Dark Heresy (40K RPG) Review

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2008-02-25 02:49pm

The Chem Geld trait is pretty irrelevant if you can't flirt.

Bloodbath on Saturday night. We reached the heretic's landing site, which had defence turret and was near an excavation. They were cooperating with the xenos. We snuck down towards them, down a near cliff face which was only covered by the anti-air turret with the intent of launching a sneak attack. The armed lighter was there (closer to gun cutter than a lighter actually) and a small xenos vehicle.

We got close and the heretic started to leave. Surprise got blown by bad agility rolls and a spectacularly bad fall. I got to play with pyromancy, but the heretic continued to be far too fucking invulnerable. The xenos started opened up. I used float so I could do a running jump and then drop the 60 meters without dying horribly and landed on the lighter.

Meanwhile there was lases being shot at us from behind. At this point we were mostly wearing refurbished xeno armour. Our tech priest is from one of the those "take the xeno gear, reverse engineer and reconsecrate it and say its all cool" factions.

I take a bad las hit and drop down under cover of the lighter, setting people on fire who are in my way. I get in and engage in a close range and mercifully one sided fire fight with a guy with a bolter. I heal up and secure the command crew. The little ship gets away, containing the arch-heretic who escapes through the magic of GM fiat.

Meanwhile all hell is breaking loose. The IG is shooting people, the feral worlder is closing and the Arbitor is going close range, autopistol with manstopper rounds and power blade. Two xenos in power armour throw down and it's nasty.

The other psyker has gotten stuck in and is using psychic blade. He gets smooshed by a crazy hit from a giant shock maul and dies. Chainblades and all out attacks with power swords bring the power armour boys down. I get the weapon controls operating and the tech priest is taken prisoner by gas mask wearing human IG soldiers. Yes, we are the victims of friendly fire. From our GM's favorite WWI issue IG regiments, the Deathcorp of Krieg.

Things get sorted out, sort of. Tense stand off situation. That's how things end. Oh, and we have plenty of loot to buy shit. Too bad we aren't on a civilized planet.

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2008-03-02 05:14pm

Experimented with 40K miniatures this session. Unfortunately my selection isn't terribly suited to Dark Heresy (Lots of Guardsmen, Space Marines, and a few Orks and other odds and ends) but we managed to find rough approximations for the party and the PDF troops they were fighting. Turns out sniper ambushes don't go too well (for the sniper) when they got spotted by very aware (or very lucky) Tech-Priests and promptly sprayed with suppression fire.

It does seem to slow the game up a bit, unfortunately, moving back and forth from the battle area and my notes to check stats and note ammo usage. Definitely only something to do for certain engagements, and militaristic ones at that.

Xenophobe3691 · Post by **Xenophobe3691** » 2008-03-03 02:48pm

Question. At the start of Chapter 9...is that the Emperor?!?

Block · Post by **Block** » 2008-03-03 02:53pm

Xenophobe3691 wrote:Question. At the start of Chapter 9...is that the Emperor?!?

Indeed, the corpse-god on his golden throne.

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2008-03-03 02:54pm

Looks like a depiction thereof, yes.

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2008-03-03 09:04pm

Intrigue heavy session this time. Got off the rock and assigned to help bodyguard a high status noble high up the inheritance line of a major dynasty. The bad news is that she's Paris fucking Hilton on vacation. Steve, whose Psyker died last session, came back as another psyker, attached to her household. We clash almost immediately while travelling in style in their pimped out space cathedral.

Part of the team, including yours truly, hits the ground early. We get familiar with the terrain and the people and begin the feelers for a buyer for our metric fuckton of loot. Cash wise we are okay and gear is good, but liquid assets would be nice on a place this expensive.

Then I get tailed and I can't shake them. Lead them into a dark and deserted area before ambushing them and holding them at gun point. Both of them respond to my surrender command by drawing on me. So I burn them. They live and shoot me. So I firestorm them. Dice come up 10, 10, and 8. I'm way passed threshold. Way, way passed. I roll a handful of damage dice and add bonuses. Don't roll very well, but quantity has a quality all of its own and the number is far too big for them to survive.

Examine the bodies. Adeptus Arbites badges.

Double plus not good.

Raj Ahten · Post by **Raj Ahten** » 2008-03-03 11:31pm

Imperial Overlord wrote:
Examine the bodies. Adeptus Arbites badges.

Double plus not good.

Damn man. Well, thats what they get for trying to be subtle rather than tooling around town in APC's shooting things that resemble heretics.

I bet it makes you kind of wish the Imperium coordinated their efforts better. At least now you get to see how effiecient the local arbites are. (Though not in a way that you can apreciate!)

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2008-03-03 11:38pm

Raj Ahten wrote:

I bet it makes you kind of wish the Imperium coordinated their efforts better. At least now you get to see how effiecient the local arbites are. (Though not in a way that you can apreciate!)

If they find me (I did a decent job of covering my tracks under the circumstances), I'm going to need that TK power were you can catch a fuckton of bullets in mid air.

Too bad I don't have that discipline

Raj Ahten · Post by **Raj Ahten** » 2008-03-03 11:54pm

If the arbites are anything like real cops, they are likely to pull out all the stops to find you. Hell, they might even bring in their own Pyschers. If the GM is super unkind they might have even called in your character's description before getting fryed.

But hey, this is the Imperium, and there is shitloads of corruption. The bosses might just decide to "send a message" by gunning down a lot random criminals and round up the usual suspects. Plus these arbite's fieldcraft doesn't sound that good, as they followed you directly into an ambush site with no backup nearby, so they might be incompetent

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2008-03-03 11:59pm

I took a number of precautions to conceal my identity, no witnesses, its a big urban center with a fair amount of transients, and my real name hasn't been used on planet yet so I'm not going to be that easy to track down. That being said, yeah I'm worried.

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2008-03-05 10:46pm

My exalted gamemaster will be joining the board under the handle of defrost 13 so you can grill him about all my lies and omissions.

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2008-03-11 04:08pm

So this weekend had more intrigue. The arbitrator in our party (who isn't really an adeptus arbites, but rather an inquisition trained armsmen with a similar skill set) talked to the arbites with his flashy clearances and got info. Apparently the arbites had been watching traffic to and from the pleasure island and two had disappeared while under cover. No inkling at all of my involvement. So far so good.

And it gets better. We make contact with an interested buyer and end up clearing five and a half kay each on our loot, which ain't bad for an eight man party. Finally we have real money.

Then the shit happens. The arbite gets jumped. In public. Kills one dude, takes the ear off another. Kidnapped. Gets found floating in the water, alive and missing an ear. They're sending us a message, back off or else. It's the heretic's boys.

Now this wouldn't possibly work on the Inquisition, so I'm thinking they think we're some kind of competition. No solid leads at all. I successfully flirt with one of two scorchingly hot sisters who seem possibly connected, but the connection seems more unlikely the more we investigate.

So on our main goal, we've made some useful contacts and gotten some tidbits of info, but have no useful clues for stopping the bad guys before they whack the brainless party chick we're protecting.

Raj Ahten · Post by **Raj Ahten** » 2008-03-11 05:51pm

Well, I have no idea why the cultists wouldn't kill the arbite (even though thats not what he actually is) after they capture him. One of them died doing it! He is damn lucky to be alive at all. Maybe they bugged him or something really weird (or just screwed up drowning him). At least you got the funds for serious equipment and cover identities now. I'd say trust your gut on the suspects. They are likely guilty of something anyway

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2008-03-11 05:55pm

Since I really have nothing better to do at the moment than keep with the women, that's what I'll be doing. The arbitor may have burned a fate point (we got a bunch after the lander shoot up, our GM was perhaps extremely, perhaps excessively, generous with them) to live through that. I mean, what's the worst that could happen? My character gets shot down in the midst of courting the red head and has a plausible non-Inquisition related motive for snooping around latter?

Zablorg · Post by **Zablorg** » 2008-03-11 07:39pm

I'm thinking of buying this game, because it sounds so very awesome. Now, I have very little experience in RPGs. How many players are required to make a decent game out of it?

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2008-03-11 07:45pm

Zablorg wrote:I'm thinking of buying this game, because it sounds so very awesome. Now, I have very little experience in RPGs. How many players are required to make a decent game out of it?

The minimum is about four for an rpg: one gamemaster and at least three players.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2008-03-11 07:48pm

hey, I recall a White Dwarf a few years ago, saying that "Riddick" like see in the dark people are actually common in hive scum.....

actually I think it said that they are badly penalized in bright light, can't see colour at all, and can see quite well in near or total darkness.

Umbras · Post by **Umbras** » 2008-03-11 11:19pm

I'm the Arbite playing alongside Cynical in our Dark heresy game, the reason I was not killed was specifically to pass a message along. the Heretic we were chasing in the previous sessions is a minion of the guy that had me grabbed. He wanted us to stop interfering with his minions and the reason that we are not dead is that we are into something that will work out in his favor.

Also the fact that I was suffering from minor hypothermia and coming off beign drugged I was unable to voice some suspicions until I have had time to rest and clear my head.

I plan on discussing a few things with Cynical as I have suspicions about my mysterious abductor and who he may be. They were even nice enough to drop me in the ocean right near where our employer is staying so I was sure to give the message.

Raj Ahten · Post by **Raj Ahten** » 2008-03-11 11:57pm

Umbras wrote:I'm the Arbite playing alongside Cynical in our Dark heresy game, the reason I was not killed was specifically to pass a message along. the Heretic we were chasing in the previous sessions is a minion of the guy that had me grabbed. He wanted us to stop interfering with his minions and the reason that we are not dead is that we are into something that will work out in his favor.

Also the fact that I was suffering from minor hypothermia and coming off beign drugged I was unable to voice some suspicions until I have had time to rest and clear my head.

I plan on discussing a few things with Cynical as I have suspicions about my mysterious abductor and who he may be. They were even nice enough to drop me in the ocean right near where our employer is staying so I was sure to give the message.

Sounds like a Tzeentch plot to me. Luckily these cultists idea of "sending a message" isnt setting off a truck bomb in a crowded area when you walk by.

Zablorg · Post by **Zablorg** » 2008-03-12 12:26am

Found this when browsing ebay:

The game book retailed for $19.99 when you can find them (no word on reprints from Fantasy Flight Games).

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2008-03-12 12:30am

Zablorg wrote:Found this when browsing ebay:

The game book retailed for $19.99 when you can find them (no word on reprints from Fantasy Flight Games).

Reprints this fall from FFG, although there are still copies out there. I saw three in Vancouver last week.

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2008-03-12 12:34am

The core rulebook retails for $49.99.

The GM Kit is $19.99, but that doesn't include the core rulebook, obviously.

Check brick and mortar stores like Barnes & Noble - that's where I got mine.

Losonti Tokash · Post by **Losonti Tokash** » 2008-03-12 12:39am

I didn't have any trouble finding mine. Went to Amazon and bought it new for about $30. There was also a pretty large number of used books on sale already if you don't care about that sort of thing.

Zablorg · Post by **Zablorg** » 2008-03-12 12:58am

I'm sorry to hijack this further, but where would I find 100 sided dice and other such GM accessories?

Losonti Tokash · Post by **Losonti Tokash** » 2008-03-12 01:02am

On the subject of hundred sided dice: don't. They're a goddamn marble. Just roll two ten sided dice and use the results from each as your digits.