Why do.....

Fixed charge ranges is a huge one!

Also the ability to do enough damage on the charge to ensure no striking back.

No premeasuring.

The above are all things i love about 8th but some don't like them.

In 6th or 7th a unit of 5 chaos knights could quite happily charge a unit of 50 goblins and expect no attacks back and to basically auto-break them. Some love this style of play. I must prefer the strategic, mass battle feel of 8th edition but it's ultimately all subjective.

I think some of it has to do with unit sizes. 8th increased the size of the armies and required more models to play and that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Some have (poorly I feel) argued that this similar issue is what ended up killing fantasy. Also what others have said.

Personally I HATED the MSU cavalry army auto-break the opponent edition of the game (I played 2 games then sat that entire edition out. It was.not.fun. for me)

grandmasterwang hits the nail on the head with it being subjective. Personally I found an AMAZING group during 8th edition when I was at school and even with an engineering course load was still managing to play 1-2 games on Saturdays with my buddies. We even got 3 people to start the game (2 of them are still playing) just by watching us play with our painted armies.

So for me 8th edition is the one that I remember with most fondness and so it will always be the "best" edition for me. But I can understand if others had this same or similar experiences with older editions in a similar group.

Regarding balance in 8th edition, it is much more difficult than other editions to abuse the rules. Here are some examples:

- In previous editions, a good player could completely abuse the power of skirmishers and fast cav. If fact you could make an all fast cav or skirmisher army, dash around your enemies to avoid all combat, and defeat your opponent soundly. Meanwhile the game was no fun at all.

- Fear in editions other than 8th was totally crazy, if you lost combat to a fear causer, and you were outnumbered, you broke auto! In fact, psychology in general was too much. Low leadership stuff was extremely fragile - and you could not reroll with the BSB.

- 6/7th edition the player could build their lists to determine how many magic dice they could get each phase. 8th might have some big spells, but the Winds of Magic are random, and armies are suppose to be larger. If you want to dominate your enemies with magic, play 6th and 7th edition, you can have your mighty magic phase every turn and crush your opponent without getting into combat!

- Speaking of magic, if you played Vampire Counts and also had half a brain, you might lose to bad luck about once everyone ten games. With the power of magic, fear, and raise the dead, Undead armies were all but unbeatable.

- More on magic, actually with being able to stack your power dice, the big spells in 6th were devastating. I remember Orcs & Goblins players never took a proper Warboss to lead their armies because the Shaman Lord was insane! The Foot of Gork with the double dohus or the reroll staff made Orcs pretty gross. You could destroy entire armies with that combo. You can even go back to at least one 6th edition battle report in WD where this happens. On the tournament scene is was a regular sight.

- 6th edition saw the rise of the Tzeentch flying circus, perhaps the greatest force to blast your enemies away and avoid combat. Sound like fun ?

- The Skink skirmish army, run circles around your enemy shooting them with poison missiles while your Slann blast them with magic. Avoid combat and win!

- The Dark Elf Dark Rider army (see tactics for Tzeentch flying circus and Skink skirmish armies above - key tactic: don't engage in combat, no matter how much your opponent complains).

- Skaven were also totally insane in 6th edition, heavy shooting army backed by huge units of cheap infantry. Warp-lightening, magic, and remember the Rattling Guns when they hit auto? Skaven were probably the hardest army in 6th, along with Vampires.

- Storm of Chaos, while a totally awesome supplement and campaign, the armies were super hard in there. The Daemon Legions list was gross.

- March blocking, which made a lot of the above armies successful, was nothing but an extremely frustrating part of the game that players used to make magic/shooty armies work really well. Back then if an enemy model was with 8", you were march blocked automatically and could not march. Obviously used to slow down armies while they were blasted by magic and missiles.

- People constantly complained that High Elves and Dark Elves were weak and 'sucked' and so you never saw them.

- Tournaments were made of: Skaven, Vampires, Lizards, Daemon Legions.

- 6th edition army books had hardly no fluff, and dropped a lot of classic units: Steams Tanks, War Wagons, Forest Goblins, Spider-Riders, all the classic special characters, etc.

That's all that comes to mind at the moment.

The 6th edition always holds the most special place in my heart as this happened during the hallowed time when I could play almost twice per week, attend a tournament twice per month (yep, I was once that hardcore 😉). Also, the hobby spirit during that time was at the peak, sure there were some louder and louder grumbling (especially at the cheesefest at GW Nottingham Grand tournaments), but the future of Warhammer Fantasy was especially rosy with the ETC being born at the end of 2007 while new tourneys cropped up everywhere everytime.

The 6th were well designed to play within 1000-2000 pts whereas the 8th's armies are recommended from 2500 pts upwards. Obviously, the 8th became more complex, more random and more cash required. Also GW have put no effort to stop the rampant negativity that grew stronger and stronger for a decade till the end, they 'had to' bomb the 8th and the whole Warhammer world.

Systemwise, both the 6th and the 8th ed appeal equally to me, but just like i said, the 6th benefited from an unrivaled, buoyant atmosphere of its time whereas the 8th was just surrounded by sheer negativity from the beginning to the end. That is probably the impression of most people have about the last edition unfortunately.

Should have seen me bringing my Dogs and High Elves to Nottingham GT against all double Stanks, Thorek and SADs of the world over. Intrigue at Court FTW!

Gary,

To be fair, AoS is not a rank and for game, which is what EEFL people love, and 9th age is already starting to fray and doesn't have the fluff and allure that Warhammer did.

As to 1/4 of players leaving at the introduction of 8th, many cane back, and there was a similar swoon with each new edition. How else do you explain all the Oldhammers? Also, I very the fall off after AoS much larger than 1 in 4.

That said, I am open to AoS as a game system, is just not Warhammer in scope out scale.

Gary, I am not arguing that people didn't quit after 8th was released, I was staying that the reason most people here are EEFL people is because AoS doesn't even resemble the old Warhammer. I've played 3rd edition, my friend had it, and agree that 8th isn't the same, but it had the same scope and feel that you can't get from a skirmish game.

I also feel that you unfairly portray the EEFL community saying that they won't try other things. I've played and liked both KoW and AoS, although I feel like they are rules better fit for tournament play in a lot of ways. I think the fact that many tournament people left when 8th was released is due to the fact that it was not really well designed for tournament play.

Many of us play many games, and EEFL stand for the idea that Eighth Edition Fantasy is the last of the Warhammer line in our eyes.

It's also stupid you can shoot your range weapons while in close combat and then still attack in close combat.

Effectively making any shooting the best. Yeah high elf shadow warriors and sisters of avelorn for the win!