The Ginger Bearded GM here,

This is from my Rogue Trader game but the RT forum doesn't have active GM to post thoughts. So I'm expecting better from you fine lads and ladies.

So my players were ordered by Imperial Edict to colonize the planet Rain. I'm sure most of you have read the description from the book and see how its been left open to us all as GM's to fill in the blank.

Rain to me is a foggy marsh swamp of a planet. Its covered in tall grass and thick vines trees that lift into the air by their gas filled bubble branches. Its covered in a type of Water Grox brought by colonist as a food sourced due to the planets lack of food. Many colonies have been placed on Rain so its covered in a estimated 76 town/village/outpost(s). The planets natural life examples is pack lizards the size of dogs or wolfs. A assortment of colorful birds both small and large. Ohh yeah and at night large Hammerbeck (large shark like flying predator) hunt by sonar and smaller pack scavanger named Razors.

Rain also has its own void station that rotates the fog ball of a planet.

When the players show up both the planet and the void station show no living human life. The station's log speaks of running out of food and traveling to the surface. The colonies are bare of humans as well and the constructs are in different stages of disrepair. The last traces of human life seem to talk of hiding from the rain and something that lives in the rain. This obviously is the Hammerbecks and Razors, but not only them half humans half groxs (groxtaurs) live on the planet. These groxtaurs are guardians of the grox and when they see the colonies eating the animal so close to them they wage war on the Imperials to the last.

Well the players dont know all this...its kinda the story line. To give colonizing a planet not just a dozen dice rolls.

ANYWAYS!

The time the players venture to the planet they come to the planet they land in one of the larger villages. Its got fences, defensive walls, turrets, thick plasteel buildings. The works. so they venture around and see the large roaming herds of grox and like any Rogue Trader band see the throne they can make.

No long in the search the players come across a Groxtaur. It does not speak with them. It only darts off into the fog marsh. This fills the players minds with "what if's" just like I planned. So as the first night comes around I plan to have packs of night predators attack the outpost. Well what I didn't expect was for the party to split up. So when they end up getting attack one groups in the outpost the other is in a guncutter flying back to the outpost.

I ran the Guncutter fight last game and it ended with the pilot ramming 4 meter wide wingspan beast from the sky and having to land in the marsh with their damaged guncutter.

Next game I ahve to run the other groups conflict. Anyone got any ideas how to spice up the fight? They are in a 300 yard complex shaped kinda like Florida. The complex kinda looks like the complex from Starship Troopers where they got attack by bugs. They have 2 platoons of Navy Armsmen with them.

Thanks for any ideas. If any questions post them and ill get back to you!

Huge man eating swamp worm that comes from bellow is always a sure way to get some tension.

Or, the xeno breed on this planet has driven some of the colonists mad, suddenly the power generator fails, lights, turrets, nothing works. Pitch dark and heavy rain. The ground turns into a mud bath. If they try to fix the generator its broken beyond repair, they have to get spare parts from another village.. If they only had a gun cutter.. And then, a terrifying scream tears through the night. A woman has found her whole family murdered. Before they can start figuring out who the killer was the village gets attacked by those flying sharks, striking from above and maiming villagers. The sent of blood attracts even bigger beasts that tries to get through the main gate/destroy the walls. Just when the PC's think they have thing under control someone opens up the main gate and let's bigger beasts in, forcing the PC's to either fight till their last of blood or flee into the night..

Just an idea

Ohh yeah! Been trying to work a gigantic worm into my game. This could be a good time for it. Now how do I have it attack my parties fortification and have a reason why it didn't attack the colonist before them?

The fortification they have settled down in was raided by Groxtaurs and all the colonist were killed. So ill have to have the party find some colonist from another settlement. I'm sure it will be easy to have them go crazy after they gain the parties trust.

DM Variyn said:

The sent of blood.. or no wait, catch this. The colony is actually built on the worms mating ground and just so happens that the acolytes come just in time to be blamed for these hideous buildings right in the middle of it!

Bringing not only one but several huge worms that are ready for some love!

I am thinking more along the lines of these "Groxtaurs" that you have cooked up. You don't expressly say, but I am guessing they are rather low tech tribal minotaur-like beings except based off a grox instead of a bull.

There is this rather cool old movie called "Zulu" that features a small Royal Engineers battalion that ends up stuck in a small fortified town and surrounded by something like 10,000 pissed off Zulu tribesmen. The Brit troops have the advantage of walls, "modern" (for the time) firearms and tactics. The Zulu tribesmen have the advantage of massive numbers and a seemingly fearless drive to wipe the British out regardless of cost. The defenders rapidly develop ammo shortages, have to deal with increasing numbers of wounded and dead troopers, plus they are forced to constantly shift their defenses around to deal with threats from literally all directions. I am suggesting stealing liberally from this theme (since we as GMs are not generally getting paid to write this stuff, just to make it FUN!). Now maybe a few of the original Groxtaur warriors to have raided the human settlements have picked up a few of the colonists' weapons (but are not quite skilled in using them yet) "Sky men's death-lights very powerful, but dangerous!". After they see the Naval Armsmen in action for a while the tribesmen might even get their hands on a dead trooper's grenade launcher... Non-proficient fanatics with a grenade launcher is just MADE of fun regardless of the outcome. Since the Groxtaurs strongly remind me of "Beastmen" from the Chaos armies it is not exactly a stretch to give some of the tribal champions some "gifts from the Gods". Likewise this is a great opportunity to make the tribe's shaman(s) into Sorcerers. Perhaps the chieftan has a demon-weapon spear? All the fog makes long range gunfire a total waste of ammo so the tribesmen get pretty close before they can be effectively engaged, allowing them to chage the walls in only a few rounds of combat. The first few waves are pretty easy to deal with, but as their resources get stretched and consumed.....

Just about the time that things are really going from crap to Nurgle-crap the crew on the damaged guncutter can ride in to the heroic rescue!

In the meantime, consider allowing the players who have characters on the cutter to control the Navy sergeants or lieutenants so they have something to contribute to the battle portion of the adventure.

Talking "how to reason a timed and effective Wyrm attack on the pc and not the colonists"

You have this "Groxtaurus".
You had the whole wildlife going down on them like hell to begin with. Which reeks of coordination if there isn´t some "feeding frenzy after X generation" as part of the lifecylce of the whole planet (remember...their were established colonies to begin with which "all disappeared" in your scenario).

On this basis, you can either go the way of "natural frenzy happening NOW and the pc/colonists are wrong place at the wrong time" (like in the movie "Pitchblack") or you use another mainstable of re-cycled scifi-galore and declare/inplement that the Groxtaures hive a high number of psykers ("shamans") in their ranks.

The attack of the wildlife (while dangerous critters in their own rights!) were able to overwhelm the colonists since the Groxtaure where ORDERING and COORDINATING them.

If your pc want to win... they have to somehow notice the link (perhaps there is always some Groxtaures at the edge of battle , disappearing the midst) and counter-attack and kill/drive off the Groxtaure-Shamans.

..of course, the other option is to slay everything the Groxtaure can send against them... if they have enough ammo...

My two cents

If you go the route of low ammo, have the PC's find (and need to use) cache's of colonists (lower powered) weapons, to give them a feel of how the other half lives and some really funky resource management. Throw in a few mining tools (or other industrial equipment) and some gold necklaces and you have an 'A' Team moment, souping up some ramshackle vehicle into a "battlewaggon", using parts from the guncutter (if they can get to it).

One important thing to consider is if the split party has communication with each other allowing them to co-ordinate tactically (or strategically if they have time). One way to run it would be as a split battle, one side trying to reach the compound whilst under attack whilst the other fights off waves of Groxgaurs before the Wyrm attack (I do have an image of the guncutter party riding to the rescue on the backs of giant wyrms - I blame Dune).

Great ideas.

I like the idea of the Groxtaurs using shamans (psykers) to provoke the local creatures into attacking the group. I'm thinking of having the chiefttain or leader being able to control one of those Giant Worms to attack the complex. I also imagined the Groxtaur tribes being like roaming nomads that use whatever technology they find. Yes, they have attack either by their own hands or creatures, every outpost or settlement on Rain. So they should have some goodies. Obviously due to their bodies they can't really drive any vehicles. However if yall lads have some ideas feel free to throw them out. Ex: The Warp Spear. Something about a Groxtaurian male throwing one of those through a player chest makes me happy. That's a great way to take a fate point. Even better after the fight watching the party decide if they should keep the warp weapon.

Even more I like the idea of the guncutter group showing up to help battle the Giant Worm. Its like a boss fight. Any ideas on how to do this on a inch by inch battle map?

DM Variyn said:

How big a map do you have? This might be a bit challenging depending on the available space. One option is to increase the scale a space on your map represents. One idea if you have sufficient map supplies is to have the combat zone detailed over however many maps it requires and when something leaves the edge of one map they enter the edge of the next map in series. I did this several years ago in a Battletech game where a battle on the run was occuring: As units moved close to the edge of the map another map section was simply added on. Once everything had left the older maps they were simply removed to make room and the remaining maps were carefully slid back a bit.

Of course if you have access to a game club or have a terrain table for mineature gaming then just convert everything into inches or cm (pick a scale) and play the scene out on a (hopefully) cool 3D modeled map.

@Weapons for the Groxtaure
Using Warp weapons is a good way to a)add out the Technical inbalance b) enfore that they are filthy chaosworshipping xenos scum that needs to be wiped out.

...but how about them not being that "primtive due to early age of civilization" but "due to DESGINE"? They care for the nature and for the animals. What if this haven´t been that way to begin with? What if they were really high tech but this nearly leaded to their extinction? What if these are NATIVE to the world but survivors who fled the collaps of their civilization millenia ago?

Going on with this...their ancestors could have DECIDED to go primitive... and looking a lot of modern weapons away in very deep cavarns...only to be unleashed in times of most dire needs? The traditions how to "unlock" these might be given through generations... and said "weapon" could go along with some "groxtaures of old" (who know how to use this weapons) looked in cyrostasis, powered by the reactor of the old ship burried deep in the ground (after landing) in some of the forest.

And YES, this means for you as the GM to go "ape **** crazy", so THINK TWICE!