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I haven't played since late 3rd, early fourth, but the rules set I remember best is 3rd. I have Marines, and their codex is 5th, so obviously they have no problem, but I also have Witch Hunters (well, an Inquisitor Lord and an Assassin).

Everywhere I go I see "Oh Noes! 5th edition invalidated my army! My army sucks!" Mostly this has been about Necrons, Tau, Inquisition, and Dark Eldar. While I get that those armies with the exception of Tau have 3rd edition books, what precisely about 5th made each of these armies suck?

I ask because I'm thinking of starting up a second army, and Inquisition and Dark Eldar were at the top of the list. Thanks in advance for any help!

Just a bunch of the rules are no longer valid or just plane usless now.
Like the Tau Command and Control Node that allowed you to a Commanders LD to make a Target Priority Check.
There is no more Tatget Priority

Also point values have dropped. Main reason why the old codexs aren't very useful, you'll field less than a person with a new 5th Edition codex. And for armies that already don't field big numbers (ie. Marines, Necrons, etc.) This is detrimental to their success and takes a cunning tactician to make an army that's behind perform well. (At least that's my 2 cents.)

Cheers!

Necrons: Sweeping Advance sucks... modifying the Leadership by how much you lost by sucks more.
Vehicle Glance table sucks for Gauss.
Only troops score... they have one (generally min sized) troop choice.

Tau: Kill points everywhere for those that made extensive use of Devilfish gun drones.
Combat sucks more on a unit by unit basis (no consolidating into a new combat helps a bit). Troop choices are squishy and FW are overcosted.
Static is out the door with a heavy slat for more speed in the game.

Inquisition...Sisters are all right. Grey Knights are meh...lascannons got a bit worse, which is their primary ranged method of silencing enemy tanks.

Dark Eldar: lots of cover to annoy the plasma equivalent weapons. Paper thin transports means lots of kill points if you mech up. Lots of flamer type weaponry these days. Just an old codex in general. (Still lethal though, but only several builds)

I wouldn't say 5th ed broke anything....maybe Complete Gunlines that span the table.

Okay, so I get the Necrons. What I don't get is how did Lascannons get worse? They were and are still the same stat line. Also, what's wrong with a static gun line? (or is the fact that you need to claim objectives the reason static is out?).

Also, no more Target Priority? I can pick out who I want to shoot, period? Hmm... the rulebook needs to be reread...

The change is with the glancing chart, no more destroyed vehicles on a glance unless open topped or the equivalent.

In addition, the increase in cover saves on everything (esp. with a long range weapon) makes it meh.

In addition lascannons are traditionally expensive weapons...(new dexs are on the road to equalling out, but they are still expensive kits).

In addtion, meltas are overshadowing lascannons in raw damage. The AP1 helps alot, while the 'melta' rule is icing.
The range isnt' a huge problem, because the whole 5th ed mind set is : Mobility Through At Least Mech.

At least that's what my work tired brain can come up with...

We had not played in a long time and spent 45 min looking up the Target Priority Rules in the first game we played in 5th until the owner of the LFGS told us they don't exsist any more.

5th edition is by far the best edition. Vehicles are really good now, I guess someone could complain that their all infantry list isn't as good, but then, it is a future warfare game so I would hope that vehicles would have a prominent place on the battlefield

5th edition didn't break any armies.

I just say update the armies that are behind before doing new ones.

Sanctjud wrote:
"Necrons: Sweeping Advance sucks... modifying the Leadership by how much you lost by sucks more.
Vehicle Glance table sucks for Gauss.
Only troops score... they have one (generally min sized) troop choice. "

That's exactly the thing that infuriates me. Your leadership is modified by how many models you lost. with I2, you go last. I.E. power weapons+ massive cc attacks = lots of kills, you get very very few attacks back, then powerfists to add insult to injury. You're going to fail the leadership test. The problem with this happening is that Necrons have a general initiative of 2. This means your opponent gets an automatic sweep unless you roll like a 6 and he rolls like a 1. Now if Necrons had fearless or some way of preventing them from getting swept so easily, they would be MUCH better in the game.

Vehicle Glances are ok atm, you disable the crap out of vehicles, but without heavy destroyers you can't really kill vehicles, which can be annoying if units are chilling in transports.

Exactly. I heard rumors that flayed ones are being moved to troops for the next cron codex. This would be a big buff to the army. Because Flayed ones have options to outflank or deep strike or lith teleport, they are a very tactical choice as a troops selection.

So yes 5th edition/new codexs ruined the unloved armies but I still like 5th edition the best. The missions are more fun and you have more options to getting around with the transport/mech spam.

I don't know about the changes in other armies, but since 5th edition Tau has a lot of momentum because it it, now FoF (Fish of Fury) tactic is now nerfed. It is where your FWs fire under your Devilfish (since it is a skimmer) to the nearest enemy group, using the devilfish as a wall, forcing your opponents to go around, that how it was back then. Now in 5th edition you can still do that same if your base is high enough for LoS but it gives your enemies a 4+ cover save.

Basically its CoverHammer, not warhammer. You need to think in coversaves.
Ive been playing for almost 10 years now, and I like 5th the best as well, but it still has flaws. And yea I agree, they need to update ALL the armies into 5th. Then people wont be complaining about how nerfed they got.

I probably didn't read the book well enough, but what's this about being unable to glance vehicles to death? And how did it change between 4th and 5th? I never really played 4th edition (Just started Tau in 5th) so maybe it's some rule I didn't know about, but how did the ruling change?

A 6 on a glance would wreck the vehicle.

Broadly speaking

In 5e codexes the points costs are all a bit lower, making 3e/4e units more expensive in comparison.

Assault units got stronger because movement sped up and there are cover saves all over the place.

The results of H2H favour small elite units over large, less good units.

Skimmers lost the Moving Fast rule and the Assaulters Hit on a 6 rule, making them more vulnerable.

As mentioned previously, some special rules for some armies just got made useless.

Locclo wrote:I probably didn't read the book well enough, but what's this about being unable to glance vehicles to death? And how did it change between 4th and 5th? I never really played 4th edition (Just started Tau in 5th) so maybe it's some rule I didn't know about, but how did the ruling change?

You can, it is just more difficult. First you have to immobilize and then remove all the weapons and then get a further weapon destroyed/immobilize. Also, an AP1 weapon on a glance can still destroy. It is one unified chart now, rather than a separate one for glancing vs. penetrating. It actually works fairly well in practice.

Well you are always going to have issues with every edition that comes out because it is no what you are used to!

In 4th edition necrons could take a land raider with just necron warriors.

Yes and TAC Sargents could take Lighting Claws, but you don't here me whining...no wait I just did!
And I pound of that whine!

IvanTih wrote:In 4th edition necrons could take a land raider with just necron warriors.

Which wasn't necessarily a good thing.

The decreased cost of models has put a disadvantage on older codex's.

Take the standard ork. The cost has been lowered from 8 to 6 points. Their ability to double the I on the charge has been replaced with Furious Charge, and their ability to 'mob up' has been replaced with being fearless when over 10 in size. Both of those advantages are equal, resulting in the new ork being 25% cheaper than the old one.

Transports have also gotten cheaper in cost, and more effective -- as shown in the IG Chimera. If you are playing witchhunters, you can still pay the old cost for the Chimera, however.

It should not be a suprise as to why GW is doing this. If models are 25% less points, then people will by 25% more. When a tank kit is bought for every 10 infantry, the sales go up.

I think Necrons and Tau got it pretty bad.

Funny enough they are '4th' ed codicies...to which I point back to Labmouse42's post.
Not to say the DE dex isn't old... ...

IvanTih wrote:In 4th edition necrons could take a land raider with just necron warriors.

On the other hand, in 4th edition a monolith was not nigh-unkillable.

Dashofpepper wrote:5th edition didn't break any armies.

How could anyone play the game this long without ever hearing of Necrons?

Cause the Necrons in his area are still in the Rogue Trader days of hibernation?

In 4th edition, Skimmers had a rule called "Skimmers Moving Fast" which said basically that all hits counted as glancing if the skimmer was moving fast.

I only know one Tau player, and I am the only Necron player that shows up at the local friendly gaming store. I can tell you from several tournaments, tau and necrons are bottom tier armies with bascially no chance of getting high rankings in tournaments. I think if they ever do a 6th edition, they should release an update to all armies with pdfs or just new codexs because no army should be left behind (and btw GW is losing sales, because they only market and update half their armies).

5e didn't break armies. Armies broke 5e.
*bad joke, that might or might not be true*