Struggling in the name of the God-Emperor

I've never played any Warhammer wargame, nor did I play the old Warhammer Fantasy RPG (our group usually played D&D and MERP when we wanted a fantasy game in those days). I do have two rather nice Citadel miniature packs from way back when, the Adventurers Starter Pack and the Monsters Starter Pack, that I bought around the time me and my brother got the Red Box of D&D... so it must have been in 1988. But that was the extent of my Warhammer-related history before the relaunch of the roleplaying game a couple years ago by Black Industries. I still haven't played it because a friend of mine keeps slipping out of his promise to run it, but I did buy the core rulebook and think it's a very well written and designed product.

Which leads me to the game I wanted to say a few words about, the brand new Warhammer 40,000 Dark Heresy RPG. The publisher sold out the entire first printing (20,000 copies as far as I know) on preorders alone, which is rather remarkable for any RPG that isn't D&D. Less than a week after this announcement, we were told that Black Industries would cease all production of this and other game lines later this year. This, to put it plainly, sucks.

I had gotten interested in the game because the fantasy version was such a strong book. I called and reserved the very last copy from the local gaming store - only to hear that they had accidentally sold it to someone else. Needless to say, I was not amused after limping there on crutches (I busted my ankle two weeks back, thankfully it has almost healed now). They did promise to ask all the other chain stores if they had any copies left. While I waited I heard the news about the cancellation. Today I got word that a copy had been located and picked it up with mixed feelings. Originally there were going to be three core books: Dark Heresy, which is about the Inquisitors, a second one about Rogue Traders, and a final one about the Adeptus Astartes Deathwatch. Now we would only get the first game and the three supplements that BI has promised to release regardless of the cancellation.

After leafing through the book and reading the first two chapters, I feel sorry for the creative team behind the game. It is a beautiful, well written tome. It must be galling to labor to release such a fine book and have it sell extremely well, only to have the carpet yanked from under your feet by the parent company. It kind of reminds me of dying in the service of the Emperor's Inquisition on some nameless alien planet, having never received nor asked for recognition or reward...

(We also played Ptolus this week.)

Game Count: 7/52