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Warhammer 40k Roleplay: Only War Let's see them fight ALL of us! I didn't cover Only War originally because I felt my issues with the rest of 40kRP were quite clear from the other reviews. People will tell you Only War is one of the most refined of the WH40KRPs, and if you mean that it has every problem 40kRP has in spades, I suppose that's true. It cuts the skill list to the bone (which is one of the few good things it does), it has glass cannon rocket tag combat to end all glass cannon rocket tag combat, character advancement is awkward and unbalanced, lots of character creation and regiment creation is full of potential system mastery traps that can either produce extremely overpowered characters or scrubs who are going to get wasted in seconds, it's got ill considered subsystems (wouldn't be a 40kRP game without 'em!), deeply unbalanced character classes, insane turbo powerful techpriests (playing and Enginseer is an easy ticket to power; playing a Skitarii regiment even moreso), poorly thought out vehicle rules, weapons that will turn almost anyone into salsa in one shot, and more. To put it to you simply: Only War is a game about the Imperial Guard, the flashlight-and-t-shirt equipped completely ordinary humans who are sent to go die in droves to make the Space Marines look more heroic. Your first act in character creation will be to take your lasgun, the iconic weapon of the Imperial Guard, the standard rifle that supposedly defends the Imperium, and throw it in a bin because it's mechanically useless and every character in OW uses a heavy weapon or something more powerful. If you are actually firing a lasgun at a target, you have built your PC badly and bad things are going to happen to you. They try various rules to maybe make the lasgun usable, but all of them pale next to 'use one of these easily available heavy/special weapons' or making a melee character. Every class except the Medic is practically defined by how they get away from ever using their lasgun (the Medic should also get a different weapon ASAP). In the Imperial Guard RPG. That lack of actual theming beyond the superficial is one of the things that dooms OW. There are theming mechanics; you'll get expendable buddies who don't actually have stats and who exist as a check for 'can I use most of my class abilities' (and who have deeply ill-considered rules) and you can randomly be issued the company laundry instead of your detpacks and have to improvise, but aside from those few sops you basically play like Black Crusade human heretics. The vast majority of OW PCs are skillful glass cannons who do massive damage but fold if they flub a dodge roll. That's what 40kRP is about, after all. This is made much more miserable by the fact that OW is an extremely combat heavy game by default, since it's a military RPG about active gothic hell warzones. DH could get by on its combat having some issues. DW could get by on its combat having plenty of actual options but mostly being pretty easy since you were super-strong Space Marines. OW is a game where optimization and an understanding of the system and gear can make you a massive turbo badass (until you fail Dodge) or you can make a fairly useless PC and die pretty quickly. The tragic thing is this is all married to some genuinely good fluff. In Deathwatch, they talked about how the forces being sent to the Crusade beyond the Warp Gate were told they were going to 'the Spinward Front' to keep them ignorant of the fact that they were going through a huge (necron) teleporter. Well, it turns out the Spinward Front is an actual warzone. One the Imperium thought it had completely under control, so it was safe to divert all its reinforcements to that idiot lord commander's increasingly failed campaign over in Deathwatch. Meanwhile, the situation on the actual Spinward Front keeps getting worse and worse as the Lords Militant look back at Calixis and beyond and scream 'WHAT THE gently caress IS HAPPENING TO OUR REINFORCEMENTS!?' Yes, the Imperium's information control people thought they made a warzone up, except it was a real warzone, so that real warzone is getting starved of troops and supplies and teetering on the edge of going out of control because much of the gear and troops marked 'Spinward Front' get treated as 'oh, right, *wink* Spinward Front, send them into the hellzone' rather than being sent where they were meant for. That's the good stuff, FFG. That's the stuff you guys are good at. That's the tragedy of 40kRP: FFG is genuinely good at 40k fluff. The Guard getting hosed over and needing to fight a desperate battle because all their forces and supplies are (in part due to bureaucratic snarl and inertia) being sent to the wrong warzone because someone picked the wrong name for a maskirova move is totally and completely on point. The art in the book is also absolutely gorgeous. One thing it deserves a lot of praise for is that it also shows the Imperial Guard as a genuinely multicultural and gender-integrated army. They're everyone, after all. All colors, all genders. The Emperor only cares that you have two hands, can hold a lasgun (to throw it in the bin and get a better weapon) and fill a sandbag, and the two hands part is probably negotiable. There's a ton of personality to the regimental art, and it has a strong 'I want to play that guy/gal' factor to it. They really showcase the diversity of people, equipment, and martial styles in the Imperial Guard. There's also an extremely flavorful Regiment Creation system. You make your own background for your PCs, with a points pool. Later books also added the ability to be mixed regiments, for when the Guard have suffered losses and need to jam two completely different types of soldiers together: I had fun with forcing idealistic Agri-Worlder WWII Band of Brothers Paratrooper types together with Mad Max ganger scavs and watching the two bounce off one another even as their skills greatly supplemented each other. The variety of Regiments you can make is staggering. The problem is that Regiment Creation has some pretty clear mechanical winners and losers. It's basically the first major system mastery trap: You will always be better off taking doctrines and options that give you more Aptitudes (things that determine how expensive your character advances are in EXP). When we get to making a Regiment, much like Feng Shui's example characters, I'm just going to ask the thread for some names, concepts, maybe a tiny bit of backstory, and then I promise you I can make what you're thinking of. It might not be mechanically good, but I can make it. That is both the strength and the weakness of Regiment Creation: You can be just about any kind of army you can imagine, just certain kinds of armies are going to be vastly better in gameplay. It might surprise you that being cavalry can be totally kickass, though! So welcome to Only War. It's got great fluff and art. It's made with a lot of love. It's mechanics are also terrible, it has the broken gear system from 40kRP, and it's full of system mastery, optimization, and false choices in character building. Now gimme some doomed armies so I can make a couple Regiments and start showing off character creation. Whatever you come up with, I can practically guarantee I can make it. Don't have to be limited to basic Imperial infantry, either; tankers, artillery, cavalry, mechanized troops, paratroopers, commandos, a bunch of WHFRP troops who got lost and ended up in the wrong setting and were handed lasguns to go with their halberds, all of these things can be done. Next Time: The Regiments Night10194 fucked around with this message at 13:17 on May 18, 2020 |
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May 18, 2020 13:12
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Also, it should be noted: I will be covering both expansion books (Shield of Humanity and Hammer of the Emperor) in with the main book since they're necessary to both have the full range of crazy regimental creation options and are mostly additional gear/character options and are easily incorporated. And without Hammer of the Emperor you can't really get into how to break the character advancement.
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May 18, 2020 13:30
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Dammit, I would have liked a good Only war game, if only to reskin and use it for a better setting than 40k. Ahh well, looking forward to the review! Also if we get to propose cool regimental ideas. I'd like to go with a temple world that worships the emperor in His form as a very large bird. Aviliary, with a tradition of teror bird mounted shock troops accompanied by very loudly decorated troopers, whose chief occupation is rocketry. Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 13:42 on May 18, 2020 |
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May 18, 2020 13:36
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Mors Rattus posted:Archaon remains one of the least interesting characters...though I appreciate the latest Age of Sigmar event has him decide to give Slaanesh the universe's worst case of blue balls. YMMV but that sounds like awful story-telling to me. Real old skool GW "We're going to shake things up.....and oh look a damp squib". It doesn't even make sense internally. "My homebase is under attack. Shall I immediately abandon what I'm doing and got home. Or spend 30 extra seconds freeing the God-like being that is going to massively power me up to deal with the situation"
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May 18, 2020 13:42
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thousands of years of failure just wear you down, you know? just inches away from freeing a dark god and the ol ennui gets you. you make some vague excuse and go home wondering what the point of it all is. just kidding that'd be something vaguely interesting. but i guess adding passive aggressiveness to his normal tantrum antics is something new. He can add that to his list of personality traits alongside "yells a lot", "is a dick to his subordinates", and "is just generally a dick".
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May 18, 2020 13:55
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He also has a hat. And a lot of magic items with lots of pluses. That makes him cool, right? Archy has always been the worst.
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May 18, 2020 13:58
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At least he can keep his arms on.
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May 18, 2020 14:01
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There is something poetic about Slaanesh getting screwed over because someone was bad at prioritizing their desires, but having it end with 'whoops, nothing happens' is pretty weaksauce.
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May 18, 2020 14:05
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Night's Black Agents: Solo Ops Part Fourteen: Never Say Dead, Finale quote:Leyla Khan The next couple of hours are a blur as Leyla flickers in and out of consciousness. She remembers lying in the back seat of a car with Magda leaning over her, yelling at someone to please not hit every drat pothole in Budapest while she's trying to work, thank you. She remembers a pleasant numb sensation spreading from her stomach, and someone saying something about stopping the bleeding. She remembers the Master. She remembers that the blood is the life. And she remembers the taste of ashes and bitter roses, and knows that last part for the lie it is. She comes to back in the hotel room she's been using as a safehouse. Magda is sitting in a chair by the bed and most certainly has not been crying, no matter what Hulier says, and could Leyla please go five minutes without getting herself all shot up? Rostami--Leyla's mother--is there too, exactly as cool and collected as Leyla remembers from childhood, as though a life-threatening injury is an inconvenience. She tells Leyla that their timetable is shot, and they need to get out of the city now. Rostami's exfiltration plan was designed for two people (Dr. Hulier doesn't seem to grasp the implication of this, but Fr. Foretti nods to himself like this just confirmed a theory for him. Leyla tells her mother in no uncertain terms that no one is getting left behind in this vampire-infested city thank you very much, and Rostami counters that it's too risky with Jovitzo's agents looking for them. To which Leyla reminds her that Jovitzo isn't looking for them, he's looking for her, so the obvious play is to have Leyla go alone and "borrow" Stokovitch's chartered jet while Rostami gets the others out her way. Which everyone agrees is a phenomenally stupid plan, but Leyla is the protagonist here and has Investigative abilities that always work, so that's what happens. Rostami gives her the Sykoran Crucifix, and says it will protect her until they meet again. Leyla puts it around her neck--and hisses in pain as it scalds her skin. It's not enough to leave a real burn, not like what happens when you touch a vampire with a crucifix, but it definitely stings. Apparently that's how you know it's working, and it will only stop when Leyla is completely out from under Jovitzo's influence. Emotional farewells are exchanged, and Leyla sets off in Grigor's old-rear end Suzuki Swift to meet her fate. An appropriate vehicle for a superspy, it is not. Getting patched up after a serious injury counts as taking time whether we want it to or not. Magda rolled her 2 dice of Medic and scored a Hold--not enough to get rid of the Serious Injury altogether, but enough to downgrade it to a Hurt card--so we're in no danger of dying of our gut shot, but we are at -2 on all physical actions until the end of the adventure. On the plus side, we refresh all our depleted abilities, and since I don't think En Garde is going to be much use with one scene left in the adventure, I'm swapping it out for Weapons Expert, which is a straightforward +2 dice on a Fighting test with a melee weapon. Thinking about it, I think I'll also swap Stealth Operator for Grit, which lets us ignore Hurt penalties for one whole scene. As for the Blowback that's coming, well... we'll introduce that in the next scene. The actual adventure suggests that Rostami won't take Leyla with her because it's simply "too dangerous" and might even be reluctant to give Leyla the crucifix at this point, but since I've ad-libbed her being Leyla's mom and Leyla has just gotten pretty thoroughly wrecked, I think this approach makes more sense while still preserving our lone protagonist for the ending. The Sykoran Crucifix is a loving awesome Edge--it fully protects Leyla against vampires' psychic influence (not direct mental attack, but mind control), and once per operation it can grant us +2 dice on any Cool test. Although Sinclair's death has clearly cast the chain of command into disarray, Jovitzo's soldiers are still hunting for her--and not just his soldiers. A storm has descended on Budapest, and even through the Sykoran Crucifix's protection she can feel Jovitzo's rage in the howling winds and lashing rains. As she drives, Leyla sees police checkpoints at every highway onramp out of the city, and she has no doubt there are similar checkpoints at the train stations and at the airports. She'll have to find a way onto the Tököl airfield that doesn't involve going through the main terminal. She ditches the car around near the cargo terminals and goes looking for a chain-link fence to cut her way through, but quickly sees that there's nothing doing. Sinclair trained his people well, and they've got every approach to the tarmac covered. She's going to have to fight her way in. She screws a silencer onto her gun and moves in. She moves across the tarmac like an angel of death, picking off guards quietly, moving from fuel truck to luggage cart, going for the one jet that's actually on the runway ready for take-off. There's a brief scare when she comes around a maintenance truck and walks right into one of Jovitzo's goons, and a few moments of frantic, brutal krav maga fighting before she drops him and puts a couple of rounds into his head, John Wick style, and then she's clear. An Infiltration test, adapted from a Cover test in the book, fails miserably (seriously, we rolled a 2), which means there's no getting out without a fight. The follow-up Shooting challenge goes much better--a 6 on the first die, then a 2, then a 5 on a third die from discarding the Attrition Edge we picked up way back in episode 1. That means we'll go into the final challenge with a +1 die bonus. Since this is the last scene of the adventure, we're also going to use Grit here, so no more Hurt penalties. Holy poo poo, she's actually going to make it! She waves frantically at the pilots, signalling them to start the engines and get ready to go--and that's when she hears it. "KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!" Oh poo poo, that's right. Stokovitch is still alive. Aaaaaaand there's the blowback. Khan hauls rear end onto the plane, pointing her gun at the pilots and ordering them to take off--and while they're paid enough to participate in a dodgy vampiric kidnapping attempt, they're not paid enough to stonewall a woman with a gun, so they start retracting the hatch and spinning up the engine--but Stokovitch is a sluger, she's fast, and she's strong. She makes it to the plane in record time, and while she's nearly caught by the closing hatch, she wrenches it open. Something in the hydraulics gives a high-pitched whine and dies, and the hatch stops closing. Leyla tries for a shot, but Stokovitch kicks the gun out of her hand. The struggle that follows is one to make fight choreographers weep as they slam each other around the crowded confines of the private jet, wind howling through the gap in the hatchway. But Stokovitch has the edge in speed, strength, and sheer unhinged brutality, and at the end of it Leyla is bloodied and bruised, while Stokovitch stands over her with the gun. There's a Fighting challenge here, but I'm straight-up choosing the voluntary Setback option--admittedly that's because I know what's coming next and I know I'm going to need every Fighting die I can get. We technically pick up another Shadow problem from the Setback, but that's not going to matter too much, as we'll see. "We could have been sisters!" she shrieks, raising her pistol--but before she can fire, there's a crack of thunder and something slams into the plane just as it leaves the ground. A massive, clawed hand finds the edge of the not-quite-shut hatch and tears it right off. Jovitzo is here. Stokovitch screams in fury and starts blasting away, but Jovitzo is about as phased by her bullets as he is by the howling wind outside. The pilots, on the other hand, are nameless airplane pilots in an action movie, so of course they're hit by stray shots and killed. Leyla lunges for the cockpit, frantically trying to keep the plane from immediately heeling over and crashing. Behind her, there's a wet, meaty pop as Jovitzo kills Stokovitch. Leyla wrestles the controls, barely managing to keep it on course and climbing, but it's wobbling like a Sunday morning drunk--turns out having a giant hole in the side of your plane is bad for aerodynamics. Who knew? Ironically enough, the Stokovitch blowback actually helps us here--we get a +1 die for this challenge because Jovitzo is distracted killing her, which is easily enough to get us to an Advance. Which brings us to the man himself. Leyla rises from the cockpit, turns to face the thing that controlled her for years. His voice howls in her mind: YOU ARE MINE! YOU CANNOT GO! His voice is like barbed wire in her soul, her blood burning as she fights his poison. The heat from the Sykoran Crucifix rises to a white-hot intensity--and she feels the last chain snap. The pain vanishes like it was never there, and Leyla Khan is free. Time to start spending resources like they're going out of style--this is a Cool challenge with an 11+ Advance threshold and a -1 penalty per Shadow problem, putting us at -3. So first we're going to discard Ice Cold to ignore all penalties to one challenge. Then we're going to tap the crucifix for +2 dice, and we've got a +1 die from Advancing on the Shooting challenge earlier. With 5 dice, we easily Advance with dice to spare, so we have a Push again. Had we only Held, we would have picked up the nastiest Continuity Problem we've seen so far--Burned Renfield, which would leave us with only two Pushes at the start of every operation until we countered it. Jovitzo recoils in shock--and fear, it seems, as he's already starting to shift back into his bat form--but this is it, Leyla's one shot, and by God she's not letting the bastard slip away. She drops a knife from her jacket sleeve--wooden stakes are fine if you've got super-strength or a big gently caress-off mallet, but if a Bowie knife was good enough for the king of the vampires it'll drat sure do for his great-grandnephew. She hurls herself at the vampire, and if Stokovitch was strong, Jovitzo is iron wrapped in human skin. His fingers dig into her throat, but Leyla puts every ounce of strength behind her blade and pierces the undead thing's throat. Black blood flows out in a torrent as Leyla saws his head off. Even still he fights her, clawing and tearing at her, until she drives the knife through his withered heart. And we cap off with another monster of a challenge, this one an 11+ Fighting challenge. Here we burn our Weapons Expert Mastery for +2 dice and Stunt Preparedness for the old knife-up-the-sleeve gag, and again the dice love us, scoring us an Advance on the third die of five. Overkill, maybe, but since both these last two challenges are game overs if you roll a Setback, I'm taking no chances. Sever the head. Pierce the heart. Burn the remains. That's the mantra running through Leyla's mind as she hobbles back up to the cockpit. They're clear of the city limits now, out over mountainous wilderness. Leyla spots an empty alpine meadow a few miles off, sets the auto-pilot, and grabs the one parachute that's always near the hatchway on bad guys' escape planes. She straps herself in, looks back at Jovitzo's corpse--already shriveled and curled in on itself like a dead spider--and decides gently caress it, that bastard's not worth a cool one-liner and jumps out of the plane. Dawn breaks over the Carpathians to a column of thick black smoke rising from a high meadow. The morning news is buzzing about a private plane that went down shortly after an unauthorized takeoff from Tököl Airfield late the night before. As of now, local police are unwilling to comment on whether this is related to the terrorist attack on the Gellért Cave Church the previous day, but naturally the pundits are having a field day. Meanwhile, a young woman of Arabic descent finishes stuffing a parachute back into its pack and ditches it in a stand of trees. She steps out onto the shoulder of a highway, where a sign reads "WIEN/VIENNA: 200km." She smiles and starts to walk. Next Time: Leyla Khan will return in... NO GRAVE FOR TRAITORS So, final thoughts on Never Say Dead: I think this adventure starts really strong and ends really strong, but drags a bit in the Budapest section where it feels like a lot of video game cutscene monologues. The information you can learn from the various vampire hunters isn't very well distinguished, which means a lot of what they can tell you is redundant--which is good for making sure the player gets the relevant info, but it means that it can feel kind of unsatisfying to rescue/recruit them. It also doesn't help that none of them are actually useful as Contacts in this adventure--there are no clues presented in this operation that require an Investigative ability that a Contact has and Leyla doesn't--and that they have no connections to Leyla as a character. It also has a couple of odd bits of logic--the Cover challenge I adapted for the Infiltration challenge is for getting on a commercial flight under a false identity, which... if that was an option, it kind of feels like Leyla would have done that immediately and never even encountered the hunters? There are a couple of scenes that just assume they take place at night, with no provision for players who do the eminently sensible thing of trying to operate in daylight for security. Still, overall, I really like it as an introductory adventure, and I think if I were going to actually use it in a game I'd probably rework act 2 to be more investigative and lean more on Contacts, but it generally does a good job of maintaining tension--even knowing I had a lot of dice going into that last scene, I was still nervous about whether Leyla was going to get out to continue her adventures or if we were going to be making up a new hunter and facing her as an antagonist in the next op. And finally, here's a look at Leyla's character sheet at the end of this operation: quote:Leyla Khan
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May 18, 2020 14:07
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Ah, I see you remember the old Quincy Morris special with the Bowie knife.
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May 18, 2020 14:19
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If we're suggesting regiment ideas, what about Digganobz? Mad Max scavengers from a world that's been Ork occupied for so long the human population's gone feral too and started trying to be Orky. Now their planet's been liberated by the Imperium, and they worship the Emperor as the Brutally Kunning God of War, and are more than happy to join the great Waagh-Crusade.
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May 18, 2020 14:28
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GimpInBlack posted:Night's Black Agents: Solo Ops Love it, and this is one of the things that has got me spending a bit of my birthday money on NBA.
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May 18, 2020 14:30
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Yes, I would like all the regiment ideas. Much like with Feng Shui, part of the fun is that I can make whatever someone suggests. Part of the 'fun' is that it might be flavorful but terrible.
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May 18, 2020 14:32
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Night10194 posted:He also has a hat. And a lot of magic items with lots of pluses. That makes him cool, right? I don't know this character, but it honestly sounds like it makes him a target for a "getting the band back together" thing for Gilbert, Elena and the rest to kill his rear end, grab his magic items for cooler characters (which all of them are) and maybe give his hat to Anya or Elena, who seem to be connoisseurs of hats. Night10194 posted:Yes, I would like all the regiment ideas. Much like with Feng Shui, part of the fun is that I can make whatever someone suggests. Based on Epic Battle Fantasy 5, how about a regiment of ninja warriors? Cat ninja warriors. Either actual humanoid cats/genetically modified humans with feline traits or a bunch of humans with heavy cat/feline motifs. If you can throw in cat wizards and cat suicide bombers, that'd be a plus. Everyone fucked around with this message at 14:47 on May 18, 2020 |
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May 18, 2020 14:40
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A regiment formed to clean up in the wake of Nurgle. I'm thinking combat medics strapped up with heavy flamers and DEEP distrust of any offer of hugs. and I just wrote this while completely forgetting the state of the real world and COVID19 so it's best if you try to as well.
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May 18, 2020 14:52
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WHF LARPers. I have no idea how that'd work.
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May 18, 2020 14:56
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A planetary defense force unit unit conscripted into the proper Imperial Army and in way, way over their heads. Ooo! Could it cover some Rogue Trader's house troops?
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May 18, 2020 14:56
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Leraika posted:WHF LARPers. Considering there are medieval tech level worlds a plenty that shouldn't be too hard to do. Give them laslocks and big hats with feathers.
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May 18, 2020 14:59
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Night10194 posted:Ah, I see you remember the old Quincy Morris special with the Bowie knife. Night's Black Agents in general loves Quincy and his Bowie knife--one of the base game's equivalents of Mastery Edges, for the Weaponry ability, is called "Quincy Morris' Bowie Knife," his knife (along with Jonathan Harker's kukri and Dr. Seward's scalpel) is a possible significant item in the Dracula Dossier, and even one of the example Fighting challenges in Solo Ops has, as its Advance effect, "You manage to find a rusty Bowie knife on the floor of the crypt and kill the vampire with it." Night10194 posted:Yes, I would like all the regiment ideas. Much like with Feng Shui, part of the fun is that I can make whatever someone suggests. A "regiment" that is actually just three goblin con-men and a spreadsheet that got way out of hand.
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May 18, 2020 15:24
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Idealistic but disposable MPs from an idealistic world that is a prosperous federation of people’s. They use pistols primarily and wear red shirts.
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May 18, 2020 15:39
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Night10194 posted:Yes, I would like all the regiment ideas. Much like with Feng Shui, part of the fun is that I can make whatever someone suggests. The 117th Trellian Logistics Troop, a "regiment" of cooks, cleaners, labourers and other non-combatants who arrived on the front lines before the combat troops they were meant to support due to an administrative fuckup.
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May 18, 2020 15:55
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Regiment idea: space marines. No, not Astartes. Void warfare specialists at boarding enemy ships. Who the bureaucracy possibly thinks are Space Marines rather than space marines. And might actually be amphibious warfare experts from an oceanic world thrust into space warfare because what do people in 40k think of when they hear the word 'marine'?
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May 18, 2020 16:15
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Warhammer 40k Roleplay: Only War The creation of a fabulous new Regiment Regiment Creation is one of the most fun parts of character creation and of the whole system in Only War. It isn't great mechanically, but conceptually it's a lot of fun. It also has something in common with Deathwatch that I like: Your Regiment is very much a 'standard skill set' that every PC will have. It also comes with a standard set of kit that every single character from the Regiment always has access to. With Hammer of the Emperor, this kit can also have some significant modifications, representing via randomization that instead of a standard sniper rifle, your regiment uses the M97S Jaeger, a bolt action of venerable design used by a previous heroine of the land to destroy an army of death robots during a harsh winter. Etc etc. This is great fun, and comes with things like 'This Agri World has unusually valuable standard issue rations because theirs somehow include perfectly preserved fresh food that they can trade to other regiments for bullets', which produces great plot hooks. The problem is, the abilities and talents of Regimental Creation are really, really unbalanced. Specifically, some Regimental options will give characters bonus Aptitudes. Aptitudes are what determine how much all your character advances cost. It is almost always preferable to take extra Aptitudes, from a purely mechanical standpoint. I will thus be making several of the suggested Regiments here, and then one or two that are much more heavily minmaxed. Regiments are created on a points system: You get 12 points, but can also take a Regimental Flaw (like having relatively few troops, or being from a doomed homeworld, or having incompetent commanders) to get more points. You select a Homeworld Type, a personality for your Commanding Officer, a Regiment Type, and then spend any bonus points leftover on Training and Special Equipment doctrines. Then you spend points on what kind of gear you have as a standard kit and decide on your favored weapons. Because I actually want to write fluff for all of them (that's a big part of the fun) I'll be spacing this over a couple posts. Angry Salami posted:If we're suggesting regiment ideas, what about Digganobz? Mad Max scavengers from a world that's been Ork occupied for so long the human population's gone feral too and started trying to be Orky. Now their planet's been liberated by the Imperium, and they worship the Emperor as the Brutally Kunning God of War, and are more than happy to join the great Waagh-Crusade. Our first contestants are the 57th Digganobz. While you would expect them to be from Gorkamorka, they are in fact from a world conquered by the unusual Warboss Jaeger, a Blood Axe and former kommando known for his affinity for stealing guns from Tau (dey'z got da' flashiest bitz ta' make a kuston shoota'), a love of extremely reckless vehicular stunts in the name of kunnin' n' stealthiness, and a surprising tolerance for humies as long as dey'z 'ard or lead 'im ta' the best fightin' (See Attached document on the Bosporus Crusade. *Inquisitorial Note*: All attached details on the Bosporus Crusade are hereby declared hereticus extermis, purpose: Xeno Sympathies.) When he took over a world to use it as a trap for Tau, the population found themselves trading the title of Gue'Vesa for 'Digga' and told to 'ardin up'. Many perished, but more still adapted. When the Imperium retook their homeworld, the locals were originally slated for purge, until it was discovered that they had an incredible ferocity when confronted with orkish opponents. This wasn't because they hated them; no, curiously this was because they liked them. Multiple generations of orky rule had gotten the locals into 'ork kultur', and somehow this translated into an understanding that the best and friendliest thing they could do when confronted with orks was to try to punch them in the face. Astonishingly, some of them are even ''ard' (Inquisitorial note: Local dialects refuse to purge themselves of ork slang) enough to survive that, and even take a punch back. To that end, they have been rounded up en-masse and sent on a penitent crusade to atone for their xenos sympathies. They don't seem to realize it's a punishment, especially as they're off to fight orks. They also accept 'komissars' on the notion that you gotta have a nob, n' if you'z a 'umie, you tell 'o da' nob iz by da' big 'at. Iffin' da' nob'z gotta break some faces ta' get da' boyz (Note: They refer to women as 'boyz' too. They somehow consider there to be a difference) movin', dat's just proppa nobbin' it iz. They have a Post Apocalyptic World, costing them 3 points. Kuz dey'z good at fightin', I select the +3 WS and +3 BS options from their homeworld's stats. Dey'z a little nuts, so they get d5 Insanity but Resistance (Fear) (which is awesome) because dey know dey ain't nevah beaten in battle. They also get +10 to all tests to find food, jury rig equipment, etc and every soldier gets Awareness, Survival, and the normal Linguistics (Low Gothic) so they can read and write and talk, even if their dialect is extremely odd. Their Commanding Officer, Colonel-Boss Jagda Muckrobba, is a Bilious woman. She understands dat you gotta be kunnin' as well as brutal, and maybe Blood Axed her way up the ranks a little and used to be a Kommando herself. This gives everyone in the Regiment Paranoia, which gives a +2 to Init and a sort of sixth sense of danger. This is more to represent dey'z always ready fer a fight. 2 points. Dey'z a Rapid Recon Regiment, giving every single soldier a light buggy ta' drive because I get the Gorkamorka reference so they gotta Warboy it up. This also gives them all Tech Use and Operate (Surface Vehicle). Plus a set of binoculars fer' kunnin' peepin'. They get +3 Agi but -3 Toughness. I considered making them a Close Assault regiment ta' give 'em all shootas and armor n' trainin', but I think all of them having warboy buggies with MGs on 'em will do. Every single soldier gets a Tauros Rapid Assault Vehicle. But dere's a problem! Dis costs 8 points. Dey'z too expensive. That's where the Regimental Flaw comes in handy! They're Condemned. They don't actually realize this, but they're on penitent crusade. Also, their weird demeanor causes them problems. So they take a huge -20 to interact with Guardsmen outside their regiment or above their heads. They're also assigned to the most dangerous possible missions, which they take as a sign Warboss Empra loves them kuz why wouldn't dey wanna be where da' biggest fightin' is? This gives them a massive +6 points. With 5 points left, they take a very silly ability: Heavy Lancers. They all get the Weapon Skill Aptitude and Unstoppable Charge. This gives them Felling (1/2 WS Bonus) when they're charging, and gives every soldier either a Hunting Lance (one use exploding lance for AT work) or a mono Great Weapon. It also makes them much better at mounted combat, which they use for their bikers when it comes up. They don't come with a bike standard, sure, but if they can scrounge a few, they know a few tricks. This is so they can scream 'OI, BOSS, WATCH DIS!' (their version of Witness Me) and then do something really stupid/awesome with a spear. Some of them probably try to joust from their buggies, too. I wouldn't put it past them. Now, they don't have great armor or gear. They choose the Autocannon as their favored heavy weapon and Grenade Launchers as their favorite basic. They can find those way more easily, and their specialists can start with them. They upgrade the melee weapon to Best, add a gas mask to their kit, and then spend the rest of their points to replace their pistols with combat shotguns so they have shootas. Yes, you can normally only do that on infantry regiments, but their standard weapon is meh anyway and c'mon, they gotta have shootas. So yeah. That's the crazy, poorly armored, enthusiastic ork servitors gone native. I'll write up a few more, I just wanted to do them first because they were fun and worked well as a first example now that the rules are out of the way. Oh, and to make it even more orky, the main weapons for the Taurus aren't an MG: It's either a rapid fire vehicle grenade launcher or a flamethrower. Dat's proppa explodey! Next Time: MORE REGIMENTS Night10194 fucked around with this message at 16:28 on May 18, 2020 |
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May 18, 2020 16:24
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Deptfordx posted:YMMV but that sounds like awful story-telling to me. Real old skool GW "We're going to shake things up.....and oh look a damp squib". It doesn't even make sense internally. "My homebase is under attack. Shall I immediately abandon what I'm doing and got home. Or spend 30 extra seconds freeing the God-like being that is going to massively power me up to deal with the situation" It’s pretty dumb but I find it hilarious.
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May 18, 2020 16:27
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regiment that is basically venture bros' The Monarch's Henchmen. Aka saturday morning cartoon villain henchmen, equipped with a vast array of gadgetry weapons and gimmick costumes, with awful morale and no training and mostly in it because working for some neurotic trust fund dorks crime org, risking death by horrible means, is still better then working in retail, and its easier to slack off in.
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May 18, 2020 16:56
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Warhammer 40k Roleplay: Only War SPESS MAHREENS Cythereal posted:Regiment idea: space marines. No, not Astartes. Void warfare specialists at boarding enemy ships. Who the bureaucracy possibly thinks are Space Marines rather than space marines. And might actually be amphibious warfare experts from an oceanic world thrust into space warfare because what do people in 40k think of when they hear the word 'marine'? The 95th Kadashii Guardians don't come from a planet at all. They come from Kadash, 'The Garden of the Stars', a series of void-born stations and gas-miners that support fueling operations all through the Toluca Sector. Most have never actually seen the gravitational well of a planet. They are drawn from the Guardians of Kadash (they consider the slight rearrangement of the name important), a military and naval unit charged with seeking out and boarding pirates, illicit traders, enemy raiders (up to and including Dark Eldar, in some of their most storied and famous victories) and defending the all important stations and fuel miners to protect the critical resources of the Garden. They were initially tapped to be attached to Imperial Navy merchant marine vessels as part of a 'Q-Ship' strategy against Dark Eldar incursions, but their accidental designation as a Planetary Defense Force (despite not having a planet, they are certainly a defense force) led to their assignment to the Departmento Munitorium. On seeing that they were actually Marines, they were then assigned by an overzealous clerk to orbital drop operations on the Spinward Front. Their commander is currently wondering if he can get away with smudging out the 'drop' part on their orders, so as to see them assigned to retaking enemy orbitals, the thing they're actually trained for. The Kadashii Guardians are generally stoic people, who assign an almost religious significance to nebulae and stellar phenomena. They see themselves as the guardians of the heavens as appointed by the Emperor, and the idea of setting foot on a planet would not just cause most of their training to be suddenly somewhat irrelevant, but might be considered a religious taboo and cause wide-spread terror in the regiment. They start out with Void Born. This costs them 3 points, getting them +3 Willpower and Agility. They also all know how to fly a plane/shuttle (Operate: Aeronautical), they can use tech (Tech Use), they know tech lore (Common Lore Tech) and they can navigate in space and 3 dimension (Navigate: Stellar). Being born in space and very religious, they get the unusual ability to roll a d10 any time they use a Fate Point. On a 9 or 10, it is unspent, but they still get the benefit they spent it for. They're weird and talk a lot about nebulae, so they get -10 to interaction tests with non Void Born. They also never, ever treat Zero G as rough terrain, and in fact get bonuses when operating in little or no gravity. They can even fight in close quarters in zero G with only -10 tests to move quickly, as opposed to normal characters who take bigger penalties. They really are excellent at shipboard operations. They get -1 Wounds. Their Commander, the holy Colonel Darius Makhtoum, is of a Fixed temperament. He's decisive and willing to make due with the outcomes of his decisions. This costs 1 point, and gives every member of the Regiment the Command skill. They all know how to make decisions and lead if they have to. You never know who will lose their officer during the actual physical boarding of a ship thanks to flak, mishap, or mixup, and every sergeant and corporal has to be ready to take over. The Garden cannot be failed. They are a Close Combat Regiment, trained to fight in vicious boarding actions. Every soldier gets +3 WS, -3 Int, but Dodge and Lightning Reflexes (Rolls twice and takes best for Init). They also all have combat shotguns and proper flak armor, and a ton of grenades. Shotguns being the classic boarding weapon. They could have taken melee weapons instead, but they're a little too professional to be crazy melee people. This costs only 3 Points, leaving them with 5 with no drawbacks. They take the curious mixture of Defenders of the Omnissiah (3 points) to give every soldier the Tech aptitude. They aren't Mechanicus, but they live on ancient stations and honor the Machine God plenty, and also know many of the prayers and rites to protect a ship's system (or defeat the systems of enemy ships, to take control). They also take Defenders of the Faith, giving them all +3 WP, a bunch of common religious knowledge, and every soldier gets Unshakeable Faith. They ALL reroll failed Fear tests. They will not falter. The Garden must be protected. Even if they are sent to be weighed down by gravity, if the Emperor tells them to defend a new Garden, they will. Their favored Heavy Weapon is a Heavy Flamer, because it's kind of the only one that fits them and the Naval Shotcannon isn't in Only War. It also sucks, sadly. Their favored Basic isn't any ordinary grenade launcher, it's the Voss Pattern Automatic Grenade Launcher. For when one Marine really needs to pin down an entire gantry with frags. That's a winner that helps make up for their poor Heavy Weapon. They add Mono to their bayonets and upgrade their shotguns and armor to Best quality. For fun, they also roll for a Variant Pattern for their Shotgun, since it seems to be a holy weapon for them. Rolling a d10 to see how many positive and negative quirks it gets, I get a 7: 2 Positive, 1 Negative. Their shotguns get Longbarrel (+10m range, which is actually very useful and significant for a Scatter weapon as they depend a lot on being at close Range) and High Impact (+2 Damage when Aiming before firing, a very nice boost). It has a Corrupted Pattern, making Common versions of this weapon have Poor quality instead. But their standard issue is Best. So basically pirates make knock-off versions of their awesome, high tech boarding shotguns that just can't stand up to the real military grade ones with proper blessings. We'll call it the M36 Defender Pattern. So yeah, they're actually quite well equipped to be high tech naval specialists. Shame about the paperwork. At least they won't have to fight the Taidanii Empire. Next Time: Stardate: M41.09283726
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May 18, 2020 17:09
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I'm going to do three more (though I could do these all day) but it's going to be the cooks, the redshirts, and MINNNNNNNIOOOONNNS because who doesn't love The Mighty Monarch?
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May 18, 2020 17:11
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j73gYxsxRrs
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May 18, 2020 17:15
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Also note the Shotguns the Kadashii have really rely on getting fairly close. They get a 40m base range with them with Longbarrel (and that can be increased further to 60m with the Extended Barrel modification, since it's their standard weapon and they can modify it and they're good at tech, which means they will) and get a big bonus to hit as long as an enemy is within 1/2 range. And a bigger one and +3 damage at point blank. If they can somehow gets Amputator Rounds for a squad, their basic shotgun is actually a worthwhile weapon they might use on purpose. This is an immense amount of special rules and fiddling needed to make their standard issue useful instead of just binning it for whatever better weapon you can get from your class. Their cool, customized, religiously important standard arm issued back at their homeworld is generally best thrown away for an autocannon or bolter or something. And bolters aren't even considered that good. But d10+5 Pen4 Tearing with long range and S/3/- fire rate vs. d10+4 Pen0 Scatter with short range and S/3/- fire rate. Even with the aim bonus and at point blank, the bolter still basically equals it on damage. We will be getting a LOT into the problems of gear. I went into them in Black Crusade already, but jesus christ did the writers of 40kRP not understand how to use the Damage and Pen systems they came up with, nor the number of sources of DR, nor how to implement heavy weapons. There's just no goddamn place for flavor in weapons and gear. There's just a bunch of clearly optimal or suboptimal choices. Very few weapons even really have a 'role' since it's all just a matter of how much damage you do and how many shots you fire. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 17:31 on May 18, 2020 |
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May 18, 2020 17:26
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Warhammer 40k Roleplay: Only War Their Mission: To Vaporize poo poo With High Powered Phasers. Also, die You know, I keep reflexively writing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e in the title posts and then having to go back and fix it. I just thought you should know. kommy5 posted:Idealistic but disposable MPs from an idealistic world that is a prosperous federation of peoples'. They use pistols primarily and wear red shirts. The 25th Federal Police Regiment doesn't stem from a single planet. Rather, they stem from an entire small federation of planets, brought into the Emperor's light by the Mudd Dynasty of Rogue Traders. The Federation doesn't really know what all this Emperor stuff is about, but they allow freedom of religion and if people want to drop auto-temples from orbit, they are free to do so. The engineering certainly impresses the locals. After several encounters with demons while working on teleportation technology, Federal scientists concluded there certainly was something to the Imperial ideas about battling Chaos and decided to send a unit of their best security personnel (from the fearsome local warrior tradition, the Red Shirts) to aid their new allies in the Imperium (they don't quite realize they're subjects) on the Spinward Front. As they are a mostly enlightened people who do not see very much war in their home systems, their troops are, uh...woefully unequipped in many ways. However, whatever these people are using as pistols is absolute dynamite. The 25th Federal Police are optimistic, friendly people who are eager to help their new allies. However, they were formed out of the so-called 'red-shirts' of their people, the most warlike and fatalistic of all the people of the Federation. While outwardly their home is a series of paradise worlds, the Redshirts know that this is only thanks to their heroic sacrifice. They are well accustomed to risking their lives against some new and hideous anamoly, or being ripped to shreds by some new and hideous space beast. They fear not death, for in donning the shirt they have already embraced it. They'll actually get along surprisingly well in the Imperial Guard. And remain chipper the entire way. They start with the Imperial Worlder background, costing only a single point. They get +3 to Fellowship and Willpower, as they are friendly and brave. They take -5 to Forbidden Lore tests because they don't know a drat thing about the Warp or hell monsters or space devils. They also have Hatred (Mutants) because...I don't know, they're still mad about the Eugenics Wars? I got nothing. They've all studied the Imperial Creed to fit in, since it's clearly very important to the Imperium, and have read the briefing documents on the Imperium and studied Low Gothic. Their Commander, Supreme Ensign Catherine O'Donnel, is a Phlegmatic woman. Very little disturbs her. She has seen all sorts of crazy poo poo: Redshirts vaporized by teleportation accidents, crushed by rocks, flung into space, murdered by space aztec robots, shot up by alien god beings in magical fokker triplanes, and once saw a guy vaporized by the anthropomorphic manifestation of the color orange. The others know the Supreme Ensign is not going to lose her poo poo no matter what. They all get Common Lore (War) (for their shared warrior-background as Red Shirts) and Common Lore (Imperial Guard) (A mixture of reading the briefing documents and recognizing kindred spirits). They are Light Infantry (2 points), for +3 Agility and -3 Toughness. They have only their crimson shirts and some basic flak vests and helmets to defend them. But they're very good at running (Sprint Talent) and finding their way around planets (Navigate: Surface) because the officers never seem to bring a goddamn map. They also have some Imperium issued lascarbines. They will never use them. They are Defenders of the Omnissiah (Gain Tech Apt, they know more about tech than most Imperials) with Iron Discipline (Extremely hard to shake, gain Willpower Apt). They are also under a Cloud of Suspicion, with the Arbites not liking them because of immense differences in ideas about the proper role of military police (they do not regularly stove the accused's head in, thus the Arbites think they are weak). They can't take more Doctrines despite having 4 points left, but that's fine: Those points go to giving them more gear. They spend 20 points of their 38 to all come with an Emperor's Will pattern Laspistol (a Very Rare item) to represent their kickass phasers. This is a Laspistol that has Accurate (+10 extra to-hit when Aiming), extremely long (carbine) ranges, and hits like a bolter. With a little modification to be a Carbine, they can use the dang things as sniper rifles. Alternately, some will acquire a second pistol, and dual wield their phasers. They all carry a Data Slate (Tricorder) for 5 points. They also carry 2 weeks worth of extra food and recaff for 3 points. Then add a second favored Basic Weapon. They favor Melta Guns for their basic (have a whole 'vaporizing' thing going on) and Lascannons for their heavy (Phaser cannon). They also use Hotshot Lasguns as their second Basic for phaser rifles (anti-power armor overcharged lasguns). They're very silly people. Also altered things because the Arbites make much more sense as having a bug up their bucket hats about other kinds of MPs. Next Time: Oh God Why Are We Here Night10194 fucked around with this message at 18:18 on May 18, 2020 |
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May 18, 2020 18:06
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Night10194 posted:Warhammer 40k Roleplay: Only War This is brilliant. I appreciate the flavor in your write-ups so much. Thank you for subjecting yourself to OW.
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May 18, 2020 18:20
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I think it was Cythereal who said during the RT review that RT is 'What if Harry Mudd had a Star Destroyer', and the thought stuck with me. So when I was challenged to make Redshirts as a determined but idealistic warrior lodge within the 40k context, hell yeah I'm gonna do it. They're also the 25th because I love Star Trek 25th Anniversary and Judgement Rites. E: Also, I am actually a little surprised that I can actually make pretty much everything suggested if I tried. Hell, I could even do the cats. They're in 40k canon. The planet of Carlos McConnell. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUuvHPr4BGk BEHOLD. They're not even made up by this video, they're some old relic of the 80s! Night10194 fucked around with this message at 18:25 on May 18, 2020 |
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May 18, 2020 18:22
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Warhammer 40k Roleplay: Only War Insert Mars, Bringer of War Tiler Kiwi posted:regiment that is basically venture bros' The Monarch's Henchmen. Aka saturday morning cartoon villain henchmen, equipped with a vast array of gadgetry weapons and gimmick costumes, with awful morale and no training and mostly in it because working for some neurotic trust fund dorks crime org, risking death by horrible means, is still better then working in retail, and its easier to slack off in. The Star Devils are the minions of the infamous Dr. Diablos, who is secretly the son of Johannes Shipsman, Governor-General of the Bureau of Planetary Peace and Imperial Governor of the world of Baromil. They used to get away with basically all of their crimes because everyone actually knows Dr. Diablos is Peace-Prince Lance Shipsman, so nobody tries that hard to arrest him lest they get disappeared for causing a scandal and rocking the boat. However, as Lance's younger sister Akiko has come of age, he is no longer nearly as necessary as heir, and so has decided to go on extended vacation (taking his criminal persona along with him, and dragging his minions) to try to reinvent himself as a loveable rogue and maybe earn a Rogue Trader's Charter for his exploits before he is arrested and shot by a TacOps agent. The Minions of the Star Devils are not very excited about this. Not in the least. While their 'high tech' costumes and gear were certainly good enough for minioning around while they were relatively unopposed, their idiot trustfundsman boss has no idea what he's throwing them into in the Spinward Front. But as above, it beats working retail or stirring the nutro-vats. They are a Penal Legion, more because it works best for a crime legion than any other background. It costs them 2 points, and gets them +3 Str and Toughness, plus Peer (Underworld) (They know how to find and deal with other mooks), Intimidate, +10 to Logistics when they're trying to get illegal goods, but they only get 15 points for gear because they're coming into this with dumb costumes and gimmick weapons. They also get +1 Wounds. They're used to being beaten up. Their commander, the MIGHTY DR. DIABLOS, is Choleric. He is prone to neurotic fits of rage, screaming, and blaming everyone around him for everything that goes wrong. As they know they work for a spoiled brat and need to be ready to dodge at a moment's notice, all members of the regiment have Rapid Reactions. They can always test Agility to avoid being Surprised. Life comes at you fast in the henching life. 2 points. They are a Guerilla Regiment (4 Points), meaning every single one of them has the Stealth skill (HOORAY! Only War doesn't split Stealth into multiple skills! Gold star!) and the Ambush talent (They do extra Damage based on DoS when surprising people). They also get stun grenades (Devil Flash Bombs, great for stunning bastards), Lascarbines (Worthless, probably stolen, not actually part of their standard henching kit), Blind Grenades (Smoke Bombs, for DEVIL SMOKE) and some actual, factual Frag Grenades they stole from actual Imperial Guardsmen. They need to get what they can, okay? Also get +3 Perception, -3 Fel. They do their best not to be seen. Not being seen is how you avoid getting your rear end kicked, and also how you slip out back to smoke a lho stick when you're supposed to be on guard duty. While normally they would only have 4 points left here, they instead gain a bunch for having the drawback tailor made for them: Incompetent Leadership. They suffer -10 to all Command tests because nobody trusts orders from anybody and everyone is trying to slack off. They also need to make Command or Intimidate tests (at +20) to make their Comrades actually do anything. This would be hideously annoying in play and slow the game tremendously since you normally automatically have your Comrade buff you every turn until they get wasted by AoE weapons automatically because the Comrade rules are trash, but it's really funny here. Everyone has terrible morale and is trying not to die. Attempts to order a fellow Hench are difficult. This gives a huge +5 points. They spend 5 points on Covert Strike, which gives them all a suit of Synskin (AV 2 spandex armor that makes IR gear unable to pick you up and buffs Stealth. It's their costumes!) and 'preysense goggles' (masks that also thankfully actually do work for nightvision). They spend another 3 on Scavengers. They'd be better off with something that gave Apts or something cool like Chameoline cloaks so they could be like the other Super Special SpecOps Guardsmen, but they are not hyper tactical super operators, they are idiots working for an idiot. Scavengers lets them claim +10 to Logistics checks to get gear as they steal poo poo. But also gives them the drawback that on a doubles on the d100 they get made and some poo poo goes down with the Commissariate or a masked vigilante or something. Henchmen will die. Scavengers is terrible but completely suited to them. Their Heavy Weapon is the 'Mauler' Autocannon, because they stole them from some Ogryn that weren't looking so maybe they wouldn't all die. This is a short-barreled double-barreled autocannon used as a storming rifle by Ogryn. It's primo, except for its terrible range for a heavy weapon. Their Basic Weapon is the Needle Rifle, which shoots little hypodermic needles with a devil tail on it, and is basically inferior to just blowing someone's brains out with a sniper rifle instead of using sniping poison darts in every way. But the boss insists they use it. They spend their spare points on 'upgrading' their lascarbines to full lasguns. This will do them no good. They also buy a Stummer (this will help them sneak) and an extra blind grenade. Their goal is to sneak by and avoid as much actual combat, and as many of their officers, superior henches, commissars, priests, or Dr. Diablos actually making them do anything as possible. They are terrible except for their ability to hide and throw down little smokebombs and run away screaming. They are probably all going to die. They don't even have armor! Just their dumb costumes. Not that most armor will help in 40kRP. Next Time: Early Arrival
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May 18, 2020 19:05
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Deptfordx posted:YMMV but that sounds like awful story-telling to me. Real old skool GW "We're going to shake things up.....and oh look a damp squib". It doesn't even make sense internally. "My homebase is under attack. Shall I immediately abandon what I'm doing and got home. Or spend 30 extra seconds freeing the God-like being that is going to massively power me up to deal with the situation" It would have taken him weeks to Free Slaanesh. (As he had to break at least 50 chains that each has a different requirement to break. Some of which are really abstract, and he only managed to get an easy one before he had to leave.) Put simply he had to pick between two choices that he really wanted and would hate to lose either. Here is the relevant lore passage. Wrath of the Everchosen posted:At the end of a gleaming platform of polished marble was a great chain, formed by woven strands of umbral magic. It arced out into empty air, trailing across the twilit sky where it disappeared into inky blackness. The night rippled with lurid colour, and something impossibly vast stretched langurously, pulling the chain taut. The Everchosen could make out a form within the roiling sky – something sinuous and terribly beautiful, twisted in the contortions of infinite pain and pleasure. Ratoslov posted:There is something poetic about Slaanesh getting screwed over because someone was bad at prioritizing their desires, but having it end with 'whoops, nothing happens' is pretty weaksauce. While he prevented Death from taking his Base, he still took a pretty major loss in that the Portal he had fortified that leads to the Realm of Death is now in Nagash's hands. So now Nagash can constantly send reinforcements into his territory. MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 19:21 on May 18, 2020 |
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May 18, 2020 19:08
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Sea Org gets recruited to the Astrum Militarum. Unlike the not-Space Marines, they are "specialized" for aquatic warfare. L Ron 40K figured that would be the best way to keep the failsons alive long enough to funnel their life savings to him.
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May 18, 2020 19:19
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Night10194 posted:They spend 5 points on Covert Strike instantly thought of this https://youtu.be/tz4PdpfI7zY
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May 18, 2020 19:28
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Archaon is basically that character everyone hates, but GW is convinced that if they just give him some more powers, or make him the main character some more, someday everyone will start to love him. He's never really had any personality, and their attempts at it like 'I HATE THE DARK GODS BECAUSE I'M ACTUALLY TOO COOL AND BADASS FOR THEM *does everything they want him to do*' didn't help anything. He kind of reminds me of if Tigtone was played completely straight and the writer thought he was super cool instead of a hilarious idiot. E: Oh, also, the Henches would get +10 to Logistics to get all kinds of super cool stealth gear from Covert Strike, too. Combined with their facility with theft and illegal items, they'd actually have a surprising amount of luck just stealing poo poo from the tryhard regiments to survive. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 19:32 on May 18, 2020 |
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May 18, 2020 19:28
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Night10194 posted:Archaon is basically that character everyone hates, but GW is convinced that if they just give him some more powers, or make him the main character some more, someday everyone will start to love him. To be exact people do like him. But it's normally because he has a cool model and good rules instead of anything about his character. Still I think he works better in AoS as the scary Dark Lord of the setting, then he did in Fantasy as the next in a line of notable Chaos Warlords.
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May 18, 2020 19:41
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Night10194 posted:Archaon is basically that character everyone hates, but GW is convinced that if they just give him some more powers, or make him the main character some more, someday everyone will start to love him. he's got the twin problems of where, firstly, he's just a tanturm spiral of a being. he's powerful, sure, but its like being hunted down by a kekistaner with a 50 cal; even in the face of destruction, there's a certain surreal quality to how genuinely embarrassing the whole thing is. And more offensively, he's a loving bore about the whole thing, somehow a bigger narcissist than the dude who stops in the midst of battle to make kissy faces at his reflection. He is positively the last guy in the old world you'd ever want to spend a night on the town with. I don't think he even has any hobbies. the second is that he's really a terrible leader. his great victories are him throwing the largest armies of the best infantry in the world backed by the most terrifying daemons into threshers and screaming at people when it doesn't work, and then really only winning due to the contrived incompetence of his foes and his own/his patron rear end in a top hat demiurges superman powers. It might be just a writer issue where they don't actually know what constitutes a "master strategist". Compare to how Mors/Gnawdwell was done in Children of the Horned Rat by FFG, where someone clearly noticed the pattern of great military pragmatists (absorb defeated foes after pruning their command, stealing others good ideas, merit based promotions, hard but equally enforced law, adaptation to defeats, brutally to resistance but rewards for quick surrenders, occasional use of genuine mercy but also acts of vaguely justified slaughter) seen with the Romans, the Mongols, Cao Cao, and others and applied them to the skaven of all things. But when it came to GW writing the settings primary antagonist the main thinking seemed to be "STRENGTH STRENGTH STRENGTH BIGGEST NUMBERS CAN'T LOSE ONLY STRONG BRUTAL LEADER MAN CAN RULE STRONG MURDER VIKINGS oh and he's basically a tv show atheist who read a book that shittalked him so its actually tragic" e: like, dude, i learned my god wasn't real and got to read poo poo predicting a bad fate for me, and learned the world was run by powerful douchebags and it just made me cynical, i didn't loving decide to murder people, like, who loving does that? ill tell you, terminally boring assholes. e2: i really just hate the trope of "oh this person was the Greatest, most Good and Heroic figure but then they read a bad book and got tentacles or purple skin or had a "LG" go to "CE" on their character sheet and now they're The Absolute Worst, isn't that traaaaagic? Maybe they can be redeeeeemed??? fucker, they were never good to begin with. Tiler Kiwi fucked around with this message at 20:14 on May 18, 2020 |
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May 18, 2020 20:04
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 11:35 |
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What I found strange is that GW didn't have one of their 'actually good' writers do a motive/reframe rehab on Archaon like they had ADB do with Abbadon. Not that anything changed or will change in terms of 'storyline' but it would have been a nice gesture.
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May 18, 2020 20:07
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