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Why does it seem like Wrath and Glory released with barely a peep? I was eagerly awaiting its release, and apparently it released months ago, and I can only find two reviews for it?

What gives? Did the latest 40k RPG completely fall flat on its face? What is the community consensus?

I dig the whole emphasis on miniatures play, so I'm contemplating actually getting it...

From what I've heard and the bits I've looked at, it's utterly terrible mess of mechanics that make no sense and is objectively inferior in every way to FFG's games. The tier system makes no sense, space combat literally doesn't work at all (guns have shorter ranges than the length of the ship's hull for example), critical effects are universal (you can slap a marine with your bare hand but if you crit you can randomly inflict significant damage with a literal bare hand slap against power armor somehow), and critical effects are also universal. So you can punch somebody and they catch fire.

I just started reading the main rulebook and I'm just baffled at how complicated they made the "wrath" and "glory" rolls/rules. It seems like a nice bonus to players/groups but the way they implemented it is so strange.

Why did fantasy flight make GW stuff? I am actually interested, their rules seem always tight, and I have heard a lot of good about their RPGs. Was FFG ever part of GW or something?

No idea what Wrath & Glory is, but Fantasy Flight Games were previously lisenced by GW to make GW Stuff.

Most notably they made 'Dark Hersey' an excellent Grimdark 40k RPG where you're working for the Inquisition. [That was FFG, right?]

They also made an excellent boardgame, 'Forbidden Stars' a 2-4 Player 40k fest with Space Marines, Eldar, Orks, and Chaos, and very pretty plastic models fighting it out over part of the galaxy. I wrote some fan rules to add Imperial Guard, too!

Eventually GW revoked the lisence for 'Reasons', as far as I understand, so no long awaited Forbidden Stars expansion pack.

I liked the Dark Heresy system, but it really needed some updates.

Here is the current 40k RPG manufacturer's page for Wrath & Glory:
https://www.ulisses-us.com/games/warhammer-40000-roleplay/

The problem with the whole "emphasis on miniatures play" aspect is that it makes it harder to write plots that involve anything not directly related to tabletop 40k, so you end up with narratives that read like White Dwarf marketing blurbs. The thing that killed my interest in Wrath and Glory was reading a list of character classes and noticing "these are all the names of models GW sells".

Wyzilla wrote:From what I've heard and the bits I've looked at, it's utterly terrible mess of mechanics that make no sense and is objectively inferior in every way to FFG's games. The tier system makes no sense, space combat literally doesn't work at all (guns have shorter ranges than the length of the ship's hull for example), critical effects are universal (you can slap a marine with your bare hand but if you crit you can randomly inflict significant damage with a literal bare hand slap against power armor somehow), and critical effects are also universal. So you can punch somebody and they catch fire.

This is absolutely terrible to hear. They ended their deal with FFG which was making so many incredible things that were doing wonders to the IP...for this? I would have understand if they wanted to do some sort of Inquisitor redux from WITHIN GW but, allowing *another* group far worse from FFG to do the same thing and fail so utterly? That is absolutely infuriating. What gives?

AnomanderRake wrote:The problem with the whole "emphasis on miniatures play" aspect is that it makes it harder to write plots that involve anything not directly related to tabletop 40k, so you end up with narratives that read like White Dwarf marketing blurbs. The thing that killed my interest in Wrath and Glory was reading a list of character classes and noticing "these are all the names of models GW sells".

Well you wouldn't have to always use miniatures, I imagine...

 Wyzilla wrote:
snip. So you can punch somebody and they catch fire.

And you seem to be implying that this is a bad thing?

Seems like it's perfect for ANGRY MARINES RPG. Does it have an enemy generator a-la Macho Women with Guns?

 Netsurfer733 wrote:

Wyzilla wrote:From what I've heard and the bits I've looked at, it's utterly terrible mess of mechanics that make no sense and is objectively inferior in every way to FFG's games. The tier system makes no sense, space combat literally doesn't work at all (guns have shorter ranges than the length of the ship's hull for example), critical effects are universal (you can slap a marine with your bare hand but if you crit you can randomly inflict significant damage with a literal bare hand slap against power armor somehow), and critical effects are also universal. So you can punch somebody and they catch fire.

This is absolutely terrible to hear. They ended their deal with FFG which was making so many incredible things that were doing wonders to the IP...for this? I would have understand if they wanted to do some sort of Inquisitor redux from WITHIN GW but, allowing *another* group far worse from FFG to do the same thing and fail so utterly? That is absolutely infuriating. What gives?

AnomanderRake wrote:The problem with the whole "emphasis on miniatures play" aspect is that it makes it harder to write plots that involve anything not directly related to tabletop 40k, so you end up with narratives that read like White Dwarf marketing blurbs. The thing that killed my interest in Wrath and Glory was reading a list of character classes and noticing "these are all the names of models GW sells".

Well you wouldn't have to always use miniatures, I imagine...

They ended their deal with FFG because FFG started to violate their non-compete clause part of their contract with GW.

 Flinty wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
snip. So you can punch somebody and they catch fire.

And you seem to be implying that this is a bad thing?

Seems like it's perfect for ANGRY MARINES RPG. Does it have an enemy generator a-la Macho Women with Guns?

MWwG, now that was a fun game!

AdmiralHalsey wrote:
No idea what Wrath & Glory is, but Fantasy Flight Games were previously lisenced by GW to make GW Stuff.

Most notably they made 'Dark Hersey' an excellent Grimdark 40k RPG where you're working for the Inquisition. [That was FFG, right?]

They also made an excellent boardgame, 'Forbidden Stars' a 2-4 Player 40k fest with Space Marines, Eldar, Orks, and Chaos, and very pretty plastic models fighting it out over part of the galaxy. I wrote some fan rules to add Imperial Guard, too!

Eventually GW revoked the lisence for 'Reasons', as far as I understand, so no long awaited Forbidden Stars expansion pack.

They also made a 40k-Talisman called Relic, and I think at least one more. I wasn't impressed by their board games I played [Relic, Forbidden Stars], but their RPG's are really good. I think they made 5: Dark Heresy, Deathwatch, Black Crusade, Rogue Trader, and Only War. The RPG's are pretty good, they use a D100 roll-under system. They frequently suffer from typos and poorly written rules, but that isn't anything new in the world of gaming. I really like them, currently I run DH and BC.


I want to try Wrath and Glory, some of my friends who did try it said it was reasonably decent.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Netsurfer733 wrote:

Wyzilla wrote:From what I've heard and the bits I've looked at, it's utterly terrible mess of mechanics that make no sense and is objectively inferior in every way to FFG's games. The tier system makes no sense, space combat literally doesn't work at all (guns have shorter ranges than the length of the ship's hull for example), critical effects are universal (you can slap a marine with your bare hand but if you crit you can randomly inflict significant damage with a literal bare hand slap against power armor somehow), and critical effects are also universal. So you can punch somebody and they catch fire.

This is absolutely terrible to hear. They ended their deal with FFG which was making so many incredible things that were doing wonders to the IP...for this? I would have understand if they wanted to do some sort of Inquisitor redux from WITHIN GW but, allowing *another* group far worse from FFG to do the same thing and fail so utterly? That is absolutely infuriating. What gives?

AnomanderRake wrote:The problem with the whole "emphasis on miniatures play" aspect is that it makes it harder to write plots that involve anything not directly related to tabletop 40k, so you end up with narratives that read like White Dwarf marketing blurbs. The thing that killed my interest in Wrath and Glory was reading a list of character classes and noticing "these are all the names of models GW sells".

Well you wouldn't have to always use miniatures, I imagine...

They ended their deal with FFG because FFG started to violate their non-compete clause part of their contract with GW.

I had no idea there was any information at all that was released about that. How do we know that? Was there a press release? That is a terrible thing to hear.

It is not worth the effort required to reach and tug it off a shelf.

That's all I'll say.

 Netsurfer733 wrote:

AnomanderRake wrote:The problem with the whole "emphasis on miniatures play" aspect is that it makes it harder to write plots that involve anything not directly related to tabletop 40k, so you end up with narratives that read like White Dwarf marketing blurbs. The thing that killed my interest in Wrath and Glory was reading a list of character classes and noticing "these are all the names of models GW sells".

Well you wouldn't have to always use miniatures, I imagine...

No, but if the writers only put miniatures in the rules you have to write the rules for anything else yourself. The job of a tabletop RPG system is to make a GM's job easier; a good GM with an endless amount of time could do their whole universe and rules-system from scratch, but we use RPG systems because we don't have an endless amount of time and very few people are that good. When you take a system and constrain it with something as arbitrary as "only things our licensing partner makes models for" it doesn't do what it's supposed to as an RPG because it requires the gaming group to make up a whole bunch of stats if they want to go outside the box in any way, and it ends up feeling like a cheap marketing gimmick rather than a game anyone's actually expecting to play.

 Netsurfer733 wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Netsurfer733 wrote:

Wyzilla wrote:From what I've heard and the bits I've looked at, it's utterly terrible mess of mechanics that make no sense and is objectively inferior in every way to FFG's games. The tier system makes no sense, space combat literally doesn't work at all (guns have shorter ranges than the length of the ship's hull for example), critical effects are universal (you can slap a marine with your bare hand but if you crit you can randomly inflict significant damage with a literal bare hand slap against power armor somehow), and critical effects are also universal. So you can punch somebody and they catch fire.

This is absolutely terrible to hear. They ended their deal with FFG which was making so many incredible things that were doing wonders to the IP...for this? I would have understand if they wanted to do some sort of Inquisitor redux from WITHIN GW but, allowing *another* group far worse from FFG to do the same thing and fail so utterly? That is absolutely infuriating. What gives?

AnomanderRake wrote:The problem with the whole "emphasis on miniatures play" aspect is that it makes it harder to write plots that involve anything not directly related to tabletop 40k, so you end up with narratives that read like White Dwarf marketing blurbs. The thing that killed my interest in Wrath and Glory was reading a list of character classes and noticing "these are all the names of models GW sells".

Well you wouldn't have to always use miniatures, I imagine...

They ended their deal with FFG because FFG started to violate their non-compete clause part of their contract with GW.

I had no idea there was any information at all that was released about that. How do we know that? Was there a press release? That is a terrible thing to hear.

If I remember, it was around the time FFG were setting out to produce Runewars, their own tabletop miniatures game.

I've read It, found It terribile, forgot about It.

Was going to write a review on it, but felt really uninspired and never did it.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Netsurfer733 wrote:

AnomanderRake wrote:The problem with the whole "emphasis on miniatures play" aspect is that it makes it harder to write plots that involve anything not directly related to tabletop 40k, so you end up with narratives that read like White Dwarf marketing blurbs. The thing that killed my interest in Wrath and Glory was reading a list of character classes and noticing "these are all the names of models GW sells".

Well you wouldn't have to always use miniatures, I imagine...

No, but if the writers only put miniatures in the rules you have to write the rules for anything else yourself. The job of a tabletop RPG system is to make a GM's job easier; a good GM with an endless amount of time could do their whole universe and rules-system from scratch, but we use RPG systems because we don't have an endless amount of time and very few people are that good. When you take a system and constrain it with something as arbitrary as "only things our licensing partner makes models for" it doesn't do what it's supposed to as an RPG because it requires the gaming group to make up a whole bunch of stats if they want to go outside the box in any way, and it ends up feeling like a cheap marketing gimmick rather than a game anyone's actually expecting to play.

You know, I was generally more disappointed with the inverse in the FFG RPG's: that I had to convert the stats from the codecies to fill out the monster manuals a lot of times, because Dark Heresy comes with a bunch of stats for like 6 kinds of nurgle-aligned mutants I'd never heard of before and wouldn't be interested in using, but no stats for Lychguard. Fortunately, there's reasonably broad coverage of a selection of units across all the systems [particularly Mark of the Xenos from Deathwatch] and it's generally easy to convert stats from the codex to Dark Heresy. That's something I really like about DH that I hope persists into Wrath and Glory, I can open the codex and read it's statline out, and that mostly fills in the enemy's statblock for the players.

Anyway, I don't really care about the not-in-a-codex stuff. Random mutants should be the purview of the GM's creation, but I'd like to at least see a wide selection of creatures from actual 40k pre-generated to use.


That said, I was and am suspicious of the fact that there were Orks, Eldar, etc. as player characters, and was kind of wondering how that worked out for people. Like, the 41st Millennium isn't the place where an Ork, Elf, and Halfling all walk into a bar, and it would seem super weird for a party of a Sister of Battle, a Tactical Marine, an Ork, and an Eldar to all be adventuring together, What are they even doing together, anyway?

When I first heard of it I was intrigued, but the more I heard about the finished product the more I began to drown in disappointment. Seems that many shared this same experience and I suspect that is the reason for the lack of much noise following release.

I'd let this die there but the reviews for it on driveRPG are quite favorable, 4 stars. What are the real strong points for it, I wonder?

 Wyzilla wrote:
They ended their deal with FFG because FFG started to violate their non-compete clause part of their contract with GW.

That's not why FFG no longer has the 40K license.

It's the worst RPG I've ever played and I run free stuff off DriveThruRPG. You are literally better off using Kill Team for combat and freeforming the story, or reskinning FATE or GURPS or D20 or whatever.