Charmander said: xandarian said: So this is a little off topic, but the first response to this post mentioned Eldar stats on the boards somewhere. I have been unable to find them. Could someone post a link please? http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=214&efcid=3&efidt=435365&efpag=0 And No-1 has them on his site (he wrote 'em): http://www.n01h3r3.com/ I'm sure it's all really well made, though I can't find the talent Fight Withdrawal in the DW rulebook; do you not think that FFG should have done this themselves? Could they not have done a Xenos Compendium early one (before even RT was released) with rules that could be used for any game? After all if it's as easy as people say to create your own stuff (and balanced as well, of course) then what would have been the problem? YOu can't tell me such a book wouldn't be popular.

Blood Pact said: signoftheserpent said: The issues are the same: lack of antagonists (literally, there's nothing in the corebook other than 1 kroot, 1 ork, 1 eldar and a couple of daemons), plus the complete lack of starship rules. I call bull! There are full rules for starships, how combat works, how flying around, and navigating warp space work. Weapons, various components, and 8 different hulls running from Transport all the way up to Cruiser (the Lunar class). Everything you need. What is it going to take to please you!? RT had a real dearth of starship content. Like DW's antagonist section (and just as important) it was the barest of barebones. Battlefleet Koronus didn't come out till a couple of years later.that is not something that makes sense. DW could have cut Extraction and included content similar to that fo the rest of the antagonist section and covered orks and eldar as well. Orks owuldn't really need much detail and an Eldar presence would be quite conceivably small, so you don't need more than a basic squad to start with anyway. Extraction could have been made free web content (if at all; i have no problem with including adventures, but not as such a priority). There are ways and means.

kenshin138 said: Orks and Eldar are not major players in the setting, that is why they aren't included, plain and simple. I am curious to know what your issues with Rogue Trader are though. IMHO it is the best of the 3 RPG's. The issues are the same: lack of antagonists (literally, there's nothing in the corebook other than 1 kroot, 1 ork, 1 eldar and a couple of daemons), plus the complete lack of starship rules.I understand that FFG have chosen to remove orks and eldar from the Jericho Reach...in a game about the Ordos Xenos. That doesn't really make much sense surely? And even if it wasn't about the Deathwatch, surely these are 2 of the most iconic factions in the setting, why choose to just edit them out?

I stand by my criticisms of the game; it's what compelled me to give up on RT. I think they are valid points even though I have zero influence over FFG's decision making or influence with GW. That said, and weighing it all up, I have decided to buy Deathwatch. Hopefully I won't regret it, but such are the choices we make.

so when is Mark of the Xenos actually released.

You've missed the piont again. This is not about whether other people or even myself can create their own efforts to fill in the blanks - and the fact that people have done so proves the demand is there. It's about the fact there are blanks to begin with. No one is asking for the ENTIRE chaos army to be statted up from top to toe. No one is complaining they can't use the Eye of Terror because it's not in the Jericho Reach. I am asking why a space marine game doesn't have more information for the gm with regard to enemies for those marines. Why buy the game at all if you are comfortable making stuff up? Save yourself the money, buy some fluff books or some wargame codexes and go that way. Do you seriously think it's reasonable to expect an interested player to end up buying every 40k book going? It's hardly an efficient way to run a game anyway - cross referencing multiple books from across various lines. Never mind carrying them around to and from sessions. Can you not see there must be a better way of doing things? D&D players guide dm guide and monster manual cost £60 DH + CA (which is the game it was designed for) costs £70 (give or take) and even then only has limited info (including orks, for some reason). Even following FFG's logic the execution is strange: why are orks in a book intended for inqusitorial games? Why not then Dark Eldar? Necrons? Tau? Kroot?Ethereals? Buying books from DH or RT for DW just for a chapter's worth of info is wholly inefficient. Don't get me wrong, if money was no object i'd buy it all. But that's not the real world and these books, gorgeous though they are, are certainly not cheap. We don't even know what is going to be in Mark of Xenos (except in broad terms). Do we get rules for creating our own chaos forces, or will it be like CA and provide very specific antagonists that, at best, we have to retrofit for variety (unless you want to fight the same daemons over and over), each with their own very specific rules to learn.

If the FFG approach was complete enough then why have people gone out of their way to create their own orks, necrons, eldar, dark eldar, whatever? Why would you need to recommend that I use that stuff if the game is complete? Clearly there is a demand for these things, and that cannot possibly come as a surprise to FFG nor can it be deemed unreasonable - these are intrinsic parts of the setting.

What other games and their designers do is a matter for them and their customers. They have no bearing on what happens here.

Siranui said: Stint? Have you seen the size and quality of the rules? Again: What game gets it right, in your opinion? The quality isnt the issue. The rules are only sizeable because they are complex, that's an arbitrary decision made by the designers. Other games are not relevant.

I dont expect them to cover the ENTIRE universe in one book. I expect them to give the relevant details appopriate coverage. Now there seems to be another contradiction: Chaos shouldn't be in the DW book because the DW don't fight chaos. But that's a daft approach to take for a space marine game. Furthermore, and more relevantly, there's no info on creating aliens in the book. There's no guidance that i can see, no tips or tools. So again, wtf? The problem is FFG are painting themselves into corners. They choose to do a space marine game, then say it's about DW so no chaos but then give no info on Xenos. They say there are no orks in the JR, but give characters the ability to choose what is then a pointless trait. Why on earth design the JR to be ork free in a 40k game? How is that logical compared to including a couple of orks in CA for acolytes to fight? There's no reason for that. Could they not have designed a comprehensive monster manual earlier on and made it future proof so it's compatible with the power levels of each game? Could they not have engineered each game to be more compatible thus? I mean it's not rocket science is it. Space Marine players need enemies otherwise it's going to suck. So why stint on this stuff?

Why on earth would the designer of a 40k game leave out detailed info on Chaos adversaries, Tau adversaires (there isn't even kroot or vespid in the book), never mind Orks or Eldar? That suggests a prospective player looking at DW and thinking "wouldn't it be cool to have a Kill Team infiltrate a Chaos stronghold to retrieve something while being shadowed by an inscrutable and possibly dangerous Eldar squad after the same item" is asking for something beyond what a 40k Space Marine rpg offers with the implication that such an idea is thus not in keeping with the setting. How does that make sense? Ok he can wing it, or create his own stats, but that's not the point. A game should give the players all the tools they need to play the kind of adventures reasonably expected within the setting. That isn't the same at all as asking for EVERY creature/entity to be statted up either. It is completely contradictory to say, on one hand, here are the rules for playing space marines and kicking ass, then on the other 'do it all yourself'.

I realise that other games do things their way, but that is not really relevant. We aren't talking about other games. It's a big deal to me that the game is lacking in what would seem to be a core area. The arguyment that it's crunchy is not really a good one since there was no reason the game needed to be. It is what it is, but for me I have to decide if it's worth it. I don't even know what Mark of the Xenos contains (other than a big tyranid). So far FFG's approach hasn't made much sense to me. I don't want a specific monster, I want core rules for core monsters or at least a toolkit to do it myself, not be left guessing, or relying on books from other games I don't own either. The point about Chaos vehicles was not so that the players could use them, but so that the GM has stuff to throw against them, trhe same with rules for chaos sorcerers, other monsters and such. CHaos is THE main antagonist for the space marines and they have so little in the core book. That doesn't really make much sense to me in what is a combat game. Are you going to give the players the Daemon prince to fight every game?

Arkhan said: It IS your decision to buy additional books. You can play the game just fine using only the core rulebook. You're just a little limited on your choice of foes (if you don't want to develop your own). Do you really expect the developers to include EVERYTHING in one single book? In my opinion, that's a little much to ask. It is absolutely common to publish a creatures/adversaries/monsters book seperately from the core rules, that's not something FFG invented. Basically your options have now been named several times. You want more enemies? You have two options: 1. Wait for Mark of the Xenos and then buy it, it features exactly what you are looking for (hopefully) 2. Use the already published material to make your own foes or use the stats provided in this here forum. So wouldn't it be best to provide tools for people to make their own? Even the Daemon Prince in the book has a ton of very specific information that's going to test a new GM's knowledge of the rules, but there's no guidance on how to customise him beyond a very basic level. He's the only Daemon in the book as well. Surely a toolkit approach is better. A game about combat is going to struggle without things to fight!I don't expect them to include everytyhing; I expect them to take a reasonable approach to the setting and give me the tools to do the rest. But the book doesn't even seem to provide Chaos powers beyond those listed for the Daemon prince. So while Chaos alone would be enough to contend with even that gets short shrift; no chaos sorcery, psykers, or equipment! It seems very strange for a game that's so detailed to skimp on the one thing that really you would want the most info for - foes! Couldn't Rites of Battle have included some of this sort of stuff as an all round game companion book? I have no idea what's in Mark of the Xenos, but i'm guessing less a focus on Chaos and more on aliens. Even then it will likely be very specific stuff when what seems needed is a toolkit to let players create their own stuff since what plauyers have created is inevitably going to be founded purely on guesswork.

Now you aer putting words in my mouth. I didn't say I don't want to buy extra books, but that that should be my choice. I shouldn't be compelled to do so because the official material lacks content. It isn't an answer to say use other people's created material: why does a game about Space Marines feature so anaemic a chapter on adversaries for example? How much does it cover regarding the forces of chaos - marines, sorcerers, mutated tanks, daemons, warp creatures, heretics? I don't understand why a game developer would stint on such material when it's guaratneed to sell games. In lieu o fthat a recommendation to buy RT (again) for the page it has covering Kroot mercs seems unreasonable.

But again that's material from a different game, requiring the inefficient purchase of books just for a couple of pages of data.

Siranui said: There is already plenty on Orks in other sourcebooks, so adding Tau actually added something to all of the 40k RPGs. That said, it's not like Orks are in any way excluded from the game simply by their exclusion from the rulebook. There are stats for them in RT and DW, and any GM worth their salt can just make something up... or just use the frankly excellent ork stats recently published on the forum. That's missing the point though. Firstly there is a degree of scale: Ork stats from whatever other sourcebook they are in (depending on how much of the orks they cover, not just basic infantry) might be out of kilter with how DW is set up. Secondly, it's not terribly cost effective to expect the DW player (ie me) to buy a book from DH or RT just to access a few pages worth of information. This is my problem with FFG: they are not organising themselves very efficiently in this respect and they seem intent on portioning out what is objectively intrinsic setting info (eg, Orks, whom whether you choose to use them, you cannot argue are not fundamental to the setting) based on their interpretation and ideas for how we play 40k. THe Jericho Reach, Calixis and Koronus settings may be very good, but they are the lens forced on people playing this games through which the 40k experience is viewed. There are no other options, which brings me to point three: making up your owns tuff. That's fine - if you have the time or inclination. But it only goes so far. I'd buy DW on the basis I don't have to do a lot of the work: now you might think making up Ork stats is all good or using someone else's handiwork, again fine, but there is a limit at which point the published material starts to become redundant. I don't really want to make up my own stuff, certainly not for fairly fundamental setting elements, that's what I'd be paying FFG for - especially when they portion that info out so haphazardly. It's one thing to say 'faction xyz is currently dormant', but it's quite another to put stats for said faction in the back of a completely unrelated and otherwise useless book. I'm sure if you own EVERYTHING for all the games it mightmake sense, but that's a lot of money!

I don't think Tau are a good choice of enemy as they aren't inherently 'bad' (or rather, everyone's bad in the 40k universe, really - there are no good guys frm an objective point of view). Necrons would have been better, even an ork waagh.

I have read complaints that the Marines are just unstoppable relative to their enemies in the way the rules work. Unbalanced wepaons isn't terribly inspiring in a game about space marines either! I also hear there's a lot of errata/mistakes in the corebook (has there been a second printing?) And no Orks? Why Tau above Orks? I don't understand that at all, surely Orks are just iconic; i'm not a fan of them but they make more sense than Tau. And again no Necrons I guess.

I wasn't very impressed with RT, which I subsequently sold because I thought the corebook was exceptionally lacking in terms of critical information. I am however thinking of getting Deathwatch, however I have some concerns. There are some that feel the rules are not balanced, I have heard that the characters are just very overpowered (in a game breaking sense) and that the game is unbalanced. I'm also concerned as to what the rulebook contains, as with RT. I have no problem with supplements, but books aren't cheap and there is, IMO, a fundamental level of information, in any game, that a core rulebook must provide. How does DW measure up?

Cyber-Dave said: Meh. When the game started to interest me, I just went out and bought every product released for it. I don't regret my purchase either. WFRPG3e is great! I'm not commenting on it's quality, but it's cost.

Callidon said: The cost can be prohibitive but you might be able to find a lightly used pile of gear from an online source at a more reasonable price. I personally am going to bite off the full price to support my FLGS but that's just a personal quirk on my end (one amongst many Unfortunately the cost IS prohibitive and I have to wonder if this component-heavy approach was really the best way forward. £70 (it isn't much cheaper on places like ebay either) is just the price for the basic box, never mind anything else.I can't reconcile these sorts of price policies, even if the cpomonents justify it, for pen and paper gaming. You might expect this for things like wargaming or videogaming. Sorry, I'm out. Thanks anyway.

I had hoped there would be a less expensive way to get into this game. I have no problem with FFG releasing a 'chit-dependent' product, if you like, but the buy in price for wfrp3e is, imo, too much. Certainly for me at least. That's not to say it isn't any good, but £60-70 for just the basic set (which, iirc, hasn't got much to offer wizards and priests) is just too much for me at the moment. That's a shame, and from the looks of it using the books and dice would cost at least as much.

I hear there are considerable errors in the book, due to printing (presumably). Is this true?

Does the GM guide not contain essential material?

Are these books the entire game without the need for the boxed set? Are both necessary? Do you need anything else (such as the dice)? Thanks. Your explanation helps chaos abate.