D&D Fifth Ed. Starter Box

Another package waiting for me today when I arrived home from work; the D&D fifth edition starter box.  A bit of an impulse buy when I ordered it, but as it cost me just over a tenner, it won't break the bank. 

Initial impressions are that it's pretty standard fare; two A4 books, a 32 page rule book and 64 page adventure book, five pre-generated character sheets, one blank character sheet and, of course, a wee bag of funny sided dice!  The books are of decent quality; I do like the new art style they've taken and the dice are, well, dice.  The character sheets are just printed on cartridge paper, but as people are bound to copy them first, that's no big loss.

I haven't played D&D in a loooong time, so haven't the foggiest how the rules have changed, still seems pretty straight forward though.  There's a murmur going around our gaming group that we'll try and run the introductory adventure as a one off, so I'm holding off opening the adventure book for the moment!  Getting a roleplaying session in was one of my gaming resolutions this year, so fingers crossed we'll sort something out.

To be honest, I'm a little underwhelmed by the starter box, but I suspect that's because I have the Star Wars: Edge of Empire starter box, which has a) a lot more stuff in it and b) is a more polished starter product, in the sense that there's a clear logic to what to read first, what to do next and where to go to get more info (such as a second adventure from their website.)  This box is a very simple "here's your character, off you go" kind of affair.  Having said all that, the SW box retails at close to double the price of this one, so it's not an entirely fair comparison.

Happy enough with the box, not sure if I'll pick up any of the hardback rulebooks or not though, time will tell.

Also, why did they change this D&D to plain "fifth edition?" D&D Next was such a better name!

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!

Only War 40K Rpg

Well I trust everyone's recovered from whatever trials you put your bodies through yesterday. Everyone one got what they wanted from under the tree?  The Mrs and I decided to go halves on one of these tablet computers (sharing hasn't caused any arguments, yet) so I thought I'd put it through it's paces on the 'ol blog.

 

My copy of Only War turned up on Christmas Eve and I've had a couple hours to flick through. The latest in the line of 40K role playing games, Only War sees you inducted into the ranks of the Imperial Guard, fighting in one of the Imperium's countless wars.

Are these guys from the Gaunts Ghosts series?

Setting aside initial concerns about how much fun playing a nameless grunt would be, FFG seem to have made a number of interesting additions to the 40K RPG system, most notably the squad mechanic and a dedicated set of vehicle rules (about time!)

The book itself is mostly up to the standards expected from FFG, the only criticism I have is that there is less artwork than in previous books and a lot of what is there is recycled from GW's back catalogue.

Proper vehicle rules.  Finally.

Only War is by far the best 40K RPG to be played with miniatures, but I still need to be convinced just how much role playing there is on offer here.  Still the book was a nice distraction over the last couple days and is a goldmine of background material for Imperial Guard fans.

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. . .

Only War - Another 40K RPG!

40K RPG fans rejoice - Fantasy Flight Games have announced Only War, the fifth core book in their line 40K roleplaying games. This time, you've joined the ranks of the ubiquitous Imperial Guard.

From the news page:

"In Only War, each player takes the role of a Guardsman, a member of the Imperial Guard and one of the countless billions of hardened conscripts constantly fighting on myriad fronts at the whim of the Adeptus Terra. In control of this martial alter ego, players go forth at the behest of their officers to fight the eternal and implacable foes of the Imperium – the foul xenos, the mutant, the heretic, and the dark forces of the Ruinous Powers."

My initial thoughts are mixed. The setting chosen is the closest yet to tabletop Warhammer 40K and probably the most restrictive in terms of 40K background. Presumably you won't have to spend half a session digging latrines or standing sentry, but if you're away fighting xenos or heretics on your own, then I'd rather play Dark Heresy or Rogue Trader. On the other hand, the setting could offer a lot of opportunities the other games struggle to offer ***cough*** vehicle rules ***cough***

As part of the build up, FFG have put up Eleventh Hour, a starter adventure, here. It looks a fairly by the numbers affair, and I can't really find any signs of what makes Only War unique, but there are a few nice touches in there. Regardless, it goes without saying that I'll pick up the full book on release, Amazon are already offering it at a decent discount!

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!)