It's really a nice little book, hardbound, with a sewn binding (lovely in the days of codicies that don't last more than a month before pages start falling out). Full color, and printed on nice (if a little glossy) paper, this is a book that feels like it's worth the $25 (really $24.75 with the new screwy pricing)
Judging books by their covers aside, the content is very nice. Each province has a number of different examples of color schemes on both infantry and war machines, with nice callouts for things unique to each province, like common variants of armor, etc (My personal favorite? Apparently Helblaster crews tend to wear symbols of Morr to show that they're paid up with the priesthood of the god of death). Each province also has a page showing a unique unit for the province, typically an elite regiment, but there are a couple of other nice ones. The TO&E of a Drakwald Patrol is especially cool. I want to call attention to the fact that pretty much every illustration in the book is unique, rather than a recolor of a different one, which is the case in Insignum Astartes, which is more expensive to boot! The pictures in this book do a great job of illustrating the many ways in which the colors of a province can end up on the varied uniforms of Empire troops.
Not everything is perfect, but honestly at this point I'm nitpicking. The book is a little smaller than I'd like, both in length and dimensions. I would love more content, but if it came at the expense of quality, I'm happy with how much is in the book. It does kinda bug me that it is a little shorter and narrower than an army book, but that's mostly shelving OCD. There is also no hobby content in the book, it's entirely in-character. Again, not necessarily a bad thing, but with the new Marius Leitdorf model out, and my Averland army gestating, a few tutorials on how to paint different tricky parts of the heraldry (YELLOW!) would not be out of place. Hopefully we'll see more web content as the new wave of models settles on the shelves. My other two nitpicks are entirely fluff-based. They point out that there are eight remaining Steam Tanks, but then only depict three. I know that they're probably leaving the other ones nebulous so that people can design their own, but I'd really like to see the others, to see if there is one that is "historically accurate" to put in my force. Also, in the Dwarf army book, they make a point of mentioning that while the Empire has bigger cannons than the Dwarfs, they are cast from brass rather than forged from steel, which is a technology only the Dwarfs possess. Every single cannon in the book is silver or black, with nary a brass one in sight. Crazy nitpicks from a Dwarf player, I know.
Bottom line is, this is a fantastic book for anyone that is even a little bit interested in the Empire. If you have an Empire army, you really ought to check it out, especially for the unique regiments. I'm really tempted to paint up one of my own, and I finally found a Knightly Order I like in the book. GW likes to talk up how players should identify with Empire provinces like they do with Space Marine chapters, and I think this book is the necessary addendum to the hobby section in the Empire army book for players to find that affinity.
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