While at work I'll cruise the Forums of here and Dark Reign, I'm fairly pumped to get into the Radicals Handbook but in the meantime I've been hoping to read the topics people I assumed would post but there is a serve lack from what I can tell.

Is the book so clear there is no questions to post? Is it so mediocre that no one has anything to flame or praise? Has no one exactually got it yet or people so busy playing with it they've not jump on the forums since?

The lack of buzz is killing my buzz instead of time while I'm at work.

I love it, absolutely adore it. I've always been a radical at heart in 40k (Chaos CAN be used against itself for the good of the Imperium!), and so I'm glad to have more resources to call on.

However, post-grad essays and other assignments, as well as Christmas shopping, have kept me from reading through it quickly. I've only managed the first quick read through, and as soon as I've finished university for this year (the end of this week), I'll have the time to read through it more deeply.

Still, it's probably, alongside DotDG, one of the best books of the lot.

It has a lot of good stuff in it, especially if you are running an Ordo Hereticus or an Ordo Malleus based cell. The tools for twisted daemonhosts and intriguing villians are very good. The corrupting power of the Warp is very apparent throughout the book. The radical carrer alternates are nice and the Elite advance packages useful though a couple classes get excluded from a lot of them.

There is a lot less love for the Radically inclined Ordo Xenos or even inquisitors willing to delve in the forbidden weapons and arts of the Dark Age of Technology. Even the radical technology to be found in it's pages are based around primarily warp corruption. While not unexpected I was kinda hoping for a few more temptations from the path of purity for my Tech Priest.

Personally, I absolutely loved it. It's an excellent book with some fantastic plot hooks, particularly the details on the Phaenonites, good art, and fun equipment for both PCs and villains. My only real issues with it are that I had already basically given my party a lot of the things detailed in the more mundane sections of the equipment part of the book, the lack of the saboteur career, and the fact that most of the alternate ranks are just ways to get sorcery. On the other hand, all of the alternate ranks are very, very flavorful (Mortiurge, Sin-Eaters and Maletek Stalkers are my favorites), and make for very fun ways to differentiate your PCs from the crowd.

The Saboteur got cut, but it's in the Salvation Demands Sacrifice on the DH support page. Personally I love the Infil-traitor....

I did like the xenos weapons, but there were not very many of them. I suspect this is because there is a lot of overlap in that regard with Rogue Trader.

I'd like to see a whole book exploring some of the more ironic elements of tech heresy. So far in DH, it's always "mwa ha ha I'm cutting open this living concious person and then I will pour the warp into his exposed veins!"

Which is great and all, but I'd like to see the Arch Heretek Hendrick Ford, who twisted his entire Forge World by altering the sacred Rites of Manufacturing in no less than three deviant manners: 1) incentivized high worker productivity through raises, health care, and retirement benefits, raising morale and allowing secutor resources to be reallocated, 2) streamlined division of labour protocols in power pack manufactories 22c-27b, 3) removed several elements of sacred circutry from the hallowed Laspistol design, defiling the machine spirits of the weapons with the result of a 20% savings in manufacturing time and 10% reduction in costs.

This foul heresy resulted in an increase of 200% in Laspistol production, but at the cost of untold deviance from the accepted creed of the Omnissiah. Ford was last seen vanishing into the Hazeroth Abyss just ahead of a Sollex execution cell. Neither has been heard of since, but rumours of a 35% increase in mean standard of living in the subsector persist, pointing to the heretek's continued presence!

its a **** good book. with alot of worthwhile fluff reading. it opens up a whole new aspect of DH giving rise to further GM/player invented Radical concepts.

i will agree with deimos and hodgepodge most of the concepts are based on some form of warp corruption or another. all good concepts that have a time honoured place in the universe but more mundane items strike my fancy. the citizens of dark heresy trying to do something different to improve their lot but frowned upon for not knowing their place. Dark AGE of Technology artifacts and other manners of Archeotech/xenotech were fairly absent.

nonetheless a solid read which will have ur mind frothing at all the possibilities, those listed in the book and those ur mind can conjure. once you discover outcast Sororitas, blighted scholars, forsaken priests, kill team Arbites/enforcers and Exorcised Acolytes... are u salivating as yet?

@hodgepodge. concerning your ArchHeretek Hendrick Ford. this is the kind of stuff that makes Acolytes really start to ask the hard questions what exactly are they fighting for and against? daemons and xenos are easy targets with very lil moral quandry or grey areas. criminals and heretics easy mush.

It's been bought for me as a christmas present, so I haven't read it! I suspect a few people might be doing that, hence lack of buzz....

I've gotten it but spend most of my time reading up on Haarlock and Purge the unclean, will get to it when done with those two though, from a quick glance it looks good with lots of info and I've always loved the radicals though I would suspect people need some time to play with the content before we'll see posts about it.

I really like it, although I haven't got around to having a good sit down and read through yet. I'll admit that the amount of Xeno radical ideas is very sparse. It would have been nice to see more of that, but I wouldn't be suprised to see such things in a book designed for both Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader.

I think some of my players were even more excited after looking at the book, especially the noble adept who I think would have really liked to have taken the new noble origin and the starting package where you know a daemons true name. He's after all sorts of blasphemous knowledge and that would have been an interesting thing to play with.

As with most of the supplements, it's giving me lots of ideas for what to confront the players with in future, and giving the players lots of ideas as to how they can make their characters more of their own creation, and also tempting them into making new ones!

I think you captured something I love about the book, Calden: it's exciting for both a GM and a player. The new options are powerful, but most of them come with compelling plot hooks and lead the player into roleplaying dillemmas. They also all make great adversaries or questionable allies. Most of the new weapons and armor, etc, are quests or storylines in themselves to acquire and use.

Speaking of the book quality, please explain me one tricky thing.

It is known, that the 'Good' and the 'Evil' in 40k are quite vague, and it is usually impossible to draw a line between them. That's one of the things I (and maybe others) love 40k for.

In this case: is the Radical's Handbook mostly designed to allow the players to 'play as baddies',

or

is it rather an unbiased review of the radical means to do the job (which I like more)?

The book does not make many moral judgements. The radicals presented range greatly in their motivations and beliefs, including the Oblationists, who are otherwise hardline puritans who believe that they have intentionally damned themselves, and only making and accepting this sacrifice is a valid path to using chaos against itself, to the Libricar, who are actually super-hardline-puritains.

The one exception is the Phaeronite faction, which is clearly intended for an "evil campaign." That faction has turned against the Emperor and pursues warp-tainted technology with the goal of making humanity masters of the warp, and have been excommunicated as a result.

Applying "good" and "evil" to the radical/puritan split is like applying "good and evil" to capitalism and communism. They are opposing philosophies, each of which is capable of being used for both good and evil, but whose underlying moral framework is arguably neutral in both cases.

I haven't read much of the Radical's Handbook myself because, like many others, tis the season where everyone is busy.

That being said, the little I have read is very cool and very fluffy. The part where it explains what happens when an Inquisitor is accused of being a heretic (and what happens to his unfortunate alcolytes) was pretty cool.

Thanks, guys!

I am buying it.

Lightbringer said:

Hehe, personally I'd rather say that communim and caitaim are opposing philosophies, each of which is capable of being used for good, but ultimately ends up being used for evil because both are invented by humans, but not FOR humans.

And considering the Inquisition's bad reputation and the general state of the Imperium of Man, I'd say that the same thing applies to puritanism and radicalism alike.

Lightbringer said:

Ditto.

Thats what I thought, but I also assumed the lucky Acolytes who have already got there hands on it would have something to say.

And you do! Keep it coming, it's an 8 hour day

I haven't read the whole book yet (only got it a few days ago) but I would say thus far, it is a wonderful GM resource. I particularly love the dark technology, the Psy-engine is just great, almost Skaven-like in its weirdo warp science kinda way. My only complaint thus far is there seems to be a lot of copied material from DoTG with the sorcery section.

My new Characters back story involves an exorcism. Whats the gist there?

There is a really significant elite advance for exorcised characters, and if it suites your needs you will find it very useful. In brief, the character becomes withdrawn socially and suffers several other penalties, but is extremely resistent to further corruption or psychic attack.

Lightbringer said:

That is an excellent way to frame it, and is pretty much how the book comes across. Like a lot of other people on this thread, I have the book and have been very pleased with what I have had time to read, but have had things going on that kept me from reading it fully.

However, I will say that the above lack of moral judgments, as well as the fact there is some perfectly innocuous gear in there makes it so much better. It really leaves that fuzzy question of when someone has crossed the line into "radicalism" as it should be: up to interpretation.

Hodgepodge said:

Yeah thats fits pretty well. I've already started the character so is it too late to use the material when I get a copy?

Hodgepodge said:

Hodgepodge said:

Yeah thats fits pretty well. I've already started the character so is it too late to use the material when I get a copy?

Plagueface said:

It's an elite advance package so you can buy it at any time. Provided your GM approves of course.