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Jordan Sorcery and Stu from Miniature Realms are reading the original fiction published by Games Workshop for Warhammer, 40k, and Dark Future.
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Revisiting Codex: Imperial Guard | GW Book Club
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Time to revisit the classic 2nd edition Codex: Imperial Guard - a wonderfully nostalgic trip to an earlier era of Warhammer 40k!
Stu from Miniature Realms and Jordan Sorcery chat about their latest read in the GW Book Club - a regular podcast talking about classic books published by Games Workshop and the Black Library.
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Hello and welcome to the GW Book Club, where I am joined by my good friend Stu from the Miniature Realms channel to chat about a classic 40k book this time. We're taking a look at Codex Imperial Guard from the second edition of Warhammer 40,000. Stu, are you a big fan of the Imperial Guard? Have you been a a a treadhead all this time?
SPEAKER_02Yes, actually. Yes. I uh I had an awful lot of the miniatures that appear in this book, though I didn't own the book at the time, but I uh had an awful lot of the miniatures. I enjoyed the the the Imperial Guard. I have to stop saying Astro Minotaurum now because I'm I've I'm painting them on the moment for 40k. I've just trained my brain to say Astro Milotaro, but now I've got to untrain it for the next half an hour or so to say Imperial Guard, which I much prefer. Um but I I had the Road Trader um Guardsman set, which I absolutely love that aesthetic and style. They're the original Cadians, I suppose. Um, and and I moved into the metal, so I've been a fan of them for a for a long time. I've always liked humans in my in my games, and and and they these were spot on.
SPEAKER_00Sure. Yeah, I mean I think it's a really it's always a great perspective for like the world, it's something to compare everything else to, isn't it? Like it's a I always thought it was great when you get like an Imperial Guardsman and then you get the relative heights of everybody else compared to them, and that sort of gives you a good sense of okay, this is how tall the Space Marine is, this is how short a rattling is or a Tau, whatever else might be out there in the galaxy. So yeah, I mean so this is this is a a classic, classic codex books, one of the earliest ones is by Rick Priestley with Andy Chambers, Jervis Johnson, Ian Pickstock as well, contribute to some stuff. It has I mean, I guess if we start from the from the front cover, I think that this is a really iconic cover, right? So this is the the the Cap Chan Jungle Fighters by Dave Gallagher, absolutely amazing, right? This is this speaks to a proper era of 40k, I think.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, 100%. They were the standout miniatures out of all of these metal ones, I think, that arrived at that time. The ones I remember being most excited about, and I don't know if it's because of films during that era. We obviously there's the uh you look at that and you can see um aliens, um Commando probably as well, and Rambo with a whole squad full of Rambo is absolutely Predator as well. Yeah, yeah. It's just there's a whole list of films that you see those, and there's no wonder they're the cover art, they know what they're doing at this point.
SPEAKER_00It's yeah, yeah, completely. I mean, they it's it is a really cool evocative image, it makes them look like awesome, right? The the Imperial Guard nails, even though you know they're not they're not always nails in-game, which is they shouldn't be. This is a world full of Space Marines and and Tyranids and all sorts. So they're not gonna be like the the top tier, but they look great, like it gives a real sense of these are like macho action hero guys, which in a way you kind of would have to be. I actually think this is really interesting with the tone in this book, because second edition is a little bit more heroic, I suppose I would say, right? So when it describes the Imperium, it it you know, it it doesn't dwell on the darker side of things, it's still there, you know. The the scale and the scope of it and the you know the innate suffering of this massive organization is there, but it sort of goes more for you know, in the Imperium, their their armies are really strong and their fleet are really fast, and the Imperial Guard turn up and save the day, and someone might join the Imperial Guard and have to serve for 10 years in an unending war on the front, and then they get rewarded by invading a planet and taking over that planet, and it kind of positions them as like, oh, that's just a what a heroic thing. It never talks about like how they're recruited and forced to fight these wars and how the the absolute horror that would be war on the front line as a member of the Imperial Guard. It kind of paints a much rosier sort of uh I guess a cinematic heroic picture most of the time, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's it's it's Starship Troopers, the movie's version of human army, isn't it? It's it's glorious. Come and come and come and join us. At the same time, while you kind of can see between the lines what terrible terrible lot they have, but yeah, the way it's presented is it's it's it's not grim-dark at this point, is it? A lot of it's a real change in in the whole aesthetics during this era anyway. Um and it it's it is the birth of modern 40k in the same way as the fourth edition was the birth of modern fantasy, uh, though we can see the way the game progresses. Um, it does become a bit more grim and dark again. It kind of recaptures that from Rogue Trader. But it in this period it was kind of it couldn't be more 1990s, could it? It's like it's it's it's just 19, early 1990s, and everything about it is that kind of um rock pop. Um, you know, it's it's Europe, it's it's Bon Jovi, it's it's kind of that's what 40k was in this era.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think that's a nice way of describing it. And I think actually the the movie parallel is a really good one because yeah, earlier Rogue Trader has that sort of the darkness and the grittiness and the sort of you know, there's there's kind of a counter c countercultural sort of thing and a satirical element, and it's kind of got like 70s sci-fi film feel to a lot of it. By the time you get to second edition 40k, you are moving, like you say, it is Arnie movies and Stallone movies. There's a lot, it's it's a much there's still dark, you know. These are still like even in those movies, you're out there like killing guys, right? That's the whole point of those movies. So there is darkness like innately part of it, but it's kind of done with like all the bulging muscles and really like the glamour and the excitement and the thrill of the action. That's definitely a thread that runs through this book in particular and a lot of second edition generally, but in this book, there is this real sort of like these are the heroes of the Imperium. Yeah, the Space Marines are heroes as well, but these are not like superpowered individuals, these are just regular folk, but they're still out there being heroes and legends and like you know, doing all this sort of stuff. And I don't want to say there's no grimness and no darkness, because that's that is absolutely hero, and I'm sure we'll get into some of it. But just tonally, generally, it's a bit more like check out these guys, they're cool.
SPEAKER_02Flashy. Yeah, if Michael Bay had written saving private Ryan, it would have been a different film.
SPEAKER_00That's maybe what we're maybe. Yeah. More there's a maybe a little bit more propaganda feel to some of it, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But yeah, you you mentioned the sort of the shift as well in terms of the so the original Rogue Trader Imperial Army, that those, you know, and then they became the Imperial Guard guys. There's some really interesting stuff here how you've evolved from what was the Imperial Army, and then and the sort of that earliest iteration of Imperial Guard. These are talked about in Rogue Trader, they do exist, they have their army lists. You know, the Book of the Astronomicon's got a an army list for them, and then White Dwarf published a a sort of really interesting article about them that moves them closer to this. But in the Rogue Trader era, it's very much just like okay, you get your regular tactical squads of guardsmen and they're all the same. They've they're just a uniformed, very much like you say the Starship Troopers sort of look. They have that look and that feel, and they're all exactly the same. But this book does something really interesting, which is dwell on all of the distinct worlds that Imperial Guard come from and how that then sort of influences the squads. So you get these really vibrant, very characterful squads like the Catachans and the Valhalans and the Talans that give a real cool visual identity to the Imperial Guard.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, for sure. I see I remember when these came out, and I was a bit surprised at first because suddenly the guard didn't look like my guard. You got these these metal. I think the Casturchans were the first. It might be my memory. I've not gonna check any of this, but it felt like they were the first set to be released. And I was buying each of these sets as they came out, and that was my guard army, so it's got this weird kind of mix of different, you know, it's like the A-team of um of guard armies with all these different people from different planets, essentially. But uh, you know, I was probably 13, I didn't really think of it like that. I mean, it's just cool miniatures, and I painted them like the box, tried to paint them like the box art. So they were the you know, there was Catachans there hot and sweaty next to the Valhallens and their um thermals. And but they were great ideas, I suppose, and they might regret it now because they created all of these wonderful um starts for for one for potential armies and never really followed through all the miniatures lines for any of them, really, apart from Catachan plastics. The rest of them, you I suppose you've got a version of the Cadians, haven't you? Um, which are kind of carrying over from the old plastic versions anyway. But some of them they didn't really progress past that box set of Ted Miniatures and the the little gun team.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's I mean it's interesting. It's a shame because it's such a good idea, and I think one of the things that I find really fascinating about this book in particular is how much it kind of you know in a micro sense on a smaller level with just one book, it kind of mirrors the development approach that Warhammer Fantasy went through. So when you look at they they kind of have taken a look at real world cultures or history or like identities and kind of said, right, okay, how can we extrapolate from that into an a faction? And in Warhammer Fantasy, that was like, okay, well, this will be an entire an entire army, an entire faction, an entire part of the world. Here, they've just said, well, we can take that and turn that into one squad, and then we'll reverse engineer what their world is like, that is the reason they wear like you know, Russian thermal jackets and Cossack helmets and whatever else. Like they'll come up with a story in order to justify those miniatures. And I think you also, like in Warhammer Fantasy, you see the the Perry twins who sculpted a lot of these miniatures, sort of being given an opportunity to like have some fun and go off and find an army that they can do that speaks to them because they love historical miniatures, you know, they like to make that kind of thing, much more so than sci-fi or fantasy, and this is the perfect way to apply their talents. It's great.
SPEAKER_02That's exactly what they did. Yeah, it's exactly what they did.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02You've got this kind of weird mix of North Africa sort of going on there. You've got your uh your yeah, it's there's so many historical references, whether it's sort of Prussian, Franco-Prussian war, maybe for the Memorians, or you know, maybe that's sort of Russians as well, sort of different different kind of uniform, maybe first world war uniform. There's so many different things. I think something else they did was I think it was trying to give you ideas, because quite early on in the book, and this is probably a reflection on the way the book's written, which is quite unusual. In the in the some of the other books, you get um history, you'll get um story, but a definitive separate little story, and then you'll get bits that are sort of instructions for how the game plays or how you should write your list. And it's there's whole chunks of this that jumps about from one paragraph to the other, where it starts as written, a bit written about history, um, and then it kind of blends into more of a bit of a story, and it tells a little bit of a story, and then there's another paragraph that says, and as players, you can create whatever world you want, all within the same page. Yeah, and you don't see that too often, and we've done this a lot for the four the fourth edition fantasy books, and then they're much more kind of this is your history part, here's your breakout stories by Bill King, and then here are your rules. But there's elements of this book where it's kind of it's sort of blur fine, but it's this this neat blend between going to tell you about a bit of history writing, and then say, and as a player, you can recreate this any way you want, paint them whatever colour you want, and say what planet they come from, and then it blends into what is almost a bit of a mini story within the history section. So yeah, I I think it's trying to do lots, it almost feels like it's a lot of ideas. Um, but if they've planned it a little bit better, they might have reduced it a little bit and spent some more time producing a second unit for some of these ideas. Because maybe there were plans, maybe there were plans to bring out other units so they had full ranges for each of these. But it seems like they did these, gave up, and went, what should we do then? Let's bring out the Vostroians later on. We will do a slightly more fuller range for those guys.
SPEAKER_00But it was I I'd be very interested to know if there were like broader plans. Obviously, we know there were other, you know, other different types of Imperial Guardsmen did turn up uh and were released over the years, like second edition into third and beyond. But yeah, like you say, some of these units just never really expanded beyond what you get here, and whether that was literally just that's the buyers making that choice. You know, did consumers just go for Catchance and Cadians? Or you know, is it is that how it went down? I mean, I d I I don't even think I can't even remember if there were. Were there metal Cadians? I'm gonna have to take a look at the heavy metal section. Did they do metal cadence for this? They did the shock troops, wasn't it? Of course. Yeah, because they're kind of the GI, the the sort of American GI looking guys, right?
SPEAKER_02Yes, yeah. So maybe they were just the most hard. They were the most boring for me. I don't know. I did buy them all, but um there was they were the ones I kind of thought, ah, these are these are a little bit more boring than all the others.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I and I'm not surprised they got a redesign, you know, post post 1997 Starship Troopers. They did redesign them, maybe inspired by the outfits in that. I don't know. Uh but yeah, we you know, we would lose over time. You you lose your Mordians, you you lose your your Talons and your Valhallens, um, which I think is a real shame. I mean, I think Mordians uh I also is there a bit of like American dress uniforms to those.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that as well. There's so many, so new I don't know what it's supposed to be. It looks very kind of West Point almost as well, sort of offers a yeah, there's probably a definitive yes, this is what we were aiming for, but I can see some reference. It might depend how you paint them as well. I don't know what what your your mind is drawn to.
SPEAKER_00But yeah, I mean do you have a favourite of any of these squads?
SPEAKER_02At the time, I really love those metal catachans, they were just my favourite uh out of all of those. I probably wouldn't, they're probably a little bit obvious now. I'd I'd I'd go for some something else. The Talam guys are really, really cool, and I think if I was going to pick um a set of those that's replicate, God knows how many times to make a whole army from, I'd probably go for that as a theme because I think it gives you a little bit more scope to green stuff bits here and there and change them. Um the others are a little bit too cartoon-esque, I think, for me now.
SPEAKER_00But uh yeah, I mean I used to love the ice warriors of Valhalla. Um I think there's so around this, you know, when when RTS games were about a little bit later in the 90s as well. I always loved the snow maps on RTS games, yeah, whether it was Commander Conqueror or StarCraft or Warcraft, whatever. I I don't know, I just really liked snow. I loved snow bases, and I just loved that whole thing. So I think the Valhallen sort of spoke to that for me. Uh so I quite like that. Uh nowadays, yeah. I don't know. I think I mean I do like them all, to be fair. I think they all got their charm. Um, there's a certain something about the Rough Riders that I think is really cool because they're just so like archaic and bizarre to have just like cavalry in 40k, like traditional horse cavalry. I think is really fun. Although, thinking about it, you know what, actually, in terms of the ranges, I think the ogrins might be my favourite. I think those the metal ogrins at the time were amazing. I love them.
SPEAKER_02Some of those are older, aren't they? Some of those date back, I think. Yeah, they may immediately discounted them then. I think they date back a range of ogrins for this, I think.
SPEAKER_00Because the older ones, like the old sort of Bob Olly ogrins that were around prior to this are slightly different, and there were other ogrins as well. I'm not sure. I think that these might have been updated. Because these are by Michael Perry. So yeah, I think they could have updated at least some of these might be new for this codex or around this time.
SPEAKER_02I definitely had some of them, and I mean it's just again, it's a very long time ago and I was very young, so my brain remembers owning them, I think, before I owned some of the others, but I'm probably I'm probably wrong. I um I was thinking purely in terms of the the the guard registrant regiments themselves. Um if I could just choose miniatures, it would be the Rattling Snipers. They're uh they're incredible. I noticed that they're green with uh red cuffs there um as well, so they're like riflemen. So not 95th, because they're never a black cuffs by them. I'm assuming that that's what they were going for as uh um riflemen type of type of look there, which is which is brilliant.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they're great miniatures. I love that they've retained the Ogrins and the Rattlings for this. So the like the previous armies for for the Imperial Guard for the Imperial Army had had the ab humans in them, so that but they had included obviously your beastmen as well, you know, back when they were Imperial Beastmen. They dropped that, uh and I'd be interested to know why they decided to drop that, because I personally think that's very cool, and I love the fact that we get 40k beastmen now they're back. Uh but yeah, they decided to get rid of the beastmen, maybe just make them pure chaos to reflect Warhammer Fantasy, which had done that as well. And then you just keep rattlings and ogrins. There's no squats here either. So you but they they the way they bake that into the actual narrative of the Imperial Guard, I think, is great. Like having them as as key parts of Imperial Guard, they turn up, they're accepted, they're just you know, they do what they do. It's really nice from an army list design, because obviously it allows you to have these different profiles and different unit types that have specific battlefield functions, but they're also in the lore, you know, an extra complexion, a bit of texture to this whole thing, which I think is really good.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, I forgot about the beastman being removed. Um it's probably just that kind of do not suffer the the the the the the mutant kind of thing and that rattlings and ogrins are the only um sort of accepted abhumans. I think that that was the route they went down, and it was Beastman obviously just look a look a little bit too chaotic. Just realising as well, and I I know this, but the that the Lehman Russ, um how old that kit is, and it it's not changed, does it? This is still it's it's still that just in insane, really, how real kit has lasted. And the the the modern day heresy ones um are just smartened up, crisp up versions of these as well. Um, because the design's just so good.
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah, I mean you'll know better than I do. Are these do these reflect any real tank?
SPEAKER_02Like is there any like real vehicle in the yeah, there's little nods to so many different tanks. I think the the latest 11th edition Astra Militarum um troop carriers and stuff are a little bit more obvious, but um, the way the tracks are done on the Lumen Russes is very sort of first world war, but the turrets are much more um second world war, so they're nice sort of um amalgamations of the of the two. And again, the Chimera, that's the same kit again that's still the Chimera now, isn't it? Someone's gonna tell us in the comments if I'm wrong, and there was an update somewhere in that period where I wasn't war gaming, but I as far as I'm aware, those are the I can believe that there's been an update, but they've kept it pretty close to the code.
SPEAKER_00We might have retooled it, but yeah, the designs are so iconic, they're great. Um, obviously the the Lehman Russ is quite is kind of s snub nosed, right? It's quite uh short, but it kind of has a certain like it's a it's almost I don't want to say cartoony or comical. It works really well on the table. They look great, but like if if you were to actually like the actual proportions of it are just completely bizarre in real in real life.
SPEAKER_02It's because the guns are bigger than they would be. So if we we are making those comparisons with historical, especially World War II tanks, which is probably the best comparison for them. Um have a look at World War II weapons and the size of the barrels compared to these, and and that's what's weird, that's what's so oversized. The turret to a certain extent as well, they're just so oversized compared to the rest of it. Um that's what makes them look slightly comical. Whereas you look at the the newer, the newer stuff, like the uh the Rogal Dawn, which is the the the the new style of the same kind of style of tank, that's much more in proportion um for a what a real a real tank would be. But uh yeah, that it's great to see them still being current almost. Uh yeah. I love all of the um the the alternative colour schemes and stuff that are in this book. There's so much in the Evan Metal pages, it's really busy. There's there's loads of different options. Um and the the options about how to organise them into squadrons and the the the the liveries and the badges and and and numbers and things that you should use um is is really really good as well. And again, it's all taken from Second World War colourings and styles. It's not just match, but it's stuck. So your your little colours at the front of the tanks on the sides. That's a British um sort of thing from the from the second world war that have white and red most of the time. I think that the colours change a little bit in these, and then you've got your regimental organisation guides when you've got your platoons and you've got that split circle, so you know some some of them. Are black and blue, some of them are red and blue, some of them are that kind of colouration, that style of of squadron and platoon is very similar to um to World War II tanks and stuff as well. So you can see whether they've taken all of that real stuff and brought it into the fantasy world. I think when you can do that, that's what gives it so much depth that makes it really, really interesting. That's what made Warhammer so interesting, is that so much history was put into the the old world. Um, and I think it really works when they've taken so much history and put it into the to the Imperial Guard as it was then, and just it just makes it believable.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, I think you're dead right. I think actually I think leaning into that is really strong, like that Second World War vibe for the Imperial Guard, because it also evokes you know, it is a terrible war and uh like a the horrible experiences. You know, this is where the grim and the dark is absolutely part of this, is that you're basically saying, Well, yeah, it's that the the the great you know, this this enormous war that we fought just between countries, extrapolate that out between whole worlds and like a million of them. So this is this is that but on a scale that is inconceivable. So you'll you really do get that you know, there's that that's a real that's a real grimness to like saying it's the second world war in space, basically.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yes, yes, it certainly is.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but you've got you know loads of the like all of the tanks I think could be taken as just your like troop types, or what would be the equivalent to your um I forget what it is, a battle line, I think. So like you can have your squads, and this is obviously gives you rise gives rise to your sort of Imperial Guard being your tank-based armies, which is van fantastic. Again, another point of difference to a lot of other forces at this time. And I think I think that it would be really interesting to take a look at how like plastic technology had evolved by this time in games workshops history, because an army like this would only have been possible where you're like you're taking tanks as like troop choices, so that you've got a whole range of a load of different tanks with loads of different options, and you can have loads of them in in the force because actually plastics technology has now advanced so far in the last like five, ten years that we we can offer that range to people at a reasonable price. You know, we're way beyond obviously there were tanks in the early Rogue Trader days with your Rhino and with your Land Raider, but like the Land Raider and the Rhino were it. You couldn't that's why Eldar and the Imperial Guard and the Space Marines and Orcs, everybody's riding round in stolen Land Raiders, uh for you know during this period. There's other vehicles as well, but like that's they are available to everybody because you want you've only got a couple of big plastic kits available, so you want as many armies, as many players to have access to them as possible. By the time we get to this, it's like, oh well, we're gonna do a specialist battle tank like this, and another tank like this, and another tank like that. It's awesome. It's like the technology has enabled the creation of this army, uh, you know, and it and then it it gives you a load of different new options. It's it's fascinating, I think, to explore some of that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you can really really see that. And so when I was collecting those those metal miniatures, I don't think all of these tanks were out that it was prior to this codex coming out, I think. So when they again someone's gonna tell me I'm wrong, and it came out in a different order, but my memory of it was that they were releasing those metal sets um over a course of a few months, and I'd bought them and painted them, but I definitely didn't own any of the tanks at the time, and I didn't own this this codex at the time, so I kind of missed that jump on to it um for whatever reason. But um yeah, you it's it that the Chimera and the Lehman Rust there have just opened up uh a world to to to something else. Um and I think it's really, really cool.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's really, really nice. What do you think about the special characters that are included here as well? So they've got some like historical special characters and some contemporary special characters.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so you've got obviously you've got Yarrick there, and I had I definitely had that miniature. I remember that uh that time you and you've got Macarius as well, I think. Which uh I think he's in this, so I'm not dreaming that have I.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he is in it, he is in this.
SPEAKER_02Um I mean I find he's a really interesting character. He's great. Um one I yeah, uh I recently started and and paused but started reading the the novel Bill King Macarius.
SPEAKER_00It's like a trilogy, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I've got it I've got to report it all on on uh in digital, so with the short stories, the couple of short stories leading to it. I'm really enjoying it. I'm not I'm surprised by that because I love Bill King's writing, but um it's it it it's good. I'm enjoying it so far, but I've not really got into the the meat of it.
SPEAKER_00Um that tells the story of the actual crusade itself, right? So going out and conquering reconquering all the big worlds.
SPEAKER_02It it's not through it so far, and I don't think it changes, it's not through his perspective, it's from the perspective of someone who ends up serving very close to him, but I haven't haven't got that far yet. But I need to get back to uh to reading. I was reading it and then I started listening to an imperial extra militarum um audiobook at the same time, and it was too much, they were too close together. So I've I'm gonna wait till I finish the audiobook and then I'll I'll return to it. Uh otherwise I'll be yeah, confusing myself too much. But um, do you have a favorite special character that's in the in the book?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean I like so I was gonna I mean this sort of ties into you know, we like to take a look at some of the art in these books and talk about our favourite pieces of art. Um, and I really like the artwork for Mogul Kamir.
unknownUh-huh.
SPEAKER_00I think that that is such a cool piece of artwork. So he's one of the rough riders, and he just it looks amazing. He looks so interesting to me. I actually don't know. Did they do a miniature of this character? I don't think so. I don't remember. So, but I think it he looks awesome and like he's barely got any story whatsoever, sadly. But I just think there's something really cool about it. It's quite quite an interesting look. Uh, and I you know, I like the Rough Riders as just a set of miniatures, so I don't know, that kind of appeals to me. It's hard not to say, like, you know, uh Yarrick is is pretty great, right? He's he's lived way beyond his early introduction, shortly relatively before this this book, and sort of codified here in more detail. Um so Yarrick is great, but yeah, I think Macarius is great. I think that there's some really cool stuff here. One thing I will note as well is that Stumper Muckstart, which is a fantastic name for a rattling sharpshooter. Uh the piece of art for him, which is great, but it that piece of art appears in this book like four or five times. Yeah, it's it's and there's loads of amazing art in this book. I'm just really surprised that they were like, well, we have we've got to make sure that Stumper turns up on every few pages.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there's a couple of little oddities like that. It's a really good bit of artwork, but yeah, there is definitely some some odd bits like that. And then you've got obviously Colonel Schaefer doesn't have any art at this stage, but he was someone that stuck around for a bit longer and and had a miniature. Um, so you could see at this stage that they must have had ideas that that really changed by the time the third edition came along and and and the game moved forward. Did um Chenkov have a miniature? I I don't remember if he did or not either. If he did, it didn't look like that. Yeah, like the artwork. I know um Al Rahim did, I'm pretty sure he did. And am I dreaming of that?
SPEAKER_00I don't I don't I and I I might be mistaken here. I don't remember Nork Deadog, the Ogram bodyguard. Did he have a miniature?
SPEAKER_02Oh he's still around, he's he does now, right? So he's still around, he's still around now. Um not necessarily a brilliant miniature, my in my opinion, but yeah, he has he has one now. He's still around in the in the current version of the rules. He has he has rules. So uh I don't know if he did back then.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm not sure. I mean that could be yeah, could could totally have forgotten, could totally have missed it. But I think it's really interesting how you know that obviously was happened a lot more in this era. So like even the basilisk is here. There's a vehicle card for it and there's rules for it. Vehicle cards, by the way, amazing. I miss them. Yes, and I miss like you know, the way you did penetrating hits and glancing hits and damage tables. Really fun. I know it's a lot of extra faff, but I think it was very cool and theme. I liked it. Um, but yeah, you you know, the basilisk didn't exist. There wasn't a miniature for it at this time. So it's in here, it's got rules, but all the other vehicle cards have got pictures on, and then that's just text.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, it's uh it's a few odd ones. Just looking through the miniatures pages at the back, just in case it answered our question. Um it it it that clearly doesn't. I don't know. The uh the missing miniatures there that are are there. Yeah, there's a desert radar lieutenant, so maybe he was the miniature I was thinking of. Maybe they didn't do uh Al Raheem one.
SPEAKER_00Did you have a favourite piece of art from this then?
SPEAKER_02I there's an obvious one which is page five. It's one of the few full page pieces of artwork. Um I'm I'm also a fan, and it's very small in this book. It's actually bigger than the miniatures pages at the back, but on page 31, which is in the Macarius section, uh on the bit of lore around Macarius. Um, there's a a bit of a sort of battle scene where in the foreground is uh I don't know if it is a bane blade, actually. The uh the barrel looks quite small, so it might be a storm lore, but it's the bane blade chassis in the foreground, and then there's a few other super heavies around it, and uh just uh I just love the really big battle scene vistas, always do, and they look really, really amazing when they're done that especially when it's black and white art like that. It's just really cool.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, very cool, isn't it? Because you've got a real depth of field in there as well, you're seeing right the way I go along the battlefield, and that's very World War II looking like a bit of artwork.
SPEAKER_02Anything like that or that looks slightly reminiscent of Napoleonic stuff, so it's not in this book, but the the cover art that's used on the old Imperial Guard box set when you've got the uh the the the spiders, is it the commander spiders? And just that one of my favourite ever pieces of of artwork full stop on on for 40k. Just love it, absolutely love it.
SPEAKER_00It's it that's a magnificent piece. Yeah, it's a shame it's not in here, but then I guess you know it's slightly different feel to where this book has gone. Obviously, you could you could absolutely have like Napoleonic style to your world if you wanted to create it very easily, you could you could get hold of that and and and sort of fashion something like that up. Um I do quite like as well the Lehman Rus piece of art with the guns firing in different directions, the WX29, and you've got the you know the the um the captain sticking out the top, shooting his gun as well. Yes, it's very very cool.
SPEAKER_02But definitely less of the the kind of the big full page show stoppers in this, and I'm guessing it's because there's so much in it, it's packed full of different stuff. There's the the kind of the tactics explanation a bit later on about playing all tank harm with the blitzkrieg. There's quite a lot of miniatures pages at the back for advertising, it's like we've already mentioned loads of the heavy metal pages. So it's almost like there isn't time for putting whole double pages of maps and double pages. Well, there is a map as well, actually, isn't there? The character map um double, you know, the big the big pieces of art that we we we've seen in the fourth edition of fantasy books quite as much. Yeah, um, but there's lots of little bits of art throughout. Um, so maybe that's what it is.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, a lot a lot more sort of vignettes, little sort of images of the different squads, basically. And you're like an isolated character or a couple of characters. I think again, it does work really well to sort of give that feel of those different squads and kind of give that that picture of it. Um but overall, I mean, I think that this is it's a great book to revisit and to read through. Uh obviously a very different era of 40k, a very different era of Imperial Guard compared to where we are now, you know, not least in the name, but just in the in the this the sort of feel of this army is completely different. So I'm looking back now and sort of surprised that I didn't love the Imperial Guard more back in the day than I did, if that makes sense. So one of the things I so I when when Tao came out, for instance, I I fell in love with Tao instantly. I just really loved them, and one of the reasons why was because I'm a big fan of that kind of like the sort of cobbled together army. So even though they might, you know, a Tau force, for example, being like they're all very slick and polished, but you can have okay, we've got some recruit in there as well, and we've got some vespers and we've the recruited these guys, you know, and you get this different sort of feel to it where you have like a coalition in your army. Yeah, I quite like that. Different sized troops and different like natured troops is a big thing for me. I I'm a I'm a big fan of that. And the Imperial Guard Codex is like built around that, you know, not just with the you know, you have humans and and rattlings and ogrens and tanks, but also within the humans, there's all of these different feeling units that you bring together. So the reason the army looks cohesive because every part of it looks different, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm with you.
SPEAKER_00And I yeah, so I feel like I really missed a trick. Young Jordan totally missed a trick on on Imperial Guard. I don't know why I was more into them at the time.
SPEAKER_02I think I I was always into sort of military type stuff. I was already that was already a big pull factor for me anyway. So that it kind of felt pretty pretty obvious, and then especially with the covers like that and the films I was watching at that that time, um, it hooked hooked me in very easily.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean I I can imagine like I think where Imperial Guard have ended up now is is quite interesting. I I sort of I think I've maybe and this is probably just my general nostalgia. I think I yearn for the second edition or earlier editions of pretty much every army when I think about it. But for Imperial Guard, it feels like there's there's a lot of stuff on the table that's been left on the table, I guess. There's loads of cool stuff here that you absolutely could bring back and really do something very cool with. And I hope that they do basically. That's yeah. Not that there's not cool stuff right now, there absolutely is, but it feels like there's a load of cool stuff here that you could go, you know what, what's the modern version of this like?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think they've started to do it over the last few years. We had the older Cadians, and it was we were stuck in Cadia, and and to a certain extent we are now, but they brought back more of the the later versions of stuff. So you you your Creek, um, because it was forged well and it was expensive, and the new versions of that are are fantastic. The new Cadians I think are really nice, they're scaled really well. They're surprisingly small, so they actually look tiny next to Marines, which is we never quite got right in this area. Everyone's the same, same height, regardless of of what it was. Um, and a lot of the the units that you see here are all still in the game, or there's modern versions from it, and it's expanded. So um I could, you know, I could take my modern collection and play a game of second edition, no problem, because there's enough stuff that would uh you know counter as the things that it should be. Some of it's exactly the same. Um they need to do categens again, they they definitely need to update them. Um I much prefer the metal ones than the plastics and that came a little bit later on. Yeah, it just went a bit too crazy. Yeah, they didn't quite try again when they redo those, which they would they've got to. I'm a bit I mean, it was going off on a tangent here, but they announced to the reveals about for Armageddon that they were working on Steel Legion and teased, and yeah, I can understand that, but surely if you were going to do that, you would bring it out with an Armageddon release. If you've missed that release, why bring out another gas mask style um guardsman when you could do Katachans or or any of the others that don't look too much like Creek? Don't get me wrong, I'll I'd buy I will buy Steel Legion when they come out because I want them as well. But it feels very same. So if you're looking at it from the cold hard business perspective, why wouldn't you why wouldn't you return to Katachan now?
SPEAKER_00You'd feel that that will people would probably want I don't know, speaking speaking for other people, but uh well but then that you know for all we know you could get that very cool second edition style this month it's Steel Legion, the next month it's Catachan's, the month after, you know, Emperor willing, it is Valhalla's, and so on. You know, that would be great to see. Like a even if it's just a handful of miniatures for each, it would be fantastic to see some of these guys come back.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, hopefully. That'd be cool. There's too many armies to paint then, because I'd want to do them all and I don't want to do that. Yeah, I mean that's always gonna be the problem.
SPEAKER_00Is there anything else, Sue, from this book, that you would dwell on for a minute before we before we go?
SPEAKER_02No, I think I think we've we've kind of covered it really. I think uh overall in this area you've got the colour bits are so 1990s. Um but if you but if you like the the the grimmer, darker stuff there, it's still there. As soon as you get to the black and white pages, all of that artwork that you you liked before all of the Blanche type stuff, it's still it's still there and you can still have that um that grim dark feel. We weren't talking quite about this, but we mentioned before we started recording about you can make these games what you want them to be. You can have your own headcanon for these games sometimes. And if you you can still take the book of this era and play it very much in in a in a grimdark way and paint it in a certain way, and it it completely changes the way it looks. It doesn't have to look like the the the bright Rambo style cover. I think there's a lot more flex within the book um once you once you start reading it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, I think that's a very valid point. I mean, I would say, yes, the coloured pages, the heavy metal pages, they look very 1990s, and I would add complementary in black brackets after that, because I think that's that's a cool thing. That's very good. Yeah. But yeah, you're right. You don't have to play this with that heroic edge if you don't want to. Because within the foundations of this, and I guess this is great writing overall, really, they've made it more accessible in this book, and they've sort of softened a lot of the edges. If you want to just focus on the heroics and like, yeah, these guys must have volunteered and gone out to defend their space empire, then you can absolutely have that, but then you can also like read the Marcar the Macaria story and get like he put all of his men through absolute hell and suffering basically out of ego to take them to the edge of the universe, and he just wanted to keep going because he's you know the Alexander the Great of Space. Like that that's a fantastic story, and that speaks to the super grimdark elements of it, you know. And he he wept for for his men wouldn't follow him to conquer more worlds, basically. Uh so yeah, there's it's all there. You can absolutely play with that later feel and that later aesthetic or the earlier feeling aesthetic, or you can just enjoy the goblin green bases if you want.
SPEAKER_02And just do a complete mix like I did, which is bizarre.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, but yeah, I think it's a fantastic era, and I think you know, it's the these books are so fun to revisit. I think that they just there is great writing here, there's fantastic world building. Some of these pages where you're you know, like you say, you're jumping from story to rules to like play guides to all this sort of stuff. Some of these pages they have just thrown a thousand ideas into like three or four paragraphs, and they'll just be name-dropping like world-building elements, brand new stuff that's never been mentioned anywhere else, tying back to other stuff that pre-existed and was from earlier versions, and just knitting it all together. And I think that that's so it's just such a good way of writing, and it's something that the the Warhammer writers and Rick Priestley in particular have always done really well is just pepper everything with all of these cool concepts and names, they don't explain most of them, and your imagination just runs wild with it. You're like, what's that? You know, that sounds amazing. I want to find out more about it. I want to know about that weird planet they went to and fought this bizarre alien. That that we there'll probably never be any more information about, but it it just like plants the seed of excitement and like, oh, I want to fight that battle. I want to I want to play in this universe. That's why I think that this these editions, these codex books do really well, and this is a great example of it.
SPEAKER_02Bournemouth, I mean to add to that actually, as we were just coming to a close nice and neatly there, um the the Talon story um is really quite long and detailed in this, considering we we got what 10 squad of 10 and a left tenant and a and a and a and a gun team. Um the the the the story and the law for Talon is you know is is is what we have today for for for the heresy side of it. That that tells you quite a lot about the prehistory of that, why that the planet was the way it was. Well, that's kind of the story we have in the heresy stories today within the the novels for it as well. Um, you know, reading that um over the last couple of weeks, I thought, well, I I know this because I've heard this story retold 40 years later by different authors. Um, so so that little you know, a couple of thousand words or a thousand words or whatever he wrote for those sections is is lived on and um is is part of the the law very much today. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I bet there's a lot of stuff that has changed. Like I think if you did a forensic examination of the law here, there'll be loads of names and dates and places that have shifted and moved and been removed. But there's a lot of stuff here that is like that's bedrock, that is the foundational work that later writers or even the same writers revisiting have then spun out into all kinds of fascinating stuff. So yeah, I think it it it's it's a great it's a great example of just r really cool 40k writing. It is very much it has all of the fingerprints of this particular era of Games Workshop, you know, with the with the colour schemes and with the way of writing and the way of storytelling. But it is really neat, it's just really well done. Okay. Well, I mean, I think we've got a couple of other codex books and Warhammer Army books that we are excited to revisit. Um, you know, we're we're gonna be delving into some more of them, and I'm sure they'll have you know, maybe the conclusion would be exactly the same on some of those books because they're all so much fun. But yeah, very much looking forward to checking out a couple of other factions and and seeing what else we can dig up from these older books. But you know, for now, Stu, thank you very much for for joining me. Where can people find you online?
SPEAKER_02Uh miniature realms, YouTube first, and lots of supporting social media network stuff as well, but miniature realms, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Fantastic. And I'm Jordan Sorcery everywhere if you want to check out my stuff. And yeah, the GW Book Club, it will be back in the future. And we're gonna take a look at some more of this kind of stuff. So join us then.
SPEAKER_01Thanks for watching.