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 Mezmorki wrote:


- Space Marines (5th)
- Blood Angles (5th)
- Dark Angles (4th)
- Space Wolves (5th)
- Black Templars (4th)
- Chaos Marines (3.5 edition)
- Orks (3rd) + Feral Orks (3rd, in chapter approved)
- Tyranids (5th probably?)
- Tau (4th)
- Necrons (5th)
- Dark Eldar (5th)
- Eldar (4th, but maybe stretch to 6th and break the rule)
- Imperial Guard (3.5 edition with regimental doctrines, 4th ed catachans also)
- Witch Hunters (3rd edition)
- Daemonhunters (3rd)

There's going to be some serious balance issues there. As a Guard player who was using 3.5 edition throughout 5th until the Guard dex dropped they just couldn't compete.

The perfect Guard codex would have been 5th edition, with the restrictions and customisations from the 3.5 codex. The restrictions being the pick 5 system.

For example:
- If you wanted to play the old mechanized veteran spam: You'd have to use 1 of your points to unlock the mechanized organisation, then another point to unlock veterans. That means you'd be left with 3 points to unlock additional units like Priests, Tech-Priests, Psykers, Storm Troopers/Scions, Ratlings, Ogryns, or to spend on unlocking additional Equipment/Skills/Drills. The latter typically also costing points. So while the old 5th edition mechanized veteran spam would still have been good, it would have been very restrictive on other units.

 Insectum7 wrote:
That one made a lot of sense to me, personally.

A Rhino has it's pintle Combi-Bolter blasted off and the 10 crazed Khornate warriors lusting for blood lose their bottle and dive out its doors?

No.

 Insectum7 wrote:
But those harsh transport rules sure put a stop to Rhino rushes, thank god.

Auto-disembark on penetrating hit did nothing to stop Rhino rushes. Cannot declare a charge after disembarking did that without the need for idiotic rules like auto-disembarking.

 Ordana wrote:
5th. Wasn't that Tau Riptide, Grey Knight psybolt ammo spam, Paladin deathstars and the infamous leafblower?

Ya, and return to TLOS, which was terrible.

I'm not any sort of rules critic, but I remember 3rd being a fun edition. Chapter Approved, Inquisition codexes, Eye of Terror and Armageddon, vehicle design rules, etc. Flyer rules that made (more) sense for the scale.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
3rd.

It collapsed under the weight of all the additional rules and whatnot, but at least that was towards the end of the edition, rather than right from the start like 9th.

Imo Codex BA "broke" 3rd ed in under 2 years, or something like that. Terrible codex.

the 3rd ed BA codex came out the year 3rd ed was released (it was released not long after the space marine codex).

So it broke the game from the first year of release with its black rage charging rules.


IMO 4th was the best of this rules paradigm, partly because it had given us a good LOS rules that didn't require looking at models with their fists in the air to determine if you could hit them...

But also because they'd shifted back to the more indepth codex concept.

However not all codexes were released in 4th ed, making it complicated to play 'purely'.

I'd try to play pure 4th ed codexes if possible, only bringing in a codex if the force wasn't released in 4th (like the 5th ed dark eldar codex).

But IMO, if you were to play any one previous edition, 4th hit a sweet spot of various rules and codex power levels.


EDIT
According to lexicanum, 4th ed saw the release of these factions:

• Space Marines
• Tyranids
• Black Templars
• Tau Empire
• Eldar
• Dark Angels
• Blood Angels
• Chaos Space Marines
• Orks
• Chaos Daemons
• Catachans

iirc 4th ed chaos marines was pretty poor, so maybe going back to 3.5 chaos would work.

I'd default to 3.5 codexes for armies that aren't listed if possible, or go to 5th if necessary.

However 5th started producing stupid books so it's hard to really choose.

5th was also the time when some armies were revamped (Necrons and Dark Eldar specifically), creating a bit of a headache for getting them into 4th ed...

^I'd say the one thing in the 5th ed paradigm that was appreciated, codex wise, was the reintroduction of Combat Squads, and Bolt Pistol, Frag and Krak as default wargear for Marines. But otherwise I always default to the early-mid 4th ed codexes, plus the Chapter Approved stuff like Vehicle Design Rules, Speed Freaks, Kroot army, etc.

I would like 5th a lot more if it didn't involve using the awful 4th ed Chaos codex. That book was like unbuttered toast.

 Cap'n Facebeard wrote:
I would like 5th a lot more if it didn't involve using the awful 4th ed Chaos codex. That book was like unbuttered toast.

Chaos 3.5 is the true book of 4th ed. The 4th ed Chaos book came out like mere months before 5th dropped.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Chaos 3.5 is the true book.

I removed the redundancies from your statement.

"Oh but Iron Warrior million Basilisk spam reee" - The Internet.

You could only take one.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Chaos 3.5 is the true book.

I removed the redundancies from your statement.

This is true. Every CSM codex after has been a pale comparison, with only supplements to save them (Traitor Legions, Faith and Fury, IA13). And gw has a tendency to release those at the end of editions. And nothing saved the 4th edition Failure.

This is true. Every CSM codex after has been a pale comparison, with only supplements to save them (Traitor Legions, Faith and Fury, IA13)

Traitor's Hate was another example.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Chaos 3.5 is the true book.

I removed the redundancies from your statement.

Fair call

Jarms48 wrote:

 Mezmorki wrote:


- Space Marines (5th)
- Blood Angles (5th)
- Dark Angles (4th)
- Space Wolves (5th)
- Black Templars (4th)
- Chaos Marines (3.5 edition)
- Orks (3rd) + Feral Orks (3rd, in chapter approved)
- Tyranids (5th probably?)
- Tau (4th)
- Necrons (5th)
- Dark Eldar (5th)
- Eldar (4th, but maybe stretch to 6th and break the rule)
- Imperial Guard (3.5 edition with regimental doctrines, 4th ed catachans also)
- Witch Hunters (3rd edition)
- Daemonhunters (3rd)

There's going to be some serious balance issues there. As a Guard player who was using 3.5 edition throughout 5th until the Guard dex dropped they just couldn't compete.

Orks would be in significant disadvantage by using their 3rd edition codex instead of their 4th one vs most of those other codexes.

Yeah, 3rd ed Orks vs 5th ed Necrons? Yikes.

In terms of playing an oldhammer edition (assuming you don't go prohammer), each edition had a few outstanding issues in the rules beyond codex imbalance that you can house rule off the bat. Points level is also significant.

For 5e:
-play at 1500-1850pts.
-wound allocation - split units into squad leaders, upgraded, and basic at most (rather than a seperate 'group' for every unique item combination).
-vehicles - add +1 to the penetrading damage rolls of any vehicle that has suffered one or more weapon destroyed or immobilized effects

Locally we also avoided playing straight-up killpoint games and binned the GK dex.

 Ordana wrote:
5th. Wasn't that Tau Riptide, Grey Knight psybolt ammo spam, Paladin deathstars and the infamous leafblower?

Riptide was 6th edition - the joys of tautide and taudar.
GK came in at the end of 5th as was the height of the Ward trying to break the edition with needless escalation.

Leafblower was solidly 5e, albeit a 2500pt list played on planet bowling ball. Transport rules aside a lot of books just didn't scale to those points whereas guard could 'expand' their force org slots with squadrons and platoons.
2500pts of guard was 2500pts of good units. Something like 3.5 Dark Eldar was at best 1500pts of good units and then scraping the barrel to fill out the rest.

 Cap'n Facebeard wrote:
"Oh but Iron Warrior million Basilisk spam reee" - The Internet.

The bulk of the 3.5 codex was fine but its shenanigans game was strong. You could remove or adjust a few of the worst offenders and it would be a perfectly good book - I mean there is no good reason at all why something like Siren should exist, and obliterators are clearly mis-slotted for the edition.

The biggest thing for me that people forget about 4th was how easy it was to downgrade Pens to glancing. Obscured vehicles, smoke, etc. all meant that your transport was very resistant to pens and having the unit just get yeeted out in front of the enemy.

But you had to be careful and ensure those things, rather than just merrily trundling up the board and taking like 15 penetrating hits that barely bother anyone like in 5th

A.T. wrote:

GK came in at the end of 5th as was the height of the Ward trying to break the edition with needless escalation.

Yeah, they came so late in 5th that they weren't really a thing. I don't think I've ever played against GK once during 5th, while they were still quite pouplar in 6-7th and played a lot against GK then.

If I had to revive an oldhammer scene now, with no pre-game toning up/down the lists, I'd certainly ban the GK 5th edition codex.

So the 5th Grey Knight codex lasted all through 6th Ed (all two years of it) and was replaced by a 7th edition 'dex. I feel like the power level between the 5th abs 7th edition books weren't too different, except that nearly everyone had power creeped up by then as well. Thoughts?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Another question - I didn't play much tyranids back in the day - but what did people think of the power balance between the classic (3rd - 7th) Tyranid codexes?

 Mezmorki wrote:
So the 5th Grey Knight codex lasted all through 6th Ed (all two years of it) and was replaced by a 7th edition 'dex. I feel like the power level between the 5th abs 7th edition books weren't too different, except that nearly everyone had power creeped up by then as well. Thoughts?

The first time I ran into GK in 6th was in a doubles game - marines with a side of inquisition ran over them convincingly. The 6e core rules had knocked some of the steam out of them, though they weren't bad as such. Formation lunacy and raw power creep ultimately left them behind.

I remember the 5e Guard, Blood Angels and Space Wolves books all being a bit silly. I think the game was better with flyers as an optional unit for special scenarios. 4e Orks is my favourite codex of all time, so many different ways to build an ork army!

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
That one made a lot of sense to me, personally.

A Rhino has it's pintle Combi-Bolter blasted off and the 10 crazed Khornate warriors lusting for blood lose their bottle and dive out its doors?

No.

More like your tank is taking heavy enough fire to be at risk of exploding with everyone in it, and everybody wants to get out. Imo that's pretty understandable. A Heavy Bolter could only glance a Rhino, so there isn't a auto-disembark threat until something pretty heavy is aimed at it and rolls well.

Also, Khornate Blood Frenzy made Khorne Warriors jump out of their Rhino anyways, before it moves even.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
But those harsh transport rules sure put a stop to Rhino rushes, thank god.

Auto-disembark on penetrating hit did nothing to stop Rhino rushes. Cannot declare a charge after disembarking did that without the need for idiotic rules like auto-disembarking.

By "those harsh transport rules" I mean the whole set of transport rules, which were much harsher than 3rd ed and includes not being able to charge after disembarkation. That said, open-topped vehicles and Assault Vehicles (Land Raiders) could still move and disembark passengers who could charge. The auto-disembark from penetrating hits was very important there, since DE and Orks could also be "transport-rush" armies and being able to effectively counter them by stalling a unit or two was critical. (One of my primary opponents played both DE and Orks).

If we went back to 4th would I leave the transport rules unchanged? I'd probably tune them a bit. But I don't think they're too outside the realm of reasonable as they are.

 Mezmorki wrote:
Another question - I didn't play much tyranids back in the day - but what did people think of the power balance between the classic (3rd - 7th) Tyranid codexes?

3rd Ed- Reasonably strong base codex, but could pull some real nasty tricks if you abused the build-your-own-hive-fleet system and mutant mechanics.
4th Ed- Weaker than 3rd, struggled against the star players of 4th but was otherwise fine. This is my pick for most fun Tyranid codex; with lots of characterful options and upgrades.
5th Ed- Bland, weak, poorly written, why Tyranid players hate Robin Cruddace forevermore.
6th Ed- Can't comment, didn't play 6th.

And then Tyranids never got a 7th Ed codex so that was it until 8th.

 Da Boss wrote:
I remember the 5e Guard, Blood Angels and Space Wolves books all being a bit silly.

5e Wolves came across as a bit of a fandex with stacked up special rules, abilities and other freebies.

BA was more of a standard codex creep IMO with a few things going up but mostly sweeping points cuts and power ups, not all of which were unwarranted. Lack of scoring bikes probably prevented it entirely replacing the generic marine codex.

In 4th, you can still charge after disembarking. You just can't do it if you disembark after the transport moved unless you are Open Topped or have Assault Vehicle.

I play Steel Legion in 4th currently (as in my last 4th ed game was Monday) and that's an army that uses all transports for everyone, mandatory, from their codex. I'm having a grand old time, because I understand the rules. Smoke? Everything auto-glances if it otherwise would penetrate. Obscuring? 4+ save to turn a penetrate into a glance. Just two examples - but the main thing is, I don't just fart around inside my transports. I can't play mechvet 5th Edition imperial guard style where the entire army is in tanks forever and no one gets out (but half the squad can still fire with important weapons).

I have to play real mechanized infantry, as in ones that maneuver carefully and disembark close to enemy positions. Not just tanks with +60 point upgrades that gives them an extra 3 Plasma Guns with split fire.

 catbarf wrote:

4th Ed- Weaker than 3rd, struggled against the star players of 4th but was otherwise fine. This is my pick for most fun Tyranid codex; with lots of characterful options and upgrades.

^This is where 3.5 - early 4th ed REALLY shined, imo. I didn't collect or play Tyranids, Chaos, Guard etc. But boy did I constantly experiment with making lists for each of those armies just because of how fun their codexes were to experiment with. Great imagery, lots of options, very cool.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
In 4th, you can still charge after disembarking. You just can't do it if you disembark after the transport moved unless you are Open Topped or have Assault Vehicle.

I play Steel Legion in 4th currently (as in my last 4th ed game was Monday) and that's an army that uses all transports for everyone, mandatory, from their codex. I'm having a grand old time, because I understand the rules. Smoke? Everything auto-glances if it otherwise would penetrate. Obscuring? 4+ save to turn a penetrate into a glance. Just two examples - but the main thing is, I don't just fart around inside my transports. I can't play mechvet 5th Edition imperial guard style where the entire army is in tanks forever and no one gets out (but half the squad can still fire with important weapons).

I have to play real mechanized infantry, as in ones that maneuver carefully and disembark close to enemy positions. Not just tanks with +60 point upgrades that gives them an extra 3 Plasma Guns with split fire.

Thanks for the clarification. And oh yeah, Smoke Launchers! I totally forgot they worked like that.

God I want to go back and play 4th so bad now!

I was a bit miserable for a chunk of 4e because I was waiting for my ork codex to be updated. I was flat broke so I didn't really have the money to change it too much and not great at conversions so I didn't have much stuff that wasn't an official model. 5e came out pretty soon after the codex was released and I've always thought of it as being the 5e codex because of that. I should really give 4e another look though because a lot of my favourite codex books came out back then.

 Da Boss wrote:
I was a bit miserable for a chunk of 4e because I was waiting for my ork codex to be updated. I was flat broke so I didn't really have the money to change it too much and not great at conversions so I didn't have much stuff that wasn't an official model. 5e came out pretty soon after the codex was released and I've always thought of it as being the 5e codex because of that. I should really give 4e another look though because a lot of my favourite codex books came out back then.

Yeah I think the Ork book was about 10 years old by the time it got updated at the end of 4th. My brother played Orks and Dark Eldar, and both of those books went about a decade before being updated.

Orks at least got some love in the shape of Codex Armageddon, where they got Speed Freaks, and Chapter Approved, where they got Feral Orks. He also leaned on conversions in the form of Looted Vehicles and eventually custom vehicles using the Vehicle Design Rules. And I'll curse Zzap Guns forever because of it

I would also vote for 4th edition being the best.