The magic system was also clearly a victim of the same thing that
produced all those typos.
In several instances, the color text for a particular spell talent
references a Taken using that spell, but the Taken stats later in the
book indicate that Taken doesn't possess that talent.
It's not just the Taken - it's been a while, but either Silent's or One-Eye's character sheet was missing a spell he had used in the book.
The whole "Spell = Feat" thing was good for play balance, but lousy when it came to representing what the characters did in the stories. It took the magic system from "One-Eye came up with something new, so Goblin adapted his spell to do blah" and made it much more rigid. The Company's witch men were very good at adapting magic and using it in odd ways, but the characters in that RPG just couldn't do that.
I always figured the best way to run a BC campaign would be to start the
players out in Lady's army, have them survive the eastern front but not
make it to Charm, and then let them sweat the prospect of having to go
up against the Company themselves...
That would also allow you to explore a few of the Taken who weren't
fleshed out in the books.
That's a major complaint I have about that source book - they didn't list the stats for the Ten. Yeah, it gives the DM the ability to customize, but even with published stats a DM can customize. I can see not giving the stats for every soldier and making a generic template for Lady's New Taken (other than Whisper (and maybe Feather/Journey) those new ones were far weaker than the Old Taken) - but leaving out the ones for the Ten?
Most RPGs have a big problem dealing with one of the big effects of the Taken - the fear. Everyone they fought knew that the Ten had been buried alive for centuries, that they had once been the iron fist of the Domination (a regime whose cruelty exceeded stories about hell). During the Battle of Charm, one thought kept going through the Rebel mind - we haven't faced Her yet. We've fought the Ten (and - gulp - they're all here facing us), but will our armies survive Lady's power?
I think the best system to represent the Taken might be Rolemaster - they did the One Ring and the whole Lord of the Rings stuff (sadly out of print and replaced by something inspired by Warhammer). Any system where you have the stats for Gandalf and Sauron could handle Lady and Dominator.
But ICE didn't license the Black Company, Green Ronin (who have a relationship with Warhammer) did, so that's what was made.
Richard