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...though fun.

The rules are 40k 1ed, Orcs in Space (Ken Rolston) and the encounter tables Zinderneuf came up with and I added to.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/493584.page

The Miniatures

Well, ya don't need any. It's online.

The maps come next.

First, Helstrom Sector as a whole:

Lost Legion SubSector

Imperium: Fleet O'Driscoll: Descendants of Anglo-Irish Settlers in the early 12th Millenium, they somehow manage to be loyal members of the Queen's (who ever she is) Navy and extremely piratical. Loyal enough citizens of the Imperium, but their culture definitely has its own ideas regarding private property rights.

Domain of the Half-Orc: Pretty much what it sounds like. Descendants of experiments in crossing human and ork DNA from the earliest age of the Imperium. Creations of Dr. Devram Outek after he fled the Emperor and went into business for himself in the Eastern Fringe.

Followers of the Mind Of Steel: Rebel Adeptus Mechanicus who believe the teaching that "Thou Shalt Not Build A Machine That Thinks After The Manner of a Man" is so much BS. As such, they have a lot of advantages over Imperial Tech, but interesting disadvantages too.

Well, that's enough for now. If I come back here tomorrow, and see nothing but chirping space crickets, I'll let this one die a shameful death.

If there is any interest, I'll add in SubSectors Sullen Furies, WInged Dragon, and Zyven's Jotun. Each are based on the earliest version of 40k, but have their own quirks as well.

We'll see

The Miniatures

Well, ya don't need any. It's online. I AM developing two armies for different periods of this sector's history, a bunch of 15mm figs (heresy!) for the period just before the Horus Heresy, and top down flats (GASP! INCREDIBLE HERESY!!) for the 41st Millennium. Both of these are travel games, and thus I can kinda do what I want, but both are made to be playable and fun first and foremost. No great art here.

Well, so much for that, I suppose, but I think I'll still put the maps of the other three subsectors up here so I never lose them, and so that, on the outside chance somebody does want to play, they are available.

Don't worry, mods, I see this taking up three more posts.

Dying Dragon SubSector: Originally called Winged Dragon SubSector, the name was recently changed for propaganda reasons.

Quite frankly, both the Ordo Xenos and the Adeptus Terra are disturbed (to say the least) at the strangeness and suddenness of the genetic modifications tha have taken place within this Splinter Fleet.

Whether the modifications are viable is uncertain. Thus far, both the local Imperial and Tyranid forces presently lack the capacity to do more than skirmish, and many within the Fleet, Guard, and Space Marine commands see a largely airborne Tyranid force as being non-viable, lacking as it would have the ability to dig in and fortify itself groundside.

Other military-theologians disagree, theorizing that the extreme mobility of such a force would more than make up for the deficiency, and allow for swift concentrations of striking forces that even the strongest ground fortifications could not effectively resist.

Whatever the truth of this may be, some among the geneticist-theologians of the Ordo Xenos and Adeptus Mechnicus have stated that the danger here is not based on the viability of this new genetic design/concentration, but the fact that at least one Tyranid Splinter Fleet has been able to accomplish it at all. If this is not simply a freak anomaly, does it perhaps indicate that the Tyranids could enter into a mass program of genetic modification throughout their scattered forces, possibly leading, eventually, to a structure of forms and organization of forces that humanity could not overcome?

Thus far, the Inquisition has been able to silence such rumblings, but their adherents grow in numbers, which could itself lead to yat another fatal fracture in the already strained forces of the Emperor's servants.

 NapoleonInSpace wrote:
Well, so much for that, I suppose, but I think I'll still put the maps of the other three subsectors up here so I never lose them, and so that, on the outside chance somebody does want to play, they are avaialble.

Don't worry, mods, I see this taking up three more posts.

Sullen Furies SubSector

Imperium Fleet Unter-Warp: Germanic/Scandinavian/Moravian descendants for the most part, though with a large minority descended from ancient Tanzanian and Kenyan folk. This fleet bears a striking resemblance to the prehistoric Kriegsmarine (unknown to all but a few sages), consisting mostly of smaller vessels with powerful cloaking suites. Much stronger than Fleet O'Driscoll, its rival, but the upper ranks of the officers here have a tendency toward infighting, which lowers the fleet's effectiveness considerably.

Splinter Fleet Winged Dragon: The Ordo Xenos is heavily invested in, and very concerned about this Splinter Fleet, as it seems to prove, once again, the Tyranid ability to adapt under pressure. The armies of this fleet are widely divergent from the standard, with many weaker but far more numerous flying creatures available to the planet-side forces, and far fewer heavy firepower walker types. Most common are non-psychic versions of zoanthropes which, while less deadly individually, are far more numerous and easily replaced.

Though the Splinter Fleet is relatively weak, the Inquisition is concerned that Fleet Unter-Warp may not be up to the challenge, due to its infighting and rivalry with O'Driscoll. A purge of the upper ranks has been considered, but a large minority in the Ordo see this as having the potential to make a bad situation worse, and plunging an already tottering Imperial presence into complete anarchy.

Hearth Lorship of Eikinskjaldi Crafters of wondrous weapons and armor, as all Squats, the specialty of the Eikinskjaldi is asteroid mining, and there is not a system in their region of space that does not boast at least half a dozen such stations.

Unfortunately, much of the ground gained by the Half-Orc and Splinter Fleet Winged Dragon was lost by the Eikinskjaldi, and as those systems are contested, the Squats have their own industrious engineering to thank for the difficulty of regaining their strongholds. Even where the enemy aliens are blown from the stars, they are hard to root out from the many depths and levels of the labyrinthine nickel-iron tunnels bored by las cannon and phase fields beneath the surfaces.

Zyven's Jotun SubSector is also home of an odd breed of abhumans: the Jotuns, these beings, supposedly unknown elsewhere in the Imperium, are as large and strong as ogryns, but share none of their mental defects nor physical deformities, and are even somewhat more likely than true-bred humanity to possess psychic powers, though the Navigator gene is absent among them. This has caused numerous battles (some of them in the fora of scholorly and theological wisdom, others on the battlefield) within the Adeptus Mechanicus and Ordo Xenos. Are they true men who have evolved into something that is in some ways superior, or just another form of abhuman, perhaps more insidious than the Ogryn, in that it is capable of thought mimicking that of true humanity?

Whatever the case, the Jotuns have a technology largely equal to that of the Imperium, and many trade with the Hearth Lord's worlds.

Largely, the two abhuman races appear to get along as well as anyone in the Imperium does. Squat and Jotun feud against each other, but no more so than with other variants on the human norm, generally allying against the Orks and always against the Tyranids, at least so far.

Given the presence of the Mutant Orks, Tyranids and Heretical Mechanicus in the sector, to say nothing of the constant bickering between its two battle-fleets, the Imperium's resources are stretched thin, and the voices of the traditionalists among the Hereticus Inquisitors are -at present- shouted down by the voices of necessity and common sense, but all know this is a temporary truce, at best.