When I joined the hobby back in junior year of high school, 7th edition was nearing it's end. Despite the Gathering Storm supplements, no one seemed to want to play the game, let alone teach a noob how to play.
When 8th came out it was like a mini renaissance at my local stores, and people really seemed to enjoy 40k again. At least, for the first half of it.
By the end of the edition most people had become burned out (Iron Hands WAACgays were a significant contributor to this), and even after the seemingly successful launch of 9th no one ever seemed to enjoy the game as much anymore.
I really love 40k, and I want to keep playing it with my friends, but they are understandably off-put by the current state of the game. So I figure we turn to older editions to get our fix in.
To sum it all up, what does /tg/ think the absolute best version of 40k on the tabletop is? I know there are many here who have been playing for decades, so you seem like the best source.
>TL;DR
Which 40k editions don't suck ass
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Dunno I'm a secondarychad and only in it for the aesthetics and vidya.
>have been a secondarychad since secondaryedition
it's a good life
Just play 3rd/4th edition or use your models to play other games. Just because it doesn't have the Games Workshop brand slapped on the front doesn't mean it's not 40k.
What other games work well with 40k models?
And no you're not allowed to say OPR or Xenos Rampant.
Stargrave
I've been playing since 3rd ed, and to be quite honest, every edition's base rules have been generally fine. Not great, but fine.
The problems arise when the codexes are released. Broken combinations, weird power imbalances, slow releases etc.
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I personally miss deep strike mishaps (scattered landings always punished me, but I liked them anyway), artillery using scatter dice and having minimum ranges, and vehicle facings. The Force Organisation Chart was limiting, but good because it forced your army to actually look like an army. Difficult and dangerous terrain was great as it made you consider your movement.
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I also liked templates, but am coming around to them not being used (the micromanagement of model placement could be painful). I always argued for armour penetration, but it's turned into a grinder, where normal armour saves are hardly ever used because every weapon has at least AP-1 (again, this is a codex issue).
Best answer ITT.
My group thoroughly enjoyed 3rd/4th/5th ed. Also a few online systems seem to popular like 1page. Keep in mind that thid wa a time of a lot of hands on hobbying, such as home made terrain and kitbashing units which GW didn't have a model for.
For me, 4th or 5th. Both took a 3rd edition base and further polished it, to the point that you had a solid core game. Each made choices that were annoying in some ways (i.e. 5th adjusted some 4th ed annoyances, then added some annoyances of its own), and I think there's still things worth drawing in from later editions, but they are the best iteration of the basic 40k game engine that's been put out. They avoid allies, and absurdly over the top units. USRs were in, but not hopelessly bloated yet. 5th's introduction of flyers was a bad choice and part of the asymmetric unit-type creep that was to come, but overall I had a solid time with both.
Comedy answer: 2nd ed for just sheer frick it let's be ridiculous gameplay and enough datafaxes to wallpaper your house in. At least it's fun in its crunch, unlike 7th ed and later.
4th > 3rd > 5th > 2nd > 1st > 8th > 6th > 7th > 9th > 10th
>only 1 year between 8th and 9th
>forgetting that space marines got 2 codexes in 8th
That's terrible. Lucky me I abandon at 5th.
I feel OK playing 3rd codexes with modded 5th rulebook.
>6
>3
>7
>3
>5
>2
>2
>2
>1
It really got quicker.
We need to slow the frick down
This fricking new edition ever couple years bullshit has to stop.
They think they can patch their game and people buy it. Do they still do Errattas?
These days they do erratas when they release the books - taking their cues from the videogame industry it seems, shove the first draft out the door quick and patch it live.
What a shit show!
you can literally see the soul getting sucked right out of it
It feels like after 2008 the design took a nosedive. And with 2015 they selected generic digital splash art.
I was mostly shitposting but that's basically what I thought too. Up to 2008 it looks like a natural evolution then it quickly becomes uninteresting, though 2019 looks okay for its era
2017 and 2019 looks like they saw that 2008 design was much better.
what's the best of these to pick up for lore and art?
What an extraordinary ai generated question anon, about something completely subjective so that not a single response will have meaning or value.
>what's the best of these to pick up for lore and art?
2nd and 4th by far. Which is funny because those are also the best editions in terms of rules.
It’s actually not accurate. 8th came out in June 2017 and 9th was July 2020.
Source: lexicanum
It's an image showing codex space marines. Not editions.
God damn that art became terrible at 7th and got way way way way worse
4th with Index Astartes and Imperial Armour . . . now that's what I call kino
4th
If they brought this back I would, embarrassingly, probably think about it until I heard the price tag lol.
I honestly think warhammer would be better if they somehow released it as a couple box games handled by the side games teams. I don't know how this would ever occur, but it'd certainly be a better game.
Just a handful of units for two factions, popup terrain, and a bunch of scenarios.
The problem is that you need longterm customers. When your costumer buys two boxes than than stops buying, it isnt healthy. Or you need to change your business model. Thats why you saw Space Hulk, ManˋO War or Epic around the Millenium.
3-4th mix.
4th core & SM codex, 3.5 CSM codex, Chapter approved stuff. Old WD era kill team and combat patrol.
Best pre 7th edition for raw variety of rules & unit gear? I dont care about balance. Our group mainly plays guard, nids and marines for what its worth.
>unit gear
4th. Everyone's seen the chaos armory, I don't even need to post it.
That was a third-ed codex, the second one for that edition; the 4th ed one was incredibly depressing by comparison.
3rd ed also had the incredible Tyranid codex with all its mutations and the second IG codex with its doctrine system.
when did 40k truly left it's 80s punkish goofyness to really dive into what will be called grimdark?
Never, in that both opposing states are falsehoods born of both old and new schools(pre-8th) needing to believe their version of the IP was wildly different to their enemy's. The reality is that as soon as RT could reasonably be called a setting it was grimdark, that the humour was never as prevalent as the pensioners like to pretend, and neither did it ever really go away.
This is probably the most true take I've seen. Based af
I started in 5th and it's my favorite. Balance was good outside of leaf blower and grey knights. DE update was cool as frick.
Matt Ward is a homosexual.
>DE update was cool as frick.
I liked the nerf of dark lances (used to play with 12 at 1000pts) and the new warriors and scourges.
But I disliked the airplanes, the Archon diverse bodyguards and the Magician Talos.
3rd
The one you played as a kid, of course. No other edition will ever be its equal.
4th with the caveat that even as the best edition of 40k, it's still just a 5/10 wargame. If your friends are not averse to smaller scale minis I think you'll find Epic Armageddon to be a much more enjoyable game.
2nd for Oldhammer
3rd for midhammer
1st for Pseudo Oldschool Roleplaying campaigns
everything else past 4th is meh at best
3rd/4th were both absolutely fricking fantastic. Fantasy also made the jump from 5th to 6th around that time too which was its peak as well. It's a tossup between 3rd and 4th because 4th was a broad improvement in almost every way on 3rd but a couple of things were lost along the way.
I only played 4th and 5th editions
The one you play with your friends <3
Most people will say 4th Edition core rules with 3.5 codexes. But you can also try Grimdark Future.
Early 6th had promise, but it all went to shit quickly. 5th was OK, I actually miss tank facings. Wound distribution was a pain in the ass, and templates led to people b***hing at each other but I liked the way it made frickers take arty into account when positioning their men. I also liked how psyker powers worked in different phases instead of having their own phase, so no double dipping with shooting guns and psyker powers that replicate shooting. Frick I hate psyker armies.
The first edition. Older, better.
There are only really two worthwhile editions, 2nd and 4th. 2nd refines RT's whacky-wahoo-wahey borderline RPG into a semi-functional wargame that still has lots of quirks and detail, but you need to play it with people you can trust because it breaks really easily and you can be an absolute c**t if you want to and know what you're doing. 4th refines 3rd's more streamlined mentality by addressing the fact that it arguably went a bit too far in that direction; 4th core rules with a mix of 3rd and 4th codexes is about as close to a balanced wargame as 40K ever got(and I know, pedants, in absolute terms that's still not very close, but relative to its own other versions).
Anything you can get from RT you can get better elsewhere these days with one of the various retroclones. 3rd, as mentioned, went a bit far in its streamlining and for its first half was a bit dull, and by the time you apply all the Chapter Approved expansions and fixes you're basically playing 4th anyway. 5th did made some positive changes, but also some that weren't great and a couple of that led to the doom of the game IMO, plus some of the codexes were absolutely fricking rancid in power level. 6th and 7th continued in the same vein, making a few positive tweaks but compounding all of 5th's errors. I can't speak to 8th+, the fluff and rules changes it ushered in were so bad they made me walk away from Warhammer for a couple of years, and nothing I've seen since coming back(insofar as I keep playing old stuff I already have) has made me rethink that assessment, barely even seems like a wargame these days - kids at the store treat it like a CCG.
My preference if 5th edition core rules with 4th edition codexes (maybe allow the 3.5 chaos codex since that was very flavorful compared to the 4th edition one but that is up to each play groups preference). I know Matt Ward has earned some forgiveness by now but his era of codexes are some of the worst power creep I have experienced.
>Anything you can get from RT you can get better elsewhere these days with one of the various retroclones
Any recommendations on that front?
Holy shit an actually knowledgeable grog, I don't have to do all the heavy lifting in a thread for once? Said it better than I could, 100% agree with this guy on every point (assuming this is the same poster and not two different guys, either way it's all correct).
Personally if I had to pick between 2nd and 4th it's 2nd, no question. Most of the reason for streamlining (or as I would call it, dumbing down) in 3rd was just to get bigger armies with more models on the table. But the thing is, at the scale 40k models exist at, you really shouldn't be putting huge armies on the table, 28mm is only really meant for platoon-ish sized skirmishes and 2nd did that very well. The balance issues can be addressed with a few houserules and, to paraphrase the other anon, the golden rule of "don't be a c**t".
4th without question. The 4th Edition SM Codex was the most soulful, rules wise, because you could make "Your Dudes". It encouraged custom builds and kitbashing. But that's exactly why they moved away from it and started making Chapter specific books for Chapters that before were under the 'codex compliant' umbrella. An upgrade sprue for a Chapter MIGHT sell, maybe. But a kit that costs three times the price with boutique rules for it and it alone? That gets Rountree's dick harder than ceramite.
I understand this is highly subjective, but I like 2nd ed better than the rest. It's more characterful IMO, and only tries to be a platoon level skirmish game, which is what I like for a sci-fi game at this size of model.
I'm curious about 2nd edition. Is there a good compendium of the rules, and maybe some streamed games? It seems like the rules are scattered across a bunch of different books.
There's a fan compilation of the codexes + FAQs + White Dwarf supplementals.
Thanks, 2e 40k seems like it's at a good scale for a wargame of ~20 dudes, a hero, and a centerpiece like a tank
Battlebible has some things wrong or houseruled where theres better houserules for it.
Use the pdf Anon shared but 2nd youll have to sit with your group and figure stuff out.
>Battlebible has some things wrong or houseruled where theres better houserules for it.
Like what? I've never really read it too closely, I generally just use it as a quick reference for the wargear/army lists.
I'm not sure either. It used to be worse when it wasn't being updated, but now if someone reports an error it gets fixed and I'm not aware of anything outright wrong with it at the moment.
Some of the wargear has different points iirc and theres a rarity to them which isnt in 2nd edition (its a fair houserule that could be bent to allow for rule of cool whilst also stopping WAACgays). Its very minor differences so its not a major issue but Id recommend using an actual pdf of all the wargear cards over whatever it wrote in there. Direct codexes as well along with the anvil industry datasheets (including fan ones as you can get newer units and they arent broken)
Rarity is a 2nd edition rule, from White Dwarf 195. The points are standard (unless there's a mistake that's crept in there somewhere, but every time I've compared they've been the same).
4e. If I were to make a 40k heartbreaker, I would start with that edition. I prefer it's LOS and terrain rules.
5e had a lot of painful codex creep like Guard, GK, and Necrons.
Having started in 5th edition, I would say Index 8th if you're not playing with buttholes or 8th where everyone has their codexes but Marines don't get their wave two of codexes/codex supplements which utterly destroyed the balance of the game.
9th is also good if you just play Crusade, and 10th is the second most I've enjoyed compared to the good periods of 8th.
This seems like a good a place to ask as any; what is the deal with the '3.5e' Chaos codex? What core rules would I be using with this codex if I were to make an army with it?
It was designed for 3rd ed, so you'd use those rules. 4th ed had its own (extremely mediocre) update.
3rd ed was around for long enough that they felt they could do better later on, and so towards the end of its life a few armies got fresh takes. DE and DA had updates rolled into what fundamentally was the same army, while IG and Chaos had all-new codexes come out.
Interesting. Thanks for the info kind anon. I wasn't in the hobby at that time so the name always confused me.
3rd and 4th. 4th with 3rd codices+4th exclusive codices.
As someone who started in 5e, I thought 6e was the most fun; but going back I've enjoyed 3e and 4e books the most (both BL and codexes)
I kinda miss the green planets. I'm kinda sick of gothic ruins, which are also a giant pain in the ass to store
For me it's 3rd. So much creativity and possibility for fun combinations. Tons of white dwarf rules and articles clearly there to encourage creativity. Being able to make your own janky battlewagon always stuck with me.
4th edition 1500p with a huge table, good scenary, and thematic scenarios.
Also with WD or IA great campaigns.
The more thematic you go the better the game gets. It's also cool to play games of gothic, aeronautica or KT that make small changes to 40k campaign scenarios depending of the outcome.
I would suggest to change rending to the wound roll, since it is a bit too strong as it is.
Additionally I'm not sure if allowing to consolidate in to another combat is positive for the game since it creates long boring melee balls.
P. D. If you play with or against space marines and things get boring, try swapping the points of the drop pod with the rino, since the first is way too cheap and the second is too expensive.
If nids become boring, use the 3d and 5th edition characters without being cheesy. Or the codex approved monster creation rules / FW units.
Also not sure how to nerf a bit the falcon survivability, the eldar codex is probably the strongest.
If you like the imperial armour style, the designer Warwick Kinrade made an excellent ww2 wargame named Battlegroup that feels like a true evolution of those books.
>What is the BEST edition of 40k?
40k was never good. EVER. Interesting lore, but always a shitty wargame in any iteration.
Fifth edition rule book using the codices available in January 2008, with the exception of Chaos who get to use 3.5.
5th edition has huge issues:
Horrendous power creep.
True LOS.
Exploitable and game breaking wound allocation.
Worse vehicle rules.
Worse WD articles.
Universal running.
Universal going to ground.
Flanking without the dangers of deep strike.
Worse codex format and freedom.
Huge model creep.
The only people that recommend 5th didn't play enough 4th or 3d to have it as reference.
TLOS is my favourite version, YMMV. Most of the problems with it are immediately overcome by just not playing with gayc**ts, depending on what sort of people you get to be friends with, once again YMMV.
True LOS requires shit terrain.
TLOS causes more trouble than it's worth. It's lazy. All you need are 2-3 types of terrain and to agree what's what at the start of the game or in the mission briefing.
2nd edition. Or 4th with late 3rd codexes.
one page rules
4th
I always hear how good 4'th was, and how shit 7'th was, 5'th seems average, but what about 6'th?
It introduced a ton of things to shake up the style, like Allies, flyers, Challenges, universal psychic spells, etc
Why do people not remember it as fondly?
>pic related, most flavor I've ever seen on a spell
6th isn't remembered fondly because it turned a lot of the issues with 5th (which were mostly codex power creep related) and moved them into the core rules. Allies saw the birth of Taudar, flyers exacerbated the issues of fast skimmers, psychic powers being bullshit, etc. Half the complaints that
has are from the codexes of 5th not the core rules, so seeing them enshrined in the BRB was not something many people liked (both at the time and now).
>Half the complaints that (You) has are from the codexes of 5th not the core rules.
No they are not, 5th codex are terrible, but all the core rule changes are broken, and people that didn't play 4th or 3d don't realize how bad 5th was.
Just by having a squad of nobs with different loadouts you could loose a frickload of wound before loosing a single model. Just by having a different gun in your marine squad you can avoid some of the incoming dice expoiting the rules, and don't get me started with run or the pain of guard armies in urban terrain with hit the ground. It was a terrible rule set and it also was the era when GW really started pushing power, price and model creep going full corpo and starting finecast.
>was the era when GW really started pushing power, price and model creep going full corpo and starting finecast.
that was because 4th ed. was the first and only time that GW lost money and almost went bankrupt, so they began to try everything they could until they finally they struck gold with AoS GHB and 8th 40k
If only the LotR bubble popping had been a completely foreseeable event that could have been planned for in advance.
>most flavor I've ever seen on a spell
It's just watered down Hallucinogen gas from 2nd ed. If you like flavor, you play a good edition like 2nd. 6th was garbage.
It turned the psychic phase into its own minigame, including generating powers at the start of the game.
For Psyker heavy armies like the Thousand sons whose squad psykers are the equivalent of special/heavy weapons and whose characters need to be tooled to do reliable damage , lolsorandom powers mean there can be no real plan before deployment begins.
Warp charge turned Aspiring Sorcerors into batteries for characters to try get off one last witchfire before the baying hordes crash into you, or the fricking gunship just evaporates you from 5 feet away (who put attack helicopters in my game about force swords duelling with powerfists?)
I do still have a pack of those random objectives cards from 6th. Seemed appropriate to have random objectives to go with my random powers, make the game as random as possible and just see what happens
me and my mates either picked directly from the list, or we rolled twice
help me understand how anyone could like the way vehicles were damaged previous to 6'th - you could shoot a tank the entire game and unless you rolled a 6 on damage (or double 5's i think?), it would remain on the field until the end
Because in actual play that didn't tend to happen, and even when it did that was no different than any other aspect of play.
You rolled 1D6 and added it to the weapon strength. The result was compared against the target's armour: = was a glance, more was a penetrating hit. Glance gave you a 1 in 6 chance of destruction, but a pen gave you a 50% chance. And all the other results mattered too.
Sure, sometimes you just couldn't kill a damn vehicle, but that was absolutely no different than sometimes you just couldn't kill a damn model (what do you mean you made your save again?"). But with a vehicle you could "stun lock" it and immobilize it and blow up its weapons along the way, so vehicles broke down in a way models didn't. That made them weaker than models in some way.
So no one really cared because vehicles still broadly played out like regular models except for slowly breaking down if you didn't outright blow them up.
As someone else said that did not occur, unless you were shooting missile launchers at landraiders.
What happened in practice is that you needed to get into position to remove a troublesome tank. You would have a Landspeeder fly in from the flank to line up a side or rear armour shot with multimelta, or you would form overlapping fields of fire with 2 lascannons such that you can't present front armour to both of them.
Do you see how in both examples, use of terrain and positioning is crucial? That's very immersive, looking at a tank as a problem you solve with creative violence and angles rather than a health bar you need to drop to zero.
Missile launcher is the ground floor for antitank, and it glances armour 12 on a 4, pens it on a 5+. Side armour 12 is common on Russ tanks, it's lower for preds
A glancing hit has the potential to kill a vehicle, or immobilise/destroy a weapon, but in effect has a higher chance to shake (no shooting next turn) or stun(no shooting or move next turn) the vehicle.
All the permanent damage happens on 4,5,6 of the table, meaning , having just glanced a leman Russ on its side, you now have a 5 in six chance of stopping it from firing it's battlecannon next turn:
Shake/Stun/weapon destroy/vehicle destroyed.
If you were shooting a transport, you have a 3 in 6 chance of preventing it from moving next turn:
Stun
Immobilise
Destroy
On a penetrating hit, 3 out of 6 results are Kill.
Sometimes the table got swingy and you managed to shake the vehicle you really wanted stunned, or immobilise a shooty tank that was already in the best position and tougher vehicles usually had some way of mitigating shake, or downgrading stunned to shaken.
But overall it was immersive and it felt like you were shooting at big machines rather than bigger infantry. Constantly engaging with angles of attack and defence made abilities like deep strike and outflank very powerful, as they could strike from a direction where the enemy was vulnerable.
Picking from the table is fine for pickup games, rolling from the table is fine for campaigns as part of character generation.
I played with a bunch of tourney minded lads in a shop so I didn't get the benefits of house rules. Nor could the Psyker heavy army player argue for them without looking like a dick.
Of course you can ignore the rules with your mates, but that's not an endorsement of the rules. Didn't Sixth also bring in challenges, stealing the Emperor's Champion's thunder and forcing Abbadon to deal with every sergeant who felt lucky that day instead of butchering his entire squa
Sometimes. It mainly happened with stuff like Land Raiders and Monoliths, and I think the skimmer math was fricked such that Falcons and Wave Serpents were in practice some of the toughest vehicles to take down.
I think if they were going to simplify it, simplifying it like Flames of War armor facings would have been better than giving tanks hit points.
I'll also concede that it could get clunky with lots of vehicles like Rhino Rush armies or Mech Guard. On the other, that's why I think 1000-1500 was the sweet spot.
Falcon was an edge case of a skimmer that was armoured enough to require your antitank (couldn't just glance it to death with bolters) and had a bunch of additional rules that made it hard to deal with. Thankfully I mostly played against heterosexuals so I didn't have to fight a lot of Falcons.
Monolith was another edge case, but you could kill that turn one with a lascannon if you rolled well, which was hilarious, because Necron players never hid it and counted on it being around.
Landraiders were vulnerable to melta and Lance weapons, outside of codex specific upgrades, and you could always hit them with a demolisher cannon.
One of the lesser known results on the vehicle table was vehicle annihilated - only appeared on the ordinance Pen table.
It removes the vehicle from the table (most destroyed vehicles were left as wrecks, SOVL and immersive) and any transported passengers were killed. 250 point landraiders and 250 points of terminators gone in one shot.
It was rare enough, but the threat made you reconsider how you exposed transports to ordinance
Captcha: GWRTM8
bro, that sounds terrible
losing 500 pts of units to a SINGLE lascannon shot would feel horrible, makes the game swingy as frick
I would probably seethe the entire evening if that happened to me
Idk, it was pretty lulzy when people would sink too many points into one thing.
My Uncle has a Dark Eldar army, he would sneak up on Land Raiders full of troops, and cover each exit while it was being destroyed, keeping all troops inside from exiting and end up being killed.
Idk, some people really just thought termies in a land raider was the way to go. I think 3rd edition through 7th, termies never once made sense to me, point cost wise.
Terminators were great at what they do, and what they do is wreck one target and stick around to bother another.
Deep striking in to fire heavy weapons at exposed rear armour, drop heavy flamer templates on hordes in cover, etc- claim some far flung objective that you had no hope of reaching- and having enough muscle to wreck any objectives like bunkers etc. Even having a chainfist or two to destroy an enemy landraider or similar.
Melee terminators were great out of landraiders because it solved the problem deepstriking couldn't- actually getting you into combat. Once there, stuff got murdered pretty quickly. A great trick was to catch high initiative enemies like Eldar in cover- where the frag launchers would force them to fight at equal initiative.
They were less helpful against less elite opponents where more bodies and bolters would have been better, but they had some ideal matchups- expensive armoured squads without power weapons- or ones with a power weapon where you could have a character kill that guy immediately.
Something that skewed perception was that the good stuff like plasmaguns and lascannons came in metal blisters, so new marine players often had the flamer and missile launcher that came.in the plastic tactical box. This meant lots of your opponents simply wouldn't have any AP2 ranged tools to deal with your terminators unless they brought tanks, which themselves are vulnerable to terminators deepstriking and shooting rear or punching them to death
>They were less helpful against less elite opponents
Ah, that was usually how I handled enemy terminators. I'd swarm them with a tactical or assualt unit in melee that had a powerfist or so tucked in there. Would live long enough to keep the termies busy the rest of the game.
If you were playing 3rd Ed, that would have lasted about one turn, unless you managed to tie up the Terminator Sarge with enough squaddies.
In 3rd Ed there were a few ways that melee got very position based. One was that characters like chaplains, sergeants and so on could outright allocate attacks, getting rid of threats that were further down the initiative chain.
The other was that models in base contact were removed first and there was no pile-in move until the melee had been fought. This meant that the charging player could control exactly which models would be removed as casualties, by setting up the charge so that only those minis got base to base.
If you charged the right hand side of a line of terminators, contacting maybe the assault cannon and a storm bolter guy, then maybe one Terminator would also be in range to offer a support attack. This would be a single attack at standard initiative and not use any melee weapon rules.
The Stormbolter and Asscan guy could decide to strike you at initiative with their 2 attacks instead of using their powerfists. They might do this knowing you were likely to remove them before they could use the fists, wanting to get some damage in.
If your regular attacks took out both terminators, any excess failed saves would be carried through the unit. The rest of the unit could take casualties from your attacks but would not get to strike back. This includes your sergeant with power fist, who could safely crush terminators.
If the terminators didn't fall back though, the Termie sergeant would likely find your sergeant and kill him with his power sword. Your marine unit is down to 1 attack per guy left against 2+ saves and power fists.
I think 4th Ed introduced the idea of 'hidden powerfists' whereby you could not remove models like this- the sarge would always be last to die in melee and it made sense to give him the powerfist rather than sword.
Another point is that 40k was a slower game than it is today. Eldar could run instead of shooting but most other armies could not.
Drop pod was an alternate deployment style, not a miniature you could buy in store (FW had one)
Deepstriking was limited to terminators and assault marines- who didn't have ranged weapons worth mentioning. Of these, Terminators came in the battle box.
I play 4th from time to time and it's a lot faster than what I remember. It's easy to play a 1500p game in 2h.
Drop pots got a release during late 4th or early 5th.
Terminadors with 2 rending Ass cannons and tank hunters could deal with almost any profile in the game. Even more if you got them a librarian with fear and fury.
I didn't mean slow to play, I meant that units moved slower, and the game ramped up in lethality. A bolter was range 24, but a if a marine moved he was firing that once up to 12 in 3rd, twice up to 12 in 4th.
This meant that the threat range of an infantry with gun was only ever 24, or less if they moved.
Deployment zones were 24 inches apart, meaning the enemy had to start outside this range-you deployed in range of your enemies heavier stuff and then MOVED INTO boltguns range.
Last ed a Primaris Shootinator with Cawl Pattern biglyrifle could walk forward 6 and shoot his compensator (TM) 30 inches, giving him a threat range of 36.
In 10th an Intercessor can walk, advance and still shoot you twice at 24 a threat range of 30+D6 on the move, compared to 18 inches in 3rd and 4th.
That's what I meant by a slower edition, in the context of units having deepstrike. If you left a flank open to deepstrikers, you couldnt just wheel around and hit them from 30+ inches away with basic infantry- if you were out of position and had committed forward you were borked
Lascannons couldn't do it. It was ordinance exclusive - a 6 result on the ordinance Pen table.
To pen a landraiders on a 6, you needed strength 9, so this was actually reserved for weapons like the demolisher or earthshaker.
It was brutal and game changing when it happened, but again, considering the range of weapons that could do it, it happens rarely.
ok, but even so, you could lose a Land Raider to a Lascannon on a 6 for penetration and then on a 4+ for damage
1/6 * 1/2 => 1/12 chance every game to just lose a big unit on the first shot feels bad
and a Monolith was even more expensive
feels bad
Yes, that's why you used smoke launchers and the hull down rule to get cover for your 250 point tank.
You couldn't just put something big down and assume it would weather an enemy shooting phase (why, it has 18 wounds!) You had to put a little thought and effort into it- screen it with a rhino, delay your charge for one turn to keep it out of line of sight, cost benefits analysis of shooting the twin lascannons rather than moving full speed.
You might even park for a turn to try kill two enemy tanks with your lascannons across the table before you advance.
If you could effectively control and destroy enemy firepower, your heavy tanks could be impossible to destroy. If you failed to do that then you were going to have a bad time.
you make some good points, I guess
you make vehicle combat sound SO much better than 10ED, which is literally just vehicles are invulnerable to everything not anti tank. It may sound degenerate but my current sisters of battle army is 5 rhinos and a knight. (i dont feel bad about it because its an inquisition themed meme list) if I table enough of the anti tank I just win. If they bring enough I lose
t. a 10ed newbie
I feel sorry for you.
10th is the worst edition by far.
it's a simple starting point, for getting down the basics of the game
there's no shame starting with 10'th
the shame is still playing 10'th after 6 months
I hear you guys, there is so much appeal and fun in the earlier editions. 3rd and 4th are the most attractive to me, honestly. But a huge factor is whats actually playable. Tabletop Sim games aren't to hard to find, but if I want to use my models 10 ED is much easier at the various LGS.
didn't have anything better to do, so here's my take
RT and 2'nd edition were basically RPG-wargame hybrids, where GW was throwing shit at the wall and seeing what stuck. Last time dwarves were playable until 9'th.
Modern 40k was defined in 3'rd, and every edition up to and including 7'th built upon the structure established there (fundamentally - statlines, movement, and visibility)
3'rd edition set the lore and grimdark tone, turned it into more of an actual wargame, and introduced most of the now-classic factions like the Tau, Necrons and Dark Eldar.
Considered by many to have the most flavor, although the lack of unit options does hurt when compared to modern editions. Received a revision half-way through its life cycle (3.5)
4'th was fully compatible with 3'rd (was basically 3.75), and added a ton of customization for each army. It cleaned up some rules contradictions, simplified combat and is considered a definite improvement over 3.
Universal special rules are expanded, tanks are made more mobile (they can now move AND shoot). Transport rules are messy and lead to much debate.
On average, people's favorite edition, but that might be just nostalgia.
5'th introduced new rules like running, going to ground, flanking reinforcements, etc, and simplified the vehicle damage table, but also started the Codex power creep. The age of Matt Ward and horrible imbalance, broken combos, and flying Land Raiders.
Most factions received additional units, more lore, and better gameplay options.
Wound allocation was kinda exploitable. Rending dominates the edition.
5'th also introduced True Line of Sight, which to this day is controversial. Still mostly similar and compatible with 3.5 codexes.
6'th was an attempt to shake things up after 3 editions of tiny changes and erratas sold as full books. It introduced many new concepts, some succesful, some less so.
Among them, Challenges (and "Look out, sir!"), flyers, universal psychic powers, Allies (infamous for Tau-Eldar combos), Warlord traits and vehicle HP.
The first time supplements and special detachments are introduced, leading to bloat (rules for playing a certain formation were spread across 3 or 4 books). Many new missions as well.
Overwatch arrives as a passive ability, which expands in further editions into Stratagems.
Also the first time codexes were printed in full color.
7'th is (correctly) considered to be the worst shit ever, and more a patch to 6'th. A flood of supplements and broken Allies rules (Imperium could ally with half the factions) destroy the game's balance.
Super-Heavys are introduced as Imperial and Chaos Knights (along with other huge models like the Riptide and Wraithknight). Introduction of the Psychic phase leads to longer games and more bloat.
Adeptus Mechanicus and Genestealer Cults are added as factions.
Notably also the only edition to not have a starter set (besides RT).
8'th was a big step back from the chaos of 7'th, while advancing the story for the first time since inception.
It fundamentally changed the gameplay set in stone since 3'rd - adding a Move characteristic for every unit, changing the way AP worked, removing template weapons and vehicle armor facings (vehicles are the same as Monsters now, multi-wound models with save and Toughness values)
Difficult / dangerous terrain and Deep Strike mishaps was also removed as a concept
Stratagems are fully introduced and represent a more "active" way to play. The Command phase is added and the game shifts more towards objective play rather than a simple Deathmatch.
Balance was decent, but the supplements continue to be a problem. Seasonal campaign books give the game a more "live-service" feel.
9'th started out nicely, but became very bloated by every faction having 20+ stratagems, Warlord traits and relics. AdMech command phase remains a meme to this day, stacking aura abilities, wargear, stratagems and other buffs on EACH of their units.
Faction bloat continues with Leagues of Votann and World Eaters.
Honestly, not a bad edition, balance was good and the customization was off the charts. Just don't try to learn how your army works while your opponent is waiting for you to shoot. People like to shit on how long games took, but if you come prepared it's a decent experience.
The first edition to give each faction a codex, although some were complete disasters (poor Demons)
10'th is a massive overcorrection as response to how complicated everything was. Each faction gets 10 common Stratagems + 5 dictated by their detachment. Warlord traits are gone. Wargear is gone. Points per model is also gone. Psychic phase and powers are gone.
Rules are simplified to an absurd degree, everyone gets +1 saves due to cover, terrain format is standardized for tournament level even at casual tables. Every faction has a set of common abilities like redeploy, free stratagem, +1 cost to enemy stratagem, 1-2 characters that ressurect on 2+, etc.
However, within an army, each unit does feel different, each with its own ability and stats. For instance, Havocs, Chosen and Legionaries no longer have the same stat-line with 2 different weapons.
In terms of balance, Eldars did an oopsie for the first 4 months of the edition, but things seem to have calmed down abit. Some factions have risen, many still need buffs.
For the first time, the Codexes dont seem to add much to an army's capabilities compared to already existing indexes, but it remains to be seen.
>RT and 2'nd edition were basically RPG-wargame hybrids, where GW was throwing shit at the wall and seeing what stuck. Last time dwarves were playable until 9'th.
>Modern 40k was defined in 3'rd, and every edition up to and including 7'th built upon the structure established there (fundamentally - statlines, movement, and visibility)
>3'rd edition set the lore and grimdark tone, turned it into more of an actual wargame
Already majorly wrong.
Only RT was the RPG hybrid, 2nd edition was what turned it into an actual wargame. The grimdark lore and tone began in RT and most of it was settled by 2nd, 3rd was just a continuation on that front and changed very little in terms of lore.
>Considered by many to have the most flavor
Absolutely not, 2nd had the most flavor, 3rd was actually hideously bland for a long time until the better codexes started to come out.
3rd had the most flavour by far because it ran for the longest time and all the stuff people love happened during that time- Armageddon, Eye of Terror.
As far as rules go, second is Necromunda but squads. Necromunda rules came straight from second with a little adaptation for models moving individually - the core of the skirmish experience was there.
3rd Ed made it more a wargame for most phases, but while units shot units in the shooting phase, models fought models in the assault phase- your captain could kill the opponent's power sword sergeant before he could strike at your squaddies, or kill the enemy threatening your powerfists, allowing the powerfist to work unimpeded.
3rd Ed rules for melee didn't get streamlined until Codex Cityfight, where melee just proceeded like shooting, buckets of dice against each unit
>3rd had the most flavour by far because it ran for the longest time and all the stuff people love happened during that time- Armageddon, Eye of Terror.
Rogue Trader lasted just as long and the original Armageddon lore came from that era, 2 editions before 3rd.
>As far as rules go, second is Necromunda but squads.
No, Necromunda was 2nd but made into a skirmish. 2nd was more of a wargame. You didn't play it.
>3rd Ed made it more a wargame for most phases
Literally all it did was dumb things down.
>models fought models in the assault phase
No that was 2nd, not 3rd. 3rd only played with hit allocation when it came to different WS and T values.
You sound like someone who started in 8th honestly because you even have stuff wrong about when superheavies were introduced claiming it was 7th.
Remember that in 3rd and 4th army composition rules meant you had a Max of 3 heavy support choices. Imperial Guard tank squadrons weren't a thing. 3 really heavy things max to deal with, the rest would be light tanks.
Monsters were hard to kill in 3rd and 4th for the same reason your knights are now- a save and a bunch of wounds, it's hard to get enough fire on them to se the deal.
They weren't perfect, but 4th eds introduction of the concept of 'defensive weapons' (heavy bolters and below) that could be fired in addition to main weapons really helped tanks become fun to play with and against
Monoliths were hard as nails because you couldnt use the melta or Lance rules, and there was no weak point.
However, they were kind of a trap choice too- the more points you put into big black boxes, the less shiny lads I need to kill in order to force phaseout.
What you would do is get into melee asap and ignore it because its guns couldn't touch you, or hit it with your biggest guns before it had caused too much trouble ( it had a hard time getting cover and no smoke launchers)
>help me understand how anyone could like the way vehicles were damaged previous to 6'th
*shrug* Too many people had vehicle parking lots in their back lines where I played. Made it easy to infiltrate with my Space Wolf Scouts and melta bomb their ass.
honestly, the best thing I can say about 10'th edition is that all terminators (and equivalent) have 4++ instead of the 5++ they had since the beginning of history
>Which 40k editions don't suck ass
Second Edition will always be my favourite, but 8th and 9th were pretty good, too.
I liked 3rd and 10th.
8th was fun but the cheesers always ruined the game for me IMO.
4th - better core rules than 3rd.
5th - better core rules than 4th but also swapped to true line of sight which has hurt the game. balance whacky too
3rd - what I started with. still think this was where codex design peaked.
10th - trimmed a lot of the bloat from the past decade. balance has been whacky but has gotten a lot better since release
9th - bloated mess but ended up pretty good balance right near the end. might rate it lower if I hadn't missed the worst of it with covid
8th - a bandaid to save the game after the disaster of 6th/7th
6th - added flyers, allies and formations making the game a lot worse/imbalanced
7th - 6th but with the worst balance the game has ever had
>didnt play
rogue trader, 2nd
Worth noting I was underage during the 3rd-5th era. Might view it less favourably if I was older/better at the game.
besides 1 million stratagems for each faction, where did the bloat come from in 9'th?
Warlord traits, relics, stratagems that gave more warlord traits and relics, psycic powers, chaplain chants, ect. Mixed with stratagems you were list building massive force multipliers where cheap/free material you picked in list building and then stratagems during the game had more impact than half the units you could field.
sooo... too many options, rather than too many normal play rules?
In the case of ad mech, you were stacking a stupid amount of rules onto a unit just to make them work like any other army's unit, it sucked. First you can pick a bonus/downside for your skitarii to follow like +1 BS for -1 WS and vice versa, cult mechanicus units get a different table. Then you have your aura bonuses from your characters including any traits/relics they might have that you can use to further buff your skitarii. Depending on your forgeworld, you can get more bonuses like adding canticles to skitarii or a trait that can give a bonus to skitarii. Then you can upgrade your techpriests with a holy order each of which has its own aura including a bonus aura that you can activate with an action. Also depending on the holy order you can use a stratagem for free but it's based on the keyword.
Look at the command phase for ad mech and weep.
can't see how any edition in which you can shoot 30 Lascannon shots in a tank and still have it remain on the field by the end of the game is a good edition
for all its other shit, Hull Points being introduced in 6'th was the best thing they did
I've always enjoyed 4th with 3rd codices.
>Which 40k editions don't suck ass
Rogue Trader and Inquisitor.
Codexes have almost always been the culprit for most editions getting shitty.
In terms of rules, if you like tighter balance and gameplay, 3rd, then 5th.
If you want to be surprised/disappointed by crazy shit, 2nd, then 6th or 7th.
Are you fast and simple? 8th, 9th or 10th.
If you're attractive and powerful, choose 4th and adapt the 3.5 ed. codexes. If you're weak and/or ugly, go ahead and talk shit below.
It sounds like you didn't play half of those editions from the way you talk about them.
>Are you fast and simple? 8th, 9th or 10th.
lol, 9th was easily the most complex and brain melting edition of 40k ever. Most factions had multiple overlapping layers of custom rules, and the bloat was at the hightest point in all 40k history.
The rulebook was a fricking pamphlet. Did you have a hard time remembering strategems and unit abilities? Even strugglers such as yourself finished 2k games in just over an hour.
4th Edition for me. But you can't really go truly wrong with the first 6. 7th Edition was a disaster and 8th forward a horrendous overcorrection (though not from an income standpoint since it's observably pretty popular with people who didn't like or care about 40k which, as a niche, is a larger audience than people who did like 40k.)
>But you can't really go truly wrong with the first 6.
5th was a clear downgrade from 4th and 6th was an outright disaster only eclipsed by 7th somehow being even worse, what are you on about.
I wish 5th brought over elements from MESBG
>see a bunch of words
>head hurts
>choose faction that looks cool
>all decisions are made by the rule of cool
hehe
>like that each unit in an army has a different profile and ability in 10'th
>like the more complex rules from previous editions like difficult terrain, armor facings, DS mishaps, visibility, etc
what to choose?
3rd but I am extremely biased because I play Dark Eldar.
You have to build the game yourself. Get good terrain, good people to play with. A nice little narrative. Pretty armies.
But people are weird and expect GW to put some magic words on paper that will somehow make them orgasm when they move their marines 6" and roll to hit on a 3+ just like in every edition.
Is there any system that mixes wargaming formations with more roleplay-heavy champion characters like ACKS?
Managing armies in regular ttrpgs always sucks as its too abstract.
As a newbie just getting into 10th, I really vibe with the grogs who talk about this game being played best as a narrative/ themed game. I'm 30 now, with enough income to actually get into the hobby. I didn't in my 20s. As a kid my uncle gave me a random bretonnian codex he had and I loved going through the rulebook and just reading the fluff and looking at the pictures of the models even if it was in black and white. A huge part of that was the terrain.
I unironically think Magic The Gathering ruined 40k. Its so absurdly popular among nerds and game stores that the mentality of "the correct way to play" has ruined multiple nerd hobbies. I only play tabletop RPGs with my group of very imaginative experienced role players that are the exact opposite of power gamers, but I've always assumed LGS DnD is the same way too.
How the frick do you look at LVO 40K with its L shape shoe boxes and think THIS IS COOL. What about the giant ruined cathedrals or alien ruins or molten exoplanets? 40k doesn't work as a competitive game, but I'm having a blast painting up my Sisters of Battle (the models are way too detailed for a beginner like me lol). I have no friends who play and I'm worried about going to any of the great LGS near me who play 40k because I'm expecting even the most causal player to have sweaty, unfun netdecked lists and be talking about "what's viable" instead of trying to tell a story their army.
As an addendum I don't get the hate for allies. Sure it's not balanced but it let's you tell some really great stories with the core rules. It also lets you actually have a somewhat reasonable real diverse Imperial force.
t. a 20 year secondary just getting into the game
>What about the giant ruined cathedrals
They're great until you have to store them - hence the L-shaped shoe boxes.
>Its so absurdly popular among nerds and game stores that the mentality of "the correct way to play" has ruined multiple nerd hobbies
More correctly, that the competitive format becomes the default for pickup games. To be fair, it's better than the leafblower deathmatches you used to see on tables set up for WHFB.
But surely the LGS or tournament organizer needs not worry as much about transporting/storage?
Actually, they need to worry about it more.
>They're great until you have to store them - hence the L-shaped shoe boxes.
funny how storage only became a critical issue around the same time as GW gave up on writing LoS rules that worked with their terrain
completely agree
almost all flavor has been lost in favor of the game becoming more "balanced", while WAACs and tourneygays carefully remove every last drop of RNG and unpredictability from the entire game
>waah, what you mean my deep striking unit got delayed by a whole turn? it ruins my entire, carefully planned strategy, what an unbalanced game
>what do you mean your army has a special rule that only works against mine? fricking loregays ruining the holy balance again
> I should always roll the statistically average value
I hate 10'th so much, but i hate the people that GW listens to even more
its one thing to balance the game and offer support to the that community, its another to strip all of the soul from the game WHEN THE CORE GAME ITSELF ISNT VERY GOOD. At least magic truly is considered by many to be a fantastic and deep game with a massive skill element. Why you would apply it to 40k which was never designed to be a game really is beyond me.
2nd
None. Play other wargames
A lot of people saying 'the core rules are decent, but the codexes ruin it.'
But there's no way to play without the codexes, right? (Outside of, like, the original RT book.) Those have the stats for the armies and units. So, there's no way to fix that aspect without just making up new stats for everyone, and at most, you'll be able to get one local scene to sign off on changes like that.
10th edition quite literally got rules for nearly every unit wich existed without any codexes being out. You can play without them.
I'm biased, but I started with 3rd, and it's still my favorite. I never got to try RT/2nd edition, but a lot of 3rd had some hangover from it, 2nd/3rd have some overlap.
4th was more like "3.5 ED" as it was mostly a cleaning up of the 3rd ED rules (but with some major nerfs to vehicle departation), so I just sort of roll it into the 3rd ed timeline. 5th edition was also very good, but power creep was pretty bad. I played Space Wolves since 3rd ed, and 5th ed our codex was very overpowered (to be fair however, Space Wolves hadn't made the top 20 in any tournament from RT to 4th edition, so it was due, but a lot of hate for SW probably came from this era).
6th and 7th were trash.
8th was like a return to form, and while we lost some things along the way, it was a really healthy refresh of the tabletop rules, especially for new players.
9th was half baked and not ready to go, and had no business being released so soon. It being released only a few years after 8th was a grim reminder of the 6-7th edition years.
10th I haven't played yet, but I'm sad unit points I hear are gone completely in lieu of power points or whatever. Making army lists down to the point number was a huge passtime for me.
4th Ed was 3rd, but rapid fire starts a turn early, because you can move and do it, instead of forcing your opponent to move into it.
I also liked the rule where if you deal as many wounds as a unit has models you can start forcing heavy weapons and sergeants to take a save (and see if you can pull them out early) rather than those minis being left to the end.
It gave msu a penalty while buffing big blocks of infantry who took the time and risk to get into rapid fire range. This is good because MSU is mostly all upside otherwise.
4th is tight enough, and I remember it fondly even though I started with 3rd and played that until my soft copy disintegrated
most people I've seen like either 3rd or 4th. It looked right, it felt right, the size of a game was usually smaller than nowadays. I miss this feeling. /yourdudes/ was encouraged more. I want my futuristic war game to feel like war, not a sport.
More on this- auras and rerolls were rare.Models acted as their codex stats suggested for the most part.
It was unusual for a character model to confer a benefit onto a unit, and when it happened it was an addition to the morale system built into the armies mechanics (Imperial Guard, Tyranids)
Or the character had to be leading that unit (chaplains and so on)
This meant that a unit of guardsmen standing beside their officer shot and fought exactly like a unit of guardsmen nowhere near their officer- they just were less likely to hold position because guard officers had a leadership aura.
Moreover, you could use vox to extend the officers leadership to every unit who had a vox on the table- because radios don't have a range of 12 inches.
In effect this gave you more freedom to place your models as you are trying to capitalise on combat stuff like LOS angles and cover and so on, rather than gamey things like buff auras.
It felt more immersive and drew you into the game- letting you use more of the table too.
This is one of the big issues about modern 40K for me: it no longer feels like "you're commanding an army in a battle, by way of a scifi action movie", it feels like fricking YuGiOh or whatever. There's no sense that what you're seeing on the table is an abstraction of "real" events, you're just clumping stuff together to get the maximum number of stacking buffs and overlapping auras so you can activate some farcical trap card doomstack ultimate ability combo where you stand there for five minutes describing the mechanics that are coming together to delete half your enemy's army in an attack.
40K obviously isn't and never was a "simulationist" wargame, but it at least felt like playing out a war movie, most armies moved and fought like...well, armies.
It's turned into Warmachine
This, and it's also the problem I have with the moronic Objective and Scoring rules of modern editions. That's another thing that feels less like a war and more like a video game, you score points for standing on special circles and have this abstract OC stat, you aren't rewarded for using actual tactics and the objectives are never tied into any kind of convincing or satisfying narrative that connects to the background of the armies.
3rd codexes with 4th rulebook. Backport fun units as needed, flyers, superheavies and allies were a mistake.
The loss of the FOC was the real deathknell for 40k. I dropped out during 5th and seeing some of the lists people are allowed to run nowadays made me physically ill.
I forget whether it was 5th or 6th that had Guard and CSM as 'desperate allies' so you could field Creed and Abaddon.
I get why allies are a thing and it's the only way one model factions like knights could function, or the occasional inquisitor, but there was a traitors and renegades list from forgeworld already.
in 6'th and only in Apocalypse games
The 5th for getting Ward death threats and forcing him out of the company.