On the hive-world of Black Reach, an Ork Waaagh! breaks, jeopardizing this sector of the galaxy!
There are some really generous Esoteric Order fans out there. Selby, from Perth, Western Australia, emailed me out of the blue and offered me a copy of this game to check out. And he’s since sent me one of the expansions too! But there was a sneaky side to his generosity, which I discovered when I opened the rulebook. So. Many. Icons. If there’s a perfect example of a game that needs an EOG rules summary and reference, then this is it, and even Selby wasn’t game to tackle playing this one without an EOG summary! And creating it wasn’t helped by the fact that the rules PDF is one of those low res scanned ones that doesn’t let me select the text!
Warhammer 40,000: Heroes of Black Reach is a Warhammer 40,000 themed version of Heroes of Normandie, the counters-on-a-board WWII tactics game, and it doesn’t pull back from the complexity, relying on a plethora of icons and special abilities to bring all the detail of the setting to life. The map tiles and counters are lavishly illustrated, and it’s great to see these kind of sci-fi battles in this form, something which is surprisingly uncommon.
So here it is at last Selby, after many hours of scanning and deep etching and typing! Like you, I can finally play and enjoy this game now, as doing so with just the dense, complex rulebook was not an appealing prospect. You certainly put me to work—but it was still fantastic of you to send me a copy!
