Humble Bundle has previously done bundles for both Rogue Trader and Deathwatch. Now, they appear to be combining the two into one big package.
Rogue Trader is my favourite of the 40K RPGs. Focusing on an independent trader and his trusty (eh, actually, not so much) companions, I think it just has a bit more room for maneuvering and is a bit freer of established lore than the other 40K RPGs. Of course, you totally maintain the ability to draw on it when you want to. Deathwatch uses broadly the same system as Rogue Trader, but it focuses on the Space Marines, the iconic… icons of the 41st millennium.
Previously developed by Fantasy Flight Games, the license is now held by Cubicle 7, the developers of the new 40K RPG, Wrath and Glory. Seemingly, the deal with GW includes the right to sell the older titles as well. There must be some bemused faces in the RPG team at Fantasy Flight, seeing their books being sold with another company’s logo slapped on them. Well, there might have been, if FFG had not shut down their RPG team. Oh, well. Never mind.
So what, then, do you actually get in this bundle?
Well…
Normally, I’d break these bundles down and comment on most of the items therein. I’d look at eac individual tier and weight up the benefits of each. I’m not going to do that this time.
There are a couple of reasons for this. Laziness might be one, let’s be honest. Beyond this personal failing, there are others. First, the sheet amount of content in this bundle. There are 41 items here. 41! There’s also a slight issue with the construction of the tiers, which I will discuss later. In the meantime, I hope your mousewheel is working, because here’s all the content from the bundle:
That’s a lot of content. The whole thing, at retail cost, would set you pack £532.88. Here, it will cost you less than £25. Let’s just make it clear that this, right here, is value.
I’ve only mentioned the upper tier cost. You can spend less to unlock only part of the bundle if you wish. £0.90 will get you a handful of items and there’s a tier at a little under £14 that will get you 18 items. The thing is, these tiers kind of suck.
Hear me out.
There’s plenty of content in that middle tier, but it’s not actually useful. In most bundle deals, I tend to emphasise the important of the first tier as a starting point for players, whereas the higher tiers are often more useful to the GM. This is not the case here.
The problem is that the most important books in any bundle are the core rulebooks. These contain a lot of content. They have the core rules for the game, instructions on character creation, lots of background info and art, and they are technically the only books you actually need in order to play. They are the most important items in the bundle. Everything else is just additional, extra, and optional content.
They ain’t in those lower tiers.
That. Is. Terrible. It’s manipulative. It’s completely disingenuous.
So if you asked me if I would recommend this bundle, I’d actually be pretty torn. You’re getting a huge amount of content, most of which is very good quality. You’re getting an expansive (and usually expensive) RPG system for a relative pittance… but it’s also presented in a way that really annoys me.
The first tier could have just been the core books. Nothing else. Maybe a starter adventure for each would have been worth chucking in. That the core books are only in the final tier is, best case scenario, bad bundle construction. Worst case, it’s cynical. It’s presenting a lower price point for something that is not fully usable as-is. It’s selling a car without an engine.
If you buy this bundle, you’re getting a good deal; you should go for the whole package anyway. I just don’t want to reward this behaviour.
You can click here to visit the bundle page of Humble Bundle.
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