They have their own Primarch's Curse, squad mode abilities, Chapter Trapping, Advance Table, characteristic modifications… they have a complete write-up like the Blood Angels or Ultramarines.

Angel of Death said:

They didn't cause the RoB entry to be incorrect, their starting stats and bonus skill is the same, but they have a full write up, solo mode, psychic powers, Primarchs curse, advancement tables, the lot.

I just got it and I've been skimming through it. I like it, I really do. I'm not fully read up on the Space Marines, lots of novels and FW material that I haven't read up on so it's good to have a entry for a lot of chapters that I'd seen but didn't necessarily know that much about.

I don't know how they chose which chapters got a full write up and which got the successor adjustment (but with the Codex chapter entry that feels more organic for chapters that are not obvious successors), suffice to say the chapters with a full write up are pretty important guys.

Again though, there's an adventure at the back. I've not read it, I'm sure it's good, but for a book that's firmly in the Players guide territory I question it's usefulness. I can think of a couple of chapters of the top of my head that I'd have liked even successor rules for, the Mantis Warriors and the Scythes of the Emperor. So having to miss out peoples well loved chapters in the book that really fitted it is painful.

That last chapter isn't an adventure. It's all about the RP part of having multiple chapters and going to the Deathwatch. Good stuff for all players and GMs.

 I finally got my hands on it today, skimming through it I can't help but think that this would have been better if they had killed the adventure in FF and rolled both books into one RoB sized book, so you had one first founding chapter and then all it's successors in one chapter and then the next and the next and so on, then the unknown in one and the codex ones last. You would have been able to squeeze more information into the book like that and really FFG needs to stop putting mediocre filler scenarios in there, same goes for Emperor Protects ect, wast of resources at least IMHO. There is so much good stuff in the Jericho, as the Achillus Assult and Jerico Reach books showed, let them be ideas that we can flesh out for ourselves.

That said it's pretty much just a continuation of FF, salutations for not wasting space on a scenario I really approve of that.

 While I'll agree that adventures have less of a place in books like First Founding, I heartily enjoyed The Emperor Protects. Plus, published adventure modules can really help a novice GM get on their feet.

UncleArkie said:

Given how long ago FF was written, I doubt that would have been possible.

BYE

H.B.M.C. said:

Sure for this publication, but it's really just a question of logistics. Man-hours went into Rising Tempest, Jericho Reach and Achillus Assault in between the two. Move the man hours around and you could do it easily, actually I think the two books would have benefitted from being written back to back giving each writer more time and space to delve into the origin of each first founding chapter and better transitions into information about its successors. Right now parts of the background get's told twice, or trice even. It's rewritten for the purpose and thats not really needed if you own First Founding, but if you don't and buy Honour the Chapter on it's own then you need the data, only having to write it once would save a lot of pages.

Also it would mean decorative pages per page of content, right now there are 4 pages used on decoration for relics, that could be cut down to 2, same goes for the introduction to the book, the credits,. tables of content, grime pages and so on can be cut in half saving art-work, pages and so, not to mention colour hardcovers. This all costs a lot of money that could be spent adding content pages, more advanced specialities, more background fluff act even if it only is 8-10 pages worth. I think that's my main gripe with FFG, bad logistics when it comes to doing disp's for their publications.

Work in publishing much, Arkie?

UncleArkie said:

Vergaul said:

Indeed, I'm a graphic designer. As for the the publishing plan I hope that the logistics for the line is planned at least 2 years in advance, so yes First Founding and Honour the Chapter were probably conceived at the same meeting.

Deathwatch certainly is a strange roleplay game, we're up to 3 players guides. I pressume the average group has got through about 5 games each. I'm a big fan of completion though, but this alone is a good reason to release as much material about character generation early in the games life cycle.

Currently there seems to be 3 levels of chapters rules so far; Successor chapter level, Standard chapter level (as per original rules) and advanced chapter level with rank 3 solo modes etc.

There's obviously a lot of contention as to who get's what already. That's to be expected but to be honest upgrading from succesor to standard isn't that difficult and you can fit a lot more in. I wish they had different stat advances with successors though as now the standard rules for those chapters that were successors seem overly constrained.

Captain Ventris said:

Very Cool

I will have to get this.  Now a question do they still have access to Blood Angels stuff, or are they cut off?