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Welcome one, welcome all – this is the first report of Act I of our grand Dark Heresy campaign. It is my hope that this campaign will keep the interest of its players long enough to see it to its epic conclusion (or I’ll just kill the players and replace them with clones, either way, I win!).

We’re all still new to Dark Heresy, me with 3 games under my belt GM’ing, and the others with either one or two games played each. That said, I had grand plans for my first campaign, and thusly wrote a bunch of prologue missions that tie into the main plot and introduce the characters – this was done simply so that we could learn the rules without ‘wasting’ my ideas for the campaign.

I titled the campaign ‘The Enemy Within’, for reasons that will become apparent to the players in Act III (there are 5 Acts). The prologues were:

Seeds of Destruction – A valiant tale of two star-crossed lovers, the noble daughter Desmona, and the lowly ganger Rake, as the pair, having fallen madly in love, make their way to the local Precinct House to pay off their guild price (they became outlaws!) and live as free citizens on the Hiveworld of Swanstrom. Their journey was interrupted by a dying woman named Alosha, who had vital information about vile experiments in Hab-Level B – information that had to be given to the Arbites! As armed men and women caught up with Alosha, Desmona and Rake ran for their lives, taking the data-slate with them. They fought off numerous waves of attacks before finally meeting their contact, Arbite Proctor Richards, at an old abandoned Precinct Bastion. After more attackers were silenced with endless use of Frag and Krak Grenades, it seemed as though they were about to escape when… something hideous emerged from the darkness and eviscerated Proctor Richards. The creature was blindingly fast, but a lucky Krak Grenade felled it. Desmona had little time to celebrate her victory, as another creature ran at her too fast for her to react, and in seconds she was a bloody mess in the floor. Dumb-struck by the death of his beloved Desmona, Rake could do nothing as the creature approached him. But he did not die – no, the creature had other plans for Rake…

This was our first game, and it was me GM’ing with one person playing both the Assassin (Desmona) and Scum (Rake). It went quite well, although we made heaps of mistakes. I learnt a little about encounter balance (the bad guys were way too easy), and my friend learnt a little about rail-roading.

Opening Moves – The twisted tale of a corrupt Arbite’s Precinct, a falsely imprisoned noble, a new Inquisitorial recruit, a hidden Daemonhost, and an Inquisitor who knows too much! The details of this simply amazing adventure can be found here, but suffice it to say this mission was filled with dangers and hilarity as an Assassin, an Arbite and a Psyker held off a Bastion of corrupted Arbites and even felled an emergent Daemonhost!!!

This game was awesome. Pure and simple.

A Chance Encounter – On the remote trading world of Nesol, a Priest and a Guardsman have been waiting. They’ve been waiting for a transport. But not just any transport, a transport that will take them to Seventh Sanctum, the mysterious Ordo Malleus stronghold to which they have been summoned. But not all is well on Nesol. Being a minor trading post it is lightly defended, and because it is lightly defended it is easy pickings for pirate scum. In fact, on this day, the leader of the pirates has come to claim some secret cargo, and it happens to be at the small out-of-the-way spaceport the Priest and Guardsman are at. The pirates, with the Blood Axe Ork allies, attack the spaceport, forcing the pair to act against them. During the battle they meet a disgruntled Tech-Priest, and the trio join forces to fight off the pirate attack. They kill the leader, slay the pirates, and very nearly die to the Kommando Kaptin and his Power Klaw, but somehow survive to fight another day. They find out that the secret cargo was nothing but a ruse – a ruse left by their new master, Inquisitor Dyne, for the sole purpose of luring the pirates to the planet so that he might test his new Acolytes.

This game didn’t go so well. I learnt more about encounter balance (the Orks were WAY too tough for these guys to fight), and generally there was less cohesion in the structure. Plus there were some personality clashes with the players, and a lot of talking over one another and not playing in character.



But with those prologue games out of the way everyone had been introduced to the world (and rules) of Dark Heresy, so now we could start playing the campaign proper! I organised it for two weekends ago and a week prior was informed by one player that he’d be in Fiji.

FETH!

So I hastily reorganised it and everything worked out well – it would be the following weekend.

PHEW!

I decided that the best way to start the campaign proper was to adapt an already published scenario. I chose Shattered Hope not because it’s a good mission (it’s a dungeon crawl with a lousy ending) but because it is the basic introductory mission. I modified it to suit the needs of the plot I had created (like replacing the ending with something utterly different and more connected to the overall story), and expanded upon a number of areas, especially the Guard encampment at the start of the scenario.



But before I describe what’s going to happen, who are these intrepid (and doomed) Acolytes that serve at the whim of Lord Inquisitor Quintus Dyne? They are as follows:

Arbite Mason Roth – Born in Kiandra, an Imperial World rife with gang warfare, Roth wanted to rise to the top of the heap and become a respected Gang Lord. Things didn’t go to plan, and soon Roth saw the error of his ways and joined the local Precinct House for training. He did well, became fiercely loyal to the Imperium and to Imperial Law, and became a respected and competent Arbite. Sadly for him, he found corruption everywhere, and after exposing several members of his own unit as corrupt, he became a pariah to everyone. He was still a fantastic Arbite, but everyone saw him as a traitor, despite uncovering the truth about corrupt activities. However he soon came to the attention of the Inquisition, specifically Inquisitor Dyne, and was transferred off Kiandra to the Hive World of Symposa, where he conducted his first mission – breaking a noble out of the prison of a corrupted Arbite unit (the Opening Moves scenario).

Lord Sigmund Castus – Lord Castus, his full name being Lord Baron Sigmund Hoyt Amos Castus XIII, eighteenth in line for the throne of Havenspire. His father knew he was a Psyker from an early age, and used Castus’ natural mind-reading talents in negotiations and diplomatic settings. Castus always held a firm belief that he would rise up to be a high-ranking member of the aristocratic elite within the Aquila Sector, but sadly his ambition was not matched by his station – as the eighteenth in line for the throne, he was unlikely to ever be the ruler of anything. However, after being taken by the Black Ships, his natural skill and especially his natural control over his abilities saved him from the menial life as a Sanctioned Psyker and saw him transferred to the College of Light, a Scholastica Psykana training ground. There his arrogant nature annoyed just about everyone, but none could deny his power. He soon came to the attention of the Inquisition, and an Inquisitor by the name of Sebastian Lanzo. Lanzo recruited the young psyker, yet on the way back to Seventh Sanctum disaster struck as a docking collar exploded. Lanzo was sucked out into space, and virtually everyone on board was killed. Risking madness, death – or worse – Castus looked into the mind of the ship’s dying Navigator, looked into the Warp, and found the location of Seventh Sanctum. He then piloted the ship himself back to the Inquisitorial fortress, and was noticed by Inquisitor Dyne, who immediately recruited him. Sent on his first mission to Symposa, Castus was quickly captured by the local Arbites on trumped up charges. He was rescued by Roth and an Assassin named Syara Xan, but the truth was Dyne had purposefully sent Castus there to be arrested, as Castus’ great psychic power would help draw out a Daemonhost that Inquisitor Lanzo had hidden on the planet. The plan worked, and the Daemonhost was revealed. And it turns out that Dyne had been the one to cause the explosion aboard Lanzo’s ship – killing the heretical radical Inquisitor but saving the promising young psyker.

Deacon Vasco Moriendi – A low-level Preacher, Moriendi wanted to join the Imperial Guard and minister to the troops as he lead them into battle. The reality of it was far worse, as he was assigned not at the company command level, but to the platoon and squad level, fighting on the front lines and living every day like it was his last. As part of the 600-year war against the vicious alien Kyaire in the Spiral Worlds, Moriendi saw his fare share of horror and death, and knew end would come one day on the hellish world of Zatrall. However, that did not come to pass, as the Orks got wind of this endless war and decided to join in. In a single day, a lucky surprise attack killed every single member of the Adeptus Ministorum on the planet, who had gathered to discuss the failing morale of the Guard – all except for Moriendi, who was too far out at the front lines to get the message to return. Injured during the Ork ambush, Moriendi’s life was saved by the only surviving Guardsman of his platoon, and the pair hid from the Ork patrols and the Kyaire Blade-Packs for several days until they were rescued. As the only priest on the planet, Moriendi was given the ceremonial title of ‘Deacon’, and asked to be the chief pastor for the Imperial High Command on the planet. He took the Guardsman with him as his personal bodyguard, and for years the two became a fixture of the High Command on Zatrall. Through this Moriendi came to the attention of Inquisitor Dyne, and he ordered the preacher to make his way to Nesol, where he would be collected by his own agents. Moriendi again brought the Guardsman with him, and it is a good thing he did, as the spaceport on Nesol was attacked days later by pirates and Orks. After this small battle, the pair left Nesol for Seventh Sanctum, where they await their first new mission.

Corporal (now Sergeant) Yanick Johansson – A young ganger conscripted early into the Chertan 23rd, Johansson never wanted to be in the Guard. He hated it, and wanted nothing more than to escape. Posted to an ever-lasting war against Ork raiders, Johansson soon found that if he kept killing Orks, his fear of dying and need to run away subsided. He was eventually promoted to his squads Meltagunner, and loved nothing more than burning and melting away the Greenskins as other conscripts cowered around him. Soon he was moved to another theatre of war, this time the world of Zatrall, deep within the Spiral Worlds where the war with the Kyaire had lasted for 600 years. An annoying low-level preacher was assigned to their platoon, but Johansson ignored the man mostly – he just wanted to kill as many xenos as he could! Fate smiled upon Johansson when he became the only member of his platoon to survive an Ork ambush – all except for the preacher that is – who was wounded and needed assistance. Johansson didn’t save the preacher out of charity, duty or loyalty, but more because a fleeing Guardsman would always be executed, but a fleeing Guardsman helping a wounded priest back to the rear lines was likely to be rewarded. And rewarded he was, taken by the preacher as his personal bodyguard at Zatrall’s Imperial High Command. Johansson received no invitation to join the Inquisition, rather he simply ‘came along for the ride’ as the preacher simply refused to let his saviour from his side. So Johansson came with the preacher to Nesol, fought the pirates and the Orks, and is now an unwitting and unwanted member of the preacher’s team of Acolytes.

Tech-Adept Arturo Dey’towa – With a name that sounds suspiciously similar to a fictional robot from an ancient Terran entertainment movie, Tech-Adept Arturo was a Tech-Priest serving aboard the fabled Flotilla 9, a Forge Fleet that criss-crossed its way over the Aquila Sector bringing items, trading for things, making new things and so on. Arturo served as a regular yet promising Tech-Priest for many years until a mighty Space Hulk, the ‘Woebringer’ suddenly appeared before the fleet. Unable to destroy it and unable to escape, the Flotilla 9 was annihilated, but not before Arturo managed to escape, taking just over thirty survivors with him. However, Arturo had left several SCT’s aboard the fleet when it had been destroyed, and had chosen to save people rather than these holy mechanical creations, and thus the Tech-Priests of Minara Prime banished him to the menial task of a minor spaceport worker at a minor port on the minor world of Nesol. Years passed, and Arturo grew resentful of his posting and his demotion, but he knew he could do little about it – he was but a small cog in a very big machine. However, while the Adeptus Mechanicus saw little worth salvaging in Arturo, the same could not be said of the Inquisition. One of Inquisitor Dyne’s chief recruiters had been aboard Flotilla 9 looking for exceptional individuals, and had identified Arturo not long before the Forge Fleet had been destroyed. Even better, the recruiter had been one of the 30 souls Arturo had saved that day. Inquisitor Dyne had lost track of Arturo after the Tech-Priest’s demotion, but had finally managed to find him several years later on Nesol. After the pirate attack on the space port in which Arturo played a starring role in defeating, Arturo was asked to board the Inquisitorial transport alongside the Preacher and the Guardsman, much to their surprise. And now he sits, awaiting his new master’s first assignment.

Ok, so those are the players in this story.

Coming up next, The Hidden Enemy: Act I – Shattered Hope…

Excellent intro, Mr. Calgar.

I'm looking forwards to see how this goes. I sorta kinda have plans to do something similar based on a Rogue Trader campaign, once I find a few players and get some GM practice in with another system (probably D&D3.5 DragonLance) to get my hand in.

Also, is the campaign called The Hidden Enemy or The Enemy Within? The latter has a certain old school charm thanks to good ol' WFRP 1st Edition.

It's the Hidden Enemy, but you're right - Enemy Within does sounds more old school and cooler. I'll change it.

Act 1 – Shattered Hope

Before launching into report, the other thing to point out is that I don’t use the Callixis Sector as the setting. Rather I came up with my own sector of space, populated it with planets and, yes, even what types of planets they all are and even some basic histories for a number of them. A number of the planet names and histories stretch back to 2004, as we’ve been running a number of events several times a year since then, and they almost always had a background or general story to go along, that I wove into a narrative. This gave me heaps of fodder for planet names and story telling. And then luck (and the Hubble Space Telescope) came along and delivered me the wonderful angel wing nebula to me, and firing up my trust copy of Photoshop (and by Photoshop I mean MS Paint), I created this:


Zoomable version here!!!

Behold – the Aquila Sector!

You have no idea how hard that was to make in MS Paint. I even put a little Easter Egg in there - just inside the Segmentum Tempestus is 'Volistad', the planet from Final Liberation, if anyone remembers that game.

Anyway, with my own sector to play with (rather than playing in someone else’s sandpit), I had to first make Shattered Hope fit with my storyline and planets. That was easy, and so we head down to the lower part of the sector, the Sumitra-Sub Sector to be exact, to the small mining planet of Tibus. And this is where our story truly begins…

Alpha-Charlie Seven
Outskirts of Vale City
Tibus, Sumitra Sub-Sector, Aquila Sector
1350 Hrs

With a strong hiss the small shuttle’s rear hatch opened downwards and formed a ramp to the uneven and muddy ground. Slowly the small party of six walked into the dim and cold landscape. Before them lay the city of Vale, a twisted nightmare of pitch-black spires, gantries, smokestacks and other machinery. Eight million souls lived there in abject poverty, toiling under the ash-grey skies to meet the Imperial tithes. In the distance they could see the mountains capped with year-round snow, and riddled with the caves and mines that made the world so valuable.

Without a word said between them, the group marched down the ramp and to the ground of Tibus. Sticky and wet, the ground beneath their feet was similar to the air they were breathing – heavy, oppressive, and with a hint of metal that stung the backs of their throats.

The Arbite, clad in his blackened armour, clutched his shotgun tightly, always on the lookout for trouble and heresy. The Psyker, his eyes wide with disgust, wondered how he could move around without dirtying his beautiful robes. The Guardsman, his weapon shouldered, looked unimpressed and almost apathetic. The Tech-Priest, a gangly Servitor beside him, seemed to take in the vista with equal parts revulsion and interest, the claw of his servo-arm snapping involuntarily every now and again. And finally the Preacher, who stood a good metre ahead of the group, hands clasped together – his face was a mask of equal parts pride and worry.

It was their first mission as a team. Their first mission together. And they had a lot to live up to.

Now as I said, I modified the published Shattered Hope scenario to suit both the needs of my planned storyline and to (hopefully) make it a better mission. One area I was eagre to expand upon was that of the Guard encampment. Within that encampment really all you can do is talk to Trooper Jurtz, talk to Sergeant Raynard, talk to the Quartermaster, talk to the insane Guardsman, try (and fail) to talk to some prisoners and then get some general chitchat from the various Guardsmen before heading over to see the Commissar. A bit ‘meh’ really.

So I expanded upon it, adding a Medic looking over wounded troops and a Guard tank crew trying to fix a broken down Leman Russ Exterminator, as well as expanding the smaller items from above with more dialogue and more opportunities for actions and role-playing.

It’s also important to note that I did all of this with miniatures. I set up a Guard encampment, made wounded Guardsmen models, bought the Direct Only tank crew to be part of the crew servicing the Exterminator, set up craters, the small area where the prisoners were being held, the bunker (a Bastion without the middle bit/heavy bolters). I had groups of Guardsmen standing around – even built Guardsmen in ‘non-combat’ positions, with guns slung on shoulders or held by their handles (the Catachan sprue and Cadian/Catachan Command Squad boxes do wonders for this), and numerous crates and barrels and pallets of weapons. Even the interior of the bunker was modelled, using some tiles from FFG’s DOOM board game underneath the bunker with Antenociti's Workshop computer consoles and chairs inside to furnish it. I went to a silly amount of effort to up the ‘emersion’ factor, and I think it paid off as the players spent WAY longer in this part of the scenario than I ever thought they would (‘bout 3 hours of play). If my friend can get the pics of his camera I’ll post them – nothing with paint obviously, as I don’t paint, but still, it’s better than doing it all in their head.

Anyway, the first thing they did is work out where their skills would be most appropriate. They tried talking to Trooper Jurtz and Sergeant Raynard, but were mostly rebuffed. Eventually the Arbite did get through to Raynard and get some information from him (and my ability to talk in lots of different British accents helped here! ), but sadly Jurtz wasn’t in a talking mood (lots of failed Charm Tests, even from Johansson, whom I gave a +20 to for being a fellow Guardsman).

The Priest, Moriendi, and the Psyker, Castus, decided to head over to the Aid Station to see what information the Medic had as well as what they could do to help (if anything). Roth, the Arbite, made a line right for the Quartermaster. Arturo, the Tech-Priest wandered over towards the tank to see if he could calm the machine’s spirit, and Johansson milled around looking for things to do, talking to the odd Guardsmen here and there and trying to get the local security forces guarding the prisoners (represented by my trusty all-purpose Kasrkin models!) to open up.

Over at the Aid Station the Medic was frustrated. They were packing everything up and leaving the planet in the next few hours, but he still had wounded to stabilise and had run out of Stimm. Here the players were given a choice – help the Medic out, or lie to him about having no Stimm. Luckily they chose the good path, and received no Dark Side Force Points… sorry, that’s KOTOR. Actually they received a little boost to their experience, and I even let Johansson (who is the one who gave up his Stimm) reduce his Corruption slightly. Moriendi kept asking the Medic questions about what happened whilst Castus used his ‘Mind Scan’ to read the mind of an unconscious Guardsman. Essentially the Priest was keeping the Medic distracted whilst Castus worked his psychic ways, but did learn that the wounds on the Guardsmen were becoming infected quicker than normal and some of the Guardsmen had gunshot wounds, so someone or something was armed down there. Castus learnt from the man’s unconscious mind that the cave network they would be heading into was dangerously damaged from seismic activity, and that the creatures in there were both inhuman and were good at ambushing people. They would have to be cautious.

Meanwhile, Roth talked to the Quartermaster about getting some supplies. The players even got together and wrote a shopping list – everything from Flamer Fuel to Frag Grenades! Luckily they weren’t completely stupid and did put some other useful things on their list – rope, glow-lamps, etc. Calmly picking up my copy of the Munitorium Manual, I recited the exact punishment I (as the Quartermaster) would receive were I to give away supplies without proper authorisation, and then (literally) showed them the requisition form they would need to get approved by the Commissar before I could give them anything. Finally that little Black Library book comes in handy!

Over at the Exterminator, the tank’s commander (Commander Pearson) was arguing with his crew over the correct way to fix their tank. Enginseer Grissom, who had been assigned to their unit, had been seconded elsewhere before it could be repaired, so the crew wanted to just jump start the tank and fix it properly back on Andronicon (if you look back up at the Aquila Sector Map, you’ll find Andronicon in the lower right hand corner). Their Commander was a far more by-the-book type, and would hear nothing of it. Luckily for them, a Tech-Priest was wondering their way, and although the crew would only give him a small amount of time to look over the problem before they had to start packing everything away, they were willing to indulge the Tech-Priests curiosity. Arturo looked over the tank and very quickly found the problem (passed his Scrutiny Test very easily), and then went to work on the tank itself. His Omnissian Axe, Utility Mechadendrite, Tech-Use Skill and high Int made short work of that, and the tank was running again. Pearson gave him a spare vial of Sacred Machine Oil as a reward. I liked Pearson and his motley crew – Troopers Gassan, Simons and Nelson – so I’ll be writing them back into the story somewhere else down the line.

Johansson was having little luck with the Prisoners or their Guards, but Roth, fresh from his rejection over at the Quartermaster, came over to lend a helping hand (and the more intimidating voice of an Arbite) to the mix. He managed to find out that the cultists they had captured had some ‘texts’ on them, and these texts had been confiscated by the Commissar. He also talked to the Prisoners, establishing that there were two distinct groups – wretched mineworkers who, as pathetic as they were, were completely innocent of the crimes they were charged with, and Brotherhood of Malice cultists who wanted to be killed. Roth, despite having an odd fascination with Jack Bauer-esque interrogation techniques, felt for the plight of the innocent mineworkers and, unable to convince the Guards to release them (private security firm, not part of the Guard unit, under direct orders from the Planetary Governor), decided to ask the Commissar himself to intervene. He at least wanted to get them a trial, rather than just a las-blast to the back of the head.

They continued to ask questions around the camp, reaffirmed that the creatures down there were good at ambushing people, and that the creatures killed Guardsman and Cultist alike, so were unlikely to be part of the cult.

Finally, Castus and Moriendi headed over to Corporal Schmed, the insane Guardsmen tied to some barrels. Being a Priest, Moriendi found it easier to calm the young man (bonuses for the Priest in calming him, negatives if the Tech-Priest had tried), but only got the following out of him:

“I saw him walk among them – the red robed demon! He shrunk away into the darkness… and all fell to ruin! You’re all going die!”

Castus tried mind-scanning him, caused a Psychic Phenomena that luckily only killed the nearby plants (and there weren’t any, so really it did nothing) and saw only a room bathed in red gore along with a muddled mess of horrific mutant faces, dying guardsman, grey rocks, darkness, and the slight glimpse of fluttering red fabric. He them subsequently failed his Willpower Check and absorbed some of the Guardsman’s insanity! YAY!

With that done with they organised to meet with the Commissar, their actual objective in this part of the scenario. Before the scenario began, I had given each player a letter written from the perspective of their master, Inquisitor Dyne. Each letter had been personalised for each character, essentially outlining the hopes the Inquisitor had for each character. Each letter also explained the general situation on Tibus, the history of the Brotherhood of Malice (or what the Inquisition knew so far), as well as whom their contact was – Commissar Hector Nihilus. The letter to Moriendi also gave him nominal command of the mission and that Commissar Nihilus was expecting him specifically. From that Moriendi decided he’d go in there with Castus and no one else. Everyone else would stay outside, although Moriendi would leave his micro-bead on so that the other three could listen through Johansson’s own micro-bead, and relay any questions to him. It’s a good thing they did as well, as when Johansson talked to one of the two Guardsmen guarding the bunker door (using the Ltd. Ed. ‘At Ease’ Cadian models – yup, even found a use for them! ) he found out that the Commissar had no love for members of the Adeptus Mechanicus, so it was good that Arturo and his pet Servitor (Pug, the only surviving Servitor from his Prologue Mission – armed with a Melta-Cutter and a faulty interface that made him harder (-10) to control and order about) stayed outside.

So the Commissar talked for a while, explaining what had happened and his frustrations, and then entertained a few questions. The most burning question on their minds was – ‘What happened to the texts you confiscated and what were they?’. The Commissar answered that he had looked over them, deemed them heretical, and had them burnt. Unhappy with this answer they pressed the point, but eventually decided that the Commissar wasn’t lying. A few more simply questions later the Commissar dismissed them, but not before filling out a requisition form for them. Roth hungrily took the form to the nearly-packed Quartermaster, and he filled out the order – some canteens, some rations, some good plasteel fire-cord rope, some glow lamps and even 5 Frag Grenades for Johansson.

And with everything at the encampment done with, they headed off to the Shatters!

Coming soon:

The Shatters - And the tale of the door that would not open!

*lighting crashes in the background*





I got some pictures! YAY!

Guard Encampment:



The Bunker:


The Tank:


Preview of The Shatters (using over four different D&D tile sets, GW Arcane Ruins, Space Hulk 3rd Ed Doors, DOOM Doors, Warhammer Quest Doors, and consoles and fuel tanks from Antenociti's Workshop):

Wow, you have really outdone yourself this time. I only had time to glance at the pics, I'll have to come back and read the whole post later. That's a lot of material to pack in!

I love your idea of doctoring a Hubble picture to create your own galactic sector. I have a very clear idea on how my new BFG campaign map's going to be created.

I'm a little surprised about the sheer number of miniatures and scenery you choose to use though. I rarely bust out minis in RPG's unless it's an extremely complicated combat situation. It's a big reason I don't play D&D 4th, the miniature dependency. I'm hoping I can get buy with the old stand-bys of graph paper, pencils and imagination. As well as the occasional in-universe style hand out similar to how you used the Munitorum Manual here.

This sounds like a cool campaign idea, and I may well gank some of it at some point to run myself.

I'm also enjoying what looks like the inevitable slide to madness and death from your Psyker player.

chaplaingrabthar wrote:I'm a little surprised about the sheer number of miniatures and scenery you choose to use though. I rarely bust out minis in RPG's unless it's an extremely complicated combat situation.

That's because we started as 40K players, so WYSIWYG is as natural as breathing to us. Plus HBMC is somewhat insane on such matters, but he has good company.....

Speaking of WYSIWYG, I have that problem when trying to come up with minis for the character models. I want to have a separate model for each action a model may be taking or weapon it may be wielding... and that just plain isn't working out! Darn OCD.

Well I've just got a model for each character:

Roth: Arbite w/Plasma Pistol & Shock Maul

Castus: Primaris Psyker (current)

Moriendi: Converted WFB Flagellant w/Chainsword, Hand Flamer and a backpack from the Catachan Command Sprue.

Arturo: Ltd. Ed. Adeptus Mechanicus Tech Priest (Skullz Set).

Johansson: Converted Cadian w/Sniper Rifle from the Scout Sniper set, metal shotgun from the Necromunda Orlock sprue, and lots of bits from the Cadian Command Section sprue.

Great reports! Moar pleez!

while the IG plater in me misses the hardnosed, no BS general of the past, your talents have clearly not gone to waste! out-freakin'-standing! it's almost worth moving Downunder for. there's no interest in DH to the degree you are showing here at any of my FLGS. hell the guy who's running the current 40k campaign i'm in, started a Magic the Addiction league! i was so pissed. oh well. keep it coming, i'm hooked!

Can't wait for the next report. Representing whole areas of the game with 40k models isn't something I see many people put an effort into.

HBMC great job!! I just got through reading the sample adventure and was thinking of all the ways I could model the guard encampment and the shatters.

Do you have any suggestions for the Is there a model or head swap out there I could use?

GG

Well... I didn't play The Shatters exactly as written - as I said, I changed the ending and added quite a bit more to it.

For the Mutant Abominations I just used Chaos Spawn models. I edited their stats to make 'em tougher (Toughness 30 w/Unnatural Toughness X2), and some of them had armour. For the Mutants I used Scavvies and some of my Lost & The Damned models. I made the lead Mutant from the Scavvie that has Spikes and a Blunderbuss, except I made the gun a Blackhammer Shotgun ('cause it sounded cooler), and made the spikes count as armour.

And then at the end... well... you'll have to wait for the report!