Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Adventurer’s Toolkit
July 11, 2011 by crew
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay the 3rd edition has a very interesting retro feel to it. The Core Set comes in a big and beautifully illustrated box, much like many of the roleplaying games in the 1980's did, and contains all the components and rules you will need to get yourself playing games straight away. I warmed up to this packaging / marketing approach once I got my hands on the Core Set and saw the exquisite quality of the product I was purchasing.
Many people say that Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay the 3rd edition is a very expensive game; however, if you look at the cost of Path Finder you will discover that it is roughly 90% as expensive (unless you buy the PDF's, but lets face it who wants to pay for PDF's?) and you get a fraction of the goodies (the game requires miniatures for a full enjoyment of the rules as written and you get none with the purchase of the books). Dungeons and Dragons is just as expensive when you add up the cost of all of the core rulebooks, and once again you get less in the way of content / components; although, the “Essentials” products definitely lower the cost of entry into the current version of Dungeons and Dragons (see my review regarding entry into D&D 4th edition for more information)
All roleplaying games (well most of them at the very least) use an expansion structure with which to add more content to the core set of rules. Wizards of the Coast are notorious for this and in fact Dungeons and Dragons quite literally has seen hundreds of expansions since they took over production of the game in the late 1990's. So one should not be surprised that expansions are an intrinsic part of Fantasy Flight Games version of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. The main difference in these expansions is the way they are packaged and produced. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay the 3rd edition has had many supplements released since it hit the gaming shelves around 2 years ago and they all follow a general retro boxed format which differs heavily from the book format of so many other roleplaying games.
The first of these supplements is The Adventurer's Toolkit which was released on the heels of the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay the 3rd edition Core Set. This “Toolkit” contains many extra bits such as career and party sheets; action and talent cards; more stand-ups and character sheets; as well as several additional wound, insanity, and condition cards. The 10 careers presented in this beautifully constructed box are all staples of the Warhammer mythos. The Rat Catcher, with his small but vicious dog, brings animal companions to the table for the first time and gives a glimpse of what is to come in future releases. The inclusion of the Iron Breaker, War~Dancer, Swordmaster and Bounty Hunter really helps add to the flavor of the setting and creates more options for non-human characters, a factor that many people –myself included-- were concerned with when the Core Set was released.
My favorite piece of this supplement is the sturdy box that it comes in. This box provides a place to store the ever growing amount of components and is of the highest quality. Organization is a key factor when you get into this game and I have to say that Fantasy Flight Games took that into consideration when they designed the Adventurer's Toolkit.
This product is not essential to find enjoyment with games of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay the 3rd edition; however, it comes at a good value for all the components contained within. The developers defiantly were thinking about sales when they decided to put many of the iconic careers into this supplement and I do believe that they are some of the biggest draws to this product.
For anybody looking to add more players to their games or to increase the options available to them, without having to do a bunch of tedious home~brew work, the Adventurer's Toolkit is a great product to pick up for your games of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay the 3rd edition.
This is the first in a string of reviews in which I intend to cover all of the products that are released in support of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay the 3rd edition. Keep your eyes peeled and hopefully these reviews will help shed some light on what I believe to be a fantastic roleplaying experience.
Does it come with the dice? If you’re used to playing GWs games which only use D6s or variations of D6s and your local gaming store is a GW or even just isn’t that diverse it can be a remarkably unexpected pain in the backside to find a D10.
*cough*Ebay*cough* 😛 😉
Doesn’t anyone near you play D&D? Any place that sells role-playing games should have all the dice needed. Are there only GW stores? Any other game stores, comics stores?
Even Forbidden Planet (In Birmingham anyway) sells the dice and all the books/add-ons.
A very important point. This game -does NOT- use standard dice. There are a variety of dice that are the same shape as D6, D8 and D10 but they have special symbols on them for the game mechanics. Fantasy flight make them and sell them at a high price.
nice artwork !
Dwarfs have no knees apperently.
I’ve wanted to play the WHRPG for so long now, but everyone in my area only plays D&D 3.5. Maybe they’ll realize there are other things out there before 4th edition is released.
Oh and wildchevy, your dwarf minis can have knees if they’re made by Mantic 🙂
3rd ed warhammer uses special dice with non numerical markings, so you will have to get yourself a set of dice spesificly for the game. i know the main box has dice, but the adventurers toolkit i dont think has any. but that said, its a real nice system, and well fantasy flight did it again. The system reminds me of the 4th edition of D&D only better, there are cards for skills, cards for classes, and a sheet for you to record your stuff and stats on.
I can only agree with the view that WFRP 3rd edition is very much in the same vein as D&D. Sadly for me this means I can’t stand the thing as it doesn’t suit my particular tastes, which 1st and 2nd edition WFRP were perfect for. As a result I can’t help but hold this up as the one black mark against Fantasy Flight. They obviously had no issues with the old WFRP system seeing as they re-skinned those rules wholesale into the 40k RPGs. Which begs the question why did they make this change in style, either they didn’t… Read more »
The newest WFRP is far away from what people consider the new D&D to be. The focus of the newest edition of WFRP focuses incredibly on roleplaying compared to how people view 4th Edition D&D. I love the new edition and you can still play it like 2nd edition if you just buy the one players handbook and just use the rules in the back of it. Also – Deathwatch is one of the best roleplaying games out there at the moment. FFG have made it utterly astounding and there are plenty of new mechanics in there compared to 3rd… Read more »
Ok I am going to say something unpopular and I am prepared to take the brunt of it. But I don’t like and it’s not for reasons of it’s quality. It’s because it’s the bandwagon mentality. Wile many other people have been struggling in the RPG industry to create great products for mediocre returns at best. Once it is kicking off again, Warhammer finally roles around. Now I would like to remind people that there has been Warhammer products around for along time but between what all of 90’s and the start of 2000’s there has been what support for… Read more »
FFG is one of the better companies for supporting their products. There is a wealth of content out there for 3rd Edition which covers pretty much everything you could want anyway from a roleplaying game – and besides, the whole point of a roleplaying game is that you get out of it what you put in. If you take the time and patience to craft a good world and encourage good roleplaying and monster slaughter then your experience will be all the better for it – even if you don’t get any extra books. Its not entirely a cash grab… Read more »
FFG maybe a brave company even a good one but who holds the licence.
Personally I think WHFB 3rd ed is terrible. There’s one set of rules for characters and another for monsters. There’s also no simple way to adapt creatures from the Warhammer Fantasy Army books. I have tried multiple times to give this edition an even break but every time I am put off by the sheer number of bits to keep track of. DnD 4th ed is very simple and that makes it a lot easier to get up and running.