A First Look at 40K Warhammer 7th Edition – Dark Millennium

Let us take a look at the second book of three core books that make the new edition of Warhammer 40K: Dark Millennium.

If A Galaxy of War corresponds to the hobby/miniature-gallery sections of the old single-volume book (albeit poorly, IMO), Dark Millennium covers the background section. A 128 page on Who’s Who in the grimdark 41st Millennium, why they fight and what happened in the universe leading up to the “cliffhanger” of the 999.M41.

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Dark Millennium is a glimpse into the grim darkness of the far future. It details the crumbling Imperium of Man and the many enemies, within and without, who are constantly plotting its downfall.

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#1 – Dark Millennium – An Imperial Perspective

I’ve heard people say that the 7th Edition rules – Psychic Phase, Tactical Objectives, etc.. – have a bit of a “2nd Edition”-vibe. If that is true, the presentation of the 40K background in Dark Millennium has a strong “3rd Edition”-vibe, presenting the 41st Millennium in an unabashed Human-focused way. The Dark Millennium is all about “The Imperium of Man vs. the Rest”.

From the 128 pages of this book (the smallest of the 3), well over 80 cover the Imperium and its history. Xenos are all lumped under “The Alien Menace“, Chaos under “The Greatest Threat“.

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#2 – The Different 40K Factions

A sizable part of the book is – obviously – dedicated to the different factions of the Warhammer 40K universe.

Admittedly, if you know your way around the 41st Millennium already – if you already know the different “main” Space Marine chapters and their history, the different variants of Eldar, what Tyranids are, etc.. – you will likely to skip a lot of this.

The same is true for other basics of the Warhammer 40K universe (e.g. what is the Warp, etc..).

There is a fair bit of recycled artwork. The Codex covers are used throughout for each faction (which makes it likely that this image is indeed the Codex: Orks cover). While they are nice, I thought that the newer Swanland-pictures in particular didn’t gel well with the otherwise more gritty, often sketched and sometimes “back-to-John-Blanche” art direction of the book.

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 #3 – The Pandorax Incursion

One oddity of the book was the chapter on the Pandorax Incursion.

There is a lot of 40K-lore out there, so Dark Millennium is a tight book. For example, the picture above under #2 is all there is on Craftworld Eldar. There is no second page. No details on specific craftsworlds such as Saim Hann or Iyanden, etc.. .

Yet somehow they found the space to include a 16-page special on the Pandorax Incursion, including a Pandorax-specific timeline, boxes on characters such as ‘Corpulax, the Plague Lord’, or camo-patterns used by Imperial Soldiers during the campaign.

A waste of space? Possibly.

However, I – personally – knowing the basics of most 40K-factions (and nothing about Pandorax, having skipped the Apoc-supplement), found this to be one of the more entertaining parts to read, precisely because it was more specific.

Pandorax is an odd choice for a “generic” background book I admit, but I enjoyed reading it.

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#4 – The Spoilers of Pythos?

Also, I heard this section spoils the upcoming Heresy-novel The Damnation of Pythos, as both deal with the planet of Pythos and dark chaos shenanigans? There are probably some easter-eggs, but I didn’t see major spoilers for the mainly Iron Hands-focused novel coming up.

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#5 – Thoughts?

Overall, I enjoyed the Dark Millennium a lot more than A Galaxy of War. Sure, there several things to hold against the book.

That said, I found many things to be enjoyable in the book

In that sense, Dark Millennium is a sold book for what it aims to do… getting people up to speed with the background, with even the odd nugget to read for 40K-background-veterans.

Z.