The wait is finally over! GW has announced the release date of the new edition of 40k on their community page.
June 3rd – mark your calendars folks, because that’s the day you’ll be able to pre-order your copy of the new edition of Warhammer 40,000. You’ll then be among the first to get your hands on it come release day on June 17th.
Incredible stuff! Here in the Warhammer Community Team, we think that the models alone make this the best Warhammer 40,000 box set ever made. Discussion has already begun about who’s buying two sets in order to bulk out their forces and, as is a time-honoured tradition, there are plenty of pledges of swapsies as the team vie to gain either more Space Marines or Death Guard.
And yet, Dark Imperium is really just the beginning. The launch lineup for the new edition of Warhammer 40,000 is the most extensive we’ve had for any game we’ve ever released. So brace yourself, and let’s dive on in!
This is an awesome box set. Inside, you get two armies of brand new miniatures, the full hardback Warhammer 40,000 book, dice and range rulers. Even the outside is covered in gorgeous artwork, and the sight of all those goodies as you open the box for the first time is very satisfying… but a bit more on that later…
Fresh from the forges of Mars, and ready to bleed in defence of the Imperium, the Primaris Space Marines have come tooled for war. The bolt rifle-wielding Intercessors are the mainstay of the force. Alongside them march plasma-toting Hellblasters, providing deadly fire-support. And dropping in from orbit are Inceptors with the short range fury of their twin assault bolters.
Leading these new warriors are the champions of the Primaris Space Marines: the inspiring presence of the Lieutenants, the banner-carrying Ancients, and the commander of the force, a Captain clad in new Gravis armour.
The Death Guard are equally impressive. First up, a unit of Plague Marines. The archetypal unit of the XIV Legion swollen with the raw power of decay, these form of the core of any Death Guard force. Nurgle fans will also be pleased to see a shambling plague host represented by the repugnant and varied Poxwalkers, each draped in scraps of clothing from their former lives. There is a new vehicle on offer too – the Foetid Bloat-drone, a floating Daemon Engine that hunts its prey with a malign intelligence.
Rounding off the Death Guard are their own leaders, including a huge new Lord of Contagion, clad in warped Cataphractii Terminator plate and wielding one of the most brutal looking axes we’ve ever seen. Alongside him is the Noxious Blightbringer, a dark reflection of the noble Legion banner bearers of old, who carries a cursed plague bell that tolls with the death knell of his victims. Last but not least is the Malignant Plaguecaster – one of the pestilent sorcerers of this pox-ridden Legion.
A complete set of datasheets to field both these Death Guard and Primaris Space Marines armies are included in two separate booklets inside the box. You’ll also find a host of new background information on the two forces and on the Plague Wars being fought in Ultramar.
And of course, there’s the new Warhammer 40,000 book itself. This 280-page, hardback tome is included in the Dark Imperium box and is also available separately. This book is your guide to the new edition and contains an extensive exploration of the Warhammer 40,000 setting. This includes some pretty major advancements in the story for every faction in the galaxy, not least of which are the arrival of the Great Rift, the rise of Chaos, and the launching of the Indomitus Crusade.
And rules. Lots of rules. All the rules you need to wage the bloodiest of wars in the far future. Alongside the core rules for the game, there are missions, full guidelines for the 3 ways to play (open, narrative and matched) and advanced rules to represent the myriad war zones of the far future, including all the rules you need to play games of Cities of Death, Planetstrike, Stronghold Assault and Death from the Skies.
And you needn’t take just our word for it. Last week, we gave a couple of Warhammer store managers a peek at the Warhammer 40,000 book and filmed their first reactions – take a look:
Also, while we’re on the subject of rules, we’ve some great news – the core rules for Warhammer 40,000 will be available for free! You’ll be able to download the Battle Primer PDF on games-workshop.com and warhammer40000.com from June 17th.
Current players will probably still want to pick up either the full Warhammer 40,000 book or the Dark Imperium box set though, as this gets you the Advanced Rules sections, loads more missions, as well as stratagems for open, narrative and matched play and of course, over 100 pages of new lore and background on the shape of the galaxy in the new Warhammer 40,000.
Okay. Where are we? Awesome box set? Check. Epic miniatures? Check. Greatest Warhammer 40,000 book ever? Check. What else…
Of course! The Indexes! These five books are the most requested things from you guys and gals out there; all of you wanted to be able to use your army with the new edition from day one. No problem.
Between them, these five softback Index books provide rules for every single Warhammer 40,000 Citadel Miniature we sell. They are broken down into themed books: 2 for the Imperium, 1 for the forces of Chaos, and 2 for the xenos races of the galaxy.
To start gaming with your existing army, you just need the box set or the Warhammer 40,000 book and whichever Index book has their datasheets and you’re good to go.
Oh, and don’t worry, this doesn’t mean Orks and Tyranids are now on the same side, it just means they share a book for the moment. In the future, they’ll get their own dedicated codexes.
Accompanying the new box set and books are a range of gaming accessories for the new edition. These include new Tactical Objective cards, Command Dice, Wound Trackers, a flexible Combat Gauge and the most thematic set of Warhammer 40,000 objective markers we’ve ever made, including a mini-supply drop pod and a xenos bio-containment tank.
Last up, for you Warhammer 40,000 fiction fans out there, we have the Dark Imperium novel from Guy Haley. This will be the first Black Library book (of many), set after the events of the Gathering Storm and starring the Primarch Roboute Guilliman, the new Primaris Space Marines and their mortal (and in some cases immortal) enemies, the Death Guard.
So there you have it – the new edition of Warhammer 40,000 is so very nearly here.
The release date is set. The galaxy is burning. All that remains is for you decide if you’re going to stand against the darkness or rain fire on what remains of the galaxy’s crumbling realms…
Remember to keep checking back all throughout this week and next as we continue to look at all the new aspects of Warhammer 40,000.
Hope you guys are getting enough in stock, because I intend to get at least two boxes… Lol
Oh man. I am sooo pumped. We get a badass new boxed set AND a Guilliman book that progresses thw story? I’m in.
I was sold on the Inceptors alone. Here’s hoping I can make fancy little Raptors. Be prepared to be spammed with lists once 8th is dropped, my son.
So the new marines look awesome. But I’m really curious (in a good way) about why they’re the Ultramarines 2nd company.
Cato came to Terra with RG… so new stuff is all his company colors (I guess)
Any approximation on FLG prices for this stuff?
Also are these snap fit or traditional sprues?
I’ll need a box, two books, 2 sets of dice… dang oh well
Thanks Reece and that DE player guy for helping make this all possible
No idea about the contents, but you will be able to pre-order with FLG at a discount and most likely get free shipping.
I think they said in the FB thread that they were snap-fit/monopose
The new Marines look amazing. I’ve never had a Marine army before but I’m half tempted to just make a full chapter of Primaris Marines, or Primaris + some Grey Knights.
The Death Guard look great but my Necrons already fit into the “slow but hard to kill” category and I don’t know if I want two armies that play the same…
So are they including the full book in the box set, as opposed to a miniature version? That seems to be what they’re indicating here. If so, that’s pretty cool!
Do we know if these are snapfit or normal sprue parts yet?
NM, 40k FB just said snapfit
Snap fit confirmed by GW.
Pretty sure GW editted that post to instead say ‘single pose’ but not snap fit.
Can’t speak to that, can only say it said snap fit at the time of my reading.
Bear in mind that we saw many Death Guard Marines and Terminators in the first teaser video (as well as Mortarion’s scythe) that do not match anything in this boxed set.
So they already have normal, non-snapfit boxes ready to go. I would assume those will come out the same week Mortarion does (in the weeks after launch).
Do you have to have the Big Rule Book to play Matched play? Or just the Index’s.??
God I hate big brick book like that.
Well, if nothing else, the general rules for how to play the game are a free PDF. But, yeah, I’m hoping that the indexes and free rules are all we need for matched play. I’ll be picking up the big book, anyway, though. I’m curious about the narrative play rules, plus the general fluff is in there, plot advancements included.
The core rules are a free PDF but they may not have everything needed for competitive. Soon enough someone will scan the entire book and you can just print out the couple pages you need and leave your BRB at home if you don’t want to bring it.
That’s what I usually did. Actually bought all the rules (not trying to steal anything from GW) but then found free PDFs to print out a few of the pages I needed.
I have a printer with a scanner on it that I use for things like Imperial Armor books. As long as you have a copy of the book, then, yeah, it’s not really stealing if it’s for personal use.
So much win with this edition release! Those jump marines are soooooo sick. Depending on the price, I may even buy all 5 indexes even though I don’t have an army that would use each.
They’re supposedly around ~$30ish. I’m definitely picking them all up. I love to read the rules for other armies even if I don’t own them.
So if I read this correctly, you have to buy the big book to get the ‘Advanced Rules’ which from everything said so far will be the matched play Tournament rules. I would buy it anyways but I expect a bunch of ticked off people who somehow thought they were getting all of the rules for free.
I just hope I don’t have to buy both of the data slate books for Imperium to function. If they split the books by unit types instead of factions that will not be cool, but it is probably what I would do to sell more books..lol.
Says right on the book which factions are included.
Although if you play two factions there’s a chance they are in different book.
Yeah, I just saw a blown up picture. Early for me and not enough coffee. Lost opportunity to sell more books..lol.
We have an official date people! Another 4 weeks to go.
Looks amazing, hope GW is stocked/ready for EACH part to sell big. Cause people will be upset if they can’t get their hands on a core index with their army.
Community team is killing it.
Two weeks of pre-orders helps with that. They can probably get indexes printed and shipped very quickly.
Let’s just hope the box sets don’t sell out as quickly as dice do.
They should be fine. Not sure how quickly the stores sell out but I always just buy the half I want on eBay and those never seem to go out of stock… and they’re super cheap usually.
Also, question. If we order from you guys, we can expect them to be delivered 3-5 Days after release date?
Most orders will ship on release day.
Noted. Thanks, man! Enjoy Warhammer Fest!
Any news on weather or not there will be a digital version of the books for sale?
I’m going to be the incarnation of an internet meme and ask, where are Sisters of Battle? Neither Imperial book has them listed on the front. I guess they could be getting rolled into “Agents of Imperium” or “Talons of the Emperor”, but very random factions like Legion of the damned have their own listing.
The warhammer 40k community page responded to this question stating they were rolled into agents of the imperium.
On one hand, I wish they had updated the armor of the Primaris Marines a bit more on the other.. I probably would never be happy with a Marine anyway so what do I know. The flying ones are somehow both adorable and cool though.
All that said how long has it been since 7th? It’s starting to feel like they are trying to rain rulebooks on me.
7th came out in July of 2014. So it had about the same life cycle as 5th Edition did. To be honest, though, this update was sorely needed. This is the first time I’ve never objected to any of the changes. My only objection is that random charge distances made it in, when I was hoping they would do something different with that.
I really tend to look at 6th and 7th as basically a single Edition Cycle, just very awkwardly handled. Viewed like that, it fits in pretty well with GW’s usual 4-6 year cycles.
To be honest you kind of have to roll 6th and 7th into a single edition. 7th came out so quickly after 6th because there were so many utterly ridiculous things that they needed to be fixed (namely the ungodly terror that was flying MCs who were basically immune to getting shot then could land and assault immediately).
The Death Guard look awesome, if you’re into that sort of thing, but I still think it was a mistake to include them in the starter box. One army is relatively generic, could be any marine chapter, while the other can only be the one thing. To me that’s an odd choice for a new starter set. Generic chaos marines would’ve been a better bet, in my opinion. I predict a secondary market flooded with Death Guard.
I will be very happy if there’s a secondary market flooded with Death Guard. Just sayin’ 😀
Let’s just take a moment to appreciate that for once it isn’t Khorne 😉
SO FREAKING GLAD I SOLD ALL MY RULES AND CODEX BOOKS LAST MONTH!!!! Feel kinda bad though for the people that bought them. I have been playing 40k since 4rth and to finally see GW listen to the fans that actually play the game is a dream come true! And thanks to Reece and Frankie for all the updates as well! Reece with all of the playing you have done what is your favorite army?? What about Frankie as well? lol that does not break any rules….
I just bought two codexes, this week, for the fluff. I dont feel bad for purchasing them whatsoever.
You will in a few months when you could have bought the books for a fourth of the price.
Mind. BLOWN! Cannot wait for this. Wow. Sooooo exciting.
See, I’d been really enjoying the direction they were heading with the rules we’ve seen. I found the datasheet/formation mess of 7 drove me away from the game and so it looked like GW might have actually learned, then we see the rules pricing model.
Since your army is literally unplayable even if you buy the “advanced” rules without the index since the rules have changed so much I feel these base rules should have been released on PDF with the core rules like back in was it 3rd ed? Then telling us in the next line that there will be Codicies would be less of a cash grab.
Instead they’ve figured out a way to make people pay twice for their armies rules. Once in the index and once through their army codex. That’s pretty damned shady, in order to play my 3 armies at matched level i’d need the Main rulebook (despite them talking about releasing the rules for free), 3 different indecies then when they release codcies i’ll need to update and buy the same rules over again?
Is it shady, though? Any tabletop game goes through cycles, you’re codex and rule booms always become invalid. The only other option is a totally stagnant game with rules that don’t evolve. To make it easier they’re offering the main rules free, and the indexes at very reasonable prices. That does not seem like a cash grab to me.
Getting people to pay for the same content twice is shady I think yeah. Codex cycles are a thing, new edition, new rules that’s fine, never had an issue with that, that’s part of the hobby but that’s not what is going on here.
What we are seeing here is a set of rules being released and being charged for that are *interim* rules until the codex drops. At that point you will pay again for 90% of the same rules and maybe a couple of new units. When they did this with 3rd Ed the rules were in the core book.
You say reasonable prices but a lot of players will need several of these Index books and the price is gonna add up fast.
Now we don’t have codex release dates but lets say you buy the Chaos Index, 3 months later the CSM codex drops. Now they added Enhanced Cult Troops to match Primaris and changed a couple of weapon options but 90% of the content remains the same but you have to pay for it again anyway.
Also, they aren’t offering the main rules free are they, most people will want to play matched and all people, even if they play using Narrative still need the new stats and power ratings of the units, meaning that the Index books are compulsory. Those index books are essential to the “core” rules required to play a single game.
Now you can check the rules and see if you like them for free, that’s good but lets not kid ourselves or anyone else that this is a similar model to Paizo who actually release free rules.
So, would you prefer all of your models to be unplayable until the codex drops? That’s the alternative. Either your pay twice to play at all until codex release, or you pay once with your codex, which may be a year or more away. As a business, you can’t invalidate dozens of armies on release, that’d be suicide. This is the best of all options, I think. And, I feel it is obviously the best choice, too. I suppose you could argue that they should just release all the rules for free, but compared to development costs, that may not be frasible.
They could have also dropped the dexes at launch or drop Fluff dexes later and have these be the model rules for the edition augmented at later dates with new releases, it could have gone a number of different ways of which I think this is the worst for the consumer.
I have no problem paying for my models rules but not twice for the *same* content.
There’s no need to invalidate the armies, if the rules drop at launch no army ever need be invalidated regardless of core rules changes. However making everyone buy their dex twice is not the only way around that, it’s double dipping. Buy your army rules now and again in X months when we release your real codex.
Now I really think about it it’s actually pretty close to an Early Access model except you have to pay again when it comes out of officially. Everyone who buys their Index now can beta test the product until the real codexes drop. I personally don’t think that’s a healthy model to encourage in tabletop gaming.
Where are you getting that you need to pay for your rules twice for the same content?
First off the indices and the individual army codexes won’t be the *same* content otherwise you’d have no reason to buy both of them.
Second if you really wanted there is 0 reason you NEED to buy the individual army codex if you have the index. It will still be playable.
Third, because there are additional rules you get access to for having the codex is basically like a supplement from the old system. Which you always had to pay for because it adds more fluff and more rules to your army. Except in this case it will have both the additional army rules and the basic ones as well.
I don’t think it is reasonable to expect them to launch all the codexes at launch, that is just alot of content that would most likely have delayed the launch of the entire edition for many months at a minimum. This is the first time I’ve ever seen 40k rules offered for free…and your complaining about it? The indexes really do seem like the best option, one ~$30 book will get you unit rules for quite a few factions. That is not a bad deal to make things work after a huge rules overhaul imo. And saying the codex is just 90% unit rules does not seem right to me, there are sooo many other faction specific rules, traits, and important tidbits that are included in a codex.
So, Threllen, either it *is* the same content in which case no, I don’t need to buy the codex or it *isn’t* the same content and I do because they have changed some of the rules for my army. If it *is* the same content very few people will buy it because it has no new rules so it’s purely a fluff and painting guide that happens to have the rules from the Index. If GW want to do that they can but i doubt the profit margin would be great so they probably wont.
How is the codex a supplement? It’s your core army rules, if we didn’t get the army rules in the Index what is the index but an interim “beta” ruleset that you pay for the privilege to test?
Madwilly: The 40k rules *are not free*. Can you play a game of 40k using the free rules? No.
Why? Because all the units profiles and measures are changed and they are required to play the game. Now, you can play Narrative and Open at a *discounted rate* compared to matched, if that was the tagline then sure, I’d agree. Billing it as “Free core rules” as if they are Paizo is false advertising.
Also i didn’t say a codex is 90% rules, but the index is. Thus when i buy the codex for my index i buy all the unit rules I already had for the second time because i have the rules content already.
Also of course any models i buy or convert based on the Index “beta” rules may change in 3 months or whenever the codex drops. Now doing that once every 4 years or so is a given, they need to sell new models, they are a business, i get that. In this situation the rules you are buying are already at their best before date, in the article announcing their existence they are already announcing the next model.
Imagine you bought a phone and the ad said “Pre order the X10 now, the X11 will be coming soon” why would you buy the X10?