| 1 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/agp_oak_poke.jpg]] |
| 2 | |
| 3 | ->"So no shit, there we were..." |
| 4 | |
| 5 | There once was a gaming group with an [[KillerGameMaster evil GM]] who spent a weekend playing one of ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'''s spin-off [=RPGs=]. They rolled up a [[RedshirtArmy Imperial Guard]] regiment, made some characters, and proceeded to suffer TotalPartyKill after Total Party Kill, so much so that they were generating new characters in between rounds of combat. At the end of this brutal introductory campaign, the surviving fifty Guardsmen found their evac shuttle redirected to an unfamiliar spaceship, where some intimidating soldiers informed them that they were now working for the [[StateSec Inquisition.]] |
| 6 | |
| 7 | In other words, a bunch of ragtag, trigger-happy grunts from an ''TabletopGame/OnlyWar'' campaign wound up playing ''TabletopGame/DarkHeresy'', a game ostensibly about clandestine efforts to thwart the enemies of mankind. Hilarity, and Awesome, Ensues. |
| 8 | |
| 9 | This dramatized AfterActionReport chronicles an All Guardsmen Party's adventures as they're loaned out to their boss' Interrogators like Franchise/{{Pokemon}} to newbie Trainers, serving as DumbMuscle and CannonFodder for the Inquisition's best and brightest (and worst, and dumbest). Despite all expectations, the Guardsmen keep rising to the challenge, dealing with intrigue and subterfuge the Imperial Guard way - which is to say, lots of shooting and explosives, and occasional activity of a legally-dubious nature. Whether the job is finding missing psykers, figuring out what's going on with a misbehaving Imperial Guard regiment, purchasing a new mission ship, training a new batch of agents, or acquiring a dangerous xenos specimen, the All Guardsmen Party will find a way to succeed, though not always in the way their bosses would expect or prefer. |
| 10 | |
| 11 | The series can be read [[http://1d6chan.miraheze.org/wiki/All_Guardsmen_Party here on 1d4chan]], or at the author's [[http://www.theallguardsmenparty.com/ personal archive site]]. There are also some shorts: [[https://imgur.com/a/evqam6e [1],]] [[https://imgur.com/a/gRvnEUq [2],]] [[https://imgur.com/a/DRjwcum [3],]] [[https://imgur.com/a/LUOxcVk [4],]] [[https://imgur.com/a/UFsWzxn [5],]] [[https://imgur.com/a/u8v7VfZ [6].]] |
| 12 | |
| 13 | !!Tropes experienced by the All Guardsmen Party include: |
| 14 | ---- |
| 15 | |
| 16 | * AccidentalTruth: During ''The Xenotech Heresy'' Sarge claims that there is an entire heretek fleet chasing the archaeotech in order to keep the techpriests in line. Just after he finally admits he's lying, a heretek fleet drops out of the Warp. |
| 17 | * AchievementsInIgnorance: The Guardsmen, through a mixture of bad planning, poor prep work, and lack of common sense manage to accidentally create a [[spoiler:Tyranid daemon host]]. A pair of Space Marines call them idiots and heretics on hearing about this because it's supposed to be impossible. |
| 18 | * AfterActionReport: As noted above, the majority of the entries take the form of an unidentified member of the squad recounting the events of the mission. |
| 19 | * AirVentPassageway: While locked in a conference room aboard a space station, Sarge needs to make an escape and tries to find an air-vent he could fit through. Jim the Techpriest tells this idea is stupid as nobody would design something like that. When Sarge points out the ''Occurrence Border'' has vents like that, Jim replies it's because the ''Border'' [[ChaosArchitecture is a very stupid ship.]] |
| 20 | * TheAllConcealingI: Shoggy narrates the stories as though he were a member of the Guardsmen. However he never reveals which character he is in-game, referring to each member of the team in third person. |
| 21 | ** That said, when the guards split into multiple groups, he tends to refer to groups containing Nubby as "we" more often than groups without him. |
| 22 | * AllForNothing: Everything the Guardsmen do during "Inquisitorial Penal Legion" is left pointless when [[spoiler:Nubby, misunderstanding orders, pockets the one item that they were supposed to ''leave'']]. |
| 23 | * TheAllegedCar: |
| 24 | ** The second-hand Warp-ship known as the ''Occurrence Border'' which has been called a "glorified Space Hulk". The first thing that the team notices about it is that the entire bow and half of the ship's total length is missing and crudely welded over, and it only gets worse from there. It does make it perfect as an Inquisition base though, since everyone assumes nobody of any importance would be caught dead in the thing. |
| 25 | ** The party also obtains and drives self-described "shitty vans" on three separate occasions. |
| 26 | ** Enforced during "The 'Stealth' Mission" when the party is given the shitty van to end all shitty vans. Every request to modify it, such as adding working air conditioning or ''actual seats'', is vetoed by a tech priest on the grounds of it being "heretical". In reality, the tech priest just really hates the Guardsmen, and this is just one of many ways he tries to fuck them over over the course of the mission. |
| 27 | * AlwaysABiggerFish: The Occurrence Border has a kroot infestation due to a previous captain's bad decision, with the tribals and Guardsmen having to periodically cull their numbers. Eventually they're cleared out, but only because the new squig infestation ate all of the kroot. |
| 28 | * AndIMustScream: The fate of [[spoiler:Angelica Dominicus, the Chaos-worshiping Interrogator]] in the aftermath of "Nubby's Girlfriend": [[spoiler:To prevent her from escaping by charming any random mook during the trip back to Professor Oak, Doc works with the transit ship's medical crew to install a shunt in her spinal cord, completely paralyzing her from the nose down and leaving her only able to communicate by blinking in Morse code. After spending days like this in the company of [[AbhorrentAdmirer Nubby]], she is eventually shipped off to the Ordo Mallus to be [[WeHaveWaysOfMakingYouTalk interrogated]]. Unfortunately, she gets better.]] |
| 29 | * AnyoneCanDie: As expected of the setting, friendly [=NPC=]s can and will frequently drop like flies, often rather abruptly and unceremoniously. Besides NPC allies, three PC guardsmen have bitten the dust so far. In order of untimely demise: |
| 30 | ** [[spoiler: [[TheBigGuy Heavy]], who was [[BoomHeadshot blown away]] by an enemy psyker after they and a friendly psyker [[FreakyFridayFlip swapped minds]].]] |
| 31 | ** [[spoiler: [[KillItWithFire Crisp]], who had Twitch attach [[StuffBlowingUp all of his remote explosives to his flamethrower tank]] to [[TakingYouWithMe blow up a]] [[FaceHeelTurn Chaos]] [[SpaceMarine Marine]][[note]] implied to have been an [[WildCard Alpha Legionnaire]] [[/note]] [[HeroicSacrifice holding the squad at bolter-point]].]] |
| 32 | ** [[spoiler: [[TheBerserker Cutter]], who ingested a lethal amount of [[BottledHeroicResolve combat stimulants]], led a melee charge against [[RefugeInAudacity two Iron Warriors and a Heretek]], and [[ManOnFire went up in flames]] when said Heretek [[TakingYouWithMe self-immolated]] after Cutter had [[HalfTheManHeUsedToBe vertically bisected him]].]] |
| 33 | ** This was especially prevalent in the prologue, [[KillerGameMaster "Darwinian Character Creation"]], where characters died so suddenly and so often that the players had to start rolling up new characters ''[[ExaggeratedTrope in between combat turns]]'' to keep up. After six consecutive days of this, the players' regiment is reduced to about thirty people. These survivors make up the main cast of ''[=TAGP=]''. |
| 34 | * AppropriatedAppellation: "Rupert" is British military slang for [[UpperClassTwit a dangerously incompetent upper-class officer]]. The Rupert wholeheartedly adopts this term once he learns about it and insists everyone in the unit call him as such. This takes all the fun out of it for the Guardsmen, but they still call him that, [[InsultOfEndearment even after they warm up to him.]] |
| 35 | * ArcVillain: [[spoiler:The female interrogator]] in "Nubby's Girlfriend". |
| 36 | * AttackAttackAttack: |
| 37 | ** One of the side-effects of the weapons from ''What's In The Box?'', [[spoiler: due to their wielders being infected with Orkoid mindsets]]. |
| 38 | ** In the same episode, Cutter and the Rupert decide that the best way to engage a distracted Ork firing line from behind is to [[LeeroyJenkins charge in screaming with sword upraised.]] Alfred and the rest of the Squad manage to keep them from getting killed, but it was a close thing. |
| 39 | * BadassCrew: The Guardsmen as a whole. Reasonably, [[HadToBeSharp given their shared background]]. |
| 40 | * BadBoss: Most of the Interrogators qualify, some more than others. The Rupert is collectively agreed to be the least bad boss the Guardsmen have had[[note]]he's polite, well-connected (literally anybody important is an "old family friend" of his) and pretty competent, but also dangerously naive and sees no issue with charging things head-on[[/note]]. [[spoiler: Bane Johns and Angelica Dominicus (aka "The Bitch") are definitely the worst.]] |
| 41 | ** After the events of ''The Interplanetary Man of Mystery'' [[spoiler:Sarge is finally "persuaded" to accept a promotion to Interrogator to keep the Guardsmen from any more bad bosses.]] |
| 42 | * BandOfBrothers: The Guardsmen certainly view themselves as this. The rest of their teams, [[AnyoneCanDie not so much]]. They do eventually expand this to include the more reliable and pleasant teammates they've had, such as [[OnlySaneMan Jim and Hannah]] (deemed "the broest of cogbroes" and taught how to think like proper Guardsmen), [[IneptMage Fumbles]] for saving them and trying his best, [[MilitaryBrat Aimy]] (who was already a Guardswoman to begin with, just a noble one from a different regiment), and [[TokenMinority Fio]]. |
| 43 | * BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Frequently. Arguably the result of [[spoiler: Sarge's promotion]] - sure, their superiors are no longer ''insane'' and can't just boss them around, but they have much worse assignments now since they've "proven" themselves by having [[spoiler: one of their own become a trainee Inquisitor]]. |
| 44 | -->It was the complete opposite of all the horribly complex ops we'd suffered through since joining the Inquisition: it was the ultimate simple, straightforward plan. If it wasn't for the fact that we'd be outnumbered thousands to one, we'd have loved it. As it was though, there's no word for how much we hated that plan. |
| 45 | * BeatThemAtTheirOwnGame: [[spoiler:Oak's school]] was originally proposed by his rival, who he has fought multiple times while preventing its establishment. Eventually, he decided to found the thing himself just so his rival wouldn't have the opportunity. |
| 46 | * BeneathNotice: |
| 47 | ** The ''Occurrence Border'' is a ludicrously crappy ship, which actually makes it a perfect mission ship. Nobody would suspect an Inquisition agent would willingly board such a ship unless they were purging it. |
| 48 | ** The Guardsmen themselves are considered a non-threat by the [[spoiler:Conspiracy]] because they're obviously morons. Oak exploits this belief by giving the Guardsmen important roles in his LongGame. |
| 49 | * BigNo: Played for laughs when [[spoiler:Bane]] learns the Guardsmen killed [[spoiler:the Bitch]] and, [[SkywardScream in the middle of yelling]] "NO", pauses to take a breath. |
| 50 | * BilingualBonus: |
| 51 | ** The named Space Marines in ''Tyranid Acquisition Experts'' are named Rubram, Gravis, and Rebus - loosely translated from Latin into "Red", "Serious" and "Matters", or more colloquially, "Ruddy Serious Business". |
| 52 | ** With the expectation that the shuttle pilot would be used, he was named Tunicae - so that [[MeaningfulName the Marines (Gravis and Rebus) meant "Serious Business", and the Scouts (Rubram and Tunicae) meant "Red Shirt."]] |
| 53 | * BlackComedy: Many of the situations that the party faces would be outright horrifying if not born out of or further exacerbated by their own incompetence. Many of the victims of their collateral damage who don't get killed end up traumatized by the events. The only levity is [[RefugeInAudacity how ridiculous these situations are]]. |
| 54 | * BodySurf: The demon described in ''Interlude: Escape'' seems to use this method. Every time [[spoiler:Oak]] kills its host, it possesses [[spoiler:one of Oak's colleagues and starts the plan over again]]. |
| 55 | * BoringButPractical: After the field mission fiasco in "Good Soliders, Bad Educators", the Guardsmen give up trying to teach the trainees to be "proper inquisition goons", and settle for infantrymen instead. The skills and techniques they show them like formation fighting and squad tactics are far from spectacular or the type of stuff an elite agent might need, but prove very useful nonetheless. |
| 56 | ** In general, this is the Squad's default solution to any problem. Their M.O. can be summed up as [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim "Apply las fire and explosives to any problem]] until it stops being a problem." |
| 57 | * BrownNote: Looking at the face of the insectoid statue on the ''Occurrence Border'' drives humans insane. The engineering staff of the ''Border'' threw a tarp over its head, and use its arms to prop up plasma conduits. |
| 58 | * BullyingADragon: A Techpriest actively harasses and sabotages the Guardsmen, frequently leading them into danger on purpose and nearly ruining the entire mission, out of sheer pettiness and spite. Only as the squad of seasoned Guardsmen with a fresh grudge and a "convenient" alibi are beating him (a lone Techpriest) to death does the Techpriest realize that this might have been a bad idea. |
| 59 | * CanOnlyMoveTheEyes: [[spoiler:Interrogator Angelica Dominicus, AKA The Bitch, AKA Nubby's girlfriend]] is paralyzed so she can only move her eyes so she can be safely transported to the Inquisition for [[WeHaveWaysOfMakingYouTalk questioning.]] Along the voyage, Doc decides to pass the time by teaching her how to communicate by in Morse code by blinking. He succeeds, but all she says is "Kill me". Spending weeks of Warp travel alone with [[WiltingOdor Nubby]] [[AbhorrentAdmirer Nubbs]] will do that to you. |
| 60 | * CapturedOnPurpose: |
| 61 | ** Bane Johns orders the Guardsmen to stand down and let themselves be captured. This puts them in the perfect position to attack the heads of the local conspiracy. |
| 62 | ** The betrayal and capture of the Guardsmen at the end of ''The "Stealth" Mission'' is actually a plan by [[spoiler:Inquisitor Oak]] to get his people into enemy-controlled territory for a vital mission. Amusingly, the Guardsmen almost ruin this plan by [[ScrewThisImOutOfHere escaping the Arbites ship transporting them to the Inquisition]]. If they hadn't randomly picked [[spoiler:Oak's]] ship to steal and escape in, the plan would have fallen apart completely. |
| 63 | * CarFu: Not even a Tau battlesuit can withstand a van full of Guardsmen ramming into it and pouring their entire arsenal into it at point-blank range. |
| 64 | * ChekhovsArmory: Items and allies made throughout the campaign return during the final mission, several being incorporated into [[spoiler:Oak's anti-daemon mine]]. |
| 65 | * ChunkySalsaRule: The Guardsmen have a standard response when dealing with daemons or similar beings: if destroying the head and other organs is insufficient to stop an enemy, reducing its entire body to chunky salsa with explosives should at least slow it down. |
| 66 | * TheCloudCuckooLanderWasRight: |
| 67 | ** In "What's In The Box", Twitch is convinced that the titular box is full of Orks and the non-PC Guard Regiment are all Orks in disguise. [[spoiler:He is right on both counts]]. |
| 68 | ** In "Tyranid Delivery Experts" Twitch becomes convinced the Tyranid zoanthrope has allied with the daemons and will unleash a horde of daemonthropes on the Guardsmen. [[spoiler:Turns out the zoanthrope is a daemonhost, and it does spend most of its time trying to unleash an endless horde of "Daemonids" on the Occurrence Border]]. |
| 69 | * ClueEvidenceAndASmokingGun: The party on how they knew something was odd about the mostly naked woman they come across. |
| 70 | --> "It might have been her pointy ears, it might have been the weird harmonics of her voice. Or maybe it was the words "Eldar Subject Number 4" printed on the back of her tattered straightjacket." |
| 71 | * CombatPragmatist: The party uses every dirty trick in the book and arms themselves with potentially-heretical xenotech and illegally-procured weapons - but if it keeps them alive, they'll use it. |
| 72 | * ComicallyIneptHealing: Due to the abnormal anatomy and physiology of Space Marines and the side-effects of Tyranid biovenom, Doc and Tink's attempts to administer first aid to Sergeant Gravis quickly devolves into this. Doc pulls himself together and actually gives Gravis (or at least [[HalfTheManHeUsedToBe his upper half]]) treatment, but Tink keeps insisting they follow the advice of his [[{{Animesque}} heretical Tau cartoons]] (produced by xenos scum that don't know anything about the subject). |
| 73 | * CoolOldGuy: The feisty elderly adept from ''Heretic Purging,'' who (among other things) gets the team and their weapons through a checkpoint by [[DirtyOldWoman trying to seduce the guards.]] |
| 74 | * TheCorruption: The weapons produced by "the Box" [[spoiler:slowly mutate their wielders into Orks. This is because it's a heretek manufactorum that uses servitorized Orks as assembly line workers, and an Ork Weirdboy as its [=AI=]]]. Fortunately, once the Box is destroyed, everyone goes back to normal. |
| 75 | * DeadPersonConversation: Lots of them when the ''Occurrence Border's'' questionable Gellar Field network starts to fail, [[spoiler:including with the deceased Crisp, Heavy, Cutter and the Scout Marine]]. Even when the Gellar Fields are working properly this is a normal event onboard the ship, and it's regarded as a mostly harmless anomaly by the ship's standards and something to watch on boring guard details. |
| 76 | * DeathWorld: |
| 77 | ** ''Heretic Purging'' sees the Gaurdsmen, alongside [[OfficerAndAGentleman The Rupert]], sent to one of these to cleanse the planet of several Chaos cults. The fact that [[HadToBeSharp Deathworlders make for excellent Guard recruits]] is the only reason the Inquisition doesn't just [[EarthShatteringKaboom Exterminatus the planet outright.]] |
| 78 | ** ''The Stealth Mission'' takes place on a desert hive world which the party eventually realizes is even ''more'' inhospitable than standard. Not only are pools of strong acid called "lakes", the dust storms frequently escalate to rock-storms ("it stops being sand or dust once it's bigger than a grape") that span entire continents. |
| 79 | * DemonicPossession: During ''Interlude: Escape'' [[spoiler:Oak]] explains that he has spent most of his career fighting a demon who possesses [[spoiler:Oak's current colleague every time he manages to kill the last host. Thanks to this, it has now worked its way deep into the Inquisition]]. |
| 80 | * TheDoorSlamsYou: |
| 81 | ** Two in rapid succession during ''Nubby's Girlfriend''. A pair of arbites blow a heavy door off its hinges and directly onto a stunned Sarge. They then proceed to address the rest of the team while standing directly on that door. Later, when Sarge gets the door off his back and raises it into position, a pair of bolter rounds slam into it, pitching him head-first into the wall and knocking him unconscious. |
| 82 | ** Sarge does it to a couple security guards during ''The Stealth Mission'' when [[InsufferableGenius Sciscitat]] forbids them from [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim killing them outright]]. First he hammers the door out of its frame and into a guard, then he picks up the door and hurls it at another guard. |
| 83 | * DungeonBypass: Twice during ''Heretic Purging''. When faced with the prospect of fighting their way through an underground complex full of [[ExtremeOmnisexual Slaaneshi]] [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil cultists]] with nothing but pistols and knives, the Guardsmen decide to leave and call in an orbital strike on the bunker instead. Earlier, when the team enters a Tzeentchian temple they find a Chaos shrine that lashes out at them with CombatTentacles when they try to hose it with [[KillItWithFire prometheum]]. Rather than try and fight their way through the tentacles, they stick explosives to the wall from outside (with a very long stick) and blow it to smithereens. |
| 84 | * TheDreaded: |
| 85 | ** Bane Johns, the one thing in the galaxy the party won't try and shoot, because they know it ''won't work''. [[spoiler:At least until the Team gets their hands on an [[AntiMagic Untouchable]] to nullify his probability-altering psychic powers, at which point Sarge lays a [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown legendary beat down on him.]]]] |
| 86 | ** [[spoiler:When Bane returns in ''The Stealth Mission'', the local planetary authorities, as well as the previous Inquisition agent to inspect the planet, assume he's a ''[[DemonicPosession daemonhost]]''. As it happens, [[DealWithTheDevil they're not entirely wrong about that.]]]] |
| 87 | * DressedToPlunder: The previous captain of the ''Occurrence Border'' meets the Guardsmen while wearing every stereotypical bit of Rogue Trader costume he can wear without replacing a limb or eye with an augmetic. The fact that he is roughly spherical and obviously not a Rogue Trader just makes this look silly. |
| 88 | * DrowningMySorrows: The Commissar the Guardsmen meet in the training camp was assigned there permanently as a punishment detail. When he's not in a drunken slumber, he's downing more alcohol while bemoaning his lot in life. |
| 89 | * DwindlingParty: The initially-thousands-strong regiment the characters are part of. It lost a third of its personnel in the ''first engagement'', and over the course of four campaigns was whittled down to fifty men. A quarter of which were purged for genestealer infestation. According to WordOfGod they're now down to fifteen. |
| 90 | * DyingSmirk: |
| 91 | ** [[spoiler:Crisp laughs as his flamer tank is detonated, killing him and his squad's current nemesis.]] |
| 92 | ** [[spoiler:Cutter revels in the joy of battle and good combat-drugs as his enemy self-destructs.]] |
| 93 | * EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: The first entry and the opening of the second are narrated by the player recounting the events of a tabletop gaming session. It's only after the info dump at the start of "Pilgrims and Heretics" that we are introduced to our in-universe narrator. |
| 94 | * EntertaininglyWrong: Due to a fundamental misunderstanding of how a Space Marine's geneseed works, the T'au think it can be planted in any old human and it'll turn them into a clone of the dead Marine. This is used in one episode of ''Super Deserter Gues'eva Action Heroes'' to bring back their Marine comrade. When Tink suggested "planting Gravis' seeds in a servitor" to fix him, Doc is gobsmacked that he's so off-base about it (and that he takes Xenos "heretical cartoons" at face value). |
| 95 | * EternalRecurrance: Inquisitor Quercus has been fighting the successors of the Cognitae for 300 years [[spoiler:led by a daemon that has been trying to reestablish the school for that entire time and has been possessing Allies, minions, bystanders, and creatures that are mixed up with or even tangentially related to Oak and his various teams. The party has defeated what is implied to be this creature no less than 5 times in the course of a few years.]] |
| 96 | * ExactWords: |
| 97 | ** Mention is made of how entire armies can be mustered and deployed to worlds only to be forgotten by the Administratum long enough for them to literally build a new life, start families, and die. The Guardsmen imagine that when new orders finally ''do'' arrive, their relatives probably dig up the bodies to present them for muster. |
| 98 | ** When the ComicBook/JudgeDredd-expy Governor Marshall protests using an Arbite ship's brig to transport, to quote Sciscitat, "Unimportant prisoners", Sciscitat flippantly suggests just shoving [[spoiler:the Guardsmen]] in a laundry room instead. Much to the befuddlement of the ship's crew, the Governor Marshall does just that and has them placed into the ship's laundry room. |
| 99 | * FailedASpotCheck: |
| 100 | ** All the Guardsmen are prone to this occasionally, such as when they [[spoiler:fail to notice that the Zoanthrope they are transporting in ''Tyranid Delivery Experts'' is possessed by a daemon for several weeks... or that having an obviously daemonic portal linking into its ''secure anti-psychic cell'' from another point in the ship is a bad thing]]. |
| 101 | ** Doc is the most prone to this, however, such as when he is so absorbed with his patients in a plague ward (and fawning over his Soroitas hospitallier girlfriend) that he doesn't notice that [[spoiler:said plague ward is rapidly becoming a hotspot for Nurgle cultists.]] The fact that [[spoiler:his patients are often infected with [[NoOneShouldSurviveThat several instantly-fatal diseases at the same time]], or the fact that treating those diseases [[HarmfullHealing tended to leave said patients in a worse state than before]], ''[[RuleOfThree or]]'' the fact he knew there is a Nurgle cult operating somewhere on the planet,]] goes completely over his head until Sarge literally smacks some sense into him. |
| 102 | * FakinMacGuffin: During "The "Stealth" Mission" the Guardsmen are assigned to recover a set of Chaos artifacts stored in chests. The artifacts are completely unimportant, [[spoiler:it's the ''chests themselves'' which Oak needs]]. |
| 103 | * FantasticRacism: ZigZagged. This being 40k, hating the Xeno is normal for everyone, but the exceptional circumstances of Inquisitional work lead to the party having much more interaction with aliens than they would otherwise tolerate. The entirety of ''The Greater Good'' takes place in an Imperium-Tau neutral zone and causes the party to nearly go on shooting sprees against the mixed population several times. In ''The Xenotech Heresy'' the party is [[spoiler:forced into a fragile alliance with an Eldar (and have to betray the Eldar multiple times before he betrays them) and actually go out of their way to save and ''recruit'' an Earth Caste Tau who had been forced into the whole debacle.]] There's also a decent amount of this between the Mechanicus and the baseline crew of the ''Occurrence Border''. |
| 104 | * FantasyCounterpartCulture: While the canon Tau have a vague Asian-Oriental flavor, the neutral border worlds are presented as being more akin to modern day Japan, complete with anime. |
| 105 | * FamedInStory: After the events of [[spoiler:''Greater Good'' the guardsmen become known as heroes among both the Tau and human populace of the sector.]] Although for them it is also the case of YourApprovalFillsMeWithShame. They even [[spoiler:become the stars of a Tau anime series called "The Super Deserter Gue'vesa Action Heroes",]] much to Sarge's disgust. |
| 106 | * FateWorseThanDeath: The fate of the Rogue Trader's ship in "The Greater Good". On Doc's suggestion the Guardsmen [[spoiler:sabotage the warp engine and Gellar field generators such that the ship becomes trapped in the Warp with no shielding; this causes the ship's inhabitants to be devoured/damned by daemons]]. |
| 107 | * FirstEpisodeTwist: The players aren't playing ''TabletopGame/OnlyWar'' anymore, they're playing ''TabletopGame/DarkHeresy''. |
| 108 | * FemmeFatale: The [[spoiler:female Interrogator in "Nubby's Girlfriend"]] betrays the team in the middle of a mission. |
| 109 | * TheFool: Bane Johns, the squad's fifth Interrogator: despite what seems like a surfeit of confidence and a lack of strategic planning or common sense, every event in his mission seems to go his way without fail. [[spoiler:Turns out he's a psyker with previously undiscovered RealityWarper tendencies who can casually arrange probability to go in his favor - by siphoning away the luck of his teammates or anyone nearby, leading to their (probably) swift death while leaving Bane unharmed. It's also deconstructed, since a lifetime of everything effortlessly going his own way has turned Johns into a psychopathic hedonist with no conscience]]. |
| 110 | * GambitPileup: One of the reasons so many people died in the back story of the "The Interplanetary Man of Mystery" is because there are a half dozen factions running around trying to kill each other or obstructing each other's work. |
| 111 | * GeneralFailure: |
| 112 | ** The commanding officers in "Heretics and Pilgrims" all managed a shade of this. The Interrogator gets himself thrown in the brig after he repeatedly insults a ship's captain. His subordinates then take control of a lightly armed mob and send them into a fortified kill zone, getting them slaughtered and triggering daemonic summoning rituals. |
| 113 | ** Bane Johns may get the job done stylishly, but during the post-mission discussion with Sarge it's revealed he has gotten ''thirty squads'' of agents killed to the last man. He succeeds in his mission every time, sure, but there's literally no other survivors when he's done; the whole point of Oak's initiative is to get '''surviving''' Inquisitorial teams up and running. |
| 114 | * GenericName: PlayedForLaughs. The characters' former regiment was the Generian 99th Medium Infantry -- listed in Munitorum records as ''[=GENER IC=]''. |
| 115 | * GiveChaseWithAngryNatives: The traffic cop in "The "Stealth" Mission" starts following the Guardsmen to issue them even more citations. Having a police escort makes it hard to be inconspicuous, so they eventually run a few laps through the middle of a gunfight between some Hive gangs. Their van only takes a few incidental hits; the cop on the other hand gets deliberately shot down and swarmed by kids with pipes. He is ''very'' pissed the next time he shows up. |
| 116 | * GoingNative: The adventure in Tau space features a former Ordos Xenos Inquisitor who has adapted a number of Tau customs, has become a Tau sympathizer and promotes its "superior" values, and is heavily hinted to be the villain behind it all. [[spoiler:He remains loyal to the Imperium, he just doesn't want his part of the galaxy to be engulfed in war.]] |
| 117 | * GoodScarsEvilScars: Twitch accuses Sergeant Gravis of being an Ork in disguise and Doc has him take off his helmet to prove he is human to the panicking Trooper. We never see it, but the scars on his face freak Tink out real bad. |
| 118 | * GroinAttack: |
| 119 | ** Nubby's preferred method of melee combat. Especially effective after he's given augmetic legs. |
| 120 | ** Cutter does this too, though not always successfully as his targets sometimes have augmetics of their own. |
| 121 | ** Aimy grabs, squeezes and *twists* a half-Ogryn's goods until he falls down on top of her. |
| 122 | * HalfTheManHeUsedToBe: |
| 123 | ** Nubby loses both legs to a swipe from a forcesword and has them replaced with augmetics. |
| 124 | ** Sergeant Gravis gets bisected through the lungs by a Hive Tyrant's bonesword. [[spoiler:He survives.]] |
| 125 | ** A few enemies get this treatment including a Khonate mutant that gets bisected by Cutter as well as the Heretek [[spoiler:that takes down Cutter when the latter beats him in melee.]] |
| 126 | * HalfwayPlotSwitch: |
| 127 | ** The very premise of the series is a meta example - After several punishing ''TabletopGame/OnlyWar'' campaigns with a KillerGameMaster, the surviving members of the players' regiment are suddenly hired by the Inquisition, and the players themselves are handed copies of ''TabletopGame/DarkHeresy''. |
| 128 | ** ''Nubby's Girlfriend'' starts as a largely-espionage job that involves breaking up an entrenched genestealer cult before the authorities are forced to enact purges, [[spoiler:until the party's current interrogator turns out to be a Chaos cultist trying to use the purges to trigger a daemonic ritual]]. |
| 129 | ** 'Good Soldiers, Bad Educators' spends its first two-thirds following the misadventures of the Party while they try to whip a bunch of hopeless Inquisition trainees into shape, while the final third switches tone abruptly when [[spoiler:a Necron voidship suddenly crash-lands and threatens to summon an army to the lightly-defended planet, followed by the Iron Warriors warband who had shot it down in the first place]]. |
| 130 | * HandPuppet: How do you explain Imperial-Tau political intrigue to a crew of idiot Guardsmen? With sock puppets! |
| 131 | ** This gets repeated when the squad doesn't understand the complex and varied philosophies of the Inquisition, to the Guardsmen's annoyance. |
| 132 | * HateSink: Sciscitat and his retinue. The majority of the "The Stealth Mission" consists of them doing literally everything they can to make the squad miserable or get them killed, simply because they can. |
| 133 | * HaveYouTriedRebooting: A techpriest suggests the Guards try this with Sciscitat's unhinged techpriest. [[DeadlyEuphemism Using their laspistols.]] Turning him on again might be difficult, but it's worth a try... |
| 134 | * HolyHandGrenade: Faced with a Chaos shield which won't yield to gunfire or explosives, the Guardsmen decide to use faith - a combination of barrels of promethium, wheelbarrows of assorted holy relics (volunteered by pilgrims who found "we're going to use it to blow up some heretics" a very good reason to part with them), and every explosive they could find blessed by every priest they could find. Not coincidentally, the post's image is the TropeNamer. |
| 135 | * HypercompetentSidekick: |
| 136 | ** The Guardsmen end up being this, due to usually being the only sane men, relatively speaking, to their Interrogators. |
| 137 | ** Alfred, the Rupert's batman. The Guardsmen instantly bond with him over this. |
| 138 | ** The Diplomacy Adept has this going for him as does an old female Adept they had for a previous mission. The former takes out a traitor that no one but him noticed and the latter could hide enough sidearms on her person for the entire team and she led a cleansing operation of the remaining members of a Nurgle cult. |
| 139 | * ICallItVera: Tink first names his Tau stealth drone as "[[WrenchWench Hannah]] 2.0." Sarge makes him change the name to Spot. |
| 140 | * IdiotBall: Nubby takes firm possession of this during the ''Discount Spaceship'' chapter - it starts with buying the hunk of junk that is the ''Occurrence Border'' (for its relatively very low price just so he can pocket the remaining budget) and escalates from there. [[spoiler: His attempt to openly threaten the owner for a ''further discount'' on the already cheap ship leads the man to have 6 bombs set on the ship's six Gellar Field generators out of spite, jeopardizing the whole mission even further just because Nubby wanted to twist the guy's arm for fun]]. His squad is very unimpressed and vow to never let him negotiate for anything important ever again. |
| 141 | * ImplacableMan: The ex-Arbite traffic cop the party meets in Jack Hive is nearly impossible to shake and determined to ticket the party for the smallest infractions. He follows them between spires and into the Underhive, appears from nowhere whenever the party has a quiet moment, and papers their entire vehicle in tickets. Even when he ends up knocked out and tied up in the back of an ''exploding van'', he comes out of it apparently no worse for the wear. |
| 142 | * InspectorJavert: The ex-Arbite traffic cop will issue a ticket for ''every'' infraction committed by his target and allows ''nobody'' to interfere in his duty. Even the antagonist's goons know better than to interfere with him. |
| 143 | * InsufferableGenius: Their second Interrogator is a complete ass but also incredibly skilled when it comes to information analysis. Oak himself muses it's incredible that he can be so good at his job and yet be so bad at handling people |
| 144 | * JerkAssHasAPoint: In ''Tyranid Delivery Experts'', the ''Occurrence Border'''s Navigator points out that the approaching Navy vessels probably believe there is a genestealer cult on their ship... since they de-warped on the far edge of the system, and are radiating Tyranid psychic energy from the captive Zoanthrope. While no one enjoys his insults they can't deny he's right. |
| 145 | * JustBetweenYouAndMe: Bane Johns, tied to a table as a death ray slowly tracks towards him, attempts to learn Gol'fingy's plan using this trope. Of course given Gol'fingy is an ''Ork'', his only plan at the moment consists of cutting a noisy human in half with a death laser. |
| 146 | * KickTheDog: The first session ended with nearly an entire unit being wiped out, save for a single survivor who retreated. The GM started the next session with the execution of said survivor for desertion before sending the players back into the same trenches. |
| 147 | * KillerGameMaster: The GM has his players roll up hundreds of PlayerCharacters during their [[HalfwayPlotSwitch "prologue"]] sessions of ''TabletopGame/OnlyWar'', and kills or incapacitates nearly all of them over the course of several military campaigns - only 37 members of the regiment are still alive by the end. It gets so bad that the players have to quickly roll up new characters ''in-between turns''. Not for nothing is he described as being "on the 'Hitler scale' of death measurement". By the time the game transitions from ''Only War'' to ''Dark Heresy'' for the rest of the series, the players (and their characters) have become paranoid, GenreSavvy and hyper-competent [[HadToBeSharp out of necessity.]] |
| 148 | ** This is downplayed after the swap to ''Dark Heresy'', thanks to the player's aforementioned [[GenreSavvy Genre-savviness]], and a judicious use of MauveShirt [=NPC=]s to maintain the deadly atmosphere without killing [=PC=]s too often. Of course, [[CharacterDeath player characters do die]], whether the result of [[SurprisinglySuddenDeath dumb luck]] or [[LastStand the party having]] [[HeroicSacrifice no other options]]. |
| 149 | * KillItWithFire: Exaggerated, even for a ''40K'' fic. The crew of the ''Occurrence Border'' has on at least one occasion dealt with a Warp-corrupted portion of the ship by selectively lowering void shields and melting the offending portion off in a ''sun''. Considering that the entire front end of the ship (where the bow used to be) is obviously melted over, nobody questions Old Bill if this is true. |
| 150 | * LetUsNeverSpeakOfThisAgain: After dosing [[spoiler:Ivana]] with way too many stimulants results in her killing [[spoiler:Bane]] with a cry of "Blood for the Blood God" before disappearing into the Warp, the Guardsmen decide they didn't see anything. |
| 151 | * LethallyStupid: Bane Johns is a massive danger to his subordinates as a result of this trope, blithely wandering into extremely dangerous situations. And while his high luck lets him walk away, it also means his subordinates don't. |
| 152 | * LetsYouAndHimFight: During "The Xenotech Heresy" Sarge flies the [[spoiler:Necron ship]] into the middle of the [[spoiler:Necron and Heretek]] fleets and telling them the winner could have it. The two fleets end up fighting for so long that the Imperium is able to warp in reinforcements. |
| 153 | * LockedOutOfTheLoop: Happens to the Guardsmen for most of "The Stealth Mission", courtesy of Sciscitat deeming them too stupid to trust with details of the mission. It isn't until the ceasefire with the other Inquisitorial team they mistakenly engaged that they finally learn what's going on... and Sciscitat's "don't tell the idiot Guardsmen anything" policy starts to actively backfire on him, a fact that he refuses to acknowledge or apologize for. |
| 154 | * LogicalWeakness: [[spoiler: Bane Johns' luck manipulation keeps him safe by draining the luck of anyone nearby, rendering him effectively invulnerable. However, this is automatically caused by Bane's psyker nature on all threats within the power's radius and he's untrained due to never being identified as a psyker. The Guardsmen (once they realize what's happening) stay out of his power's range and simultaneously concentrate all their firepower on him, since no psyker's powers are unlimited and overuse typically causes Very Bad Things to happen to them. Every single shot at Bane might miss or ricochet and every grenade becomes a dud, but hundreds of shots and dozens of grenades (with no source of luck to leech from) eventually causes Bane's powers to fade out and leave him open]]. |
| 155 | * LoopholeAbuse: After the fiasco at the research facility in "The [REDACTED] Conspiracy", the Deathwatch Apothecary decides that arresting the Guardsmen is no longer his squad's responsibility. According to him, their orders were to ''assist'' the Inquisitor in his investigation, ''not'' to do it for him. Now that he's dead, they are under no obligation to do anything but report back to their Watch Station for reassignment and let the Inquisition handle it. This obvious attempt to blow it all off as not his problem and have his superiors deal with it causes the Guardsmen to feel a deep sense of camaraderie between him and themselves. |
| 156 | * MacGuffin: |
| 157 | ** The titular Box of "What's In The Box?" was the driving force for all parties involved. The soldiers wanted the Box for its weapons, the techpriests thought it was holy, the Commissariat thought it needed to be destroyed, and the Inquisition wanted to know what it was. |
| 158 | ** "Good Soldiers, Bad Educators" featured a fight with various groups for control of a [[spoiler:Necron spaceship and its cargo]]. The Guardsmen return the latter to Oak and never hear anything else about it. |
| 159 | ** "The Xenotech Heresy" focuses on a piece of xenotech which the Mechanicus, Dark Mechanicus, Eldar, [[spoiler:Necrons]], and human nobles are trying to control. The Guardsmen don't even know what it's [[spoiler:the same Necron ship]] until near the end of the mission. |
| 160 | ** "The "Stealth" Mission" deals with a race between the Guardsmen and [[spoiler:Bane and the Bitch]] for possession of a set of Chaos artifacts. [[spoiler:Turns out the artifacts are just misdirection for the real [=MacGuffins=]]]. |
| 161 | * MakeItLookLikeAnAccident: Sciscitat gathers up as many of [[spoiler:the Conspiracy]]'s agents, along with any other traitors or sympathizers he could find, and loads them on a single ship sent back to Inquisitorial Headquarters. To ensure Oak's enemies couldn't free them, the ship was unfortunately lost in a warp storm on the way. |
| 162 | * MediumAwareness: After the first chapter and a half, the origin of the series as a ''Dark Heresy'' campaign is generally ignored. But an occasional line is thrown in. For example, the narrator points out that fighting in vacuum and zero-G felt like the party had lost exactly 10% of their ballistic skills, and capitalizes the word "Obsession" (also a gaming term) while describing Aimy and Twitch. |
| 163 | * MemoryGambit: [[spoiler:Inquisitor Oak]] has deliberately wiped parts of his memory and stored them in an external cogitator so the psykers employed by his enemy can't see his entire plan. This does however cause him to sometimes make mistakes like [[spoiler:delivering the weapon built to capture the daemon to some of his less reliable subordinates including the Guardsmen]]. |
| 164 | * MissionControlIsOffItsMeds: While Sciscitat is particularly belligerent and hostile to the party, regularly witholding information and calling them idiots, he at least gives them solid directions and orders. His orthodox Techpriest, on the other hand, vehemently hates the Guardsmen for all the tech-heresy he caught them doing and refuses to aid them in any way. When his Inquisitor orders him to direct the Guardsmen through a sewer network in "The "Stealth" Mission", the Techpriest deliberately commands them to go through every single dangerous area he can, culminating in him trying to get the party to invade a mutant village with 70 or so inhabitants... when there's a perfectly good side passage that circumvents the village (albeit one that's a holy Mechanicus space). His overt attempt to get Sarge killed by las-turrets he's supposed to shut off (by telling Sarge they're offline when they're not) is the final straw for the party, resulting in his "death by enemy ambush" at the mission's end. |
| 165 | * MissingStepsPlan: During one particularly intense hilltop battle on a world being fought over by Orks and Tyranids, Sarge's plan to deal with a Hive Tyrant amounts to ordering the squad to "HANDLE IT!". [[OnceDoneNeverForgotten The squad does not appear to be willing to permit him to live that down]], and have in fact used the line verbatim on each other. |
| 166 | * MoreDakka: The Guardsmen are firm believers in solving problems by shooting them with extreme prejudice, and the more firepower they can bring to bear, the better. Heavy, Tink and Twitch are the usual suspects. |
| 167 | --> Our 'experiments' had established that las fire and grenades didn't do much to the shield, but since we were guardsmen we felt sure that enough faith and firepower could solve anything. We set up positions around the shield and started continuously plinking las fire into it, because when you have a fusion reactor to recharge your cells from you might as well lay down some indiscriminate suppressive fire. |
| 168 | * MortonsFork: After getting her involuntary skunk stripe, Aimy proceeded to ask every tech acolyte she meets afterward if her hair looks funny and then does "mean things" if they answer wrong. As the narrator notes, there's no ''right'' answer. |
| 169 | * MundaneUtility: The ''Occurrence Border'' at some point acquired an ancient statue of an insectoid god that drives anyone who looks at it insane. The crew used its various arms to prop up some energy conduits, and throw a tarp over it if they're doing maintenance. |
| 170 | * MushroomSamba: One of the ''Occurrence Border'''s docking bays is covered in caustic, psychically-active warp fungus. Hallucinations ensue when a shuttle of Space Marines accidentally docks in it. |
| 171 | * MyGodWhatHaveIDone: When Doc runs away from a Flyrant, letting [[spoiler:Sergeant Gravis get bisected (two thirds of the Inquisitorial Council ruled in his favor saying that his continuous shooting was an attempt to distract the Flyrant)]], the DM makes a roll and decides that Doc got an obsession with keeping the Marine alive. This manifests in the story as Doc becoming utterly determined in keeping the Marine alive until he got full medical treatment. [[spoiler:([[ItMakesSenseInContext Though he does eventually lose the Marine's legs.]]) Gravis lives long enough to get put into a Dreadnaught.]] |
| 172 | * MythologyGag: |
| 173 | ** In ''Good Soldiers, Bad Educators'', the Party acquires some assorted reading material for their trainees, and Doc gets hooked on ''The Spheres of Longing'': |
| 174 | -->''He tried to get us to read this book about longing for balls by [[Literature/{{Ravenor}} some famous old crippled inquisitor]], but it was way too long and sounded like the diary of a perverted shut-in; so none of us could be bothered.'' |
| 175 | ** A drunken Commissar riding a hover pallet while waving an empty booze bottle orders the people moving him to "Push me closer, I want to hit them with my bottle!" |
| 176 | * TheNeidermeyer: Interrogator, later Inquisitor, Sciscitat is a self-aggrandizing hardass who believes himself to be the smartest man in whatever galaxy he's in at the time. He despises the Guardsmen for being dumb Guardsmen and they hate him right back. He and his sycophants go out of their way to make the Guardsmen miserable and Sciscitat is ''gleeful'' when he [[spoiler:betrays the Guardsmen]]. Even Oak finds the man to be unbearable in spite of this skill as an investigator, and he's mainly training the guy to ''not'' be such a jackass. |
| 177 | * NeverMyFault: Interrogator Sciscitat blames every problem in his operations on the Guardsmen and treats himself and his favorite bootlickers as completely blameless. This becomes especially galling in his second appearance when one of his subordinates actively sabotages the Guardsmen and the Interrogator chews the ''Guardsmen'' out for messing things up. In the same mission he also deliberately refused to share any details with the Guardsmen beyond their immediate objective and then gets angry when they don't act based on critical information he didn't give them. |
| 178 | * NewTechnologyIsEvil: Averted, against the standard beliefs of the Imperium, as of ''The Greater Good''. The party has started gathering and using Tau xenotech disguised with Imperial adornments. They've also tried and failed to steal from both the Eldar and the Necrons, both times being thwarted by an inability to understand the controls. |
| 179 | * NiceJobBreakingItHero: |
| 180 | ** The result of sending a daemonhost Knarloc to fight a Chaos servitor-Titan-techpriest. [[spoiler:What's left of both fuses together, remains Chaos-possessed, and is significantly angrier at the Guardsmen.]] |
| 181 | ** Trading a Necron flyer to a Rogue Trader. [[spoiler:Several worlds are cleansed of life by the Necrons chasing after the flyer, and a schism in the Mechanicus is threatened. And that's before the Hereteks get in on the madness.]] |
| 182 | ** Successfully delivering a Tyranid zoanthrope as ordered. [[spoiler:The unintended collateral damage and confusion caused by the zoanthrope's psychic presence is enough for the Conspiracy to finally get Oak and his subordinates declared rogues]]. |
| 183 | * NinjaPirateZombieRobot: |
| 184 | ** ''Discount Spaceship'' saw the Guardsmen trapped between a demonically-possessed Knarloc and the servitor-Titan-Cogtain. After leaving the two to duke it out, Nubby joked they could combine into a "daemoni-servi-knarlo-titan". [[spoiler:Not long after the Guardsmen end up fighting exactly that]]. |
| 185 | ** The Occurrence Border has competing infections of squigs and kroots which eventually interbreed into what the crew calls sqroots and kruigs. |
| 186 | * NoGearLevel: |
| 187 | ** Downplayed in "The 'Stealth' Mission", as the team is forced to leave behind all of their custom weapons, munitions, and Spot. They're reduced to a standard Guardsman's kit and have to scrounge up non-standard supplementary weapons to survive. |
| 188 | ** Played straight with the "Interlude: Escape" and "Inquisitorial Penal Legion" as the team is stripped of all equipment at the start of each mission. |
| 189 | * NoMacGuffinNoWinner: Given that [=MacGuffins=] tend to be heretical and dangerous, the Guardsmen prefer blowing them up when possible. In their mind it not only denies their enemy a win, it also means there's one less thing trying to corrupt and/or kill honest Guardsmen. |
| 190 | * NotProven: The party is cleared of criminal incompetence in [[spoiler:allowing their two Astartes handlers to be crushed by a Tyranid flyer and bisected by a Hive Tyrant, respectively]] by a Ordo Xenos tribunal. Two-thirds of it, anyway. |
| 191 | * NotSoStoic: The two Iron Warriors (going by their silver-and-gold paint scheme) in the climax of ''Good Soldiers, Bad Educators'' audibly groan and visibly get annoyed when their Heretek charge gets excited over the MacGuffin. Iron Warriors are 10,000 year-old siege engineers who won't bat an eye over the worst battlefield conditions and used to brutal, grinding sieges, but a nerd who won't shut up about a magic box is too much to deal with. |
| 192 | * NothingCanStopUsNow: Invoked in-universe. The Guardsmen need [[spoiler:their enemy Bane Johns]] to attack them in a warehouse... so they have Sarge declare "Not Even [[spoiler:Bane Johns]] Could Stop Us Now". He immediately bursts in through a skylight. |
| 193 | * OccidentalOtaku: Weebu, the representative to the modern Japan-themed neutral Tau/human colonies, displays all the characteristics of this: dresses in traditional Tau clothing, constantly praises their culture, etc. |
| 194 | * OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: Most of "Interlude: Escape" is told through a series of announcements by the ship transporting the imprisoned Guardsmen. Reading between the lines, the team played a key role in repelling a daemonic incursion and used the good will from the ship's crew to build up the uniforms and equipment to stage an escape attempt. |
| 195 | * OhCrap: At the end of ''Tyranid Delivery Experts'', the team finally delivers their deadly cargo to its destination. [[spoiler:They are then promptly arrested by the Inquisition as renegades.]] |
| 196 | * OlderIsBetter: In the last part of ''The "Stealth" Mission'', [[spoiler: in order to overcome Bane Johns' probability manipulation powers,]] Tink equips the team with the most reliable lasguns on the planet that they could scrounge up. Because it's ''40k'', the team suspects--almost certainly correctly--they're all older than the human settlement on the planet itself. The only one whose serial number hasn't been worn off with age is Sarge's, all but revealing that, of a type of weapon that likely has trillions of copies in circulation in the galaxy, it was the ''seventh of its kind ever made'' on the ''forge world of Mars''. |
| 197 | * OnlyALighter: Bane had his ''Inquisitorial rosette'' modified to contain a lighter. |
| 198 | * OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: |
| 199 | ** The Guardsmen are all known only by their nicknames - Sarge, Doc, Heavy, Cutter, Nubby, Twitch, Tink. [[spoiler:Eventually Sarge's name is revealed - it's [[NameReallyIsBarkeep Greg Sargent]].]] |
| 200 | ** There's also one unnamed Interrogator, later an Inquisitor, who's only known as "the Rupert", and his batman, who is christened [[Franchise/{{Batman}} "Alfred"]] by the party. |
| 201 | ** And then the Inquisitor who's their boss, who's only referred to as [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Professor Oak.]] [[spoiler:His real name is eventually revealed by the diplomacy adept to be Quercus, which means... Oak. Meanwhile his personal Interrogator is named Ulmus which means... Elm, but they just call him "Interrogator with the dataslate".]] |
| 202 | ** Averted by Aimy, whose name is eventually revealed to be [[spoiler:a contraction of her OverlyLongName, Amelia [[Literature/{{Discworld}} Delorisista Amanita Trigestrata Zeldana Malifee von Humpeding]]]]. |
| 203 | * OnlySaneMan: |
| 204 | ** Sarge is basically this for the Guardsmen. |
| 205 | ** The Guardsmen collectively are this for whatever random Interrogator they're assigned to. |
| 206 | * OutGambitted: The party manages this against an [[spoiler:''Eldar Warlock'']] when they stick a detpack to his [[spoiler:spirit stone.]] |
| 207 | * OverlyPreparedGag: The team discovers that all of their missions were actually planned to acquire a series of items used to build a [[spoiler:teseract daemon prison]]. As Shoggy admitted, the entire campaign was essentially a joke whose punchline was them building a [[spoiler:Master Ball for Pokémon Professor Oak]]. |
| 208 | * OvertOperative: |
| 209 | ** Having trained extensively as soldiers and practically never as spies, the Guardsmen are ''incredibly'' obvious whenever they try to blend in with civilians. The team they "educate" ends up much the same. |
| 210 | ** Bane Johns, as a James Bond expy, is even worse, being a party animal who periodically goes on murder sprees that are sometimes vaguely connected to his actual mission. [[spoiler:When he returns in "The 'Stealth' Mission", there's a celebrity tabloid dedicated to his antics]]. |
| 211 | * PaperThinDisguise: |
| 212 | ** Bane Johns disguises himself as a deserting Guardsmen by throwing on a greatcoat and impressive false mustache. He still fails to hide his obviously Inquisition-issue armor, pistols, and ''Inquisitorial rosette''. When Sarge straightens him out, Bane ''pulls the rosette out and leaves it in plain view''. |
| 213 | ** Tink sticks a bunch of grox skins and other assorted skulls on his Tau drone to disguise it as a servoskull. The illustration near the end of "Xenotech Heresy" depicts it as having a human skull duct-taped on top, a human jaw hanging on wires below, and two scrolls; one saying "PLEASE IGNORE" and another saying "COMPLETELY NORMAL SERVITOR SKULL". |
| 214 | ** Later, after Sarge's lasgun is destroyed, Tink tries to disguise a Tau pulse carbine as a lasgun for Sarge. |
| 215 | ** Whenever the guardsmen try to wear disguises, it's described as making them look exactly like guardsmen trying to wear disguises. |
| 216 | --->The rest of us infiltrated the bank. That is to say we put on suits, which succeeded in making us look exactly like Guardsmen in suits, and marched behind Face and the Assassin into one of the world's largest banks. |
| 217 | * PersonalizedAfterlife: The Guardsmen seem to have their very own afterlife where members and acquaintances spend eternity playing poker and duking it out in a fighting ring. [[spoiler:The dead scout marine]] is pissed he got stuck there. |
| 218 | * PhallicWeapon: An Eldar bonesinger's modification to the Guardsmen's black market wraithbone is interrupted, leaving it looking decidedly phallic. The Guardsmen giggle and proceed to rig it to Spot in the most suggestive position possible. |
| 219 | * PlasmaCannon: Tink's weapon of choice. Also; some party members get Tau pulse rifles disguised as lasguns. |
| 220 | * PhlebotinumInducedStupidity: |
| 221 | ** During ''The "Stealth" Mission'', the Guardsmen learn that a Chaos artifact held by a high-level crimelord, who would normally try and keep it a secret, is the prize of a high-stakes poker game. Their associated interrogators leap at the opportunity to participate until the lead inquisitor (up in orbit) bawls them out for their stupidity. Why the plot suddenly became [[TuxedoAndMartini the setup to a Bond film]] is not a property of the artifact itself, but rather [[spoiler:Bane Johns, the Interplanetary Man of Mystery]]. |
| 222 | ** [[spoiler:Bane Johns]]'s psyker power causes women to become obsessed with him and behave like lovestruck idiots. |
| 223 | * PoorCommunicationKills: |
| 224 | ** A Space Marine Scout informs the Guardsmen that a Tyranid Assault Flier is headed their way, expecting them to stand their ground and shoot it down like Space Marines would. Unfortunately, because he didn't say ''what'' to do, the Guardsmen naturally take cover and the Scout is taken out shortly after by said Flier. |
| 225 | ** The Interrogators sent to relay orders to the team in "Interlude: Escape" and "Inquisitorial Penal Legion" both fail to explain themselves quickly and plainly enough for the Guardsmen to realize they're an ally. One ends up missing limbs from a trap while the other gets sent off for the duty the Guardsmen needed to be on. |
| 226 | ** The Guardsmen need to replace a set of evidence boxes covering [[spoiler:their crimes]] with a set prepared by Oak. Nubby asks Sarge what to do with a piece of fancy tech in the first set; Sarge tells him they're taking everything. Only after they're offworld does Sarge discover [[spoiler:Nubby had been referring to the daemon trap that was supposed to be left in Oak's boxes]]. |
| 227 | * ProperlyParanoid: |
| 228 | ** The Guardsmens' shared paranoia has saved them a great many times. It's shown to great effect in ''The Xenotech Heresy'': the Guardsmen's paranoia allows them to counter the machinations [[spoiler:of the Eldar and Mechanicus]]. |
| 229 | ** After the events of ''Discount Spaceship'', the party has a unanimous paranoid hatred of servitors, declaring them daemon-possessed spies at the drop of a bolter shell and commissioning Twitch to make overkill anti-servitor traps for their barracks. [[spoiler:It turns out that the Mechanicus is indeed attempting to spy on the group with cleaning servitors during ''The Xenotech Heresy'', only failing because the party kills them all with extreme prejudice.]] |
| 230 | ** Twitch, the explosives expert, is a full-on paranoid wreck, especially when Orks are involved (as they triggered his paranoia in the first place due to a Kommando raid). This gets to the point of having short-fuse grenades taped to the ''inside'' of a top-of-the-line security door, setting up redundant detonators, keeping shaped charges on his back-plate to keep people from sneaking up on him, and booby-trapping his own weapons (when Twitch says not to touch his stuff, it's for ''your'' safety). This would normally make him a bit ''too'' paranoid, but each time this comes up it saves the rest of the team. |
| 231 | *** According to Shoggy, the DM allows Twitch's player to roll for paranoia and leaks him spoilers based on how well he does, which the other players are only privy to through Twitch's in-character interpretation. Consequently, the revelations that the mystery box was [[spoiler:"full of Orks"]] and the Tyrannid "ghosts" were caused by [[spoiler:the comatose Zoanthrope becoming possessed by a Daemon]] resulted in "I told you so" moments. |
| 232 | * PunnyName: |
| 233 | ** Ivana Krushyu, which is more or less obligatory given she plays the role of a Bond Girl. |
| 234 | ** Weebu is a fanatic for Tau culture, which in turn is depicted as being very similar to modern Japanese culture. That's right, Weebu is a weeaboo. |
| 235 | ** Space Marines Rubram, Gravis, and Rebus don't seem punny until one considers Latin: Ruddy, serious, and business. |
| 236 | * RampJump: During "The 'Stealth' Mission" the Guardsmen jump their vehicle across a gap in a Hive bridge. The moment is made decidedly less awesome by the fact they're driving a shitty van which barely makes the distance. |
| 237 | * ReasonYouSuckSpeech: The squad gets a ''lot'' of these, though never from Oak himself. Aside from a few of their Interrogator and Inquisitor bosses, the team has also endured dressing down from ship captains, an Eldar Warlock, and the [[spoiler:the ghost of a scout marine in the haunted poker room.]] |
| 238 | * ReassignedToAntarctica: |
| 239 | ** After an entire ''army'' deserted on their watch, the Commissars attached to said army were reassigned to a penal legion training camp. Not to the legion, but to the ''camp'', which means this is where they will spend the rest of their lives with no chance of redeeming themselves. Both go absolutely insane in the process. [[spoiler:One becomes a barely functioning alcoholic while the one becomes a petty tyrant trying to do everything he can to be reassigned. The latter one eventually has to be put down by the Guardsman. Sadly for the two of them, they were actually eligible for reassignment 50 years before that, but the bureaucracy lost the paperwork.]] |
| 240 | ** A junior Commissar from the above detachment ends up helping the Guardsmen escape when they show him they can get him reassigned. The actual post they arrange is an Administratum position that's been open for two centuries in the middle of nowhere, but he's more than happy to get a nice, boring job. |
| 241 | * RecurringBoss: The daemon the Guardsmen first encounter in "Discount Spaceship" is incredibly persistent. Over the course of their adventures it has manifested as a daemonhost through a psyker child, a knarloc, a daemoni-servi-knarlo-titan, a techpriest, a [[spoiler:zoanthrope]], and [[spoiler:Bane John's. This is implied to be the same daemon that Inquisitor Quercus, aka Oak, has been fighting for '''300 years''']]. |
| 242 | * RedShirt: The guardsmen are typically grouped with several less combat-focused teammates. Most of them don't survive. |
| 243 | * RedShirtArmy: The Generis 99th suffered horrific attrition, with the first session ending with only a single survivor who was then killed for desertion. All of their sacrifices were made to buy time for better equipped, less expendable units to actually turn the tide of battle. |
| 244 | * RefugeInAudacity: |
| 245 | ** During "Dude, Where's My Psyker?" the Guardsmen, an assassin, and some unstable psykers need to infiltrate the governor's palace when his forces are on alert to the Inquisition's presence. The party proceeds to enter "disguised" as a group of Guardsmen, an assassin, and some unstable psykers sent as reinforcements to defend against the Inquisition. |
| 246 | ** While escaping the scene of a recent massacre which police are swarming to, Sarge just has his men walk back in full view with their full weapons loadout. No sane cop is going to question armed Guardsmen on leave, especially when there's somewhere more important to be. |
| 247 | * RewatchBonus: |
| 248 | ** Reread "What's In The Box?" after finding out what's in the box, and all the clues will be obvious in retrospect. |
| 249 | ** Reread "Heretic Purging" after finding out [[spoiler:Crisp had joined a death cult, and all of his behavior suddenly makes a lot more sense.]] |
| 250 | ** The ''entire series'' makes much more sense after "Escape" interlude, where [[spoiler:Oak explains that he founded the school specifically to handle the worst Interrogators and turn them into better Inquisitors]]. |
| 251 | * RightBehindMe: Tink goes on a rant about Sarge and the Inquisition; he is interrupted by Sarge's hand on his shoulder. |
| 252 | * SarcasmMode: "The 'Stealth' Mission" has the extra quote marks to indicate just how stealthy the mission ends up being. |
| 253 | * SecurityCling: Aimy (part terrified of her team leader and part really happy to see the other Guardsmen) jumps into Sarge's arms when they meet again, and it takes some work to get her disentangled. |
| 254 | * ShootTheHostage: [[spoiler:The Bitch]] is trapped by the Guardsmen and tries to use a Chaos artifact as a hostage for negotiations, pointing out it will be destroyed if they kill her. Unfortunately for her the Guardsmen are more than happy to destroy said artifact. |
| 255 | * ShoutOut: |
| 256 | ** Two characters are shout-outs to the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': |
| 257 | *** Nubby, the Guardsman who doesn't quite look human (to the point of having official paperwork to "prove" he's human) and steals everything not nailed down, is a blatant Expy of Nobby Nobbs. |
| 258 | *** Aimy, whose full name and nobility are borrowed from another Discworld character. |
| 259 | ** The warp-tainted, ramshackle free trader, the ''Occurrence Border'', is one to ''Film/EventHorizon''. In fact, given that the film is all but stated to be a distant prequel to ''40k'', it may very well '''be''' the Event Horizon. |
| 260 | ** The way the Interrogator's adepts die in "Nubby's Girlfriend" is a shoutout to ''Film/MissionImpossible''. |
| 261 | ** Bane Johns, the suave, hard-partying and improbably-lucky superspy, is a {{Spoonerism}} for ''Franchise/JamesBond''. He's even strapped into a laser death trap by an Ork named [[Film/{{Goldfinger}} Gol'fingy]], and the dialogue from that scene is used mostly verbatim. |
| 262 | *** Or more likely a reference to ''WesternAnimation/{{Archer}}'' with his flippant nonchalance. |
| 263 | ** From the same episode as Bane Johns, we're given a stealth ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' shout out from Sarge, who sprang Tink from confinement by "explaining the chain of command." The fact Sarge is covered in blood and holding a chain seems to imply he did so in Jayne's preferred manner. |
| 264 | ** Heavy and his heavy stubber are basically ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'''s Heavy Weapons Guy. |
| 265 | ** ''Tyranid Acquisition Experts'' has the Guardsmen team up with a squad of Space Marines to capture a Zoanthrope (a psychic Tyranid). It's ''Film/StarshipTroopers'' all over again... |
| 266 | ** Twitch's insane accusation that the Emperor's Scythes are all Orks in disguise references the premise of another /tg/ classic, ''Deffwotch''. |
| 267 | ** The narrator references ''WebAnimation/RedVsBlue'' at multiple points, and Shoggy uses images from the show on some of the posts. |
| 268 | ** The "Stealth" Mission includes an ex-Arbite [[TrafficWardens traffic cop]] on a hive world with an extreme adherence to "the law". If his relentless pursuit of the party and later promotion to a "judge" didn't make it clear, Shoggy included a ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd'' reference pic with the related posts. |
| 269 | * SpellMyNameWithAThe: It's always ''The'' Rupert, not just "Rupert". |
| 270 | * SpiesAreLecherous: Bane Johns, Interplanetary Man of Mystery, is able to charm any woman he meets, from the female assassin squads on Oak's ship to his enemy's right-hand woman Ivana. [[spoiler:It's another aspect of his nascent psyker power, which breaks down his target's mind until they are obsessed with him]]. |
| 271 | * SpySchool: Oak's fleet collects personnel from throughout the Imperium to be trained as Inquisition teams. Those teams are then assigned to Interrogators who need experience leading missions before they can graduate to Inquisitor. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, the Interrogators are a range of rejects from other Inquisitors who Oak has to try and straighten out]]. |
| 272 | * StolenMacguffinReveal: One of Nubby's few skills, particularly useful when he swipes a necessary Inquisitorial rosette from Angelica ''while she's cutting his legs off.'' |
| 273 | * StuffBlowingUp: The usual stock in trade of Twitch, the squad's demo specialist. The Guardsmen are very fond of this as a means of solving problems, [[spoiler:including up to the occasional orbital strike]]. |
| 274 | --> While the nerds babbled about how this was the greatest scientific advancement in centuries Twitch and Nubby went to find a place to plant the Nuke and blow it all up. There's probably something deep and philosophical you could say about that, but we were guardsmen. We had a really big bomb, and damned if we weren't going to use it. |
| 275 | * StupidestThingIveEverHeard: The Xenologist's reaction when Sarge confirms he plans to transport a [[spoiler:live Tyranid zoanthrope]]'' in the ''Occurrence Border'''s entirely inadequate holding area. |
| 276 | * SummonBiggerFish: At one point, the Guardsmen end up luring a Chaos-possessed servitor-Titan into combat with a hungry and pissed off Knarloc. Doesn't quite work as planned, see NiceJobBreakingItHero above. |
| 277 | * SuperPowerMeltdown: [[spoiler:Bane Johns]] suffers one as a result of the squad's relentless attack, forcing him to use more and more of his psychic energy to fend them off before he finally loses control. |
| 278 | * SurroundedByIdiots: [[spoiler:Inquisitor Oak]] admits that his direct subordinates consist mainly of psychopaths, incompetents, and glory seekers whose previous bosses never set them straight. The reason he takes them on is to try and reform them into proper Inquisition agents. |
| 279 | * SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: The team buys a truck loaded with barrels which the owner, completely unprompted, assures them contain no Orks. The team, especially Twitch, finds this very concerning. |
| 280 | * TakingYouWithMe: |
| 281 | ** [[spoiler:Crisp]] kills a Chaos Marine by [[spoiler:having Twitch strap all his remaining explosives to his back and detonating them once he's too close for the marine to get away in time.]] |
| 282 | ** [[spoiler:Cutter]] is killed when a dying Heretek activates several explosive charges within his body which engulf him in flames. |
| 283 | * TaughtByTelevision: When a desperate Doc asks Tink for advice on how to treat a dying Astartes, Tink starts talking about how they need to retrieve his gene-seed to foster the next generation of Space Marines, which is mostly correct... but then he insists that they need to implant it into another human to make a new clone of the dying Astartes, which is entirely wrong. It turns out he learned that watching Tau cartoons. |
| 284 | * ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: The Guardsmen's go-to solution for dealing with hostiles. |
| 285 | * ThroughTheEyesOfMadness: After Sarge [[spoiler:becomes an Interrogator]], we see Twitch's point of view as he goes through one of his episodes. He hears Orks through the walls of a septic pipe and occasionally shoots the wall in a vain attempt to kill them. Of course, the audience knows that there are no Orks. |
| 286 | * TomTheDarkLord: The daemon the party repeatedly encounters on the Occurrence Border is apparently named Frank. |
| 287 | * TooAwesomeToUse: Inverted in ''The Xenotech Heresy'' when the team is given [[spoiler:a small nuclear bomb]] to complete their mission and decide that it ''must'' be used, even if a better solution appears. |
| 288 | * TooDumbToFool: The party intentionally plays this part when negotiating with an Eldar Warlock by acting not only stupid, but completely insane. After a while they wear him down into skipping the manipulative doublespeak and ExactWords tricks so that he'll just talk to them in plain Gothic. It also makes him underestimate them so much that his inevitable attempt to betray them (''twice'') is half-assed by Eldar standards. |
| 289 | * TorchesAndPitchforks: The first chapter has the Party's "Nerd" charges accidentally rile up a shipload of pilgrims by trying to apprehend a heretic by chasing one into them. The mob promptly tears the heretic to shreds and tries to do the same to the Nerds to be safe. Later, the Guardsmen recruit a mob of their own to help them fight heretics, something the zealots do all too eagerly. |
| 290 | * TrafficWardens: An Arbites the Guardsmen encounter during the "Stealth" Mission is initially mistaken for a possible enemy spy given his laser-sharp focus on the party. He ends up issuing them several ''thousand'' crowns in traffic tickets and sends them to their [[spoiler:Inquisitorial trial]]. |
| 291 | * TrainingFromHell: |
| 292 | ** The party's backstory, played through in a marathon session as a series of bloody [[DwindlingParty Only War campaigns]] before they switched to ''TabletopGame/DarkHeresy''. Also applies to what they eventually put their Inquisitorial trainees through. |
| 293 | ** The Guardsmen's Grav-chute training consists of getting a quick how-to from the scout marine teaching them and [[SinkOrSwimMentor being pushed down an elevator shaft]]. According to the Scout, this is how he was trained himself. |
| 294 | * TruceZone: It turns out one of these actually manages to exist between the Imperium and the Tau. This hazy region of space contains such heresies as humans and aliens living together peacefully, religious freedom, and better-functioning government. On the other hand, the Guardsmen also notice a lack of certain freedoms they would have on Imperial worlds, such as walking around with their armaments on display, security checkpoints which don't allow for armaments, and vehicles which are all fitted with monitoring equipment and speed-o-meter triggered autobrakes. After their rude awakening, Sarge has Tink and Nubby figure out ways around such nuisances. |
| 295 | * UnderestimatingBadassery: [[spoiler:The Conspiracy]] doesn't consider the Guardsmen important, so it ignores them entirely. The two members to realize they are a potential threat either die before they can warn their superiors or insist it is all blind luck. |
| 296 | * TheUnfought: Shoggy indicates their GM had planned for the Guardsmen to fight Bane Johns as the final boss of "The Interplanetary Man of Mystery". The players manage to talk their way out of the fight, much to the GM's annoyance. [[spoiler:So he brought Bane back during "The "Stealth" Mission"]]. |
| 297 | * UnfriendlyFire: |
| 298 | ** During ''Good Soldiers, Bad Educators'' a Commissar cadet guns down a fleeing trainee only to be shot dead when he tries to kill another. The shooter is unidentified and the Guardsmen are sure it is the fault of a Gretchin which stabbed his corpse repeatedly with a stolen Imperium-issue knife. |
| 299 | ** ''The "Stealth" Mission'' has an orthodox techpriest who repeatedly screws the party over and nearly gets them killed when acting as mission control. He falls victim to an "enemy ambush" shortly afterward. |
| 300 | ** ''The Penal Legion'' reveal the students from the Guardsmen's training days learned it may be necessary to kill superior officers if they're actively endangering the squad. They did ''not'' learn how to cover up said killing before trying it, hence their reassignment to a penal legion. |
| 301 | * UnfortunateNames: "The 'Stealth' Mission" takes place on a planet called "Joseph Haarlock Sucks at Cards". Apparently the name originates from a card game involving a previous planetary ruler; it's a bit of a sore point for the planet's residents. |
| 302 | * UnholyMatrimony: The paired big bads of "The "Stealth" Mission" are [[spoiler:the Bitch and Bane Johns]] who are in a relationship of sorts. |
| 303 | * VeteranInstructor: The Guardsmen become this in ''Good Soldiers, Bad Educators'', where they have to turn a bunch of randoms (and a squad of PDF) into Inquisitorial adepts. Things only work out after they all go DrillSergeantNasty (led by Sarge) on the recruits. |
| 304 | * WhamLine: |
| 305 | ** In "Tyranid Delivery Experts" there's Fio's comment with regards to a distortion in the Zoanthrope's stasis field: |
| 306 | --->There's actually two focal points, both positioned right behind the Zoanthrope. They're sort of [[spoiler:[[DemonicPossession black and smoky, and shaped like little... wings]]]]? |
| 307 | ** The final sentence of "Tyranid Delivery Experts" is a doozy: |
| 308 | --->[[spoiler:But the charge at the top of the list will almost certainly be aiding and abetting the Rogue Inquisitor colloquially known as "Oak".]] |
| 309 | * WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: The entire party, and especially Twitch, hate the Orks with a fiery and massively explosive passion. And, when and where they expect the greenskins least, they show up. It's even mentioned in "Tyranid Acquisitions Experts", almost word-for-word. |
| 310 | * WrenchWench: In addition to a few female Tech Priests such as Hannah, Tink has a brief relationship with a Tau weapons tech that he seems convinced is a female Tau. |
| 311 | * YourApprovalFillsMeWithShame: The team is NOT happy when [[spoiler:the Tau]] praise their efforts for taking down their corrupt politician. It is left ambiguous whether or not the politician was acting on behalf of the government and was sold out when his plans were revealed or if he was a real traitor. Whatever the case, the Guardsman are disgusted with the idea of being praised by filthy aliens. |
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