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So on a whim I ordered this because I have some downtime here and wanted some fluff to read. Got it heavily used for $5.00 USD, I was blown away. I started reading Black Library 40k fiction in '04, played some BattleFleet Gothic in '06-'07, but didn't play real 40k till '14-'15. So the only IG codex I've read is the Astra Militarum one. This book is a wealth of background fluff, and a treasure trove of modeling and painting advice. Was this really what all the codex's use to be? Man times have changed. Some of you older heads, let me know if this brings back old 40k memories, and share them below.

I keep my 3rd edition guard codex for reference when it comes to painting advise, inspiration for game types and a simple good read.

Yeah its like a short novel, codex and IG white dwarf all rolled into one, and it flows from page to page better than the new AM codex.

Almost all of the old 3rd and 4th edition codexes are like that. Amazing amounts of fluff, art, and generaized history for the armies. The roll out of the 6th edition codexes with cut back information was really depressing for me. I always thought the best part of them was the fluff.

austinkos- Try to find the 3.5 Imperial Guard codex if you can as it has the current cadian sculpts and a two-page spread of different company colours including variant Mordian, Tallarn, Valhallan and Catachan schemes.

regardless, old codexes are quite the resource!

thanks for the advise, I have a bunch of old codex's (including the catachan supplement) coming in soon. I learned a lot about painting from reading this one, it had a good page on camo designs and how to paint the muscle on the bare arms.

The second edition ones were even better, if you can believe it - at least the ones I've read (Codex: Imperialis, Codex: Sisters of Battle and Codex: Eldar).

3rd ed codexes were actually very fluff light. There were lots of little tidbits in sidebars and scattered throughout, but they were very rules-dense, thin, books.

Overall, they were great, and as you say well put together with a nice mix of game/fluff/hobby material. I still reference mine frequently when old history/background questions come up.

I’ll second the 2nd ed codexes. Grab them if you can. They were packed with awesome.

2nd edition Chaos codex. Never since has any chaos book come close to its glory.

I still reference my 2nd ed Chaos codex for ideas!

Has anyone else noticed that there are a few pictures of what are essentially unlabelled Crimson Slaughter in this book?

Generally, the pre-5th edition stuff, the stuff from mid-2008 and earlier, is dramatically more interesting and vastly better written than the stuff that has come since, and really the best stuff was ~2005 and earlier.

The fluff and stories since then have become increasingly one-dimensional and simply less competently executed and in general aimed at much younger (or simply more easily impressed) audiences.

The grimdark factor and subtle dark humor has been toned down in favor of a more "heroic" imagery in general, looking increasingly "Gears of War" or "League of Legends" than "Dredd" or "Heavy Metal" that formed the core of the original 40k atmosphere, and the visuals are increasingly pre-packaged and copy-pasted, with the trademarked GW plastic ruined imperial city terrain being practically the only thing anyone ever sees now in 40k imagery be it videogames or GW photo spreads or concept art.

Anything from the last 5 or 6 years is, for me, purely gaming material, it's value in terms of background or leisure reading is practically nil.

The 2E and 3.5E CSM books are truly excellent reads, as is the RT-era "Waaagh!!! The Orks", as ar ethe "Slaves to Darkness" and the "Lost and the Damned" chaos books of the late RT era.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Generally, the pre-5th edition stuff, the stuff from mid-2008 and earlier, is dramatically more interesting and vastly better written than the stuff that has come since, and really the best stuff was ~2005 and earlier.

Some stuff from later is still excellent. For example the Dark Eldar 5th ed book is really great, I love leafing through it. Kelly's depiction of the Dark City is fantastic, and the page-worth of explanation and background which every single unit entry gets is also very indulgent.

From the various codex' I own (at least several from 3rd edition and every edition since) I'd say things only really started to go down-hill in 6th edition with the hardcover 'premium' codex. The piles of gak which massively jacked the price, ripped out the fun fluff, and removed all of the modelling / painting advice.

The 5E DE book was pretty good, that's one I'd agree is an exception, and yeah, the "Premium" Hardcover books really accelerated a downturn, but most of the 5E books weren't great either, pretty much every MEQ book from 2007 onward has had atrocious fluff :(

 austinkos39316 wrote:
This book is a wealth of background fluff, and a treasure trove of modeling and painting advice. Was this really what all the codex's use to be? Man times have changed.

Oh my. As someone who got into 40k during the 3rd Edition, left, and is looking into it again, this is all rather depressing, especially since the Codexes cost 2-3 times as much as they used to. Bad enough the site's been reduced to little more than "add to cart" buttons...


Though it sounds like *I* may have missed an awesome boat, too. Guess I ought to look into those 2nd Editions some day.

It's swings and round abouts, the codexes are much bigger now than 3rd edition, plus armies are far more customisable in terms of unit composition (in part to unbound or taking multiple/allied detachments).

When a codex gets replaced it's always going to be better value to someone who did not read the previous version since the nature of codexes mean a lot of repeated material. Reading copy/pasted or rereading rephrased stuff is never going to be as interesting as the first time exposure.

In my mind some of the best things about the older codexes is that there was lots of art and converted models in them. If you look through the old lost and the damned campaign book there are a couple of pages dedicated to showing how to do simple conversions for mutants and traitor guardsmen. GWs new method of only showing models that you can actually buy may be better for showcasing their models, but I remember as a young teenager looking at some of those conversions and being inspired to try and do my own... With very mixed results. I feel that the codexes have lost a bit of that charm by being more "no-nonsense", though I would rate the Harlequins codex as one of the better ones, with some amazing artwork and lots of different colour scheme guides.

All that being said, I love the fact that codexes are in hardback now, as they're just so much more resilient. I seem to be in the minority on this point, at least if this forum is to be believed, and I really think there should be a softcover option for those that prefer it, but personally I'm more than happy to spend a little more for what I would consider a better quality product (not necessarily content-wise, but in terms of durability).

 Vaktathi wrote:
The fluff and stories since then have become increasingly one-dimensional and simply less competently executed and in general aimed at much younger (or simply more easily impressed) audiences.

I had the chance to read Ian Watson's Inquisitor stories, really cool. I get the feeling 40k was a lot more psychedic and creatively ambitious back then, also a lot more messy and subversive.

I'm kind of surprised he doesn't get mentioned more.

If you see oldbeards complaining about the state of the game, this is exactly what they were talking about.

Even just reading the fluff, you can tell how much GW, at that point, had cared about the game they created. They were hobbyists and gamers, not corporate suits caring about their profit margins.

If you get the chance, get the 3.5 Imperial Guard Codex. It looks like this:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3f/Codex_Imperial_Guard_3EV2.jpg

It introduced the Doctrines System, which lets you customize your regiments like Chapter Tactics do for Space Marines, but with total control rather than having to select a preset set of rules.

Also check out the 3rd edition Tyranid Codex. No other army came close to the customization as them since you could alter the statline of the models themselves (you could totally change the number of wounds, toughness, strength, attacks, even WS and BS of some models!).

This is why I keep saying that 3rd-4th edition bracket was the golden age of 40k.

 GimbleMuggernaught wrote:
In my mind some of the best things about the older codexes is that there was lots of art and converted models in them. If you look through the old lost and the damned campaign book there are a couple of pages dedicated to showing how to do simple conversions for mutants and traitor guardsmen. GWs new method of only showing models that you can actually buy may be better for showcasing their models, but I remember as a young teenager looking at some of those conversions and being inspired to try and do my own... With very mixed results. I feel that the codexes have lost a bit of that charm by being more "no-nonsense", though I would rate the Harlequins codex as one of the better ones, with some amazing artwork and lots of different colour scheme guides.

All that being said, I love the fact that codexes are in hardback now, as they're just so much more resilient. I seem to be in the minority on this point, at least if this forum is to be believed, and I really think there should be a softcover option for those that prefer it, but personally I'm more than happy to spend a little more for what I would consider a better quality product (not necessarily content-wise, but in terms of durability).

I never had a problem with durability with the softcover books. Yeah, they'd get worn, but none of them fell apart or became unreadable in any way. Likewise, i could carry them all around, i could afford to buy every codex as it came out and could actually fit them all on a backpack and not break my spine when going to a tournament. Now the cost of doing that is prohibitive and the books are now far too heavy and cumbersome to all fit in a gaming bag.

I would be less upset if the quality of the content matched older books or what other similar gaming products offer, but getting a third the page count of similar books for the same price is hard to swallow.

Definitely agree though on the art and conversions in the older books.

Yoyoyo wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The fluff and stories since then have become increasingly one-dimensional and simply less competently executed and in general aimed at much younger (or simply more easily impressed) audiences.

I had the chance to read Ian Watson's Inquisitor stories, really cool. I get the feeling 40k was a lot more psychedic and creatively ambitious back then, also a lot more messy and subversive.

I'm kind of surprised he doesn't get mentioned more.

Those books were amazing and are some of my favorite 40k material ever.

Yeah as I read through the codex, it had advice on how to paint different camo styles, and how to do the muscles of the arms. There were even pictures and advice on how to do conversions with just random items and plastic. They even reference to get ideas on painting and uniforms from old military non-fiction books. GW seems much different now, then back then. I just ordered some more old codex's, i'm pretty stoked.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 GimbleMuggernaught wrote:
In my mind some of the best things about the older codexes is that there was lots of art and converted models in them. If you look through the old lost and the damned campaign book there are a couple of pages dedicated to showing how to do simple conversions for mutants and traitor guardsmen. GWs new method of only showing models that you can actually buy may be better for showcasing their models, but I remember as a young teenager looking at some of those conversions and being inspired to try and do my own... With very mixed results. I feel that the codexes have lost a bit of that charm by being more "no-nonsense", though I would rate the Harlequins codex as one of the better ones, with some amazing artwork and lots of different colour scheme guides.

All that being said, I love the fact that codexes are in hardback now, as they're just so much more resilient. I seem to be in the minority on this point, at least if this forum is to be believed, and I really think there should be a softcover option for those that prefer it, but personally I'm more than happy to spend a little more for what I would consider a better quality product (not necessarily content-wise, but in terms of durability).

I never had a problem with durability with the softcover books. Yeah, they'd get worn, but none of them fell apart or became unreadable in any way. Likewise, i could carry them all around, i could afford to buy every codex as it came out and could actually fit them all on a backpack and not break my spine when going to a tournament. Now the cost of doing that is prohibitive and the books are now far too heavy and cumbersome to all fit in a gaming bag.

I would be less upset if the quality of the content matched older books or what other similar gaming products offer, but getting a third the page count of similar books for the same price is hard to swallow.

Definitely agree though on the art and conversions in the older books.

I agree that it does make collecting all the codexes unfeasable, which is why I think that they should have the option for either one. The cheaper paperbacks for people who just want the books as reference, and the hardcovers for those who prefer them. As for the weight issue... Well I generally have never had to take more than 2 or 3 books with me for a game, (not including the mini rulebook) so its just never been a factor for me. About the most books I've ever had to take was for a black legion army with daemon allies, and that was a total of 3 books, which compared to the weight of all my models really didn't make a lot of difference.

Also, I think that the reference section that most of codexes were getting for a while was one of the best ideas they had. Having quick access to all your rules (boons and warp storm in particular were great to have) without having to search through the book is just so handy. I wish they had kept with the little foldout piece that they had in 6th, but even just having the rearmost pages be a quick reference section is great.

Loved that book. My fave bit was the pictures of all the regiments, esp. the guys with the big hats who suffered from "severe loss in the battle of the low corridor".

 Grimtuff wrote:
Loved that book. My fave bit was the pictures of all the regiments, esp. the guys with the big hats who suffered from "severe loss in the battle of the low corridor".

This made me laugh a lot harder than it should have. Now I want to get the old Guard books

 War Kitten wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:
Loved that book. My fave bit was the pictures of all the regiments, esp. the guys with the big hats who suffered from "severe loss in the battle of the low corridor".

This made me laugh a lot harder than it should have. Now I want to get the old Guard books

4th row, far right.

Hugh.

Bushmen of Serica.

Serica ravaged by freak atmospheric conditions due to proximity of Warp Storm Fenris.

Warp Storm Fenris?!

Also, I should make an obligitory plug for the old Black Gobbo site. You probably need to find an online archiver site to access it now (and most of the pictures would probably be corrupt or flat out gone) but you should check it out. It was something amazing, and the few pictures you can see will make you hungry for more.

This was one of my favs, Ogres to Ogryns:

http://web.archive.org/web/20060619194918im_/http://us.games-workshop.com/games/40k/imperialguard/painting/ogryns/images/squad.jpg

This was one of those specifically done to save you money. By GW! It feels almost like heresy to say such words together.

Black Gobbo was AMAZING! I've been trying to re-find the articles -- some hits, lots of misses (heartbroken about the "battle-damage Space Marines" in particular). Still, even what little remains is absolutely inspiring.



Plus there were loads of fluff/general articles, too. Tyranids had a really neat one that showcased the original models - including Squigs and Zoats! And you could also order individual bits, not just of current releases but of old stuff too!


Looking at the current site, it's hard for me to get excited over anything. Just finding basic information is a bit of a chore.

I miss the days when a codex cost $15 and lasted you through 2 or maybe 3 editions of the game. When they were no thicker than a Hustler magazine, and still managed to pack in unit info, wargear, fluff, hobby articles, and tons of pictures.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grimtuff wrote:
Loved that book. My fave bit was the pictures of all the regiments, esp. the guys with the big hats who suffered from "severe loss in the battle of the low corridor".

Ah, the days of good ole fashioned low brow toilet humor.

 Rootbeard wrote:
Black Gobbo was AMAZING! I've been trying to re-find the articles -- some hits, lots of misses (heartbroken about the "battle-damage Space Marines" in particular). Still, even what little remains is absolutely inspiring.

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Plus there were loads of fluff/general articles, too. Tyranids had a really neat one that showcased the original models - including Squigs and Zoats! And you could also order individual bits, not just of current releases but of old stuff too!


Looking at the current site, it's hard for me to get excited over anything. Just finding basic information is a bit of a chore.

I loved the old terrain articles. Remember their "50 dollar terrain" article aimed specifically at creating awesome looking tables on the cheap? It makes me shed a tear to see that and then look at their 300 dollar table sets.

I regularly buy old codices and WD issues just as reading material. I think we're definitely getting more content in the average hardback full color codex now, but there's some wonderful stuff back there, a lot of which you don't really see anymore.