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3rd, everything straight out the BRB. Great missions, no need for codecies. 2nd was good too on similar merits, but was overdetailed and psychic powers were bland without the Dark Millenium add on.

The out the book simplicity of 8th is cool, as are the indexes. I do get bogged down in the FAQ and additional materials, though I can see why they are popular.

I really hope 9ed will come out soon with all silly things like not working terrains and unrestricted soups fixed. Maybe even shooting phase alteration instead of igougo. That would be absolutely best edition.

At the risk of looking as if I am trying to look "old-school" I have to say Rogue Trader. I barely ever played any Rogue Trader, and I am not so sure the rule set itself was great to play, but the book itself was an amazing read and gave rise to amazing games when used the right way. Similarly, the books surrounding it were the best things GW have ever produced. The Realm of Chaos books and the Ork books were simply wonderful for fueling the imagination of an 11-year old.

8th has its warts, but I have to say I've enjoyed it most.

Overall, the one thing I've learned from my years of gaming is that there is neither a perfect ruleset nor do I need to blindly follow what someone else has put together. If I don't like it - I can change it so I do.

That, and the game plays so much better at about 1,000 - 1,250 points (with no Lords O' War).

5th edition. As a chaos daemon player the biggest enemy you could hope to face was... *dun dun dun* AREA TERRAIN!

 Daedalus81 wrote:
8th, because you can't beat consistent FAQs and actual point changes.

So you call an unstable rules system an improvement??

8th. No doubt. Soft spot for 2nd as I started there but it was an elegant mess.

8th for me.

Streamlined rulesset combined with quick release and update of army rules then add in frequent and explained points and balance changes.

Makes for a great game where the meta is constantly changing and there are counters to everything.

Rules bloat is an issue but the only way to solve that would be to go to a fully online living ruleset which I don't think they are ready to do.

I think a standard points reduction to 1500pts if needed to help speed up the game and make it more strategic but its not a big issue.

I loved 6th edition, and either 4th or 5th. I really miss initiative orders, and I liked when assault grenades meant you both struck as if charging through cover (I1) and not that the cover magically got out of your way!

I learnt to cope with 7th, but left during it for other reasons. Only just starting to get the measure of 8th, but I'm not enamoured by the mollycoddling of "everyone can hurt everything, don't worry about moving through cover, just play with you toy soldiers". not enough core rules for my liking. Don't like soldiers warping through walls and floating through floors as if they were running on open ground.

5th for me.
As said earlier, it captured the scale of 40k just right imo, had a tight enough ruleset and was very playable.

Shout out to 2nd where it all began for me. Some very happy memories of it - albeit having some really whacky rules.

Now sit down before reading on because this will shock many people. My favourite edition is 7th. While it had some (or lots) of issues the only things in it that genuinely bothered me were one grenade attack in combat which was dumb and the mess of the psychic phase.

Lots of formations were a hot mess but with the joys of playing with friends I didn't have to deal with them. The main formations and decurions I saw were the Deathwolves for my space wolves which is hands down my favourite way I've ever played them and things like the super fun Daemonkin army. Plus super speedy Aspect Eldar and Corsairs, sweet sweet Corsairs.

2nd through to 4th. Simply because of the terrain rules actually having an impact on movement, positioning etc etc.

Early 5th.

The shenanigans (wound allocation, kill points, etc) were obvious and easy to house rule if you had a mind to, and no faction was out of the running until the edition was gradually crushed under the weight of codex creep.

It was a mess but started on the right foot.

I played only one game of 5th, but then played 6th, 7th and 8th. Of the three 8th has the most tactical depth by far, it got rid of unnecessary bloat, tanks feel like tanks and the stratagem system is a very nice addon that actually gives you decisions. The psychic phase is also a vast improvement and I like the many possible addons for narrative play. Constant FAQs are also very appreciated, CSM waited nearly two whole editions in the dust, now OP units get adjusted pretty fast. Terrain is pretty useless in normal 8th though, but Cities of Death fixed that already.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
I played only one game of 5th, but then played 6th, 7th and 8th. Of the three 8th has the most tactical depth by far, it got rid of unnecessary bloat, tanks feel like tanks and the stratagem system is a very nice addon that actually gives you decisions. The psychic phase is also a vast improvement and I like the many possible addons for narrative play. Constant FAQs are also very appreciated, CSM waited nearly two whole editions in the dust, now OP units get adjusted pretty fast. Terrain is pretty useless in normal 8th though, but Cities of Death fixed that already.

May I ask how did the CoD fixed terrain?
Infantry still could warp through the solid walls without doors or windows, should just a tiny bit of your soldier's hat be visible behind the terrain, and suddenly the whole squad could be targeted and killed. Oh, and should just one guy stay in the open, the other 19 lose their cover bonus. Is it fixed?

I have played 5th through 8th and have to say I enjoyed 5th the most. 6th and 7th just felt like downgrades of 5th to me, 8th is better but still not as good as 5th.

Another vote for 5th.

It had its niggles but I think it was by far the best system overall.

It was also the last system that still felt like 40k, rather than Mechwarrior, MTG or Yugioh.

3rd, 4th and 5th I think i all liked around the same. Would have to go back to some specific things i think to really get a feel again.

6th was not much fun, So much of the game was falling apart it felt. 7th i mostly just ignored. And 8th is the most unfun complexity to a game i have encounter >.<.

I think I would like to go back to a mix of 3rd, 4th and 5th with some fixing of the rules and ballance thoughts So that era may be my fav in the end.

I would have to say the time I enjoyed the most was probably early 6th ed. In the time before many codices were dropped. I think it really went down hill with its codices, and by the end was a mess with things like Knights being added in a system not well designed for their inclusion.

The edition had some issues, but it felt like a step in the right direction.

Honestly I feel the same way about most editions, except maybe 7th that edition felt like a mess from the start as it was mostly a direct port from 6th, with all the same codex related problems.

5th was a good ruleset, but was ruined by codex releases and escalation.

4th largely the same.

I feel like in general 40k has suffered from an escalation problem, more models on the table, bigger units, more units, more powers.

It kind of seems like they release an edition that fixes a lot of existing problems, then they change all the problems. 8th seems to share some of these issues as well (not that indices were completely balanced), where they didn't even get the indices truly balanced before layering more rules on top.

Have never played a game of rogue trader. 2nd was by far the most creative ruleset I played (along with 4th/5th warhammer), both by the designers and for the players to work with. 3rd to 7th seemed pretty boring though hardly ever played. 8th has some of the early creativity but models aside you are playing an entirely different game and too much of an emphasis on trying to "balance".

For me it's a mixture between 5th and 6th.

The pre-measurement, the escalation of points and overkill-models (D-templates), etc.. were something to get used to. The whole "apoc-units" problem was mostly negated at our local meta, since almost no one ever used them. Some of the things about 6th, I thought were nice additions. Things like snap shots, new wound allocation or vehicle hull points were some changes I really welcomed.

Since I have no inclination to play modern AO40KS, I had a blank check to go back to whatever edition of both systems my heart desired, I went back to 3rd Ed. 40k and 6th Ed. WFB, and have a player pool to choose from, so that should tell you...

I really like 8th, and I've generally liked the new edition bettee than the last since 2nd, so I'm excited to see what improvements 9th brings even though it seems like all it would need to do is consolidate 8th's development.

7th by far, for me and my group was the best the game had ever been, yes it needed a few things sorting but not much and a chapter approved book could have sorted any points issues easy, although not really cos they only base points changed off of tournaments. It was the tournaments and the waac community that killed 7th, and 8th is everything that they said they didn’t want before it was released and the amount of constant changes makes it impossible to keep up for most people and/or support other games.

2nd is still my favourite.

8th (the core rules only) is a close second. However, 8th has been losing its appeal to me based on the power creep and the rather absurd combos which are just game breaking.

 Stormonu wrote:
8th has its warts, but I have to say I've enjoyed it most.

Overall, the one thing I've learned from my years of gaming is that there is neither a perfect ruleset nor do I need to blindly follow what someone else has put together. If I don't like it - I can change it so I do.

That, and the game plays so much better at about 1,000 - 1,250 points (with no Lords O' War).

Do you play on a 4x4? Because for me 1200 points barely feels like I have anything on the table on a 6x4.

8th but I do miss vehicle facings and Blast pie plates.

Silver144 wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
I played only one game of 5th, but then played 6th, 7th and 8th. Of the three 8th has the most tactical depth by far, it got rid of unnecessary bloat, tanks feel like tanks and the stratagem system is a very nice addon that actually gives you decisions. The psychic phase is also a vast improvement and I like the many possible addons for narrative play. Constant FAQs are also very appreciated, CSM waited nearly two whole editions in the dust, now OP units get adjusted pretty fast. Terrain is pretty useless in normal 8th though, but Cities of Death fixed that already.

May I ask how did the CoD fixed terrain?
Infantry still could warp through the solid walls without doors or windows, should just a tiny bit of your soldier's hat be visible behind the terrain, and suddenly the whole squad could be targeted and killed. Oh, and should just one guy stay in the open, the other 19 lose their cover bonus. Is it fixed?

Yep.

Well no, but the actual problems with CoD aren't what you complained about here.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ccs wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
8th, because you can't beat consistent FAQs and actual point changes.

So you call an unstable rules system an improvement??

Over flat broken rules systems that slowly got even more degraded over time?

Yeah.

2nd Was the best. 3-4th down hill. 8th is about where 3rd was.

6th edition, pre-Knights. I enjoyed 5th, but the lack of standard mission variety got old, and I wasn't big on Mech-Vets.

4th and 3rd were ok, but the glaring assault-to-assault-to-assault-to-assault where I couldn't shoot anything was tiresome in third, and the overly easily destroyed vehicles of 4th were also problematic.

While I played 2nd, it was my least favourite experience of any edition except 7th, which I grew to *hate*. I enjoyed the streamlining of the rules from 2nd to 3rd... 2nd was just a mess to me. Fun, but a mess. 7th was the absolute MOST unbalanced edition I've played. I despised it.