I am trying to come up with a fun system for tonight's mission.

The mission is relatively simple. The Deathwatch in the course of their mission to cleanse a Fortress filled with a genestealer infestation also managed to conduct a successful investigation into what happened there.

They downloaded the communications logs, which were heavily encrypted. Shortly after turning them in, Inquisitor Archibald said he was coming aboard at once. Having arrived, he confirmed that he had identified the traitor as the Governor of one of the twin hives currently under siege.

He requested that the deathwatch accompany him to arrest the governor for interrogation (re: dissection.) However, until now the Inquisitor has been operating more or less in secret on this world investigating this threat and does not want to completely blow his cover. Therefore he is asking that this either be done as a stealth kidnapping or essentially a smash and grab.

Right now I am thinking that I could measure this by Alert Level. The more noise and violence caused (especially if it's in front of a camera) the faster the Arbites will arrive. I'm thinking an arbitrary scale of zero to 100.

The players will start at 10 on the scale, as someone would be aware of astartes landing I am sure. Then when stuff gets loud (which I'm certain it will because my players are like that) They will have three minutes (30 Rounds) before the arbites show up. If they start blowing things up that will knock off time and the Arbites will rush to the sound of gunfire and explosions in the governors spire.

If they get to 100 before the Arbites show up then that means they made enough commotion that the Arbites are now ON the scene land they will have failed that aspect of the mission. Also if they take more than 30 rounds they will have failed that aspect of the mission as well.

Primary Objective

• Arrest the Planetary Governor
• Inquisitor Archibald Must Survive

Secondary

• Download the Governor's personal data files and all logs
• Escape the scene without Arbites interference
• Kill All genestealers

Tertiary

• Kill every cultist in the spire
• Destroy the security footage
• Escape without leaving any evidence at all

Things that can give the team more time (move track backwards

• Disable the lifts leading to the palace - 25
• Disable security alarms or feeds -20
• Jam all communications into or out of the spire before tripping alarms -30

Things that move the alert track forward

• Triggering alarm +30
• Firing a weapon +5
• Non Stealth close combat kill +1
• Triggering an Explosive +50
• Doing any of the above in front of a camera 2X Multiplier

This is all off the top of my head...do you guys have any thoughts?

Sounds good. Will the Arbites side with the governor? Or does he have PDF?

Alex

Sounds good. Will the Arbites side with the governor? Or does he have PDF?

Alex

The arbites will arrive on the scene, then Inquisitor Archibald will break out his rosette and be pissed off that he has had his cover comprimised. But yes the governor will have household guard. Which I expect will be (mostly) part of his genestealer cult

Might I make a suggestion? Certain situations may make their use of explosives or a lethal kill inevitable. Would you be willing to consider leniency for the player or a reduction to the alarm status gained if they are able to make such actions appear accidental? EG. Make the explosion seem like a gas leak etc. This would allow another option for the players that if they are able to cover their indiscretions then they may still be able to achieve that bonus objective.

Additionally you might want to consider other options for their insertion to minimise or reduce detection risk even further such as stowing away onboard a cover ship or (my personal favourite) grav-chutes in the night. It's unlikely you'll spot a handful of tiny little black chutes against an inky night sky...

Great ideas Calgor! If my players suggest such an approach I will absolutely take that into account. I am all for being sold on something would work if there is good roleplaying involved!

Do you have the old 40k 4th edition rules? Some of the stuff you've mentioned is straight out of the Kill Teams section, in which case there's even more for you to use from there, but I don't have it on me and haven't play minis in some years. I also think there was a pdf floating somewhere around the web with that section in it, though it wasn't quite as detailed. I used that section all the time, btw. Great inspirational ideas in there.

I'd seriously consider making your backtrack time elements tertiary objectives. I'd also consider keeping the Inquisitor's cover a secondary objective.

Insertion has a lot to do with where the team currently is. Are they in orbit? Does their vessel have a teleportarium? Drop pod launch bay? A Stormraven? Landspeeders? I love that grav chute idea, Calgor. Might scout carapace armor be used instead of power armor? What about chameleon cloaks? What about a diversion on the other side of town? Regardless of their approach if they blow their cover they're going to need melta bombs or meltaguns or breaching charges of some sort unless the governor's home isn't that well constructed.

Some of these should be choices the party gets to make, no? Does your party have a pow-wow before each mission to discuss what intel they have and what approaches they might make? That's when our party chose its team-leader, made our oaths, and chose our requisition, too.

One thing to suggest would be splitting up into two groups, one to act as a distraction, and the other to go in all sneaky like. If you have a Raven Guard on your team then he can easily be stealthy in his power armor with the guerrilla training talent.

I like to make some suggestions prior to a mission to my players in the form of intel or something.

... Distraction carnifex?

Deep-striking Land Raider.

Alex

Crash a starliner into the planet. They will go looking at that and miss everything else.

It's what our group did to make an entrance and to be fair they did look the wrong way...

Ok we ran through the first part of the mission last night! It was a late start so we had to break around midnight since we all work in the morning. All told for this mission we had Five members of the kill team

Techmarine - iron Hands

Space Wolf Rune Priest - Squad Leader

Storm Wardens Tac Marine

Imperial Fists Tac Marine

Raven Guard - Assault

The team opted for a Storm Raven insertion directly onto the platform. The called ahead and set up a last minute meeting with the Hive Governor to discuss the Tyranid threat rampaging within sight of the hive. They said they had an urgent tactical matter that he needed to be appraised of. Shockingly, this worked and it was arranged. They pooled some of their requisition into a more detailed orbital scan of the hive spire, which I gave them the map of the facility as reward for. Then they used the rest of their requisition for the Eyes and Ears reserve asset from the Inquisition. I allowed this to enable them to tap into some of the security feed and get labels for what each of the rooms on the level actually was.

After screaming through the clouds across the war torn hellscape of the struggle below, they met a small honor guard of household troops whose armor was Crimson with intricate gold filigree. Half the party went forward to meet the governor (along with the inquisitor himself, who was robed and not showing his rosette.) the other half, including the techmarine, waited in the giant atrium resplendent in giant murals and Marble and mosaic floors.

Being led to the governor though roughly 200 meters of a columned and opulent great hall the Kill team faced a massive set of wooden doors with a gilded Aquilla set directly into the middle of it. Two teams of three household guard pushed the great doors open. Inside was a semicircular room dominated by a large ebony desk. Behind the desk was a giant panoramic set of windows. Standing in the middle of this room, behind the desk and with his back to the kill team, was their target. He was staring out across the battlefield raging below as though he were a god watching a bunch of ants fighting over table scraps.

After a small amount of witty banter, Governor Vandis produced a list of viable targets that he would appreciate the astartes dealing with (all suicide missions) and placed it on his desk for them to take and then leave him to his councilors. At this they signaled the other half of the kill team that they were a go. The techmarine, who had been standing near the door to the security office near the atrium, managed to succeed on a crit to open the unlocked door to the office. The four men inside never saw it coming as bolter fire barked out and turned them to pulp.

The remaining guard in the atrium were dispatched by the storm warden and his giant claymore. As this was happening the Inquisitor produced his rosette as he approached the governor and declared that his other meetings would have to wait as he is under arrest by decree of the Emperors holy inquisition. At the the governor began to laugh and said "I will come with you quietly, but you do know that you will never escape this building right?" At this, the Rune Priest grabbed him by the arm (breaking it in the process) and began to drag the governor behind him out the doors. The rest of the members quickly learned that the household guard were not entirely human and were in fact all genestealer cultists who were unnaturally fast. Making matters worse is that they were all armed with hellguns. Jacking into the security control systems, the techpriest was able to isolate the system so no alarms would be sounded. He also managed to lock down and seal the doors to the Elevator suite. Lastly he made sure that all the automated defenses were still in standby mode.

We left it at this point. They are in the main hall about a third of the way back to the landing pad. They have done a great job keeping security off key. However, branching in either direction from the main hallway are two halls leading into the two wings of the level. From one is the barracks, where two dozen more heavily armed cultist household troops are rushing to the defense of the area. From the other direction there will be about a dozen purestrain genestealers also rushing to aid the governor. They still have not accessed the communications files and personal logs. The techpriest also has not thought to Erase or take the data files in the security mainframe to eliminate camera evidence of their arrival.

With all the setbacks to security they are still only at 11 on the track despite lots of gunfire taking place all over. I am really looking forward to planning out the second half of this mission over the course of the next couple of days. Next session is sunday! So I don't get a ton of time to plan for these things...

What would be some fun and interesting complications they could run into?

Ok we ran through the first part of the mission last night! It was a late start so we had to break around midnight since we all work in the morning. All told for this mission we had Five members of the kill team

Techmarine - iron Hands

Space Wolf Rune Priest - Squad Leader

Storm Wardens Tac Marine

Imperial Fists Tac Marine

Raven Guard - Assault

The team opted for a Storm Raven insertion directly onto the platform. The called ahead and set up a last minute meeting with the Hive Governor to discuss the Tyranid threat rampaging within sight of the hive. They said they had an urgent tactical matter that he needed to be appraised of. Shockingly, this worked and it was arranged. They pooled some of their requisition into a more detailed orbital scan of the hive spire, which I gave them the map of the facility as reward for. Then they used the rest of their requisition for the Eyes and Ears reserve asset from the Inquisition. I allowed this to enable them to tap into some of the security feed and get labels for what each of the rooms on the level actually was.

After screaming through the clouds across the war torn hellscape of the struggle below, they met a small honor guard of household troops whose armor was Crimson with intricate gold filigree. Half the party went forward to meet the governor (along with the inquisitor himself, who was robed and not showing his rosette.) the other half, including the techmarine, waited in the giant atrium resplendent in giant murals and Marble and mosaic floors.

Being led to the governor though roughly 200 meters of a columned and opulent great hall the Kill team faced a massive set of wooden doors with a gilded Aquilla set directly into the middle of it. Two teams of three household guard pushed the great doors open. Inside was a semicircular room dominated by a large ebony desk. Behind the desk was a giant panoramic set of windows. Standing in the middle of this room, behind the desk and with his back to the kill team, was their target. He was staring out across the battlefield raging below as though he were a god watching a bunch of ants fighting over table scraps.

After a small amount of witty banter, Governor Vandis produced a list of viable targets that he would appreciate the astartes dealing with (all suicide missions) and placed it on his desk for them to take and then leave him to his councilors. At this they signaled the other half of the kill team that they were a go. The techmarine, who had been standing near the door to the security office near the atrium, managed to succeed on a crit to open the unlocked door to the office. The four men inside never saw it coming as bolter fire barked out and turned them to pulp.

The remaining guard in the atrium were dispatched by the storm warden and his giant claymore. As this was happening the Inquisitor produced his rosette as he approached the governor and declared that his other meetings would have to wait as he is under arrest by decree of the Emperors holy inquisition. At the the governor began to laugh and said "I will come with you quietly, but you do know that you will never escape this building right?" At this, the Rune Priest grabbed him by the arm (breaking it in the process) and began to drag the governor behind him out the doors. The rest of the members quickly learned that the household guard were not entirely human and were in fact all genestealer cultists who were unnaturally fast. Making matters worse is that they were all armed with hellguns. Jacking into the security control systems, the techpriest was able to isolate the system so no alarms would be sounded. He also managed to lock down and seal the doors to the Elevator suite. Lastly he made sure that all the automated defenses were still in standby mode.

We left it at this point. They are in the main hall about a third of the way back to the landing pad. They have done a great job keeping security off key. However, branching in either direction from the main hallway are two halls leading into the two wings of the level. From one is the barracks, where two dozen more heavily armed cultist household troops are rushing to the defense of the area. From the other direction there will be about a dozen purestrain genestealers also rushing to aid the governor. They still have not accessed the communications files and personal logs. The techpriest also has not thought to Erase or take the data files in the security mainframe to eliminate camera evidence of their arrival.

With all the setbacks to security they are still only at 11 on the track despite lots of gunfire taking place all over. I am really looking forward to planning out the second half of this mission over the course of the next couple of days. Next session is sunday! So I don't get a ton of time to plan for these things...

What would be some fun and interesting complications they could run into?

Well god ****, that sounds like a fun mission, I really need to try and make one like that. Mine are almost all action and combat. The only thing I can think of complicating this mission would be a surprise genestealer attack at some point, where they all kind of crawl out of ventilation shafts or something.

Possible complications:

- Security is still uncleaned, anyone could check it and put the entire place on red alert, full lockdown. Blast doors, automated defences are overriden and put on active status. If this happens, good luck with a quiet and simple extraction. You said a tech priest locked the system down but there are specialists who could unlock it. Being a radical, rogue or demented governor he may have specialists such as a senior member of the Dark Mechanicus onside who would easily be able to bypass the basic cryptograms of an Astartes using their superior capabilities and obtain full control.

- There is a chance of injury to the governor or inquisitor which means he must be stabilised, this will take time which they may not have. These two are not Astartes nor do they benefit from their armour, gear or physiology which means any injuries must be handled lest they fail their parameters. Without an apothecary as well this could make for a tricky moment.

- Genestealers are inbound, this is a given. However what about a Broodlord? They are usually the first genestealer to show up on a world and one of the most powerful and the most intelligent. Stick that in play with a retinue of elite purestrains. I would imagine they would be smart enough to co-ordinate a flanking manoeuvre. It is not unrealistic for one to be present in this situation and holy hell they can be nasty.

- Damage to the location itself for whatever means (either through combat or other factors) can force a change of route which you can use to funnel them into other difficult spots.

- Lictor. Genestealers are usually deployed as infiltrators and so are lictors. It is in the hive mind's best interests to keep this governor alive as he is a source of knowledge and influence over the population. Therefore they will want to keep him alive at all costs until he outlives their usefulness and he can be devoured. I can envision a scene where your KT may be running through a darkened hallway, huge lofty ceilings trying to keep ahead of the genestealers. There is a slight scuttle, the governor lets out a scream of pain as there is a low hiss. The lictor punches two flesh hooks deep into the governors body and tries to tug him free from the Astartes grip, perhaps ripping the arm off in the process. It can be recovered...or replaced with augmentations. A sickeningly wet tear as the arm is yanked free or perhaps helped as a razor sharp talon splits the limb at a join, seizing the governor in its grasp and scuttling high into the rafters to escape.

- The main thing is that they still have to extract with this guy. Given you arrived by Storm Raven onto a landing platform, you never mentioned whether it is still there or not so you could simply put a suitable escort or guard contingent in place surrounding their main method of exit or seizing it and/or any personnel/assets contained within, thus making them have to consider rescuing any captured brothers/allies depending on what the crew was. Landing pads will likely have somewhere they can set up some form of defensive line meaning the Governors men can fortify the landing platform with hasily set up heavy weapons to keep them from advancing to their goal while the rest of his men approach from other sides, trapping them in a pincer.

Possible complications:

- Security is still uncleaned, anyone could check it and put the entire place on red alert, full lockdown. Blast doors, automated defences are overriden and put on active status. If this happens, good luck with a quiet and simple extraction. You said a tech priest locked the system down but there are specialists who could unlock it. Being a radical, rogue or demented governor he may have specialists such as a senior member of the Dark Mechanicus onside who would easily be able to bypass the basic cryptograms of an Astartes using their superior capabilities and obtain full control.

- There is a chance of injury to the governor or inquisitor which means he must be stabilised, this will take time which they may not have. These two are not Astartes nor do they benefit from their armour, gear or physiology which means any injuries must be handled lest they fail their parameters. Without an apothecary as well this could make for a tricky moment.

- Genestealers are inbound, this is a given. However what about a Broodlord? They are usually the first genestealer to show up on a world and one of the most powerful and the most intelligent. Stick that in play with a retinue of elite purestrains. I would imagine they would be smart enough to co-ordinate a flanking manoeuvre. It is not unrealistic for one to be present in this situation and holy hell they can be nasty.

- Damage to the location itself for whatever means (either through combat or other factors) can force a change of route which you can use to funnel them into other difficult spots.

- Lictor. Genestealers are usually deployed as infiltrators and so are lictors. It is in the hive mind's best interests to keep this governor alive as he is a source of knowledge and influence over the population. Therefore they will want to keep him alive at all costs until he outlives their usefulness and he can be devoured. I can envision a scene where your KT may be running through a darkened hallway, huge lofty ceilings trying to keep ahead of the genestealers. There is a slight scuttle, the governor lets out a scream of pain as there is a low hiss. The lictor punches two flesh hooks deep into the governors body and tries to tug him free from the Astartes grip, perhaps ripping the arm off in the process. It can be recovered...or replaced with augmentations. A sickeningly wet tear as the arm is yanked free or perhaps helped as a razor sharp talon splits the limb at a join, seizing the governor in its grasp and scuttling high into the rafters to escape.

- The main thing is that they still have to extract with this guy. Given you arrived by Storm Raven onto a landing platform, you never mentioned whether it is still there or not so you could simply put a suitable escort or guard contingent in place surrounding their main method of exit or seizing it and/or any personnel/assets contained within, thus making them have to consider rescuing any captured brothers/allies depending on what the crew was. Landing pads will likely have somewhere they can set up some form of defensive line meaning the Governors men can fortify the landing platform with hasily set up heavy weapons to keep them from advancing to their goal while the rest of his men approach from other sides, trapping them in a pincer.

Fantastic ideas! I was already planning a pincer as they come down the main hallway as genestealers and cultists with hellguns and unnatural agility come from the two directions. But I LOVE the idea of a lictor grabbing the governor with fleshhooks and tearing him away from the space wolf. And I think that as soon as they make enough noise during that fight I will have the alarms get tripped by someone in the communications room getting a signal out. That would allow the blast doors to close them off from the main atrium and landing pad.

As for the stormraven, it is still on the landing pad. The automated defenses overlooking the pad are all shut down, but if they go live I already said that there were two sets of three automated heavy weapons overlooking it. Two skyfire longbarrelled autocannons, two Lascannons, two heavy bolters. So if those things go live while it's on the pad, the Stormraven is toast...but so far that is what the squad leader has ordered!

So we finally wrapped this mission up last night! It went extremely well. So to finish up the mission report here's what happened.

Having just thrown a flashbang into the hallway, the assault marine poked his head around the corner and counted a full dozen cultists in the room all armed with hellguns and mostly still coherent. Seeing this he ducked back behind the wooden doorframe. As one, a dozen hellguns opened up on his location intending to simply fire through the wall itself to kill him. With a hail of fire the wooden door frame disintigrated under the weight of fire. The assault marine was struck in several places and wounded in several locations once the wall itself was no longer protecting him. He charged into the fray with his hand flamer and scored righteous fury. Four of the cultists were down and burning. Their comrades attempted to regroup, but then the grenades cooked off from the corpses around them felling a few more.

The Techmarine, freshly having disconnected from the security terminal he began to approach the door on the other side of the room that opens into the armory. Hearing the sounds of a flashbang and gunfire he prepped checked his auspex and discovered that there were at least a half dozen forms moving in the next room and a dozen more in the hallway beyond. With a frag grenade prepped he opened the door to the armory. As it opened he discovered that two teams of three cultists had knocked over tables and were waiting for him behind their makeshift barricades on overwatch. Shots were exchanged as the grenade was thrown. Having realized that he had been set up for an ambush the techmarine dove back behind the door. The door frame was of sturdier manufacture, but still could not hold up to the weight of fire as the cultists poured their incandescent fury into him. Ultimately the techmarine withstood this punishing volley and simply said "Futile" in response before leveling his heavy bolter and beginning the slaughter.

With the carnage in the hallway approaching outrageous levels, the fire alarms began to activate across the facility from the hand flamers efforts. Water began to spray down the area and a loud klaxon began bleating. Striding through the carnage, the techmarine entered the cogitator room on the far side of the wall and found a room, dark but for a shrine of candles and the dull green glow of multiple banks of monitors. Within the room was a sole tech priest, working diligently at his assigned tasks. After a brief conversation he convinced the techpriest that the governor was a traitor and they needed to get a copy of all the data in the archives. He refused, but agreed not to actively oppose their efforts as it seemed fruitless to resist the Deathwatch, which he called them by name. Thinking this was odd, but failing a knowledge Ad Mech roll, the techmarine got to work. Having gained access to the system, they downloaded all the relevant files, made sure there were no external cogitators being used to back up the security files, then wiped the security records. He then set out for the communications room to grab the communications records that were stored there.

At this point, they had been active for roughly 15 rounds. So half the time was gone, the alarms having finally been sounded it was inevitable that the response would be coming as fast as possible.

The Rune priest was actively making his way down the main hall escorting the inquisitor and the now handcuffed governor with two very badly broken arms. With a scream behind him, the Rune Priest looked back to see the governor being lifted high into the air by a set of flesh hooks that had stabbed into the back of his shoulders. Hanging from the handcuffs was the inquisitor, not wanting to let go. With a sickening tear, the governors hands tore free of his arms and the inquisitor fell back to the floor. Hiding in the shadows of the vaulted cathedral like ceiling was a Lictor clutching the Governor to his chest roughly thirty meters in the air. The inquisitor produced an archaic looking inferno pistol and managed to make a called shot to the head of the Lictor, badly wounding the creature and burning off some of his feeder tendrils. The Rune Priest made a called shot of his own and through some very lucky rolls managed to bring down the creature in the single round before it could escape. However, the rune priest failed to note that the governor was now thirty meters in the air and the creature holding him there was a headless carcass. With a lurch, the lictor released the governor and began to fall as well. The Rune Priest had already used both his actions and did not have enough movement left to close the ten meter distance to intervene. But leaping into harms way, Inquisitor Archibald saved the day and tried to catch the traitor. He broke his fall, but broke his leg and was briefly stunned as he slammed into the ground. The governor was badly injured as well and was also unconscious. But both were still alive...

Genestealers began to flood the room from the opposite hallway that the assault marine was in, and three of them leap into a charge attack on the Tactical marine that was offering fire support. A flurry of bolter shots and some deft dodging left one of the Genestealers dead and another one injured. Redirecting their efforts, the kill team began to redeploy to face the incoming enemies.

Both the surviving genestealers leap into cover and began to move rapidly from pillar to pillar at high speed, making their way towards the prone forms of the Governor and the Inquisitor. Standing over them defiantly, the Rune Priest was determined to fulfill his mission and managed to smite one of the incoming Tyranids. The other two leap up to attack and chitin claws exchanged furious blows with a rune encrusted force weapon. The inquisitor managed to shoot one of the genestealers with his inferno pistol and the rune priest took a grievous wound to his unarmored face before felling the foe before him.

It had been 21 Rounds and I knew that at 30 they would be discovered.

Running down the hallway, the marines ran into the communications room and butchered every acolyte in the room (they were in fact cultists so good call.) At this point the Squad Leader was informed that the tech priest was still there working and was in fact not killed. So he sent the Storm Warden Tactical marine to determine if he was in fact a cultist. Two rounds later he was in the room and demanded that the tech priest show him his blood. Assuming that the Astartes merely wanted to verify that he did not have ichor for blood he produced a digital weapon with a small blade and cut himself with it to show that his blood was the usual red/oily black that you would expect from one of his order. But leaning in to inspect it, the Storm Warden licked the blade using his glad to read memories from blood. He immediately gained d5 corruption as a series of ghastly images involving the wholesale sacrifice of captives to Daemonic War engines and various profane rites committed in the name of Techno-Heresy. He gleaned the knowledge that the tech priest knew that everyone in this place were genestealer cultists, and that the governor knew he was an Arch Heretek Magos. But since his plans did not overlap in a bad way it worked out to be a good partnership for the time being.

Realizing the depth of his folly, the Heretek produced a ridiculous blend of human and Xenos Tech, (Essentially a Tau Plasma Rifle) and snapped off a shot which the Storm Warden dodged. The shot smashed into the cogitator banks behind him and the whole set exploded in sparks and flame. Countering with a slash of his Sacris Claymore he drew oily blood from the tech priests torso. Backing away successfully, the Heretek managed a massive righteous fury roll which took the Storm Wardens Right Leg Clean off just above the knee. (Burned a fatepoint.) Fueled by adrenaline/ combat stims/ and pain killers he lunged forwards with a jump from the one leg as an all out attack using his Feat of Strength deal and cleaved a section of the Tech priests skull open while falling to the ground in a charred heap. The Heretek's eyes went dull and he began bleating messages about system damage and secondary redundancy protocols activating. At this he turned away from the marine and began to walk towards the intact section of Cogitators, a dozen mechandendrites flailing about him as though searching for something (A data Port.) At this the tech marine opened fire with his hellfire rounds into to back of the heretek, most shots bouncing harmlessly off of his built in shielding before finally scoring a rightous fury his that cause him to collapse. The automated parts of the corpse were still actively working to find a data port and the storm warden crawled over and put a Krak grenade directly into the middle of his back, finally blowing the Arch heretek apart. The Squad leaders systems recognized the massive injury to his comrade and he piped up over the vox channel asking for a report. The Storm Warden, now standing on one leg and using his claymore as a makeshift crutch simply replied "No Complications..."

Leaving to techmarine to finish getting the communications logs, the rest of the team had gone into the Governors personal chambers, but there was a hand print verification required for entry. Oddly, neither of the hands that were removed from the governor worked. Then one of the party finally thought to conduct a thorough search of his unconscious form and discovered that he actually had a third arm that he kept hidden under his clothing. This third arm had a deformed hand at the end that only had three distended fingers. This opened the door. Inside were half a dozen more purestrain genestealers and the broodlord himself. They were dispatched in three rounds of brutally efficient slaughter that saw ever marine further damaged. The Storm warden had gone to the landing pad only to discover that the weapons systems were all indiscriminately firing at random. The Stormraven gunship had been damaged before lifting off and was hovering at a save distance. They instructed it to cross to the other side of the spire and prepare for extraction out of the governors windows.

With the communications logs and personal database in hand, as well as the still living governor and injured inquisitor with them. They had used 26 combat rounds. They began to run at a full clip, two of them assisting the storm warden and each of the other two carrying the wounded inquisitor and governor. It takes three rounds of full run movement to get to the extraction zone, as they were running through the hallway they could see people actively trying to pry open the security doors to the elevator room and they almost had it open. They ran back into the giant gorgeous room and shot out the massive glass window overlooking the war torn area outside and were almost sucked out by the depressurization. But hovering there with the ramp down, was "Storm's Fury" the stormraven gunship. Making the leap they all boarded and were off to plan their next mission.

All objectives accomplished, they left no trace of their passing save for shell casings and carnage. Rumors began to spread like wildfire that the Governor was dead, and that the responsible Xenos had been killed within the governors tower. These rumors were brutally suppressed and eventually sealed under inquisitorial orders. Mission Accomplished!

Next up, the Kill Team boards a Tyranid Regeneration ship in orbit to obtain a sample of it's primary nerve cluster...a suicide mission for sure!

I was shocked that they discovered the Arch Heretek, I was planning on him being a regular villian!

Splendid! A few severe injuries and plot twists keep a Killteam on their toes. A bit disappointed that the Broodlord and purestrain Gene Stealers only lasted three rounds but hey, good rolls can do that. To me it sounded a little bit untidy in places to let them fully get away with it but maybe I'm just mean. if I'm honest given the amount of alarms, xeno and human slaughter which occurred AFTER they wiped the records the first time plus given enough time I would imagine someone is finally able to pick up some of the pieces and guess what might have occurred but then they could be long gone. As we know from modern data storage it is possible to recover even deleted data to a degree.

Without a major antagonist though you are always free to implement another even more sinister but frankly that one was sinister and potentially lethal. Heretek with nasty xenos technology, however there are other ways that the Arch-Heretek could have survived if you still like him. If you require ideas for it I am happy to assist with possible suggestions.

Overall though, most splendid.

Splendid! A few severe injuries and plot twists keep a Killteam on their toes. A bit disappointed that the Broodlord and purestrain Gene Stealers only lasted three rounds but hey, good rolls can do that. To me it sounded a little bit untidy in places to let them fully get away with it but maybe I'm just mean. if I'm honest given the amount of alarms, xeno and human slaughter which occurred AFTER they wiped the records the first time plus given enough time I would imagine someone is finally able to pick up some of the pieces and guess what might have occurred but then they could be long gone. As we know from modern data storage it is possible to recover even deleted data to a degree.

Without a major antagonist though you are always free to implement another even more sinister but frankly that one was sinister and potentially lethal. Heretek with nasty xenos technology, however there are other ways that the Arch-Heretek could have survived if you still like him. If you require ideas for it I am happy to assist with possible suggestions.

Overall though, most splendid.

One thing I was considering was since the kill team actually took the moment to recover the rubble of the tech priest, it is possible that a radical inquisitor could borrow his remains and attempt to put him back together again. What I will probably do is just replace him with someone who is upset about the loss of their Magos. The Iron Hands Tech Priest is especially enraged that he could get so close to a Heretek and not figure it out! As for injuries, I agree that the level of difficulty was about right for the situation. I have found that things can go from worrisome to total party kill at the blink of an eye.

The group would have never gotten through this mission undiscovered if the tech priest hadn't crit succeeded on opening the locked door to the security room and earned himself a suprise round. That bought them seven rounds before an alert was put out successfully. Originally it was going to be 30 rounds from the alarm being sounded, but they kept blowing things up, so I just kept it to the 30 rounds instead.

I have no doubt that if someone tried hard enough they could probably piece it together. But by then the inquisitor will be done with his work and will be able to just classify the whole thing anyway!

Well another thought you might want to consider to justify his return is that you mentioned the Heretek performed some sort of self diagnostic when critically damaged. There are mentions in Black Crusade of the possibility of a fully mechanical brain replacing organic. Therefore if someone has been able to do that it may be plausible that he has transferred the essence of his being out of an organic conscience into an electronic vessel. What's to say it cannot or has not been done already especially if he has access to any manner of Xeno tech? Did any of his utility mechadendrites find a data port to have perhaps transferred his conscience out? Did he transmit or have it elsewhere? It begs the question then what he got put back into and there is no doubt that such a process would severely mess with their sanity

He did not successfully find a data port. I was going to have him upload himself into the hive's central core. Then there would be a malefic AI running the hive which would have eventually destroyed it as it's madness grew deeper. But in this case that DIDN'T happen. I think what I will do is just have his mind actually be totally mechanical in nature, then I can say that when someone hooks something up to him to try and access his memories for interrogation purposes he will "escape" into whatever system he ends up rigged into. I would love for that to end up being a deathwatch ship itself or something suitably horriffic. Then he could essentially abscond to Samech and let the Dark Mechanicum dance and prance on a big pile of Deathwatch chapter serf bones.

Darn, I was too late to comment. I will say this. I probably wouldn't let my players "lock down" security in such a manner. They killed guardsmen. Those guardsmen had open vox channels. Their dying screams were heard outside the governer's mansion. The governor's mansion is well-protected by AAA. If my players didn't plan the removal of said AAA batteries, then that Stormraven would not be a viable escape plan. Of course, I'd still let them run it out. Crawling out of the wreckage of that Stormraven would have been a fun scenario in its own right, even if they'd already blown their primary and secondary objectives.

Darn, I was too late to comment. I will say this. I probably wouldn't let my players "lock down" security in such a manner. They killed guardsmen. Those guardsmen had open vox channels. Their dying screams were heard outside the governer's mansion. The governor's mansion is well-protected by AAA. If my players didn't plan the removal of said AAA batteries, then that Stormraven would not be a viable escape plan. Of course, I'd still let them run it out. Crawling out of the wreckage of that Stormraven would have been a fun scenario in its own right, even if they'd already blown their primary and secondary objectives.

Actually, the guardsmen were communicating via telepathy! Gotta love genestealer cultist personal household troops with unnatural agility and hellguns!

Also the "Lockdown" only lasted three turns...then they used a flamer and set off the fire alarms!