Any word on what's happening with this?

Xenos Compendium

2 years for the book that gives you antagonists is one hell of a wait.

Of course orks, eldar, tau, yuvath, rak gol and others have been detailed in quite a few supplements including the RT and DW core - Dark Heresy has quite a few alien profiles to use as well.

signoftheserpent said:

Eh. Edge of the Abyss adds quite a few already, and almost every sourcebook adds some variety of alien, mutant or heretic.

I'm still hoping that they add Eldar as a playable career in there. After all they never have reprinted stats from one book in another and Black Crusade seemingly gets the Dark Eldar. So what's left for Rogue Trader are the non-Children of Thorns Eldar pirates, the Stryxis, the leftovers of the Yu'vath, the Rak'gol and maybe a few Orkz....

And yet it looks like we're going to need Black Crusade if we want Dark Eldar at least.

I find FFG's approach inexplicable. I like these games in spite of them, that's the problem. For example: Dark Eldar are by nature pirates, that's their role in the 40k universe. They are raiders. Therefore perfect foes for the RT game. Yet no presence in any of the books I have (which are all of them save the adventure books + screen).

signoftheserpent said:

I think part of the problem is that there are 4 different systems with 4 different power levels. In D&D you know that characters will go from level 1 to level 20 and get one Monster Handbook with everything important for that.

not only that, but you have different power levels within each as well.

So surely you release a Xeno book early on. Later you can release scenario books.

signoftheserpent said:

Actually, it's a standard timetable for most RPGs - they release pre-written campaigns, because lots of people like them and it helps people get into the game, and then they release stuff for antagonists and the like, so that people keep playing it.

It's that way with the majority of RPGs I've played over the years.

I don't think that's true at all. It also makes no sense.

signoftheserpent said:

Well, it has been true for a very large number of RPGs I've played.

Also, what makes no sense? Those who prefer written adventures are sucked right in from the start with material available for them to run right from the off, and those who don't need them quite so much are often able to work things out for themselves until books come in to fill out other parts later down the line.

It certainly seems to have worked in FFG's case, given the sheer numbers of sales the 40k RPG have been making (enough that they were beating White Wolf and Wizards of the Coast at some points (such as sales of DH+RT a year and a bit ago)).

MILLANDSON said:

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/13825.html

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/14725.html

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/17087.html

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/18504.html

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/20178.html

It started off 2nd only to DnD, and now is second only to DnD and Pathfinder (so DnD 3.5 and 4.0, which is unsurprising).

Now, that might partially be to do with the setting, but it wouldn't keep doing well unless people liked the books.

Only read into this what you will: I ordered Rogue Trader: Hostile Acquisitions from Amazon.com and I got a message from them stating that the release date for this book is now sometime in January 2012. I almost always get such a message from Amazon.com about how the release date for newly published material is being pushed back by a few weeks, but I have never had a message about the release date for newly published material being set back by a full SIX MONTHS. I have also ordered Rogue Trader: Xeno Compendium and it is almost time for this product to be released. I would not be surprised if I get another message stating the release date for Rogue Trader: Xeno Compendium is going to be pushed back into the first or second quarter of 2012.

With the previous RPG I followed (that was published by another company-not Fantasy Flight Games), I learned that if the release date was March/April, then I would get my shipping confirmation sometime in June.

MILLANDSON said:

What rpgs did you play then?

It honestly doesn't make sense, neither does it make sense that they'll likely end up putting - yet again - chaos and heretics into a xenos book release.

Personally i'd prefer comparing FFG to pathfinder/DnD as it's the only other line out there with the same kind of following for the setting. Both consider the basis of books you need to play the game to be: CRB for players and CRB + Campaign Setting + GM guide + Bestiairy for GMs. That's always the first four books out. Yes they publish scenarios but they don't let that keep them from the four books that honestly form the basis for any GM (an experienced GM is free to drop the GM guide in Pathfinder btw, nothing new or crucial in there). Here they mix the campaign setting and GM guide in with the CRB meaning that on all three counts you loose out and get a job half done. It does mean that it's cheaper to get the starting material but then that's offset because it's so frustrating to see how much there's still lacking or which isn't worked out propperly. A bestiairy is completely lacking, at least for RT and DW.

If i see the amount of people on eg. Dark Reign and other 40k fansites that are trashing the FFG RPG system then i know that they could have made a lot more money if they'd have put more thought into it. I'd wager to state that FFG made/makes so much money despite their choices rather then because of it.

There are loads of example xenos and the like in the current RT books, ranging from Orcs to Rak'gols to Eldar (sure, they might not have rules for the different paths, and so we don't have Banshees or the like, but most of the Eldar you're gonna be running into are corsairs anyway).

You are also entirely wrong with Deathwatch, since "Mark of the Xenos" is full of different antagonists - that's pretty much it's sole function.

MILLANDSON said:

Did i say there weren't loads of example xenos in the current RT books? No i didn't. However, they are all spread out over different books and they leave alot to be desired on pretty much all of them. Not to mention that there are several which are hardly detailed at all, even if they are important to the setting - like Yu'Vath. You mention Rak'gol for example. We have 3 ships for them (on four pages) from BFK. We have nearly half a page on them in the CRB. We got butkiss in ItS and we have 4 pages on them in EoTA, which give us 2 profiles to work with: the marauder and the broodmaster. That's it.

Mark of the Xenos is indeed full of different antagonists, that's exactly my point. It's got in fact half of it's book devoted to adversaries that are NOT xenos (had it wrong with 1/3d earlier, it's 1/2nd). Out of it's 142 pages only 65 are devoted to the alien menace despite the Deathwatch being a specific anti-Xenos chapter. Not to mention there is already more then enough information on different Chaos adversaries in the franchise - unlike the Xenos.

What is there is not even close to being satisfying. The most interesting species are the Crotalid and the Lacrymole, but where the Crotalid doesn't need more description then it's gotten, the Lacrymole definitely needs more then the two pages it got (with 2/3ds a page being remembrances of codifier talon and the other third of that page being adventure seeds - so really just one page). We have four new Kroot being introduced, with one being essentially a bigger version of the other (Gnarloc/Greater Gnarloc). We only get one new Tau Battlesuit, one Tau commander profile and a very small amount of info on the Ethereals (including a profile which does nothing to explain just how they control the other Tau). Oh, i almost forgot, there is also the Tau Pathfinders which for some reason are placed after the Kroot rather then after the rest of the Tau. Vespids? We get one.

The only species that gets a bit of a decent amount is Tyranids of whom we get a full dozen new adversaries along with weapons and psychic powers. Even so a multitude of questions is left unanswered such as which ships do they use, how does the hive mind function, ... . My players just destroyed Tantalus and so i ruled that they killed several dozen big bioships (no idea what those'd look like btw) in the process severely weakening them... but if i go by the books then i simply don't know how many bioships are there, what they'd look like, what weaponry they have, how many of them would be in a tyranid attack on the system and how many ground troops they transport and so forth and so forth. It is also mentioned somewhere that they are highly hierachically structured and that in the attacks on Ultramar several DW killteams were sent to kill key Tyrannids which greatly weakened the rest. How does this work, which ones are key? How does it affect the others? And so forth.

Orks are so pathetic it's not even worth mentioning. Into the Storm player careers offers more decent info then we get in Mark of the Xenos.

Basically for a book entitled "mark of the Xenos ", with a back caption stating: "hunt down the deathwatch's ancient foes! (that'd be xenos, not chaos/heretics unless said heretics worship xenos) ... i'm disappointed bigtime. None of the adversaries that the DW might face get a decent fleshing out: not xenos, not chaos and not heretics.

Badlapje said:

Yeah, but it could be said the Deathwatch members have some fairly big grudges against the renegade marines that go back ten thousand years and they do have a fairly chunky grip on parts of the Josian Reach.

I'd buy a big bumper book of bugs n' baddies that was compiled... going though the collection of DH, RT, DW books the group owns and will soon own BC, is a lot of looking. The precedent in Daemon-Hunter to easily add "X" amount to certain areas depending on the scale of the adventure is also a really good idea.

N0-1_H3r3 wrote up this apocrypha

Go down about half way and get the file on the great devourer.

That'll give you a good start, assuming you have no other fluff to read.

You can also take my utility the RTSU (download link at bottom of page) and create any random ship, then rename its components and call it a Tyranid Bio Ship. Just think of it as a biological vessel rather than a metal vessel and voila - profit!

Badlapje said:

That's why I don't buy nothing more about Deathwatch: even in Rites of Battle is my last book of this game.

bobh said:

Great suggestions on both counts! Thx a lot bobh

I thank you. And I might create an alternate character sheet for tyranid organisms in the RTSU. I'll see about that after I get a hang of craftsmanship : shudder.

Yeah, that'd be great if Xenos hulls are added to it so we can make their ships as well. Still, i've been using your sheet for a while now, even without that functionality it remains kickass.

There aren't rules for bioships since there technically aren't any in the Koronus Expanse. As far as stats for them in Deathwatch; DW is not focused on ship combat. Granted, it CAN be if you want it to be, but the core game does not include rules for ship combat. If you want to use Tyranid ships as background material, then there is a free BFG PDF file from GW that details their ships. If you are wanting to use Rogue Trader rules, in Deathwatch, for Tyranids. Then you should accept the fact that you will have to home-brew something since its not "official" so to speak.

If you are wanting to use Tyranids in Rogue Trader, again, that is fine and you are free to do whatever you want in your pocket-version of 40k, but officially that doesn't exist so again, you will have to home-brew something.