Warhammer 40,000 - Supplements and Expansions

Supplements and Expansions

There are many variations to the rules and army lists that are available for use, typically with an opponent's consent. These rules are found in the Games Workshop publication White Dwarf, on the Games Workshop website, or in the Forge World Imperial Armour publications.

The rules of Warhammer 40,000 are designed for games between 500 and 2500 points, with the limits of a compositional framework called the Force Organisation Chart making games with larger point values difficult to play. In response to player comments, the Apocalypse rules expansion was introduced to allow 3000+ point games to be played. Players might field an entire 1000-man Chapter of Space Marines rather than the smaller detachment of around 30-40 typically employed in a standard game. also contains rules for using larger war machines such as Titans.

Cities of Death (the revamp of Codex Battlezone: Cityfight) introduces rules for urban warfare and guerilla warfare, and so-called "stratagems", including traps and fortifications. It also has sections on modeling city terrain and provides examples of armies and army lists modeled around the theme of urban combat.

Planetstrike, released 2009. Sets rules allowing players to represent the early stages of a planetary invasion. New game dynamics, such as dividing the players into an attacker and a defender, each having various tactical benefits tailored to their role; for example, the attacker may deep strike all infantry, jump infantry and monstrous creatures onto the battlefield, while the defender may set up all the terrain on the battlefield.

Planetary Empires, released August 2009, allows players to coordinate full-scale campaigns containing multiple battles, each using standard rules or approved supplements such as Planetstrike, Cities of Death or Apocalypse. Progress through the campaign is tracked using hexagonal tiles to represent the current control of territories within the campaign. The structure is similar to Warhammer Fantasy's Mighty Empires.

Battle Missions, released March 2010, this expansion contains a series of 'missions' with specific objectives, each 'race' has 3 specific missions which can be played, these missions are determined by a dice roll and are usually chosen from the 2 armies being used. They still use the standard rules from the Warhammer 40,000 rule book.

Spearhead, released May/June 2010, allows players to play games with a greater emphasis on armored and mechanized forces. The most notable change to the game is the inclusion of special "Spearhead Formations;" and greater flexibility in force organization. "Spearhead Formations" represent a new and altogether optional addition to the force organization system standard to 40K. Players now have the ability to use all, part or none of the standard force organization. Spearhead also includes new deployment options and game scenarios. This expansion is being released jointly through the Games Workshop website, as a free download, and through the company's monthly hobby magazine White Dwarf.