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While the Creature Guide and Vault are two separate products, I am going to address both together since they are designed as complementary items, and I feel that reviewing them separately does a disservice to those considering these as a purchase. Please note that I am using the terms “component-less” and “component” play to denote “play without using cards and tokens” and “play with cards and tokens”, respectively. I feel it is important to consider both methods in this review to provide maximum value to the reader. If you’re only interested in the issues with these products, proceed directly to “Things that Annoy me”, near the end.
The Creature Guide
Physical features
At 110 pages, this product feels a little slim at a price point of $29.95 MSRP, but not unreasonable. The pages are full color glossy, with a good weight to them, and the book stays flat when open. The art and overall impression of the book is top-notch; FFG put serious business into this product. There are a couple of areas where the book opens all the way to the stitching/binding (specifically between pp 14-15 and 98-99) that worry me as this behavior indicates that pages may begin falling out at these points, but this may just be my copy. The hardcover is matte and seems durable enough to take to regular game sessions.
Each chapter and appendix has a handy “tab” printed on the side of the right hand page so you can easily flip to a section of the book when you need to, headers are clear, and all fonts are easy to read. FFG really gets down to business with this book, as our old friend Gavius Klugge shows up only the once to maunder on about Skaven.
Contents
The table of contents lists the following chapters and indices:
- Chapter 1: Rules & Resources
- Chapter 2: Combat Encounters
- Chapter 3: The Bestiary
- Appendix 1 through 5: These are lists of various actions available to creatures, from blessings to support.
- Appendix 6: Creature stats
The table of contents is thorough, and lists every major and minor topic covered in the book itself. For example, if you need to find information on the “Anatomy of a Creature Card”, it provides you the page number. In addition, it lists every single creature type under its general type (i.e. “Corsairs”, a kind of Dark Elf, is listed under “Dark Elves”), along with an indication of how dangerous the creature is, using the same skull-and-crossbone rating from the Core Box Tome of Adventure. Included in this section is a brief discussion of creature stat cards, action cards and the set icons summary that has become common as FFG continues to release products.
Chapter One: Rules and Resources
This section starts with some quick clarifications to questions such as “Do NPCs and monsters gain CR when replacing their built in attack with a specific weapon?” (Answer: yes) and moves on to some optional rules. These optional rules include a brief reprint of some rules from the GMs toolkit related to using Aggression and Cunning for maneuvers and stances, and then a new rule related to using A/C/E pools for stress and fatigue; instead of causing wounds, these remove dice from A/C/E pools. I believe this new rule is a great addition, as it seems to increase the verisimilitude of making a creature more fatigued. As soon as I read it I said “that’s going into my game”. It also discusses sacrificing actions for maneuvers and vice versa, which is a nice touch for resource management.
Chapter One then moves into explaining how the group sheets and creature cards from the Creature Vault work, and then reprints the set icon list from the table of contents for some reason. I guess there was some white space at the bottom of the page, but I can only speculate.
Group sheets are similar to Party Sheets in concept and in practice, but they apply instead to groups of similar creatures. For example, the Greenskin group sheet has a couple of slots for Tactics, has the Waaagh! ability, and a Morale special rule (the more of them that get killed off, the more likely they are to run away). The Group sheets are a nice touch that really lends flavor to an encounter.
This chapter is fairly brief, but useful. The optional rules are a good addition to the game.
Chapter Two: Combat Encounters
This 4 page chapter is basically a quick overview of designing encounters that are more engaging and memorable than “There are some orcs over there, let’s go kill them”, and a discussion of different approaches to encounter design; “top down”, “bottom up” and “grab bag” (effectively grab a bunch of stuff at random). The chapter closes out by mentioning that actions could also be used as other effects. The example given revolves around Flamebreath being used to represent a Warpfire Thrower or an exploding barrel of black powder, among others.
This chapter is an interesting read, and doesn’t completely retread advice I’ve seen in other games. The section on using cards for other types of effects is sound.
Chapter Three: The Bestiary
Here we really get into the meat of the book. This 38 page section is organized alphabetically by category (e.g Beastmen precedes Greenskins). Within each section are a number of different types of creatures that fall into that category (i.e. Undead includes Skeletons, Crypt Ghouls and Vampires). There range between 3 and 11 creatures for each category other than Elves and Dwarfs. Skaven, for some reason, are very heavily covered, having 9 entries alone. There are approximately 70 creature entries in this book, from Daemons to Beasts to Dragons. No stats are included in this section; these all appear in Appendix 6.
Each creature gets a brief writeup on what they are, typical behavior, how to use them in the game, a description of special abilities such as “fast” or “flight”, and then each creature category gets two to three adventure seeds involving that category. Of course, since they involve creatures, a big chunk of them are effectively “fight some creatures”, but the rationale behind “you’re fighting a giant this week” is generally pretty good, not all of them are straightforward (such as the “the village is suffering from a mysterious plague” entry that involves Plague Monks), and they can be easily adapted or inserted as is into a current game.
Appendices 1-5: Actions
I’m combining the first five appendices into one section, since they’re basically all the same thing: a summary of actions. Again, these are organized alphabetically, and both the conservative and reckless sides of the associated action card are described.
Included in each entry is the name of the action, the creature typically associated with that action (e.g “A Bone to Pick” is associated with Skeletons), the recharge and difficulty, and the effects of die pool results. These sections are clearly included for the component-less style of play, but they make a great reference for component play as well. It is nice to have everything available and easily found in this manner. Each page contains 3-4 actions (including both conservative and reckless stances for each action), and the summaries are clear and easy to read. Overall, these five appendices take up 35 pages.
The appendices are as follows:
- 1: Blessing Actions
- 2: Melee Actions
- 3: Ranged Actions
- 4: Spell Actions
- 5: Support Actions
This section includes all of the “creature actions” found in the Tome of Adventure, and introduces many, many more. A lot of these actions are very flavorful, and will definitely spice up an encounter. In addition, there are enough actions that, for example, one group of Goblins can be distinctly different from another group.
I haven’t taken the time to count the number of actions listed in this book, but there are well over 100 actions available for creatures. I did check the Spell Actions appendix to see, for example, if specific actions introduced in adventures such as “The Gathering Storm” were listed; they are not, at least in the case of Gobspite.
Appendix 6: Creature stats
A brief description of what the various statistics mean in game terms, how to use A/C/E dice, and so on opens this section. Basically it’s a reprint of the information from the Core Box, and it’s handy to have this stuff here so one doesn’t have to reference two books. Unfortunately, this section doesn’t include the additional rules introduced in the GM’s Toolkit or even the newest A/C/E rules from the front of the book. I think it would have been better to include either Chapter One in this section to consolidate everything, or move this section of Appendix 6 to Chapter One.
This appendix is only 13 pages long. Despite its shortness, it actually does contain all the statlines for all the creatures presented in Chapter Three, with a couple of notable exceptions.
This section also reprints all the special abilities from Chapter Three. For example, a Bat Swarm has “Swift Fliers” as an ability. The rules for “Swift Fliers” are printed on page 47 in Chapter 3, and again on page 100. I suppose this prevents flipping back and forth, but I’m honestly not sure why the rules weren’t just printed on page 100.
The notable exceptions I mentioned above are related to Dwarfs, High Elves and Wood Elves. While these races are provided separate entries in Chapter Three, there are no statlines for these as creatures in the same way that Goblins or Chaos Cultists get statlines. Instead, they are considered to have NPC types such as “Basic”, “Expert” and so on, and modify the statlines for these kinds of NPC (so you end up with a Wood Elf Soldier, or whatever). I was initially confused by this as I was looking for a “Wood Elf” statline for an adventure I was preparing, and happened upon the NPC adjustments for Wood Elves by accident.
Appendix 6 finishes off with a “Master Creature Table” listing all of the creatures presented with statlines in a single line, a summary of the Group Sheets, and a page summarizing some of the creature special abilities. I say some, because, for example, “Swift Fliers” isn’t in this summary.
The index is one and one third pages. It appears to be functional and useful. Not much to say here, other than it doesn’t appear to be outright terrible like many indices I’ve seen for other games from mainstream companies.
The last two pages of the book are ads for other Warhammer games produced by FFG.
Thoughts as a standalone product
The Creature Guide is a strong product. It can easily stand on its own for use with WFRP 3E, whether or not you are playing with components. As the book is one third action summaries, it is clearly set up to support component-less play, but the actions can still be used for component play without needing the cards in the Vault. The information in it is still useful for those who prefer to play with tracking tokens and cards.
As mentioned, the book includes approximately 70 creatures for use in your WFRP game, compared to the 30 or so in the core box, and expands the actions available to monsters quite dramatically.
Overall, I would say this is a worthwhile purchase for someone who is running WFRP 3E.
Creature Vault
Physical features
The other side of the Guide/Vault combination, the Creature Vault consists entirely of action cards, standup tokens, Group Sheets, and creature cards. Also included is a small sheet that provides a brief explanation of the Vault’s components, includes some special ability keywords such as “Instinctive”, and talks up the Creature Guide. The cards, standup sheets and group sheets all come in a small sturdy box in the same style as the Core Box. Sadly, there is no slipcover, but really, this only adds to the cost with no benefit other than I like slipcovers on boxes, but I am happy with the box itself.
The cards themselves are the by now standard WFRP cards, printed on the familiar linen cardstock in full color. The standups are the thick punchboard standups that should be familiar to all players of WFRP 3 at this point. FFG has maintained their excellent physical quality standards with this product.
I will be up front: If you are not using components at all, then this box likely offers zero value to you.
Creature cards
One side of any given creature card is art of that particular creature, with its name on top, and the other side compiles the entire statline of that creature, along with specific rules such as “Man-bane”. They are similar to item cards and location cards in this respect. Some of the art is aligned vertically on the card, and some is horizontal. The art is very good, and stays consistent with the art of the game in general as well as the standup that represents the creature, with the notable exception of “Doktor Festus”, whose art is simply a symbol of Nurgle with what looks like a beholder squeezing through a hula-hoop and failing. Maybe he needs to fly around the block a few times before trying this trick again.
The statline side includes all the information you need to use that creature in game. Physical characteristics (including associated fortune dice), wounds, A/C/E pool, stance…it’s all there. A number of icons are provided on cards to indicate their Damage Rating, Defenses and so on. The icons for Defense and Soak are overcomplicated and render the meaning unclear.
Overall, the information is well presented, easy to read, and lends well to use in play. FFG’s experience at card games really shows off here. Some of the information just uses keywords such as “Instinctive”, so one needs to have either the sheet that came with the Vault or the Creature guide handy. Unfortunately, not all of these keywords are explained on the sheet, or the summary in the Creature Guide. In addition, Every creature listed in the Creature Guide other than High Elves, Wood Elves and Dwarfs gets a card here, and some of the creature cards are NPCs from the adventure boxes released by FFG such as Bobo, Foaldeath and Gobspite.
Action Cards
These are, for all intents and purposes, identical to the action cards available to PCs, and function in exactly the same way. There are 131 of these cards, many of which are completely new. Almost every ability that hasn’t gotten a card so far in an FFG appears to have gotten a card at this point. Abilities that have previously gotten a card (such as Gobspite’s spell actions) in other boxes have not been reprinted in this product. While this means that one needs to have “The Gathering Storm” to have access to “Brainbursta’”, I appreciate that there has been no duplication of cards that I already have, or may acquire in a future purchase.
The sheer variety of available cards is fantastic. Simply by adding one or two action cards to an encounter, I can make one encounter completely different from the next, even if both groups are “just goblins”.
Group sheets
There are 14 of these sheets. They are similar to Party Sheets and Nemesis Sheets (from the GM's Toolkit). They each contain flavor text on one side, and rules on the other. The purpose of these is to add an extra level of interest to a group of creatures. For example, where a group of Goblins would just be Goblins, the Greenskins Group sheet adds “Waaagh!” rules that make them tougher, and morale rules that causes detrimental effects to the group. The sheets also have talent slots, so for example, the Greenskins group sheet has two Tactics slots. Again, these provide an extra level of variation for a group of creatures, helping make encounters more memorable.
Standups
A number of standups have been provided in the box. The standups appear to cover pretty much everything in the Creature Guide. The art on these is excellent. There is one of each creature type, with perhaps a duplicate of a goblin or a skeleton. My understanding of the thoughts behind providing only one of each is because FFG didn’t want to give 15 goblins to someone who isn’t using goblins at all, which is fair and reasonable. There’s not much else to say about the standups themselves, other than they are there, and there are a lot of them.
Thoughts on the Vault as a Standalone product
I would love to say this product stands alone, but I’m afraid that I cannot. There is an issue around ability keywords that affects a not insignificant number of cards (for example, the “Tiny Creatures” special ability for Swarms). I will further discuss this below, in “Things that annoy me”. In addition, there is no information in the Creature Vault that explains the creature cards themselves, so some of the icons end up having no meaning, and the user can only guess.
But first, the positive stuff.
If you are using components, this is a great addition to your arsenal. Having action cards makes tracking recharge a breeze. Having the creature cards keeps the creature’s information at your fingertips. It’s much easier to find the “goblin” card than the “goblin” statline buried in notes in the heat of battle. It’s a snap to put a couple of creature cards, their action cards and the associated standups into a Ziploc bag and whip them out for an encounter. All the creatures in the game are included, the group sheets rock, and the plethora of action cards keeps the interest level up at the table.
Combining the two products
Combining the two for component play works quite well. While there is overlap between the mechanical information provided between the Vault and the Guide, the Guide provides enough additional information around encounter design, new rules, adventure seeds, and actual descriptions of the creatures themselves that it is a worthwhile purchase alongside the Vault. As things currently stand, you pretty much need the Creature Guide to get full use out of the Vault. The Creature Guide makes for a nice way to sit on the couch and brainstorm your next encounter (it’s much easier to flip through the book than a stack of cards), and the cards provide a quick and simple method of setting up and running the encounter itself during play, and with the cards, it’s one less book to lug to a game session.
Things that annoy me
There is double and triple printing of some information in the Creature Guide. In my opinion, this information should have just been compiled somewhere convenient instead. This affects only the Creature Guide. It has no detrimental effect on the usability of the product.
There are some inconsistencies that have been noted between cards in the Vault, and their corresponding entries in the Guide. For further information see this thread on the FFG WFRP 3 site. Not game or product breaking, just indicative of sloppiness. This unfortunately affects both products.
The Ability Summaries “keywords” are very incomplete. Many creatures have abilities that are summarized like the standard keywords (where “Fast” is a standard keyword) on cards such as “Tiny Creatures”, and these abilities are only explained in their specific category in the Creature Guide. Many of these abilities are creature specific. It really pulls down the value of the Vault as a standalone product, as I cannot see why a single page of “Summarized abilities for creatures” that included “Tiny creatures” et al could not have been included in the box. Perhaps FFG will release an errata that includes this information, or perhaps a fan will put in the work (and hopefully FFG will allow it to be distributed). This is only an issue with the Creature Vault, and the biggest issue with using it as a standalone product.
There is no indication of what action cards could be considered “standard” for a creature other than the “used by” line on a given card, and no information is given on how many action cards would be appropriate for a creature or group of creatures. For example, there are several cards that state “Used by: Greenskins” on them, but it would not be reasonable to include all of them every time out intrepid heroes encounter a band of Orcs. While a GM can improvise around this, some guidelines would be welcome. Note that this applies to both component-less as well as component play, and affects both products.
Finally, the lack of explanation of the “anatomy of a creature card” in the Creature Vault makes the creature cards difficult to use unless one has the Guide. For the most part, the card is straightforward, but the icons on the right side of the card for Attack, Defense, additional action cards and so on are not immediately clear. One can deduce the meaning of these by comparing a card to an entry in the Tome of Adventure, but an “Anatomy of the Creature Card” really should have been included in the Vault.
Conclusion
Overall, I am happy with my purchases of the Creature Vault and the Creature Guide. I feel that the purchase will enhance my WFRP experience, as well as those of my players. I have already gotten some use out of them, and expect to get much, much more (to be honest, I wish I had these products three weeks before they were released; they would have added considerably to the final encounter of my last adventure). Despite the issues I noted in “Things that annoy me”, I feel that these products are strong enough to add to any GM’s WFRP collection.
The final ratings for the review consider the Guide/Vault combination as a whole. The separate scores on a “per product” basis are as follows:
Guide
Style: 4
Substance: 4
Vault
Style: 4
Substance: 3.5 (Would have been higher, but the keyword issue really impacts this product).
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