Empire of the Dead Requiem Rules Release

The new PDF rules have been released for the Requiem expansion to Empire of the Dead.  Included are rules for criminal gangs (including Moriarty and his crew and the Inscrutable Tong), and other factions like Nemo and his crew, the Bedlam Brotherhood and the Clickers.

My first read through discovered a number of typos already (they still haven't fixed the long range distance for Lightning Jack for instance, which is "4"), which does detract a little from the overall effect.  Without play testing any of it yet, I do get an overall feeling of there being particular flavours for each faction, which will lead to them being played differently on the table and thereby using different tactics.  That is good - although adding additional complexity, the game is particularly straight forward anyway so it is not difficult to add special rules.

I am keen to get the clickers now - there is a two page back story to this faction which is well done and the manner in which they are played and developed is quite different from any other faction (the additional clickers are summonsed as the game goes on rather than deployed at the start).

You can also harvest body parts and get extra shillings from different body parts harvested from models killed on the table - cool!

Bedlam Brotherhood has a number of rules around combat - most involving the rolling of a D10 before combat with a "1" involved some positive effect (increased strength, fortitude or combat skill) and a 9-10 involving some sort of crazy outcome.  Nipper, for instance, in a fit of pique refuses to fight and resolves the combat as if he is discombobulated and prone.  Hat man, on a "1" turns sides for that turn and allows the other player to activate him as if he was a member of their faction!  Alice gets to use Tom, her cat, as an ally and can set him upon an opponent as well.

Lots of new rules around carriages - shooting from and at carriages and the like.  Looks like there is real scope for car chase sequences across London streets!

There are a number of characters still missing - it seems Prof Cavor (diving suit guy) is left out at this stage and so are the stretch goal guys as well in large part (correct me if I am wrong on that).  I am not sure if they are coming later.

Hopefully Westwind will take the comments back and be flexible enough to tweak these rules before they are finalised, because I would expect there will be some teething problems here.  Also, just a quick look at the costs of some against others, makes me think there is scope for some factions being significantly more powerful versus cost than others.  Guess we will just have play them and find out!