A Warhammer 40K codex will help you understand how to set your army for battle.
A Warhammer 40K codex is a book that explains the units and models each army in the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop game can use when playing a game.
The use of the name is based on the Codex Astartes. This tome was written by Roboute Guilliman, the Ultramarines Primarch, giving deep details on how a Space Marine Chapter should be organized.
Codices (the plural for codex) continue the same edition publication history as the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop game itself.
Beggining with the 7th Edition Warhammer 40K codex, Games Workshop overhauled the basic codex layout. On the 8th edition Warhammer 40K codex followed the same layout as such:
- Background – Details regarding the force and its role in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. This includes artwork, short stories, and copies of fictional documents from the future.
- Showcase – This is the old section that now has just images of the Citadel Miniatures; painted by Games Workshop.
- Army List – This contains facts for every unit and a wargear list.
In the previous edition datasheets contained more information. As the complete rules and points values needed to field a unit and an image of the model from the Citadel Miniatures range, along with a detailed description of each unit, as per the old bestiary.
In the 8th edition, a datasheet has all the rules for fielding a unit including power level and keywords. The points for matched play have been moved from the datasheet to the Appendix. - Appendix – In 7th edition this had a complete, detailed list of all the army’s weapons, special rules, psychic powers, warlord traits and any detachments or tactical objectives it may have. It also has a quick reference sheet at the very back.
In 8th edition this became: weapon profiles, battle-forged rules (such as subfaction traits and stratagems), warlord traits, relics, psychic powers, tactical objectives and finally matched play points values for units and weapons.
