Altdorf: Crown of the Empire

Altdorf is coming! One of the most exciting WFRP books in the history of the game is nearing release. Cubicle 7 have started giving hints as to the contents of the book, and the first blog post contains some names and concepts that should be familiar to readers of The Altdorf Correspondent. Read more here!

Core rulebook PDF updated

The core rulebook PDF was updated yesterday to take the latest errata into account. I really appreciate that Cubicle 7 decided to take this route after indicating that they wouldn't update the PDF.

Grab the updated rulebook from drivethrurpg.com!

Altdorf book in the works

Chatter in the Ratcatcher’s Guild has revealed that Cubicle 7 have started work on an Altdorf sourcebook! That is all we know, and it follows nicely from Andy Law’s call for help in compiling a list of Altdorf references in official works. So it will be very interesting to see where this goes! Other things talked about by C7 staff indicates that they are thinking about adopting the “it is un-mappable” stance, but I fully expect them to do some sort of spectacular overview map.

WFRPv4 is out ... in a preview ... in pdf

The WFRPv4 preview pdf is now out. I am reading through it as I write this ... well not really, it's on me iPad and I'm reading it between chores and patching up a bleeding finger. I'm still at chapter one, so it's difficult to give a proper review but so far I kinda like it.

Yeah ... "kinda". It looks fabulous, it reads well, what I've heard of the rules makes sense ... but I can't so far muster more than "I kinda like it". Hopefully that'll change. It as by all appearances a solid version of WFRP with the roots in WFRPv1 and WFRPv2, with a sprinkling of WFRPv3.

The most important thing right now is the chatter with Andy Law, who is fielding questions while he does maps and finishes the layout. The outreach from C7 has been outstanding the last month.

Anyways with the preview out we aren't that far from finished pdf. A couple months to the printed books arrive I fear, but them's the ropes.

I've thrown my gauntlet in with the Reddit and Discord crowd

I've tried out a few different places for continued WFRP discussion and have landed on the Warhammer Fantasy RPG sub on Reddit and in the Rat Catcher's Guild on Discord.

The Warhammer Fantasy RPG subreddit
The Rat Catcher's Guild on Discord

Of these I like the subreddit the best since it is a lot easier to have focussed discussions akin to those on a discussion forum. The Discord thing is a chat motor, and that is fine for that but I prefer the forum feel.

Anyways I'm there as AdolphusAltdorfer.

Snippets on WFRPv4 from the UK Games Expo

On the warhammerfantasyrpg reddit there's a post with info from the user known as The WFRP Companion, who apparently chatted with Cubicle 7 during the UK Games Expo.

Click here to read the post in its entirety.

My take on the info follows.

1. Setting will be 8th edition focus but generally should be backwards compatible.

That is to be expected. Even though Games Workshop razed the Old World to the ground, I always expected them to have WFRP stay in stride with the WFB setting.

I've never found there to be much of a problem maintaining backwards compatibility.

2. The rumour PDF is out this weekend is FALSE, no clue where it came from.

I will chalk that up to Cubicle 7 being vague with the statement "anticipated in June" and then people wanting and hoping for the game to be released and then that turned into a rumour. Although I must confess I haven't seen that rumour anywhere.

3. No era books planned, lots of modern places like regions of the Reik, Lustria, Ultjuan are more the focus.

A bit bummed by this but it is not surprising. An era book would have limited commercial appeal since only a subset of the players would be interested. Better to keep the player base in the same era.

4. Starter book is very distinct to core book, it's got simple rules and the adventure but the sourcebook on Ubrtsreik has lots of mileage.

About what I was expecting. I'm just baffled that this is coming out after the core rule book.

5. Conversion for 2nd to 4th isn't planned but they'll definetly consider it if they have time.

I take that as market speak for "not gonna happen". Also what we have heard so far the fourth edition will be second edition with some changes, so the conversion should be trivial.

I will convert all my WFRPv2 NPCs on this blog to WFRPv4.

6. No gnomes.

Heh, well not surprising. Gnomes were always tiny part of WFRP, after all ...

7. On Fimir it was, "I know the answer to that but I can't say".

Playing coy there, Cubicle 7. There's been other hints that the fimir are coming back so I think it's a foregone conclusion. But then again the fimir have already been covered by Robin Low in Warpstone, so I'm not pining for official support.

8. If they get to do Ulthuan Elf magic is a yes. They are familiar with fan sources on that note, like Swords of the South.

Cool. I guess. I'm not the least interested in knowing more about Ulthuan but if people want that more power to them!

9. Core rule book should very much be all you need, lots of spells he said.

Much like WFRPv1 and WFRPv2. Seems like a good strategy to have one book be all you need and then put out things that supplement that, like The Enemy Within and other stuff.

10. Advantage isn't capped. They used tokens to track it, dice would also work.

I'm not too keen on resolving advantage every round, nor of tracking it. For the players I guess it will be ok, I worry a bit how it would work for me as a GM.

11. TEW Director's Cut will be a prequel setting, still rooted in 1e, but modern otherwise. It will have lots of surprises for people who already played it, no word on specifics like Gideon the... person. Who's not anything else.

Prequel setting ... I wonder what that means? Could be that the assumptions of the campaign are mainly the same but as they are rooted in the WFRPv1 setting it will have to be set before the current WFBv8 setting.

Slightly contradicts the thing about "no era books", but I guess this will take place just 5 to 10 years before current setting.

12. The whole TEW end chapter is being redone - no Empire in Flames and probably no SRiK.

Here they dropped a bomb! Makes some sense as SRiK and EiF are mostly seen as the weakest parts of the classic campaign. But I am not convinced it's a good idea, what appealed to me was a new version of the classic campaign, not a new version of bits of it.

But then again, Graeme Davis can do no wrong in my book, so heave away, boys, heave away!

13. They might not be able to run a contest, as this needs GW approval. In fact, everything said online needs approval really. But they can easily help out with Five Page Fiction.

I'm not up to snuff on what this contest would be, the scenario contest maybe? And a fiction contest? Would be nice with an official stamp of course but I think the community should be able to pull this off themselves.

14. Told him about the Subreddit, Discord, and some personal WFRP conversion projects. Talked a bit about Vermintide - they're buds with Fatshark. Dom grew up with 1e, he's a huge fan.

Great thing that the guys at Cubicle 7 are fans. I know they've worked with some of the lads who worked with WFRPv2 and WFRPv3 and then mister Davis of course. So I'm  not worried about the quality of the game.

The communication on the other hand ...

Four characteristics confirmed

Looking through the latest news from Cubicle 7 we find that we have four charateristics confirmed:

• Weapon skill 
• Strength 
• Toughness
• Initiative

The only one I didn't really expect to make a come back was Initiative. I felt that in WFRPv1 everything centered around having a high Initiative. It simply became a characteristic that was a catch-all for too many Tests.

Given that Initiative is back, my guess is that it will be paired with an Initiative Bonus. Much like SB and TB we will have IB, and initiative order in combat will be determined by a roll of 1d10 + IB.

A guess as good as any in these times of foggy news from Cubicle 7.