Well I managed to pick up a copy of the new IKRPG today, but I wanted to have a flip through and posts my thoughts on it hence the lateness of this blog post.
Quality of the book is quite fine, hardback with glossy paper which should ensure a longer life of the book. Plenty of new artwork along with updated and coloured versions of old artwork from the previous version, always good but I wished that they had done more of the Human ones.
Theres a 100 odd pages of fluff that form the first part of the book, nothing really indepth but enough to give you a feel for the setting and its history. The shortened timeline was a bit disappointing, though I hazard they only decided to list key events and that we'll see the timeline fleshed out more in future books when they cover the nations in more depth. What was nice was the bit on the Ascendants of Morrow and the Sicons of Thamar, chiefly listing each one with their symbols and patronage. It was interesting to see that one Sicon protected Morrowan communities against Menite purges and another's research led to the cortexes used by warjacks and is the patron of arcanists, artificers and teachers. Also Thamar is portrayed as being more more of a grey area when it came to good and evil, she's really more towards the 'one over the many' whilst her brother Morrow is the 'many over the one'.
Races and Careers don't need much explaining, I'm a bit disappointed that there is only one entry for Humans rather than the different stats for each ethic group that existed in the old version. I can understand that they could only fit so much in, but it would've been something nice to add a bit of flavour to the setting. A good selection of careers, though I'd like to have seen more variety but that is something that'll be fixed in future books and issues of No Quarter.
The game mechanics also don't need much coverage, its mostly the Warmachine rules and work pretty well. Combat is nice and fast paced whilst fairly lethal at the same time, really prefer it over D20.
Equipment for most part is fine, but I'd like to see more gun ammo types and a few more iconic IK weapons but I guess this may also be addressed later on.
Reuse of artwork and a few typos have bit of a negative impact on the book, but it isn't really that much of a big issue in my personal opinion. A bit more in the way of original artwork would've been nice but isn't really that important and typos are something that plague dozens of books no matter the company, tis something that happens. Overall I really like the book and the system, certainly going to sit down and read it cover-to-cover when I get the chance to do so.
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