The latest Campaign Supplement for Warhammer 40K is Crusade of Fire, depicting a chaos-based campaign on the front cover which is why I bought it.

The book is not cheap at £25 but it is hardback, OK not much more expensive to produce than soft cover but does give enhanced perceived value, and full of great colour photographs.

However, my disillusion with my purchase set in very quickly upon closer examination.



The book is very similar in style to White Dwarf, that is lot of pretty pictures and damn all in the way of wargaming 'meat'. It is divided into articles that look as if they were lifted straight out of the pages of White Dwarf. For example, a number of GW staff write a few words about their army under a nice big pic - many of which I have seen before.



The campaign is childishly simple and any wargamer could devise something similar while on a train ride. One peculiarity which I have also noticed in Black Library stories is a complete ignorance of basic GCSE-level astronomy.It irritates the hell out of me and ruins the suspension of disbelief: comets whose 'orbit' crosses galactic distances in a few thousand years. For the record, comets orbit stars and move considerably slower than the speed of light.


The book is bulked out with two new tactical games. The first is a sort of 40K gladiator system, Arena of Death, and the second is a supplement to the 6th Ed. aircraft rules, which are so absurd IMHO that they cannot be rescued by a few 'special card' rules.

Very, very, disappointing.

Rating: two stars out of five.