40K: The Index Book’s Time is Done – What Now

It was only a matter of time. The Index Books are headed into the sunset. What does the community do now?

We’ve been tracking down some leads for you and want to report the following:

Index Books Sunsetting

1. On GW online stores, only the Index Imperium 2 Book is available
2. Retailers can no longer order ANY of the 5 Index Books from GW

What’s Going On?

What this means is GW is starting the process of sunsetting the SKUs for the 4 -5 Index books. This makes perfect sense as all the previous 7th Edition factions now have codexes. Heck, Chaos Marines are about to get their 2nd one.

What’s Next?

Now the community has some choices to make.  As usual – I’m all in favor of  – hey, do whatever you damn well please for Open and Narrative play. If you have models – go for it!

But Matched Play is another beast entirely. We now have the following units that are not available for new players. They literally cannot buy physical rules for these units. (The units in red are only available via the GW online store):

Index Imperium 1:  Obsolete

Index Imperium 2:

• Aeronautica Imperialis (2 units)
• Adeptus Astra Telepathica (3 units)
• Sisters of Silence (4 units)
• Inquisition (8 units)

Index Chaos: Obsolete

Index Xenos 1: 

• Ynarri (3 units)

Index Xenos 2: Obsolete

Magic cat – have you seen my rules?

Note the Ynarri – They now have units that are no longer in print.  I would expect GW to do something about that sooner or later either through a White Dwarf, or codex. Pretty much everything in Index Imperium 2 would fit nicely in a new Codex: Imperial Agents.

But the big question for Matched Play is now squarely in the hands of Tournament Organizers both large and small. What do they think is fair? Especially keeping in mind new players.  I would argue to invalidate any units from books that are no longer available.  It cleans things up in the meta right away and puts a lot of armies back on even ground – no longer being able to rely on exotic hot-house flowers, with long out of print models, or just plain busted rules.

~How do you want your TOs to rule on these books?

Author: Larry Vela

Dad, Gamer, Publisher, Pilot, Texan. All games all the time since junior-high. I started BoLS Interactive in 2006. I’m a lifelong tabletop & RPG gaming enthusiast, and internet publisher working to entertain and inform my readers every day. I've been playing RPGs and Tabletop Games since the 1970s. I'm been playing and covering Warhammer and Warhammer 40K for over 35 years.