Warhammer 40,000: Wrath & Glory Core Book

Warhammer 40,000, Roleplay, Wrath and Glory

by Zak Dale-Clutterbuck, Jonathan Woodhouse, Ross Watson

A GRIM FUTURE OF GLORIOUS ADVENTURE

The sinister schemes of the Chaos Gods have shattered the galaxy. The Great Rift tore through space and reality, pushing mortal life to the precipice of oblivion. The Gilead System has lost contact with the vast Imperium, trapped in the silent darkness. As the shadows of extinction loom, hope fades but is not yet entirely extinguished.

Rallied by the Rogue Trader Jakel Varonius, a disparate group are dedicated to doing what must be done to keep the Gilead System from being consumed by the darkness. Can they resist the machinations of Chaos as well as the plots of those who see the rift as an opportunity to further their own power?

Time is running out in the 41st Millennium. This accursed age needs heroes more than ever before.

Will you answer the call?

The Wrath & Glory Rulebook is everything you need to roleplay grim and glorious adventures in the Gilead System.
What is Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Wrath & Glory?

Wrath & Glory is the story of the Gilead System, eight Imperial worlds cut off from the Emperor’s light by the Great Rift. The new Rulebook focuses on the Gilead System, allowing you to tell your own stories in a society beset by daemonic invasion and internal corruption.

Character Creation has been streamlined, with a focus on Frameworks. With so many choices of who and what you can play, you’ll want to decide the focus of your game early!

The Factions Chapter is a primer on life in the 41st Millennium, detailing each of the organisations vying for supremacy in the Warp-torn Gilead System. Here you’ll find expanded background options for every Faction, each of which provides a bonus during play.

The Archetypes you know and love have been presented in an easy-to-read, single-page format. All requirements have been removed, and extra bonuses have been added to complement the slight changes to Wrath & Glory. The Attribute, Skill, and Talent suggestions are ideal for guiding new players through making a character, or building quick NPCs on the fly.

The Wrath & Glory Talent list has been massively expanded into an entire chapter for a greater range of character customisation. Some of these are classic Warhammer fare we know and love — tearing through armour, proficiency with blazing promethium, and, of course, MORE DAKKA! There are other choices for investigative or social-based games. Talents like Conversational Cogitator bring the focus back to roleplaying, letting you use the augmetics of your mechanised mind to calculate the best response in any conversation.

Once you’ve survived a few adventures (hopefully without losing too many limbs), you’ll have gathered some Experience Points (XP). The new Advancement chapter has overhauled the Ascension system, allowing you to change Archetypes, take new Ascension Packages, or just spend your XP on cool stuff. The system is designed to be both robust and flexible to suit any group.

The essential Rules have been reviewed, edited, playtested, and presented with a focus on clarity and quick understanding. Very little has changed bar a few simplifications, which will mean you’re using the book less and your imagination more.

Combat is around every corner in the grim darkness of the 41st Millennium. We’ve gone through all the errata for Wrath & Glory, taking the same approach as with the Rules. Combat is largely unchanged, apart from simplification, clarification, and some cool new optional rules, including an entirely new Stealth system.

Genres: Role Playing Games, Science Fiction, Fantasy, 40k, Dystopia, War, Gaming

383 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 2019

Reviews

[Taddow · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a big fan of the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Many years have been spent painting and playing the miniatures game, playing the Dark Heresy RPG, playing various related computer and board games and reading its huge selection of fiction. So naturally I was excited when Wrath & Glory was announced following Fantasy Flight discontinuing its Dark Heresy RPG. I will admit that I am a little bias with my favoritism of Dark Heresy. Despite the system’s flaws (especially at the higher levels of play), I think that Dark Heresy has some great game mechanics and does well at capturing the grim dark horror and violence of the Warhammer 40K setting. It was such a great system and setting that my gaming group played a decade long weekly campaign before retiring it (some of the group hope this is only temporary). I was hoping that Wrath & Glory (which also utilized the talents of Dark Heresy developer Ross Watson) would be just as good, if not better.

Pros:
• I liked how Wrath & Glory tries to standardize inflicting and taking damage with rules that give nearly every weapon the potential to cause damage. There was some frustration with the Dark Heresy system where a lowly lasgun had no chance of hurting someone due to armor or Unnatural Toughness (which rose to maddeningly levels of game breaking resilience with the right combinations). This is the standard weapon of the Imperial Guard, but rule-wise was hard pressed to deal with a lot of the foes that the Guardsmen were going to face. Of course, fluff-wise, this made sense for many of the tough creatures that a lowly servant of the Imperium might have to fight (Carnifexes, Chaos Spawn, etc.) but it quickly became near-obsolete against foes in carapace armor and even flak armor at times if a character had decent Toughness. The Wrath & Glory system adjusted these damage output and soaking discrepancies pretty well. The ability to shift icons (high rolling die rolls) for extra damage was great idea.

• The inclusion of rules to play a variety of different human and non-human archetypes. To name just a few, you can play a Guardsman, or an Unsanctioned Psyker, a Space Marine (loyalist or Chaos), including a Primaris, an Eldar or an Ork. A lot of options for playing more than just human agents are nice (some of these non-human options, such as Orks, were included in Fantasy Flight’s Rogue Trader and were Dark Heresy compatible) for a group that wants to try a non-Imperial group. Of course, personally I’m not a big fan of mixed species parties (reminds me of the start of a bad joke, “A Space Marine, an Ork and an Eldar walk into a bar…”) and ultimately its up to the gaming group if that’s the type of mash-up they want to play or not. I think having rules available to make up a party to represent an Eldar strike force is pretty cool though.

• The dice mechanics (which uses six-sided dice) are an interesting concept. Basically, skill rolls and damage rolls are done rolling a number of D6s (determined by your skill, attribute stats and any modifiers) and trying to gain a target number of successes based on the difficulty of the task. Rolling “4s” and “5s” each count as one success and rolling “6s” count as two successes. Players also roll a different colored d6 as part of their test that is called a Wrath Die and rolling a “6” on this can grant additional bonus effects (such as extra damage or a positive benefit in a social interaction) and rolling a “1” will cause a Complication which will negatively effect the encounter (running out of ammo for example). Players can shift “6s” rolled toward gaining extra effects if they already have enough successes to complete a test and it sort of reminds me of the Legend of the Five Rings (L5R) RPG “roll and keep” mechanic or Fantasy Flight’s Star Wars or Genesys systems where dice have the potential to be used for more than just raw numbers of pass or fail.

Cons:
• The book is plagued by typos. They are bad. Even with the most up to date errata, the book still has numerous inconsistencies in rule sections or points used in character creation examples that just don’t add up. This causes confusion over what the rules are trying to say and I would have thought that many of these should have been caught during the proof-reading phase.

• While the dice mechanics are intriguing, they start (in my opinion) bogging down some of the play as you have different effects that are trigger by “1s” or “6s” on the Wrath die and different die pools, “Ruin” and “Glory,” that the GM and players use. While I don’t think these are as bad as what you find in L5R 5th edition, it will take some book-keeping and cheat sheets to get used to the options available.

• Setting Information is very lacking. The game has the Gilead System as the base setting but the book present very limited information about the Gilead system (most of which are sentences in some of the creature descriptions in the Bestiary). The Dark Heresy rulebook had a nice Calixis system section where it described some of the system planets with brief descriptions. Many of these little descriptions were enough to provide a basic understanding of the planet’s purpose, cultures and possible adventure seeds. You get none of that here. There is Warhammer 40K general setting information, which is nice but I would have liked to see more (even a basic outline) of the Gilead system.

• The book is already getting a 2nd edition to change and address some of the issues with the 1st edition. This book came out in 2018 and in 2020 it is already getting a new edition. Seems a little too quick for my taste (I’m sure part of my discontent is that I went all in buying Wrath & Glory and its accompanying books and items only to find out a year later that it would be getting a new edition with major fixes). I understand that this could happen with any game and buyer beware, but I also think that it points to a rushed and poorly tested system.

After reading the rules I found them bittersweet. While there were some things I liked, I think Dark Heresy is a better ruleset. There are a lot of great ideas in here and I would like to give all this a decent shot with a mini-campaign.

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ring Side Report- RPG Review of Wrath and Glory



Originally posted at www.throatpunchgames.com, a new idea everyday!



Product- Wrath and Glory Warhammer 40K Roleplay Core Book

System- Wrath and Glory Warhammer 40K Roleplay

Producer- Ulisses Spiele

Price- $ 40.00 here https://www.gamenerdz.com/warhammer-40k-wrath-glory-rpg-starter-set-preorder?gclid=Cj0KCQjw77TbBRDtARIsAC4l83noBu-k1Ixh3su554S-3-k3nQS8VplfBm-A82w6EaBzdBMWaEWEzWIaAsxYEALw_wcB

TL; DR- In the Grim Dark Future there is only a surprisingly indie RPG! 93%

Basics-For the God Emperor! Wrath and Glory is a new RPG from Ulisses Spiele that covers the world of 40K, a grim, gothic world of alien threats to mankind and the equally horrible men and women who fight the xeno threat while burning heretics by the score. Let’s bust up how to play.



Core rules- Wrath and glory uses a modified d6 system like Shadowrun. Every action taken by the character is done by adding up the character’s attribute plus their skill for that action and rolling that many six-sided dice. One die is kept a separate color and is called the wrath dice, and is important later. Players then count all the dice that roll 4s and 5s for single successes. Each 6 counts as two successes. Most tests require 3 successes to succeed, with some harder things requiring up to 11 almost impossible to get successes while easy things that always succeed might only require 1 success. Players have access to a number of different pools to alter these rolls.



Icons and Exalted Icons-Each 4 and 5 counts as an icon. This means successes, but it opens up design space. Not only do sixes count as two success, but sixes also count as exalted icons. All players share an icon pool that extra exalted icons can be shifted into or take from called glory. Exalted icons provide extra dice on damage, making tests go fasters, getting better results, or moved into the glory pool. Glory give you extra dice, extra damage, increase critical hit severity, and mess with initiative.



Wrath-Wrath is the last pool players can play with. Wrath allows players to reroll failures on a test, gain back shock (think stamina points from Starfinder), gain bonuses on some checks, and add elements to a scene. This is the most powerful pool a player can use, so they only gain more points by role playing well, completing objectives, and some out of combat campaign goals.



Ruin-Ruin is the last pool that players can generate, but this is a GM toy. Ruin operates like a combination of wrath and glory but for NPCs. Players generate ruin when the roll a 6 on the one separate wrath die.



Combat-Combat is interesting because combat has much more indie vibe to is. Players take turns nominating characters then NPCs to act leading to a much more narrative structure. Attacks work just like all other rolls with an attacker rolling attribute + skill vs. targets defence value. On a success, the attacker rolls a number of dice equal to the exalted icons shifted from the attack or glory pool plus any from the weapon itself plus the weapons base damage value. Success on the extra dice add to the base damage. If damage is equal to or lower then the targets resistance, then it takes some shock (again, it's kind of like stamina points from Starfinder, they come back quickly on a quick rest but you can be knocked out when you lose them all). If the damage if more than the resistance, you take wounds. When wounds equal your total, you’re dead! If you roll a 6 on the wrath die,not only does ruin generate, but you do critical hit damage.

In addition to the narrative structure of combat, players can spend glory to further mess with initiative. Instead of nominating an NPC to go after a player, the players can spend glory to force another player to go after another player. When the story demands awesome, the pools of player toys provide!

Also in combat are mobs of creatures. It would not be Warhammer if you didn’t fight 40 orcs at a time! When more then one unnamed creatures is present, they can fight as one giant mob with each extra creature beyond the first adding extra dice to the attack pool.



Psionics- Warhammer 40K doesn’t have magic, it's got psionics or psykers! Psionics fit in simply like any other skill roll. You make willpower + psychic mastery roll and need to hit a number of success based on the power to activate it. In addition, each power also has a number of extra abilities called potency that can be activated if a character hit enough exalted icons.



Those are the major parts of the game. Attribute + skill for rolls looking for 4s, 5s, and hopefully 6s to do cool stuff and move the story forward. Let’s see what I think.



Theme or Fluff-Well done RPGs that introduce a new world fall into two major camps-story first or crunch first. This game starts story first. Overall, it’s well done. I don’t know a lot about the imperium of mankind and the horrors of the warp, but I know there is A LOT. This book CANNOT teach you all that you can learn about 40K. That is just impossible as there are entire youtube channels that release videos daily and still find 40K content to cover months later! The book is more human centered, but later the book give lots of rules for non-human characters. It makes me want to know more about these xeno races. That’s not bad, but a bit more would make me feel like I could run a xeno game without needing other books. However, as your first introduction to the world of Warhammer 40K, this is a great place to start from. 4.5/5



Mechanics or Crunch- I really like the mechanics of this game. Warhammer 40K is a game where you throw buckets of d6s at problems until they die. This game uses the same mechanic, but slimmed down. Unlike the wargame, you do not compare defense values before rolling and checking charts to find what the numbers on the dice need to be to hit a creature. This games uses a Shadowrun inspired d6 system that is amazingly slick. Shadowrun isn’t the perfect example, but its the system that comes to mind when I roll d6s and look for specific numbers. The comparison brakes down further when you add in glory, wrath, and ruin. I love everything I see here as Wrath and Glory has carved out its own mechanics from other games. What's more, the narrative nature of the game really draws you in. You can’t sit on the sideline waiting for your initiative. Every player has to be engaged to really survive as a team. The tier system of character development and determining appropriate challenges will help the games running smoothly and let players know if that orc is just another nob loser to kill in a hit or a major problem that will kill the entire crew! Nothing here feels like it will just slow down the game. I can’t say how much I love everything that I see here. 5/5

Execution-I like this book. I was reading a PDF, so I can’t comment on if its hyperlinked, but it looks great. It’s also over 400 pages so that's amazing for the price. However, the one thing I wish the book had was more pictures. I know enough 40K to hum a few bars, but I can’t keep up with the deep lore. I never got into the miniature game because models had to be accurate to play in a tournament, and I don’t know a bolter from a lascanon. I’d like more pictures in the book to show me what all the weapons, armors, and toys are. Wanting more is a great place to leave your customers, and I can tell this one will have several more splat books. It’s a great book, but more fluff would help follow what all the action is about as well as break up the text in the book. 4.5/5

Summary-This game had a tall order to follow. Wrath and Glory needed to deliver an RPG that let players throw a buckets of d6s, play quick, and let bloody glory for the god emperor rage across the galaxy. And I think it does it! The system need more books to cover everything as ANY 40K RPG can’t be complete in one book. Just the 30+ years of lore means that any one book that is made can’t come close to explaining all of what is going on here. But this tome does start the RPG at a good place. The mechanics are slick and play fast. The pools of different tokens make me feel like I have control of the action. The narrative nature of combat further brings in players to a visceral RPG where story comes first. The fluf of the world feels good, and even a novice like myself feels like I’ve learned enough to at least start. The book is laid out well, but needs more pictures to help break up text and show not tell me more about the world. None of these complaints are game ending bad though. I love what I’m seeing, and I just can’t wait for more! 93%

[Matthew Gilliland · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up and Gencon and read nearly every page cover to cover.

They system is engaging and simple to use.

It is a standard d6 system with a dice pool of attribute+skill and you are looking for 4, 5, 6. If you roll enough you succeed.

Wrath Dice a designated dice that when it rolls a 1 or 6 either a complication happens or you get a critical success. Its simple and it works to add some variety to any task.

The character creator seems simple enough. However, there is some math to spend points to increase stats and buy talents (feats or edges).

It is designed to be played as a mix of Imperial Agents but does give ideas how you could add in Eldar and some of the supplements add in Ratlings and Ogryns. Sadly there doesn't appear to be Squats... Yet.

I have played this game once at Origins as an all Orks group and it was the funnest gaming session I have ever played in!!!

I can see players doing some sneaky intrigue like playing undercover Cultist, Genesteeler Hybrids or Inquisitor Acolytes. Heck I'm going to imply that each of them could be and pull them off away from the group individually to see if they will take the off. Even if they don't the other players won't know the difference.

[Matias · Rating 3 out of 5]

System is clear and simple enough but with enough options to make interesting combats. The main weakness is trying to convey four tiers in one book. The result is not enough archetypes per tier available for my taste neither enough talents to allow customized chars specially when the same archetype is chosen by more than one player.

Worst some archetypes are missing for certain tiers at least to allow a progression from any. Something that Forsaken tries to solve but is never good to require two books to have a good char creation base.

I hope C7 keep focus on providing good material at good pace, specially on those areas not covered in the first book as vehicles and ships.

[Arthur B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good pass at a complete-in-one-book WH40K RPG system, but has sufficient bugs, janky areas, and a general air of being rushed that it isn't as good as it could be. The Cubicle 7 version is so much better that it is perhaps best to see the Ulisses edition as a buggy beta, now comprehensively replaced. Full review: https://refereeingandreflection.wordp...

[Gary Laporte · Rating 4 out of 5]

The revised version seems to work much better than the 1.0 one. I feel that there are some odd design choices, where some things are very simple and abstract while others seem on the other hand very detailed and complicated.

Looking forward to the expansions which should flesh out the setting and mechanics.

[Theo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love the Warhammer 40K universe and RPG's. This book should have been better. It's difficult to read and difficult to reference for a Games Master. I'm hoping with the new edition from Cubicle 7 they improve these aspects and begin to release content to support playing this game.

[Bryan L. · Rating 3 out of 5]

The system feels good and gameplay is fun. The core rules cover a wide range of material but they need supplements to provide much needed depth. It's a beautiful book but the editing is terrible.

[Krell75 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Qualità manuale (impaginazione, illustrazioni, disposizione regole): ⭐⭐⭐⭐
(Manuale di alta qualità visiva. Per me che sono cresciuto con i manuali anni 90 con copertina flessibile e interni in bianco e nero, avere tra le mani un gioiellino come questo è fonte di immensa goduria).

Ambientazione: ⭐⭐⭐
(mi aspettavo una maggiore esposizione sulla strepitosa ambientazione di WH40K, ma ho dovuto accontentarmi di un quadro molto generico e un piccolo approfondimento su un singolo sistema solare).

Sistema regole: ⭐⭐⭐
(snelle e veloci a pull di dadi).

[nooker · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun and interesting looking system. Really lacking in content, but the mechanics seem fun.