I can confirm that AOWSM did come with a printed Manual ..... (yes, I have one in English)....
The Appendix is just an Appendix... (no idea where it came from or what version it shipped with). But it most certainly was not the US Retail Version.

AFAIK Triumph Studios no longer owns the rights to the manual the writers do as explained in a Impulse Blog awile back

Does it matter? I seriously doubt that one who is allowed to sell a game is not allowed to add the manual to that game. Sure, its not rocket science, but a few infos would be helpful to look after.

At least it is good to know that I wasn't too stupid to find it. :D

In 2015 we will continue talking about AOW manuals

Does it matter? I seriously doubt that one who is allowed to sell a game is not allowed to add the manual to that game

It probably matters quite alot if you're the copyright holder or GOG want to avoid being taken court for distribution of content they don't own. Think of all those court cases the record companies keep bringing.

The UK release had a 192 page manual that is actually one of the better one's I've seen. A lot of it is similar to the original game so the main differences are around stats for the new races, spells etc most of which can be seen in game. It does, however, list the main differences for those who want to dive straight in.
Three new races
New campaign
Random map generator
New racial structures unique to each race
Item forge to make your own magic items
New spells and skills
Rebalanced units (although 1.3 and 1.4 change this again)
New level - Shadow World in addition to Surface and underground
Custom portraits
New editor

And before anyone asks the binding means its not an easy book to scan (even if I owned a scanner),

I wish some kind soul would scan the Shadow Magic manual.

Here's the link, it is a manual for Shadow Magic and not some appendix:

http://replacementdocs.com/download.php?view.8643

Thank you bbohl for that link

Absolutely - Thanks for the link. It's a bit blurry but much better than nothing. Now if someone can find/scan the manual in a better resolution that would be great.

Apparently replacementdocs has banned my IP for spamming... what? I've barely ever visited that site before. O_o

found the manuals here

Thank you sharonbn.

Thanks!

Thanks Sharonbn, very cool!

Necromancer.