Hi, I am new here and primarily here for Warhammer Fantasy Battles (
http://warhammer-empire.com/theforum/index.php?topic=53028.0), but I have been a fan of 40k for a lot longer. I first discovered 40k via Dragon Magazine of all places, with seeing an ad for Rogue Trader. Well, I spent the next year drawing beakie Space Marines for the next year without knowing much about them. Then some friends and I got into Adeptus Titanicus/Space Marine v1, played the hell out of that, and eventually tried out the 28mm scale version of battles. I thought Rogue Trader in those days was an absolute mess, and I was so thankful for when 2nd Edition was released and my friends had a great time with that game.
I eventually got out of the hobby, sold just about everything I had, only for years later a new group of friends were interested in getting into what was now 3rd edition, so I had to go out and buy all the old models I used to have.
I remember 3rd Edition being pretty controversial at the time, as a lot of people complained about it. Truthfully, my group didn't stick with it for long, and while I collected here and there, I really didn't get much else, nor play, until 6th came along. While I think the Dark Vengeance set is pretty impressive, the rulebook is pretty hard to read, and I didn't want to buy all the new codexes, so the few times I played it we just stuck with what is in the set.
Around the time 8th came out I lost all interest in current 40k. Hate Primaris Marines. Hate no template weapons. There are some cool models coming out, some of which I used to replace my older models, but some of them are larger than the old models and I feel like everything is getting really cramped on the gaming table. So recently I sat down and looked over my 3rd edition rulebook and realized how great 3rd really was. Most importantly how comprehensive the rulebook is, especially with including get-by army lists in the back of the book (the last time we would see this). If you think about how expensive it is just to get into ONE army in 40k is today, at least with that rulebook you had enough rules to try out multiple armies. I know the edition suffered a little from codex creep, but there were also a lot of new armies released back then.
Anyway, its motivated me to hunt down all the old Battleforce sets (not the square ones, but the rectangle ones) to keep forever. Even the armies I had no interest in back then. I just feel 40k is changing, and not in ways I am crazy about, and I can see the day GW moves on from Space Marines as we know them for whatever they can feel they can make the most money on. Creative Destruction and all.
I still have my 2nd Edition set, but I think that is more complex for new players (especially my friends) and all the cards and chits are a pain. I don't know enough about the 4th ed or 5th rulebooks, but in order to play those you had to have the codexes. I am really past collecting all of that.
Anyone else think fondly of 3rd edition? When was the last time you played it?