Ran this with my group and they had a blast, despite a TPK at the end of the session (totally their fault for some bad decisions). Some advice: scale back the encounters somewhat so that the bandits number one fewer than the party (i.e. pit no more than 3 bandits vs 4 players). With armour and weapons, they are a force to be reckoned with and will make quick work of Level 0 PCs!

If you're a player in a SOTDL game, this is a no-brainer, as it gives you the chapters on Character Creation (#1), the full rules (#2) and Equipment (#3). It's not much money for a lot of content. I've knocked off 1 star because the exclusion of the chapters on paths and magic make this not quite a one-stop shop for players. For a few dollars more, this would have been worth including (in my opinion).

While this is quite a good adventure, be warned that it is very brutal and very, very dark. My players did not respond too positively to it, as they felt it was too depressing. With a bit more on my part, I could have made it a bit more fun, but I ran it as written. Definitely a solid 4 star product, but recommend a bit of GM polish, and also not recommended for every group.

Having all the pertinent tables over 4 pages is very handy, and for once we have a publisher who's not trying to rip you off with a high price for tables that are in the core book!

The art is also pretty evocative of the setting - weird and dark.

A deck of 44 cards plus 1 instruction card, 9 per page. While many of the cards are decent, and the concept is good, they're just executed very, very poorly.

First, they're not as genre generic as they could be:

"A ninja emerges from the shadows" "A small scale terrorist attack occurs" "You encounter a time traveller" (to be fair, this is one of three "jokers" deliberately OTT)

Finally, these are clearly meant to be printed and cut out, but they're not print friendly, offer one paper format, are full of typos and generally feel like they were rushed out without being reviewed by a third party for quality.

What an amazing game! This is a highly polished game which can be viewed as the spiritual successor to WFRP2, with a dark setting and mechanics perfectly tuned to support a grim and deadly game.

Like WFRP, the book does encourage ambiguous characters (ie "good" characters with flaws and "bad" characters with redeeming qualities) which is a welcome change from typical heroic fantasy in the vein of Tolkien (mainly looking at you, D&D).

Whilst this is clearly a love letter to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, it also has strong mechanical influences from D&D5 (both of which the author professionally worked on). There are other mechanical influences in here, too (Edge of the Empire & FATE Core among others), but if you must compare this to any other game, it should be WFRP2.

The mechanics are brilliant, using a d20 with banes & boons reflected in additional d6s. Target number for most challenge rolls is a straight-forward 10. The banes & boons remind me of the excellent Edge of the Empire RPG, but is far simpler in practice, as the banes & boons cancel each other out, keeping the dice pool down (and not requiring bespoke dice!). There are 4 attributes (Strength, Agility, Intellect and Will), and skills are replaced with your character's profession (career prior to becoming an adventurer). If a challenge could be influenced by your profession, you add a boon. Simple!

Combat is also refreshingly simple yet still manages to have depth, the highlight of which is Fast & Slow turns feature, which speeds up (read "fixes") initiative but still allows for tactical depth.

Paths are the careers you take up, and these are introduced in a structured way that encourages an organic character development, rather than the min maxing planning that D&D seems to invite.

In terms of races (here called ancestries), Schwalb has taken traditional fantasy races and tropes, and twisted them away from Tolkien (and other games) in a unique way, to fit his vision. As such we see "traditional" races such as humans, dwarfs and orcs, as well as goblins, clockwork and changelings in this core rulebook. Future supplements will introduce unique takes on elves, halflings and gnomes, and introduce the jotuun, nephilim, fauns and cambions.

The setting is appropriately dark, being on the verge of a supernatural apocalypse. Demons, cultists, beastmen and other horrible creatures all feature. Those familiar with Warhammer Fantasy will find themselves quickly at home.

I could go on, but Luke W's review is far more thorough.

I strongly suggest reading the Foreword (half a page), Preface (1 page) and Introduction (from "Moral Ambiguity" to "Examples of Play", approx 2 pages). They are all included in the free preview and will help give you a taste of what is on offer here.

If after reading those sections you are even slightly interested, I would highly recommend buying it, because the rules and mechanics are incredibly well thought out, easy to grasp and highly adaptable to many genres. I can see this supplanting D&D and WFRP at many gaming tables.

Also looking forward to the official Mad Max genre sourcebook which should be out later this year!