Warhammer 40K – My most anticipated release of sixth edition 40K has finally arrived. Space Marines love them or hate them are what define 40K. Everything else in the Warhammer 40,000 universe is really just filler for the eight foot tall power armored defenders of humanity. Anyone who has ever dipped their toes into the grim dark 41st millennium has owned or has a buddy that owns Space Marines. As such this release will have the biggest impact in this edition.
I picked my copy up from a local retailer that offers a 20% discount on GW stuff. This little discount is enough for me to stop by and pick up any stuff I might need. Sure I could probably find stuff cheaper online but I prefer to support my local stores so that I will still have a local store in the future. The price is a bit shocking but you can rationalize it with the fact that it's hardcover and in full color.
Moving on, everybody and their brother is going to go page by page and review this so I'm going to keep it general. The cover is nice and the embossing and UV spot varnish is cool, unnecessary but it looks nice. There is a ton of new art in this book as well as many of the same recycled pieces of art that have been in every marine book in recent memory. Personally, I'm sick to death of the Ultramarines Second Company by now, why not get some new art for a change.
The first part of the book is all background and it's nice to see the other "Codex" chapters get some love and more detailed background. This carries through to the unit entries which are organized by function instead of force organization slot, a nice change as this feels more like the Forge World books. From there you move into the model shots of which there seem to be a significant number of new shots.
Once you get through the background and photos there is the army list. This is set up just like the rest of the sixth edition codexs, with a unit summary options and costs. I like that they are still references the fluff page from back here as it makes finding stuff a little easier. The fold-out reference guide is also present and is worth photocopying laminating and keeping in your mini case for ease of use.
So overall the book looks good and functions the same as the rest of the books GW is steam rolling out. I'm happy with my purchase and hope that this editon will lat at least 2-3 years to justify the costs.
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Function: There have been some significant changes to how the army list functions. Previously you chose a special character to unlock the army traits you wanted. That still exists for the most part. The big deal is you can no longer mix and match choosing which traits you want to take. You choose a chapter and that dictates the abilities you have and what characters you can use. So if you want to use the Chronos tank upgrade you have to be an Ultramarine Successor and you can't take the named characters with characters from other chapters unless you have them as allies.
It seems like this is going to fix any broken combos that could rear their head but it's a little annoying for someone that made up their own chapter and "created" characters using the named ones for stats.
Some things have gotten cheaper but to get the exact same options as you had in the previous book for a ten man tactical squad in a rhino you're looking at a 5 point bump in cost. Which means I'm going to have to redo my huge book of lists which was to be expected with a new book; and honestly if you don't need the leadership and attack bump on the sergeant you can get the same number of models for 5 points cheaper.
Overall it looks like I'll be able to retain most of my lists with little modification. With the revised Chapter Tactics I also have a slew of new options to try out with my home-brew chapter. This book has also rekindled my fire to complete my company as well as potentially adding some new units once I can choke down the ridiculous cost of the Centurion Models.
