Plushy said:

Firstly, while I can't say anything for the final product (I've still not seen the finished book), I made a point of including all the Dark Eldar weapons that had already appeared in Hostile Acquisitions (as I wrote the armoury for HA, so I knew what was there already), specifically to avoid this. I don't know what's in Koronus Bestiary (I didn't work on it), so I can't speak for the content there.

Secondly, material that differs between Rogue Trader and Black Crusade is more a matter of differing rulesets as anything else - the biggest example, the Toxic quality on splinter weapons, works differently between games (Rogue Trader's version imposes a variable penalty based on damage inflicted, Black Crusade imposes a static penalty that varies by individual weapon).

Plushy said:

As much of a surprise as it was to me (I didn't even know work was being done on them), downloadable content containing a second career path and three alternate ranks for Dark Eldar characters has been made available for download.

After a look through of the book, I think I would have rather had a Dark Eldar supplement with an adventure in the back, instead of an Adventure with a Dark Eldar supplement in the back.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

So you didn't write The Dark Kin expansion then? Interesting.

I've been reading through The Soul Reaver adventure, and I found one part that seems off. The sidebox "Kicking in the Door" describes a backdoor assault on the Kabal HQ through passages that are relatively unused. However, they are guarder by gun emplacements (OK, sounds good) and, if attacked, Raiders start showing up carrying Dark Eldar troops. But…

All of the guards sitting in the gun emplacements are Trueborn. Further, all of the reinforcements arriving on the Raiders are Trueborn too.

That just seems wrong for two reasons. Firstly, Trueborn are supposed to be elites and shouldn't just be sitting on guard duty (especially considering their higher social status and how easily boredom comes to Dark Eldar). Secondly, I didn't figure that the numbers of Trueborn in a Kabal are particularly high. Having all of these guys be Trueborn really cheapens that.

EDIT: Now I find the part where all of the upper approaches (balconies) are covered by even more Trueborn guards. These guys even go on to show uncharacteristic focus for Dark Eldar since they all remotely check-in with one another every 1d5 minutes.

This is getting really tiresome…

Talking of tiresome, I'll be mighty glad when FFG gets tired of its Eldar obsession and stops making every damn adventure campaign centre around them, and also stops filling page after page of books like the Bestiary with more and more boring Eldar stuff (How many new types of Eldar in that book? About sixteen! Not to mention all those lame Dark Eldar pets).

I know a lot of folks love 'em but hell, enough already. Though I'm with the Eldar fans on one thing: I'm all for the Eldar getting their own core book and game line if it means they up-sticks and clear off from hogging the limelight in Rogue Trader.

Plynkes said:

Eldar get a lot of attention in the Koronus Expanse because - as has been pointed out in many of the RT books - it is a site filled with numerous Eldar holdings (some active and some less so). If the game was set near the Eye of Terror, I'd expect most of the stories to include Chaos. If the game was set on the Eastern Fringe, I'd expect Tau and/or Tyranids to take the stage. So, unless the focus of RT shifts away from the Koronus Expanse, I expect we'll see more Eldar involvement in the RT line.

Yeah, but it's only that way because they choose it to be so. They could focus on other things if they wanted to. The Expanse is crammed full of interesting adventuring possibilities, but all we ever seem to get lately is… bloody Space Elves. Zzzzzz….

I really, really hope you are wrong. More Eldar involvement in the RT line (though I don't really see how they could be MORE involved than they already are, surely they're at saturation point?) will definitely see less Plynkes involvement in the RT line, at least in the sense of buying the books. I want to keep supporting this game, but if they insist on continually releasing these Eldar-centric adventure books then I'm not going to be able to.

Plynkes said:

Sure, they made the choice to have the Koronus Expanse focus on the Eldar. However, they made that choice years ago and it's relatively set in stone at this point. That said, there's still a great deal that they can do to flesh out the Ork and Rak'Gol threats along with the Stryxis (who, to be fair, do appear to have some Eldar links in their background). The Yu'vath, despite being extinct, are still a second strong focus of the Expanse, and I wouldn't mind seeing an adventure - a full adventure - that really explores their remains.

Thing is, in the original rulebook, the Eldar just got a couple of pages. There wasn't anything there to lead one to believe that future adventures were going to be all about the Eldar, and nothing to hint that the Expanse was crammed with them and they were the main focus of the setting. They were just one of many races in the Expanse. Though now it seems they're the only one FFG are interested in.

I'd be up for your idea of some Yu'Vath archeological shenanigans (my players have expressed a desire to go dig up some Xenos ruins and pinch their stuff). It's funny that while I was drawn to this game because I loved the old Rogue Trader tabletop game as a teenager, the things I like about it most are those aspects that are more or less unique to Expanse setting rather than ubiquitous to all 40K. The things made up by FFG writers that weren't part of the canon before like the Yu'Vath and the Rak'Gol. That and the idea of ancient, dark, dead things buried on corpse worlds out at the far edge of the galaxy. Things that should not be. The Lovecraftian sort of stuff.

Despite my (admittedly sometimes unrationally rabid) dislike of the Eldar, I did actually buy The Soul Reaver, as I wanted to give it a chance to change my mind. Maybe that was a bit silly of me, because so far I am rather underwhelmed by it. But I did want to give it a fair go. No more Eldar adventures for me though, I think.

 And that is why I have issues with the Adeptus Mechanicus.  If they weren't so zealous and tried to examine and reverse-engineer Xenotech such as the Dark Eldar Darklight weapons, the Imperium's borders would be much larger.

Arnstinium said:

Or they could fail and catastrophically release dark matter (antimatter) sufficient to cripple or destroy a Forge World - crippling the waning resources of the Imperium. In their eyes, it's not worth the risk. This may be one of the few instances where they are shown as being reasonable.

HappyDaze said:

Actually that is the exact reason you have isolated research outposts (which are very cannon).  It is just that it is not grimdark enough if mankind is capable of learning and advancing. 

As to the adventure, it is fine for what it is.   As has been noted it is (or meant to be) pretty much all 'legwork'.  I will not even deduct points for having the players have been captured part (which normally means it is an auto fail in my book) because it specifically talks about the problems involved with that.  Still it feels like a standard adventure and not a RT adventure, or at least what I would expect of one (see frozen reaches for my idea of a good RT adventure).

For the supplement part all I can say is whoever wrote those stats REALLY likes Dark Eldar…. …. A LOT.  I especially love how they can be as good as 10x their number of orks in a boarding action, all while spending a good chunk of their time capturing and running off with large chunks of your crew.    To name just one thing…

Can I confirm (based on previous posts).

47 pages are devoted to the eldar background stuff, and 91 to the adventure (with 3 for misicilanous stuff).

Of the 47 we get 1 full DE career (supported by the dark kin suppliment).

Almost the full DE codex except Mandrakes as enemies.

4 DEldar vehicles, and 2 DEldar ships.

Most of the missing Dark Eldar weapony (and some reprinted from HA)

Fluff on a new location (The Shadow Nexus) and DE society around it.

Various character enemies from the adventure.

The 91-page 3-part Adventure contains no statted enemies at all, nor any items (these are all included in the last 47 pages?).

I don't really care about pre-written adventures generally speaking so for me I would be buying this for just the DE fluff parts. How does it compare to the Tyranid part of the Jerico reach suppliment? (Which contained all the missing Tyranid life forms, including some from Forge World).

If you were buying it just for the 47 pages would you be happy?

Finally, what's missing for DE at this point? (I mean we're unlikely to get a second suppliment on them) Just Mandrakes?

I bought it just for the career and adversary profiles.

I'm not a fan of published adventures. That's not a dig at their quality or a criticism of those who write them, I just prefer to run my own stuff. I got this book because it was, in my mind a "racial expansion book", specifically focused on Dark Eldar. It's got a DE career, a lot of their weapons, most of their units/vehicles, a few ships, and an adventure. It's a self-contained expansion that gives you virtually everything you could want for the DE. It's the same to me as The Outer Reach for Deathwatch, which I see as a "racial expansion book" for the Necrons (but with less emphasis on an adventure, and more on world-building). I think the game lines (maybe not DH) would do well to have more "racial expansions" like these. It would be an easy way of advancing the plots of each setting whilst introducing a new element to the game, all in a single expansion.

BYE