BaronIveagh wrote:

 BrookM wrote:
Bah, I hate it when real people apply real logic to my make-believe game!

Or, even worse, look for consistency in it.

SpaceRatCatcher wrote:
Hrm, was he alone or supported by other Necrons? In my experience, there are few things that won't go down quickly to a Kill-Team, particularly with clever use of Squad Mode Abilities.

FFG wrote:The Cartography of Chaos
A Preview of The Navis Primer, the Upcoming Rogue Trader Supplement



The Navis Primer, a supplement for Rogue Trader, is almost here! Last time, we heard from Max Brooke and Ross Watson regarding philosophy behind Rogue Trader’s use of maps. Today, Art Coordinator Mike Linnemann joins the discussion, delving into the process and psyche of the Navigator as he previews some of the art from The Navis Primer:

Rogue Traders make their fortune by traveling the cold gaps between the light of the stars. To do this, they require the assistance of Navigators, specialized, sanctioned mutants who use their pineal eye to guide vessels through the hostile Sea of Souls that is the Immaterium. Their ability is to see into the Warp, navigating giant ships across the universe for the Imperium. These practices are often too terrifying for most to even comprehend, let alone conduct without simply going mad. But the Emperor’s will shall be done, and the Navigators alone can make it happen.



These men and women, though able to see and decipher the Warp directly, cannot simply lead a ship along a line to a destination. They need maps. Journeys can take months, years, decades, or even centuries with the best Navigators guiding a ship into and successfully out of the Warp. But their maps do not mark routes and destinations with linear distances or landmarks. Such things have no sway in the Warp.

The Warp is not like a highway, easily accessed from an onramp. It is not even like the Autobahn. Imagine it more like a stream. Imagine then, a Navigator guiding the ship through the current of Warp energy, fighting storms and undercurrents, and guiding the ship past the dread realms that swirl in the wake of the Chaos gods. Navigators cannot follow the canned instructions of a GPS past familiar landmarks; a Navigator must feel the planets within the Warp and knows that a storm is near, that a star has been passed, and that the ship is near its destination. Therefore the map needs to be emotional and turbulent, shifting and uncertain.

Art direction started with that foundational idea: one Navigator’s personal map.

This is not a painted representation; this is a living map, a thing that a navigator would paint and repaint dozens if not hundreds of times during a voyage, feeling the emotional tugs of relationships between celestial bodies.

A Navigator’s Map of the Koronus Expanse[/i]


Click to enlarge.

Notice the vibrant color within the map. Planets are not circular masses but rather absences of Warp energy: holes in the fabric of the Immaterium. Through the hole, one can see the color of the paper that a Navigator is painting upon. Unlike on the maps in the first article, these planets are not presences in the darkness but are instead absences in the Warp. If you inspect the map closely, you will see the Navigator’s paint moving around these omissions, just as the Warp ebbs and flows around it.



Click to enlarge.

A Navigator does not see asteroid fields or massive storms. He or she sees the Warp disturbances that roil around the danger, like a section of rapids in a river. Something stirs the current into a churning frenzy from below and the Navigator, through practice, knows the difference between benign disturbances that arise around an asteroid field and rifts through which Daemons of the Chaos Gods can tear their way into reality, even through a Gellar Field. Through their training in the ways of the Warp, Navigators come to understand the emotional currents that flow through environments and organisms alike. When something lies beneath the surface, they simply know.[/i]

Thanks, Mike. Next week, navigate your way to your friendly local retailer; The Navis Primer is coming soon!

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Seems like they've put a whole lot of thought into this one. Really nice to see Navigators finally getting an in-depth look.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Lemme guess, you didn't like it?

 BrookM wrote:
There's also some chatter about the vehicles and how great the rules are, but I think we'll save the inevitable ego stroking until the book is finally released.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

There's no need to delay that at all.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Yeah I saw the lovely two-page spread we got in this month's WD on Saturday. Quite nice of them to do that.

 BrookM wrote:
There's also some chatter about the vehicles and how great the rules are, but I think we'll save the inevitable ego stroking until the book is finally released.

There's no need to delay that at all.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Given you never like anything, I can safely put it out of mind.

 Alpharius wrote:
Are your reviews posted on any of the 'big' RPG sites?

I'd like to catch up on them!

SpaceRatCatcher wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I'm actually interested to see the final stats. From our experience the Necron Overlord wasn't exactly a tough adversary to fight. The Warscythe was about the only way he could hurt the Marines, and he went down pretty quickly. Both times.

Hrm, was he alone or supported by other Necrons? In my experience, there are few things that won't go down quickly to a Kill-Team, particularly with clever use of Squad Mode Abilities.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Gleemax?

FFG wrote:The Spinward Front
A Preview of Only War by Contributing Writer Andy Hoare



In April, Fantasy Flight Games announced Only War, a standalone Warhammer 40,000 roleplaying game in which 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.

In our last preview, we read the insights of Andrew Fischer, Only War’s lead designer. Andrew shared his thoughts on the Imperial Guard, and the challenge of designing a game focused on this particular role in the Imperium. Today, we turn our attention to the game’s setting: The Spinward Front. Contributing writer Andy Hoare took time to offer his input on this war-ravaged front.


Enemies Abound

The Spinward Front is a region that will be both new and familiar to players of Dark Heresy. The warzone that forms the central setting for Only War is located just off of the Calixis Sector map players and game masters will know and love, taking as its basis the worlds on the edge of the Periphery Sub-Sector and expanding out into the inter-sector void beyond. Not one of these worlds is untouched by war, each claimed by one of the three major belligerents laying waste to the region.

The first of these combatants is of course the Imperium. Ordinarily, the worlds of the Emperor are able to draw upon numberless hosts, committing regiment after regiment to the relentless meat grinder of war. All is not well in the Spinward Front however, for the wars of the distant Jericho Reach take priority and draw ever more resources through the Jericho-Maw Warp Gate. The Imperium’s efforts are focused on the world of Kulth, but they extend for many light years along the inter-sector Warp routes to form the hellish warzones of the Spinward Front.



The second of the combatants are the Orks of Grimtoof Git-slaver. This barbarous greenskin horde has smashed into the outlying worlds just beyond the Periphery and is on the verge of entering the dreaded second stage of any Ork migration. Having unleashed unprecedented slaughter, Warlord Genghiz Git-slaver now seeks to consolidate his power. He has enslaved countless millions of humans and is laying the foundations of a new Ork stellar empire, right on the borders of the Calixis Sector.

The third of the major combatants are the forces of the Severan Dominate. The Dominate is headed by the bitter and twisted Severus the Thirteenth, a man whose line earned glory during the Angevin Crusade but whose rewards were overshadowed by the rise of Saint Drusus. Severus’ line has nurtured this hatred for generations, the invasion of Waaagh! Grimtoof affording him the long-waited excuse to secede from the Imperium and claim his birthright once and for all.

It is into this cauldron of bloodshed and betrayal that the men and women of the Imperial Guard are pitched. At first, player characters may care little for the intrigues of their superiors, fighting merely to stay alive against a warzone intent upon killing them in a myriad of unpleasant ways. Should they survive their first tour of duty however, the players will soon enough discover that the Spinward Front provides a wealth of opportunities to make war upon the foes of Mankind, or to die horribly in the attempt!

Thanks, Andy! Check back for more in the coming weeks, and look for Only War on store shelves later this quarter.

FFG wrote:Navigate to Your Local Retailer
The Navis Primer, a Rogue Trader Supplement, Is Now Available



“What grand jest is it, that the very means of Mankind’s journey to the stars should be the very stuff of his worst nightmares? The Warp! Always there. Always struggling to get out. Only a thought away! The Daemon populace ever ready to liberate themselves from the netherworld and take possession of ours. Measured by the years of a man’s life, the Imperium is eternal. And so, therefore, must be our vigil. If we slip in our duty, the end will surely dawn and an eternity of darkness shall reign!”
–Inquisitor Silas Hand, Ordo Malleus

The Navis Primer, a supplement for Rogue Trader, is now on sale at your local retailer and through our webstore!

This powerful volume reveals the secret history of the Koronus Expanse’s Navigator Houses, while unveiling the Astropath Voidfrost and Soul Ward Disciplines. Players can unleash the unpredictable might of the Waaagh! with the Ork Weirdboy Career Path, and uncover new warp-touched powers, alternate career ranks, and elite advances for Explorers of all kinds. What’s more, The Navis Primer provides expanded rules for navigation and astrotelepathic communication, and presents terrifying new hazards and foes from the depths of the Expanse!



Connected to the Immaterium

For more on The Navis Primer, here’s a word from its lead developer, Max Brooke:

The warp is the stormy sea that Rogue Traders must cross in search of fame, glory, and, of course, profit. A Rogue Trader's mighty voidship is a large part of what makes this miracle possible, but no less important are those who possess an innate connection to the Immaterium.

From the secretive Navigator Houses whose members guide vessels through the roiling Sea of Souls to the esoteric Choirs of Astropaths who cast messages across the cold void, those with the ability to perceive or manipulate the power of the Warp are both critical to a Rogue Trader's ambition and very interesting characters in their own right. The Navis Primer contains new options for the histories of Navigators and Astropaths in the Koronus Expanse, as well as expanded rules for the tasks they must overcome and new powers to help them rise to these challenges. Further, it includes a number of new character options for other Explorers whose lives have been touched by the Warp in one way or another, whether they harness it for profit or seek to unlock its darkest mysteries.

Of course, not all of those touched by the Warp are loyal to the Imperium—or even human– and The Navis Primer explorers the psykers and Warp-entities that dwell in the Expanse. This includes resources for new enemies and their terrifying powers, and also a new psyker Career Path, the erratic Ork Weirdboy.

The Navis Primer is loaded with new possibilities, and I'm looking forward to hearing the wild and Warp-touched stories that players and Game Masters alike use them to create.

Navigate to your local retailer and unleash the power of the warp in your Rogue Trader campaigns!