Rogue Trader - The Frozen Reaches (OoC)

[Maugan Ra]

*is making notes, which are in no way ominous or threatening*

Interesting tactics...

[Lucretia]

Hey, if this wasn't question time, we probably would have warped to the meeting.

That said, I'm glad to see this Alexander has no desire to survive the Ork invasion. It will make throwing him at the nearest raider easier on the conscience.

[Henry the 57th]

I think, whatever we do, we should concentrate on eliminating the Warboss. It is well established that killing the Warboss is an instant "I win" button, at least so far as an organized invasion goes.

[Baveboi]

Not always. Often Ork pirates have many different Kaptains that they will rally upon in case you break the biggest one down, but it is safe to assume some sort of strife will be caused giving us precious pause to their attack.

However, if killing the biggest ork was easy...

Of course, there is no way Carlyle knows this stuff, so consider it your own "inspiration".

[Maugan Ra]

Victris recalls that Locke is well regarded amongst the Battlefleet as a fine Captain and promising tactician. In truth, she'd have earned a Cruiser command at least several years ago, were it not for certain black marks on her record. Your result wasn't good enough to remember what those marks actually were.

[Lucretia]

Fate reroll? And add 10 to the DC, she is giving him Exceptional Leadership with her belief in him.

[Henry the 57th]

Originally Posted by Lucretia

Fate reroll? And add 10 to the DC, she is giving him Exceptional Leadership with her belief in him.

Yes. I failed, didn't I?

And noted.

[Lucretia]

No, I posted that simultaneously with your reroll. I was asking if you were going to consider one -- which you were doing simultaneously.

[Henry the 57th]

Ok. Assuming I can indeed both reroll with a fate point and add 1 DoS to that succes with a second fate point, I get 3 DoS for Charm. Hopefully enough to end this quickly.

[Lucretia]

I imagine this is an Interaction Challenge, so we'll need a lot of degrees of success before we can end it.

That said, for the mini-speech Taz gave, I'll also make a charm check.

(1d100)[18] v. 75

EDIT: 5 DoS.

[Winthrow]

If we are to talk tactics, the Navy Officer is the most likely to succeed in commanding the mix of forces up above, and she is also likely to be the most neutral party (I hope). Making any of the three Rogue Traders agree to put their ships under her direct command will take some doing however.

For our party I believe that Luff is best suited to groundcombat, while I know most when it comes to space-war. I'll do some rolls on trying to figure out the tactical situation from the display in my next post and had been hoping for Tazya's support in it, trying to scrounge a few DoS with my expertise. (if the dice-gods love me again.)

[Lucretia]

If it's the round after Luff spoke, then you get a +10.

And I'm quite familiar with the difficulty of placing your ship under someone else's command. I wouldn't/won't surrender command of the Castle. But I might as well tell the Captain I will.

[Henry the 57th]

I'm not planning on being in space any longer than it takes the Orks to break through to the ground. Sure, I'll command the guns with my BS, but when the Orks get to ground I'm joining them (unless we have some horribly urgent need for me aboard ship).

[Lucretia]

Considering you've got the highest BS and we can teleport onto the bridge of the warboss's rok (or whatever he's driving -- do they even have a plethora of ship-types? I only know the rok.), I think space is probably for the best. We have a space station and a fleet. So long as we stamp out this dissidence, we should be able to put up a good front and prevent the orks from ever reaching Damaris.

That's my hope, anyways. We have a battle cruiser, a cruiser, a light cruiser, and a station full of guns. And then a bunch of cannon fodder. But mostly the other things I listed.

[Henry the 57th]

They have ships called Kroozas, and probably some others that I can't remember.

I need a higher Pen weapon before I could face the Warboss. Heroic as that would be, Ork Mega-Armor provides 14 (All) protection. Or, at least it does in Dark Heresy.

Edit: No, wait, 14 is just to the body.

[Lucretia]

Oh wow. And with their minimum 8 TB, that's a lot of soak. Ah well, we can always douse him in gallons of promethium.

[Henry the 57th]

I remembered wrong. I believe 14 is to the chest, 12 elsewhere.

[Lucretia]

Still remarkably high. Which book is mega-armour in?

[Henry the 57th]

Creatures Anathema. Page 103.

And I looked it up this time. AP 14 to the body, 10 to arms and legs, and 6 to the head. Must be refueled every 1d5 hours. Makes the wearer 1 size bigger, and adds +30 strength.

[Lucretia]

Hmm.. that's still, like, minimum 14 soak to the head. And because penetration doesn't work against toughness (I will never be convinced there is an adequate reason for that other than 'game balance') we definitely are going to need a bigger class of gun on this one.

You were right to try and get that lascannon. Perhaps they'll have one for sale on Damaris. There is a forge nearby, after all.

[Henry the 57th]

I remember all of this because in a game of Dark Heresy, through a series of whacky and not-so-whacky hijinks, I wound up facing one of these puppies completely alone. My strategy consisted of running in the opposite direction as fast as I could and hoping his agility bonus was less than mine (it was). Eventually I ran over him with construction equipment.

[Maugan Ra]

I usually allow penetration to work on Toughness bonus. Because being hit by a meltagun should hurt, damn it...

And I do like all these plans you're making. There is, of course, a somewhat glaring oversight in them, but that's the fun part of being a GM... Knowing things the players don't...

[Lucretia]

Until I encounter the oversight, I won't obsess over it. Trying to introduce OOC doubt in order to throw discord into the IC situation is a bit bizarre, but c'est la vie.

And yeah, orks being too "'ard" to get hurt by an inferno pistol is aggravating. It boils off the plates of a Land Raider, but your teef protect you? So I think I approve of the house rule. Perhaps if the pen overcomes a certain level it should bypass TB? It is supposed to be a limiting factor to prevent higher level weapons from just facerolling you, and they try to give high pen to super damaging weapons instead of Pen 0 and uberdamage since the latter would bypass/affect TB and the former wouldn't.

I dunno, actually. Hmm.

[Henry the 57th]

Originally Posted by Maugan Ra

I usually allow penetration to work on Toughness bonus. Because being hit by a meltagun should hurt, damn it...

And I do like all these plans you're making. There is, of course, a somewhat glaring oversight in them, but that's the fun part of being a GM... Knowing things the players don't...

That will help. But still, assuming this git is wearing mega armor, we're looking at 14 soak on the head. Not even my best weapon will do much to that, so I'd really like to get a lascannon before the battle starts.

Unless, of course, someone is reading the adventure and it's two sequels.

But you needn't worry about that from me. I don't download illegal PDFs and I'm too poor to afford adventure books for games I don't regularly play.

[Lucretia]

Even if we were moral-less blackguards who wanted to cheat at a game, Maugan could change any number of things to prevent such knowledge from being useful. I don't think he's got anything to fear concerning players knowing the same amount as he does about the game.

And sure, she'll give you the bonus this round. She's about to leave the bunker, so I won't be able to give it to anyone else who isn't in the room with the governor. If anyone would like to come with, I don't think it was a private invitation from Governor Obscura, so feel free to come along.

[Henry the 57th]

Imma sit that meeting out. I've gotta get my heavy weaponry before the battle starts, and this magos is the most likely to have some. Besides, Luff wouldn't do well in a meeting with someone he considers an inbred parasite.

I'm sure Xanatov will inform Luff of anything he particularly needs to know. And there's always the vox.

[Lucretia]

Very true. She may have him talk to the General, if not now then before the battle starts. If he's going to be in command of the ground forces, the General is a good guy for Luff to be on solid terms with.

[Henry the 57th]

Probably a good idea at some point. Hoping he's a genuine military man and not some over-promoted political flunky or second son.

[Maugan Ra]

Hmm. That ended up quite a bit longer than I expected.

But yeah. Play the mediator, get everyone to agree to you as an authority, and earn ridiculous stacks of cash. All you need to do is save a world from invasion. Simple, yes?

[Henry the 57th]

Excuse me, Ra, would you mind if I moved some points around between stats that haven't been used yet? Specifically, I wanted to move some points to strength and toughness (not from fellowship, obviously, as I used that).