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Does anyone know what armies were first introduced? I have included the list of 2nd ed. But who was first.

I figure its

Rogue Trader era - Not exactly sure of this - just guessing - please fix
Space Marines
Orks
Eldar
Chaos Space Marines

2nd Ed - in order of appearance - From wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_(Warhammer_40,000)#3rd_Edition_2
Eldar 1994
Orks 1994
Space Wolves 1994
Imperial Guard 1995
Tyranids (rules for both Tyranids and Genestealer Cults) 1995
Ultramarines (also covering other 'standard' Space Marine armies) 1995
Chaos 1996
Angels of Death (rules for both Dark Angels and Blood Angels) 1996
*Assassins 1997
Sisters of Battle 1997

In the original RT book we had:

Space Marines
Imperial Guard
Squats
Eldar
Orks
Tyranids

Harlequins and Genestealer Cults were both Rogue Trader armies, if I recall rightly.

 Robin5t wrote:
Harlequins and Genestealer Cults were both Rogue Trader armies, if I recall rightly.

Yep. There was a full-blown Tyranid list in White Dwarf towards the tail end of 1st ed. too.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Grey Knights had RT army list entries too.

Naaris wrote:


Chaos Space Marines

Whilst they WERE an RT army, they didn't come out until Realm of Chaos/Slaves to Darkness and weren't one of the original factions.

RT also introduced several codex chapter lists (Space wolves in the first chapter approved book) as well as variant semi-random lists for the other forces.

There were no armies in the Rogue Trader book. There were simply units.

The Rogue Trader rulebook let you generate characters and squads from the Imperium (The Adeptus Terra including Administratum, Arbites, Custodes, Mechanicus and Astronomica, The Inquisition, Adeptus Astra Telepathica, Navigators, Space Marines, IMperial Army, Assassins, Rogue Traders, Squats, Ratlings, Ogryn, Beastmen, Eldar, Squats, Orks, Slann, Tyranids, Zoats and a selection of assorted monsters. Armies? Make 'em up yourself.

The first supplement was Chapter Approved; the Book of the Astronomican, which had actual army lists (i.e, take up to tree units of these, no more than two units of those, they come with this equipment, etc) for:
Space Marines (Whitescars), Imperial Army (Hylgar's Hellraisers), a Rogue Trader force (Valerius Borodin and retinue), pirates (Crangor's Buccaneers)< Orks (Luggub's Drop Legion), Eldar pirates (the Eldritch Raiders) and an assortment of Imperial special characters, from a psychic assassin and a cannibalistic Imperial Guard commander to a battlefield accountant.

In White Dwarf magazine, there were articles on various other forces - the Ultramarines, Legion of the Damned and Mentor Legion space marines (all reprinted in the Index Astartes Apocrypha book).

The Warhammer 40,000 Comendium collected some White Dwarf articles, including the first "generic" army lists; Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Squats (with an option for Chaos Squats) and Eldar Harlequins.

The Realm of Caos books added Grey Knights, Black Legion, World Eaters and Emperor's Children (Slaves To Darkness) and Tzeentchian and Nurgle Renegaes (The Lost and the Damned).

There were three hardback book spublished about Orks. The first, Waaargh! The Orks was just background, but the other two included army lists for Goffs, Evil Sunz, Bad Moons, Deathskulls, Blood Axes and Snakebites, as well as a freebooterz army list.

The Compilation was another collection of White Dwarf articles which added the Eldar craftworld army list and the Genestealer Invasion Force and Genestealer Cult army lists.

The Tyranid army appeared in WD 145, and last but not least, the Space Wolves army list was published in White Dwarf over three isssues, about a year before 2nd edtition came out.

2nd edition got rid of a few and combined others, but didn't really add much - Sisters of Battle and the Daemonworld and Chaos Cult lists in the Chaos codex, and Necrons a matter of months before 3rd edition was released (in fact, I think the 2nd edition rules for them were derived from the 3rd edition playtest rules).

3rd edition added Tau, and had a multitude of army list variants in White Dwarf (at one point, I think there was a variant army list for all 18 First Founding legions).

Yep.

Marines, Imperial Army, Eldar, Orks, Squats, Nids.

Rogue Trader era or Rogue Trader book? Andrew has posted a great summary. He missed the World Eater army list (expansion) in White Dwarf 153 which was quite important. It introduced Berserkers (initially called Ravagers), the Blood Slaughterer and updated Juggernauts and Dreadnoughts. It made the quite standard RoC list a lot more unique. The Chain Axe was introduced then as well, if I'm not mistaken.

There was a (small) update to Emperors Children in a similiar way afaik but I never had this issue of WD or found the pdf online.

Deathwing Terminators and the Blood Angels' Death Company added flavour to the basic SM lists in late 1st edition and laid the foundation for their Codex in 2nd edition.

Comissar Yarrick and Ghazghkull Thrakka (both crossover releases with the Wargames series and Epic) were added to 40k and got rules. The Battle for Golgotha - once a battle report for Epic in 1993 - and the Squat Epic faction gave a boost to 40k Squats in my area as originally Yarrick was fighting side by side with them against Ghazghkulls Orks.

Which should be mentioned is the introduction of 'super-heavies' (not a category yet) to 40k with the Baneblade (full rules in 1st).

Orks got quite an amount of rules for Battlewagon variants and other tanks (all conversions and scratchbuilt models like the Whirlwind etc).

The Kult of Speed had an army list in the second and third Ork army book and in WD in 1st which GW re-released in 3rd edition's Codex: Armageddon also adding the Deffkopta from Gorkamorka. Ork helicopters had no rules in 1st but were shown in an artwork. Today's Dreddmob (Forgeworld) mechanized Ork army was also already available in 1st.

With a few exceptions like the Guard regiments and Sororitas most things in 2nd edition had its (playable) roots in 1st and were fleshed out but not new. Necrons got introduced in 2nd but the android concept and a few models for it were already out. Chaos Androids were in Space Crusade and part of the Epic Chaos army list.

Also first edition had rules in Warhammer: Siege to let 40k armies battle fantasy ones as it could happen that for example Space Marines landed on less civilized planets. Wild Boyz had rules - the concept was later re-introduced in 3rd edition as Feral Orks.

Chaos Daemons were also fully fleshed out in the RoC books.

I did miss the World Eaters addendum, but as it wasn't a new army, it's not really relevant anyway. I don't ever recall seeing anything similar for the Emperor's Children, and I had every White Dwarf from 129 to 200-odd at one point. There wasn't a miniatures release for it to relate to anyway.

Again, Deathwing made it into 1st edition (for about five months), but Death Company? I think you're mistaken there. All the Blood Angels-specific miniatures came after the release of 2nd edition. Unless you mean the one picture of a Death Company Marine in the Tactical Squads article in WD 129, but that hardly counts - it was depicted as a Tactical Marine who had "taken the infamous Blood Oth of the Blood Angels", not a s a special unit, and that article was just colour schemes and heraldry, not rules.

The Kult of Speed and Dreddmob (and plenty of other odd units - Flash Gitz, Khorne-worshipping Stormboyz, a Mad Dok with a retinue of squig-brained Orks, Wildboyz and Genestealer hybrid mobs) were units available as Ork Freebooters, not complete armies in 1st edition.

One other thing; clearly the design direction changed between the two volumes of Realm of Chaos; volume 1, Slaves to Darkness, had 40k army lists for Traitor Legions - Black Legion, World Eaters and Emperor's Children (presumably, the Black Legion list could stand in for other unaligned Chaos Marine forces, and the other two for Khrone- and Slaanesh-aligned armies like Night Lords and Alpha Legion respectively). By the time The Lost And the Damned was published, it was quite different. As well as a very different look to the book, the army lists were a different concept; Tzeentchian and Nurgle renegades, including all sorts of units like beastmen, cultists, etc, and a single Thousand Sons or Death Guard Chaos Marine unit, rather than the full range of Tactical, Devastator, Assault squads and characters such as Chaplains, Techmarines, etc, that the first three lists had, to mirror Imperial Space Marines.