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So I put this review on Amazon:

2.0 out of 5 stars A poorly laid out rule book, September 29, 2008
By Kid Kyoto - See all my reviews
Durability:4.0 out of 5 stars Fun:2.0 out of 5 stars Educational:1.0 out of 5 stars
If you play Warhammer 40k you'll almost certainly need this book since Marines are the flagship army of that game. Unfortunately this book is very hard to use.

GW chose to put the rules and background for units and some weapons in one section, the rules for some weapons and equipment in another and then the point cost and statistics in a third.

So to learn what your Marine Scouts do you have to flip among three different sections.

The book of course does not have an index.

The other aspects are also disappointing. Most of the art is reused from other rulebooks, some of it is 15 years old. The models are standard models with decent paint jobs but nothing extraordinary. There are none of the great dioramas or conversions from older 40k rule books.

It's a shame GW didn't make this book easier to use or more interesting to read.

And really, all rules stuff aside, this is a very disappointing book. Hard to find the rules you need, nothing exciting in the modeling section, nothing interesting as far as fluff. Did anyone else feel the same way?

Like all of the books since the Eldar codex (I think), it's poorly organized. I think we all hate having to flip back and forth between the front and the back depending on if we want rules or point costs/options. I honestly do not know why they made this change, and whey they think the format is good enough to stick with.

As for the fluff and modeling, I don't know. I usually skip that stuff entirely.

I 100% concur. When I was flipping through the one at the store it was my biggest complaint when I looked up what Sternguard did. Sternguard bolter rules, go to this page. Ok, go there. Shell X does this. Shell Y does this. Shell Z's rules are on a different page.

GW, wtf? You decided it was better to tell us to go to ANOTHER page instead of just using that line of text to reprint the rule, saving us a bunch of time and headache?

I'll be creating my own "Quick Reference Card" soon after getting the book.

And I'm still irked at the new wargear format. I mean why can't my tech marine have a melta bomb? Someone ought to write the Space Emperor a letter!

Isn't it the same as Fantasy? But then I guess there are more standard weapon
rules for Fantasy, and only unit specific special rules to worry about. That, and
the only "wargear" you look up is possessed by characters most of the time.

After starting with 40k, when I got my first fantasy army book, I thought, "what moron came up with this layout."

It is so counter-intuitive. I hate having to flip from one page back to another to see everything I want to know about a unit.

Then, of course, they moved that layout over to 40k too.

Is there any good reason for the rules for Hellfire rounds to be on a different page than the rules for all the other Sternguard special ammo? I calculate not.

Are Stern Guard marines who live at the rear of their ship?

I suppose it doesn't matter how bad the book is because everyone will buy it anyway.

Talk about taking pride in your work...

Kilkrazy wrote:Are Stern Guard marines who live at the rear of their ship?

Yes. That's exactly what they are. And Vanguard are the marines who drive the kids to school.

I don't see any advantage to the new layout style and hope GW comes to their senses (fat chance) before they do IG.

Sternguard Marines never let a Battle-Brother drop the soap in His Imperial Majesty's Space Marine Lavatorum!

Unlike other Spaze Marines, Sternguard are kind of mean and strict. This is why they don't share their special bullets with other Spaze Marines.

I think your review is too kind. Just the rules organization alone in all of the new codexes should be considered a crime against humanity. Uggggg. And to think, when I started playing, I thought my Tau codex was poorly organized. What a fool I was.

There is power in the codex. Too bad you have to look on 80 pages to find all of it.

Abadabadoobaddon wrote:Is there any good reason for the rules for Hellfire rounds to be on a different page than the rules for all the other Sternguard special ammo? I calculate not.

OK I've given this more thought than a sane man ought to.

From what I see the idea was 'put all the wargear in the wargear section, except for one-off items'

Since scouts can take hellfire shells and chapter masters can take hellfire rounds (but none of the others) they put in the generic wargear section. Since the other shells are unique they put them with the Strickguard.

What I want to know is what happened to the Auspex? Or the holy relic? And how come Chaplains and Librarians can't take artificer armor any more? And how come only special characters can get master crafted items? And how come techmarines can only take power swords and not power weapons?

Rule changes aside, taken just as a book, it really does seem like GW, knowing this would sell, just phoned it in.

I agree with KK's ratings. Educational this book is not. I expected to learn the wonderful secrets about spaec mariens but did not find any.

I think we all hate having to flip back and forth between the front and the back depending on if we want rules or point costs/options.

Pretend you're solving the mystery of the missing hellbolts. It's supposed to be read like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book, FYI. People complain about GW not giving free stuff but when you get a free book-within-a-codex you guys still complain.

Kilkrazy wrote:Are Stern Guard marines who live at the rear of their ship?

Sometimes the space commander tells the mariezn to line up in the ship, front to back, for full body inspections. There's always a caboose in the man train.

As far as the hellfire rounds, I think GW has finally realized that they can't even cut and paste right. As a result, they put a rule in one place in the book, everything else refers back to it.

This is common in construction plans. It's a pain, it also avoids the problem of having contradictory rules.

Now, if you're going to layout a book like that, you should put a little more thought into it. I thin having all the wargear, unique or not, in one section makes a lot more sense.

For a reference rule book rules should be reprinted everywhere someone might look for it.

Cut and paste, we can all learn it.

What I want to know is what happened to the Auspex? Or the holy relic? And how come Chaplains and Librarians can't take artificer armor any more? And how come only special characters can get master crafted items?

At least as far as the auspex is concerned it was probably removed due to the fact that in the current version of the rules it wouldn't do anything. Relegating it to a fluff mention only.

As for the master crafted items taken from sergeants its at least good to know that not every single plasma pistol ever held by a space marine was master crafted. You would never have known from the last few editions of the book.



I'm not defending the GW codex layout, its pretty bad. But is rating this codex so poorly due it a layout that has been standard in the last five codexes really fair?

Agreed, Kyoto. There's nothing wrong with having the rules in more than one place. Unless they're worried about them saying something different in each location.

The funny/sad part is that they think the new organization is a vast improvement. They've bragged about it. Of course, they gave up listening to us long ago, so any complaints will be written off...

gorgon wrote:Agreed, Kyoto. There's nothing wrong with having the rules in more than one place. Unless they're worried about them saying something different in each location.

I believe this was the case in a few instances between the main rules and the summary
sheet they put at the back of older army books.

Just got back into 40k so reading this codex along with the Daemon Codex has been quite a shock.
WOW this layout is horrible, flip to this page, and flip to the back...ooh reference to the main rulebook.
All I have to say is PhotoShop here I come! (I know someone is going to whine and say that reproducing the rulebook is IP infringement, but for the sake of my sanity I have to have the rules in one place.)

GW legal can unless they find my personal copy!
PS: no I will not seed this file on file sharing networks.

ShumaGorath wrote:


I'm not defending the GW codex layout, its pretty bad. But is rating this codex so poorly due it a layout that has been standard in the last five codexes really fair?

Obviously I think so. A bad idea repeated does not become a good one.

I broke out the 2004 codex to compare when I wrote this and was struck by how much easier it was to read and how much easier to use. Now I didn't like those rules much either, I thought the Chapter Traits were very poorly done, but at least they were all on one page and easy to get. This format is annoying to me, whose been into this game on and off since 1993 and seriously into it since 2000. I can't imagine what the 2008 book is like for a brand new player.

dietrich wrote:As far as the hellfire rounds, I think GW has finally realized that they can't even cut and paste right. As a result, they put a rule in one place in the book, everything else refers back to it.

This is common in construction plans. It's a pain, it also avoids the problem of having contradictory rules.

Now, if you're going to layout a book like that, you should put a little more thought into it. I thin having all the wargear, unique or not, in one section makes a lot more sense.

The really sad thing is that ANY layout software makes this easy, as you can insert what are essentially links to objects - change a definition once, and it will be auto-updated throughout the document.

Hold on. I quite like the old 'Bestiary' style. I see it like this. You read the book. You've got some models. You build your army. When you're doing this, you're at the back of the book, cos that's where the point costs and options are.

Once you've built your army, and you're playing the game, you don't need the back of the book any more. You just need the Characteristics and the Unit Special Rules - for reference, right? Don't need no point costs or options on what i could have taken. Hence, book stays open in the middle. Easy. And even better, the book stays open in the middle. Genius!

Of course, I just use army builder and get one of those cool printouts with all the rules on it...

ShumaGorath wrote:I'm not defending the GW codex layout, its pretty bad. But is rating this codex so poorly due it a layout that has been standard in the last five codexes really fair?

So consistent failure should provide some sort of excuse? "Well, I was going to cite you for speeding, but I see we let you off last time. I guess it wouldn't be fair to ticket you now, since we gave you a pass before." No thanks.

Call them to account every single time they do this, and maybe someone over there will stumble across one of the complaints.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:
What I want to know is what happened to the Auspex? Or the holy relic?

Both of those items were two of the most poorly thought out rules in play since they were originally written in 3rd edition. The Auspex has been phased out with each new-format codex. The holy relic has tended to be rolled up into banners with totally different (less idiotic, IMHO) rules. I'm not sure what has taken it's place (if anything) in the new SM codex, but I'm guessing they still have some sort of Chapter Banner type thing in the army which essentially fulfills the same role in the army.

And how come Chaplains and Librarians can't take artificer armor any more?

Perhaps to help further differentiate their role in the army from the Commander? Frankly, one of the things I like the most about the way they break down wargear choices per unit is now it is much easier to create HQ choices that have a unique set of weapon/wargear choices that specifically fits into what their role in the army is supposed to be.

And how come only special characters can get master crafted items?

Perhaps to represent that the weapons carried by Special characters are. . .special? With the old style of rules every character could take a master-crafted weapon so then when they wrote special characters they had to write a special rule for their weapons just to make them more powerful then what a standard joe character could get.

By limiting standard HQ choices to regular weapons it actually makes a 'master-crafted' weapon special, which then works for special characters.

And how come techmarines can only take power swords and not power weapons?

Aren't power swords "power weapons"? Or did you mean powerfist?

Lormax wrote:I 100% concur. When I was flipping through the one at the store it was my biggest complaint when I looked up what Sternguard did. Sternguard bolter rules, go to this page. Ok, go there. Shell X does this. Shell Y does this. Shell Z's rules are on a different page.

GW, wtf? You decided it was better to tell us to go to ANOTHER page instead of just using that line of text to reprint the rule, saving us a bunch of time and headache?

I'll be creating my own "Quick Reference Card" soon after getting the book.

COMPLETELY AGREE, the ELdar codex format is the worstand they are burying us with more of that drivel?

Kid_Kyoto wrote:For a reference rule book rules should be reprinted everywhere someone might look for it.

Cut and paste, we can all learn it.

Actually I find the fluff renaming of things SUPREMELY IRITATING, and I think they do it a lot, just for fluff. In some cases it goes like this:

These have fleshooks...?

???

CODEX ENTRY>>CODEX RULES>>SPECIAL RULES SECTION>>MAIN RULES>>OFFENSIVE GRENADES

Why not just write in the army list entry for the biomrophs, these creatures have offensive grenades instead of the 5 layered look up so we could call it a cool name like fleshooks?

Sad to hear that the marines dex is like this too.

It's largely the fluff that gives 40K its "flavour".

There's a limit to the amount of genuine difference you can make between armies given the variables and limitations in the game system.

People are already complaining that a lot of units have bog standard Universal Special Rule instead of some special power with a groovy name.