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 Galas wrote:
Doesnt out there on warhanmer little vessels? Like cargo ships, small civilian transport ships for peregrines, agrarian and food transpirt, etc... I dont think even the smallest warp capable ship is a flying fortress.
But I think the tier is because the "rogue trader" wont be what we believe it is. It will probably be the apprentice/protege of a proper Rogue trader, like the inquisitorial acolyte.

Don't call it a Rogue Trader then same as the Inquistorial Acolyte is not an Inquisitor. You could have gone for Void Trader (ie insystem void capable not intersteller) or a variety of other lower level characters.

Small warp capable ships are the exception so if you are making a general class then its silly to have the exception!

Well, the Deluxe Leatherette editions look damn pretty at least:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Doesnt out there on warhanmer little vessels? Like cargo ships, small civilian transport ships for peregrines, agrarian and food transpirt, etc... I dont think even the smallest warp capable ship is a flying fortress.
But I think the tier is because the "rogue trader" wont be what we believe it is. It will probably be the apprentice/protege of a proper Rogue trader, like the inquisitorial acolyte.

Don't call it a Rogue Trader then same as the Inquistorial Acolyte is not an Inquisitor. You could have gone for Void Trader (ie insystem void capable not intersteller) or a variety of other lower level characters.

Small warp capable ships are the exception so if you are making a general class then its silly to have the exception!

That, and it seems a bit weird that you'd have rules for space combat, and then not let the most obvious class for it take a big starship. But we'll see how it pans out--and what Ascension packages allow.

 Elemental wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Doesnt out there on warhanmer little vessels? Like cargo ships, small civilian transport ships for peregrines, agrarian and food transpirt, etc... I dont think even the smallest warp capable ship is a flying fortress.
But I think the tier is because the "rogue trader" wont be what we believe it is. It will probably be the apprentice/protege of a proper Rogue trader, like the inquisitorial acolyte.

Don't call it a Rogue Trader then same as the Inquistorial Acolyte is not an Inquisitor. You could have gone for Void Trader (ie insystem void capable not intersteller) or a variety of other lower level characters.

Small warp capable ships are the exception so if you are making a general class then its silly to have the exception!

That, and it seems a bit weird that you'd have rules for space combat, and then not let the most obvious class for it take a big starship. But we'll see how it pans out--and what Ascension packages allow.

Tiers are weird from what I've seen in the previews, because higher Tiers can be progressed to. So a Tier 2 Rogue Trader might be a very local trader, while a Tier 5 might have their own multi-system empire.

This has been confirmed by the developer who said that normal Space Marines are Tier 3, but Deathwatch would be Tier 5.

DontEatRawHagis wrote:

 Elemental wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Doesnt out there on warhanmer little vessels? Like cargo ships, small civilian transport ships for peregrines, agrarian and food transpirt, etc... I dont think even the smallest warp capable ship is a flying fortress.
But I think the tier is because the "rogue trader" wont be what we believe it is. It will probably be the apprentice/protege of a proper Rogue trader, like the inquisitorial acolyte.

Don't call it a Rogue Trader then same as the Inquistorial Acolyte is not an Inquisitor. You could have gone for Void Trader (ie insystem void capable not intersteller) or a variety of other lower level characters.

Small warp capable ships are the exception so if you are making a general class then its silly to have the exception!

That, and it seems a bit weird that you'd have rules for space combat, and then not let the most obvious class for it take a big starship. But we'll see how it pans out--and what Ascension packages allow.

Tiers are weird from what I've seen in the previews, because higher Tiers can be progressed to. So a Tier 2 Rogue Trader might be a very local trader, while a Tier 5 might have their own multi-system empire.

This has been confirmed by the developer who said that normal Space Marines are Tier 3, but Deathwatch would be Tier 5.

Except there's no such thing as a "local" Rogue Trader. To borrow from the wiki: "A Rogue Trader is a combination of freelance explorer, conquistador and merchant. They are Imperial servants, given a ship, a crew, a contingent of marines or Guardsmen and carte blanche to roam the worlds beyond Imperial control."

You don't start out as a local parcel delivery Rogue Trader on a scooter in your home hive and work your way up the corporate ladder, the moment you're granted or inherit a Warrant of Trade you become one of the most powerful individuals in the Imperium.

Surely the Imperium must have their own version of Amazon Flex and Uber Eats for those just starting out?!?

Rogue Traders can be forced to remain in system or local cluster as part of penance or by special order of Imperial Authority. The audio drama Corsair comes to mind as a good example of this.

Pre-Order list over at the Miniature Market:

https://www.miniaturemarket.com/searchresults?q=wrath+%26+glory

Now, what card packs have stuff in them that ISN'T in the tables in the book?

Because those card pack prices look...not so great.

And I'm still not sure how many cards are in each pack.

 BrookM wrote:
Rogue Traders can be forced to remain in system or local cluster as part of penance or by special order of Imperial Authority. The audio drama Corsair comes to mind as a good example of this.

Do they also have to give up their giant city-killing voidship and thousands of subordinates? And I call a Nope on the "by special order" thing, a Warrant of Trade theoretically supersedes any and all authorities, and even in the messier and more feudal practice you would need to have serious political clout to obstruct a RT's freedom to roam. It's certainly not a common enough occurrence to affect the basic presentation of the concept in an RPG.

DontEatRawHagis wrote:
This has been confirmed by the developer who said that normal Space Marines are Tier 3, but Deathwatch would be Tier 5.

Wait what? Now that makes all sense to me. Deathwatch being a step above sure, but seeing the huge difference between tiers I honestly expected a marine at tier 5 to be like a Captain or something. Like.. I just don't see how they're that much better. Their equipment could make up for the physical differences between them and a Primaris, but that'd put them on the same level...

Maybe the tiers really are based on equipment more than anything else, and I guess a RT gets fancy cloths and a laspistol, but a DW gets some necron phase sword thing and some really really pimped bolter.

I think I am still very much worried that the reason this is making no sense to me is because I've assumed there is a big leap in power between each tier, but the system actually has the top and bottom end much closer together than I've thought, so the placements that make no sense to me are not hugely out of place, just a little above or below what I expected.

I also saw some livestream on youtube for an adventure that wasn't Blessings Unheralded with one of the designers running the game (I think, I missed the start). He seemed to think that the Acolyte's once per session ability to call up their Inquisitor was super powerful because they literally called in a Navy blockade of a planet or something

It is odd to put Deathwatch there. IMO standard deathwatch should be a cut above a tactical marine largely due to gear (and because in the fluff the chapters typically send the finest to represent their chapter) so maybe a tier 4 equal to a bog standard primaris maybe.. but a 5? That sounds like it should be a Captain or Grey Knight Master of a Custodes...

Played the 4 hour demo with 3 friends (we finished the story in about 2.5 hours). Bought 2 copies of the rulebook. Good times

 kronk wrote:
Played the 4 hour demo with 3 friends (we finished the story in about 2.5 hours). Bought 2 copies of the rulebook. Good times

Can you give us some details on how scaling up to higher tiers occurs and what type of variety/room for advancement is within a tier? For example, can you take a power sword wielding tactical marine at tier 3 or is that kind of added customization/power increase limited to tier advancement?

The GM picks the tier they want to run. You get 100 points per tier. So, a tier 3 space marine has to spend 150 (50 for astartes race and 100 for Space Marine class) of their 300 build points for race and class. They have about 150 to buy the remaining stat minimums required for a marine and some skills and talents they want to focus on.

Meanwhile, a tier 1 human guardsman will have a buttload of points left after race ( human is 0 points) and class (can’t recall) to really specialize as a sniper or other specialist. They can bump their skills (some cap at level 1), Talent’s, and stats (again, some maximums at level 1).

Alternatively, the GM could say they want a lower powered tier 1 campaign, so you would have fewer points to kit out the tier 1 classes.

 Yodhrin wrote:
Rogue Trader ships will usually come in three flavours - fast and (relatively) small Frigate-to-Light Cruiser size ships built to transport high value perishables and small high value luxuries, which would have at least several thousand crew; armed traders roughly in the Light Cruiser-to-Battlecruiser range, which would be the kind of ships that go off into the unknown and would have several tens of thousands of crew; and ludicrously XBOXHUEG bulk freighters operating along established trade lanes(often under Chartrist Captains of the Merchant Fleet or in the employ of a Rogue Trader dynasty), like the Universe-class Mass Conveyor at 12km long, a mass of 60megatonnes, 60k crew and space for several hundred-thousand passengers. Given the sheer scales involved they don't need to be a flying fortress to have ludicrous amounts of firepower, the main armaments on even the smallest warp-ships would have a bore of several metres and be firing shells or energy blasts with a multi-kiloton yield. You could park one of those piddly wee Viper Sloops in orbit around modern day earth and wipe out a city with every broadside.

That's why it's a bit hard to buy that in a system which was supposed to be taking more factors into account than just gear and personal skill with weaponry, the person in charge of all that manpower and firepower with the right to travel the stars all by decree of the High Lords or even the Emperor Himself is a mid-tier bloke considered equivalent to a Storm Trooper and lesser than a "Desperado" whatever that is. And sure, they could just be using the term Rogue Trader to mean not-actually-a-Rogue Trader, or flunkie-of-a-Rogue Trader, but that seems a tad daft when they could crack one of the FFG RPG books and pick a half dozen different names for Rogue Trader-adjacent classes.

You forgot a class outweighing the 3 above combined by an order of magnitude, namely D) regular merchant ship that was up-gunned and (sorta) armored but would never stand up to a regular navy vessel in a fight. A vessel that might be 2-3 km long but vast majority of its volume would be cargo holds and ship systems, you know, the actual money-makers, with little space devoted to surplus stuff like armies or obscenely expensive munitions. Things that look like this:



Not like this:



Hell, even the richest Rogue Traders who can afford a sorta-kinda 'real' cruiser, end up with ships that look like this:



You might notice that it most definitely does not look as militarized and optimized for combat as the middle image, no matter what headcanons say. Rogue Traders are equivalent of corsairs and privateers operating in 1600s and 1700s - and while some of these ended up with impressive ships, or even had surplus old fourth rate line ship, the moment they saw modern 44 gun frigate (not to mention stuff like even third rate '74' line ship, which was far from most powerful deployed then) they would turn tail and run immediately. A vessel that is in any way or shape optimized for handling cargo is a bad military vessel simply because both have diametrically opposite requirements that can't be married in one hull without massive compromises. It might look scary but all the empty space inside comes at expense of something.

Also, 'a multi-kiloton yield'? That's laughably low number, if official. British home fleet 120 years ago would reach it with ease. Artillery bombardment in a single front section in WW1, too. In WW2, that was payload of a daily bomber convoy. In Vietnam war, munitions dropped on North Vietnam alone were counted in megatons, and, surprise surprise, not only they didn't not wipe out any cities in North Vietnam, they didn't even convince NV to back off.

Plus, I have no idea from where the idea the Rogue Trader needs to be some sort of top-tier uber-being comes from. He has a ship, sure. He might have a fancy pistol and clothes, but he is first and foremost a noble, living in luxury, with little need or want for grueling training regime. I can easily see even a regular IG veteran to be easily as dangerous and capable in a party as RT. You guys act like ordering people around made you a space marine in disguise - but RT who landed on a planet (or even tries to repel boarders) is just a regular human. It's like arguing Donald Trump (to use one example of a guy who most definitely can order more assets and men around than most RT have) can trivially beat a group of SEAL operatives with his bare hands

To be honest everybody has said that is clear that in combat a Rogue Trader will be a middle of the pack guy, maybe with fancy tech, weapons, defensive systems, etc... but what makes them "OP" and deserving of a higher tier is their influence, power, money, etc... just like an Inquisitor.

Their ships don’t really come into it. Not much any way. There are only like 5 pages on ship combat and only a few example ships. Maybe if they introduce ship combat supplements will the RT’s ship be meaningful beyond getting from point A to point B. That discussion is more useful later.

 kronk wrote:
The GM picks the tier they want to run. You get 100 points per tier. So, a tier 3 space marine has to spend 150 (50 for astartes race and 100 for Space Marine class) of their 300 build points for race and class. They have about 150 to buy the remaining stat minimums required for a marine and some skills and talents they want to focus on.

Meanwhile, a tier 1 human guardsman will have a buttload of points left after race ( human is 0 points) and class (can’t recall) to really specialize as a sniper or other specialist. They can bump their skills (some cap at level 1), Talent’s, and stats (again, some maximums at level 1).

Alternatively, the GM could say they want a lower powered tier 1 campaign, so you would have fewer points to kit out the tier 1 classes.

Thanks! That's definitely not what I was expecting (a overarching points buy system mixed in with the tiers). I'm ok with it as a general rule (dependent of course on the nitty gritty details) though as I'm familiar with the style from alternate chargen in systems like Shadowrun. I hope there are racial bonuses that help the astartes actually feel like astartes statwise. I'll have to take a closer look at the pregens from the intro adventure to see if that is the case. Can you upgrade/buy equipment with those points as well?

Not sure on equipment yet. I have only had about an hour with the book. It looks like the base space marine price is 100 points for class and race. However, they have minimum stats and skills prerequisites that might take it to 150. Not sure. Tonight is my first chance to really sit down with the book.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It doesn’t look like you buy your equipment. You come with set stuff per your class. Additional stuff is either requisitioned, found, or issued as needed per the campaign.

 Irbis wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
Rogue Trader ships will usually come in three flavours - fast and (relatively) small Frigate-to-Light Cruiser size ships built to transport high value perishables and small high value luxuries, which would have at least several thousand crew; armed traders roughly in the Light Cruiser-to-Battlecruiser range, which would be the kind of ships that go off into the unknown and would have several tens of thousands of crew; and ludicrously XBOXHUEG bulk freighters operating along established trade lanes(often under Chartrist Captains of the Merchant Fleet or in the employ of a Rogue Trader dynasty), like the Universe-class Mass Conveyor at 12km long, a mass of 60megatonnes, 60k crew and space for several hundred-thousand passengers. Given the sheer scales involved they don't need to be a flying fortress to have ludicrous amounts of firepower, the main armaments on even the smallest warp-ships would have a bore of several metres and be firing shells or energy blasts with a multi-kiloton yield. You could park one of those piddly wee Viper Sloops in orbit around modern day earth and wipe out a city with every broadside.

That's why it's a bit hard to buy that in a system which was supposed to be taking more factors into account than just gear and personal skill with weaponry, the person in charge of all that manpower and firepower with the right to travel the stars all by decree of the High Lords or even the Emperor Himself is a mid-tier bloke considered equivalent to a Storm Trooper and lesser than a "Desperado" whatever that is. And sure, they could just be using the term Rogue Trader to mean not-actually-a-Rogue Trader, or flunkie-of-a-Rogue Trader, but that seems a tad daft when they could crack one of the FFG RPG books and pick a half dozen different names for Rogue Trader-adjacent classes.

You forgot a class outweighing the 3 above combined by an order of magnitude, namely D) regular merchant ship that was up-gunned and (sorta) armored but would never stand up to a regular navy vessel in a fight. A vessel that might be 2-3 km long but vast majority of its volume would be cargo holds and ship systems, you know, the actual money-makers, with little space devoted to surplus stuff like armies or obscenely expensive munitions. Things that look like this:



Not like this:



Hell, even the richest Rogue Traders who can afford a sorta-kinda 'real' cruiser, end up with ships that look like this:



You might notice that it most definitely does not look as militarized and optimized for combat as the middle image, no matter what headcanons say. Rogue Traders are equivalent of corsairs and privateers operating in 1600s and 1700s - and while some of these ended up with impressive ships, or even had surplus old fourth rate line ship, the moment they saw modern 44 gun frigate (not to mention stuff like even third rate '74' line ship, which was far from most powerful deployed then) they would turn tail and run immediately. A vessel that is in any way or shape optimized for handling cargo is a bad military vessel simply because both have diametrically opposite requirements that can't be married in one hull without massive compromises. It might look scary but all the empty space inside comes at expense of something.

Also, 'a multi-kiloton yield'? That's laughably low number, if official. British home fleet 120 years ago would reach it with ease. Artillery bombardment in a single front section in WW1, too. In WW2, that was payload of a daily bomber convoy. In Vietnam war, munitions dropped on North Vietnam alone were counted in megatons, and, surprise surprise, not only they didn't not wipe out any cities in North Vietnam, they didn't even convince NV to back off.

Plus, I have no idea from where the idea the Rogue Trader needs to be some sort of top-tier uber-being comes from. He has a ship, sure. He might have a fancy pistol and clothes, but he is first and foremost a noble, living in luxury, with little need or want for grueling training regime. I can easily see even a regular IG veteran to be easily as dangerous and capable in a party as RT. You guys act like ordering people around made you a space marine in disguise - but RT who landed on a planet (or even tries to repel boarders) is just a regular human. It's like arguing Donald Trump (to use one example of a guy who most definitely can order more assets and men around than most RT have) can trivially beat a group of SEAL operatives with his bare hands

You have no idea where that idea comes from because, like with the rest of your post, you're arguing against a complete phantom of your own invention. Nobody has claimed RT ships are always equivalent to Navy ships. Nobody has claimed RTs personally are "uber-beings".

RT ships are, even at their smallest, home to thousands of individuals who all exist to serve the RT's will. They are capable of travelling between star systems. They are capable of bombarding a city to ash from orbit(and because this apparently needs to be spelled out - I was referring to the individual munitions of individual guns on the smallest practical warp ship, which would mount many of them - I'm fairly certain if you pelted a city with the payload of dozens of WW2 bombers multiple times a minute for long enough for the word "bombardment" to mean anything, there wouldn't be much left).

RT's themselves are not combat monstrosities. They are well equipped. They are often augmented whether by genhancement or sophisticated bionics. They are often well trained, or at the very least will have large numbers of well-trained people at their command.

The rest of your comparisons and assertions are pretty meaningless when it comes to the subject at hand, because we're not comparing sailing ships to other sailing ships to see what would win, we're comparing a Rogue Trader with thousands of subordinates and a ship that's at least a kilometre long against a Storm Trooper, and some of us are wondering why "well trained guy with a decent gun" is in the same tier as "pretty much a billionaire with a small army" when the tiers are supposed to be more than a measure of raw individual combat ability. Also, it's funny you use the Conquest-class image, given they "...were conceived as heavily armed hybrids of cruiser and transport, with enough firepower to defend themselves and carve apart renegade empires..."(my emphasis, Battlefleet Koronus sourcebook pg 23) - but yeah, sure, popguns and prayers is all the captain of one of those would have to rely on

 kronk wrote:

It doesn’t look like you buy your equipment. You come with set stuff per your class. Additional stuff is either requisitioned, found, or issued as needed per the campaign.

Thanks. I was hoping that you'd be able to customize at least a little bit within the tier (for example taking a chainsword instead of the combat blade the starter marine gets in the intro adventure) at character generation.

It mentions discussing things like that with the GM. No set “spend x points to upgrade your knife to power sword.”

Eh, YMMV but I'm not a fan of that laissez faire style of rules writing probably as a result of my start with Palladium's mess of a game system. Of course you can discuss it with the GM; you can do that with almost any game system and/or GM. Guidance about how to do it with some examples is a different story. 40k characters were (prior to 8th edition) almost infinitely customizable and I was hoping that some of that would rub into the RPG rules proper. Don't take that as shooting the messenger though, Kronk, as I'm glad you're filling in the details for us/me even if I don't like the actual answers.

@Kronk

At the risk of belaboring the point, do any of the specializations you mentioned change the gear? Does making your guardsman for instance a special weapons trooper give them a special weapon (or heavy weapon trooper a heavy weapon)? Are they effectively subclasses like in the old FFG games where a tactical marine was different from an assault marine in terms of standard loadout?

So, this is a lot of stuff to go through. So I'm gonna ask the question and I'd love it if you guys have the answer- if you could share it and show it to me.

Let's just say friends and I want to run a 'Deathwatch' campaign? Is that even possible? Are there any sort of rules that support this and reflect things like Special Issue Ammo, Xenophase Blades, or even vehicles like the Corvus Blackstar?

What if my friends and I want our Deathwatch Kill-Team to be mixed with Primaris and standard Astartes? Reivers, Terminators, Scouts, Librarians, Tech-Marines, Chaplains... are there even rules for this?

Are there any rules or anything about Chapters? Does that even matter? Is a Carcharadon, a Black Dragon, a Flesh Tearer- are all of this little more than just something you write on your character sheet and say "I am one of these"?

Also, keep in mind: "You'll have to homebrew stuff like that" when it comes to certain things is reasonable to a point, but after a while it just starts to seem like I'm going to be expected to do all the damned legwork for a shallow product, and at that point I might as well start trying to work and develop my own thing with a group of people and save myself some cash.

My greatest fear- and you'll have to forgive my negative outlook- is that this game is going to be some kind of 'lite' 40k RPG that's basically a shoddy attempt at making a D&D in a 40k setting by watering down everything. Almost like making it more like some weird MMORPG with extremely limited options and the like.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
What if my friends and I want our Deathwatch Kill-Team to be mixed with Primaris and standard Astartes? Reivers, Terminators, Scouts, Librarians, Tech-Marines, Chaplains... are there even rules for this?

There are rules for mixing different tiers of play, with tacs being 3, primaris 4, scouts 2, and deathwatch apparently 5. All can be played together at tier 5. It didn't appear that things like libbies, chaplains, ect exist in the mechanics (yet) though.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
Are there any rules or anything about Chapters? Does that even matter? Is a Carcharadon, a Black Dragon, a Flesh Tearer- are all of this little more than just something you write on your character sheet and say "I am one of these"?

There must be some rules for chapters, the Free RPG day module had a White Scar who had bike skills (despite not having a bike...) and couldn't delay his actions without spending a resource because Gottagofast. I wouldn't expect a lot of them until (unless?) a marine focused supplement comes out with more. First founding, BTs, and maybe a couple of other chapters is all I'd expect.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
Let's just say friends and I want to run a 'Deathwatch' campaign? Is that even possible? Are there any sort of rules that support this and reflect things like Special Issue Ammo, Xenophase Blades, or even vehicles like the Corvus Blackstar?

FFG Deathwatch RPG
Seriously, like, that's not actually a joke I think if you want to play specifically as Inquisition/DW/Rouge Traders/Guardsmen the old FFG stuff looks like it covers those specific things in far greater detail.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
My greatest fear- and you'll have to forgive my negative outlook- is that this game is going to be some kind of 'lite' 40k RPG that's basically a shoddy attempt at making a D&D in a 40k setting by watering down everything. Almost like making it more like some weird MMORPG with extremely limited options and the like.

This exact thing has been my biggest fear too, and it's kinda looking that way. For example marines and all their special organs only have a single rule to represent that, and that rule is simply 'if the GM thinks a test relates to those organs gain a bonus dice' (like for example to resist being poisoned or bleeding out).
To me this is feeling like it just can't do the gritty, low power level end of things were a bolt pistol or a heavy stubber is a serious threat (like Dark Heresy), nor does it seem like you can really play out the high end power fantasy of marines being demi gods like they are presented in the fluff (like Deathwatch), and so it's kinda just a bland in between

 jonolikespie wrote:
There are rules for mixing different tiers of play, with tacs being 3, primaris 4, scouts 2, and deathwatch apparently 5. All can be played together at tier 5. It didn't appear that things like libbies, chaplains, ect exist in the mechanics (yet) though.

So, I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that a 'tier 3' and a 'tier 5' can party together in a group, but there's some means to put them on par with one another?

 jonolikespie wrote:
There must be some rules for chapters, the Free RPG day module had a White Scar who had bike skills (despite not having a bike...) and couldn't delay his actions without spending a resource because Gottagofast. I wouldn't expect a lot of them until (unless?) a marine focused supplement comes out with more. First founding, BTs, and maybe a couple of other chapters is all I'd expect.

Yeah, I was actually expecting this book to be bare-bones and if you want to play the 'real fun stuff' that tons of people are dying to play, you'll need to buy another $50.00 book. Which is great, because I'd wager half my bits box that this book is just crammed full of fluff and has about twenty pages of actual rules.

 jonolikespie wrote:
Seriously, like, that's not actually a joke I think if you want to play specifically as Inquisition/DW/Rouge Traders/Guardsmen the old FFG stuff looks like it covers those specific things in far greater detail.

I've got them, I was just hoping for some updated rules for Primaris weapons. Hell, when they said the new 40k game would be a 'toolkit' I was hoping it'd come with options for running a Horus Heresy or Great Crusade era campaign. But hey, another $50.00 but in a few years, I'll bet!

 jonolikespie wrote:
For example marines and all their special organs only have a single rule to represent that, and that rule is simply 'if the GM thinks a test relates to those organs gain a bonus dice' (like for example to resist being poisoned or bleeding out).

So basically 'have the GM just make crap up on the fly' is starting to look like a common theme here. Yeah, this has me genuinely concerned that this 'rulebook' is about 75% rewritten fluff from a few Wikis and a the 8th Edition Rulebook, and 25% rules that they couldn't be arsed to expand and flesh out. Because God Forbid someone make an RPG that requires 8th grade math skills and a little playtesting.

This is starting to look more and more like someone took a basic 'weekender' dungeon crawler board game and slapped '40k RPG' on there with some half-assed 'guidelines' for RPG mechanics slapped in there.

 jonolikespie wrote:
To me this is feeling like it just can't do the gritty, low power level end of things were a bolt pistol or a heavy stubber is a serious threat (like Dark Heresy), nor does it seem like you can really play out the high end power fantasy of marines being demi gods like they are presented in the fluff (like Deathwatch), and so it's kinda just a bland in between

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's an idiotic idea to try and cram a Commissar, a Deathwatch Primaris Marine, a Hive Ganger, and Poodlepiddle the librarian into a party and think that would work. At any point, that seems like an unbalanced joke- especially at the level where someone wrote this into a damned rulebook.

I think having some kind of power level like 'Space Marine', 'elite trained human' would be adequate enough, and have any encounter tables scaled to that (certain numbers or wargear for certain 'power levels' of the PC's. And while it'd be nice to be able to make a super-badass stormtrooper vet that ate his Wheaties and could fight on par with Astartes... there are just two fundamentally different levels.

Because I can imagine it now, the cliche' party of mismatched 40k characters strolling into the local tavern and trying not to create a stir...

Trying to be all things to all people, and ending up being nothing to nobody.

They have been quite clear than any lower 'tier' can be brought up by basically loading them up with XP and advances, so yes you absolutely can play a party of mixed tiers you just have to be playing at the level of the highest in the party.

The Free RPG Day adventure was tier 3 (to fit the marine in) with a guardsman and acolyte pumped up to work alongside him.

Also, just because the rules *technically* support it doesn't mean that you have to or even that it's recommended to take tiers 1 and 5 together just because you can. I just hope the rules can confortably support a three tier spread in the same campaign (so for example a Tier 3 +/-1).