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Hey Dakka,

So I used to play 40k, was an avid collector and player. I stopped playing somewhere around 4th edition, and now I'm looking to get back into it, and everything is extremely confusing.
My first question, would be what version of the rules are we up to now? 8th?
Secondly, what happened to all the races? Deathwatch, Militarum Tempestus, Skitarii, Cult Mechanicus, all those, what are they? Are they all seperate races, with their own codex? A brief look at their range suggests none of them really have enough to field by themselves, so are they expansions to other Imperial forces?

Secondly, how many codices do I need to be able to play? It seems now that every army has a main codex then about 50 different sub codex expansion thingies. What's up with those?

Cheers in advance,

Sparks.

1) This is 7ed
2) Those are all their own codex
3) Depends on what you want to run. You no longer use just a single FOC you can mix and match all codexs into your army however you want

sparksisalwaystaken wrote:
Hey Dakka,

So I used to play 40k, was an avid collector and player. I stopped playing somewhere around 4th edition, and now I'm looking to get back into it, and everything is extremely confusing.
My first question, would be what version of the rules are we up to now? 8th?
Secondly, what happened to all the races? Deathwatch, Militarum Tempestus, Skitarii, Cult Mechanicus, all those, what are they? Are they all seperate races, with their own codex? A brief look at their range suggests none of them really have enough to field by themselves, so are they expansions to other Imperial forces?

Secondly, how many codices do I need to be able to play? It seems now that every army has a main codex then about 50 different sub codex expansion thingies. What's up with those?

Cheers in advance,

Sparks.

There are more than 18 different forces now Each has its distinct codex just like it always did.

You only need to know one codex. Learnign the rest is just a function of getting some games in. It is normal to lose when you start. The game has changed since 4th but so much of those changes are easy to grasp if you have that 4th Edition framework to work from.

My blog has an entry that coveres the 6th to 7th Changes, which may shed some light on the subject. Its easilyu the most looked at blog entry I have.
http://40kunorthodoxy.blogspot.com/2014/06/7th-edition-warhammer-40000-basics.html

The Adeptus Mechanicus have been in the fluff of the universe forever, and they now have their own two codex's, the Skitarii and the Cult Mechanicus.
http://40kunorthodoxy.blogspot.com/2015/06/adeptus-mechanicus-cult-mechanicus.html

Deathwatch are the Xeno Hunters, often spoken of but never actually codified until VERY recently as far as a playable force:
http://40kunorthodoxy.blogspot.com/2016/08/deathwatch.html

Militarum Tempestus is just a fancy word for "Army of IG Storm Troopers". They now come in a new wrapper but that is essentially what it is.
http://40kunorthodoxy.blogspot.com/2014/09/militarum-tempestus.html
http://40kunorthodoxy.blogspot.com/2015/09/militarum-tempestus-redux.html


The game in general has now embraced the conceept of army detachments. An army is made up of forces that have been "Attached" to them. So a Tau Empire force may include a Detachment of one INquisitor and his Servo skulls in a Codex: Inquisition detachment, for example.

this obviously attacks the verisimilitude of the game pretty directly and many people simply went insane when it happened. It leads to incredibly unlikely combinations. From a competitive players stand point its like opening Pandoras box. But from anyone who likes to play casually, not so much. Each gaming group copes with this idea differently but there is a group called the ITC that regulates it within their tournaments.

So if you go to an ITC tournament, you are only allowed to include up to three detachments. Detachments can be thought of as the Force Organization Chart, only you can have more than one. CERTAIN Detachments (called Formations just for clarity) aren't Force Orgs but instead very strict lists of what MUST be included in the Formation and OFTEN this comes with some sort of benefit. For example the Emperors Fist Detachment allows its command squad, which you are required to take, to essentially paint targets for your artillery barrages. It is quite devastatingly effective when your multiple barrages are Twin-Linked. What's important is to understand that all the units inside the Emperors Fist Formation count as one Formation, towards the three formation limit the ITC allows. If you dont play in ITC events, then there is no technical limit to the number of Detachments the game allows albeit many Tournament Organizers may have their own rules on that.

The specific Detachment/Formation benefits generally only work on units IN that formation.

The Combined Arms Detachment is the new name given to the old Force Org chart and its still available as an option. You could even include two of them in an army for example if you wanted to (leading to 2 HQ's and 4 troops being selected at minimum but allowing you to take many more heavy supports than you would otherwise be able to).

I hope this helps.