Now where I'm putting stuff, campaign notes

[SirRunOn 75]

Well honestly you'd have to know my brash bang bang killem all need to be lead around by the nose players.  They're sort of the lazy type and they're used to running modules and adventures where there isn't much choice of what they do and they happilly just dope along with it.  Go here kill that, fine.  Unfortunately none of them are RT material, nobody takes charge and even finding a regular leader is difficult.  With that playing the RT classes all I'd have would be like three arch militants and two void masters, if I was lucky and they ALL didn't play arch militants.  The Dark Heresy system gives a lot more variety in basic shootem up guys.

I note that RT starts at much higher experience levels and you need to do a lot of stuff with your characters to just gain one level, which wouldn't suit my very goal oriented I want lots of advancement players.  DH characters gain levels like scars, maybe even quicker.  There's also the fact that DH characters are far more tailorable to particular roles and they carry their own money.  The idea of Profit Factor goes right over their heads, they want gelt in hand.

As the game progresses, they now have their first ship and they're starting to use RT rules more than DH, I'll be headed over there.  I note a wandering of interest though with all the more esoteric rules and lack of someone cracking a whip over them telling them exactly what they'll do next.

We have a lot more material available and adventures to tell, but the lack of interest in this forum makes me a bit stingy about spilling my guts about all the weird and wonderful stuff they've done so far.  I'm sort of in the, "well nobody's showing interest, I'll get around to the next post, later" stage.

[Solarisjock 0]

 Please continue, this is my second post on the FFG forums, and I have to say I am highly entertained by your parties antics.  It would be a shame if the rest of their story went untold at this point

[SirRunOn 75]

Wasn’t planning on it for a few days yet, since our next scheduled game is two weeks from now(scheduling conflicts), but I guess we’ve got plenty of stuff to do some more.  Anyway if it gets any further back in my mind I’ll forget most of the details.

 

Continued:

Well the leaving of the Pride of Vincenti caught everyone unprepared.  The colony had yet to receive it’s astropaths(I‘d say astropat-hic choir but every time I do it comes out osteopathic with my spell corrector and that doesn‘t exactly get the proper feel), and the follow up supply run with the rest of the colonists and what they’d need without the Vincenti was months away.  The fact that the party was the only remaining authority from the missing ship didn’t help them much and really only the good reputation the party had with the colonists was saving them.

It left the group with a number of priorities.  Find a ship, find out where the orks came from, and find away to defend themselves being the first and fastest that came to mind.  As all production went into finishing the perimeter fence to hopefully keep any other orks out the call came to discover just how deeply in the pewper the colony was.

Keeping the mechanicus back to work on the fence the party rushed off to the Tauros Venators and revved them up.  The assassin jumped in with the Priest driving and the Psyker rode the turret of the machine driven by the scum.  Grabbing a pair of the twin linked lascannon vehicles they sped off in the direction that the orks had come from.

Over hill and dale the party traveled, making noise and churning up some dust.  Ahead of them rose some tall hills and the party decided to take a path between them.  Awareness and drive checks punctuated their search to keep them on their toes in the rocky terrain.  Soon something large could be spotted over the hills but not made out.

At that moment the party found themselves surprised by some competition.  A herd of massive boars pulled up beside them.  Astride each boar was a comically large ork, whooping and waving it’s axe at them.  It took the group a few seconds to figure out the orks were looking to race and they gunned their engines.  Both groups reached some hilariously breakneck speeds across rough terrain.

Not content to just sit back and watch the psyker leaned back in the turret, took careful mind bullet aim and on a note of pique SPASMED the front boar.  The afflicted animal immediately managed to fail its willpower roll and somehow performed a wonderful ballet pose in midair doing about fifty or so.  The resultant spill began catching the other boar riders like a perfect strike in bowling and in moments there was a cacophony of crashing and a horrid jumble of arms, legs, boar parts and ork bits rolling on the ground after them.

Calling that that the psyker went back to being bored.  A slightly odd sensation had been bothering her as of late and she wasn’t feeling very well.

It was actually a bit to late to be bored though as the strange large object came into view.  It was a towering dome of rock, punctuated by strange assemblies that looked somehow a mix of rocket engines, radar dishes, guns and boulder all at the same time.  Realizing they’d found an ork rock the party called back that there were many orks in the neighborhood and went in a little closer to find out just how many they were dealing with.

Final count, not exact mind you, but close enough, came to about seven hundred fifty thousand.  Calls back to base revised the number of orks from many to somewhere around a metric furc-tonne and wheeling about the group made tracks to get back to base as fast as possible.

On their way back, now taking a direct route instead of meandering all over the place, they noticed a large cloud of dust in their way.  Closer inspection as they roared up to it showed a sizable mob of boys.  The count was around four or five good mobs and maybe a hundred eighty or so.

Not willing to miss a good opportunity the party drove right into the mess at full speed, las cannons firing freely until ork spooge was gumming up the works, and they were having trouble seeing because of the orks on the windshield.  With that, and a copious use of las cannons as extra large windshield wipers, the party raced on back to base leaving a hundred and fifty or so honked off orks behind them.

Racing back to base took a few hours and the party members were tired as heck when they got there.  They reported the ork mob coming their way to the Guard Captain.  The report they got back wasn’t quite good.  At best the fence was still two days away from completion, maybe more.  Those orks however were going to arrive near first light the next morning.

To make matters better the Leman Russes were still down and all but in pieces for repairs.  It was going to be a fight of axe verses gun at the crack of dawn.  Retreating to their bunks the party tried to get some rest.

Throughout the night teams of colonists worked on the expansive perimeter fence and by the time the party was awake they could see that it was in place over the area the orks would be coming, but still missing along the right flank.  None of that mattered much as power hadn’t been run out to it.  There was some arguing going on between the assassin and the tech priests on how to power the fence but that seemed a better job for later as a cloud of dust had appeared over the next rise.

The party raced around to their places, each grabbing something they could use to defend the perimeter.  The priest rushed up to the newly repaired pair of heavy bolters.  The scum and psyker dashed onto a Tauros Venator and revved it up.  This time they grabbed a multi-laser variant for more spread killing.  In the back the assassin took up a sniper’s post with his trusty hunting rifle and began scanning for targets.

As they prepared the guardsmen weren’t idle either.  While a few platoons remained on each flank of the facility to prevent the orks from coming around or hitting them from the side three whole platoons of guardsmen stood ready at the fore, getting into position and forming ranks.  While they had few heavy weapons they placed their trust in concentrated lasfire.  Their commanders bellowed orders from the back rows.  The Captain, his Platoon lead Lieutenants and the Commissar all strode behind their men, putting some backbone into the guardsmen in the face of the ork hoarde.

At this point I went to DeathWatch Hoard rules to handle the dozens of fighters on the field.  With more than a hundred guardsmen, and even more orks that was just way to many to handle one at a time.  For those unfamiliar with the system a cursory explanation is that the squads become like a single one of their members with many many many more wounds and cut down but stronger attacks.

As the ork hoards approached the first to get a bead on them were the party and their long range guns.  Given that hoards are very easy to hit the group didn’t have much problem landing well with full auto mayhem fire, but were barely accounting for much.  The assassin tried a shot at some of the leading nobs but found his aim fouled by dozens of charging green bodies.  Three of the guardsmen had tube launchers and they added frag missiles into the mess.

Around the corner the mechanicus was racing like mad to get the Leman Russ Exterminator up and running.  It being mostly together, just needing some replacement parts and an ammo load, he figured the best way he could help was to bring the tank online.

The same thing happened for a few rounds, the party blaring away, a few missiles careening into the orks, and me checking off numbers to tell what effect they were having.  Not the most exciting but I knew it was coming.

Next the basic weapons started coming in range.  Concentrated lasfire began pulling down ork after ork.  A few blooms of plasma burst from the ranks and cooked even more green skins.  The guard and group let the orks have it with everything, the kitchen sink, and a few extra utensils besides, trying to cut the ork numbers to something more reasonable before the wave hit them.

Again and again the guns lashed out, the orks being to thickly packed an in numbers to great to miss.  Again and again the size of the hoard clicked lower on each volley.  The green skins let up a great roar as they closed, their losses bothering them not in the slightest.

In the midst of the guardsmen there was an explosion, then another.  The guardsmen with plasma rifles began to have overheating problems as they fired again and again.  Fortunately no one jammed anything among the parties weapons and they blazed away mercilessly.

In a few rounds barely a third of the orks remained on their feet, but it was still a dangerous number.  With a mighty roar the orks surged across the final few meters and swarmed into close combat.  Melee broke out everywhere as hurtling orks broke through ranks to get as deep into the scrum as they thought possible.

Whipping out his weapon the priest sung a jolly tune as he raced into the mess, swinging right and left with the huge mono war hammer.   Bullets sang through the air as the assassin place precise shot after shot into the larger orks in the scrum without hesitation, and all the while orks were flying into the air as a Tauros rolled in through them, the scum using the heavy vehicle to crush them under her wheels.

With a shout of defiance the Captain raised his power fist and accompanied by the Commissar and Lieutenants he led the officers right into the maw of the ork attack.  Battling where the fighting was thickest ork after ork fell before the concentration of skills.

Round after round of combat sped by.  The orks mowed down guardsmen in horrific numbers.  The leadership of the guard kept their side from breaking, but they were bending badly.  In reply only a few orks were being pulled down, mostly by party members and officers as the guardsmen were woefully inadequate against the tough orks.

With a clean shot the assassin blew the head off one ork nob, no mean feat with all it’s wounds, and turned to the next.  Ork numbers were dwindling but would it be enough?  Many officers were down and the impetus of the counterattack was faltering.  The priest was already spending more time pulling people away from screaming death than getting in good whacks with his hammer.

Above the cacophony of battle a new roar was heard.  A throaty bass rumble drowned out the sound of one mechanicus cheering his azz off.  Like a god of war unleashed the Leman Russ threw itself around the corner with the mechanicus hanging on and unleashed hell into the orks unprotected flank.  The few orks milling around trying to get a swing in soon became so much mulch.

The call for reinforcements went out as the ork attack was obviously concentrated in one place and the reserve platoons spilled around the facility and began blazing away at any geenskin they could hit.  In a few moments there wasn’t an ork left standing.

The combat dwindled quickly down into a form of shellshock for most of those involved.  Guardsmen with flamers came up to burn everything ork while medic teams rushed about starting a triage.  The assassin took a seat and the other party members gathered around him and sat down, their gusto spent.

The psyker leaned her head to the left and to the right, trying to figure out exactly what had been bugging her, then it happened.  Sort of like a channel on the radio you couldn’t quite get without playing with the knob for hours that suddenly came in so loud and clear it wrecked the radio.  The psyker was hit by an incessant call so loud she screamed.  The reaction got some notice as the party looked at her.  Little did they know she was receiving an astro-pathic distress call at close range, one meant for traveling the great voids of space.  It was something like putting your ears next to the speakers at a rock concert.

In the midst of the triage the rest of the group had to wrangle the psyker over to the other tech priests to find some of their astropath equipment.  It took a bit of fumbling around and a whole lot of cursing by the psyker.  The equipment that pulled astro-pathic communication from a astropath’s mind was rather temperamental and fit her badly.  The fortunate part however was it left her all but a limp rag as most of the mental signals from her mind went straight into the machine.  She of course immediately swore revenge on the tech priest and tried to hit him with anything that would move, which was nothing.  It wasn’t long before a spool of readout was coming from the arcane contraption.

As the group was standing there, trying to make heads or tails out of the message the rest of the colony leadership shuffled into the room.  It was time for a meeting.

 

 

[Solarisjock 0]

 excellent, thank you

[DesFeux 0]

Hey SirRunOn

I just wanted to chime in and say that while i really really don't post that often, i do quite enjoy the telling of other GM's games, and to let you know that I appreciate you taking your time to write these posts

[SirRunOn 75]

*smacks his cheeks and revs up*

 

Well sorry for any delay in posting since that last bit.  Caught a bad cold last week and had to move the game day to this Saturday instead of last.  Along with that whew was I in no mood for posting out from under a mountain of snot.

Now let’s see where were we?  Forum is taking forever to load today…

Gahh would someone whip the Gerbils?

So the party was in a modular room from a phaeton base, btw great pics of those from Imperial Armor 4 if you’re interested, and they’d just got the psyker hooked up to a reading machine, that was picking her brain for info.  Oh and don’t look at me about the reading machine, I got that from a number of pieces of fluff, including the Tallarn novel.  What it was coming up with was an osteopathic(gahh stupid spell corrector) distress signal from a source on planet.  There was some basic information, coordinates they had no idea how to read, a description of the vessel, which was a tramp freighter, and a somewhat untimely warning about orks in the area.

As this info was coming up the leaders of the colony, what was left of them, shuffled into the room.  It was apparent quickly that there wasn’t much from the Guard contingent left, only Lieutenant Treadman, the staff officer, was left on his feet.  He explained the Commissar was sadly dead and the Captain was under the usual effects of spending a fate point while being beaten into negative wounds by a dozen pissed off orks(well ok that’s not what he said but that’s the technical gist of it).

So our meeting between the party, the LT, priests and Ad-mechs starts up.  The problems anyone can think of come up one by one, and most of them look like they’re only going to be solved by getting that perimeter fence up and fast.  All agree on making that the highest priority for work.  In amongst the talking the topic gets turned to the Rogue Trader and his cutting and running.  The Ecclesiarchy representatives are seriously angry at him for that, as can be expected.  The RT was supposed to be in charge of clearing the area, making sure everything was safe, and transporting the colony at his own expense for allowing the destruction of a pilgrim ship that asked for aid, one filled with high ranking members of the priesthood.  This perks up the party’s ears cause they know darn well from the first game session he didn’t “allow” anything, he BLEW UP the pilgrim ship himself.  That fact strikes the ministorum reps like a brick, in a sock, right upside the head.  The major backer of the RT was the Ecclesiarchy and his actions then and now were quite a blow to their mind and set them on the path of vengeance.  All this would come to naught however if no one were to be able to get off the planet to report.  The RT could probably hide out for a while till everything blew over and make any explanation he wanted to.

Bringing over the scroll that was being uncomfortably produced off the psyker’s head the party pointed out that there might be a way off the planet, if they could simply find this imperiled vessel.  Ignoring the fact that the psyker was trying to bite him the head tech priest checked the scroll and ran through some calculations.  Pulling out a map of the surrounding area, he circled some spots.  Now I fudged here a little on the facts cause I wasn’t quite sure so don’t complain to loudly about this part but the Ad Mech explained that the ability for astro-pathic signals to pierce bedrock was notoriously low, and that for a non astro-path to pick up on the signal it would have to be coming in through as few areas of interference as possible.  The locations he’d circled were ones that wouldn’t be visible from the colony, yet were close enough that both the curvature of the planet and any mountain ranges wouldn’t intervene and block the signal.

With the psyker screaming about her upcoming bloody vengeance, the ad mech filed the map as priority two and that was that.  With the first and second-most important priorities set the colonists went about getting things done.  Everyone, save the psyker which they left on the table, filed out of the room.

Work on the perimeter fence recommenced at a fever pitch.  With only the few needed to man the weapons and watch out for orks left to those tasks everyone else got to the shovels and started digging in the huge pylons.  Through the day and the night work went on, each pylon getting placed sometimes two or three at a time with the number of workers, and Ad-mechs scurrying around laying cable between them and back to the promethium generators that were to provide them power.  The pylon planting went quickly with the final pylon going up just before first light, however the generators lagged behind, as a number of them had to be placed in certain spots to route a continuous power flow.

This went on for a little while before the people on the ground could feel an ominous shaking.  The trample of many many feet hitting the ground over and over.  Again there was a cloud of dust over the next few hills. 

To make the description quick, and hopefully describe just what was coming at them I informed my players that it appeared the entire populations of Hanover and Gettysburg PA had painted themselves green, picked up axes and were coming over for tea.  While that would only mean something to the locals they were, it’s suffice to say that’s not a small amount of people.

The party rushed out to the pylons to find them up, but not running for power reasons.  The assassin looked back at the base and pointed out they had a barely used FUSION REACTOR up and running back in there.  He found the mechanicus members looking at him in shock for even suggesting such a thing, as the holy STC pattern for these pylons showed CLEARLY that promethium engines were used to power them at an exact ratio of one generator per four pylons.

Then the orks came over the hill…

With his bonus from doing well at the gala in mind I had the assassin roll off against the tech priest for persuasion.  Suffice to say with the assassin glaring at him and enough orks to fill the superdome bearing down on him at that moment tech heresy suddenly seemed to the tech priest to be a MUCH better idea then he’d ever considered it.  With the party racing to the base he ordered up as much cabling as his minions could get and fast.  While the tech priest worked the cabling was grabbed from the reactor and with scum in the lead plus everyone else in the party lending a hand they raced that heavy cable across the open field to where the tech was preparing a plug in.

In the background they could hear heavy bolters opening fire as the orks approached the defenses.  A few quick rolls from the party’s mechanicus and the head tech priest raced through and they jammed the cables into the plugs with the bare minimum of spiritual appeasement akin to oh great omnissiah save our azz.  Almost all at once every opening between the pylons filled with crackling energy and screaming orks.

First objective met… just… barely… ork flambé anyone?

With the completion of that major challenge under their belts the party returned to the conference room where they found the psyker convulsing while swearing death to all astro-paths and tech-priests.  Taking her and the map they got down to the business of figuring out where to go to find that ship.

Some time later they came out to find the entire colony surrounded by milling but not idle orks.  The green brutes had even chopped down some local trees and dug up some rocks, making what appeared to be a form of miniature trebuchet with which they had been flinging rocks into the yard around the base.  Their tenacity and speed at construction surprised the group, as did the orks standing near the fence daring each other to put their tongue on the lightning, along with the number actually dumb enough to take the bet.

Carrying the cursing psyker along, the party headed over to the tech priests.  It had occurred to them they didn’t know if only parts of the field could be shut off to let them out.  The techs assured them that any section of the fence could be shut down, as long as it could be cleared of orks first, a task the party was very happy, and well armed, to accomplish.

The group raced off to their Taros while a few guardsmen manned the local heavy bolters, all preparing to make a breakout.  In the background the orks were now trying to use their locked down catapults to throw orks over the fence, but they couldn’t turn them or adjust the aim… and they’d already covered the landing area with piles of rocks so… yeah… squish.

Quickly the party took note that there were five of them and only seats for four on the Taros.  Not hesitating for a moment the scum tied the limp psyker to the side of his vehicle and called it a good job.  That done they picked a spot to break out through and let’er rip.

Multilaser bolts and heavy bolter rounds blasted a hole in the milling orks beyond the fence, though most of the shots were deflected by the energy of the fence itself.  Caring little the party floored it.  Fortunately the Techs realized what they were doing and dropped the energy barrier just before they hit it and with a resounding splutch the Taros Venators added a few more squished orks to their bumpers.

Racing away the assassin and mechanicus waved from their copulas while the psyker screamed she would return for revenge.  The energy field was raised again behind them and they were off.

The first trip having taken them north to the orks this time the party headed east.  Before them was spread a wide forest and mountain range.  They pulled the helmet off the psyker, freeing her to move, though she was still tied down, and asked her to figure where the message was coming from the strongest.  A few rolls and screams of pain followed but she directed them towards the mountains through the woods.

The priest and scum at the wheel of their respective buggies gunned the engines and roared into the trees, only to find them disappointingly widely spaced and lacking much undergrowth.  To make up for that they just weaved close to the trees anyway trying to put a little excitement into their ride, but soon they were coming up to a cliff face and had to slow down and ask the way again.

With some concentration the psyker pointed, or should I say poked her nose toward the north and they were off again.  She picked out a narrow path up the mountains and that got the drivers revved for a bit of more interesting off-road work and up they went.  Roll upon roll followed just to keep them on the ledge and away from the cliff face while the drivers relished each moment and the passengers just clutched to their rides as best they could.

After a winding course the group found that the cliff was actually one side of a steep but narrow ridge with a tight valley on the other side abutted by yet another ridge just a little way off.  This wasn’t much of a surprise as the party didn’t care much about topography.  Finding a full sized vagabond transport sandwiched in a valley only barely as wide as it was did however pique their interest.

Looking down at the mess they were impressed by the ship helmsman’s either sheer skill or luck threading a needle like that.  The landing, obviously an impromptu one, hadn’t quite saved the ship however as they had been hearing gunfire for a while before even hitting the top of the ridge.  It seemed that the transport was surrounded by orks, all holding as discrete a distance from the ship’s off and on blazing turrets as much as possible.

With a little knowledge of that type of ship in his memory the mechanicus pointed out that the ship standard comm system and sensors looked to be currently buried at best, shattered at worst, explaining why they’d resorted to astro-pathic communication.  He also noted that, however, shouldn’t prevent them from contacting the ship with vox from their current distance.

It took a few moments to get the ship on the radio, but when they did the ship’s Captain seemed delighted to hear from them.  He obviously didn’t know who he was talking to.  In the conversation that followed the party discovered that his ship had been attacked by an ork ship while passing through the system and had suffered greatly when they’d been boarded, only barely breaking away with most of their crew dead.  The captain reported on an up note his fighters had been able to disable the orks engines and both ships had been brought down, his in good condition, the orks apparently not faring so well seeing as only feral orks had appeared to attack them so far.

As the conversation went on the assassin thought of asking the captain just how long his ship had been there and was told to his surprise that the ship had landed, when the times were matched up, more than a week before they colony had arrived.  The assassin cursed a fit and swore again he would kill the RT.  The Pride of Vincenti possessed the best sensor system the Ad-Mech had to offer and there was no way the ship had missed the two crashed vessels.  Hell, he had put the colony almost RIGHT BESIDE THEM.

Getting back to business the party inquired as to what the transport needed to take off.  In a spot of good luck for a change the report came back that the ship was in fully operational condition, having landed near perfectly in it’s absurd spot and the previous attack having centered mostly around the crew, which was the problem.  To the transport captain’s knowledge he needed people to run his ship, a lot of them.  The tally was at least three thousand more able workers.  Asked about the need for training the captain replied that it was all simple but physically intensive labor.  This worked well for the party because they had ten thousand able colonists back at the base… but how to get the colonists to the ship.

Looking around the eagle eyed assassin pointed out a more gradual path over the mountain further down.  It appeared the party had turned the wrong way when they met the cliff.  That meant getting to the ship and it’s cargo bay doors wasn’t going to be that difficult, however how to transport three thousand or more unarmed colonists through ork held territory while keeping them in working order was a much harder prospect.

And with that they smacked themselves in the head an remembered the huge PROSPECTing vehicles out behind the base.  Calling to the Captain to wait up for them they voxed the colony and got the ball rolling.  Wheeling back down the path they explained what they needed and hoped the huge four huge land crawlers would be big enough to handle all the people they would have to bring.

[Nameless2all 210]

Ahh a post!! 

[SirRunOn 75]

*Scratches his head*

Hey I don't know if that was a great idea nameless, there's a game update post as the last one on the previous page.  Moving the last page to page three like that might mean a few people miss that post.

Oh well, just in case I'll tell them that there's a update post there.  In fact I just did it twice.  I have a number of extra updates in the works but we're slowing down on making new ones at this end.

In that vein since over on RT there isn't a player finder post anybody around Hanover PA USA want in on our little romp?  We're having scheduling problems so we have room for three or four more players if anyone's interested.  We run on Saturdays, from evenings till late night.  Anybody up for a bit of mayhem?

Don't worry about this thread though, there's still a couple more pages of "game" or more appropriately put "stuff my players have pulled to make my brain bleed".

What say ya peeps?

[Solarisjock 0]

 more! we wants more!  well, at least i do