***** SPOILER ALERT! *****

This post contains information of a detailed nature about the Dark Frontier free adventure. If you have not played this adventure, and plan to play it in the future, I suggest you stop reading this post.

For everyone else, especially GMs, I wanted to provide some comments and thoughts about this adventure.

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I just ran Dark Frontier for my group. I had previously run Forsaken Bounty, and the group had asked for me to run the sequel. Several of the players kept the same PCs they had used previously, although we did have a few player changes too.

I might write a more detail write-up, but I wanted to give out a few impressions and advice for any other GMs wanting to run this adventure.

It was fun overall. Some good questions that my players asked, that I thought would be good for other GMs to keep in mind to have answers to in case they get asked these:
(I'll try to go in chronological order) and I have added the answers I used (approximately)
Q. Have the ships Astropath contact Port Wander/Imperium
A. There is a Shadow across the warp here and he cannot send any messages out
Q. What is wrong with the controls?
A. Nothing is apparently wrong with the controls (nothing damaged), but the helm isn't responding for some unknown reason. It appears to be a combination of gravitational force and warp energy holding the Venture into an orbit about the black star.
Q. If they had enough gun-cutters/shuttles could they tow the Venture farther out of orbit so that it was no longer affected by the star's gravity.
A. You think it is theoretically possible, although you are unsure exactly what is affecting the controls. It would also require an extremely large number of gun-cutters/shuttles.
Q. How does the gun-cutter dock with the settlement?
A. I considered requiring void suits, and walking. Instead, I went with the premise that the settlement has umbilicals (like airport jetways) that they can maneuver to connect to a couple of shuttles/guncutters. It's something for GMs to consider though. Remeber, the moon is airless.
Q. (Asking Martek) Why are there no higher ranking officers in the settlement? (i.e. Why is a lowly mid-shipman in charge?)
A. The majority of ship bridges appear to get destroyed during the transition to this area, thus leaving limited officers alive initially (bridges are perhaps more vulnerable?). There have been a few that survived arrival, but many have since died in the harsh environment. Although there are still a few "higher-ranking" officers (above mid-shipman) in the settlement, but none of them are "Martek the Just" and he has welded the various survivors together into single settlement personally. Thus, he is the 'governor'
Q. How does Martek know all this information about the black star?
A. Martek has had built a 'research' center (room). It consists of cobbled-together pieces of various ship sensor arrays, focused mainly at the star. The star (and how to escape it) is something of an obsession of Martek's, and it provides him with quite a bit of information about the star.

Q. What ship was Martek on?

A. the Joyous Jaunter (or something similar), an imperial Frigate. I made this up on the fly as it was unexpected. GMs, a heads up about background information for Martek.
Q. It was confusing to know if the hulk that the Brotherhood was on was the Penance of Iocanthus, or if it was a different ship.
A. I decided that, due to the close nature of the captain Lynara and the Brotherhood, that the Penance, although an armed merchant ship, had been hired to transport the Pilgrims. This makes the Brotherhood ship/hulk and the Penance the same vessel.
Q. Where were the Pilgrims headed to?
A. A Shrine world, Sentinel. Be prepared for the PCs to ask questions about the background of the Brotherhood too.
Q. Any information in the Venture's databanks about the Penance of Iocanthus?
A. A lightly armed merhcant vessel of the Vagabond Merchant class. It primarly transported raw goods to production facilites. The captain has a few citations of merit and bravery. It was last known commissioned to transport some pilgrims about 6 years ago, when it never reappeared after transitioning into the warp and was presumed Destroyed.
Q. We want to travel on the top of the maze walls, rather than inside the maze itself. (I had shown them the picture on pg 9, which shows the maze from above)
A. The walls are 20-30 meters high, and are smooth in most places. There is no reasonable way to get up there.
Q. How high up is the nexus of light, and the Bone Warden's orb?
A. I had the Chamber of Bones be about a 30x30 room (hey, just big enough for the Warden's 15m radius to cover the entire room!), and about 45m tall. I had the nexus close to the ceiling about 35m up, and the Bone Warden about 10m off the ground. (Yes, that means its orb is basically immune itself to melee attacks, although that is really no impediment...see below).

The Diminished Bone Warden:

Looks good on paper. S10, hit all enemies in a 15m radius, T4 and 40 wounds. In reality, he's absolutely no match for the PCs. The group that I ran had only 4 PCs and no NPCs with them. The Bone Warden was dead before it even got a second round of combat. Here's how our combat went.
Init Order:
Lorayne, Trask, Bone Warden, Nathin, Dominic (with bomb)

Round1
Lorayne aims and shoots with her bolter, hitting for 13 points total (so -9 wounds).
Trask moves further into the room.
Bone Warden melees all the PCs. Hits Lynora, Trask, and Nathin. Lorayne and Nathin successfully dodge. Trask is hit for 18 (-9 wounds).
Nathin shoots but misses.
Dominic advances with the bomb.
Round2
Lorayne fires full auto with her bolter. She hits all 4 times. First roll does 14 damage total (-10 wounds, Warden is now at 21 wounds left), second roll is a confirmed fury but does minimal extra damage for a total of 18 damage (-14 wounds, Warden is now at 7 wounds), third roll hits for 13 damage (-9 wounds, Warden is now at Crit 2), fourth hit is another confirmed Fury for 24 damage (-20 wounds, Warden is now at Crit 22).
A bit disappointing combat, to say the least. I was tempted to let the Warden get a second round, but seeing as Lorayne would just full auto again next round it seemed a bit pointless for it to try to heal, and I wasn't feeling vindictive enough to try to melee again in order to critical Trask (assuming he failed his very good parry roll a second time).

So, while some of you might think, wow it was just bad luck (good luck for PCs) that she hit 4 times and got 2 Furys (although one only got an additional 1 pt of damage). Well, lets look at it and you'll see that it isn't so far-fetched.
This is the second "mission" and since the PCs got 500xp from Forsaken Bounty, I let the PCs get a +5 increase to a stat (ie spending their 500xp). That put Lorayne at a 50 in BS. Now, add in the +10% to hit that she gets with her bolter from her special ability, +10 for being in short range (she was within 45m), and +20 for full auto, and she has a whopping 90% to hit (This also ignores the possibility of Trask giving her an additional +10% to hit). That means she has a 60% chance to hit with all 4 shots, so it's pretty likely she will. With tearing, that is a total of 8/10 (or 80%) to get at least a single fury, which confirms at a 90%! . Even if we discount the second fury damage roll, or even the fourth roll altogether, Lorayne still did a total of 33 Wounds to the Warden in a single round with her first 3 bolt shells.
An average hit by Lorayne does 1d10+7, or 12 points of damage total, for 8 wounds (after subtracting the meager 4 T) on the Warden per bolt shell, and I've already shown it fairly easy for Lorayne to hit with 2-4 shells. So, on average she could do 16-32 wounds in a round on average (assuming multiple hits but no furys).
Trask will do 1d10+4 with his stub revolver, for an average of 5 wounds, or (1d10+8)/2 with his power sword for an average of 7 total, 3 after Toughness. He can also attack with both, so an average of 8 total for Trask on a round (assuming both hit, of course).
Nathin will do (1d10+5)/2 (Warden takes half from energy weapons) with the Hellpistol, so an average of 1 wound.
Dominic will do 1d10+6, or 11 average (rounded up), or 7 wounds after toughness.

If Malakai had been there with his flamer ... he would do
(1d10+4)*2 (Warden takes double from area weapons), or 18 wounds on average, or 14 after Toughness.

Thus, assuming all 5 PCs and each PC only hits a single time for average damage, you are looking at the Warden taking 35 (or more) wounds in a single round on average. Chances are good, though, that Lorayne will fire either full auto or semi-auto, and/or will get a fury with tearing, and chances are good that she will get at least 2 hits. A second hit by Lorayne, in my example of averages, will put the Warden past 40 wounds in a single round, and even compensates for one of the others missing their attack yet still going over 40 wounds.

So, you can see that the Warden just cannot withstand the PCs for more than a round (or two if it's lucky) if either Lorayne or Malakai are present and attacking. Lorayne, even without the additional advance I let them have, still has an amazing chance of hitting with mutliple bolter rounds in a single combat round when firing on full-auto, and each hit exponentially increases the likelihood of a fury roll for even more damage. I can't imagine how Malakai and his flamer would do (although at least the Warden has a 31% chance to avoid the attack). While the Warden's melee attack can hit for dangeous amounts of damage (even without penetration), the healing ability it gets just doesn't help when a single round of shooting by the PCs can still do much more than that (the book offers using 10 for "a fairly matched even fight"), regardless of the fact that it gives up its turn to do so. The 4 Toughness of the Bone Warden just doesn't cut it against anything that isn't an energy weapon, of which only Nathin's hellpistol and Trask's power sword are reduced damage. I would prefer (and suggest to other GMs) that instead of halving the damage of energy weapons, give the Bone Warden unnatural (or Daemonic) Toughness instead. A Toughness of 8 will give the Bone Warden some much needed durability against Lorayne and Malakai (although they are still dangerous foes). It's easy enough for a GM to have the Warden alternate rounds using the melee attack and the warp blast (should the melee attack be too powerful when there are multiple rounds) to ease up on the offensive ability of the Warden. It's also easy to adjust the number of corpses the Warden has (or uses) to heal itself. It's the Warden's durability against the PCs that is the problem. When a single round of attacks by only 4 of the PCs (heck, a single round by a single PC, either Lorayne or possibly Malakai) could somewhat reasonably kill the Warden, there's a problem.

/rant off

I haven't yet run dark frontier yet. But when i was reading the adventure i also thought the warden seemed a little weak, i'm glad to see someone else thought the same.

The way i improved it was similar to you, i gave it demonic toughness. And i will let it use its healing ability as a half action, but on any round it uses the healing it can only attack a single target. It will be interesting to see how it works when my group do face it.

For what it's worth, I tripled the wounds on the Navigator in Forsaken Bounty. I ran it with 5, normally generated PCs and there was no way a 21 wound "boss" would be a challenge for them.

/Or their inferno pistol.

Nothing new there. In DH most fights are fairly short and brutal. The system is not really designed for "Boss Fights". As such I stopped trying to shoehorn them in, sure there are enemy leaders and such and they are tougher than their minions but they are not super duper (normally). I instead go fo a "Final Fight" where the pcs have a challenge do to a variety of factors (outnumbered, the envirement, etc). It is just as satisfying without having to make one enemy with massively bloated stats.

Honestly, I know I hadn't thought about the Warden much in the way of how it challeneged the players. I had just glanced and saw the number of Wounds and the healing ability and figured it was good to go. I had (and we know how bad this is) assumed it had been relatively balanced by the writer. It wasn't until I ran the game, and afterwards crunched the numbers, that I realized just how much of letdown the Warden was.

Now, it would have been one thing if there had been lots of other combat. In the first, FB, the Navigator went down pretty easily after only a round or two. This wasn't a problem because the players had already gotten a lot of fighting vs meat puppets earlier in the adventure. They also had come up with a good plan to sneak up and surprise the Navigator. So, it didn't seem as much of a build-up denoument. In DF, however, the only other combat is with the spiders in the crystal forest just prior to the Warden. The spiders, obviously, are not meant to be a challenge to the PCs but merely a way to wear them down a bit. So that leave the Warden as the only, supposedly challenging, combat in the adventure. It also had been built up to be a finale event. My frustration is that I felt cheated, and I felt that my players were cheated, out of an exciting battle. It would have been one thing if the Warden required some sort of strategic planning or had a vulnerable soft spot that the players had to discover to kill it. Then, assuming the players found that out, killing the Warden in a single round would have seemed more appropriate. As it was, all they really needed to do was stop in the doorway and shoot it for a round. There wasn't any real challenge to fighting it. I wanted to partially vent, and partially to warn other GMs who might run this adventure. If a GM wants the Warden to be a challenge (as it appears the Warden was intended to be), then the GM will need to modify the Warden. Even upping the T to 8 doesn't prevent the fight from being "short and brutal". It does, however, allow it to last more than a single round, (perhaps even 3 rounds). Another option would be to make a 'soft' spot that players have to identify and hit (the orb? hmm maybe too obvious. The worm?). Something for the Warden needs to change so that it is a reasonable challenge for the players, and GMs need to be aware of this when they plan on running it.

Thanks for the heads up, personally i'd planned on loading the room with like 40 corpses or something like that. Sounds like like a combination of zapping then getting in melee is the key.

dvang said:

The amount/difficulty of other combats the players got into was entirely up to the GM.

In my group, the players decided to leave the bomb at the bottom of the tower, figureing it was sure to be something nasty up there and that a Vortex bomb would probably be just as destructive to the tower and whatever was in it if detonated at the ground floor.

Not having the core rules, and not really knowing anything about Vortex bombs, I thought that was a pretty wise move and skipped the whole "climactic finale" and skipped to the happy ending.

Ideas for more fun in Dark Frontier.

-Change the human and mutant faction to a group of rebel Grots (goblins) who have overthrown their Ork betters. (The Ork depleted their numbers attacking the locals of all sorts.)

-Have the PCs have to reclaim the vortex bomb from Dark Eldar, or Slaught.

-Once the PCs take down the tower have various other alien and human factions "wake" up. (They were in hiding prior to this.) Now they are all trying to grab enough to repair their ships to leave. Now the PC have to fight them for loot.

-One of the awakened factions is a group of Orks determined to wipe out the above Grots. The rebel Grots of course have told the Orks that they are allied to the PCs, and are keeping the PCs ship between them and the Orks.

-The human missionaries have converted to Chaos worship shortly before the PCs arrived. (The PCs coming is evidence they were right to convert.) They wish to convert the PCs one way or another....

-Have the towers start rebuilding, or rerouting the network. The PCs either have to disrupt this or get out of dodge in a few days.

I was Nathin, and the role playing with the survivors was fun, if a little simple. It took very little time to figure out how to get the bomb from the mutants and covering fire from the monks. Since it was a "sample" adventure using quick start rules, we didn't mind.

When Dvang told us we were in orbit around a "black sun," Nathin had to change his pants. The captain locked himself in his cabin and started drinking. We had to rally each other to get back in the game.

Some of the best role playing was PC to PC. It took a lot of convincing on my part to get the Captain to agree to let us leave the ship in a gun cutter. Only after we provisioned it with a full cargo hold of rations and his best suit would he go.

Today i ended the "dark forntier" andd postponed my RT campaign until the core rule book makes it to the shelves. What can I say , the last scenes of the game WAS F&$%ING HORRIBLE, I read the rules at lest a dozen of times ,and my players at least half of that, the bone warden with all of his fluffyness , powers , hit points , regeneration, JUST GO KICKED HIS ASS BY A F)ING 8 bullet bolter full auto. My jaw got opened when I saw more a number close to 100 DMG. Please someone if you played tell me, is that bolter *&%*^ Thornhallow is somehow OVERPOWERED with this "thing" because a boss one hit exterminator shouldnt be given a name, was just my mistake of the rules or really she is a overpowered ....I dont even have a world for that....I mean the story was okey and i really liked the shardspiderfight it really took me in, and I waited with expectations of epic boss battle.... initiativ-> one hit KO -> WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT O_O ?! And when i recall fight with Orden in forsaken bounty she also took him with 1 hit KO, it didnt look like a piece of C&$* because I divaded the team in two and her team was to be the "cavalery" type of guys. Please if someone played it please tell me whats going on with this game, is bolter such a badaass weapon that only deamons in creatures anthema can deal with?

You cannot get more hit than ROF, but yes, those bosses sucks so far. I had the same situation but in my case, Trask killed him.

Bolters are some of the best weapons in the game. Lorayne's is better, because she gets bonuses to using it (especially damage). It seems like, either you need so many enemies to not care about losses, or you need enemies with unnatural toughness and therefore an 8 or better reduction in damage. Armor *might* work, but it really has to be power armor or better.

RT games really need to go up against Genestealers or Space Marines, etc. to have any sort of challenge.

I guess the only other thing to remember is that Bolters can't be fired in melee.

I think the flaw isn't necessarily the bolter, but the 'boss'. In Forsaken Bounty, there were other factors that mitigated the efficiency of the bolter. The meat puppets regen unless hit with >15 wounds (although Lorayne's bolter was by far the best weapon for breaching this threshold), the worm's psychic shield, the layout/setup of the bridge the second time to limit PC deployment, etc. I felt in FB that the climax was turning on the Gellar field, and mopping up the Navigator/worm wasn't as powerful and more of a denoument. Wheras, in Dark Frontier, everything really built up to getting into the tower and planting the bomb, and thus confronting the Warden. I think this is part of the frustration with the ending.

Dark frontier made me feel betrayed, because it wasnt by the rules, it was by the ending :/ , my creatures anthema Alley Reaper made Freddy Kruger look like a sissy, everything was grim dark just the way warhammer is, Xeno , Deamons and the darkness within heroes, and my final fantasy 40k boss went to the box like it was the miniature version of the game.... it was just so sad hearing from the player which had been dripping in blood after the shardspiders encounter, "Some strange crature was that"....not even a monster or beast....creature

I should have moded this fight as i changed FB where meat puppets were endless and in numbers of 20-40 on the battlemap.... but the delusion of epic Bone warden continued.... YOU **** XENOS!!!

dvang said:

Could you please be so kind and explain this to me? I really looked it up and I dont remember that rule.

Grandmikus said:

The only ranged weapons that can be fired in melee (assuming that this core element remains intact from Dark Heresy to Rogue Trader) are Pistols. Bolters, being basic weapons, cannot be fired in melee (Bolt Pistols can be, however, being pistols).

Grandmikus said:

Grandmikus said:

When I tried DF again, I continuously spammed them. They didn't have enough ammunition, when they reached Bone Warden. It was fun fight : > More than half of team was dead. Only Thornhallow and Dominic survived it.

Grandmikus said:

For those without proper 40k rpg books, the fact that only melee and pistol weapons can be used while engaged in melee is covered in Forsaken Bounty, pg 13, under the heading "Engaged in Melee", the last sentence.

Likewise, as mentioned earlier, concerning Thornhallows bolter, it has a maximum ROF of 4. That means it can only ever fire off 4 shots max and no matter how many DoS is racked up in the attack roll, only 4 shots can hit. If the player scores 2 DoS they will net 3 hits, if they score 3 DiS, they will net 4 hits, if they score 4 DoS, they will still only net 4 hits as that is the maximum amount of bolts the weapon can pump out in that amount of time. It just means all four bolts strike home as opposed to hitting that pregnant woman in the corner, or that kid on her way home from school, etc.

Given that the chamber the Bonewarden is in is never given a numerical size, just that it's large, one could easily make it a 30m by 30m chamber, just big enough for the Bonewarden's Cloud of Corpses to completely fill. In tat situation, the only way's the Bolter could even be used would be from way down the all through the open door (unlikely0 or just before the Warden gets it's first attack (which should then be to engage all characters in melee combat). The only viable weapons for the fight would be a Hell Pistol (half damage), a Power Sword (half damage), a big expensive improvised club, a (thank goodness) chain sword (or is it an eviscorator... can't recall), possibly a flame pistol (bonus!), and what-ever pistols or melee weapons the void master as. All in all, that should even things out for the Warden a bit.

Remember, just because a character has a weapon doesn't mean they can or should always get to use it. ;-)

Talking "melee" and "the bone warden".

As I understood it, the bone warden attacks with hurling/smacking the corpses at the enemy. Like a bizarre octopus that is not into grabbling but into threshing. With a creature like this, I cannot imagine the rules for "engaged in melee" to be taken into account.

Anyway, I would rule that due to the movement of the bodies (whirling around like a cloud) range attacks could get a penalitiy. Like -10.
By the way.... I would give the bone waren a fear trait. A monster consisting of over a dozen animiated corpses flying through the air while biting and threshinig or simply slamming into you should be worth a fear rating of 1. Shouldn´t it?

Gregorius21778 said:

...and then the bodies that were urraled at you start itting, biting, and clawing you. It dosn't hit you with bodies, but sends them out to do you harm with teir claws, teeth, and what ever else. It's like someone threw a really pissed-off mass of zombies at you. Seems like being engaged in melee to me.

Graver said:

But if this body is attached to you afterwards... and the body stays attached to you ... wouldn´t that mean that you are grappling with a zombie after each hit?

The RT got hit in the first round by the bonewarden... now a zombie (with stats of ??) is grappling with him (or simply fighting with him)... next round, he is hit again....now, he is fighting two zombies....

Like that?

What I want to point out is, the rules given in the adventure look more like "getting hit" and less like "getting engaged by". If it would be "true melee"...the RT and his crew would outnumber the bonewarden, wouldn´t they?

The more I think of it, the stranger the rules become that are given. The do not reflect this "special type of combat" very well. At least , to me...

Gregorius21778 said:

Ya, you've got a point. I'm sure the idea that the Bone Warden was a tough opponent by the author was the idea tat it would be able to engage most all the characters in melee and thus remove from play their more destructive weapons. But the more you think about it, the less sense it makes, especially when you stop to think that the character won't be fighting the zombies he's engaged with but shooting at the sphere 5-15m away.

Of course similar situations come up if you 're engaged with any massive creature were it's more like dodging slow projectiles coming at you from 5-10m away then then trading blows with some dreg in a bar...

****, and here I thought I was on to something...

Edit: Though, in relation to outnumbering the Warden in melee, I think if it's able to engage all oppoants in range (if indeed that it techicaly engaging now...) then it woulodn't be bothered by little things like deviding it's attention and, as such, should probably be considered to have the combat master tallent (even if it's not listed). Again, given the situation, that would make sense.