BrookM wrote:
Imperial Navy is handled nicely with Battlefleet Koronus. The Rogue Trader games I'm in we all are Navy crew, which didn't take a whole lot of changing and adapting to get going really.

FFG wrote:A Thunderous Approach
A Preview of Only War by Contributing Writer Matthew Eustace



Only War is coming next week! In this standalone Warhammer 40,000 roleplaying game, players take on the roles of soldiers in the Imperial Guard, the galaxy-spanning armies of the God-Emperor. Today, we return to a series of previews examining the Only War play experience.

Over the course of our past three previews, we’ve seen a glimpse into the game’s war-torn setting, a look at Regiments and their importance to the game, and an overview of character Specialties. Only War is unique among Warhammer 40,000 titles, however, in that it includes rules for vehicles as part of the core rulebook. For more on that, here’s contributing writer Matthew Eustace.

Terrifying Machines of War

Across the Emperor’s galaxy there is simply nothing like the tanks of the Imperial Guard. Ancient designs named after some of the greatest figures of Imperial lore – Russ, Malcador, Macharius – these fighting machines are loud, slow, horribly inefficient, and outclassed by almost every xenos race out there. And I wouldn’t have it any other way!



The Leman Russ is one of the best symbols of not just the Guard, but the Imperium as a whole; a bristling array of guns and dense armour plating, chugging along the battlefield in a ponderous yet implacable manner whilst blasting great holes in the enemy lines. What Guardsman wouldn’t want that kind of power, and who wouldn’t want to be the crew leading the spearhead in such a vehicle? This is why the vehicle rules are so important to Only War, and why I wanted to make sure they covered as much ground as possible from when the players first roll into battle, to when they’re scrambling to salvage the last remaining boxes of ammo from the smoking hulk of the vehicle they just lost!

The vehicle rules written for Rogue Trader and Deathwatch were a fantastic base to work from, but those rules are not central to their respective games. Vehicles, on the other hand, are intrinsic to the Guard – the armies of Mankind could not exist without their tanks and their transports – and thus they needed to be front and centre for players, and give them enough detail to play entire armoured campaigns as members of a storied and valiant Imperial Armoured Regiment. On top of that the enemies of the Emperor also have their own armoured fighting machines with unique characteristics such as the nimble nature of Dark Eldar skimmers, or the haphazard manufacture of Ork trukks. This led to the creation of the new vehicle traits, a simple system that any GM or player can use to easily determine not just the rules but also the feel of the vehicles they are either driving or fighting.


All Aboard

Another challenge that came up was the prospect of players playing as the entire crew of a single vehicle, and how their roles would be spread out. Not everyone can fire the big gun, but luckily main-line Imperial tanks have high crew-counts and everyone within a tank has a role to play. It is easy to imagine a group of players where their Commissar commands the tank and their hotshot Operator keeps them out of danger with his driving skills. Where their best Heavy Gunner shepherds the main turret and keeps it on track whilst a plucky Ratling pokes out the top-hatch dispatching anyone who gets to close and their Tech-Priest does his best to keep the tank running. Specific rules for weapon mountings and fire arcs along with various crew positions should help guide the GM and his players to get the most use (and the most fun) from their angry rumbling machines. These positions also tie into the Comrade mechanic, where the less illustrious jobs (such as a tank’s loader) can still be filled without forcing a player to spend all his time reloading a Battle Cannon, allowing him to get back to his real job – defeating the enemies of the God-Emperor!



The largest development of the vehicle rules though was not in how players might use vehicles, but how players destroy them! The violent and explosive critical charts that everyone loves from the general combat rules were expanded greatly to cover multiple damage locations (hull, turrets, tracks, grav-engines, and so on) as well as distinct damage conditions that mirror the various critical effects a character or NPC might suffer. And just like the combat rules contain the details for healing grievous injuries so to do the vehicle rules contain an extensive options that allow players to repair their vehicles. This last aspect was of paramount importance, as technology within the Imperium is a completely mystery to most. I specifically didn’t want to burden every group into requiring a Tech-Priest for even the most basic repairs, so a skilled vehicle crew can replace hull plating and the odd weapon whilst the more difficult and extensive types repairs are reserved for the red-robed Priests of Mars. This speeds things up for the GM, and allows the players to get right back into the thick of fighting, playing the characters they want to play, rather than the characters they need to play.

Finally there was the question of what vehicles to include within the Only War core rulebook. The Imperium is vast and there are dozens of different vehicles types, from the tiny Cyclops Demolitions Vehicle to the moving fortress that is the Crassus Armoured Assault Transport. How could you include the Leman Russ, but not Demolisher? What about the Tauros Assault Vehicle or something fun but obscure like the Dominus Armoured Siege Bombard? In the end the choices were paired down to the most iconic and the most prevalent within the Imperial Guard, but still with enough diversity – main battle tanks, transports, artillery, and so on – to allow GMs and players to act out various aspects of armoured warfare in the 41st Millennium. And then there’s the Baneblade. We couldn’t leave out the Baneblade: a tank so big that even the player using the Ogryn might find a place to sit!



Only War’s vehicle rules provide a different kind of roleplaying experience, and are a great compliment to the standard rules for foot-bound infantry. If your group wants to race across a dust-choked plain in their Sentinels as they outflank an enemy Defiler, or find themselves desperately winding the cannon down on their Basilisk to fire directly at a fast-approaching Ork Battlewagon, then these rules cover that. The mighty beasts of steel and fire have given us some of the most evocative images of all of 40K, and I can’t wait to see crews diving into the armoured warfare that Only War is sure to bring to players everywhere.

Thanks, Matthew! Are you ready to take the controls? Look for Only War in stores next week.

 Kanluwen wrote:
I like that Inquisitor, HBMC.

 PrimarchX wrote:

And a book dedicated to knitting DH, RT, DW, BC and OW someday would also be cool (along with the long-awaited conversion of DH psyker system to the others' standard). But I digress.

 PrimarchX wrote:
However the fluff presented on the IG is absolutely first rate. Everything from how a tithe works, what happens to battleworn regiments and the whole gamut of how the IG works with itself & other elements of the Imperium are well covered. Info on the Spinward Front is first rate, too. Well detailed in both genesis, current status and even working them into timelines presented by other FFG supplements' events. The villains chosen are quite appropriate for IG - renegades, Orks and Dark Eldar. Each can present a different aspect of war in 40k - sieges and wars of attrition against a like force, standing against waves of xenos and dealing with a devious, hard to predict foe.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
They're giving you crap. FFG don't make softbacks for the 40K RPG line. They never have. Only BI did soft-backs and it was on a total of 3 books in the Dark Heresy line (the first three after the DH core rule book).

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
They're giving you crap. FFG don't make softbacks for the 40K RPG line. They never have. Only BI did soft-backs and it was on a total of 3 books in the Dark Heresy line (the first three after the DH core rule book).

Yeah, I offered to set up a three way call between FFG and them but they declined. My second call when they lied about not billing my credit card for the purchase of the book at the new, higher, price seems to have gotten the situation resolved. I think. Is it wrong to have to threaten to call one's lawyer to get a simple pre-order guarantee honored?


All I can say is they REALLY didn't want to give me that book for free. Despite that pre-order price guarantee + promotions = $0 for Only War.

 lords2001 wrote:

$0? How so?

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Amazon is giving me gak and trying to refuse my preorder guarantee. All the copies of Only War are all hardback, right? Because they're trying to tell me that they don't have any hardbacks in stock, but they have copies of the book in stock.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

Did you preorder the Only War Core Rule Book or Dark Heresy Only War?

Amazon had a listing for a while for OW as a Dark heresy supplement before relisting it as a stand alone game with a new ISBN and price.

If you preordered the DH version you have to place a new order for the core rules.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Were you the one I was arguing with there?

My thought was if books have different names, ISBNs and page counts then, no they're not the same book.

But really it's FFG's own fault they keep listing books on Amazon when they're no where near ready. Only War was only the worst example.

FFG wrote:Gear Up as a Guardsman of the Imperial Guard
Only War and its Game Master's Kit Are Now on Sale



Only War and the Only War Game Master’s Kit are now on sale at your local retailer and our webstore! Only War is a standalone Warhammer 40,000 roleplaying game that puts players in the boots of a Guardsman, a member of the innumerable masses of the Imperial Guard. While Only War is fully compatible with FFG’s other Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay titles, Only War explores the role of these front-line soldiers in depth.


Prepare to do Your Duty

Guardsmen may be conscripted into service, or they may volunteer to do what they feel is their sacred duty to the God-Emperor. Whatever the reason for a Guardsman’s service, he will often fight against overwhelming numbers of xenos, heretics, mutants and the forces of the Ruinous Powers.

Throughout the course of their service, Guardsmen may fight on a thousand nameless worlds, often outnumbered and outgunned by their enemies, and in some of the worst conditions that history has ever known. And yet, despite immense opposition (or perhaps because of it), these fearless soldiers are bound to each other by a code of brotherhood and honour. They are the thin line that protects the Imperium from complete and utter destruction. They are the Imperial Guard.



Twelve unique Specialties let players choose which skills they bring to bear in the battles to secure Mankind’s place in the vast and hostile universe. These Specialties are broken up into two groups, those of the Guardsmen and the Support Specialists. Pick a Speciality and take up arms as a vital member of the fighting force that defends the Imperium of Man.

The Guardsmen in Only War are plunged into the constant conflict of the Spinward Front. The Spinward Front is suffering from a lack of troops in the face of two particularly powerful threats to the Imperium of Man. Millions of humans have been enslaved by the Ork Warlord Genghiz Git-slaver, and he is now working to set up a new Ork stellar empire. Clearly, he must be stopped before he gains a firmer foothold in the region.

At the same time, the forces of the Severan Dominate have seceded from the Imperium and are trying to establish their own dominance in this region. The Severan Dominate is led by the embittered Severus the Thirteenth, a man whose family has nurtured a hatred of the Imperium for generations, and has used the Ork invasion as a convenient smokescreen for cutting ties with the Imperium.

As Imperial Guardsmen, players may be called upon to ambush enemy convoys, pilot giant war machines into battle, or drop from Valkyrie gunships into the twisted hive-spires of the enemies of Mankind. Perhaps you’ll be sent to infiltrate an Ork base in order to rescue a captured spy who possesses vital information on the Severan Dominate, or you may be tasked with assassinating a powerful heretic leader.

The soldiers thrust into the unrest of the region must mitigate the intrigues of their superiors and work to gain whatever support they can in fending off the Ork horde and foiling the traitorous forces of the Severan Dominate.


Orchestrate the Epic Struggle

Bring the battle to these brave troops of the Imperium with The Game Master’s Kit. The Game Master’s Kit features a sturdy Game Master’s screen, which displays eye-catching Only War art on one side and a wealth of convenient references on the other. In addition, The Game Master’s Kit includes a 32-page, full-color booklet with a complete adventure, a selection of useful NPCs, and helpful advice for GMs about managing comrades and more.



In the included adventure, “Old Soldiers,” a group of squadmates are sent to the feral and war-torn world of Virbius. A base of operations in an ongoing struggle against the Severan Dominate, Virbius is an Emperor-forsaken rock inhabited by tribal, combat-bike riding nomads. On a mission deep behind enemy lines, the player characters will learn a disturbing truth about the Imperium’s foes. Then, they’ll have to use all the cunning, ingenuity, and determination they can muster to return to Imperial lines with their lives, and with vital information about Virbius’s true dangers.

Only War and the Only War Game Master’s Kit are both on sale now, so head to your local retailer today to start your career as a Guardsman of the Imperial Guard!