Warhammer & 40K RPGs Thread III: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Heresies?

[Lord Torath]

One of my favorite hypothetical (read: fan-made¹) story lines revolves around Ahriman of the Thousand Sons. He's always railed against his damnation, even casting The Rubric to prevent the physical corruption that was overcoming the Thousand Sons Chapter/Legion shortly after the Horus Heresy. So the story goes like this: Ahriman tracks down Inquisitor Czavek, and pulls the location of the Black Library from his mind. Ahriman then launches a massive assault, and manages to capture the Black Library, allowing him access to all its knowledge. After some serious studying, he figures out how to completely break Chaos's hold on him and granting him Mastery over the Warp. He then assaults Holy Terra, slays the Emperor on his Golden Throne (freeing his soul), and declares himself Emperor, leading the Imperium to a new age of glory, and knocking Humanity's foes back on their heels.

So I've heard about Roboute Guilliman coming back. Wasn't he dead? Like 9000 years-ago dead? How'd he come back?

1. I think it was Venator from the now-defunct Eastern Fringe Forums.

[comicshorse]

So I've heard about Roboute Guilliman coming back. Wasn't he dead? Like 9000 years-ago dead? How'd he come back?

1. I think it was Venator from the now-defunct Eastern Fringe Forums.

He wasn't quite dead. Fulgrim stabbed him with a poisoned sword and to preserve his life the Ultramarines stuck him in stasis. Despite being suspended in time he miraculously started to heal and voila a mere 10,000 years later he pops out of stasis and starts ordering everybody in sight around. La plus ca change and all that

[Lord Torath]

Deathwatch Weapon Range question:

Each weapon has a listed range, R. From what I can gather, this is the breakdown:

Point Blank Range: 0-2 meters (or metres if you prefer)
Short Range: R/2
Long Range: 2R - 3R
Extreme Range: 3R - 4R

This would seem to put Medium Range at 0.5R-2R.
Did I get that right?

Flamers, of course, ignore these rules, and just have a 30^o cone of fire out to the listed range R.

He wasn't quite dead. Fulgrim stabbed him with a poisoned sword and to preserve his life the Ultramarines stuck him in stasis. Despite being suspended in time he miraculously started to heal and voila a mere 10,000 years later he pops out of stasis and starts ordering everybody in sight around. La plus ca change and all that

Huh. Seems like there's at least one other Mortally-Wounded Primarch hanging out in a stasis field... in the middle of a rock, somewhere? Or, more specifically, The Rock? Who thinks there's going to be a "family" reunion?

[LeSwordfish]

The time before/during the war for cadia is full of portents and mysteries: its a great time to play up the "one minute to midnight" setting. Something is happening that will change the galaxy forever. In fact very many things are going to happen: I would suggest trying to get a copy of the first Gathering Storm book and reading the little sidebars: lots have semi-related catastrophes taking place all over the galaxy. In fact, I'd suggest reading that in general, picking some detail, and following the cause/effect chain back to something the players can influence. One good example is that apparently, chaos invasions took place all over, trying to identify and destroy the black pylons that kept the cadian gate intact. A full-scale chaos invasion would be a very big deal for a game (but would be a good "midnight" endgame sequence I guess) but the inquisition could do good work hunting down Cultists/Scouts/Alpha Legionnaires sniffing around Calixis looking for a rumored pylon.

[comicshorse]

Huh. Seems like there's at least one other Mortally-Wounded Primarch hanging out in a stasis field... in the middle of a rock, somewhere? Or, more specifically, The Rock? who thinks there's going to be a "family" reunion?

I'm not sure its actually The Lion in the chamber there are many rumours that its actually someone else

[Aneurin]

The time before/during the war for cadia is full of portents and mysteries: its a great time to play up the "one minute to midnight" setting. Something is happening that will change the galaxy forever. In fact very many things are going to happen: I would suggest trying to get a copy of the first Gathering Storm book and reading the little sidebars: lots have semi-related catastrophes taking place all over the galaxy. In fact, I'd suggest reading that in general, picking some detail, and following the cause/effect chain back to something the players can influence. One good example is that apparently, chaos invasions took place all over, trying to identify and destroy the black pylons that kept the cadian gate intact. A full-scale chaos invasion would be a very big deal for a game (but would be a good "midnight" endgame sequence I guess) but the inquisition could do good work hunting down Cultists/Scouts/Alpha Legionnaires sniffing around Calixis looking for a rumored pylon.

The time just after the Gathering Storm, on the other hand, is probably a huge political mess. Rumors flying everywhere - a returned Primarch, Warp Rifts dividing the galaxy, Cadia fallen. People have no idea what is and isn't true - some will swear the Emperor's returned, others that Guilliman being back is a lie. Or that he's been corrupted by the xenos. Some will support Guilliman, some will oppose him for so many reasons.

These won't be everywhere at once; the propagation of information in 40k is slow, after all. It could be centuries before some parts of the Imperium learn any of this, because no-one bothered to send them an Astropathic message and hardly anyone visits them.

If you want to set your game after the Storm and Guilliman's return, then you've got an interesting new enemy for your Acolytes to face - non-heretical humans. They need to 'fix' people who think that Guilliman's an imposter and simply want him gone, and those otherwise-loyalists who don't like the changes to the status quo that Guilliman's brought about, and the Ecclesiarchs who object to him saying their religion is nonsense and not what the Emperor wanted. People have lots of reasons to resist and rebel, and the Inquisition needs to stop the nascent civil war before it can start.

If it's very close after the Storm, then the PCs also have the sticky dilemma of who to side with; do they support the person claiming to be Guilliman, or do they oppose him? Even if he's real; is he actually in the Imperium's best interests given how long he's been out of touch? He may have been the Imperium's golden boy, but wasn't Horus, once? He's making a lot of changes, but is this the time with Abaddon's forces running unchecked?

[Lord Torath]

I'm not sure its actually The Lion in the chamber there are many rumours that its actually someone else

The 2E Angels of Death codex says unequivocally that it is, in fact, Lion El'Johnson. Of course, that's 25 years old, so it's quite possible that GW has changed the fluff on that.

[Malak'ai]

I'm not sure its actually The Lion in the chamber there are many rumours that its actually someone else

All the latest lore is that it is Lion. The other guy is, as far as I know, gone.

[Wraith]

I'm not sure its actually The Lion in the chamber there are many rumours that its actually someone else

GW's lore has stated the following as facts to us readers, but they're not at all known in-universe.

Roboute Guilleman was mortally wounded and placed in stasis for 9,500 or so years. Shenanigans resulting from the Fall of Cadia woke him up again, and now he's the de facto leader of the Imperium.

Lion El'Johnson was mortally wounded and his body retrieved by mysterious creatures known as the Watchers In The Dark. They took him to a secret cell in the middle of The Rock (yes, that The Rock) and healed his wounds, but now he's not in stasis; he's just... 'sleeping' for want of a better word. The only person who knows this is the Emperor, and he ain't talking.

Necron Overlord Trazyn the Infinite has, within his collection of rare things, a stasis tube which contains "a giant man in baroque power armour" which is rumoured to be either Vulkan, Corax, Jaghati Khan or Leman Russ. No one knows for sure, or even if it *is* a Primarch, but supposedly at least one of them ended up in there.
Perhaps that is what you were thinking of, when you thought of someone else in stasis?

[Lord Torath]

How do Opposed Tests work? If my character needs a 56 or lower, and rolls a 55, that's a success. Is it considered one degree of success? Or zero degrees of success (less than 10 points difference between target and result)? Suppose my opponent needs a 50, but rolls a 97? Obviously a failure, but how bad a failure? -4 degrees of success? If I inflict an extra 1d10 damage per degree of success, how much extra damage do I inflict here? Did my opponent gain negative levels of success?

[Malak'ai]

In your example you would have 1 degree of success and your opponent would have 5 degrees of failure. The way it's calculated is 1 degree for the initial success/failure then one extra for every 10 under/over the target number.

As for extra damage, you wouldn't get any extra D10's because you didn't get any additional degrees of success.

[Destro_Yersul]

In your example you would have 1 degree of success and your opponent would have 5 degrees of failure. The way it's calculated is 1 degree for the initial success/failure then one extra for every 10 under/over the target number.

As for extra damage, you wouldn't get any extra D10's because you didn't get any additional degrees of success.

This actually depends which edition you're playing. Earlier stuff, like DH1, does not count the initial success as a degree. Later editions started counting the initial success as 1 degree of success, but also adjusted everything that depends on that upwards by 1 to account for the change.

Degrees of failure in an opposed test, as written, don't actually change the outcome. Either you fail, or you don't. This can lead to situations where both parties sit there rolling over and over until someone passes, though, so I usually run opposed tests as something you can win even if you fail, as long as your opponent fails worse.

[Lord Torath]

Okay, new Deathwatch question: Your carrying capacity is shown on a table on page 208, based on the sum of your Strength and Toughness bonuses, and goes from 0 through 20. Is there a table that goes higher?

A new space marine starts at 18, before adding any chapter bonuses or spending your starting XP, and you can easily hit 23 before your first mission. An Ultramarine that rolls 50s for both Strength and Toughness could start at 26 (27 if his Armor History is "Thy Strength Be Legend"). Several XP expenditures and a suit of Terminator Armor later, and it could be 32!

So, any tables anywhere that go beyond 20?

[Destro_Yersul]

They've printed the same table in every edition of every core book, probably because it doesn't really matter. Nobody pays attention to those rules unless someone is trying to do something clearly ridiculous, or they want to prove to the GM they can carry the really heavy loot. It's also worse than you make out, because the total value can be temporarily increased by making a Strength test, going up by 1 for every degree of success on the test. Further nonsense occurs if the Space Marine in question has a powerfist, because that increases the multiplier on his Strength. I believe I once worked out that a Terminator with a Power Fist should be fully capable of bench-pressing a dreadnought.

The table is a mess in terms of how it curves out, too, making it hard to extrapolate. If you want a decent approximation, though, multiply 450 by whatever number you have above 20, and add that to the base carrying value for 20. Thus, for a marine with combined bonus 26, 6x450=2700+2250= total carrying capacity 4950, lifting 9900, pushing 19800, since to get the lifting and pushing values the base value is multiplied by 2 and 4 respectively.

If you want a general formula for that, 450(x-20)+2250, where x is your total combined S and T bonus.

[The Robot Goat]

Hey! I also have a quick question about Deathwatch.

1. From the few test combats I've run, the marines seem... pretty powerful? Am I doing something wrong? Do I just need to throw a lot of enemies at them to wear them down, or am I probably actually reading a rule wrong and they aren't supposed to be as powerful as my players are?

2. Ork stats don't come in the DW core book, are their stats in other books? I'd really love to throw my players up against some orks, but the main enemkes from the DW book seem to be Chaos or Tyrannids (with a side helping of Tau).

[tyckspoon]

Hey! I also have a quick question about Deathwatch.

1. From the few test combats I've run, the marines seem... pretty powerful? Am I doing something wrong? Do I just need to throw a lot of enemies at them to wear them down, or am I probably actually reading a rule wrong and they aren't supposed to be as powerful as my players are?

I'm not deeply familiar with the actual rules, so this is mostly from the fluff/premise perspective, but: Deathwatch Marines are the badass survivors, specialists, and elite drawn from a military force where everybody has to be a badass survivor, specialist, and elite warrior as a basic requirement of the job. They're probably supposed to be that powerful - Deathwatch is the book that starts you pretty high up on the 40k power scale, because you're supposed to go deal with daemons and try to assassinate Ork Warbosses out of the middle of their hordes or recover relics from sites that are temporarily inaccessible to lesser mortals by way of currently being in the middle of a Warp-Realspace Negative Space Wedgie. (And, as opposed to Inquisitor henchsquads that might find themselves involved in this kind of thing, you're expected to actually achieve the mission. And possibly even come back with most of the squad alive.)

So.. if the rules appear to have it that your player Marines can gun down three platoons worth of normal human-type opponents or basic termagaunts or similar without breaking a sweat, that's probably right. Those guys aren't a threat to Marines - the challenge there is to do it while conserving enough ammo to still deal with the real threat when it reveals itself. When that Lictor or team of Genestealers stops being a weird shadow on the trees and starts trying to cut you in half with man-sized claws, or when the daemonprince breaks through into reality, empowered by the blood shed and prayers its servants screamed as your bolters blew them apart.

[Haval]

Hey! I also have a quick question about Deathwatch.

1. From the few test combats I've run, the marines seem... pretty powerful? Am I doing something wrong? Do I just need to throw a lot of enemies at them to wear them down, or am I probably actually reading a rule wrong and they aren't supposed to be as powerful as my players are?

2. Ork stats don't come in the DW core book, are their stats in other books? I'd really love to throw my players up against some orks, but the main enemkes from the DW book seem to be Chaos or Tyrannids (with a side helping of Tau).

The errata makes bolters less powerful if that helps. No Full Auto.

There are some Orks in Mark of the Xenos for Deathwatch. There are more in Koronus Beastiary for Rogue Trader.

[Lord Torath]

The errata makes bolters less powerful if that helps. No Full Auto.

The errata says they're optional statistics to reduce the number of dice rolled in combat, speeding up the game. It also reduces your chances of getting Righteous Fury (a natural 10 on any of the dice rolled). I like the increased chance of Righteous Fury using the older stats, so I've elected not to use the optional stats.

1. From the few test combats I've run, the marines seem... pretty powerful? Am I doing something wrong? Do I just need to throw a lot of enemies at them to wear them down, or am I probably actually reading a rule wrong and they aren't supposed to be as powerful as my players are?

You know all that fluff you read where Space Marines take out hordes of enemies without breaking a sweat? Table-top 40k rules fail that utterly, but Deathwatch rules capture that perfectly. Space Marines are TOUGH! And POWERFUL!

[The Robot Goat]

Thanks for the insight y'all! I'll definitely have to look at those books for orks, and I'll have to build my missions around having to conserve ammo, or deal with harsh conditions/etc.

[LeSwordfish]

There's more extensive Ork stuff in Only War and its supplements.

[Malak'ai]

Thanks for the insight y'all! I'll definitely have to look at those books for orks, and I'll have to build my missions around having to conserve ammo, or deal with harsh conditions/etc.

Hordes will be your friend in that. Mobs of 20-40 Gretchen/Grots, Termagaunts or the like can have them chew through rounds like a locust in a field of wheat.

[finaldooms]

The devastator marines seem rather OP compared to the rest of Deathwatch though..the one game i played in the devastator with a...bolter minigun?( its to early) blew through 2-3 chaos marines and then a chaos sorcerer in about 1-2 rounds before any real damage got started by anyone else

[finaldooms]

Also!! In Only war, a bolt pistol is explosive right? And it can set off more explosives ( like say from critical damage causing ammo to explode?) which in turn sets off MORE explosives?

[Lord Torath]

Yes, Heavy Bolters are pretty nasty. Fill it with Kraken rounds, and your normal (no bonus/penalty) range extends out to 450 m! Although my new favorite anti-tyranid weapon is a Stormbolter filled with Hellfire rounds. Ah, the amazing amount of Righteous Fury those can spawn! And natural armor is ignored, so all they have protecting them is their natural (or unnatural) toughness.

Yes, bolters (pistol, storm, or otherwise) are explosive weapons, so you use the Explosive Weapon crit hit charts for it.

Edit: To lower the power of a heavy bolter, decrease the ranges at which enemies become visible. Put the marines to exploring ruins or caves with short lines of sight.

Edit again: Are there rules for letting marines choose skills not on their lists? The Assault Marine has Double Team, and it'd be nice to be able to give my jumppack-librarian Double Team as well, for the extra +10 WS to each of them. But Double Team doesn't appear on any lists except Deathwatch Assault and Deathwatch Tactical.

[finaldooms]

Funny story about the time i played a commissar in only war then >> i was the kind that lead by example and we had quite literally started a session with get dropped onto the roof of rebel guardsmen ..i fired 2 shots that entire session with a bolt pistol first shot took out a section of tge roof ( cause what kinda guards DONT carry spare ammo and grenades) we did the crital effect roll.which set off the ammo..and in turn that set off the other guys ammo ans grenades ..blew the service door and the surrounding spot into pieces so we had to go in through a window

Very very shortly we got into ANOTHER fight ( go figure) and this time it waa like 10 guards coming out of what waa essentially a cargo elevator ..it was a pretty cool fight and up to that point i was just being a commissar and letting my squad get some practice. Finally one of them told me to shoot so i did..and once again it did the ammo explode thing >>

The GM at the time was pretty relaxed about things normally..and then that shot hit the guard in the middle and caused another chain reaction ..and he rolled to see if the elevator could handle the stress of the explosions..it couldnt so suddenly the elevator goes crashing down the building still exploding and that happened to hit more guards on tge way down ( he literally said if he rolled a 1 then there were more guards guarding the elevator and guess what he rolles)

Ended up blowing half the buildinf up ( thankfully tge support was on our side of the building) and my commissar became known as the guy who ended the war in that sector by casually picking up an enemy voc and announcing that ive only fired 2 shots out of a pistol and took down a building..i still have 3 clips remaining if they wana see what else i can do

[The Robot Goat]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but I was hoping to get some insight on an idea for an adventure (campaign? mission?)

I really like the idea of a heist to steal a downed Imperial Knight, as I imagine they'd sell for a fortune (or at least, their tech would). I like the idea especially if multiple factions (Empire, Orcs, Tau, etc) are trying to make a grab for it all at once. However, I'm unsure of the best way to go about it, so far I've thought of a few ideas:

1. The players are all criminals of some type, and they're hired by a mysterious benefactor to steal it just before anyone else can reach it. I'm not sure which system would be best for this, I was considering running it in Savage Worlds, because I don't own Rogue Trader, but would Rogue Trader work better?

2. The players are all different types of criminals or traitors, currently under arrest in some fashion by the Imperium, and are offered their lives in exchange for sticking a teleport on the Knight and "bamfing" it off of a death world before anyone else can reach it.

3. Standard Deathwatch mission, this seems pretty up their wheelhouse. After all, there's tiny odds of success and a very good likely-hood of death. Unfortunately not as appealing to me, as there's no real criminal element, and I'd love to throw some players against the Empire (neither me or my group would be interested in a chaos adventure, though), but it seems like the most logistically easy way to go about it.

Anybody know a good lore (or mechanical) reason why I couldn't do any of these? Bear in mind I could be running it for someone who isn't super familiar with the Warhammer 40k setting.

Slightly related, does anybody know if any of the 40k RPG books have stats for Imperial Knights? I don't plan on it fighting anybody, but we all know there's a decent chance somebody's going to try to get it up and running (after all, it's a big mech and its right there).

[finaldooms]

penal group with only war sounds pretty good for that ( its what i have the most exp in sorry) aside from that though if you want them being..well scummy Rogue trader seems like a better option from what I've used/read ( have not looked at savage worlds yet sorry) and from a quick google it sounds like rites of battle for DW has something similar to a knight ( warhound-class titan) ..aside from that im not seeing any actual stats for such a thing that is not Homebrew

also personally i really like option 1 ..which can even be run with DH instead and the unkown was actually an inquistor lol..which also opens up options for "skill monkey" characters instead of mostly fighting ( unless thats your goal obviously)

[The Robot Goat]

I'll look at Only War, I honestly hadn't thought of it. And yes, I'd love to make it not entirely combat focused, which was partially my worry with Deathwatch. I'll look for those Titan stats, they might come in handy!

Also, if I wanted to build an Inquisitor for a party to (in theory) fight, would I be best off building a DH character and then giving them bodyguards? Or would it be better to start from scratch?

[Random Sanity]

Edit again: Are there rules for letting marines choose skills not on their lists? The Assault Marine has Double Team, and it'd be nice to be able to give my jumppack-librarian Double Team as well, for the extra +10 WS to each of them. But Double Team doesn't appear on any lists except Deathwatch Assault and Deathwatch Tactical.

I forget which books specifically mention it, but at least one of DW/DH/RT has rules for "elite" advances which can come off other class lists at an XP premium, asking for 500 XP (IIRC) on top of what such an advance would normally cost.

Funny story about the time i played a commissar in only war then >> i was the kind that lead by example and we had quite literally started a session with get dropped onto the roof of rebel guardsmen ..i fired 2 shots that entire session with a bolt pistol first shot took out a section of tge roof ( cause what kinda guards DONT carry spare ammo and grenades) we did the crital effect roll.which set off the ammo..and in turn that set off the other guys ammo ans grenades ..blew the service door and the surrounding spot into pieces so we had to go in through a window

Very very shortly we got into ANOTHER fight ( go figure) and this time it waa like 10 guards coming out of what waa essentially a cargo elevator ..it was a pretty cool fight and up to that point i was just being a commissar and letting my squad get some practice. Finally one of them told me to shoot so i did..and once again it did the ammo explode thing >>

The GM at the time was pretty relaxed about things normally..and then that shot hit the guard in the middle and caused another chain reaction ..and he rolled to see if the elevator could handle the stress of the explosions..it couldnt so suddenly the elevator goes crashing down the building still exploding and that happened to hit more guards on tge way down ( he literally said if he rolled a 1 then there were more guards guarding the elevator and guess what he rolles)

Ended up blowing half the buildinf up ( thankfully tge support was on our side of the building) and my commissar became known as the guy who ended the war in that sector by casually picking up an enemy voc and announcing that ive only fired 2 shots out of a pistol and took down a building..i still have 3 clips remaining if they wana see what else i can do

That's awesome.

[finaldooms]

So after reading my,own quote. ( ty btw) my god did i have alot of typos

And as for building an inquisitor you might have to just build a custom person and then use DH for guards? As far as i know ( still reading) DH does not actually do anything with the inquisitor. .just their acolytes ( bodyguards or whatever they need to be)

Personally..id make a commissar from Only War and edit the skills for whatever branch of the inquisition you want them to be..( i honestly used to think that's how you became an inquisitor by starting as a commissar)