Having just arrived back in Germany after my deployment to Afghanistan, I was pleased to have found the Creatures Anathema waiting for me in my mail box (along with The Career Companions, Shades of Empire and a host of Ebay purchased WFRP 1E products as well as Paths of the Damned books 2 and 3).

Having only read a few entries so far, I have two questions.

Last year at hero-con Ross showed me and excerpt from the CA PDF that included an Ogryn Servitor, perhaps I am remembering that moment wrong. Anyone know if that is in this book and I just missed it or is aware of it being removed before publication?

Secondly, one of the the Mutants (Noxt) has several skills listed at +5 and +15, is this a typo that should be +10 and +20 or am I missing some trait or talent that gives him +5/+15 modifiers or was there a rule errata I missed on this subject?

Stats for an Ogryn appear in Disciples of the Dark Gods, rather than Creatures.

I assumed the +5/ +15 were typos as well.

Evilscary said:

Just seems like an obvious typo so I just want to make sure.

I know a Ogryn working for the Beast House is in the DotDG, but I refer to a Ogryn-Servitor. Perhaps I am incorrect and recall last Hero Con's sneak peak at the PDF as being incorrect.

But anyway, my mind remembers a Ogryn-Servitor so now I have to write him up.

****!

The Ogryn Servitor you remember, Peacekeeper, is part of the adventure (Jurisdiction), and was never included in the book. The excerpt I showed you was for the Warp-tainted servitors from the Tech-Witches entry.

I think it would be really cool to see your version of an Ogryn Servitor, though!

About Noxt, those are indeed typos. The +5's should be +10 and the +15 should be +20. The servitor responsible has been duly re-lobotomized.

I *really* want to see that adventure now too! (As I'm sure most people on the forum will agree)

Any chance it could be made available as a download on the site or might we see it in a future publication?

(Pretty please Uncle Ross)

FFG Ross Watson said:

Ah ha, so my faulty memory has been faulty with me again!

Yes, Jurisdiction was a good adventure, that would be a nice one to have Trent fix up for us, especially with the Ogryn-Servitor!

The plan is for Jurisdiction to appear in a future publication.

It is an excellent adventure, written by Sean Schoonmaker.

FFG Ross Watson said:

Awesome, that is good news. Is it one of the publications highlighted in Knowledge is Power?

While still on topic...

Does the Lictor really have a Penetration of 0, don't get me wrong, it is already insane but I'd think compared to the genestealer it would have a penetration score...

That brings up the question I had....

Aren’t genestealers supposed to be able to open up a suit of Terminator armor like a tin can?

ItsUncertainWho said:

Id say genestealers are, when wield light power armour is completely worthless agaist there attacks.
and the lictor basicly had the genestealers penetration turned into damage and added tearing, so both can potentially kill any character within a round.

The playtest genestealer from Disciple of the Dark Gods had Unnatural Strength iirc. The one from CA is a little underwhelming. If you played a space hulk scenario with them the terminators would never be in any danger (what with something like 18 DR).

There are several typoes and errors in it, mainly to do with weapons.

The avenger shuriken catapult is given as 80m; S/3/10; 1D10+4R; Pen 4; Clip 30; Reload Full; Reliable, Tearing; in the Dire avenger's weapon entry but 80m; S/3/10; 1D10+4R; Pen 6 ; Clip 100 ; Reload 2 Full; Reliable, Tearing; in the armoury entry at the end of the eldar section.

The Enoulian has it worse, there are two different sets of gun stats for each weapon in the character entry and the armoury entry. The thing is though that some stats from each entry make sense with the weapon description, so you can't simply take ONE set of stats for the weapon, you'd need to cobble them together.

The Enslaver is given a Psy Rating of 4 in their Talents list but a psy rating of 6 in the Psychic Powers list (in brackets after the psychic powers title).

Hellebore

from france

personnaly i have a probleme with the orks mélée weapon. in the previous 40.000k their choppa can cut through a lot of armour. the terminator have their amour reduce to a "comon" astartes armor. now in the new army book it less powerful but it still powerfull enough to be a danger even to an astartes power amor.

so i 'am surprise that for such crud design they don't have the primitive quality, weigth just 5kg and still be so unipressive 1d10+1 r pen 2 is not something that can be a danger to a marine. the description says it can describe a power sword. a power sword? welle it doesn't appear in the description.

my opinions it to give an ork a human equivalent weapons with the bonnus of the ork an call it choppa and not use this one.

and their range weapon? well an ork shoul have bulging biceps in his base stats. i have never seen an ork with a heavy flamer or hevay bolter using brace tool. moreover evrytime they can get their hand on bolter they use it.

again their range weapon seem to be underestimated. okay i know they are not good at shooting and they prefer the noise but even an ork can accidentatly hit. and with there weapons even an striper without clothes on can survives (juts a joke)

A stripper sans vetements can, and probably will, survive a shot from a plasgun in Dark Heresy.

The only stats we have to go on for the SM is out of PtU.

Genestealer(GS) - Dmg max 17 pen 7

SM - T 8 and Armor 12 on Body = SM defense 20

vs GS: T 8 Armor 5 = SM defense 13

So the GS is only going to do 1-4 points of damage at most, and that's to a normal space marine. A Terminator is going to be, presumably, much tougher and the armor is supposed to be the walking equivalent of a tank.

If the Terminator has a toughness of 5(10), which isn't much higher than what's been presented and plausible since Terminators are Veteran units, and the Tactical Dreadnaught Armor(TDA) is a minimum of 2 points higher in body, which will more likely be in the 18- low 20's range, the GS is ineffectual and is only going to be able to go for head shots to have any chance. The TDA will also, more than likely, have a more heavily reinforced and protected head location as well.

The Genestealers as presented are terrifying to a normal acolyte, even one in power armor. When you look at what a SM in TDA should be they start looking like Chihuahua puppies with extra arms.

Im assuming that Brother Sergeant Agamorr isnt your everyday Space Marine. First of all, he is a Sergeant, not a Trooper Marine. That being sais, his WS, BS, S, T and AG among other characteristics are probably 5 points higher then normal or so. And his armour is probably top of the line (event hough it doesnt say so, how often has these kind of entries been left out of the books and entries?) ao I would say a standard space Marine probably has armour 1 or 2 APs lower. Putting them at: Head 8, Arms 9, Body 10, Legs 9. Now PEN 7 and SB 5 becomes quite effective, reducing head to 1AP + 8TB, dealing an average of 3 wounds per hit. With Lightning Attack and Multimpe Arms Im assuming as a full action a Genestealer can have 3 (maybe 4) attacks. With Unnatural Agility x2, Lightning Reflexes and an Agility in the 60s, the **** thing acts on 24+1D10 initiative. Its going to go first.

If it uses Lightning Atack and hits all 3 times, the **** thing is going to do 3 wounds per hit, for 9 wounds. If it gets 4 attacks that makes it 12 wounds, and thats only rolling average on damage (assuming a 6 for damage since it has the Tearing Quality). Even against Brother Sergeant Agamorr, who as written has 2 AP more then my assumed standard marine, he would take 1 wound on a average damage roll, sure its not huge, but if the **** thing rolled a 10 to damage (about a 19% chance with tearing) he takes 5 wounds. Thats without them getting Righteous Fury.

And remember these rules are for against PCs, you culd always use the Minion rules in both directions, while the PCs are fighting by the "rules" the SM helpers and Gene Stealers fighting in the same compound die left and right!

Epilogue....

Using the SM rules frm the fan made supplement I always comment about, most junior space marines are probably still running around with T in a 30s, but with Unnatural Toughness this becomes a TB of 6. But still, thats 2 less points of damage reduction.

Overall, Id say the only thing I would change is to add the Rending (see below) ability to nid attacks or up the PEN by 1 or 2 points.

Rending (New Trait): Rending weapons and attacks receive the use of the Righteous Fury extra damage rules, even if used by NPCs and characters without the "Touched by the Fates" Talent.

I don't think there would be much chance that a sergent would have any special armor. A captain maybe, a champion yes.

Like I said, as presented they are nasty, nasty creatures for a normal person in power armor. A horde of them would, eventually, shred a squad of SM.

Don't forget the hammer of squashing that the Brother Sergent has. If memory serves it does 1d10 + 17 with a pen of 6 or so....he has a chance to pop a genestealer in one hit without righteous fury.

My question should be answered in a year or so, unless we get an appearance by a SM Terminator in a future supplement.

I just had an idea for a trait that would take care of my concerns.

Unnaturally Sharp: (unnatural penetration just sounds too Legend of the Overfiend)

All armor values are reduced by half before penetration is applied.

ItsUncertainWho said:

Save for the fact that he is a Sergeant in the Death Watch, which in itself is a special chapter of special space marines.

A standard Sergeant would also not likely have a thunder-hammer of squashing, and yet what do we have here? Assuming these are standard marine stats or issued equipment is not very accurate.

Plus, in my experience with the 40K novels, comics, games and what not, they dont have a real good grasp on rank structure.

The Space Marines seem to go from Trooper to Sergeant to Captain to Commander, giving them only 4 real grades of rank.

Don't forget the hammer of squashing that the Brother Sergent has. If memory serves it does 1d10 + 17 with a pen of 6 or so....he has a chance to pop a genestealer in one hit without righteous fury.

If that wasn't the case, sending in marines at all instead of nuking the place from orbit would be a really bad idea. Remember that a 'stealer has a dodge value of 80. In melee, a single marine will probably kill one stealer per round (of three attacks, it's likely that one doesn't hit, one is dodged and the third one splats the stealer). However, that also means that the marine so occupied isn't doing anything else that round, like spraying the corridor he's supposed to overwatch with his assault cannon. This means that more stealers will pour in and deal damage.

Further, the description of 'stealers tearing the armour apart is served quite well: There is pretty much no way to inflict damage with claws without getting into the armour. Since no hit from a stealer doesn't deal at least some damage that must be soaked with the Toughness Bonus, all hits actually penetrate the armour, making your generic terminator squad back from a space hulk look like swiss cheese held together by duct tape and the marines' unwillingness to lie down and die.

Plus, in my experience with the 40K novels, comics, games and what not, they dont have a real good grasp on rank structure.

The Space Marines seem to go from Trooper to Sergeant to Captain to Commander, giving them only 4 real grades of rank.

Considering that your normal chapter only has about 1000, maybe 2000 members, more ranks would likely be overkill.

from france

well no answer for my ork probleme. it seems that all question turn around the same creatures. please let me be more global. in the previous edition of the tabletop game a lot creatures who roll a natural six in attacck autmatically pierce the armour . it include the stealer but also the demon of slaneesh. so i don't think that this possybility is represent in the game by the rigtheous fury. is there a possibility to represent this , the equivalent of a six in dh?

Peacekeeper_b said:

As you say rank structure is pretty loose in the SM. It's only really Captains and Commanders that are specifically named. Veteran and Terminator squads have Sergents, normal marine squads can have veteran sergents. Hell, there's even cases of super hard veterans still being scout sergents.

As for the genestealers... that is pretty terifying enemy. The chances of an instant kill on marine isn't really there but winning combat is pretty certain (you forgot to mention that he has 70 for dodge roll ). This is pretty nasty from an enemy that appears in hordes, plus in large numbers you are likely to have hybrids (who may be psykers) and a brood lord. That means pretty bad news for space marines that aren't Terminators.

On top of that thats without any bio-mods at all.

They are. likel most things written for DH written as solitary (or few in number) boss mobs. There's no point writting it from the perspective of whether or not it's going to be able to take down termies when it's more than capable of taking down the players.

Off the record, in TT they are a strong as SM's which kind of suggests they should get unnatural strength. That makes a difference against SM but against Acolytes it's OTT. Maybe they are stronger under the effect of synapse.

p.s. Do they get crushing blow, it feels like they should get crushing blow.

the 8 spider said:

I feel where you are coming from with the Orks. They look nasty but really don't stand a chance against marines. They really took nerf in 4th ed IMHO. Do they get crushing blow? I really think Orks should have crushing blow.

Plus these are only generic Orks. We can afford to put a bit more effort in with the variations in this compared to TT. Different stats for each tribe for instance and including scar boyz again, not as hard as nobz but still tough.

The Nob looked hard though so I'm pleased with that.

I'm definately thinking about adding some kind of crit system for special bad guys. Maybe and additional D5 damage if they roll a 10.

Gene Stealers also have Step Aside, which is a second dodge against another attack.

Orks do have Crushing Blow. As do Gene Stealers, so the question is, is Crushing Blow calculated in on the damage listed already. A Choppa (on page 102) does 1D10+1 Damage, Pen 2, Tearing and Unbalanced. In the listing for Boyz the damage is listed as 1D10+5, which seems to only take into account the weapon's damage and the Orks SB of 4, not crushing blow. The Nob has it at 1D10+9, which also is only his SB (with Unnatural X2 calculated in). Giving them both a total of 1D10+7 and 1D10+9 repectively.

The Genestealer however is listed as having Improved Natural Weapons (natural weapons are not primitive) and Natural Weapons (1D10 damage), but is listed as doing 1D10+7 damage. That seems to take into account both their SB of 5 and their Crushing Blow talent.

So the problem Im having is the difference between different entries, they seem to calculate the final damage differently in each section, and some sections conflict with the individual weapons listing (hello Enoulians).

But someone brought up a good point, what effects does a Hive Mind have on Stealers? Which also brings the question, where is the Waagh rules?

Certaily the Waagh should add berzerk charge and frenzy to orks, perhaps even bestial charge?

Can a Stealer get Feeder Tendrils? Flesh Hooks? Extended Carapace? Certainly these make them more dangerous (Extended Carapace adds +2AP perhaps?), What about Adrenal Glands (Add Unnatural Strength perhaps?).

I think the point is that these stealers, as said before, are very basic eat your Acolytes Alien the Movie nids and not savage broodlord 1st generation purestrain death dealers.

Not that they cant deal death, just Agamorr may survive against 10 or so for a little while, maybe.

Face Eater said:

Just give special NPCS (Nob Boss, that extra large Gene Stealer) the Touch by the Fates talent found on page 188 of DotDG. Gives them a number of Fate Points equal to half of their WP bonus (round up) and lets them use Righteous Fury. That Ork Nob becomes very scary and has 2 fate points then, and the Gene Stealer "boss" has 3.

Face Eater said:

Face Eater said:

True on all accounts.

And just for the record, Sergeant has an A before the N .

But my point is that the Rank of Sergeant covers a vast range of roles and "positions" in 40K militaries. In the US Army, there are 7 grades/rank of Sergeant (Sergeant, Staff Sergeant, Sergeant First Class, Master Sergeant, First Sergeant, Sergeant Major, Command Sergeant Major). FIve of them are just referred to as Sergeant in casual communication. I assume that it is similar in the IG and SM chapters, while they may not use the rank names (other then that Colour Sergeant Kell and Gunnery Sergeant* Harkon in the IG, if I remember correctly) some sergeants are more important, influencial and powerful in these companies/units then other sergeants under them. I am assuming Brother Sergeant Agamorr is one of them.

*Gunnery Sergeant is a USMC rank.