
There are plenty of helpful sidebars, simplified graphics, and informative diagrams as well. Key features include helpful bullet-point summaries, so you can scan a page and quickly find your bearings. They read less like the rules of a fiddly tabletop wargame and more like a really accessible, easy-to-understand textbook. The rules themselves are very finely wrought this time around, especially when compared to previous editions of the game. The best bits - especially the double-page foldout galaxy map - serve to elevate the Core Book to more of an in-fiction artifact than a game manual. But, for those who are steeped in the lore of the 41st millennium, it’s nice to have it all in one coffee table-style book. That’s a pretty big fluff-to-rules ratio, and a lot of that fluff feels redundant. Meanwhile, the expanded core rules themselves come in at a modest 75 pages.

Backstory and table setting accounts for 191 of those pages - more than half the book. How much lore? The Core Book is more than 367 pages long. A beginner’s guide to buying and painting miniatures
