How many Buses?

Saw this the other day and it amused me no end for all sorts of reasons but especially with the latest edition of 40K causing all sorts of manic frothing around various corners of the hobby.

I'm well out of this one, and relatively happily so (as I've moaned previously), but who could possibly miss a metaphor involving editions of GW's rules and buses.

Bwaa ha ha haaaa ha ha ha ;)

Set Chain-Axes to (stun) FUN

Hello people :)

So, Thursday night was the final outing for Dark Heresy prior to our switch to EotE. This edition of the "sarky blog" is named at the request of Mr C as it was sort one of those evenings again.

With a pre-prepared map greeting our motley turnout we found ourselves magically transported just down the road , albeit a super twisting lack of decent town planning type one, from Arbite Central. This also included those of us previously on distant ledges or buried under several tons of rock! Accompanying us was Baron No-Ore, Arbite Captain Rottland and a couple of his boys.

Our trip down the brown dirt road was quickly interrupted by large numbers of zombies morphing out of the very rock itself. A number of accompanying Fear checks were failed which left Rob's Arbite a jibber-monkey and Charlie's Tech Priest about to launch himself at whoever was closest to him, Baron No-Ore.

Acting first I stepped up with a Dominate on Charlie to take control of him. Mr C seemed quite pleased by this,....until Charlie "mysteriously" started swinging his chain-axe at No-Ore. Needing less than 25% to hit his initial efforts missed quite badly. However No-Ore and his bodygaurd just let him get on with it preferring to try their best to get eaten by zombies who were tasting an awful lot of lead from Rob's combat shotgun.

Eventually Charlie hit No-Ore in the arm, causing him to drop his sword. Still nobody flinched, not even No-Ore, and carried on throwing themselves at zombies. Flesh wound? With No-Ore still standing Charlie eventually found his mark a second time only to split him in half three ways. Still no-one flinched, except for Mr C.

"You needed No-Ore to complete the mission! What a shame Steve's spoiled everyone's fun!"

Yes, that's right, Bad Steve has spoiled everyone's fun, he's solely responsible for the past 10 minutes?

Pushing on we soon devised a cunning plan for myself and Ryan's Assassin to shortcut our route by securing a rope ladder. Unfortunately that wasn't in scenario and with Watland and his chaps successfully martyring themselves it was backs to the wall all round.

At this point the penny dropped that the zeds were psychically morphing from the walls and that this was the purpose of the psychic bomb attacks. As nice as it is to work these things out its less useful when you couldn't have done anything about it.

 But no matter because Bad Steve has spoiled everyone's fun, he's solely responsible for the past 10 minutes and that's twice now we've been told that we can't win!

To top things off main bad-guy Assad Mor rocked up with Mr C happily giving it plenty of "Bwaa ha haa ha, only Baron No-Ore could kill me and now he's DEAD!! Bwaaa ha haa ha" (he regenerates quicker than Wolverine). Apparently revenge can be served petulantly smug as well as vacuum cold ;)

At this point another penny dropped that the reason Assad is scared of No-Ore is that his Baronial blood (blue?) acts like Kryptonite. Giving it a go I went running for Charlie's freshly blooded Chain-Axe while Ryan legged it for No-Ore's remains to roll his 50 Cal sniper rounds in his gore (despite being fully aware how the law of physics won't help thus one). 

Charging back up the hill it became clear that I had an 8% chance of actually hitting, with a 99% chance of showers of petulant smugness, for the dice to turn up 03........which sent MOST of the table into rapture.....until he passed his Dodge check.......

So Ryan just shot his head off with a gore shot and the zombies collapsed.......

SO,.. sarky blog post completed as is Dark Heresy for now. All good fun and many thanks to Mr C for running things. In the new yer it's my turn :)

Meta Gaming Matters

Hello again peeps.

As mooted it was the penultimate session of Dark Heresy last which in honesty has probably come around at the right time for all involved. I've waxed lyrical about our group "dynamics" on a number of occasions which at no point were intended as digs and that's the case again now :)

It's a matter of fact that Mr C, our GM, can be something of a meta-gamer. This is not a bad thing and is distinctly different to power gaming.

He is well known within our gaming group for constructing efficient, focused lists, armies, characters etc. Fluff and back-story are also present, with plenty of effort put in, but tends to follow on. Mr C has definite plans and strategies to his gaming and forces, tending to hold fast to them during the heat of battle.

No problem, that's his hobby, his enjoyment and he's entitled to that.

He's a good guy who'll give you a competitive game without spoiling yours. He has a decent win percentage without getting hung up about it. All good :)

So naturally as a GM he's also going to exhibit those traits. Fair enough.

As a gaming group the majority of us come from the other direction. We're looking for a bit of free choice with real consequence.

These two approaches tends to bring the group and GM into conflict producing Orange Blamangce moments :/

Last night we continued our stake-out of THE PLACE OF EVIL. A further side-plot was offered and refused, dispatching NPCs to do the job. We just wanted to get to the "inevitable" final showdown with the minimum of fuss.

The side-plot produced a couple of muties who recognised Baron No-Ore and proceeded to cough info. I insisted on corroboration by Mind Scan which Mr C made plain was unnecessary. I continued to insist. As such we go through an exercise of dice checks until I pass with questions and answers through gritted teeth :/

Eventually the bad lads turn up en-masse with three of them carrying a metal orb the size of a man.

Ryan starts blasting chunks from it whilst I go for a big Fearful Aura which sees half of the bad lads turn tail. Following further applied firepower I'm interested in a Spasm for the orb carriers. This sparks a "debate" about line of sight and pre-declaration of actions :/

Following a successful Awareness test a big Spasm drops two of three orb boys, which would seem to not be in the pre-write, and sparks another "debate" about whether the third orb lad would feel the effect. Orange Blamance all over the place!!

 Once dessert is cleared up a successful Strength check keeps him on his feet. At this point the bad lads arm the Psychic Bomb by palm-print and retreat. Asked for actions Ryan somehow works out that the bomb is glowing at "33% of what you would expect it to". Everyone takes the leaden HINT while I decide to go for the disarm, it's what I believe I'd do. 

Arriving at the bomb on 99% luminosity I'm asked for its password. Unfortunately Ryan took the head off the chap who armed it 15 seconds previously so a Mind Scan isn't an option. She go BANG!!

"You use a Fate point to survive the blast"

"I don't have any left, I've used them all"

"Oh, well ill give you one and you can use that "

Ermm.......okay :/ Thanks??

A few minutes later the blast sight is full of serfs, hammers at their belts, carrying Baron No-Ore aloft as the rebellion seems to be starting without us. As this was not a valid outcome per Baron Harkonnen's orders Ryan lines up a headshot from his perch above the throng.

"Just so you know killing No-Ore will likely see you lynched by serfs!"

"But I'm an assassin, they can't touch me!"

Just so you know killing No-Ore will likely see you lynched by serfs!"

"I'm on a ledge 30 metres above them in shadow!"

Just so you know killing No-Ore will likely see you lynched by serfs!"

Suddenly it's 15 minutes later. Rob and Charlie are with the Baron being carried to the surface toward the Arbite Central command. Ryan has magically appeared on a different ledge with excellent scope access. I'm unconscious in a Physic Bomb crater under rocks!

Through his scope Ryan overhears an old lady praising No-Ore for his glorious return and presents her sick son for his blessing. The boy's eyes light-switch to 99% luminosity at which point Ryan's superior initiative literally blows off his head at which point the lad beheads his mother with his hands! Cue screaming and hundreds of undead types emerging from any and every available crevice!

It being half 9 and Mr C reckoning that we can't fit in the final final encounter we generate some Star Wars EotE characters.....

Once again this isn't a dig, more a commentary / tale of caution. We've all played our part in this, we the group have got used to openly commenting about plot armour and Mr C's unwillingness to kill us. As such we have tended to goof off. Both "sides" fuel the other, if we'd felt empowered, challenged etc it would have been far less :/

Generally speaking its been fun, the occasional issue hasn't got in the way too much but we seem to have set the cycle and its time for something else...... :)

Do you MIND??!!

Evening people,

So, last night was the potentially penultimate session of Dark Heresy. Moving on, oh so slightly, from last time out we arrived at Sepheris Secundus aka Shite-hole Central. We had made good use of our journey aboard the Pax Behemoth practising our various newly found skills :)

Personnally I'd mind warped the vast majority of the crew and set up the Pax Behemoth Am-Dram society dedicated to working their way through the entire catalogue of Gilbert & Sullivan.

Eventually leaving the Good Ship Lollypop Captain Al-Jazeera insisted on accompanying us on the shuttle down to our "clandestine meeting" (GM's words) which immediately set our Spidey-Senses a-tingling. As such I decide to play nicely and shake his hand for a clandestine Mind Scan.

Whisk in hand, Mr C sighed sensing the worst;
"He's wearing gloves!"
"I'll give him a kiss!"
Open the packet, empty into bowl........ and after all that he knew very little :/

Getting off the shuttle we surveyed Shite-hole central and the background cacophony of several thousand serfs with several thousand hammers, hammering at several hundred seams of rock. Even Minecraft has a bit more tech going for it, no mega-machines here!

Introduced to Captain Rotland of the local arbites I went with a decidedly Gallic double cheek kiss Mind Scan and then proceeded to "introduce" myself to anyone who didn't immediately flee my presence.

Whilst being escorted to Arbite HQ we mused that in Baron No-Ore we had our Spartacus, though a rather decrepit beardy version without muscles or combat ability, and several thousand serfs with several thousand hammers........BUT that's definitely NOT an option within the scenario book!

"Introducing" ourselves around  Arbite HQ we got them to bring up a holo-map of all the attack locations which with a quick Logic and Forbidden Lore - Warp deciphered the ARCANE EVIL ATTACK PATTERN and pinpointed the FINAL LOCATION. That much was in the book at least!

At this point Captain Rotland decided we should go and visit the Imperial Gaurd and various other side plots. Not feeling the need we went all Inquisitorial Seal on his ass and insisted on turning out the Fuzz and legging it down to Daemon-Summoning Central at double time.
Mr C sighed and turned through five pages of the scenario book......FIVE!

Dear old Baron No-Ore suggested a shortcut, which we again refused, only for us to end up at a read aloud section anyway :/ It turned out to be an old Broken Chains hidey hole with new psychically shielded extension built from psychically imbued RSJs. A quick angle-grind later we were wandering off with several big lumps.

Moving on to the FINAL LOCATION we set up our stake-out and waited and waited and waited, ignoring an obvious diversionary attack mincing a few hundred serfs with a few hundred hammers. Apparently the FINAL CONFRONTATION doesn't come with a couple of dozen Arbites at our backs.....

Tune in next week for more fun, frolics and whipped dessert :)

I am a Storyteller.........

.....and my story must be told! Remember that one?

Catching up with my merry week of gaming Tuesday night at Enfield Gamers was Dreadball all the way. Two games rotating between eight of us I took my Robots, Rust In Piece, playing Z'Zor and then Orx. Both were tight games, winning the first by 3 and loosing the second by 1, where I spent quite a bit of time recycling players through the casualty bin. Tech Support were kept pretty busy with the welder!

With the 'Bots I've found it a struggle to get going against an aggressive hitty team, especially with just the 6 players. I found myself using up quite a few actions transforming only to get punched off the pitch and then starting over again. Not impossible, challenging.
I did notice at the Milton Keynes tourney that a coach works very well for them, offensively and defensively.

We're going to be running a Pudding-Bowl mini league up to x-mas as a prelude to a Champions League in the New Year. Think I'll be running Z'Zor, really enjoy them.

Meanwhile, Wednesday night we picked up Dark Heresy and started what will be our final chapter before swapping over to a bit of Star Wars EotE. Instant blancmange kit and orange flavouring at the ready!

Summoned by Baron Harkonnen, aka the Flying Fat-Man,to his Inquisitorial rock-moon-space station he showed us a rather sketchy, low budget snuff movie. Working out that this wasn't just a prelude to "keys in the bowl" it turned out to be a ruck 14 years ago in a mine far far away between a disgraced Baron and a Mutie who were both part of a rebel group on a backwater Medieval world providing some form of super-ore to the Imperium. Records show the Mutie died while the Baron, who lost a leg in the fight, was executed by the local Arbites.

Bringing our back off of various walls we were then shown a more recent pict feed featuring our Mutie and two of his mates Scaly Pete and Metallic Micky. Apparently reports of his death had been mis-filed but then so had the Baron's execution as he's in a cell 100 meters beneath our feet. Fecking Imperial scribes!

So...we're dispatched to Sepheris Secundus aka Shite-hole Central to put down the resurgence of The Broken Chains with Baron Harkonnen arriving a week behind us. Waxing on he let slip that the Baron was actually something of a progressive type, educating instead of flogging his serfs. Disgraced by the Queen he fled into the extensive mine system setting up the Chains with Mutie boy with whom he fell out about the requisite level of "direct action".

First off we get to go and have a chat with our plethora of newly acquired skills. I'm psy-level 4 now which means an extra dice to turn Daemonhost with :) I've also picked up a number of Telepathic skills.....

"When we get in there just hold him down and I'll do the rest, don't say anything!

Mr C looked up, deer in the headlights of an off-plot sourjon, mixing bowl and whisk at the ready!

Busting in Rob the burly Arbite pinned our man to the wall, his bionic leg and nice but dim air confirming his identity even before I employed Mind Scan.

Sachet and milk into bowl, orange flavouring and whisk at the ready!

So basically I / we worked our way through the five levels of Mind Scan, with a Compel added in to reduce his resistance, whilst asking a large number of highly relevant questions about The Broken Chains and their supply chain contacts that were never going to answered. This is also known as driving the bus directly at the obvious plot holes :)

Whisk, whisk, whisk as hard as you can! If you can't get them back on plot, no-one can!

Eventually giving in we slapped an explosive collar on Baron No-Ore and trotted off to our transport, a freighter call the Pax Behemoth captained by the delightful Kobal Aizdar aka Al Jazeera. With a three week voyage ahead of us it was discussed that it was a good point to "develop" our newly acquired powers.

Rob's Arbite did a montage of shots from the gym, dojo and firing range.
Ryan's Assassin snuck around the cargo hold jumping out on random crew with a garrote.
I Compelled the crew into multiple event of spontaneous jigs, shantys and frigging in the rigging.

Mr C produced a lovely milky desert with a subtle citrus flavouring!

Meanwhile I came across this article about storytelling with gaming. Top Marks :)

Plot Armour

Hello people, bit of a mixed bag catch up post as its been another one of those weeks working far too hard for DA' MAN. Just as well I've got all this geekism to full back onto.

I missed out on the club Tuesday night but we did get a bit of Dark Heresy on Thursday. Following on from last time out it was last stand / final shootout time, though I didn't spend a lot of time involved!

Holed up by bank of escape pods we'd stumbled across the ghosts were good enough to run the pre-launch checks on them. Team Moron took little convincing to take up the more forward positions whilst one their squaddy type held back with the rest of. Commenting that they must have lead a charmed existence if this was their idea of combat tactics Charlie commented that now we were at the final event they'd lost thier "Plot Armour". Nice point :)

Contacted by some form of hovering holo projector the Dark Eldar Archon made all the usual promises about our apparent impending doom to which we made the equally predictable responses...at which point the projector went bang catching myself and Charlie in the blast. This also opened the webway portal from which poured a dozen or so Kabalite Warriors backed up by a couple of Grotesques, things were getting real ugly real quick!

I made a nuisance of myself with Fearful Aura while the rest of the boys took potshots at our unwanted guests in descending order of unattractiveness. Meanwhile Team Moron, bereft of Plot Armour, went down quicker than a $5 happiness consultant at happy valley's happy hour.

Splinter weapons were proving effective when they hit, as was Ryan's Nomad, Barret style, elephant gun. I was quite fancy picking myself up one of the pistols. Unfortunately this was the point when Mr Squaddy turned his coat inside out and took a shot at me. First time he missed.... so I spasmed him to the floor... at which point we repeatedly failed to shoot him, so he got up and cut me in half with auto-fire!

So while I had an enforced doze the lads kept up the firepower, though my unconscious form still exuded a Fearful Aura, with Ryan's Archon gun taking on the heavy lifting while the remains of Team Moron lept about the place soaking up Disruptor Pistol shots,....but rarely more than one.
With things looking pretty grim, well it IS the 41st Millenium and there is only WAR!!, Sgt HardAsFeth made his last minute appearance, Plot Armour heavily dented, and smashed the remaining Dark Eldar to bits....just as the hulk started to break up.

Looting as much as could be carried, including my snoring form, everyone bundled into the escape pods with frozen saint, sword and book in two. Returning to Baron Harkonnen we were somewhat underwhelmed with his lack of gratitude. We briefly mourned Team Moron, though more the fact that we ddin't get to take them out and dissed them heavily. We all then trooped off to our regular spot in the med-bay via the XP dispensary.
Hopefully I get to keep the armour I've so effectively befouled :)

Elsewhere I've attempted to stop whinging about what I'm not painting, playing or reading and actually DO something about it!

The Teratons and Nameless have been built, sprayed and vaguely threatened with paint. The Teratons will be green and yellow a la Wallabies while the Nameless will be a grey-green with orange detailing to make the most of the purple glory.

To that effect I dropped into my local GW earlier to try and pick up a grey-green. Somehow I ended up leaving with four possibles, a detail brush and the recent Skarsnik novel, parting with £22 in the process,....somehow it just happened.

Seriously though my reading has waned significantly recently and its something I want to kickstart. Ive always had a soft spot for gobbos and to be honest I can't imagine much easier reading than a Black Library offering!

We shall see :)

Booze Cruise?

Hello people,

After a cancellation or two we managed to get back to Dark Heresy last night and picked up where we left off, in the belly of a space hulk full of Dark Eldar nasties.

Continuing on we soon found ourselves in a relatively intact Imperial Battleship of some kind. The church like interior tends to be a giveaway but the fact that all the lights were on without anyone was all a bit spooky.

As we advanced behind Brother Sergeant HardAsFeth, with myself skulking in any shadow to be found, we were soon enthusiastically greeted by a pair of warp-beasts one whom was running along the vertical wall. Playing fetch with high velocity projectiles I quickly failed a Perils of the Warp and then a Fear check to attack the nearest thing to me,....Sergeant HardAsFeth! This proved repetitive for me during the evening :/

With Bouncer and Rover dispatched the corridor from which they'd bounded took a strange writhing appearance which proved to be about a hundred of their pack mates. 

Sarge turned barking an order to rapidly tactically redeploy in the opposite direction only to find us well on our way.

Finding a fortuitous passageway which soon cut through what appeared to be an asteroid Sarge turned heroically to hold them off a la Arnie,...if only he'd had a cape and a wind machine. Preservationists that we are we let him trying to tune out his death rattle over the comm a few minutes later.

Emerging into some form of asteroid cave we spied the prow of a big black ship in the corner. As a psyker I quickly identified it as Imperial having served on one previously. I even managed to work out that a lot of the hexagramic wards had been breached and despite finding an open airlock we didn't fancy it much.

Almost as if by magic the Auspex sputtered into life revealing our impending encirclement by the beasties. It was almost as if they were herding us towards the Black Ship..... Ah, hello adventure train, almost missed you!

Making all appropriate haste we all failed our Perception checks to the tune of a cocked gun and "Halt!". MrC looked smug until just one word "Spasm". At that point we got a description of four humanoids who we somehow apparently identified as another group of Inquisitorial acolytes.

"They're just four guys in armoured spacesuits like ours on a hulk pointing guns at us"

"You can see a variant Inquisitorial seal on one of them!"

"We can spot that but not the fact that they were stood there waiting to ambush us? Excuse me for having trust issues!"

"Are you really going to Spasm them?"

Cue conversation about the free will of the party, it wasn't just me, as the instant blamanche mix came out of the cupboard. So, the Spasm roll went big putting two of them on the floor with an accidental discharge into a third and I failed another Perils of the Warp flipping myself into the floor. While I dusted myself off guns were pointed until everything cooled down and the blamanche mix stayed sealed.

At this point the adventure became impatient and beasties started flooding into chamber sending us all running for the Black Ship. Piling inside we decided to task our new allies, who we'd named Team Moron, with guarding the door whilst we set off in search of the Saint's sword. They didn't seem so keen so I decided to Compel thier leader. I say, is that instant blamanche mix I smell?
As and opposed Leaderhip test I passed by 36 while putting a -10 onto el laddo.......who passed by 37...no dice! I was however awarded 4 corruption points for apparently trying to kill a member of the Inquisition.
Ah custard doughnuts, I was wondering if we had any in.

Moving through the ship we soon met a bunch of psykic ghosts who generally bickered with each other whilst making grand speeches at us. After I failed my Fear check and had to be subdued we got them to skip to the end had them lead us to not only the Saintly Sword but the Saint herself, stuck in stasis, and a copy of Liber Daemonica which we had away and headed topside for the conveniently available escape pods. Chatter turned to sabotaging Team Moron's ride which met with grim annoyance.

Once again the adventure kicked us along with the beasties finding thier way past the wards and into the ship with 20 minutes of prep time left on the escape pods.......

So there we finished, with our regular heart to heart about letting the group make thier own decisions and mistakes, we'll take things more seriously......honest :)

In Space no-one can hear you.....

.......well whinge, prevaricate and belly-ache mainly!

So with ManFlu+ locking s-foils and moving into attack position on Wednesday night the latest chapter of Dark Heresy opened upon us. 

Moving on at a fair crack we found ourselves summoned by Baron Harkonnen  into orbit upon one of the Emperor' cruisers. With some theatrical flare we found ourselves addressed in his state room overlooking a small fleet of similar vessels to be told about about the sudden and rather pesky in-system appearance of a space hulk that was headed straight for the capital world of Scintillia.

"Oh dear", we chimed," how lax of the local rear admiral. Maybe a restorative thrashing was in order while the pleasantly placed fleet bombarded it to pieces? Thanks for letting us know we'll be off to watch from a more rimward position!"

"Ah no", lilted our host, "this is no ordinary hulk. Scans detect the psychic presence of a Ordo Malleus colleague lost 600 years ago with the ancient sword of kick-ass".

"But wait", I suggest, "my Forbidden Lore: Warp tells me that even if it is her she's definitely a bad 'un by now. And what's that you say, 15 hours to impact? No time for the local Astartes then.....schuks :("

"Ahh", Harkonnen beams, "that's where you're mistaken, meet Brother Sergeant HardAsFeth of the Deathwatch to lend a guiding hand!"

In an inspired burst of ROLE-playing a great deal of knashing, wailing and doomsaying broke out. We did manage to each secure a set of borrowed carapace armour to go with our incredibly durable vacuum suits and an auspex for that Alien "they're in the room" moment. So despite several attempts to wander away as the group we were herded down to the launch bays and firmly installed onto an assault boat barely daring to say a word in case BS-HAT found one of the many possible reason to shoot us for heresy.

Strangely I convinced BS-HAT to allow me to pilot the assault boat and after several attempts at stalling the thing eventually set of as slowly as possible towards impending doom.

Suitably encouraged by a 2.5 6 metric tonne killing machine I eventually found 5th. Suddenly laser fire streaked towards us, I engaged defencive pattern Delta only to realise my Piloting (Space) skill wasn't the trained variety.................and failed by a massive 80%!!!

Once we'd stopped laughing ourselves hoarse and Mr C climbed down from the blamanche ledge BS-HAT shoved me sideways into the plexi-glass as he took the con. At this point I noticed the sleek dark shape of another ship racing us to the hulk.........

Finally boarding "The Twilight" we had a mapped route to wend out way along and set off as close to BS-HAT as he would physically allow, we would have ridden him into battle if he'd let us.

Encounter wise first up were a triumvirate of what turned out to be Warp-beasts which between fear checks and their shift ability proved confusing enough for a brief touch of friendly fire whilst BS-HAT waved around a Thunder Hammer to little effect. Eventually Rob's shotgun found it's point-blank mark which seemed to inspire BS-HAT to finally pulp his with a single hit. Collecting up one of the wee doggies spiky collars we moved on.

Second up was a ghostly floating little girl, who stumped BS-HAT in particular though she barely came up to his ankle guard. Unable to work out how she appeared we eventually reverted to just asking her only to be told that "they are coming" before she faded out....

Powering up the auspex, Charlie located a single 'blip' following us along and then lying in wait. Unslinging his now beloved Nomad sniper rifle Ryan suddenly got all keen and crept forward stealthy like! Finding that his prey was a humanoid in shiny black armour with male model looks and pointy ears he needed no encouragement to squeeze the trigger....and palpably shatter a leg. With our lad still squirming there was a short debate as to taking him alive...followed by a final shot to the chest.

Digging through his sharpened crystals and artful tattoo designs we came across an amulet with a sharpened sickle etched into it, as in that of the Serrated Quarry.

HANG ON A MINUTE...didn't we come across this lot mixed up with the Joyous Choir? Surely this isn't a LINKED ADVENTURE???

The lights went out :/ 

How to build a better....

Hello people,

After a number of false states and postponements we got back round to Dark Heresy last Thursday night and finished off our occasionally culinary adventure.

Following on from last time's entertainments this particular instalment was relatively tame. With many of the hive nobles answering some pointy questions about xenos-people-drug wine we headed back to casa Strophies for some well needed rest prior to our flight out to Ambulon, the ancient tech city that probably never sleeps and definately never stops mining.

Assigned our own guest wing we were, eventually once enough of passed Awareness checks, awoken during the night by a full on assault by some ex guardsmen types. Fighting them back to the breach in the wall of the apparently easy to access Strophies manor Fearful Aura did a better job of holding them back than anyone expected whilst we filled them with various types of projectile. The tipping point came when Lord Strophies himself appeared through a Scooby Do secret door and took down a couple to see the remainder flee. 

 As a couple of us set to interrogation our Assassin, against the odds and much to Mr C's chagrin, tracked the last couple across the apparently unguarded estate to the breach in the apparently unguarded outer wall at which point they scattered into the "winding" upper hive corridor beyond. Despite unlikely dice followed by no dice all the baked goods stayed put :)

Questioning went better as one lad spilled his guts about the merc firm he worked for and the employer, Doc Oc from earlier, for this overt assault on a noble house of the upper hive. At this point his works sci oxide device activated, all ISO 40'000 compliant I'm sure.

Strangely his Lordship was unperturbed waving away our plans to take these mercs down and secure the buckets of evidence they likely held. Taking the hint, for once we sighed and went back to bed.

Arriving on Ambulon we had been provided with cover stories and a contact who quickly pointed us in the direction of the local branch of the Joyous Choir and disappeared into the background.

In short we rocked up at the church found Doc Oc's evil People-Drug-Wine lab and quickly blew him to bits with a couple of critical shots to the face. We then went to rescuing our damsel in distress to find out that she'd been converted into a mindless servitor which was kind of a let down. 

Admittedly this last bit was somewhat hazy for me as I was having trouble staying awake, long week at work rather than Mr C ;). It turns out I wasn't really needed and upon failing my servitor fear check my hangover worsened to a minus 20 mod to everything and I soon discovered that the lab was a psychic null. I did try burning the place down, our habit, but nothing flammable could be found!

Winding down XP was dished out and Mr  C asked around for feedback as he always does, which is a good thing. The general feeling was a decent adventure with a strong enough start that ran somewhat downhill to a bit of an anti-climax

To his credit, he is actually a mate and we do appreciate him running the campaign for us, Mr C agreed as he hadn't realised the end would fizzle like that though lucky dice helped that along. He did however mention that he took out Doc Oc's minions because "we only had 40 minutes left and I wanted to finish tonight". Have to admit that's not my way of doing things but then I'm not the GM and need to respect that.....honestly! :)

 I've made various commentary about pre-written adventures. I think they can be a good core story that can always be altered and fleshed out to suit. I feel that you need to get off  the railroad every now and then  without it becoming an issue. That's what I see as the real skill of a GM. 

As much as Mr C gets a bit of stick from all of us he always does his bit and asks us what would gave improved things. Those golden GM skills are a learning process for all involved and maybe gaming groups should be a bit more aware and supportive of that.

Hug a GM week anyone?

Roleplay Week: Thursday

Evening all,

So,....the finale or Roleplay Week was a long awaited session of Dark Heresy last night and our first since our recent Custard Doughnut moment. After four weeks Rob had pretty much calmed down but it was still going to be interesting.

So re-capping we had an invite to a Choir afternoon workshop, possibly involving raffia giraffes, followed by another Choir social at the behest of Lady B who we were particularly keen to have a chat with about the xenos-spiced-people-drug-wine, it's a particularly good tipple.

Stepping off the plotline railroad we first headed back to our local mid-hive church for a session of enlightenment and possible basket weaving. Ryan, as fake noble, hadn't been able to make it so with Jynx horribly hung over on xenos-spiced-people-drug-wine I ran him ;)

I DID state before we went in that my plan was to be as obnoxious as possible to produce a reaction from the local priests and I succeeded in spades with Rob ably playing his part as strongarm of the Lord in another, apparently futile no-dice, attempt to acquire a xenos happy-meter. So well did we play the card that a squad of ten local filth turned up with an Orange Blamange cease and desist notice, enforced by shotgun.

Further refusing to get back on the plot-line railroad we set off to Lady B manor to have a chat but she wasn't in. Tracking her down we couldn't get in there either, another no dice shocker, so we just sat outside the front gates and refused to leave. Eventually she turned up though strangely with the same ten local filth, though this time with an Orange Blancmange get on with it notice.

Climbing back on board the scenario we got dudded up for the evening's entertainment which turned out to be a snuff theatre production at Joyous Choir central for all of Hive Sibellus' greatest and not so good.

Scanning about we located two sets of stairs leading back down the spire to what I scanned to be a psychic void guarded by some large types in well filled combat bodysuits and chunky pistols. Turning our attention back to the play we soon worked out that the victim role was being played by a drugged yocal, which was something of a tradition around these parts.

Determined to spoil the party and create a distraction to get down the stairs we discussed tactics and went for a Spasm at the would be knife-man, who we soon came to know and hate as Elsergi Krin. We had thought about trying to clear the place with Fearful Aura but decided it was a bit too much even for us.

Making a big effort to get the timing right we dropped Krin just to have him stand straight back up and shiv el victim without even a blink, much to Mr C's obvious delight "that's the rules". Add a doughnut to the group's pack!

Fear checks all round and most of us fail including myself. Spotting this Krin strolls up through the crowd of sycophants and picks on the skeletal, paranoid, black hearted psyker wearing motley with something of an inferiority complex.....so I did a mocking little dance and sang "See the little goblin, see his little feet....etc" at which point I found myself being escorted to a nearby combat pit for a little after show entertainment.

Though the duel was billed as first blood, there was no way I was having that or a stand up fight, I DID state my intent to give Krin a shivving much as he had for el victim, time for the downtrodden to bite back!

Spasm got Krin to the floor but only gave me +10 to hit against my -10 for being royally hungover, "that's the rules", equalling a big bad miss and another doughnut moment. Krin gave me a clump without drawing blood before I then Perils of the Warp'd myself into unconciousness for a few minutes. Coming round Krin showboating I mocked him into a secound bout and went at it.

This time Krin got the drop on me and drew blood, I returned the favour but once again the rules demanded that I formalyy apologised.........so a Spasm and a las shot to the leg left him howling along with Mr C who produced a squad of ten local filth with shotguns and shock mauls to escort me from the premises. Can you fill a doughnut with blancmange?

Meanwhile....the lads had snuck downstairs to find a set of now empty cells within the apparent null field so had probably been used to hold captured psykers. On the way out they kept on making, and intially failing, awareness tests until they spotted a robed type talking to Karlos Scholl, the head of the choir. Somewhat fortuitously with all the commotion they noticed a new bionic eye on Mr Robe, as if he'd recently been shot in the head by a high powered sniper rifle, and overheard a conversation "I've made a fortune for your masters on Ambulon".......aahh next stop is obvious plot device! ;)


Unsurprisingly we were suddenly required to report back to Baron Harkonnen who informed us the Ambulon is an ancient walking city that potters around the wastes mining something or the other critical to the Imperium, as such constructs seem to do.

Fairly sure where we're off to next :)

Oh and if you'd like to have a go at making your own Blancmange ..........

Social Climbers

Afternoon all, happy Monday?

A bit more Dark Heresy last Thursday night and we finally got to employ some of our new toys as things warmed up a bit :)

Sent by our employer, Lord Strophies aka Mr Stroppy, to meet his local investigator we ended up at a mid-hive hard mans pub "The Barking Saint". Cue a bit of group paranoia and an extended recce of the joint that caused great confusion, mainly for Mr C. Eventually our back-water Noble just rolled in and asked for our man by name....and was taken straight to him!

Taken to his private booth negotiations started poorly, at the business end of his Bolt Pistol, and didn't get much better from there. Admitting to holding an encrypted data-slate and a number of influential enemies our man seemed set on stalling any hand over for another two days despite our repeated insistence as to otherwise.

Rejecting his offer, trust is such a fickle thing, we ended up with my goodself attempting my best Jedi mind-tricks in following him from the pub to a local hab-zone. Hanging back I watched him retrieve a case from a dead-drop and just as we began to move in......his head exploded! (this time it was nothing to do with me).

Watching on his Doc Oc assassin lept down from his hidden vantage point, snatched up the case and legged it on his four bionic mechandrites with the four of us in hot pursuit. Despite getting a decent Spasm off and Ryan taking a lump out of his head with his newly acquired sniper rifle he clambered up to the hab-dome roof and safety despite our curses.

The one winner from all this was Rob, who plundering Mr Headless has suddenly acquired a Bolt Pistol complete with a couple of mags, there was some other stuff but nothing else that he could hug, stroke and whisper sweet nothings too each night before bed. No girl's name just yet but this is expected ;)

Heading back up spire we diverted off plot to the local Arbites office to blag a look at the investigation file for our lost lass quoting Lord Stroppys employ. A suitably impressive lump of print-outs was landed in front of us that was heavily redacted but at least showed that the local lads in Carapace knew thier way around an auto-quill, or at least knew a floating cherub that does.

While we were at it we also stopped in at the church that our missing lass used to attend. Ryan played Tim Nice-But-Dim to a tee flashing ignorant cash for near instant enlightenment whilst I grinned manically as his spiritual adviser "that would be an ecumenical matter". Loaded with pamphlets and an invite to an intro session the next afternoon (bring your own raffia) we also got a go on one of the Churches Happy-o-Meters.

You see Mr Headless had previously acquired several of these devices for Lord Stroppy and the circuitry inside found to be both xenos and matching the single unburnt fragment of Aristicus' ill fated Imperial Tarot. Our working theory to date is that the Church use these to detect latent psykers and then recruit them in to be vessels of possession. A working thesis but you know how much we like to hang on to them!

So, we were a little perplexed when our, and especially my, readings came back somewhat background. Must be a set-up.....obviously ;)

Vaguely placated we headed back to Stroppy Towers and got all dolled up for that evening's Church of Possessed Latent Psykers dinner & dance fundraiser hosted by the highly placed Lady Belladonna. Just two tortured souls per table of ten! 

No black tie, more Incandescent Glow-Suits...not so sure it'll catch on myself but then I'm not Gok Wan. Poncing about the place we groped around ineffectually for further leads. Chatting to a flunky we worked out just how high in the Church hierarchy Lady B sat, lets just say its and impressive view!

Just as vague boredom was kicking in and I was looking for a subtle way to manifest as a Daemonhost (JOKE) out came the bubbly before the main toast....,along with Mr C's fiendish plan!

Ryan guzzled his down straight off with the rest of us told that if we'd had a real life drink from the kitchen
that we'd done the same. As group licensed nutter I passed my Psiescence test and worked out that the bubbly had a warp signature complemented by a mixer of tortured soul. Whilst all of us went a quick happy trip, a quick round of Toughness tests ended with a squiffy bunch of investigators and a newly addicted black-hearted paranoid with mind-bullets.........at which point the group had something of a "Custard Doughnut" moment.

After a bit of a re-jig and a little bit of "honest feedback" the result was much the same. One of the guests was second in command to the Sector Governor and looking round ready to Spasm the glass from his hand he had thankfully waved his glass away. Looking for anybody else who might need saving I restrained myself, SHOCK, HORROR, whilst Charlie took a sample for later analysis.

Seeing the evening out behind stilted smiles and blurry some of staggered off into the night with at least one of us plotting a serious dose of questioning for Lady B.

I'll try not to puke on her shoes......probably ;]

It's good to talk :)

Hello people.

All roleplay last week, Star Wars and Dark Heresy, with not a shot fired anywhere! 

Plenty of schmooze and booze on Tuesday night at Enfield Gamers as Rich continued the Star Wars campaign. On the run with prices on our heads were made an offer everyone knew we couldn't afford to refuse. Read it all HERE in Rich's own words. Lots of soft skills on display which work really well with the Advantage / Threat dice system.



Thursday night was more of the same as we opened a new chapter of DH. Happy to say that we've all bedded in much better with this one and have got used to working with the system and each other much better. Plot-holes are still there but they cause much less of a bump these days ;)

Finding ourselves on a light transport we were summoned past two heavily armoured lads to a meeting room. Half expecting a corporate team bonding event run by an over enthusiastic facilitator we were informed that we were to bestowed a singular honour. Hoping for gold, riches and wealth, we're simple folk, we actually got to meet our inquisitor.....

Not quite the "treat" we were all hoping for Ryan quickly got stuck into him about his previously close friend Aristicus and took great delight describing his demise. For once I stayed pretty much silent and checked for gas vents.

As has occasionally been the case we viewed our host with a mix of trepidation, mild hostility and suspicion. Our lad ranked well on the corpulence-o-meter, having lost his legs and one arm replaced by bionics, squeezed into a black ribbed body suit and strapped to some form of personal repulsor unit. So,....Baron Harkonnen then... "bring me that flying fatman".

I know he has a proper name but that's the one were rechristening him with. On a side note what is it with NPC names in pre-written adventures? They're so often Bill and Ben level.

Back at the point we cheered up with the offer of some free kit / filthy lucre which in my case would supplement my haul from Aristicus' crispy fried ashes ;)

Once The Baron could get us to settle down again we were briefed to investigate a number of disappearances on a hive world (insert name here). Mainly from the noble houses our abductees were all members of a certain choir who were gaining recognition within the official Imperial creed. As such discretion, subtly and stealth were key.....

To help is with that we were assigned cover stories. Ryan (assassin) as backworld noble third cousin twice removed from our noble host, Tim nice but incredibly dim. Ron (arbite) as dour bodygaurd, Charlie (tech priest) as advisor / scribe with myself (black hearted psyker) as JESTER! 

Oh the fun to be had, especially with my newly acquired imperial tarot. Pick a card, any card....oops that ones a Spasm :)

Arriving and settling in we spent most of the session questioning our hosts. The latest disappearance was thier ward who was active within the church "finding herself". We were particularly worried that we were facing an incursion of Welsh!!

Digging further we established that the choir focused mainly on recruiting the wealthy, who made regular donations, occasionally running the odd soup kitchen for the lower reaches but concentrating mainly on high end social events. Hmm maybe not so Welsh then.

It was an upcoming social that our hosts, who didn't seem overly bothered by thier ward's absence, had arranged us invites for. So while Ryan practised his dance moves the rest of us came up with various potential leads for Mr C to have to fill for us :) 

Fairly basic stuff like access to the local Magistrates investigation records and tracking down the Choir's bank accountants. If only we could have flashed our badges about but no dice there though Mr C did have a look of resignation. We did manage to avoid any Orange Blancmange moments :)

So no chance yet to put our new gear to use though I'm now warming to the idea of creating the most macabre Jester that I possibly can.

Should be fun :)