More than a few typos, actually - there are several threads here about changes that they need to make. But, the basic game is very good, since most of the necessary errata is more-or-less logical to resolve. For friendly, non-tournament games, it's really good. Plays quick, fun, challenging, and units with great potential and personality. Go ahead and get the first edition; I personally will be flabbergasted if we see a second edition before 2014.

Sadly, what would work best would be a sort of structured approach to Black Crusade's chaos (pun intended), giving a set of basic level templates and allowing players to pay more sooner for various upgrades, if they wish. That way it has the feel of military structure - which is going to be a large part of the role-play experience; you do get to play with big toys, but they're not yours, and someone else has the keys, basically - while allowing the oft-times chaotic change that happens to people in military service, and particularly in time of active fighting.

Forget the Baneblade; it's a wuss. Give me a Stormhammer, and a fair sea to sail her by (what? She's already got half the gun turrets of a full-blown destroyer. Why not the seafaring analogy?).

(Just an addendum to my previous post:) There's an additional reason to resent the 'tied to one path' mechanic of the normal 40K RPG level system (other than just disappointment with the static and restrictive nature of it in general), and it's a reason specific to the 'you're in the army now' business that seems to be addressed by Only War: Military life is anything but static! It's not only traditional, it's completely normal for a soldier to change MOS several times over the course of a military career. Not so much officers; they're their own specialty (although, officers can change MOS as well, according to new training and military necessity), but deifnitely enlisted men. Take a buddy of mine, for example. He joined the Army in 2002, as a grunt infantry. They shipped him to Iraq, where he swiftly became radioman for his company command squad (saved him from being wounded. In a firefight, a bullet hit him in the back. The radio took the hit; the only thing he felt was a thump! and the water leaking out of his punctured camel-pack). In short order, he moved to vehicle gunner for the captain's Humvee (all the whle serving as de facto company 'strange guns' specialist, because apparently the middle east is where old - sometimes quite old - firearms go to continue soldiering on). Then he moved to Bradley driver/mechanic, and he finished up his 28 months in Iraq as Bradley gunner. By the restrictive level terms of the typical FFG game, he bounced through at least two, and possibly three, different specialty levels. I don't know, maybe they can put in some sort of cross-training/level jumping option to allow characters to skip between different specialties, like alternate career ranks do.

All variations on the basic skill system. It could be handled in the same way that pinning, automatic fire, holding fire, and overwatch are already handled: Additional rolls against the appropriate skill with modifiers applied according to the situation. Nice selection of artillery situations, though.

Pilot. Don't forget, even though the Navy technically is in charge of air and space craft, the Guard makes heavy use of aircraft. I imagine these interface pilots would consider themselves a service on their own, sort of like the USMC considers themselves separate from the Navy. I concur about the NCO business. The good NCOs remain NCOs, and are completely essential. I am sorry that FFG is once again using what amounts to a D&D static leveling system, where characters are trapped and trammeled into an often illogical series of skill and talent opportunities (anyone else notice that the Arbitrator gains practically no advances in Awareness? A cop, without Awareness?), without even the opportunity to cross-level, like D&D went to decades ago. I was hoping for something more fluid, like the choice system in Black Crusade.

Yes, that's how I saw it as well. But a clear definition somewhere would have been a good idea.Forcing your players to interpret rules is as good a way of inducing arguments as I know.

Shadow4ce's "Better dead than red" comment was so perfectly bad, it made me tired.

Historically, fellows, cover has been very effective against artillery. If it hadn't been, then WWI would have been quite short indeed. Now, forest cover and subsequent tree-burst is different, but not every battlefield can be Hurtgen. The effectiveness of cover vs. artillery is one of the big reasons for the development of fuel-air explosive bombs. Given that the Nebelwerfer uses 2 attack dice for every target, even heavy infantry may well find iteself melting away.

Hmm. Free French? That would be interesting, armed with a hodge-podge of donated and captured war-gear.

Excellent point with the decals. I also like to apply another coat of fixative (and then dull-coat) atop the decals, the better to secure them.

Well done, man. Well done.

In the Zverograd DT supplement, Cpt. Koshka and Gra'Ma come in a very slightly greenish German armor mustard.

As a matter of note, I am currently running a 40K RPG campaign where I am using all of the books, in one way or another, for my game. You see, while it's entirely okay to segment the vast background of the millieu into discreet areas, it does sort of lose some of the multi-facted splendor that attracted me to the millieu in the first place, back with the original Rogue Trader. I have two players: One is playing a straight Dark Heresy psyker, the other is playing a character who couldn't really defined by one of the static character level-up systems, so I allow him to use basic Black Crusade character rules, without the Chaosy bits, and allowing skill and talent imports from other books, as appropriate. Since I ride herd on the process, it's not broken (although he does complain about the high cost of almost everything; I make him pay Unaligned Chaos costs). They can easily work together, or apart. The problems that I encounter is a lack of revamps of the older material in light of the improvements made in the newer material.

I am surprised that the war-gaming vets from the Dust sites haven't been here and weighed in on this subject. I find it inconceivable that everyone here is ignorant of the indirect fire task, meaning that I'll assume knowledge has been put aside in favor of trying to recreate the nonsense of Warhammer 40K. The trick to hitting someone you can't see, at ranges where the environment can cause shell drift (gravity, wind - the big one - slight inaccuracies in the weapon and its aim that multiply over distance), is to have someone who can see where your shots land, and can tell you how far and what direction to adjust your aim. Warhammer 40K over-simplifies this by not requiring spotters; I assume that Only War can, and indeed must, include them. Game mechanics: Once a spotter finds a target, the artiillery director roll against Artillery skill (or some such), based on Int, and modified by equipment. The base test is at -30, and will miss by 10m x levels of failure, direction like grenade scatter. If the spotter can see the shells hit, then he rolls against Artillery, modified by equipment, and each level of success adds +10 to the artillery director's skill for the next Artillery test (starting at -30, of course). If the target moves, add -10 to the Artillery score for every 20m of movement (good luck hitting those quick-moving vehicles). Repeat as necessary until the artillery director either scores a success on an Artillery test, or the spotter can't see the target any more. If the director scores a success, and the target doesn't move in subsequent rounds, then the director doesn't need to test any more, pouring it on to the hapless targets. Of course, if the director can actually see the target, then standard direct-fire rules, with range modifiers, et al, apply.

I did have a little problem with a Pz I, where some of my paint retracted, leaving a little grey patch. Easily fixed, though. Aside from that, I've been having no problems painting directly over the basic primer. I use a farrago of basic acrylic paints, including colors bought at Walmart, GW colors, Tamiya acrylics (the only water-soluable paints I know of that have a flammable warning, since they're alcohol-based), and a few odd-balls (I even have Armory colors left over - using them a lot, since I have a WWII American set). The trick is to apply a clear fixative coat. I use normal clear acrylic spray, bought wherever I could find it (about 20 months ago, dollar-store primer and clear up and disappeared. I have no idea why). This does leave the models gleaming and glossy. Thus, a secondary coat of clear flat is sprayed on. Any train modelling store has at least one kind of this clear spray. It goes for about $5 for a little can, but all you're doing is a quick, slight spray to dull the major fixative. Viola! I have models that look good, don't shine (unless I want them to - Sigrid von Thaler's black cat-suit I recoated with brushed-on clear Tamiya lacquer), and, most importantly, the paint doesn't rub off. That's the major rub (pun intended) of acrylics: It will rub off with handling if you don't hit it with a fixative.

Sigh. Why couldn't FFG have done something like this in the book? Still not a good value at that page count and that price; adding something like these unit cards in the back would've improved the value (so would making the reaction/suppression/et al markers smaller and squared). On the other hand, I could well forsee a pack of cards in this sort of format sold as an accessory. Hello, FFG, are you reading this thread? Yoo hoo, here's a chance to make money, at least from me (and probably other people, too).

My problem is much the same: I'm lazy, and now I have to cover a relatively bright color with brushed-on paint (the Dust decal sets are pricey, for me - I'd rather spend my cash on minis). And for Gork's sake, couldn't they have had the smarts that, if they were going to make minis German armor mustard, make it the Germans?

Just a question about the discussion: What's all this about range limits on the 4.2" rocket system? The book clearly states that it's an "A" range, and page 57 says that "A" range weapons have a direct fire range of 36" and table-top range (essentially unlimited) when firing indirectly.

Kasper Hauser is korrect (sorry; silly German accent inspired). The Mickey is my choice for American walker - it's good against almost everything in the game! And should be at least 40 points. And, yes, walker point values are off. And I couldn't tell you just how to remedy them.

Is anyone besides me surprised (and somewhat miffed) that the SSU models come primed, with heavy irony, in approximately German armor mustard? Why didn't FFG prime them in Russian black-green? I'm going to have to paint over each vehicle completely in black-green, very carefully (to avoid painting the pre-applied decals - as a modeler, I hate that feature). (I had to get Op. Zverograd for Tactics; I wanted Koshka and Gra'Ma, central to the comic.) (Speaking of babes from the comic, when do we get the Allied nurse model?)

On the subject of campaign books, I agree with the delight in the abandonment of the 'codex' business. It's also a shrewd move on FFG's part: It mimics the success of Tactics, as they can bring out new units at intervals without having the preview it (often for months on end without models, in GW's case). As for massive battles, I was always of the impression that Apocalypse was supposed to be played on the floor, and a biiiiiiig floor at that. How else do you deal with the Guard artillery's 20' range? And the concept of massive battles led to me wish aloud to an opponent, a fellow Flames of War player, that we had Dust-style walkers for our FOW scale armies.

Slight alterations it is; I'll leave out my nominations for a straight-up Overwatch mechanic, hard-and-fast area-terrain LOS definitions carved in stone, and crew-served weapons. Capitol idea for a thread, though! On the slight alterations, how about changing laser damage (paricularly heavy laser damage) to 2/1 instead of 1/2 against vehicle armor across the board? That would make them more effective for their points, while emphasing laser designation (pun intended) as anti-tank weapons. It would make the schwerer laser grenadiers into a sort of low-rent equivalent of the Tank-Busters. Oh, also, take their points down to 30, or take the Tank Busters to 40! A 2-shot bazooka, Jump, 12" move, and rocket-punch, for the same cost as the heavy lasers? Something's not right there. 2nd suggested alteration (or is it really 3rd, after that rant about the Tank Busters?): Raise the .50 cal MG attack vs. infantry Armor 3 to 3 dice, and against infantry Armor 4 to 2 dice.

Actually, the advantage of walkers is already in the game! (Thinking ahead; how nice.) Take a look at the 'tracks' and 'wheels' listings in the unit modifiers section. Walkers have huge advantages for traversing terrain, which is the only real reason to have one of the silly things (high silhouette, exposed and vulnerble motive gear, really complex machinery, small crew compartment, etc.).

Ah, the old cry of "game balance!" Poppycock, pure poppycock. Rather than degrading capabilities, particularly capabilities of things with known qualities, the answer, in a point-based system, is to raise the points of the unit that possesses the superior capabilities. I, for one, would have cheerfully raised the price of units armed with .50 MGs by about 5 points just for superior infantyr armor penetration (meaning 3/1 against armor 3, and 2/1 against armor 4). The cry "game balance" is a pseudonym for "no-one should be better than anyone else," and is sort of a mantra of timid designers who are afraid to admit that reality is often unbalanced on its own… On a separate thread, the idea is raised about powered armor 3 carrying bigger weapons. Wouldn't it have been nice to see a US armor 3 team carrying nothing but Ma Deuces?