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What's this? You wait ages for a Retro Review and then 2 of them come at once!

As always if you liked this one, there's a guide to all of my Retro Reviews here:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Kid_Kyoto_Retro_Review_Index

So after looking at the red-covered Compendium we'll now look at the Compendium's companion the yellow-covered Compilation.



(Rejected names include the Collection, the Companion, the Codex and Steve's Big Book of the Best of White Dwarf).



This was the 3rd rules and fluff supplement of the RT era (the other is the oft-forgotten and buried Chapter Approved, remembered only by aging bloggers who use it as fuel for snarky articles). With a lot of the heavy lifting and world-building already done the first half of the book has a lot of trivia, Commissar Training Squats? Seriously?



But the second half...

Craftworld Eldar, Genestealer Cults, it's just awesome.

We're going back to 1991 this time, the Palindrome Year, so if you weren't born please let us know! We'll be happy to share memories of Nirvana, Crystal Pepsi and war in Iraq. No wait, no need to remind anyone of what that's like,

This is probably the last of the RT books I will review. There are a few more, the 3 (!!) Ork books, the Vehicle Manual and the Battle Manual but I don't have them and they really don't interest me. If anyone else wants to pick those up, feel free.

Anyway the book for some odd reason kicks off with... Grey Knight Terminators?



Nice models to be sure. But the GKs rules were in one of the Realms of Chaos books and is a specialized elite unit really the place to start off?

Still they are awesome. 5 terminators with force weapons and each one a level 4 psyker. And costing 1200 points, basically a 5 model army.

But they each have only 3 rounds in the bolters built into their weapons... which must be tracked for each model... Ah Rogue Trader rules writing!

From Grey Knights to... cyclone missile launchers? Um, OK.

the system would be equally at home mounted in the turret of an Imperial battle cruiser

Look I know you have to sell models but come on. Let's just assume they meant that they would be at home as one of the thousands of tiny anti-bomber weapons that dot a battle cruiser.

And of course it comes with it's own Catastrophic Launch Table and you have to track how many of the 12 missiles you've fired.



Thunder Hammers, Lighting Claws and Storm Shields arrive with a great bit of fluff:

Fully-dressed in the ancestral Terminator Armour of their Chapter they rise to a new level of battlefield supremacy, a level where monsterous tanks are but the playthings of a child, and where Terminators, Daemons and gods stalk as equals.

Wow.

I'd love to play that game.

Instead of one where Marines and Termis are basically improved cannon fodder.

Thunder Hammers by the way can be overloaded to do d6xd6 damage to everything in 1", including the wielder.



Chaos gets Terminators as well, but more limited options.



And the Imperial Guard gets something too...



Yes, Commissar Training Squads.

10 fearless guardsmen with 5+ invulnerable saves AND we have to track Merit Points for each model to see if the Cadet is promoted to full commissar in the middle of the battle!

Hmm, do I have any spare Mordians?

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
And of course it comes with it's own Catastrophic Launch Table and you have to track how many of the 12 missiles you've fired.

That stuck around in 2nd Ed.

I love this book. The art is great, the background is getting firm and gritty and the articles on power armour and Eldar society are superb. Mostly I love the Eldar concept art. Fantastic stuff.

I recall being on the receiving end of a 20 man Wolfguard terminator squad all with Cyclones unloading all 12 missiles on turn 1.

Needless to say, nothing of my army really survived.

And we're back with the stuff that honestly should have started the book, some honestly cool Marine fluff.

To start off we have this fellow...



No, wait, got my notes mixed up... I mean this fellow!



It's interesting because neither Rogue Trader nor the Compendium ever mentioned Primarchs, they came up in the Realms of Chaos books. So for someone who passed on them (or couldn't afford them at $50 a throw, or couldn't find them for sale) this 1 page of Leman Russ and his Awesome Manliness was a revelation.

We get the tale of youth, raised by wolves, his drinking contest with the Emperor and his rivalry with Lion El'Jonson.

Playing RT in those days before wikis was basically a scavenger hunt. I sometimes miss that sense of discovery, but who has time anymore.

Also of interest his wolves are supposed to be giants, so I assume the Leman Russ model release was actually epic scale.

And then a picture of the Emperor himself.



No sorry, notes crossed again. Here we are...



I'd love a color version of that, Adrian Smith just hit it out of the park.



The next real article is a history of Marine armor, probably written to justify the change from Mark 6 Beakie armor to Mark 7 Frowny armor. But what could have been just a one liner - "Oi mates, marines have jolly big frowns now" instead becomes almost 10 pages on issues of logistics, repairs, compatibility of parts and the compromises militaries must make. As one of our foremost military minds once said "You go to war with the power armor mark you have, not the power armor mark you might want or wish to have at a later time."



It's a real tour de force by rick Priestly making these issues as exciting as any battle. Of course John Blanche's designs make it come alive.



Adrian Smith's art doesn't hurt either.



The various marks also got models, not sure who sculpted them. What I like is despite the pages of fluff they were functionally the same as any other Marine armor, you could just have some cool looking models.

There was even a line about chapters and heroes customizing their armor. The main effect being to free authors and sculptors to tinker with the basic Marine design without requiring new rules for each change. Could you imagine if every armor design needed new rules?



That would be crazy.

Marine rules also get some tinkering.



For example an instant +1 to toughness and +1 to hit, improved morale rules. You'll notice I didn't post the chart with the point cost changes. Because well... there weren't any.

But...

But...



So with this new age of diverse Marine armors and such we also get an apparent new policy of only showing Frowny armor, AND marine color schemes were codified down to the last squad marking. No more would there be Ultramarine desert schemes, Ultramarines wear blue + the appropriate secondary color for their company.



And in some ways this is the main thing that changes in this book. With one very small exception there are no conversions in this book, no articles on how to make tanks out of deodorant bottles, nothing about how to make an army your own rather than a reflection of the 'eavy Metal team's.

Thanks for posting the stat lines. I've been looking for the old RT Space Marine stats for a project I'm working on.

Huh. I think this may be the first time i've read about the primarchs being "pink and naked"

Not that it's come up that often, but still.

I think that is the only Power Armour Deathwing Marine we've ever seen anywhere.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
The various marks also got models, not sure who sculpted them. What I like is despite the pages of fluff they were functionally the same as any other Marine armor, you could just have some cool looking models.

In a game the scale of 40K having different rules for the different marks would be a burden on the game.

This is why something like, say, the Deathwatch RPG, was perfect to have rules for the various different marks. And the various sub-systems in Marine armour. And rules for what their organs do.

And we're back!

I think we can call the Imperial section hit or miss, but that's fine, because the real ground breaking stuff comes up next, in the Eldar section!



While a part of the fluff from the first Rogue Trader book the Eldar weren't really developed. They were mercenaries with unreliable loyalties and enigmatic motives. The Compendium gave us the Harlequins and the Realms of Chaos books detailed the fall of the Eldar but there was still little on their culture and lives. Until now.

While some of this is what you'd expect...

Dance, mime and other gestural art forms are very important to the Eldar, their formal art investing a whole range of gestures and stance with precise meanings.

Of course.



There's also some cool peeks at life in the Craftworlds.



I really miss these peeks of civilian life in 40k, they were never that common but have almost completely disappeared.



And scenes of after the battle.

But for me the really interesting idea was the Path of the Eldar.

Eldar enjoy a naturally long life-span and live for a thousand years or more. During this time, almost all of them pass through a series of distinct lifestyle stages, dramatically changing their social role at irregular intervals. For example, an Eldar might be a technician for a few decades before he adopts another role and becomes a warrior, following which he might choose to become a galactic trader or a colonist...

By concentrating on only one facet of their complex and overwhelming character at a time, the Eldar are free to explore that area in depth without dangers of distraction. As total awareness of each facet is achieved, the Eldar move to another, thus building a deeper understanding of the universe and their own capabilities.

It's a lot of thought that really has nothing to do with toy soldiers except maybe explaining why no one seems to have an optimal weapons selection.

"Bob we'll give you anti gravity wings, but no melee weapons. Lucy, you can have a sword and a really scary screaming mask, but no way to get across the field. And Tim, well, you're just a Guardian, you're basically going to envy the Imperial Guard. Have fun kids!"



Which segues nicely into the Aspect Warriors.

Aspect Warriors IV - Knights/Knight of Wrath/???/Avengers/Avenging Spirit

And wow. Each of the aspects gets a full spread of concept art with notes and even alternate names. I love these peeks into the creative process.



And while the idea of cheek mounted TASERS is pretty silly, Jes Goodwin makes it work.





And of course a new faction requires full color art and photos.







There was a recent interview with Jes Goodwin where he talked about developing a visual language for each faction, so that they would look consistent as new troops, vehicles and terrain were developed. And this is something GW does very, very, well. You can tell at a glance if a tank is Eldar or Guard or Ork and nothing looks generically futurey.



The rules were... well they were Rogue Trader rules, what can I say.




Random charts for powers, weapons and skills, a whole page of rules for Swooping Hawk wings, just a nightmare.

Or in other words, par for the course.

The Exarch special rules were fun!

Is it the Yellow book or the Red book with the story of the Harlequin Land Raider?

I remember my mind blasting out the back of my head the first time I saw those Aspect concept sketches in White Dwarf. And then just a few issues later the army list and models hit, with that great fluff piece where the Avatar drops a Keeper of Secrets with a back-breaker like it was a WWF match. Amazing stuff.

 Easy E wrote:
The Exarch special rules were fun!

Is it the Yellow book or the Red book with the story of the Harlequin Land Raider?

I'm guessing the Red book - it was in the other Retro Review that the Kid did recently.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
I really miss these peeks of civilian life in 40k, they were never that common but have almost completely disappeared.

Well of course they have. GW don't sell miniatures for them, and no model = no rule = no artwork.

 Easy E wrote:
The Exarch special rules were fun!

Is it the Yellow book or the Red book with the story of the Harlequin Land Raider?

The red book. It has the reprint of the mid-90 (issue numbers, not year) WD issues. I think it was 95/96 or maybe 96/97 (one had the background, the next had the army list).

Had this, still have it electronically somewhere, may have the hard copy in fact...

I know people think of 1st edition as not really a 'game' in the modern sense, but if you were playing against someone of a similar mindset, and not trying hard to break it you could have a damned good game with these rules.

part of the trick was to ignore GW pushing bigger games and basically have a squad of marines, maybe split into two, and a character to lead them, some decently dense terrain and a small board - found some of the best 40k games I fought were on the space hulk and advanced space crusade boards as boarding or building assault actions.

And while I never had then there was some seriously amazing artwork I only half remember for the Grey Knight terminator models - white and green with an industrial feel that I tried to copy and make an utter hash of.

then in 2009 tried again, from memory, and made a hash again.

loved it though, squad of them, plus a character, taking on the entire enemy army in densely packed terrain, essentially playing king of the hill

Thank you for posting the good stuff.

It amuses me that John Blanche could, at one point, actually draw things. Not just do brown blurry blobs.

Jes's work, is of course, excellent, and has aged really well.

and we're back with the 3rd and final faction in the book, the Genestealer Cult!



Genestealers showed up as one of many alien beasts in Rogue Trader



And got a make over in Space Hulk.




But this book is where they became the beloved gene-stealing multi generational cults they are today.



And what a great make over!



The background is spelled out (as usual) in far more detail than a wargame would require. Creepy monsters, subverting families, body horror, generational plots, what a great concept.



Ick, that picture is a lot more disturbing than a 100 monsters with bloody claws.

And the art just oozes atmosphere.



This was around the time GW was experimenting with Confrontation, the game that would become Necromunda so there's some fine art of underhive battles with the Cult.



But also a Cult posting as a traveling circus.



The rules however...



Oh. Look. Random charts for hybrids depending on which generation they were from...

AND! AND! AND!

GS cults could ally with CHAOS!



So yes! Not just multi generational charts for your hybrids but a chance to roll on the infamous d1000 mutation tables for your cultists!



Or have your patriarch possessed by a daemon! With all the fun from those rules!



And then take Daemon Familiars too? With more charts to roll on?



And did I mention they could take Imperial Guard too?



I was last week years old when I realized these guys are called BROOD Brothers rather than BLOOD Brothers...

So yes, genestealer, mutant, hybrid, beastman, psyker, daemon, IG cult for the win!



Holy spit, someone call the Grey Knights from the first chapter!



The list even had the sole nod to the DIY days of yore with instructions to use die cast cars as limos



Not just once but twice!

To represent the coven limousines on the battlefield, you can use the 1/43rd scale die-cast metal car models that are readily available in any toy or model shop.

As far as I know that rule is still in effect!

Though I'll never get mind to look as good as these.



In many ways the GS list is a throwback to the earlier lists. Overly detailed, filled with role playing aspects, and offering a buffet of units from other armies to take. You are even told to use toys to make your models!



The GS cult disappeared soon after. In 2nd edition it got like half a page of rules. Then nothing in 3rd until the relaunch in 7th. That's over 20 years of absence for this creepy cool army.

And it wasn't just from 40k, they weren't in the core of Necromunda (showing up a magazine later I think), and completely out of games like the 54mm Inquisitor game and the Dark Heresy RPG where they would have made natural antagonists.

Perhaps a certain half brother can shed some light on that.

So I can't tell you how happy I am to have them back, I've got a few boxes of models in storage (including a certain fat dude on a throne) waiting to be painted. Considering that cults and rebellions are supposed to be the greatest threat the Imperium is facing I'd love see a Chaos Cult codex too.

******************************************

Anyway, that wraps up the Compilation. The last few pages are catalog pages, an annoying habit that really took root in 2nd edition. Yeah I can see the potential use but they always felt like useless padding, show some painted models if you have pages to spare!



It was around this time that the atmosphere in 40k changed. You see it in some small things, Leman Russ going from a grotesque man-machine with a truck grill for a mouth to a big strapping barbarian with an interesting hair style. Even the rotting corpse god of the Emperor got to look like Fabio. No more pictures of Marines dying horribly, no more odd color schemes and few conversions. And certainly no one would recommend building your vehicles out of Zoids and WWII models any more!

It's understandable, companies are there to sell their products and it's not always a good idea to remind people they can make terrain out of cereal boxes when you're trying to sell them the Building With Quite A Few Skulls for $100. But it is a bit of a let down from those early days.

Soon a certain Big Haired marine chapter would get its own army list and named characters and nothing would be the same again.

Some things would change back of course. The 3rd edition marines with helmets and breast plates from different armor marks are still classics. The monthly Blanchisu column is always an inspiration, and of course no one could predict how the internet would crack the flow of information wide open.

But it is interesting to look at this book 28 (!!) years later and see how it was a harbringer of things to come.



Hope you all enjoyed this twofer of Retro Reviews. I've been meaning to do the Red and Yellow books for ages now and finally found the time/inspiration.

Perhaps if the rumors are true it might be time to venture into 2nd edition for a certain army about to get a long overdue facelift.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
and we're back with the 3rd and final faction in the book, the Genestealer Cult!

The GS cult disappeared soon after. In 2nd edition it got like half a page of rules. Then nothing in 3rd until the relaunch in 7th. That's over 20 years of absence for this creepy cool army.

... aside from the offical "Chapter Approved" army list that GW published in Citadel Journal #40.


CJ 40 was published for 40k 3E in 2000, so it's quite a bit less than 20 years. In fact, the CJ GSC list was published right on the heels of the Harlequin list in CJ 39. I can't see the basis for complaint.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
The GS cult disappeared soon after. In 2nd edition it got like half a page of rules. Then nothing in 3rd until the relaunch in 7th. That's over 20 years of absence for this creepy cool army.

In Codex: Army Lists, which was the black & white booklet that came in the 2nd Ed box, and was used for such a long time by our group as Codices were few and far between in those days, had half a page of rules for Genestealer Cults. Tyranids themselves only four units (Hive Tyrant, Warriors, Termagants and Carnifexes). Add to that the Patriarch, Magus and Genestealers and you had a very limited selection. I can't remember if they had Hybrids/Brood Brothers included in those tiny 1 and a bit pages, but I can't find my copy of that book at the moment.

Codex: Tyranids for 2nd Ed gave 'em a proper list though. The Hybrids were back in their full glory, and Brood Brothers got a proper expansion. They could take the 2-man Heavy Weapon teams the Guard got as part of their 10-man squads as indivudual choices. You could take tons and tons of 2-man Lascannon and Heavy Bolter teams for next to no points. Thanks to having a Guard army and lots of Necromunda stuff I could field an enormous Genestealer Cult army. It was fantastic. IIRC they could get Land Raiders, meaning you could have Land Raiders transporting Genestealers into combat.

Think about that for a moment.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
And it wasn't just from 40k, they weren't in the core of Necromunda (showing up a magazine later I think), and completely out of games like the 54mm Inquisitor game and the Dark Heresy RPG where they would have made natural antagonists.

Perhaps a certain half brother can shed some light on that.

As DD mentions, they did appear in Citadel Journal. Again, IIRC, those rules were written by Tim Huckelbery, who was a member of GWUS for a time before eventually moving onto FFG (he was my editor on almsot every book I worked on other there).

And yes, Genestealer Cults were completely off-limits in those days. We got to make very broad allusions to them, such as in the Enemies Without book for Dark Heresy 2nd Edition. But as long as a certain IP master was in charge - I won't give his name, but it rhymes with Ballan Territ - the Cults were never going to come back.

Then he went away, and suddenly book, we have the Cults again. If it had just happened a couple of years earlier we could'a written them into Dark Heresy. Same goes for Skitarii, as it happens. Dark Heresy would have those if not for GW not letting us do it because they hadn't defined them themselves.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
So I can't tell you how happy I am to have them back, I've got a few boxes of models in storage (including a certain fat dude on a throne) waiting to be painted. Considering that cults and rebellions are supposed to be the greatest threat the Imperium is facing I'd love see a Chaos Cult codex too.

I too have a bunch of Genestealer Cult forces waiting to be built (and a Harli army, and a HH World Eater army, and a Skitarii army, and a Custodes army, and a HH Mechanicum army, and a... and a...).

I should get around to it because they've been the primary antagonist of our DH campaign going on years, and all I've had are the original plastic Hybrids from the Space Hulk Genestealer box to use!

leopard wrote:
Had this, still have it electronically somewhere, may have the hard copy in fact...

I know people think of 1st edition as not really a 'game' in the modern sense, but if you were playing against someone of a similar mindset, and not trying hard to break it you could have a damned good game with these rules.

IIRC you were still suppose to use a GameMaster to play at this point, even though they were moving towards a more autonomous 2 player system. That helped avoid game breaking stuff.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
and we're back with the 3rd and final faction in the book, the Genestealer Cult!

The GS cult disappeared soon after. In 2nd edition it got like half a page of rules. Then nothing in 3rd until the relaunch in 7th. That's over 20 years of absence for this creepy cool army.

... aside from the offical "Chapter Approved" army list that GW published in Citadel Journal #40.


CJ 40 was published for 40k 3E in 2000, so it's quite a bit less than 20 years. In fact, the CJ GSC list was published right on the heels of the Harlequin list in CJ 39. I can't see the basis for complaint.

d'oh!



Especially since I owned that!

No new models of course and a semi official status but yes, I should have mentioned it.

 Easy E wrote:

leopard wrote:
Had this, still have it electronically somewhere, may have the hard copy in fact...

I know people think of 1st edition as not really a 'game' in the modern sense, but if you were playing against someone of a similar mindset, and not trying hard to break it you could have a damned good game with these rules.

IIRC you were still suppose to use a GameMaster to play at this point, even though they were moving towards a more autonomous 2 player system. That helped avoid game breaking stuff.

Oh for sure that appears to have been the idea still, but as long as you were not being daft with it a good game could be had, the level of detail was fine when your "army" was less than two dozen models and vehicles were more a myth than reality.

All the background detail that dates back to the "semi RPG" days is what made the game what it is, lets face it the 40k rules are not and never have been the best, but they are good enough and the backgrounds incredible depth and evolution carries the rest.

nothing else comes close, heck even Star Wars and Star Trek games don't have this level of depth across such a wide range of areas

And that is really the strength of Rogue Trader.

I just spent a year or two collecting Space Fleet, beginner game with 2 ships in the box, and 4 pages of rules...

but then 100+ pages of fluff in WD!

It was originally planned to be a much bigger game (the unpublished first iteration of BFG) so they went ahead and used the fluff and art they'd already commissioned.

It was a thing of beauty.

This book is when I started in the hobby. Not that it's the book I started with, but that the material in it comes from White Dwarfs published as I was getting into it. The Eldar are from WD 127, Space Marines from WD 129 and I started with WD 130 (which IIRC had little to no 40k content; the closest it got was the first Inquisitor Kryptman short story and all the background for Confrontation.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
And that is really the strength of Rogue Trader.

I just spent a year or two collecting Space Fleet, beginner game with 2 ships in the box, and 4 pages of rules...

but then 100+ pages of fluff in WD!

It was originally planned to be a much bigger game (the unpublished first iteration of BFG) so they went ahead and used the fluff and art they'd already commissioned.

It was a thing of beauty.

Remember playing that, the Gothic Class etc looked a lot better than they ended up looking later

And some things never change.

Marine rules also get some tinkering.



For example an instant +1 to toughness and +1 to hit, improved morale rules. You'll notice I didn't post the chart with the point cost changes. Because well... there weren't any.

And this week...

I loved the Compilation almost as much as the Compendium.