/40krpg/ 40K Roleplay General

how the dicks do you make a viper scout sloop work?

It's an NPC or Exploration vessel.
Either used as a scout vessel for an NPC's fleet, or purchased by players who want a horrendously small, but freakishly well made vessel.

Exploration based missions where you're only there to grab a few samples of native life, or to scan a planet or create a star map, you don't need a big ship, and if you run into combat, you turn tail and run as fast as you can.

I can certainly see it fitting a certain style of play.

I found this Deathwatch homebrew for Scythes of the Emperor. Has anyone used this in game?

But that fluff is wrong

Are there any statlines and rules for 'basic' Eldar? I know there's some for NPC ones with stats, but I just need some troop and elite ones for Deathwatch.

Koronus Bestiary has stats for Guardians and Aspect Warriors.

I've been trying to work out a home base system for DH Ascension, where you use XP, Influence and thrones to build one up and staff it. Would love to see someone else's take on that, assuming it interests you.

I don't understand, what changed

Does Energy Cache in DH 1e work on the Lathe World talents? Flare, Surge and Shield? I know it only says Charge, Shock and Blast but two of the Lathe world ones are just upgrades.

Describe your current character, party or situation in one picture if you can.

I would think they do if the talent modifies one of the original three. The talents just mod the base talent. It can be excused since Energy Cache was released before the new stuff was even considered. So, Flare and Surge would be affected, but not Shield.

Though RAI MAY allow all Luminen talents to fall under that. Need to discuss with your GM.

The Scythes of the Emperor are Ultramarines, who were in the Second Founding. They were the 199th "Aegida" company of the Ultramarines, and fought bravely against the Night Lords in the Battle of Sotha, to defend the Pharos Lighthouse. Rowboat honored them with the emblem of two crossed scythes, representing their defense of the farmers of Sotha.

Pic and filename related.

...

Found this. It's too appropriate.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

You got a navigator cheat sheet for going through the warp in RT?

/40krpg/, How do I make combat in any of the games interesting? Most of the time I try, my players get bored in between their turns, doing something else until I remind them. How do I make combat more engaging?

>[mariachi intensifies]

Make the situations they face actually dangerous, put their characters at risk.
That should get them more invested.

We're investigating a murder mystery. The victim was the Inquisitor's pet, a Jokaero named Harambe.

I fucking hate my GM. I want off.

Make them think tactically.

They're walking into a trap, and they know it.
They also left their combat servitors behind.
For some reason.

Being heretek is fun until some people lose body parts. Then it gets real hilarious.

Things can only go badly from this point on

Did you get your dicks out in his honor?

So I've been out of the loop for years, past around the time Black Crusade came out. Kinda hard to want to pay attention to systems when everyone you can scrap up to play something goes "Let's just do D&D/Pathfinder" every time...

Is it true that they just suddenly ended Black Crusade and Only War support halfway through their supplement runs? I flipped through them and not only was one of the BC books obviously combined with another unreleased book but one of the Only War books seems riddled with errors and badly moved about regiment options that have no errata. Should I even bother with DH 2e if they might just drop it?

BC's end bothers me the most, as someone rather bored with the Imperium-focus of most everything.

Not gonna lie, all of these pictures have been the various ways my group has played DH.
Every single time has been amazing.

Correct. There are no more official books. The only releases now have been the Veeky Forums books in the OP.

All this, but basically... put the characters in a situation where they have to use cover and be wise about their actions or they'll have their head taken off by a sniper. Strand them in dangerous territory and make them conserve ammo.
Alternatively, if turns are just too long, take some of the load of figuring out bonuses and stuff off of your players, I guess, or play a smaller group. DH combat should be pretty easy and fast.

They've stopped support for the entire 40k line.
Gotta rake in those sweet, sweet Star Wars bucks.

Was there ever a reason given? Hope it wasn't poor sales... but it probably was. 40k fans and their not putting money where their mouth is when it comes to non-imperium/spess mehreen stuff.

>Roll an Challenging (+0) Agility check to get your dick out

Well, I already compute all of the modifiers for them, so atleast I got that down. As for the ammo conservation, it's a rather hard task to do with lasguns, seeing as how they can be recharged in the sun. I suppose I'll go and make the nasties tougher.

Citation needed.

And no saying "it's GW" doesn't count. Need a citation for that too before express my lack of surprise.

For me it was a matter of expense. The one time I did run Dark Heresy, it fell apart. The books also needed errata and cleanup, so why not wait for a second printing?

That didn't exactly pan out.

No official reason no, but the common speculation is that they're making so much goddamn money off of star wars its by far their best interest to just focus on that. Could also be poor sales, or even just a licencing thing with GW which we'll never be privy to. Could be all of the above, or none of them.

Really up the nasties, let someone die. Only then will they understand that they have to pay attention and bring their A-game to have everyone survive.
It helped my players in previous games, in the 40k systems the players aren't entitled to beeing called heroes.
They have to pay for it, in blood.

How do you balance the death with anger, though? I don't want to make any of my players quit on account of a death.

And when they do die, how do you bring new characters into the game? Do you scale XP and thrones or leave them fresh?

So if one is being accurate to lore is it completely impossible to play an Eldar, Dark or otherwise, in Black Crusade? Like, the moment you gain corruption Slaanesh can reach over and snatch your soul right out of it's body? I've completely forgotten how the relationship between Eldar and Slaanesh works.

We're rolling up a snowflake-only party for my game, so far got a corrupted Salamander who refuses to wear power armor, a centauroid and multi-titted prostitute/assassin mutant, a Loxatl psyker, and I think I'll go with a DE and somehow be the straight man of the party.

>is it completely impossible to play an Eldar, Dark or otherwise, in Black Crusade?

It is not impossible as ther ARE canon Chaos Eldar.

However, Chaos Eldar are extremely rare, and will almost overwhelmingly be in service to Slaanesh. Furthermore, as they're psychic as fuck, they're much more sensitive to the Warp and its corruptions than other races are, so mutations and corruption would run through them quite easily in the event of catastrophic mental failure.

In addition, Eldar of all factions go far out of their way to kill any and every Chaos Eldar they can. An Eldar in service to the Dark Gods is a marked Eldar, and entire craftworlds will devote themselves to the elimination of this singular individual.

TL;DR Yes, but you're gonna have to be super-fucking-careful and you're most likely gonna get ate by Slaanesh.

I think it depends on what you mean by lore accurate. A DEldar working alongside chaos worshippers as a mercenary, or to suit their own ends? Not likely, but not impossible. Just use the corruption mechanics they've got laid out for them in the Soul Reaver and you should be set, just be super wary that corruption is always going to be a bad thing for you when the rest of your party is going to want to wrack it up.

A DEldar actively worshipping the chaos gods? Nope, that fuckers dead. Or at the very least can't truly be classed as a Dark Eldar anymore, and there's so little lore on chaos eldar you'd be making pretty much everything up yourself. If you're groups okay with that of course, feel free to go for it.

...

I was told by GW staff themselves that it's a licensing issue, not that either side wanted to discontinue the RPGs. Take this with a grain of salt however.

Can anyone recall which DH2 books have profiles for filthy mutants?

You might try the Core Rulebook, and Enemy Within.

need some suggestions, our Rogue Trader group has found themselves in a bit of a pickle

Our captain wants to stop an Imperial Hive World signing on to the Tau Empire. They've been cut off from Imperial Support for a couple of years now, and the planetary governor is about to sign the planet over to the Tau.

the Tau have a small fleet of ships in orbit, and another small (we hope) fleet arriving soon.

we have: one frigate that can't run for shit, a large-than-normal crew due to a recent recruitment drive, a teleportarium with a one-hour cooldown after use, two vortex grenades, five imperial knights (which will not fit in the teleporter), contacts in the local anti-tau rebellion, stupidly large quantities of wheat, and the advantage that the tau think we like them.

problem is, I can't really see how we can save the planet with the resources we have, as impressive as they are.

Further details, user.

How big is the Tau fleet in orbit, and how many ships are on the way? What kinds of ships make up both groups?

Is the GM aware Tau ships at large are generally inferior to human designs, particularly in terms of sheer firepower? (This is canon - the Tau are still relatively new to space warfare, and they haven't quite 'figured it out' yet as well as they have ground wars.)

Stats on your frigate? Full layout - all components, all weapons, crew quality, anything at all noteworthy.

How big is the anti-Tau rebellion in terms of manpower, infrastructure, intricate networking, weapons, ammo supplies, access to good armor?

How big/skilled/well-equipped is your crew and private army? Your armsmen, your shipboard security? How effective are they at combat or boarding actions?

What's your party composed of? Full assessment on skills, stats, talents, and personal gear. A single ship with a very, VERY good officer corps can potentially turn back entire squadrons of equal-sized or smaller ships, and depending on the space combat situation, you could feasibly take on a much larger vessel.

And most importantly:

Have you considered the prospect of hit-and-run attacks with that teleporter?

excellent questions. Still waiting to hear back from our GM on most of those fronts.

We do know our ship is better than a tau one of similar size, but we also know we're out-numbered.

We have a very charming/intimidating Trader who is a dab hand with a plasma pistol, but she's also got rubbish S and T.

The galaxy's buffest Priest, who sermons like a saint and has an inquisitorial anti-psyker force sword (which is going to be of no special use against Tau).

Our voidmaster also kind of doubles as an arch-militant, favours the use of a bolt pistol or grenade launcher from behind his looted inquisition storm shield.

I'm the Seneschal. Melta-pistol and stealth is my thing. And, as evidenced by this post, planning stuff for everybody else (with the Voidmaster's help).

Hit-and-run with the teleporter is very possible. We've ascertained that the Tau we're dealing with don't know much about the technology, so their shields won't block it, but we can only use it once an hour, so if we send a boarding party, they'd have to hold out for an hour before we could pull them back.

we also have a thunderhawk gunship I forgot to mention (a present from the salamanders to a previous captain).

fuck, I always forget how to reply directly to posts. See one post above.

how freakishly well made can a viper sloop get?

Alright. Get the rest of that information - in ranking order of importance.

>Tau fleet numbers

>Estimate time of arrival, and composition of, Tau reinforcements

>Find ways to fix that once-per-hour glitch in the teleporter if at all possible

>Covertly meet with and coordinate the anti-Tau rebels on the ground - get recruitment going en masse, get the troops armed, single out anyone fanatical enough to die for the cause at the drop of a hat

>Offer to take them onboard for a trip through the teleporter so they can pay a visit to the Aloha Snackbar

>Shipboard security, armsmen, any private armies or mercenaries onboard - get them quietly to battle-ready status

>Frigate stats - figure them out - anything your ship can mechanically do

>Remember - one round of space combat is a half-hour

>Local system defense fleet (most high-tech worlds have orbital docks, and a local shipyard putting out non-Warp-capable voidships that are usually lightly-armed and armored - often, they can be enough to turn a local space battle around) - figure out how loyal they are to the governor or the Imperial cause; anyone you can ferret out who might be wiling to defect to the anti-Tau rebellion, get them to do so

>In particular, you want to get local nobility, and any elements of the local PDF, any Imperial Guard garrisons, the Adeptus Arbites, etc. on your side quietly.

How many Inquisitors is too many Inquisitors for a sector? I'm making a homebrew and I was thinking that it would have as many as 1000 Inquisitors at any given time, though at least 500 of them would just be passing through the sector and not actually based in it.

Keep it nebulous. The Inquisition at large is a very secretive organization, even to itself. This is what leads to the Radicalism vs Puritanism arguments and subfactions that make the Inquisition what it is.

The number is most likely in flux, but that doesn't change the fact that a few hundred is probably enough - and each one has dozens or hundreds of acolytes and other agents working for them, either directly or indirectly. Enough to keep tabs on most inhabited planets in a given sector.

Mutant Background is in Enemy Within.

Just let them burn a fate point. Lost limbs can always be replaced using bionics. No need to remove a character from play.

Seems a bit high. Calixis has about 200 that we know about and apparently that sector is well regarded for its high inquisition presence. Unless its exceptionally important or populated, you should tone it down a notch.

It's very high. Dial it back to 200, 250 at max.

I seem to remember there being a cybernetic implant that let you take any lore test even if untrained in it. Am I remembering wrong or what is it?

Not in DH2 but there's a talent that makes all lore (with the exception of Forbidden) known to the character called Infused Knowledge. Very useful IMO and it had another lore related benefit

All components at Good/Best can save a freakish amount of room and power.
More than enough for all the Supplementary components you'll want.

Let's face it, you're not buying a Sloop to engage in straight combat, or haul cargo.
So why not focus on the stuff you ARE good at. Like exploring.

>that colour scheme

So what does a Navigator do outside of navigating in the warp? Just sit around being a WMD with his lidless stare?

In my experience? Well you got your bunch of Lore skills on top of a decent intelligence, for startes, and given that you probably have an high score in Willpower you'll take command of interrogation and the like. You are not going to run if daemons pop in,a s well, so the others will rely on you in case of any failure of the gellar field that doesn't outright kill the whole ship. And you are a fucking navigator, the imperium doesn't literally run without your folks, so you got a certain weight when it comes to political situations as well.

>So what does a Navigator do outside of navigating in the warp?
Roams around the ship and spooking the other to death with his 3rd eye?

The one I played a few times would take environmental readings and soil samples with his swarm of servo skulls for his collection, research the charts ahead of time for bonuses, be the nobility liaison whenever that came up, and never talk to or acknowledge any non-RT/nobleborn non-manservant/servitor PC/NPC ever which is surprisingly fulfilling.

One time the party was planetside and there was a combat involving tyranids going on and my character was all the way back in the ship, messaging instructions to a butler to bring to the chefs for the evening meal. I had a turn slot for this, with rolls.

>combat involving tyranids going on
>instructions to a butler for the evening meal
>I had a turn slot for this
>with rolls

How can one character be so based?

>Battletech cartoon screencap

Well played.

Honestly, I would give you shit if you just blew the bugs off as not a problem.

But bravo, sir.

Is the order of our martyred lady mentioned at all in dh 1e? I've got a palyer who's doing a militant of the order and I want to know if they have any holdings or anything in calixis or even if they appear at all so I can figure out where she came from

I am in Black Crusade but the DM is willing to allow gear from other books on a case by case situation and wanted to run it by him if the implant existed and I remembered right.

How can I make a world, whose main population is around a sort of renaissance era, feel more daunting to a small group of Inquisitors? One player is worried that a pre-industrial planet's government and population would be too pliable in a social sense and too fragile when dealing with cults and hereteks, and I've been racking my brain since.

It's DH2E of course in a pretty high level campaign, so it's not like too many things should be unsolvable for the group, except for maybe finding new equipment on the isolated continent.

How well integrated into the Imperium is the planet?

the challenge doesn't come from the limits that the general tech level of the population places on what the inquisitors can do

you want to identify a suspect? Good luck with that with no dna or thumbprint records, census records are generally taken decades apart, and the closest thing to information gathering available to local enforcers is to grab a suspect and shake him shouting "DIDJA DO IT? DIDJA?"

Want to get a message out? Congratulations, you're getting the fastest transport available. A guy on a horse. Give it three days and if the weathers good the message will be received and you'll get a reply back in another three.

The people might be unable to match your weapons tech but ou better hope like hell you have more bullets on hand then there are rioters because there's no way to get more once you hit empty

The inquisitors can work around this of course, by setting up their own supply lines and means of communication, but it'll mean stretching their resources thin

It's hard to go wrong with an angry mob wielding torches, pitchforks, and muskets.

feudal worlds are, by default, clannish and much more likely to hold offworlders and their tech in a mixture of suspicion and awe

much easier to break cover when you're literally the only person in town who's not someone's cousin

It's a quarantined world, but the administratum and ecclesiarcy were able to set up before shit went down. They've been trying to increase their pull, but they're mostly just tolerated since they don't fit into the Oligarchy, quite yet, and they haven't had much of a force to back them up.

Thanks, guys. Good stuff

What if it's a chapter homeworld or houses a recruitment station? That means they're on a timer until stories of the highly advanced strangers reaches their masters and some friendly power-armored marines with bolters are going to start asking questions.

Or the world is very insular with a lot of societies that decide your role and purpose in life, which makes fitting in really hard.

what's the way to use las-burners on ships?

My RT party and I were investigating what was left of a pre-imperium human settlement and we found, among other things, an entropic accelerator. My character is an archeotechnologist and I was super stoked to find old working tech but the moment we knew what it was, our RT claimed it and put it into his personal vault. I don't dispute that it's his right to do so as captain, but I am extremely jelly.

I guess that's it. Best story ever.

Ohh...a recruitment world...from a chapter whose loyalty is questionable is a great idea. They definitely wouldn't like the Inquisition poking around certain anomalies of the planet and would give a great reason for the party to stay covert. The only problem is that it's a quarantined world.

What if the world was quarantined while the station was on it, they've been stuck down there for a while and are -really- frustrated.

"They occasionally send teams from their already dwindling chapter to deal with the situation that's planetside. Truly heroic"

Meanwhile they amass huge chapter numbers using questionable methods with divergent religious opinions. They're probably gonna be vietcong based as well considering the nature of their homeworld.

Bump

Lets post Only War guard regiments you've made.

Ambolt 4th Super-Heavy Tank Company “Rustning Gud Vakt”
(4) Feral World
(2) Choleric
(7) Super-heavy Armoured
(3) Warrior Weapons
(-4) Honour Bound
Total: 12
(5) Upgrade Sword to Good quality
(5) Add Chainmail to kit
(10) Upgrade Chainmail to Best quality
(8) Add Micro-bead to kit

Basically via chance and convenient mechanus in need, a viking-esc culture was turned into the honour guard and field operators of a bunch of Baneblades. Which sounds awesome until you realize how many PCs and their comrades you have to devote to operating the thing. Still, hell of a visual image.

what are some good motivations for a chaos cult? Besides wanting to kill everything or summon a demon and gibber?

Anyone have any systems or rules for running solo games in Deathwatch? Maybe like Battletech/Megamek Against the Bot campaigns? I want to play with my group, but I want to get a feel for it first,

>what are some good motivations for a chaos cult?

Liberty from the crushing weight of living in the Imperium, especially if this cult originates on a Hive or Forge World.

Funny thing about the "freedom" they want is that it always has a cost...

Which book outlined the Adeptus Arbites? I want to play as pic related.

Didn't going there work out really well for the Blood Angels?

they're in dark heresy core

Book of Judgement

Just so newbies don't see that and get scared off...Note that the Lex Imperialis is frequently reinterpreted or outright rewritten to suit the needs of an individual region, planet, or even time period, depending on local stability, the whims of the local Precinct head, the whims of the Sector Lord(s), and an individual group's grimdark preference. By an absolutely literal reading of the Lex Imperialis, one would soon run out of dissidents to execute, and, indeed, peasants to work to death. The Imperium doesn't really do standardization very well even within the Adepta, so groups should feel free to change things to their individual tastes.