40K 6th Edition Sprawl

6th Edition has taken 40K in a new, more complicated direction

Why Give Away Rules When…
Another fun fact is the current pricetag to own a full set of rules for Warhammer 40,000:

get ready for it…

$1150 for the whole set below:

Imperial Knights (39.99)
Crimson Slaughter (39.99)
Legion of the Damned (19.99)
Codex Space Marines (49.99)
Main Rulebook (34.99)
Hellbrute Dataslate (5.99)
Codex Inquisition (32.99)
Codex CSM (49.99)
Codex Tau Empire (49.99)
Dataslate Rising Leviathan (16.99)
Codex Dark Angels (49.99)
Codex Tyranids(49.99)
Codex Necrons (39.99)
Dataslate Cypher (19.99)
Codex Chaos Demons (49.99)
Codex Adepta Sororitas (39.99)
Farsite Enclave (39.99)
Codex Iyanden (39.99)
Dataslate Be’lakor (4.99)
Codex Black Legion (39.99)
Dataslate Stormwing (4.99)
Datalsate Tyranid Vanguard (16.99)
Stronghold Assault (24.99)
Escalation (34.99)
Codex Grey Knights (39.99)
Clan Raukaan (39.99)
Sentinels of Terra (39.99)
Dataslate Ghost Warriors (4.99)
Tyrannic War Veterans (7.99)
Death from the skies (32.99)
Codex Blood Angels (39.99)
Dataslate Reclusiam Command Squad (4.99)
Tau Firebase (3.99)
Centurion Siegebreaker Cohort (4.99)
Codex Dark Eldar (33.00)
Codex Space Wolves (33.00)
Codex Imperial Guard (33.00)
Codex Orks (33.00)

I can’t think of another time when the ruleset was so spread out. Even in the late days of 2nd Edition when folks would tote around piles of White Dwarfs, it wan’t that massive, and those 1990s White Dwarfs were pretty cheap for their 2-4 pages of rules compared to the $50 a pop codices these days.

I can’t help but shake the feeling that while many other companies consider rules a loss leader and try to minimize their costs of production to focus on the real money maker (the minis) – that GW has gone in the other direction – making as many rulesbooks as possible and charging as much as possible to maximize rules revenue.

What used to be the main reason for White Dwarf – the 2-4 pages of cool new rules has now been spun into a supplemental codex factory that churns out ever more expansions for the 40K rules sprawl, and White Dwarf itself is now exactly what GW always wanted – a cheap to produce $4 (now weekly) catalog.

One’s thing’s for certain, it would be hard to imagine 40K ever having a giant rule altering edition changeover ever again.  Its one thing to invalidate a dozen codices, but making $1150 of rules obsolete overnight might make some players a tad bit peeved…

It’s also occurred to me that we are all maybe seeing the leading game in the industry reach a point where it is almost impossible for any single player to know or own ALL the rules.  It’s more of covering as may bases as you can, and knowing that sooner or later you will encounter something truly unknown.  And – that just seems crazy to me.