#battle manual

Warhammer 40,000 Battle Manual (1992) is an expansion of the Rogue Trader rules, focusing on troops. The Vehicle Manual came out at the same time and provided revised rules for, you guessed it, vehicles. That book is less visually exciting though, and that’s what I’m here for, so Battle Manual it is. Tons of space devoted to weaponry, probably the majority of the book.

There are some considerable aesthetic changes going on at this point. You can see that the old style beaked space marine helmets have been replaced by what I like to call the radiator grill style — this is what I think of when I think of 40k space marines. Focus is now split between space marines, orcs and the Alien-esque Tyranids. This surprises me, since both Realm of Chaos books were out a while at this point. I guess the taint of Chaos is slower to spread than I thought.