This certainly isn't the first time Humble Bundle has offered a great deal on Fantasy Flight Games' old Warhammer 40,000 tabletop RPGs, but I figure with Imperial fever at its height in the wake of the release of Space Marine 2, it's well worth drawing attention to its latest offering. This time around the focus is on two games: Deathwatch and Rogue Trader.
The former lets you play as Space Marines fighting as part of the Deathwatch order you might have seen in Space Marine 2's intro. They're an elite alien-fighting force that draws its members from the many other space marine chapters—which is a great excuse to have a campaign that puts a rowdy Space Wolf, a noble Ultramarine, a secretive Dark Angel, and a sinister Blood Angel together, tells them they have to get on for the sake of the universe, and then hurls them at the wildest xenos threats you can think of.
Rogue Trader, meanwhile, will basically let you recreate the Owlcat RPG of the same name, and it's got a great premise for exploring the 40k universe. As a rogue trader (kind of an all-purpose space scoundrel and explorer) and their crew, you're part of the Imperium of Man, but officially freed from many of its constraints, letting you stray into unsanctioned territories, mingle with aliens, and seek out forbidden artifacts. That's about as close to Star Trek as 40k ever gets, but still with plenty of grimdarkness and baroque flair.
The full bundle is $25 / £22.60, and gets you all 41 items, totalling a value of $589 / £440.16. That gets you the core books of both games and all their supplements, which includes a bunch of sourcebooks adding new character options, as well as sprawling campaigns and adventures that are ready to run. You can also go for a lower tier for a bit less, though in this case I wouldn't recommend it—the cheaper options are annoyingly missing the core books you need to actually play.
These old TTRPGs are bursting with 40k lore and really evoke the feel of the setting in their mechanics, but I will say they have their flaws. The core system is quite clunky by modern standards, and particularly in Deathwatch it really struggles to represent all the powers and abilities of a space marine—you may find the big, epic fights you're dreaming of take an awful long time to resolve.
But they're full of wonderful details that, if you're a 40k fan or just getting into the setting, are good fun just to read through—if you've ever wanted a breakdown of every weird extra organ a space marine has, Deathwatch is the game for you. And of course the wealth of adventures included here will be a godsend even if you decide to run your campaign with a more modern system. You've got a few options there—check out my complete guide to the Warhammer TTRPGs available today to find out more.
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