The latest Campaign Supplement for Warhammer 40K is Crusade of Fire, depicting a chaos-based campaign on the front cover which is why I bought it.
The book is not cheap at £25 but it is hardback, OK not much more expensive to produce than soft cover but does give enhanced perceived value, and full of great colour photographs.
However, my disillusion with my purchase set in very quickly upon closer examination.
The book is very similar in style to White Dwarf, that is lot of pretty pictures and damn all in the way of wargaming 'meat'. It is divided into articles that look as if they were lifted straight out of the pages of White Dwarf. For example, a number of GW staff write a few words about their army under a nice big pic - many of which I have seen before.
The campaign is childishly simple and any wargamer could devise something similar while on a train ride. One peculiarity which I have also noticed in Black Library stories is a complete ignorance of basic GCSE-level astronomy.It irritates the hell out of me and ruins the suspension of disbelief: comets whose 'orbit' crosses galactic distances in a few thousand years. For the record, comets orbit stars and move considerably slower than the speed of light.
The book is bulked out with two new tactical games. The first is a sort of 40K gladiator system, Arena of Death, and the second is a supplement to the 6th Ed. aircraft rules, which are so absurd IMHO that they cannot be rescued by a few 'special card' rules.
Very, very, disappointing.
Rating: two stars out of five.
I was excited when I heard about this being released but had pretty much the same thoughts as you after having had the opportunity to leaf through a copy for half an hour. Just glad I tried before I buyed! You used to get better campaign stuff in the old citadel journal. Which Ill never understand why they stopped publishing
ReplyDeleteDear Phil
ReplyDeleteI wish I had been as wise as you. I shall certainly not buy 'off the shelf' again.
J
Ouch ! Harsh but true.
ReplyDeleteLines of supply and the ability to keep a force in the field and reinforced must be hyper critical factors for all flavours of space marine armies.
I would be nice if the suppliment had given some idea of the scale of the enterprise and illustrated both why and how the Departmento M deals in the numbers it does; this could, perhaps, have added something to the 40K-verse.
Oh well.
Dear Zzz
DeleteYah, logistics is what real generals worry about. It's the dirty little secret that wargamers look away from. :)
J
BTW, my review is lined up for 08 Feb.
ReplyDeleteBe interested to see what you think.
DeleteI bought my copy and have to agree 100%. It was like a hardback White Dwarf issue. Short of the rules for the demon world, space station battle and the arena (which is ok) everything else was a joke. The aircraft rules is trying to to sell more plane kits. The campain stuff was really horrible perhaps their worst setup ever. If I didn't spend prize money on it I would have been really upset. Thinking of dropping it on Ebay or something.
ReplyDeleteDear Styx
DeleteGlad it's not just me in grumpy mode.
J
John, nice to see a hard-headed review for once. I'm not a 40K gamer myself but this interests me as this kind of supplement policy is getting into the historical side as well (and doing no good IMHO).
ReplyDeleteCheers, Keith.
Dear Kieth
DeleteDon't say that. I have just sold a historical campaign supplement to a publisher. :)
J
I remember, some years ago (mid-90s), the Workshop people doing a supplementary book full of pictures of people's armies; the difference being that people also shared their regular army lists and talked about strategic choices or fiddly painting techniques or how they made the tentacles for their Chaos Veterans. Stuff like that. I quite liked it as a lad.
ReplyDeleteOf course, now that blogs and forums are a thing there really is no excuse for purchasing or, arguably, charging for that sort of thing. There's pages and pages of it out there for free!
Dear Von
DeleteYou are right. The amount of stuff on the web is astonishing.
J