I have played the FFG 40k games (Only War and after) extensively and I would say that overall, Wrath and Glory is a much needed improvement, however I will break down into specifics as to what I found good about the relase, and what I found bad.

PROS

• System is more intuitive It's been much easier to explain to new players that you make a die pool, pick the successful die, and do cool stuff with the shifted die than it is to explain why it's a +10 this time but a +20 this other time, and how their talent plays into the situation. Also the biggest thing is the removal of the dodge skill, opting to instead give defense skills and items a bonus to a passive stat, or straight damage mitigation. It helps keep combat flowing as opposed to rolling to hit, then rolling to dodge, then counting out how many degrees of success, and on and on.

• The depth is still there A lot of people complain that there is a loss of complexity given the expansion of the type of characters and themes that are covered in the system. (40k as a whole instead of just inquisitors, or rogue traders, etc etc). I would support this in the realm of fluff, but when it comes to player decisions effective combat scenarios, I think the system does it well in spades. You have plenty of combat actions that change your odds depending on positioning, movement, aiming, and terrain just like the previous iteration, along with new mechanics like interaction attacks and meta-resource management (wrath, glory, and ruin) that give players more control over how they respond to a scenario. The game is also less reliant on randomization, given the nature of dice pools, and damage is a fixed value with the oppertunity to add a more, as opposed to the old system of your lasgun can do anywhere from 3 to 12 damage.

• Tons of options It always irked me that the FFG 40k systems provided very limited frameworks for playing xeno characters. Rogue Trader and Dark Heresy alone would give tons of oppertunities for players to be a xenos, but nothing ever came of it save an the old rogue trader guides. I like that right off the bat, you get a couple options for xenos and a framework on how they could be included in a campaign. It's personal preference, but I would rather have a game with a solid base game, with as many options and variants that are fleshed out in future splatbooks, than a game that focuses on a few specific things.

• Less restrictive character building The biggest improvement, in my opinion, is the reduction of mechanics that focus on system mastery over player vision. FFG's Only War gameline introduced a concept called aptitudes, where specific character creation options would give you discounts to purchasing attributes, skills, and talents provided you met the criteria. While an interesting concept in theory, it ultimately resulted in players HAVING to choose some very specific backgrounds and classes in order to get the character to do what they want. This would lead to some very frustrating moments, such as a Master of Ordinance being very bad at actually calling in artillery strikes, or Commissars who could fight in combat without massive xp dumps. Archetypes offer interesting abilities that are unique, but at the same time, removing the old aptitude system has freed up players to build their characters the way they want to, without punishing them for playing outside the lines.

• Tiers and ranks Tiers and ranks are a solid concept in gauging the scope and power-levels you want your players to be in, without resorting to xp adjustement. I think it's helpful to have the game advise you on what sort of missions, specific archetypes would most likely embark on.

CONS

• Character creation error This is my biggest complaint and most frustrating issue with the book, and that is that there are several, important instances of rules inconsistencies in the book. The biggest one is between the Tier Character Creation Restrictions (Table 3-1) being completely inconsistent with the specific aptitude, talent, and special abilities restrictions on their respective sections. You will have no choice but to make an executive decision as a GM on which of the tables will be the one you go with (I personally went with the section specific tables). You also have issues that come up when making Ascended characters, in that if you run a game that stretches through multiple tiers, there is really no set up on how to ascend your character multiple times. (I personally just allow the player to respec and write it off as there was a long inbetween the increase of tiers). You may argue that the games were not intended to be played through multiple tiers, but if you look at their Dark Tides module, it does state you have the option of playing through the entire thing as the characters from the first story to the last.

• Bland Talents Most the talents revolve around 'get x amount of die equal to your rank or 1/2 rank, in relation to doing thing'. I think it's a little too cookie cutter and not very interesting. With that being said, you have some interesting talents such as Fearless, Bombadier, and Devotees. I hope future books will inject some talents that allow players to do what they normally can't. Also, I think it's a little strange that talents, being so dependent on rank, will lead to strange situations where the same character at tier 1 rank 5, will recieve more bonus die than tier 3 rank 1. While die bonuses are limited by tier level, it still doesn't make sense to me thematically or mechanically (why or how could a higher tier character get less die than a lower tier character)

• More Archetypes This gripe is a time-sensitive one, I'm sure that this will fade as more splats focusing on specific segments of the setting come out. While I appreciate the wide variety of options to play with, I did wish that there were more specific archetypes for given factions. Whether it was stormboys and eldar exiles, or even imperial guard medic vs ministorum doctor vs hospitaller vs space marine apothecary, giving different variants to all the factions would have made the game feel more fleshed out. Again, I will first hand admit this is a core rulebook, and it's more than reasonable to suggest that future books will cover this problem.

SUMMARY If they just fix the first issue listed I would upgrade my rating to a 4/5 instantly. All in all, I have great expectations for this series, and Ross has really exceeded expectations from a doubter like me.