I ran a game of only war that ended up going to a few interesting places, ending near the planned last hurrah which would have involved a chaos warband, several chaos marines and a few daemon possessed vehicles. The game was interesting both because they managed to beat the usual statistics by never dying (I believe there was all of one fate point burned) and pretty much always succeeded on missions, they were nothing short of an Imperium propaganda movie. I suppose I just need to know, do you guys want it from a table perspective or inside the universe?

I'd love to hear more about this. My OW games look more like the "He knew the meaning of sacrifice!" Poster floating around on the internet. I'd love a good inside the universe look at what went down.

Well, I'll do this from an out of universe perspective. The group began with the baseline adventure in the book. The drop ship descending, their operator and sergeant managed to actually hear the warning sounds and realized the problem. Knowing the risk of blamming they instead sereptitiously started unhooking heavier hear where they could,kicking it accross the floor to each other (several good agility and tech use tests) to start assembling the heavy weapons for their expert. The operator prepping himself to sprint for 'his baby' their Chimera while their Adeptus Mechanicus Advisor used a mechandendrite to secure himself while keeping his hands near the buckle releases, to put it simply they were ready to go fairly fast, even passing the word to some neighbors to make sure that they weren't the only ones ready. Well, the crash occurs and they went scrambling out, the operator moving the Chimera to help provide cover for the sergeant (the player had wanted to be a commisar originally but at the request of the group decided to do a noncom instead, actually liked it much better). Said Sergeant saw the oncoming orks and their warbuggies, he turned and used command to try to help speed up the readyness of the others in the drop ship, and then saw the smoking engines. Their enginseer went front and center to deal with that problem, hence the other reason for the chimera in a kind of 'I am a wall' position.

Then, then something terrible happened, Sergeant Notch saw the head blown off of a fellow noncom from a blast coming from an ork warbuggy, this apparently woke something up in him. He drew his chainsword, clambered onto the Chimera (as in he CLIMBED it) and yelled through the micro bead "Drive me closer!" The operator questioned the sergeants sanity but notheless did as bidden, gunning the engine while their heavy weapons expert and their stormtrooper took advantage of the firing slits. Notch then did a running jump (yes he had to make the tests for this) to jump to the gunnery nest of the warbuggy from the chimera, swinging his blade he managed to injure the ork and generate righteous fury, taking the orks face off. After some fighting the driver of said warbuggy royally failed a smarts and willpower roll and went to join the fight with this very fighty humie. Notch noticed, and hurled a krak grenade into teh drivers seat before leaping off the gunnery platorm, injuring himself a bit but causing the vehicle to crash, which ended up being a barrier that would crash another ork vehicle. During this time Ossian, their Enginseer, had managed to fix the engine and was then able to join the battle himself. After a few wide sprays and a cry of "Get them" the Orks fell fast.

It should be worth noting that this company was from a fortress world that was a bulwark against Orks, so they knew full well how to hurt the green bastards. Though there was that little problem of their bad blood with Cadian infantry, it's a problem in fielding and while no one is exactly sure how it started it is assumed that it began over an argument where alcohol was heavily involved.

Now that they were able to clear the Orks they were given their basic assignments on the base. I let them wander around for a while and make some friends and enemies and possibly learn a few things. The guys heard about 'the hole' fairly quickly and got an interesting idea. The one playing the Enginseer realized that logic was used for gambling now, and I saw the wheels turning in all their heads. The plan they had was that Ossian would join a poker game but only after a few days where each of them would give Ossian their chips to make sure they'd have a good minimum. The only one that couldn't contribute directly was the stormtrooper, he had actually been giving his chits to any soldiers he noticed that looked especially depressed, even offering to swap a guard duty shift with some of them so that they could actually visit the hole,rather breaking the 'glory boy' stereotype that most held on the stormtroopers. Said stormtrooper also met a squad of stormtroopers here, they invited him to join them for meals and the like,they generally lorded over others and also had a decent number of the chits, usually tossing a chit here or there to have another soldier shine their gear or to hold tarps over them while they ate, he lost patience with their treatment of others and told them off...then becoming a victim of a few vicious pranks involving grain gruel, animal fecal matter, a collection of live snakes, and a malfunctioning alarm system.

The poker game was notable just in terms of how ridiculous it became. Most of the other players (NPCs) used social skills to give themselves an edge since they didn't have the actual skill trained, Ossian did and was resistant to such skills, while he had no real social ability to speak of he proved a very adept gambler. After a few hands he had knocked a couple players out of the game and was ready to leave when he saw a few of the stormtroopers that had harassed his comrade in arms. One of them sat at the table with a great satchel of the alcohol chits, this was where they got them, their gambler. So, he decided that the best way to avenge his units honor would be to royally screw these toy soldiers by breaking their bank in the poker game. As the game went it soon dwindled to Ossian, the Stormtrooper, and an unassuming man that the others (they had been at the bar and asked around) had found out went by Cymic and was the camps resident loan shark and black marketeer. During this whole time the pot had been steadily growing, now getting to over 100 chits Well, Ossian was starting to hit a wall and suddenly lacked funds for the minimum bet, Cymic offered him a fast loan to stay in the game, Ossian agreed. Ossian was then blessed by the Omnissiahs RNG, beating the other two by a rather severe amount, taking the pot and essentially wiping out the stormtrooper and also getting Cymic. He then immediately payed Cymic back and offered him a bit extra, thanking him for his assistance and (not knowing his reputation) said to contact him if he needed help. The loanshark carefully did not smile, just as he carefully hid his annoyance at the immediate payback.

The next day they were given their mission for the prometheum refinery, I will continue more there, including how this began a few running gags in the game.

Now, those that actually know the mission from the book know what the basic setup is. I also need to add that I had a bit of confusion, see at the time I wasn't sure WHAT a vehicle squad was. (And between you me and the grand piano sometimes I think that the people writing the books aren't sure either). I would say that it means the tanks, but at the time I thought mechanized infantry might count, so I want you all to remember that fact, I was using the rules for that, so increased enemies and more vehicles.

They were called in for the briefing and given their assignment, now Ossian decided to check with Cymic, having learned of his....unique abilities of procurement to see if they could get some extra oomph before they headed out. Cymic didn't have much he could offer, but Ossian did get a better idea, he thought to ask if the clerk currently doling out supplies frequented The Hole, This was the beginning of the Tech Priest Requisitions man. He had the requisite abilities to be fairly good with commerce, gambling, and the player was good at figuring out how to phrase things. There was a later event that secured this though which you will hear about later.

The group found out that he did visit the hole, and in fact was there when Ossian did his poker game, Ossian dropped a few extra chits 'accidentally' while explaining what they might need in addition, and his concerns about the importance of the mission. This gave him enough of a bonus that they got everything for the mission plus a lascannon and a suit of carapace armor. This did however lead to a unique problem, they now had two chimeras, and they figured that trying to convoy this would be...rather less than practical. Since the advanced comm system would probably take more work to move they transplanted the weapons and went. They encountered the semi feral locals first, at first they actually planned to just run them over but decided to talk to them. After hearing the situation the group gave up a good chunk of their food to them (They were well equipped so had a LOT of food anyway) and got their guide. Also found the crashed stormtroopers and decided to take them with, reasoning that it was a bad idea to abandon them and that extra manpower was never a bad thing, they also used their communications gear to try to alert the base about what happened.

On arrival at the prometheum refinery they looked the situation over and saw that the Orks were in the towers and may have orkified the guns and the refinery. They saw the trukk laying on its side and decided that stealth may not be an option, since given numbers sneaking was risky if anyone was noticed and given what they knew Orks tended to swarm. So their plan was more in the vein of ram the trukk, blast the orks, and let the god emperor sort it all out. They did a hard initial push, fired out of the slits on the chimera, Get Them being quite useful along with the storm bolter, though thankfully they knew not to use the flamer. Ossian actually bolted out and started immediately trying to assess damage to the refinery, he had faith in his compatriots but feared what these foul greenskins had done to profane mankinds pristine technology. They got a bit torn up but were otherwise fine. They also tried to figure out the condition of teh stormtroopers they brought with, convincing them to help garrison the base and putting htem in the safest positions they could that required little mobility since most of them couldn't move.

They then went about fortifying the base, trying to build up what they could, they also had some luck in that their heavy weapons expert carried used an autogun so they could actually load the perimiter guns. The attack came and...well Overwatch was kind of nuts. Their heavy (his name keeps escaping me) was taking out most of what got close, the guns blasting each side when something approached witht he chimera ready to drive to a wall to recover someone or to move the nondeployed people to wherever the fighting was heaviest. They did lose one of the rescued stormtroopers, the big mekk showed up and...well there was one less guard tower after that attack. What actually impressed me more though was that they used the melta gun, their weaponry, and actually managed to wreck the warbuggies and even damage the big mekks vehicle before he retreated, the stormtrooper was down, the heavy weapons expert had seen better days, notch was cursing himself for where he had placed himself, and the stormtroopers mourned their comrade, but otherwise...otherwise they had won. They informed central command and suddenly they saw huge waves of reinforcement come flying and rolling in, they were annoyed but accepted that it was what it was, they hitched a ride back to base after gathering up their weapons from the chimera and headed home.

When they arrived back the main regiment the stormtroopers were from thanked them for their assistance, and also offered them help should they need it. This is where my memory for that world gets a bit hazy, I will put things in the order I think happened but I am not fully sure in this section. of exact order. They got a new mission fairly shortly after their arrival back at base, told that they had to go help prop up the planetary defense force. Their ability to ingratiate themselves with the locals, familiarity fighting orks (they were from an anti ork fortress world), and apparent competence said that they were well suited to this task. They arrived on location and saw a base that looked fairly ramshackle, the walls were barely chest high and were more or less made from loose rubble, having been broken and rebuilt multiple times from ork raids. The PDF using autoguns instead of las, both due to a lack of las and because they didn't have power plants that were consistent enough. As if that weren't enough the jungle line had grown to within a few meters of the border, because they hadn't the manpower or materials to start cutting it back.

The PDF was less than thrilled, they had hoped for new supplies, they got some but instead of more plascrete, accordion wire and other defensive options they mostly got the squad with a few extras, primarily thanks to Ossians skill at getting things. However what they had still wasn't going to be enough to do more than delay, but they were optimistic. They also looked for a few solutions, Ossian tried to figure out if he could cannibalize some of what was left to make some working generators to recharge their lasguns, maybe loan some extras to the pdf for the time being. Their operator stayed in the chimera as a fast response in case, notch, their heavy weapons expert and the stormtrooper headed into the jungle with a couple locals, the plan being to gather up wood to make some punji stick style defenses, low tech but viable. This is where the six legged panther thigns from the world attacked, took out notches comrade and the heavies comrade. Throughout the game their characters would remark, "Orks, never lost anyone in our squad, dark eldar, traitors, chaos, never lost a single one, but those emperor damned panthers..." They actually had to retreat back to the camp, at which point the Orks began a big push.

Two warbuggies, 20 regular boys, 5 burna boys, 4 Slugga boys, LOTS of gretchen with I think 4-5 grot and a weirdboy is roughly what I remember, probably a few more of a couple things along with some squigs. The main problem they had was that they were now down two comrades, making 'Get Them' less viable, they were also split and would have to run from the cover of the jungle to the wall and risk getting swarmed or blasted. After a dead mans sprint they hopped over the wall, blasts of shrapnel and energy going all over, they got to position and started trying to direct and rally. Heavy weapons fire tore through a bit and the chimera burned and blasted away, including running over the orks where they could. They were able to repulse the worst of it, though they were pretty torn up after and lost one of the walls, not to mention damage to their chimera. They started rebuilding the walls but they privately assessed that without more support the base was going to fall. They didn't have enough of anything to withstand the attacks and just getting to them was so arduous and supply lines so stretched that even food was going to become a problem.

They tried to rebuild the wall and begin digging a trenchline, getting a charger up and running again but not having enough weapons to hand out. They got called back soon after, new issues and as they left they figured the days of the base were numbered, even if they had managed to help hold off an attack it nearly flattened them and they couldn't handle more assaults like that, let alone the underequipped base. Once they arrived they found out that there was a snap inspection from teh commisars, this was going to be a problem. Aside from their nonstandard gear gotten through a combination of luck from the skills of ossian at requisitions and their good friend Cymic if they found something good to swap; they had another issue. Thier operator had some skill as an armourer, and had started tweaking their gear, mostly for more fluid reloads, a bit of home and custom grips. Only problem now was that if the comissars found out they would face anything from loss of gear to summary blamming.

And of course they weren't the only ones in trouble, the motor pool had missing tools and supplies compared to what they were supposed to have. A few other squads had some issues similar to the players, oh and Cymic had to make sure to keep everything hidden. Ossian worked in the motor pool and decided to help under the idea that they might be able to hide their chimera here and claim it was undergoing maintenance, hiding disassembled extra weapons as vehicle parts. Ossian did manage to come up with a plan though, essentially keep rescanning the same sets of tools as different ones during the inventory check, sneaking them around for a fresh scan and bypassing the normal procedures. This required both stealth and security, he had security, getting it during their time at the PDF base, but no stealth. He had to make six rolls...his highest roll was a 3, to quote him "My dice a TERRIBLE influence" and that pattern held, any time he had to lie, cheat, or do anything sneaky and underhanded his dice were all too happy to roll perfectly for him.

They also got some of their help here from the stormtroopers, distracting the commissars to have their weapons...strategicalyl disassembled for cleaning and maintenance when they showed up, after a few failed attempts to hide them a few of them using what I can only describe as ostritch logic. (Yeah, at this point they were a bit less than the propaganda movie, but I could totally see stuff like this IN a military propaganda picture) The operator managed to obfuscate while Notch covered for several squads by smuggling around about 20 copies of the imperial infantrymans uplifting primer (his squad was the only one that actually HAD copies, and Notch was yelling at the other squads for not keeping a copy of this most important manual, if only ofr appearance sake if nothing else.)

Their next mission was set to be a battle against the Big Mek, and they saw what they were getting into due to a bit of luck netting them sattelite photos of the field. They were looking at strategies that might involve suicide bombing level of self preservation when they were told that they were being transferred to a new world, and that will be the next story, and where their legend actually started to fully take effect..

I love this. Makes me want to get into OW again!

Virbius. This adventure, at least the main section of it, is in the GMs guide, it also became my groups favorite world visited and led me to design a couple custom things for guard units around there being virbian motorcycles, especially after some of what happened. I also think I should mention that likely part of the reason for their successes is the groups own history. We've been together, more or less, as a group for over 10 years. We've had some leave and some new people join, but overall we know each other very well and focus heavily on working together. They actually built characters to support one another, and I will comment from their reccomendations, the las based talents can do quite a bit to help in the field. Oh one other thing I forgot to mention earlier, their medic was the Enginseer, since he was the only one with Medicae, this led to him frequently arguing that in cases of moderate ot servere injury they should simply let him amputate and replace their flesh with far superior gifts of the Omnissiah that they could better serve in defense of humanity.

They made planetfall on this new world, heading towards the new base of operations they were to operate out of. Arriving at the base there were the Janissaries. Now the group had more or less reformed, new comrades gained, and with the rest of the group there, for at least a little while, they had the addition of a weapons expert and would later get a final member along with an adjustment. The Janissaries tend to be very leery of those that do not follow the creed 'properly' also dislike psykers and abhumans and at this point the group had neither. ALso, their leader, now technically Lieutenant Notch, bore the Aquila with pride (Notch was incredibly devout and was incredibly loyal, actually even served as a kind of good influence for his squad). We had gotten our hands on a copy of Hammer of the Emperor and thus there was a bit of character tweakage as well as study of future paths. I also decided to use the equipment pattern variant rules...though one of the original rolls for the weapons was agreed by all to be...inappropriate, with the tech priests player slipping into character, "Apparently the manufactorums of our homeworld have become temporarily heretical.' Involving swords that were both ridiculously heavy but could also be thrown with an incriment of 10 meters.

But at any rate they made contact and reported to the base commander and were given a mission, during this time they also did a bit of work to try to make some repairs to the few vehicles in the motor pool assuming they were salvageable. They were given the mission from the guide, kill or capture the commander for dominate actions in this theater of war. While this was going on the others asked around in the camp about the world, they got fairly little but found out about the major storms, also about the 'heathen' local in camp. They decided to buddy up to said local and see if they could learn more, eventually enlisting his help as a guide and he would eventually become one of their favorite npcs. They mounted up and headed out, now because they had experience from a previous game and I was unsure I followed each of the sidebars for vehicle units to the letter, this will be more important and hilarious later. They followed a path through treelines and tried to stay hidden, during this time they also asked questions about the world, hearing about what their guide knew of the world and the strange shadows that attacked from the ancient cities. At the time they wondered if they might be dealing with mutants, they also found out about the local faith, the Lord of Storms who commanded these great system frying superstorms that wandered over the planet as well as how the missionaries were explaining that this Lord of Storms was truly the God Emperor. They also learned a bit about his tribes history. I had mentioned before that Notch was devout, he actually took time to explain the Creed to their guide and walked him through things, even offering to let him study some of the primers they had religious and military.

Their first discovery was the fried Chimera, and Ossian was, surprisingly, fairly knowledgeable about Xenos. The description from observation had a few of them looking concerned but their characters did not know what they did, however after Ossians rolls all knowledge was one. Dark Eldar were on the world and possibly aiding the Dominate. This gave them a greater sense of urgency, during their journey they encountered two infantry patrols, a vehicle patrol (which double checking I didn't run QUITE by the book, thinking a Leman Russ would be more appropriate an addition if they were discovered at any point) and the Valkyries. The enemy Chimera was seen heading an opposite direction on their rather indirect route, fearing they'd get reported they chose to blast it. They won initiative and opened fire, managing to score three very direct hits on the top gunner, this in turn led to the ammo cooking off...after damage was rolled I stated that the chimera succumbed to what could be describes as pressure cooker syndrome. They then used a mixture of personal muscle and their chimera to force it from the trail, hoping to make it harder for any other dominate patrols to be aware of their presence and route. They also managed to be pretty **** stealthy, the valkyries saw nothing. the infantry patrol...well they managed to get off a couple rockets...which missed rather badly. Then Notches boys opened fire, there were no survivors. They grabbed up the weapons and armor, noticing the aquilas being removed, the Tech Priest expressed his anger at these enslaved machine spirits, the group decided to ensure the liberation of these poor pieces of technology.

Thanks to the Dataslate from the earlier aformentioned Chimera that was the victim of the Dark Eldar they knew about a dominate supply convoy. The decided that it needed to be dealt with, they managed to find it and shadowed it for a bit, then manuevered around it (all without ever being noticed) and set up an ambush, including the use of two lascannons, a planned bliz charge after the initial shock, and their heavy weapons expert looking forward to using his new multi-las which he had gained after his promotion to Sentinel when they first hit virbius. During this time their guide had also been watching and was rather impressed with their competence, they also gave him some training with las weaponry (IE showed him some of the talents they had with las with the aim of helping him learn it and pass it on to others among his people that had sided with the Imperium). The respect they had shown him and his people as opposed to the Jannisaries actually had helped both in terms of forming a bond as well as making him a bit more genuinely curious about the Imperial Creed.

Now, I mentioned an ambush...I actually upgunned the convoy a bit given how they had done earlier. I added four sentinel walkers instead of two as well as some more troops with metla guns and missile launchers...it didn't help. The opening salvos of the surprise round killed the drivers of the scout vehicles as well as the drivers and gunners on the supply trucks, then there was general initiative and the forces of Oblivion swept down like a horde of barbarians and reduced the remaining secessionist troops to a panicking mess, they threw up their hands and threw down their weapons. They were relieved of communications gear and most other equipment. I think they were allowed to keep their armor for their forced march back towards the Imperial camp, during this time Notch also called them heretics.

They angrily responded that they followed the God Emperor, same as Notch as his men and could name any one of the precepts or words of the Creed. Notch's cold reply was that the Creed said nothing about abandoning their brothers and sisters in the Imperium when they were in need which is what secession was in his book, not to mention heretical actions by their leaders. He said simply that they should pray the God Emperor would have mercy on them, for if they tried to attack Notch or his men he would have none for them and told them to get moving, and boy did they ever.

The players decided to check the supply crates on the trucks, both for intel and hoping they might be able to net some non damaged gear, they again tossed EVERYTHING they found into the Chimera, this led to another running bit in the game where they had to keep finding ways to find ways to hide their ever growing arsenal inside the chimera, since they had not since Cymic ever found a reliable scrounger contact nor did they want to risk trouble if they were found, especially given just how MUCH they were carrying. One of the crates had a bunch of lasguns from their homeworld, Aquila still on, this angered them deeply. They also found charge packs, a some hotshot lasguns and another lascannon (possibly a plasma gun as well, and a bunch of Ogryn dress uniforms). They decided that these things could be useful to bring back, asking their guide for help they each took one of the vehicles and took them to a cave and hid the vehicles as best they could, stripping the weapons off of each vehicle so as to make sure that if they were recovered they couldn't be used against the Imperium.

Shortly after this they ran into a Virbian caravan, Ossian spoke with them, offering them some of the groups food as well as some charge packs. They also swapped some of the extra weapons...long story short they now had enough combat bikes for every soldier, they were mounted up on the chimera or squeezed in where they could fit them. I admit I was a bit generous on this point but I am a fan of spectacle and we were all having fun with this, plus I kind of felt they earned it. Soon after they ran into another infantry patrol which was just as quickly flattened. They also had their first experience with the massive electrical storms, their guide leading them to cover and they saw the devastation it wrought, causing them each to thank their guide for his help. They finally made it to the base, and I had expected them to either do the whole dark of night plan or masquerade as dominate troops. Instead they managed to stealthily drive up the massive hill/mountain that overlooks and is part of the base with the plans to rappel down under cover of darkness. Their heavy weapons expert and operator would remain up top to protect the vehicle, and because their weapons of choice had sufficient range (operator carried a sniper rifle). Their guide didn't want to go, citing the shadow creatures that came to steal his people away, the risk, etc. Notch responded that they had a duty to the god emperor and managed to convince him to stay with them, though he was unhappy he was willing to follow them.

They rapelled down, landing near the mouth of the cave, and actually did manage to avoid being noticed. Notch and their guide headed stealthily towards the command bunker while Ossian and their weapons expert noticed a Lemann Russ that looked unmanned. As mentioned before I was following the vehicle rules fairly closely, and it said to put a Russ on the base and have it unmanned if there was no alert, so, there it was. The weapons expert snuck up and managed to crawl in, ready to kill any crew inside and was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was empty. Ossian was a bit more indirect, he noticed that the tank was near the supply depot. He snuck inside, set some explosives as well as getting a rough inventory of what they were carrying. I think he might have tried raiding it too but they were on a mission and also space optimization.

Notch and their guide made his way to the command bunker, empty, though Notch managed to succeed well enough looking around to figure out the dominates overall battle plan in a few minutes after looking at the map. They found the communications room with two guys in carapace armor sans helmets doing comm work. Remember, when enemy troops are in base, always wear your helmet, two dead soldiers later Notch told their guide to grab up one of the weapons if he wanted it, also the armor if he thought he could get it on fast enough. Notch then grabbed up the scrolls with the communications codes...and then notch got ambitious. He sat down at the chair and managed to convince the dominate that he was a proper radio operator, he then started moving dominate troops into ambushes, having them fire artillery on their own units...in general making a real mess of their activities, but the colonel wasn't here, so that would have to be dealt with.

The explosives went off in the supply depot, fire going, soldiers running up to fight the fire. Ossian was spotted getting into teh tank but, his dice loving it so when he lies, managed to convince the dominate troops that saw him that he was actually on their side and was there to move the Russ before it got damaged from the fire, also yelling at them about clearly not storing things in there properly. They started manuevering the tank to pick up Notch and drive out until they heard that the colonel wasn't in the bunker. They headed to the officers quarters and checked each area, grabbing up anything useful they could, eventually finding the napping colonel. binding his wrists as well as grabbing his dress uniform, bolt pistol, power sword and personal forcefield.

As they stepped out the Dark Eldar appeared and were bearing down on Notch and their guide. They then started running full out for the Russ, Notch screaming to take out the Xenos. Now, anyone that read the adventure states that these guys (the dark eldar) are nearly unbeatable. I had them equipped with the anti-vehicle stuff. So what happened was that Notch turned, aimed at their leader and fired in a burst. And then their leader was dead. Their guide saw this and Notch heard him mutter, "they can be killed" in a kind of awed realization. The others opened fire, between the russ and their own ability, plus a well placed sniper and some long range fire with a multilas the dark eldar actually got pretty chopped up, They then took the head of the kabalite leader along with the weapons as proof. THey then remembered the cave, and worried that the dark eldar might have been based from there, deciding to go in to look for more intel, they instead found prisoners with a few dark eldar guards, I had figured that it might be harder for them without the tank...nope. They rescued the prisoners and got them into the tank, during this same time Notch had run back to the command bunker and contacted high command and gave the locationa nd request for an airstrike, as well as explaining that they had captured an enemy Leman Russ and were bringing it back. As Notch started running for the tank more Kabalite attack vehicles were seen closing, they got the hell out of dodge, moving through the woods, firing at the enemy and creating a bit of a parade, they also decided to make one small pit stop...reclaiming the earlier captured vehicles, so a parade of captured enemy vehicles met a strike team heading out to wreck the dominate forces. They then handed over the information in the debriefing, including the dark eldar weapons and the head, as well as most of the extra dominate weaponry for repair and reconstitution for the guard. They also stated the importance of their guide in all of this, saying that the people of this world could make fine imperial soldiers, as well as their belief that with proper training they could make excellent mechanized infantry.

Ossian used some spare time after this to contact his superiors in the Adeptus Mechanicus and mentioned that there might be a new STC on the planet what with the bikes and mentioned that if any explorators or anyone equipped to take in and study them was in the area he would hand them over. He also used this to get some augmentics for the squad, they decided that they might need some extra firepower if this sort of thing was going to keep up. Now this was only their first adventure on Virbius, and the next one was quite good too, and one of my own devising I will post that one a bit later.

Slight mistake, they were after a general not colonel, for some reason remembered it as a colonel. figured I'd rather just say that here then go through and re edit that whole huge thing.

Your group must roll well, or are able to work together even better. either way, well done! I gotta know, how is the regiment built, mechanics-wise?

Your group must roll well, or are able to work together even better. either way, well done! I gotta know, how is the regiment built, mechanics-wise?

Little of column A a lot of column B. We've been together (with a few rotations here and there) for over 10 years and we're quite good at working together we know each others general tactics. I have in fact run a few different games, some of which had published adventures that talked about an impossible encounter or things like that...they flattened it. My group also doesn't rattle easily, if Cthulhu rose in my game I think they'd just get drawn butter for calamari. Or they'd just wave at it.

As for how they're built

Fortress World 3

Maverick Commander 2

Mechanized Infantry 3

iron Discipline 3

Well provisioned 3

Regimental Rivalry -2

Favored Weapons: Hotshot Lasguns and M34 Autocannon

Their history was that Oblivion was a world set against the tide of greenskins. They had repelled or stalled multiple Waaaghs, the world was mostly known for its line infantry and trenchmen along with some tank drivers. But a newwer colonel had new ideas, utilizing the chimeras to create a fast moving strike force that could run circles around the Ork menace and burn them to the ground. To be able to avoid facing the spearhead by constantly striking the flanks and rear, as well as being able to quickly arrive and damage support structures, leaving again soon after. It proved successful.

I should also be honest here, part of the advantage my group has with any system is that they study it as they play, some of the early edges just came from them building their characters to support and play off of one another, as well as the simple use of a lot of the las based talents and a few things to enhance stuff like the volley fire stuff for Get Them. We did have a couple rotating cast members, for a mechanized infantry they went through two operators (the first player wasn't a big fan of warhammer40k so dropped out, the second one was meh on my style of GMing.) Also I will say now for clarification,the guy playing the stormtrooper felt a bit disheartened, he couldn;t make it to session often due to work and he kind of felt redundant, as a result I did allow him to retire the character, he'd only been able to make about two of at that point 14 sessions and instead produce a psyker, the idea being that the trooper was being shifted to adjust unit strength somewhere else and the psyker was part of a different squad in the overall regiment that got wrecked. Said wrecked squad was also he origin for another player new to the group who would become a prodigious tank killer.

I had mentioned that after returning to base Ossian made contact with superiors, letting them know that the bikes used by the locals might be a new STC, then he got a bit of an idea while talking, he had managed to actually contact an explorator fleet in the area. This gave him a bit of a brainstorm, he explained that from what he had heard there were also multiple cities underground that were functionally untouched, these bikes might only be the beginning. To say nothing of the fact that Ossian was entirely willing to grant his superiors the claimancy to these discoveries. He also had found some interesting...attempted variation by the Severan dominate on weapons (technically just changing the symbols on them) and it might be a cause for concern and he would rather someone more...knowledgeable on such things studied them. Add in a bit of horse trading and there were explorators who also had some examples of the steel flesh for Ossian and the rest of the squad, in exchange a few combat bikes, some dominate weaponry, and information from their guide about the cities, plus it let the Jannisary commander hand over the xenos items the group had brought as proof. Ossian also explained that, if the dominate weapons were still standard that was good news but given that they were willing to work with xenos tech heresy may also be on their minds.

Around this same time Notch was called in by the commander on base, I had noticed the rank boosts, and Sergeant Notch was promoted form sergeant to captain due to his successes in the field and overwhelming success in the last mission. His squad was also awarded several medals. Along with his promotion notch had the XP to take the Commander advance, the bolt pistol he was assigned was actually a trophy, the Dominate generals gun, it made logistics easier for the base and it was a decent trophy.

But the squad had a new mission, and a new member. A demolitions expert from another squad had been among the only survivors, he was being assigned to them for the time being. Their mission had to do with a big conclave of the various Virbian tribes, high command had been aware of this and had sent a high ranking ministorum priest as well as a diplomat to use this meeting as a way to both bring Virbius heavily in on their side as well as closer to the full light and truth of the Creed. Originally the Jannissaries were going to be their escorts, but observation showed that the 5th Oblivian was a better choice. For one thing they actually had rapport with the locals. The Jannisaries felt contempt for these heathens who knew not the ways of the God Emperor, also thanks to their guide seeing them kill the dark eldar, these shadows that had so bedeviled his people he felt that that showed the truth of the empires superiority and of the Imperial Creed as well, their guide had actually taken to telling others of his people about what they had done, as well as talking more about the actual Creed that he had learned from the squad.

The actual mission was primarily just serving as bodyguards for the two VIPs during the conclave, they were told that there were likely to be troops and reps from the Dominate as well but to avoid engaging them unless attacked or in protecting the VIPs. There were a few reasons for this, the biggest was that the Dominate, while on the run, may still have superior firepower or air command here, and they might try sending a larger set of soldiers to influence the locals. Also a firefight could be counterproductive in winning over the locals, it was essentially deemed wiser to let the diplomat and ecclesiarch do their thing while the squad protected them.

The trip was fairly uneventful, though they found out that the ecclesiarch in question had actually served in combat years ago, and in fact was glad to be able to go out and spread the word once more as well as simply get out into the field once more. Upon arrival they set up a rotating guard shift to ensure that their charges were covered throughout the conclave but also giving others time to scout the area an rest. The usual rotation would have their sharpshooter and heavy weapons experts with comrades guarding the VIPs.

A lot more is coming but need to take a break, will tell more later

While the heavy weapons expert and sharpshooter stayed with the VIPs the rest of the group toured the camp. They managed to run into their old guide, talking with him and catching up, they also discovered that they had been made into something of legends by him. After all, they had been the ones to make the shadows bleed, they had rescued other virbians from this foe and they had managed to do much with little. Notch tried to turn on the charm a bit, see if he could find some tribes that might be inclined towards the Imperium as well as finding out if the Dominate had gotten people there and where they were. He also commented that the shadows worked with the Dominate, figuring that a few spread rumors on that front would probably help against them if it came to a debate or discussion later. They also found out that, yes, the Dominate was here and was actually claiming that the Imperials had brought the shadows to harm the people of Virbius, playing on the problems that the Jannisaries had had with the locals due to religious beliefs.

Also there were those that did not believe what they had heard of Notch and his men, thinking that the stories told were lies or at least exaggerations. One of them challenged Notch to single combat on their bikes. Notch agreed, it would be a melee fight, each choosing a weapon of their own, they would meet for a duel in one hour. Using this time the group actually repainted Notch's bike the colors of the unit, also adding a copy of the Infantrymans uplifting primer to the front (they had 20 additional copies). Their guide, Lokar, also offered a marking for the bike, essentially telling them that they ould be considered honorary members of his tribe, they thanked him and told him that if he wished he could add their colors to his own vehicle, as well as quietly passing him one of the surplus rifles that their regiment was assigned that they got from the earlier raid on the dominate convoy.

Notch prayed before going into the battle and faced down a skilled rider, the rider bore a lance and sword, drive by slashes on Notch. He had been practically born to these bikes and he rode well, Notch had an advantage though, while he didn't have the personal experience with the bikes that his foe did, he did have the practice from multiple battles. He also knew vehicles, he dodged on his bike and then charged, swinging his power sword, energy crackling as he shattered the lance. The power sword caused some oohs and aahs in Lokars tribe, since they took their name, Storm Blades I believe, from a great champion in the distant past who bore a sword that crackled with lightning, possibly a power sword. Notch told him to surrender, instead he dropped the shattered bits of his lance and drew a sword, riding into battle against Notch again. Notch struck, now intending to shatter the sword, he decided that his new goal wasn't to beat his enemy but instead to break. He charged and shattered the sword, then doing a turn to charge back at him, forcing a game of chicken. The other rider backed off, conceding. Notch sheathed his blade and headed back, deciding it wouldn't be worth trying to humiliate his enemy or rub in the victory, though it definitely left an impression on those watching.

As for the guards they noticed that the dominate, and a few Virbian tribes using dominate hardware, always seemed to keep watching them, no matter where they were there was at least one person watching. They kept their weapons at the ready and let it be known that they would not be intimidated by their foe. There were a few near confrontations but they managed to keep their orders of not attacking, no matter how much they were instigated, taking the VIPs to meet with a few leaders before the big meeting that night. Under a massive pavillion the major and minor tribes main warriors and leaders met for a discussion about what decision would be made. The priest and diplomat prepared to speak, Notch and their demolitionist standing guard nearby with their heavy weapons expert, marksman, and Enginseer outside, guarding the main entrypoint with the heavy and with the enginseer and marksman sitting on the chimera observing.

A bit of luck from the marksmans sharp eyes saw a strange shimmer in the light, he gave an alert and the others started scanning, the enginseers auger spotted it, Dark Eldar with cloaking devices. They spotted a few of the shimmers and opened fire, warning their compatriots. The entire conclave started to open up into chaos. Outside the reavers tore through the camps, abducting and murdering the young and old, and inside they began to open fire, planning to kill or capture the lot of them, perhaps as a major strike, perhaps in vengeance for what Notch and his squad had done. Notch thought quickly, telling the Enginseer to take command of the defense outside, yelling at their heavy to get inside and help them guard the priest and diplomat. He also spoke with as much gravitas as he could trying to break any fear the virbians around him had, yelling 'They are not shadows nor demons, my squad has made them bleed and so can you, destroy these Xenos, GET THEM!"

The priest had been out of action for a long time, but he still had a bit of fight left in him, drawing his old chainsword he took a defensive position as Notch, his comrades and the demolitionist took a defensive circle around him, opening fire on the Dark Eldar. Outside the Chimera began driving through the camps, blasting at the Dark Eldar with their marksman going for headshots on drivers. The Virbians began to rally somewhat. The Dark eldar within the tent closed, and then with the high pitched white of the multilas pierced the screams, their heavy mowed down the enemy with great accuracy and a slightly mad grin.

As they tore through, Ossian saw the tribe of their guide under attack, they also saw and heard something that they had helped cause and would probably have changed Virbius, their comlinks were open, and those in the tent were heading out to deal with the enemy outside. Lokar roared in anger at the enemy that had bedeviled his people so long, "For the GOd Emperor!" inspired by Notch, inspired by the squad he attacked...I rolled the NPC, I rolled quite well, he managed to finish off the wounded Dark Eldar attacking his people, and that in turn rallied the other Virbians, seeing their own people able to kill this enemy. The battle became a hard push back, and the Dark Eldar were forced to retreat, and the greatest tribes decided that the Storm Lord had spoken, The Imperium of Man was the truest, and the ordained path, and so they would stand with the Imperium against the Dominate and all foes.

More was yet to come, but sadly they would have to leave Virbius (This made my players quite sad actually, they had come to love the world and its people) but they would have a few greater adventures still, but they had stated that if they could,they wanted to return to help train the forces of this world to become proper guardsmen. RP wise this was probably one of the most interesting arcs for me. You guys might notice I haven't mentioned the stormtrooper much, said player had a really sh*tty work schedule (in fact still has) and had missed a lot of sessions. When he got back he felt a bit disconnected, also kind of redundant, I decided to have it where his stormtrooper was recalled, replaced with a psyker, that would become quite important soon, as he was assigned to them just before they were sent to a mining world in rebellion.

sounds like a great run

Ok, let me start off with the fact that I'm sorry this took so long.

Their next journey was to the world of Hevuara. This made them somewhat depressed, they actually rather liked Virbius but they were going to do their duty. During their transfer they were careful to check for rumors, one of the big things they decided was that it was probably best not to trade away any gear and to assume that any bad news was correct and any good news false. As a result they were very careful to make sure that they got things with the aquila on it and figured that the gas masks may not be enough, that the world may be coated with thick toxic and acidic fog that would eat through their flesh. They also went to grab their gear the same day as their briefing, telling me that if it wasn't ready yet they would rotate each day, one of them there waiting to get what was needed. Notch also told the rest of the Oblivion troops to do the same, wanting to make sure his people were ready for launch. When the time came he and the rest of his group was ready, they also realized just how...trusting the naval officer was for transferring equipment, but surprisingly they avoided the temptation. Privately it may have also just been that they were almost out of room for any bonus supplies, I think they may have even thought about just trying to sneak some of their surplus that they just had no use for onto other vehicles just to free up some room.

The time for launch came, and as they sat in the drop ship they all got a strong feeling of deja vu, especially when a few of them heard sounds of air combat and a loud blast. They made their way to the cockpit, realizing that hte commissar giving them the order to remain seated had to give it but feared death, they managed to get the ship working again and even managed to make the landing somewhat survivable, crashing through a few layers of earth into an Ork encampment.

At that moment a new plan was needed, when they checked Notch realized he was now the highest ranking living officer left, he ordered the troops to their vehicles and to prepare for a run through the grinder, hoping that if they were all fast enough that the attacks would enough of them unscathed.

At this point Lieutenant Notch began to work to rally the forces there, shouting and directing people to grab up supplies and get in the chimeras, there were units that were not really trained for vehicles, he told them to grab chimeras near the middle, moving a few groups around trying to provide some protection and basically telling all of the groups to follow the lead of those ahead. To fire on anything that isn't a vehicle or warrior of the Imperium, massed fire where they could and run over whatever they couldn't shoot.

The other troops were nervous but Notch seemed like he knew what he was doing, his signature cloak and a bit of his rep helped a lot, the troops filed in and prepared for the charge. Notch put his people at the spearhead, for one thing he knew his people and trusted that they could burn through whatever was there, also he believed that a good leader led from the front. They pushed through, flamers blasting, lasguns firing, weaving around and through the rocky confines, blasting away at any greenskin that popped up, Notch letting out roars of 'Get Them' along with their tank killer manning the vox and doing all he could to keep the forces organized as they moved.

Pushing further, faster they kept advancing, The cries of Waaagh and the hordes of fanged beachballs were ever coming, but fire and lasfire filled the tunnels as they bulldozed through the orks. As they went further they were flagged down by a group, they were dominate forces but claimed to be an inquisitor with retinue. They were good liars, and fortress worlders tend to follow orders, luckily for them Notch was a good judge of character and their somewhat con man of an enginseer could recognize holes in a story. They then had a ducal legate and troops and his squad as prisoners, then managing to contact the imperium base they headed towards it. Contact with this base let the DOminate forces know where they were, the enemy sent two patrols to capture them....and then the captured vehicles and new prisoners joined the convoy to the base, the new world of Hevara, Ossian kept quiet, he saw the vehicle the ORks has been working on, he hoped he was wrong, but he knew he wasn't, an ORdinatus was on the world, and in Xenos hands.

((Ok, next section of the story, and sorry for the delays to those that enjoyed reading))

After a long and arduous set of fights the Oblivion led convoy managed to find the imperial base, once inside forces began to start getting out of their vehicles, some kissing their Aquila and giving their gratitude for survival, others taking a surreptitious drink from a hidden flask. Or in the case of the 5th Oblivion heading in to see the commanding officer after looking over a few of the other stationed troops. They noticed that the people here looked hard, battered, and seemed to have little patience for the new forces. Meeting their effective commanding officer was interesting for them, the man was kind, offering them Lho sticks and some caf as well as telling them that he thought they had done well. He also expressed his irritation at them not having all the information that they needed, he began by talking to them each and explaining what the situation was and said that for the time being they would be part of his forces. He told them to go get something to eat and rest, that soon he'd have missions for them. They felt a certain sense of relief, a commander that seemed reasonable and also sympathetic to those under his command, though they would soon discover that things were not quite what they appeared to be.

A few days after their arrival they were called in for a mission, they were being sent with the aid of a local guide to attack a refueling station held by the dominate, they were told that they were to take what they could and destroy the rest. The group headed to supply, and met the rather unpleasant quartermaster. She had little interest in them or patience for them and frankly found any requisitions at all to be an imposition, it took some work but they were able to actually get their paperwork pushed through, and while Ossian attempted to work his requisitomancy it worked out...less well than normal, getting them only random items that were not at all connected to their mission. Notch commented that this seemed a bit ominous, the first time they had failed to get what they needed, wondering if there was something else going on or if their streak of luck with requisitions had perhaps ended. He also made a mental note to bring back whatever he could to give to the quartermaster/quartermistress and also perhaps give her some of their surplus gear to show that they understood the problems at play in logistics.

They spoke with their guide during the trip through the tunnels below, learning what they could about the world and trying to gain a rapport, they also encountered Kriegsman who were serving as guards in various bunkers linked to the tunnels, speaking with them briefly as they moved through. Once they reached the surface they moved to the base, choosing to observe they watched the patterns of movement, and fearing that their earlier failure may have been a warning their psyker was ordered to focus on the emperors tarot to discover what their future was on this mission, to find the best way. The focus of their psyker was put towards this task, and as his mind stretched through the immaterium he saw the many paths of destiny, focusing on each possible route, something began to bother him. Many attacks involved them being called traitors or saying that those defending the base had been betrayed. It rattled him, and he told his compatriots such, in addition to knowledge of where to go to avoid notice during the perimiter breach. Notch decided that a different plan was needed, he said that they would sneak into the base and he and their sentry would find the commander and find out just what was going on. Their guide reccomended that they stick to the mission parameters but Notch said that if they had to they could, but he was worried that there might be further intelligence breakdowns.

Sneaking in Notch found the commander and spoke to him, taking his weapons and communications gear they talked, and discovered that they were loyalist. He paced, now more concerned, he and his people interrogated each member of the base and found them all to be loyal, if confused. They prepared to head back but noticed that during all of this their guide had slipped away, though it looked as though some sabotage was done they fixed it. New concerns began to arise among them, causing them to decide they had to speak to their commanding officer immediately, something was wrong, and it was only going to get worse.