MikeN
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Posts posted by MikeN
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I would imagine that space marines would swear upon the names of their primarchs. In a similar way to medieval cursing where in order to avoid taking god's name in vain people would swear upon something associated with god - "God's blood!" (which became the swear word 'bloody' ).
pearldrum1 reacted to this -
Don't restrict yourself to thinking of Deathwatch targets in terms of just 'cults'. Pretty much any xenos activity can attract the attention of the Inquisition & the Deathwatch. Being the 'spec ops' teams for the Inquisition means that the DW will typically be given missions that have (initially at least) straightforward military objectives - destroy this target, retrieve this person/item etc. But of course once the marines are on the ground they find out the situation is more complicated than their briefing suggested.
The scale of the threat is usually why the Ordo Xenos request a Deathwatch team rather than putting together an inquisitorial unit. The DW kill team will face odds that could overwhelm a cell of Inquisitorial agents (eg enemy hordes).
As others have pointed out the DW & Ordo Xenos won't ignore other threats to the Imperium such as servants of Chaos or rebel human worlds just because that's not their area of expertise. The DW may end up dealing with these enemies because the Inquisition needs a swift response and it doesn't have the assets available from the appropriate Ordo (Malleus or Hereticus).
The analogy I use with my players is that the relationship between the Inquisition & the Deathwatch is sort of like an intelligence group (eg CIA) and military special forces (Delta Force, Seal Teams etc). The inquisition carry out intelligence gathering and then issue objectives to the Deathwatch kill teams. But the Inquisition leaves the tactical planning of the mission to the Deathwatch itself. The Inquisition won't interfere (usually) with the nuts & bolts of how the mission is carried out.
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Appreciate the feedback. The tac-marine can requisition a heavy bolter & the tech is a Salamander who will probably take a flamer as his primary weapon. That's reassured me about them not having the Dev in the Kill Team.
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I'm preparing for a new DW campaign with a 3-man kill-team comprising a Rune-priest, Techmarine & tactical. i'm wondering that without a Dev. they will lack firepower vs hordes? But I don't want to throw in a Dev. npc and run them like a walking Gun-servitor. Have other GM's ran games without Devastators and how did the KT fare?
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Kasatka said:
Also Genestealers are on space hulks because of their legacy from the Space Crusade era of GW gaming, where squads of marines (not in terminator armour) would have to fight Chaos Space Marines, Gretchin, Necrons and Genestealers aboard space hulks. I think going forward from this GW decided that the marine vs genestealer combat was the most tense and so that became the premise for Space Hulk.
You can add as much justification from newer canon sources as you wish, but basically Genestealers are nasty buggers to be fighting aboard a space hulk.I think Space Hulk actually pre-dated Space Crusade by about a year or so, not the other way round. I seem to recall some fluff from either Space Hulk itself or White Dwarf that Imperial scholars were puzzled by the presence of Genestealers aboard the hulks so they suggested a theory that the genestealers were using the hulks to drift through space to infect other worlds or passing ships which could carry the infection onwards.
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This was an idea I had for the DW scenario contest but didn't fully develop it…
The Kill-team are summoned to a briefing with an Ordo Xenos inquisitor in the Tower of Brass. When they arrive they are greeted by the Inquisitor who is in the company of the Rogue Trader Gravis Terrozant (from 'The Achilus Assault'). News has reached Terrozant that a fomer human world in the Velk'han sept (Jaya) will be the site for a ceasefire agreement between the Tau and a cell of the human resistance. After decades of conflict and with the approach of Hive Fleet Dagon the humans & Tau on this world have agreed to a non-aggression pact for the time being. The Tau are sending a water caste envoy to secure the ceasefire with the rebel leader.
The Inquisitor informs the KT that the primary objective will be the termination of the Water caste envoy. The KT will need to make a clandestine planetfall and infiltrate the meeting point in advance of the ceasefire agreement. The Rogue Trader Terrozant has a small retinue of human fighters as his bodyguard (possible members of the 'Winter Unending' resistance?) . These are instructed to remove themselves from the briefing room for the operational details of the mission. Once the RT's retinue leaves the Inquisitor activates a sigil on a control panel or has an inquisitorial psyker create a ward of silence around the room.
The inquisitor explains that there is another primary objective which must be completed prior to killing the Water caste envoy. When the rebel leader meets with the envoy the KT will first execute the rebel commander to make it appear that the Tau have betrayed the rebels. The RT lifts a weapon case previously lying to one side up onto the briefing table. Opening it he reveals that it is a Tau rail rifle that has been modified for marine use. The KT will use this weapon to terminate the rebel leader and capture the kill on a pict recorder or helmet cam. This video will then be later distributed as propaganda on the human world to show the Tau 'treachery'. Terrozant informs the KT that the alien weapon has been blessed by DW techmarines for use by the Adeptus Astartes and that they will be granted pre-emptive absolution as it will be in service to the Emperor.
The instant the human leader is dead the KT may then execute the envoy to make his killing appear as a reprisal for the death of the rebel general. The KT will be issued with a melta charge to be used to destroy the weapon once their targets are dead. The inquisition hopes that these two deaths will escalate the conflict on this world and provide a propaganda coup to the human resistance. The Tau will be forced to draw military units away from the Greyhell front and garrison them on the human world.
The KT will be secretly transported to the world aboard a ship from Terrozant's fleet (or even his own ship as he travels back & forth from the Sept). They will make planetfall and meet with a hardline faction within the resistance who are opposed to the peace treaty. This faction will provide intel, guides & transport to the meeting point of the treaty. The rebels may also provide support at the peace treaty in the form of a horde which will arrive to cover the retreat of the KT.
The resistance contacts believe that the KT's mission will be to kill the water caste envoy only. They know nothing of their former commander also being a target of the KT. They believe that the KT's mission heralds the coming of an eventual Imperial liberation fleet in the near future (in 40k terms that may be several decades). The inquisitor stresses that the 'loyal' resistance should not be disavowed of these beliefs. The world will be liberated but the Crusade cannot spare the resources for the forseeable future.
After the two targets have been terminated the KT are to co-ordinate their efforts with the resistance. They will aid the rebels by attacking high value targets in order to compel the Tau to strengthen their military presence on this world. Initially the envoy's bodyguard retinue will be tasked with hunting down his killers. The Tau will dispatch a strike force to the planet to reinforce this retinue as well as beefing up the garrison presence (the encounter with this strike force could provide the finale to the scenario).
A couple of spanners to throw into the works : the hardline human rebels may have been already infiltrated by tendrils of hive fleet dagon. The Hive fleet does not want a unified resistance on this world any more than the Imperium does. How will the KT react if they discover that their allies are in fact puppets of the hive fleet? What if turning on the corrupted rebels means that the KT lose their intel as to the meeting point of the treaty?
Some of the rebels may stumble upon evidence that the KT have more than just a single target at the peace treaty eg. the weapon case for the rail rifle breaks open as it is loaded onto a transport; one of the rebel guides at the meeting point approaches the KT location and discovers them in a firing position with the Tau rifle. Will the KT try to explain to the rebels that what they do is "for the greater good of Humanity" (something which the partisans will find dangerously similar to Tau propaganda) or will they silence the rebels permanently in order to maintain mission secrecy?
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Alekzanter said:
I say if the rules were allowed to be used to make the character what he is without tweaking beforehand, the rules should stand after character creation is over and the games have already begun. Deal with them, folks, and make notes to change them in the future for FUTURE characters.
You shouldn't have to wait until a campaign is over to fix a broken rule. In our campaign the Librarian players weren't aware of the oaths during character generation. For the first couple of sessions they used the 'push' power level sparingly and usually in desperate situations as they were aware of the dangers involved. But before one session as the group picked the mission oath the librarian players realised the combo of Oath of Knowledge + Rite of Sanctioning. They selected it purely as a powergaming tactic and then started spamming psychic powers at push level pretty much risk-free.
Psychic powers in 40k should be powerful but dangerous to the user. The psyker is opening their mind to the Warp not throwing around fireballs like a D&D wizard. I house-ruled that the librarians could not combine the OoK & RoS on the same roll in order to give the psychic powers some (small) amount of risk.
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(snipped double post)
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Surely "Only War" would have worked better as a 'generic' supplement that could have plugged into any of the existing 40k rpgs lines? I can't see a compelling reason to make it a corebook other than to jack up the cover price by rehashing the existing core rules.
I typically like the concept of playing low-level 'mortal' characters but in this case many of the criticisms you could have levelled at Deathwatch are magnified in "Only War" eg. not enough diversity in player types, too much focus on combat. FWIW i don't agree with those criticisms in regard to DW but I think they are valid in regard to Only War. The IG fight and die in their millions. Guardsmen have far less authority and agency over their actions than Space Marines or even a lowly DH acolyte. . If Only War was a supplement I could mine for stats, gear & background for my DW campaign would have snapped it up. But another rulebook? no thanks.
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There are two librarians in the Kill Team so they would swap leader duties. The other players didn't seem to mind as the group plays well enough together that they quickly reach decisions by consensus. The team leader position is seen by the players as an 'intermediary' role that interacts or speaks for the team in contact with the Inquisition or other npcs rather than a position of authority over the other players.
I like the idea of a fatigue cost for pushing the powers, it reinforces the idea that the librarian is straining to overload the psychic ability. I think I'll couple that with the librarian having to choose to use either the OoK or RoS with his power but not both. Thanks for all the suggestions!
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I had a librarian in our gaming group who continually pushed his psychic powers. He had a combo of "rite of sanctioning" (same psychic phenomena for every power) and "Oath of Knowledge" (re-roll the psychic phenomena table) so he used every power at "Push". On the one hand it limited the KT's squad abilities for each mission because they took the same Oath each time but it meant he overloaded every psychic power. I had to house rule it that because he was pushing the power the Rite of Sanctioning would not apply on the re-roll of the psychic phenomena table just to give some sort of penalty or danger for pushing.
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N0-1_H3r3 said:
And honestly, I agree with it. Having a Chaos version of everything else just feels tacky, and denies Chaos a defining 'feel' of its own beyond being "X with spikes and daemons". It also runs into the problem of "it's all the fault of Chaos!", which takes something away from the setting as a whole.
Well to be fair, even back in the old ork books for 2nd ed 40k they pointed out that the instances of orks worshipping Chaos were rare, the orks are so single-minded that there's very little room for chaos to exploit their desires or worries.. Even then it was more than just 'orks with spikes' eg the daemon-possessed warphead is naturally resistant to domination and so the daemon is effectively 'trapped' in the mind of the ork rather than the ork becoming a meat puppet the way a human psyker would.
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I've run a DW game with a techmarine possessing TFIW and unless mind-control is a prominent part of the campaign it isn't really a game-breaker.
What I have done however is give TFIW a Fellowship penalty : for every step of TFIW the marine gets a -5 Fel penalty as they become less human and more 'machine'.
However this Fel penalty becomes a bonus if the techmarine interacts with members of the Adeptus Mechanicus or the Iron Hands chapter.
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What if the Imperial bunker was built atop an ancient xenos structure? Deep below the sub-levels of the bunker, within the mountain itself is an ancient vault/city/tomb created by the Old Ones/Eldar. Artwork in some of the rooms depicts a mythological war against a race of skeletal warriors. Old Ones/Eldar figures are shown opening a chest or ark to unleash a living weapon (shoggoth) that dissolves & devours the skeletal warriors. The next stage of the story shows a victory feast by the Eldar that is invaded by the living weapon. The Eldar warriors force the creature back into its casket (possibly with Fire Dragons burning the creature).
The xenos structure has been broken into by an imperial survey team (who are now naturally all dead) after having broken the seals holding the creature in stasis. I'm not sure exactly how you'd convert a creature like a shoggoth into the 40k rpg but I'd suggest having projectile/impact weapons like bolters etc do minimum damage only while flame/energy weapons do normal damage.
You could even borrow ideas from "The Shadow Out of Time" and have a survivor from the survey team possessed by an Old One projecting their consciousness forward in time. The Old One is trying to repair the seals on tomb. At first glance they appear shell shocked and a psychic reading of the survivor will reveal the possession. The kill-team have to decide whether to work with the xenos creature to either destroy or re-imprison the living weapon.
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We've had similar problems with requisition in our campaign and it's not due to the players lingering over the selection of gear. They like the action in DW and want to get stuck into the mission itself after receiving their briefing. However the requisition phase brings the pace of the game to a screeching halt while people pass around the rulebook. It's gotten better over the course of the campaign as the players have developed a 'standard loadout' that they modify for each mission.
Our latest solution is to get the requisition phase out of the way in our own downtime. Using Alex's excellent DW gear cards :
http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=179&efcid=3&efidt=419783
I email the players prior to the game with the requisition total for the next game and the general 'type' of enemy they can expect to meet (Tyranid, chaos, tau etc) based on the intelligence from the mission briefing. So when the players turn up at the table they can just dive straight into the scenario itself.
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It's a neat little extra but given how badly the film was received in our gaming group I doubt I'll be using them. TBH I'd find stats for the Watch Captains and some of the other Erioch personalities more useful.I don't have the rulebook to hand but I can't remember if the Ultramarines are even taking part in the Achilus Crusade? Hopefully the Crusade sourcebook will expand the roster of chapters fighting in the Reach.
always felt that it was a missed opportunity not to include PC marine chapters in the crusade (as far as I can remember there's really only the Storm Wardens in any significant numbers and a company of Space Wolves). Having marines from a player's chapter would offer some roleplaying scenes if their chapter brothers are at odds with the Deathwatch's objective.
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Thanks for the replies guys. The pict recorder would seem to preclude 'helmet cams' being standard issue (as Siranui points out why bother paying req for something that the helmet could do anyway). The question arose from the fallout of our last session. I wanted to check whether the Deathwatch could simply review the camera logs of the kill-team or whether the marines themselves would be called upon to give personal report of their actions.
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Do Marine helmets carry any sort of recording equipment like the helmet cams in "Aliens"?
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Picked up MoX last thursday and I had a read of it over the weekend. I do agree that it's getting a bit silly with the amount of repetition of the Genestealer at this stage. However since this is the official 'creatures' book for DW I can understand that FFG probably felt obliged to make sure the genestealer stats were in it. I do think that if the purestrain genestealer had a wider range of biomorphs it would feel a bit more interesting.
I was a little underwhelmed by the greater daemons - not in their stats per se but I thought they could have used some more 'flavour' rules to show how they literally 'warp' the physical world around them. Stuff like Bloodthirsters inciting frenzy in those around it or GUO's causing weapons to jam or armour to rot & fall apart. The psychic powers list for the sorcerors was a bit bare, they really should have specific power lists for each God (except Khorne obviously).
I would have assumed that CSM sorcerors could pick psychic powers from the Codex powers list (and the entry on pg 127 refers to the chaos powers being "in addition to their own formidable psychic powers") but their stat entry on pg 116 states to pick just 2 powers from chaos list.
The Tau & Tyranid entries fill out their respective forces nicely but my favourite part of the book was actually the "radicals & heretics" section as I feel it gives the players enemies which are more than just targets to shoot. I particularly liked the background for Inquisitor Hakk but I wished they had given him an illustration which more closely matched his description. Hakk is a character who could be either ally or antagonist to the kill team and his description says he forgoes finery or displays of power in favour of a simple armoured vacc-suit. His illustration however has him in sinister looking inquisitorial garb carrying a chainsword bearing the star of chaos. It takes all the ambiguity of the character away and would immediately put the kill-team on edge when viewing it.
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Well the "astartes" weapons that the chaos marines carry seem to be in line with the original rulebook rather than the errata. You could hand-wave it aside and claim they're heresy-era weapons but really since they're the same type of weapons (bolter,chainsword, pistol etc) the KT carry anyway it shouldn't be too hard to avoid confusion.
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I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that a 40k rpg based around fighting a range of alien enemies would include one of the most prominent alien races in the setting. If I were a more cynical person I would suspect that FFG held back the Eldar from MoX so as to make the Xenos Compendium for RT more appealing as a purchase. However unless it outdoes N0-1_H3r3 's excellent Eldar web supplement I doubt I'll get myself.
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The stat line TB of the Daemon Prince wouldn't be an issue if the 'Daemonic' trait was clearly defined in the rulebook & errata. I think listing the DP's TB in the stat line as 12/8 would be a useful reminder for GMs that the Daemonic bonus is conditional. In the heat of all the dice rolling for combat it would be easy for a GM to overlook when the daemonic bonus is negated. Holy/Felling weapons might be rare but what about psychic attacks? Many, if not most, kill-teams will probably have a librarian in their ranks, their powers & force weapon will both negate the daemonic bonus.
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The rulebook describes the daemonic trait on pg 130 as similar to an Unnatural characteristic - it acts as a multiplier of the TB (vs 'mundane' damage) and it can stack with the TB from un. toughness trait. Now the errata for the Daemon Prince states to change the trait daemonic on pg 362 to "Daemonic (TB 8) as per trait description". How does this interact with the DP's toughness bonus? The way I read the trait description on pg 130 suggested something along the lines of Daemonic (X) eg Daemonic (1) , Daemonic (2) etc so that the number in parens would be used as a multiplier.
The DP has un. toughness x2 and an overall TB of 12 in his stat line. Is this calculated as follows :
[base TB 4 x 2 (un. tough) = 8 ] + [ base TB 4 x 1 (Daemonic) = 4] = 12 TB total?
is this correct/incorrect?
thanks in advance.
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I just can't see a compelling reason why BC needs to be another rulebook rather than a supplement you could 'plug into' the existing 40k rpg lines. I've aleady got the three existing corebooks and I'm running a DW campaign. Once the DW campaign is finished my group will probably move onto a different genre for a change of pace. If BC was a supplement then I'd pick it up in a heartbeat to mine it for ideas & antagonists in my DW game but another rulebook? no thanks.
Shadow of Madness review (GM's Kit Adventure)
in Deathwatch
Posted
The one flaw I found with the Shadow of Madness scenario was the lack of a map for Baraban itself. Even just a simple map to show where the locations are relative to each other would have sufficed.