Let's start with one of my favourite parts of a codex, the stories. For fluff fiends, its full of some great fiction. Sure, a lot of it has been recycled from existing books, but it's also cool to see generic units like Helbrutes, Rhinos and daemon engines getting tweaked backgrounds to suit the legion of dust. It even explains why Helbrutes are still fleshy, and why we have no proper Warpsmiths.
From a rules perspective, thing are much better than the index. We have all the same units we had access to before, plus a few new units in the form of extra Tzaangor choices and the Mutith Vortex Beast. Some very gribbly units I'll be coming to in a future post.
All the generic sorcerers now get inferno bolts in their bolt weapons, and exalted, power armoured and aspiring sorcerer all get access to plasma pistols and warpflame pistols. They do loose force axes, but I prefer access to more shooty options. We have lost a few options on sorcerers and in general, namely:
- Force axes
- Combi melta, flamer and plasma weapons for infantry characters (terminator sorcerers only get the inferno combi bolter)
- Power fists, chain fists and lightning claws
- Jump packs and bikes (unless you use an index for those)
- Icons of flame on tzaangor
Whilst we have lost a few weapons in the transition from index to codex, we have gained much more. For starters, our psychic might has increased threefold, with 18 powers to select from instead of the index's 3 heretics and 3 daemon powers. We also get a page of sweet relics and some useful strategems. Webway Infiltration (1-3CP to let 1-2 infantry units teleport in) and the dark matter crystal (similar effect, even in combat and doesn't count as falling back) are going to be very popular choices. We also get most of the generic legion strategems like Fire Frenzy and Veterans of the Long War.
Overall it's a welcome addition: to be fair anything for the Sons is a welcome addition. Next week I'll be looking at the lord and heroes of the army, as well as their Elite troopers.
Overall it's a welcome addition: to be fair anything for the Sons is a welcome addition. Next week I'll be looking at the lord and heroes of the army, as well as their Elite troopers.