Black Crusade - Tome of Blood

40K haters look away now.

The latest Black Crusade sourcebook, Tome of Blood, arrived a wee while ago and, during our week under the covers, I've had a good thorough read.  Billed as a sourcebook for followers of Khorne, it actually has lots of content for all players and GMs.

Like the previous book, Tome of Fate, there are four new character types to chose from and, again like Tome of Fate, it's the human choices that really catch the eye.  The Chaos Marine archetypes are just as you'd expect with a Berzerker (melee) and a Night Lord (fear) on offer.  The human archetypes let the reader explore some frontier worlds of the 40K universe, Messia being my favourite with it's Dune/Arrakis feel.  Other than characters, there's a lot of background material here, rules for legacy weapons, massed combat, more rituals and investigations.  Lastly, there's another complete campaign using the newer rules.

A lot of new artwork is on show, most of it very atmospheric, some of my favourites are on this page.  And I'd also say the standard of writing here is pretty impressive, much more so than the early Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader games. FFG have pulled in a few new authors in their recent books and they have seem to have picked up the freshness of the writing (if that even makes sense?)

To be honest, ToB was the book I was least looking forward to, as just how much depth is there on offer to roleplay an uncontrollable frenzied killer.  Overall though, the rage/frenzy aspect isn't all that prevalent for the players (NPCs are another story) and the book is much more about new options and scales for combat.

I haven't managed to get a RPG session in for a few months now; we were running them over skype and, when my broadband went, that wasn't possible any more.  I think I'm going to try and find a group locally (it would be the first time since my uni days,) but not until later in the year; not feeling terribly sociable at the moment and can't see that changing in the near future!

Black Crusade: Tome of Fate - About Time!

Literally six months after it was announced, I've finally got my Tome Of Fate source book for Black Crusade.  As Amazon had withdrawn it from sale, I assumed there was a problem getting these in the UK.  So I was pleasantly surprised to find it in the local (and not terribly friendly) comic book store.  

I have that male habit of flicking through a book/newspaper from the back to the front, but I've yet to sit down and have a proper read.  Looks pretty sweet though.

Rubric Marine goons?  Yes please!

Tome of Fate includes a complete adventure.

Profiles are included for all Necrons in the current GW range!

Ooooh, fluffy.

Plenty of weird artwork going on...

along with some awesome pieces too.

Black Crusade Characters #2: Ingathiel

More Black Crusade goodness this week with some background on Doug's character, Ingathiel.

Background

Unlike Balthus, Ingathiel has no knowledge of his origins whatsoever.  His memories become coherent aboard the Monarch of Wrath, a human reaver ship operating from the Rifts of Hecaton.  Ingathiel had presumably been captured at some point in his past and the reaver captain made good use of his size and strength in boarding assaults and the gladiator pits.  Not knowing any other life, Ingathiel accepted this for a number of years and probably would have continued to do so indefinitely.

During a journey through a turbulent warp storm, the Monarch of Wrath suffered a number of malfunctions resulting in a swarm of warp entities materialising on board.  The Monarch was well crewed and well armoured, but the number of intrusions increased.  When summoned to the fighting, Ingathiel found he was particularly resilient to the daemonic attacks.  Indeed, he found he could dispatch the creatures with ease.  Seeing the balance of battle swing in their favour, the crew redoubled their defence and began to clear the ship.

However, the crew, already terrified at the daemons attack, were shocked by Ingathiel's unnatural abilities.  Matters were not helped when Ingathiel's eyes started glowing and energy patterns started playing across his skin.  As the daemonic attack diminished, the captain decided to cut his losses and ordered his prized slave, who he presumably blamed for drawing daemons in the first place, killed.

This proved to be far harder to achieve than he imagined.  Ingathiel, distraught at his masters betrayal, fought back furiously against the crew.  As his rage grew, he discovered he could focus the strange blue fire surrounding him and throw it as a weapon.  Although the crew were in full retreat, Ingathiel continued his assault, eventually forcing the bridge and slaughtering the captain and command staff.

With the ship was derelict and the crew mostly dead, Ingathiel was at a loss what to do next.  For no other reason than it was what he always did after battle, he returned to his cell. He found something there he wasnt' expecting.  The creature that stood in the centre of the cell was difficult to define, as if it's form was constantly changing.  One moment it was blue, the next pink or yellow, one moment diminuative, the next double the size.  To his senses, Ingathiel could tell it was akin to those creatures so recently trying to kill him, but this one showed no signs of violence.

Instead, after a few moments of silence, a crude mouth formed on the creature and it started babbling in a stange, unknown.  As the creature spoke, images flashed into Ingathiel's mind; cities, ruins, stars and nebula and many others, all unknown to him.  Suddenly, the sound and visions stopped and there was no sign of the creature, other than an odd electric stink.  To his surprise, Ingathiel found he could recall perfectly every word the daemon had said, along with every image that had flashed into his mind.  Before he could think on all that had happened, the ship shuddered violently in what was clearly a warp translation back to realspace.

The Monarch had materialised deep in the Screaming Vortex, next to the the massive space station Malignant Spire  Ingathiel managed to easily sell the Monarch and found quick employment as a mercenary.  Over the following years, Ingathiel found he had an instinctive knowledge of all forms of combat and tactics, almost as if it he knew these all along and was only just remembering them.  Ingathiel also found his control of the elemental fire grew and he began to experiment with different manifestations.  Psyker his companions called him and they showed him equal amounts of respect and fear.

Ingathiel primary motivation is to learn more of the creature he encountered aboard the Monarch  and discover the meaning of the message he was given.  Ingathiel is certain that he was chosen for a particular journey, the visions he saw and the creature's message have convinced him.  Ingathiel's travels have taken him to many star systems and planets, he has spent years trawling through ancient books in hidden libraries on forgotten worlds, he has visited countless shrines and spoken with innumerable mystics in the Screaming Vortex gaining snippets of understanding here and there.  The latest trail Ingathiel is following has brought him into contact with Balthus, whom he recognizes from one of his visions.  Why this is so and where they head next is, as yet, unclear.

Creating the Character

Doug wanted a psyker character for Black Crusade, so chose the Sorcerer archetype.  This gives Ingathiel the ability to use psychic powers and gives him a number of of associated skills.  The psyniscience skill helps Ingathiel sense others using psychic powers, Scrutiny makes him skilled in assessing data and peoples moods or motivations, lastly Forbidden Lore (Daemons) gives him knowledge of Daemons, their nature and abilities that most people will be unaware of - very useful for conducting rituals etc.

Talents in Black Crusade are abilities or traits that a character can either do or not do (skills differ as a character can get better at them.)  As a Psyker, Ingathiel is given Meditation that helps him recover from the fatigue caused by using psychic powers and combat, and he also has a certain amount of experience to spend on psychic powers themselves.  It's worth noting that during character creation, characters will not be aligned to a particular Chaos god; it is only by gaining a certain mix of skills and talents that a character will become aligned.  This is significant here as it means that Doug can't pick any God specific powers at the moment (golden oldies like Bolt of Change or Stream of Corruption.)  With that in mind, Doug gave Ingathiel the Doombolt power (for combat) and kept the remaining XP points for later in the game.

When it came to Ingathiel's Passions, Doug picked choices based on the backstory he wanted.  Ingathiel is seeking knowledge and is certain he is on a legendary quest, so he has the Foresight pride, increasing Perception, but lowering Fellowship.  Psychologically damaged but his experiences on the Monarch of Wrath, Ingathiel is always on guard against treachery, so he has the Betrayal  disgrace, giving him some starting Corruption, but making him very untrusting (and untrustworthy.)  Lastly, Ingathiel has the Arcane motivation as he seeks to understand his visions, giving him yet more Corruption and increasing his Intelligence at the cost of a little Strength.  After these adjustments, Ingathiel's stats are:

WS	BS	S	T	Ag	Int	Per	WP	Fel	Inf	Cor
42	39	42	44	36	51	46	49	43	23	6

I mentioned in the last BC post that Corruption was the negative marker (too much and you "lose" the game,) but it's a little more complicated than that.  Many skills, particularly psychic skills, need a higher Corruption to work and, in this case, that represents how under the sway of Chaos your character has become - how unholy he is.  So gaining Corruption can be quite important; the balancing factor is, depending how you gain said Corruption through either success or failure at a task, you may well end up with glorious Chaos gifts (Darksoul, Magnificent Horns) or hideous mutations (Eye-stalks, Tentacles)

So Ingathiel is looking pretty healthy so far.  He has average weapon and ballistic skills, as well as average Strength and Toughness.  Although not very agile, he has a high Intelligence (useful for all those Lore tests he'll be making,) very high Willpower (essential for using psychic powers) and above average Perception and Fellowship.  At this point, Ingathiel still has a plenty of XP to spend, but Doug wants to save that until some of the more powerful powers are available.  Finally, after acquiring some Warp-Totems and a tasty looking Plasma pistol, Ingathiel is ready to go.

Hopefully you've enjoyed the back stories and the summary of how characters are created in Black Crusade.  Next time, I'll put up a couple session reports from earlier in the year featuring the two characters.

Black Crusade Characters #1: Balthus

  

We managed another session in our Black Crusade campaign this week, although we only managed to fit in a short encounter and some combat before we ran out of time, short and sweet.

I've intended to put up more Black Crusade content on the blog (they seem to get a lot of attention,) but for a few reasons I haven't managed much.  Last week, I started writing up a couple of our earlier sessions, but before I put them up, I thought it would be a good idea to hear a bit about the characters we're running.  So I asked the guys for a bit of background material and some thoughts on how they created their character.  First up is Cal's alterego, Balthus.

Balthus might look like this.  None of us can draw, so
we simply reuse the artwork from the rulebook.

Background

Originally, Balthus was a member of the Maréchals Triomphant space marine chapter. Details are unclear, but somehow the Maréchals were caught up in the Dovinian Schism and brought before an Inquisitorial Conclave for punishment.  The entire chapter was sentenced to undertake a penitant crusade lasting a century, into the Kalmar expanse.  During this time, the chapter were denied resupply or the authority to recruit and replace fallen brethren. Finally, despite years of constant struggle against the xenos of the expanse, the Maréchal Triomphant were deemed tainted beyond redemption and ordered to return to their homeworld and prepare to be disbanded.

This caused an split in the chapter.  Some insisted their duty was to accept the judgement as just for their past, others insisted it was anathama for Space Marines to passivly wait for death.  In the end, most of the remaining Maréchals chose to reject Imperial authority and leave the Imperium entierly.  Firstly, the fleet returned to their home world, unleashing a devastating bombardment that destroyed their fortress monastery, before heading away from Imperial space.  Pursuit was never far behind.  For years the remnants of the chapter evaded pursuing Imperial forces, raiding for resupply when the opportunity arose, until they were finally cornered in the Hamiss star system.

Balthus was among the handful of survivors to escape the slaughter.  He moved from system to system, conflict to conflict until, eventually, he found himself in the Screaming Vortex, in the company of other renegades and heretics.

Balthus has a healthy hatred for the Imperium and naturally seeks revenge against the forces who destroyed his chapter.  Yet his hatred is tempered.  He knows that, ultimately, he will not bring the Imperium down.  Instead, he holds his very survival as a victory against the enemy, a sign that for all the might of the Imperium, he continues to triumph over them simply by existing.  So he fights where and when he can, preferably against the Imperium; each day he survives is another wound inflicted.

Creating the Character

Below are Balthus starting stats.  Most of these are self-explanatory if you've ever played an RPG or 40K/Warhammer.  A characters Infamy represents how feared and notorious he is while the Corruption stat represents, well, how corrupt his soul has become through evil deeds, contact with daemons etc.  Black Crusade, like all the 40K RPGs, uses a D100 mechanic, generally the higher the stat the better.  At this stage Balthus is still relatively unknown, but isn't that corrupt either.  When your character reaches 100 Infamy, you have become so powerful you essentially "win" the game, but having 100 Corruption sees your character become so degenerate you "lose."

WS	BS	S	T	Ag	Int	Per	WP	Fel	Inf	Cor
50	37	50	49	37	34	42	31	41	26	0

Balthus follows the Chosen Archetype.  Unlike most other RPGs, Black Crusade doesn't make use of classes or roles.  Instead, players choose an Archetype, a group of Skills and Talents that point their character in a general direction, but from there characters can progress in any way a player chooses.  As a Chosen, Balthus starting skills are mainly concerned with combat and in particular melee combat.  Although all Chaos Space Marines are skilled in combat, Chosen are particularly deadly.  This however comes at the expense of other areas, Balthus is not as skilled in command and tactics as he could be, nor is he particularly skilled out of combat, communicating with aliens or gathering information etc.

Black Crusade uses a mechanic called Passions to give your character some, well, character.  Each character chooses (or randomly rolls for) one Pride, Disgrace and Motivation that not only describe their personality, but change their stats or give other effects.  In this case, Balthus has opted for the Fortitude Pride, increasing his Toughness at the expense of his Agility and Intelligence, the Dread Disgrace, increasing his Perception but lowering his Willpower, and finally the Legacy Motivation, increasing his Infamy but, again, lowering his Intelligence.

As with most RPGs, players get a small amount of experience to spend on their characters before the game starts.  Compared to human characters, Chaos Space Marines get very little experience at this point (due to their higher stats,) so Cal gave Balthar the training to correctly use power weapons and the Furious Assault Talent (who doesn't love Furious Assault?)  Players can also give their characters some extra equipment for starting the game.  We bent the rules here slightly, giving Balthus a good quality Legion Power Sword (hence the earlier training) in addition to his armour, bolter and chainsword.

So that's Balthus, former loyal servant of the Emperor, now rogue, renegade and heretic. He's not exactly blessed in the brains department (but by no means thick,) but is more than able to carve through most opponents he'll face while dodging most incoming attacks. Although Balthus is handy at intimidating and threatening people, he'll need help with most other social and other skill tests.  Fortunately, no one ever travels alone in the Screaming Vortex. . .

Sport, Black Crusade and Sod All Painting

Little in the way of any tangible progress so far this month.  Real life has been relatively busy, but the real cause of my lethargy is the June/July sports schedule!  The Tour has started, taking up any free afternoons I have.  The Tennis occupies any evenings.  the ODI cricket takes up the odd day.  Then there are weekend events like the F1 and MotoGP.  The Mrs has resigned herself to the constant accompaniment of crowd noise, commentator babble and me jumping up shouting "Coom on Andy!" Bless her.

The weather has precluded any outdoor activity this week (holiday tan has gone and it's back to the pasty white look again!) which meant I was able to get a little gaming in.  I've managed to fit in two sessions of Black Crusade, which we are really enjoying.  The characters the players are running have got to the stage where I can introduce some of the nastier enemies Black Crusade has to offer.  The next source book is due out sometime this month, so we're trying to complete the story arc we're on now before starting on the new material.

This guy saw a run out last week.  Nasty.
  

I'm still keen to have a proper stab at Force on Force, after getting a couple more source books for my birthday last month.  Last week, I tried some solo games using proxy figures, just to get a handle on the rules properly.  After you get your head round some of the abstract concepts (cover, line of sight etc.) the game flows very smoothly.  The problem I've found is that I can't seem to settle on a period or conflict to collect.  I'll leave this alone however until I get a couple other things finished first.

 

Next week, the main aim is to complete the first unit of Hoplites and, secondly, to get the first batch of Fallschirmjager figures done (although I doubt I'll get them based though.)  Add into the mix a quick Black Crusade session and I'll call that a good week!  We'll see how it goes...

Black Crusade - Tome of Fate and Thousand Sons Preview

  

Fantasy Flight Games have put up another preview article for Tome of Fate, the Tzeentch flavoured supplement for Black Crusade.  This preview confirms that you'll be able to play as an "offical" Thousand Sons Sorcerer.  Wooooooh!!!

One of the most common criticisms I hear of Black Crusade, is that you "can't" play as one of the original Traitor Legions, as your character starts off as far too puny for a ten thousand year old veteran.  Now this isn't something I personally have a problem with as I'm very much a do-it-yourself gamer, if there aren't any rules written, I'll write them myself.  However, I'm glad that we're going to get this level of detail for Black Crusade.
   

   

FFG look to have struck a nice balance between making a Thousand Sons different enough from a Sorcerer from the main rulebook, without making them too powerful.  For instance, although you generate a character with more psychic powers and equipment than a normal Sorcerer, you also start with more Corruption.  You also start with a normal number of wounds and toughness rating, making you just as squishy as any other character.
I'm really looking forward to seeing what else Tome of Fate has to offer, FFG have mentioned Daemon Engines and new psychic powers, but hopefully we'll get some new minions and adversaries too.
   

    

I have meant to put up more Black Crusade content on the blog (those I have posted are among the most popular posts,) but for a few different reasons, I haven't.  I'm going to make an effort to change that in the next few weeks.  In the meantime, you can find both previews for Tome of Fate here and here.  If you're interested in Black Crusade or the 40K universe in general, you can download an entire adventure, complete with characters and rules, here.  You can also read a quick summary of our first session here.  I'd heartily recommend you to take a look.

Black Crusade Announcement - Tome of Fate

   

It's like I'm psychic (or a Psyker!) Days after Hand of Corruption arrived in the Man Corner, FFG have announced the next book in the Black Crusade series: The Tome of Fate.

Instead of releasing separate player/GM/adversary and adventure books, the next four supplements seem to combine aspects of all these books, but focus on each of the Chaos Gods in turn.

I'm pleasantly surprised to see that Fantasy Flight Games have taken a different direction with Black Crusade than previous 40K RPGs. 

From their website:

The Tome of Fate introduces four new Tzeentch-centric Heretic Archetypes, as well as foul daemons, arcane weaponry, mighty daemon engines, and vile minions for followers of the Master of Fate. Players of all alignments will also gain potent new psychic powers and daemonic rites to fuel their struggle against the hated Imperium. The fallen forges of the Hollows, the mutants of Dread Korvaska, and the ancient Necrons awakening from within the Pillars of Eternity: these and other secrets of the Screaming Vortex shall stand revealed. All this and more lies within The Tome of Fate, including a dangerous new adventure on the sorcerous world of Q’Sal!

 
So a largely, but not exclusively, Tzeentch book that sounds that it covers all the Black Crusade bases.  What immediately caught my eye was the Daemon Engines.  Do they mean the same thing as the old Epic Daemon Engines?  If so, although the Tzeentch engines were rubbish, I'll be looking forward to the Khorne book for these guys:
 

 

Well I'm really looking forward to this next release, love the direction FFG have taken and will be interested to see more previews over the next few weeks.

Black Crusade - Hand of Corruption

  

I was stoked to finally get my copy of Hand of Corruption, a supplement for Black Crusade by Fantasy Flight Games.  FFG seem to be following their usual 40K RPG release practice of a rulebook, GM kit then campaign rulebook.  Now this is out, hopefully Black Crusade will get it's own players handbook and GM Guide soon.

   Lots of this on offer. . . . . text
  

Hand of Corruption sees your group of heretics infiltrating an Imperial prison planet, Saint Annard's Penance, with a view to conducting an aracane ritual and converting the planet to Chaos!  The three linked adventures try to hit the sweet spot for a Black Crusade campaign; infiltration, insurrection and, of course, action!

   Hello, How may I pervert you?  (Anyone get the reference?)
 

There's a fair amount of content, lots of background and info on Saint Annard's Penance, plenty of GM advice, a decent proportion of written dialog and scripted events.

Like most of the 40K RPG books I have, production is to a really high standard (with zero typos spotted so far!)  Hand of Corruption has a really nice mix of artwork, including new material, older/existing GW artwork (including the classic Necron Codex cover) and in plenty of different styles.

I'm glad that Hand of Corruption has finally been released, as the whole process has been surprisingly drawn out.  As I recall, both Rogue Trader and Deathwatch had their first two full supplements out in the first few months.  Black Crusade has been out for close to six months now so should have had a bit more support than it has.  I hope that any delays were due to the Collectors Edition release, which took an absolute age.

   Haven't seen this image anywhere before - Chaos Lord on pile of dead guardsmen
   

The problem with getting a campaign book first (or reading it first) is that you're going to have to run the adventures yourself (because, well, you know what's going to happen.) Fortunately, I've ran most of our Black Crusade sessions and am looking forward to seeing how our group of heretics fare in this campaign, particularly against the big guy in act three!



Three more followers to say hello to as well; Headologist (a nice mix of historical and sci-fi,) Monty (historical gaming - with some great looking armies) and Lee Hadley (more commonly known as BigLee and for his Miniature Adventures!)

A Quick Update

Just a quick post on this weeks progress.

We had another game of Dystopian Wars at the club (which has been packed the last couple weeks) with my Empire of the Blazing Sun and Gaz's Kingdom of Britannia fleets.  No photos I'm afraid, but it was a solid victory for the Blazing Sun.  It was also a timely reminder that painted models always do better than unpainted ones - my newly finished Dreadnought and Destroyers both performed admirably.  However, the only undercoated Skyfortress, on it's debut, was unceremoniously blown out of the sky!

  

It was our second game using the updated rules from Spartan Games.  I still hate the new Britannia generator rules (I have to read these again as they seem waaaay too powerful now,) but the new EotBS movement rules are suprisingly useful.  If anyone out there is using the new rules, I'd heartily recommend reading this post of the Spartan forum to clear up a lot of grey areas!

I also had a try of making my own storage tray this week - it's surprisingly effective, although I don't think BattleFoam need to worry too much!

In other news, my order from Museum Miniatures has arrived (some 15mm Landsknechts,) and they look good enough to probably put in another order while their 25% sale is still on.  I've finished up the first batch of figures for my Italian Wars project and am just waiting for some bases to arrive so I can get them completed.  We're planning another Black Crusade session, but I think we might end up waiting for the first supplement (just released) before going any further.

Fortunately for my nerd time, the sporting schedule is due to relax a bit next week, leaving more painting time!  I'm sure I could have got a lot more done this week if it weren't for the football (far too much nonsense to talk about,) the snooker (always bet on the thinner guy,) the tennis (Andy Murray's Scottish again,) the womens tennis (is this even a sport?) and the cricket (best team in the world my arse!)

Have a good weekend everyone!

January, WIP

Just over halfway through the month, so how am I getting on with my resolutions.  Well, not bad to be honest.  Frustratingly, I've not been able to finish off any individual projects so far, but plenty of progress has been made.

In order of "almost completedness:" 

• Dystopian Wars Empire of the Blazing Sun Dreadnought and Destroyers (yes, before anyone asks, this is the same ship from October 29th last year)
• Vexillia 15mm Landsknecht Arquebusiers and Crossbowmen
• Battlefront 15mm German Pioneers
• Bolt Action 28mm SS

The biggest problem I'm having is deciding when a miniature is finished.  For instance, those Landsknechts are covered in little details (powder cases, drinking horns, sidearms) and I can't seem to say "That's enough detail, he looks fine, get on and base them!"  Add in the fact their uniforms are painted in a variety of colours, they are taking much longer than planned.

Away from the painting table, a pleasant surprise arrived in the post this morning - a Covenant of Antarctica fleet box set from Spartan Games!!! I won this prize from Tabletop Fix, so a big thanks to both them and Spartan Games.

We've had another Black Crusade session (our third,) this time with some new characters (Chaos Space Marines) and a heavy combat mission.  Still loving the rules, I'll try and get a write up of this session up in the next few days.  The first supplement is due for release shortly, hopefully once it's out, FFG will get on and product some player and GM books for this great game.

Lastly, for this update, my Infinity eBay purchases look like they've gone missing.  There shouldn't be any problem getting the cash back, but it's still a hassle.  Particularly considering I paid a lot less than the RRP, it'll cost more to get the same collection of figures.

Black Crusade - First Session Report

Thanks to the miracle of modern science (well, actually, just a couple mobile phones and a laptop,)  I was able to finally run a session of Black Crusade, the latest 40K RPG from Fantasy Flight Games.  I roped in a couple of former members of the Granite Gamers (our old University wargaming group) to play as the characters, while I ran the game itself.

Serocil might look like this, but significantly more unholy

It was all a bit short notice, so, to save any hassle, I generated a few characters to choose from and adapted an old Dark Heresy adventure to a suitable evil theme.  This was the first rpg session I've participated in a couple years and the first I've GM'ed in even longer, so it took a little while to get back into the swing of things.  After half an hour or so, we were back rolling dice like veterans!

The session began with Taran, a renegade Imperial commander now in the sevice of the Dark Gods, and Serocil, a Dark Mechanicus Heretek, arriving at Tarsus Hive with the vague aim of spreading corruption and death amongst the Hive population.  We'd decided that Taran looked "normal" enough to still fit into Imperial society, but Serocil's many augmentations looked far too unholy for him to walk around freely, so he disguised himself as Taran's sevitor/bodyguard.  To keep the deception authentic, We also decided that Serocil could only communicate with Taran via the voxlink with one word messages.

The duo decided to pose as Inquisition agents and contact the local Adeptus Arbites to get an idea of the political situation in Tarsus Hive and the various criminal groups in operation. This was the first stage of the adventure and relied on Taran making successful charm, inquiry and deceive skill tests while dealing with Imperial personel.  Meanwhile Serocil made lots of scrutiny, tech and logic tests to covertly access various security systems in the hive. Thanks to the Infamy point mechanic, Taran was able to pass a particularly difficult inquiry test to find out the chief arbitor had apparantly been contacted by Inquisitorial agents some months earlier!

After leaving the Arbites headquarters, the pair had a good knowledge of the key installations in the hive, the amount of and location of the security forces as well as a rough knowledge of the various criminal gangs operating in the area.  They then toured some of the hive, focusing on areas they thought vulnerable to attack, namely the water purification plant, the main generators and the hive's ruling court.  At this point, they also failed to notice they were being tailed.

Hive Tarsus

With a little prompting, Taran and Serocil decided to head to the lower levels of Tarsus Hive and find a secure base to operate from.  Whilst moving through an industrial plant area, they were ambushed by a gang of hivescum.  At this point, they could have talked their way out of things and, indeed, used the gang to help them find a base.  Serocil, however, decided he'd had enough of hiding under his extravagant disguise, so threw it off, pulled out has plasma cannon and started glooping people.

Moving further into the Hive, they caught a different gang preparing an ambush and successfully intimidated the leader into taking them to their lair.  A successful security test revealed the lair was indeed a secure place to fortify and, after making a couple violent examples, the loyalty of the remaining gangers was guaranteed for the time being.

At this point, the climax of the session arrived, as did the mercenary squad trailing the duo, who appeared and attempted to take the heretics into custody.  Apparently, something about Taran and Serocil in the Arbites headquarters had made someone suspicious, and they had then used this team to keep track of them.  Fraternising with criminals was all the evidence needed for the mercs to act.

This last action was actually a bit underwhelming, as I overestimated how strong the merc force would be in combat (I used the bounty hunter and guardsmen profiles from the Black Crusade rulebook.)  Serocil was easily cutting down troopers with his plasma weaponry, while Taran charged forward with his power sword and killed the leader.  In the end, I didn't even use the gangers to support the fight.

Taran venturing into the underhive

With that last action, we finished the session and left Taran and Serocil for the time being. The pair were now reasonable secure in the underhive, with a base to operate from and a gang of thugs under their control.  News of the massacre in the industrial plant would surely be all over the hive by now, spreading fear to the law abiding population.  Taran and Serocil were now well placed to work out the next stage of their insurrection.

However, there are still a number of dangers facing our evil heroes!  It's unclear if any of the merc strike team escaped the encounter in the underhive and however useful a gang of hivescum are, they are unlikely to be of much use if superior security or criminal forces attack.  Lastly, there are the unconfirmed reports of Inquisitorial agents working in Tarsus Hive. If the rumours are true, the two groups will almost certainly come into conflict in the future.

So that was our first RPG session in years!  I'm not sure how regular this will be, as it needed a lot of planning just getting the three of us free on one night (even with us just on phones and computers,) however, as a one-off it was an absolute blast!

I really like a lot of the mechanics in Black Crusade and, even though we set the game on an Imperial world, it felt quite different to any of the other 40K RPGs I've played.  We're going to attempt anothr session in the near future, just to see how we fare against some tougher opponents and try out the Ritual and Minions rules!  Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed reading this report.  Please let me know if there's anything you'd like explained or if you've any suggestions for future sessions! 

Black Crusade! Finally arrived. . .

Just a quick post to say I've (finally) received my copy of Black Crusade from Fantasy Flight Games.  And well worth the wait it was. . .

I've never been that much of a role player - in fact, I've never actually ran or been involved in a campaign for more than two consecutive sessions!  But occasionally a few of us get together and run through some scenarios over a few beers.  After reading through the preview adventure for Black Crusade months ago, I knew I fancied running a game or two as the "bad guys" so preordered this in June.

Black Crusade follows the usual FFG formula for a 40K RPG; lots of rules, lots of background and lots of options.  Basically, if you've ever read through Dark Heresy or Deathwatch, you'll be familiar with the format here.

In keeping with the chaotic nature of this book, Black Crusade does away with all the separate advancement tables for each class.  Instead you pick a basic character type and the choices for advancement are guided by which Chaos God you're favoured by.

Other exciting additions include; the ability to recruit Minions (hired goons to follow you around and generally make you feel like a proper bad guy,) Compacts (basically missions designed to keep your heretics focused on something other than killing each other) and Daemon Weapons (these look much nastier than those originally available in Dark Heresy.)

New additions to the adversaries include the Dark Eldar (Warriors, Incubi and Mandrakes) and the Necrons (Warriors, Flayed Ones, Immortals and the massive Tomb Stalker.)  There is also a fair bit of guidance for mixing the four 40K rpgs, including the Hordes rules from Deathwatch and using Black Crusade as a source for villains in the other three systems.

The book itself is up to Fantasy Flight's usual high standard with lots of fluff and background material.  There is a mix of older and newer artwork, some of which looks absolutely lush!  

So, after my initial read through, this looks a great book to pick up. Even if you're not into RPG's, but just a 40K fan, there's plenty here to interest you.  For RPG fanatics, it looks like FFG have built on an already solid ruleset and added enough new flavour to keep it interesting.  Looking forward to getting this on the table.