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I am just glad that people aren't too interested in coming back to the 7th edition.

I began w/ 5E and played it quite a bit so I suppose I was lucky, since it is so revered.

I didn't play 6E or 7E, luckily. I played a few games of 8E and 9E. Have yet to play 10E. So given all of that, it's an easy vote for 5E. I like a lot of the things they changed in the 8E/9E, but 9E felt too bloated and I simply just enjoyed my time in 5E more, maybe b/c I played it way more. So 5E got my vote.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:

 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.

Sadly that didn't work for me with 8th (9th didn't address the issues I had with 8th). Despite playing with friends and regulars, the core rules being gutted ruined all the fun of the game. There just isn't enough meat on the bone to enjoy it without having to just homebrew an entire core ruleset to add back on more tactical gameplay.

It's why I continue to stand by the opinion that 7th was a decent game edition ruined by horrible codex balance and broken edge cases. You could avoid the many pitfalls and establish an agreement to field roughly similarly strength lists to get enjoyable gameplay experiences. 8th by contrast is like a saltine cracker and the entire release cycle of 8th and 9th was trying to layer more stuff to hide how bland the base game/cracker is until eventually it becomes a sloppy mess.

 Vankraken wrote:

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:

 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.

Sadly that didn't work for me with 8th (9th didn't address the issues I had with 8th). Despite playing with friends and regulars, the core rules being gutted ruined all the fun of the game. There just isn't enough meat on the bone to enjoy it without having to just homebrew an entire core ruleset to add back on more tactical gameplay.

It's why I continue to stand by the opinion that 7th was a decent game edition ruined by horrible codex balance and broken edge cases. You could avoid the many pitfalls and establish an agreement to field roughly similarly strength lists to get enjoyable gameplay experiences. 8th by contrast is like a saltine cracker and the entire release cycle of 8th and 9th was trying to layer more stuff to hide how bland the base game/cracker is until eventually it becomes a sloppy mess.

True that sometimes the amount of efforts needed to end up with a set of rules you enjoy is not necessarily worth the effort, my brother also had a weird card game experience with the stacking of strategem and buffs, he didn't like it. Guess some people will obviously but that's not how we enjoy the game. If we wanted to house rule it, for us that'd mean shifting the entire focus of the game design and that's to much efforts.

So if you're fine with house ruled 7th, that's just neat. Won't throw stones at you since a myself am stuck in my homebrewed 6th edition as stated earlier.

Wasn't 7th ed the edition where GW almost killed itself and where the entire meta was shaped by eldar to such an extent that half the armies weren't even worth playing, and non were worth playing after they intreduced Inari?

Karol wrote:
Wasn't 7th ed the edition where GW almost killed itself and where the entire meta was shaped by eldar to such an extent that half the armies weren't even worth playing, and non were worth playing after they intreduced Inari?

Eldar have been strong in every edition except 5th.

7th though nothing really challenged the top Eldar lists except for some of the daemon shenanigans and the occasional necron army and gladius/wolfstar/riptide skew lists.

Eldar have been strong in every edition except 5th.

There is a reason why the memes exist.




The big thing about Eldar is they are glass hammers that are super specialized. they were not as forgiving as marines and didn't usually have the numbers of horde armies and thus took a bit more finesse to use in older editions.

 aphyon wrote:

Eldar have been strong in every edition except 5th.

The big thing about Eldar is they are glass hammers that are super specialized. they were not as forgiving as marines and didn't usually have the numbers of horde armies and thus took a bit more finesse to use in older editions.

Absolute horse gak.

Eldar have been easy in basically every edition to use. The whole "but everything is specialized" means literally nothing. All lies that Eldar players tell themselves to make themselves feel better with their Kelly favoritism.

EviscerationPlague wrote:
Absolute horse gak.

Eldar have been easy in basically every edition to use. The whole "but everything is specialized" means literally nothing. All lies that Eldar players tell themselves to make themselves feel better with their Kelly favoritism.

Look, it's not Phil Kelly's fault the lore he wrote says that Eldar are specialized in "being best at everything".

It wasn't any better before Kelly

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 aphyon wrote:

Eldar have been strong in every edition except 5th.

The big thing about Eldar is they are glass hammers that are super specialized. they were not as forgiving as marines and didn't usually have the numbers of horde armies and thus took a bit more finesse to use in older editions.

Absolute horse gak.

Eldar have been easy in basically every edition to use. The whole "but everything is specialized" means literally nothing. All lies that Eldar players tell themselves to make themselves feel better with their Kelly favoritism.

It may very where you were at but in my area they tended to be a very unforgiving army if you made a mistake compared to all arounders like marines or horde armies who had bodies to fall back on. it took a rare player to play them but they usually were very dedicated, even more so with dark eldar players.

Eldar have always been that way. thematically the 4th ed codex is still the best as you could build every craftworld as it is portrayed in the lore.

 aphyon wrote:
it took a rare player to play them but they usually were very dedicated

10/10, best post on the forum.

Really though Eldar advantages have been that certain units have been significantly undercosted in just about every edition.

Exarch delivery systems. Seer Council and Starcannon spam. Unkillable Falcons. Wave Serpent spam. WK+Scatbikes. Ynnari Reavers/Spears and Flyers. 9th was reasonably balanced, but certainly post Codex Eldar were riding high. And scarcely a month into 10th, despite already getting one round of nerfs they seem to still be at a 70% win rate.

5th was the weak one, and that's because there wasn't an obvious power unit you could just ride to victory.

In every edition its been possible to make a "bad Eldar list" - with units that are notionally just as specialized, but are in turn overcosted relative to wider 40k. But why would you?

 aphyon wrote:
It may very where you were at but in my area they tended to be a very unforgiving army if you made a mistake compared to all arounders like marines or horde armies who had bodies to fall back on. it took a rare player to play them but they usually were very dedicated, even more so with dark eldar players.

I had a 3.5 DE list i'd bring out from time to time in early 5th edition.
Five scoring units, 19 dark lances/disintegrators, a scattering of blasters, horrorfexes, nightshields, and about as much finesse as a dreadsock :p

1000pts. After that you'd start looking at character-delivery units and kind of run out of codex somewhere around 1500... Their replacement 5e book was surprisingly well balanced for an edition of rampant codex creep.

 aphyon wrote:
It may very where you were at but in my area they tended to be a very unforgiving army if you made a mistake compared to all arounders like marines or horde armies who had bodies to fall back on. it took a rare player to play them but they usually were very dedicated, even more so with dark eldar players.

Maybe if you took lore-accurate Eldar armies with a bunch of random units. The problem was that outside of casual kitchen table games not many people did that, they took the obvious overpowered stuff that was good at everything. Oh look, it's max squads of scatter laser jetbikes buffed with full re-rolls, in an edition where mass S6 shooting is good against pretty much everything. Or when someone thought it would be funny to let Eldar psychic powers buff Riptides. Or the 10th edition launch, where everyone took the obvious Wraithknights and Fire Prisms with full fate dice alpha strike buffing because who cares if that one random melee unit in the index is a fragile specialist when you can point at something and say "that takes 50 mortal wounds" without even bothering to roll dice.

One of the more brutal armies to face back during 3rd was Miller's Biel Tal Reaper spam army. That thing was a blight in our club until that one guy took him down with a Legion of the Damned force from the 1st army list. You know, the one from the Eldar codex issue of White Dwarf. Not the garbage tier Cursed Founding list.

Yeah, that guy was the hero we needed AND deserved...

Tyel wrote:

5th was the weak one, and that's because there wasn't an obvious power unit you could just ride to victory.

The 5th edition Eldar codex was weak because it didn't exist. They were using the 4th edition one throughout 5th.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
Maybe if you took lore-accurate Eldar armies with a bunch of random units. The problem was that outside of casual kitchen table games not many people did that, they took the obvious overpowered stuff that was good at everything. Oh look, it's max squads of scatter laser jetbikes buffed with full re-rolls, in an edition where mass S6 shooting is good against pretty much everything. Or when someone thought it would be funny to let Eldar psychic powers buff Riptides. Or the 10th edition launch, where everyone took the obvious Wraithknights and Fire Prisms with full fate dice alpha strike buffing because who cares if that one random melee unit in the index is a fragile specialist when you can point at something and say "that takes 50 mortal wounds" without even bothering to roll dice.

I think there is another aspect, which is that 'fluffy' Eldar armies had many of the the strongest builds, because very often it was the better-known and/or 'universal' units that were the most powerful.

Farseers, for example, are one of the best known Eldar units and in many editions ranked among the best psykers in the game, despite also being relatively cheap. Then you have units like the Wave Serpent, which has been strong in multiple editions - whether because its upgrades made it nigh-invulnerable or, as in 7th, because it combined great defence with spectacular firepower, relative to its cost and role. And since Wave Serpents were the key transport for Eldar, it made sense for fluffy armies to potentially field several of them.

 vipoid wrote:

Tyel wrote:

5th was the weak one, and that's because there wasn't an obvious power unit you could just ride to victory.

The 5th edition Eldar codex was weak because it didn't exist. They were using the 4th edition one throughout 5th.

Glad someone said it.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
Maybe if you took lore-accurate Eldar armies with a bunch of random units. The problem was that outside of casual kitchen table games not many people did that, they took the obvious overpowered stuff that was good at everything. Oh look, it's max squads of scatter laser jetbikes buffed with full re-rolls, in an edition where mass S6 shooting is good against pretty much everything. Or when someone thought it would be funny to let Eldar psychic powers buff Riptides. Or the 10th edition launch, where everyone took the obvious Wraithknights and Fire Prisms with full fate dice alpha strike buffing because who cares if that one random melee unit in the index is a fragile specialist when you can point at something and say "that takes 50 mortal wounds" without even bothering to roll dice.

I think there is another aspect, which is that 'fluffy' Eldar armies had many of the the strongest builds, because very often it was the better-known and/or 'universal' units that were the most powerful.

Farseers, for example, are one of the best known Eldar units and in many editions ranked among the best psykers in the game, despite also being relatively cheap. Then you have units like the Wave Serpent, which has been strong in multiple editions - whether because its upgrades made it nigh-invulnerable or, as in 7th, because it combined great defence with spectacular firepower, relative to its cost and role. And since Wave Serpents were the key transport for Eldar, it made sense for fluffy armies to potentially field several of them.

Ah yes, the super balanced Dire Avengers and Swooping Hawks with their BS5, super duper balanced.

I can't recall a time when Eldar weren't powerful, and I've been playing since 2nd Ed. I'd even go so far as to say that no faction it the game has given me as much trouble as the Eldar.

The phrase "cheating bloody Eldar" is common among everyone in our group. It was coined by the main Eldar player we had at the time, if that tells you anything.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

I think ThePaintingOwl has it about right here. In most editions, most of the units in the eldar codex are actually fine or even a little underpowered.

You got half of that right, half horrible wrong.

Eldar do generally have one - maybe two - absolutely broken lists which lean hard into a couple of horrifically undercosted / overpowered units. But the codex beyond that isn’t anything but bad.

It’s just not game breakingly strong.

For example: Try taking any combination of units in the 7th ed Eldar codex into a tyranid list which isn’t abusing detachments to spam 4+ flyrants, and the nids will get absolutely dumpstered. Take a lore friendly smattering (or the weakest smattering you can genuinely put together) of 8th ed Eldar into Gray Knights, Dark Eldar, or a pre coded 2.0 marine army running something other than a guilieman parking lot. You’ll se similar results.

This cycle repeats. Codex after codex, edition after edition, Eldar have a codex full of good units which they call trash because their entries are beside the straight up best units in the game. Yet 5th was the only edition where Eldar couldn’t dunk on numerous other codex with a list assembled from a dart board. Because Eldar are consistently, pervasively, gamebreakingly, and frankly depressingly overpowered. The people saying Eldar require skill share a demographic with proud hunters of wiley fish in small barrels.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 aphyon wrote:

Eldar have been strong in every edition except 5th.

The big thing about Eldar is they are glass hammers that are super specialized. they were not as forgiving as marines and didn't usually have the numbers of horde armies and thus took a bit more finesse to use in older editions.

Absolute horse gak.

Eldar have been easy in basically every edition to use. The whole "but everything is specialized" means literally nothing. All lies that Eldar players tell themselves to make themselves feel better with their Kelly favoritism.

Gotta admit, I did prett well in 1ed against Harlequins by arming my IG with as many graviton guns as the rules allowed, but that was about the best I could do.

EviscerationPlague wrote:Ah yes, the super balanced Dire Avengers and Swooping Hawks with their BS5, super duper balanced.

Maybe I'm forgetting something. Were people genuinely having trouble with hawks and avengers in 7th? The Aspect Host formation making them BS 5 was unnecessary and annoying, but I don't remember hawks and avengers being the units people tended to include in those hosts. I *do* remember hawks and avengers being moderately-effective anti-infantry units whose ability to move-shoot-move made them interesting-if-squishy options. I remember wishing that all units in 7th were roughly as points-efficient and interesting to use as avengers.

morganfreeman wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

I think ThePaintingOwl has it about right here. In most editions, most of the units in the eldar codex are actually fine or even a little underpowered.

You got half of that right, half horrible wrong.

Eldar do generally have one - maybe two - absolutely broken lists which lean hard into a couple of horrifically undercosted / overpowered units. But the codex beyond that isn’t anything but bad.

It’s just not game breakingly strong.

I mean... Did you have a lot of success with howling banshees in 8th edition? We can debate whether various units were "a little underwhelming" or "a little too good," but my point is that you can field a pretty tame version of eldar in most editions by simply avoiding the flavor of the week super combos.

For example: Try taking any combination of units in the 7th ed Eldar codex into a tyranid list which isn’t abusing detachments to spam 4+ flyrants, and the nids will get absolutely dumpstered.

I mean, I did. One of my most frequent opponents alternated primarily between orks and 'nids, and we had plenty of close games including plenty where I lost. Granted my own experience is anecdotal. Did you play a lot of games of eldar vs 'nids where the eldar player intentionally avoided fielding the nastier options in the book?

Because Eldar are consistently, pervasively, gamebreakingly, and frankly depressingly overpowered. The people saying Eldar require skill share a demographic with proud hunters of wiley fish in small barrels.

The "eldar require skill" thing usually held more water if you weren't playing flavor of the month armies. Spamming scatbikes and serpent shield shots was pretty point-and-click. Figuring out how much firepower to commit to cracking open a transport so you could charge with the right number of banshees to win combat against the passengers without being likely to sweep them (so that you avoid being exposed to return fire) required a smidge more thought. Having played both eldar and marines in various editions, eldar definitely tend to take more thought and consideration than marines in the sense that a marine unit that fails to crack open a tank with its meltaguns can just ask the other squad in the area to take a stab at it. And then they could both charge in and take another swing at it with krak grenades or S4 punches if that failed. Whereas if you don't commit enough anti-tank shooting from your eldar, you end up with a squad of banshees standing around awkwardly out in the open and totally unable to hurt the transport or its passengers.

Granted, eldar have moved away from that in recent editions.

The issue with Eldar is that thematically they are the supermagitech ancient psychic race, and in gameplay that means a lot of invulnerables, special rules, psychic powers and when available D weapons.

And GW has never been good at balancing special rules vs stats.

Oh God, this all turned into an Eldar rant.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Spoiler:

EviscerationPlague wrote:Ah yes, the super balanced Dire Avengers and Swooping Hawks with their BS5, super duper balanced.

Maybe I'm forgetting something. Were people genuinely having trouble with hawks and avengers in 7th? The Aspect Host formation making them BS 5 was unnecessary and annoying, but I don't remember hawks and avengers being the units people tended to include in those hosts. I *do* remember hawks and avengers being moderately-effective anti-infantry units whose ability to move-shoot-move made them interesting-if-squishy options. I remember wishing that all units in 7th were roughly as points-efficient and interesting to use as avengers.

morganfreeman wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

I think ThePaintingOwl has it about right here. In most editions, most of the units in the eldar codex are actually fine or even a little underpowered.

You got half of that right, half horrible wrong.

Eldar do generally have one - maybe two - absolutely broken lists which lean hard into a couple of horrifically undercosted / overpowered units. But the codex beyond that isn’t anything but bad.

It’s just not game breakingly strong.

I mean... Did you have a lot of success with howling banshees in 8th edition? We can debate whether various units were "a little underwhelming" or "a little too good," but my point is that you can field a pretty tame version of eldar in most editions by simply avoiding the flavor of the week super combos.

For example: Try taking any combination of units in the 7th ed Eldar codex into a tyranid list which isn’t abusing detachments to spam 4+ flyrants, and the nids will get absolutely dumpstered.

I mean, I did. One of my most frequent opponents alternated primarily between orks and 'nids, and we had plenty of close games including plenty where I lost. Granted my own experience is anecdotal. Did you play a lot of games of eldar vs 'nids where the eldar player intentionally avoided fielding the nastier options in the book?

Because Eldar are consistently, pervasively, gamebreakingly, and frankly depressingly overpowered. The people saying Eldar require skill share a demographic with proud hunters of wiley fish in small barrels.

The "eldar require skill" thing usually held more water if you weren't playing flavor of the month armies. Spamming scatbikes and serpent shield shots was pretty point-and-click. Figuring out how much firepower to commit to cracking open a transport so you could charge with the right number of banshees to win combat against the passengers without being likely to sweep them (so that you avoid being exposed to return fire) required a smidge more thought. Having played both eldar and marines in various editions, eldar definitely tend to take more thought and consideration than marines in the sense that a marine unit that fails to crack open a tank with its meltaguns can just ask the other squad in the area to take a stab at it. And then they could both charge in and take another swing at it with krak grenades or S4 punches if that failed. Whereas if you don't commit enough anti-tank shooting from your eldar, you end up with a squad of banshees standing around awkwardly out in the open and totally unable to hurt the transport or its passengers.

Granted, eldar have moved away from that in recent editions.

shortymcnostrill wrote:
Marines have had an op build practically every edition too, why don't they have the same reputation?

Because when marines are dominant it tends to be because there's a point cost error with a unit and something is too efficient, not because they break basic rules of the game and leave you wondering "what idiot thought that combo was fair". And marines tend to go in and out of fashion while it's rare that Eldar aren't at least near the top of the tier list.

I'm still a 3rd - 5th edition guy. It's my dream to have a Warhammer Classic edition with the best features of these 3 editions, and codexes combined with the best elements from these 3 editions.

Jarms48 wrote:
I'm still a 3rd - 5th edition guy. It's my dream to have a Warhammer Classic edition with the best features of these 3 editions, and codexes combined with the best elements from these 3 editions.

There are fan-books but without official support they aren't something you can easily play outside of a local group. Of course GW wouldn't want to release a ruleset that invalidates the majority of their own model line.

And the fan made stuff never matches up in what constitutes best. Prohammer for example includes many later rules like snapfire, overwatch, etc for compatability with later 6e/7e books, Simplehammer(if I ever get around to it) is based around speeding up the game by trimming the rules/rerolls, a_typical_hero was working on alternating activation, etc. Which is good if you can find one you like but then you have to find opponents.

shortymcnostrill wrote:
Marines have had an op build practically every edition too, why don't they have the same reputation?

What would you use an an example from 3rd to 5th from the core 'ultramarines' line-up?
Though with marines the bad reputation tends to focus around how they are the favoured faction getting vast swathes of releases while others languish.

Jarms48 wrote:
I'm still a 3rd - 5th edition guy. It's my dream to have a Warhammer Classic edition with the best features of these 3 editions, and codexes combined with the best elements from these 3 editions.

As AT mentioned Mezmorki has his own version. our group started about 6 years ago when 8th dropped however unlike Mezmorki our group did not create any of our own rules. we went out of our way to avoid that. we just picked a base edition (5th) and pulled some better versions of the rules from 3rd-7th and worked them into 5th.

We still play it every weekend. with no problems cross fighting codexes from every edition from 3rd-7th.

We have a regular player base of over a dozen players with over a dozen different factions being represented.
Our group is having the best of times now that we do not care what GW is doing to the game. because the rules and models we have will never get GAKed and we play for epic battles and thematic armies. with the correct mind set it is a fantastic game in our library of things we play at the FLGS.

These are my 2 threads on the topic-

The refined and updated rule set-

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/806639.page

Ongoing discussion and battle reports.-

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/789567.page

That TSOALR comic is so funny. Is that still gone and buried I take it? I did really used to like them.

On the subject of Eldar, I remember them being a tricky army to play even back in 2nd. They had a lot of annoying tricksy psychic powers which 'doomed' your units, or gave their own re-rolls to wound etc. In some ways the in-game Farseers were foretelling what the 40k game itself would become, with re-rolls and yet more re-rolls..