You know you're playing Only War when

By Calgor Grim, in Only War

When your commisar is doing a drive by...

... on orks ...

... with his chainsword ...

... riding an ork trukk ...

... that they looted from different orks...

... because their Valkyrie exploded due to equipment faliure.

Ork logic folks, if you believe you can do it, it can do it.

When fighting starts with Gargantuan Squiggoth charging an outpost defended by PC's, rolling 01 on shooting the suppa-lobba to tower where they were hiding, the tower itself exploding and leaving only a crater. And when it ends with Gargantuan Squiggoth running away from the battlefield with it's howdah in flames and smoke, furious as hell.

When you're players keep forgetting the Variable setting rule and wonder why the Enemy is doing so much damage with lasguns.

When you're players keep forgetting the Variable setting rule and wonder why the Enemy is doing so much damage with lasguns.

Primitive feral world scum! Another proof of the superiority of Omnissiah's Holy Tech-guard! Only they could deal more damage to a Daemon Prince with Lasguns than with Meltaguns...

When you show each other your new Dark Heresy PCs, and the one with the best people skills is the Untouchable. Yeah, I think this is gonna feel like an OW campaign...

If Space Marines are impressed by your ork kill count, you may be playing OW as the Armageddon Steel Legion.

If, on getting the Spray and Pray in Fallout 4, you immediately named it 'Heavy Bolter' and started gunning down supermutants, you may have been playing OW as the Armageddon Steel Legion.

If you can describe the taste of Squiggoth, you may be playing OW as the Armageddon Steel Legion.

When your players go frenzy after you announce that gretchin scored Righteous Fury against one of them after rolling 10 damage, claming that Core Rulebook says that only Elite level NPC's can trigger it. After I read everything that there is on Rightous Fury in CRB I found out that it's actually the opposite - RAW strongly advise giving that rule to each and every adversary.

So next thing I did was actually to upgrade all gretchins in the campaign to the elite force - I've gave them badass shades, chains of clippersover their necks and leather jackets and better melee armament.

I hope this will satisfy my players

You should also have one as a tank ace in a little grot tank.

Killa Kans are warming up for one of the future scenarios. Also I'm planning to throw 40 snotlings at them in next session. It's gonna be fun.

This is exactly how I played Space Crusade back in the early 90's.

Space+Crusade+complet.JPG

You're older than I thought Robin!

Oh I'm old. (just not in my mind) I'm an 80s kid! Born in the same year as Alien! ;)

When PC's fight the grots and one of the greenskins is spotter for a mortar team. 2 out of 4 PC's spread to avoid being bombed. Two that stayed in place are sniper that's squriming while hiding and looking for cover with his camo-cloak, talents n' sh*t and commissar, who's standing in the open and is very busy with not giving a single f*ck.

Result? Sniper at 1 Crit Wound and commissar at 3 normal wounds after the encounter.

When PC's fight the grots and one of the greenskins is spotter for a mortar team. 2 out of 4 PC's spread to avoid being bombed. Two that stayed in place are sniper that's squriming while hiding and looking for cover with his camo-cloak, talents n' sh*t and commissar, who's standing in the open and is very busy with not giving a single f*ck.

Result? Sniper at 1 Crit Wound and commissar at 3 normal wounds after the encounter.

Armor of Contempt. Works every time! :D

When your players go frenzy after you announce that gretchin scored Righteous Fury against one of them after rolling 10 damage, claming that Core Rulebook says that only Elite level NPC's can trigger it. After I read everything that there is on Rightous Fury in CRB I found out that it's actually the opposite - RAW strongly advise giving that rule to each and every adversary.

So next thing I did was actually to upgrade all gretchins in the campaign to the elite force - I've gave them badass shades, chains of clippersover their necks and leather jackets and better melee armament.

I hope this will satisfy my players

It used to be - when Righteous Fury was extra D10's of damage, rather than just 'take a minor critical wound'. It changed in Black Crusade and stuck.

That said, don't mess with the StormGrotz!

I changed my idea of theirs a little bit. They're gonna be frickin' MLG GROTZ!!11 Gonna get my airhorn and teach dem GROTZ how to 360 noscope. And tell mom that she should get a camera. ******* be cryin' as my greenskins show dem skill while smoking weed every day.

Well, for my Penal Legion group so far:

- Sgt throws smoke grenade to get closer to Ork BW, doesn't inform Chimera Gunner, Friendly fire ensues

- Group spends time and planning to start a Lho stick market at the local base (Extermanatus will be issued soon on said planet)

- Only have Flak jackets, want more armor and issue for more at local armory, get a 99. "You're a WHAT Regiment?!"

- Ratling argues with army cook about meal qualities

- Six Gretchins kill 2 comrades and critically wound another 2 players who had a heavy bolter

- Debating to take off Penal Collars comes up A LOT

- Commissars come up A LOT

- Shenanigans to rob the armory, start drug running, and just being scum. When doing so they keep getting between 75-100.

War isn't going to be the main contributor my players dying... I think Commissars and themselves will be.

You know you're playing Only War when what was supposed to be a gritty, grimdark story becomes The Expendables.

May I add this quote to my signature?

- When, while in zero gravity, you manage to flip a Hellhound by a tech priest lifting it causing it to do a barrel roll over an enemy line while spraying fiery liquid death upon the enemy. and lands it without taking any damage when the gravity is turned back on.

You know you're playing Total War, when...

... your artillery specialist has a higher friendly fire kill count than enemy casualties.

... a lone surviving Guardsman Sergeant 'snipes' three genestealers to death with just his laspistol.

... following the above, the rest of the brood 'flocks' towards said sergeant (Jurassic Park style banking move) over a more tactically sensible target.

... very few people actually want to play the squad heavy weapon support specialist, as close combat is where the men are separated from the dead boys.

**Final Testament Spoiler Alert below**

**You've been warned**

When your squad of Penal troopers convinces the planetary Lord Commissar that not only are the free of any guilt, they are actually working only for the glory of the Emperor. It revolves around the start of Chapter 3 in Final Testament when the players finally meet the Lord Commissar and the jig is up. It went down like this:

Somehow, these penal troopers coming into the interrogation with a -20 right out the gate were able to rack up an impressive 14 DoS overall. Granted, there are nine of them so that was nine tests, but good god I never saw it coming. I did allow them to burn fate to get +60 to one interaction test and two characters opted to go that route after two particularly nasty failures. Obviously my description and demeanor of the Lord Commissar was enough to scare them into burning fate.

So they only undertook three missions for Fordham. Since there are nine of them, I let them choose three people to recap each mission. Depending on how well they wrote out their descriptions - how deep they went with their PCs - and how well roleplayed it was, I gave them bonuses to the interaction test. A few scored well enough right off the bat to grant later rollers a +10. Two were caught in a lie and later rolls received -10.

Here was the breakdown:

Salierie was testing Inquiry 51 +10 (skill) +10 (suspicion for the team mostly having positive feelings toward Fordham).

For each mission retelling they rolled one interaction test that was opposed by Salieri's <71 Inquiry.

- For the first mission, the three players accumulated 10 DoS between the three of them. Salieri got 13 DoS.
- For the second mission, the players accumulated 6 DoS. Salieri, however, was only able to get 1 DoS.
- For the final mission, the players accumulated an impressive 12 DoS. Salieri got 0 DoS.

I then added them all up and subtracted Salieri's total DoS from the "Bastards". In other words 28 DoS - 14 DoS = 14 DoS total. They literally got the second best result that could happen.

So now a squad of penal trooper's is in charge of a forward operating base just hours after carrying out a friendly-fire assault mission for a traitor. Hahaha... I love Only War.

When you give the squad an opportunity to pet an animal, kitten to be exact, which was going to be burned alive by bunch of cultists. First thing they do after killing cultists - hack the little fuc*er in half. Now that they're thinking about it they want to have a servocat.

When you give the squad an opportunity to pet an animal, kitten to be exact, which was going to be burned alive by bunch of cultists. First thing they do after killing cultists - hack the little fuc*er in half. Now that they're thinking about it they want to have a servocat.

Great, now I want a psyber kitteh!

When you give the squad an opportunity to pet an animal, kitten to be exact, which was going to be burned alive by bunch of cultists. First thing they do after killing cultists - hack the little fuc*er in half. Now that they're thinking about it they want to have a servocat.

Great, now I want a psyber kitteh!

note: in this context panther refers to large felines (size small and up) from earth and variants caused by adaptation to a different world/cross breeding with native life forms eg. the feathered cougar, an animal that inhabits the tropopause of Ricalsa VII.

When you give the squad an opportunity to pet an animal, kitten to be exact, which was going to be burned alive by bunch of cultists. First thing they do after killing cultists - hack the little fuc*er in half. Now that they're thinking about it they want to have a servocat.

Great, now I want a psyber kitteh!

Why would you want that. It's much more sensible to get a psyber panther.

note: in this context panther refers to large felines (size small and up) from earth and variants caused by adaptation to a different world/cross breeding with native life forms eg. the feathered cougar, an animal that inhabits the tropopause of Ricalsa VII.

But Panthers are to heavy to carry around with you, A cute little kiten that can sit on my shoulder, or I can hold in my hand- oh and it amplifies my psychic powers.

"Lay down your weapons and surrender or Mr. Mittens will smite you with warp lightning!"

"Meeeew!"

"That's right Mr. Mittens, let's blast those heretic anyway!"