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The poll on the current codexes got me thinking - did we EVER like the codexes? I know there's never been a "perfect" book, but in terms of over-all quality from fluff to list building to organization and the build quality of the book itself, what was your favorite edition and why?

I prefer the second ed books. They had their issues, but over-all I thought they each gave a solid amount of interesting fluff alongg with multiple ways to play each army on the TT. They were also (as far as I can recall - haven't read them in a while) decently organized. I feel like there was a lot less "turn to this page for this rule, that page for the weapon stats, now THIS page for the unit cost" kind of thing going on while still also providing good and interesting content (the initial 3rd ed books probably had the most "game friendly" layout but man, they were basically pamphlets with almost ZERO good fluff imo).

I also still have my second ed books and they are in just as good a condition as the day I bought them. By way of comparison, my 6th ed. CSM and DA books are already needing to be re-bound.

So that's my thoughts. What are yours?

6th, as good as it gets. Books that are easy to use, look amazing and are packed with great stuff.

6th, as good as it gets. Books that are easy to use, look amazing and are packed with great stuff.

I do enjoy the full color of the 6th/7th books. They are a joy to thumb through and stare at!

2nd.

Everything after has just been a retreat with additions of stuff "that's always been there, we just lost it behind the couch."

6th. I'm collecting all of the 40k codexes, supplements and hopefully specials like the Blood Angel Campaign "Shield of Bhaal: Leviathan". I love the books, I love the style, I love the art, I love to read them, I love to have them on my bookshelf, I love absolutely everything about those codices.

2nd. Good mix of fluff, fiction, art, and photos. Rules might not have been the best, or balance, but that’s an edition issue, not the codex format pre-say.

For building a list? 3rd
For internal balance, 6/7th

This is a tough one.

Reluctantly, I went for 4th/5th edition, though I would note that it was really because 5th edition wasn't a stand-alone poll option.

Yes, yes, I know that was the Wardpocalypse, but much of Ward's work had redeeming qualities to it (I still think the 5th ed space marine codex is the best one GW's come out with so far). And if you step back from that one glaring problem you're only left with one other - the snail's pace codex cycle, which isn't a problem of the codices themselves.

Meanwhile, on the plus side, the 5th edition codices were big. Tons of fluff, lots of rules, etc. I can see pictures of miniatures everywhere, but the point of a book is its words, and 5th ed really delivered. Since that point, codices have been getting leaner with less, staler fluff and focusing more on pictures and descriptions, and less on ideas and narration.

6th ed was close, though, with its more interesting take on balance, color everything, etc.

But, there's one thing that absolutely killed 6th ed codices - its formatting. 6th edition was about going to one page to find out what a unit was, and then going to another page to see how much its upgrades cost, and then going to another page to see what those upgrades did, and then to another book to find out what the special rules were. It was idiotic. The CSM codex is a particularly egregious transgressor of this. Given the index:content ratio, the index is just short of being long enough to require its own index.

Haven't really seen much of the 7th ed codices yet, as I don't play armies that have been updated yet, but the apparent move towards huge glossy photos away from written content is disturbing. Meanwhile, everything before 5th edition had its own kitschy charm, but the codices were very light on content, and were kind of confusing with lots of strangely interacting special rules rather than the current, far superior USR model. Back in 4th edition, I used to have to explain the awkwardly-worded rules for the hellhound's inferno cannon, and now I can just say "it's torrent" and the problem is solved. Digging through other peoples' codices just to figure out what was going on was always annoying.

Personally, I don't know if I have a specific favorite codex "era".

I like the art and "feel" of the earlier books, basically anything before 4th edition, so 3.5E and earlier. That slightly cartoony, very industrial-punk jive with the slight hint of medieval fantasy was really something I was into. Also I'm a huge fan of Mark Gibbons and John Blanche's art and it featured fairly heavily.

The writing I feel was also best in that era. The CSM 3.5E codex I feel really hit the best spot in terms of portraying the "feel" of an army and making it seem just scary with its fluff and art, regardless of what the rules were like.

Codex fluff has been on a long, sad, decline for most stuff since then I feel, really showing up in 5th ed, reading a lot like a 13 year old's internet fan fiction in some places (like most Space Marine books) and, in the most extreme case, like Harry Potter torture porn with the Militarum Tempestus book (lots of hocus-pocus sounding faux-latin words, teachers killing kids, kids killing kids, etc). The 5E books did have lots of content though, so, if you did like the fluff, they were pretty solid there, I won't hate on them too much for that.

The newer art, while technically very well done, often (though not necessarily always) just doesn't have that same "40k" feel, a lot of it looks *far* more appropriate to Warmachine/Hordes or World of Warcraft than Warhammer 40,000. This carries over into some of the models as well, the plastic Daemon Prince has that "stretched texture" and polygonal curve to the wings and muscles that make it looks like something out of World of Warcraft made plastic, pixel for pixel.

In terms rules however, I'm sort of all over the place. I don't feel like the Imperial Guard ever really came into their own until their 5th edition codex, being somewhat of an underdog that was consistently missing things until then, but still really hasn't had a "perfect" codex yet in the way some think Chaos has or how Eldar and Space Marines typically have had. I *really* like the current Space Marine book. It's well balanced both internally and externally (a couple issues notwithstanding), has great customization and flavor options, and is hugely varied and plays well.

So, rules, kind of all over the place, depends a lot on the faction in question.

I absolutely *hate* the new codex layout however, and the drastic drop in art. I'm also not at all a fan of hardcover codex books that started with 6th, twice the price, twice the weight, and equal or lesser content.

So I'm just gonna vote 3.5, as kind of a "split the difference" vote.

Hardcover, but with art rather than photos.

The 3rd edition codecs that I'm familiar with were the best I've experienced. Tyranids and Space Marines both had wealths of information, good pictures, better art and real inspiration behind them. The Tyranids weren't all 'Leviathan this and Kraken that', they had substance outside it. The Catachan Devil being a suspected Tyranid vanguard organism. The various color schemes of Nids everywhere and the concept of custom units and useful buomorphs.

3rd Edition Space Marines gave a lot of the current fluff, not much more, but a little more about the Ultramarines that I went for. Got me in to 3rd Company and it bums me out a little that Ultramarines aren't focused on as much and have to share the codex.

But 6th edition isn't AWFUL. There's the specific annoyances like a Unique Character's weapon (Illic Nightspear's sniper rifle/Kharn's Gorechild) isn't in the reference. Bugs me more that digital versions are so badly put together. 7th has its moments but the lack of unit fluff, lack of art and lack of decent separation of Wargear means it's ONLY manageable, not good.

2nd for me, partly for nostalgia, but also because they were such a new and exciting thing, they expanded on factions in a way like nothing that really came before had done so, you could say "here is my codex, it contains the sum total of knowledge for the faction I have chosen" whereas before the Compilation, Compendium etc often feature multiple factions condensed from elsewhere. There was a lot of fresh fluff too, whereas the content has been increasingly recycled through successive generations.

6th/7th layout is horrible. I much preferred 4th/5th

2nd for me. That's when I started, and I'm pretty sure I have all of them.

I think 4/5th was the best time for artwork for 40k. But, I voted for 7th, I really feel like with the exception of the psychic phase which isn't that bad, 7th is got things as closed to balance as its ever been.

I liked 3e/4e; there was a lot of flexibility, lots of options, and they kept the internal balance within the books and the external balance of the game in check so you could play fine with almost anything in a way you can't today.

Not sure which 3rd ed codexes people are talking about but compared to 2nd the 3rd ed ones were pamphlets with huge amounts of background removed and were overall a huge disappointment. The hardcovers are the best ones since 2nd ed.

RT actually did have books like Ere we go, and Realms of Chaos, which were sort of precursors to codex books. They were amazing treasure troves of fluff and information. I think codex books served more of a purpose during the early editions. Back then, you couldn't just go online and see the whole range of miniatures painted and for sale. So colour pages and catalogue pages were important. Seeing all the miniatures pro painted was also something cool and worth paying for. The units and fluff were also generally stuff that had been created since the game was released, so it was really expanding the universe. I bought all of the 2nd edition codex books, even for armies I never collected, because every time one came out -- it was like the latest episode of your favorite series.

I don't think codex books have a purpose anymore. They are just a way for GW to drum up money by splitting the rules across a number of books. I think codex books probably even hurt the game now, since most of them languish without updates for years, and GW just bring out pointless "new editions" of the game to invalidate all the old books so they can sell them again.

2nd edition was needed (partly because RT was becoming too fractured), 3rd edition completely redesigned the game from the ground up. There haven't really been any new editions since then. I've heard people say that 7th is just 3.4 and I tend to agree. New editions should really consolidate everything from the previous editions into one place. This whole system of separate rules and codex books (deliberately fragmenting the game) is senseless.

For that reason I'm going to vote RT. We don't need codex books.

I don't really have a favourite. I think 2nd was the best value for money. 6th edition, overall I like them but they are waaaay too fething expensive and I don't like hard cover for a gaming book that you are constantly flipping back and forth though. I don't like the format changes in 7th.

So I guess I'll vote 2nd, though I probably prefer 6th I don't think they're worth the price difference.

7th Edition. I played 2nd ed during its prime and found ways to break it at will. All units having to shoot the closets model and hero hammer was silly.

I'll got with 2nd. New and exciting, before everything started getting recycled. Plus, the original Ultramarines Codex actually told you what the different symbols mean, the different battle honors a marine could earn, etc. Does the current SM codex even tell you what the company colors are?

I'd have to go with 7th, I like the color & hardbound aspects and with the GK codex there's less flipping back and forth. 'Course, not exactly fond of the price, but them's the breaks.