Second Dark Heresy Campaign Started

Started the group’s second Dark Heresy game last night and I thought it went well. This second game is a once a month group aimed at letting some folks play that don’t have weekly time slots open. The characters are less random, they are all part of an Imperial Guard unit and that gives the group a better sense of purpose and a more cohesive feel over all. Although all the characters are guardsmen and started from the guardsmen skill package I took about half of them and shifted them right after the creation set of skills and put them into other classes to give the group more variety. While the characters remain in the Imperial Guard, one will pull all new skills from the cleric class, one from the mechanicus, one from the adept and one from the assassin. No psyker in the group, I thought about it and it just didn’t fit so for now we will live without one and see if it slows the group down at all. Judging by last night the mix is about right, everyone’s specialty was called on at least once and nobody seemed sidelined at all.

We used semi-experienced characters, all started with 1500exp worth of skills and we are also going with everyone just adding +30% to any roll unless I tell them to lower the chance due to difficulty. I am still not entirely sold on the damage system in the game, it is one place I fear that the d10 dice system in the game handicaps it a bit. Most weapons do a d10 damage per hit, from swords to Lasguns and it all feels a bit samey to me and the variation you get per die roll is pretty big. I am not sure however I am comfortable enough with the system to start tinkering with it yet. Hit points are a bit odd as well with Toughness not really coming into play much on them so we have the adept, who is useless with weapons in terms of skill having a pretty high amount of hit points while one of the scrappier characters has much lower hit points despite being tougher. I may ultimately change hit points to being a derived stat from toughness.

Still enjoying the flavor the game, the 40k background is a fun one with lots of possibilities for how games go, I won’t run out of ideas for the game anytime soon anyway.

Request: Need Space Marine Backs

Charles needs some space marine backs. Not the backpack, the back half of the chest piece. He has the front part but somehow he is missing five backs. I know most of the group doesn’t do Marines, but have a look in your bits boxes and see if you have five backs. I will happily loot my bits box for anything you need in trade.

Must… wait… for… Chaos… version…

Forgeworld’s Reaver Titan.

Designed especially for intimate skirmish gaming.

Still, only £550 ($1,100). The early rumors had it at £800.

Dark Heresy Settling In

As we continue with our Dark Heresy game we are starting to get the hang of the system and are running into a few things we aren’t thrilled with. The biggest is the whiff factor. Most characters test on their base stats, which range from 22 to 40 as a base. The average characteristic is around a 30, so a character will succeed in a roll straight up against that stat about one time in three. Not very good odds at all really and frustrating for the players who feel their characters are less than competent. The game makes up for this by modifying the roll with seven levels of difficulty, ranging from a +30 for an easy test to a -30 for a very hard test. This seems more complicated than it needs to be. As the game master I consistently fail to tell the players before the roll what difficulty level the task is as I am distracted by the storytelling. I am going to just add thirty to everyones stats as a given on rolls then only apply negative modifiers as needed. That way I don’t have to think about it unless I feel the roll is harder than normal and their success chance goes up by almost double for normal tests. This won’t help with the groups tendency to emulate the Holy Graffgar and roll all numbers in the 90s, but it would make my life simpler.

The only other rough spot in the game is with my rusty GM skills in general. The players are missing some very obvious clues such as hand written notes on desks the like and I am struggling with the balance of letting them make mistakes and my duties as a GM to point out the obvious to them. Hopefully I will sharpen up here and they will as well.

Overall the game is going well. The guys are bold and are rushing headlong into serious danger, but that is what keeps a game interesting. The 40k universe is a fun one to play in, this game has been needed for quite awhile and now that it is here it is no surprise it is doing well and getting people more drawn into the web of the Games Workshop hobby.

Razorback Rush

Razorback Rush, originally uploaded by gleefulgecko.

Charles’s Razorback and Assault Marines rush the oncoming Tyranid horde at Danny’s birthday party at the Glen Burnie Battle Bunker. The kids all had a good time were very well behaved. A good time was had by all.