What with all the fuss on the RT forums over when the special edition is being sent out, when I was rudely awakened yesterday morning by the postman, I thought it must be my collector's edition arriving...in fact it was siege of Vraks III, which I'd completely forgotten I'd ordered!

I read it yesterday, and I must say it's very good. There's plenty of stuff in there of interest to Dark Heresy fans, because it's a detailed analysis of a full Inquisitorial takeover of a failing Imperial war. There are lots of little DH related easter eggs in there, with a few casual references to the Calixis sector as well.

Inquisitorial/DH related highlights include:-

-Details on the Red Hunters, a chapter of space marines who dedicate themselves solely to the service of the Inquisition. They're a red armoured chapter whose symbol is a white skill containing the "I" of the Inquisition. They rarely deploy en masse, but instead individual squads tend to form an elite honour guard/bodyguard for martially inclined Inquisitors engaged in massive scale battles.

-A casual reference to how the Calixis sector world of Lathe/Het is one of the few remaining places that manufactures the ancient Valdor tank hunter

-An examination of Inquisitorial politics, in particular how the different ordos line up against each other politically. It seems that the Ordo Hereticus, the Inquisitorial "Mainstream" are often antagonistic to the Ordo Malleus, and will on occasion attempt to subvert their efforts, even in the face of large scale Daemonic infestations.

-Profile, rules and backgrounf for Inquisitor Lord Hector Rex, who I must say is the hardest sumb*tch special human character I've seen in 40K. Rex is probably the apogee of Imperial power: an eight foot tall, genetically enhanced Inquisitor Lord with terminator honours, a power sword blessed by the emperor, mastercrafted power armour and tremendous psychic powers. I don't want to spoil the book for anyone, but he's powerful enough to go toe to toe with a bloodthirster that had just wiped out a squad of grey knights. He's also Auditorii Imperator, a formal title which means that he's been taken to the emperor's throne room and had an audience with him personally.

All in all a very good read. Yes it's expensive, but I think the Forge World book are fantastic background for all 40k related issues. Plus they've had input and additional background by Alan Bligh, who wrote up a lot of stuff for the BI Dark Heresy setting.

Uhm, what's this? Where might I sacrifice my money to acquire this relic?

Nice! Does it have an updated army list for Renegade Imperial Guard as well?

Because the first one had a list that was pretty much based on the 4th edition rules. The second one had a list more based on 5th ed, but they took out som really fun units from that one (you couldn't field Rogue Psykers any more etc.). So perhaps there's a third one included this time that might be a bit more fun?

Darth Smeg said:

From Forge World's website:

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/acatalog/QUATERMASTERS_STORE_NEW_STUFF__11.html

I should point out this is a Tabletop game resource, not a Dark Heresy product, but if you're a big fanof the 40k setting and background, you really can't go far wrong with the Forge world books, they're fantastic.

Varnias: I'm at work at the moment, and don;t have the book with me, so I can't recall - I THINK it might have an updated list, but I need to check. There's loads of new renegade war machines, though, like Nurgle Blight Drones, Blood Slaughterers etc etc.

Lightbringer said:

Well if you could check it out I'd very muich appriciate it. Im building a Renegade Imperial Guard army at the moment but im not yet sure which armylist I would want to use. Im leaning towards the standard IG list (because the Orders system is sweeeeet!) with a few inclusions from the Witchhunters Codex (like using the rules or Arco-Flagellants for daemonic models). But while the Renegade IG list lack Orders, and their Ld values have to be rolled each battle, they do have some cool and mean looking units (like the Ogryn Berzerkers), but my main gripe with the Siege of Vraks pt II list is the fact that they lack Rogue Psykers. (I'd really like to have those ). But if pt III contains enough cool new units to make up for it, I might just go with that list instead of the normal IG codex.

I'd just like to tell everyone that there is much to gain from converting a Renegade Imperial Guard army (despite the insane amount of work and money you might have to spend). Because once that is done you'll have plenty of cultist, traitor guards and mutant miniatures, perfectly suited for Dark Heresy gaming as well.

(in fact, part of the reason why I started building this army was for that reason).

Or you could just buy the resin models from Forge World's complete line of Traitor Guard miniatures, but they're really expensive.

*intresting hint from mad gibbering of Death Korps of Krieg Overmaniac* Vraks is situated in Scarus Sector, very very close to Calixis Sector... oh, and Siege of Vraks started at 815.M41, roughly at the official timeline of Dark Heresy... any ideas? *falling back into the praising the scions of Jurten*

TorogTarkdacil said:

You sure? I checked the sector map of the Scarus Sector in the Ravenor Omnibus and Vraks isn't there. Has GW gone in and ALTERED Dan Abnett's Scarus Sector?

Varnias, there is a complete renegade army list in the book, it's called " Renegades and heretics: servants of decay." It's a chaos renegades army dedicated to Nurgle. It includes Plague marines, enforcers (stormtroopers, basically) apostate preachers, plague ogryns, renegade militia, mutant rabble, plague zombies, chaos spawn, lots of tanks, daemon engines etc etc. And yes, they do have rogue psykers of Nurgle, with a selection of 5 unique abilities.

Varnias Tybalt said:

I don't know the precise answer to this, BUT... the map at the start of Ravenor - which sets out the Scarus Sector - describes itself as "Four Subsectors of the Scarus Sector." These are the Antimar, Ophidian, Angelus and Vincies subsectors. Vraks is in the Kerak Subsector, Scarus Sector.

So I'm guessing that the map in Ravenor doesn't show ALL the subsectors of the Scarus Sector. The Calixis Sector has 8 subsectors, so the Scarus Sector must also have a few we don't know about. Like the Kerak subsector.

Varnias Tybalt said:

From SoV1, Vraks Prime Planetary Data:

Segmentum: Obscurus

Sector: Scarus

Sub-sector: Kerak (yes, I know, it´s not in Ravenor maps, but ****, it´s not real WH40k, it abnettverse)

Lightbringer said:

The subsectors in the Ravenor Omnibus map includes: Ophidian, Antimar, Angelus, Helican and Vincies (the Vincies being a lost subsector yet to be reclaimed fully). I don't think that they have a standard of dividing all sectors into 8 subsectors, they just divide them according to how many worlds are discovered within each given sector cluster of stars. The Calixis sector contains quite a few more worlds than Scarus sector does, hence why Calixis has more subsectors.

To me this seems like a retcon made by Forge World when writing the Siege of Vraks storyline...

TorogTarkdacil said:

Hehe, to tell you the truth I prefer abnettverse over GW/Forge world-verse. In abnettverse a lot of cool and well-written 40K stories seem to happen.

Varnias Tybalt said:

Well, I agree that he writes great stories (sometimes no, sorry but Ravenor Rogue wasn´t one of the reading highlights I´ve experienced), but well... it´s not the real, gritty and more importantly GRIMDARK universe (and please don´t name all ghosts he killed in 11 novels)

From BL authors I prefer firstly Matt Farrer, who IS the 40k universe, second is Gav "everything you have been told is a lie" Thorpe and than quite new man in the club, Steve Parker.

But to be at least a little bit on topic, I think that few of Warhammer 40 000 material is comparable to the pseudo-historic stories of Imperial Armour campaigns. By the way, Lightbringer, could you tell us more about Red Hunters Chapter (at BL forums I read about concepts, that they actualy believe in Emperor as the God!)? Oh, and have Kriegs some heroic/insane/ruthless/remarkable entries in the story?

Varnias Tybalt said:

Varnias Tybalt said:

You could well be right... but not all retcons need be CLUMSY retcons. As I say, the Ravenor map never claims to show the entire Scarus sector, just "Four subsectors of" the Scarus sector. And you're absolutely right, 8 subsectors isn't necessarily standard, but given that we only know about a couple of sectors in detail (Calixis = 8 subsectors, Gothic = 7) then it seems to me that 4 subsectors (not including lost subsectors) seems a little low.

All this is only speculation of course! But I have to say, I really do rate the Forge World books, and I don't think that their input into the Scarus Sector (Dan Abnett's creation) is anywhere near as clumsy as it could have been...quite the opposite. The books are excellent!

TorogTarkdacil said:

"The Grey Knights were not the only Space Marine force Inqusitor Rex turned to - potent though they would be. The Red Hunters Chapter also had a long history of putting themselves at the service of the Inquisition. So strong was the link between this Chapter and the three great Inquisitorial orders that rumour was that they had been founded at the request of the Inquisitorial representative on Terra, and that there was a secret pact between the Inquisition and the Chapter for mutual support. Uniquely, the Chapter even bore the Inquisitorial "I" upon its badge. Although still a Chapter of Space Marines that looked to the Codex Astartes for its organisation and spiritual guidance, the Chapter made their squads available for rapid responses to Inquisitorial calls for assistance. The Inquisitors fighting on the frontline on Vraks would also have an honour guard of Red Hunters squads to call upon."

-page 8, Siege of Vraks Volume III.

There's plenty of cool art of the chapter too: a very simple colour scheme (a rich red perhaps a little darker than the blood angels) and simple iconography (white skull with the Inquisitorial "I" stamped on the forehead.) Vehicles are marked with a large Inquisitorial "I". A very cool (and probably easy to paint) scheme.

They seemed to split the chapter up into squad level forces to support individual Inquisitors on Vraks, rather than deploy them as a larger force. This seems to have led to quite high casualties.

As to what they believe, no idea, it isn't spelled out, though the extract above suggests to me that they're quite conventional for Space Marines in terms of their religious beliefs, given their respect for the Codex. And I don't think it's ever spelled out what Legion's geneseed they were formed from.

TorogTarkdacil said:

Yes! Not quite as involved as they were in the previous two books, but they are the backbone of the Imperial efforts on Vraks. They seem to suffer massive casualties (in the millions) but it never seems to phase them. The whole siege is basically WW1 culminating in the battle of Monte Cassino!

Lightbringer said:

Yeah it could have been handled worse I guess.

Still you'd think that if Forge World were really THAT horny on the idea of using a Sector created by Dan Abnett they would at least bother to check up on his version of it. Or they could've simply invented another "new" sector located somewhere in Segmentum Obscurus (after all, there is a lot of space even in only that Segmentum), that would've been the more "slick" solution.

But if you say that it has been handled in a non-clumsy manner then I'll just take your word for it.

Still a bit of a menace though, since I might have to get all three Siege of Vraks books instead of just the third. I have the intention of fleshing out the Scarus sector for Dark Heresy (the beautiful map in the Ravenor Omnibus just begs to be extrapolated upon for Dark Heresy), and if GW/Forge World really wants Vraks to be there then I might have to work around it...

I guess I should point out that the 3 Vraks books don't really have much information on the Scarus Sector as a whole: they're pretty much dedicated to Vraks itself, and other than the mention of the subsector the planet is in, there's nothing really about the rest of the sector. Plus, without wishing to give the ending of the trilogy away too much, Vraks really ISN'T the sort of place you'd want to visit as an Inquisitorial acolyte...

There ARE some neat little plot hooks for DH adventures, though. Inquisitor Lord Hector Rex sends his acolytes out on a variety of missions in the book. He personally controlled a strike force of 38 Inquisitors and their retinues, so there's plenty of scope for players to join the massive Inquisitorial efforts. Here's some of the missions Inquisitorial acolytes are explicitly stated to have been sent on:-

1. The players form part of an Inquisitorial envoy mission to petition the infamous Dark Angels Chapter of Space Marines for aid. They must travel to the homeworld of this sinister Chapter and plead their Lord's case before them. The Dark Angels had involved themselves in the early stages of the Vraks siege (to tremendous effect) but had withdrawn from the conflict without warning. Now, as the climax of the war approaches, their help is needed again. How will the players convince the sullen and withdrawn Chapter to become involved?

2. The players must perform a similar mission to call for the help of the Red Scorpions Chapter. They are a more predictable military force than the Dark Angels, more zealous and keen to prove themselves... but the journey to their homeworld is fraught, and the planet itself is harsh and barbaric...perhaps the players don't know the precise location of the Scorpion's Fortress-Monastery, and must fight their way through thick jungle to locate it...

3. During the course of the conflict, the rebel forces show an unusual proficiency in the summoning of Daemons, far beyond the wiles of a group of renegades and petty heretics. Lord Hector Rex suspects that Chaos Space Marine Warbands are involved, and requests that his old mentor, the ancient Inquisitor Lord Malkin, investigate and discover who is behind these advanced rituals. Lord Malkin casts his net wide, and acolytes are sent on many missions across the sector and beyond to determine the source of the Daemonic expertise in evidence on the war world...

4. Political infighting is rife in the Inquisition, and even a Lord as powerful as Hector Rex is not immune to its effects. HIs enemies in the Ordo Hereticus manage to use their contacts within the Departmento Munitorum to assign vital troops to other sectors, away from the Vraksian front line where they are so desperately needed. Incensed, Lord Rex dispatches envoys to Terra itself in order to plead his case before the Inquisitorial representative. The players accompany this mission, and become caught up in the highest political games of the Imperium, pawns in battles at the heart of the empire of Man. Even if they succeed, will they be able to evade a force of deadly assassins sent in secret by the radical factions of the Ordos Hereticus Scarus?

On the topic of Vraks being in Scarus Sector, I noticed that too. But it didn't bother me: the stylised map in the DH rulebooks also doesn't show all planets in Calixis, only the more important ones. And the one in Ravenor, similarly stylised shows only those that are directly involved in the story, so there's plenty of room for others. There are only ~50 planets on that map, a bit small number for a sector.