Recently in my campaign my marines finally hit respected tier and like any good players tried to do the one thing that would most unbalance the game. They began taking Storm Bolters. Obviously Storm bolters are amazing pieces of weaponry and I am a huge fan. But it got me thinking...

Just how many storm bolters do they have on the ship to use? This question immediately led to other questions...how many powerfists, thunderhammers, suits of Terminator armor, ect...

So it Dawned on me...what if there was an actual armory with a set amount of weapons in it. And if during their arming they actually had to decide who got what. An actual inventory!

Obviously ammo and consumables would never be tracked because that's dumb, but the idea that if a weapon is lost on the battlefield, they players don't have it anymore seems really cool to me. I get that the Ordo Xenos is super well equipped. But I think it would be neat for the kill team to really feel that desperation to reclaim lost weapons and such. We always hear about them fighting whole campaigns to reclaim a broken land raider or relic. But it would be awesome if that was coming from the players and not the GM.

Here would be a simple setup

All the bolters and chainswords you want

Specialist Weapons

3 Storm Bolters

3 Flamers

2 Meltaguns

1 Plasma Gun

3 Plasma Pistols

Heavy Weapons

1 Lascannon

2 Heavy Bolters

2 Missile Launchers

1 Multi Melta

1 Plasma Cannon

Melee Weapons

3 Power weapons (Axe, Mace, Sword)

1 Power Fist

1 Thunderhammer

Armor

1-2 Sets of Terminator Armor (GM Choice)

1-2 Sets of Terminator Themed Wargar such as Storm Shield Thunderhammer or Power fist+ Stormbolter

1 each (Cyclone Launcher, Assault cannon, Heavy Flamer)

A suit of Centurian Armor perhaps?!?

Vehicles

Rhino - 4x

Razorback - 1x

Bikes - 10x

Land Speeders - 5x

Then perhaps 0 - 1 each of the other types of vehicles

Another approach to this would be that you give them less of the rare types weapons and make them something that they actually have to go out and do a mission for. Want another set of Terminator armor? There are rumors that during the retreat of imperial forces on x world, a battle brother was lost that was wearing his suit of blessed armor. Can you find it and get out alive?

This whole idea might feel a bit too much like a videogame...But I like videogames...

I like ideas such as that, it makes them specialise and think carefully of who gets what. One thing I had in mind for a mission I wanted to run, well I say mission more campaign, was exactly that.

Give the players the campaign brief, give them a massive amount of requisition (say 150 per marine), count their renown as one level higher and allow them to purchase any and all gear, equipment, ammo and weapons they think they will need for all the campaign. This would be loaded onto a ship I have prepared for them which serves as their base, medical centre, command point etc. They would be away from a main supply point hence they would need to think carefully about what they think they need. If they don't then do their intelligence gathering correctly then they get left up the proverbial creek. I would allow some spare for field assets if they allocate them aside at deployment.

Your plan is more in depth and restrictive but has the desired effect of preventing an entire KT of identical marines.

I love the idea of limited weapons and armor. It makes things more interesting and challenging as you have to find or earn more weapons. Only bad thing is it makes requesition useless but Calgor Grim cleared that up. Reminds me when ol'Nicky used to be GM and we had an armoury. Good times!

So what if the idea is like a video game! As long as it makes sense and easy to incorperate it is a good idea. Good on you RogalDorn01 for thinking this up. Time to start limiting my players.

I love the idea of limited weapons and armor. It makes things more interesting and challenging as you have to find or earn more weapons. Only bad thing is it makes requesition useless but Calgor Grim cleared that up. Reminds me when ol'Nicky used to be GM and we had an armoury. Good times!

So what if the idea is like a video game! As long as it makes sense and easy to incorperate it is a good idea. Good on you RogalDorn01 for thinking this up. Time to start limiting my players.

Requisition causes more problems than it solves. I don't know about you but so much time is wasted at the start of most sessions due to the players having to read through loads of available rulebooks trying to work out what they might want to take for each mission, working out the requisition total, who takes what etc and this can take anywhere between 10-20 minutes per session which over a campaign racks up. If I do it just once at the start of the whole thing then each session changes to become players simply working out what available items they want to take each time and all I need to do is lock down the armoury and update it as they go (which I don't mind). Even better, beforehand I can go on facebook or whatever, describe the details, give them access to a spreadsheet to list it all down and then they can work on picking their gear in the downtime between sessions so that when we all start it's been selected in advance and paid for.

Agreed. If they're operating off of Erioch, they have access to whatever they **** well like. The Thunder's Word, or a similar rapid strike vessel, however, will be significantly limited in armoury if operating without resupply for some time.

I agree with 'arming up for the campaign'. It makes for a whole different feel. But if you're going to do that, let them decide what to fill the armoury with. And do track specialist ammunition, as well. Allow them unlimited mass-reactive rounds, but it adds to the tension if they can feel themselves running short of go-go-gadget hellfire shells as the missions progress.

The idea of a low supply adventure is definitely a nice one though you'd have to keep them separate from the normal power structures for a long time. There is no reason they couldn't send a request to their home chapter for a lascannon for them to use on the long time frames. What kind of chapter would turn down a simple request like that for a best of best member of their own chapter?

The idea of a low supply adventure is definitely a nice one though you'd have to keep them separate from the normal power structures for a long time. There is no reason they couldn't send a request to their home chapter for a lascannon for them to use on the long time frames. What kind of chapter would turn down a simple request like that for a best of best member of their own chapter?

Oh yeah I totally agree that if they wanted to requisition something else for the armory they could. My thinking is that in for instance Dungeons and Dragons, losing your primary weapon is a huge deal. In the grim dark of the grim dark, a lot of the more specialized wargear they are using is reliquary type stuff. I really like Calgor's Idea of actually doing it where they get a huge amount of requisition up front that they can use to stock the armory and then going from there until they resupply. That would be a really fun way to do this type of thing! At least, I THINK IT WOULD BE FUN!!! But I am a lunatic who is in love with making pretty spreadsheets and printing them on parchment, then flame treating that parchment so it looks old and cool. (A very specific fetish I know)

But all that aside, I am going to bring this up on Sunday with the group and see if it's something they wish to go with.

On another note. This could also be used to give the weapons a bit more personality. As time goes on you could even develop a small set of random charts that add an extra quirk to a piece of wargear. So when the Astartes are picking wargear they will have come to know their wargear and notice the things that make each one slightly different.

Say that when a marine has used a piece of wargear in 3-5 missions you become "attuned" to it. And then roll on a chart to see what it could be. You could have like three charts, some of these could be good things like granting small bonuses to hitting or damaging certain types of enemies. Or small penalties, like being slightly more prone to jamming or being louder than it normally would be.

Artisan:

This would be that the weapon has something interesting about it's manufacture

Machine Spirit:

Here you would have a couple "personality quirks" for the spirit of the weapon

History:

This would be a couple of deeds that had been accomplished with the weapon.

Anyway...this is what happens when the first thing I do after getting to work and grabbing a cup of tea is hitting the forums. I use all my best creative juice here instead of at work!!!

There is no reason they couldn't send a request to their home chapter for a lascannon for them to use on the long time frames. What kind of chapter would turn down a simple request like that for a best of best member of their own chapter?

"So you want me to send a ship to deliver ONE las cannon half way across the sector taking nearly a month to arrive, require thousands of serfs to operate and manage, plot a course through a Chaos/Imperial battleground just to deal with one Ork Truck because you forget to prepare and only brought bolters, flamers and chainswords? No."

Naturally these types of supplies would come after a lengthy delay and it would only be done as part of a much larger resupply

There is no reason they couldn't send a request to their home chapter for a lascannon for them to use on the long time frames. What kind of chapter would turn down a simple request like that for a best of best member of their own chapter?

Master of the Armoury:

"So you want me to send a ship to deliver ONE las cannon half way across the sector taking nearly a month to arrive, require thousands of serfs to operate and manage, plot a course through a Chaos/Imperial battleground just to deal with one Ork Truck because you forget to prepare and only brought bolters, flamers and chainswords? No."

They're already sending you a steady supply of gear make sure your armor and base weapons are in working order. Where do you think that terminator armor is coming from? DW itself doesn't have many of them. Granted its going into the locker and not your players pockets.

Now trying to get it on the fly for an upcoming mission, i agree not going to happen, but a kill team can easily be fighting for decades.

As for the attunements, you may want to reference Tome of blood for the legacy weapon rules.

Not sure why that post is going haywire with the text and highlighting???

Blame Tzeentch. Works as a valid catch all.

Thing is that the fleets will be large freight loads to a watch fortress under heavy guard and also with other essential supplies like food, building materials etc and is justified to such a large place. Delivering to one squad out in a warzone is less likely unless its more done while on the way elsewhere. Either way they should have packed it before they left...which gives me an odd image of a marine trying to force all their equipment into a suitcase to comply with luggage allowance.

Blame Tzeentch. Works as a valid catch all.

Thing is that the fleets will be large freight loads to a watch fortress under heavy guard and also with other essential supplies like food, building materials etc and is justified to such a large place. Delivering to one squad out in a warzone is less likely unless its more done while on the way elsewhere. Either way they should have packed it before they left...which gives me an odd image of a marine trying to force all their equipment into a suitcase to comply with luggage allowance.

So we're in agreement, just on different time scales.

Hehehe.....

I have just had a mission idea.

The Kill-team is being assigned to rendezvous with the Inquisitorial cargo ship Swordsmith . It inevitably comes under attack. Shortly before the boarding action, the Inquisitor commanding the ship provides the team leader with override access codes for the cargo decks.

The ship is carrying a full resupply of weapons, ammunition and ordnance for Watch Station Erioch's armoury.

I forsee some slightly insane-sounding giggles as the team discovers this.

Three weeks after the boarding of the Swordsmith...

The crash of boots echoed along the shadowy corridors, footsteps jogged briskly forwards. Three men were half running, all of them looking worried and agitated. The tall inquisitor in the middle, the two stormtroopers on his right and left. The inquisitor was tall and guant while his bodyguards were battlescarred. Wearing no helmets their faces were glistening with sweat. They passed blast doors and massive windows opening to space, going down one level and another until they reached the bowels of the ship. They stopped suddenly as they gazed on a door so large that it filled the wall. It was made of iron and a symbol of the Imperial Eagle stood proudly. "This is it." murmured one of the troopers. "Yes, now is the time to bring the might of our relic to bear." The inquisitor walked up to the control panel next to the door and scanned his key card. "You may now enter." The three men walked in to a glass cabinet. The inquisitor smirked, soon these incompetent fools will see the lifes work of my career, a beauty and a danger. "It's not there!"

This was written in about a few minutes but I imagine that after helping themselves of the armoury of the Swordsmith. Some relics disapeared after the battle. No one would ever know where they are.

Ok so we rolled this out last night and retconned it so that they had these supplies. I pretty much lifted Calgor Grimms idea part and parcel.

I gave each player 150 requisition to go into the squad pool. They were required to spend this on all the equipment, weapon upgrades, and specialist ammo that they were looking to have with them for the current voyage. I gave them an vehicle pool independent of the requisition they had access too. In the end it was a very interesting balancing act of getting enough equipment and upgrades that they felt they could be prepared for any situation, while at the same time leaving enough to be able to get plenty of specialist ammo.

The way I priced specialist ammo was that they could take a backpack full of rounds at the normal cost - 15 req plus the cost of the ammo itself. So they spent 200 req to get two backpacks full of Metal Storm, Hellfire, and Kraken rounds. The am not taking the Tactical marine ability into account for this. I am just saying that tactical marines have a small personal stockpile of specialist ammo (suspend disbelief.)

Then for each mission instead of spending their req on taking items from the armory, they will only have to spend the mission req on the following items

• Upgrading their Armor or wargear (costs 30 req and has it's own rules, if people ask I'll share)
• Requisitioning outside support (depending on relationship with the various factions)

As such I will probably start giving only like 15-25 req for a mission. That way if someone wants to upgrade something they will need to be given enough req from their teammates to be able to afford it. Should limit the power curve a bit.

Overall I am very interested to see how this goes!!!

Three weeks after the boarding of the Swordsmith...

The crash of boots echoed along the shadowy corridors, footsteps jogged briskly forwards. Three men were half running, all of them looking worried and agitated. The tall inquisitor in the middle, the two stormtroopers on his right and left. The inquisitor was tall and guant while his bodyguards were battlescarred. Wearing no helmets their faces were glistening with sweat. They passed blast doors and massive windows opening to space, going down one level and another until they reached the bowels of the ship. They stopped suddenly as they gazed on a door so large that it filled the wall. It was made of iron and a symbol of the Imperial Eagle stood proudly. "This is it." murmured one of the troopers. "Yes, now is the time to bring the might of our relic to bear." The inquisitor walked up to the control panel next to the door and scanned his key card. "You may now enter." The three men walked in to a glass cabinet. The inquisitor smirked, soon these incompetent fools will see the lifes work of my career, a beauty and a danger. "It's not there!"

This was written in about a few minutes but I imagine that after helping themselves of the armoury fo the Swordsmith the KT. Some relics disapeared after the battle. No one would ever know where they are.

In fairness it became a running joke that one of Erioch's techmarines would enter the secure vault where they store hellfire shells and find it completely empty aside from an IOU note hastily written in fenrisian.

In a growling Fenrisian accent: "Who said it was a Space Wolf?"

_{In a growling Fenrisian accent: "Who said it was a Space Wolf?"}

"Merely an unjustified suspicion, I'm sure. On an unrelated note, I see that you have a train of no less than fifteen monotask servitors behind you which all appear to be carrying ammunition containers..."

Actaully, my techmarine is wants to create his own Servitor... He calls it an Auxillery grade servitor. Essentially it's the upper torso of a servitor attached to a combination Stretcher/dolly. It is stabilized with six bionic limbs for movement purposes. Also, the head of the servitor is fitted with a variety of medical scanning tools to aid in battlefield recovery. At first I was going to say no. But then he gave me a ten page engineering document that detailed exactly what it was and how it would work along with a cover letter and synopsis for why it was in line with STC approved construction methodologies. The last two pages are a programming language that he wrote for it based on a verbal command system and the grouping of those in it's facility into threat levels or as allies.

There were even illustrations and rendered images of a proposed prototype....

When he gave it to me I was forced to consider it...how could I ever so no to such dedication!

Wow. Such dedication, such love. Say yes.

I followed Calgor Grimm's idea and my players loved it. Thanks! However bad roleplaying and unlucky dice rolls... the supply ship didn't last the first game. Something to do with Eldar pirates and such. Real reason was that the Techmarine didn't know how to fix a leaky engine. Then the flamer suddenly discharged... only the Tactical Marine survived but he commited suicide by pulling the pin of a grenade next to his head. He didn't want to face trial.

Sad story of a KT.

Wow. Such dedication, such love. Say yes.

I followed Calgor Grimm's idea and my players loved it. Thanks! However bad roleplaying and unlucky dice rolls... the supply ship didn't last the first game. Something to do with Eldar pirates and such. Real reason was that the Techmarine didn't know how to fix a leaky engine. Then the flamer suddenly discharged... only the Tactical Marine survived but he commited suicide by pulling the pin of a grenade next to his head. He didn't want to face trial.

Sad story of a KT.

Grim Traders and Ideas Inc. cannot be held responsible for any unforeseen incidents that occur while using the requisition/armoury expenditure scheme and is not liable for actions of Eldar, Dark Eldar, Orks, Tyranids, Tau, Chaos, Imperium error/intervention, Assassination, Warp Storms, Daemonic Incursion, acts of God Emperor or rain.

You might be able to get some of it back for the Imperium though depending on what happened to it. Did the whole thing blow up or is there a chance it's derelict and your new KT might be able to arrange a mission to recover lost gear...potential mission idea there!

Glad to see that the idea seems favourable though. It makes sense really, I hate that players get such a huge shopping list of things and towards the end you get the big risk of everyone lumbering around with termie armour, storm bolters and power fists, each one dishing out more firepower than a small army, shrugging off almost any hit thanks to that 1/3 (ish) invulnerable save and the high AP just means that very little seems to get through short of Melta/Plasma/Las Cannon. Takes some of the edge off it.

I must say though Dorn, I loved reading about the weapons with unique quirks and qualities. Makes me want to play DoW2 again. I'd love to read a few of the unique items you came up with as I'm looking for items with specialist qualities for a BC game and I can easily adapt a few...plus I like really like reading fluffy bits and am a bit of a spreadsheet fanatic myself.

Sadly, Ork lootas came within hours and scoured the ship.

Fortunately, the 4 terminator suits were taken by the Tactical Marine and he sent them by post to Erioch.

Sadly they were stolen by pirates halfway.

Fortunately my second group (same people, different characters) boarded the pirates and retook the armour.

Unfortunately it looks like they are going to crash into a star. Another engine leak, some people never learn.

The first session was done ages ago but this session was more recent. My players are wondering what will happen. That remains to be seen. By the way, one of my players was threatening to sue Calgor Grimm for an idea that caused his favourite Devestator to die. Don't take it seriously, he was delusional when he said it.

The first session was done ages ago but this session was more recent. My players are wondering what will happen. That remains to be seen. By the way, one of my players was threatening to sue Calgor Grimm for an idea that caused his favourite Devestator to die. Don't take it seriously, he was delusional when he said it.

Poor Grimm, glad that guy isn't me though.

Sounds like the most important bits are safe, though it gives an amusing image of trying to wrap termie armour in parcel wrap/tape and trying to work out postage costs half way across a sector.

Calgor Grim...and your evil twin Calgor Grimm... I am glad you suffer from the same spreadsheet sickness that I do. It's a burden for sure.

There is a great quirks table in the Stars of Iniquity RT book dealing with treasure. I may start with that as inspiration and build it out for the wargear quirk chart. I love Dawn of War I and II and every time I am looking for inspiration for my campaign all I need to do is dip back in the campaign for a few minutes to feel totally motivated.