Space Marine to Dark Heresy

Howdy folks!

Today I want to talk about Dark Heresy. Yeah, we're going to be swapping game systems in a few weeks, and I thought it might be a good thing to go over some stuff that's been on my mind.

In 2009 we started our Mardannon Sector campaign's first RPG game, which I called Space Marine 2009: Shattered Destination. The game was built from Dark Heresy, after it had been out for a while and we all had time to digest the rules. However, my players felt that it would be hard to roleplay the Warhammer 40,000 universe, that it was too restrictive. So I built a ruleset that would allow us to play Adeptus Astartes (before Deathwatch arrived). We played a good length game, where all players were Space Marines. Everyone had a blast, and I think I did a good job proving that with the correct preparation and the right considerations, the setting is one of the best available. Never mind it seems to be the in-house favorite.

In Shattered Destination, the Space Marines taking part in the crusade to liberate Ordavis (mostly Imperial Navy and the Mardannon Crusade of the Black Templars) attacked the surface with a mighty planetfall, only to have their attack fall to ruin amidst defenses the Imperial forces were unaware were on the planet. The survivors of the ill-fated planetfall rallied in the wastes far beyond the hive cities and made their way to a hive yet to be afflicted with the orkoid menace.

What they found was far more disturbing.

The traitorous Alpha Legion had been lying in wait. With a great trove of stolen and appropriated siege tanks, the Legion rolled out of Rasheen and drove straight for the Imperial base at the Ordavis Prime Hive.

The rest is recorded in our last Warhammer 40,000 campaign, the Battle for Ordavis.

Soon, we'll be returning to the Warhammer 40,000 universe via Dark Heresy, only this time we're going to be playing it vanilla style! That is, right out of the book. We'll also be using the Inquisitor's Handbook. I'll probably go over both of those in my next Rulebook Rumination so until then I just want to hit on a few things you guys should be keeping in mind during character creation. Remember, we use miniatures, so any mini you have or want to use is definitely on the table! Just remember - no space marines, xenos or anything other than a human. Imperial, at that.

Dark Heresy has character delineation just like anything else. In this game, instead of Race and Class you get Homeworld and Career Path. Your character will select (or roll randomly) from a homeworld that basically functions as his race. Homeworlds are chosen according to type, and we'll select a world from the Index Mardannon to be your specific homeworld. Your homeworld will determine what Career Paths you can choose from and gives you extra traits as well. The homeworld types are:

1. Feral World - You come from a world with very little technology or civilization.
2. Hive World - You hail from a world of giant cities.
3. Imperial World - Your planet of origin is much like modern Earth.
4. Void Born - You were raised in space, aboard a huge ship.
5. Forge World - Your homeworld is one of the fabrication worlds of the Mechanicus.
6. Schola Progenium - An orphan, you were raised by the Imperium.
7. Noble Born - You were born to a family of Imperial nobles.
8. Mind Cleansed - Who are you? Who am I?

In addition to those 8 origin points, you'll need to choose a Career Path as well. Career Paths are very similar to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Careers, but are more linear. You simply rank up, take alternate ranks and elite advances to flesh out your character. There are also 8 choices for Career Path, and they are:

1. Adept - A thinking man, not nescessarily good at combat or social niceties.
2. Arbitrator - A member of the Adeptus Arbites, the long arm of Imperial Law.
3. Assassin - A killer for contract.
4. Cleric - A preacher of the Imperial Creed.
5. Guardsman - A fighting man, a soldier.
6. Imperial Psyker - A mystic with various psychic disciplines.
7. Scum - Criminals, outcasts, thieves and miscreants.
8. Tech Priest - Member of the Cult Mechanicus, very skilled with machines.
9. Adepta Sororitas - A Sister of Battle a.k.a. Nuns with Guns a.k.a. Bolter Bitches.

With these in mind, conceptualize your character. Lets find a miniature for you to use, and we'll either order it up or you can simply use one of the thousands of minis floating around the Wargate. We want to have painted character miniatures at least!

As a final note, the group's Inquisitor is one Corvus Mandera of the Ordo Hereticus. We had a vote some weeks back where the question was put the the group about which Ordo they would most like to serve, and Hereticus won the vote almost unanimously. He won't be around much in this campaign, but it's good to know who's got your back.

Terrain (Back) Log: Green World Hills!

Yo, it's Bone again! This time I'm here to talk about more of our 'Green World' table - our hills!

These hills are only made of styrofoam, and they get a lot of use here at the Wargate - but the edges of the hills always flake away no matter what we do. I nicked a piece off with my fingernail just the other day during a frantic battle with the tyranids. When it comes time to make the 'Brown World' hills we'll be using some sterner stuff, as well as some molded components to try to avoid that issue.

All in all, we have 5 pieces for the set. I formed them from various trash bits of sytrofoam packing with a hot wire cutter, then used Elmer's School Glue all over the entire mess to create a sort of 'shell' for the hill so I could spray paint it. After that, another layer of glue, flock and details and that's how each one was made. It makes a pretty firm item that will stand up to most things. The styrofoam on the surfaces of the pieces does not crinkle due to the thick glue shell, and even the heaviest dreadnought or daemon prince need fear damaging them. Just those pesky nicks on the edges.

Very old Wargate veterans might recognize the hill in the lower left corner of that pic. It's another surviving piece of the 'ice world' table from the '90's! Now of course, it's been repainted and flocked but it's a very functional hill.

The best part about these hills is that they are easily replaceable! Built for literally pennies, these babies are also quite simple to make. If one ever gets destroyed or degenerates to the point of uselessness, they can always be recycled or a new one generated from crap laying around the house.

Standard in Casual: Magic 2011 Breakthroughs!

It's been quite some time since my last Magic: The Gathering article, and so I thought it would be a good time to review some things from Magic 2011 that I thought were truly remarkable the first time I saw them. Rather than re-hash musings on the mythic cycles of Titans or Planeswalker-ed spells, I chose just a few spells to talk about that are fueling my magic induced frenzy of death at the moment.

Right now, both M10 and M11 are legal in standard until next month when M10 rotates out. M11 will soon be the only basic set in Standard, when Scars of Mirrodin releases in October. Shards of Alara will no longer be Standard legal, and the entire metagame will shift. Long ago I abandoned Shards when Zendikar brought true power back to the mono and dual colored decks (this is where I live - 3 colors always bothered me somehow on a primitive level). So for me, Scars will mark the end of my old enemies and a bigger card pool. Many of the cards in M10 are available in M11, and so certain deck themes will be allowed to continue into the Zendikar-Scars Standard environment.

These spells I think are acknowledged but somehow marginalized. I feel that they are a vital component of some of the most serious builds out there, even if people don't play them very much.

Fire Servant

Man this guy is hot! In Zendikar, we had Quest for Pure Fire, which allowed us basically to double the damage we could deal in one turn. With this guy, if he's been summoned then he's going to harm you. Note that only instants or sorceries are doubled, unlike the Quest. Still, with the right deck, especially one sporting a couple of Quests and Kiln Fiends or Chandra's Spitfires. The criteria required for each one of those abilities is slightly different, but interrelated.

Another angle one could take with this is loading the deck with tons of instant and sorcery spells (duh), but include your Quests and maybe some Reverberations to deal with those like minded fools using magic to hurt you. There's a lot of potential for damage dealing here, even if you stick to Lightning Bolts and Fireballs.

Phylactery Lich

Now here we have a winner. This guy gets it done, let me tell you. The biggest problem with the Lich is choosing which artifacts to include! Equipment seems a no-brainer, and with Scars coming up this particular card is set to become even more ridiculous. At three black mana, it pretty much demands mono-black - but a mono black deck filled with artifacts is totally awesome too!

It's easy to throw in all the high cost equipment, but you really have to include several artifacts that require a lower investment in mana. Sword of Vengeance is awesome, but requires a 6 mana investment to get the most use out of. Speed is of the essence in the format, where 2 turns could see you facing a great many elves or even eldrazi spawn turned hateful. Trusty Machete only requires half that, but what about Pithing Needle or other 1 mana artifacts? Definitely a prospect worthy of further discussion.

Steel Overseer

This is probably the most ridiculous yet. With Scars being an artifact heavy set, and probably block, this is one of the spells with staggering potential right out of the pack. I had the opportunity to duel a mage who got three of these onto the board...in a few turns I was dealt with thoroughly. In that game, I had my indestructible liches from earlier!

The possibilities here are almost endless, but the obvious choice is an artifact deck! These guys make it all possible...bring out your Ornithopters, Triskelions and Pilgrim's Eyes! Who even wants to contemplate the even deadlier Myr deck that will be possible in Scars? I'm sure we'll definitely see a marked appreciation of the value of these cards as the potential these monsters will bring to decks increases.

On the flip side, these will be high priority targets for your opponent. Want to keep em safe? Make sure to bring your Whispersilk Cloaks!

That's all for now, or until Wizards of the Coast sends me a Cease and Desist Order for using the card images on the site. Well, their AutoCard program doesn't seem to work in the Blogger shell, which is a shame really because that's a really neat effect. Oh well, I guess if I get an email / letter from their legal team, I'll just cut the entire Magic: The Gathering section from the blog and there will be no further mention of Magic at all on the Wargate. Since I'm pretty much the only player of Magic at the Wargate (save for a few oldschoolers) I'm talking to myself anyway. It also probably won't matter that I don't have any ads or banners here either. I'm small time.

Until then, I'm gonna do it my way. With pictures.

Rulebook Ruminations: The World of Darkness

We change systems a lot here at the Wargate, and it can be kind of hard to keep the rules about which games apply where all straight in the noggin. So, rather than present a tired review about a game book, Rulebook Ruminations plans to examine individual or sets of gaming books when and if they become relevant our community here.

In keeping with that maxim, today I'll be talking about The World of Darkness, White Wolf's core rulebook for the NEW World of Darkness, hereafter referred to as nWoD to differentiate it from the old line of books. The line was launched in 2004 with this rulebook, but it would take a long time before the nWoD really earned a place at our table. A lot of that was simply all the stigmata from the OLD World of Darkness (oWoD), like being emo or sucking in general.

Last year, some of you may recall the Wargate community went through the end of the oWoD, years after it had been published. Soon after, interest in the nWoD began to simmer and a lot of the new books were bought - now there are a ton floating around here! I think it's safe to say that the nWoD, due to a great many factors, is here to stay for quite some time.

First of all, the book itself is quite nice. The only thing that is a bother is actually using the manual in the game - how does a reference manual not have an index?? That said, the rules that this game uses are a HUGE improvement over the last iterations comprising the oWoD. It's still the Storyteller system, but man is it much meatier now.

This manual is sort of a generic horror game, with very little in the way of setting. Actually, there is nil for setting - the vignettes posed in the fiction portions of the manual are actually quite, well, generic...and I mean that in the best of ways. It is this quality of genericness that truly drew me to the nWoD, that the manual and rules can be extended to almost any genre or setting you can think of: Modern, Western, Apocalyptic, Fantasy...whatever. Just use your imagination to fill in the gaps and this engine will do whatever you want it to do.

The other supernaturals from the oWoD are presented in their own manuals. Vampires, werewolves, mages, the created, geists, changelings, and what not. The line that White Wolf has propagated was an intense draw as well - there is a plethora of fantastic sourcebooks for each of the supernaturals (as one would expect), but White Wolf really went the distance with the basic generic line that is simply The World of Darkness. Titles like Tales from the 13th Precinct, Armory, Second Sight, and the Book of Spirits make up the core line, and almost all of them are at least fascinating if not incredibly useful.

The rules themselves are not as ambiguous, and this is a definite plus for the mighty warriors here at the Wargate. The core mechanic has remained the same (dots in attributes equal dice in a pool) but getting results is actually a lot easier to understand. That's something you really have to think about if you regularly host different games all the time - the audience should be able to remember how to play it, if not the details.

Target number and number of successes needed have been fixed. On most actions a single success will work, but if you score five or more for an "exceptional success" the Storyteller may increase the magnitude of your reward. Likewise, "botches" aren't as much of a plague - the new system says any time you are sufficiently impaired by circumstance to have no dice in your pool, you may still roll a single die - but the chances of success are only 1 in 10. Likewise, there is a 1 in 10 chance of a "dramatic failure" - what we recall as "botches". Thus, the amount of terminal stupidity is quite minimized. In the oWoD it seemed like if you rolled more dice you were more likely to botch. Crazy.

This manual is quite cheap, also. It's a nice hardcover, and provides the basic rules for what are sure to be many campaigns here at the Wargate. If you want your own Wargate manuals, this is definitely one to pick up, and you can usually get them for $10 or $15 easy. Definitely recommended.

Hydra Dominatus: The Battle for Ordavis is over!

At long last, the grueling battle for the planet Ordavis has come to an end!

Though at least 6 factions have battled for control of the planet's hives, only one could come out on top. Usually I'd be announcing who won the struggle, but for the first time since we begun these campaigns, I actually won one!

The Alpha Legion has forced the Infinity Watch Chapter to retreat from the planet's surface after months of intense siege. Though the Emperor's space marines fought valiantly, the sheer number of enemies on the surface proved insurmountable without help. Unfortunately for the Imperial defenders, the help that did arrive to fight for the Emperor's world were swept aside by waves of fresh enemies.

The orks that infested the surface simply left, save for a few throwback mobs that didn't make it to Westernhive for the launch of the Waaagh! ship. Rumor has it they took a warp ride to Arizona, where they all got a jobs at convenience stores. However, their place was soon taken by the Brotherhood of the Most Hated, a band of Chaos pirates so vile that their Warmaster Laserwulfe is the only person who comments on my articles.

The Most Hated landed on the ruins of Westernhive, intent on getting in on whatever it was the Legion had planned. They sacked the city and wrecked the Cabal's (Legion's) supply trains from Rasheen to Ordavis Prime. A few months into the war, the Imperial defenders of the planet found themselves pinned in the northwest hive.

It would be a long and slow siege.

However, the Chaos Marines weren't the only thing on Ordavis. The Ordo Hereticus sent a priory of Adeptus Sororitas to the planet with thier Inquisitor, and unknown Witch Hunter. They swept through the ruins of Westernhive, eventually securing the space port and garrisoning it with enough troopers to keep the Most Hated out.

The death knell for the Imperial defenders came from an entirely unexpected quarter. Eldar of the craftworld Tir-Tairngire dropped into Ordavis Prime and destroyed the defenders ability to contain the advancing Alpha Legion siege tanks. The Infinity Watch was forced to retreat with the loyal citizens they could save to the Imperial Fleet in orbit, which immediately began to withdraw from the system. Ordavis has been all but lost to the Emperor's light.

The force dispositions at the end of the campaign go as follows.

1. Alpha Legion (Dave -Blue) 11 Influence.
2. Brotherhood of the Most Hated (Jerry - Pink) 7 Influence.
3. Infinity Watch Space Marines (Josh - Orange) 2 Influence.
4. Ordo Hereticus (Greg - White) 1 Influence.
5. Tir-Tairngire Eldar (Joe - Clear) 1 Influence.

Alpha Legion is the only established power base in the region at the beginning of the Campaign Turn. All hail the Umbral Stalkers Cabal!!

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As for Ordavis itself...

The Umbral Stalkers sack Ordavis Prime, and do the same to Rasheen right before they return to Silencia. The Most Hated continue to ravage everything across the countryside until they realize they are pretty much alone on the planet. They have since taken to the stars to find new planets to pirate on.

Ordavis's entry in the Index Mardannon will be changed to reflect this outcome. The new entry follows.

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• Ordavis

• History: A massive hive world, Ordavis was brought into compliance with the Imperium once again during the Old Crusade. The people had lost contact with the Imperium for nearly a thousand years following a massive warp storm in the area, but continued to maintain throwback traditions that identified its folk as belonging to the Imperium. Now, Ordavis is almost entirely deserted by the years of war that wracked its surface, depleted it’s resources and population and razed every single hive built by man.

• Inhabitants: Stern hive workers form the body of the population, while a few Guilder and Imperial noble houses handle trade and other off-world business. For the last 9 years, Ordavis has been a total warzone contested by several factions of renegade astartes and worse. Now, it is in total ruin, and will remain so for the next decade as new settlers arrive and begin to rebuild amongst the bones of the previous hive cities.

• Geography: A small planet with a grey skyline, a good portion of Ordavis is actually rocky crust of the planet, resembling at times a rock quarry. Many of the hives are built down into the crust, while others are built as spaceports and stretch into the stratosphere. There isn’t much drinkable water, and several hives are actually giant mega-condensers that struggle to support the atmosphere of the planet, which is only just barely livable by human standards.

Terrain (Back) Log: Green World Woods!

Greetings!

I've decided to document the terrain we built this last year in the same manner I intend to document further creation of terrain, such as with the "Brown World" project Skim and I will be beginning soon. I've actually got a design spreadsheet with nothing but terrain interactions and iterations guiding these projects along, so it's already conveniently broken down.

Many astute Wargate veterans will notice that these woods in their current iterations were actually much earlier this year, and for that reason these articles will be labeled the "(back) log". We'll be starting the (back) log with this article.

I love trees. Especially on the tabletop battlefield, nothing says 'this is a nice table' quite like trees. I'm not sure why...probably because they jut up from the ground in a very phallic manner.

See what I mean?

We have two strains of Green World trees, coniferous and deciduous! Yeah! Variety rocks! The old pine trees have seen their share of duty, some of them are at least twelve years old. Some of you may remember the Ice World table of the late 1990's we had, and those trees are almost all that remains of that old set. Also, all the bases in this article are reused from the last iteration of terrain we did in 2000-2001 ten years ago. Recycling does, in fact, rule.

The deciduous trees were bought from China earlier this year. I got a bargain on them, and was able to build 4 more bases of woods. I learned to differentiate woods in Battletech - that is, usually you can categorize woods as 'light' or 'heavy'. At the Wargate we use the 'house' rule that if a piece of terrain has clump foliage on the base it is 'heavy' woods and thus difficult terrain. If you look at the photo below, you can see only 1/3 of the pieces are actually light woods (the pines on the right).

Yes, the woods are quite hairy around the Wargate.

There is also a deadwood, made from old Woodland Scenics trees. I used the wrong kind of adhesive on the trees way back in 1998, and the clump foliage you're supposed to use to flesh them out into deciduous plants just fell off. I think that's where the "foliage on the base" rule started, actually. Anyway, now they are dead, and they look cool. (Sez I).

That's it for now, but we'll be posting some nifty articles later this week. Just remember what we've learned today here at the Wargate - don't poke the underbrush, unless you've got an assault cannon.