Rule Book

Welcome to the dark universe of the 41^st millennium. The book you're holding contains all of the game rules for Epic 40,000: how armies move and fight on the battlefield. If you have never played Epic 40,000 before I'd recommend that you read through the Getting Started sheet Not included in this compendium before you plunge into this rulebook. That should give you an overall idea of how the game works before you read the rules themselves.

Whether you're a new commander or a veteran Epic campaigner it's worth reading through the whole rulebook from the beginning. It doesn't matter if you can't remember all of the rules straight away, just get a feel for the order of them and where to find things when you're playing. All of the important stuff is summarised on the reference sheet and the best way to learn is to play a game and then look up things as they occur.

The rulebook itself is split into two sections, the core rules and the special rules. The core rules are the actual nuts and bolts of what you need to play the game. The special rules are ones which apply to particular kinds of models — Titans, flyers, artillery, that kind of thing. You don't really need to know the special rules until you start fighting with these units but I'm sure you'll be using them in no time!

We've tried to write this rulebook so that it's as concise as possible without resorting to legalistic jargon with masses of exceptions and conditions. Instead the rulebook explains the core rules as clearly and simply as possible with plenty of diagrams and examples.

In a game of such literally Epic proportions occasional situations are bound to arise which aren't covered directly in the rules. Discussions of some of these and some guidelines on interpreting the spirit of the game are included in the Battles Book. If you do run into a situation where no clearly defined rules exist you should feel free to improvise a rule or agree with your opponent on a procedure.

The Battles Book also includes suggested rules for setting up battles, scenarios to play and working out who has won a game. We regard these as a matter of player choice rather than part of the game rules, which is why we've taken them out of the rulebook and discussed them in more detail elsewhere.