Are the Codices Worth Reading?

[voidstate 697]

Having bought a few citadel minis recently to use in our Dark Heresy game, it occurred to me that there might be some useful fluff in the Warhammer 40K Codices, specifically the Witch Huners and Daemonhunters ones. Is it worth picking them up cheap even if I don't play 40K?

[Luddite 38]

Yes.

You can't have too much information can you?! 

[Novafix 0]

I picked up the old version of Codex:Sisters of Battle for £6 (or about €0.01 in todays exchange rate) and it's priceless for background.  I'd recommend it muchly but the codices are all pretty much War focussed.  There's snippets of other stuff but they mostly describe armies etc...

Codex Imp Guard would make perfect Scholastic Lore: Imp Guard reading material

[Letrii 0]

Where can you find these books?  No store I know of near me sells them.  I had to get Barnes and Nobles to special order DotDG for me (strangely, I could find it on customer terminal but they couldn't find it in their computer, had to get the ISBN for them, lol).

[PGMason 2]

Anywhere that sells Games Workshop products.  GW's own stores, independent stockists or online stores such as the Warstore.  Alternatively from the GW online store.  For those not familiar, the codexes are the army list books for the 40k wargame.  They contain army lists and stats for the relevant army, and also background material.  They tend to have a fairly military focus, for obvious reasons.

[Letrii 0]

Never heard of a GW store, are they in the US?

[blackat 0]

They used to be alot more common, but a few yeaars ago Games Workshop shut down most of their stores.  There are a few left in major cities (or near by in the case of Massachusetts).  In most cases though you will need to rely on a local indipendent gaming store that stocks GW stuff or via online routes. 

Not sure where you are located, but On the North East side of things I know the only ones left are in Massachusetts (about 30 min north of Boston), NY City (of course), and I think there is one somewhere in Connetticut. 

 

BlacKat

[Letrii 0]

Bah, I'm in Michigan.

[Dagda2 0]

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/storelocator/results.jsp

 

 

On GW website they have a store locator for both GW stores and independant retailors. Happy hunting.

Dagda 

[PGMason 2]

Wow! Being from the UK its completely baffling that you've never heard of GW stores - over here theres at least 5 GWs for every indie games store.  In the UK, GW pretty much IS gaming, which is why its a shame they don't do RPG stuff any more.

Anyway, here is the GW store finder:

www.games-workshop.com/gws/storelocator/search.jsp

 

Here's a list of indies in Michigan (no idea how current):

www.geocities.com/mi_whplayers/retailers.html

 

Hope that helps.

Pete

 

Edit: Ah, Dagda got there first.

[Kaihlik 50]

You are playing Dark Heresy and you havn't heard of a codex. I understand many people get into DH simply as a RP thing but I sort of expected most people to find out about 40K a bit first. If you want to find somewhere that sells them then go to the storefinder on the GW site which lists GW stores and Indipendent Stockists or just order from thier online store. Just so you know since the OP didn't really make it clear they are the books for playing the mini game primerily with background in them as a secondary consideration although the newer books and some of the really old ones have alot more background.

Kaihlik

[Letrii 0]

Dagda, are you of the Druidic tradition mayhaps?

[voidstate 697]

OK, so which codices, and from which editions, should I be Ebaying for? I only want DH-useful fluff. Army lists are essentially useless to me.

[schoon 13]

If you're looking for the W40K Codices for reference purposes, I'd suggest getting them on www.ebay.com/ as you can pick up the ones that are an edition or two out of date for pennies on the dollar.

I'd also argue that some of the 2nd Edition fluff was the best they've ever done, but that's another story

[grinnock 0]

There has only been one edition of the Daemonhunters and Witchhunters codices, so you won't have to worry about not getting the wrong version. Those are what you should be looking for. They aren't the densest of books, but they should have a little interesting fluff.

[Letrii 0]

What about as far as Xenos go?

[grinnock 0]

There is no Ordo Xenos codex as yet, and the rest of the codices don't have a lot information that would be useful for a DH campaign, at least I can't remeber anything.

[Da Boss 0]

There is IIRC a small section on why Daemon hunters would fight specific races that has some intersting threads...................a few bits of nice fluff and technology...............and of course great artwork...............but they are not designed to be sourcebooks for DH.

may be equally useful to check out some of the fluff books - like the Imperial Infantrymans primer (great for basic info on the IG) and also for prayers for the more devout................the old Inquisitor game has some nice elements - I ran one f the published adventures as a straight rpg and it went very well (well not for the pcs....................)

[Letrii 0]

How old is Inquisitor, never seen it before?

[Da Boss 0]

info here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisitor_(game)

more stuff here

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/articleCategory.jsp?community=&communityArticleCatId=1100009&articleCatId=1100009&catId=cat1290321

enjoy

[Letrii 0]

Might wanna edit the link, not working properly since ) is outside the link.

 

Thanks for info.

[Kaihlik 50]

I would rather pay attention to the second one (which hasn't come out as a link at all) as that is where you wlll find the Inquisitor rulebook to download for free from GW's site. Also while you are there you might want to check out the Battlefleet Gothic rulebook and the Necromunda stuff as well.

Kaihlik

[Luddite 38]

Letrii said:

 

Might wanna edit the link, not working properly since ) is outside the link.

 

Thanks for info.

 

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisitor_(game)

You'll also find the Inquisitor game rules as a free download here.

www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp

The Thorian Sourcebook is absolutely ESSENTIAL reading...

[Lightbringer2009 0]

You know, I feel like showing this entire thread to the bigwigs at GW.

The whole reason they closed down Black Industries was because they wanted to concentrate on their core industry - minis - during the recession. They felt that a 40k RPG would distract potential buyers from the minis.

And yet here we've got a relative newcomer to DH who's bought the game, and its inspired him to go out and buy minis and books because GW has a poor presence in the US!

So, in effect, DH has become a gateway product doing exactly the opposite of what GW thought it would!   

[Dalnor Surloc 1]

  The eldar, ork, and neron codexs are worth ebaying an old edition.  Of course some of the older ork ones are a little silly.  Personally I'd avoid the guard ones in favor of the "The Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer" .  The Damocles Gulf Edition just came out and it's cheap on amazon.  Also there are a number of Omnibus editions of various guard related novels.  I'm told Xenology is really good, but I've never seen one under $100.