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I was curious how many people buy every army book / codex, so that they can learn about their opponent's armies? This may be more important in fantasy, rather than in 40k, since things can be so different (such as an army having its own lore of magic).

I was thinking of doing this, and then going to staples and having just the rules section of each book pulled out and bound into one. This could come in really handy at a tournament / round-robin type event, and also for flipping through to learn about each army. I'd miss out on the artwork and background, but I could always keep that somewhere else... but I wouldn't want to lug around the background of every army in the Warhammer world to my games!

I was also concerned that this would get expensive, since a new army book / codex is released every quarter or so...

It's a nice idea, but really far too expensive to be viable. Just lurk around on a bunch of wargaming forums - most of the information (barring points costs) gets posted anyway. At the very least, the really dangerous or seemingly cheesy stuff gets posted about.

Maybe if you had a frequent enemy, but often your frequent enemy is one of your friends or relatives armies so im sure he'd let you read his codex/army book.

Also im not sure if it would be allowed in tournaments, i've never been to one so i wouldn't know, but to me it seems like an unfair advantage, after all you'd know the attributes and certain 'surprises' that your enemy has. In friendly games its OK, i think, and im sure your opponent would let you flick through his codex/army book while playing, i do this all the time (and also let my opponent read mine), its a good opportunity to find out a little bit more about an army or see how powerful some of the units are (i often read a unit description on a unit that interests me in this time).

On the subject of buying them, i'd say no, they're £15 each and that money could buy, or nearly buy, you a box of troops. I'm not sure about you, but i would rather buy a box of models to go with my army than a codex/army book of an army i'm never going to collect.

I used to, but it was always an 'excess pocket money' thing. Grab a book i don't have so I can read up on them. This was mainly for the background, though. I found that it was interesting to read about some of the little grudges between armies, such as the Skaven/Tomb Kings links, that are really only barely mentioned in both army books.

It may be one reason I've come to prefer 'fat army books' that are centered more on an event, campaign, or region as opposed to army-specifi books (I.E. the GW codex model).

No unfair advantage to knowing the rules for an opponents army. In fact, depending on how well he knows his own rules, it may absolutley be necessary!

mikhaila wrote:No unfair advantage to knowing the rules for an opponents army. In fact, depending on how well he knows his own rules, it may absolutley be necessary!

I agree when I used to travel to GT's and Rogue traders every month(and I mean every month) I had one of each codex or army book out there with me. It helped keep opponents honest AND on the pub quiz!

mikhaila wrote:No unfair advantage to knowing the rules for an opponents army. In fact, depending on how well he knows his own rules, it may absolutley be necessary!

EXACTLY!


I'm, apparently, one of the few.
Counting the Nid & Wolves codices on the way, I have every *current* Codex except IG... I really need to grab that, too.
>: (
Know your enemy is a big deal to me.

Eric

(*current* means I don't have necrons or DEldar - I'm waiting for the eventual release of the new ones)

I own every book.

Its nice to know all the army rules and have no surprizes pulled on you in games.

When I was an active tourney player I lumped around copies of all the codexes. Many of which I had a freind at a copy shop put into a spiral binding- makes them sit flat on the table

But knowing your opponents army can also prevent them from pulling the 'creative interpretation' on you- something often referred to as cheating Occasionally its genuine ignorance, but sometimes its hard to believe that theyre really so dumb to twist a simple rule after playing a brilliant game.

Well here is my solution find a guy that owns every single codex ask to borrow them for a coulpe days copy them at staples and then have them bound so that way you dont have to buy all of them.

Man, I remember when Dakka was a forum about competetive 40k.

"Unfair advantage"? HAH!

I say go ahead and do that. Sounds useful and if you enjoy the fluff, mark it up to what you might normally spend on buying novels.

When your done, send me an extra copy.

I recently started that. I'm never gonna play wolves or 'Nids but I bought the books anyway, just because I like to read rulebooks.

I usually end up buying them for the fluff.

Not I. I only buy what I play, which is plenty enough!

I own the codex for every army I play, and have found some interesting electronic documents for those I don't. It always pays to have easy access to the rules.

However, if I'm wandering around a GW and fancy a bit of reading material, I may well pick up a Codex just for fun, even if I don't play the army...

I buy them all, as I prefer to keep up with the current rules for the game. Yes, that's expensive... but I have multiple armies already, and so don't really need to buy models that often.

I buy them all. Keeping up with the competition and all.

i buy them all, and i don't even play...
if i like the look of a line of minis, say Wargods, or Infinity, i get the books...
it's nice to have the stories, artwork, and pics of minis for inspiration...
i collect No Quarter and White Dwarf for the same reason...

i start my day looking at painted minis to get me in the mood to put in 8 hours of work, and then chill out with a Black Library novel after a hard day's painting...

i'm a big fan of art and backstory...

cheers
jah

I buy them all except the various marines ones other than vanilla marines, but they are getting more and more tempting with the interesting space wolves one and very tempting blood angel codex that is due soon. I have all except daemonhunters/witch hunters and dark eldar as I've only started buying them all since 4E but got codex Necrons as an addition as I wanted a small necron force.

I can't afford that, although I'd probably like to have every Codex.

I download every book and read them, or borrow them from a friend. I buy the ones I use for my armies, with the notable exception being Chaos Daemons.

I buy the books to the armies I play, but until GW gets their head out of their ass and creates a codex that I don't have to flip between 4 different sections to find the rules for one unit, I will continue to use PDFs more than the printed book. (man I love digital bookmarks!)

legoburner wrote:I buy them all except the various marines ones other than vanilla marines, but they are getting more and more tempting with the interesting space wolves one and very tempting blood angel codex that is due soon. I have all except daemonhunters/witch hunters and dark eldar as I've only started buying them all since 4E but got codex Necrons as an addition as I wanted a small necron force.

This.

The only Codexes that I do not actually own are the vanilla Space Marines, Dark Eldar, Eldar, and Witchhunters. The rest serve as great sources of inspiration, and even get passed around my non-40k playing friends. They like the artwork, and it's always a tempting thing to get them into it anyways.

There is no better Toilet Reading Material than a Codex or Army Book.

Everyone knows men do their best thinking on the crapper.

I used to, and still have them all in my little footlocker thing.
But these days, now that I have responsibility and so forth, its just cheaper to swap books with your friends for a week and "keep a record" ifyaknowwhatImsayin.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:There is no better Toilet Reading Material than a Codex or Army Book.

QFT

I own codices/army books for all armies I am interested in playing... reading the fluff and rules is how I plan armies, which is how I decide to buy/not buy armies.

If I have an army, I seek out older versions of the codex/army book as well. Older books can be better than new ones for fluff and conversion ideas.

I have literally just started doing this (as in, I don't have any of the older books, but as of the Tyranid codex I'm buying a copy of every codex released) - gives me access to fluff, knowledge of my enemies, the ability to cohesively discuss builds and rules discussions, and allows me (and my mates) to think about what we might like to build in the future.

On the other hand, I have no plans to backdate this. I don't own the Ork, Tau, Space Marine or Eldar codices (to name but a few, naturally), and have no intention of buying them until they've been re-released.

This discussion, as usual, helped me think things through. Thanks, Dakka!

I have decided that for now I don't have the funds to do this. I will definitely consider it in the future, but I think the most important thing for me now is to just get games in against as many different armies as I can. I already know a lot "in theory"... not I need to get some practice!

I have decided to try to buy some out of date army books for my own army, though (wood elves) just for the background.

I have access to the internet. GW already has enough of my money. I've bought the two I need. A fourth unrelated statement.