Acolyte-Plath said:

Originally, Zoats and Space Dwarfs existed within the canon too. And Rogue Traders could have entire companies of space marines aboard their vessels.

Luckily, some things have changed for the better since then.

Varnias Tybalt said:

Umm Zoats and Space Dwarfs still exist in cannon IE they were never retconned out, it is just that most of them were killed. Which kind of makes me suspicious that GW added in the Tyranids just to get rid of things they don't like.

What exactly is stopping a RT from having SM aboard now? Even astartes chapters have needs and wants that a RT might be able to provide for. Retrieval of a sacred artifact etc. It is very possible that in return for help of various sorts the RT may gain the services of some astartes.

llsoth said:

Erm, yes they were retconned out of the canon. No mentions about them for years, and claiming that they were "all eaten by the tyranids" (a rather iffy, heavy handed and overly convenient explanation) and even going as far as re-writing certain publications that mention them I'd consider as being retconned out.

Also, there are plenty of things stopping a Rogue Trader for doing that now in comparison to the old fluff. In the old fluff RT's could basically order several marines around as if they were shipratings and probably put them over his knee and spank them a little if he felt like it. Nowadays there are plenty of reasonable restrictions to abusing the might of the astartes and the RT will have to do some serious convincing and gain political favor to even have a chance at getting a bunch of marines to his vessel, and even then they are in no way a permanent addition to his roster.

Quite simply, things have improved A LOT...

Although that is not one of the things that has changed.

I tell you what, I'll ask next time I visit GW HQ... something tells me they'll back my assessment of this issue... perhaps it's the fact that it'd destroy most of the background to do otherwise.. perhaps I'm wrong... Lord Solar, etc...

Space-Dwarves being done-away with a good thing? Yeah they were 'eaten by nids'... great. Yeah that's an improvement.

We are currently in the middle of the adventure - the only thing I can see going differently is that our Navigator was so successful in finding a path through the maw that he shaved weeks off the travel time and then weeks more later as well!! At footfall we were told that there was no sign of the enemy ship - we'd beaten it by such a degree!

It sounds like you've got a good GM.

Please explain how this is actually an improvement?

My one beef so far with the adventure (yes, I'm trying to steer this back on track) was that the intro thugs are pretty beefy for just some hired guns. 18 wounds?! Really? Our toughest Explorer has 13. So if I were to run it again I would find something else to put in that fight so they go down a bit faster. The only reason I can think of having them in that tough is to bring the Arbites in or something. My group did fine, but it felt a little weird having to hit them over and over again to them.

- Jared

jtwing said:

I don't see any specific mention of armsmen's stats, so I would have thought that they would just be "hired guns" with 12 wounds, as per the Allies/Enimies/Rivals.

In the encounter description it says to use the Oathsworn Bodyguards for the armsmen, even gives the correct page number. Those bodyguards have 18 wounds each. I double checked to make sure.

BTW, if Fel survives Into the Maw, he returns in Lure of the Expanse.

I ran that debacle.

I'm sorry... I thought this was a game about Rogue Traders here and not the effluence of a corrupted Schola Progenium. The only kind of scum I can think of who would have both the resources and depravity to undergo such a mind-**** and come out the other end with both the desire and the influence to pursue the perverse goals of this adventure.

Having read through the adventure I took advantage of the sparse details given on the locations of Wander and Footfall to inject some plausable charactrers into the campain.

Here is a very breif summation of the result:

1. Quppa-Psi-12 is vaguely valuable in resources:
2. Rys is interrested in the possible connection with her studies into... it.
3. Those few.. very few are found willing and accepting of His grace sufficient to undergo an exorcism of their minds.
4. It becomes an endeavor of conventional preprotions.

I'm sorry... were we supposed to care about the Eldar tech?
Our GMs should read their background more and fetishise heresy and xenophilia less. They should also learn to write the basic rules for torps and fighers/bombers.

4-day session.

I call this a waste of money since at least Black Industries furnished me with a rich setting. You fail where they succeeded.