Dark Heresy: Creatures Anathema

Quote from: Fantasy Flight GamesCreatures Anathema is a bestiary of enemies for your characters to face. Each monster is fully detailed and described, including plot hooks that make it simple to place each challenge into an existing game, or to build a story around a particular creature. In addition, Creatures Anathema contains rules for new, exotic alien gear and some new player character options.

Creatures Anathema contains both monsters unique to the Calixis Sector as well as classic creatures from the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Presenting over 50 creatures for use in a Dark Heresy campaign, this 128-page, full-color hardcover tome is a handsome addition to any RPG bookshelf.

That's the product in a nutshell.  Though my book comes in at around 146 pages, the last 20 or so being some supplemental rules so that could be the reason for the differences in page counts.

It's a hardcover book and like all other DH products the quality is top notch as is the artwork and the layout.  It's what you would expect, especially if you are shelling out $40 for a gaming book.  It's similar in terms of contents and production value to the Warhammer Fantasy Bestiary (which I should add I really like).

The Creature Anathema is layed out in chapters.  Each chapter focuses on one type of creature category, Mutant, Xenon, Death Planets, Creatures, Demons, etc...   Each category has some good overall info on how to use a specific category in your games.  I really enjoyed these intro parts.  They do actually provide some useful ways and an overview of how to incorporate these types of creatures in your games.  This is in terms of just ways to put them in.  But also what kinds of effects they may have on your story.

For example having your character run into a Mutant on a hive world, is a very different story from having them run into a Khorne Flesh Hound....Sure in mechanical terms they are both just other baddies to kill.  But the reasons and implications of a Flesh Hound being there are far different from yet another mutant.  These bits should go a long way in helping a GM keep a consistent and believable theme to their games.

Each category then goes on to providing several different examples of types of beasties.  They often follow the easy>tough path, but that doesn't always mean the easy are easy (though the tough are almost always tough).

Along with the stat blocks for each creature a good description and general overview is provided.   That is then supplemented with a couple story hooks that can be used to plug that creature into a game.  These story hooks are more overviews then specifics.  But they are all pretty solid and server to plant a seed to develop an adventure around.

Beyond that the book finishes off with some more generic how-to rules for the GM to consider when designing adventures and it's a solid close to a solid book.

My initial impressions on this book were that it seemed a little light.  However after having read through it there is alot of information in it.  While the creature content is perhaps a little thin.  They do actually provide a good crosshatch of opponents to pit against your Accolytes and considering that DH really isn't a game with a plethora of fantasy monsters to go against I wasn't expecting  a 250 creature count book either.  However where the creature count may be a little light the story information, plot seeds and GM tips really go a long, long way into making this book worth your while.

You could certainly do without this book.  However if you are looking for a little more variety to your DH games then this book is a must have.  Even if you don't plan on using all the monsters in the book the story seeds had me flushed with ideas that could be used outside of the context they were provided.

I really enjoyed the WH Bestiary and I equally like the Creature Anathema.  It's a very solid book and for a GM well worth the price.   For players though of DH there's no value in this book in terms of character add-ons or anything.  It's all sweet, sweet GM candy.

Oh for what it's worth it has Genesteelers, Orcs and Eldar.....

I give this a 4 out of 5.  While it's certainly a great tome and really has no glaring flaws or areas I wish they'd done better.  For $40 I think we should have received a 200 page count book with more baddies in it.

It provides some stats for Eldar, Orks, Gretchen, squigs, and Purestrain Genestealers. It's a major step up for those into Xenos Hunting.