Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

My lad and I have only taken up the game in the last year. What happens exactly when GW release a new edition (eg 8th edition this year?). Will the old codices still work, or will they also release new codices?

We've ended up with lots of small armies. We got Dark Vengeance first, then added a bit to the Dark Angels. Then my lad decided he wanted to collect Tau, so got the starter set and a couple of other boxes (and the codex). Then we got given some old Space Wolves and Tyranids by a generous cousin who no longer plays, and we added to the Space Wolves army. Then my lad decided he didn't like Tau after all (he's a fickle eleven year old), so got the Orks starter set for Christmas (plus some gretchin and a trukk). I got a couple of units of Battle Sisters, just because I think they look cool. We mostly like building and painting, but play a few small games and it's a lot of fun, although we probably only understand about half the rules.

All good so far. However, my lad also goes to our local GW store on Sunday mornings. They have a newbies club. He mostly just paints there, but also likes to play the occasional game with one of his mates. So him and his mate probably only have around 700 points of armies but that works out well as they're slow to play (cos they're young and don't really understand it all). However, my lad took his Ork starter set on Sunday and he doesn't have a codex. I knocked him up a cheat sheet in Excel from a PDF I got off the internet. This didn't go down too well, and the store manager told him he'd have to buy the codex if he wants to play with Orks in future. Now I don't have a massive problem with this, other than £25 for a 100 page codex seems a lot of money for an 11 year old, especially one who is fickle, doesn't have much more than the starter set, and doesn't really understand a lot of the special rules and just wants to have fun with his mate.

To cut a long story short, we're reluctant to invest in Codices if they're going to become redundant soon. Is that going to happen? Are new Codices likely to come out this year, thus making it worth waiting before buying? It's tricky for us as we prefer to get lots of different armies and have lots of allies and not be remotely competitive but just have fun - and that makes codices very expensive. But my lad wants to go to GW and make new friends, as none of his existing friends are interested in playing, but they won't let him play without the codices.

Generally depends on the edition. The current astra militarum codex has a vehicle with the amphibius special rule. It makes it so the vehicles movement is not hindered by water. In 7th water is not a terrain type. Effectively amphibius does nothing.

Likewise the nid dex (also from 6th) shadow in the warp rule is supposed to make casting psychic powers more difficult with a ld penalty. 7th changed how powers manifest. Psykers still have a ld penalty it just doesnt do anything anymore.

When 8th shows up they may age of sigmar it and release new rules for all/most models free online. They also might just make us wait for the next round of codexes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
That next round of codexes could be fast. Cojld be slow. Necrons most recent codex is 7th. The one before that was from 5th. So they skipped an entire edition and several years before getting an update.

Its a crap shoot.

pablopatito wrote:
However, my lad also goes to our local GW store

There's your problem. Can you play somewhere besides a GW store? There's really no reason to ever go to one if you can possibly avoid it.

 Lance845 wrote:
Generally depends on the edition. The current astra militarum codex has a vehicle with the amphibius special rule. It makes it so the vehicles movement is not hindered by water. In 7th water is not a terrain type. Effectively amphibius does nothing.

Likewise the nid dex (also from 6th) shadow in the warp rule is supposed to make casting psychic powers more difficult with a ld penalty. 7th changed how powers manifest. Psykers still have a ld penalty it just doesnt do anything anymore.

When 8th shows up they may age of sigmar it and release new rules for all/most models free online. They also might just make us wait for the next round of codexes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
That next round of codexes could be fast. Cojld be slow. Necrons most recent codex is 7th. The one before that was from 5th. So they skipped an entire edition and several years before getting an update.

Its a crap shoot.

Shadow in the Warp still effects the Ld of psykers with regards to Peril tests.


With regards to Edition change. The tournament seen will go up in arms while it figures out what rules have changed. This scene should level out after about 2 months because there will be so much collaborative work by tournament organizers.

For the normal fun gamer: (examples after)

It will take about 1 month to figure out which changes are big to the game. (charge distance changing from 6" to 2D6")

2-3 months to figure out the little changes such as rules that have been removed or merged together. (can´t think of one right now)

Slight amendments to wording of rules could take up to 6 months to be noticed. (hard to hit rule slight difference with regards to flyers and flying monster creatures)

In general they don´t change codex´s when they change edition however the older codex´s may get changed soon. Now this Edition change has a lot of unknowns about it. There is fear that the rules will completely change such as what happened with Fantasy to Age of Sigmar (all codex´s became irrelevant but GW did create a who set of free downloadable sheets). I don´t believe GW will do that to 40k as it is much bigger than fantasy was. Rumours say that the new edition drops by June so 5 months to wait. It is very much a hit and hope at the moment. I understand your issue as I bought the old chaos codex 2-3 years ago and the new version was released 2 weeks later and no body told me. I would possibly look to see if you can get a cheap version of the codex on ebay or something.

 Peregrine wrote:

pablopatito wrote:
However, my lad also goes to our local GW store

There's your problem. Can you play somewhere besides a GW store? There's really no reason to ever go to one if you can possibly avoid it.

There are a couple of other gaming stores in town but they're clearly aimed at adults. The GW store is great as it has a lot of young kids hanging out and the store manager is really, really great with them. It's very family friendly, I really can't knock it other than for a kid who is mainly a hobbyist and likes to collect lots of different armies, codices don't make much economic sense.

 Peregrine wrote:

pablopatito wrote:
However, my lad also goes to our local GW store

There's your problem. Can you play somewhere besides a GW store? There's really no reason to ever go to one if you can possibly avoid it.

I really don't agree. Some GW stores are pretty good, it really depends on the manager/staff and the crowd there, just the same as a LGS.
They don't do discounts, and won't close at 2am like certain LGS, but it's definitely possible to have a good time at a GW.

 rawne2510 wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
Generally depends on the edition. The current astra militarum codex has a vehicle with the amphibius special rule. It makes it so the vehicles movement is not hindered by water. In 7th water is not a terrain type. Effectively amphibius does nothing.

Likewise the nid dex (also from 6th) shadow in the warp rule is supposed to make casting psychic powers more difficult with a ld penalty. 7th changed how powers manifest. Psykers still have a ld penalty it just doesnt do anything anymore.

When 8th shows up they may age of sigmar it and release new rules for all/most models free online. They also might just make us wait for the next round of codexes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
That next round of codexes could be fast. Cojld be slow. Necrons most recent codex is 7th. The one before that was from 5th. So they skipped an entire edition and several years before getting an update.

Its a crap shoot.

Shadow in the Warp still effects the Ld of psykers with regards to Peril tests.

Woopdee fething doo. Maybe once a game if the star align they have more of a chance of taking an extra wound or some such. That happens basically never. Point is it does nothing like what it's supposed to do. The rule continue to be outdated and while we are all talking about 8th around the corner nids are still running on 6th ed rules.

The only time there was a hard break where all the old codexes were invalidated was the change from 2nd to 3rd. And there they printed mini codex in the actual rulebook for everyone to hold you over.

In a similar time fantasy made a major gear change, 5th to 6th, and they also gave out free rules to let you keep playing.

When fantasy switched to Age of Sigmar, the rules to keep playing were free.

Now all of these free options were very fluff light. No background or fun stuff. Which is still in the codexes.

The bulk of edition changes you can keep using your old codex until they print a new one. There will be some oddities, but it’s still functional. And sometimes your army might not even get a new codex during an edition.

There is a lot of tension in the air due to what GW did with Fantasy. And the last edition of 40k was rushed; there was classically 4-5 years between them, but more like 2 for the last one. So even those of us who have been here from the beginning don’t know exactly what to expect.

If your GW is a stickler for having a codex, you might want to buy just one of them for your son to play there. He might have multiple armies at home, but only the orks go out to play. Or find a place a bit more relaxed. I don’t mind spending money on cool looking minis, but do begrudge keeping all the books up to date; it the major reason I keep it down to two armies these days.

Really it depends on what the new edition comprises. When we went from 2nd to 3rd it was a complete overhaul of the rules, every codex was invalidated (they included army lists in the main rulebook to get by on until codexes were released), you had to completely re-learn the rules. We had to learn AP values instead of ST modifiers, termies lost their 3+ save on 2d6 and went to a 2+ save (with no invul), and so on and so on and so on.

I doubt this change will be quite that sweeping. For one thing, they have released far too many codexes lately to just eliminate them all without a major customer dissatisfaction. So we're probably looking at a few major changes in the rules (like when the released flyers) and lots of tweaks elsewhere.

 don_mondo wrote:
Really it depends on what the new edition comprises. When we went from 2nd to 3rd it was a complete overhaul of the rules, every codex was invalidated (they included army lists in the main rulebook to get by on until codexes were released), you had to completely re-learn the rules. We had to learn AP values instead of ST modifiers, termies lost their 3+ save on 2d6 and went to a 2+ save (with no invul), and so on and so on and so on.

I doubt this change will be quite that sweeping. For one thing, they have released far too many codexes lately to just eliminate them all without a major customer dissatisfaction. So we're probably looking at a few major changes in the rules (like when the released flyers) and lots of tweaks elsewhere.

That is a big saving grace that the new campaign releases have been done in a way that require the separate codexes. Saying that I sort of remember the same thing happening with Fantasy is was called (shhhhhh end times). I really can´t see them doing the same here because of all the negativity that occured then and fantasy probably had maybe half the following that 40k has.

Hey pablopatito,

You'll be fine. GW has a history of trying to make sure new editions don't invalidate previous releases. Usually a new edition change will work with the previous codexes, but it will often change the effectiveness or versatility of things within the codex. A great example from the Tyranid Codex is their Warlord Traits. When the Tyranid codex was released in 6th edition, one of the Warlord Traits allowed the Tyranids to make a Forest into a Carnivorous Forest, which had rules in the 6th edition rulebook. The 7th edition rulebook did not include rules for the Carnivorous Forest, and they weren't in the Tyranid codex either. Someone starting the game at that point wouldn't have any idea what a Carnivorous Forest was and, in effect, that Warlord Trait would be worthless. It's only now, at the end of 7th edition, that an FAQ was released stating that it turns it into dangerous terrain.

That would probably be the most extreme example; a rule becoming completely worthless. In general, rather than becoming worthless, it simply becomes far less useful. Again, the Tyranids offer a good example. It used to be that their "Shadow in the Warp" special rule made it for more likely to fail to manifest psychic powers, as the manifesting of those powers was directly tied to Leadership. However, it now makes it more dangerous when you Perils, since three of the six results on the Perils chart require a Leadership test be passed to avoid a worse result.

It's likely that the rules going from 7th to 8th will be a more dynamic change than previously, but if AOS is anything to go by, they still won't completely invalidate the old codexes. That said, I would be cautious in purchasing new codexes for the time being if that codex doesn't provide stats for any new models, or in purchasing older codexes like Tyranids, Dark Eldar, or Orks.

No one has any idea whether the Codices will be invalidated or not since GW hasn't made an announcement yet. Until it's clarified, I'd stick to just getting one or two on eBay or at a used bookstore so you can play without a major outlay.

So far the structuring of the Gathering Storm armies suggests they may switch to "Grand Alliance" books that cover a faction like with AoS rather than a Codex for each army - but, again, no one knows for sure yet.