So how does this 40K thing work then?

[Primarch]

Turns out I may be playing 40K at NagoyaHammer: http://www.nagoyahammer.com/forum/viewt ... f=3&t=3705 (Towards the end of the first post).

So I did a quick search for "How to build an army for 8th edition 40K" and this was the first page that came up???

I guess I need the core rules, FAQs and a codex, but what about the Chapter Approved books? Are the CA books required or just optional extras? Are the Index books required as well or have they been replaced by the relevant Codex books entirely?

[The Other Dave]

Index books are superceded entirely* by codexes, yes. Chapter Approved books are required in the sense that they have all the updated points values and codify adoptions of beta rules and such - that's what they're for, really - but Battlescribe always updates point values like a week after CA comes out, so realistically you can just crib from there. If you want to get the book, though, each CA does replace the one before for points values and rules adoptions, so you'd only need the latest unless you want the extra stuff like missions (which, to be sure, are good) and rules for how to make your own land raider in open play.

*Except in the case of "legacy" models, to wit: there are a lot of wargear options that used to be allowed in codexes that aren't any more (they're restricting units and models to "things that you can give them straight out of the box"), so if you find yourself with a model with "illegal" wargear, there's a 99% chance it's in the relevant index, and you can use the index entry in place of the codex entry in this case.