Hello,
I managed to snag a copy of the 40K RPG. (Special thanks to the
gentleman at the FLGS who kindly pointed me to a nearby bookstore which
had a copy as the FLGS had rapidly sold out of all 11 copies they had by
the time I made it there this weekend.)
While I haven't had a chance to do an in depth read of the book, I have
liked what I've been able to glean from my initial perusal.
The book itself has a heavy card style cover similar to those of the
modern Dungeons & Dragons books. The cover has a combination of mostly
matte finish with a few glossy areas. (I'm not sure how well the cover
with fair with age as it's not an overall gloss cover like the D&D
books.) The binding is definitely stitched and my copy appears to be
very well made and free of defects - which is good since the book is 400
pages long. The pages themselves are full gloss high quality paper
throughout the entire book. (Very nice!) Other than the potential
shelfware / handling issues with the cover, it seems to be a very finely
made book, and the price seems 'reasonable' compared to the page count.
The book contains a good bit of artwork much of which will already be
familar to long term 40K players, but there is some which is new (to me
at least). Personally I think they did a very nice job with the art -
the book is very readable with enough black & white and full color art
to keep one's visual interest too. As an added plus - there are ZERO GW
advertisements within the book itself as far as I can tell - unlike
Inquisitor that had damn near 30+ pages of ads. The only ads are the
last 3 pages and cover 40K, WFB, and Blackindustries novels.
The rules are laid out in what seems to be a very well thought out and
organized manner, and the table of contents is 3 pages long and detailed
right down to the contents and location of various 'sidebars' which will
make finding needed information very easy.
Character creation runs for about the first 120 pages of the book, the
armory & gear section covers about 30 pages (the armory seems to consist
entirely of Imperial tech - no alien gear), and psychic powers another
20 pages. The game mechanics / playing the game covers about 35 pages.
The GM's section starts on page 218 and runs through 244. After that is
the 'background' a.k.a. 'Fluff' section on the Imperium in general, and
the Inquisition in specific for whom the players work (p 246 - 264 / 267
- 281.) After that is a long section on the 'Calixix Sector' (where the
game is initial based) runing from page 286 through 323. And the last
sections are 'Aliens, Heretics, & Antagonists' and 'Illumination' both
of which are for the Game Master.
The game mechanics are based on D10 / percentile rolls. Character
creation seems pretty straight forward with players choosing or rolling
for a homeworld (Feral, Hive World, Imperial {general/wide variety}, and
'Void Born') each of which offers a set of advantages and disadvantages
to the character's later skills and abilities. Next is stat generation,
followed by Career path (Adept, Arbitrator, Assassin, Cleric, Guardsman,
Imperial Psyker, "Scum", and Tech-Priest), spending points & buying
equipment, and finally describing your characters appearence and
personality, etc.
Overall, I like the book and what I've seen of the rules and background
so far. I can't really comment on the mechanics as I haven't read that
far yet. (If the book's layout and design is any indication, I'd be
willing to be the rules are reasonably well done too.) My only quibble
would be the character sheet at the back is done in color in sepia tones
which likely make photo-copying it a pain. That said, I'd be willing to
bet that it won't be long before someone creates an MS word or Excel
version of the character sheet in any case.
Overall, the book seems like a fair value for the money priced at $50
US. It seems a shame that Blackindustries has come out with a very nice
product only to discontinue it before it has a chance to really take
off.
Myr
--
"I'm already impoverished from buying wargames minis,
and I'm too knackered for riotous living..."
-- Moramarth
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