Why 4th Edition of 40k Was Secretly the Best? RETRO

[@andrewvanallen4483]

learned on third, loved forth. They were the best of times...

[@HisAngelsOfDeath-n1r]

started with 9th, and fell in love with 4th

[@ShawnEnge]

4th edition was the last time I played 40K. Played the whole way through and loved it. Cities of Death came out, and the 'Nid army I ran was damn near unstoppable with those rules. The models were great, I loved the customization of Marine chapters so if you didn't want to play any of the biggies you could design your own. Lots of great memories of 4th edition.

[@gerardchartier9016]

I did a lot of pickup gaming at the local GW store back then. No one ever wanted to play objective-based missions until I introduced objective markers I made by bitz-ordering the slave girls from Asdrubael Vect and put them on 23mm bases. Teenage boys like depictions of scantily clad girls - go figure!

[@ObjectiveAnalysis]

Gerard Chartier random capture-and-secure objectives was the beginning of the end for 40K. No narrative or soul, just pushing pieces around a board trying to capture arbitrary, non-sensical “objective markers”. Sad times.

[@toml1446]

@@ObjectiveAnalysis yeah I hate objectives. man lets half ass a story and smash!

[@davidmiddleton7958]

Recently commented on a topic relating to 4th Ed of Warhammer 40k. For 3rd Ed, they tried to open things up to allow players to actually field an army! In 2nd Ed, you had super killy characters, really points heavy, that were squad killers! That altered for 3rd Ed, also, something new in City Fight! Punishing, but fun. But let us remember, everything that made 4th Ed came from experimentation from 3rd Ed. So, looking at things, 3rd & 4th Ed were 40ks golden era!

[@KageMinowara]

I spent so many nights reading through this book back when I first got into 40k. Trying to get a handle on all the rules.

[@Zach_Bloomquist]

I started playing 40k with a few minis in 1999 with 3rd edition and played thru 5th. I think 4th was very easy to play under but 5th was fine. Got out in college and sold all my armies at a loss. If I was ever going to get back in I would simply get 3d printed models and kit bash them myself. Love to paint the models most and make terrain but playing was fun.

[@HairyHillman]

On man, this takes me back! Started playing third edition and remember the build up to this with the trial rules. The armies were so good back then some of my best battles were under this edition

[@gregoryberrycone]

definitely the most iconic rulebook cover IMO, i first got into 40k with the first dawn of war and battle for macragge, to me its still the high point of the franchise, thats not to say the quality of the miniatures hasn't increased considerably, but the lore was extremely solid and compelling, the world building felt very consistent and i just remember it seeming like a very good time to be a fan of 40k in general.

[@an0nycat]

most iconic rulebook cover is cover of 3rd ed with BT 😠😠😅😅

[@LordMacharius]

My gaming group still uses the kill team rules in the back. Great book, even if assault was a little op.

[@spikeybitstv]

fresh!

[@andrewhogan6368]

First edition of 40k that I ever played. This brought back a lot of good memories!

[@Belphoron]

Thanks guys. You told them Falcons are OP and now they are unplayable for more then 15 years XD

[@matthewsears7934]

Adepticon is far and away my favorite gaming convention. It's getting a lot less hyper focused on 40K while keeping a minis centric feel to it. Great time.

[@spikeybitstv]

best event hands down!

[@griffincrump5077]

I’ve only ever played 8th but my actual intro to the 40k universe was looking through the 5th edition book, I still want to give one of the older editions like 4th or 5th a try

[@slimjim7411]

I still miss 4th edition. 8th edition is pure garbage unless you know your opponent, and you tailor your lists to be a fun and interesting game. Also don't get me started on the ITC nonsense.

[@faolini]

Retro? God I feel old...

[@spikeybitstv]

i know right? 2004 was 12 years ago lol

[@justwannabehappy6735]

You are only old if you let your body degenerate. So go hit the gym and gain back your youth !

[@cwhooks]

Oh man, I remember being so happy with the index. Make finding rules so much easier...

[@spikeybitstv]

OMG so much easier

[@ja37d-34]

I liked it, had a lot of fun.. And that is coming from a 2nd Ed vet, playing through that entire era and hating 3rd Ed, at first..

[@Stop_Gooning]

I had the 4th edition rulebook as a kid therefore 4th is the best.

[@chrisjones6792]

I'm playing my first game of 4th since I was a kid tomorrow!

[@EOTA564]

3rd ed is older than you think - it was actually released in late 1998.

[@John-Sneed]

markafc83 boy that's older then be

[@benjaminroger5693]

Yeah 2 months after I got 2nd edition on sale

[@ImperialDiecast]

6th and 7th probably had the most extensive rules but were fair as long as you didnt play any of the net cheese lists and mess around with overpowered detachment and allies combos.

[@adamduffield7782]

I did enjoy 4th edition. An with 4th edition tyranids codex! God nids were solid as hell!!! Just for the biomorphs alone! A list of all biomorphs that could be paid for and put on any nid creature!. My tyranids warriors were hard as hell in melee. Given rending claws, extended carapace given them a 3+ save, plus acid blood, flesh hooks and regeneration. Adrenal glands. Usually lurking behind hormagaunts which were fodder . And pretty much the same for my carnifex they were evil. Shame they started to restrict biomorphs selection for the nids in later codexes . Because having open biomorphs selection gave the nids such huge flexibility it fitted with the premier that nids evolve very fast to suit their battlefield environment.

[@liftedguy]

I remember putting venom cannons on ripper swarms. By the rules i could...it was silly but funny too

[@dornjr]

Started in 3rd, played some 4th, took 5th and 6th off before coming back for 7.5 with all the FAQs. Thanks for the Flashback Rob! We should bring back Ordnance Penetrating Hits Table, Demolisher Cannon or Rampaging Furioso vs. [Insert Weak, Low Armor Transport] Side armor and it's just Shaken?!

[@spikeybitstv]

lolz

[@Masonicon]

It has one of most canons that 40k universe in my megacrossover project uses

[@AFnord]

I think a lot of what you said about 4th edition really would apply more to 3rd edition. In 3rd edition the move towards multi-part plastic kits was really in full swing, with many models that previously were pewter getting plastic kits. While characters and models that you were not expected to bring a lot of (like say Zoantropes) would still get pewter models, tanks & a good chunk of the infantry got plastic releases. If anything, 4th edition was one of the least exciting editions, in my opinion, as it was just a mild rules tweak compared to 3rd, both in terms of rules, and out of game trends (like multi-part plastic kits) and GW did what GW often does, and tries to overbalance things, making things swing over to the other side, like in an attempt to fix "rhino rushes", they hit transports too hard, which resulted in them pretty much universally needing a price drop for more melee focused armies (which happened in codexes released later in 4th edition, but those early ones were stuck with 3rd edition point costs) Universal special rules were nice though! This did again cause issues in 5th edition, as we were stuck with the lower transport prices, but suddenly tanks were made a lot stronger... Did 4th edition have any complete re-designs of armies, or new armies being released? I can't remember any. 3rd did see one completely new army (Tau), and one that had been hinted at before, but not got a full-scale released (Necrons), one that was arguably completely new, but seem to have been born out of GW wanting to move away from things with another army, without removing it from the game (Dark Eldar, which seems to have been born out of them not wanting Eldar to have pirates and such anymore), plus Tyranids got a complete overhaul in its visual design, and Orks were also changed a lot. 4th did not have something like this, as far as I can remember

[@ObjectiveAnalysis]

AFnord i think this video is about the 4th edition rule set rather than what models were/were not released during that time

[@GCramrod10]

I know this is a 3 year old comment, but Black Templars got their one and only codex in 4th. I believe Chaos Daemons also split from CSM in 4th as well

[@AFnord]

@@GCramrod10 You're right, DoC was technically speaking a 4th edition release, though it was just before the release of 5th edition and frankly always seemed like a 5th edition codex more so than a 4th edition one. Black Templars got their only standalone codex in 4th edition, but they were a part of Codex: Armageddon, where they got their own army list (and I remember them being a pain to fight :P What do you mean "flee forward"? That makes no sense!). It's probably because of how popular the Armageddon army list was that they ended up getting their own standalone codex.

[@GCramrod10]

@@AFnord yeah BTs were nasty in 4th. My very first army!

[@Redmow51]

I started with 2nd Edition which was a frustrating game. 3rd Edition was ok. 4th Edition and 5th Edition were my favorite editions...played the crap out of them. I still prefer those editions.

[@McTheWarhammer]

Fourth was when I got into the hobby, good times.

[@davidschafer6726]

Best Edition ever AT least CC was viable

[@truth44_]

In 2024 Is still the best

[@ObjectiveAnalysis]

The golden years. What happened?? 😢

[@nightmagnus7595]

I met a Russian mate and we're planning on playing some 4th games evry fortnight. I'd only ever played a bit of 8th and 9th with a curiosity for the older editions, so it's a fun experience!

[@an0nycat]

Da.

[@briancline7349]

“Help keep my channel add free!” -> I get adds on video ... apparently this effort to keep the channel add free already failed? Lol

[@thysvandenbos1324]

Ah, yes when vehicles were tough and troopers feared them as it should be; it's the WH40K Edition my gaming group uses almost exclusively - we sometimes use 5th Ed by mutual consensus and advance warning. The later Eds became moronic to the point of utter retardation and stupidity, particularly the 8th Ed. But, GW/FW CEOs have to make billions off of us, don't they? Sigh... Sheeple (current adherent gamers) just make want to puke...

[@droman608]

I’d love to play however I gave up my armies years ago.

[@thysvandenbos1324]

@@droman608 IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO RETURN TO THE FOLD AND TEACH THE YOUNG 'UNS HOW MUCH THEIR NEWFANGLED WAYS SUCK COMPARED TO THE OLD WAYS!

[@dexterlacroy4132]

Hmm, what in particular do you dislike in 8th compared to 4th? Vehicles having a ton of wounds + saving throws. Doesn't that make them tough?

[@droman608]

@@dexterlacroy4132 the rules are like Onions. #layers

[@jeromekammerer4733]

@@dexterlacroy4132 yeah they have a lot of wound in 8th. But it is also the edition that have a "knightmeter" : measuring how many imperial knight you can destroy with one unit/combo. Plus you can take down vehicles with a saturation of small arms fire. Overall they have more wounds and saves, but every one has more damage and combo to overcome it.