Editing Codex (section)

=== Supplements ===
A supplement is a mini-codex, an add-on containing additional rules in order to have an army from a mainstay codex with unique features and abilities. This is as awesome in theory as it sounds but the supplements of recent years have suffered in varying levels of quality up and down like a roller coaster.

The peak of supplements was back in the early 2000, back in the 3rd Edition when you could get supplements like Codex Craftworld Eldar, Catachans, and Assassins. For a small cost of £4 you could get a bunch of rules allowing you to customize your army, some quality fluff and a scenario or two. It was short, neatly packed and exactly the worth of price you were paying.

Since that time though GW has gone down the dark route of profit mining and the supplements are no exception to what has happened in recent years. Supplements are no longer the small extras from before but now the same size (and cost) as the mainstay codexes. While this may not sound like a problem, you still have to have the main ones in order to use them and depending on the writer current edition supplements can be hit or miss. In 6th edition, for example, Black Legion is considered perfectly acceptable for fluff for example while Iyanden and Sentinels of Terra have received their fair share of problems. Clan Raukaan has something of an opposite issue from Black Legion: The fluff is quite flimsy, but the rules and items are really good, to the point of spawning [[Chapter Master Smashfucker|a meme of a character]]. The Crimson Slaughter is perhaps the 6E Supplement with the least complaints, as the fluff was entirely new, while the rules happened to be rather good.

Some supplements such as [[Blood Angels]], [[Dark Angels]], and [[Space Wolves]] from 2E onward have grown to become a full-on army and mainstead codex releases now, to allow you to use their rules beyond their specific chapters as the fluff on their successor chapters have been expanded (which at least is a good silver lining)...before 9th Edition reined in all of these variant-chapter armies aside from the [[Grey Knights]] and folded them back into being full-price Codex Supplements.