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Hey everyone,

I am fairly new to 40k and been curious about the tournament scene as a few other things.

1. I located the ITC rules and the FAQ and read through them I have also seen multiple references to BETA rules, are these one and the same? If not where can I find the BETA rules?

2. What is chapter approved exactly? Is it just like an expansion, with more missions?

3. Me and my brother bother started playing about the same time and both started with Space Marines. While we both have a hard copy my brother also has a PDF copy, and we noticed some differences. For example he seems to have some cost differences for power weapons that I don't have in my hard copy and also can't find in the FAQ's. Any idea what is up with that? And semi related does GW push updates to the PDF so that they are always the most accurate source and do they include the BETA if so? Seems like there are so many sources of information for 8th ed out there I am having a hard time sorting out what is the most current.

Any help or insight is greatly appreciated!

Firstly, welcome to 40k!

2) Chapter Approved is sort of an annual expansion / balance / something. The 2017 one contained extra missions, Relics and Strategies for the forces that were still using Index lists (this is now almost zero, so that won't in the 2018 one), as well as some rules changes (Character targetting, since errata'd again) and points costs changes. The 2018 CA will include a beta Codex for Sisters of Battle, and almost certainly more points cost changes, but beyond that I'm not sure.

3) GW doesn't really do .pdf copies, you've most likely ended up with a dodgy copy. They do do electronic versions (epub format), and "enhanced" electronic versions, which sometimes are updated with cost changes and sometimes not.

1) The GW FAQs can be found HERE, Beta rules are found in the BIG FAQs which are released twice a year. Beta rules are Errata that are not "finalised" - i.e. they have been published for people to try, and feed-back thoughts to GW about.

Thanks for clearing a lot of that up, they almost need a publish a guide to the rule books system I misspoke when I said PDF to be more exact my brother does own the epub/digital copy that they offer right off of the GW sight. Seems to me in the future the digital copy may be the way to go to easily stay up to date.

It would be great if regularly-updated digital copies were something GW did, but unfortunately unlike their competitors they've got this strange idea stuck in their head that they need to charge a lot of money for hardback rulebooks instead of saying "you know what, you're already paying a lot of money to us for miniatures, maybe we should distribute the rules in an easily-updated digital format for free to make the whole thing a little more customer-friendly", but noooo, that would be sensible.

(As opposed to all the companies (Privateer, FFG, Corvus Belli...) who distribute regularly-updated free rules for their miniatures games, all of which have gone bust as a result of missing out on the cash flow from the library of hardbacks they're not selling people.)

Welcome to the hobby!

You're going to love it. At first it can be overwhelming, especially if you haven't kept up to date with things from the start.

Just take it slow, don't buy too much at once and enjoy the experience of growing your army and learning the game.

 Ishagu wrote:
Welcome to the hobby!

You're going to love it. At first it can be overwhelming, especially if you haven't kept up to date with things from the start.

Just take it slow, don't buy too much at once and enjoy the experience of growing your army and learning the game.

might be to late for that I already have a back log of models but I am definitely enjoying the journey.

Biggest thing from chapter approved would be point changes and missions. Unless you use itc one or make yourself you pretty much need this as rulebook scenarios are very bad making gunlines even more boring.

Also has some nice things for narrative games like planetstrike etc if your opponent are willing to play something other than 2k tournament style games