Hi everybody!

So in this post I am going to share with you 2 things.

1) The custom Only War campaign that I have running with my friends for close to a year.

2) A link (that hopefully works & can be found below) to an expanded armory that runs from Dark Heresy to Only War, complete with updated qualities and prices! [Meant for humans, not Space Marines]

So let's get started with some back-story on this idea. (Read it if you want, or skip to the meat of this post below it)

When I first started running Only War with my friends sometime last year, we hit a few rough patches. Firstly, after coming off of Deathwatch, they felt weak, without any real power in terms of firepower and authority (they are a tough lot to run), didn't like the requisitioning / Logistics system, and so on. Combined with troubles occurring within and without of our group, the campaign lasted a whole 2 sessions before being throw out and resulted in me having only 2 willing players. So over the course of a short hiatus, the thought struck me to combine Dark Heresy, Deathwatch, & Only War into a pseudo-game that would be the best of all three. I then gathered my remaining participants and ran this new session. It was a roaring success. Providing both the old and the new with tons of options, the game slowly became more solid and functional. Now I run a 6-man group with this game type and they seem to enjoy it, so I hope you all will too!

Now, let’s get started.

The G.O.L.D. Initiative (or GoLD if you want to be technical)

Stands for Guardsmen On Licensed Duty and it is a group that works in a kind of limbo between the Imperial Guard's High Command and the Inquisition. It is loosely based on the concepts of the A-Team, the Last Chancers, Deathwatch, Dan Abnett's book The Armour of Contempt, and other similar things.

The premise is very much of Deathwatch, in which an elite / specialized group is sent in to an area to complete set objectives with a variety or lack of parameters to disrupt the forces of Chaos, the Orks, Dark Eldar, and Severan Dominate (or the Imperium if you want to do it from the S.D.'s point-of-view). They do this work at the behest of known or unknown individuals (G.M.'s discretion). These individuals can be anybody in power, ranging from a General (or maybe the High Marshall himself), Inquisitors, perhaps a Magos, or whomever you think will be funding this shadowy organization. And their objectives can include sabotage, assassination, recon, or whatever you think of.

-This allows any Player Characters to choose from whatever regiment or class they want, creating a whole set of specialized skills for whatever scenario the G.M. wants.

-The thought behind this is that the PC's are supposed to be some of the best from their respective regiments and forced to work with others to accomplish their objectives in order to weaken the enemy factions.

-This can create a whole melting-pot of Imperial Guard culture in the squad for the sake of conversation,narration, and scenarios. [Example: the group is supposed to infiltrate a fortress as it comes under fire from nearby Imperial Guard forces. As they approach, one of the members, a Tallarn, sees a squad from his home regiment pinned down by enemy fire. If the soldier does't help, they'll die but if they do help the pinned squad, they might blow their group's chance at a stealthy infiltration ]. (Again, think Deathwatch)

-It also allows for almost any world provided in not only the Core Rulebook, but any of the other FFG Warhammer 40,000 RPG games, to be used. (I've been bouncing my group around the entire Spinward Front trying to track down a mysterious counter-group that is bringing havoc to the crusade.)

- And in terms of power, though it can have all of the authority of High Command (or whoever), the G.O.L.D Initiative is supposed to be a shadow organization and the PC's technically don't exist in the Munitorum files. So although they can pull some strings to get into places that are usually restricted to the normal rank-and-file troopers, they can't (or at least shouldn't) go around shouting, "Hey! I'm better than you!" to a Commisar's or a General's face. [This actually happened in my and one of my more headstrong players was chased through a city by a Commisar and a squad of Enforcers.] But it's your game, your universe. Do whatever feels right.

And so we now come to the second part. As I stated above in the back-story for this game type, my friends didn’t like the Logistics system for Only War. So I chose to kind of do away with it and brought back, not only the monetary system from Dark Heresy, but many of the weapons tied in with and its many supplements with relatively good results. The thought behind this is that because the G.O.L.D. Initiative is a shadow organization and the members do not really exist, they receive “hazard pay” for their services instead of the normal pay stubs they receive from the Munitorum. And being both funded by any number of powerful groups and on the edges of the Calixis Sector (where Dark Heresy took place), this allows the group to get their hands on a whole host of weapons and technology that normal Guardsman cannot (or can through other means).

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6OeNoicjVg2UjRqLVFIajF4aWc/edit?usp=sharing

The above link should take you to a document that took me a fairly long time to assemble. It contains just about every weapon meant for humans from Dark Heresy to Only War along with a few custom weapons that I made. It also includes armor, weapon upgrades, cybernetics, etc.

So… yeah. I hope you all find some use or interest in this. I will be checking in when I can to answer any questions or to simply view comments and feedback.

If you do try to play Only War in this fashion, I recommend giving the Player Characters:

-1d10 + whatever instead of 1d5 wounds, makes them last longer.

-Around 1,200 – 1,500 xp to start. Their characters aren’t green rookies, they are veterans.

-And anywhere from 750g – 1,500g for starting money. Lets them get started.

The Emperor Protects.

I'm interested, and would like to hear more about the squads activities. Please continue! (Nice armoury by the way, though I might probably won't use it myself.)

I'm interested, and would like to hear more about the squads activities. Please continue! (Nice armoury by the way, though I might probably won't use it myself.)

Do you mean G.O.L.D as whole? or simply the group I run?

Probably both. (Sorry about the slow reply.)

Well, the G.O.L.D. Initiative is designed to be like a punch-dagger compared to the quick, exact, knife-like nature of the Storm Troopers or the heavy-handed Hammer of the Emperor. G.O.L.D. is supposed to hit the weakest or most vulnerable looking points with minimal possibility that the enemy can attack in a similar fashion (not saying they can't). They can function much closer to the Storm Troopers, sometimes the same function, but with more liberty to do what needs done. They're essentially a spy / shadow ops team.

A great example of this kind of work was on a mission (consisting of 4 at the time) to observe, follow, and capture an arms dealer in a hive-city (we just used the map for GTA IV, worked like a charm) who was securing and supplying arms to Severan Dominate forces.

The group had the general lay-out of the city via aerial picts and also knew that there was a very high amount of civilians. The latter of these forced the group to stick with smaller weapons or some that had Compact on, use minimal body armor (a great way to tense up a session) and they entered the city from the spaceport (or the airport in GTA) and split into teams of 2. With what intel they had from G.O.L.D., they knew that the arms dealer had a temporary local residence and some other favorite spots he frequented. Not to mention that he had a mercenary group on his pay-roll as well. Using a variety of Skills, good luck, and breaking the limbs & heads of some gangers, they eventually found the arms dealer at a bar.

They spaced out in a manner so that they all had line of sight on the dealer. If I remember correctly, 1 of the group stayed outside and the others went in. So they watched, eventually noticing the 3 mercs doing awful jobs at concealing their weapons, and everything was going smooth. One of the group members even had the nerve to Charm the dealer and got close enough to put a tracking device on him (It was part of their Mission Gear). Until I had a large, drunken patron accuse one the group sitting at the bar of taking his seat and my friend failed to calm the situation. Being a hot-head, my friend killed the man with his fists, spooking the dealer after I rolled for him to stay calm, and initiating a close-range firefight in a bar. One of the group would end up chasing the dealer, who escaped out the back with a bodyguard, through the streets of the hive-city. The others would make it out relatively safe (they failed to see the sniper across the street and he hit one of them). They would 'acquire' a car and tried to catch-up with the other member, whose simple foot-chase turned into a motorcycle-chasing-car chase.

That was a fun moment but they ended up losing the dealer after a series of excellent Floor-it! rolls on my part. But using the tracking device, they found the dealer at a safe-house before the sun went down and found that there was a decent size group of mercenaries in the area. Thankfully, one of the group had the sense to keep his full gear set in a sling bag and brought with him. He shared what he could to minimize risks and then they started picking off the the mercs silently until the alarm sounded. They ended raiding the place but a stray round to the face of the arms dealer and he died almost instantly. It was simple bad luck with a captured autogun on Full-Auto, a high damage roll, and the fact that we use 2x damage to hits on an unarmored Head location. On the bright side, the dealer's cogitator unit was unharmed and one of the group had enough Tech-Use to hack into it and retrieve files on who was receiving the weapons and where. This made them happy and they called in their extraction before the mission ended. It was about a 9 hour long session.

I think this kind of game type allows a great amount of flexibility for both the group and the G.M. in a whole variety of ways. I'm not entirely sure if that answers what you wanted (got kind of lost writing / remembering that) or if you would like to hear more, which I am willing to oblige. Cheers!

I would indeed like to hear more. Something about this group really interests me, and as a fellow GM I'm liking how you've set up up versatility wise.G.O.L.D is starting to sound like a little bit of the inquisition is lurking in their somewhere. Am I right in guessing that?

I am so sorry this reply is late. Between work, school, and personal business, life has been more hectic than the first day of a Black Crusade.

And yes, you are right Drath. For the shadowy people of interest funding / directing the G.O.L.D. Initiative in my games, 2 of the 5 individuals were Inquisitors. This gave me the right to have some 'extra' yet hazardous intelligence for the group to use, as I always thought of the Inquisitors using their networks to sift through the darkness for targets. The other members included Lord Marshall Ghanzorik, a Magos, and a Rogue Trader.

And my group is definitely interesting... I will regale you with another tale of their exploits soon but my time is short right now so I will hopefully not take a week to respond next time.

I am so sorry this reply is late. Between work, school, and personal business, life has been more hectic than the first day of a Black Crusade.

And yes, you are right Drath. For the shadowy people of interest funding / directing the G.O.L.D. Initiative in my games, 2 of the 5 individuals were Inquisitors. This gave me the right to have some 'extra' yet hazardous intelligence for the group to use, as I always thought of the Inquisitors using their networks to sift through the darkness for targets. The other members included Lord Marshall Ghanzorik, a Magos, and a Rogue Trader.

And my group is definitely interesting... I will regale you with another tale of their exploits soon but my time is short right now so I will hopefully not take a week to respond next time.

I wouldn't worry about it. I've been fairly busy lately too. Either way, this G.O.L.D initiative is very interesting indeed. Lots of ideas formulating about their background in my head, which are most likely completely off, but still good to contemplate.

I am still eager to hear more whenever you get the chance. This is ... *wait for it* ... pure Gold.