The boss at the end of Desolation of the Dead...how did your players defeat him? I honestly can't see how this can be done with characters who have only gone through the introduction campaign. I'm considering writing up 'in case of failure' ending!

Grenades and a long-las were the primary causes. There was also a good hit with a chainsword. My group kicked his tail pretty hard, truth be told (it was the point I realized individual 'hard' targets don't slow down my group much). One guy with a grenade launcher (the Arbites) loaded up Kraks instead of his crowd-control stun and smoke grenades, the sniper put every round he had into the thing's head with Accurate, the Tech-Priest and psyker were chucking frags, so-on-so-forth. That said, had the Daemon connected with the one swing he managed to try after a Righteous Fury gave him penalties, it would have killed someone. That +17 to damage...

Yeah, the boss is either designed to underline the grimdark nature of the setting

or it is designed just badly.

IIRC, we had 4 acolytes back then.

A pyromancy mystic, a warrior, a seeker and a chirurgeon.

They wouldnt have stand a chance, if it wasnt for an occult book of nurgle which I let the chirurgeon find before.

The daeominc book offered the character some old, yet corrupting, formulas, that hurt the demon very much as Long as he said them. The longer he kept them saying, the more corruption the character gained though.

So I provided a way that was not in the book, but had a high Price for at least the one Player using it.

He got around 15 corruption Points in that Encounter, and was furthermore in debt to the daemonic powers of the living book...

I think it is almost impossible to defeat the demon regularly with beginner acolytes, if you dont give them something Special (weapon or artefact) to defeat it.

The beast is a real Party killer.

I'm utterly stumped. My group has been doing really well so far, I'm not going to pull many punches in this fight because it's time some of them experienced FP burn, Having said that they need a chance. There's a couple of krak grenades and a sniper rifle in the group's possession. Hopefully it'll be enough but I'll admit, I'm dreading it slightly. I need this to reinforce that going up agianst this thing is not a trivial matter, but I can't let them not fear it either. I'm not sure how to prepare for a 'herald of nurgle terrorizes the hive' scenario either haha.

Maybe after this my group will spend some time making contacts with the Malleus, better yet, maybe the pariah will actually put some XP into the pariah talents...

I quite like your idea GZ, I might have some of the scroll's that Ferrue's carrying do that very thing.

It ain't impossible, Gaunt. Krak/frag grenades and long-las/sniper rifles. The real trick is to keep the Herald from killing someone before you can down him; either by strafe/kite tactics or having the best person at Dodge go in there and do a little dance.

I just like the approach to offer the players a powerful option in times of great need...that has its price.

Because thats exactly how choas works.

Maybe the whole daemon was just there to provoke the characters of diving deeper into corruption...for a much darker end that the dark gods have planned

Anyway, I am convinced, that playing out the daemon realistically as stated in the book, the chars wouldnt stand a chance:

a.) it is very tough. Soak 14 and True grit with 14, adding 37 wounds. That Thing will be very hard to bring down.

b.) Fear: Baneful presence (20) and Fear (3) that stuns characters

The characters are stunned to 90% (on average ~4 rounds), giving the daemon more than enough time to finish them off.

c.) immense offensive power: WS 61 with killing strike and 1D10+17 damage corrosive and toxic (3), meaning 23 damage on average with additional 6 toxic --> dead on 1 hit; combined with being stunned from fear...well...thats it. 1 dead character per turn

d.) Cultists: he even has Support from the a couple of cultists, as if it wasnt bad enough alone

e.) it is a potent psyker

f.) it has Int 51; I tend to Play a NPCs tactical abilities accourding to ist Int-characteristics. With 51, the daemon is cleverer than most PCs, meaning I Play it as vicious and mean as possible, as it is no mindless spawn.

So it will for example kill the acolytes first that have a potential to kill it, and will use ist fate Points in the best way to do so (Killing strike).

After the first turn, your most capable acolyte will be dead, the rest probably stunned from fear.

Well..

He is a daemon prince.

That's what I suppose it should do. Honestly, it's a case in my opinion of having scouted the place, put some charges, having a rocket launcher or grenades launcher, having support, playing intelligently.

I've got my players fighting a keeper of secrets once. They burnt a couple of fate points and had a hard time. They won still (true, they were ascension, but there was also lots of cultists, daemonnettes and 1 big strong herald of slaanesh).

A: 14 Soak, yep. Now toss a couple Krak grenadea or 3d10+Whatever for your Accurate precision weapons. Those 37 wounds won't seem like much then, and there's also Warp Instability to look forward to.

B: If you fail... Fate Point. The ones who failed spent Fate Points on that when I did it. They realized being Stunned in this fight was bad.

C: If it gets close enough to hit you with a melee attack. That isn't a guarantee, and my group came in from three different sides. It had to pick one direction to go.

D: The Cultists didn't even make it through the ritual when I did it.

E: Those powers can help, but they basically delayed the inevitable when I ran it.

F: It will try to kill them first, yes. Success isn't guaranteed if it can't reach them.

I do like the idea of offering 'easy' ways out, and will do so more often in the future.

And Alexel, it's a Herald, not a Prince.

A: Krak Grenades ? Really ?

They have 2D10+4, which on average hurts him with 2 Wounds. And you need to hit exactly, as they dont even have Blast. Even then they are Rare, so hard to get for beginner acolytes.

Krak Missiles would have 3D10+8, which would make 12 Wounds disappear on average. Here, you would Need a rocket launcher braced first before you fire. It is heavy Equipment to carry with you, and you still Need 3 exact hits to reduce his wounds to about 0.

B: At this final stage there shouldnt be too many FP left (if you didnt make it too easy before). Maybe 1 per acoylyte

C: IIRC, the herald emerges suddenly out of one cultist. This rather surprising element should be hard to Approach with tactics before. If it happens while all PCs are far away (and still have line of sight), they are just lucky. Especially as the ritual probably doesnt happen in an open field, but in a Kind of Building where the acolytes are rather Close - more or less.

D: Lucky them

E: Depends how you Play them out

F: Running 24m, it should Close the distance in 1 turn, from the next turn onwards it will kill 1 acoylte per turn

Just the reminder: we are talking about beginner acolytes here. I am not talking about experienced, well-equiped warbands.

By the time Aynthrexes emerged our groups sniper was already down, but so was Ferrue Fayne. That left the warband with a telepath, a pyromancer, and a priest. They also had brought some Red Walk gangers and mutants (yes, you read correctly, along the journey on the stygian wash the telepath had "convinced" an outcast shantytown of mutants to send some fighters along because the Blessed Flesh was as much a threat to them as the rest of the hive). So Aynthrexes bursts forth from the headless remains of Ferrue Fayne (one lucky shot by the sniper), most of the gangers reel and bend over puking. I rule that the warband brought along enough "cannon fodder" so that the rest of the cultists is busy and does not harass them directly. They only have to face ONE daemon The priest tries to go on Aynthrexes with a warhammer . Lands one very good hit with righteous fury doing 1 damage. Also pyromancer soon finds out that his fire powers are not working well against this daemon. The telepath, who usually resolves all fights and other problems with mind-control, stands around looking for some help. And there it is: On the floor next to Ferrue's remains, a Chaos-corrupted forcestaff. So in the end the telepath hits the daemon three times with the forcestaff, the pyromancer (who also is a little bit of a telekinet) uses assail repeatedly to knock down Aynthrexes, and the meanwhile badly hurt priest lion-heartedly hacks away with his warhammer. They finally do it.

Without the forcestaff - NO CHANCE. And the telepath gained 1d0-2 corruption for each use of the staff, resulting in 15 corruption points and a nice, small nurgle pustule on the back of his hand.

They're also Concussive, Gaunt. Do damage with them, and he's prone. Also, turns out closer to 6 damage. An exact hit isn't that hard to get either when everyone is chucking grenades like their lives depend on it (and they were out at the end, yes). Waste his dodge on something else, +10 Standard Attack, +10 Aim, +10 Size Bonus... Four of them, with two good long-las shots and a Righteous Fury in melee.

And his 24m run (assuming he made all the tests to not be knocked Prone) means he scampers up to you... And the person he just ran up to disengages and runs away some more. He can Charge the next round, but that's another round of everyone shooting his flabby behind.

MilRai, how many Krak grenades would you say would be a good balance between having a chance agianst the herald and killing him too easily?

Speaking of the end game bosses, what the heck does the Deceptive talent do? I see yhat Ferrue has it but I can't find it anywhere in any of the books.

I had that question myself, I can't find any reference to it.

Depends on a few factors, Gregor. I mean, they don't have an appreciable blast; you miss, you miss (and maybe hit an ally). Assuming 6 damage per hit. that's 7 grenade hits to make him go Critical. Now factor in Miss Chance, weapons with Accurate, Psyker attacks and his Criticals/True Grit.