Dear fellow GMs.

--- Purge the Unclean – RfyaT --- SPOILER

I am currently GMing Rejoice for you are True with my group and the group finally found the Joyous Choirs’s Temple in Ambulon. The last session was yesterday evening and we had to stop playing during a major fire-fight in the temple.
Now, I would like to gather some ideas from you folks and would appreciate any helpful input.

After a very short observation the group (5 PCs) decided to enter the temple. Inside the Temple Hall they met two Serrated Query Operatives disguised as lay-members of the church. The SQ Operatives asked the group who they are and what they desire. The groups Psyker (Legate Investigator) walked up to them and told them they are members of the JC from Sibellus (succeeding in a Deceive-test with the use of a Fate Point) and wanted to take a look at the Ambulon dependence. After a short chat the players pretended to pray and talked/whispered a lot to each other. One of the SQ Operatives left the Temple Hall (to inform Theodosia about the strange ‘guests’) and the other stayed watching the PCs. The groups Tech-Priest walked up to the remaining SQ Operative and directly asked whether Theodosia is here, who in turn answered a little irritated that he don’t know. Then the Tech-Priest showed him the piece of metal from the Oracle Ocular with the symbol of the SQ on and asked him what it is. Because of that the SQ Operative lost his nerve, drew his stub automatic and shot a dum-dum bullet at the Tech-Priests mesh-armoured head. Thus a fire-fight ensued.
The other SQ Operative in the meantime finally reached Theodosia in the upper right Office (7) of the Upper Level to inform him. Theodosia was at that time in a negotiation with an Amaranthine Captain (+ his two bodyguards from Fervious) who is providing xeno-tech for the SQ. So, when the SQ Operative was telling Theodosia about the strange ‘guests’ downstairs, they hear the fire-fight from below.

So, what do you think how would Theodosia react? The players already decimated 6 SQ Operatives (one is still up on the left gallery) coming from the various doors without suffering any noteworthy injuries themselves. The Guardsman (mono sabre and Fury las pistol) and the Psyker (Steel Burner) already ventured into the hallway left of the Temple Hall and the Psyker and the Arbitrator (combat shotgun with mono melee attachment) are about to enter the upper left Office (7) in the Main Level. The Assassin (dual wield Carnodon) and the Tech Priest (Bolt Pistol) are still in the Temple Hall.
So, I am still not sure how to react with Theodosia and how to react with Nathanael Salvus (the Amarathine Captain) and his bodyguards. I still have a week to decide though. So, far I want the Captain to flee from the temple via a gangway from the Upper Level hallway (not included in the official map), where a gun-cutter landing on a nearby building will pick him up. Theodosia on the other hand is mentioned to “[not] leave it [the lab] in anything less than a body bag.”. Anyway, rushing into the Temple Hall with one SQ as backup would be more or less suicidal for him against the 5 Acolytes and he most probably knows that. So, what would he do from his position and in his situation and where would he go?

I would really appreciate any help/ideas in this matter.
Thanks a lot in advance.

Allow me to answer with a question:

How did he managed the pc during "the Hustle"?

If he got the better of them (or at least got away) he might try take them out (out of fear for the SQ if he isn´t "cleaning house" before he leaves).

If the pc downed him in the Hustle (or he got enormous problems fighting them off) he might be likely to opt for an escape.

Of course...it is always great to have some-one spurting down to the "labor" to plant another of this bomb devices so is still "cleaning house"

Anyway, I assume that the AS-Captain & his guards will opt for an escape and will only fight in the way of a "fighting retreat". This isn´t their war, after all.

If I were running him I'd kill the power, jam the PCs comms, and start throwing improved smoke grenades around. This would give total cover against even PCs with special vision equipment. Also the PCs won't be able to coordinate. The head to the lab, and take care of bussiness. Then head out.

Alternately he could bail then try and do damage control when the PCs leave via an ambush. Maybe hire some help from the captain.

I imagine there could be a nice scary prowling scene if he did like Dalnor suggested and then started to take out the pcs one by one from the darkness, Alien style.

Thank you all for your helpful input. I appreciate any further ideas.

Gregorius21778 said:

He managed the PCs rather well. Fortunately, the groups Assassin (being a very deadly sniper and Hive Born) was not present at the meeting in the Hustle as he and the Psyker played the nobles and 'could' not leave the hive spire. After Theodosia went over the first wall they had no real chance of catching him anymore, even though the Arbitrator PC tried and was rewarded with salvoes of auto-fire in return. I did not even had to enter the hired guns and Theodosia got away uninjured in the end.

Theodosia is really surprised by the (early) presence of the PCs in the Ambulon Temple and the 'violent' manner of their approach. One thing is certain though, he will not retreat this time, as the SQ would not tolerate another 'failure' or set back and my players would moan a lot if I let a 'nemesis' escape again (which I do often enough). It's him or them.

The Amarathine Captain will indeed only fight to reach his gun-cutter and escape (rather important for the story and the ongoing campaign). This should be the cinematic end (the gun-cutter is armed with an Assault Cannon and 2 Heavy Bolters to teach them a lesson...).

Dalnor Surloc said:

Hm, I am not sure whether he should have the time to kill the power. After all, he is really surprised by the sudden unexpected attack. The Captain is only interested in his survival/escape and is already rather pissed that his cover might be blown. Good ideas none the less.

Mellon said:

Absolutely, but I would prefer some kind of more open combat this time, so that the PCs really see what is coming at them (i.e. hide and seek time is over). I somehow would like to feature him as mentioned in the book: "... runs along walls, spinning his body with guns (Hecuter) or blades (2 Power Blades) outstretched as he goes."

I really want to play him to the full this time, and when he goes down, he goes down with guns blazing and blades spinning...

Theodosia is a pretty nasty mofo, and if he can get the on the acolytes- he can seriously wound, if not kill one or more. Definitely have him bust out of his office doing some crazy acrobatics, and have him attack the nearest acolyte with his power blades. If he hits, the acolyte's in for a world of hurt.

Definitely emphasize on how fast he is- describe him as a blur, let any acolytes with bionic sight know that their systems are having a hard time keeping up with him. You're a GM. Take some liberties. Draw out the fight, fudge some roles to make things look close. If the acolytes get close to killing the guy like a sucker too soon, let Theodosia utter something into a microbead, and suddenly have Captain Nathaniel's gun-cutter get to work.

It's a gun-cutter, so have it cut stuff. With guns. At some point during the battle, I'd stage a cinematic scene in which the upper half of the church is pretty much bisected with gunfire. Glass, lead, and mass-reactive bolt-rounds should be going everywhere. At the very least, this is going to provide a distraction, and make the acolytes scatter.

Ultimately, there's a lot of narrative tools at your disposal to make this fight epic. If you play it out right- you won't even look like you're railroading the whole encounter.

At least, that's how I'd do it.

Nojokejoe45 said:

...and me. For the big final climatic scene you have to pull out a bit of space opera. Make them think they've only just made it against the odds.

Sometime you just have to lie. Saying something like "Wow you took his last wound just before his decapitation blow" to the players is good even if you happen to know technically he ran out of wounds the round before and you wanted him just to have one last thrust with a sword.

If your style of game can handle it, let yourself go.

However try not to railroad it. Let them dictate the pace. When they calm down and want to bring in CSI Ambulon to clean up; wrap it up if you have nothing planned to throw at them.

Have fun....

For my team during the scene in the Hustle: they slapped Theo around like a grot on Nob appreciation day, and that was with several of the team still up in Noble country.

Thus he did NOT go for the direct confrontation route. He coordinated attacks with his surviving guards via vox as distractions for the acolytes and then made use of his absurd speed/independent legs combo to frustrating levels. He would run out where someone could see him, open up with gunfire on them and then duck back in through another door, all as one action. He also made "powerblade driveby" attacks. The key was he did not willingly let the acolytes shoot at him and gleefully cut into anything that got within arm's reach. It took alot of teamwork and tactics to take this guy down. Certainly made for a more memorable villain than some guy with a chainsword running out into a room, shooting someone with a pistol, then getting shot 47 times.

Oh, and I am still proud of this: The team took Theo ALIVE! After five separate times cornering him and many deliberate and skilled attacks directed speciffically at his augmetic limbs they had quite literally "disarmed" him. "Dislegged" him too... Then with a guardsman and an assassin pinning the head/torso to the floor the team's medicae-trained techpriest moved in and disabled his remaining implants one by one. They were unable to find giftwrap before the Valkyries full of Inquisitorial Stormtroopers landed, but fortunately their Inquisitor is much more results-oriented and not all that excited by shiny ribbons.

Nojokejoe45 said:

Great ideas. I will let him appear on the First Floor on the left hallway gallery (not sure whether it really is a gallery, but in my game it is). From there he will check the situation and shot with his Hecuter and then jump towards one of the columns as he is a bad-ass climber. I just realized that Theodosia is able to make two full-actions a round; that will help emphasizing how fast he is (charging/multiple attack + disengage or full auto + moving). So, even the groups Assassin will have difficulties to pin him with his sniping shots. Climbing up and down the columns like Spider Man and shooting cobw…erm…man-stopper rounds. He will only use the Hecuter until the clip is empty and then it is time for his Power Blades (my players rely to heavy on their armour…).
To use the gun-cutter for firing into the temple is a great and very cinematic idea, even though I am not sure whether Nathanel (who is an arrogant bastard) would really care for Theodsia and risk being involved to heavily. I am not even sure whether he should flee the place that fast as he does not know who the acolytes are or what they want.

Baldrick said:

Absolutely.

ZillaPrime said:

Actually, I feared they would kill him in the Hustle and therefore was well prepared (on forumist once gave a good summary on how hard/impossible it actually is to catch him by the rules) for that to not happen. Your description of how he could play cat and mouse with them fits my vision really well (there is a lot to do with 2 full actions…).

Thanks for the input folks!

That forumist would be me, and I wish I had told myself all that before I played that scene

When it came to the temple-showdown, it went a bit like the Lobby Shooting Spree from the first Matrix movie. Lots of bullets tearing up the stone columns, bullets flying everywhere, Pinning tests failed, but in the end a hands down victory to the acolytes. Pretty well, but in hindsight I would have made it more epic by cheating and using cinematic overkill like Nojokejoe suggests

I would go with cinematic overkill as well, but technically you're seldom allowed to actually write that in an adventure - line developers usually turn a skeptical eye on any advice that amounts to "for this scene, completely ignore the rules of the game". Go figure.

Haha, I can't see why

One thing you can do, is nick the "Look out, sir!" rule from Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Basically this means that if a Hero in a unit would be killed by a cannon-ball, for example, you can sacrifice one of the common troopers next to him instead. In game the effect is described as a faithful and loyal subordinate pushing his leader aside, and taking the blow himself instead (either on purpose or accidentally, your choice)

This could happen if your Acolytes get in a killing blow on Theo. Have one of his fanatic followers throw himself in the way, or have someone just get in the line of fire in the confusion of the fight (Theo moves around alot, after all). Call it Fate Points if you like

Darth Smeg said:

Thanks a lot. It was really helpful.

Darth Smeg said:

TS Luikart said:

Actually, we played the scene yesterday and it was indeed a little like the Matrix scene from the lobby with man-stopper rounds shot from the SQ Objectives standing atop the gallery rained down on the acolytes and through columns. My players used the cover of the columns and the nearby doors rather well and were astonishingly effective in taking out the SQ Operatives. The Arbitrator maimed anyone of them coming to the lower floor with his Combat Shotgun, while the Assassin took care of those on the gallery with his dual wielding Carnodons supported by the Psyker and Tech-Priest taking pot shots with their Steel Burner and Bolt Pistol respectively. The Guradsman used his Fury Las Pistol and his Mono Sabre also very effective at close range and on those coming in melee range.

Then Theodosia made his apearance on the gallery raining a salvoe of auto-fire from his Hecuter, and the Tech-Priest and Assassin dived into the narby office in the ground floor. The other three were already in the nearby hallway or the leftmost office. Because of that they could not see that Theodosia jumped from the gallery onto one of the columns doing the Spider-Man. When the Assassin took a look out of the office and retreated back after seeing a few remainig SQ Operatives, Theodosia charged with lightning speed towards the office in the moment the Tech-Priest threw a Photon-Flash grenade into the main hall. In close-combat with Theodosia the Tech-Priest was hard-pressed and took minor wounds to the chest by the Power Blades (I rolled 1, 1, 2, 3 on the damage for the hits by the Power Blades during the whole encounter; maybe I should have fudged them though...). Crying for help the Tech-Priest disengaged and the Assassin shot repeatedly at Theodosia and hit him finally straight on the torso so that he went down on the back. The Arbitrator came along and tried to pin him with his Combat Shotgun, but he was heavily under fire by the remaining three SQ Operatives.

Theodosia lept up as a Free Action spun around and ran down the main hall ducking left and right from the columns. I alwasy described him as a blur when moving and most of the acolytes tried desperately to hit him with any ranged weapon without success this time. The Guardman threw a Frag grenade onto the gallery killing one and maiming a second SQ Operative. The Psyker almost took out the third with a called shot to the head with his Steel Burner. Nathanel, the Amarathine Captain, looked down the gallery and with a sneer shot a single bolt round at the Arbitrator hitting and wounding him on the flak armoured arm. Theodosia then dashed out of the cover of the columns and charged the Guardsman in a whirlwind of blades (he should have Swift Attack...). The Guardsman fared quite well and thereby kind of pinned him in close-combat while the other acolytes mostly took aimed shots at him which he dodged. The Arbitrator though charged Thodosia headlong with his mono melee attachment on the Combat Shotgun and took of his nose in turn...

The Tech-Priest shot with his Bolt Pistol at Nathael above them and scored a Righteous Furs result...so I decided to use one of his Long-Sabre armed bodyguards to use a -10 Dodge-test (Protect Ally, as desribed in the IH) to suffer the hit instead, resulting in an exploding head. Nathanel raised an eyebrow and moved of the gallery out of view and out of the building onto a gangway towards his hopefully soon arriving gun-cutter.

After the Guardsman batted the Power Blade out of Theodoisas left hand, Theodosia disengaged again and fled towards and into the left most office of the ground floor (Standard Attack + Disengage (5m) + Half Move (5 m)). The Guardsman chased after him realizing too late he could only move 9 m while Theodoisa was 10 m away. So Theodosia spun around again and attacked him thereby sending him one round Stunned down to his knees. Next round, when the oher acolyte tried to reach him, he almost killed the Guardsman (who had been on 0 wounds in the mean time) and disengaged down the stairs to the laboratory with the Assassin, the Arbitrator and the Tech Priest hard on his heels. When the Assassin came around the corner on the stairs he saw Theodosia punching numbers into a lock pad at the door opening it thereby and shot once with his Carnodon at him so that his mechanical left leg tore off at the hip. In return Theodosia shot his last remaining bullets from his Hecuter breaking the left leg of the Assassin in the process. The Assassin craled back a few steps while the Arbitrator and Tech-Priest jumped over him in quick succession. The Arbitrator then hit Theodosias right hand maiming it and sending the second Power Balde spinning away from him. The Tech-Priest hit his left arm pulverizing it and killing Theodosia finally in he process.

More or less last thing happening in the session was the sound of Nathanels gun-cutter and then the sound of high-veleocity bullets cutting through the building in sparks of fire and chunks of rockrete...

Darth Smeg said:

That's what the mentioned Protect Ally function of the Dodge skill is good for.

Well spotted, hadn't caught that. Sounds like a blast, and that's the most important thing after all!

Did sound like a blast! Good session.

Couple of practical questions...

1. How long did the session last?
2. How many Acolytes do you have (I counted 5)?
3. Finally did the Psyker try any powers?

Baldrick said:

It was, though we had a lot of rules discussions especially at the beginning (it was sort of hard for the players to accept that T could make 2 Full Actions per round), which almost became some kind of a hindrance.

Baldrick said:

1. The session began with the appearing of T during the ongoing fire-fight with the SQ Operatives and ended with the gun-cutter disappearing after its onslaught. What I have not mentioned, is that another unknown 3-man acolyte group of the Inquisitor 'came along' at the end about at the moment when T fled down the stairs. That is one of the reasons the Guardsman and especially the Psyker remained upstairs to talk to the new unknown arrivals.

We usually meet at 20:00, but the last one of us normally arrives not before 20:30 and pizza is ordered about the same time which in turn arrives at about 21:00 and is eaten at more or less until 21:04. So our session really began not before 21:05. We played without major interruption until about 1:15 at night. So, let's say 4 hours. Fire-fights (unfortunately) take rather long in our games. I do not really know why.

2. We have 5 acolytes in our group (5 players and me as the GM), all rank 4.

3. The Psyker only used Inspiring Aura quite early and Chameleon almost at the end of the encounter. He has not taken Psy Rating 3 yet and thus has no Psychic Discipline yet (even though he plans to take Telepathy soon). He is a Legate Investigator actually (but chose the Scholar path of the Psyker tree).