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My rites of battle arrved today.

I picked mine up yesterday and started to have a play with the Chapter Creation rules over in the Roleplaying section

the rest of the book looks really interesting

I've had mine since last week... its a good one... a real good one. I wish they had more about the first founding chapters, but still a must have book. My favorite part was the rules for the different armor variants. The prestige classes were fun too. I think the only glaring unforgivable problem I had was the name "Kill-marines"... seriously you guys couldn't come up with something better?

what kind of variant effects do the armors give you? somehow my local store still hasn't gotten their copies despite ordering them.

You gain more and more fellowship the older the variants age... but lose points of armor and equipment... like no Respirator on the Mk1 and only has an armor value of 6/7. The Mk1-Mk3 have big negatives to stealth. The Mk1 also allows normal size disadvantage against a Marine. The Mk6 is effectively the same as the Mk7 but with different weight and only +5 fellowship... compared to the Mk1's +25 and if I remember a boost to leadership. The Mk8 has the neck guard give a chance for head blows to be directed to the torso. The heresy armor I believe had more of a trade off effect... negative in one thing possitive in another... since its a reminder of bad times. All the suits weigh progressively less, till you get to the Mk8 which weighs only moderately more.

There are also rules for having mixed and matched portions of armor.

I also like the rules for not wearing a helmet. They should have just been titled the "Because I'm badass" rules.

It is indeed a superb book.

I'm especially taken with the little ideas for combining DW with the other two systems -- notes on the differences in the psychic powers as well -- and the background about the captured aliens and general awesomeness of Watch Fortress Erioch.

"Kill-marines" really seemed designed to help do that, atleast fluffwise... god I hate that name.

aka_mythos wrote:You gain more and more fellowship the older the variants age... but lose points of armor and equipment... like no Respirator on the Mk1 and only has an armor value of 6/7. The Mk1-Mk3 have big negatives to stealth. The Mk1 also allows normal size disadvantage against a Marine. The Mk6 is effectively the same as the Mk7 but with different weight and only +5 fellowship... compared to the Mk1's +25 and if I remember a boost to leadership. The Mk8 has the neck guard give a chance for head blows to be directed to the torso. The heresy armor I believe had more of a trade off effect... negative in one thing possitive in another... since its a reminder of bad times. All the suits weigh progressively less, till you get to the Mk8 which weighs only moderately more.

There are also rules for having mixed and matched portions of armor.

I also like the rules for not wearing a helmet. They should have just been titled the "Because I'm badass" rules.

thanks for the quick reply. i'd heard some stuff online about the armors having different effects but nothing about the fellowship boosts. i'd probably be interested in the mkIV and VI stuff mainly for the look of the armor. i heard that they packed the beakies with extra sensors for a perception boost too but i'm not sure if the mark IV gets anything special. hopefully friday my store will have the book on the shelf..

edit: do they have some nice art of the variant armor (full color pics) or just the simple b&w line drawings of armor like in the core book?

Just the simple b&w. I think there is one random picture in that section of a non-Mk7 suit.

The fellowship thing is all about everyone being awed and inspired by such relics.

The Mk4 has the least going on. They treat it as the first modern power armor. So it doesn't have any of the first 3's disadvantages and weighs less than the Mk3, but none of the advantageous of later armor.

Mk6 has one other advantage I forgot to mention, it has bonus for landing with a jumppack... I forget how they justify it... seems written for Ravenguard.

The older armors are only in there for roleplay purposes, anyone looking to make themselves "uber" is going to be disappointed. My Imperial Fist Don Quixote wannabe on the other hands stomps around in a combination of early Mk1 thru Mk4 hobbled together armor... going on about "back in the days when the Emperor walked among us."

My copy of Rites of Battle shipped yesterday. Looking forward to it. You can do some amazingly stupid stuff with the random chapter name generator, but other than that the book (from what I've seen of it) is solid.

You all make me jealous... Living in a combat zone sucks

Lemee know what you are actually able to do, if there is anything interesting.

Imp fists are in there, Terminators, Black Shield, Chaplin, dread, DW Champion, Master of the Forge.....

For those of you waxing on Chapter creation, here's a little teaser on it from the FFG website today



The Origins of a Brotherhood ... http://fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=1970

Its a very thorough system for creating your own chapter. Its just an all around solid book. Simply, if you're playing or panning on playing DW, you'd be stupid not to get it.

I am waiting on mine to ship to me, APO addresses suck

Mine's on its way now.

And the Chapter Creation rules are excellent. Now I can finally have Brother-Tech-Marine Antarius of the Emerald Vipers in a kill team without homebrewing everything!

I am jealous.

The only downside is that one of my players will eventually make a chapter more bland than the Ultramarines, that uses japanese style weaponry.

btemple0 wrote:I am jealous.

The only downside is that one of my players will eventually make a chapter more bland than the Ultramarines, that uses japanese style weaponry.

You mean he's going to start playing Tau?

BaronIveagh wrote:

btemple0 wrote:I am jealous.

The only downside is that one of my players will eventually make a chapter more bland than the Ultramarines, that uses japanese style weaponry.

You mean he's going to start playing Tau?

And Roger.......

so i had a chance to look at the book at the FLGS yesterday (unfortunately, they only had one book for two of us wanting to buy and i lost out!) and i have to say that some of the stuff in there is definitely overpowered if you simply LET your pc's pick and choose to min/max instead of rolling. an example is the Mk8 armor... i can't see ANY disadvantage over getting it compared with the mk7. it's got better chest armor, the ability to deflect head shots, and a disadvantage compared to mk7 of... nothing! the mk6 beakie has a +10 agility (+5 i could live since it mimics an armor ability) and +5 perception for -1 chest armor; i'd say that it definitely in the plus category but it at least has some disadvantage. in addition, there is a deed that lets you pick for 300pts an armor ability instead of rolling for one and you could easy simply pick a Mk8 armor chest for your mk6 and get a chest armor of 11, +10 agility, and +5 perception compared with a Mk7 set. in the end, none of this is absolutely gamebreaking and easily houseruled so no huge deal but definitely an eyebrow raiser.

The mk8 weighs a little more... one day your GM will come up with a long narrow bridge that can only take soooo much weight and the guy with the Mk8 will be responsible for the ropes breaking.

thats why you send the guys in mk1-5 over first!

Well those early armors weigh more than Mk8. In the description it says Mk8 tends to be reserved for veteran... if it really matters the GM can always restrict something. Otherwise what armor you start with is determined randomly, where 50% of the time you'll get Mk7... but after that you still roll on two other charts that further modify the armor.

warboss wrote:so i had a chance to look at the book at the FLGS yesterday (unfortunately, they only had one book for two of us wanting to buy and i lost out!) and i have to say that some of the stuff in there is definitely overpowered if you simply LET your pc's pick and choose to min/max instead of rolling. an example is the Mk8 armor... i can't see ANY disadvantage over getting it compared with the mk7. it's got better chest armor, the ability to deflect head shots, and a disadvantage compared to mk7 of... nothing! the mk6 beakie has a +10 agility (+5 i could live since it mimics an armor ability) and +5 perception for -1 chest armor; i'd say that it definitely in the plus category but it at least has some disadvantage. in addition, there is a deed that lets you pick for 300pts an armor ability instead of rolling for one and you could easy simply pick a Mk8 armor chest for your mk6 and get a chest armor of 11, +10 agility, and +5 perception compared with a Mk7 set. in the end, none of this is absolutely gamebreaking and easily houseruled so no huge deal but definitely an eyebrow raiser.

The min-maxing you mention requires a lot of favorable rolls, or expenditure of xp, to accomplish. In the end the it'll be the lascannon you don't see that will make this point moot.

PrimarchX wrote:

warboss wrote:so i had a chance to look at the book at the FLGS yesterday (unfortunately, they only had one book for two of us wanting to buy and i lost out!) and i have to say that some of the stuff in there is definitely overpowered if you simply LET your pc's pick and choose to min/max instead of rolling. an example is the Mk8 armor... i can't see ANY disadvantage over getting it compared with the mk7. it's got better chest armor, the ability to deflect head shots, and a disadvantage compared to mk7 of... nothing! the mk6 beakie has a +10 agility (+5 i could live since it mimics an armor ability) and +5 perception for -1 chest armor; i'd say that it definitely in the plus category but it at least has some disadvantage. in addition, there is a deed that lets you pick for 300pts an armor ability instead of rolling for one and you could easy simply pick a Mk8 armor chest for your mk6 and get a chest armor of 11, +10 agility, and +5 perception compared with a Mk7 set. in the end, none of this is absolutely gamebreaking and easily houseruled so no huge deal but definitely an eyebrow raiser.

The min-maxing you mention requires a lot of favorable rolls, or expenditure of xp, to accomplish. In the end the it'll be the lascannon you don't see that will make this point moot.

LOL Macrocannon shells fall, everyone dies.

PrimarchX wrote:

warboss wrote:so i had a chance to look at the book at the FLGS yesterday (unfortunately, they only had one book for two of us wanting to buy and i lost out!) and i have to say that some of the stuff in there is definitely overpowered if you simply LET your pc's pick and choose to min/max instead of rolling. an example is the Mk8 armor... i can't see ANY disadvantage over getting it compared with the mk7. it's got better chest armor, the ability to deflect head shots, and a disadvantage compared to mk7 of... nothing! the mk6 beakie has a +10 agility (+5 i could live since it mimics an armor ability) and +5 perception for -1 chest armor; i'd say that it definitely in the plus category but it at least has some disadvantage. in addition, there is a deed that lets you pick for 300pts an armor ability instead of rolling for one and you could easy simply pick a Mk8 armor chest for your mk6 and get a chest armor of 11, +10 agility, and +5 perception compared with a Mk7 set. in the end, none of this is absolutely gamebreaking and easily houseruled so no huge deal but definitely an eyebrow raiser.

The min-maxing you mention requires a lot of favorable rolls, or expenditure of xp, to accomplish. In the end the it'll be the lascannon you don't see that will make this point moot.

not really... just one roll for armor (you have a 40% chance of getting a mk6 or 8 total so not miniscule either). the deed costs only 300xp which is a pittance (and incidentally less than a third of what you start with at character generation to customize your PC). saying it doesn't matter because a lascanon kills them dead doesn't really mean or solve anything... i could randomly give a player an extra 30pts to any attribute of his choice other than toughness... he still gets killed just as easily by a lascannon but that doesn't make it fair for the other players, right? in the end, this is just tweaking more than anything and to be expected (unfortunately). One of FFG's new-ish RPG writers used to work on Rifts books so i guess he took a bit of that horribly unbalanced and completely unplaytested system to heart.

PrimarchX wrote:
The min-maxing you mention requires a lot of favorable rolls, or expenditure of xp, to accomplish. In the end the it'll be the lascannon you don't see that will make this point moot.

I think it should also be pointed out that min-maxing is a manipulation of the meta-game... where by you're gaming the system and not playing the game. Unless the GM is doing something "special" and tells the players to try and break things... the moment you start trying to manipulate the meta-game of an RPG, you have ceased roleplaying the game and instead playing the stats. Its ok for a player to aspire to getting a particular armor or combination, because its better, but it should fit into their characters rationale and the motivation should be played out in a way that isn't about min-maxing.

It is the difference between saying I want this armor because "it is a symbol of my service and duty to the Emperor"... or "with this I can better serve the emperor"... and saying I want this armor because "it has that extra point of armor, and these cool rules." I realize we all do this from time to time, its not a sin, but its the difference between poor and quality roleplaying. When I GM, I award extra XP or whatever based on the quality of the players roleplay, a player who goes too off that deep end wouldn't be rewarded.

Here we're talking about the random generation of armor, in which case yeah there some highly beneficial roll combinations, but its no different than playing D&D and rolling multiple 18's for stats. In roleplaying thats are there to help establish the role, and while no one wants to play a weakling, to the same degree no one should want to start off as unstoppable, or the very best possible character that can be generated. Both ignore the fact that, this is why RPG's have GM's to mitigate the inequities through the framework of the adventure.

Ok I think I may have found myself another supplier for the book, and it was listed as "in stock" so hopefully I will get a cope here sooner rather than later.

btemple0 wrote:Ok I think I may have found myself another supplier for the book, and it was listed as "in stock" so hopefully I will get a cope here sooner rather than later.

I'm surprised you're having trouble finding it. Maelstrom has had it on sale for close to two weeks now. It's where I ordered my copy.


And speaking of my copy... it just arrived! Ahahahahaha!

A lot of sites are blocked here...... But I got me a copy.

I checked your site H.B.M.C. and I can actually go there, and next time I will make sure to go there for new releases, even if I have to pay a ton to have it shipped to the middle of nowhere.