What you hold in your hands tells you all about how to fight battles based in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, providing the core rules needed to play the game. It gives some of the background information about the Warhammer 40,000 universe, its history, environment and flavour. It can guide players towards deciding what sort of army they might choose to play, how to go about collecting the models, painting armies. putting together a tabletop battlefield and even finding an opponent to play against.

This book may seem a bit daunting to the beginner, any bound collection ot almost three hundred pages of information can be intimidating, but you don't need to read it all at once. The three distinct sections - Rules, Background and Gaming Material - offer very different things. The Rules section explains the game mechanics, and once you've grasped the early parts of this, which cover Movement, Shooting, Assaults and Morale, you are pretty much on your way.

First and foremost, you can't fight a battle without troops, which in our case are represented by models. Model armies, just like real life armies, contain different kinds of troops and vehicles under the command of an officer Some of the armies you can collect and control in Warhammer 40,000 are human, such as the massively diverse Imperial Guard or the zealous Space Marines of the Adeptus Astartes. Other armies consist of alien races, such as the ancient and mysterious Eldar. the barbaric green-skinned Orks, or the monstrous entities of the Tyranid hive fleets.

Playing a game of Warhammer 40,000 requires models. When players first start playing games they should play with whatever models they like the look of, rather than concern themselves overly with precisely what they are and how they function. Maybe they know someone who already plays the game, and can use some of their models, or maybe they could even play a couple of introductory games in a store or at a gaming club. Familiarising yourself with how to play does not mean you need to collect a large army beforehand.

When starling to collect an army, you'll probably want to use it all at once, so the best way to begin is by collecting a few squads of troops and some vehicles that can fight equally effectively against many different kinds of enemy. Later, as your collection grows, you can add in more of the special troop types that are particularly good at fighting certain types of opponent, but may be weaker against others. The bigger the collection, the wider the choice and the bigger the battles that can be fought.

Before you start collecting an army you'll have to decide which one you want it to be. Different races have different skills, troop types, special abilities and technological assets. For example, the Imperial Guard, the human troops of the Imperium. fight in very great numbers of men supported by a variety of tanks and artillery, while Chaos Space Marine armies usually consist of markedly fewer, more elite units of men. often supported by mutated creatures and warp-spawned daemons. Both armies can play in the same battle but will be used in very different ways.

The details that make up any army are provided in the Warhammer 40,000 Codex books, which are a collection of rules and explanations that cover the types of troops, weapons, vehicles and special rules that different armies can call upon. The army lists are a useful element of the game, as they outline the choices you will face when putting your force together, imposing certain restrictions on how you combine your troops. This is to preserve the character of the different armies and to ensure a balanced selection of troops.

Within the selections permitted by an army list, the options provided are very flexible. It is very unlikely that two players would ever pick precisely the same force and same combination of troops from any list.

Once you have chosen the army you want to collect, you'll need to know more about it: how it fights, what special models it can include and what its army list contains. You'll find all this, plus background information, racial histories, special characters and other details, inside the Warhammer 40,000 Codex book for that army. For example, if you decide to collect an army of mighty Space Marines, then all the information you will need to make the most of your collection will be contained within the pages of Codex: Space Marines. As well as telling you more about the race. this book also covers uniforms and painting schemes, a detailed description of the different weaponry they can use. the different troops types and the restrictions you face when selecting the models that can take part in a battle.

(A) Terminator Squad - Elite Space Marines equipped with the virtually impregnable Terminator armour and carrying the deadly storm boiler. They can teleport directly into the midst of the enemy's battle lines.
(B) Land Raider - Land Raiders are the mainstay of the Space Marines' armoured might. Their sponson-mounted lascannons give them superior firepower, and they can also be used to swiftly transport squads into battle. These tanks are heavily armoured and can withstand most firepower that the enemy can throw at them.
(C) Land Speeder Tornado - A last attack vehicle that can fly and is extremely manoeuvrable. The Land Speeder Tornado mounts a heavy bolter for gunning down infantry and an assault cannon to take on heavier targets. It can inflict a lot of damage but is only lightly armoured.
(D) Two Tactical Squads (one with Rhino Transporter) - Tactical squads are highly flexible troops that make up the majority of squads in most Space Marine armies. Their standard equipment of rapid-firing bolters can deal with most opponents, while heavy weapons can be issued to deal with any enemy vehicles or monstrous creatures. Tactical squads can be mounted in a Rhino to transport them rapidly across the battlefield.
(E) Dreadnought - Dreadnoughts are huge, heavily-armoured fighting machines. They can be armed with a number of heavy weapons that can destroy tanks, mow down infantry or crush enemies in assaults.
(F) Assault Squad - Equipped with close quarter weapons, such as pistols and chainswords. Their jump packs enable them to quickly engage the enemy.
(G) Command Squad - This army is led by a commander who represents the player in person on the battlefield1 They can be accompanied by a bodyguard which includes experienced veterans and specialists, such as Apothecaries.
(H) Bike Squadron - Fast attack Bike squadrons make excellent assault troops and are very manoeuvrable. They can engage the enemy quickly to support the Assault squad.