I've run Deathwatch a couple times, but find myself more drawn to Only War. It seems more flexible in terms of personality and origin stories, and I tend to identify more with soldiers than supermen.

But I ran into a problem when I tried to pitch it to my usual gaming buddies - no one wanted to deal with the high body count and human wave tactics. My friend Justin asked if he should "name his character or just give him a serial number;" his brother Nick recounted a story where a GM had wiped an entire group when a melta went off inside a shuttle. Evan didn't want to play because he hates Imperial Guard with a passion. My brother Stephen said that he didn't care for the 40k universe as a whole, since there was no hope .

That last comment really got to me. The vagaries of a GM can be explained away, you can turn down lethality by controlling encounters, but to give something approximating hope in the 40k universe is basically rewriting the underpinnings. The entire justification for the miniatures game, and most of the lore besides, is that the entire universe has been locked in a 10,000 year stalemate, with a slowly fading Emperor, daemons always clawing for a way out of the Warp, and only unwavering devotion to purity and faith keeping the Imperium safe.

There is no real hope. You're a soldier for a mix of the worst elements of the Nazi party and the Catholic church, and depending on who's writing, all that faith is your only salvation or absolutely meaningless. Any whiff of dissidence is met with purges and Exterminatus. Even the non-soldier population is restrained to a single world and a single task for their entire lives, living on one level of a hive city, working on an assembly line for war machines (if lucky enough for that!), the same job held by his father and his father before him. Even if you do nothing wrong, you may be purged because a heretic was discovered in your work group, or town, or company, and heresy is very broadly defined. The forecast for your life is endless toil with a high chance of early death.

The only way such a hopeless society is maintained is through the constant threat of retribution, the deaths of everyone who knows anything of the actual truth, and a short lifespan for all involved. The only reason constant unwavering discipline is so heavily enforced is because the alternative is the death of every living human in the galaxy, so who cares if we have to kill a thousand soldiers at a go because they learned that some Space Marines fell to chaos? It's a neat box to find yourself in, and it makes a lot of sense for a miniatures game based on never-ending conflict.

But I don't think it makes a lot of sense for an RPG.

If we ever do play, I think I'll borrow pretty heavily from World War II as my inspiration. The Siege of Stalingrad and the atrocities in the Pacific, the high casualty rates among the Airborne units that went in ahead of D-Day, the islands reduced to nothing but cratered coral as Marines and Japanese soldiers fought tooth and nail for a flat patch that could be used as a landing strip - these were all terribly tragic events, and often enforced with brutality, but there was still hope. The war wasn't endless. There was a better life at home. There were things to fight for that weren't a bolt to the back of the head. And I think that makes for a much more compelling RPG experience than the absolute darkness of the universe.

So my question to the group is - how do you handle the grim darkness? Do you help your players survive, or are they almost certain to die? Are they allowed to think for themselves, or does the commissar threaten any independent thought with death? Do you change the universe to make it a more compelling place to live, with a home life they might get back to someday, friends and family waiting for them, and a quiet, well-lit place for them to hang up their gear sometimes?

Or are you happy to fight in a galaxy where there is only war?

Oh, it's definitely a matter of personal preference! I don't mean to imply that there's anything wrong with the setting. I think that the grand scope of the conflict, the sheer amounts of devastation that can be unleashed, and the no-holds-barred attitude of everyone involved makes for some really unique stories and characters.

But the first fluff story in OW follows a soldier from being a relatively hopeful draftee to a bitter, broken husk of a man whose friends are all dead and who is waiting to die himself, and this is sort of the overarching theme of a lot of the stories in the book. It is a place where the only real certainty seems to be death, and for me and my players, who are more interested in roleplaying and building a team, I think I'd have to dial it back a couple notches.

I'm not trying to cast any aspersions on people who plan on going through a soldier a session, I'm just seeing if people tend to tone down the grim darkness, or embrace it, and what their personal approach to running 40k campaigns is.

"A soldier a session" sounds fairly extreme -- coincidentally, this was the shortest lifespan of one of my characters, but given my penchant for writing up rather elaborate backgrounds, and the subsequent several hours I spent on creating said Guardsman's wiki-hosted character sheet , I certainly did not plan on those **** Orks rushing our trench!

I guess you could say I fall somewhere in-between what feels like the two extremes you described. I do embrace the Grim Darkness, but at the same time I write my characters in a way that has them pursue small wishes and achievable goals, because I believe that this is part of being a Human. Thusly, such aspects are an important part of a character's personality, and you can insert this into your game without the need to tone down anything. Even in a Vietnam War movie, everyone still has a dream. Some are just crazier (PTSD) than others.

In a way, it's a moderate, pragmatic approach where both me and my character hope for the best but plan for the worst. You die easy in this game, and in a way this lethalty is part of the fun, but at the same time there's no need you have to write off your character as soon as the game begins. Just ... roll with the flow.

That being said, there are certainly nuances of the aforementioned Grim Darkness. In the end, it is up to the GM what situations they throw the PCs into, and stuff like a trench war with daily artillery shelling, or the paranoia of being at risk from guerrilla attacks at all times, or food rations running out and soldiers being forced to cannibalise the corpses of their comrades, or the player characters being ordered to engage in atrocities against the local populace ... all these things are elements you can insert into a campaign, but do not have to.

In short, in the 41st millennium, there may be only war -- but each warzone still looks different.

I think that you can have "hope" in the setting but it would be a different kind than for example in star wars setting. In most games where you have evil empire, spooky aliens or something like this. Theme is that good guys will triumph in the end. In 40k not so much. In every moment you are reminded that no matter what you do everything will go to hell. For a while i GM'ed no hope version in Only War. After my players realized that no matter how good they do or how many people they rescue exterminatus gonna destroy everything.

It was fun at first when one character from idealistic almost modern thinking soldier who wanted to keep soldiers under his command alive, who treated prisoners fairly and knows mercy. He bacame a bitter, cynical person who did'nt even introduced himself to comrades because they gonna die anyway. Another character was always unstable killer but at first he was fighting for his family and friends. After they all died he decided that chaos is a way to go since imperium don't care about people (in that he was right). Another one was a typical good guy, funny, a positive person but after he witnessed second exterminatus and was left alive only because inquisitor need him for a special assigment he became distant and silent type. A person who don't have any control of his life.

But adter we finished that campaing we got a few more which ended in TPK, players always on the losing side and now they (as players) don't believe in any hope. So i tried to tone down a bit since players stoped caring about NPC or their characters.

As Lynata said hope should be on personal level. So that characters can fulfill their goals.

I also try to show them a bigger picture now so they know that their choices and actions matter. That by saving one planet or stoping chaos cult they made imperium better. That because of this some people may live not so sh*tty lives. That is also reason i don't like endless war with dominate or stagnant 40k storyline. It makes no sense from RPG perspective to if your actions don't have any impact on world you play.

I can say that now i treat 40k as mix of grimdark and epic heroic. Where worlds and galaxy is hell but characters are heroes and spark of light in grim darkness of 41st milennium

If your player's characters want hope, then they need to take solace in the fact that their perspective is nowhere near as wide as ours is. They don't know how bad things really are, and if things go right, they hopefully never will. They will go on missions, and they might even win the day. If the players want hope, they might have chosen the wrong IP, or barring that BS, they need to look at "little victories." What war game really does have hope? You play a rehashing of World War 2. If you don't read up on several of the important actions, battles, and blunders that went into things there, and pin them into the campaign, to make sure those events remain unchanged, you may very well end up with a different ending, and another chapter of it, where America, as opposed to Germany, is blitzed on both coasts by the Axis Powers, after Britain and France fell to the Nazis, and the Russians caved under the strain, and their own growing hatred of their Allied partners. This assumes that it's "accurate", and the GM doesn't introduce Ripper Tech, time-traveling Vandal Savage, the Nazis having actual sorcerers, and powerful relics, that they use . Hope on a grand scale is not likely, because it can harm the game, where there needs to always be another avenue to continue.

I play D&D. If I were to start my Wizard at Level 1 (I would cry and whine so much, but for the example ), and fought my way across the war-torn kingdom, I might die, or I might get somewhere. Over time, my powers would grow, and I'd make friends, and enemies. I'd cherish some, hate others, and lose a few of both. By the end of it, I might be famous for using my arcane might to smite literal dragons, or stymie whole armies of the enemy kingdom(s). I could rise to prominence, becoming an Archmage, and start a guild, or seclude myself in my tower, and ponder the universe. If you want a more romantic, happy ending, I could meet the Princess, where we instantly fall in love, rise to the position of court vizier, and someday, if the heavens see it, marry my princess, and become Prince Consort; I could, quite literally, become ruler of the kingdom (and without having to play Birthright ^TM ). By this point, I've torched enemy monarchs, battled mighty liches, contributed to the extinction of dragons, and more, bringing my kingdom to new prosperity, all while finding the love of my life, but that doesn't mean there's nowhere else to go. There's always another kingdom, or maybe my own research accidentally opened gates to other worlds, and their armies, like the Wild Hunt, from Wticher, are now pouring through, intending to destroy it all. From Lvl 1 to 20, and maybe even up into the epic stretch, I can do lots of good, and there will aways be more bad, somehow still powerful enough to cause me to work for it. Even Goku always had a new enemy, somehow five times more powerful that the last "most powerful being there is", for him to unlock the next SSJ, or that blue-haired silliness, that replaced GT Also, Only War IS about being grunts, for the most part, in a force where Zapp Branigan is a many-stars General. Depending on how they play, it's up to them to persevere, get better, come to terms with the losses, and protect what they can. And, for the love of God, don't play Kreig regiment, then, because it'll answer that player's question about names, and the tone of lots of Only War.

Now, certainly I didn't see you implying that your players totally want to get rid of the Emperor/revive the Emperor, make the Imperium's gov't fair and just, topple the Chaos Gods, seal the warp, and wipe, or truly ally with all the xenos, all while making all Humanity a bright light in the cosmos and getting all the money in the world, but yeah, they need to see little victories, while comforted by the fact that, tomorrow, there will be something left to do, without having to go get a new game, make a new character, or reset the muck, and play through it all, again. And 40K is all that; no matter how many victories they get, no one will ever win it all.

Sorry... I couldn't resist!

Ok proper responce now:

Hy Archebius, maybe you can introduce your brother to Call of Cthulhu. Now that's a game without hope!

No I mean it: eventualy the stars will align and the great old ones will come back and then nothing can stop them. And the worst part is: we can't even say "Get off our planet" because they were here first. And just in case we can stop the unkillable near godlike monsters we're up against actual evil gods like Azathoth and his bunch...

Only war seems like it is without hope. But there is still life. Its your duty as a guardsman to give your life for the Emperor, your fellow guardsmen and the innoscent civilians of the Imperium. That said it's a **** sh*tty job. In only war you play the softest squishest imperials that are out there. (Unless they survive till they become elite and then wreck everything the GM throws at them.) But there is hope- if you look at it from the right scale. If your regiment saved the planet from the dark eldar you have won a great victory.

(So what if you lost 30 PC's 10 tims as much NPC's and your penultimate character is on a homonoculus' slab right now?)

It sucks being the imperial guard: no armor (DW) no cool deamon weapons(BC) no authority (DH) and no money (RT)! But it's sorta ment to suck ,I mean, make you feel vulnerable (unless you're regimental command inside a baneblade). It's like playing Vampire the Masquerade as a Ghoul. (bad enough as a immortal with super powers, now you're a blood junkie.)

The few games I've played in OW was as armoured recon so we used hit and run a lot. But last game we got inside an enemy hive with things exploding and collapsing and then the bodycount started to rise yeah.

("Don't shoot the support!" -"What support? we're the only friendles here!" - "he meant the collum holding up the roof!" -Crash !)

Personally i like it fairly grimdark* War is hell after all. and in 40k it is worse.

* Ironically we play black crusade as a heroic tale of high adventure... It's just that we're the bad guys. It also helps my char is a Slaaneshi raptor into the joys of combat (and Progenia pupils) and killing in every possible way. (Flavius (me) : "Pretty explosiooons!" UrDoom: "They are shooting at you, frackhead!" Flavius: "Don't care! Pretty!")

It sucks being the imperial guard: no armor (DW) no cool deamon weapons(BC) no authority (DH) and no money (RT)! But it's sorta ment to suck ,I mean, make you feel vulnerable

Indeed. In my opinion, this is actually more heroic than even the Space Marines . Because with genetic enhancements, hypno-indoctrination and self-medicating power armour, anyone can be a show-off on the fields of battle. Here's your lasgun and a flak-vest, now you try to hold the line!

It's like comparing Superman and Batman. Okay, not really, but you get the idea.

True, but there are some lines in some of the codexes or novels in wich it's hinted that SM are escentially immortal. They won't die from old age. Dante and some DA chap are in the 4 digit range! (can you imagine the blood angels giving their chapter master a birthday cake? )

So what the emperor/imperium does is ask a guy who could live for centuries to risk his life every day untill he gets killed/put in a dreadnought until the dreadnought gets blown up.

That takes heroism to. (Or a whole lot of psycho indoctrination) Some renegade chapters figure this out and say screw you! we're gonna "protect" some backwater Paradise planet.

True, but there are some lines in some of the codexes or novels in wich it's hinted that SM are escentially immortal. They won't die from old age.

(some) Novels only. In GW's own books they're saying that Marines have a maximum lifespan of 2-3 times that of a normal man, and Chaplain Cassius at threehundredsomething years is the oldest active Ultramarine.

I tend to make a point about this because GW's portrayal of Space Marines is often a lot more low key than the (seemingly more popular) versions in various licensed sources, where they are described like immortal and nigh-invulnerable demigods. Personally, I consider the GW studio version to be a lot more in line with the setting's atmosphere, and more "realistic" (on the basis of not going quite as far with the gap between Humans and Astartes, thus requiring less suspension of disbelief).

I certainly did not want to evoke as if life as a Space Marine is a cakewalk, but considering what backwater societies most Chapters recruit their warriors from, it does seem like an improvement. Especially if you're one of those irradiated halfwits from Baal who either get recruited to become a physically perfect and long-living Blood Angel, or die in pain as their mutated bodies begin to break down after hitting twenty years.

And if you "don't know fear", then you're just doing a job. Heroics only count if they're actually a challenge!

"duty is to trust. our duty is not to question and seek answers to moments in life that escape our understanding. our duty is the as our mothers and fathers duties. To kill for the Emperor and die for his throne. We die in the trust that our sacrifice allows others to live on, doing the same duty. We're blind now. Blind and Lost. But die doing your duty and trust our brothers and sisters as generations before us have trusted theirs. "

Cadian 88th Armoured Regiment led by Warden-Captain Source Cadian blood

"Enemies of the Imperium, hear me. You have come here to die. The Immortal Emperor is with us and we are invincible. His soldiers will strike you down. His war machines will crush you under their treads. His mighty guns will bring the very sky crashing down upon you. You cannot win. The Emperor has given us his greatest weapon to wield. So make yourselves ready. We are the First Kronus Regiment, and today is our Victory Day. "
– address to enemy forces in Victory Bay Governor-Militant Lukas Alexander , Commander 1st Kronus Regiment

"I left my homeworld the night it died, and I've been fighting for its memory ever since. We Tanith are a dying breed. There are only about twenty hundred of us left. Gaunt only got away with enough for one regiment. The Tanith First. The First-and-Only. That's what makes us 'Ghosts', you see. The last few unquiet souls of a dead world. And I suppose we'll keep going until we're all done."

Trooper Dermon Caffran , Tanith First and Only

"Frak this, for my faith is a shield proof against your blandishments!"
– attributed by Sergeant Alem Mahat , "The Book of Cain," Chapter IV, Verse XXI

"have at my command an entire battle group of the Imperial Guard. Fifty regiments, including specialized drop troops, stealthers, mechanized formations, armored companies, combat engineers and mobile artillery. Over half a million fighting men and thirty thousand tanks and artillery pieces are mine to command. Emperor show mercy to the fool that stands against me, for I shall not."

– at the outset of the Salonika Crusade , 733. M38 Warmaster Demetrius

"Give any man the power of a god, and you better hope he's got the wisdom and morals of a god to match. There's nothing feeble about my moral line. I value life. That is why I fight to protect it. I mourn every man I lose and every sacrifice I make. One life or a billion, they're all lives."

– on Menazoid Epsilon Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt , Tanith First and Only

So from a experienced GM, and a imperial guard player who has read most if not all the novels I can find about the guard, you have a couple trains of thought that is common. The question is your the gm, you make the game how you want to make it. If you want to rail road the game and control everything or if you want to have a more open experience guided by the players, then that's up to you.

What we hear and see alot of guardsmen dying in there droves that a titan can whip an entire regiment from the face of existence with out as much as a thought from it's pilots , that to take a machine gun nest we must follow the first world war style of trench combat where one must charge with bayonet fixed screaming and one of you will be able to take it down. Space marines that can rip open tanks, or Eldar that move so fast that you just can not hit them. The ever watchful eye of the Commissar.

People think that every guardsmen is forced into duty, because it is of pain of death if they do not serve. The darkness of the Imperium and it's crawl dictators. But What ive found in the lore, that no matter how bad the imperium is, the xenos and Heratic are almost always worse.

You have to remember for the majority of the imperial citizens, the god emperor is a God. Think about it through out history, how many wars have been started over a god. Beliefs, how much blood has been spilt, and how many people are willing to give that blood in the name of there god?

If your brought up in a hive world, or a forge world, in the void, you are always taught to trust the Emperor, he watches over you , you work to feed the mouths he creates, you fight because when you die , you die for him, you build tanks, ships, tools, weapons for his army's.

So when you say there is no hope? in what contest? because from my understanding, as an Imperial citizen, theres always hope, the Emperor, when the xenos come the emperor will send his armys to crush them, When those stray from his light are corrupted by the darkness, it his he who looks after those still in the light, and while as people not in the setting the players and gm, know that it's not really him sending those guardsmen to fight, do the citizens know that?

More importantly do the guardsmen know that? If your hole life, you've been told along the lines and I know i'm para phasing, you work hard and die for the emperor in this life, you will be rewarded in the next?

Is it fear and oppression that keep guardsmen fighting? or is it there faith? Faith is a very powerful thing, and a very real world thing.

I'm Of the school of thought that it's faith that guides my guardsmen I gm for, and in my gming I try to install that.

I think alot of people tend to do the hole, "you dnt fight for who ever you fight for each other" you know band of brothers style, which is good, but I think What alot of people lack, even in dark heresy, is faith.

and thats the hope you play off faith, and it makes for some very interesting role play moments when that faith is called into question. Even more so when a player is a priest or a commissar, and the players confront those characters with questions.Only the most extreme of priests and commissars would execute them on the spot. Most priests as with crisis's of faith in our religions in the real world, would come up with what they think is a good answer and move them back to the flock. Now Im not talking about the very real and heretical things some players can do, but I will give you an example that happened in a game .

Player X is a heavy gunner, his comrade is highly religious , so I played on that. During a battle the players all failed there fear checks,but the priest who had high willpower, he said " okay I dnt have any skills that would shake the group out of it, but Can I give a speech about there duty or something to shake them out of it. " So As a Gm I said yes, I will let you make a roll per player and you in character will give this speech and depending on how i feel will depends on if I give any bonuses or negatives. To his credit he made a good speech, and said the Emperor is watching over us and he protects us , and that we will not die because he is watching now, and we must fight. Or along those lines. So most of the players snapped out with the rolls, and they won, but the heavy gunners comrade, died. So later during a rest scene, the gunner goes up to the priest and said, you said my comrade was being watch by the emperor, and he died, he was the most devote out of all of our squad, and yet he died. Does he really watch over us or were you just saying that?

Which is heresy right? burned at the cross sorta thing? right? but the priest smiled and said the Emperor is holding back the darkness of the Xenos and the heretics, he is watching us, but he uses all his power to keep the darkness at bay , and some times it breaks through like on this world, that is why we, his hammer are sent through to bring these citizens back under his light. He spent a good 10mins going on about this, and at the end the heavy gunner said out of character that was heavy "stuff" you can guess what word he really used, and we ended the session with the two talking around the firer.

In terms of personal gain what do they have to win ? well In many of the books Gaunts ghost for example a world, to call there's. I believe in the second book Ghostmaker there is a scene where the soldiers are in a farm house, that used to be owned by guardsmen family who had won that world during a crusade, and the home was described as being pretty big, and this guy was from what I gathered a normal guy. So that's something you can use, in the core rule book there is the opening to the setting a short campaign , a world decimated for the orks, In one game, by the end the regiment had lost so many there was no point in reforming it, so I said The Lord militant has granted you for your devotion land rights on this world, you will be new settlers, after that the group broke up, but in our last sessions it was 99% role play, and it was just about them enjoying there new lifes on this world. I think one started his own business selling jungle meat, anther said he wanted to own his own farm, anther said he wanted to try and get more power and be became a mayor of a small town .

and are you happy to fight in a galaxy where there is only war? Wars not everywhere , there are many world in the imperium that have not seen conflict for thousands of years, but there are others such as cadia that may never see an end. There's always something to fight for.

If you ever play only war, and you GM it, do not make the regiment, or there home world, get your players to do that. One they will be more invested in the game, two you can do great flash back scenes, three, your first game can be founding day, so you can have scenes of them joining up, and ask them why did you join? what is your reasons.

Anyway my rambling over its 3am and I Should be asleep.

If your players aren't all that familiar with the Imperial Guard, you could give them a copy of the Imperial Guardsman's Uplifting Primer. It is a 40 something page book written in-universe, and is basically full of bullsh*t propaganda that paint the Imperium in a positive light, the enemies you fight in a negative one, and are full of inspiring speeches. Tell them that is how the Imperial Guard is, and that's how the game will go.

Then actually put them up against Orks.

No hope?

Simple solution: Adapt the game to make them Tau auxiliaries. They're fighting for a young, dynamic, expanding empire open to confederation with alien species and preferring peace and trade to outright warfare. The PCs will mingle with vespid, kroot, Tau, and others. The Tau will, naturally, be very optimistic, with their place for everyone and every one for a place attitude. Instead of treating the PCs as expendable cannon fodder, their Tau allies and particularly other human auxiliaries, could easily view them as no less valued than a solider or airman in today's world, where great lengths will be gone to in order to pull their butts out of the fire.

Of course, they'll still end up fighting Tyranids and Orks and Chaos (and possibly even Imperial) forces. And as they gain notoriety and become viewed as a hardened, veteran, elite force they'll get access to Tau weapons and vehicles instead of, say, bolters and other Imperial weapons, except through salvage.

Having your bacon pulled out of the fire by a Devilfish and a squad of Battlesuits won't be as awesome as, say, getting rescued by a Land Raider and a squad of Space Marines. But it should be close.

Notice to all guardsmen:

Executions will continue untill moral improves.

- Commissar Graves

+++Tought for today: Hope Springs eternal+++

No hope?

Simple solution: Adapt the game to make them Tau auxiliaries. They're fighting for a young, dynamic, expanding empire open to confederation with alien species and preferring peace and trade to outright warfare. The PCs will mingle with vespid, kroot, Tau, and others. The Tau will, naturally, be very optimistic, with their place for everyone and every one for a place attitude. Instead of treating the PCs as expendable cannon fodder, their Tau allies and particularly other human auxiliaries, could easily view them as no less valued than a solider or airman in today's world, where great lengths will be gone to in order to pull their butts out of the fire.

Of course, they'll still end up fighting Tyranids and Orks and Chaos (and possibly even Imperial) forces. And as they gain notoriety and become viewed as a hardened, veteran, elite force they'll get access to Tau weapons and vehicles instead of, say, bolters and other Imperial weapons, except through salvage.

Having your bacon pulled out of the fire by a Devilfish and a squad of Battlesuits won't be as awesome as, say, getting rescued by a Land Raider and a squad of Space Marines. But it should be close.

Good idea!

Actually the battlesuits Devilfish might be a bit better.

Oh yeah, Can I pilot the Gundam Riptide?

Having your bacon pulled out of the fire by a Devilfish and a squad of Battlesuits won't be as awesome as, say, getting rescued by a Land Raider and a squad of Space Marines. But it should be close.

I think it would made more sense than land raider and space marines rescue. Why should they rescue expendable imperium soldiers? But Tau could rescue their human allies especially if they are veterans who fight for the greater good.

A landraider comes to a screeching halt near a trench filled with fighting orks and guardsmen. The hatch opens and out storms a Squad of space marines:

Space marines: "Kill the xenos! Kill the xenos! For the Emperor!"

*lots of dakka*

Guardsman: "Oh thank you, my lords, for saving us!"

SM #1: "Who are you?"

SM #2: "I didn't know there were guard units operating in this area."

SM # 3: "I think we ran over a squad of them."

SM Sergeant: "Errr...Yeah, save you. Totaly meant to do that. Yes."

Guardsman: "..."

Funny way to put this but this is exactly how it would happen. Space marines don't rescue common people. They can rescue high value targets like tech priest magos or something similar .. Quoting Avitus from DoW2 "We are his angels of death not angels of mercy"

There is also this short fragment from an old white dwarf in wich the guard radio a nearby squad of Dark Angels for assistance. The DA actually decide to come and help but when they find out it's just a few guardsmen with several suads of ogrynn, the DA Sergeant declares "Brothers, We're leaving!" and they just clear off!

That's the dark angels for you. Still could have been worse: Could have been Marines Malevolent or Flesh Tearers...

Some nice, riveting speeches. I think one thing on the hope question you'll need to deal with is "who do they seek hope for?" I have a sneaky thought that they are looking at it from hope as players. If they want a game where their characters will likely survive, fighting a fairly-balanced opponent, using real tactics, and see the game climax when they topple the Big Baddy at the end of things, and become Celebrated Heroes!, this might not be their game. In my opinion, the entire schtick of the Imperial Guard/Astra Militarum is that they are "only Human". They will fight engineered demigods, the engineered demigods the Four Great Satans took over to the Dark Side, ladies with Astartes gear, and a faith in the Emperor you are incapable of displaying, huge, slavering monsters, who can survive almost anything (even themselves), live to fight, and breed like fungal rats, the same thing, if they REALLY did have a Hive Mind, ancient warriors who know space, and war, in ways you never will, their BDSM, Hot Topic siblings, ancient Schwartzeneggars from beyond time and the grave, with Super Science that approaches Sorcery, and a race of Space Commies who might actually illustrate that if Humanity wasn't a bunch of hide-bound, superstitious wankers, what they could REALLY do. Yet, with nothing else but their trusty flashlight, the tried and true box it came in, that they're now wearing, and a faith in the Emperor that is only so strong, they must stand against all, and persevere. Their hope is merely that the enemy won't win, either. That if they must die, then their enemy must, too, preferably by your hand.

Only War doesn't have to be unfair; they still built it on a rule set that says they can do what they set out to, but this isn't even a WW__ simulator; people fighting people, even if one side has better tech, a home field advantage, superior tactics, or even superior numbers is still mostly fair. Only War won't really do that. They might fly, teleport, not stay dead, have weapons that rend space, to say nothing of your hide, and the list goes on. However, much like a WW__ simulator, if you don't set out to topple ALL evil EVERYWHERE, it's still hopeful. Did the Allies crush Communism? Cold War says "no". China does, too. Did they even defeat all the Nazis? Nope. Is there still evil in the world. There's a "yep" for you. Your unit is on a planet. While plenty of regiments space-trot from place to place, many others arrive on a world in the Spinward Front, and stay there. Look at the war from that world, alone. Win the fight there, defeat the Dominate forces you can, maybe trounce some Orks and DE, if it comes up, and save the day there. if you don't hold the image that there are hundreds of other worlds, and they are ALL touched by evil, you can win, and if you do see that, there's no hope, whatever game you're playing. I've played Shadowrun, where we were expected to have a few back-up PCs written up, and NOT clones of the original, because our GM was blatantly inept with the system, but he also informed us this is how he intended the system to work. Personally, I think he just didn't want to write up the NPCs of the guild himself, and made us have to play them, so that the organization felt like more than five people, even if it was always max five ACTIVE people. That game had no hope. We had an NPC we needed to protect from the Thunderbolts, and HE was the one made out of Delta-grade cybertech (hopefully, 12 years later, these terms have meaning still, and got beat up a few times. The President had been a Dragon, and murdered, and we were expected to act in that space, fighting Street Samurai, and on, and on, and on. Switching over to a beta Bleach d20 was actually a wonderful thing, till the Hollows had an ability to eat us with one roll, no save, and that's it. We didn't let him GM anymore, after that.

I also appreciated the Cthulhu reference. Yeah, there's a game where everything is against you. Most people aren't even aware of the evil, and if you know, a little Insanity. You see the evil, before you even have a chance to decide if you will fight it; more Insanity. You pick up a book, and open it; MORE Insanity, and not necessarily knowledge of magic, either. Thing with Insanity, much like Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, your Sanity has a gauge, an upper limit, and much like various Star Wars games, Insanity is very easy to gain, and not so easy to lose. The snowflake in me, and the gamer, as a whole, hates that game because, as I say "anything you can do in that game that is fun , it hurts you." It's harder than balancing Banality and Bedlam in Changeling: the Dreaming was, and with only two worlds to live in, and each one foisting quantities of one, or the other on you, living a life, even a "regular" like, proved very tricky; you had to live a double-life, and balance them very well. This whole blurp is mostly my own take/opinion on these things, of course.

On age, I'm biased, because I think the Blood Angels are WAY to fanboy-fueled, and that's why they get so many extras, even compared to Space Marines, maybe even compared to the Space Wolves, Dark Angels, and others who get their own codex, because the Space Marine codex is "too mundane" for them. That said, some Space Wolves turn into almost-literal lycans, Iron Warriors long to become Necrons, and since the BA are effectively vampires, it makes some sense that they live longer, and Dante, well I'd love to sit here and heap **** on Dante, and remind him how Fabius Bile almost got him to destroy his own Chapter, a little bit, but lets be fair, he doesn't DO anything risky. Marneus Calgar is amazing, and part of it is because, as a Chapter Master, Lord McCragge is older, more experienced, heaped with the greatest relics of his Chapter, and surrounded by the best of his Astartes brothers, and running a planet, while his inferiors actually go fight wars. When the Nids showed up, and actually assaulted a Chapter homeworld, that of the largest Chapter there is (and have you seen the Nids book? They're terrible), Lord McCragge got SCHOOLED. He's amazing, and it only took one equal bug to almost tear him in half. He lost many of his Terminators, his Champions, and the world almost fell, and this wasn't the whole of the Hive Fleet, since they split to go do some other stuff (Iyanden, if I recall). If Dante were actually called to fight, he'd own lots of things, being very mighty, and then he'd go down in a pile of ash, because even he's killable. Since he DOESN'T fight much, though, he gets to push the limits of Space Marine life-enhancement, coupled with rejuves someone as connected as him can afford, and possibly having the benefit of longer life, via psychic power, since their Primarch was a psyker, thus it's in his blood, even if he isn't a psyker. It's sort of no worse that Kaldor Draigo living forever, so long as he's in the Warp, and Bjorn is probably the most fair, since he's inside a Dreadnought.

I have a sneaky thought that they are looking at it from hope as players. If they want a game where their characters will likely survive, fighting a fairly-balanced opponent, using real tactics, and see the game climax when they topple the Big Baddy at the end of things, and become Celebrated Heroes!, this might not be their game.

Or even if they want hope for the setting/humanity in general, like with the Lord of the Rings or Star Wars etc where a comparatively small number of people can change the fate of an entire civilisation. In 40k, this is at best possible only if you're playing the Black Crusade RPG as a bunch of naive, radical idealists trying to use Chaos to create a "better world".

However, even as a lowly Guardsman you can still play a part in saving a planet. It all comes down to perspective.

I also like the idea of playing as Tau Auxiliaries tho, if people really want to be fighting for a "nicer" faction.

However, much like a WW__ simulator, if you don't set out to topple ALL evil EVERYWHERE, it's still hopeful. Did the Allies crush Communism? Cold War says "no". China does, too.

Not to mention that it's not as black and white as capitalism = good, communism = evil. I wonder what patriots from back then think when they look at what capitalism has done to their country.

China has become pretty capitalist by now, too. Ever since the Inka Empire, there has not been a proper communist nation on Earth, only ones who tried to become one. And the Cold War resulted in these nations either dropping this plan entirely, or only pay lip service. So yeah, I think you could say that communism was indeed crushed. The real controversy, however, is about whether or not capitalism winning is actually a good thing, or if it ends up stabbing those who fought for it in the back as our world slowly moves closer to looking like the Shadowrun setting.

I vividly remember a Q&A with Jordan Weisman a few weeks back, and someone asked him how he feels about the real world looking more and more like the setting he invented. He said it actually scared him.

/politics

Marneus Calgar is amazing, and part of it is because, as a Chapter Master, Lord McCragge is older, more experienced, heaped with the greatest relics of his Chapter, and surrounded by the best of his Astartes brothers, and running a planet, while his inferiors actually go fight wars.

On a sidenote, though, the 5E Marine codex makes Chaplain Cassius older than Marneus, and has him still address the Chapter Master as " Young Calgar ".

Some nice, riveting speeches. I think one thing on the hope question you'll need to deal with is "who do they seek hope for?" I have a sneaky thought that they are looking at it from hope as players. If they want a game where their characters will likely survive, fighting a fairly-balanced opponent, using real tactics, and see the game climax when they topple the Big Baddy at the end of things, and become Celebrated Heroes!, this might not be their game.

I have to disagree. It all depends on how you see the setting. In a few novels characters came back and are celebrated as heroes. Despite all grimdark in 40k it is a heroic setting where mighty space marines kill evil chaos worshipers. Where heroic guardsman like Straken or Caiphas Cain can turn the tide of battle. Where a few hundred guardsman can stop a million orks etc. In the end it comes down to how players group see the setting. If it will be less grimdark it is still 40k, same if someone want to make it even more grimdark. This is true to all settings. To each his own. Heroic imperial guard making universe better is just as valid as imperial guard cannon fodder where nobody lives more than 11 hours.

tl;dr: perspective.

Although venkelos does have a point. If the players really want heroic exaggeration and epic victories, they might be better off playing "Movie Marine" Deathwatch. Each game/ruleset supports a very specific "power level" -- and style of narration. Part of the reason for why FFG has not written a unified ruleset catering to all types of characters simultaneously.

Being the GM, of course one can try to drop the "underdog" schpiel from an IG campaign, but the rules and equipment would be an obstacle here.

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I vividly remember a Q&A with Jordan Weisman a few weeks back, and someone asked him how he feels about the real world looking more and more like the setting he invented. He said it actually scared him.

We are getting awfully close to what cyberpunk novels predicted. Only difference is that the Japanese don't rule the world.

And androids might be still a bit off, they are working on AI for sexdolls... Yeah that won't go horribly wrong at all.