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[Loud Whispers]

So I've been tinkering with a portal model for my KDK, trying to think of ways to make it look more 40kish, and I decided to start off with the idea of a Berzerker stepping out through the portal and decided to make a quick mock up before putting knife and glue to plastic.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Does this look like it could look good with some proper effort put into it or should I just try something else completely?

Looks like he needs a leg stepping out of the portal to look well gud

Don't you already lack cash?
Why on earth would you want to get into the tabletop?

Reckless gwdubyism

[KingofstarrySkies]

Don't you already lack cash?
Why on earth would you want to get into the tabletop?

I can dream. And save money.

Forever. Saving.
Ninjaedit: I reinstalled Dawn Of War: Soulstorm and remembered how much I goddamn love the Dawn Of War games.

[Tack]

Yeah I feel like that KB could've been charging forwards out of the portal to look cooler too.
But 40k-ifying it would probably need a full conversion job, like slapping cables all over it and whatnot.

(Full disclaimer, I have no idea what those are in fantasy fluff.)

[Rolepgeek]

Is it stupid? Maybe? I have no fking idea. That's why I'm asking.

Most of the shotty (FUCKING TAU) armies will wreck you before you get in range.

Don't worry

I'll just bring my Heatwaves

And Sunforges for your tanks

We can have a fire battle

(Hint: I still win)

I still love the idea of a Broadside equipped with two Heavy Flamers or semi-Heavy Flamers who can actually walk and burn stuff at the same time. Urban operations, Fire Caste at it's fullest.

[nenjin]

Welp, it took 3 sessions for the intrepid crew of my Rogue Trader campaign to resort to piracy and enslaving Imperial citizens instead of the stated goal of pursuing their arch-nemesis, an Ork Freebooter Kaptin. I just dangled a seemingly isolated and lightly defended Imperial planet in front of them and the Captain went straight to the Spire of the Astropaths and proceeded to execute the entire choir. Then they landed troops and put 2000 people in chains. They then sailed them back to a major settlement and sold them all into slavery to a Xenos slave trader.

The Emperor weeps, and I think my campaign just became Black Crusade-lite.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Have a Dark Eldar band raid the world now that the Astropaths are out of the picture.

[Loud Whispers]

Welp, it took 3 sessions for the intrepid crew of my Rogue Trader campaign to resort to piracy and enslaving Imperial citizens instead of the stated goal of pursuing their arch-nemesis, an Ork Freebooter Kaptin. I just dangled a seemingly isolated and lightly defended Imperial planet in front of them and the Captain went straight to the Spire of the Astropaths and proceeded to execute the entire choir. Then they landed troops and put 2000 people in chains. They then sailed them back to a major settlement and sold them all into slavery to a Xenos slave trader.

The Emperor weeps, and I think my campaign just became Black Crusade-lite.

Oh lawd, you gave the lion an injured gazelle

[nenjin]

Have a Dark Eldar band raid the world now that the Astropaths are out of the picture.

Oh they've got plans within plans. The world belonged to a Rogue Trader. They knew that. They're going to try to cover their tracks. Hire mercenaries to bed down on the planet so whoever comes looking kills them and assumes they raided the planet. (Not sure how they're going to explain 2000 missing people though....) They wanted to colonize it with their people but it quickly became clear that was an untenable plan, and just opted to sell the people into slavery for a quick buck.

Welp, it took 3 sessions for the intrepid crew of my Rogue Trader campaign to resort to piracy and enslaving Imperial citizens instead of the stated goal of pursuing their arch-nemesis, an Ork Freebooter Kaptin. I just dangled a seemingly isolated and lightly defended Imperial planet in front of them and the Captain went straight to the Spire of the Astropaths and proceeded to execute the entire choir. Then they landed troops and put 2000 people in chains. They then sailed them back to a major settlement and sold them all into slavery to a Xenos slave trader.

The Emperor weeps, and I think my campaign just became Black Crusade-lite.

Oh lawd, you gave the lion an injured gazelle

Man, they were so laser focused on this revenge tale against an Ork Freebooter, I really thought they'd just pass the system by on their way to where they were going. But in the back of my head as I thought "Should the planet be getting attacked by pirates or something" I somehow knew the obviousness of the vulnerability would tempt there. I had a nice lost Archeotech world at the heart of a nightmare of stellar phenomena for them to explore, trade opportunities...but soon as I said the planet belonged to a random Rogue Trader I just invented, bam, the Captain wanted to raid the shit out of his planet.

I mean, I don't even need to punish that planet further. They've planted the seeds for a sizable conflict.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I mean, 2000 people is kind of a drop in the bucket, even for a frontier world. The only way I see that being notable is if there's only like one city on the planet or something.

The real thing that should fuck them over is the Astropath slaughter. That's notable on a world of any size, and some shitty mercs wouldn't think to do a surgical strike like that. Anybody investigating should probably realize that whomever is responsible for all this would have had to have been very well-informed on vital things like what Astropaths are.

[nenjin]

It was just a remote mining colony on a half-frozen world several weeks beyond the border of Imperial space. Whoever owns the colony is going to wonder where ~1900 bodies went when they investigate. Then again, everyone takes slaves. Humans. Stryxis. Orks. Dark Eldar. I think Rak'Gol just eat them.

The real problem for them is if they decide to bring a Psyker who reads the psychic echoes of what happened there. Well. That and the Xenos they sold the slaves to. Stryxians will betray anyone if there's profit in it, and when you sell to one of the biggest known slave traders at THE outpost of the Expanse....

[Loud Whispers]

That sounds like a good Dark Heresy setting.

You arrive on the planet on the fringes of Imperial space, a small outpost you just dropped off by for resupplying. Only something is wrong, the colonies' Astropaths have been slaughtered. You attempt to communicate your Inquisitorial authority to some locals, but they turn out to be raiders and you kill them all. Only they then turn out to be mercenaries, identified by their uniforms, or shoddy quality thereof.
You then realize something more odd than the mercenaries or the dead choir.
The planet is empty.
All the humans are gone.

Also I wonder how capable your Rogue Trader is of slaving in the big leagues, like if you're going to go down that road you better sail, get out or drown

[nenjin]

Also I wonder how capable your Rogue Trader is of slaving in the big leagues, like if you're going to go down that road you better sail, get out or drown

That's what made tonight really special. I've got a dear friend playing who is also kind of....well, he's fairly critical on things like style and theme. Dislikes games that actively try to make him feel bad or expect too much emo RP like White Wolf and such. And tonight he said to me "Well, you wanted real feels out of me. You got em."

It was a radical change in tone from what the campaign had been shaping up to be. I signed up for what happened tonight by appointing a notoriously unpredictable player as captain. And we rolled with it. But as the session was closing and I sort of elaborated on the fate of those sold to the Stryxis (in addition to being sold to Orks, Dark Eldar, whoever, they're modified or just thrown into vats and dissolved into biomass to make more vat-grown slaves)....I think everyone took a good long look at what just happened, what they got out of it, what kind of trouble they could be in for....and a lot of them didn't like what they saw. It almost got too real when a player (who is still virtually new to roleplaying btw) was like "So should we let [the elite military of the ship]....you know....."

But for the most part everyone was really thinking about it from their character's perspective even as they tabled talked it out, and it may have been one of the more real, unplanned moments of gaming I've had. Players with basically unlimited power totally brutalized a helpless colony because their Captain decided, more or less unannounced, that he was going to pillage the place. And it's not like that's...unusual for 40k. Shit, if we'd been playing Black Crusade no one would have batted an eye at that. But the change in tone from heroic explorers on a quest for vengeance to petty slavers and brigands.....it really hit home for people. I mean, he's the Captain right? Gotta back his play, no matter how distasteful you find it at the moment. But give a body some time to think about it and....I can haz mutiny?

Next week should be quite interesting I think. No one will mutiny but I imagine people will be asking for "Permission to speak freely sir." As a GM I feel like I won tonight; primarily because the entire next plotted adventure I had is still an entire solar system away, ready for next week, because we rode out the wave that is player-driven craziness and it became something tangible and believable and made for a whole session. I didn't make my players grmdrk. They did it to themselves.

Now I just need to figure out how to wind down so I can get to work tomorrow.

And incidentally, yeah, the adventure would make for a great Dark Heresy setup. Too bad they committed their crimes outside of Imperial space. But I guess if they piss off enough people, it's somewhere for an Inquisitor to start looking. Did I mention the ship's pilot is an Eldar. He's an Eldar.

Plot hooks omnomnomnom.

[KingofstarrySkies]

Is it stupid? Maybe? I have no fking idea. That's why I'm asking.

Most of the shotty (FUCKING TAU) armies will wreck you before you get in range.

Don't worry

I'll just bring my Heatwaves

And Sunforges for your tanks

We can have a fire battle

(Hint: I still win)

I still love the idea of a Broadside equipped with two Heavy Flamers or semi-Heavy Flamers who can actually walk and burn stuff at the same time. Urban operations, Fire Caste at it's fullest.

n-nghhhh
NNNGHHHHHHH

[Cheesecake]

Damn, nenjin! That's some quality grim dark right there. But! If you think about it, those Frontier Worlders knew something, somewhere was going to either eat them or enslave them eventually, and by the time Black Crusade-lite capture them all they were probably resigned to their fate.

Also, had Xenos taken them as slaves directly, the Imperium would have lost good humans and an entire spire of Astropaths and gained nothing at all. Plus Xenos get free slaves.

Instead, the Rogue Trader and crew (whose sole purpose is to profit for the Imperium) both made profit and denied the Frontier World to Xenos scum. It might have been the wrong decision morally, but economically and pragmatically, it was to the benefit of everyone. Except the slaves.

Grimdark

[LordBaal]

Ninjaedit: I reinstalled Dawn Of War: Soulstorm and remembered how much I goddamn love the Dawn Of War games.

Highly recommend to install the Fire over Kauvara mod to get that smoky TT after taste.