6th Edition fluff advances

[Silver]

For those of you who have the rulebook, how has the fluff advanced compared to where it was in 5th?

Could you briefly summarize any obvious changes? In the rumours section, I had heard emphasis about the Tau now being under protection of the Imperium, as they see them as warp-immune and thus, valuable in defeating Chaos one day. How much of this made it into the rulebook?

Cheers,
-Silver

[Viciator]

The whole lore section is HUGE! The introduction of the Imperium is much larger! I don't have the 5th edition any more but from what I remember they didn't talk about different Imperial Planet types or go into great details when talking about the Imperial Hierarchy! In the 6th edition, accompanied by amazing artwork they go into much more detail! They have a large section talking about the different parts of the Imperium, planet types, the tithes required, the Eclesiarchy, Psykers and Mutants and the Time Line part seems much larger (and/or much more fancier) then 5th edition.

The Races part is not like the 5th edition - you don't get the 1 or 2 pages with the map of where they come from and some information and stats. In 6th ed the Forces of the Imperium gets a large section with a lot of information about the different organisations filled with more artwork too! Also, there is many sections describing wars like the Armageddon wars or the 13th Black Crusade where they show maps and tell you have many forces are involves (down to the number of Departmento Munitorum Engineer Corps involved).
As for the different races, they each get 1 or 2 pages of fluff about them (I think it's pretty much the same as 5th edition) but some, like the Orks, Tyranids and Imperium each get a page or two dedicated to their weapons where you see the artwork of many of their weapons like a Force Sword, Power Claw or Rending Claw etc.. Other Races get some artwork or some different colour schemes of their 'Kabals', 'Chapters' etc.

One thing that I liked is some random tidbits of personal stories that appear through the rulebook - like one is a story of a Navigator going into the warp where you basically read his inner thoughts as he goes into it. Another one is the story of a Chaos Space Marine Battle-brother who just finished a fight against Blood Angles. Others are very small and few sentences long info 'squares' about, for example, the First Contact with the Tau (there is a part about the Imperium wanting to know how the Tau are so organized and how the Ethereals manage to keep everything in tact where they say that Psychic abilities have been ruled out because the Tau are warp-immune - no protection under the Imperium though I'm afraid).

Chaos also gains a fairly large part and just get more information.

Later in the 'Battles' section of the book they go over many new missions you can decide to play and each one is linked to some more or less historical battle - for example a battle that occured at 993.M41 where Chaos Daemons infest some Starfort, eradicating its defenders but then the Grey Knights launch a counter-attack. They then go to explain about what has happened and they talk about different parts of the battle and then tell you how that sort of mission will occur (you can obviously use any races you want but that was just one example).

Another example is an absolutely massive fluffy battle report campaign (written in the form of a story) where a massive Chaos SM and Daemons force invade Eydolim (where, apparently, human life has first originated) and they go into explaining the different battles that occurred in the sector but focus on a counter attack the Imperial Guard and the Ultramarines have launched to defend the main city in Eydolim and what happened on that massive battle (accompanied by a huge quadruple page showing the whole battlefield!).

Finally you have a large and improved appendices section where you have a whole appendix with small articles explaining about things in the 40k universe like The Cult Mechanicus, or the High Lords of Terra, what I thought to be quite the hilarious article about field dressing a las-wound and more! Once again each article is rather short (from around 3 to 9 medium sized paragraphs) but it gives you a lot of insight!

Hopefully I've answered your question and hopefully I haven't gone passed the 'illegal to publish' line :P If I have gone passed that line tell me and I'll fix it :)

I loved the 6th edition mainly because of the amazing lore section and how they added some small tid-bits of some information about a battle, or a gun [like the Baal-pattern Boltgun with Blood Angels Markings painting that followed with a prayer], or some beautiful artwork (e.g. Terra's Sanctum Imperialis, or a squad of Blood Angels having a last stand against incoming daemons on a hill) that gives you some insight into the universe and the lives of the organisms living there!

[Silver]

Thanks for the detailed reply Viciator, that sounds very promising To be frank I haven't read through the (to me) rather largish appearing fluff section of the 5th rulebook yet (lol), despite owning it for close to four years now. Just skimmed over the pages, stopping in between to read the race-specific pages and glance at the artwork. Will definitely be taking more interest soon.

[Viciator]

No problems! When I entered my local GW store on the 30th I was surprised to see how bulky the book looked - did the 5th edition have 432 pages?

Most of it is accredited to the lore and miniature showcase sections of the book, there are around 130 pages of Rules and the rest is the Lore, Miniatures and Hobby section (there is also the Battles section and Appendices but I include them both in the Lore since they are very Lore-ish).

GW merging the lore and battle section even more, in my opinion, is one of the best additions/changes in the 6th edition - they made the battles much more lore-driven so you feel like you're actually creating a story when you play - you gain special Warlord traits, you can get allies (and those types of alliances will also count when you play 2 vs. 2 or more), you have those special missions and they really encourage you to create campaigns, name your units and characters etc. to really make your battles interesting and not only a 500 Points Eldar vs. Tau game but a small force from Craftworld Iyanden that took the wrong turn in the Webway and ended near a Tau military camp on Fi'rios, a Tau sept planet with a population which is known for a tenacious refusal to accept defeat (and the Eldar's mission is to go to this hidden Webway portal past the camp etc.)

Of course you could have done the same in 5th edition but something about 6th edition really makes me want to do it on every single game :P

EDIT:
http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.ne...ad.php?t=22754
That's the whole 'Tau Protectors' thing right? Well yea there is nothing about it in the book except saying that the Tau have no presence in the Warp :)

[Gagoc The Ancient]

5th Ed. Rulebook is the same size format, but only 304 pages long!

6th Ed's rules section is 36 pages longer than 5th's, whilst the background is 16 pages longer.
6th has that extra section 'Miniatures Showcase' (68 pages long).
But 5th's Hooby and Battles sections are cumulatively longer (by only 8 pages) than the 6th Ed's counterparts.
6th comes back with a Reference and Appendices (plus Index) section of 32 pages, compared to 5th's 15 pages.

Does that help?

[VolatilSpam]

Sounds like a lot of the fluff is actually returning from 3rd edition, because I remember a whole segment in my third ed softcover rulebook about different planet types and tithes and the like.

[Eternus]

I haven't finished reading the as mentioned copious amounts of fluff, much of which seems like re-written text at least, if not entirely new stuff, but I have to agree that so far it's good.

Also, there is many sections describing wars like the Armageddon wars or the 13th Black Crusade where they show maps and tell you have many forces are involves (down to the number of Departmento Munitorum Engineer Corps involved).

These bits are taken from the Eye of Terror and Armageddon 3 Campaign Codex books respectively, and I'm glad they included them because it's cool stuff.

One thing that I liked is some random tidbits of personal stories that appear through the rulebook - like one is a story of a Navigator going into the warp where you basically read his inner thoughts as he goes into it. Another one is the story of a Chaos Space Marine Battle-brother who just finished a fight against Blood Angels.

Goodness, either I'm getting old or...never mind. I recognised this description as soon as I read it, and had to grab my copy of the book and skip to the part Viciator is talking about to check. I was right - this bit of text about Brother Captain Karlsen is taken from the ending of the 'Space Marine' battle report 'Chaos at Kadavah' which appeared in White Dwarf issue 156, back in 1992, December. I don't have that issue, because I didn't start buying White Dwarf till March (?) '93 and issue 160, but I do still have the 'White Dwarf Presents Space Marine Battles' supplement which came out that same year I think. It's a nice piece of descriptive text, and I like that it mentions the 'Lord of Battles', for those who remember such things.

Yep, man getting old right here...

[VolatilSpam]

Yep, the fluff is largely cyclical. Eternus, your post confirms it.

[Eternus]

That's a long cycle for that Karlsen piece - two decades!

[VolatilSpam]

There was a piece in the 4e Marine codex that, if I remember right, came straight from the Rogue Trader book (a little vignette about a Space Marine jumping on a mortar blast to save his squaddies, then an Apothecary giving him the Emperor's Mercy).