40k: Minidexes/Supplements a Waste of Money?
Pimpcron explores why Minidexes might turn into something you hate.
Good day to you, mortal mans and womans! It is the shiniest metal person you know, Pimpcron, here with some concerns about this new trend of minidexes we keep seeing.
It’s Nothing New, And It Didn’t End Well
I have on my bookshelf, a Catachan minidex from years gone by. I enjoy the fact that it gave players a new way to play their Imperial Guard armies. But the thought occurred to me: I obviously can’t use it to play my Guard now because the Catachan book was written somewhere around 3rd or 4th edition. So when did it become unplayable? There is no clear answer for that because many codices span several game editions, so you can’t declare it unplayable when the editions change. Is it unplayable when the core army gets a new book? Maybe. But my Catachan codex has clearly never been given an update. So that means at some point the owners of those Catachan books slowly stopped playing with them, uncertain as to when they were actually unplayable officially.
That’s what brings me to have some fear for our new minidexes we seem to be getting more and more of. Will your Harlequins or Militarum Tempestus books ever get updated or expanded? Who is to say, but the old ones we used to have never got updated.
What is the Shelf Life of a Supplement?
There has been controversy over the Iyanden Supplement and how it refers to Codex: Eldar for some of their rules. But the new Eldar book that was released isn’t called Codex: Eldar anymore. Leaving some people to claim that you can’t use it anymore. At the end of the day it’s the player’s call whether or not they think this is a problem. The issue I’m talking about is that there is no clear, defined answer as to when these things die in official playability.
The Legion of the Damned Supplement is another good example. It had its own book for a year or so? Now they don’t even have that supplement on the website anymore and the Legion has found themselves back in the main Space Marines book. So I guess that supplement isn’t playable officially anymore? I don’t know.
Good For Business, But Maybe Not For Us
Amidst the debatable complaints of our fluff being watered down from codex to codex, we start getting smaller codices like the Adeptus Mechanicus books. They seem incomplete and only feature six units each; as if they took the whole codex and sawed it into parts. If you can take one $50 codex and saw it into parts and sell them at $33 each, you’ve just pocketed some more cash for the same product. And will they get support in the future?
On The Other Hand, Maybe Minidexes Will be Supported
The only thing we do know is that GW did actually return to the Imperial Knights codex after a time to update and expand it a bit. They also added a new kit to it when they got their new codex. So that’s good news I suppose; but not a guarantee that the other small codices will get a facelift in the future.
I would guess that Admech will get future updates and support; due to the fact that they took the time to produce a whole line of models for it. I would doubt that they would abandon it after putting that much investment into it.
I’d be willing to bet that the Militarum Tempestus book will fade into oblivion at an undetermined time just like the Catachans Codex. They received no exclusive models that weren’t already in another book.
It is debatable if Harlequins will continue to get support. They did receive a few models, but if the codex is abandoned later, they could always just fold the Harlequins back into the Dark Eldar and Eldar codices like they used to be.
I guess ultimately GW is creating a fun, take-what-you-want atmosphere for the game where we can use whatever we want to play the armies we want. And excluding tournaments, it doesn’t matter if the supplement is officially supported or not. I just can’t help but wonder if we are buying into some product lines that they secretly know that they will never support in the future.
Have any of you had the same worries?
Want to witness my slow descent into madness first-hand? Check out my blog www.diceforthedicegod.com
