40k Rulebook - A Look at the Rulebooks Through the Ages

In 1987, Warhammer 40k - Rogue Trader was released providing the first set of rules to allow players to match armies in the 41st millennium.

In my opinion, the initial rules were kind of complicated because you had to do a bunch of calculations to determine whether or not one unit hit another unit. Comments like "Okay, you moved, I moved, my ballistic skill is X, you're in partial cover, I have a targeter, you're at half strength...so my target number is what?" were common. It seemed like it took a long time to figure anything out because you were constantly calculating. At this time, way back when, I was watching others play, and maybe played one game myself, but I was hooked with the concept of building a cool futuristic army and clashing with a variety of aliens with crazy weapons, tanks and cannons.

The old Rogue Trader rulebook is a collector's item today, and is worth having just for your collection, if not for the rules, because a lot of changes have come since then.

The cover features the default army for many players, the mighty defenders of Earth (Terra) and the Imperium, the Space Marines. In this case, they are represented by the Crimson Fist chapter.

Rogue Trader's primary difference compared to modern 40K is that this version focused more on role play and skirmishing, rather than the full table big army gaming that is common today. Much restructuring occurred in subsequent White Dwarf magazines which provided info that the 40k rulebook just didn't have (a practice that Games Workshop would continue over the years).

Still, the First Edition/Rogue Trader rulebook started a very fun game, and was built on and would further improve.

To help clarify the rules in Rogue Trader, and to incorporate changes that came out in White Dwarf, Games Workshop introduced several other books to go along with Rogue Trader. These expansions had more cohesive army lists, wargear, and other information that gave more flexibility to the game.

These were:

• Book of the Astronomican


• Warhammer 40,000 Compendium


• Warhammer 40,000 Compilation


• Battle Manual


• Vehicle Manual

As is now the tradition with Games Workshop, you'd spend a lot to get everything you really wanted to play, and any kid that had all the books was the rulemaster extraordinaire. Still, these early books helped forge the future of the game, and GW got their act together progressively more as time went on.

The Second Edition 40K rulebook, dubbed the Codex Imperialis, included a more army focused layout that featured all of the major armies of the 40k world, introduced independent characters, and with the Dark Millennium expansion, psykers. The 40K rulebook came in the 2nd edition boxed set which featured the Blood Angels Space Marines versus the vicious Orks, and included miniatures, dice, and some cardboard terrain. This started the GW practice of releasing a new box set with each new edition.

The rules were tightened up and gave army information for Space Marines and Imperial Guard, Orks, Eldar, Chaos, Tyranids and Squats (which have since been discontinued). The rules also hinted at the Dark Eldar, Necrons and Tau.

The Codex Imperialis featured the Blood Angels Space Marines on the cover.

Due to needing to improve the rules, and developing great errata rules in White Dwarf, more second edition 40K supplemental rulebooks were introduced including:

• Warhammer 40,000 Battles


• Warhammer 40,000 - Storm of Vengeance

These supplements followed famous battles and campaigns from the period, and focused on the Battle for Armageddon and the Dark Angels' campaign against the Orks.

In 1998, Games Workshop made big changes and delivered the third edition 40K rulebook with expanded army lists, more history, some glossy pictures and painting tips, details on the Dark Eldar (which were the focus of the boxed set along with the Space Marines, the tau and necrons would get their own codices later), and more simplified rules.

The rulebook came in the third edition boxed set which faced off Space Marines against the raiding Dark Eldar.

This was when I started playing 40K in earnest, and I appreciated the simplified (some say dumbed-down) rules which sped up game play significantly. The third edition rulebook allowed players to field armies without an army codex, although the codex gave you a lot more options down the road.

In 3rd Edition, GW got good and slimming down info and making you buy a dozen codices for your favorite armies. If you were an Imperial player, you could easily by the Space Marine codex, plus one for Dark Angels, Blood Angels, Space Wolves, the Inquisition and Imperial Guard. (Of course, I'm not getting into all the codices either. There is a great resource that covers every book GW ever published for the game).

Not stopping there, GW created three campaign codices: Armageddon, Cityfight (which revolutionized rules for close order and building combat) and Eye of Terror.

The Fourth Edition 40K rulebook was bigger and had more history, glossy photos and painting tips, but omitted the army list, requiring an immediate investment in the codices, or forced players to use 3rd edition army lists. New units, prices and wargear allocation was made available in the codices, changing the way units and entire armies were put together.

New rules for vehicles were also introduced (which I for one was not a big fan of) which reduced the effectiveness of transports, while permitting and improving the use of drop pods (I AM marine-centric after all).

All in all though the changes were well received and led to the big changes in fifth edition.

This 40K rulebook was sold by itself and not included in a box set. A smaller no-nonsense version of the big fancy hardcover version WAS available in a Space Marine/Tyranid box set Battle for Macragge, and was popular on eBay. This smaller paperback version had just the rules, and removed the history, photos and other flavor.

This was also the first rulebook not to feature Space Marines on the cover, instead showing a thunder hammer behind a Space Marine skull emblem. Note: The Battle for Macragge mini-rulebook features the Ultramarines facing off against the Tyranids.

The current version of the 40K rules were released in 2008. The rules simplify vehicle damage rules, and tweaked many other rules in the way that damage is calculated on vehicles and how units move during different stages, as well as when assaulting, sweeping and consolidating.

The rulebook itself has some army lists but omits the points, again requiring the codices to really build armies properly, but works as a guide for other army players to know the abilities and damage of different armies' weapons.

There are two versions of the fifth edition 40K rulebook, the fancy hardcover version, and the smaller softcover version available in Assault on Black Reach, facing off units of Space Marines vs Orks.

Overall, the rules are even cleaner still, following 21 years of development, White Dwarf errata, playtesting, player comments/complaints and full scale development.

Looking through the codices also shows the evolution in units, where many units have been added to army lists, wargear allocation has been improved again and costs have been slightly increased, allowing players to build up to more points with a little less investment in units.