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 Frozen Ocean wrote:

When I opened my first Legion of Everblight model, the card that came with it was extremely interesting. I don't remember, but it's probably what inspired me to make unit cards in the first place.

Coming back from Warmachine I had become used to opening a book and seeing *everything* about unit. All it's weapons, special rules, stats, damage capacity, sise and costs. I'd been out of 40k for a long time but when I picked up my codex I just assumed that all the relevant information for a given unit would be on one page. It could certainly fit and not having it there- having to flick between the unit entries, wargear and army lists- just became annoying.

The Eldar codex is also a pain in the butt. Rules everywhere.

I think the worst is that there is NO consistent organizational philosophy.

We had all of the wargear in one part of the codex, then they decided that putting it all on one page was bad, and each unit entry would have its own wargear options listing. Then, they go back to having some wargear (but not all) on a page at the beginning.

They went to universal special rules so that the same rule didn't have to be reprinted over and over, with minor variations confusing people (as if "cut and paste" did not exist), but then, in the 7th edition rulebook, some (but not all) of the universal special rules are also reprinted in the applicable sections, for, you know, reasons.

You used to have the unit's background and rules together, then they decided to put all the background in one part, and all the rules in another, except, of course, for those rules that are 'specific to the unit', which are, of course, with the background, rather than the rules, and the rules that are in the main book, which aren't in the codex at all.

I'd like every unit to have a one or two page entry with all of the information about it. If it takes more than two pages to get the rules and the background, there's too much complication for the unit. If GW would commit to having 2 pages for every unit (unless it easily fit on one), they could also relax and go back to fun tables for special units, since you have two pages to fit them. I HATE that, for example, blitza bommas lost their original Dive! table (where the one where you crashed was actually the most dangerous for your opponent too!) to go to a generic 'crashing flyer' chart. Nosediving a plane into a Land Raider in order to line up the bombs right SHOULD be different from getting shot down!

Yes, it annoys the hell out of me, it also annoys me that they are actively getting WORSE instead of better. Why oh why did they need to create a separate wargear armory section that has the point costs of the wargear that is separate from both the unit information and the actual wargear rules details?

They used to have the points cost for wargear right there with the unit

May take
Plasma Gun - 15 pts
Flamer - 5pts

Why did they have to create a special weapons list so you then have to flip back to it to actually know what your options are and the points cost?

I know it's a small thing... it's just frustrating they are actually making something that's already terrible even worse.

I rewrote my Sororitas codex into word when I wanted to print it out so my friends had an easy reference in-game. The layout is much more intuitive, but the time it took me was unforgiving. Approaching 3300 words. Worth the time, but still.

As a point, I can fit everything on 15 pages, 6 back and front.

Codex layout sucks. My brother picked up the Daemon codex and drove me mad asking for help finding things. Sticky notes are awesome, but you have to find the damn thing first.

Yes, it could be worse, but I cannot imagine how. They definitely need to improve on this.

Forgeworld entries are prime examples of how these should be done. All the info you need on one page.

 Zarynterk wrote:
Uh Walnuts, my first army is BA and my second is IG... when you get your proper codexs up and running much like what youve shown above, can you send me one lol?

Hah, wish I could help ya, man, but I actually have the blood angel stuff memorized, and I'm only doing entries for the IG stuff I'm using, which considering I just have a small detachment, is a fraction of the dex.

I'd love to do a PDF version of every codex laid out like that, it would be super practical, help a bunch of people, and it'd help me memorize the rules for every race. Buuuuut, it'd take like a week, and I have better things to do, what with being a grown ass man and all.

And srsly, if they're just doing it like that for sales reasons, like, make the codexes clunky so they're harder to copy, uuuuugh. That's so counter productive. In 3rd ed the codexes were $15, and they were concise and made sense. You want art and fluff, it's there. You want LOTS of art and fluff? Well, thank god there are like a million books/magazines/video games/movies/comic books/wikis etc etc etc, like you're fine. It's a turn based strategy game, and it's one you've already purchased, getting the rules for it shouldn't be a chore.

Imagine if you had to solve a myst puzzle every time you wanted to double check the stats for zerglings every time you booted up starcraft. ugh.


So yeah, 3rd ed codexes, those were worth purchasing. These current codexes are $50 ciphers that read like homework assignments. Better off getting the rules online and spending a few hours making yourself a binder. That is not a good product and is a terrible incentive to get a consumer to spend money.

Having to flip through all the god damn painted models section is the most mind-crushingly annoying thing in the World.

It's pretty obvious that it's a form of marketing. The model showcase should be at the very end of the book; it isn't because they want you to pay attention to it. "Hey, hey! Look at these cool models! Look at how nice they look and how nicely painted they are! Don't you... want to buy some of these models? Isn't this inspiring you to go out and pick up some so you can have nice pretty models of your own?"

No GW, it isn't. I'm not a hobbyist and I don't give a single feth about buying your models. I'm flipping through this codex because I'm trying to play the fething game. If I wanted to stare at advertisements I'd watch the shopping channel.

It is absolutely terrible.

I play 'nids. I typically play somewhere between 1 and 4 games a week. Many of the games I've played, have been me still screwing with my codex, trying out different units and things. (I also end up running brand new players through games at the local shop, since it's practically my second home). I'm also one of the few local 'nid players, and pretty much the only one you'll see in the shop at this time, due to other rl circumstances.

While I've memorized a few things in my codex (and by rights, I should have more memorized by now, probably). There are things I just can't, and things as an opposing player, you might want to know.

If I'm running some of my more specialized HQ's, or bio-artifacts, I have a bunch of specialized rules here and there, especially if I'm taking more than one. Flip Flip flip. "Ok, you're assaulting the swarmlord and his bonesabers do this" flip flip flip "...the tyrant guard is using the rending claws and they do that.."

Something's going into IB? Find it's main page to figure out which one it does..then flip all the way to the back page for the table...
Where is the main page for "blah blah." Oh wait, that's a "feeder organism, it's in the little print on the page, it doesn't have a main page by itself."

If I didn't use battlescribe at all I would probably go insane.

If I'm going to run one of the dataslate formations, and you want to look at that, either you look at the stuff I stripped out (so I'm not printing 100+ pages for each one) and managed to print out or you have to pull it up my nook and look at it, since it's all electronic.

So If I just built a list using dataslate formations, my codex, and psykers: I've just set the following down on my side of the table:
'nid Psychic cards
A tablet containing dataslates
codex
list.

And while having the painted model section is useful and pretty when you are painting,it would be better off in a different section, like after the fluff or something. Some of the HQ's you get these days don't even come with a picture, so when you're painting/putting it together it's nice to have a picture. I've been so tempted to just paper clip that section of my codex shut when I don't need it so I'm not flipping through all those pages.

Do what i do and convert your ebooks over to PDF or use something that can edit them. I just do that myself then "edit" the book. I've got one file that has all my codex rules and such in a orderly fashion. I use Ubuntu so it comes with a pretty easy editor, I have all my books in a easily to read PDF, that just says Rules. I dunno bout macs and Windows.

So yeah, do that.


Or if you have a rulebook an actual one go to Kinkos and cut the binding then reorganize it your self then put a spiral on it. That costs literally like 3 dollars.

The difficulty is to "edit" properly you need to scan into an OCR (optical character recognition) program.

Then images and text are properly imported and can be moved around. Only one problem: it is illegal to do.

Another way to do something similar is I use Army Builder. On it's own, they have been VERY careful not to fall afoul of copyright but many key files like for "Special Rules" can be edited and I had inserted the full information rather than "See page XX in the codex / BRB" You just have to backup the modified files or they get overwritten with any updates.

So, a couple options, I had made a couple excel files for quick adding up armies while I wait for Army builder to update.

The GOOD thing in ebooks is you can highlight and copy text so it can be helpful for making crib-sheets for reference.

Throwing a few ideas out there, plain old 3M page tabs work great at labeling key areas on physical books.

Any other ideas on how to find key rules quickly?

Yes. They could be laid out like the digital codexes.

Honestly, they don't even format their paragraphs properly. I could do a better job!

Yeah, it probably sucks flipping those pages in the digital version. But I kind of like the paper version of the marines codex. Maybe its because I have a lot of it memorized, but I think its easy. There are only 3 different sections really. Unit entries, wargear shteuff, and the point values in the back. And when the book is closed, the different sections have different page edges so you can just open right to the front of where you need to be.

That doesn't mean I haven't done my fair share of codex shuffling.. but I guess I'm fine with it now.

Plus I've pretty much given up learning other codeces


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oops early post... I've given up learning others because
They're practically impossible to just crack open and understand. Like the tau codex.. putetide engram neurochip is 'x' points on one page, then I have to go look for it somewhere else. By the time I get there I've forgotten the points amount.

I'd rather have soft cover/cheaper codex with everything about the unit on one page. Makes carrying to games and using in games so much easier.

 Cryptek of Awesome wrote:
My guess is a combination of bad writing, bad editing, and a desire to fluff up the book and make it harder to copy. After all you could probably get all the 'useful' rules for an army with options and points costs onto 5 or 10 pages at the end. Easy to copy and scan - hard to justify paying $50-$60 for - so sprinkle the rules throughout the entire book...

This kind of blows my mind with how obvious it is now. I didn't think of it this way, but considering how protective GW is of their IP, it absolutely makes sense for them to scatter all the rules across a rulebook to prevent people from copying only a few pages that will have all the rules on them.

Now that I've gotten into a groove with it, I'm comfortable using the Adepta Sororitas codex on my phone, but learning where to find everything was such a hassle. Why oh why are the rules for War Hymns not listed with the Acts of Faith rules in the front with all the other Sisters' army specific rules? There are three separate, repetitive entries for priests, and the War Hymns rules were tacked on to one of those entries. Also, having the picture showcase in the center of the codex as opposed to the front or the back just makes for more stuff I have to sift through. Fortunately, I've bookmarked the most frequented pages, but I agree that the current codex design is not user friendly.

Its pretty obvious to me that everything is laid out for the digital versions of the books. As the OP noted, the layout makes little to no sense in a reference book to be used during a game. The digital versions are way, way better.

Want to know what a special rule does? Click on the rule. Want to see a 360 degree view of a model? Click it. Can't remember where you read a particular piece of fluff? Search for it.

From a game play point of view with an eye towards functionality and reference, the digital codex is hard to beat. This is coming from an old guy that likes the feel of paper. What a dinosaur, right? :lol

From the Compendium.
You used to get 4 of those to a page, making the whole army list no more than 3-4 pages. It's not a perfect system by any stretch but even back in 1990 they had a better idea of how to lay stuff out. You could easily replace the lengthy grenade and missile types with the special rules of a unit.

And aww yeah, toughness 3 marines!

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Yes. They could be laid out like the digital codexes.

Honestly, they don't even format their paragraphs properly. I could do a better job!

I don't think the digital ones are actually any better. For any given unit their are 4 different pages to find information about it. The little B, M, A and S icons are annoying. It's a digital page. It can be as long as you need and doesn't need four icons with unintuitive names to switch back and forth on. At least with a physical book you can hold your place and quickly move back and forth.

It would be trivial to reorganize the books to be much more useful.

 Kojiro wrote:
From the Compendium.
You used to get 4 of those to a page, making the whole army list no more than 3-4 pages. It's not a perfect system by any stretch but even back in 1990 they had a better idea of how to lay stuff out. You could easily replace the lengthy grenade and missile types with the special rules of a unit.

And aww yeah, toughness 3 marines!

Ah, yes. I remember the days of Marines with bio scanners, vortex grenades and shuriken catapults.

Wow. I would gak a brick for 4 pt plasma guns. Good lord.

On topic, yeah, the layout of information is terrible. I much prefer my 5th edition Guard codex to the new book, and even that wasn't exactly the pinnacle of codex design.

Walnuts wrote:5 places? To get all the rules for one stupid unit?

That's not even the best (well, worst) example.

I look at Khorne Berzerkers in the CSM codex. They come with five articles of wargear, all of which are referenced from the BRB only one of which is mentioned in the codex, which means 5 different places I could look in two separate books. They also have 4 special rules. One of them is referenced at the beginning of the rules part of the codex, two of them are in the BRB, and one of them, mark of khorne, skips you back to the part where they say what a mark does, which then skips you to the rulebook. None of it has page numbers.

It's even sillier if you want to buy a mark of khorne for your chaos lord. The lord entry says you can take it from the wargear section. The wargear section tells you its cost, but then refers you to a different part of the codex for what it does. When you get there, you find out that what it does is confer two special rules that you have to look up in a different book.

As I like to note, the CSM codex has 20 pages of rules, and a 4 page index. At that rate, with only a few more pages, the index would be long enough to require an index.

Sure, these arguments are a little pedantic (40k is complicated, and at some point you need to boil things down), but the codices are also, as you mention, absurdly laid out. As you say, one needn't go any further than a 4th ed codex to see proper formatting - where a tiny amount of duplication of copy saves a huge amount of hassle.

If it helps your sanity, there is one extremely obvious reason that's been alluded to. This kind of format works very well for electronic devices. Everything is clickable on an iPad, which means that you don't have to put up with flipping pages and finding things on tables, you just have centralized pools of information that are easy to link to.

And in that world, it makes sense... sort of... to lay out codices the way they've been doing them. The thing that GW, and a vast, VAST, VAAAAAST majority of copy formatters seem to comprehensively fail to grasp, is that it is, in fact, possible to present content in two different formats when they're going to be consumed in two different media. There is absolutely no reason that they need to stick with a single format and present it in both print and ebook form. They could easily lay out their content in a way that makes any damned sense for a book, and then, you know, reformat it to make it easier to read on a tablet. They wouldn't look the same, but that's the opposite of what should matter. The only time you'll ever notice formatting is when it's failing to do its job correctly. If the copy is the same, no one will ever say "yeah, well, in MY version of the rules, the rules for what mark of khorne does are on a different page."

Sadly, it's not something unique to games workshop, but is a very common problem right now. I mean, even dakka itself has this problem, loading correctly on my computer, barely correctly on my tablet, and completely unusable on my phone. I just hope that, unlike some other websites I frequent (Slate *cough* Slate) they don't change things so that it works on phones, but no longer works on my PC.

Which is really the problem here. If they would have released their material in a tablet-friendly manner and then only begrudgingly allowed people to buy print copies, then there would be less of a problem. Instead, though, GW already has a history of publishing books that are well-formatted, and are trying to show their quality by being hardcover and glossy, which creates the distinct impression that they broke something that was supposed to work well, rather than just didn't do it right in the first place.

 creeping-deth87 wrote:
Wow. I would gak a brick for 4 pt plasma guns. Good lord.

As a small aside, that plasma gun was strength 7 with a -2 save modifier and following fire- if you wounded you got to shoot again. That said it also had a two turn build up time to fire (though started ready) so fired only 1 in 3 turns.

Still want it?

Yes, they could be laid out much, much worse. I hate how the army wide special rules is in a different area than the normal special rules.

Making a custom binder is a pretty sweet idea! Just like a little helper guide of all army special rules with page number to go with my army list. I always forget what living metal does!

Could current codexes be laid out any worse?

Gods yes. They could be much worse. Go find all of the special characters in the FW Imperial Armor books for the Seige of Vraks books. Make sure you find BOTH versions of that Alpha Legion guy! I'll give you an hour. Go ahead!

Could they be better?

Certainly. Flipping back and forth is annoying.

I definitely agree with this... the Tyranid codex is a constant back and forth to several different sections to find whatever it is you are looking for.

 Tamwulf wrote:
Its pretty obvious to me that everything is laid out for the digital versions of the books. As the OP noted, the layout makes little to no sense in a reference book to be used during a game. The digital versions are way, way better.

Want to know what a special rule does? Click on the rule. Want to see a 360 degree view of a model? Click it. Can't remember where you read a particular piece of fluff? Search for it.

From a game play point of view with an eye towards functionality and reference, the digital codex is hard to beat. This is coming from an old guy that likes the feel of paper. What a dinosaur, right? :lol

You mean ipad version. The non-ipad versions suck hairy monkey balls. They take everything bad about the printed codices and make them 10 times worse.

Designing your rules for the limited subset of gamers who have an ipad is pretty friggin stoopid. Of course I don't think GW intentionally do that. The basic format of how rules are laid out in codices hasn't changed much since 2nd edition, they've always sucked at making concise and easy to read rules, it just seems like they've gotten worse at it or I've gotten older and am more impatient.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:Designing your rules for the limited subset of gamers who have an ipad is pretty friggin stoopid. Of course I don't think GW intentionally do that.

That might be asking a lot.

Designers will naturally design for their native environment, and the person who formats things probably owns an iPad and nothing else.

I've had this exact same problem in reverse as a web designer. The last project I worked on, the client came to me and said "it doesn't load right on my iPad", which it didn't. I then had to carefully explain that only an incredibly tiny percentage of people view the internet using safari on an iPad, and that what I had done is build the website so that it was standards compliant, which means it works perfectly for the vast majority of people who use chrome or firefox, and that the reason it doesn't work on an iPad is because Apple is filled with more crazy propritary fascists than probably any other company on the planet which means its really their fault.

To which the response was "yeah... but it doesn't work on my iPad".

If I weren't doing the project freelance, undoubtedly my boss would have told me to completely trash the website and make it completely unworkable to everybody else just so that it would work correctly on a single Apple device. Which very well could be what's happening here.

 dementedwombat wrote:
Well to answer the original question, yes; they could technically be laid out worse. You could have to solve cyphers to decode unit stats (new Thousand Sons supplement here we come!).

That said, the way they do it now is pretty dang bad. Believe it or not the older codex layouts were actually much better. Just one page per unit rather than "fluff and special rules" then "stats" in two completely different sections.

And that's why they changed it. The old layout was too easy to photocopy and share within the group. Yes, that really is the reason behind the current layout where a single unit's information is split between 2 or 3 locations.

 Ailaros wrote:
If I weren't doing the project freelance, undoubtedly my boss would have told me to completely trash the website and make it completely unworkable to everybody else just so that it would work correctly on a single Apple device. Which very well could be what's happening here.

I might believe that if it weren't for the fact the printed codex formatting sucked even before ipad versions and then ebook versions are just the printed codex shoe-horned in to a page format for which it was never designed (reading through an ebook it hits you like a brick that most of the pictures, paragraphs, layouts, etc were designed for A4 (or whatever it is) double column format and not single column A5 (or whatever the tablet size is)).

Hey, so I've really been liking the positive response I've been getting in this thread. I mentioned that I wasn't planning on making a full codex of condensed unit rules, just the units that I use, but hell, maybe I could?

If anyone is interested in this, shoot me a PM. Maybe I could set up a facebook group, or a group email, and we could each pick a codex, and create a pdf with all the rules for each unit on a single page. Like, I'd totally be willing to bang out one or two full codexes if other people were willing to join in and do the same. Then we could share the final products. This could legit be a huge boon to the community.

Please get at me if you're interested!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

And that's why they changed it. The old layout was too easy to photocopy and share within the group. Yes, that really is the reason behind the current layout where a single unit's information is split between 2 or 3 locations.

Aaaaand that's completely infuriating, because it still just takes seconds to pirate all the rules via torrent sites.

So what they've now done is taken a solid product that used to cost $15 dollars, and turned it into a broken product that costs $50 to INCREASE sales? Flawless logic GW
I have a stack of 3rd ed codexes. Wanna guess how many current codexes I've purchased? 0
I know I'm not the only one like this either.

The thing is, I'm a grown man, with a decent job. I'm happy to pay for the things I use. They just need to not be broken or absurdly priced (or both in this case). If the iphone6 cost $2000 and had the numbers arranged 2,5,3,7,5,1,9,4,8,0, well, I'd probably go buy a chinese knock off.