Warhammer 40k RPGs General (Warhammer Fantasy RPG can come too)

[WitchSlayer]

Why don't we have one of these again?

Anyway. What are some of the opinions on the new glut of books coming out? Lathe Worlds is great but the powercreep in it is pretty obvious. The Dark Eldar book looks interesting. Tome of Fate is pretty great and I still haven't gotten to check out Koronus Bestiary.

[king.com]

I think thats because theres generally not enough discussion going on to keep them going.

The powercreep in the Dark Heresy games have been going on for a while, I fully expect standard acolytes to be more powerful than Space Marines before long.

The Dark Eldar stuff is pretty funky. Not amazing but definitely gives a bit more variety to the aliens, as opposed to just another combat wombat.

[Drglenn]

The powercreep in the Dark Heresy games have been going on for a while, I fully expect standard acolytes to be more powerful than Space Marines before long.

Acolytes have always been better than the supposed veteran marines (but more like scouts in stats and armour) that deathwatch characters are meant to be. Give an acolyte the same experience that deathwatch marines start with (13,000 with 12,000 already spent) and they'll easily outclass a starting marine

[king.com]

Acolytes have always been better than the supposed veteran marines (but more like scouts in stats and armour) that deathwatch characters are meant to be. Give an acolyte the same experience that deathwatch marines start with (13,000 with 12,000 already spent) and they'll easily outclass a starting marine

No they havn't really, they've been capped by massive restrictions on equipment, a lack of all the unnatural traits and a general lack of survivability. Sure you have the psyker getting pretty powerful at that point but the Deathwatch Marine was just better in combat. 60 BS with a heavy bolter at starting kind makes it impossible for a human to stand up to them. Sure acolyte win out of combat but thats not worth comparing for the role a Deathwatch marine tends to fill. Sure you have the Psyker player hoping for his 1 shot kill to kick in but outside of that its one side playing rocket tag while the other gets a water pistol.

Now they want 1000/2000 XP Dark Heresy and Only War characters to be absolute murdering machines. I guess thats what people seem to want but unfortunately the system really isnt designed to handle that. Hell just look at the non-sensical numbers that come flooding into Deathwatch as a result of the power level of the players. Anything with less than say 200 wounds doesnt really last long enough to matter. It all stems from the Sister of Battle Mk2 that seriously skewed how the gameplay was designed and I feel as if that class is going to be the basis for what the rest of the Dark Heresy suppliments are going to be created with consideration to. Particularly if they do run a Core Rules 2 run (though I dont think thats going to come out for atleast another year).

[WitchSlayer]

I think thats because theres generally not enough discussion going on to keep them going.

The powercreep in the Dark Heresy games have been going on for a while, I fully expect standard acolytes to be more powerful than Space Marines before long.

The Dark Eldar stuff is pretty funky. Not amazing but definitely gives a bit more variety to the aliens, as opposed to just another combat wombat.

Isn't it a relatively popular RPG? Also there's a free PDF on FFG's website that has Dark Eldar alternate ranks and an entire alternate class! That's nice.

Also my RT Navigator has a bad habit of things speaking out of his mouth that are not him. As for the differentiation between Space Marine and human character, it's really become clear in the Black Crusade game I've been playing during a Dark Heresy hiatus. Me and one other guy are the only space marines and half of our interactions are just basically "Space Marines, amirite?"

[Sayt]

One thing I've noticed in Dark Heresy and associated books is that everything is a glass cannon. And mostly, I think it's down to the full auto rules, which they look like they've somewhat mollified in Black Crusade, where the significant bonus has been replaced with a penalty.

[king.com]

Isn't it a relatively popular RPG? Also there's a free PDF on FFG's website that has Dark Eldar alternate ranks and an entire alternate class! That's nice.

Its definitely pretty popular. Behind D&D 4.0 and Pathfinder I'm fairly sure its the highest selling roleplaying game at the moment. To be fair though this is a D&D forum, with that comes the idea that there is only D&D. Not so true to a lot of people but it makes it difficult to get excited and talk about something you dont necessarily interact with or buy products from.

Also if you liked the Dark Eldar class stuff, you probably want to get the rest of the book. They are definitely some of the more interesting stuff FFG has put out but I wish they would get their buts in gear and release their Eldar book. Fate points are dependent on your sacrifices to Slaneesh? Hell yea! Wait why is this not in the Black Crusade book? Turns out most Rogue Trader partys go heretical REALLY fast.

Also my RT Navigator has a bad habit of things speaking out of his mouth that are not him. As for the differentiation between Space Marine and human character, it's really become clear in the Black Crusade game I've been playing during a Dark Heresy hiatus. Me and one other guy are the only space marines and half of our interactions are just basically "Space Marines, amirite?"

Oh really? Black Crusade is the system with the best shot of Space MArines and humans integrating. Its still terrible but you've got decent odds. Made a Space Marine Sorceror and bumped up his Fellowship to become the party's face. Terrifying, overwhelming and monstrous but a face never-the-less!

Though the game does fall flat I admit, so many problems in the game consist of the humans going "Well maybe if we manipulate this group into working with them we could..", Space Marine murders half the room, "ME GRIMLOCK KING!" If you upscale to deal with a marine, the humans are pointless and if you dont the Marines stomp everything. Its and awkward thing. Though then you have the Swarms of Minions to compare with and their insane power for such a cheap talent....but I better not start ranting about that.

One thing I've noticed in Dark Heresy and associated books is that everything is a glass cannon. And mostly, I think it's down to the full auto rules, which they look like they've somewhat mollified in Black Crusade, where the significant bonus has been replaced with a penalty.

Yep thats mainly the point of the system. A bullet can kill you. A plain old ordinary bullet. You dont even WANT to know what happens when a unimaginable horror from the warp comes tearing through reality to murder you going to do. Full-Auto rules were just one of the many many ways to murder a player. The biggest deal was it could help against characters with high agility. Works really well.....in a game thats not about combat. When you introduce a combat-drive game like Deathwatch....things get silly kinda quick.

In Black Crusade all they have done is relagated the top-dog honours to the Accurate Weapons, which are now even more awesome with the +10 for single shot. This and the variable lasgun settings makes the humble Long-las a weapon of ultimate destruction! Not quite but it gets pretty stupidly powerful. They would be even worse if they put in things like Stalker Bolter and the Nomad but until then its not the perfect default go-to weapon type at the moment. Additionally melee weapons are even more deadly than before. The game is just as brutal as ever, its just a different kind of brutal. The system is just not capable of handling combat in that scale without getting very stupid.

[WitchSlayer]

Its definitely pretty popular. Behind D&D 4.0 and Pathfinder I'm fairly sure its the highest selling roleplaying game at the moment. To be fair though this is a D&D forum, with that comes the idea that there is only D&D. Not so true to a lot of people but it makes it difficult to get excited and talk about something you dont necessarily interact with or buy products from.

Also if you liked the Dark Eldar class stuff, you probably want to get the rest of the book. They are definitely some of the more interesting stuff FFG has put out but I wish they would get their buts in gear and release their Eldar book. Fate points are dependent on your sacrifices to Slaneesh? Hell yea! Wait why is this not in the Black Crusade book? Turns out most Rogue Trader partys go heretical REALLY fast.



Oh really? Black Crusade is the system with the best shot of Space MArines and humans integrating. Its still terrible but you've got decent odds. Made a Space Marine Sorceror and bumped up his Fellowship to become the party's face. Terrifying, overwhelming and monstrous but a face never-the-less!

Though the game does fall flat I admit, so many problems in the game consist of the humans going "Well maybe if we manipulate this group into working with them we could..", Space Marine murders half the room, "ME GRIMLOCK KING!" If you upscale to deal with a marine, the humans are pointless and if you dont the Marines stomp everything. Its and awkward thing. Though then you have the Swarms of Minions to compare with and their insane power for such a cheap talent....but I better not start ranting about that.

Not for Slaanesh, Shiamesh, the Dark Eldar god that they worship I'm relatively sure. And actually that Space Marine Sorcerer thing is exactly what I'm doing, funnily enough. We don't go on random murder sprees but, for example, if it comes to a room full of plasma that you have to platform through, me and the other space marine just seal our power armor and go in to make some more platforms to make the platforming easier, all while the paint on our power armor starts to melt off. We integrate pretty well but when it comes to roleplay we just tend to make in-jokes about being a space marine, leaving the common heretics behind.

And yeah, but I mean we can have a WoD general and an Exalted general. I don't see why it can't sustain a WH40k general.

[king.com]

Not for Slaanesh, Shiamesh, the Dark Eldar god that they worship I'm relatively sure. And actually that Space Marine Sorcerer thing is exactly what I'm doing, funnily enough. We don't go on random murder sprees but, for example, if it comes to a room full of plasma that you have to platform through, me and the other space marine just seal our power armor and go in to make some more platforms to make the platforming easier, all while the paint on our power armor starts to melt off. We integrate pretty well but when it comes to roleplay we just tend to make in-jokes about being a space marine, leaving the common heretics behind.

The Dark Eldar do all their hedonistic sacrifices and the like to make sure Slaanesh doesnt eat their souls as they dont have soulstones like Craftworld Eldar.

Also yes, making fun of mere mortals is kinda the point of playing a Chaos Space Marine I feel.

[WitchSlayer]

So, things went pretty crazy in Black Crusade yesterday. First I rolled doubles on a psychic roll and two of the big combat guys went frenzy, I nearly shot the arm off of one and parried the other one before they went back to normal. Then we were confronted with Inquisitorial Agents, our social fu guy failed so I used a psychic power that helped me dodge, and I wasn't really thinking about it so I pushed it and well... Blood rain.

We narrowly escaped with our lives. Not only that but the normal human psyker buddy cast a spell to pull me into an elevator, took perils of the warp and disappeared from reality for 3 rounds. While we were in an elevator that was going down. Yeah.

[Slylizard]

You've gotta love how out of control things can get with little effort, especially when psykers or CSM are involved.

Currently playing Black Crusade myself and had a mission go horribly wrong recently. Attempting to break into a upper hive "house" to steal a macguffin. Psyker and heretek go in, marines stay out (because they can't sneak, and we were stealing not assaulting).

Of course whilst the stealth party was doing its thing guards came by the marines hanging around outside and asked them to move on. A few failed bluff/charm checks later and they are asked to head down to the station. One CSM then threatens the guards with the powerful psyker currently robbing the house (providing said clarification) and they get blasted with 12 guys worth of shocking weapons... needless to say, they're seriously stunned.

Guards enter the house after the psyker/heretek and a battle ensues in a hidden tunnel, thanks to luminen blast (such an OP talent) and some crazy psykery the group takes down about 7 guards before succumbing to the shocking weapons and getting stunned into oblivion.

...next session, how to escape...

[MachineWraith]

I'm involved in a Rogue Trader game right now, as the ship's ex-Navy pilot. Between my piloting and our gunner's shooting, the two of us have racked up the highest kill count for any campaign of any system we have ever played before. Basically, through skills, talents, and decent character building, we've rendered the -40 to checks for orbital bombardment trivial.

Our GM is scrambling for reasons for us to not just nuke the site(s) from orbit. After all, it's the only way to be sure

[king.com]

I'm involved in a Rogue Trader game right now, as the ship's ex-Navy pilot. Between my piloting and our gunner's shooting, the two of us have racked up the highest kill count for any campaign of any system we have ever played before. Basically, through skills, talents, and decent character building, we've rendered the -40 to checks for orbital bombardment trivial.

Our GM is scrambling for reasons for us to not just nuke the site(s) from orbit. After all, it's the only way to be sure

And heres one of the reasons its a pretty tough job Gming for Rogue Trader particular if you have players like you. Not saying your bad or anythin but its tough developing combat situations where it wouldnt logically be easier to drop 200+ troopers or ship-class weapons on the problem to make it go away

[MachineWraith]

And heres one of the reasons its a pretty tough job Gming for Rogue Trader particular if you have players like you. Not saying your bad or anythin but its tough developing combat situations where it wouldnt logically be easier to drop 200+ troopers or ship-class weapons on the problem to make it go away

Yeah. To be fair though, we only rarely actually use orbital bombardment. I think we've used it 3 times throughout this 7-month campaign that's still running. In those three times, though, we've gotten our kill count up over 70,000 between us, and that's just the aliens. Don't even get me started on the hive that got taken over by cultists.

But seriously, when a multi-million population hive center is infested with Slaaneshi cultists, who in their right mind would land? It's basic cost vs benefit analysis. Probable cost? Whole party's lives. Benefit? Umm... Maybe the planet's resources, I suppose. But if we kill the hive, then fund the rebuilding, we get a stake in the resources anyway, and we're heroes to the Imperium for removing Chaos scum.

[WitchSlayer]

Yeah. To be fair though, we only rarely actually use orbital bombardment. I think we've used it 3 times throughout this 7-month campaign that's still running. In those three times, though, we've gotten our kill count up over 70,000 between us, and that's just the aliens. Don't even get me started on the hive that got taken over by cultists.

But seriously, when a multi-million population hive center is infested with Slaaneshi cultists, who in their right mind would land? It's basic cost vs benefit analysis. Probable cost? Whole party's lives. Benefit? Umm... Maybe the planet's resources, I suppose. But if we kill the hive, then fund the rebuilding, we get a stake in the resources anyway, and we're heroes to the Imperium for removing Chaos scum.

I wish my RT group did it more often. My Navigator has gone from a happy go lucky guy to an absolute wreck. What's happened to him? In no particular order...

1. Looked into a possible soul stone that holds the soul of an eldar and an evil wicked snake that wants to eat any who intrude
2. Look into the captain's mind while in a trance only to see a snake looking lady who kicked him out, forcefully
3. Played in a fortune telling card game that nearly caused the death of a rival rogue trader's sister
4. Partially interfaced with an evil version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy's Earth.
5. Put on the mask of a god, allowing the captain to broker a deal with it
6. Put on the mask of a god AGAIN, this time to escape a planet with Rak'Gol, another rival rogue trader and necrons all trying to stop us, causing the character to lose any substance in his face, making it literally skin and bone
7. Used psyniscience on a statue of the emperor on a remote undiscovered world, causing him to actually see the Emperor before getting kicked in the mental butt by snake lady again.
8. Got in contact with his wife and daughter and hid his face from them, went a little crazy and got From Beyond, causing him to break down after ending the call. Also his shadow is now sentient and speaks to him. The shadow is a surprisingly reasonable guy.
9. Gazed into the sun and saw a warp gate/saw a null on previously mentioned undiscovered world
10. Accidentally navigated the ship into Anomaly 616, causing us to meet alternate universe versions of ourselves, almost being forced into one of the other universes but managed to pass a trial judged by a strange intruder ship.
11. Saw the possible complete and utter destruction of a mysterious Eldar time settlement ruled over by an Eldar that has bark skin and antlers and weird eyes. Also it's our fault that the destruction was caused as we lead the greatest enemy there. Was also the judge of the trial.
12. Drank a lot of Tranq. It was the requisition choice I took at the beginning of the game.

I think I missed a few, but seriously. The game has been going on for less than half a year I think. It sucks being the only psychic one on the ship.

[CN the Logos]

So, having never played any of the RPGs being discussed, I'm curious. I know the 40k RPGs out now focus on humans, but is there enough material available to run a game where the PCs are totally nonhuman? Eldar, tau, or new necron, obviously (I know the books predate the new necron codex, but if there's enough material for NPCs, reverse-engineering PCs might be possible); orks and tyranids are fairly one-note.

I ask because I absolutely loathe the Imperium and dislike Chaos as well (although playing as Alpha Legion, followers of Malal if he exists, or renegade Marines not affiliated with Chaos might be fun), but could totally get behind a game in which the players were all Crypteks/Lords/Praetorians, elite space Soviets, or mentally unstable Fair Folk IN SPACE.

[Slylizard]

Being a player rather than GM (and not having the books handy) I can't remember whether they've statted up all the races as NPCs (I know nids and necrons are in Black Crusade, and Orcs in Deathwatch).

That said, with some minor refluffing the talents would easily be usable across races. Most of the weapons are statted out (especially if the race is) as PCs are able to pick them up and use them.

So with a little bit of playing I can't see why you couldn't play as an alien race. If you just wanted to play a non-aligned human (i.e. non-Imperial and non-Chaos) that'd be dead easy. Just a matter of ignoring sections of the rules altogether.

[awa]

i believe a rouge trade can have a kroot or orc mercenary in the party

[Incorrect]

Yay for 40k thread!
I love me some Dark Heresy.

Here is a question; what does a noble in DH buy when he has everything he needs, and 10.000 thrones to burn?
What is extravagant enough, while still an option for an acolyte?

[king.com]

Yay for 40k thread!
I love me some Dark Heresy.

Here is a question; what does a noble in DH buy when he has everything he needs, and 10.000 thrones to burn?
What is extravagant enough, while still an option for an acolyte?

Where.....where did you get 10,000 thrones?

Anyway, if your playing smart, you want to buy a bunch of bolters/bolt pistols and the ammunition for your whole party as it means your going to give everyone the power to deal damage to some of the more dangerous enemies out there. Otherwise you want to pick up things like an inferno pistol, a Nomad or hell...power armour. Why not.

[The Glyphstone]

i believe a rouge trade can have a kroot or orc mercenary in the party

Yeah, you could just be an entire party of Kroot Mercenaries and Ork Freebooters.

[Drglenn]

Yay for 40k thread!
I love me some Dark Heresy.

Here is a question; what does a noble in DH buy when he has everything he needs, and 10.000 thrones to burn?
What is extravagant enough, while still an option for an acolyte?

An Assault Cannon for whomever in the group has the best BS (and Heavy Weapon (SP) training) and a boatload of ammo + sacred machine oil to go with it.

[jaybird]

Yay for 40k thread!
I love me some Dark Heresy.

Here is a question; what does a noble in DH buy when he has everything he needs, and 10.000 thrones to burn?
What is extravagant enough, while still an option for an acolyte?

...I don't think I've given ALL my Acolytes TOGETHER 10k Thrones as of yet

That said...Carapace to start, with gear. Auspexes for anyone with Tech-Use, medkits for anyone with Medicae. Bolt and Chain weapons. A metric ton of grenades.

[The Glyphstone]

...I don't think I've given ALL my Acolytes TOGETHER 10k Thrones as of yet

That said...Carapace to start, with gear. Auspexes for anyone with Tech-Use, medkits for anyone with Medicae. Bolt and Chain weapons. A metric ton of grenades.

Reminds me of my Deathwatch group - we had so much Requisition left in the early ranks, we just bought giant bags full of grenades and used them as bludgeons. If they detonated...we had Armor 8/10 and Toughness 10, a frag grenade couldn't actually hurt us unless it hit a limb/head and rolled 19 or 20 on 2d10.

[WitchSlayer]

Reminds me of my Deathwatch group - we had so much Requisition left in the early ranks, we just bought giant bags full of grenades and used them as bludgeons. If they detonated...we had Armor 8/10 and Toughness 10, a frag grenade couldn't actually hurt us unless it hit a limb/head and rolled 19 or 20 on 2d10.

That
...
That is the most amazing idea I have ever heard. I might steal that for my Nurgle marine.

[Incorrect]

Where.....where did you get 10,000 thrones?

We are pretty high level by now, for Acolytes.
Our last adventure involved a large cult of nobles, and of cause we failed to track them down until the very last moment. When we finally found them at their isolated hideout, they had all arrived with their guards.
Due to planning and sheer luck, we managed to attack them from extremely advantageous positions where we had cover and automatic weapons, elevated above the crowd. Firing at the cult from all directions they couldn't get any cover, and we had blocked the exit. At this point we felt pretty confident.
Of cause, being a group of nobles and well equipped guards, they fought back. Hard! We lost a few good acolytes, but in the end managed to kill the entire cult.

After looting the mountain of dead noble cultists we returned to our ship and spend the next year counting our money and getting paid every month. Nobles get paid quite a lot..

Anyway, that's the short story of 10.000 thrones.


As for equipment, I'm sure that the rest of the group have spend their money on everything they need, but I like the idea of having some really big guns for when things get serious.
Thanks for all of your suggestions so far

[WitchSlayer]

We are pretty high level by now, for Acolytes.
Our last adventure involved a large cult of nobles, and of cause we failed to track them down until the very last moment. When we finally found them at their isolated hideout, they had all arrived with their guards.
Due to planning and sheer luck, we managed to attack them from extremely advantageous positions where we had cover and automatic weapons, elevated above the crowd. Firing at the cult from all directions they couldn't get any cover, and we had blocked the exit. At this point we felt pretty confident.
Of cause, being a group of nobles and well equipped guards, they fought back. Hard! We lost a few good acolytes, but in the end managed to kill the entire cult.

After looting the mountain of dead noble cultists we returned to our ship and spend the next year counting our money and getting paid every month. Nobles get paid quite a lot..

Anyway, that's the short story of 10.000 thrones.


As for equipment, I'm sure that the rest of the group have spend their money on everything they need, but I like the idea of having some really big guns for when things get serious.
Thanks for all of your suggestions so far

You want a big, last ditch weapon? It ain't a gun but...
http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ff...late%20WEB.pdf

A supplement for the newest Lathe World book, there's lots of big, tough weapons but, importantly, there's a grenade called the Cataclysmus device. 4d10+20, pen 12, blast 12, 1000 a pop, can cause permanent toughness damage and knocks people on their back. Also if you don't have the Lathe World book proper and you want kick butt weapons, I suggest checking it out. It has some pretty powerful stuff.

[MachineWraith]

Here's a question. Our RT game hasn't had much ship-to-ship combat, and what we have had we've always been at least the same weight class as our opponents and have wrecked them handily. Our ship is only a frigate, but it's a very well put-together frigate, as far as I know.

Through our Seneschal's investigations, we've discovered that our current goal is being guarded by one Dauntless class light cruiser, loadout unknown, and one Infidel class raider, as detailed in Battlefleet Koronus p110.

Is that something that a well-built and well-piloted frigate could conceivably handle?

[king.com]

Here's a question. Our RT game hasn't had much ship-to-ship combat, and what we have had we've always been at least the same weight class as our opponents and have wrecked them handily. Our ship is only a frigate, but it's a very well put-together frigate, as far as I know.

Through our Seneschal's investigations, we've discovered that our current goal is being guarded by one Dauntless class light cruiser, loadout unknown, and one Infidel class raider, as detailed in Battlefleet Koronus p110.

Is that something that a well-built and well-piloted frigate could conceivably handle?

Well the thing about cruisers and light cruisers is they can have double shields. Which means you have to roll really-well or your macrocannons cant do enough to make it possibly to hurt them and you need atleast 2 hits just to make sure you can get a lance battery through. Im not sure what 'very well put-together' means with regards to your group. The Infidel has got torpedos which are interesting but not really the best tool to take down a frigate with. Its only got 1 macrocannon battery so its dumb luck whether it can even get through your shield let alone do damage.

Its riskly but possible. You dont want to go up against that force if you can help it though. Infidel raiders are chaos ships too so....theres that to consider.

[a_humble_lich]

Well the thing about cruisers and light cruisers is they can have double shields.

Are you sure? My book says that only full cruisers can get void shield arrays.

I think it would be hard but doable (depending on how good your frigate is of course.) It has been my experience that PC ships are much more skilled than most NPC ships. A Crack crew only has a skill of 40. Whereas most PCs will have skills much higher than that, especially at higher ranks. Also, maneuverability is your friend. While a light cruiser should be more maneuverable than a full cruiser, it is still nowhere close to an escort ship.