A First Look at Warhammer 40K 7th Edition – The Rules

The last of the three books in the new three-book-set for Warhammer 40K. GW even made the effort to number “The Rules” as book No. 3, after A Galaxy of War and Dark Millennium.

Odd.

Anyhow. While the merits and flaws of the changes to the game itself is beyond this blog post, I think many changes to the design (bold, “eBook”-friendly black-white-and-red) and the books (three books instead of one giant tome) really pay off in the rule book (or “The Rules” as they call it) for Warhammer 40K. It seems, in every way, a far more “game-friendly” reference book.

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The Rules contains a comprehensive set of rules allowing you to recreate the vicious conflicts of the 41st Millennium on the tabletop. Using your collection of Citadel miniatures, you can command the heroes and villains of Warhammer 40,000 in a galaxy where there is only war.

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 #1 – The New Design

It might be the third book of three, but ‘The Rules’ is the biggest of them with 208 pages of how to play Warhammer 40K (and a good amount of pictures too… just because A Galaxy of War is about the eye-candy, doesn’t mean there is none here).

Like all new 7th Edition books, it lies flat on the table when opened, which is a big plus for me.

Perhaps most importantly, the new black-white-and-red design makes it really easy and clear to read. While 6th Edition was already full-colour, and gorgeous in many ways, its design was mainly meant to look Gothic, not to serve readability.

7th Edition scales back the fancy page borders and background for a very clean look, which, no doubt, will work better on an iPad or any other e-Reader.

For me, it is a welcome change. Even as a physical book, it works very well as a reference book. The red or black boxes, as well as the (for veterans) familiar diagrams help highlight important rules or potential issues.

Of course, there are many ‘Forge the Narrative’-boxes back in the book, possibly more than ever before (though I haven’t counted them).

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#2 – The Changes

Obviously, there are many changes to how the rules worked in 6th Edition. I think Games Workshop did a good job in previewing the three main ‘themes’ of these changes.

• The new ways to organise an army
• The psychic phase & daemonology
• The new missions and tactical objectives

The allies chart also got a big overhaul, and a range of smaller changes.

Overall, the main thrust of the changes is clearly to created more freedom for players in how to play the game. Or, as the more cynical people phrase, make sure players can and will buy more, and almost any model they like, without a rule “getting in the way”.

Hey… even Tyranids can ally now, so that’s got to count for something!

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#3 – New Terrain

A further interesting addition – or at least greater emphasis – was the new rules for the various pieces of Games Workshop terrain.

To be fair, I thought many rules were similar. Or, rather, oddly different in the specifics, but similar in the outcome. For example…

• A Battlescape crater gives models a 5+ cover save, if they are on the base of it.
• A Moonscape crater gives models a 6+ cover saves, but an added bonus if units Go to Ground

Did we need different rules for different types of craters? Probably not.

Either way, I like the terrain rules. I even liked them in 6th Edition (Mysterious Terrain is back, of course). However, they feel even more stubbornly “buy Citadel-Terrain”-focused than ever, which is a pity.

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#4 – Thoughts?

But I digress.

The 208 p. ‘The Rules’ is clearly the heart of the three-book-packages. Whatever you think of the direction the designers took with the game, the typesetters, graphic designers, etc.. all did a stellar job on this one. It is easily the best ‘rule book’ GW published so far. The smaller format (compared to 6th Edition) also means this will likely see a lot more action on the table.

Really, the only real criticism I have is that GW is forcing people to buy this as a 3-book package, rather than being given the option to buy the books separately or as a package.

It seems like they had no faith in the other two books to stand on their own. The Rules – as a book – is in my opinion the gem of the Warhammer 40K 7th Edition package.

I’ll certainly need to get a few more games in, before I can tell whether the rules – as a game – live up the quality of ‘The Rules’ as a book.

Z.