Warhammer 40,000

looked up that article, it basically says "these people leave us alone, and aren't worth trolling, just ignore them" which, as much as I disagree with all this shit, is the correct response to idiots

Here is the latest of my Chapter Colours painting project, a Space Wolf Grey Hunter.

I think the slightly darker colour scheme turned out better than by previous attempt at a Grey Hunter. My attempt at freehanding Krom Dragongaze's Company Symbol turned out reasonably good as well.

edited 20th May '16 3:08:44 AM by SebastianGray

Wolf, Wolf, Wolf, Wolf, Wolf, Wolf, Wolf, Wolf, Wolf, Wolf, Wolf, Wolf, Wolf, Wolf

Fry, I'm putting into this game stuff from every bestiary.

I'm currently up to Rogue Trader and I have mutants, creatures from the Death Worlds of the Calixis Sector, tech-heretical things, various other creatures from the more civilized Calixis Sector worlds, Eldar, a no-name xenos race called the Enoulians, another unknown xenos race called the Simulcra and various creatures from the Koronus Expanse. Some I've modified so that the fight doesn't start with a TPK and others I've just left out.

I'd also like to note that this game isn't at all serious. We're just messing around.

edited 20th May '16 4:11:47 AM by Rosvo1

massive enemy civil war then, for the party to just sit back, laugh at, watch and then mop up the survivors?

If they get in deep enough before the chaos starts, that might not be an option.

I'll have them advance into the ship before springing anything on them.

Also, it'll be interesting how the Incubus reacts to Daemonettes and Harlequins.

Yes, there is an Incubus PC. Yes, I'm putting in Harlequins.

I just DM'd Black Crusade, with the "revised" end to the Q'Sal scenario. In the previous session, after the leadership of Q'Sal, the Fourteen Factors, announced their plan to monopolize the entire Q'Sal workforce for a century, the party was all "no way, we just ordered our huge daemon engine that will take years to make, this delay is unacceptable".

By the time the shenanigans ended, the Fourteen Factors had been trimmed down to nine (and only one of these five murders was the party's doing), and eight of the nine survivors had their soul-binding mind-control ritual turned against them by the party's two Chaos Psykers and the two surviving Sorcerer-Technocrats.

This was a good session. Tzeentch is laughing.

Isn't Tzeentch always laughing? Possibly while twirling a moustache made of fire, feathers, feathers made of fire, fire that is made of feathers, feathers that are on fire, and fire that is, inexplicably, on feathers?

Question: How does one become a sister of battle? Is it a job that takes volunteers? I thought of a joke character who's a little girl who wants to be a Sister of Battle when she grows up, and draws crayon drawings of herself riding the shoulders of the God Emperor (who's standing atop a pile of xeno skulls) while firing a bolter at something.

I think most of them are drawn from Schola pupils.

Cain, both as a student and as a teacher indicates that is the case, for at least some of them. Initial training there before being shipped to one of the main monasteries for full induction.

So, yesterday I ran a session of the Rogue Trader game.

And I'm having trouble balancing the Incubus. Against a group of five Razorwings he almost went to critical injuries but against the Rak'Gol Render with Unnatural Toughness x 2 and Unnatural Strength x 3 he didn't take any damage.

If it's anything like BC, the key is to remember their unnatural agility is good for dodging automatic fire (or fast/lightning melee attacks) from a single target, but they still only have one dodge, two at most (if they have the right talent). Therefore, everything is weak to focused fire. Cover can balance this, but a Dark Eldar incubus is more of a melee dude.

Ah, I remember how terribly balanced the 40k RP Gs could be pre-Black Crusade.

In fairness, the ridiculous power level of Rogue Trader is part of the fun, and IMHO, it's the best of the FFG line as far as the 40k games go. When you start out with access to city leveling coilguns and personal armies numbering in the hundreds, you kinda have to run a different kind of campaign from typical P&P fair.

edited 23rd May '16 11:30:47 AM by CaptainCapsase

I'm not talking about the ships (though they are also a disaster, vehicle combat is a nightmare for a DM to organize on that scale), I'm talking about stupidity like Unnatural Characteristics giving Space Marines the ability to carry Rhinos instead of the other way around. Or skills being unnecessarily split up (Silent Move and Concealment, are you kidding me?). Or the class/rank restrictions placed upon talent/skill purchases that hobble certain paths in favor of other ones.

Black Crusade, Only War and Dark Heresy 2nd edition are far better put together when it comes to basic mechanics. Scale and power level are subjective of course, but I figure its only a matter of time before we see Rogue Trader with 2nd edition mechanics, or at least a RT sourcebook for DH 2e, and I'd welcome that.

edited 23rd May '16 11:54:46 AM by Rationalinsanity

What's the Unnatural Strength of Rogue Trader Space Marines? Because if it's ×2, it's not that different from BC's +4, at least at character creation.

The problems occur when you get abilities that boost things to x3 or x4. Besides, UT/US +4 at most adds 4 DOS to a test. Even x2 can give stupidly highly results.

Case study #1: https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Dougie_McIsaac

edited 24th May '16 4:03:48 PM by Rationalinsanity

Oh I meant to ask, by the way, how do Unnatural multipliers work with degrees of success? Do they just multiply them too?

help me out here, I can't tell if this is awesome or HERESY!!

The old Unnatural multipliers multiply both degrees of success/the base bonus and (for strength and toughness) things like carrying capacity. The new Unnatural traits just add a flat number, which is still really strong.

On toady's 2nd Edition Thursday: Callidus Assassins

The Callidus Assassin was the second of the Temple Assassins to be released (the first was the Vindicare). They used to cost 177 points without their wargear and they had the following statline: M6 WS8 BS8 S5 T5 W4 I8 A4 Ld10

For wargear the Callidus Assassin carried a basic knife as well as the four pieces of wargear that they still carry today:

C’tan Phase Sword ~ 15 Points: The Phase Sword was found on one of the long dead worlds of the C’tan. Excavations by the Adeptus Mechanicus uncovered numerous artefacts of extremely advanced technology, but of their makers, the enigmatic C’tan, there was no evidence.^note This was from when the C'Tan were just a mysterious lost race and nobody had heard of the Necrons The blade of the Phase Sword phases in and out of real-space by molecular realignment, so it is capable of bypassing armour and protective fields. A model wounded by the C’tan Phase Sword did not receive an armour save, even for armour fields. They were Strength 5, did 1 Damage, penetrated armour on 2D6+5 and could be used to Parry.^note forcing the opponent to reroll an Attack dice

Neural Shredder ~ 15 Points: The Neural Shredder is of unknown origin, although some speculate that it is but one of a range of psychic weapons developed by the Adeptus Astra Telepathica. If at the end of the hand-to-hand phase the Callidus Assassin was not in base-to-base contact with any enemy models then she could fire the Neural Shredder. To fire the Neural Shredder you placed the Flamer template so that the pointed end is touching the Assassin. Any models wholly under the template were hit automatically, while models partially under the template were hit on the D6 roll of 4+. All models hit had to pass a Leadership test with a -2 modifier to their Leadership characteristic. If the test was failed the model suffered 1 wound with a -3 saving throw modifier. Armour fields did not protect against the Neural Shredder.

Poison Blades ~ 10 Points: A Callidus Assassin frequently has to operate with little or no weaponry. However, a Callidus Assassin is never totally unarmed and will always manage to secrete several needle-like poisoned blades about her person. The Callidus Assassin can drive these through weak-points in armour, such as eyes and other exposed areas. If there were still enemy models in base-to-base contact with the Assassin at the end of the hand-to-hand combat phase, she could attack one with a poison blade. The poison blade hit on a D6 roll of 3+, inflicting a S4 hit that causes 1 wound, with no armour saving throw allowed. Armour fields could save as normal.

Polymorphine ~ 20 Points: The Callidus Assassin was not deployed at the start of the game. Instead, the player could play this card at any time to reveal that the Callidus Assassin was in fact disguised as one of the enemy! The player could select either an Ork, Squat, Human, Genestealer Hybrid or Eldar and substitute the Callidus Assassin for that model. The model had to be a basic trooper model and not a character model, vehicle crewman or have a heavy weapon. In addition, as armour restricts the movement of the Assassin, the model the Assassin replaced couldn't have an armour saving throw better than 3+ on 1D6. The Assassin discarded any captured wargear as she cast off her disguise, and has only the weapons and wargear normally carried.

The Callidus Assassin also had a number of Special Rules including: Immunity to all psychological effects (such as Fear, Terror, Stupidity) and she automatically passed any and all Leadership tests that she had to take.

Dodge: Callidus Assassins had a 4+ save on a D6 that could not be modified in any way. If she successfully dodged an attack that used a template or blast marker then she was moved outside the area covered by the template.

Gas Weapons: The Synskin worn by Callidus Assassins gave them total immunity to all gas based weapons such as Choke, Scare, Hallucination, Toxin or Virus grenades.

Vision: Callidus Assassins had highly sophisticated bio-implants that enabled them to see in the dark or through dense smoke so they were unaffected by gas Smoke grenades that obscured vision. The more sophisticated Blind Grenades still blocked their line-of-sight however.

Infiltration: Despite it being redundant due to their Polymorphine, Callidus Assassins could Infiltrate.

Evade: As well as their Dodge ability, Callidus Assassins were able to weave through incoming fire meaning that enemy shooting at a Callidus Assassins suffered from a -2 To Hit modifier at Short Range or a -1 To Hit modifier at long range.

Jump Back: At the start of a hand-to-hand combat phase a Callidus Assassins could disengage from combat and was automatically moved 2" out of hand-to-hand combat but couldn't use this move to engage a different model in close combat.

Reign of Confusion: Due to the Callidus Assassins sowing confusion in the enemy's ranks while using Polymorphine the enemy player had to discard one random Strategy Card at the start of a game^note Strategy Cards were cards that were drawn at the start of the game that represented random events and special tactics

All this sounds incredibly badass. Not sure how one would justify the S5 though, unless 2E strength was higher overall.

Sort of. 2nd Edition had a specific formula for character profiles. There were three levels of character, Champion, Hero and Mighty Hero with each level getting bonuses on their races' basic stats. Champions got +1 WS BS I & Ld; Heors got +2 WS BS & I and +1 S, T, W, A & Ld; Mighty Heroes got +3 WS BS & I, +2 W, A & Ld and +1 S & T. So a regular Human Hero had a statline of WS5 BS5 S4 T4 W2 I5 A2 Ld8 Specialists (such as Assassins and Chapter Masters) and Special Characters got further bonuses. Also a basic chainsword was Strength 5 at the time.