Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

See, I feel like that kind of falls apart when some armies are just really built for MSU rather than chunky units.

Oh yeah, kill points were teeerrrrriiiblle.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Oh yeah, kill points were teeerrrrriiiblle.

Interesting to see hate for kill points. I didn't care one way or another, but in my local meta there were a lot of people who just preferred long board edges and kill points (Pitched Battle/ Annihilation). They liked to, as Rick Priestly would say, "line 'em up and go."

 Arschbombe wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Oh yeah, kill points were teeerrrrriiiblle.

Interesting to see hate for kill points. I didn't care one way or another, but in my local meta there were a lot of people who just preferred long board edges and kill points (Pitched Battle/ Annihilation). They liked to, as Rick Priestly would say, "line 'em up and go."

It's because, as the upthread poster noted, kill points were really rough for some armies. DE Raiders were easy points, as were Ork Trukks. It was a crappy way to tally "value destroyed".

A 30 pt. Trukk being worth the same as a 250 point Terminator Squad makes even less sense than Power Level

 Insectum7 wrote:


It's because, as the upthread poster noted, kill points were really rough for some armies. DE Raiders were easy points, as were Ork Trukks. It was a crappy way to tally "value destroyed".

A 30 pt. Trukk being worth the same as a 250 point Terminator Squad makes even less sense than Power Level

I get that. But being disadvantageous for some armies doesn't automatically translate into universal hatred. And it seems in this discussion at least, that kill points are seen specifically as a 5th ed problem, but they were ported over to 6th edition too. And anyway, like I said my local scene had lots of players who didn't want to roll for the mission, place objectives or anything. They just wanted to have a fight. This far removed from that time, I can't remember if there was a pattern in the armies that these guys played.

Having missions where you could have lots of your army starting off the table was normal back in the day.

There was a lot more mission variety, not necessarily from a deployment zone perspective (that certainly grew over the years), but from a "what you were doing" perspective.

I think the last set of interesting missions came out in 8th. Now, even with 10th's improvements, they'll all variations on capturing 4-5 arbitrary spots on the table and then getting points for it.

I miss the days where winning or drawing a table-quarters mission coming down to whether a combi-bolter on a Chaos Rhino could down a Vyper.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Oh yeah, kill points were teeerrrrriiiblle.

As were Hull Points.

 Arschbombe wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:


It's because, as the upthread poster noted, kill points were really rough for some armies. DE Raiders were easy points, as were Ork Trukks. It was a crappy way to tally "value destroyed".

A 30 pt. Trukk being worth the same as a 250 point Terminator Squad makes even less sense than Power Level

I get that. But being disadvantageous for some armies doesn't automatically translate into universal hatred. And it seems in this discussion at least, that kill points are seen specifically as a 5th ed problem, but they were ported over to 6th edition too. And anyway, like I said my local scene had lots of players who didn't want to roll for the mission, place objectives or anything. They just wanted to have a fight. This far removed from that time, I can't remember if there was a pattern in the armies that these guys played.

I'm sure it wasn't universally hated, but I imagine the people who don't hate it probably play marines or some other army that is comfortable fielding a small number of expensive units. For armies like dark eldar or orks, it just felt like kind of a lazy, thoughtless mechanic that was willing to throw some factions under the boss to spare people the trouble of counting up individual model costs.

Which is why I preferred the later PL-as-kill points approach. Even if PL isn't perfect, it's usually at least in the right ballpark. So killing 10 gretchin and killing 10 terminators aren't rewarded to the same degree. I get that 5th edition kill points were basically just a way to reward people for killing things without having to calculate 4th edition victory points, but it's weird to me that people wouldn't prefer something like PL kill points now that the concept exists.

Again, not trying to game shame anyone. Do what you find fun. The old KP system was just such a sore spot that it seems genuinely weird to me that it has defenders.

Which is partly why I asked earlier what the meta looks like for those still playing some version of 5th. Do you have, for instance, a lot of ork players, and are they not bothered by things like being at a disadvantage when playing Kill Points or when the DoWar deployment comes up? I tend to think of 5th edition as a good edition for imperial players while most other factions were left with outdated or awkward rules.

(5th edition dark eldar codex is still the best codex ever written though.)

 Insectum7 wrote:
A 30 pt. Trukk being worth the same as a 250 point Terminator Squad makes even less sense than Power Level

It makes perfect sense given the context: that it's a balancing mechanism to offset the advantages eight trukks have against a single terminator squad when playing the objective missions. Penalizing MSU lists is the entire purpose of it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Which is why I preferred the later PL-as-kill points approach. Even if PL isn't perfect, it's usually at least in the right ballpark. So killing 10 gretchin and killing 10 terminators aren't rewarded to the same degree.

But then how do you balance MSU? Under that system 2/3 missions actively reward MSU while the third is neutral, meaning there's little or no reason to play anything but full MSU.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Which is why I preferred the later PL-as-kill points approach. Even if PL isn't perfect, it's usually at least in the right ballpark. So killing 10 gretchin and killing 10 terminators aren't rewarded to the same degree.

But then how do you balance MSU? Under that system 2/3 missions actively reward MSU while the third is neutral, meaning there's little or no reason to play anything but full MSU.

What was the problem with playing MSU again? Was it just that you could have more targets than your opponent could deal with? If so, the easiest solution would probably just allow units to split fire like they can now. Especially in the context of 5th edition where taking a few casualties here and there could make squads fall back and potentially fall off the table, it seems like that's a pretty simple solution. Plus, having to waste bolter marine shots when you want to shoot your tac squad meltas at an enemy vehicle was always annoying anyway, so adding split fire as a universal rule is probably just a good move in general.

Aside from that, if we accept that MSU was a problem, you still have:
* Wargear options that only get unlocked when you take enough bodies.
* Limited force org slots. So if you want to squeeze more elites into your list, you may have to take a 10-man squad of tankbustas instead of 2 5-man squads.
* More efficient use of buffs like psychic powers and pain tokens. Granted, iirc there were a lot fewer buffs back then than there are now.
* Bodyguard units for characters were harder to burn through meaning larger squads offered more protection. Or the mini-version of that: sergeants with expensive gear are less likely to get unlucky and bite the dust. Especially vs MSU shooting that will generally generate smaller numbers of wounds at a time (meaning you can opt not to assign wounds to the sergeant as long as you have more bodies than incoming wounds.)

But honestly, I remember MSU armies being preferable to the alternative back in 5th edition. If someone was piling a bunch of points into one unit, it usually meant that unit was undercosted and being spammed, or that they'd found some gnarly combo that was worth piling a bunch of points into a single unit. I don't think people generally enjoyed facing Eldrad and Yriel and their 10-man wraithguard bodyguard or the expensive seer council on the flank or the nob biker star across the table.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
What was the problem with playing MSU again?

Nothing. The problem is when MSU is the only choice, when if you have a choice between a 10-man squad or two 5-man squads you always choose the two 5-man squads unless you're out of FOC slots because the two units are better in every way. Kill points counting one dead unit = 1 point was a way to balance that out and add some incentive to bring the larger units.

I don't think this would be true in 10th, btw, now that OC is a thing instead of having objectives controlled by whoever has the most units on them regardless of unit size.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
What was the problem with playing MSU again?

Nothing. The problem is when MSU is the only choice, when if you have a choice between a 10-man squad or two 5-man squads you always choose the two 5-man squads unless you're out of FOC slots because the two units are better in every way. Kill points counting one dead unit = 1 point was a way to balance that out and add some incentive to bring the larger units.

Well, first of all, is there something innately wrong with having two 5-man squads instead of one 10-man squad? In the context of 5th edition, that basically meant that you had more tactical flexibility, more interesting decisions to make, etc. Plus, your opponent would probably feel better about successfully wiping out a 5-man terminator squad rather than half of a 10-man terminator squad. Feels less bad to lose 5 incubi at a time to incoming fire than 10 incubi too.

Second, if we accept that both MSU and large squads should be viable, basically handing an auto-win to the non-MSU army whenever they face dark eldar and orks seems like a subpar way to "balance" things out. Especially because the Kill Points mission existing didn't really make dark eldar players field large squads; it just punished them for playing an army that was still more efficient when you took MSU despite auto-losing a third of your games.

Third, as mentioned previously, there are upsides to fielding larger squads. In addition to the benefits I mentioned before, there's also the fact that you can't share transports in 5th edition. So if you field a rhino and only use a 5-man squad, you're theoretically paying for 5 unused seats.

Fourth, if the existing benefits of running larger squads aren't enough of an incentive, and if we really, really want large squads to be equally viable with small squads for some reason, then you can always add additional incentives. Ex: Use OC instead of the 5th edition scoring rules which I maintain were kind of crummy, charge a discounted points cost for extra models in a large squad to offset any inherent disadvantages (HH style), or expand on wargear incentives for large squads (ex: maybe 20-man guardian squads get 3 heavy weapons instead of 2).

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Well, first of all, is there something innately wrong with having two 5-man squads instead of one 10-man squad?

There isn't. The problem is, like I said, when it is always the best choice. In 2/3 missions MSU was extremely heavily favored, the third mission gave it some drawbacks so it was less of an auto-take. That's why tournament players hated kill points so much and wanted it removed, it made it harder to win in the list building phase by mindlessly spamming a bunch of 5-man squads in Razorbacks.

Second, if we accept that both MSU and large squads should be viable, basically handing an auto-win to the non-MSU army whenever they face dark eldar and orks seems like a subpar way to "balance" things out. Especially because the Kill Points mission existing didn't really make dark eldar players field large squads; it just punished them for playing an army that was still more efficient when you took MSU despite auto-losing a third of your games.

Orks had the ability to take larger units. DE were a problem I guess, but did they even have a real codex at that point? It seems like the problem here is less kill points and more DE having a bad codex.

Third, as mentioned previously, there are upsides to fielding larger squads. In addition to the benefits I mentioned before, there's also the fact that you can't share transports in 5th edition. So if you field a rhino and only use a 5-man squad, you're theoretically paying for 5 unused seats.

Except in practice being able to fit into a Razorback and have a gun tank instead of just a Rhino was an advantage, not a drawback. And then you took a second Razorback for your other 5-man MSU squad, until you had a full parking lot.

Fourth, if the existing benefits of running larger squads aren't enough of an incentive, and if we really, really want large squads to be equally viable with small squads for some reason, then you can always add additional incentives.

Sure, but those incentives weren't there in 5th and that's the context the mechanic existed in. I already said that the penalty wouldn't be necessary in 10th because of how OC works.

I find it weird that you like 5th if you want to encourage larger squads.

FYI: I did not endorse 5th as a whole, I was just explaining the misconceptions with kill points and why it was a good mechanic despite people (mostly tournament players who wanted to win in the list building phase) hating it.

While I'd never say 40k has had a good ruleset, 4th edition definitely felt felt like it had the most effort put towards achieving that goal. And therefor got the closest.

While it did have issues (fish of fury, huge risk on transports, arguably consolidating into combat) it definitely had the best rules at a baseline. Transports having a noticeable risk attached, skimmers being harder to hit than just dudes on the ground, actually defined roles in that melee was for eliminating high-armor targets where as ranged was more about safety and volume of fire. That's to say nothing of the decent attempts at actually adding tactical depth in the form of target priority, choices between shooting or charging, and various other things which made the game more than "I advance my wall of death, shoot al the things, and then charge to mop up."

6th edition is definitely the worst core-rules 40k has ever had. By a wide margin. The introduction of challenges, precision attacks, wounds from the front, and numerous other mechanics absolutely decimated a fair number of factions. This was then further exacerbated by the haves vs have-nots in terms of stuff they added such as flyers / anti-air and super heavies (and directly resulted in orks and guards being locked in a fierce competition for worst-faction-in-the-game). Also the stupidity of allies.

7th was substantially better than 6th in the core rules department. At least in terms of it being "better" to be forced to eat a gak-filled burrito that comes with salsa and a side of nachos, vs just gak in a tortilla. Then the mid-edition pivot into Decurian style formation madness made it the worst balance (not core rules, but balance) 40k has ever seen by a huge margin. With guard and orks once again duking it out at the bottom of the garbage pile to see who was the absolute worst of the worst.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 aphyon wrote:

 MinscS2 wrote:
Its too early to tell, but I think 10th may very well become my favorite edition actually, unless the codicies absolutely feth it up.

Other than that, I think 5th is my favorite edition, but it might be nostalgia talking and I might've forgotten everything I didn't like about it.

It is not nostalgia. our FLGS group STILL plays 5th with some rules fixes (mostly re-instating some rules from other editions to fix things like wound allocation shenanigans and flyer rules from FW) and the game has never been better and more fun to play. once you start doing what we are doing you won't give a GAK what GW is doing other than maybe snagging a new model here and there...but do you really need to do that very often when you can get 3d printed ones that are better looking and far cheaper?

I'm glad to hear you're having a good time, but I'm always surprised when people express fondness for 5th as it was my first and least-favorite edition. I'm wondering if you've added any houserules to address my personal pet peeves:

* Only scoring with troops was rough for armies (like my eldar) whose troops were neither super cheap, super durable, or good at tankbusting. This also weirdly turned a lot of games into troop hunting where you'd semi-ignore the enemy's more threatening pieces so you could finish off random guardsman squad number 6.

* Vehicles everywhere. Definitely the parking lot edition. Which was too bad for those of us who found the infantry kits more interesting than tanks. This also lead to lower list diversity as you had to make sure you crammed enough anti-tank guns into your list to deal with those parking lots. So no taking striking scorpions unless you've grabbed your mandatory fire dragon squads already. No flamers until you have more meltas than you can count.

* Random end of game scoring. That awkward, gamble where you have to decide whether to try and hold an objective on turn 5, wait until 6, or hold out until 7, knowing that your squishy troops won't be likely to survive more than a single turn.

* The missions in general. There were only 3 missions in the main book as I recall. One of them basically screwed over melee and heavy weapon units (Dawn of War), and the Kill Points mission strongly favored elite, durable armies over squishy MSU armies.

I also recall the following getting griped about a lot, although I didn't personally mind them as much:
* Taking extra damage at the end of the Assault phase because you're Fearless.
* Initiative being pretty feels-bad for I3 and I2 armies.
* Skimmers being nigh-unhittable if they'd moved that turn.
* Being stuck in melee with a walker or other tarpit and not having the option to fall back.

Do you do anything to address any of the above? I'm also curious about what your local meta looks like. I tend to think that people who like 5th edition are probably playing imperial armies; probably with lots of tanks. I'm curious to know if your local crowd bucks my stereotype.

I have an entire topic here on dakka for what we did- but to hit the questions

1. all units can score including vehicles unless they are immobilized, but "troops" gain OBSEC.

2.vehicles have never been a problem and we see no need to address it beyond bringing a well rounded army that can deal with a bit of everything. we are not tournament players so we try to make our forces fit the theme of the universe as much as possible. even superheavies see regular play because we use the old IA rules for them circa 3rd/4th where they were designed to be played in normal games and thus were not stupidly overpowered.

3. we LOVE end of game scoring and random turn length. it makes both players actively involved until the very end and can swing the game either way. it usually leads to some very close games which are always the best.


I have the main rule books for 3rd-6th (used to have them all but gifted them to others) along with all the FW books so finding a mission or creating our own is not difficult to do. just for objectives alone you have.
.king of the hill-center objective
.movable objectives
.mysterious objectives
.d3+2 objectives.
.attack/defend objectives
.table quarters

etc....

with -slay the warlord, first blood and linebreaker retained as tie breakers.

.fearless uses the old 3rd/4th rules-extra wounds was dumb
.I2/3 armies are fine, it adds flavor, if you get into CC with say tau (not that i have not seen them win) then they probably made a mistake somewhere.
.the big problem with skimmers was 4th where they could only be glanced (especially eldar with upgrades) 5th ed rules work just fine they suffer the same damage as any other vehicle and if you mean turbo boosting for a 4+ jink.....well we have hydras for that. it is seriously no different than a predator sitting in a ruined building.
.stuck in combat is fine, if you brought the right equipment as mentioned before, then you should have a chance in most cases even against a walker....like only a silly person would charge a dread into CC with a squad of tau with EMP grenades or a eldar unit with haywire, especially since we use 6th/7th ed overwatch and grenade throwing rules. overall breaking and running and being cut down is fine as it makes marines ATSKNF or ork mob rules actually mean something.

The local scene by army off the top of my head-some players have more than 1

.X2 dark eldar 4th ed codex
.X1 chaos khorne 3.5 codex
.X1 chaos word bearers with heavy demon representation 3.5 codex
.X2 iron warriors 3.5 codex
.X4 ork 4th ed codex
.X3 tyrand codex 4th/5th/6th ed codexes
.X2 inquisitorial armies 3rd/5th ed codexes
.X4 imperial guard 3rd/4th/5th ed/FW codexes
.X2 tau 4th/7th ed codexes
.X1 admech-7th ed codex
.X2 necron 5th/FW codexes (orpheus)
A mix of marines, mostly 3rd-5th ed index astartes/codexes-iron hands, dark angels, blood angels, crimson fists, salamanders, ultra marines, angry marines (we homebrewed a rule set for them for the LOLs)

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
A 30 pt. Trukk being worth the same as a 250 point Terminator Squad makes even less sense than Power Level

It makes perfect sense given the context: that it's a balancing mechanism to offset the advantages eight trukks have against a single terminator squad when playing the objective missions. Penalizing MSU lists is the entire purpose of it.

It might have been their goal to mitigate MSU, but Kill Points as implemented was huge overkill for that.

If we're looking at editions as a whole, 5th edition also had the Battle Missions book, which added ~30 additional missions.

Consolidating into combat has been brought up a few tiimes now. In 3rd you could only consolidate 3", was that different in 4th? It's been so long that I can't remember. DEFINITELY can't remember what 5th did.

 Just Tony wrote:
Consolidating into combat has been brought up a few tiimes now. In 3rd you could only consolidate 3", was that different in 4th? It's been so long that I can't remember. DEFINITELY can't remember what 5th did.

In 3e you could consolidate 3" or sweeping advance 2d6" towards the fleeing unit and anyone else in that direction - the latter had a kind of 'overwatch' clause where the advancing units could be shot at even though they had locked their target in combat.
Jump units, cavalry, and bikes advanced 3d6".

4th was a 3" colsolidate or 1d6" if you wiped out the other unit. Advancing units were no longer valid targets for shooting.

5th was always 1d6", and no consolidation into combat.

4th edition -> Sweeping advance does not move the unit from its current position.

3rd edition -> Sweeping advance moves 2D6 towards the fleeing enemy. If you get in base contact with any enemy model, it counts as a charge including the bonus attack.

a_typical_hero wrote:
3rd edition -> Sweeping advance moves 2D6 towards the fleeing enemy. If you get in base contact with any enemy model, it counts as a charge including the bonus attack.

3rd ed also had crossfire.

Random grot wandering across the board in the path of your retreating units? Wipeout, no saves. And path in this case was a corridor as wide as your unit directly back to your deployment zone - though you still rolled for distance.

So spacing your units out STILL negated the whole consolidation thing in later editions? Why was it a problem? Was it the meta at the time to group your entire army that closely together? I don't remember that happening at all in the wild. Once I got consolidated into, and I never had my units close enough to each other to ever allow it to happen again. I was simply the buffoon who was addled enough to let it happen to them in the first place, apparently.

 Just Tony wrote:
So spacing your units out STILL negated the whole consolidation thing in later editions? Why was it a problem? Was it the meta at the time to group your entire army that closely together? I don't remember that happening at all in the wild. Once I got consolidated into, and I never had my units close enough to each other to ever allow it to happen again. I was simply the buffoon who was addled enough to let it happen to them in the first place, apparently.

I didn't play pre-5th, but the understanding I have of consolidation being a problem is that it functionally stunlocked big chunks of your army when it did work. So maybe it didn't happen often but was memorably annoying when it did?

Rapid fire was also much more restrictive back in the day, so I imagine it was pretty normal to clump units up within 12" of the enemy to maximize shots. But maybe I'm wrong.

 Arschbombe wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:


It's because, as the upthread poster noted, kill points were really rough for some armies. DE Raiders were easy points, as were Ork Trukks. It was a crappy way to tally "value destroyed".

A 30 pt. Trukk being worth the same as a 250 point Terminator Squad makes even less sense than Power Level

I get that. But being disadvantageous for some armies doesn't automatically translate into universal hatred. And it seems in this discussion at least, that kill points are seen specifically as a 5th ed problem, but they were ported over to 6th edition too. And anyway, like I said my local scene had lots of players who didn't want to roll for the mission, place objectives or anything. They just wanted to have a fight. This far removed from that time, I can't remember if there was a pattern in the armies that these guys played.

It's funny, because that's exactly what the 'their's no strategy in 40k' people are talking about. They were literally just lining up and removing models.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
So spacing your units out STILL negated the whole consolidation thing in later editions? Why was it a problem? Was it the meta at the time to group your entire army that closely together? I don't remember that happening at all in the wild. Once I got consolidated into, and I never had my units close enough to each other to ever allow it to happen again. I was simply the buffoon who was addled enough to let it happen to them in the first place, apparently.

I didn't play pre-5th, but the understanding I have of consolidation being a problem is that it functionally stunlocked big chunks of your army when it did work. So maybe it didn't happen often but was memorably annoying when it did?

Rapid fire was also much more restrictive back in the day, so I imagine it was pretty normal to clump units up within 12" of the enemy to maximize shots. But maybe I'm wrong.

People who were good at manipulating Pile in and Consolidation could potential end up in combat with a unit as far as 5-6" away from the unit they were charging. More, if it was a large unit that charged.

Do a test deployment trying to keep your units all more than 6" away from each other. It's pretty hard, to be honest.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Rapid fire was also much more restrictive back in the day, so I imagine it was pretty normal to clump units up within 12" of the enemy to maximize shots. But maybe I'm wrong.

12" maximum range when moving, even if you had rapid fire 30" like the tau. You really noticed it when the unit was spread out to avoid blasts and templates.

There were three main types of consolidation into combat -
1) the 3rd edition sweeping advance (removed in 4th) - anything directly between the unit and the table edge for 12-18" was a potential target, randomly rolled distances.
2) the two for one assault - hit a unit, win combat, hit another unit within 3" / d6" (or more)
3) the ongoing threat - ongoing combats could end at any time. Movement around them was slow, non-fleet units couldn't run until 5th and heavy weapons couldn't fire if they moved away.

Staying out of consolidation range when trying to reach an objective or simply get into range with many weapons could be impractical once things got tied up, depending on your lists.

5e swung too far the other way IMO.The two for one assaults could have been weakened with 3e-style shooting exceptions and/or disorganised charges while the run rule meant that units caught behind assaults had an extra option for moving around.

A.T. wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Rapid fire was also much more restrictive back in the day, so I imagine it was pretty normal to clump units up within 12" of the enemy to maximize shots. But maybe I'm wrong.

12" maximum range when moving, even if you had rapid fire 30" like the tau. You really noticed it when the unit was spread out to avoid blasts and templates.

There were three main types of consolidation into combat -
1) the 3rd edition sweeping advance (removed in 4th) - anything directly between the unit and the table edge for 12-18" was a potential target, randomly rolled distances.
2) the two for one assault - hit a unit, win combat, hit another unit within 3" / d6" (or more)
3) the ongoing threat - ongoing combats could end at any time. Movement around them was slow, non-fleet units couldn't run until 5th and heavy weapons couldn't fire if they moved away.

Staying out of consolidation range when trying to reach an objective or simply get into range with many weapons could be impractical once things got tied up, depending on your lists.

5e swung too far the other way IMO.The two for one assaults could have been weakened with 3e-style shooting exceptions and/or disorganised charges while the run rule meant that units caught behind assaults had an extra option for moving around.

Sweeping advance wasn't consolidation. They were two separate mechanics, which is why your entire army could freely target the sweeping unit. Consolidation into combat happened when you were either out in the open after wiping a unit and used the move to tie up a unit that was next to the wiped out unit, (This is specifically the one that caught me, and why I spread my armies out whenever I'm playing nowadays) or when you finished the combat and were moving unengaged troops into base contact. Both are incredibly hard to do if you keep any amount of space between your units.

 Just Tony wrote:
Sweeping advance wasn't consolidation. They were two separate mechanics, which is why your entire army could freely target the sweeping unit.

It was half and half. You could sweeping advance into units other than the one you were chasing and you would lock them in combat - complete with the +1 attack for charging.

Sweeping units did not benefit from the usual immunity to ranged attacks in the next shooting phase but you couldn't move away from them either.

A sweeping advance was NOT a consolidation, there's no half and half here. Period. More often than not the great wailing about consolidation into fresh units would reference the 2D6" movement, which indicates it was an advance regardless of whether there was still a unit there to sweep or not.

At the end of the day, in 3rd Ed. you wouldn't get consolidated into if you spaced your army out enough.

I really liked 6th/7th. I play casually with friends. We just ignore all the stupid list building rules and pick fluffy armies.
It still feels like a wargame, i.e trying to simulate actual combat.

Everything I've seen from 8th onwards is painfully gamey, and all about ability combos.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Well, first of all, is there something innately wrong with having two 5-man squads instead of one 10-man squad?

Not directly - but there is something innately wrong with a system that rewards one over the other. People are/were being nudged/pushed/influenced into MSU 5/10 instead of 10/20 based on the ruleset. 6 Primary Objectives in a game where you wouldn't have 6 10 man squads has rules for one sort of game, and army construction of another. If army construction worked out to a full Company of 100 Marines + Support (and reasonable parallels in other factions) then 6 Primary Objectives (1 per Battle Line) makes some sense.

 Tamereth wrote:
I really liked 6th/7th. I play casually with friends. We just ignore all the stupid list building rules and pick fluffy armies.
It still feels like a wargame, i.e trying to simulate actual combat.

Everything I've seen from 8th onwards is painfully gamey, and all about ability combos.

This must have been stated a trillion times over but at the end of the day, I'm confident that turning any edition casual and essentially throwing dice for the lore and the giggles let's you more or less enjoy it regardless of how well written it is. Unlike video games, you can virtually bend it to any of your whims.

Only problem is it is only true within a group of buddies playing against one another regularly. People who rely on stores to play, I suppose, can't really do that.

Best ruleset: 2019 Apocalypse. At regular 40k game sizes, it works amazingly well.
Codexes/Army Rules: Probably 5th or so, just before Chapterhouse. A lot of codexes had an amazing depth of flavor and choice back then.