure I will discover more as time goes on.

But i'm interested in what the community thinks?

EDIT: If you voted no please just say what edition was your favourite below

Is this a loaded question?

No, 8th is miles away from being a good ruleset. The reasons for this are all over the interwebz (vehicle firing arcs, morale, etc.) It is just an oversimplified edition like AoS. You even have Stormcast (Uber-Marines) stalking the battlefields of 40K. Whoever buys this awful stuff has no right to complain when GW neglects other factions again. As of now, I am still waiting for a proper Risitas spoof on youtube for 8th. Here is the link for all of you that missed out on his AoS version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ke7LuZUFv4

My preferred version of 40K is 2nd. No, I don´t have nostalgia goggles on but view 40K with crystal-clear vision.

Mordian2016 wrote:
The change to the psychic phase is a massive benefit for me.

I remember 7th edition games, where people who knew their stuff, still took almost an hour to complete their psychic phase. Absolutely terrible for people fielding and playing against psychic heavy armies, whether at tournaments (just didnt work) or casual

I dunno how the Psyker Phase could take so much time; maybe it was because I did the math beforehand/had a "playbook" for what to cast based on WC availability, while keeping plastic tokens on-hand so my opponent and I knew exactly how many WC we had, but it was always *fast* for me, and I had 3 units capable of casting. Truth be told, I miss the 7e system some and feel like it should have been polished and refined rather than gutted altogether. Maybe I'm viewing it more from a fluff rather than a competitive standpoint but I'm used to "pushing" being powerful-yet-risky in the RPGs. I *liked* the idea that throwing more WC into a power = more chance of it going off AND a greater chance of Perils.

What wasn't so hot was the Psyker pooling/battery shenanigans, as well as WC not scaling up for multiple lesser Psykers. Likewise, if you got a really powerful Blessing off, denial was all-or-nothing. If I rolled Summoning and got 4 successes, my opponent had to roll 4 sixes, with rolling 3 being the same as rolling 0.

I had homebrewed a rewrite of 7e Psykers awhile ago, with several notable ideas:
-Psy powers chosen at army creation.
-6 powers per discipline: 4 basic, 2 advanced.
-To get an advanced power, you had to know 2 basic from the same discipline.
-Psykers could only use their own WC. (No pooling). In exchange, they got an extra WC each and could "Push". Pushing was that after spending at least one WC as normal, you got a second WC die. If that die matched any of the other dice, you suffered Perils.
-Rather than some powers being "uber, but you need at least 2 or 3 success rolls", *all* powers only required 1 success to go off, with subsequent successes increasing the effect (to a max of 4 effective successes). For example, Scouring Flame was S5 AP 4, but S8 AP 1 on 4 successes.
-Inversely, rather than Deny being "must match the successes of the attacker", each success on Deny subtracted a success from manifesting. So even if you only rolled 3 successes to Deny, said Scouring Flame would ultimately only be manifested at S5 AP 4.

In 8th, Smite is either "weak and easy to deny", or "deadly and difficult to deny" and once again, there's no real middle ground.

Been playing since 2nd. 6th/7th were the absolute worst editions - the core rules were awful. 3rd was great, but only with nostalgia glasses - it's because it was such a breath of fresh air after the convoluted mess that 2nd became. Honestly 40k has never been a good ruleset at all, from Rogue Trader through 7th, using several disparate inelegant un-unified mechanics.

8th is the best edition of 40k ever, by far.

Is it the best ruleset to date? No.
Is it however the worst? Also no.
Somewhere squarely in the middle for me.

Could they have made it even better? Most definitely yes and heres to hoping they do actually adopt the living ruleset idea and implement it.

 Ratius wrote:
Is it the best ruleset to date? No.
Is it however the worst? Also no.
Somewhere squarely in the middle for me.

Could they have made it even better? Most definitely yes and heres to hoping they do actually adopt the living ruleset idea and implement it.

The living ruleset idea has to be implemented by the gaming community and not by GW. They did a beautiful work with Blood Bowl & 9th Age. GW´s rules and unit profiles are always a sales driven mess. They want small kiddies to play 40K. So they dumb it down to an atrocious simple level and delete all mature content (Slaanesh?). I read that one of the worst units in 8th is the Stompa. It is ca. 900 pts. of fail and players should apparently buy the Mork-/Gorkanaut because it is one of the more modern Ork kits.

I've yet to play it so my opinion is based only on what I've read from the rulebook and indices but I'd say it's better but not the best. It looks quicker and thus more fun that 6/7th did at least, how it compares to 5th, which I feel was a good balance (not talking codices at all just the feel of the game mechanics ) I'm not sure.