Rulebook Ruminations: 6th Edition Marine Codeci

Well, we've been in 6th Edition for about 7 months now.  We've only had our head in the actual game for about a month now with the campaign grinding on, but today I want to talk about the two newest Warhammer 40,000 codeci:  the "flagship" marines for 6th Edition!

Almost every release, we get Chaos Space Marines near the front end of the release schedule.  If it's not the first one to be released, a Space Marine codex is.  Obviously, that's because these are flagships for the brand:  that is, they move the most units.  We can reasonably expect this trend to continue in the future, perhaps with a little variation.  Maybe orks will be the first enemy, maybe tyranids...but most of the time we're gonna get Chaos and Space Marines in some form or flavor.  What makes this release special is that they've chosen Dark Angels to be the flagship for 6th Edition instead of Ultramarines and the Codex Chapters.

Of course the books are awesome items.  I have some issues with certain units but honestly I don't feel that they are too overpowered...except they need to quit tweaking the Obliterator weapons and quit upgrading their firepower every edition.  No longer do they spit lascannons and twin linked heavy bolters...because they have plasma cannons and assault cannons instead, which are much better anyway.

The codeci include awesome new flyer models, and I'll be launching my own flyers soon.  This is a new trend this edition, but you can bet every army that gets the hardbound treatment will have nasty flyers and some sort of new large special unit model or kits, which is always the case.  Yet this edition the trend is for larger kits, like the Deathwing Command Squad that also contains the pieces for Deathwing Knights, or the Maulerfiend/Forgefiend kit that's simply just a lot of bits no matter how you put it together.

Troops and organizational logistics for each army has changed a little bit, but the new format looks great and I'm looking forward to seeing the other armies get the same treatment.  I've gushed about the awesomeness of having these items in hardcover before, but now that they've started Warhammer 40,000 on this I really can't get enough.  The books are just awesome, full color and well laid out.

The only thing I can really complain about isn't really a complaint:  they need to watch those fold outs in the back.  It seems that will be very easy to get creased or ripped, and I'm not sure how it's supposed to be functional when the rest of the book is a very solid reference manual.  The fold outs are awkward and flimsy (being 1 page thick) and I really think these should be the last ones published with those.

Either way, the books are great and I'm looking forward to the next great release from Games Workshop.