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Made in ca
Fresh-Faced New User




I posted a similar thread on another forum, but I want more that 8 people to see it.

I'm wondering what parts of each edition really prevent it from being great. I'm not looking at nostalgia or edition warring, but rather a subjective reflect on the past so we can recognize what really didn't work. I haven't played each edition, but here is what I've seen. I really want to know what other think though, since my experiences is quite limited with later editions.

1st Edition
I think the biggest failing here is that it's not a game. Early Rogue Trader is a roleplaying game rather than a miniature game, and late Rogue Trader is just 2nd Edition.

2nd Edition
I love the hell out of 2nd edition, but I see 3 major failure points: close combat, the psychic phase, and the problem of Herohammer.

Don't get me wrong. I love 2nd edition close combat. The problem though is that it doesn't work when you have more than a few models fighting. The play scale of 40k has changed over the decades, and this kind of play would stop the game dead if you have multiple squads in play. Rolling individual model fights just doesn't work.

The psychic phase is another fond memory, but probably one that can stay in memory. It's this entirely separate game that only a very few armies can participate in, and the ramifications of psykers puking out a half dozen powers is punishing for people who don't play or don't have psykers.

Lastly is the problem of Herohammer. This is actually a funny one because I don't think 2nd edition is the worst of it. But yes, every character model rolling a dozen attacks at WS7 is obnoxious. Character models should be cool, but they shouldn't be walking gods.

3rd and 4th Edition
There are a bunch of failures here, some of which are just be being salty about the rules being simplified. But I think the biggest failure that comes out of these two editions is the rapid increase of everything needing special rules. Every single subfaction of every single army needed a plate full of special rules to make them feel special and unique like precious snowflakes. This is a problem that plagues 40k to this day. What this did was start to bloat the game while at the same time punishing certain armies that didn't have these same options. I walked away from my army with 4th edition came out and my Blood Angels mini-codex no longer lined up with the Space Marine codex. Meanwhile, everyone is cheesing out as many special rules as they can instead of playing what they want.

5th to 7th Edition
I didn't play much of any of these editions, but I see a lot of the same problems continuing from 3rd and 4th. It's funny that people say 5th edition is where everything got cleaned up because I see this era as having two major failures: the return of Herohammer and the drowning of special rules.

I've already talked about the rules thing, but it's taken to a "special" place by the time you get to 7th edition. Everything has special rules. Formations have special rules. It becomes a game of who has more special rules to use.

Partially with the bloat of special rules that came edition after edition and partly for other reasons, we say the return of Herohammer. I'm not sure how this played out in the rules, but the game stopped being about your army leader and more and more about playing special characters. And those special characters have a bunch of special rules. And they're better than everyone else.

More than the rule issue, for me, the return of Herohammer marks a shift in the game away from it being your game, your story, and your army. Now, it was about playing someone else's army. Formations play into this as well. You have to play the models and units someone else decided before hand. Gone are the custom Marine chapters and fun personal army lore, because those no longer mesh with having specific special characters rammed down your throat. Want a Chaos Lord following their own path to damnation due to the slow corruption of a retrieved deamon weapon? Screw you! Here's Abaddon. Want to have a new warboss lead a Waaagh? Ghazghkull shows up and pimpslaps him to the back of the line because it's the Ghazghkull show now. You completely hamstring yourself by not playing with special characters and formations, and that ends up killing a lot of the joy of the game as well.

8th Edition
I was overseas during this fiasco, but it seems to be summed up by the following phrase: "Babies First Warhammer." The rules seem to have be super oversimplified, and while some things I like from 2nd edition come back, it seems to be drowning in nonsense. It apparently stripped away most of the rules to the point where vehicles don't matter and changed the points scale to the point where there's no reason why you wouldn't just take the best loadouts. But then it seems like a lot of that doesn't matter anyways because of some of the simplifications.

Another big problem that comes to pass here is the scale change. This had been going on since 6th edition with flyers, but 8th edition really seems to be where the game got bigger. There seems to be an emphasis on playing physically larger games with physically larger (and vastly more expensive) models. More and more models from this point have a higher and higher price tag, and the game seems to have moved in a direction where you pretty much need those larger and more expensive models if you want to keep playing

9th Edition
If any edition represented Papa Nurgle, it would be 9th edition. Bloated, leaking, toxic, slow moving, awful to look at, and it probably smells bad too. Everything about this edition seems to be a mess. The release has understandably been just wrecked by COVID, but each release brings so much power creep and imbalance. Stratagems also seem to be just hot garbage, rendering what's happening on the table kind of meaningless. Where 7th edition was all about chasing formations, 9th edition seems to be all about chasing stratagems in an ever changing and increasingly unbalanced game that's rapidly drowning in rules that keep getting stapled onto the side of it. Mixed with all the meta problems right now, it seems like the game is in the dark ages right now, and almost all of it seems to come back to rules bloat.


Did I nail it? Did I miss anything? Remember, I'm trying to steer towards objective problems. I'm not looking for "this is the best edition because it's a classic because that's what I played as a teen." I'm looking for something constructive and fair. I've been playing with the idea of trying to frankenstein a version of 40k I and my friends are happy playing, but I also want to take it past that if I can because one of the louder players in my group seems to have a suspicious bias about what edition we play. I'm alternating between taking one edition and reconciling all of the rules with it, rebuilding 2nd edition and giving everyone the finger, and just burning the whole thing down and making a new game from the ground up. But having not played some of these editions means I don't understand where each failed.
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka







ScooterinAB wrote:
2nd Edition
I love the hell out of 2nd edition, but I see 3 major failure points: close combat, the psychic phase, and the problem of Herohammer.

...

The psychic phase is another fond memory, but probably one that can stay in memory. It's this entirely separate game that only a very few armies can participate in, and the ramifications of psykers puking out a half dozen powers is punishing for people who don't play or don't have psykers.

You're going to need to elaborate on this criticism a bit - I'm pretty sure the only army with a Codex that couldn't directly participate in the psychic phase were the Sisters of Battle, and they could still ally in psykers. Arguably Necrons, too, but they released right at the end of the edition with an incomplete army.
   
Made in gb
Witch Hunter in the Shadows





It's worth nothing that 'when' during an edition is also an important consideration.

5e before the rampant codex creep is quite different to the last days of 5e for example.
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





No bias against 8th and 9th edition in this post at all!
   
Made in ca
Deathwing Terminator with Assault Cannon






A.T. wrote:
It's worth nothing that 'when' during an edition is also an important consideration.

5e before the rampant codex creep is quite different to the last days of 5e for example.


Likewise early 3rd edition was all Rhino Rush all the time, until that got patched over later on.

Early 8th with Indexes or 1st rev Codexes was probably the pinnacle of 40K gameplay - then the thread got lost as later Codexes and Psychic Awakening started bolting on more rules than the chassis could handle.
   
Made in no
Boom! Leman Russ Commander






Oslo Norway

I mean, he hates them all, proper grognard this one.

Seems he hasn't played since 3rd edition too, so the criticism can probably be taken with a "pinch" of salt.

As for my take on the topic:

3rd I only played the tail-end. The changes added in white dwarf improved the game, and paved the way for 4th ed. I remember there being some wild builds with chaos, but overall nothing too bad.

I think 4th and 5th in general were very solid rulesets, but both got worse with some bad codexes, or even just single units that were just too good. Unkillable eldar falcon and GK psybolt spam as two good examples. I also agree that this was the start of less customization, with some codexes suffering way worse than others from the reduction of options (chaos). Wound allocation was the only proper annoying rule in 5th that I remember.

6th as a base ruleset was IMO just more stuff added on to 5th, and no real fix for weaknesses. Super heavies and fortifications were not introduced very well unfortunately, and created a lot of division.

7th added even more to the 5th ed rules, and increased the time it took to play with needless details. This is where I dropped out.

8th and 9th I can say what makes me not want to join in again, and that is the increasing amount of homework I have to do to play, and the apparent lethality. Strategems, tons of special rules for everything, army lists spread across lots of different sources is just too much work to get involved casually again.

It also looks like there are lists that will just steamroll a casual list in a single round now, which was very rarely the case in previous editions.

The good thing I have observed about 8-9th, is that there is seemingly a more varied meta now.

   
Made in dk
Loyal Necron Lychguard






5th edition vehicles were hard to kill and melee was complicated to avoid any avenue for skill expression.

6th turned psykers into boring batteries, introduced unkillable flyers, made vehicles too easy to destroy and never saw a hint of balance.

7th had OP psychic powers, WMD and formations, another full edition without balance in sight.

8th the game became too technical for casual play, a lot of depth was explored through play so GW had no chance to teach people how to best use the rules, some of these strategies were very unthematic. Bad terrain rules. Rapid rules releases hard to keep up with. List-building is a chore because of new format. Troop spam is the name of the game because of CP rules. Stratagems were everywhere, scattered around different books.

9th 70% win rate Drukhari, odd pts changes, SM book released very soon after last one, More rules bloat.
   
Made in pt
Inquisitorial Keeper of the Xenobanks






your mind

8th should be spelled “baby’s first Warhammer” and really, true, down to the newborn Bobby G good marines.

Second was best. Smaller games and restrictions on named characters and psykers fix those complaints.

Editions that went to cover saves, ditching to hit penalties, all fail on that count alone.

   
Made in ca
Fresh-Faced New User




Dysartes wrote:
ScooterinAB wrote:
2nd Edition
I love the hell out of 2nd edition, but I see 3 major failure points: close combat, the psychic phase, and the problem of Herohammer.

...

The psychic phase is another fond memory, but probably one that can stay in memory. It's this entirely separate game that only a very few armies can participate in, and the ramifications of psykers puking out a half dozen powers is punishing for people who don't play or don't have psykers.

You're going to need to elaborate on this criticism a bit - I'm pretty sure the only army with a Codex that couldn't directly participate in the psychic phase were the Sisters of Battle, and they could still ally in psykers. Arguably Necrons, too, but they released right at the end of the edition with an incomplete army.


The reality is that it's going to be the Eldar and Space Marine show. Half of Chaos players probably wouldn't be involved, Imperial Guard could but it was a minor affair, Tyranids technically had psykers but it wasn't really a thing. Orks definitely could, but you either had a Warphead or didn't, meaning there wasn't as much there.

Illumini wrote:I mean, he hates them all, proper grognard this one.

Seems he hasn't played since 3rd edition too, so the criticism can probably be taken with a "pinch" of salt.

I have played since 3rd editions. It's just that most (but not all) of my play was 2nd to 4th. My group also plays 6th, and I'm trying to get my army unpacked (I was overseas) assembled enough to join.
   
Made in us
Fresh-Faced New User




I skipped from 5th to 9th so that was...a dramatic change.

I miss some of the old vehicle rules where 'facing' and direction and flanking actually -Mattered- and was important. Sneaking around to the side or back for high damage /low armor was fun.

I don't miss some of the very hardcore toughness/strength 5th interactions where you just had units that were physically impossible to wound or to be wounded sometimes.

I don't like 'strategem bloat' in 9th, and how the whole game seems to revolve around each army having some optimal stacking of auras for rerolls and strategems that turn something into a blender at the right moment to tilt the whole game. It's much less about a bunch of cool units fighting and much more about figuring out some byzantine aura stacking / strat combo to nuke your enemy.

This character next to this unit with these auras with these two strategems means you just got 500 points bonked off the table, etc.

This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2021/11/30 22:34:31


 
   
Made in ca
Longtime Dakkanaut





My spin is that no edition has failed; they've merely been abandoned.

For me, the biggest issue facing ANY game is edition churn itself. If Rogue Trader had 30 years of development, it would be fine. If second had 22 years of development, it would be fine. And so on.

The real problem is edition churn itself; especially in a game where one faction, and only one faction gets a huge range bump EVERY edition while other factions are lucky to get one every three or four.

In the beginning, you might have been able to argue that the technology to sustain a persistent edition didn't exist. In the here and now? It's ridiculous that we don't have a persistent edition.
   
Made in us
Ultramarine Chaplain with Hate to Spare






ScooterinAB wrote:
Dysartes wrote:
ScooterinAB wrote:
2nd Edition
I love the hell out of 2nd edition, but I see 3 major failure points: close combat, the psychic phase, and the problem of Herohammer.

...

The psychic phase is another fond memory, but probably one that can stay in memory. It's this entirely separate game that only a very few armies can participate in, and the ramifications of psykers puking out a half dozen powers is punishing for people who don't play or don't have psykers.

You're going to need to elaborate on this criticism a bit - I'm pretty sure the only army with a Codex that couldn't directly participate in the psychic phase were the Sisters of Battle, and they could still ally in psykers. Arguably Necrons, too, but they released right at the end of the edition with an incomplete army.


The reality is that it's going to be the Eldar and Space Marine show. Half of Chaos players probably wouldn't be involved, Imperial Guard could but it was a minor affair, Tyranids technically had psykers but it wasn't really a thing. Orks definitely could, but you either had a Warphead or didn't, meaning there wasn't as much there.

Oh man, that wasn't our experience. In our group not having a Psyker to defend against opponent Psykers was a death knell. Space Marines, Eldar, Chaos, Orks and Nids. Even if someone played Guard there was a high chance of a Lvl 4 Inquisitor getting involved.
   
Made in us
Krazed Killa Kan






The short answer is each edition fails when GW writes the rules.

But less cynically I will say that 7th failed with Decurion. The Necron codex was the first time the super formation occured and the power creep really started to go full force. Before that it could be argued that formations allowed for a lot of fun gameplay options and all of the codexes up to that point (Space Wolves being the outlier) where very tame and the formations for the most part weren't insanely OP. The edition still had many issues before the Necron release but that is more of a problem with GW refusing to patch anything in the BRB or codexes.That said on the other side of the coin, I think GW started making way more money in 7th with the Decurion style format as a lot of less desirable units started to sell out super fast when they where needed for some powerful formation or super formation. The buying power arms race had begun and it wouldn't stop until GW nuked the entire game with its 8th edition rework.

For me 8th failed the moment they released that bare bones piece of gak core ruleset. Because of that bare bones framework, the game had no foundation to build upon and was a shallow as a plastic toddler pool in terms of gameplay complexity. From there the bloat began as there was nowhere to expand the game except to inflate the numbers.

9th failed when they did too little to fix the barebones mess of a core game they made and instead thought focusing on the game the missions would fix the game instead of accepting the fact that they over simplified the game too much. Still no room to expand the gameplay mechanics so number inflation (power creep) is the name of the game for new releases.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2021/12/01 03:37:37


"Hold my shoota, I'm goin in"
Armies (7th edition points)
7000+ Points Death Skullz
4000 Points
+ + 3000 Points "The Fiery Heart of the Emperor"
3500 Points "Void Kraken" Space Marines
3000 Points "Bard's Booze Cruise" 
   
Made in us
Fresh-Faced New User




We also have to factor in GW are in the business of being a business. Putting out a new edition every few years is many many $$ millions for them when everyone has to go buy all new codexes and new core books.

Persistent edition would be great for all of us but not for them :(

I want to imagine whenever 10th rolls around they might swing the pendulum back the other way a bit, but who knows. I'd really like directionality to matter. Which way guns are pointed, which way vehicles are facing. Make it more tactical.
   
Made in us
Grim Dark Angels Interrogator-Chaplain






A Protoss colony world

OneBoxForOptimism wrote:
I want to imagine whenever 10th rolls around they might swing the pendulum back the other way a bit, but who knows. I'd really like directionality to matter. Which way guns are pointed, which way vehicles are facing. Make it more tactical.

That kind of thing works well for a game like Infinity where you don't have more than 15 (at most) models per side, but in a modern game of 40k where some armies have multiple units with more models than that it would bog the game down to an incredible degree. That being said, as far as vehicles go I do kind of miss the times when facing mattered. Of course, part of that is because my favorite trick was to drop a melta squad in a Drop Pod right behind an important enemy vehicle (such as Pask) and blow it sky high.

My armies (re-counted and updated on 11/1/23, including modeled wargear options):
Dark Angels: ~15000 Astra Militarum: ~1200 | Adeptus Custodes: ~1900 | Imperial Knights: ~2000 | Sisters of Battle: ~3500 | Leagues of Votann: ~1200 | Tyranids: ~2600 | Stormcast Eternals: ~5000
Check out my P&M Blogs: ZergSmasher's P&M Blog | Imperial Knights blog | Board Games blog | Total models painted in 2023: 40 | Total models painted in 2024: 7 | Current main painting project: Dark Angels
 Mr_Rose wrote:
Who doesn’t love crazy mutant squawk-puppies? Eh? Nobody, that’s who.
 
   
Made in de
Contagious Dreadnought of Nurgle





Short answer? 3rd to 9th edition: Igougo and lack of an activation system
   
Made in es
Grim Dark Angels Interrogator-Chaplain




Vigo. Spain.

I have to say 8th was much more intro crazy stratagem combos than 9th.

And I dont understand peoples problem.with special characters. Like, 90% of them are overpriced versions of genéric characters that you can make better yourself using relics and traits, and the truly unique characters like Guillimam, the silent King , abaddon, etc... Are so expensive that you need to plan all your army around them.to make them work and people most of the time dont botther.
Like, what special character has really been a balance problem in the past 5 years? I can only think of Celestine and Guilliman. Even Magnus and mortarion were most of the time too expensive to be really op

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/12/01 05:44:31


 Crimson Devil wrote:

Dakka does have White Knights and is also rather infamous for it's Black Knights. A new edition brings out the passionate and not all of them are good at expressing themselves in written form. There have been plenty of hysterical responses from both sides so far. So we descend into pointless bickering with neither side listening to each other. So posting here becomes more masturbation than conversation.

ERJAK wrote:
Forcing a 40k player to keep playing 7th is basically a hate crime.

 
   
Made in dk
Loyal Necron Lychguard






 Galas wrote:
I have to say 8th was much more intro crazy stratagem combos than 9th.

And I dont understand peoples problem.with special characters. Like, 90% of them are overpriced versions of genéric characters that you can make better yourself using relics and traits, and the truly unique characters like Guillimam, the silent King , abaddon, etc... Are so expensive that you need to plan all your army around them.to make them work and people most of the time dont botther.
Like, what special character has really been a balance problem in the past 5 years? I can only think of Celestine and Guilliman. Even Magnus and mortarion were most of the time too expensive to be really op

Cat Lady, Ahriman, Changeling, Swarmlord, Big Bird and Imotekh.
   
Made in es
Grim Dark Angels Interrogator-Chaplain




Vigo. Spain.

Wen have been OP in 8th or 9th Yvraine, ahriman or imotekh?
The swarmlord combo IS good, but op?

The Big FW bird I can concede but thats less a special character and more a pseudo Titanic unit

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/12/01 06:22:38


 Crimson Devil wrote:

Dakka does have White Knights and is also rather infamous for it's Black Knights. A new edition brings out the passionate and not all of them are good at expressing themselves in written form. There have been plenty of hysterical responses from both sides so far. So we descend into pointless bickering with neither side listening to each other. So posting here becomes more masturbation than conversation.

ERJAK wrote:
Forcing a 40k player to keep playing 7th is basically a hate crime.

 
   
Made in dk
Loyal Necron Lychguard






 Galas wrote:
Wen have been OP in 8th or 9th Yvraine, Ahriman or Imotekh?
The swarmlord combo IS good, but op?

The Big FW bird I can concede but thats less a special character and more a pseudo Titanic unit

What does OP mean? Yvraine was a necessary part of an S tier list. Ahriman was in 60% of lists in an A tier faction. Imotekh saw 90% inclusion in a C tier faction.

I don't get your point about Big Bird. The fact is that almost all special characters were trash in 5th-7th, 8th-9th has been way more balanced, but a few were mandatory for a while. For someone who hates special characters, it might have been nicer if they were all overcosted so only fluff bunnies brought them.
   
Made in au
Regular Dakkanaut




PenitentJake wrote:

The real problem is edition churn itself; especially in a game where one faction, and only one faction gets a huge range bump EVERY edition while other factions are lucky to get one every three or four.


Agreed, the edition treadmill is an apt phrase. Like a treadmill as each edition rolls by we may be standing on a different patch of the belt but we haven't actually moved forwards.

This is clearly evident when mechanics get abandoned only to reappear a few editions later. That's not progress! Lessons learned from previous editions clearly didn't stay learned.
   
Made in de
Battlefield Tourist






Nuremberg

I didn't play Rogue Trader and haven't played 8th or 9th so I won't comment much on those.

But I think in general every edition of every GW game fails in the same place, Army Books or Codices or whatever you want to call them. Badly designed army books that change the entire design paradigm of the game have been the real reason that editions became unfun for years, along with neglect of certain factions because GW devs don't care about them.

Leaving that aside though, here's where I think the games fell down.

2e fell down when you tried to play it as anything other than a "let's see what crazy stuff happens" simulator, and also when you played games bigger than a couple of squads, a vehicle, and a hero or two. All the complex sub tables and special rules for every kind of weapon became overwhelming, as well as the individual nature of close combat.
That said it was a really fun game if you were in the mood for "finding out what happens" and it's my "played it as a teenager" game so I do have very fond memories of it. But it was so complex I couldn't really tell you which books were overpowered except for Space Wolves maybe?

3e was a pretty good edition I thought, but there was a gradual shift in design priorities from the start to the end. It was a real shock to see all the gonzo craziness of 2e condensed into this bare bones system, but suddenly you could play more "army" scale games easily and get a close combat done in less than 45 minutes. I'd say for me 3e fell apart when they added stuff like Daemonhunters as a stand alone book, and as the weight of all the "chapter approved" rules started to make the whole thing unwieldy. But again, I broadly look on the edition with fondness, especially for the early days of discovering it and getting used to the new style of play, and starting my beloved Ork army.

4e for me failed because GW were too slow with codex updates. Many armies (mine included) languished without updates for ages in this edition, and when they were updated, often they became very bland depending on the writer. It ended up being like two different design paradigms clashing in some of the book design. Additionally, in an attempt to deal with 3e Rhino Rush, they really swung the pendulum too far in the other direction and made vehicles really weak.

5e again I felt was an improvement, but was broken down by later codex releases that were seemingly designed to a totally different power level. Flyers also got introduced and I think this really messed with the game. Other common complaints include stuff like wound allocation abuse, which I agree was really ridiculous.

6e is where I started to feel that the edition was obviously "made broken". Like it's the first time where I cracked open a rulebook and I just couldn't see the point of the edition change at all, I couldn't see what it was fixing. It diluted the FOC balance of previous editions, and seemed to just bloat up the game even more. Stupid and poorly thought out mechanics like challenges also seemed weird and wonky to me. I think the fact that 6e failed is clear from how quickly it was replaced with 7e.

7e seems like the absolute nadir of 40K. I never played it, I only read the rulebook and I was so put off I just didn't touch it. Crazy powerful psychic phase that certain armies just couldn't participate in. Total breakdown of factions into a sort of "play what you want unless you were dumb enough to play non-eldar xenos" and really obvious "pay to win" formations giving free points (a mechanic I hate in every game it exists in, basically why I dropped WM and Hordes after Mk2). I don't really consider anything about 7e a success and I completely stopped even wanting to play 40K when it came out.

I think, as an outsider, 8e was really created with a good design intent, something like the paradigm shift from 2e to 3e and it seems to have achieved that intent. I know I can come across like a grumpy old Grognard on these threads sometimes but it is clear that 8e and 9e are better designed than 7e or 6e and that the designers had a fresh take on the game that is to a lot of people's taste. I'm actually pretty happy with a lot of the changes made and think they are sensible.

So if I was going to nail down why I haven't yet played those editions, the main reasons would be expense of having "all the rules" which is just a personal thing for me, I like to see the whole system which may be an artefact of playing older editions, and the fact that I just don't like "metacurrency" like Command Points in my wargames as a mechanic. It's not actually a major dealbreaker, it's just not managing to compete with alternatives for me because I'm isolated from any local community by language and lack of time to find a group, so I'm happy playing stuff that is a bit more accessible with a small group of new players instead.

I think 40K is on an upward arc despite that.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/12/01 08:06:28


   
Made in it
Waaagh! Ork Warboss




Italy

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Short answer? 3rd to 9th edition: Igougo and lack of an activation system


Well, after 20+ years of IGOUGO 40k is still there, and it's at one of its best moments in terms of popularity. So no, IGOUGO never failed 40k .


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Da Boss wrote:


I think, as an outsider, 8e was really created with a good design intent, something like the paradigm shift from 2e to 3e and it seems to have achieved that intent. I know I can come across like a grumpy old Grognard on these threads sometimes but it is clear that 8e and 9e are better designed than 7e or 6e and that the designers had a fresh take on the game that is to a lot of people's taste. I'm actually pretty happy with a lot of the changes made and think they are sensible.


8th changes were necessary but the edition was basically a beta test, rather than a functioning edition. Especially if you were forced to play with an index for half edition .

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/12/01 08:19:53


 
   
Made in ca
Angered Reaver Arena Champion





I have played all editions except RT and 4th and for me the game usually fails in the release cadence of codexes. Design paradigms seem to shift rather often at GW HQ and that is seen in how each codex is designed and how it often feels like there is codex creep. Even AoS feels disjointed and weird right now as only 2 factions have received an update and we're already 6 months in.

Another issue is that there are many factions that are bloated model-wise and it is impossible to balance a 100 unit faction where units usability is overlapping each other.

8th changes were necessary but the edition was basically a beta test, rather than a functioning edition. Especially if you were forced to play with an index for half edition


8th edition was a bit like the first Assassin's Creed. An interesting core engine but not fully fleshed out.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/12/01 09:20:25


 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




I agree with Da Boss. The failure point of most editions is usually around the Codex design. GW's biggest failing, IMO, is a complete lack of design direction that is carried through the entire edition. They don't seem capable of having a set of guiding principles and rules for writing Codices and sticking to them for any length of time. The most obvious example is the introduction of formations halfway through 7th edition. Combine that with the slow army release cycle and it's frustrating to see your army left behind because some designer had a "great idea" in the middle of an edition. That also means these ideas are rarely tested properly and rapidly get out of control.

8th and 9th still have that problem (see the fact most armies get D3+3 damage on their anti-tank, but not all, for example) but are hampered more by a very shallow core ruleset with a ridiculous amount of extra rules added in each Codex, often through stratagems, which makes learning and playing the game extremely tedious at times. The vast increase in the number of dice rolled doesn't help with that but these are all due to the lack of solid core rules in the first place.
   
Made in gb
Fresh-Faced New User





Pretty much every edition fails about half way through, when either an expansion or a codex is released which is simply not balanced against the first few codices.

2nd Edition was a fun ride, but so many exploits prevented it being a full game. As each codex arrived, the exploits got worse and bigger (the interplay between wargear was hilariously bad). I still have mixed memories of the tyranid codex, with so many great and characterful rules, and yet so many many unique rules that bogged the game down and were easily exploitable. A whole pregame phase devoted to testing units for how the hive affected them.

3rd Ed started too bland, and this really affected the whole edition, mid way through we get a change of direction (including Chaos 3.5) but this was not carried through. And of course, resulted in a those who had the new books and those who did not issue.

4th tried to tidy the rules, but the bloat of special rules and exploits grew. It was also for me the dullest edition, so I played little. Hence, my memories of this edition may be a little bias.

5th was a really neat tidy up of this, and again, a good start with codices, only to break when a set of really unbalanced books were released (Grey knights...). The phrase Mat Ward became an internet meme and this was a huge issue.

6th had issues with flyers and superheavies being mixed into the game, but the rules not really being well planned. As the edition grew, these problems got worse.

7th started with some rebalancing of core issues, but the introduction of formations, which started as something fluffy and rapidly became a pay to win tool completely destroyed the edition.

8th was a great breath of fresh air, and the initial scene was great. I honestly felt the edition was brilliant (except for some minor balance issues) up until Psychic awakening, which both introduced pay to win and really left a lot of players out to dry. I had local players start to leave the game due to the need to find different rules in different places.

9th The Ally rules have created a huge issue really with 9th, that manifest themselves as rules bloat.
We have "Rules for army"
"Rules for if you play just your faction"
"Rules for unit"
"Buff rules for unit which affect other units"
"Stratagems"
"Stratagems for units"
By far the worse sin is the rules for the faction, created by the alliance rules, as GW needs to make it so taking a single faction pays off, but this rules bloat results in things such as "Stances" for Custodes, "Rituals" for T'sons, "Protocols" for necrons etc. Its an unnecessary level of bloat.
Personally, I think that it should be a CP cost for allying (eliminating faction only rules), and strategems should be limited to 10 a book. Ideally, I would also drop strats for units and just build it into the unit rules (let the unit pay the CP). But this is for a different thread.

In general, GW feels that it must make the new books more special, and I agree from a sales perspective. The issue is that for GW, special=more rules than previous book (which I disagree with). And this leads to the bloat in most editions. Its clear GW feel that this business model works, as every edition goes through the same cycle, and the lack of control in the design team is disappointing.

Personally, if the books were all written with a principle of "1 special rule per unit, 10 stratagems, 3 rules per faction, and 2 rules for leaders, with psychic shengigans" I would be ecstatic.

   
Made in no
Liche Priest Hierophant





Bergen

Can i just chime in poor internal and external balance in all codexes. In all editions. Less so in 8th and even less in 9th. Particularly this was a problem when models where underprised to push sales. Eldar wraightknight beeing a good example.

   
Made in ca
Longtime Dakkanaut





OneBoxForOptimism wrote:
We also have to factor in GW are in the business of being a business. Putting out a new edition every few years is many many $$ millions for them when everyone has to go buy all new codexes and new core books.

Persistent edition would be great for all of us but not for them :(



A quarterly campaign cycle for both 40k + Kill Team, if done properly, as a viable substitute for edition churn. You'd be looking at an army update box, a vs. box, a campaign book and a mission pack plus 5 single model releases per quarter just on the 40k side. Then a vs. box plus two Kill Team boxes per quarter on the Kill Team side, and you'd stagger them, so that what got KT coverage was an army that didn't get 40k coverage.

Edition churn is boom/bust- you make a ton of money in the first quarter of an edition's lifespan, but after that, it drops off by half. The quarterly campaign method never reaches that height of the first quarter of a new edition's lifespan, but it also never drops to the depths of the last half of the edition's lifespan. It is consistent and predictable.

Don't get me wrong: I know this is a pipe dream.

But edition churn is my bugbear, and 9th will be my last edition. It isn't perfect, but unlike the vast majority of Dakkanaughts, I really like the wargame/ RPG/ CCG hybrid that this edition is- playing 40k hits all three of my gaming passions all at once; no other game does. Warmachine is just a wargame, D&D is just an RPG and Magic is just a CCG. As a result, none of them match up.
   
Made in gb
Regular Dakkanaut





Hard to say exactly, without this turning into a list of everything I didn't like about each edition, so instead I'll try and focus on one from each that properly "broke" the balance.

6th Edition - Poorly thought out ally chart. Turned the game into a very simple set of "haves and have nots".
7th Edition - The easiest to identify; formations giving out stupid amounts of free points and special rules
8th Edition - Codex creep. The mark 2 Space Marine codex is the best example of how some armies had a entirely different tier of rules to draw upon compared others (think the mark 2 Chaos Marine codex as ac omparison)
9th Edition - We're only starting to see this, but I think the codex supplements will kill this edition. Giving a bunch of extra rules, more choice of warlord traits/relics/stratagems for playing a certain sub faction with no downside? What a great way to bring back the "have/have not" mentality! At least the armies of renown have downsides to make it more balanced.
   
Made in it
Waaagh! Ork Warboss




Italy

 Fergie0044 wrote:

9th Edition - We're only starting to see this, but I think the codex supplements will kill this edition. Giving a bunch of extra rules, more choice of warlord traits/relics/stratagems for playing a certain sub faction with no downside? What a great way to bring back the "have/have not" mentality! At least the armies of renown have downsides to make it more balanced.


The downside is that supplements are klan/chapter/obsession locked. Ork supplement is for Blood Axes only, Drukhari supplement is for Cult of Strife only, etc...

 
   
 
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