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How can I encourage my players to take more initiative in Black Crusade? They don't really seem to understand just how powerful and free to do crazy stuff their characters are, and just kind of do the bare minimum and then stare at me waiting for me to advance the plot-line.
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Mar 1, 2013 15:31
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I decided on another fun little wrinkle for the game - the AX-1-0 pilot who was dogging them all session, I've decided, is known to the Imperium as Colonel Skyfire, an Air Caste superheavy ace. Her known kills include two Warhounds, a Gargant, a Dominatrix bio-titan, and a Viragon. She's the top Tau ground-attack ace in the Jericho Reach, and leads an elite fighter/bomber cadre that gets the call to go up against the biggest gribblies in the Reach. She was on leave when the PCs invaded this Tau world. The plan is for her to be a recurring but not especially dangerous self-appointed nemesis to the kill team, and a reliable ally of convenience when the poo poo hits the fan. And yeah, there won't be any surviving Dusk Guard. But some of their relics survived, including a gene seed vault, and those relics are bad enough in the hands of a race who keeps looking into the abyss. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 15:47 on Mar 1, 2013 |
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Mar 1, 2013 15:42
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Mechafunkzilla posted:How can I encourage my players to take more initiative in Black Crusade? They don't really seem to understand just how powerful and free to do crazy stuff their characters are, and just kind of do the bare minimum and then stare at me waiting for me to advance the plot-line. Well, contrary to popular belief some people LIKE railroads and plot lines to be presented before them. Some arent interested in doing craszy stuff or free roaming. Though if you want to try and encourage that behaviour, start presenting them scenarios with multiple options. Take say a typcial scenario where there are 3 factions, you need to side with one over the others and wipe the others out each one giving different bonuses and penalties. Then have an NPC which has been assigned to working with the group explain that hes just going to murder his entire faction anyway and needs the players help. Make it clear that if they decide to bust into that room and murder everyone there is very little anyone can do to stop them. See if they bite for it. Dangle the opportunity for the party to get the rewards for all 3 factions being wiped out. To top it off have the NPC who was hiring them to kill everyone tries to claim the reward, make sure hes not in a position to stop them. You can find out there if they are interested in taking what they want. See what the results are. Additionally you could set the game in a specific region/planet and map a nice big map of everything important and valuable, lots of little details if you can. Then ask tell them their objective is to take and control all of it. Everything on the map, ask them where they want to start. Make sure the first choice links to as much of the rest of the map as possible. Make a focus on presenting the power players in the game and clearly explain they are going to need to put together the resources to take all of them out. kingcom fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Mar 1, 2013 |
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Mar 1, 2013 16:00
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kingcom posted:Out of curiosity Ashcan, what kind of equipment did the players have versus the Rogue Trader party? Their enemies weren't a full-on RT party, because they're a little behind that curve. Basically I used the Arch-Militant and Seneschal sample characters that Fantasy Flight provides, along with a quickly generated Voidmaster template and the Void Pirate Captain NPC entry from the RT book (I realize the NPC template is weaker than a full RT character, but it makes sense in the game - the PCs actually fought and killed the original captain of the ship as an end-boss for an earlier part of the campaign, so the new captain is less tough/experienced). They also had a couple of Oathsworn Bodyguards with them. The only thing I changed about the characters was downgrading the Seneschal's pistol a little, because 1d10+5 with Pen 7 is kind of crazy town. I was ok with the Arch-Militant having a Bolter, because the players can avoid getting shot too much by engaging him (which is what they did). Anyway, I don't have the player sheets on hand, but this is the basics of what gear they haul: Scum - Guard Flak Armor, Stingray Flame Rifle (this is from the Inquisitor's handbook, it's pretty cool), Autogun. TechPriest - Flak Jacket, Hellgun, Shock Maul and Mechadendrite arm. Assassin - Light Flak Coat, 2x Monoswords Psyker - Light Flak Coat, Stub Automatic w/ some upgrades I think the players would have gotten pretty mauled in a straight fight, but they were able to get a surprise round on the RT party which made a big impact (the Scum flamed most of the group, and then the Assassin axed one of the guards, the Techpriest engaged the Militant, which limited the amount of boltering he could do). The Psyker went pretty crazy with his powers to good effect, although he paid for it. The players were basically nickel and diming damage onto the RT guys for two rounds before they go their footing - once the RT party hit back, they hit hard and really spooked the players, but it wasn't enough. One other thing that is worth mentioning is that the RT party weren't all going to fight to the death - the Captain, Militant, and Bodyguards had to be incapacitated, but I had decided that the Voidmistress would surrender when she had taken more than half her HP in damage or two members of the group were down, and the Seneschal would surrender when he reached 1/4 HP or three members of the group were down. This probably saved the Scum some critical injuries because the Seneschal surrendered rather than going out in a blaze of glory.
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Mar 1, 2013 16:28
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Cythereal posted:Not sure if it's fluffy, but I settled on an overall unfolding plot for the Deathwatch game: during the Cursed Founding, one chapter was founded in the Jericho Reach known as the Dusk Guard. Unbeknowest to most, they were one of the rare attempts like the Blood Ravens at creating a loyalist Chapter from Traitor Legion gene seed. In this case, the Dusk Guard were created from the gene seed of the Emperor's Children. Suffice it to say that things went horribly wrong after their founding, leading the Inquisition, Adeptus Mechanicus, and Blood Angels to purge the foundling chapter and attempt to erase all evidence of their existence. They didn't entirely succeed, and for thousands of years the relics of the Dusk Guard and their origin lay undisturbed in the Jericho Reach. Then the Tau established a colony on what would have been the Dusk Guard's homeworld, and found relics that survived the purge. In addition to all the problems and threats presented so far, the Tau managed to secure a stasis vault holding a sample of the Emperor's Children gene seed used to create the Dusk Guard, and are looking into adapting the Astartes creation process for their own Fire Warriors. Im not sure geneseed would work with taus just because tehy are aliens, but taus have a lot of human servants so it's perfectly reasonable for them to turn some gue'la into offbrand space marines I mean the world is flexible and its your game so do what you want but it might lead to more interesting ideas than just "here's a beefed up fire warrior" could
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Mar 2, 2013 12:38
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of course, having another option for human Space Marines would mean that the tau jump up a few threat levels and become a serious priority for the Imperium so maybe your tau supersoldier idea is better.
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Mar 2, 2013 12:41
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Or, more likely, the players are going to run into unholy abominations that might have once been Tau or humans but now only the Raven Guard, from what happened to them at the end of the Horus Heresy, might recognize. Creating the Astartes was hard, a seriously difficult and complex feat of bioengineering that the best Magos Biologis in the Adeptus Mechanicus would think twice before attempting, even if they had a sample of gene seed to go off. After all, the Tau didn't recover any of the other implants Astartes initiates get. But they don't know that. They know gene seed = Space Marine, not how the process works.
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Mar 2, 2013 15:22
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... Isn't the Geneseed what you use to make new implants with?
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Mar 2, 2013 15:37
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Zereth posted:... Isn't the Geneseed what you use to make new implants with? Yep, but the Tau don't know what the mature/complete forms of all the implants are, or indeed how many implants there are or anything about how to use them. The Tau have their hands on the raw material they need to make Space Marines, but know nothing about how to use it. Even for the Imperium, which has been making Astartes for millenia, it's a dangerous and uncertain process. The biggest issue the Tau face with creating Tau Astartes, though, is simply that Tau have radically different biology and biochemistry. Astartes gene seed is intended to work on human males at the beginning of puberty, and the process takes several years. Tau have different organs, biochemistry (cobalt based blood, for one), and hormones. Any attempt to create Tau Astartes can only end in twisted biological horrors. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 16:02 on Mar 2, 2013 |
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Mar 2, 2013 15:58
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Cythereal posted:The biggest issue the Tau face with creating Tau Astartes, though, is simply that Tau have radically different biology and biochemistry. Astartes gene seed is intended to work on human males at the beginning of puberty, and the process takes several years. Tau have different organs, biochemistry (cobalt based blood, for one), and hormones. Any attempt to create Tau Astartes can only end in twisted biological horrors. That just guarantees that Fabius Bile will try it sooner or later.
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Mar 2, 2013 17:10
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mllaneza posted:That just guarantees that Fabius Bile will try it sooner or later. True, but Fabius Bile isn't going to appear in this game. If he wanted to try implanting gene-seed on non-humans, I'm sure he could. Emperor's Children gene-seed isn't innately corrupt (in theory), and that Legion will have no role in the story. The Tau are playing with things beyond their understanding, and there will be a World Eater warband intent on keeping the Emperor's Children from being refounded.
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Mar 2, 2013 17:16
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Really it sounds like something the Dark Eldar might have convinced them to try.
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Mar 2, 2013 17:35
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I don't get the urge for someone else to have pushed the Tau into it. The Tau are suicidally curious little buggers, the Ethereals are the result of genetic engineering, and the entire Caste structure is a directed breeding program organized by the Ethereals. Frankly, I'm shocked they haven't attempted a super-soldier program yet in the actual game fluff. Sure, there will be casualties and probably lots of them. Especially on the gue'la test subjects/"volunteers" when reverse-engineering gene-seed. But it's for the Greater Good, so who cares how many people die as long as they get results eventually?
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Mar 2, 2013 19:31
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I would say that basically bioengineering isn't one of the Tau's bullet points or main focuses. Their mastery of technology is external to themselves (taking the form of "modernist" technology like cruise missiles, unmanned aircraft, air-mobile infantry, and maneuver warfare with a Steve Jobs aesthetic) but their greatest threat to the Imperium is ideological. By all means its your game and it sounds like fun but I'm just explaining that to me what you described crosses outside some of the usual themes associated with the Tau faction.
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Mar 2, 2013 20:34
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I don't think that the Tau need to be 'pushed' into it, because they are always keen to learn and absorb stuff if it will help them. I think that the issue is that, as mentioned above, bioengineering is not really where the Tau really shine. The Ethereals seem to have been creating by an outside element (probably the Eldar) to unify them, and they do relatively little stuff along those lines themselves. That doesn't mean that they need to have been bullied or tricked into it - but it does give you an opportunity to create another hook or follow-on here. Maybe it's one of the Tau's member races that are actually doing most of this work, under the direction from the Tau, for instance. If the Tau had hooked up with something like the bioengineering equivalent of the Jokaero (a race with an inherent or advanced understanding of biomanipulation) that would be a big deal. Or perhaps they are merely partnering with another group, basically trading some other faction access to this material in order to get their help in making it useful to the Tau. The Tau aren't being pushed, but they might not realize the full plans of their partner - which can be anything you want for another stage/portion of the campaign. Imagine that your squad blows open the Tau super-soldier project, trashes the whole thing, and then finds out that it was done in collaboration with another group - who has the key data from the project! It's go time! I mean there is no reason you can't just make it a Tau project, but I will never pass up the chance to add in more complications and factions. That's why my weapon smugglers aren't just weapon smugglers, they're smugglers collaborating with Hereteks, being funded by corrupt merchants, and directed by a secret Xenos cabal.
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Mar 2, 2013 20:50
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I'd argue bioengineering is part of where the Tau shine - the Ethereals' pheremone control over the other castes, and the race's directed breeding program. I am very happy making the Tau completely the ones at fault here - they know full well what they're getting into, what kind of abominations their project is going to create. But it's for the Greater Good, so it's worth it. One of the themes I'm planning to emphasize is that the Tau are capable of justifying pretty much anything as "for your own/The Greater good," and that sheer ignorance is the only thing keeping them from falling to Chaos. I plan to explore the history and fall of the Emperor's Children through fragmented Imperial records and Dusk Guard relics, and quite deliberately draw parallels between the corruption of the Emperor's Children and the path the Tau are taking.
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Mar 2, 2013 20:56
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Bioengineering is a Tau theme, although not necessarily by them. The Eldar probably bioengineered them for their own purposes (according to Xenology anyhow) to be controllable and resistant to Chaos. So there are all sorts of delicious unintended consequences to explore when they muck about with tainted human super-DNA. (I say borderline chaos-spawn/daemon-prince tainted super-Fire Warrior mutant psyker who perverts Ethereal social control mechanisms  )Edit: My guess is that the Eldar Will Not Like This, while chaos factions Will Love This poo poo.
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Mar 3, 2013 00:03
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There's some interesting potential for causing drama within the Tau here- we know that strangely they don't have an open history of genetic engineering, just directed breeding. What if that's because the Etherials don't want the Earth caste stumbling across something? If the Kill-Team run into a group of Tau scientists who've found proof they're programmed to obey and have had to flee to avoid being liquidated, they could be used to kickstart a new Farsight-style revolution. Cue wrangling over whether or not to work with xenos, attempts to prevent the scientists from receiving suicide orders they have no choice but to obey, and hijacks of Water Caste propaganda stations to start a civil war.
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Mar 3, 2013 02:35
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Hodgepodge posted:Edit: My guess is that the Eldar Will Not Like This, while chaos factions Will Love This poo poo. The planned Chaos presence in the story will be there for a simpler reason: gently caress the Emperor's Children, and gently caress their gene-seed. A World Eaters warband that's stayed fairly organized and intelligent will be hunting down the Tau experiments as well just to blow up the Emperor's Children gene seed. The Daemon Prince leading this particular warband was one of the original World Eaters, and has it out for the Tau in general anyhow as cowards barely worthy of surrendering their skulls to Khorne given how they fight. My players, I think, are going to be too new to 40k lore to really explore the kind of in-depth issues that could result from my plot. A couple might get it and be really interested, but I'm trying to not make things very complicated for everyone.
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Mar 3, 2013 02:52
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The World Eaters don't really need an excuse to gently caress things up, but I can't see them going after unworthy opponents if there is an alternative available. Of course I could see them getting pissed off at run 'n gun tactics, which I think is what you're getting at.
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Mar 3, 2013 07:26
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Ashcans posted:That doesn't mean that they need to have been bullied or tricked into it - but it does give you an opportunity to create another hook or follow-on here. Maybe it's one of the Tau's member races that are actually doing most of this work, under the direction from the Tau, for instance. Of all the tau member races best suited to this, the two I would go with are humans, for obvious reasons, and kroots. Have some kroot shapers eat the progenoid glands that the taus got ahold of, and BAM. Adeptus Krootstartes.
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Mar 3, 2013 14:49
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Haven't the Kroot been eating Space Marines for awhile now? I swear that's been mentioned at least once.
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Mar 3, 2013 14:51
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Just for the record, I'm quite satisfied with my current plans. The Tau are at fault, period. Feel free to borrow the basic idea for your own games if you want, though.
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Mar 3, 2013 19:21
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Cythereal posted:Just for the record, I'm quite satisfied with my current plans. The Tau are at fault, period. Feel free to borrow the basic idea for your own games if you want, though. I love it when every race gets to wear the rear end in a top hat hat. Your idea seems awesome and messy and everyones going to get burnt horribly no matter what moves they make. Perfect 40K plot. Having said that... Talkie Toaster posted:There's some interesting potential for causing drama within the Tau here- we know that strangely they don't have an open history of genetic engineering, just directed breeding. What if that's because the Etherials don't want the Earth caste stumbling across something? If the Kill-Team run into a group of Tau scientists who've found proof they're programmed to obey and have had to flee to avoid being liquidated, they could be used to kickstart a new Farsight-style revolution. Cue wrangling over whether or not to work with xenos, attempts to prevent the scientists from receiving suicide orders they have no choice but to obey, and hijacks of Water Caste propaganda stations to start a civil war. This is pretty awesome. I would love it if the result is that the etherials introduce a religious dogma that overrides all other authority so that there is an elected head of the order of the Greater Good. Essentially make them into a future Imperium of Man. kingcom fucked around with this message at 02:05 on Mar 4, 2013 |
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Mar 4, 2013 01:56
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Hey, the Ark of Lost Souls has Deathwatch level enslavers apparently! That owns. Space Hulk Adventure generator might have come in useful a couple sessions ago in my Rogue Trader game. May still come in useful, in fact. I'll probably need to start shifting over to deathwatch monsters just to give my players a challenge, anyway. At least when they hit rank 5 I will. Already they are in a position to laugh off an essentially infinite number of genestealers.
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Mar 5, 2013 01:11
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kingcom posted:This is pretty awesome. I would love it if the result is that the etherials introduce a religious dogma that overrides all other authority so that there is an elected head of the order of the Greater Good. Essentially make them into a future Imperium of Man. My plan is actually for a new Farsight style rebellion to break the Tau in the Jericho Reach, and this rebellion will deliberately look to the Imperium as an example of how to survive. When Commander Skyfire links up with Farsight, though, and the truth starts to come out of what the Ethereals ordered... this civil war in the Tau Empire is going to be ugly.
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Mar 5, 2013 01:37
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Liesmith posted:Hey, the Ark of Lost Souls has Deathwatch level enslavers apparently! That owns. Space Hulk Adventure generator might have come in useful a couple sessions ago in my Rogue Trader game. May still come in useful, in fact. I'll probably need to start shifting over to deathwatch monsters just to give my players a challenge, anyway. At least when they hit rank 5 I will. Already they are in a position to laugh off an essentially infinite number of genestealers. I just picked it up today. The space hulk generator seems like it's going to be fantastic in my upcoming game.
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Mar 5, 2013 02:13
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Liesmith posted:Hey, the Ark of Lost Souls has Deathwatch level enslavers apparently! Whoa that's amazing timing. My party have confusingly cut through hordes of psychic puppets and encountered bizarre combinations of aliens and Imperial forces seemingly working together within the station and can't figure out why. Now they've just accessed the vox logs and found that no one has talked to anyone else for the past two days. At all. And they're heading into the Astropaths chamber expecting to find some postal-wizard gone mad with power, not a trio of giant fleshy gates. edit: Just bought the book from drivethruRPG quote:Should the Enslavers relax Hah, that rules. I had a group of security personnel confront the Kill-Team but one of them broke free for a second and ate his lasgun barrel in the middle of the conversation. Nice to see I had a similar concept of them to the writers Karandras fucked around with this message at 03:32 on Mar 5, 2013 |
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Mar 5, 2013 03:13
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New Deathwatch supplement: The Emperor's Chosen. Dark Heresy: Ascension for Space Marines?
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Mar 6, 2013 06:05
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Let us roll up and play Primarchs pleaaaase 
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Mar 6, 2013 06:35
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MaliciousOnion posted:New Deathwatch supplement: The Emperor's Chosen. Dark Heresy: Ascension for Space Marines? I wish they could have made the characters a bit more powerful you know?
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Mar 6, 2013 06:39
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MaliciousOnion posted:New Deathwatch supplement: The Emperor's Chosen. Dark Heresy: Ascension for Space Marines? why isn't there an ascension for Rogue Trader, the best FFG 40k line?
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Mar 6, 2013 13:59
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Every game I give out between 400 and 1000 xp (usually 500) and I can see that 38,000 xp wall inching ever closer. Sure, it'll take a longass time to get there, but my players are already at 13000 and we play twice a week. In six months we're gonna have to timeskip forward a hundred years and start playing as minor members of the dynasty trying to impress the old player characters. No one wants that.
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Mar 6, 2013 14:02
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Twice a week holy poo poo. Anyway my Badab War era Deathwatch game is going pretty well. There's Cossius the Mantis Warrior Assault Marine and squad leader, Ventius the Astral Claw Tac marine, Assegia the Salamander Techmarine, Arius the Executioners Librarian and Nova the Lamenters Apothecary (Sanguinary Priest/Calix Priest) Astropathic Relay station sitting above a ruined chemical storm covered world sets off all their proximity and alien contact warnings then sends the 'We're fine, we're all fine here, how're you?' message a few hours later, then the Astropaths life signs start to disappear and the Deathwatch are sent in. In a previous nearby mission they let a Kroot Warsphere escape so they figure the Kroot are involved again. The station is a tall hollow cylinder with a central rod down the middle, like pencil balancing upright in the middle of toilet roll or something with a few 'bridges' from the outer ring into the centre. As they arrive at the relay station it seems all fine and intact so they signal, get assigned a landing bay and they tell the ship that dropped them off to continue on their mission. As soon as they're about to land though, emplaced lascannon tear through their shuttle and the Kill-Team barely makes a crash landing and pulls themselves out of the wreckage. They storm through the station a bit and encounter locked doors then a platoon of security personnel bunkered down in a corridor behind a barricade with a trio of autocannon. The security personnel are acting a little strange, they yell out at the Marines to advance slowly, just one at a time but each time the security guys talk it's a different member of the platoon and never really anyone of of an important rank. With 30 pairs of staring eyes never blinking, chatting or turning away and acting perfectly disciplined, with a violent shake one of the guards loses his mannequin like calm for a moment and immediately eats the barrel of his lasgun but is completely ignored by his fellow soldiers. The marines cautiously advance, Cossius with his Librarian by his side but as soon as the Marines enter point blank range the corridor bursts into weapons fire and they're forced to leap the barricade and kill the security in self defense. The Kill-Team moves at top speed to the heart of the relay centre but after a bit of cutting through bulkheads and every piece of defensive tech holding them back they hear a warning that another vessel has exited the Warp. It's the Sword-class Frigate Sundering Gaze of the Marines Errant who quickly make contact and, through the station's vox, it becomes clear that they're being informed by whatever has control of the station that an unidentified squad of Marines has breached the defenses the astropathic relay and killing security personnel. Presuming the work of the Maelstrom Warders, the Marines Errant move into position to rapidly board and defend the Astropaths. Whilst they're planning their next move and trying in vain to contact the Marines Errant they realise they're being stalked by something, Cossius (He's using all the Raven Guard sneaky stuff and is an Assault Marine with a combat shield instead of a jump pack) back-tracks and ambushes their would-be-ambushers and realise a Kroot kindred is following them for some reason. Pushing onward to the heart of the relay they get to one of the final series of doors leading to the main entrance and come across a pack of Kroot with strong orkoid features fighting against more security personnel who appear to be standing just side by side with another group of Kroot who seem more standard looking. The Kill-Team bursts into the middle of the fight and basically just kills everyone but realises the Orkoid Shaper and his few remaining Kroot are acting more intelligently and is trying to communicate with the team. After some polygot rolls they get the message that the Orkoid Kroot are trying to kill off all the strange acting people on the station but they can't communicate why. More Orkoid Kroot come in from the side and one of the Shapers has a Tau translating device and explains that they are here because a Psyren infected a Throne agent they were working for as Mercs and infested their whole Warsphere with controlled Kroot and did it subtly enough most didn't notice. Him and his Kindred apparently were given some level of psychic resistance by their recently acquired ork dna and were unaffected. At this point, Ventius is adamant they shouldn't be conversing with this alien and should just kill it but he's overridden and they push on towards the final door. Some more polygot and Forbidden Lore: Xenos checks later and the flash-memory training of the Deathwatch gives them a bit more information on the Enslavers, an ancient and rare alien race that shares a lot in common with demons but is something very physical and can live forever in the real world. They power on to the chamber, with the squad leader dismissing the Kroot and saying they'll handle it. Cutting through the sealed doors with a breaching augur takes time and they can hear the vox of the Marines Errant Sergeant who has just boarded talking to someone, they're only getting half the conversation. The Kill-Team can't warn them and a squad of Marines Errant walk (From the other side of the station) straight into the chamber. They hear the Sergeant say he's going to split his squad and the vox is cut off by bolter fire. They shear through the door and're confronted by three Krootox, the last sixty or so security personnel and three Marines Errant standing over the bodies of two of their battle brothers. In the centre of the room is a force shielded dome that they can see the twisted outline of a deep swirling hole into the warp being barely contained by a fleshy door frame made from the warped flesh of some of the Astropaths. Floating high above the door, but still in the field, is a bloated swollen sack writhing with tentacles. The Marines Furious Charge as one into the nearest squad of security personnel and slay all 30 of them in a single actions, they then Bolter Assault the other Horde and strip it down to half. The Tac Marine makes a called shot and snipes one of the riders off a Krootox and the Librarian Smites away the rest of the security guards with a crackling inferno of golden flames. The Techmarine aims his multimelta and drops another Krootox as the bolter rounds of the Marines Errant patter relatively harmlessly onto the Kill-Team. With a roar, two of the Krootox make it into melee range and slam the Assault Marine around a bit and one of the Kroot Guns puts a hole through the Calix Priest's chest. Jumping out of cover and towards a terminal, the Techmarine tries to bring down the force field whilst the team is swamped in melee by the Krootox and slammed with psychic shocks to their nervous system as their bodies rebel against them. After a few rounds the whole team is heavily wounded or worse and the Enslaver Dominates the Tactical Marine, who flicks his combi-plasma to Maximal (I've change combi weapons to get more shots to make them compete better with Storm Bolters) and Aims (Only got a half-action when Dominated). Looking down the barrel of a plasma gun, the Librarian uses his Psychic Hood and barely beats the Enslaver in a battle of wills, the Tactical Marine dropping to the ground as he regains control of his body before he did something terrible. The Calix Priest goes into a Frenzy and hacks apart a Krootox and the Librarian Force Axes the last one to the ground. Ignoring the Marines Errant steadily advancing under a hail of bolter fire, the Assault Marine hits the kill switches on the astropaths chairs. Even though the astropaths are unrecognisable, they were sitting in a circle in the centre of the room hooked up to containment chairs and parts of their bodies were still connected. Heads grasped in clamps and the rest of them stretched out into the giant gory gateway but still connected to the chairs, the kill switch pumps their bodies full of poisons and sears them with electrical overloads. Designed to stop demons possessing them it does a pretty good job at ripping apart the relatively fragile squishy human bits that make the door way frame and it comes twisting and falling down as the parts-of-human ignite from electrical discharge and melt from virulent hyper-toxins. Calling a last bolter assault with the remaining squad Cohesion the entire kill team lurches forward as one and each fire a bolt round into the revealed and vulnerable alien monstrosity and the Librarian finishes the wretched monster with a cleansing explosion of golden flames and the remaining Marines Errant shake their heads clear, stunned but freed. Out the window the Kill-Team can see a bulbous hemisphere emerge from the noxious clouds of the world below and the main batteries of the Warsphere breach the swirling haze of the toxic atmosphere and shatter the much smaller Sundering Gaze with a surprise strike and the session ends! fake edit: holy poo poo that is so many words welp sorry
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Mar 6, 2013 18:04
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Karandras posted:Twice a week holy poo poo. Yeah, I started out doing twice a week because I honestly thought the game would die after a couple weeks and wanted to get at least one real adventure done, but we've whittled ourselves down to a core set of players and the game is rolling on. Its surprisingly manageable.
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Mar 6, 2013 18:16
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Why did you decide to do a Badab War game? I'm curious because I wonder if you noticed that the extra marine chapters FFG included were all Badab War chapters  I suspect the writers got their hands on the Forgeworld Badab war set and were like 'free gold!' Cool story
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Mar 6, 2013 18:17
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Scoobi posted:Why did you decide to do a Badab War game? I'm curious because I wonder if you noticed that the extra marine chapters FFG included were all Badab War chapters Yeah, I decided on it when I got the Forgeworld books and Honour The Chapter being all Badab War really helped, No Mantis Warriors or Executioners though. Thanks! It's been a great setting for a big background story going on and I've had the parent chapters assigning secret missions to them as well, for example on a previous mission to assassinate a Warboss there was a captured Astral Claw being used as a trophy, the Astral Claws told the Tac Marine in the group that under no circumstances were any apothecaries or non-Claws agents to take control of the body so he convinced the Techmarine to dispose of it in the ship's furnace as it was "the rites of my chapter".
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Mar 6, 2013 18:20
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I should have remembered that players will always gleefully mess up any plans you have for a game's direction. After wiping out the Ethereal leadership on the planet in our ongoing game last night, the kill team chased after the Ethereals and Earth caste scientists fleeing the planet with their dissected Astartes and attempts at reverse-engineering Astartes biology and power armor in a Manta. I'd intended for them to get away, triggering the PCs to start an Imperial or just Death Watch effort to track down the Tau fleeing the Imperial conquest of the planet which would in turn lead to the the game opening up some. Instead, the Techmarine, who's played by probably the most creative player in the group, went back to the subverted Hammerhead and used it to blast through the Tau starport security and then overcharge its antigravity systems to boost into the lower atmosphere, ram into the fleeing Manta, and find themselves in the hangar bay of a fully manned Manta bomber with a hull breach about to exit the planet's atmosphere. I decided to call it a night at that point. My players have never gone off the rails quite this badly before.
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Mar 6, 2013 18:31
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Cythereal posted:I decided to call it a night at that point. My players have never gone off the rails quite this badly before. Really? That sounds like my lots' first plan.
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Mar 6, 2013 19:37
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Grey Hunter posted:Really? That sounds like my lots' first plan. My players usually aren't that reckless. They can get incredibly creative and underhanded - they once used a realdoll, perfume, and sound-canceling device to kill a werewolf with a freight train in Hunter - but they're usually not that gung-ho. Deathwatch seems to be bringing out the bloodthirst in them, though.
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Mar 6, 2013 19:40
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