Rogues Gallery is the first expansion for Ascendant, and at half the page count of the core rulebook adds a ton (10 SPs) of great new content, including over two dozen pages of new superpowers and real-world equipment to use (hoverbike anyone?) As the name suggests, the bulk of the book is given over to new characters, including nine templates for street-level characters, which is great for getting new players into the game - although Ascendant plays fast and smooth, the sheer number of options when it comes to building a character from scratch might be intimidating to new people. It's worth bearing in mind though that despite being intended for new players, all nine of these characters are solidly designed and will perform well.

Besides these starter builds, there's the six founding members each of the Russian Spetsikhotron team and the Chinese Soaring Sabres, with both of these teams intended to be able to deal with the high-level ascendants of the USA's Star-Spangled Squadron. For lower-level threats there are six members of Dark Emerald, a mercenary company that makes great use of ascendants. After that, there are 12 members of ascended terrorist organisation Exodus, ranging from the global threat that is Maximum Leader to the street-level walking bundle of chaos that is Momentum Mori - in short, a wide range of threats for your players to battle against. That's not all though - Autarch has also included nine additional ascendants of various power levels, and a dozen minor templates for everything from yetis to the final girl in all those slasher movies out there.

So besides all the new characters and kit, what else? Well first off, the clear layout and design is identical to that found in the Ascendant core rulebook, and the interior artwork is fantastic too. Everything is in full colour and full of energy. In keeping with tradition, Rogues Gallery also includes tidbits of in-universe lore in the form of news articles and leaked documents, plus full background notes for all the characters (Rootkit's being my favourite for aesthetic reasons). Whether you're playing in the official Ascendant universe or your own world of superheroes, Rogues Gallery has plenty of great material to add to your game, and I heartily recommend it for Ascendant GMs and players alike.

In short, it's another case of Autarch hitting it out of the park with Ascendant.

Having backed this during its crowdfund I've been very pleased with the quality of both the PDF and physical copies - Autarch has again delivered a very high quality product. As you can see in the preview images the artwork is excellent and the writing is very good too, with the right mix of seriousness and humour (the nods to the odd meme or two are also spot-on, particularly the one with Dr Quantum). This issue is essentially the origin stories of three major characters in the official Ascendant universe (Manticore, American Eagle, and Stiletto), plus the first mission of the eponymous Star-Spangled Squadron. The characters all have their own "voice" and you get a feel for what each of them is like in just a few lines or panels. In terms of sexualised imagery and violence, the comic takes a mature approach to both: it does not shy away from showing you the bloody results of battle and the like - it shows things as they are, rather than shoving it in your face or drawing a polite veil over things the way comics aimed at a younger audience typically does.

In terms of criticism, I think Stronghold could've used a bit more exposure to get to know him better, and some effects like Stiletto's pheromones were hard to understand without prior knowledge that she has that particular power, but as criticisms go I think both are pretty mild, especially given that AFAIK this is the author's first foray into comic book writing (!). I'm hopeful that we'll learn more about Stronghold & the other members of the Squadron in future issues, and that this is just the start of a long and successful independent comic series.

Firstly and most importantly, let's deal with the actual gameplay. Ascendant plays great - it's fast, smooth, and can handle plenty of characters without getting bogged down in the details. It uses a d100 system (with a very few cases where other dice are used), and charts and tables rather than directly rolling for damage. Character design is extremely flexible, and not too difficult to master - although you will want to make use of spreadsheet software rather than doing it by hand.

When it comes to the design of the PDF... it's beautiful. The artwork (and there's a lot of it) is first rate, and the layout is very clean, with everything nicely colour-coded and easy to read. Not quite sure how so much information was squeezed into so few pages (I mean, yes it's 500 pages, but it feels like it should be a lot more), but at any rate, it's impressive.

All in all, 10/10 for both mechanics and presentation.