Because everything was determined on random rolls, the players were asked to keep their background ideas until the end. Some players have sent me their ideas and even created heroes beforehand but WFRP is deadly so I told them to keep these guys as backup.
Race was determined randomly but you could always choose a human. Birthplace was random unless the player chose Reikland.
In the end, almost all things were rolled randomly, only 2 players chose to change their initial career to Initiate & Apprentice Wizard. Which was in fact a good choice.
One player (Gotrak) Just had the best luck ever rolling the random tables. He wanted a Dwarf, he rolled one, he wanted a Slayer, he rolled Pit-Fighter (which exits to Slayer), he rolled Tall, He rolled Men-at-arms for background, Grungni for religion, etc... Perhaps even the random tables were better at giving him what he wanted than should he pick this stuff himself.
Even names were rolled on tables, hence our Bone Picker and Wizard share their last name and so are actual family.
Lastly, I used a variation on the Group Character Building Idea found here
(Getting Your Players To Ante Up).
The idea here is to create backgrounds that intermingle among the characters, insuring a background where players know each other trough their past. Every player wrote on a piece of paper an important event in their life, then the paper gets passed to the left, this player would write down how they influenced this event, once more the paper gets passed and the 3rd player would write how the event influenced him.
While at first this could seem a bit daft, the results always deliver, our Group Character Building stuff can be found here
There are still some details to be sorted out but all of us believe this will be an excellent band of adventurers.