New Background in 6e Rulebook

[Lupe]

I don't know if this has been mentioned in the discussion already, and it might be a bit of a weak argument, but I think that there might be some lost legion love in one of the pictures in the book.

Check out the picture where the Emperor is adressing... Who? Luna Wolves and Emperor's Children are obvious, but to his right beyond the Emperor's Children there's a banner with the visible number 2 and some kind of dragon/snake device. I might be wrong, but this to me feels a lot like coinciding with the second (lost) Legion. Not at least because the number is _just_ visible.

Thoughts?

How long did you spend looking for that? I see what you mean though. Nice of them to throw us a bone there, assuming it's not a company banner... Btw, it's page 166 for whom it may concern...

[Lexington]

I can't understand why anyone has ever considered that chart the be all, end all, word on the number and names of second founding chapters. It was a list of some examples and implies that there are lots more for each legion that aren't listed.

I think people get that idea because the list comes from the much, much more definitive "here are the 2nd Founding Successors" chart from 2nd Edition (which is practically identical, but adds two or three other Chapters). The new "about 400" is an intentional retcon, and I believe A D-B's talked about it a bit over on Bolter & Chainsword. The short of it, IIRC, being that the number of HH-era Legionnaires got bumped up tenfold by the IP folks, and so the number of 2nd Founding Chapters was similarly increased.

So, yeah, there's several hundred 2nd Founding Chapters now, rather than several tens. No conspiracy or extinction-level event, just GW's weird way of insinuating changes into the background by pretending they've always been there.

I blame 'the beast' aka that mega Ork warboss who nealy conquered the imperium. Now that seems to me that this event is up there with the H heresy in the galactic pain chart, the new rule book states that he was only defeated at great cost to the space marines. This I propose is the source of our missing chapters... they got crumped good and proper

Ugh, "The Beast." Speaking of poorly-wrought changes to the background in this ugly brick of a book...

[The bearded one]

As far as I can see, at least compared to the previous one the new book seems to contain a very healthily sized background section with a well filled appendix near the end and plentiful slabs of text about subjects beyond the basic description of the races and galaxy, such as a full page (with very small print) devoted to the STC, another for the mechanicus, lots of specifics (which I had never read in other fluff before) about astropaths, and also quite a lot of references to the dark age of technology (such as the history of a planet called Alpha Shalish) which intrigues me to no end.

It's getting a 'thumbs up' for me, as I've got the book for 3 days now (though admittedly I've been rather busy) and I haven't even started with reading the rules yet, I'm still reading through the background sections. It's written with a decent atmosphere of realism to it, and with sci-fi authors who actually have a decent sense of scale ( *shock, gasp, horror * ) and timespans. Certainly as a history student I think its written quite well, with a lot of info in it beyond "there is only war and a trillion people die every day, and space marines rock".

[hellharlequin]

intresting stumbeling: the imperium has a word hor AI-friends: corroborators

[Rogue Star]

Ugh, "The Beast." Speaking of poorly-wrought changes to the background in this ugly brick of a book...

Indeed. What happened to Ghazghkull being the greatest Ork Warlord ever known, and leading one of the largest Waaagh!s in history?

[The bearded one]

Indeed. What happened to Ghazghkull being the greatest Ork Warlord ever known, and leading one of the largest Waaagh!s in history?

"one of the greatest" =/= "THE greatest"

besides, was't that "the beast" mention a throwaway reference to very old fluff, or something?

[Nazguire]

The idea of massive wave of Orks a la Tyranids in the distant Imperial past makes for great visuals. Orks are by far my favourite alien threat in 40k. I don't have an issue with a Titan sized Warboss threatening Terra whatsoever.

[Apologist]

Personally, I like the background on the Beast. It's a nice touch to have the orks reemphasised as a credible threat to the Imperium as a whole. Regarding the name, the 'Beast' is probably meant as a title (like Arch-arsonist or whatever). Ghazghkull's been called the 'Beast of Armageddon' before. In light of this new background, we might consider that particular title of Ghazghkull's an Imperial reference – much like fearful Europeans in the past called many different people 'the Antichrist'.

[DapperAnarchist]

The 4th Edition rulebook referred to Orks simply as "The Beast" (with Craftworlders being "The Dying", DE "The Lost", Necrons "The Ancients", Space Marines "The Angels of Death", etc)...

[MajorWesJanson]

I'm fond of the idea that the breaking of the Legions was done in stages. First, the Legions began to rebuild after the Heresy, at the same time spreading out across the galaxy during the scouring. Guilliman planned to break Astartes down to small scale units of chapters of 1000, but the needs of the scouring dictated larger groups for a time, "grand chapters" of roughly 5-10K. These chapters were made official successors, the first stage of the second founding. Later, after the tussle between Dorn and Guilliman, they were broken again a second time. Most chapters followed orders and split again, but some did not, giving us the oddballs of today. Space Wolves likely spun off the wolf brothers in the first stage, but did not split again, and simply attrited down over time to the current numbers. Dorn's marines also did not cooperate well. Instead of splitting, Dorn took the Imperial Fists into the Iron Cage to attrit the numbers rather than split again. Crimson Fists and Soul Drinkers may have split. Black Templars refused and instead kept on crusading as a larger chapter like they did during the Scouring.

[MvS]

Now I have a copy of the rulebook I have to say that I think it's the best one for imagery (both artwork and text) that GW have produced since... I don't know really. Certainly the last three iterations of the core rulebook.

The background text draws together almost everything from previous corebook editions, but also from Forgeworld and of course individual codices. It also includes the map-artwork, battle formations and rolls of honour from both the Armageddon and Eye of Terror campaigns. It has about 100 pages of unadulterated background info, with timelines, relatively in depth analyses of Imperial history, organisations, factions, famous events and suchlike. This doesn't include the Appendices which are further 6 sides of solid text explaining the 40K dating system, daemons, the High Lords of Terra, the Cult Mechanicus, how to field dress wounds caused by Las weapons, Astropath communication, abhumans, STC templates, the Black Ships and Warp travel.

The artwork deserves a special mention. It's superb. Included are many of the classic painting in full colour, by Blanche and others, but more excitingly (for me at least) there are some very attractive 4 page pull-out spreads, the one concerning the Ministorum being my favourite. There's the usual stuff you'd expect as well, such as the double-page galactic map is included towards the end, but it's the newer artwork that does it for me. Deserving special mention are pictures of an aerial view of an Imperial city - perhaps even Terra, it's hard to say - that shows the immense scale of such Hives where star ships can fly between the massive sky-scrapers (p.viii); a space Marine cruiser approaching a Space Hulk (p.155), with it's dark and evocative colouring; the 'Auspicator Cartogrium' (pp.156-157) which definitely needs a bit of careful observation to decode; the detailed full colour painting of the weapons of each of the factions; and the atmospheric 4 page pull out of a Fortress monastery world under attack (hidden between pages 186 & 187).

There's a lot more of course. There are full page plates of some of the better cover art from the various codices, and dividing various sections of the rulebook there are full page plates of single marines from most of the major loyalist chapters.

Anyway, to summarise, in my humble opinion the new 40K rulebook is at least on a par with the 40K roleplay books in terms of the colour, quality of the artwork and background - although obviously the corebook goes more for breadth where the roleplay sourcebooks go more for depth within a slightly narrower field. The production values of this edition are very high indeed. I'm very pleased with my purchase.

Well done GW.

[The bearded one]

Now I have a copy of the rulebook I have to say that I think it's the best one for imagery (both artwork and text) that GW have produced since... I don't know really. Certainly the last three iterations of the core rulebook.

The background text draws together almost everything from previous corebook editions, but also from Forgeworld and of course individual codices. It also includes the map-artwork, battle formations and rolls of honour from both the Armageddon and Eye of Terror campaigns. It has about 100 pages of unadulterated background info, with timelines, relatively in depth analyses of Imperial history, organisations, factions, famous events and suchlike. This doesn't include the Appendices which are further 6 sides of solid text explaining the 40K dating system, daemons, the High Lords of Terra, the Cult Mechanicus, how to field dress wounds caused by Las weapons, Astropath communication, abhumans, STC templates, the Black Ships and Warp travel.

The artwork deserves a special mention. It's superb. Included are many of the classic painting in full colour, by Blanche and others, but more excitingly (for me at least) there are some very attractive 4 page pull-out spreads, the one concerning the Ministorum being my favourite. There's the usual stuff you'd expect as well, such as the double-page galactic map is included towards the end, but it's the newer artwork that does it for me. Deserving special mention are pictures of an aerial view of an Imperial city - perhaps even Terra, it's hard to say - that shows the immense scale of such Hives where star ships can fly between the massive sky-scrapers (p.viii); a space Marine cruiser approaching a Space Hulk (p.155), with it's dark and evocative colouring; the 'Auspicator Cartogrium' (pp.156-157) which definitely needs a bit of careful observation to decode; the detailed full colour painting of the weapons of each of the factions; and the atmospheric 4 page pull out of a Fortress monastery world under attack (hidden between pages 186 & 187).

There's a lot more of course. There are full page plates of some of the better cover art from the various codices, and dividing various sections of the rulebook there are full page plates of single marines from most of the major loyalist chapters.

Anyway, to summarise, in my humble opinion the new 40K rulebook is at least on a par with the 40K roleplay books in terms of the colour, quality of the artwork and background - although obviously the corebook goes more for breadth where the roleplay sourcebooks go more for depth within a slightly narrower field. The production values of this edition are very high indeed. I'm very pleased with my purchase.

Well done GW.

+1, I think the background section is really good this edition, and very in depth. The appendices in particular deserve mention, as there is some great detailed info in there.

[williamsond]

I too like the book and thing its one of the best they have produced in a long time, they could have spell checked the bugger though

[MvS]

they could have spell checked the bugger though

Well in that respect it's much better than many other examples that they've produced, but yes. It does seem that proofing for spelling is a perennial issue.

EDIT

On a more amusing note for my fellow grammar fascists, they use 'Codexes' instead of 'Codices' but still use 'Appendices' instead of 'Appendixes' at the end of the book.

[Inquisitor Engel]

On a more amusing note for my fellow grammar fascists, they use 'Codexes' instead of 'Codices' but still use 'Appendices' instead of 'Appendixes' at the end of the book.

We still used "Forums" here instead of "Fora" but you know how it goes.

[MvS]

We still used "Forums" here instead of "Fora" but you know how it goes.

True. I gave up using 'fora' of these 'forums' maybe three years ago now. It just started to seem pretentious, although for now I draw the line at 'codices' - probably because I often refer to actual codices in my work, so it just seems a bit weird to me to talk about 'codexes'.

Anyway, I don't want it to seem I'm criticising the rulebook over something this petty. I'm really not. I was just making a lighthearted jibe. I'm actually really happy with the book. I think the Studio luminaries definitely hit the nail squarely on the head this time. Credit where it's due.

[The bearded one]

Just back to the legion sizes for a moment; somewhere in the background section (I think a page about the primarchs?), a legion is mentioned as 10.000, or starting out as 10.000 or somesuch, and being mentioned as 100.000 somewhere else. I'll have to look up the exact text, I believe the 10K bit sounded a bit as though they originally started out at 10K when they left from Terra, before growing in size.

Found it:

page 186; "all was not lost, for the Emperor used imprints of his beloved Primarchs to create the first Space Marines, Legions ten thousand strong made from each, an act that was to be known as the first founding"

there is also a mention confirming legions to have been hundreds of thousands strong somewhere else, in accordance with the HH novels.

Found it #2!

Page 161; "never again would the awesome power of one hundred thousand space marines be misused."

[MajorWesJanson]

Starting at 10K each makes sense, with them then expanding rapidly once their Primarchs are found and new recruitment worlds utilized.

[Stonerhino]

It's also a good tie together for the older 10k legions and the newish idea of 100k in BL fiction.

[Shamana]

Found it:

page 186; "all was not lost, for the Emperor used imprints of his beloved Primarchs to create the first Space Marines, Legions ten thousand strong made from each, an act that was to be known as the first founding"

there is also a mention confirming legions to have been hundreds of thousands strong somewhere else, in accordance with the HH novels.

Found it #2!

Page 161; "never again would the awesome power of one hundred thousand space marines be misused."

Couldn't the latter simply mean all traitor legions together? After all, Horus was their overall leader. Though they were iirc nine, not ten, but maybe when you add in support troops ant the like... Just as modern chapters aren't exactly 1000 marines to the man the old legions were probably a few hundreds or even thousands overboard when you factor in every space marine they had.