Blood in the Badlands

Blood in the Badlands is a book laying out rules and ideas for you and your friends to start a campaign. It includes rules for seasons, siege warfare and battles, as well as a lot of battle reports and fluff like stuff. Like a lot of GW (Games Workshop) stuff these days it is a limited run release, however there are still plenty of copies available.

When I began flicking through this book I was pretty excited but then I noticed all the typos, this is something you expect from a seedy blog you found on the web, not a book that retails at $55. GW thought it would be a good idea to have a bunch of guys do a campaign and lazily create a book about it. Unfortunately that is exactly the feel it gives off. The errors in the book also make some of the rules ambiguous so look forward to adding that FAQ to your book. Stupid errors are a common feature in GW stuff and I was hoping after the high quality Tamurkhan release from their Forgeworld brand that maybe they had learnt their lesson but no this is not the case.

It is not all bad news though as there are some really cool rules included. The best of them being the siege rules. Now you can destroy your rivals castle using not only your army but also siege weaponry like battering rams and siege towers. The defenders get cool stuff too like boiling oil and upgrades to their towers. The game of course runs you through the basics of running your own campaign and adds a lot of special rules. Obviously this is not aimed at the beginner as you will need experience to run the campaign and play the battles. That is why it is a little confusing that the book is not aimed at a slightly more literate, older crowd.

Also included is the story of the campaign run by the GW staffers, which I found very hard to follow. It reads something like this, Simon fought a battle with Matt, whilst Warlord Fawsqueek was attacking Steve, whilst the Warlord Headchopper was out chopping heads. I don't care about Steve or Matt and it just confuses me when you refer to them by name, then by their general, then by their last name!

In general the book is very inspirational for running your own campaigns and includes a lot of high quality photography and art, to get you in the gaming mood. This is exactly the aim of the book but it just feels a little amateurish, especially at this price. I think there is enough content to warrant the purchase of this book especially if you are buying it with friends but it could have been a lot better 7/10.