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Hello, how do you feel regarding the last 3 editions of 40k? How do they compare to each other? What are the main differences between them? Which one is the best/ most fun/ would you prefer?

I played 9th ed, so I'm familiar with it, but only very little 8th and no 10th. Now I want to figure out which edition is worth sticking to, so I'm trying to get a feel how is 8th and 10th compared to 9th and which one is better.
Normally I would go with the latest, but it seems GW really wants to get in my way of playing their game. I love Leviathan Dreadnought model, but the FW prices were way too much. Than last year GW released Levi in plastic for much cheaper -happy times for me, I immediately got a copy. Now I find out my model, released last year, is no longer legal - and I'm SUPER pissed off. The centerpiece of my ultramarine army is gone. Now I'm trying to figure out what to do: try the 10th, stick with the 9th or go back to the 8th.

So, 8th, 9th or 10th, which one did you like best, and why? any details are appreciated. (ps, I realize 10th just has been released, so not a fair comparison, but still).

8th was really bad, 9th was better then 8th, 10th feels like 8th only now it is worse, because I know more about the game, how fast and how GW updates things etc. 10th has fewer options to play with, then 8th which I thought was impossible to pull off, but GW did it.

So if I were to order them it would be 9th, then 8th and then 10th.

 emanuelb wrote:
Hello, how do you feel regarding the last 3 editions of 40k? How do they compare to each other? What are the main differences between them? Which one is the best/ most fun/ would you prefer?

I played 9th ed, so I'm familiar with it, but only very little 8th and no 10th. Now I want to figure out which edition is worth sticking to, so I'm trying to get a feel how is 8th and 10th compared to 9th and which one is better.
Normally I would go with the latest, but it seems GW really wants to get in my way of playing their game. I love Leviathan Dreadnought model, but the FW prices were way too much. Than last year GW released Levi in plastic for much cheaper -happy times for me, I immediately got a copy. Now I find out my model, released last year, is no longer legal - and I'm SUPER pissed off. The centerpiece of my ultramarine army is gone. Now I'm trying to figure out what to do: try the 10th, stick with the 9th or go back to the 8th.

So, 8th, 9th or 10th, which one did you like best, and why? any details are appreciated. (ps, I realize 10th just has been released, so not a fair comparison, but still).

Ok, so let's first address your confusion about your Leviathan dreadnought.
1) It IS 100% legal - in the game it was actually released for (Horus Heresy).
2) It's 100% legal in 10e 40k games as well - providing you aren't playing in a tournament (even then, check - because right now {7/29} there's a tourney running at the local shop & Legends are allowed.) This according to GW on the Legends PDF.
3) Same applies to 9e 40k.
Don't get stuck in Tourney only mode & outside of tourney play do not accept others dictating to you which of your models that have 10e rules you get to play with.


Wich of those 3 editions did I like best?
Overall I liked 9th the best of the 3 so far. What set 9th above 8th for me was the Crusade system. We had a lot of fun with that.
10th? 10e is only a month old. It still has plenty of time before I pass judgment on it, but so far it's OK.

Of course he has no way to force others to use lt. They say no, he has 2 options.don't use or don't play.

Firstly, the Leviathan is legal in every setting except tournaments that don't allow the use of Legends. If push comes to shove just proxy it as one of the three Primaris Dreads, anyone who complains isn't worth the game.


In terms of ranking the editions so far? 10th, 8th, 9th.
8th was fine but a big departure from the norm of 40k for our group and most people didn't pick it up. I played it with one other player but it was never much change in terms of gameplay so I can't really judge it massively.

9th was just bad. It was cool that Deathwatch got access to the entire Marine Codex as it allowed me to actually build my army the way I wanted but good gravy the balance was awful. Crusade was a cool addition but it felt like unless you played specific lists the game wasn't worth playing.

10th so far I have enjoyed. CSM might have a generic rule non-Chaosy people don't like (always weird given the army) but honestly, I've been having great fun. I'm back to using Sorcerers as my leaders and finally taking actual Legionaries doesn't feel like I'm wasting time and points because they can put out some nasty damage with Dark Pacts and Marks. Oh yeah, Marks once again actually matter and are free to boot. Traitor Guard, Beastmen, and the Enforcer + Ogryn friend alongside the removal of Cultist restrictions means that I could technically run a fairly normal Cult army. A fair whack of Renegades and Heretics units got put in the Chaos Legends PDF as well so honestly things are good for me.

ccs wrote:


Ok, so let's first address your confusion about your Leviathan dreadnought.
1) It IS 100% legal - in the game it was actually released for (Horus Heresy).
2) It's 100% legal in 10e 40k games as well - providing you aren't playing in a tournament (even then, check - because right now {7/29} there's a tourney running at the local shop & Legends are allowed.) This according to GW on the Legends PDF.
3) Same applies to 9e 40k.
Don't get stuck in Tourney only mode & outside of tourney play do not accept others dictating to you which of your models that have 10e rules you get to play with.


Wich of those 3 editions did I like best?
Overall I liked 9th the best of the 3 so far. What set 9th above 8th for me was the Crusade system. We had a lot of fun with that.
10th? 10e is only a month old. It still has plenty of time before I pass judgment on it, but so far it's OK.

Thank you. I know I can technically still play the leviathan in 10th, but there are issues. I'm not a grinder/ super competitive guy, but I like to go to tournaments whenever I have a chance (living in Romania, there are not that many tourneys). I like the experience. Plus, if I go to a different shop/club, there might be problems using legend models, as tneva82 pointed out. And lastly, I like even my casual armies to be somewhat balanced, and legend rules could be either too underpowered, or overpowered.

So basically I don't have many incentives right now to get int o the latest edition, unless it is really good - that's why I'm curious - which edition people liked the most, and why? 8th, 9th, or 10th? (the older ones are too old and different).

tneva82 wrote:
Of course he has no way to force others to use lt. They say no, he has 2 options.don't use or don't play.

Isn’t that true of any model, GW say it’s legal, but if someone says no and refuses to play if you use it you have two choices. The problem here is not the game, but the player.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I like 10th best, the last two had crazy rules bloat, models died too easily and stratagems were a mess.

8th was pretty great before the 2nd Wave of Space Marines ruined things. 9th was fun for theory crafting but the amount of book keeping kept me away from things. 10th Edition seems to have the worst balance parts of late 8th, but the better missions of 9th. Hopefully it will be playable for the bottom third of factions in a few months.

Index 8th was best IMO. Strats ruined later 8th and 9th for me

 DominayTrix wrote:
8th was pretty great before the 2nd Wave of Space Marines ruined things.

Yeah, 8th was in a pretty good spot before SM 2.0, despit a rough beginning.

Haven't had as much fun since. 9th seemed like a chore. 10th is sunsetting real Marines, so . . .doesn't look good.

9th was my favourite edition out of all the editions that I've played- that's all of them except 6th and 7th.

I liked 8th at the time, but it didn't have Crusade, so there's no going back.

The jury's out on 10th. Once I get a look at the bespoke Crusade content in the dexes, I'll be able to decide.

I have ejoyed every edition from 8th to 10th.I think it gets better each edition.

I also played in second edition (very wrong since I was a kid.) However 2nd edition had a lot of problems.

I also played 5th and 6th edtion. 5th edition was OK, but so many rules where bad, made no sence. But the main problem is that it was very very very porly balanced.

6th edtion was 5th edtion but with flying rules. That is where I jumped off. Gamebalance was not existent.

8th edtion was very problematic as things died very easaly. Also, you got more CP from spamming stuff. While interesting it was a very easy system to abuse. The best unit was a 3 point guardsman. Every mathhammer showed it survived more and damage more then any other thing.

Come 9th edtion they increased every unit by 3 poits. All T3 armies just rolled over and died. However, as codexes cept coming up they upped the deadlyness of every unit to justefy it's cost. (GSC for instance got crossfire.) The end result was a fairly balanced game, but it was very deadly. I loved secondaries though. Split the gameplay into killing and non killing, witch I enjoyed. You could pivot a bad game to win on points.

10th edtion has made the game more though, less deadly. I also love the streamlined and the CP/random secondary aspect. I like it so far.

Played 8th with the indexes and liked it, the issues came with the codexes and power creep

didn't play 9th

have played 10th, obviously indexes only and while the actual game mechanics feel reasonable the indexes are seriously bland and the "no costs for wargear" I suspect will linger all edition and basically cause problems until 11th changes back, or moves to fixed lists

I barely played 8th so it's hard for me to rate and when I did it was post-SM 2.0 which most people say is its worst era.

10th is the worst edition so far for me though. Melee is gutted for every faction but Custodes and maybe monster mash Daemons. GW have switched to the notoriously unpopular PL for no explicable reason. And say whatever you want about 9th edition's poor external balance but at least that edition had surprisingly good internal balance, with units that were garbage for years like howling banshees finally being worth taking. Compare to 10th where even an extremely strong army like Eldar have huge swathes of the codex that are inexplicably horrible.

But at least there's less stratagems, right? Woo!

Index 8th, Index 10th... so far all other options have been miserable and I used them for big tournaments that didn't have HH options, only when no other options existed.

When playing at home, between the two indexes, it has been mostly GrimDarkFuture from 1page40k

Probably 9th, I would avoid 10th right now as the balance has never been worse.

Andykp wrote:

I like 10th best, the last two had crazy rules bloat, models died too easily and stratagems were a mess.

Interesting that you don't think 10th will also end up in a bloated, power creeping mess like literally every edition of 40k prior.

FOr myself I enjoyed 8th and I even defended it on here in the hope that GW HAD changed, when they released 9th instead of 8.1 I realized nuGW was just a case of meet the new boss, same as the old boss and just quit playing. I'm hedging my bets on 10th. When codexes start to get released I'll give it a go but I'm not expecting much.

All three of the editions suffer from over simplification in one form or another. GW has never understood game balance and it shows that despite constant patches (aka buy their overpriced books for updates) that they continued to struggle with game balance issues despite having gut the core rules down to a super bare bones framework. But ultimately none of the balance issues mattered to me because the core gameplay is devoid of fun.

I'll gladly take the core rules of 4th through 7th, at least those editions had a lot of interesting gameplay which was and still is fun to play.

8th was rough around the edges, it got a lot of big rules changes to the core game through its run and there were some very gamey things about how melee worked. The balance at the start of the edition and right after SM 2.0 were launched was really bad, but it was very pretty good at times. It suffered from a catastrophically handled rollout of factions which meant the factions without codexes felt unfairly treated. The codexes and later the expansions for 8th introduced an insane amount of Stratagems, especially the offensively geared Stratagems were overtuned and could be used together without restrictions to create wombo combos that let you deal insane damage. Morale punished hordes.

9th smoothed out melee rules to get around or remove a lot of the gamey interactions from 8th and importantly fixed many of the problems with terrain in 8th. 9th's terrain rules seemed a bit more complicated than they needed to be because GW wanted people to have the ability to use their terrain however they wished by giving it whatever rules they liked. Balance was very bad at the start of the edition with GW having implemented some weird algorithm to make things more expensive (but not by an equal or reasonable amount, the amounts were really wonky). Then the Drukhari codex completely flipped the game because it was so OP, it was never tested in its finished state. Many codexes were equally powerful, but a few for some reason weren't and then there were the first couple of codexes which got buffs to their rules through errata, which at the very least didn't cost money to buy like it did in 8th when you had to purchase a campaign supplement just to make your faction work because of power creep. 9th got rid of most of the wombo combos but just scaled up the average offensive stats by a similar degree, leading to the game continuing to be overly lethal and there were still just as many Stratagems. Morale didn't do anything.

10th only has PL and no pts, that makes some weapon options and upgrades auto includes. GW streamlined a lot of things like power weapons and 15 kinds of bolters to one power weapon and 1 bolter. Warlord Traits and Relics were combined. Stratagems were finally curbed. Balance is terrible, from my understanding caused by devastating wounds combos causing too many mortal wounds and a few ignore LOS and Titanic units being overtuned. Flyers are garbage, melee is struggling hard because of overly complicated baby rules that take away player agency. The terrain rules are simple, but they are hard to make work. Psychic powers were changed to being regular abilities or shooting attacks instead of being unreliable mortal wound batteries. Morale prevents scoring.

I preferred 8th, but they are all flawed in their own ways in my opinion, my playgroup collectively decided not to go to the internet to find out what's good and how to play the game at the start, so a lot of the ugly balance problems we could skip over as we just enjoyed being rid of 7th edition. My favourite part about 10th is Stratagems and Detachments, my favourite part about 9th was the melee rules, my favourite part about about 8th was the datacards (stats and abilities of units weren't overtuned like in 9th and I think 10th edition profiles are random and silly).

 Insectum7 wrote:

 DominayTrix wrote:
8th was pretty great before the 2nd Wave of Space Marines ruined things.

Yeah, 8th was in a pretty good spot before SM 2.0, despit a rough beginning.

Haven't had as much fun since. 9th seemed like a chore. 10th is sunsetting real Marines, so . . .doesn't look good.

This. 8th definitely wasn't perfect (loyal 32, that year(?) that knights were left too good, etc.), but it played smoothly and was pretty good for casual games.

There was always something that was OP during 8th, but GW was regularly going through and making some (usually) impactful tweaks. As a result, the OP flavor of the month was changing pretty regularly which both made it hard to get too annoyed at the OP thing and also meant that people had a limited window in which to chase the dragon before the dragon got nerfed.

There was that brief window before the second marine codex where they errata'd marines to have a second wound and cost a few extra points where playing with and against them felt pretty good. But then the second codex came out and just felt power creepy. And between that and Psychic Awakening, the game's balance never quite felt right after that. Plus, I know some people were kind of stressed about all the possible build-your-own-subfaction options.

Then 9th decided that all that power creep was a feature not a bug and leaned into the subfaction options (which I liked), added to the pile of strats you had to remember (which I didn't like), and decided that players should have like 7 different goals during a given game (which I dislike both because my poor brain can't juggle it and because it's harder for me to Forge the Narrative when there are so many balls in the air.)

10th so far isn't awful, but there are a lot of weird decisions that make it feel awkward. The ur dudez thing is kind of gutted by the lack of character customization. The new points system means that a lot of wargear is no longer an option. Often times, you can't even attach characters to the units you want to. I have a succubus painted up to look like a mandrake who can't hang out with her buddies any more, and my haemi can't hang out with his grotesques.

The missions in 10th are less complicated than in 9th, but still more complicated than I'd like. Some of the changes to 10th feel good (like being able to disembark from a vehicle after it moves), but are then somewhat soured by other rules that kind of feel bad.

So on the whole, 10th seems to be trying some things out, and some of those things are cool. But it's sacrificing a lot of what I like about the game in the process, and the end result feels like kind of a sidegrade. I'm also still worried that they're going to cancel out some of the big upsides of the edition change (the decrease in lethality and stacking bonuses) once codices start dropping.

Andykp 811008 11573337 wrote:
I like 10th best, the last two had crazy rules bloat, models died too easily and stratagems were a mess.

And it is not just players. GW know how widely accepted legends stuff is. In the last marine mass removal of units, they don't say that X units are gone, but people can just play them using legends rules. No they specificaly say that stuff like bikers can be used as outriders, assault space marines as venguard etc GW do know that legends isn't just "a not tournament thing".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Yeah, 8th was in a pretty good spot before SM 2.0, despit a rough beginning.

Haven't had as much fun since. 9th seemed like a chore. 10th is sunsetting real Marines, so . . .doesn't look good.

Well the problem is, if someone played a specific non suicide BA list with a Castellan, they were not having much fun playing marines in 8th ed? They had horrible rules, if something was working it wasn't primaris. People who don't play marines don't remember +20pts intercessors with no melee options for the sgts or how bad faction rules for specific marines were. The best way to play marines was to take 15 scouts, because they were cheapest, 2 HQ and then invest all the rest of points in not space marines stuff. And not even like csm stuff, where the armies were played without any csm, but at least they were made out of units from the CSM codex. No, for marine players a marine list, ment the loyal 32 and a ravellan . The years or eldar/Inari meta or if you play imperium you take a castellan, were not more fun then 2.0 csm. Especialy not for the sm players. And some armies didn't even got to have much fun in 8th at all.

 Sim-Life wrote:

Andykp wrote:

I like 10th best, the last two had crazy rules bloat, models died too easily and stratagems were a mess.

Interesting that you don't think 10th will also end up in a bloated, power creeping mess like literally every edition of 40k prior.

FOr myself I enjoyed 8th and I even defended it on here in the hope that GW HAD changed, when they released 9th instead of 8.1 I realized nuGW was just a case of meet the new boss, same as the old boss and just quit playing. I'm hedging my bets on 10th. When codexes start to get released I'll give it a go but I'm not expecting much.

I have no idea if it will or not, didn’t say anything about the future of the game, just that’s fun now. I hope it doesn’t and that they stick to the ethos.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 DominayTrix wrote:
8th was pretty great before the 2nd Wave of Space Marines ruined things.

Yeah, 8th was in a pretty good spot before SM 2.0, despit a rough beginning.

Haven't had as much fun since. 9th seemed like a chore. 10th is sunsetting real Marines, so . . .doesn't look good.

This. 8th definitely wasn't perfect (loyal 32, that year(?) that knights were left too good, etc.), but it played smoothly and was pretty good for casual games.

There was always something that was OP during 8th, but GW was regularly going through and making some (usually) impactful tweaks. As a result, the OP flavor of the month was changing pretty regularly which both made it hard to get too annoyed at the OP thing and also meant that people had a limited window in which to chase the dragon before the dragon got nerfed.

Yeah it eas a wild ride for a time. Loyal 32 plus Castellan was pretty irritating, as well as others. But there was that brief couple months prior to SM 2.0 where it felt like things had settled into a decent spot, not perfect, but maybe not far from ideal either. So close . . .

There was that brief window before the second marine codex where they errata'd marines to have a second wound and cost a few extra points where playing with and against them felt pretty good.

My recollection is that OG Marines got their 2nd wound around 9th release, maybe a little prior. The 8th ed 2.0 Marine book was instead preceeded by Bolter Discipline and the extra Attack in the first round of combat thing.

Imo Marines all moving to 2W was another big issue that we're still dealing with.

 Insectum7 wrote:

There was that brief window before the second marine codex where they errata'd marines to have a second wound and cost a few extra points where playing with and against them felt pretty good.

My recollection is that OG Marines got their 2nd wound around 9th release, maybe a little prior. The 8th ed 2.0 Marine book was instead preceeded by Bolter Discipline and the extra Attack in the first round of combat thing.

Imo Marines all moving to 2W was another big issue that we're still dealing with.

I could be misremembering. I thought that the rules right before the 2nd codex gave marines:
* Shock Assault
* Bolter Discipline
* A second wound.
* A very slight points increase.

I still stand by the second wound being a good move for marines. The problem was that around the same time (in the same release?) that they gave marines the 2nd wound, they decided to start power creeping marines. I think that was when we got doctrines as an extra layer of rules. Doctrines sort of made sense at the time as a reward for *not* taking the loyal 32 and a knight, but then they stuck around in 9th when the core rules already rewarded you (in CP) for not taking such allies.

So while the second wound on tac marines was fluffy and felt about right in casual games, you also had the more gnarly power-creep rules that meant marine saw more play; sometimes in the form of pretty potent lists. So then the meta shifted back to kill-all-marines mode which meant that marines stopped feeling the benefits of a second wound almost immediately as people starting spamming D2 to deal with them. And then that carried forward into 9th as marines has one of the first codices out. So while marines had their army-wide rule (doctrines) along with plenty of modern stratagems, relics, and warlord traits, lots of other factions were stuck with their 8th edition rules for an extended period of time. Thus marines were played even more often and were even more powerful compared to everyone else, and thus people had even more reason to spam D2. If you couldn't field your own 9th edition style power creep options, at least you could tailor your list towards what most of the field was running.

tldr; W2 marines are good. Power creep and marine favoritism are bad.

 Insectum7 wrote:

There was that brief window before the second marine codex where they errata'd marines to have a second wound and cost a few extra points where playing with and against them felt pretty good.

My recollection is that OG Marines got their 2nd wound around 9th release, maybe a little prior. The 8th ed 2.0 Marine book was instead preceeded by Bolter Discipline and the extra Attack in the first round of combat thing.

Imo Marines all moving to 2W was another big issue that we're still dealing with.

Primaris space marines had 2 wounds since the start of 8th edition. Firstborn marines didn't get their second wound until 9th. Being a Primaris only player, I can't say for sure, but I believe Firstborn didn't get their 2 wound officially until the codex. Of course, being one of the first codices of the edition that wasn't very long, and it wouldn't surprise me if players just started using the new rules via leaks and guesses. Just like most in my area did for 10th edition.

If I remember correctly, before C:SM 8.5, GW added Bolter Discipline and Combat Shock as well as knock off points for a lot of marine units. I think Intercessors started 8th at 20pts and were down to 15pts just before the 2nd codex. As loyalist marines were kinda struggling just before the new codex supercharged them (and added Doctrines) and double supercharged them (and added Super Doctrines) again with Chapter Supplements.

But I will freely admit, the details of 3-4 years ago are very hazy for me now. I can say with certainy that the book itself C: SM 8.5 did not give Firstborn their 2nd wound. I still have it, and the Firstborn in there aren't changed.

***

I like 8th the most, barring the Psychic Awakening days. As a casual player, the Strats didn't feel too out of control. Most of my opponents didn't abuse the detachment/CP system sticking with Battalion + special/2nd Batt with FoC not that much dissimilar to previous editions. Didn't tri-point, mimized Conga-lines and otherwise didn't push the system past its breaking point.

9th edition became overly complicated real fast. I ended up playing my Primaris marines sans any Chapter Supplement. Since they were by far the easiest. Plus, the beginning of 9th was the point they finally had enough units to make a well-rounded army with real options. My CSM felt either outmatched, like evil Brothers [Sisters] of battle (12pts for a CSM) or rules competent but lore shell of CSM when the codex finally dropped.

I'm going to wait a few more months to let 10th cool and solidify before even giving it a try. Let alone say much about it. What I've seen so far, it doesn't really impress.

I hated the formations of 7th... pay to win by purchasing exclusive formations. 8th was an enjoyable change, had lots of fun before the power creep. I loved that everything could hurt everything, so all units had their place again.
9th was so complicated and diluted, I skipped most of it... was not a fan at all.

10th has brought my brother and I back into 40k. My son is playing too and we have played more games of 10th than 9th or 8th. Combat patrol is a great way to have a quick mid week game or two even with a busy schedule.

I'm not a fan of losing some great units in 10th (tyberos - you shall live on forever!!). However, I really like that "primaris" is gone. Transports can transport most units, special rules are simplified, and we spend more time laughing and chucking dice vs looking up rules. The 3k tyranids vs minotaur/carcharodons game this weekend went quick... far quicker than 9th edition games.

Hate to say it but though I am saddened at some of the decisions gw made, 10th has been a great system so far. I'm not a competative gamer though, I play fluffy fun lists and make memories. I'm sure other have differing experiences from my friendly gaming group. That's my experience and opinion.

Primaris isn't really gone, and as time goes on, all we'll have left is Primaris.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Primaris isn't really gone, and as time goes on, all we'll have left is Primaris.

I think what he's saying by primaris being gone is that the arbitary limits on what can carry what have been scaled back, not completely removed (rhinos can't carry intercessors, for example) but certainly scaled back, Land Raidersand repulsors can both carry anything allowing the land raider to deliver primaris units such as blade guard veterns, or the repulsor to carry first born units like devestators. (a repulsor executioner might make an intreasting unit to carry around a squad of devestators)

 emanuelb wrote:

ccs wrote:


Ok, so let's first address your confusion about your Leviathan dreadnought.
1) It IS 100% legal - in the game it was actually released for (Horus Heresy).
2) It's 100% legal in 10e 40k games as well - providing you aren't playing in a tournament (even then, check - because right now {7/29} there's a tourney running at the local shop & Legends are allowed.) This according to GW on the Legends PDF.
3) Same applies to 9e 40k.
Don't get stuck in Tourney only mode & outside of tourney play do not accept others dictating to you which of your models that have 10e rules you get to play with.


Wich of those 3 editions did I like best?
Overall I liked 9th the best of the 3 so far. What set 9th above 8th for me was the Crusade system. We had a lot of fun with that.
10th? 10e is only a month old. It still has plenty of time before I pass judgment on it, but so far it's OK.

Thank you. I know I can technically still play the leviathan in 10th, but there are issues. I'm not a grinder/ super competitive guy, but I like to go to tournaments whenever I have a chance (living in Romania, there are not that many tourneys). I like the experience. Plus, if I go to a different shop/club, there might be problems using legend models, as tneva82 pointed out. And lastly, I like even my casual armies to be somewhat balanced, and legend rules could be either too underpowered, or overpowered.

So basically I don't have many incentives right now to get int o the latest edition, unless it is really good - that's why I'm curious - which edition people liked the most, and why? 8th, 9th, or 10th? (the older ones are too old and different).

Older editions are often of better craftsmanship than the newer ones.

Honestly, i'd reccomend you check out HH. The community is far more narrative driven on average, if a bit of a stickler in regards to the lore, but from a mechanical game stand point it may well be up your alley.
of course, that requiers that there is an HH community where you live.

Index hammer 8th was the best 40k has been since 4th edition. Especially once they reined in the power outliers, such as guileman parking lots and mass infiltrating alpha legion berserkers.

Everything since then has been better than 6th and 7th, but still utter garbage as 40k and especially by wargame standards.