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As the thread title says, I finally broke into the four-digit posts barrier here on DakkaDakka. I wanted to do something to mark this minor milestone in my posting history. To this end, I've decided to take a leaf out of H.B.M.C & Kid_Kyoto's books and do one of those funky Retro Review things.

As I've always mostly been a fluff gamer, I felt that I should do my retro review of my first exposure to the galaxy of Warhammer 40,000, so without further ado, here is my

RETRO REVIEW - CODEX IMPERIALIS
By Rick Priestley & Andy Chambers
Art by John Blanche, Wayne England, Jes Goodwin & Mark Gibbons (and others)

Codex Imperialis was one of the three 'main' rulebooks that came in the Warhammer 40,000 2nd Edition boxed game. (The others were the Rulebook & the Wargear Book). The cover of Codex Imperialis is a re-use of the box cover art and is a John Blance piece (Hard to tell with the lack of scribbly bits, isn't it) depicting Blood Angels fighting Orks as part of the Second Battle for Armageddon. This was released back in 1993, and as with all retro reviews, if you weren't born when this was published mention it in your reply.

This is from GW's infamous 'red period' as you might be able to tell by the fact that our Space Marine poster boys are Blood Angels, and would remain so until the release of Codex: Ultramarines a few years later catapulted the smurfs ahead.



While the other two books in the box set dealt with rules & weapons, Codex Imperialis was the fluff sourcebook. This is how an impressionable 12-year-old chaplaingrabthar was introduced to the horrors of grimdark. The very first nugget of background in this book might hold more than a passing familiarity for anyone with a 40K rulebook purchased since 1998

Yes, we start off with the Emperor on his Golden Throne consuming human flesh and human blood. Not quite as child-friendly as the cover might imply. And that "whatever happened, you will not be missed" immediately established that mankind is all kind of screwed.

After that we're treated to a table of contents that lets us know that this book will devote 40 pages to the various factions of the Imperium, 12 to the Orks, 9 to the Eldar, 5 to something called Squats (more on those later), 14 pages to Chaos, and 7 to Tyranids.

That's 37 pages devoted to the combined Xenos/Heretics. Who says the Imperium gets all of GW's fluff love?

After a short introduction to the galaxy, which introduces us to the tides and perils of something called the warp, we are thrust headlong into an introduction to the Imperium, the human race of the setting, and (at least as portrayed here) the not-as-bad-as-the-other-bad-guys guys. Our first glimpse of a member of the imperium is this guy

A priestly/monk looking dude carrying a big book & a chainsword. I always thought this guy was what your average Imperial Citizen looked like, but looking back it's far more likely he had something to do with the Ecclesiarchy. The text following this image talks about how the Emperor ascended to his Golden throne a hundred centuries prior and that the Imperium is now ruled by an ignorant, bureaucratic behemoth, the Adptus Terra. And what is any bureaucracy without an organization chart? Nothing, that's what.

So there's your breakdown of the convoluted organisation odf the Imperium. After that we move into a section on the High Lords of Terra. We are told that there's 12 of them, with these nine listed as sacrosanct.

The Master of the Administratum
The Inquisitorial Representative
The Ecclesiarch of the Adeptus Ministorum
The Fabricator General of the Adeptus Mechanicus
The Grand Provost Marshal of the Adeptus Arbites
The Paternoval Envoy of the Navigators
The Master of the Astronomican
The Grand Master of the Ofticio Assassinorum
The Master of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica

And the other three spots being filled in by a variety of other high ranking Imperial positions, but not as rigidly set as those nine.

Once the introduction to the big bosses is out of the way, we move onto the first section representing an army you can field. That army is of course
SPACE MARINES

As is now traditional, Space MArines were double-hard bastards with the following basic profiles

Yes, you're reading that correctly. Space marine 'Mighty Hero' level characters (Chapter Masters & such) had WS7 BS7 S5 T5. For those of you who joined 40K once second edition had gone the way of the dodo, this is why we have the derisive Herohammer nickname.

The Space Marine section starts with a little blurb about how they're organised into separate chapters. We're ven treated to a box-out talking about the different Chapters (not Legions) that made up the first founding. The box-out contains a note that certain chapters turned renegade during the Horus Heresy. No real mention of what that heresy might be though. The next page talks about how Chapters are broken down into companies but gives almost no detail of what makes up a company. We also have a box-out describing Dark Angels as the Unforgiven and settign up some nice mystery.

Next we have a list of the Organs that make a marine a marine. After that a very brief blurb on how mighty the Primarchs were, and a little on how they were touched by Chaos and scattered. We're also told that 9 of the 20 Primarchs survived the Horus Heresy. I'm not sure if that's still canon or not. I know Ferrus Manus now doesn't get to be a survivor, for instance. We get little box-outs describing Blood Angels as Sapce Vampires and Space Wolves as the Undefeated, bane of the Emperor's foees. (That wouldn't be fully fleshed out as Space Viking until the release of their Codex in 1994)

After Space Marines it's time for

THE IMPERIAL GUARD


Our first introduction to the guard talks about the innumerable regiments and how that shows the vast scale of how much humanity is in trouble needing so many fighters. We then get a blurb on how each regiment is recruited from each Imperial Commander's private defense force. It's very feudal with the commanders commanded to tithe their best troops to the Imperium. We're also told that an IG regiment numbers between 2,000 - 6,000 men. A figure I'm not sure I've seen anywhere else.

We're also told that each regiment has traditions and uniforms tied to their planet of origin. With the example given being Attilans and their natural affinity for horses leading them to providing Rough Riders to the guard. We get an intro to Commissrs that describes them as a cross between commanders and drill sergeants. We then get a box out for the original RT-era Imperial Guard regiment, the Necromundan 8th, 'Spiders.' Ratling snipers are still described as Halfling snipers here. Also, Commissars only special rule is being Immune to Psychology, none of this executing their own men stuff that we now know and love.

Our next section
THE INQUISITION


We're introduced to the Inquisition as more or less the Internal Affairs branch of the Imperium and are told how no-one, not even High Lords of Terra are above suspicion. We get a brief introduction to Grey Knights & the Ordo Malleus (the only Ordo mentioned)

We then move swiftly on to

ADEPTUS ARBITES
(Though, amusingly the contents page lists them as Adeptus Astartes)



These guys get two whole pages devoted to them. They're portrayed as a cross between a SWAT police force and Judge Dredd

Then it's time to get your psyker on as we move on to the
ADEPTUS ASTRA TELEPATHICA
Which talks a little bit about recruitng psykers from the general population and sacrificing the more dangerous ones to the Emperor.


ADEPTUS MINISTORUM

The religious arm of the Imperium. These guys are the ones who uphold the worship of the God-Emperor. We're introduced to the structure, with an Ecclesiarch, Cardinals, a holy Synod and missionaries, to bludgeon home the factthat this is fundamentally the medieval Catholic Church ...IN SPAAACE!

We also get what was the entirety of the fluff for Sisters of Battle. Reproduced here:



ADEPTUS MECHANICUS

We get an introduction to the guys who make all those wonderful toys for the Imperial forces. Our first glimpse is an organisation chart of the different specialties for each division of the Ad Mech., as well as a little bit about the Cult Mechanicus and the MAchine-God. A breif blurb on Mars being the ur-Forgeworld, the Titan Legions, then my favorite bit of MEchanicus fluff, the never ending quest for knowledge in the form of STCs. We get stats for Tech-Priests, Engineers, Electro-Priests & Servitors.

ASSASSINS

Not much to say here, they belong to the Ordo Assassinorum, they can only be assigned by High Lord of Terra. I haven't got anything to add, I just like the picture.

ADMINISTRATUM
The imperial bureaucracy. I'll be skipping them.

THE ORKS
Huzzah, finally some non-imperials!


As the Xenos scum provided in the boxed set, the Orks are naturally the first of the Imperium's enemies to be introduced.

We discover that the Orks are thought to be the remains of a long extinct, but highly diverse greenskinned race that was probably created by the Brainboyz. The Brainboyz are described as dying out slowly due to a plague. There's no mention of spores or fungus or any of that newer Ork biology background. The only thing we get is "The Ork mind is wholly specialized for the pursuit of power and war."

We also get a break down of the Oddboys (Mekboyz, Painboyz, Madboyz etc.) and how they were engineered by the Brainboyz.

We also get told about the vatrious Orky Clans. This has always benn a favorite fluff piece of mine, and it was a shame to see the clan distinctions fade with each new Ork Codex. The Clans are:


TO BE CONTINUED with Eldar, Squats, Chaos & Nids.

This is the closest we got to a Squat codex.l

Howard A Treesong wrote:This is the closest we got to a Squat codex.l

I know it's not official, but Inquisitor Magazine did an issue(the one that also held the Datafaxes for Warhound, Revenant, and Phantom Titans) that had a Codex worth of rules with not one, but 3(!) Squat lists with much better fleshed out fluff than GW ever did for them. IIRC, they were a Biker Guild list, Hearthguard list, and Engineering Guild list.

Howard A Treesong wrote:This is the closest we got to a Squat codex.l

Truth. This book ( and its companions ) have a permament home on my bookshelf. I still occasionally read through them, just to get that very special shot of retrofeeling.

chaplaingrabthar wrote:
Yes, you're reading that correctly. Space marine 'Might Hero' level characters had WS7 BS7 S7 T7.

Hum... No


more like WS7, BS 7, S5, T5, still impressive

Thanks for spotting that Stress. I'll edit appropriately. In my defense I started this project at 5am because I couldn't sleep again last night.

Cool stuff, I McLike it. GWs art sure has improved too.

I disagree on the art improving.
I guess overall it has in average standard (excepting the edaemon codex and army book) but there are some outstanding pics that have stood the test of time, like the Ad mech pic above and this classic:

I have a book of classic art that is simply amazing, Inquis Exterminatus. IT has the peice of art that made me decide to collect Dark Angels back in the day, unfortunately I can't find it. It was a box cover I think.

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:I disagree on the art improving.
I guess overall it has in average standard (excepting the edaemon codex and army book) but there are some outstanding pics that have stood the test of time, like the Ad mech pic above and this classic:

That's a classic piece of art. Very baroque.

Continuing with our look at the Xenos scum from the revered Codex Imperialis, we arrive at our next race

THE ELDAR

If you look carefully at the picture of Guardians above, you'll see that they are armed with Lasguns. This is back when weaponry wasn't distinct to each race. I believe either the 3rd edition Rulebook or the 3rd Edition Codex: Eldar told us to count any Eldar Lasguns (and in the days of monopose guardians, there were a lot of Eldar Lasguns) as Mk I Shuriken Catapults.
Those Guardians, in addition to Lasguns and disturbingly large codpieces had the following stat line


But I'm getting ahead of myself. The Eldar section of Codex Imperialis starts off talking about how they were once the dominant force in the galaxy, spreading their happy effete Space Elf joy among the stars before the Fall destroyed their homeworlds and led to them being refugees on the Craftworlds, of which no one knows how many there are. For me, to sentences in this two-page blurb stabd-out, so I'm going to quote them

Codex Imperialis wrote:Exactly what happened to the Eldar is not fully understood by the humans of the Imperium. The Inquisition records on the matter are a subject of an indefinite lncluisition Seal of Heresy (the lnquisato Relinquo).

So even here we see the Inquisition knowing more than it lets on, and keeping secrets from the wider Imperium for it's own purposes.

Codex Imperialis wrote:They are more often ally than enemy to the Imperium. yet the two races owe each other nothing and contlicting interests have driven them lo war on occasions.

So there you have it, in the Grim Darkness of the Far Future there is only occasionally war between the Eldar and Imperium, with most of the time dedicated to group hugs.

After the introduction is done, we are introduced to the forces of the Eldar. Starting with the Avatar of the Bloody-Handed God, who is basically a Daemon of Khaine and has ferocious stats to match. (WS10 BS10, S8 T8) On top of that, the Avatar has invulnerabilities to heat-based weapons. Of course, this being GW, what were and were not heat-based weapons was left undefined. Ask any second edition player if a Lascannon is a heat-based weapon and watch them twitch convulsively.

Once the Avatr is dealt with, we are introduced to the six Aspects of the Eldar (Only six, as Warp Spiders did not exist until the Eldar Codex of 1994 (Which might be the last time they got sculpted ). These are funddamentally the same as they are now, at least in concept.

Once that's done, we get to the guardians, who are outlined above. Then as befits the most psychic race in 40K, it's a breakdown on Warlocks & Farseers, followed by Exarchs. I liked the parallel of Exarchs and Farseers both being Eldar that got locked into their respective Paths and so are trapped as fighters or seers until death.

After that, we have a short story about a Farseer named Kelmon taking up a couple of pages, and we end with stats for Harlequins, who are very underdeveloped here.



To Be Continued tomorrow with: THE SQUATS

I love you and this thread.

even though i have just about all of the 2nd edition books burned into my brain permanently, i like knowing that other people can taste some of the marshmellow like fluff that this game is based on.

This, Wargear and the Rulebook totally warped a 12 year old Da Boss one summer. Awww, great days. It wasn't long afterwards I bought my first miniature- a Snakebite Boarboy, if I'm remembering right. Loved the Squat, Chaos and Ork bits especially.
I got all nostalgic for Second Ed recently and asked if anyone in my club would like a go of it. No one took me up on my offer. :(

I was really sad to find out they never made a Squat codex. Still have my Imperial Guard and Chaos books though, and recently aqquired an Ork Codex. (The fourth edition one is actually better, which suprised me- my rose tinted remembrances had lead me to believe that all second edition publications were as awesome as the chaos book)

Where are my squats??

It's funny how little the basic stats have changed!

Sorry, Real Life issues have interrupted on this. I'll attempt to get the remaining Xenos done by Friday evening.

tallmantim wrote:It's funny how little the basic stats have changed!

Points costs haven't change much either. Marines were 15 points each in RT, they're ~15 each now.

BigToof wrote:

tallmantim wrote:It's funny how little the basic stats have changed!

Points costs haven't change much either. Marines were 15 points each in RT, they're ~15 each now.

Maybe, but they were 30 each in 2nd.

tallmantim wrote:It's funny how little the basic stats have changed!

Let's not forget the older stats which included "willpower" and "cool"

chaplaingrabthar wrote:Sorry, Real Life issues have interrupted on this. I'll attempt to get the remaining Xenos done by Friday evening.

You don't have to apologise. It isn't like you owe us anything.

I just didn't want you to forget about it.

Continuing with our look at the Xenos scum from the revered Codex Imperialis, we arrive at our next race (bet you thought I'd forgotten this, huh? you'd be right!)

THE SQUATS

Yes, today we are covering a race that is legendary in GW gaming circles, not so much for what they were but due to their fate of being the very first post-Rogue Trader army to be removed from the game, even contributing the term 'Squatted.' So what were the Squats before the Tyranids decided to chow down on every single ship world and other celestial body that they belonged to?

Bluntly, they were the Space Dwarfs to complement the Space Elves and Space Orks.



See? Even their iconography was Dwarfish!

Like Ogryns & Ratlings, the Squats were abhumans. The background talks about them being the original human settlers of the galaxy, exploring and exploiting the mineral resources of the planets near the galactic core as the Earth's mineral wealth was all tapped out. (Of course they're miners, what else would Space Dwarfs be?) These core worlds were described as lifeless and receiving such lwo light from their dim stars, that they were impossible to terraform. The high gravity (2-3 times Earth's at least) is described as a key component to the changes in the human physiognomy to that of Squats. The worlds are described as

Codex Imperialis wrote:Grey, cheerless and inhospitable, it is harder to imagine anywhere less likely to nurture human existence

which tells me that GW doesn't think the people of either Swindon, Wilts or Cleveland, OH are human.

Over the course of millennia the Squats evolved into a shorter, hardier breed than the original humans had been, a change represented by the following in-game stats:



But once again, I'm getting ahead of myself. the background continues to state that these core worlds were cut off from the wider race of mankind by devastatingly vicious warp storms. During this so called Time of Isolation, the various Squat settlements banded together on what became known as the Homeworlds and forged a core racial identity quite different from their human ancestry. This isolation led to the Squats developing their own technological base from life-support to spacecraft.

The warp storms finally abated some ten thousand years ago, and the Squat fleets made contact with the Great Crusade fleets of the fledgling Imperium. So you can imagine how the Imperium reacted to this race of mutants, after all, " In the Grim Darkness of the Far Future there is only War," right?

Codex Imperialis wrote:Today the Homeworlds and the Imperium trade for their mutual benefit and, for the most part, enjoy peaceful relations.

Wait, what? Peaceful Relations? In my 40K? That can't be right. (Clearly it wasn't, as Squats have now been purged from the system...)

After those basics we are introduced to the structure of Squat society. Basically there are thousands of Homeworlds with more being uncovered constantly. These homeworlds are mostly barren, rocky planets, so the squats live in massive fortresses known as Strongholds, with smaller Outposts dotted around the planets, frequently over frresher unexhausted mines. The Squats traveled between these outposts and strongholds on massive Land Trains or other enormous war engines.

Like that. (I think that's a Leviathan pictured, but not 100%)

After the introduction to strongholds we are introduced to the 700 Leagues. These are confederation of Strongholds, usually led by a single powerful Stronghold, that have banded together for mutual benefit, or power consolidation. There are leagues of many different sizes from the League of Thor (300 Strongholds) to the tiny League of Emberg, near the Eye of Terror (4 Strongholds). As you can see this rocky fortress dwelling and strng unified structure on barren, lifeless worlds made the Squats prime pickings for the Tyranids whose main modus operandi is stripping luch verdant worlds of biomass...

In addition to Strongholds and Leagues, the Squats have Guilds which operate independent of LEague boundaries and are what they sound like, societies of different professions banding together to research or repair different technologies, similar how Earth-based guilds function today, but without the Cheeto-and-Mountain-Dew diet.

We get a little description of Squat attitude:


And then a description of the Ork wars. Basically, the Squats used to trade with Ork empires in the Northern Spiral arm, and were taken by surprise when a massive WAAAGH was launched against them, costing several Strongholds. This is the explanantion behind the universal Squat hatred of Orks as shown on the earlier stat block.

With the background out of the way, we finally launch into the in-game stats and profiles of the great wee beasties

We begin with Squat Warriors entry, which I already flashed the stats for above.

After the basic Squats, we deal with Squat Guildmasters, who are basically your engineers. They have vehicle repair rules, upgraded stats (equivalent to the Hero statblock above) and nothing much else.

After the Guildmaster, we get to the double hard bastards of the Squats, the Ancestor Lords. These guys are your leaders, with this profile

Ancestor Lords are extremely long-lived Squats, and as they age, they gain psychic powers and the ability to commune with the revered ancestors of the Squat race (hence the name). As the publication of the Psyker rules in the Dark Millennium supplement was still some months away when this was first pubished, the psychic powers are glossed over and the wisdom of the ancients is represented by a +D3 to the Squat strategy rating.

So that was the Squats last published appearance (together with Black Codex army list). They are rumored to be the inspiration for the BFG Demi-Urg fleet, though...

Next time (in however many months/days or weeks that will be), I'll cover Chaos as envisioned by early 90s GW.

Brings back some memories!

Wicked article mate - I still have a copy of this. The fluff in it just seems so much more....fluffy.

Nice job

See, that's what's really wrong with GW today - no Squats!

Treesong wrote:See, that's what's really wrong with GW today - no Squats!

True. And, y'know, loads of other stuff too.

Always nice to see more old fluff dragged out.

Ooh I had this book, but loaned it to a friend who has never returned it...

Can't wait for you to post the Chaos Daemon stats, If I remember back in 2nd the bloodthirster was WS10 BS10 S8 T9 W7 A6 I10 Ld10 or something as equally stupidly-overpowered!

Leigen_Zero wrote:Ooh I had this book, but loaned it to a friend who has never returned it...

Can't wait for you to post the Chaos Daemon stats, If I remember back in 2nd the bloodthirster was WS10 BS10 S8 T9 W7 A6 I10 Ld10 or something as equally stupidly-overpowered!

And that's on top of the ability to fly up to 24" (well two could), the others had awesome psychic powers instead, and they had a 4+ invulnerable save, and they caused Terror. Terror was a psychological effect greater than Fear, Fear merely pinned people, Terror actually made them run away.

They were expensive points wise though, and summoning them was bit of a pain. I don't know what the current rules are, but if you didn't have early successes wounding and killing enemy soldiers it would take ages to collect the summoning points needed to call up a greater daemon, if you ended up on the back foot you could go the large part or the entire game without around 500 points worth of Daemon. Makes winning very difficult fighting with an arm tied behind your back, but then again, the blessings of chaos are fickle in nature.

very strange ws 3 orks and the warboss is worse at melee than the chapter master

Lovely article though it is, was there any reason to necro a thread that is ~6 months old?