The module Beyond All Reason was a terrific buy due to the massive length of the module and the low cover price. That price however, came at the cost of the counters that Fiery Dragon Press is so well known for. This was a little problematic though. Despite several of the creatures in the module being in other books, not all bases were covered. This mean the GM either had to have a lot of fire giants, salamanders, and frost giants laying around, or break out the quarters, nickels and pennies to act as counters.
Well, those worries are now over as Tribes, Clans & Cults comes out and breaks down the counters. When I say breaks down, at the top of each page is a note on what the counters below are. For example, the first page is Mogor’s Fist. Now the text in the booklet indicates that Mogor is the new tribe leader of the Himrak, a tribe of powerful orcs in the Karathis, Fiery Dragon, setting. The good news is that these are Orc Counters and can be used for any Orc involvement that includes trolls and other humanoid menaces. Having said that however, I’m unable to tell if they’re all orcs as some of the illustrations seem a little like bugbears and half orcs. A case where some type of label on the back might’ve made the user’s job a little easier.
The counters for Beyond All Reason include numerous giant types, fire, frost, and hill. The swarm gets two counters, and the ever popular displacer beast and mind flayer counters are visible as well. Strangely enough though, the mind flayer counter is the illustration from the book which means if you don’t own the book, you’d never know that this counter is a mind flayer. Minor quibble, but one to note. The second page of counters for BAR includes some dire boars, centaurs, ettins, yuan-ti, trolls, gnolls, and a red dragon.
Also included in groups, are the Vampire’s Legion, a set of counters perfect for an undead warlord, the Prince’s Worgrinders, which appears to be goblinoids with wolves, Pax Hobgoblinica, a great set of counters for a Kingdoms of Kalamar setting. The only puzzling thing about this is the non-hobgoblins on the page. I can’t tell if they’re super kobolds or perhaps half-dragon hobgoblins. The last page includes the Knights of Solorien and Bertram’s Guild. The former, a legion of knights who worship the sun gold Solorien from the Fiery Dragon setting and the latter, a set of counters perfect for any thieves guild.
If you want an idea of what the illustrations look like, http://www.d20reviews.com/pozas/fdp_wp.html should point you in the right direction.
One thing I was pleased to see though, were some group feats by Mark Clover, an author for Creative Mountain Games.
The Group Feats, a dozen in all, are perfect for GMs who want to insure that his players know they’ve fought an organized force. Bristling Threat provides the user a 1 to attack if he’s got four allies nextto him using the same weapon. Coordinated Initiative, one of the core feats that is a prerequisite for most of the other feats here, uses a single die with the bonuses and penalties of the worst character to adjust the roll. This feat is useful for groups, but in some situations, characters can always hold their initiative.
Other feats like Form Square, provide the user with cover or an attack bonus with less cover, while Mob Assault is perfect for taking subduing characters causing problems in the town by giving the attacks a attack bonus with subdual weapons.
The feats are perfect for the Soldier from Sovereign Stone or a group of Warriors from the DMG. Combined with some other feats in other sourcebooks, the typical Warrior NPC may become a bit more formidable in numbers.
Tribes, Clans & Cults is a great way to save on miniatures and provides some interesting rules to add to any group’s arsenal of tactics.
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