Dark Astral: Chapbook for ZWEIHANDER RPG

Does this require the Zweihander core rules to play?

This could have been genuinely great but it's not good enough to use for 40k nor one's own sci-fi setting. It should be greatly expanded upon. Doesn't even come with a character sheet for god's sake.

While I am thrilled at the idea of 40k brought to a manageable level of lore, I was dismayed that this book did nothing with skills despite the massive change in technology. This feels very flimsy indeed, more a money grab than anything else. Is there any intent to take this from its current state to a viable expansion? I'll wait on my review until I get more information.

I like the direction this is going, even though this is remarkably similar to Warhammer 40K. I'm not complaining about that, as 40K has a lot of great ideas that could be taken in different and perhaps even better directions that GW has taken them. That being said, this is painfully light on content. I would very much like more info/lore on the world, denizens thereof and geography. I think this would be an excellent place for Dark Astral to distance itself from 40K. As it stands now, this is $10 for an idea--its not even the size of an old-school splatbook from the AD&D 2nd edition days.

I noticed that this can be printed as softcover black and white or softcover color. Would the color make a difference? I was under the impression the all the art was in black and white anyway.

So I just picked this up and perhaps I'm missing something... But this is just a straight trip from Warhammer 40k, correct? This is just WH40k with another name? I'm fine with that but it seems almost a little too on the nose. ZWEIHANDER is obviously a baroque system and takes most of its inspiration from the earlier editions of the Warhammer Fantasy RPG but I was hoping this would be something different. It is not.

I have been inspired by this.
It has teased yet ideas that I'm forming myself for grim perilous SciFi
Granted their isn't a load of content but what it contains has triggered my own imagination .
I'm sure Dan & his team will no doubt be adding more into this,
In the not so distant future.
Spacehander will be something to behold.
This taster is worth your while if your looking at getting your creative juices flowing.
May your cup runneth over.

I'm going to hold off giving this one an official review for a bit in hopes that it gets more attention in the Discussion section. I dig it so far, but it feels a bit incomplete. I would be far more likely to play something like this than the "old worlde" style Zweihander. And, Zweihander is cool as well, but I know my tastes and interest run far more towards the grimdark space opera influences of this game. So, this might be pie in the sky wishing, but I would like to see this little chapbook married to a concise ruleset with a few race/class profiles. I'm not a fan of DH and the recent RT. Those recent publications are good efforts and have lots of interesting fluff, but the systems are too arcane for me. Back in the day, we played the original RT as an RPG. It wasn't perfect, but it worked. There was minimal rules (oldskool means rulings not rules) and lots of fluff plus tables and art galore. It was simple and inspiring. I hope this product takes further inspiration from Codex Imperialis and the...See more original RT.


So for specifics, I would like:

1.) A handful of profiles and expanded fluff representing the typical folks of each faction.

2.) More detail on the weapon, armor, gear. Right now it seems more like the back of an army book. Too barebones by far. Needs more art and more fluff.

3.) Mutations! D1000 mutation lists ala the oldskool RoC books (especially StD).

4.) Robots. While most of my focus so far has been praising the original RT era, it would be nice to see better Robot rules.

5.) Tables for inspiration. What are the worlds like? What are the threats?

6.) Concise ruleset.

All that being said, good luck with GeeDubs not whacking you guys with IP lawsuits. If you can pull it off, I'd gladly throw more of my money at you. Cheers! :^)