8th Edition: The Great Leveling
Everyone is freaking out about the obsolete codexes – but you should be jumping for joy!
As I talked about last week – Warhammer 40,000 hasen’t seen a “reboot” with a new rules system since the move from 2nd Edition to 3rd back in 1998. Thats 19 years back and I’d wager the vast majority of current players weren’t playing (or born) back then.
So let me tell you that happened then and what will probably happen now based on a couple of GW’s past behaviors.
40K 3rd Edition Jump
2nd Edition had a whole set of softcover full sized codices that also went the way of the dodo when 3rd arrived. You can see them here:
Also made obsolete – back in 98. Gamer tears were shed.
What they did back in 1998 was dedicate the last 100 pages of the 3rd Ed. core rulebook to an index of “mini armylists” that included the key units from every faction and points. It was just enough to keep people playing while they waited for the separate codices to ship out.
Warhammer Fantasy – Age of Sigmar
I think we can all remember this one. All the WFB minis got Age of Sigmar warscroll PDFs on day one. Then the Age of Sigmar App was launched shortly thereafter with all the updated unit warscrolls in it for free. Finally the four Grand Alliance books arrived for bargain basement prices to get everyone up to speed with physical rules:
The Great Rebalance
Here’s the silver lining.
For the past 19 years we’ve been lashed to the GW codex treadmill and we all got caught under the millstone from time to time when editions changed. Remember this pattern:
- Marines always got a new shiny codex first to rebalance them to the new rules. Sometimes they got 2 codexes per edition.
- Codexes in the middle of edition sucked early on in the edition, then were okay.
- Codexes at the end of the edition had a brief moment of glory before being sucky when the new edition came out. Sisters of Battle were notorious for this.
What we haven’t seen in 40K in almost 20 years is an all-at-once rebalance of all the factions. No waiting, everyone is at the front of the new rules line right away.
Just think of these players who have amazing looking armies and how excited they must be for 8th Edition:
- Ork players
- Tyranid players
- Dark Eldar players
The list goes on, but you get the point. This isn’t a time for sadness about the old system. It’s literally a once in 20 years opportunity for the ENTIRE 40K community to start fresh on a level playing field with new rules for the game and new rules for your favorite faction.
WE’RE BACK BABY RAWWWWWR!
Count me in for that!
~What faction do you think has the most to gain in the new edition?
