Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I got to enjoy this little gem over the last few months, and I can honestly say- it's been a blast. The rules can be a bit clunky, but overall it's been a lot of fun.

A few of us are playing an individual Astartes. Originally, I was going to be a Deathwatch Marine, but too many other players were enthusiastic about Loyalist Astartes- so I opted to side with a few friends, made myself an Alpha Legionnaire, and we cobbled together some Traitor Legion Astartes 'alliance'. To balance things out, we have two Inquisitor Lords and their henchmen (one from Ordo Xenos, one from Ordo Malleus), and a Fallen Rogue Trader. We also have someone running some Drukhari 'pirates'.

I won't bore you with the story, but this is very much the perfect combination of RPG and Miniatures game, and our Games Master is outright brilliant.

So... this is my 'review', of the game:

Why the absolute hell did GW decide to make this game 54mm? Yes, I know, you can play it in 28mm and that's exactly what we are doing- but it should have been that way from the start. I mean, no one should be shocked that it was a flop. No one wants to go make all new terrain for ONE game, when you could just as easily use 28mm models and terrain. Also, what are you gonna 'convert' a 54mm model with? Rat bones and GI Joes?

And yes, the rules DESPERATELY need some balancing. A few times already, our Games Master has given some player a 'freebie boost' here and there to bring him on par with the other guys. So there's that, but that's the nature of an RPG.

Yes, you can die easily. Just like you could die easily in any of the older 40k RPG's if your 'combat' was "Stand in the middle of an open room and shoot at 5 dudes". So, roleplay- use cover, use advantages and leverage everything you can.

Also, when it comes to reaching out to some of the online groups of Inquisitor28 'players'? Most of them are more focused on making weird models (which is fine and cool), and aren't the best source of gameplay ideas. Granted, this may be because I mentioned many of us playing a single Astartes and the response I got was "Go play kill team" and other rudeness. So, to hell with them- find a group, set your own theme, have fun.

Now, what is awesome about it?

-It's a perfect use for all those old 40k board game tiles/boards that everyone tends to throw away. I put up a request on local gaming groups on facebook, asking for game boards- and I've got an entire Rubbermaid box full of things, and I think ONE person asked me for like, ten bucks.

-It's a good way to use a lot of the cool models in Rogue Trader and Blackstone Fortress. Also, yeah- Necromunda. Go nuts.

-You're not restricted in the way you are in 40k or Kill Team. You can make the most ridiculous and 'cool' models you like, because no rule says your Space Marine can't run around with a rotor cannon and XBAWX HUGE stub pistol.

-It's very much more RPG than skirmish, but without being as bogged down as an RPG can get sometimes- in a way, it's a 'dungeon crawl' game with RPG elements.

-The rules are out there, and they're free.

You’ve got it a bit backwards. The miniatures sculptors wanted to make some larger miniatures, so they did, and wrote a set of rules to go with them.

I always just assumed it was the old guard shooting themselves in the foot trying to avoid "cannibalizing" 40k sales

I remember well when this game came out.

The miniatures were a baffling thing - they cost as much as a unit box, but they were often very uninspiring. For every Inquisitor Eisenhorn, you had shelf warmers like the mutant that no one really wanted. Then, they released one, just one, lonely, miserable space marine. And, we all bought it. Modelers practically perfected how to straiten that thing’s danged running pose, and clumsily trying to hide the Deathwatch gribblies so you could turn it into a marine of your own chapter. I saw conversions of that one model for a decade while “this is supposed to be an Imperial guardsman but looks nothing like one” gathered thick rinds of dust in my FLGS discount shelf.

As for the game... loved it, in theory. But, for all of the mechanics, I remember it being very slim of actual useful background information or example scenarios. It was like two hundred pages of “this is how to throw grenades. This is how to jump across a gap. This is how to...” Followed by a few inspiring pictures of the inspirational war bands you could create from the eight models that existed. No campaign rules, no missions, etc. But, my memor is foggy, and there has to have been more, as people have made so much from it over the years.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
You’ve got it a bit backwards. The miniatures sculptors wanted to make some larger miniatures, so they did, and wrote a set of rules to go with them.

It very much did seem like a labor of love from a few people that weren't very in touch with how a skirmish game should work. While I admire the imaginative element of 'lite roleplay' to go along with it, I can hardly imagine playing a game with 4 or 5 people and each of them trying to juggle multiple independent and unique characters. I am thinking they didn't get much 'playtesting' done prior to launching it out the door.

As far as the 'wanting bigger models', I'm not sure what brought that on. At that size, you might as well have just busted out some action figures. Those big beefy models were big enough to inflict serious bodily harm on someone if they fell off a shelf. And the beauty of having the game in 28mm is that you could literally just go grab 40k terrain and vehicles and set them up and create your own game, and kitbash the models you want. Instead, they limited the line to a few named characters and said "do conversions"- yeah, I'm not sure what I was supposed to use with 54mm... a toddler's clothes and some parts from a scooter and a GI Joe?

 Eldarain wrote:
I always just assumed it was the old guard shooting themselves in the foot trying to avoid "cannibalizing" 40k sales

I mean, playing the 28mm has me going out and buying stuff I normally had no desire to purchase for 40k or Kill Team. Since we're rotating Games Master duties at some point, I found it's fun creating weird adversaries that won't normally be on the tabletop.

Oggthrok wrote:
The miniatures were a baffling thing - they cost as much as a unit box, but they were often very uninspiring. For every Inquisitor Eisenhorn, you had shelf warmers like the mutant that no one really wanted. Then, they released one, just one, lonely, miserable space marine. And, we all bought it. Modelers practically perfected how to straiten that thing’s danged running pose, and clumsily trying to hide the Deathwatch gribblies so you could turn it into a marine of your own chapter. I saw conversions of that one model for a decade while “this is supposed to be an Imperial guardsman but looks nothing like one” gathered thick rinds of dust in my FLGS discount shelf.

That Captain Artemis had bigger arms than most of the people in the FLGS. He was legitimately big enough to use as a burglary tool.

Oggthrok wrote:
As for the game... loved it, in theory. But, for all of the mechanics, I remember it being very slim of actual useful background information or example scenarios. It was like two hundred pages of “this is how to throw grenades. This is how to jump across a gap. This is how to...” Followed by a few inspiring pictures of the inspirational war bands you could create from the eight models that existed. No campaign rules, no missions, etc. But, my memor is foggy, and there has to have been more, as people have made so much from it over the years.

The range was so limited, I did a full count- and there was like 54 models- most of them using the same main body parts with a different head or arm. For a scale that was supposed to be 'more detailed', the models looked about as generic as any of the 28mm versions.

As far as 'making more out of it', there have been people who have refined the rules and clarified some things. It also takes a bit of just 'winging it' instead of trying to remember exact percentiles and such, just have the games master go with what makes sense in that moment instead of trying to compare a specific action or scenario to something in a rulebook- very much like the 40k RPG's.

As far as campaigns and such goes, well- the book lacked that. And the missions... I think it had like, two? The best people could manage was plucking some examples from White Dwarf magazines, but recently people have been using some of the original RPG's campaign missions, with the missions 'toned down and adjusted' to Inq28.

Also, it's worth a try. The only thing is, do NOT let 'that guy' play this game. The game's balance really requires sportsmanship and a love of fluffy/narrative characters and gear. Sometimes that means on-the-fly adjustments to character stats to bring people on par with one another, or the Games Master pulling GM fiat and making things more story-driven and 'role-play over roll-play'. If you get 'that guy' playing, rest assured he'll roll in with the untouchable murderblaster Grey Knight with dual volkite tiddy-blasters and Force Chainswords spewing holy promethium in seven directions while "See You in Hell" by Grim Reaper blasts through his vox-grille.

...actually that last part is kinda badass and I need to send a message to our Emperor's Children Marine player...

One marine model was enough as marines shouldn't be all the time seeing 1 can take on like 20 guys alone without breaking a sweat...

tneva82 wrote:
One marine model was enough as marines shouldn't be all the time seeing 1 can take on like 20 guys alone without breaking a sweat...

They are, in fact, very powerful- relatively speaking, of course. Up against skilled warbands of mortals or something of the sort, they can be dropped. And, of course, a good Games Master isn't going to let a Marine walk in and slaughter an entire warband in a few dice rolls- no matter what the dice say, because Inquisitor is a narrative-focused game and whatever 'makes a better story' is what the result will be. Again, this is NOT the game for 'that guy' because the character creation is flexible enough that you can make a murder-monster and flatten everything 'just because the rules say I can'- hence, the Games Master.

But, of course, if that's the theme of what you want to go with- it works very well. Not so much of someone wants to put down 3 guardsmen. There has to be a degree of power balance, and that weighs heavily on the Games Master (Fortunately, ours is very experienced).

Many people are very addicted to the whole 'make and paint a group of dudes', which I understand the appeal and also enjoy that. But it's also fun being 'just one dude' and worrying about him and him alone. It feels very much like an action movie, in some ways.

However, with our particular group- Astartes were the models everyone had, for the most part, so that's what we decided to do. And that's been fun so far. I don't know if a full-on RPG like Deathwatch or Black Crusade would be as fun with this, I suppose that would depend entirely on the campaign- and fortunately I've had pretty good campaigns in those games as well, but it was a very different type of game and feel- despite the similarities.

Not every Inquisitor player feels the same way about the Astartes- some balk at the entire idea that people actually dig Space Marines and don't want to make an Ecclesiarchy Blanchitsu grimy warband that gets shredded in combat like wet tissue paper. It's a system that's flexible enough to do anything- a Tau Fire Warrior team, an Eldar Farseer, a Tech Priest and his badass robot, an Inquisitor and his Arbite and Death Cult assassin acolytes, or even some hapless Imperial Citizen trying to survive something awful. Hell, you might have to work at it but I'm pretty sure you could make an Imperial Knight facing against a traitor Titan Legion on a vast battlefield if you tweaked some things and homebrewed up some weapons.

It's just that kind of game. And sadly, of course, just like 40k- it's got no shortage of people whining about what other people are enjoying.

But, if anything- I have the blessing of playing this game with friends and having fun the way we want, and anyone who peeks in and inquires- then curls their lip at the absurd notion of us guys playing with some Marines- well, they can kick rocks and go find a group that suits their preferences. It's a toolbox, not a model kit. Make it what you want.

I encourage you to try it any way you like, and let me know what it is for you. I'm not impartial to trying other things.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
Again, this is NOT the game for 'that guy' because the character creation is flexible enough that you can make a murder-monster and flatten everything 'just because the rules say I can'- hence, the Games Master..

Honestly it's this more than anything else that puts me off Inquisitor these days - there is a genuinely colossal gap between "narrative-only RPG-style" and "that guy", but a lot of folk(and this is a general criticism I'm not having a go at you AD) in the community firmly believe otherwise and will thoroughly gak all over anyone who likes a set of rules that actually supports the style of game it's supposedly supposed to be, rather than requiring players to endlessly ignore the results generated by the rules for the sake of the story. A good narrative set of rules is one where the narrative flows naturally from the system in action, not one where the system has to be constantly overridden. Heck this attitude has gotten so laughable that I've seen INQ28 bigwigs seriously arguing that if you desire anything crunchier than "make believe where you occasionally chuck a dice to check something on a 4+ for success" you're somehow doing it wrong.

A good narrative game should combine reasonably balanced character creation, solid and expansive core rules, and carefully written scenarios to eliminate the need for a GM, or at least to eliminate the need for them to do anything beyond write their gaming group additional scenarios to play through. Inquisitor manages to fail all three to one degree or another.

I love the idea of Inquisitor, but I've only ever managed to realise that idea in a satisfactory way using other game systems(Inquisimunda, the FFG RPGs).

I was there when it first came out. Not sure about the "Shelf warmer" comments. You couldn't keep this gak in stock and loads of conversions came about. I myself personally made a Commissar, Guardsman with autogun, an Eldar Howling Banshee made from an Avatar and a Tau Ethereal (no pics though, these mins don't even exist anywhere in my collection any more). A good chunk of them were "badass longcoat" ones though due to the Matrix sequels coming out around the same time.

The three main problems the game had that I saw were movement cost action points (or whatever it was called. Been a while). Our GW store house ruled it you auto passed these rolls to simply walk and just deducted them from the points you had for that turn.
Secondly, it was (in our store anyway) perceived as a "veterans" game that the teenagers were not allowed to play (I was 15/16 when =][= came out). I remember expressing interest after converting the aforementioned Banshee and getting snobbish looks from the adults as they sneered at the fact Eldar were not even in the rulebooks, despite the whole essence of =][= being built around customisation and the GM being god. I'll never forget the look me and my friends got after being invited to play it on Vet's night by GW staff. You know when a girl walks into a store and the whole store turns around to look at them? Yeah, that.
Lastly (and I felt so justified after Gav Thorpe, the Game's author wrote exactly the same opinion piece in Fanatic a few years later, sadly I've misplaced this issue) The game was about combat. It was all about the fight. Gav likened it to WWE with the game being the main event that your whole campaign has been leading up to. Sadly, the GW store I played at didn't get this memo that there has to be conflict in a wargame. I remember my Redemptionist character getting victimised by the rest of the group as I'd had the audacity to play in character and wanted to burn heretics and gak. He got publicly executed in the following week's game. Oh how naive I was...

Conversely, there was a bunch of us who had grown tired of this GW store's gak with =][= and decided to make our own group where we played at school after hours. We had a great campaign that was capped off with the characters trying to stop a daemon summoning ritual (using the cardboard Elf plinths from WD ). Turns out killing the cultists was required to complete the ritual as their blood seeped into the ground. The GM asked the players to close their eyes and we plonked my then brand new, freshly painted Heresy minis Netherlord (mk 1 version) on the board. This was before the internet became huge the way it was and small, boutique companies could still slip under the radar for while. No-one had seen this HUUUGGGGEEE model and they went WTF. This for me was what this game was about. We had a dropped a huge (albeit simple) twist into the climax of this story and it was a genuine surprise for the players.

 Yodhrin wrote:
A good narrative game should combine reasonably balanced character creation, solid and expansive core rules, and carefully written scenarios to eliminate the need for a GM, or at least to eliminate the need for them to do anything beyond write their gaming group additional scenarios to play through. Inquisitor manages to fail all three to one degree or another.

It's not as terrible as you think, and very rarely do things have to be handwaved in terms of dice rolls- it's more for, as I said, some sort of cinematic flavor. The current version of the rules is a bit more cleaned up.

 Yodhrin wrote:
I love the idea of Inquisitor, but I've only ever managed to realise that idea in a satisfactory way using other game systems(Inquisimunda, the FFG RPGs).

This was our original idea- Inquisimunda. However, it did't have Astartes when we looked. Has that changed or is there something out there I missed?

Inquisitor is not designed in the same way as more traditional wargames. It is a decent set of mechanical rules that should be used in a narrative setting with a GM. Space Marines are typically unbalancing if brought to a game and the focus should really be on lower level combatants. A piece was written about using SMs in campaigns and has some great ideas but I feel SMs should be left alone generally in Inquisitor and the emphasis placed on roleplaying, scenarios, character interplay and so on.

It was just a bit odd for GW at the time. Not quite a battle game, not quite an RPG. And some of damage is....wonky. For instances, a Space Marine throwing his bolt rounds like darts does more damage than shooting them from the Bolter.

But it also allowed for a lot of rule of cool. For instance, using Machine Curse to switch off a Space Marines Power Pack. Made them very clunky to use, and was my ‘go to’ counter against TFG that always insisted on using one. Do that, then lob a demo charge. Job’s a good’un.

It’s very much a game to be played amongst closer friends than mere gaming buddies. Peeps need to agree to a certain way of playing it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
On further reflection, I feel they could’ve released it as a proper RPG, with the option of using the models.

If it’s ever revisited, and retains 54mm, I’d like to see Mook enemy models.like 5 Guardsman, 5 Cultists. That sort of thing.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It was just a bit odd for GW at the time. Not quite a battle game, not quite an RPG.

Yeah, that's why Gav had to release that editorial. I get exactly where he was coming from, especially after seeing him at an NXT event in Nottingham and discovering he is a huge WWE fan (and Samoa Joe is a 40k fan FWIW) so everything he wrote in that article and what he meant for the game suddenly just clicked.

As soon as you know how to fantasy book wrestling, you know how to GM =][=. It's all about what matchups you want to see and the stories you tell to get there.

 Inquisitor Kallus wrote:
Inquisitor is not designed in the same way as more traditional wargames. It is a decent set of mechanical rules that should be used in a narrative setting with a GM. Space Marines are typically unbalancing if brought to a game and the focus should really be on lower level combatants. A piece was written about using SMs in campaigns and has some great ideas but I feel SMs should be left alone generally in Inquisitor and the emphasis placed on roleplaying, scenarios, character interplay and so on.

Yeah. As special scenarios they are fun but when kick ass inquisitor lord is generally not enough to make marine break a sweat if there's marine all the time the power level needs to go up high. And you can expect heavy casualties anyway...Some low rag gunslinger is basically worthless at such enviroment. You could run 20 of those and marine would just walk over them.

Generally Inquisitor worked best when they didn't involve guys from 40k. Aspect warrior? About worst kind of eldar you could come up with for Inquisitor. Tau firewarrior? Please. More originality.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It’s very much a game to be played amongst closer friends than mere gaming buddies. Peeps need to agree to a certain way of playing it.

This. A lot of this.

And when sitting down to create characters, the first person we dis-invited from the group was the guy who immediately flipped to the wargear and started trying to build a character around the best weapons. Sorry, but as a personal rule with me playing RPG's- if the first thing you're looking at are the possible ways to min/max your character for combat, you're not going to be fun to play with. And I've never been wrong about that.

Yeah, sure- we all said "Let's just run a single Astartes, that could be fun"- but most players were thinking of cool concepts that fit certain chapters and legions, or even drafting up their own chapters or legions. We even almost settled on doing a Crusade/Heresy Era campaign (and might revisit that).

It is more like playing action figures with your friends with a ruleset than it is playing Necromunda or Kill-Team with 'search for treasure' options like some people expect.

 Inquisitor Kallus wrote:
Space Marines are typically unbalancing if brought to a game and the focus should really be on lower level combatants. A piece was written about using SMs in campaigns and has some great ideas but I feel SMs should be left alone generally in Inquisitor and the emphasis placed on roleplaying, scenarios, character interplay and so on.

"Lower level combatants" is, as I am understanding, a matter of preference. Were the option for SM not a 'valid' one, then it would not have been included in the rulebook and examples of a mission to use one wouldn't have been added, nor would that model the size of a toddler ever been produced. Personally, I find it actually works better using a single character than it does a 'warband' group. But this is all a matter of personal preference.

I am not directing this at you, of course, but understand that this has been the most daunting issue when reaching out to other Inquisitor groups for guidance. If my group wants to go grab or build a Space Marine to use for an RPG, that's what they'll do and the rules support that idea. Other groups are more than free to play Inquisitors, Eldar, Arbites, or whatever "bowlegged Freeguilder with a chainsword coverered in Play-doh" Blanchitsu models they want.

And none of the roleplaying elements are absent from playing Space Marines. Our Deathwatch team has got some very, very clever banter- and I think we Heretics may be a bit entertaining with our sideways insults at one another. Role-playing, narrative missions, and the entire 'dungeon crawler' aspect is more than supported with this system.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:
Generally Inquisitor worked best when they didn't involve guys from 40k. Aspect warrior? About worst kind of eldar you could come up with for Inquisitor. Tau firewarrior? Please. More originality.

I'm not seeing how this is reflected in the rules, have I missed something or is this a matter of personal preference?

I'm thinking you can balance the game toward any 'combat level' you like, if your entire group is getting behind it.

You can, but the game mechanics were focussed with standard humans in mind. Its like adding a Space Marine into Dark Heresy. Marines are fine in Deathwatch, because you don't have to contend with having lower characters in a group of marines. A Marine was added because it is the most iconic thing from 40k. Some minis were made first then rules were made to use the 54mm scale minis in games. The MArine isn't balanced, it doesn't scale properly mechanics wise and they are generally best used in supporting roles. You could choose for everyone to take Marines and Aspect Warriors but then youre missing out a lot of what makes Inquisitor....Inquisitor.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
I'm not sure what I was supposed to use with 54mm... a toddler's clothes and some parts from a scooter and a GI Joe?

Using 1:32 scale model soldiers was fairly widely discussed at the time of Inquisitor's release. In fact, I imagine the existence of miniatures and model kits at that scale is what inspired the sculptors to make the model sin the first place. And I'm not sure comparing Inquisitor to Kill Team or the like is the best comparison. At the time, I don't think using miniatures in RPGs was as widespread an idea as it is now, but that's what it is; or at least, the combat system, with the rest of the narrative left up to the players to invent themselves.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Using 1:32 scale model soldiers was fairly widely discussed at the time of Inquisitor's release. In fact, I imagine the existence of miniatures and model kits at that scale is what inspired the sculptors to make the model sin the first place. And I'm not sure comparing Inquisitor to Kill Team or the like is the best comparison. At the time, I don't think using miniatures in RPGs was as widespread an idea as it is now, but that's what it is; or at least, the combat system, with the rest of the narrative left up to the players to invent themselves.

Yeah, those were a thing in the UK. We didn't have much of that to choose from in the US. I looked up some of the places people bought conversion parts from, all of those places were UK and Germany- and we didn't have much of that and it was a bit more of a pain in the ass to get those models over the pond.

We'd always had miniatures in RPG's when I played them- though, usually not terrain- more like a map and such.

 Inquisitor Kallus wrote:
You could choose for everyone to take Marines and Aspect Warriors but then youre missing out a lot of what makes Inquisitor....Inquisitor.

Which is what I had stated we'd done in the original post, with the exception of the GM and Co-GM's.

And I'm still not seeing what it is I'm missing out on. Over the last few months, it's been a blast. Combat is pretty heavy (we're fighting groups and some pretty rough stuff on par with us, not small handfuls of cultists or guardsmen- more like Genestealers, beefy Dark Mechanicus Mutant/machine hybrids, daemon engines, other marines, etc.)

You don't bring a Space Marine to a Dark Heresy or Only War Campaign. You get Deathwatch or Black Crusade, and that's how you play your Marines- with the same system, and things scaled toward that.

But yeah, people keep saying I'm 'missing the point', and I don't see it. We're just using a different 'scale' character and missions tailored to that. Starts to sound like more of the "REEE SPACE MARINES NUUUUUU!" stuff after a while. A lot like the reaction you get when you tell people you played Technocracy in Mage: The Ascension.

Again, that's not what you're saying and I get that, but I get a bit of the shrieking when I tell people what we're doing and they tend to lecture me about how I should be scumming up random models to make a few low-tier humans, or I'm otherwise 'doing it wrong'. Well, if I'm doing it wrong- I'm doing it wrong with like 10 people and we're having fun, so just... don't play with me.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Using 1:32 scale model soldiers was fairly widely discussed at the time of Inquisitor's release. In fact, I imagine the existence of miniatures and model kits at that scale is what inspired the sculptors to make the model sin the first place. And I'm not sure comparing Inquisitor to Kill Team or the like is the best comparison. At the time, I don't think using miniatures in RPGs was as widespread an idea as it is now, but that's what it is; or at least, the combat system, with the rest of the narrative left up to the players to invent themselves.

Yeah, those were a thing in the UK. We didn't have much of that to choose from in the US. I looked up some of the places people bought conversion parts from, all of those places were UK and Germany- and we didn't have much of that and it was a bit more of a pain in the ass to get those models over the pond.

We'd always had miniatures in RPG's when I played them- though, usually not terrain- more like a map and such.

I thought Tamiya were a reasonably easily-obtained brand in the USA? It's hard to tell, now, what was common 20 years ago. I've only ever used minis in a single session of the Iron Kingdoms RPG, and it was a failure, because we all had to crowd round a coffee table instead of sitting comfortably in chairs.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
I thought Tamiya were a reasonably easily-obtained brand in the USA? It's hard to tell, now, what was common 20 years ago. I've only ever used minis in a single session of the Iron Kingdoms RPG, and it was a failure, because we all had to crowd round a coffee table instead of sitting comfortably in chairs.

A lot of cars and such, if that's what you're looking for. But keep in mind, for a lot of people doing conversions on metal was... risky. And time consuming. And they tended not to hold up for long.

Oh no, you do what you want, if you want to use the mechanics to make a marine centric game go ahead, its just the mechanics don't really work that well with marines, Deathwatch is much better, but is not a miniature game.


Inquisitor is also a kind of setting, breaking free from the tabletop standard and really allows for a street level gaming feel far more than anything GW has ever put out. It also helped pave the way for the more in depth Dark Heresy and its ilk. Im not saying you're playing it wrong, people should play in a way where they and their group are having fun and enjoying it, for me Inquisitor allows you to really get down to the more obscure areas of the 40k universe with Marines being an extremely rare occurence which is at odds with their appearance in pretty much all of GWs other games.

Yeah, like most people, I played this as an RPG style skirmish battle game, with the players each playing one character in an Inquisitor's warband, and the games master controlling the enemies. We had a ton of fun with it. So many great and memorable games and moments.

We never tried playing it the way it was intended, with each player controlling 4 or 5 characters and the warbands fighting against each other. Seems like it would be hard to have a good narrative justification for that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And I don't see how Space Marines are "unbalancing" if you're playing all the players as a party against the games master. Or even if you are playing warbands against each other, you can still balance them.

 Inquisitor Kallus wrote:
Inquisitor is also a kind of setting, breaking free from the tabletop standard and really allows for a street level gaming feel far more than anything GW has ever put out. It also helped pave the way for the more in depth Dark Heresy and its ilk. Im not saying you're playing it wrong, people should play in a way where they and their group are having fun and enjoying it, for me Inquisitor allows you to really get down to the more obscure areas of the 40k universe with Marines being an extremely rare occurence which is at odds with their appearance in pretty much all of GWs other games.

I might honestly feel the same way about the game, had I not played about five or six Dark Heresy campaigns before getting into Inquisitor. I sort of scratched that itch with something else, so Inquisitor was more a chance for me to take a system and enjoy playing one character that can do much more than a regular skirmish game, without slowing down as much as an actual full-blown RPG.

Don't get me wrong, I get the idea you're talking about and I bet it could be fun- I'd love to run as an Arbites, stalking something in some forgotten hive alongside an Inquisitor.... but when the idea was pitched- it was far more reasonable to have some guys to kitbash together a Space Marine from a box they all got to share, swapping around parts... than to ask them to go do all the work to put together 3+ unique low-tier characters. Everyone had a marine laying around, everyone wanted to be one dude, so we just went with it and it's working pretty well.

Don't get it confused, though- it's not like the things we're dealing with are entirely low-level scrubs. I'm pretty sure our GM's are digging critters from the Deathwatch and Black Crusade games out.

 Albino Squirrel wrote:
Yeah, like most people, I played this as an RPG style skirmish battle game, with the players each playing one character in an Inquisitor's warband, and the games master controlling the enemies. We had a ton of fun with it. So many great and memorable games and moments.

We never tried playing it the way it was intended, with each player controlling 4 or 5 characters and the warbands fighting against each other. Seems like it would be hard to have a good narrative justification for that.

Our GM has made some pretty terrifying mutant/machine hybrids for us to deal with. I think the coolest moment so far, though- was when our CSM's were attempting to get to a shuttle during a massive hive insurrection, trying to get to it before a Patriarch and his Genestealer 'Princes' got on board, all while ALSO having to avoid getting slumped by a Cardinal's personal Crusader guard as they were guarding the shuttle and trying to evacuate him- and seeing our two GM's narrate out a battle and us trying to get through without getting into it with either group.

All of this, and we had 0 ammo.

And we still got to throw some clergy out of a cargo hatch a mile above the ground. All in all, a great day.

 Albino Squirrel wrote:
And I don't see how Space Marines are "unbalancing" if you're playing all the players as a party against the games master. Or even if you are playing warbands against each other, you can still balance them.

That's what we're doing. It's scaled specifically for that- but in a way that even when we're dealing with weaker things, we're going to run out of ammo eventually and get overwhelmed.

Don't get me wrong, playing 6 DH campaigns is a nice little way to get started with it but somewhere in the region of two score as well as being a GM just about comes close for me in scratching that itch. I prefer to delve a bit deeper, not just scratch the surface.


In regards to the 54mm models a number of sculptors had previously made some GW based models in that scale (e.g. female Catachan) and a number of people had asked about them and thought it was cool so they ran with it. They chose not to just do it at 28mm because, well, business wise, they wouldn't really sell any new models, people would just use their older models. The new scale allowed them to not only do something different as creators, showing the universe in a different scale with all the added detail that it brings but also bring something 'new' to the market.

 Albino Squirrel wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And I don't see how Space Marines are "unbalancing" if you're playing all the players as a party against the games master. Or even if you are playing warbands against each other, you can still balance them.

there was an article in the back of one of the Inquisitor books that dealt with adding Marines into warbands or as antagonists. Its well worth reading if you play Inquisitor and are using Space Marines.


@Adeptus Doritos, you seem to be overly defensive or else trying to 'pick a fight' when anybody puts forward an opinion or facts that don't share your view. The important thing is to have fun when gaming, there's no right or wrong way to do it. Inquisitor has some nice mechanics and a great setting alongside some great (and not so great...) 'minis'. I would have liked to have seen better scaling stats/rules wise.

 Inquisitor Kallus wrote:
@Adeptus Doritos, you seem to be overly defensive or else trying to 'pick a fight' when anybody puts forward an opinion or facts that don't share your view. The important thing is to have fun when gaming, there's no right or wrong way to do it. Inquisitor has some nice mechanics and a great setting alongside some great (and not so great...) 'minis'. I would have liked to have seen better scaling stats/rules wise.

Chalk that up to a little frustration. Let's just say that there's a few places out there to discuss Inquisitor, some even dedicated entirely to it. Any time me or someone from my group has reached out to those places, explaining what we're doing and why, the general response is this:

"Inq28 is a game where you can feel free to be creative, without the restrictions of most skirmish games- It is a toolset for you to use to create the narrative games you want within the 40k universe, and the primary focus is to enjoy a good narrative RPG skirmish game- unless you make a Space Marine, then you're enjoying it wrong, you mongoloid."

I do apologize, but there's one of my biggest annoyances with a lot of gaming communities- miserable kvetchers and fussbudgets spend way too much time bickering about how someone else is enjoying something, rather than focusing on enjoying things their own way. It's like there's an entire component of 'Fun Police' in every game.