Hi folks,

as we had a lot of fun in our recent W&G game playing the rulers of a developing imperial colony, I would like to over a game to tie up one of the loose ends. At the end of our game the Governor of our colony - a former Imperial Guard Colonel that rose to General and then Governor - was thrown deep down the hive into the underhive following an explosion. The event happened during a more or less succesful defense against a Chaos Incursion and the Governor survived, having been found by a couple of hive-gangers that decided to bring him up-hive to get some finders fee.

Now here we would set in. My main idea would be that potential players take over characters from an imperial rescue mission. That leaves quite some room for a diverse cast of characters, as long as they can at least rudimentary align with the imperial cause (which would fully include mercenaries or hive gangers that were just hired). As the hive is big and the Governor is believed dead, it would be a small team, maybe 5-10 strong, with NPCs to fill up depending on how many players we get. Accordingly there will be some fights, but a significant part will be finding out were the Governor might have landed and similar information gathering and maybe negotations.

Alternatively if the majority is more interested in a different angle we could play the hive gang bringing the Governor up or a third party (gangers, chaos cultists, Genestealers) in the middle trying to get the Governor for themselves or the like. IF (and only if) there are enough players we might even try several factions at once.



Now we had some good experience recently by focussing on the narrative and keeping the dice rolling and rules to the GM. So you would mostly indicate what kind of character you want, I will build something roughly in the direction and when in doubt I will role and see what comes out of it.

I have half a mind to do some Frankensteinesque RPG mixing stuff from Wrath and Glory and Only war that I liked. I would keep the simple yet fun and effective skill and general dice rolling system from W&G, but I tend to sprinkle in some of the traits and talents from Only war that - in my opinion - made playing simple guardsmen more fun as it was easier to differentiate them. Like Lasgunbarrage, -volley, -mastery, -expertise etc. to simulate a specialist with this weapon.
Something in between.

So, open for applications

I'm obviously in, let's see what becomes of Loisy!

To carry on with the theme, I'd like to play the role of a NCO of the PDF, who is really in this mindset of ethnic kinship and extrem redpect towards Loisy.

Yeah, I'll definitely gen up an Enforcer Character. Would be a custom archetype from the W&G rules so no archetype ability but I'd get some better gear

I.E. Auto pistol, shock maul and some flak armor.

I want to be a Ratskin-style scout/tracker. A mercenary resident of the underhive whose clan and family have been there since the beginning, but always on the bottom of society.

BTW Pyro: Feel free to do whatever you want story wise. To add a little extra spice, I would even suggest the possibility that other Imperial factions may not want the Governor to return safely either. Mwhahaha

Got my character sheet genned up. Pretty basic tier I character. I didn't take any talents to keep it simple.

Wargear=Autopistol, shock maul, lumen, and some lho sticks.




Background: John arrived on Boniface's Reach as a small child. His family were somewhat well off pilgrims journeying to a renowned shrine world in the sector. However the Great Rift caused their ship to become lost in the warp and eventually emerged at Boniface's Reach. Unable to pay their travel fares any longer, his parents were forced to work in a manufactorum to pay off the family debts, and his parents died while John was still a young teenager.

However his family had saved enough money to enter him into the Enforcer Academy, and he has served in the force for 15 years now.

Despite his good service record, he was passed over for promotion in favor of Kallanese descended officers. Although some of his fellow officers openly despise the governor as a blatant racist, John has mostly kept his mouth shut, though he has privately voiced his support for the Cardinal in recent days.

During the brief chaos invasion, John and his fellow officer engaged heretics at their post in the underhive, but were fortunate enough not to have to fight heretic astartes or demons, and so his precinct emerged from the conflict relatively intact.

Nice,

I will need a bit to set something up, but we will start somewhere next week.

@ all: I won't be a stickler for equipment rarity if it goes against having fun. If you would enjoy trying out some form of weapon, equipment or augmetics, feel free to say what you want. So stuff like a sister with a heavy Flamer, a Techpriest with a battleservitor or the like is OK with me

Nice!

My guy would probably not have got a special ability to end the world but aside from standard issue PDF equipment, I wouldn't mind if he had got a little something to reflect his determination to the cause.

For the Name, I'll go with Brigadier Gaston.

Gaston is a young soldier of the PDF, who was born of a PDF soldier's family of Kallenese descend that reverred the Governor and commander in chief of the militia Loisy. His grand father had come from Kallen itself, and the family had stuck to upholding the language and traditions of Kallen. The mixe of enthusiasm, dedication, and kallenese kinship made Gaston very much at ease in the PDF. He actually wasn't cought in the maelstrom of the war yet, as he garrisoned a small orbital bosster relay that didn't get attacked, and he is quite green. When he heard that Loisy was reported missing and possibly in the underhive, he volunteered to join the team that would try to find him, and due to the trust in hm holding his mouth, he was selected.

So, recruit Gaston, with all his determination to find his respected leader, is about to run headlong into his first engagement in a quest that should let us see of what mettle he truly is made of...

Very Nice:

Here is some info on the character type and starting gear: Though Pyro said he is cool with changing starting gear just let him know.

Imperial Guard Character (PDF would fit here).

ARCHETYPE ABILITY: Look Out, Sir!

You have been drilled in sacrificing yourself to save your allies.
Once per combat, you may take a Reflexive Action to move
up to half your Speed to get in the way of any attack that hit
an ally. The attacker then rolls against your Resilience instead
of your ally’s, and may deal Wounds to you. Your Resilience
increases by +Rank for the purpose of calculating this damage.

WARGEAR: Flak Armour, Lasgun, Knife, Munitorum issue
mess kit, Grooming kit, A copy of the Imperial Infantryman’s
Uplifting Primer, 3 ration packs

Scum/Hive Ganger


ARCHETYPE ABILITY: Scrounger

Your life with less has made you adept at finding spares and
supplies in the most unlikely of places. You gain +Rank bonus
dice to Cunning (Fel) Tests. Once per session you may make
an Influence or Cunning Test to acquire an item, representing
something you have prepared in advance.

WARGEAR: A Knife or a Sword, Bedroll, Canteen, Gang
colours, any one of the following: a Laspistol or an Autopistol
or a Hand Cannon or a Stubber

Cold Eye didn't have no other name. That was the name she had been called by her tribe for as long as she knew. Somefin' about her pale blue eyes had marked her the name.

She had learnt how to peg and split a Sumpgank when she was a yoot. Like all her kind, she wore the scaled, mottled, skin of the Sumpganks as a sign of becoming a warrior of the tribe.

Her tribe had been flushed out of the Underhive by the Up-hivers. Something about grabbing peeps for star-walking? She had no idea what star-walking was. There was always rocks and 'crete over her nog.
Scattering, she had to fend for herself. She knew the ways of the Darksump better than most. Plus, her time hunting down Sumpganks and Longlimbs made her a skilled tracker. She managed to live in the wild, but found life in the Holes a bit easier from tick to tock.

Of course, the gangers and guilders upsump found her abilities at tracking useful. It wasn't long until she had sumfin' nice with the area Tin Stars. She had managed to get a Marker and make some script with her skills. Now, she was looking for a big enough score to let her cut out a piece of the Darksump and start gathering her tribe back together, safe from the Up-hivers.

Governor Loisy? Never got a ear on him before? How much of a bounty? Well, now she got a bad case of the cares.

Cold Eye - Ganger
Instead of scrounging, can I take something related to Tracking?

Also, for gear I imagine a knife, bedroll, canteen, Lizardskin cloak, and some sort of kit-bashed, sturdy, underhive shotgun with scatter or slug.



Thoughts?

You get the archetype ability automatically.

You could also get a talent if you want.

Here is a suggested talent for the archetype.

Hive Explorer
XP Cost: 20

Requirements: IMPERIUM Keyword
Effect: You are experienced at navigating the urban
environments of the Imperium.

You gain +Rank bonus dice to any Stealth (A)
or Survival (Wil) Tests when moving through urban
environments.

The rules definitely supports having a basic shotgun. Makes sense!

That quote from these old nonsensical videos come to mind: give me a glass of amasec and a shotgun please.

That was a good time, heck!

@ Easy E: should not be much of a problem. I would propose we modify Scrounging by replacing the bonus on Cunning (Fel) to tracking tests. And instead of a once per session ability to aquire an item you need we could say once per session you can reroll a failed tracking test and take the better result

 Pyroalchi wrote:
@ Easy E: should not be much of a problem. I would propose we modify Scrounging by replacing the bonus on Cunning (Fel) to tracking tests. And instead of a once per session ability to aquire an item you need we could say once per session you can reroll a failed tracking test and take the better result

Cool. I am on-board.

Feel free to write in your characters and add some flavour to the scene. You can add NPCs to your liking, I just reserve the right to let them do things too, if it helps the story.

Regarding regions: I imagine the hive being a good 5 miles high above the ground and a good 2 miles deep underground. The top 3 miles would be uphive, the 2 miles above ground underhive, the lowest 2 miles the sump.

Let's get that ball rolling!

Should I wait for you to interact a bit with each other?

Yeah, probably makes sense to wait for Easy to answer my question LOL.

I say give him at least 1 more day before we just keep it moving

Gaston's not moving yet unless something happens, he's taken a step back and prefers to look from some distance for now...

Named my price.

Edit: Best thing about my character? I can type like garbage and mis-key and typo all over the place and it still fits with her pattern of language.

So, my first time managing a fight in W&G.

For some context: we go back and forth with initiative, which means who of you posts first, goes first, then one of mine, etc.
I would say you as a group have one Glory point, that you can use for something special, like seizing initiative, so that two of you can go first.

Note that I would treat your 8 accompanying buddies as a Mob of Guardsmen, so they attack together (and you can choose when in the attack order they should go).

I will use the Ork Boy datasheet for your adversaries, as that fits better.

So, what will it gonna be?

Okay, I think I get the gist

My piece of advice for anyone letting the GM do the rolls.

We each have 2 wrath points, which lets you re-roll all failed dice. But we only get them back at the end of a session.

So if an attack seems important, let the GM know you want to use WRATH.

We also get 3 reloads for our weapons. So if an attack also seems important, tell the GM you are using a salvo option.

Yes...head shots are also a thing. You can do something called a called shot. Harder to hit but more damage. Just let the GM know.

@Pyro: I know in one of the expansions they had playable ogyrn archetypes and possibly NPC rules as well, but I agree using the ork boy template was close enough.

I'll say one thing about Wrath and Glory system though. Combat for the most part goes quick.

Lucky Gaston!

Should I post now or wait until you resolve the brute?

lousy roll by the goliath, but it fit well with John hitting but not making enough damage by a hairs breadth.

As you see he is really tough. Of course, sooner or later you will bring him down conventionally by sheer volume of fire, but if any of you has a creative idea, feel free to come up with whatever. If you want propositions I can make some but I will leave it to you for now.

Right, Gaston is trying to rally his squad and get them to divert the brute in melee while the others take shots. Not the least risky tactic to be fair, but I propose we roll to see if they actually listen or remain scattered, in which case Gaston would fire alone without his buddies.

Here are your rough character sheets for reference. You can of course say if you want something different.
Gaston has the basic Guardsmen profile, as he was described as young and inexperienced. I gave him a cadian background for a little bonus on resolve, as the Kallenese seem to be rather professional. And deadeye shot which makes your called and aimed shots a bit better.

Cold Eye is a ganger, less good of a shot, but much better at awareness, survival and stealth, which should overall fit nicely.

Sorry, I'm a bit off at the moment and I don't want to half-arse this.
so I'll write tomorrow

I am traveling and out of pocket for a few days

No worries man!

We'll just pretend looking everywhere for that emperor damned underhiver

Obviously, Gaston volunteers to go down the hole, I'll try to stick as best I can to the character's weakness and yet fighting spirit.

I managed to get a post up, but it will probably be another week until I can devote more time to this. Keep going on without me.

No worries.

@Pyro: I loved that last post man. Such a spooky depiction of the underhive + choose a path time.

This is good. I'm going to take my time with my next post. Besides, we'll want Cold Eye to weigh in for sure.

Just to clarify: Rho is not a fullblown techpriest, more something in between a thrall, a Skitarii and a lowly adept. Functionally she is mainly thought to give you access to technology, as your group is a bit lacking in that department, therefore I already implied that her free will and individuality don't go very far.

The other guy, lets name him Kevin, is more... OK, let's be honest: right now he is a redshirt to sacrifice in order to highlight that a situation is really dangerous, but who knows, might be you get to like him as an NPC and something more becomes of him.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
Just to clarify: Rho is not a fullblown techpriest, more something in between a thrall, a Skitarii and a lowly adept. Functionally she is mainly thought to give you access to technology, as your group is a bit lacking in that department, therefore I already implied that her free will and individuality don't go very far.

The other guy, lets name him Kevin, is more... OK, let's be honest: right now he is a redshirt to sacrifice in order to highlight that a situation is really dangerous, but who knows, might be you get to like him as an NPC and something more becomes of him.

Sounds good. Kevin makes me think of Despicable Me movies!

I'll keep referring to her as a techpriest, to stick to Gaston not quite making any difference between mars adepts: in his eyes, their all one and the same.

BTW: I like that both John and Gaston are kind of looking toward Cold Eye for her advice.

It makes sense. We have this guide for a reason! Definitely worth waiting for Easy to post

Thanks, I have posted. I am back from travelling and the Gellar Field interference with my communications should be minimal again.

Thanks for being patient.

Sorry, got a lot on my hands currently with some birthday parties etc. therefore I'm a bit slow

No worries man!

Right, I mean it on the hearing part, so feel free to take that into account at your leisure if you can and wish, pyro!

Technically I had intended you to be on your own, so just Cold Eye, Gaston, John, Roh and Kevin.
But I would say we leave it as it is and give you 2 or three other Kallinese Troopers Marechal wrote about.

Man, this one feels really suspenseful. Just the thought that there might be a genestealer out there and none of us are space marines is absolutely terrifying!

I'm off on vacation for 3 weeks. Might be that I find time to post, might be I don't, sorry.

No worries man. I've got one week coming off soon as well.

Enjoy your vacation time all!

aye no vacation during apprenticship

Forgive my in depth review of Gaston doubting, I just like to tell what I imagine goes through my character's head.


If that doesn't slow the game too much, I'd like to know what the group of NPC soldiers thinks of this, as Gaston, being quite lost, will be greatly influenced by his brothers in arms.

It's good to see the crew up and running again!

Yes it is, great fun returns hehe!

Just that we are on the same page: if you attack loudly, there are plenty of "people" around that might want to look at what is so important that you go to war for it. Might be worth it to snatch it from you, when you are done.

As you were send on a rescue mission I assume you have been distributed blind or stun grenades.

I'd like to underline how lucky we've been in this game with the rolls lol

Sorry, I'm a bit slow currently. Lots of workstuff to do. But I will post on monday

A harsh reaction from Gaston, but as usual I try to stick to what I imagine the character would do and I imagine he could either stay completely freeze, at a loss, or go for it anyway.

I settled for him breaking under pressure because he went that far and suffer that much to end up in a deadlock, so I assume that since fleeing hasn't been in his nature thus far, frustration turns into aggression/self preservation.

@Marechal: Uhh... thats bad... lets see what John does, before I decide what happens

I'll be pleased with the outcome, whether it is successful or... GRIM DARK

Dekskull: Gaston has just outright killed the companion of the hostage taker with a lasgun volley. Your last post seems strangely calm in that light. Was that intentional? Does Johns appeal to reason happen before or after the man is gunned down?

Read chad to me, I'm just imagining John mockingly grinning and capitalising on the threat. With one of these anime sure of himself laugh.

Ha you know I completely missed that and I thought Gaston gunned the other guy down during the initial fight.

So you are right, what John did makes no sense lol. Not good though because the hive skum get the next turn. (I don't think we have any Glory to seize the initiative).

Yikes, in any case, I'll delete that post and rewrite.

I'm afraid even with glory points I don't really see what you can do when someone presses a gun to the hostages head, threatening to pull the trigger and a PC decides to force the hostage takers hand. Unless you conjure a genius idea how to stop that. If so I'm willing to give you the initiative.

Oh boy. Things just got real!

As this is not quite the outcome we expected at first I assume, I hoped my maybe TOO much roleplay didn't botch you pleasure and if so I apologise.

Though I dare say that somehow, it could hardly feel more 40k esque in some way...

I have no issues with it at all!

It's Grimdark. Stuff is supposed to go wrong lol

Besides I am pretty sure we didn't have any Glory to begin with .

If Cold Eye tries to haggle she should be able to get him down to 20% for each him and Buck, both of which have connections and are good fighters, so they should be able to get you attached to some caravan going up.

But I hesitated from writing that in as I'm not sure how your characters will react. So far you have bin kind of wildcards at times

Rough Time to GM such a team

Huh, I don't want to waste time haggling too much.

not necesseraly a lot of actions actually taken by Gaston there beyond -try to fix loisy - try to look like nothing happened, I'm just having great fun building that dialogue

Yeah that was a great complication for the GM to throw our way. This has been a fun game!

So, I would say we drift to the last encounter. But first I want to give you the opportunity to react on what happened in the mean time.
In the night, your shadowy adversary will shoot his last shot, lets see what comes out of it.

Will be away for the next 6 days. Yah'all can continue playing my character as an NPC ally as far as fighting goes, his approach is pretty straight forward. Shoot and thump!

So, Coldeye can do one thing, before the genestealer gets the jump on you.

options would include:

Shooting: you would get a shot in, but the others will definitly be to surprised to do anything in the first round of combat

Screaming a warning: the others might get to act (I will roll some kind of initiative die to decide, who reacts in time)

Trying to bullrush it: very risky for Coldeye, but it would keep the others from getting ambushed and they will have a turn to shoot or act. But Coldeye would get a treatment of Genestealer attacks up close

Whatever creative thing you come up with

Oh dear!

OK, I rolled D20s for each of you and 2D20 pick the highest for the Stealer. Whoever beats him is allowed to act on the first turn.
Rho misses out, the other three are lucky enough, so Cold Eyes warning was just in time.

The Stealer is basically jumping just this instant. As Gaston explicitly wanted to protect Loisy, it will aim for Gaston and try to tackle him. I assume you try and shoot it? Or do you want to fumble for some kind of melee weapon?

Back now!

John has his auto gun ready. As soon as the stealer comes into sight he will let loose with full auto salvo and also use the aim ability for the extra dice.

[Rolls 5 dice and gets 5 successes but burns up his last wrath in the process any shifts will be used for extra damage]

I'm a bit conflicted with the avenue I'm going at the moment. I rolled fairly and rolling fairly against a stealer is ugly business. On paper it looks a lot like it will remove one of you each turn it has the opportunity to. BUT: it only has 2 shock left before it is exhausted, and due to the 1 on its wrath die I will only give it half its dice on this rounds melee attack, which might be enough to survive.

Now where I am conflicted is, that Marechal has no character anymore. I know that this can be taken as bad style GM-wise, but he purposely wanted to protect Loisy and find redemption, so I found it right to let the Stealer attack him. Are you OK with that?

So remember how damage works. Once you successfully hit. you look at the weapon's damage then subtract the target's resilience (also with genestealer they subtract from the target's resilience).

After doing that and soaking up any shock, if the total damage is twice the number of total wounds than it is an annihilation and Gaston is Insta Dead.

But if the total damage is less than double the target's total wounds than Gaston is just "dying" he takes a memorable injury and can keep fighting (or crawl away)

I'm... aware. But it is 22 damage. So even after resilience (should be 6 with a flak armor) and soaking 3 points there is still 13 left...which is significantly more than twice the wounds


Edit: as mentioned, I'm not absolutely sure about this. Marechal: are you OK with how this turned out? Feel free to take over one of the NPCs if you like.

But if you really really want this to get down another way, Rho will bite the dust in your place

Sorry, I'm a bit late, I was busy making cement outside lol!

The rules are the rules, I knew my character would most probably get shredded in the attempt and you know what? That's fair!

I may control one or the other NPC if this is useful but otherwise I may also just watch along and see if you capitalise on my worthy sacrifice. Make it count folks!

Sounds good to me. The genestealer is a formidable opponent and this is 40K. Someone has to die...or all of us die dang it!

He can be Louise for a turn lol

That's a good idea pal, after all, he used to be my character as well lmao!

@ Dekskull: unfortunatly the stealer has defence 5, so John will likely not hit...
Cold Eye/Loisy: planning anything special? Else I would narrate the next round.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
@ Dekskull: unfortunatly the stealer has defence 5, so John will likely not hit...
Cold Eye/Loisy: planning anything special? Else I would narrate the next round.

Oh my gosh! This guy is ded ard!

(edit: i messed up andposted my live thread answer here lol)

No Problem. Marechal: if possible, do you want to throw the grenade at the stealer?
I mean... killing himself would be still an option with the laspistol, so you might as well try...

Sorry folks, I was away a bit unexpectedly. I see a lot has happened. I will get caught up and post later today.

Hm, actually, why not, I was under the impression that the time span was short and that by the time he'd grab the grenade, the Genestealer would probably fall on him piecemeal. If you allow it, then he'll prolly panic fling the grenades towards the stealer yeah.

Maybe you overread it: the stealer purposely does NOT attack Loisy. It wants to kill everyone else, so that it can infect Loisy without being disturbed. So given its current "kill rate", Loisy should have enough time to throw the grenade and still put his laspistol in his mouth if he sees no other way.

@ Cold Eye: as mentioned both shotguns (Cold-Eye and Buck) did wound the stealer. But I really like the idea of using the environment. I will think of something.

@ all: So, I will choose the next target of the stealer by decision of the dice (rolling between John, Cold-Eye and Buck, as Pearson is in cover and it does not want to kill Loisy). Unless someone decides to sacrifice him/herself.

@ Dekskull: I assume that John should have a stungrenade if you want to try something else instead of shooting.


Edit: by the way, the situation is salvagable. The Stealer is on his last shock, so if you manage to hit his defense or do enough wounds that he HAS to soak, he will be exhausted and won't attack next round.

I get you! I was thinking that Loisy's brain deadcells wouldn't fathom so far though lol! But there'll go the grenade, fire in the hole!

Oh my, that beast does hard, that's a lore accurate description for once!

This has definitely been a good game. Say what you will about the Wrath and Glory System, they know how to put the "grim dark" in combat.

We've got a good group of rpers here on these forums. I'd be happy to start a new campaign after this one finishes up.

Really, it was a great ride, I'll happily keep joining subsequent ones!

It was definitly quite a ride and I'm totally in for another round of something.

I do have to say though: Wrath and Glory was not that easy for me to GM. And I realize that combat heavy science fiction settings are not my strong suite.
So I'm game to be a player if someone else wants to GM something in a 40k setting.

Alternatively I could offer doing something with DND 5e rules (which I'm more familiar with) in a fantasy setting.

I doubt I'll ever truly get the necessary time to actually learn the rules and the art of GM, unfortunately... But that forum form is great because the story can evolve following each player's available time.

Another fun game. Yeah, the crunchy systems are not that great for Forum RP. I prefer a more streamlined and looser approach to it like FATE or Powered By The Apocalypse type systems.

The last three games, I have had 0 knowledge of the system (Total War and Wrath and Glory respectively) but that hasn't stopped me from getting into it and playing characters.

As mentioned: I'm comfortable enough with DnD 5e to GM in that system. Technically you could use it for a scifi setting, but things might get a bit weird then. On the other hand: playing a Wizard, Sorcerer an Warlock as a trio of Weirdvane Psykers amongst normal people sounds funny enough...

Oh that could be a blast too! Didn't we also planned on continuing that little saga of ours with what Richmond was up to this all time?

@Pyro If you run a D&D game could we at least make the setting be Warhammer Old World Fantasy? I figured that would be the coolest. I'm also a fan of Cubicle 7's Warhammer fantasy RPG but you could still use the D&D ruleset if that's easier.

I also had a follow up Wrath and Glory Mission if you want to take a break. (Using the same setting and potentially some of the same characters we built in our earlier games).

Synopsis: The Imperial Governor is locked in a power struggle with a Self Rightous Cardinal and the planet stands on the brink of civil war. A team of Imperial Agent's is tasked with capturing a Cardinal so that he can forced into exile.

Unfortunatly I know almost nothing about Warhammer Fantasy as a setting, so I would have to pass on that. As mentioned: I could see the combination DND rules + Warhammer 40k setting working to do some crazy psyker stuff (in the sense of the players being psykers and their weird powers being reflected by them having DND character classes in a world of normal humans... and Aliens... and Demons...) Might be as funny as it is strange.

But as mentioned: I happily join whatever you come up with as player. "Capture the Cardinal" sounds fun!

Sounds good. I'll set up another thread for a new W&G game tomorrow. Should be relatively short and straight forward.


And yes. We know the Cardinal is not a bad guy. Hence why the mission is to NOT kill him lol.

I'm in, let's get that little saga rocking further lol! This'll deserve a Dakka lore article some day...