|
Let me preface this by saying I was a play-tester for this system, and my voice was heard as was many others. Fantasy Flight first released an editon of this game about a year ago that had vastly different mechanics than the previous edition, we in the community spoke out against that and Fantasy Flight did not ignore us, instead it went back to the drawing board and produced a better product. For that, I am grateful and I must say I have never picked up a Fantasy Flight game that I have been disappointed in.
PRAISE THE EMPEROR THIS BOOK ROCKS! Sums up my first impression, but for a more comprehensive opinion on why read on....
Layout Beautiful. The yellow coloring to the pages gives it the look of parchment and seems easy on the eyes. There is some rehashed artwork, but a lot of it( I would say at least half) seems new. I have two minor grips- The first is mechanical, I wish they kept the side tabs that tell you what section you are in as you are flipping through the book that some of the other WarHammer 40k games have. The second is ascetic - The map of the Askellon Sector is a bit odd, and though I understand the artistic concept, I would have liked a more official looking map like that of the Calixis sector in Dark Heresy 1st.
Concept They hit it out of the park here. The idea of balancing how subtle your team is and how much influence they have is a good concept and something I had starting doing in my home games. This gives me a clear mechanic for that, but still leaves enough ambiguity for creative license. The character creation has added the layer of background. Do you want to be a Psyker, but have a connection to the Adeptus Arbites? Yes, you can do that. Do you want to be an assassin of the Astra Telepathica? Yep you can do that too.
Mechanics As this is my first impression I have not looked closely at the mechanics yet. There is a very cool thing in the book about having the players make the Inquisitor and even his/her warband, but there are not solid mechanics for that. I do like that, but I think I might borrow the Regiment Creation Mechanics from Only War to do that. Speaking of Only War, the aptitudes from that system are in Dark Heresy 2nd . At first I was not in love with the aptitudes when they showed up in Only War, but I have grown to appreciate them, and I am kind of glad to see them, it also makes borrowing the regiment creation rules from Only War that much easier.
At first glance the basic mechanics are going to gel well with previous editions of the other Warhammer 40k rules, with the possible exception of Pskyer powers which has always been an issue across the editions. Fate points have some expanded usage, and most of the core mechanics remain in this edition with some overhaul.
Overall, I am very pleased with what I have read so far and think this will be the crowning jewel of the already great Warhammer 40k RPGs by Fantasy Flight.
