Which edition lore do you like most and why?

[Slave to Darkness]

1st ed for me. 

 

I liked how it wasnt so 'set in stone'.

 

2nd ed was good, pretty much cemented most of the lore we have now but it still had that innocent charm about it. 

 

 

Now I just seem to meet 'you cant have followers of that god, there is only 4' kinda people who take the lore 100% gospel. 

 

 

 

Wouldnt wipe Nurgles bottom with the current lore, TBH they ruined it with returning Primarchs. 

[m0nolith]

Need to say this too. Necron codex from 3rd may be the most well written codex from a fluff perspective IMO. I just love unknown evil horror very much Cthulhu referenced. Thats what really scares me.

 

Krash

Ah, before they became “Tomb Kings in Spaaaaaace”

[Vermintide]

TBH they ruined it with returning Primarchs.

Truth.

 

I feel like that alone really cheapens the lore, but a lot of people seem to really love the Space Dad Soap Opera HH novels and want more of it.

 

(Not just bitter that my Space Dad is probably the only one who's never coming back...)

[Felix Antipodes]

2nd - because that's where I got into it all. Only read up on 1st after the fact through old White Dwarfs and secondhand codexes.

 

3rd/4th - because that's was the era where campaigns like Armageddon and the 13th Black Crusade expanded my fixation onto the net and led me to this forum amongst others.

 

8th - because things are moving again. I just wish they would rope in some of the BL authors to help support the design studio as they could really do with the help.

[Quantum]

I consider the fluff of the Fantasy Flight Games RPGs (Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, Deathwatch, Only War & Black Crusade) to be the best. Because it deals not with massive battles or galaxy-spanning events, but with the challenges a lone mortal may face in some forgotten corner of the galaxy. And the writing is much less over-the-top than GW standard.

[Trevak Dal]

I like a lot of 8th, but there are parts of 7th I liked too.

 

Khorne Berserkers got a profile and rules befitting them in 8th.

 

I like how leadership is applicable to most everyone (even though it seems most things avoid it by msu or some foolery that keeps hordes in the game)

 

I like the lack of hull points and how everything has toughness and wounds, and can wound everything.

 

I like being able to rapid fire and assault with everyone. I like being able to move and fire heavy weapons at -1.

 

I like the non scattering deep strikes.

[Vykes]

Lore wise only, eh?  Hmm, that's a tough one.  I started in 2nd and, while there are definitely good bits and bad bits in every edition, I guess I like 7th edition lore the best even if I prefer the presentation of 3rd. 

 

Content is really filtered in with a lot of different methods, and I think 3rd nailed it hard with me given its preference towards unreliable narrators and second-hand accounts.  The whole setting feels well defined but not so set in stone, thus perception and values become a little more nebulous but also important*.  Frankly, the larger sections of short story and vignette style fluff was welcome, and I still love the back of the book 3E space marine Thunderhawk assault on a rebel outpost, or the IG commissar in Elder infested forests.  There's just a method in their storytelling that felt (and still feels) rather fresh and unique given that it's almost entirely based on perception vs. the unknown. I like it, I like it all, it allowed a ton of creativity while still covering all the basic points so those personal judgments became key. 

 

As for the lore and setting itself: 7th edition.  The current edition is also fine for me, it's less Grimdark even if it verges on silly at times (but when is that not the case?), but I'll confess to not having read all of it and thus I have a better understanding of previous editions than the current one.  Frankly, I don't like grimdark for grimdark sake: the notion of everything being a nihilistic nightmare realm where skulls watch you for the good of your soul and THE EMPARAH just doesn't do anything for me.  4th edition onwards tried to ratchet that up to unpalatable degrees for me and the artwork really just shoved that distaste I had for it even further down my throat.  It's not my type of thing.  If it's yours, good on ya, but I put it made my own campaigns with my group and paid way more attention to Warhammer Fantasy during that epoch.  

 

But what about 3E if I love the presentation and a lot of the solidification of the 'current' lore?  Short answer: Necrons.  I hate them.  I utterly and completely loath everything about the old Necrons.  When they turned up they were a miserable army to fight (had to fight dual monoliths on a middle schooler's marine budget: never worked well) and the fluff always felt like it was trying to be some dark, distant, old Epoch-spanning Universe-scale event with the War in Heaven that tries to downplay the size and significance of the Heresy and Iron Men.  I'm a Milton fan-boy, the Heresy is simply 'THE story' for me.  Anything that does its best to downplay that is one I'll take umbridge at, and the Necrons gave me a blank faced astral horror plot line that undermined the current setting and tried to tie everything back to itself in a Kirkbridian self-indulgent fashion. 

 

Tau were pretty rocking in 3E, though.  No mistake about it. 

 

*Not strictly related to 40K, but more about unreliable narrative: I absolutely adored the Dwarf, High Elf, and Dark Elf armies books from Warhammer Fantasy 6th edition for exactly this reason.  All three tell about the events of a war from their own point of view, none of them are right and none of them are wrong, but there is no word of god absolute in what actually happened.  So it became up to players from that era to decide what was true and emphasized. 

[b1soul]

Yup, as expected, 8th edition lore seems? to be rather polarising. Third edition to me is the the edition that gave us modern 40K, and Second was the last edition to retain the zaniness of First.

[Lexington]

Third edition to me is the the edition that gave us modern 40K, and Second was the last edition to retain the zaniness of First.

I dunno, really? I suppose the Ork Codex (background-wise, a fairly straight-up condensed version of RT’s ‘WAARGH: Da Orks’) could be called ‘zany,’ but otherwise I don’t think that’s something you’d necessarily call the rest of 2nd. I’d really say late RT and 2nd Edition is where the setting we know today took shape - Primarchs, the ‘Big Four’ Chapters, the Eldar Fall/Path/Craftworld history, Abaddon and most of the well-known special characters in the game all come from this era. 3rd established a lot more and created a pretty specific tone (tho one I’d say is much further from today’s lore than 2nd’s), but the bones of pre-8th 40K were really built during the mid-90’s.

[Kenzaburo]

Whoa, really hard to tell...I started in 2nd, but am neither a fan of the old rules nor of the tonality of the fluff from back then. There was still a lot of whackyness. 

 

I skipped 3rd edition, so can't really speak to that. Lorewise 4th to 7th are my favorite, pretty sure of it, 4th being the standout. It's the codified, enhanced version of the basic lore we got in 2nd. It's more cohesive, and at most times better written. 

 

8th still has me on the fence. I like some of the newer developements - Guilliman's handling and coming to terms with what happened to the Imperium in particular. Primaris are the single cause to still make me feel apprehensive of 8th. Sure, it makes for interesting storytelling - just one, I am not interested in. Doesn't mean 8th is bad lorewise, it's just something, some of us still have to get used to.

 

What I agree on with several others: In a way, older editions were more interesting because of the mythical implications in the lore. A lot of that has gotten lost, is being spelled out and I don't need that. It does not mean that the story can't be moved forward, it just means that we don't need to solve every mystery of the setting in one way or another. 

[Beta galactosidase]

It’s a bit of a strange set of responses because I’m not sure there even is any new background after third edition.

 

Most of what makes up seventh or eight editions is just that they copy and pasted previous editions, but less of it. I suppose there’s stuff about the ynnari and Guilliman but those are really things from third edition. Like wdym sixth edition or fifth edition background? When vanguard and sternguard were invented because they needed to release a new kit? That’s not background.

 

 

No, random WD articles about what kind of feed the Afriel Strain guard give their rough rider mounts, and how to convert them, that is background. When a codex has “conversions” page that’s actually John Blanche paintings of real conversions with captions next to them, that’s background. Bring the cursed founding rules to our game please.

 

“the universe is a big place and, whatever happens, you will not be missed,” but let’s do the same story about saving Baal and Guilliman again.

[Apothecary Vaddon]

Love 8th's lore. Choo choo goes the change train

[Knight of the Raven]

It's not lore per se, but I enjoyed the atmosphere of the 3rd and 4th editions.

As mentioned, lore was usually presented as in-universe sources; first-hand accounts, after-the-fact reports, theories and speculations... The Truth Is Not Known, as made increasingly obvious with all information on Guilliman's Codex Astartes coming from a source straight out named the Apocrypha of Skaros, everything from the Index Astartes articles of yore so many people take as gospel being gleaned from 'the few archives that have survived the passage of time' or 'legends passed on since the dawn of time' and sometimes having several contradictory, unprovable theories (like for the Lost Thirteenth Company).

Index Astartes: Rogue Sons outright states that knowledge of ancient times has broken down so much, the most powerful and best-informed people in the Imperium consider these legends as canon, precisely because the archives of the Imperium have been lost, rewritten and/or purged so many times that again, The Truth Is Not Known.

These editions pulled you in the universe, so to speak. The latest codices may as well be Wikipedia articles.

Out of universe, Games Workshop also felt... friendlier, for lack of a better word. Codices had entire sections devoted to interacting with you. How you could plan and play your army better. How you could make cool conversions for your models. How you could make awesome terrain for your battles. And sometimes, even pages showing off the sweet models all the other you's in the world have made.

Now, a foreword with nothing but "Yo." in a random novel has more interaction than the gamebooks Games Workshop sells.

In some way, watching Games Workshop over the years has felt like watching a friend I've spent years having fun and painting the town with turn into a suit who can't be bothered to even care remembering my name.

[Vykes]

-snaps a finger and points to the Knight of the Glimmery Raven- 

 

This, so very much this.  I'd take back what I said because that was so blasted well put that it deserves a neon sign saying 'on point'.  

[Master Commander Ajax]

Out of universe, Games Workshop also felt... friendlier, for lack of a better word. Codices had entire sections devoted to interacting with you. How you could plan and play your army better. How you could make cool conversions for your models. How you could make awesome terrain for your battles. And sometimes, even pages showing off the sweet models all the other you's in the world have made.

This is a good point. Interestingly the Age of Sigmar Battletomes have bucked this trend somewhat and have included some really good painting guides.

[Grand Master Laertes]

second and third editions, they had the most in-depth lore of all times and created and mantained a great sense of mistery

[PeteySödes]

3rd and 4th for me lorewise. When they retconned the EoT campaign and the original 13th crusade they kinda lost me from TRULY buying in to current lore. It's kind of hard for me to really invest after that, my childlike wonder for the setting died a bit for more of an adult appreciation and acceptance of the business.

 

I'll echo the sentiment that we know too much now though, the galaxy seems smaller now to me. Its hard because i do love the BL books we get but I do think it seems to shrink the setting somewhat ironically.

[Vermintide]

It's not lore per se, but I enjoyed the atmosphere of the 3rd and 4th editions.

 

As mentioned, lore was usually presented as in-universe sources; first-hand accounts, after-the-fact reports, theories and speculations... The Truth Is Not Known, as made increasingly obvious with all information on Guilliman's Codex Astartes coming from a source straight out named the Apocrypha of Skaros, everything from the Index Astartes articles of yore so many people take as gospel being gleaned from 'the few archives that have survived the passage of time' or 'legends passed on since the dawn of time' and sometimes having several contradictory, unprovable theories (like for the Lost Thirteenth Company).

 

Index Astartes: Rogue Sons outright states that knowledge of ancient times has broken down so much, the most powerful and best-informed people in the Imperium consider these legends as canon, precisely because the archives of the Imperium have been lost, rewritten and/or purged so many times that again, The Truth Is Not Known.

 

These editions pulled you in the universe, so to speak. The latest codices may as well be Wikipedia articles.

 

Out of universe, Games Workshop also felt... friendlier, for lack of a better word. Codices had entire sections devoted to interacting with you. How you could plan and play your army better. How you could make cool conversions for your models. How you could make awesome terrain for your battles. And sometimes, even pages showing off the sweet models all the other you's in the world have made.

 

Now, a foreword with nothing but "Yo." in a random novel has more interaction than the gamebooks Games Workshop sells.

 

In some way, watching Games Workshop over the years has felt like watching a friend I've spent years having fun and painting the town with turn into a suit who can't be bothered to even care remembering my name.

http://giphygifs.s3.amazonaws.com/media/5hHOBKJ8lw9OM/giphy.gif

[MegaVolt87]

It's not lore per se, but I enjoyed the atmosphere of the 3rd and 4th editions.

 

As mentioned, lore was usually presented as in-universe sources; first-hand accounts, after-the-fact reports, theories and speculations... The Truth Is Not Known, as made increasingly obvious with all information on Guilliman's Codex Astartes coming from a source straight out named the Apocrypha of Skaros, everything from the Index Astartes articles of yore so many people take as gospel being gleaned from 'the few archives that have survived the passage of time' or 'legends passed on since the dawn of time' and sometimes having several contradictory, unprovable theories (like for the Lost Thirteenth Company).

 

Index Astartes: Rogue Sons outright states that knowledge of ancient times has broken down so much, the most powerful and best-informed people in the Imperium consider these legends as canon, precisely because the archives of the Imperium have been lost, rewritten and/or purged so many times that again, The Truth Is Not Known.

 

These editions pulled you in the universe, so to speak. The latest codices may as well be Wikipedia articles.

 

Out of universe, Games Workshop also felt... friendlier, for lack of a better word. Codices had entire sections devoted to interacting with you. How you could plan and play your army better. How you could make cool conversions for your models. How you could make awesome terrain for your battles. And sometimes, even pages showing off the sweet models all the other you's in the world have made.

 

Now, a foreword with nothing but "Yo." in a random novel has more interaction than the gamebooks Games Workshop sells.

 

In some way, watching Games Workshop over the years has felt like watching a friend I've spent years having fun and painting the town with turn into a suit who can't be bothered to even care remembering my name.

 

This, so much this. 

 

We should do a go fund me/ patron for Knight of the Raven to travel to UK and nail this post on fancy paper to the doors of GW headquarters. 

[havlar]

I have to agree with sentiment towards the third edition.

I remember that every new codex did worldbuilding by unreliable narrator, and each new faction codex a lot to expand the scope of universe.

I could be wrong but I think that cadian pylons got mentioned in Necron, IG and Eldar codexes. Back then it blew my mind that "it is all connected!"

[Arkaniss]

I think most people will skew towards the edition they started in, and I will be no exception and declare that yes, the edition I started in was totally the best It's a mix of a few things personally for why I think 2nd Edition was best. Some of the stories in the books along with the pictures were amazing and I read them multiple times. For somone starting out they really fleshed out the setting and let you know what the Grim Dark future was all about! The blurb about special characters and even the short text to go along with a picture of some models on the table all built up the setting.

 

The story of some Guardsmen struggling to take a rebel bunker until some Blood Angels turn up to butcher them effortlessly and yell about the Emperor at the poor traumatised Guardsmen before bounding off has always stayed with me. I will hook out the old books and have a flick through again! Nostalga is a hell of a drug  

[MosesGunn]

 

Need to say this too. Necron codex from 3rd may be the most well written codex from a fluff perspective IMO. I just love unknown evil horror very much Cthulhu referenced. Thats what really scares me.

 

Krash

Ah, before they became “Tomb Kings in Spaaaaaace”

 

 

3rd for me.Andy Chambers and Graham McNeill were writers/co writers on a lot of those books and I really vibed with their vision of the universe. 

 

What I loved about that Necron codex in particular was it really gave the impression of how screwed the Imperium and vast the setting was. I know having a binary Imperium vs Chaos conflict has more narrative symbolism and is a more defined rivalry that connects to the Heresy, but the idea that the Imperium is truly beset on all sides from not just one, but multiple eldritch galaxy ending threats was terrifying.

[Vermintide]

 

 

Need to say this too. Necron codex from 3rd may be the most well written codex from a fluff perspective IMO. I just love unknown evil horror very much Cthulhu referenced. Thats what really scares me.

 

Krash

Ah, before they became “Tomb Kings in Spaaaaaace”

 

 

3rd for me.Andy Chambers and Graham McNeill were writers/co writers on a lot of those books and I really vibed with their vision of the universe. 

 

What I loved about that Necron codex in particular was it really gave the impression of how screwed the Imperium and vast the setting was. I know having a binary Imperium vs Chaos conflict has more narrative symbolism and is a more defined rivalry that connects to the Heresy, but the idea that the Imperium is truly beset on all sides from not just one, but multiple eldritch galaxy ending threats was terrifying.

 

 

Not just the Imperium- All factions were basically up against insurmountable odds. And that was what, in itself, provided the balance. As I recall, back then it was more the Tyranids that represented an existential threat to all the races of the galaxy.

 

The ancient Eldar were fractured in two, already in their last ebbs as a civilisation, the Imperium creaked under its own might and the insurrection of Chaos, the Ork clans would just as likely annihilate each other as conquer the stars. Yet there lurked a threat from beyond dark space which threatened to cleanse the galaxy of all organic life as we know it. They had already erased entire worlds, fuelling their bio-ships, yet it would appear that those great fleets were merely expeditionary scout forces of the true armada which was approaching. The apparent awakening of seemingly dead worlds, reports lost amongst thousands in the faceless and inscrutable bureaucracy of the Administratum, of a mysterious new inorganic Xenos faction could perhaps be seen as no coincidence, with that threat looming ever nearer.

 

There was always a great feeling of perspective to the setting- That despite everything happening in M.41, there had already been cycles of solar empires and complete annihilation, and there would be again after humanity and xenos alike had all perished.

 

(I'm also pretty sure that's where Mass Effect ripped off the Reapers from, and also why I really liked those games)

[Master Commander Ajax]

This thread has made me so nostalgic I’ve raked out all of my old books!

 

Need to say this too. Necron codex from 3rd may be the most well written codex from a fluff perspective IMO. I just love unknown evil horror very much Cthulhu referenced. Thats what really scares me.

 

Krash

I don’t think the new Necron lore is all that bad. It’s just that, as you’ve pointed out, the original lore was perfectly executed.

[Marshal Rohr]

It was pretty disappointing when they talked about needing the Necrons to be more relatable. It makes me wonder how many cool ideas are killed by ‘how does this translate to models and rules’.