Early impressions of SIFRP, and [eventually] playing 40K with it

I found myself recently introduced to A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying, which is, to be redundant, the roleplaying game based on the widely popular A Song of Ice and Fire novel series by George R. R. Martin (which I have not read... yet).

I had just started a PbP thread over on RPG.Net, with the notion of getting a Dark Heresy game together based around Blood of Martyrs. Someone generously offered to GM-- but only if we used SIFRP. It's a game system he's partial to for his own reasons, and one he's used a lot in the past. His attitude seems to be that it's a very good RPG on the whole, well-suited to running a variety of different games in addition to 40K, and good clean fit for PbP besides.

Naturally, I took an interest in this development, as while I'd heard positive mention of it numerous times across the forum, I knew nothing about it. Thus, I got the free quickstart from Green Ronin's site, and finding myself interested and impressed, shortly thereafter picked up the core. Others have done longer and better reviews of it, so I'll let you look up them.

My thinking here is to make a comparison between SIFRP and FFG40K, and see how they might model the same setting in their own ways. However, the question arises: are these elaborations anything more complex than any GM worth his salt could figure out on his own? Said differently, does 40K do anything unique enough that a system being able to model it meaningfully is unusual?

Warhammer 40,000 is a vast mashup of incongruous, and often contradictory status quos and states of mind. Combining the attitudes, directives and works of the plethora of official writers and artists and the majority of the active fanbase, 40K tries to be dark and grim, but fun and comical; serious and grandiose, yet self-aware and tongue in cheek. I think that-- all forms and functions considered-- SIFRP has a better mechanical and conceptual chance at capturing and expressing more of that experience than Fantasy Flight Games's stultifying Warhammer 40,000 roleplay line.

The issue with that comparison is that both systems are trying to emulate different models. SIFRP is built around providing a system that can run A Song of Ice and Fire, which while it has some parallels with 40K, is its own setting focused on medieval politics and intrigues with some fairly realistically-lethal combat for good measure. FFG40K is built around modeling the granular cruelty of life in the Imperium, with close details of exactly how it's killing you. The crunch in particular seems geared towards the wargamer's mindframe, which is only natural considering the source material (that said, FFG40K is considerably more complex than the actual 40K wargame, ruleswise).

If and when the game takes shape, I'll have a chance to feel SIFRP out for myself, and measure how my opinion changes in the process. These statements have been my impression; next comes experiment, and learning. For those curious about SIFRP, a free quickstart PDF is available on Green Ronin's site, the page in question right here.