And our lord purgatory's background - stats to follow now we've finished character creation

Robarte Morgayne Haarlock

Master Of The Insatiable, The "Buggery King", Navarch Of The Ilium Clanfleet, Lord Purgator Of The Black Crusade

Progeny

Robarte Morgayne was the by-blow offspring of one of the most senior captains amongst the Ilium Clan-Fleet. The Haarlock name is well-known elsewhere in the Imperium for its ties to the great Rogue Trader dynasties, but amongst the clans of the Tyrant's Pyre, it is associated with its most infamous scion; "Phosphex Jack" Haarlock, the commander of the fleet during the retaking of Briseis, and the man responsible for the burning of Sanctity; considered an act of excessive overkill even by the Reavers of the Pyre.

In the decades which have passed in the ruined, time-distorted Briseis system since the storm engulfed it, three generations of the Haarlocks have remained amongst the highest of the Clan Fleet's 'nobility', and as more and more of the clans have relocated to Briseis from the collapsing holdfasts deeper in the Pyre, the Haarlocks have claimed more than their fair share of the infrastructure established throughout the system - and a sizeable number of the mountain-top fortresses on the resource-rich, warp-scarred world of Briseis itself.

Whilst the captaincy bloodlines give little credence to notions of 'legitimacy', Robarte was nevertheless a distaff offspring at best; one of the youngest of over twenty half-brothers and sisters and born to a concubine with little power, wealth or bloodline claims of her own. Pushed out by eager peers in no mood to tolerate additional rivals, he grew to adulthood as one of the few noble-born officers aboard Stonerain Hold, one of the Clan-fleet's most remote orbitals, deep amongst the tumbling asteroid belts and gravity rip-tides that had once been Briseis' moon. It was assumed by some of his rivals that the hazards of the region would kill him, sooner or later, and - at the very least - that it was not worth the expense of sending a truly reliable assassin after him. Nevertheless, a tolerably valuable bounty was posted on his head - attached to his body or not, as the claimant saw fit - and defeating the intermittent attempts to claim this reward saw him develop a reputation as a fearsome pistoleer.

When he eventually joined the Clan-fleet, he did so under an assumed name - secretly declaring his true parentage only to his father, and spent most of his early career as an arms-man on raiders granted to his more senior brethren, enforcing discipline and leading boarding parties during intermittent raids against other clans, or even (on rare occasions) striking from the Pyre into the Agenor subsector, before eventually being made a banner-captain and given a command of his own; an Iconoclast-class Raider sworn to the Haarlock banner called the Unspeakable Act .

Privateer

Robarte's career as a reaver captain was marked by his ambition - some would say over-ambition - and he soon chafed at being orderd to accompany other Haarlock warships only to see the elder Haarlock scions delegate the bulk of the raid's risks to their escort ships and claiming the lion's share of the rewards as their larger, undamaged raiders would stake their first claim to the kill after the smaller ships had battered themselves against their prey's defences.

Still cautious about openly declaring his parentage without the means to protect himself, and lacking the authority or wealth to assemble a loyal raiding squadron himself, he began to launch solo raids into imperial space, relying on barely-stable warp routes and a knack for manoeuvring through the densest and most dangerous of celestial phenomena sharpened by the hazards of the Stonerain Belt. He forged alliances with smaller, 'home-grown' pirate and smuggler groups within the Ilium sector, paying them a portion of the plunder seized in return for providing hidden ports. These remote stations and outposts were comparatively safe - if small and badly equipped to handle a pirate vessel as large as the Unspeakable Act rather than the armed system ships the groups tended to field - and allowed him to withdraw and refit without needing to fall back to the Tyrant's Pyre after battle damage inflicted by ships of the Danaan or Agenor System Defence Fleets or the better-armed merchantmen amongst his victims. Operating beyond close scrutiny from the Haarlocks also allowed him to carefully mis-represent both the scale of his successes and the expenses in securing the services of the hidden wayports, which in turn permitted him to build up hidden caches of wealth and secure the private services of spys and other personal agents both within the Tyrant's Pyre and the Ilium sector.

Following his initial successes, he moved the Unspeakable Act out of the subsector entirely; aiming to prey on the vast wealth of the Dolon trade-route. Repeating his methods of securing basing rights amongst smuggler groups, and using the same sources that let the faceless traders find corruptible navy officers and arbites to find vulnerable convoys and valuable cargos, he soon began to cut a swathe through the shipping, picking on lone chartist freighters and seizing them in brutal boarding actions. Despite the risks in attracting attention to his actions, he seemed increasingly oblivious to the need for discretion and began to revel in his victories. Many of his less salubrious titles come from this period, and his habit on releasing the six most junior officers of a captured ship - after subjecting them to several days of torture and humiliation first. It was a point of perverse pride that in the taking of over a dozen prizes, he never once repeated the specific atrocities inflicted on any one victim.

Dolon, however, was to prove a much different proposition to the poorer worlds of Agenor. Dolon itself was a true hive-world, and inhabited by many rich and influential trading guilds, several of whom had sizeable commercial interests in the chartist freighters seized by the Unspeakable Act , and - whilst the subsector division of the Battlefleet Ilium was smaller than that assigned to the critical Pandarus Watch, without the looming threat of the Pyre at the subsector's border, ships could far more easily be committed to the suppression of piracy. Bankrolled by the Dolon guilds, battlefleet vessels reinforced convoy escorts, and intensified patrols in the outer reaches of star systems. One such patrol resulted in the Unspeakable Act itself being ambushed - and nearly destroyed - near Thersites II by the light cruiser Intractable . Caught in a spread of lance fire from the Intractable's chase armament as the dauntless-class closed from its hiding place amongst the gas giant's rings, the raider's gunnery deck was hit and most of its macrocannons wrecked in an instant. Fires raged along the length of the raider and would have risked the ship itself had Robarte not ordered the burning decks vented - killing most of the gunnery crew out of hand.

The Unspeakable Act barely evaded the navy warship, plunging into the rings of Thersites II, and even skimming the gas giant's upper atmosphere - a hazardous move at the best of times, but near-suicidal given the battered state of the Iconoclast's hull - in an attempt to break contact. Whilst the Intractable various refits left it well-equipped to traverse celestial phenomena, in the end the smaller size and higher acceleration of Robarte's ship, along with his complete disregard for the survival of his crew, allowed him to break contact and limp to the temporary safety of one of his hidden wayports hidden in the depths of the system's halo.

Repairing the raider was a task beyond the ship's crew, even with the aid of the wayport's drydock. The hull and lesser systems could easily be made good, but to replace the half-kilometre mass of fuzed scrap metal forming the central deck with the macrocannons which had once been fitted there would require the yards of Briseis. Slinking back to the Tyrant's Pyre in apparent defeat stuck in Robarte's craw, and he refused to even consider the notion - and besides which, bested once by the captain of the Intractable , his bruised ego demanded revenge. Even fully repaired, the Unspeakable Act would be little match for a battlefleet-crewed warship over three times her mass, so Robarte simply discarded the concept of a direct confrontation - and instead took what he saw as the simplest approach to the problem; he surrendered command of the Unspeakable Act to one of his subordinates and discarded all his trappings and insignia of rank, contacted one of his most trusted agents within the Dolon subsector with secret instructions, and finally, without informing any of his officers, sent out a wide-band vox message announcing the location of his wrecked warship to the Battlefleet Ilium.

Prisoner

A squadron of battlefleet frigates arrived within two days of Robarte's transmission, reaching gun range of the wayport and the Unspeakable Act before the latter's plasma drive - which had been laid open for repairs - could be made spaceworthy. Unable to run or fight, the raider's newly-appointed commander was forced to surrender, and his career as a Haarlock banner-captain was cut summarily short by a naval commissar's bolt pistol. The entire crew of the wayport was imprisoned, and - after interrogation and further executions - taken to the Stygian Outpost on the surface of Thersites V, where slave labour was used up at a ferocious rate clearing the carnivorous plants of the jungle safely back from the walls of the penal outposts.

Hidden amongst the common population, Robarte worked amidst the scythe-gangs, cutting back throttler-vines and chokeflowers. More than once, he was forced to join in as the slave workers were drafted to serve in the megapredator hunts whose bounty earned the deathworld its income - always seeking to survive but careful not to distinguish himself by either success or failure from his peers. All the while, he secretly built a cadre of trusted loyalists amongst the stronger prison workers, training them in some of the combat skill he had learned as a Clan-Fleet arms-man.

Meanwhile, Robarte's agents were moving at large in the Dolon subsector. Two highly-skilled servants bought at great expense from the distant Acedian cloister, they spent two years, and no small amount of Robarte's coin, installing themselves in positions of influence; one becoming no less than Seneschal to the Chamberlain of Theristes' Imperial Commander, whilst the other's wiles ensnared the first officer of the Intractable , becoming his mistress and subsequently - and secretly - also seduced the captain in the palatial officer's decks of the warship . These agents' influence allowed Robarte to ensure that the next time the Intractable required a draft of fresh voidsmen, it would be met by impressed workers from the criminal population of Stygian Outpost, offered at a cost per head few ship's pursers could refuse, and guaranteed that not only he but his entire cohort of followers - now several thousand strong - would be amongst those offered to the battlefleet as viable hands.

Smuggling weapons aboard the ship in containers purporting to contain megapredator meat, with several thousand loyal arms-men hidden amongst the pressed voidsmen of the crew, and the ship's two most senior officers provided with pleasurable distractions from the rigours and details of their duty, it should come as little surprise that Robarte was able to successfully organise a mutiny. In fact, he swiftly earned his position as an able voidsman and subsequently petty officer - hardly surprising with the command experience of former reaver captain behind him - and with the freedom of movement this earned, he and his Acedian servant were able to co-ordinate the mutiny perfectly; the courtesan 'arranging' to have the first officer discover her secret liasons with the captain, resulting in an immediate, unsanctioned, and -for the captain - fatal duel, followed by arrest pending courts-martial of the first officer less than an hour before Robarte launched his assault. With the ship's command structure effectively decapitated, the lieutenants were left unsure what was occurring for too long to respond effectively, and the heavy weapons smuggled from Theristes - if perhaps better suited to megapredator hunts than close-quarter fighting in the 'tweendecks, left their loyal armsmen massively outgunned. After three hours of fighting, the officers of the Intractable were forced to surrender. True to form, Robarte set the six most junior lieutenants adrift in an lighter after celebrating his victory, and then - after a brief diversion to one of his wayports to make good the damage inflicted in the mutiny and take on additional enforcers to keep any loyalists amongst the navy crew suppressed, set course for the Tyrant's Pyre in his prize.

Princeling

Evading the Battlefleet Ilium patrols across the Agenor subsector challenged even Robarte's skill as a navigator, but the same refits which had helped the Intractable pursue his raider now helped him skirt the system deeper within dust clouds and asteroid belts than any destroyer patrol could realistically search, and after a month spent largely at silent running his exhausted crew moored at a Haarlock dockyard in Briseis. The Intractable was an immense prize - in common with most reavers, the Ilium Clan-fleet boasted few heavier ships of any , let alone a vessel as powerful as a dauntless-class. Capture of the ship immediately elevated Robarte's status to amongst the highest ranks of the Haarlock banner-captains, subordinate only to those who openly shared the bloodline he had kept a closely guarded secret.

Robarte could, at this point, have declared his parentage openly and been grudgingly accepted by his half-brothers and sisters, but instead chose to offer his light cruiser prize as a flagship for the bloodline's fleet, under the command of the elder Haarlock scions, on the proviso he was recognised as her banner-captain. With their enthusiastic agreement - and their wealth backing him - he threw himself into a sweeping programme of refits, defiling and tearing out the shrines that once adorned the dorsal towers of the Intractable and replacing them with luxurious pleasure palaces. Much of the ship's armour and bulkheads - inside and out - were stripped out in favour of covering the hull and officer's decks in gold, statuary and disturbing and entrancing artworks whilst the ship's life sustainers were modified to pump narcotics into the decks of the crew, squelching any thought of mutiny amongst the former naval voidsmen beneath a haze of drug-addled stupor that left them oblivious to the squalid conditions in which they now lived and worked. Finally, the Aquila which had once graced the prow of the ship was hacked away, and an elegant power-fielded falchion-blade some six hundred metres high added to the leading edge of the prow.

Rechristened the Insatiable , the light cruiser spent a decade undergoing modification in the depths of the warp, oblivious to the passage of time outside the storm. Moored to the Haarlock dockyards whilst work was completed, the domes and halls of its decks were filled with treasures and the courtesan-harems of the various Haarlock scions, and it became a spaceborne palace for the bloodline. On completion of the refit, to honour his 'masters', Roboute laid on a vast celebration in the sensorium decks, inviting all his half-brothers and half-sisters to attend the revels and pleasures on offer, whilst the elder generations of the bloodline were shown the potential of the warship from the armoured vaults of the bridge deck. Whilst there, amongst the leading captains of the Haarlock bloodline, he finally declared his heritage openly, looking to his father to acknowledge him. The elder captain might well have done so freely, but Robarte Haarlock had no interest in allowing him the option - instead ordering the hatches and doors of the sensorium decks sealed, and giving a signal to loyal members of his crew to begin flooding the sensorium's life sustainers with slaught, frenzon, barrage and half a dozen more foul and vicious concoctions.

The room erupted in an orgy of violence.

Assassin-courtesans concealed amidst the harems might or might not have been sufficient to see to the slaughter of his peers, but with the various reaver captains, their bodyguards and servants all frenzied and sent half-insane by the fumes, as many fell by one another's hands as by Robarte's assassins. Within a handful of minutes, Robarte was left the sole surviving heir of his father's, leaving the elder captain little choice - even had he been inclined otherwise - but to accept him as a true captain of the Haarlock bloodline .

Commanding the most powerful single warship of the Ilium Clan-Fleet, and with the imprimatur of the Haarlock bloodline, Robarte Morgayne Haarlock was granted the title of Navarch - the mark of a first captain amongst equals and the equivalent of a mark of admiralty amongst the Ilium Reavers - and as the agents of the Black Legion came to bring unity of purpose to the clans for the first time since the retaking of Briseis, it was little surprise that he was recognised as their foremost naval commander.

The Insatiable

• Dauntless Class Light Cruiser
  • Vessel Of The Fleet (Implacable Foe)
  • Crack Crew
  • Essential Components
    • Jovian-Pattern Warcruiser Drive
    • Markov 2 Warp Engine
    • Geller Field
    • Repulsor Shield
    • Armoured Command Bridge
    • Euphoric Life Sustainer
    • Slave Quarters
    • R-50 Multi-Band Auspex
  • Supplemental Components
    • Prow Voidsunder Lance Battery
    • Port & Starboard Mars Pattern Macrobattery Broadsides
    • Gilded Hull
    • Sensorium
    • Barracks
    • Augmented Retro-Thrusters
    • Power Ram
  • Upgrades
    • Good Craftsmanship Ostentatious Displays Of Wealth

• Speed 7
• Armour 16
  • Ignore criticals to the Bridge on a D10 roll of 4+
• Manoeuvrability +20
  • +5 to avoid celestial phenomena
  • No penalties for dust, gas and particle clouds
• Detection + 18
• Turret Rating 1
• Hull Integrity 60
  • Ignore being crippled for the turn on a Challenging (+0) Command Test
• Crew
  • Morale 107
  • Crew Population 100
  • Crew Rating 30
• Ramming Damage 2D5+D10+16
• Test Bonuses
  • All Social Skills +15 aboard
    • All Charm & Commerce in the Sensorium +25
    • All Command Tests +25 to the crew
      • Boarding Action Command Tests +45 when transporting troops
    • Additional +10 to Fellowship tests by the Captain
  • All crew receive Enemy (Imperial Navy)
• Weapons
  • Prow Lances: Strength 3, Damage D10+4, Critical 3, Range 6, Lance, Firing Arc Fore
  • Port Broadside: Strength 6, Damage D10+2, Critical 5, Range 6, Macrocannons, Firing Arc Left
  • Starboard Broadside: Strength 6, Damage D10+2, Critical 5, Range 6, Macrocannons, Firing Arc Right
• Small Craft
  • 10 Halo Barges (40 Passengers)
  • 2 Landers(12 Passengers)

Defenders of Ilium

So....Defender Strengths and Special Rules

Comments or suggestions welcome

Tome of Decay has three example regions - Calixis, Koronus, and Jericho, with advice for defender strengths and key worlds in each.

• Generic worlds
  • Danaan, Agenor, Chryses, Xanthus, Astyanax - all Imperial Worlds, but for the most part just 'in the way'.
  • Calixis is suggested to have defender strengths of 25 to 30 for most worlds, which is 'low', because of the draw-off of manpower for nearby crusades
  • Jericho suggests most worlds should have a defender strength of 40 or more, as it's an active warzone.
  • Ilium is somewhere between the two; it's a settled sector that's not currently on a war footing but also isn't depleted of manpower. Therefore I'm going to use a default defender strength of 35 for Civilised, Agri, and Mining Worlds
• Hive Worlds
  • Priam, Dolon, Nestor - one the sector capital, one a subsector capital, and one the Priam Sub's 'second city'.
  • Calixis suggests Scintilla gets a defender strength of 80. I will drop Nestor to 60 (one 'host's worth of troops) as it's not a capital, but otherwise that looks fine.
• Major Supply Worlds
  • Polydorus, Thersites - the former is the only off-world mining colony of the Mechanicum, the latter is a death world/agriworld combination and probably pretty lethal even if it wasn't actively defended.
  • Calixis suggests 'major supply worlds' (Sepheris Secundus and Iocanthos) get a defender strength of 60
• Forge Worlds
  • Antenor, Hephaestus - two major forgeworlds big enough that an out-of-sector trade route to them was worth starting a crusade over.
  • Jericho gives the (chaos) forgeworld of Samech a defender strength of 90. I will drop Hephaestus to 70 (one 'host's worth of troops) as it's a subordinate forgeworld to Antenor.
• Shrine World
  • Briesis starts at defender strength 0, automatically corrupted. Whilst the Imperium might attack it during the campaign, or rebellion amongst the clans arise as an event, it's going to be 'on side' on day 1.
  • Lutetia was a small, out-of-the-way world of shrines and monasteries. Whilst it's had the Sector Synod move there, it's not going to have the population or infrastructure to present a major defence. The Sororitas Preceptory is a massive military presence (along with the Knights of Chevaliance, one of the two real military threats in the sector), but they're numerically small when thrown into a planet-wide war and wouldn't get a major fleet presence, so they're better represented (to me) as a low defender strength with a sizeable fixed bonus to conflict value. I will use a defender strength of 55 (the 'standard' sector strength plus one 'host' of troops). I'm not sure I want 'cannot be corrupted' as a rule because I'm pretty sure despoiling it is going to be the Lord Ravager's personal goal.
• Knight World
  • Chevaliance - a relatively tech-primitive world whose inhabitants nevertheless have access to large numbers of war engines.
  • Koronus has the closest analogy I can find in the form of Zayth, which gets a defender strength of 45. Again, the Knights probably qualify for a conflict test bonus.
• Naval Bases
  • Pandarus, Hector - big orbital facilities full of warships, troops and heavy gun emplacements.
  • Footfall seems like the closest match, with a defender strength of 80 but with fleets also counting as hosts during resolve conflict. Pandarus specifically is heavily fortified, so a defensive bonus would make sense.
• Special Rules/Bonuses
  • Special Reinforcements - Calixis allows for Inquisitorial teams to turn up alongside reinforcements whilst Jericho may sent Deathwatch Kill-Teams along (though it's not automatic). The most concerning thing that could turn up in a reinforcement cadre in Ilium is either Households of Knights or a Sororitas Commanderies. With one being the militant arm of the Ecclesiarchy and the other the sworn forces of the Cult Mechanicum, getting both at once seems unlikely, so I suggest modelling them the same (in conflict value terms), turning up on an 8+ with reinforcements (which I'd double to a far greater chance of a 5+ in their respective 'home subsectors'), and granting a +20 to opposed conflict value tests that turn.
  • Mercenaries - The guilds of Dolon are noted for being (a) rich and (b) not stupid. If a war starts, they'd reach out to mercenary companies, rogue trader dynasties, and anyone else who'll take their coin. Unlike the Sororitas based in Priam or the Knight Households in Antenor, they've no special troops, but as long as the guilds are in place and the trade routes are open, they should be able to rack up lots of reinforcements quickly. So long as Dolon has a defender strength above 0 (so the guilds are intact) and Xanthus has the same (so the Truva trade route is there), the Dolon Subsector worlds roll twice per turn for reinforcements.

The net effect:

• The Ilium Sector
  • When a world receives reinforcements, an Adepta Sororitas Commandery or a Household of Quaestoris Mechanicus Knights is assigned to the world on a D10 roll of 8-10. This adds +20 to opposed conflict value tests that turn.
• Agenor Subsector
  • The Ruins of Briseis - Defender Strength 0, automatically corrupted
  • Pandarus Naval Base - Defender Strength 80, Blockade Strength 40, Fleets count as Hosts during resolve conflicts, +20 to opposed conflict value tests
  • Danaan - Defender Strength 35
  • Agenor - Defender Strength 35
• Dolon Subsector
  • Whilst Dolon and Xanthus both have Defender Strength above 0, roll twice for reinforcements for each world and apply both results
  • Dolon - Defender Strength 80, Blockade Strength 40
  • Thersites - Defender Strength 60, Blockade Strength 30
  • Xanthus - Defender Strength 35
  • Chryses - Defender Strength 35
• Antenor Demesne
  • When rolling to see if reinforcements incude a Household of Quaestoris Mechanicus Knights, the roll succeeds on a 5+ on worlds within this subsector.
  • Antenor - Defender Strength 90, , Blockade Strength 45
  • Hephaestus - Defender Strength 70, Blockade Strength 35
  • Chevaliance - Defender Strength 45, +20 to opposed conflict value tests
  • Polydorus - Defender Strength 60, , Blockade Strength 30
• Priam Subsector
  • When rolling to see if reinforcements incude a Commandery of Adepta Sororitas Battle Sisters, the roll succeeds on a 5+ on worlds within this subsector.
  • Priam - Defender Strength 80, , Blockade Strength 40
  • Hector - Defender Strength 80, , Blockade Strength 40, Fleets count as Hosts during resolve conflicts
  • Nestor - Defender Strength 70, , Blockade Strength 35
  • Lutetia - Defender Strength 55, , Blockade Strength 25, +20 to opposed conflict value tests
  • Astyanax - Defender Strength 35

Crusade Events:

• The basic table looks okay, but I don't want to have the roll result in "...and now the elder....and now the necrons....oooh, look, Orks!", so whilst the mechanical effects are (mostly) fine, I will do some judicious re-labelling.
• Since the aim is to have the crusade dedicated to all four powers (in the persons of the respective chosen), the 'aligned' results (57-81) will apply, but only to the respective chosen; so only they will get the benefit, but they must take the forefront of paying the costs (e.g. The Fly Lord Feasts' 1D10 lost plunder must come where possible from worlds held by the Lord Corruptor's Hosts).
• Eldar Farseers (86-90) will become Inquisitorial Agents (the effect remaining the same as it makes sense).
• Waaagh (91-94) will be a rival chaos warband looking to get in on the action and seizing a world. The 'cannot be corrupted' obviously won't apply.
• Ancients Arise - losing both half the hosts and half the defenders is an interesting effect. I'm not really sure what to model this as. Given that I'd quite like to see the 'living saint' result occur, I'm going to consider 95-97 to be a roll of 100.

11 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

So....Defender Strengths and Special Rules

I've re-read rules two times again, and your suggestions of PC starting power level, but I can't calculate potential forces of the PC's, so I'm not sure about challenge adequacy ?

Crusade Assets

We rolled for crusade forces this evening, and managed a nice spread of assets for everyone. Not enough for anyone to dedicate the crusade, though.

• Lord Ravager Catarina
  • Fortress-Master Hnefltafl (Lieutenant)
  • The Strike Cruiser Katana And Escorts (Landing Fleet)
  • Battalion Of Renegade Khorne Bezerkers (Host)
  • War Freighter Flotilla (Landing Fleet)
  • Vast Hordes Of Feral Briseis Mutants (Host)
  • Packs Of Giant Khornate War-Beasts (Host)
  • Regiments Of Briseis Fortress-Garrison Troopers (Host)
• Lord Deceiver Adjo Gahiji
  • Exalted Sorceror Anok Sabe (Lieutenant)
  • Alpha Legion Saboteurs (Cult)
  • The Heavy Cruiser Will Of Tzeench (Fleet)
  • Black Legion Rubricae Thrallband (Host)
  • Hellforge Light Cruiser Squadron (Fleet)
  • Dark Mechanicus Daemonologists (Cabal)
  • Legio Mortis Warlord Cadavaris Perdita (Host)
• Lord Purgator Robarte Morgayne Haarlock
  • Haarlock Bloodline Banner-Captains (Lieutenant)
  • Luxillian Pleasure Guild (Cult)
  • Clanfleet Raider Flotilla (Fleet)
  • Slave Transport Flotilla (Landing Fleet)
  • Regiments Of Flamboyant Grenadiers (Host)
  • Brigades Of Raider Corsairs (Host)
  • Vast Hordes Of Colourful Fanatics (Host)
• Lord Corruptor
  • Ssefthe The Creeping Death, Herald Of Nurgle (Lieutenant)
  • Poxwalker Infestation (Cult)
  • Hellbringer-Class Light Cruiser Squadron (Fleet)
  • Battalion of Plague Marines (Host)
  • Vast Hordes Of Nurgle Cultists (Host)
  • Sellsword Night Lord Raptor Talons (Host)
  • Sellsword Night Lord Sorcerors (Cabal)

Okay I have to ask for more info on the following 3 groups, please could you explain them a bit.

Lord Purgator Robarte Morgayne Haarlock

• Luxillian Pleasure Guild (Cult)
• Regiments Of Flamboyant Grenadiers (Host)
• Vast Hordes Of Colourful Fanatics (Host)

Well, the forces count as their respective crusade assets.

Narratively:

Haarlock's cloister agents are responsible for his 'Cult' asset - the Luxillian being...well...a luxillian, and she and people she's trained establishing themselves as lovers to important imperial officials. Presumably the Gulanan agent also has people poking the finances of various noble houses and trading guilds too, but it's mostly a bunch of hedonists too fixated on the attentions of their mistresses to notice they're getting some really, really bad advice whispered into their ears, and giving away rather more information than they think they are, as pillow talk.

The Clan-fleet Hosts are basically pirate crew soldiers.

The grenadiers will be more competent oath-sworn guards - picked men, well equipped, and the trooper equivalent of banner-captains, and, along with Catarina's garrison soldiers, the closest thing to a 'regular army' you could match with Imperial Militarum units the Ilium clans have.

The fanatics are just more ordinary - if unhinged - slaaneshi cultists from somewhere in the Pyre holdfasts, sworn into Haarlock's service and armed with...whatever the heck they can find. Blades, stub weapons, maybe a bit of armour stitched here and there amongst ludicrously over-dramatic looking vibrant clothing, and probably drugged to the nines. But there's a tonne of the buggers, and it's not like anyone cares if a few thousand of them get killed before they overrun whatever position the Lord Purgator throws them at.

The players have discussed matters, and have their outline plans for the first couple of campaign turns.

• Turn 1
  • Deployment
    • Since they'll be approaching from the Tyrant's Pyre (the Black Legion units arriving from elsewhere, and the clanfleet units mustering from their various holdfasts, they decided as their first turn to simply move on and fully assemble at Briseis. Rather than risk losing a fully laden fleet en route, they're opting to spend a turn readying the assault one warp jump from Pandarus.
    • Technically Catarina's hosts probably originated on Briseis, but her fleet assets are either clanfleet or black legion ships 'loaned' to her command and should be arriving with the rest of the crusade, so she wouldn't be in a position to launch an assault on her own. Plus, she's actually trying to play her character as 'khornate general' not 'frothing bezerker-loon' and has enough sense not to throw two landing fleets solo at the entire Pandarus Battlefleet Division.
    • All Fleets, Hosts, Cabals and Lieutenants will all deploy to Briseis
    • Cults will deploy further into the Agenor sector. Exact details TBD, but the Alpha Legion are specifically being deployed to Pandarus Base in advance of the main assault.
  • Combat
    • None, since they're not throwing themselves into the fire just yet.
  • Key Events
    • Since the crusade forces are various disparate factions from two major groups, the Heretics have decided to spend their 'action' this campaign turn squishing any incipient frictions in the crusade forces before they become a problem.
      • The reaver clans naturally see the black legion as interlopers only interested in plunder, claim-jumping the clan's rights to the Ilium expanse.
      • The black legion see the reaver clans as...well....as not the black legion, as @Cobramax76 implied earlier. They will have sworn service to the Warmaster, but they're not 'proper' black legion - not even astartes at all, just expendable pirate scum....some of whom expect to give them orders.
    • A suggested use is 'remove discontent from a lieutenant and render them unable to become discontent for turns equal to the number of participating heretics' . Whilst no-one's discontent yet, that seems like the closest match; the gameplay session will see them splitting up and slapping down discontent elements within the fleet, and will each render their respective lieutenants too busy to think about stabbing them in the back for the following turn (which, since it'll be the en-masse assault on Pandarus which should hopefully succeed with many degrees of success is no bad thing).
      • Any suggestions for the specific trials in the session are welcome!
        • My current thoughts:
        • Catarena has the most obvious straight-out fight. She's been handed a bunch of Khornate Bezerkers who are unlikely to placidly take orders from a 'mere' human until she's killed one or two of them.
        • Robarte Haarlock getting involved in a social combat makes sense. Even if there's not much of the Haarlocks left other than him, there's still the other clan bloodlines who may not be happy.
        • Adjo Gahiji doing nefarious anti-conspiracy conspiracies is suitably tzeenchian. Letting him get used to how Mind Probe works (or doesn't) and partaking of scrutiny, inquiry and deceive tests to locate some discontent elements will work.
        • The Lord Corruptor.....we've still to finish his character. but if he's there (or even if he isn't), generic 'instil fear' is both very night lord, very lord corruptor, and basically exactly what he needs to achieve this goal. What it actually entails is up to him to figure out, but the odd violent atrocity never hurt anyone. Except, you know, the victims.
  • Assess Crusade Strength
    • The chosen will receive 2 plunder from Briseis, drawing resources from the mines and orbital works.
    • Critically, the Enemy Reinforcements roll for Briseis was a 9. With a -1 for a corrupted territory, a +1 for a warp route, and at 0 defender strength, that means reinforcements. A roll of a 4 meant a 4 point imperial strength appearing on Briseis for next turn!
      • I considered not counting the warp route as it leads to the Pyre, not another sector, but it makes sense that the Imperium isn't going to stand still and it gives some consequences to the players sitting on their backsides for a turn; the Pandarus Squadron isn't going to launch an all-out assault into a warp storm along unsafe routes, but a gifted navigator might be able to take a Viper-class scout sloop, or something, to go and investigate the rumours of a fleet massing in the edges of the storm. The Briseis-to-Pandarus warp route is the big threat axis facing Ilium, and patrolling it makes sense. Having rolled something which requires the players to cope with an interesting turn of events, I'm of a mind to stick with it rather than house-rule it to go away.
      • 4 Points of threat is pretty trivial. It's well within the scope of one player to eliminate with a key event, or for a single fleet or host asset to eliminate if left behind (in the case of the latter we can assume there are some local system ships amongst the pirate bases they can commandeer), but whatever or whoever they leave to deal with the problem won't be there on D Minus Zero at Pandarus.
    • Additional reinforcements: Danaan (2), Dolon (3/2), Thersites (4,2), Chryses (1), Priam (7/4)
    • The crusade event was pretty emphatically Nurglesque - The Fly Lord Feasts, on a 77, no less. Fortunately there was a roll of a 1 for how much plunder they lose, so they still get 1 left and even if they don't take Pandarus will be eligible to raise a new host next turn, but this will 'waste' one plunder from Briseis in favour of the Lord Corruptor gaining a point of Infamy. I'm going to suggest that the poxwalker plague has gotten loose in some of the outlying facilities in Briseis orbit, which will make the Lord Corruptor say "yay" and deeply irk the Lord Purgator.
• Turn 2
  • Deployment
    • Essentially - unless something unexpected happens, pretty much everyone will up sticks and attack Pandarus en masse.
  • Combat
    • Pretty much what you'd expect. Command of the Pandarus assault will either go to the Haarlock Banner-Captains or Anok Sabe, as both are competent naval commanders. I'm not expecting much subtlety
    • There may be a sideshow in Briseis before the main event, depending on how they choose to deal with them.
  • Key Events
    • One Heretic might elect to hunt down the imperials loose in Briseis, but I expect not.
    • Their main goal as a group is to try and capture battlefleet warships from Pandarus base during the battle. This will involve the Insatiable making an approach under silent running with whatever advantages they can scrape together - celestial phenomena, sorcerous rituals, alpha legion saboteurs blinding auspex arrays, etc - with the heretics aboard along with a picked host of troops (the insatiable has a barracks deck) - probably one of the four astartes detachments, and odds-on favourite is the bezerkers - and prize crews. Whilst the assault comes in at Pandarus' defences, the heretics and their troops will engage in a cutting-out expedition to sieze whatever particularly shiny capital ships an advance strike can catch at anchor.
      • This will be a mix of navigation/manoeuvre tests, a brief naval combat with....let's say a system ship or some dockside gun batteries....and then the boarding action itself, played as a Black Crusade mass combat versus the armsmen and some personal combats against officers and naval security (who are generally shown as stormtrooper equivalents).
    • "Create a new host at the target planet" is a valid use of a key event. Given that it's narratively appropriate, if the players pull this off well, I don't think it's unreasonable for 3-4 heretics combining their key events to generate a fleet at the target planet instead.
  • Assess Crusade Strength
    • Will wait to see how the 'turn' goes before looking at this!

The Lord Deceiver's Background .

Adjo Gahiji

The Treasure Hunter, Ghost-Maker, The Deceiver Of Lukitar, Lord Deceiver Of The Black Crusade

Scout

Noble or infamous, glorious or tragic, few of the Fifteenth Legion have led undistinguished careers, and Adjo Gahiji was no exception. A son of Prospero recruited into the legion at the time of Magnus' discovery, he was assigned to one of the recon squads of the Second Fellowship. He proved effective in the role, and distinguished himself serving amongst the Thousand Son's scout formations and kill-teams for several years, ultimately becoming sergeant of the Fellowship's First Recon Squad.

Sorceror

Like many of the legion, Adjo Gahiji was to manifest psychic talents as the Great Crusade continued. In accordance with the legion's traditions, after his burgeoning telekinetic abilities were first sensed by his peers he was granted membership within the Raptora cult - the master telekines of the Thousand Sons. Whilst Adjo Gahiji was not as strong a telekinetic as his master and some of his peers, he was instead skilled at the more precise applications of the talent, manipulating smaller devices such as locks and the internal mechanisms of weaponry, and he rose within the ranks of the Raptora, briefly serving as Equerry to Phosis T'Kar himself in the decades prior to the Conclave of Nikea.

During his studies, he was also gifted the services of a tutelary spirit named Carcinus. With Carcinus' guidance he developed creative new ways to employ his telekine gifts; using telekinetic force to compensate for the shifts in weight when wielding paired blades, and to use his telekinetic power to create kineshields focused to a point after the fashion of a quaestoris knight's ion shield, rather than the impenetrable void shield-eque barricades produced by the raw power of telekines such as Phosis T'Kar. Encouraged by the tutelary - who seemed obsessed with duality, encouraging the use of paired weapons, paired talents and so forth - he also began to study the techniques of the Athenaens. He developed an equally efficient, if subtle, talent for the telepath's art, and was admitted to the Athenean Cult under the supervision of the Magister Templum, Baleq Uthizzar.

Carcinus was subsequently to abandon its pupil for reasons that made little sense to the young Thousand Son at the time. In truth, his native abilities - whilst impressive - were not nearly so strong as those of others, with precise control rather than raw power being responsible for their effectiveness. As such, he was far less vulnerable to the betrayal and predation by the Tutelary Spirits that most of the Thousand Sons' supposedly benign familiars secretly had in mind.

Sentinal

It was his skills outside the psychic disciplines of Prospero that would bring him to the notice of the legion's upper hierarchy. During his tenure as Phosis T'Kar's equerry, he co-ordinated his former battle-brothers in the fellowship's recon squad, and the more esoteric skills of its Corvidae prescients and his erstwhile tutors amongst the Athenaen telepaths, along with its other information-gathering assets, on behalf of his captain during the early stages of the Diao Tsang compliance. Extracting useful secrets from the morass of raw data available to a legion was a talent which came naturally to the young astartes, and more than one Tsang Heavy Guard counterassault walked into carefully prepared ambushes after the Diao Tsang war engines' hidden bases were betrayed by what was believed to be a carefully concealed logistics trail.

Impressed with his work, Phosis T'Kar recommended his services to Amon - equerry to the Primarch himself - in advance of the invasion of the Diao Tsang core worlds. Surprised if flattered, Adjo Gahiji found himself presented to the Crimson King in person, along with the Primarch's Equerry and the Chief Librarian, and was soon aiding the chief equerry in running the intelligence assets of his entire legion; often acting as the chief equerry's proxy to the auxilia units - the Fleet, Army, Qaestoris, and Zhao-Arkhad Mechanicum cohorts supporting the Thousand Sons - whilst Amon dealt with the legion units themselves. If this division of labour was largely intended to free Amon to concentrate on the legion's most potent assets, it was no easy role for Adjo Gahiji - the tech-wise Diao Tsang both maintained effective infiltration cadres and had at their disposal sophisticated data-phages and sabotage-ware, and he found himself developing his skills at counter-intelligence and security as repeated attempts were made to compromise the taghmata units, which - whilst effective in battle - represented large concentrations of firepower with little direct human oversight.

Whilst the Diao Tsang commandoes occasionally managed to cripple small taghmata formations, or reduce the co-ordination of units during battle, they never managed the devastating disruption to the Thousand Son's campaign they hoped for thanks to Adjo Gahiji's scrutiny. The closest they came - and the moment which cemented Adjo Gahiji's reputation as an intelligencer by detecting it - was in corrupting the co-ordinate system in a mechanicum targeting relay, resulting in a validated order with the un-forgeable biometric signifiers of one of the highest ranking Magos Ordinators of the Zhao-Arkhad Taghmata, but accompanied by terminal detonation patterns which - whilst they looked correct to the Magos transmitting them - bore no resemblance to the target locations intended or described in the order. Had the Photep launched the spread of barrage bombs as instructed, the cluster warheads scattering from each would have rained down not just on the Thousand Sons' own lines but in a saturation bombardment on the Scarab Occult itself, breaking the back of the legion's assault..

Scavenger

Adjo Gahiji's 'reward' for his effective service as a counter-intelligence officer was a secondment to another legion - the Twentieth. Amon and Phosis T'Kar themselves arranging the secondment, hoping the Alpha Legion's infamous skills in deception, misdirection and sabotage might further hone the Thousand Son's potential. The first deployment to which he was assigned was an Alpha Legion Fellowship (a formation designation he swiftly suspected was being adopted purely for the benefit of their Fifteenth Legion 'observer') protecting Mechanicum Explorator forces probing a ruined dark age manufactorum complex. Fighting alongside the Alpha Legion kill-teams, first in disrupting and routing the indigenous scav-tribes infesting the outer districts of the complex, and then in breaching the security of the inner manufactorum, Although suspecting that his existing skills and knowledge was being scrutinised to a far greater degree than he was being instructed in any new techniques, Adjo Gahiji was impressed with both the Alpha Legion's extensive and flexible covert operations doctrines and the Twentieth's battle-brothers, some of whom were to remain allies and correspondents for many years after they had parted company.

Whilst few scraps of useful technology could be salvaged from the cogitator cores of the facility, no small quantity of lethal auto-defence systems remained functional, and picking their way through the las-traps, graviton walls, and, most terrifyingly, corroded but still functional battle-automata-analogues, cost both the Mechanicum and the Alpha Legion no small amount of personnel. In one case, the skeletal form of an automata stripped down for maintenance proved still active - its armour plating largely missing, it should have proved easy to destroy, but the crackling barricade of its archeotech shielding made a mockery of the relatively light weaponry available to the kill-team, bolt shells detonating uselessly a foot from its chassis. A gravetic lance on its shoulder mount reduced three of the Alpha Legion troopers to a bloody smear along the floor in reply.

Shouting a call for covering fire to the leader of the kill-team, Adjo Gahiji rushed towards the automata, diving for cover behind a half-derelict bank of machinery performing some unknowable calibration or maintenance on the armour plates removed from the automata's chassis. The gravetic lance speared out again, but whilst it carved a molten scar in the armour plating, his guess had been correct; the ancient designers of the automata had armoured it against weapons equivalent to its own, and - whilst the cover provided by the stack of plating would not hold for long - it would hopefully hold long enough.

A volley of blind grenades skittered across the floor, spewing smoke and particulate chaff. No doubt the sensors of the automata could compensate, given time, but for a moment or two it was unable to aim accurately. Reaching out with his telekine's senses from his position close to the automata, Adjo Gahiji took advantage of the removed armour plating. Able to clearly perceive the shape of the automata's internal mechanisms, he grabbed and tore at connectors and fluid links that would have been sealed behind solid plate. Whilst he knew little of the specific function of the automata's systems, he simply wrenched at every wire and cable he could sense. The automata collapsed, spewing oils and breakable components as if overrun by a swarm of starving rats, twitching for a few seconds before its reactor - cut off from its governor circuitry - suffered a runaway failure and detonated in a wall of plasma that would have vaporised the Thousand Son were it not for the cover of the armour plating and a hastily erected kineshield.

As it was, Adjo Gahiji awoke in the apothecarion of the Alpha Legion cruiser a day later to find the kill-team leader waiting at his bedside. The alpha legion officer had been impressed - not only with the Thousand Son's psychic abilities, but with his quick and logical thinking in the heat of battle; firstly in reasoning that the barricade would provide safe cover close enough to launch his telekinetic attack, and secondly in correctly identifying the Alpha Legion commander, who had neither been introduced as such nor wore any identifying heraldry. The rogue automata had been the last major opposition the explorators had faced, and what little scraps of archeotech could be salvaged had already been secured for shipment to Mars.

After his recovery, Adjo Gahiji was to continue serving intermittently with the Mechanicum, gaining a keen interest in the forgotten tech-devices of mankind's past, and an appreciation of archeotech's capabilities rare in the astartes outside the forge lords of the legions, and earned several allies amongst the Cult Mechanicum - especially amongst the Zhao-Arkad Taghmata, whose Cybernetica units most commonly benefitted from the irreplaceable artefacts he often uncovered. Joining, assisting, and ultimately leading several exploratory missions, he was given the half-respectful, half-mocking title of "The Treasure Hunter" by one of the Zhao-Arkhad Archmagi, who came to view the integral presence of the Thousand Son on the Mechanicum's exploratory missions as a desirable anomaly, and considered him a peer explorator.

Swordsman

Seconded to the Zhao-Arkhad expeditions, Adjo Gahiji was not present during the burning of Prospero itself, but was to fight in the bloody battles following that campaign. Returning to Prospero to find the world abandoned and blasted from orbit and the fabric of reality still stinging from the echoes of a colossal act of sorcery that could only have been the work of the Crimson King. Added to this, the warp was thick with predator-spirits preying on the butchered souls of his brothers - amongst which, shorn of its friendly, affable mask, he was shocked to see the twin-faced distorted grin of a being he recognised as Carcinus.

Calling on various informants scattered through the local regions of space, it did not take long to understand who was responsible for the death of his homeworld. The answer that the attack had come by Imperial command - the Sixth Legion accompanied by the Talons of the Emperor themselves in the persons of the Adeptus Custodes, Sisterhood and Ordo Sinister shattered his world-view. If the Emperor could order a beacon of peace, wisdom and study callously burned, then he was every bit as much the thoughtless barbarian as those Adjo Gahiji had spent the Great Crusade fighting against - and he deserved the same fate.

Enraged by what he saw as the Wolves' betrayal and unnecessary brutality, he nonetheless responded with a cold, precise determination to inflict the maximum damage on the rout before his destruction, leading the forces at his disposal to pounce on and destroy isolated sixth legion forces as they redeployed to the Alaxxes Nebula. Wielding the paired khopesh blades he had mastered under Carcinus' tutelage, he cut a sizeable swathe through the stragglers of the Wolf King's fleet. Using falsified distress calls and ransacking each captured ship for useful information, and leaving few if any survivors, he consistently stayed ahead of the destroyer packs sent to stop his depredations, and some of the rearguard units began to whisper of being stalked by a hunter that they named Vaetirmakker - "The Ghost-Maker".

Ultimately, he reunited with his legion - joy at discovering many of his brothers had survived the burning of Prospero with sorrow at the extents they had been forced to go to in order to survive. Whilst he made a show of studying some of the Tzeenchian lore gleefully offered by the sorcerers amongst his brothers, and employed it during the climactic battles of the Siege of Terra itself, he remained deeply sceptical and suspicious of the growing signs of warp-taint and mutation amongst the legion's rank and file. After the defeat of the Traitor Legions, and their retreat into the Eye of Terror, despite his position within the upper echelons of the growing Cult Of Manipulation, he risked everything to join Azhek Ahriman's Rubric Cabal, hoping to halt the growing debasement of the legion.

Spymaster

Much like Ahriman himself, Adjo Gahiji was exiled from the Planet Of Sorcerors after the disaster of the Rubric. Unlike Ahriman, the backlash of the Rubric was not kind, and left him irrevocably mutated - marked with an avian face leaving him resembling one of the Gyptic scribe-gods, and - somewhat ironically - one of the higher Tzeenchian daemons whose claim on the legion the Rubricae was intended to deny. Unable to easily hide his identity, he took to a life as a sell-sword spymaster and archeotech-hunter, eking out a life amongst his erstwhile Dark Mechanicum and Alpha Legion allies during the bloody era of the Legion Wars before taking the Warmaster Abbadon's banner during the early Black Crusades.

Joining the Sons Of The Cyclops, he swiftly established himself as a gifted conspirator and manipulator, earning significant infamy misdirecting and ambushing Imperial forces in the lead-up to the Lukitar campaign, and during the Lukitar Station raids at the outset of the Gothic War, he and a kill-team of Alpha Legion mercenaries succeeded in seizing an impressive haul of experimental designs and archeotech artefacts before the station was reduced to tattered wreckage by the guns of the Blackstone Fortress.

Earning the title of "The Deceiver Of Lukitar" for his actions, he was recognised in the Warmaster's court by Abbadon himself and granted command of a battlefront of his own as one of the Chosen of Abbadon. As a mark of his new office, the Warmaster presented his new lieutenant with a matched pair of Khopesh daemonblades, each bound with a blue horror that was half the torn essence of the being who had once been Carcinus the Tutelary. Adjo Gahiji was then dispatched ahead of the Black Legion warfleets to the boundaries of the Segmentum Solar along with a fleet of warships and armies of soldiers and war engines, he was to serve as Lord Deceiver in Abbadon's name, to oversee a Black Crusade to overthrow the Ilium Sector.

Alignment : Tzeench

Archetype : Thousand Sons Sorceror

Pride : Logic

Disgrace : Hubris

Motivation : Arcane

Characteristics

WS_____BS_____S_____T_____Ag_____Int_____Per_____WP_____Fel_____Inf_____Wounds_____Corruption

50______40___ (8) 42_ (8) 40____40_____43______40____ (10) 70______50_____56_________20____________60

Skills

• Dodge +10
• Athletics, Awareness, Command, Common Lore (Imperium, War), Deceive, Forbidden Lore (Adeptus Astartes, Archeotech, Daemonology, Horus Heresy and The Long War, Inquisition, Mechanicus, Psykers, Warp), Inquiry, Linguistics (Low Gothic), Logic, Navigate (Surface, Warp), Operate (Surface), Parry, Psynicience, Scholastic Lore (Occult, Legend), Scrutiny

Talents

• Ambidextrous
  • Use Both Hands Freely
• Ancient Warrior
• Blade Dancer
  • No Penalty for Dual-Wielding Melee Weapons
• Blind Fighting
• Bulging Biceps
  • Use Heavy Weapons Unbraced
• Combat Formation
  • Allies Gain +2 Initiative and May Use Characters Int Bonus instead of Ag
• Favoured By The Warp
• Foresight
  • +10 To Lore & Logic when given time to prepare
• Heightened Senses (Hearing, Sight)
  • +10 Per with Appropriate Sense
• Infused Knowledge
  • Treat all Common & Scholastic Lores as Known
• Light Sleeper
  • Test Awareness as if Awake
• Meditation
• Nerves Of Steel
  • Reroll Fear and Pinning Checks
• Paranoia
  • Initiative +2
• Peer (Mortal Servants Of Tzeench)
  • Fel +10 when interacting with this group
• Polyglot
• Psy Rating (7)
  • Use Psychic Powers at PR7 Unfettered
• Quick Draw
  • Equip Weapons as a Free Action
• Resistance (Cold, Heat, Poisons, Psychic Powers)
  • +10 to Test to Resist These Effects
• Strong Minded
• Total Recall
  • Recall Any Detail with an Int Test
• Two-Weapon Wielder (Melee)

  • Use Two Melee Weapons In A Single Attack

• Unarmed Warrior
  • Natural Weapons Trait
• Warp Conduit
• Warp Sense
  • Use Psynicience as a Free Action
• Weapon Training (Legion)

  • Use All Non-Exotic Weapon Types Without Penalty

• Wisdom Of The Ancients

  • Spend an Infamy Point for Advice

Traits

• Amphibious
• Fear (2)
• Natural Weapons
  • Improved Unarmed Attacks
• Psyker
• Rubric Of Ahriman
  • Roll Twice for Perils Of The Warp and Choose
• Sorceror
• Unnatural Strength (4)
  • Increased Strength Bonus, Gain 2 Bonus Degrees Of Success On Strength Tests
• Unnatural Toughness (4)
  • Increased Toughness Bonus, Gain 2 Bonus Degrees Of Success On Toughness Tests
• Unnatural Willpower (3)
  • Increased Willpower Bonus, Gain 2 Bonus Degrees Of Success On Willpower Tests

Gifts & Rewards

• Daemon Weapon
• Face Of Tzeench
  • Gain Fear (2)
• Mark Of Tzeench
  • Unnatural Willpower (3)
• Massive Intellect
• Warpsmith

Psychic Powers

• Tzeench
  • Bolt Of Tzeench
  • Boon Of Tzeench
• Telepathy
  • Delude
  • Mind Link
  • Mind Probe
  • Thought Sending
• Telekinesis
  • Force Bolt
  • Kineshield
  • Mind Over Matter
  • Precision Telekinesis

Weapons & Equipment

• The Daemonswords Carcinus

  • Horror Of Tzeench

    • Willpower 32, Binding Strength 1 split across both blades (WP 27 for Mastery Checks, WP16 per blade for damage increase)
    • Greater Carcinus
      • Heavy Khopesh
      • D10+10, Pen 10, Balanced, Power Field, Mutating
    • Lesser Carcinus
      • Light Khopesh
      • D10+5, Pen 6, Flexible, Balanced, Illusory (Penalty to notice the daemonic nature applies to both swords)

• Two Legion Bolt Pistols

  • 2 Clips of Inferno Bolts

• Force Sword

• Legion Combat Knife

• Legion Power Armour

  • AP8 (All Except Chest), AP10 (Chest)

  • 1D5 Hours Power Supply

  • The Black Legion's Armour

    • AP Bonus if Unaligned

  • Autosenses

    • Sight & Hearing +10, Called Shots as Half Action when Wearing Helm

  • Biomonitors & Injectors

    • 6 Doses Pain-Suppressors

  • Enhanced Ceramite Plate

• Black Blood

  • Always Heal as if Lightly Wounded

• Good Craftsmanship MIU

  • +10 to Interaction with Tech

• Mimic-Mask

  • +10 to Charm and Deceive when worn, removes Fear (2)

• Talisman Of Tzeench

  • Penalty To Nearby Psykers

• Vox-Caster

Session 1

Real Life:

So....we started a bit late due to various things (which may or may not have included discussing the imminent arrival of Giant Stompy Robots) . Added to that, our Khornate player is rather ill, so was there in Blood For The Blood God T-shirt somewhat clashing with massive fluffy dressing gown, and basically just stayed up to confirm agreement, delegate authority to deploy her troops to the others and scoff pizza, before going bed shortly after. Our Nurglesque player was also absent, because when you say the phrase "the only regular night I do things is Thursday evening" to some managers, apparently what they hear is "I am the ideal person to task with the regular Thursday night stock count from now until doomsday, and will not picture your violent death in my head if you pick me out of all your staff qualified to do it. Every. Single. Time."

In Game:

With only the Lord Deceiver and Lord Purgator's actions, we agreed the other two would either complete their actions later, or I'd do a few representative checks and report the results next time if we didn't get a chance.

• It was made clear that the tension between the Reaver and Legion factions was reaching boiling point in the lead-up to the assault on Pandarus, especially with the need to provision the newly -arrived Legion warships from the Clanfleet's stores. The Chosen took steps to quell this (and to let them see some of the Black Crusade rules they'd not encountered before)
• Whilst the Haarlock bloodline was aiding the Black Legion enthusiastically, and most of the Clan bloodlines were providing at least grudging support, three major bloodlines (Gelt, Hendrick and Bawarij) were refusing to provide anything, reserving their resources purely for the ships of their own banner-captains.
• Whilst the Chosen could simply order the resources siezed, they were smart enough to realise that would almost certainly result in Clanfleet and Black Legion warships shooting at each other and the whole crusade could turn into a bloody massacre before the fleet ever left Briseis.
• The Lord Purgator - as the Clanfleet Navarch - has command authority on the battlefield but limited legal authority over other banner-lords off it.
  • He does have the authority to call a conclave of the banner-lord captains, so decided to do so and try to force Ferias Gelt (the Gelt Banner-lord), whom a Forbidden Lore (Pirates) check identified as the faction's leader, to publicly back down.
  • He doesn't have the right to specify the terms of the meeting, and given his recent history, it is perhaps unsurprising that " The Insatiable's Sensorium " was rejected as a location. He was disappointed, though.
  • The Black Deed , flagship of Tobias, Banner-Lord Vayne was agreed as a more-or-less neutral site, with the Vayne Banner-Captains providing armsmen to garuantee everyone's security.
    • We used the Tome of Excess rules for Social Conflict, treating Gelt as a Fallen Demagogue with Peer (Pirates).
    • The Insatiable counted as in sight (giving Haarlock a +10 bonus from it's Gilded Hull) but none of its other interaction check bonuses.
    • Since it was his first exposure to these rules, our Slaaneshi player found the name moderately amusing, and since the yell of "Social Combat!" rather seemed to sum up the plan. I'm a big believer in background music during game sessions and since he was (after all) being followed around by a troupe of thirty-odd sycophantic minstrels, we decided that Mortal Kombat Theme On Orchestral Strings was a rather soundtrack for the Conclave.
    • The rules work rather well, as it happens.
  • All parties entered, with Robarte Haarlock using his status as instigator and Navarch to enter last, to the sound of orchestral strings, and various heralds listing off his various titles (which impressively, he managed to reel off without hesitation or repetition):
    • Lord Of The Stonerain Belt, Master Of The Insatiable , The Scourge Of Danaan & Agenor, The Beast-Slayer of Theristes, Wielder Of Soul-Reaper & Chaos-Drinker, Banner-Lord Haarlock, The "Pleasure Prince", Heir To Phosphex Jack, The "Buggery King", Navarch Of The Ilium Clanfleet, Lord Purgator Of The Black Crusade, Chosen Of Abbadon, Robarte Morgayne Haarlock
      • This rather appropriately led into an overawe check for Gelt, which he failed, costing him half his infamy and a few points of willpower...
  • The conclave began.
    • The Social Conflict could have ended a lot earlier had Robarte been less parsimonious with staking infamy.... the Hermaphrodite gift is brutally effective in opposed interaction tests.
    • First Round
      • Gelt: Haarlock was shaming the Haarlock bloodline and the Clanfleet nobility by swearing service to the black legion like a mere servant. No true Ilium Banner-Lord would accept service as someone else's banner-captain - "but of course you wouldn't be expected to know that given how you attained the rank"
      • Haarlock: Haarlock had fought on the front lines and achieved far more than Gelt "without simply being handed it by accident of senior birth" , and knew how to achieve far more. (Won)
    • Second Round
      • Haarlock: The Black Legion were a necessity to take on the Ilium Battlefleet blockading Pandarus in a straight fight, not a series of raids and manouvres "since we return to stay this time" .
      • Gelt: The Clanfleet took Briseis without outside help despite the best effort of the Ilium Militarum and Battlefleet, which Haarlock would know "if he was half the commander of the man whose heritage he claims" . (Won)
    • Third Round
      • Gelt: The Black Legion "will use the Ilium clans as macrocannon fodder, then pick over the corpses of both sides for plunder"
      • Haarlock: If the Black Legion want to use the clans as expendable, they'd be stupid "since their troops are aboard our transports" (Won)
    • Fourth Round
      • Gelt: Angry "They have no place in this war!"
      • Haarlock: "Think. Of. The. Loot." (Won, and won the entire conflict)
    • With Gelt reduced to a spluttering wreck, an Intimidate test was enough to get him and the rest of the recalcitrant clans to fall in line.
  • Haarlock considered having the Gelt bloodline remove Ferias, but weighing the awkward choice between a competent subordinate with a grudge, or a loyal quisling with questionable combat experience, he decided to retain Ferias as Banner-Lord Gelt. As the Lord Deceiver noted; "We can always murder him later."
• There were also a number of bloody skirmishes between Clanfleet crew and some of the Dark Mechanicum Thralls assigned to the Hellforge Light Cruisers. The fighting could easily spark into feuds between officers and ultimately, again, the ships exchanging fire.
  • The repeated, intense fighting left Adjo Gahiji suspecting it was being deliberately orchestrated, and the Lord Deceiver dispatched agents to investigate.
    • In this case, the Tome Of Fate investigation rules were used.
    • The Dark Mechanicum cruisers would have been a known environment for Adjo Gahiji, but the Clanfleet would not, so we split the difference and made the investigation environment a -10.
    • The people fighting were obvious, but we decided that the people orchestrating it would be harder to find, so we made it a -10, equivalent to a trained but not superior conspirator
    • Locating hidden orchestrators seemed like the investigation duration of 24 hours seemed appropriate.
      • One Inquiry test, one Scrutiny test and one Forbidden Lore Mechnicus test were all passed, and the resulting degrees of success and D10 rolls allowed Adjo Gahiji to identify the responsible parties without hitting any complications.
  • The feuding crew included too many indentured bondsmen and Mechanicum thralls, who could only have 'shore leave' at the whim of their officers, to hide the originators, who whilst wanting blood spilled, had sought to get expendable slaves killed, and been too cautious with the lives of their more skilled crew to truly pass matters off as spontaneous.
  • The responsible parties were Magos Ektashik, the commander of the Hellforge Light Cruiser Damnation's Anvil , and Shoon, a Bawarij Banner-Captain of a raider called the Viper's Kiss .
  • The Lord Deceiver decided to make examples, sending Anok Sabe in person to the Damnation's Anvil and Viper's Kiss to bring the two captains to attend him, in person.
  • The two commanders found themselves being escorted side by side into the darkened, flame-lit command deck of the Will Of Tzeench , finding the walls lined with columns of statue-stationary Rubricae, with Adjo Gahiji stood, without helmet or comforting mimic-mask obscuring his mutated features.
    • Under the circumstances, Imhotep's Theme seemed appropriate.
  • Without any further ceremony, the Lord Deceiver demanded an explanation of their actions, spelling out far more detail than they anticipated he could know.
    • With the setting (as described by the Lord Deceiver) the intimidate test was somewhat of a formality.
  • Both parties quickly devolved into blathering excuses and denunciations of the other. The Lord Deceiver was not amused.
    • An unfettered PR7 Thought Sending of <BE QUIET> got the point across.
    • Total Recall triggered; both parties, during their rants, had both used the phrase "They have no place in this war!" in exactly the same inflection and tone of voice as Banner-Lord Gelt used during the Clanfleet conclave.
    • Forbidden Lore (Psykers) recognised the signs of a possible outside compulsion.
  • Suspecting the minds of both parties had been tampered with, Adjo Gahiji wasted no time investigating in a brutally direct manner.
    • A pushed PR10 Mind Probe caused a momentary glimpse of the warp to unfurl on the Will 's command deck, sending some of the weaker-willed slaves attending the deck insane.
  • Investigation of Ektashik's subconcious caught an aftertaste of a thought-form; a subliminal construct with far too many segmented legs and tentacles scuttling through the Magos' psyche. It tried to hide, pulling memories across itself like a cloak, but the Thousand Son was relentless and soon caught it. It was constructed around a single compulsive idea; <THEY HAVE NO PLACE IN THIS WAR>.
  • The same thought-form was found in Shoon's mind - but the Bawarij Banner-Captain was left a drooling vegetable in the process.
    • There was no real consideration for his survival in the exercise - he had neither Resistance (Psychic Powers) nor Orthoproxy, unlike the magos, and after he tanked three opposed willpower checks with 95+ rolls in a row, it seemed rather appropriate.
  • The thought-forms were the work of a gifted telepath, but were not created by someone trained in Athenaean disciplines.
    • Forbidden Lore (Psykers) identified the responsible parties as one of the Lord Corruptor's Night Lord Sell-swords.
  • The Lord Purgator took responsibility for containing the political fallout of Adjo Gahiji telepathically executing one of the Bawarij bloodline's Banner-Captains.
  • It was agreed that the Lord Corruptor should take responsibility for sanctioning the ultimate culprit - it is, after all, the Chosen's role.
• Resources were gathered from Briseis as wealth, minerals and slaves were drawn from the Briseis fortress-peaks and the Clan Orbitals, but rumours of poxwalker outbreaks in the outer reaches of the system were blamed on the Lord Corruptor's servants, and led to a loss of resources
  • 1 plunder gathered, 1 lost to The Fly Lord Feasts.
• Other loses appeared to be the result of attacks on transport ships. The Insatiable investigated one derelict, and Adjo Gahiji's Common Lore (Imperium) and Forbidden Lore (Inquisition) identified the attackers by the weapons used by their boarding party as an Ordo Tempestor Scion Recon Force, dispatched to investigate rumours of a massing fleet.
• It was agreed that it could only be a small force, since they had evaded the Clanfleet patrols. Especially given recent revalations, the Chosen agreed that the Lord Corruptor's Night Lord Mercenaries - both the Raptor Talons and the Sorcerors - should be left to hunt them down, in as brutal a method as possible.
• The Lord Deceiver's Alpha Legion Saboteurs were dispatched to Pandarus in advance of the assault.
• The Lord Purgator's Pleasure Guild was dispatched to Dolon to resume...old contacts.
• By agreement of the Chosen, the Lord Corruptor's Poxwalkers were dispatched to Nestor, in the hopes of disrupting the Sector's administrative heart.

Rolls for turn 2 (in advance of the game night)

• Event - The Great Manipulator Interferes. Cabals will provide no benefit from turn 3 to turn 7. After that, each Cabal will produce 1 plunder on a random territory
• Reinforcements
  • Antenor
    • Hephaestus (1/1)
  • Agenor
    • Briseis - (roll of a '10'!) will reinforce by 1 point (survivors?) - will stop counting the entry warp route once/if Pandarus is taken
    • Danaan - 7 points
  • Dolon
    • Dolon (5/2)
    • Chryses (4)
    • Thersites (2/1)
  • Priam
    • Priam (1/0)
    • Nestor (1/1

Sounds like our Lord Corruptor will actually be present - so - whilst he's going to be too late to change the deployment orders for the forces hitting pandarus or hunting the imperial scout forces - means he gets to play his event.

Given his role, I think hunting down and executing the Night Lord responsible for last weeks malarkey seems appropriate, whilst the Lord Ravager will be lightly murdering a few khorne bezerkers.

On 8/10/2018 at 5:57 AM, Magnus Grendel said:

Well, the forces count as their respective crusade assets.

Narratively:

Haarlock's cloister agents are responsible for his 'Cult' asset - the Luxillian being...well...a luxillian, and she and people she's trained establishing themselves as lovers to important imperial officials. Presumably the Gulanan agent also has people poking the finances of various noble houses and trading guilds too, but it's mostly a bunch of hedonists too fixated on the attentions of their mistresses to notice they're getting some really, really bad advice whispered into their ears, and giving away rather more information than they think they are, as pillow talk.

The Clan-fleet Hosts are basically pirate crew soldiers.

The grenadiers will be more competent oath-sworn guards - picked men, well equipped, and the trooper equivalent of banner-captains, and, along with Catarina's garrison soldiers, the closest thing to a 'regular army' you could match with Imperial Militarum units the Ilium clans have.

The fanatics are just more ordinary - if unhinged - slaaneshi cultists from somewhere in the Pyre holdfasts, sworn into Haarlock's service and armed with...whatever the heck they can find. Blades, stub weapons, maybe a bit of armour stitched here and there amongst ludicrously over-dramatic looking vibrant clothing, and probably drugged to the nines. But there's a tonne of the buggers, and it's not like anyone cares if a few thousand of them get killed before they overrun whatever position the Lord Purgator throws them at.

Okay so the Lord Purgator Robarte Morgayne Haarlock assets

Luxillian Pleasure Guild (Cult) = How to win friends and influence people... by the oldest profession

Regiments Of Flamboyant Grenadiers (Host) = Real Troops

Vast Hordes Of Colourful Fanatics (Host) = Party Troops

Thanks for filling that in for us

Session 2

Well - we unexpectedly got our Lord Corruptor available, and our Lord Ravager was feeling better enough to actually play, so we did the 'other half' of campaign turn one rather than progress.

We finished character creation for the Lord Corruptor - although still don't have a better name for him than some variation on Man-Bat-Bat-Man-Bat. Hopefully background to follow. As discussed, he's ended up with a pair of Legion Combi-Bolters and recoil suppression power armour, because screw subtlety.

• Following on from last session, the Lord Corruptor took on the task of sanctioning Dreccor, the telepath amongst his cabal of mercenary sorcerors, whom Adjo Gahiji had identified as the puppeteer behind a lot of the tensions in the fleet.
• Meanwhile, Catarena arrived to take command of the forces assigned to her by the Black Legion; specifically the strike cruiser Katana and it's troops.
  • " Wait ..." said the Lord Purgator's player at this point, hearing the ship's name, "... it's not...is it ?" whilst the Lord Deceiver's player buried his head in his hands.
  • I should probably explain at this point.
  • The Crimson Blades are a renegade chapter first created in our Deathwatch campaign something like a decade ago and have since appeared in Black Crusade campaigns and Daemonhunter campaigns too. They predate the 'official' crimson sabres/crimson slaughter, and have steadily evolved to have a sort of samurai aesthetic. When I've actually created a small army for the tabletop, the models had stowed katana instead of more standard combat blades, champions had sashimono-style banners instead of western heraldry banners, and I had some custom shoulder pauldrons made up on shapeways, using the kanji character for 'katana':
  • 
  • They look cool, but for some reason, they are cursed with utter incompetence. Dice rolls never, ever go their way. Don't ask me why, they just don't - whether they're the protagonist or antagonist in a game, RPG or tabletop, they reliably manage spectacular feats of ineptitude.
    • To this day, their crowning achievement of failure has been one of their earliest appearances; a sentry on a watch-tower spotting a deathwatch kill-team breaching the perimeter of their base, hefting a man-portable plasma cannon and firing at them - at short range (for the heavy weapon, anyway) with a red dot sight. This resulted in a catastrophic overheat which killed the marine aiming the plasma cannon with a sufficiently high energy critical that it set off the krak grenades about his person, which then killed the other marine in the sentry tower. The spontaneous detonation of the sentry tower obviously raised an alarm but none of the surviving marines successfully passed an awareness check to figure out what was going on for four turns, during which time most of the cultist forces who were supposed to be second line security for the harbinger bombers based there had already been massacred by storm bolters auto-firing stalker shells. Presumably squad-mates dying to their weapons spontaneously exploding is a standard thing for the warband.
  • Anyway. It was. Specifically, a battalion of khorne bezerkers from the warband. Who took no particular interest in being commanded by a non-astartes. Their current captain, Skarregor, said as much, and challenged the Lord Ravager.
    • The bezerkers were not intimidated by Catarena despite her Fear (4) - although only just...literally winning the opposed check by just one point - and the two champions of Khorne squared up to each other. Neither was interested in setting any convoluted terms for the duel; Skarregor unslinging a heavyweight chain-katana (using the rules for a chain greatsword) and the Lord Ravager gunning Catena .
      • The Lord Ravager's theme - Guardians At The Gate - started up.
    • The bezerker won the initiative (despite The Quick And The Dead ) but spent his first turn roaring defiance and frenzying.
    • Catarena's wings unfolded and she charged - with Brutal Charge (4) and Catena's impressive stats, she delivered a cleaving blow to the bezerker's left arm which caused 19 wounds straight off through his armour. Wanting to prove a point that brute force plus skill and control beats brute force plus just more brute force , she declined to frenzy or trigger barrage - she wanted to stay in control and didn't trust the as-yet-un-cowed bezerkers to stay beaten if she collapsed from barrage withdrawal after butchering their current commander.
    • With rapidly-drying blood spattering everywhere, Skarregor swung back in an all-out attack, but was parried by the lighter chainsword, spending an infamy point to recover a few wounds as he ignored the pain in his arm and the continued bleeding ( Catena has Crippling (1) as one of its Legacy qualities)
    • Catarena attempted a lightning attack to the head - in the fashion of many arrogant marine commanders, the bezerker was unhelmeted. She had to use Blademaster to actually connect, and still only landed a single hit, but took her opponent down to a single wound with a vicious cut across the face.
    • The khornate marine continued to flail wildly, making an all-out attack which was deflected, and reducing himself to zero wounds for his trouble.
    • Catena slammed into his skull twice more in quick succession in a far more effective lighting attack, the monomolecular teeth spraying skin, bone and brain matter across the deck.
    • Passing an opposed command check, the fallen sister announced across the steaming remains of the skull champion that the Katana was under new command. "And someone clean this mess up."
• The Lord Corruptor, meanwhile, was assaulting Dreccor's ship, the Hellbringer-class Light Cruiser Blade In The Ribs .
  • He considered just destroying the ship with naval gunfire but was convinced by the Lord Deceiver and Lord Purgator that firstly they needed every 'proper' warship they had if their next battle was a major Imperial Navy fortress world, and secondly their issue was with Dreccor personally, not the Blade's crew.
  • The Night Lord considered summoning Dreccor, but the chances of him coming quietly were low, since the destruction of his psi-parasites by the Lord Deceiver meant that unlike his pawns, he knew he'd been found out.
  • He also considered travelling openly to the Blade , but if Dreccor had control of the ship (which he probably did) then that would be suicidal as his shuttle would be destroyed by turret fire.
  • In the end he decided to lauch a one-man-boarding action, Prince Of Crows fashion - using his armour's magboots, his cameleoline cape, and the fact that with the Mark of Nurgle giving him Stuff Of Nightmares, breathing was decidedly optional, to hide under his furled-up cape on the outside of a supply transport bound for the light cruiser.
    • It was not the most efficient assault - the Lord Corruptor's player having one of those nights were the dice won't comply with anything.
    • It also underscored why the Nurgle is such a risky alignment to take in Black Crusade - not being able to reroll skill checks can hurt a lot.
    • Despite his cape, and the bonus to stealth checks for the dark, he lost an opposed stealth test with an astartes in the docking bay after the sentry rolled a 01 for his awareness test. Fortunately, whilst bolter fire lanced out at him, none of it hit - the penalty to hit a stationary target under obscuring cameleoline being two much for a regular chaos marine.
    • The Lord Corruptor triggered his jet pack - launching himself for the rafters and suspended ducts and engineering conduits in the ceiling of the hangar bay, whilst throwing a smoke grenade which.....landed nowhere near his attacker.
      • In reply, the sentry managed a 04 for his BS check with his bolter, and a bolt shell clipped the Lord Corruptor's Leg, causing 7 wounds.
      • With an operate (aeronautica) test followed by a Stealth test, both opposed by the sentry's initiative, he managed to loose him in the crawlspaces and disappear into the guts of the ship, spending a point of infamy to recover the lost wounds (whilst not being able to spend infamy to reroll hurts, I will accept that being able to spend infamy to automatically recover 10 wounds instantly is awesome).
  • It took some time for him to make his way closer to the bridge without getting pinned down by the Blade in the Ribs' armsmen. In the end, though, Dreccor's personal henchmen - an attack squad of chaos marine mercenary bodyguards - penned him in, closing in a net from various directions..
    • Realising that he would need to go through one of them to break out, he concealed himself as close as he could, then - winning the opposed stealth check to get a surprise round - flung back his cape and burst out of the darkness of the maintenance corridor, with his two legacy combi-bolters, Dark King and Corpse Bearer , delivering maximum rate-of-fire.
      • The chaos marine took a single hit, which rolled Zealous Hatred for damage and killed him.
      • "Ha!" the Lord Corruptor's player declared. "One Hit, One Kill!"
      • "You just auto-fired two Legacy Of Wrath, Ammo Glutton, Legion Combi-Bolters into him at point blank range," The Lord Deceiver's player pointed out (rather reasonably) "which is....something like forty bolter shells?"
      • " One. Hit. One. Kill." The Lord Corruptor's player responded through slightly gritted teeth.
      • " Yes. But under the circumstances, the fact that you only got one hit is rather more concerning than the fact that that one hit was a kill is reassuring....is there any of the wall left behind him?"
      • " One. Hit. One. Kill ." The Lord Corruptor's player responded again, hearing the other four marines rushing towards the sound of massive gunfire. " Also.....smoke bomb! Run !"
    • He had to dodge a volley of krak grenades hurled around a nearby bulkhead - the marines starting with the assumption that that much bolter fire meant that their comrade was probably already dead.
      • After a few more rounds of cat-and-mouse with the survivors, he managed to break out past the squad's aspiring champion. Dark King jammed solid during the attack (belt-feed is an important upgrade given the fact that the weapon eats ammunition at twenty rounds per burst, but unreliable is an issue when you can't reroll dice) and even once he disengaged he was unable to pass the ballistic skill check to unjam it. Corpse Bearer was just sufficient to kill the aspiring champion on its own, though (with the judicious use of a couple of infamy points - one to add a bonus degree of success and one to trigger increased damage from the Overkill legacy ability).
  • Evading the remaining chaos marines, he snatched up the helm from the bolt-round riddled corpse of the champion and tore out its vox. One Security check and Comm Leech later and he was able to listen in on Dreccor's commands.
    • The chaos sorcerer was specifically located on the ship's command bridge, with armsmen cadres controlling the intersections between him and the Lord Corruptor.
    • The night lord killed one small horde, but failed a Navigate check to avoid running into a second, much larger horde. using his jump pack, power sword, and Raptor, he did a fair amount of damage but realised that spending the time to kill a 50-strong horde was not worth it on a hostile ship. Disengaging into the shadows, he was able to easily evade the mundane human troops - the massive penalty to hit a night lord astartes in the dark meaning that even aimed, short ranged bursts of shotcannon fire from the horde came nowhere near him.
    • Realising that this would likely happen on any direct approach, he decided to attack the bridge from the outside, using magboots and meltabomb to breach the lancet windows of the bridge's strategium deck.
    • He passed the security test to exit the ship without triggering an alarm, and passed the athletics test to reach the bridge- but with less degrees of success than the awareness check of the marines pursuing him, who realised what he was planning to do and hurried to the bridge to meet him, giving him only one round before they would intervene.
    • He successfully blasted his way in with his meltabomb, getting a surprise round against the mercenary telepath, and passed an agility check to rush onto the bridge before the blast shutters slammed down over the windows. Corpse Bearer hammered, and - finally getting a decent BS roll - landed all 6 hits the weapon was capable of in a semi-automatic burst on Dreccor. With the weapon's damage once again boosted by spending a point of infamy to 1D10+18, Pen 7, per shell, not even a veteran chaos marine could survive that and the sorcerer was ripped to bloodied rags
    • As his bodyguards charged in to see the slaughter, the Lord Corruptor stopped them in their tracks with an opposed intimidate test (benefiting from Disturbing Voice and his Salvaged Armour forged from his various kills). Realising that their paymaster was dead, and uninterested in declaring war on the Black Legion's Chosen commander, they yielded.
• The fleet formed up - albeit with several ships in the fleet having newly installed captains and shipmasters - and jumped into the warp for Pandarus.
• Game Turn 2
  • Technically this is part of Game turn 2, and will happen 'during' the journey to Pandarus. The remaining forces - the Night Lords Raptors and Sorcerors, with Adjo Gahiji's exalted sorceror lieutenant Anok Sabe left to keep an eye on them, commenced their hunt for the tempestus stormtroopers. The host plus the lieutenant gave them a combat strength of 30, with a reroll for the sorcerer cabal's assistance, but despite the reroll granted by the Cabal, they failed their combat strength check (fortunately not by enough to result in the loss of the host!) and the stormtroopers remained at large for another campaign turn, conducting missions of sabotage on the clan assets in Briseis.

Rolled up the Pandarus star system using Stars of Iniquity.

• Pandarus Star - Blue-White Giant
  • Warp Shallows
    • Doubles transit times to and from (cannot double-move units through the system)
    • -5 to Psynicience and rituals in the system
    • Cannot Push Psychic Powers
    • Roll two psychic phenomena and use the lower value
  • Dominant Inner Cauldron
    • 3 Dust Clouds
    • Asteroid Cluster
    • Planet (Cremation)
      • High Gravity, Thin Corrosive Atmosphere, Burning World
      • 3 Lesser Moons
    • Titanic Gas Giant (Pandarus)
      • Lesser Moon (Pandarus I)
        • Naval Dockyard
      • Moon (Pandarus II)
        • Large, High Gravity, Heavy, Pure Atmosphere, Burning World
        • Orbital Atmosphere 'Mining' Facility
      • Moon (Pandarus III)
        • Vast, Normal Gravity, Heavy, Pure Atmosphere, Hot, Liquid Water
        • Polar Naval Command Facility
      • Lesser Moon (Pandarus IV)
      • Moon (Pandarus V)
        • Large, High Gravity, Deadly Amosphere
      • Lesser Moon (Pandarus VI)
      • Moon (Pandarus VII)
        • Small, Low Gravity, Thin Atmosphere, Burning World
      • Moon (Pandarus VIII)
        • Vast, Normal Gravity, Pure Atmosphere, Temperate World
          • 1 Landmass
          • Expansive Swamp
            • Hive City
          • Very Expansive Fertile Plains
            • Farms
          • Boundary Mountains
          • Plains Inhabited By Behemoth Species
          • Forest Inhabited By Shadowed Stalker Species
          • Broken Ground Plains
          • Expansive Wasteland
      • Planetary Debris Rings (x3)
        • Orbital Gun Platforms
  • Weak Primary Biosphere
    • Gravity Riptide
  • Outer Reaches
    • Dust Cloud
    • Derelict STC Defence Station

Session 3

So - we didn't have a session last week, since I was away, and our Lord Purgator isn't free this week. Hence we decided to run his component this weekend (the stealthy approach to the Pandarus Dockyard by the Insatiable to deliver the other Chosen and the Crimson Blades for their boarding action).

• The Insatiable made reasonable time given the warp shallows - making the crossing in just over a week, following charts from previous raids provided by Haarlock.
  • The Lord Purgator failed his warp hallucinations test and spent the first part of the journey believing that he was becoming (even more) mutated. This being a black crusade campaign, this resulted in a response of 'awesome' rather than the normal 'rending-damage-to-cut-it-off' and a certain amount of disappointment when he discovered he wasn't.
  • The Lord Deceiver (rolled for) was able to avoid the one major obstacle encountered; a violent spur of the warp storm that might have ripped the ship apart had he not managed to steer clear of it.
  • Whilst the Insatiable would have made an inaccurate re-entry, Adjo Gahiji was able to perceive and correct the error before warp emergence, and exited the warp in the outer reaches of Pandarus, masked from the inner system by the dust cloud.
• Haarlock was able to chart a course through the dust cloud to help hide the Insatiable from Battlefleet patrols, using a route he'd used to sneak through the system before.
  • He passed his Navigate (Stellar) check after an infamy point reroll, and was able to pass through the dust cloud to the primary biosphere region (actually an empty shell of space) in two weeks.
  • There was a concerning moment as the Insatiable failed her Silent Running check on a 100. Whilst the check was passed on a reroll, it was only passed on a 99 (between the bonuses for the Insatiable , Haarlock's own skills and the dust cloud itself, only a 100 would fail).
    • Rolling so high twice clearly meant the potential for something truly concerning:
      • "Navarch?" announced the Insatiable's Master of Augury "We're picking up a drive signature overtaking us from astern. Most likely a naval patrol ship."
      • "Action Stations. Sound Red Alert and confirm we are Rigged for Silent Running." Haarlock responded, the banner-captain hurrying to obey his orders
      • Half an hour later, the vast shape of an armoured prow emerged from the greyish soup of the dust cloud, six gaping torpedo tubes clustered around the gilded Aquila-And-Sword of the Battlefleet Truvia. The ship that followed was the Unyielding Saint , a five-and-a-half-kilometre-long Overlord -class Battlecruiser, and the latest reinforcement to be transferred to Pandarus Base.
      • "Sound Brown Alert and Rig for Really, Really Silent Running" the Lord Purgator ordered.
      • "There's no such thing as Brown Alert, my lord Navarch." responded the banner-captain.
      • "You won't be saying that if that monstrosity out there gets a positive auspex lock on us. Now stop talking. Stop moving, stop breathing, stop doing anything which uses muscles or draws energy. That goes for the rest of the ship. If can be shut down safely, shut it down. If it can't be shut down safely, shut it down anyway and pray to the Dark Prince nothing blows up."
    • Fortunately, the Insatiable was able to cut its power output fast enough and hide in the dust swirls - the vast Imperial battlecruiser passing well within half a light second without spotting the clanfleet flagship.
• Passing through the open rift in the system where the primary biosphere should be was a far more significant challenge. Open space would leave the Insatiable far less opportunity to hide. As a result, Haarlock decided to try and make use of the Gravity Riptide to slingshot the ship deeper into the system.
  • The scrutiny & detection test allowed him to locate it before the Insatiable blundered into it, and the Dauntless -class lined up to slingshot the riptide.
    • "Helmsman? Step aside and let me handle this." Haarlock took personal control of the Insatiable's helm for the manoeuvre, using an infamy point on Manaical Narcissist in advance - under no illusions that performing the -20 difficulty manoeuvre check whilst on silent running was not something to leave to the lightly drugged rating 30 crew.
    • Hitting the riptide just right, the Insatiable hit impressive speeds in a slingshot into the inner system, covering the journey in four days instead of the week it would normally take.
  • Sadly, all did not go well on the silent running test, despite an infamy reroll, and - whilst the ship's high speed in the riptide meant it was gone before it could be located precisely, a Battlefleet frigate, Triumph 5 , picked up the Insatiable's trail and tracked the unknown contact into the burning radiation of the star system's inner cauldron.
• The Insatiable moved into the densest dust cloud, and - now hidden by cover again, passed her silent running check to lose her pursuer before turning at bay.
• The dust cloud reduced sensor and weapons range mean that when Triumph 5 finally found her mystery auspex contact, the two ships blundered into one another at a mere 8 VU's range - the gilded hull of the light cruiser terrifyingly huge to a frigate thinking it was chasing a pirate raider.
  • The Battlefleet frigate nevertheless reacted faster, heeling over to port and emptying both sunsear batteries into the insatiable at close range, overloading the void shield and shattering some of the domes and statuary atop the light cruiser's spine. More importantly, it inflicted a critical hit, shearing off several antennae and disabling the Insatiable's R-50 auspex.
  • With accurate gunfire unlikely - at least, enough to guarantee a clean kill - Haarlock ordered the Insatiable to close and launch a boarding action.
    • Which he failed the operate check to pull off.
  • A second volley from the enemy frigate was far less impressive, spattering a single solid hit across the light cruiser's shields.
  • This time the Insatiable got close enough for grapnels and assault bridges to bite into the Sword-class.
    • The navy frigate's slight edge in surviving population and hull integrity, and it's heavier defensive turret batteries, along with its crew unimpeded by euphoric drugs, should have given it a decent chance of fighting off the enemy armsmen.
    • The Insatiable , however, was commanded by Robarte Morgayne Haarlock, one of the most skilled pirates of the region, and it wasn't armsmen who charged across the assault bridge from the Insatiable's barracks deck.
    • The Crimson Blades went through Triumph 5's armsmen like....well....like Khorne Bezerkers through lightly armed mortal infantry in confined close quarters. The ship's decks were littered with blood and shredded bodies over the course of the two hour boarding action.
    • To the credit of the Imperial Navy, Triumph 5 never struck her colours, but fought to the death. The crew put up what would have been a creditable resistance against any normal opponent, even managing to break grapples at one point, but suffering too many penalties from lost crew and morale to prevent the Insatiable hunting down the ship and launching a second assault wave to finish her off.
• Having taken a navy frigate essentially intact, Haarlock wasted no time transferring a full-strength prize crew (some 40 points of crew population from the Dauntless -class represented a full crew for the Sword -class), and - despite the reduced morale (after sobering up from the effects of the Insatiable's euphoric life sustainer) the crew would effectively perform better, provided Haarlock kept the grumblings under control.
  • More importantly, passing a Common Lore (Imperial Navy) check, a Deceive check and using his Mimic talent (and the opponent failing a scrutiny test to detect the deception), he was able to report in, pretending to be Triumph 5's captain.
  • He reported losing contact with the unknown auspex trace - dismissing it as 'another pirate raider making a run from the pyre' and 'we'll catch her when she sticks her nose out again.' He requested passage through the defence rings, and a docking slip at the Pandarus I dockyards to resupply and continue the hunt.
  • Pandarus control responded, assigning them moorings in the victualing yards next to the newly arrived Unyielding Saint .....

Session 4

The second half of campaign turn 2 - with (unexpectedly) our Lord Purgator in attendance after all.

Picking up where the last session left off:

• Passing a Navigate (Warp) test, the Lord Deceiver's guidance and the Lord Purgator's charts allowed the Black Crusade Fleet to exit the warp on target, on the outer edge of the gravitational riptide zone.
  • With a Styx-class Heavy Cruiser leading a fleet comprised of nine Light Cruisers of various classes (including an Astartes Strike Cruiser) and several dozen raiders and transports, the cruiser squadron forming the core of the Pandarus Blockade Fleet was heavily outclassed, even with the orbital defences taken into account.
• Triumph 5 moved into dock next to the Unyielding Saint , with both ships ordered to reprovision urgently and join the battlefleet in blockade orbit to interdict the chaos landing fleets.
• With a successful Deceive and Operate (Voidship) check, Haarlock was able to cut the docking manoeuvre close enough to the battlecruiser's flank to launch the boarding assault by surprise.
• This was resolved as a three-stage event:
  • A mass combat at each of the three breach point (Hangar Decks, Command Deck Docking Ports, Engineering Supply Hatches) to force and secure the breach
  • A pivotal event for each chosen
  • A second mass combat at each of the three breach points to beat off the Imperial Navy counterattack.
  • The defender formations:
    • Unyielding Saint Armsmen - Rank and File (CS 30) protecting the Hangar Decks & Engineerium
    • Naval Security Stormtroopers - Veteran (CS40), Specialist Equipment (+5 CS), Superior Arms & Equipment (+5 CS), protecting the Bridge
  • The attacker formations
    • Insatiable Armsmen - Rank and File (CS 30)
    • Crimson Blades Bezerkers - Elite (CS50), Unnatural Traits (+10 CS), Esoteric Abilities (+5 CS), Superior Arms & Equipment (+10 CS)
  • The battlefields
    • Hangar Decks - plentiful cover (defender +10 CS), attacker outnumbered (attacker -10 CS) until secured
    • Engineerium - high ground (defender +20 CS), attacker outnumbered (attacker -10 CS) until secured
    • Command Decks - fortified strongpoints (defender +30 CS) until secured, attacker forced through 'bottleneck' choke points (defender -20 CS)
• The Chosen decided on the following plan of assault:
  • Haarlock would take half the armsmen and assault the hangar decks.
  • Adjo Gahiji would take the other half of the Armsmen and attack the engineerium
  • The Lord Corruptor would take no command position but would infiltrate the ship and assassinate the officers co-ordinating the defence.
  • Catarena would lead the Bezerkers in a head-on assault on the bridge, as the toughest target to crack.
  • The Chosen launched their assault, gaining a temporary +30 CS for their formations for surprise.
    • Haarlock used Command to inspire his armsmen
    • Adjo Gahiji used Focus Power to terrify and confuse the defenders with telepathic commands, spending an infamy point to add an extra 4 degrees of success on top of an already impressive roll.
    • Catarena used Weapon Skill to lead from the front, Catena in hand.
  • Added to their +6 CS bonus for their infamy, it meant that even with the advantage of defensive positions, the Armsmen were in a more-or-less even fight, and with the +30 CS bonus from complete surprise, both the Hangar Decks and Engineerium were taken in a single round for trivial casualties. The command decks, by comparison....were a blood-soaked mess. Technically, Catarena had 'Won' - by getting 6 degrees of success - but so had the Naval Security - getting 7 degrees of success. Both sides were shattered, with the Crimson Blades being slaughtered in their dozens by hot-shot volleys from defensive barricades.
• We moved on to the individual pivotal events.
  • Doing the best, Robarte Haarlock got the easiest pivotal event. As the Insatiable's Armsmen spread out into the 'tween-decks, there was a deafening 'For The Emperor!' and a wall of navy armsmen, lead by two of the ship's confessors (Ecclesiarchy Priests) countercharged. They were leading from the front, and - at least for the moment - inspiring the defenders. I therefore gave him two rounds to kill both of them before the lines met.
    • Whilst this was a fairly trivial requirement, he had used all his infamy points in the Insatiable's infiltration and couldn't reroll if he failed either ballistic skill roll.
    • Soul Reaper and Chaos Drinker leapt out of their concealed sleeve holsters. Haarlock passed an agility check to get to short range thanks to his pistol's Legacy of Excess, and Soul Reaper fired first, the maximal plasma pistol shot vaporising the preacher.
    • The second moved up and fired a shotgun at point blank range into Haarlock. He would have taken quite a few wounds (even light carapace is only so much use against a point blank range scatter weapon), were it not for his Fanatic minions - several of his minstrels diving in the way and taking the shotgun blast for him.
    • Before the preacher could rack his shotgun again, Chaos Drinker fired at point blank range, neatly removing the priest's head with over twenty wounds inflicted in a single shot.
    • Holstering the smoking pistols, Haarlock drew his power sword and - always one to plagiarise a good inspiring speech - took The Hound as inspiration to call the countercharge .
  • Adjo Gahiji's pivotal event was coming under a crossfire from a Gun-Servitor cohort on an upper walkway, being given 3 rounds to wipe them out.
    • He decided to take the simple expedient of using Mind Over Matter to rip out the supports from underneath the walkway. Even denied the ability to Push the power, the first two checks were passed with many degrees of success.
    • The first heavy bolter burst at him missed, but the second connected - and even with two degrees of success on his dodge test, two heavy bolter rounds impacted (fortunately on his armour's reinforced chest plate), leaving him wounded.
    • His final focus power test was a pass - just - and the walkway, enginseers, gun-servitors and all, fell down into the spaces around the plasma drive.
  • The Lord Corruptor was hunting officers, having located the Mistress of Etherics in the battlecruiser's vox chamber, and had two rounds to eliminate her and her three veteran bodyguards.
    • Passing a stealth test, he was able to get an initial surprise round.
    • Dark King missed, saturating the room with errant bolt shells, but Corpse Bearer was far more impressive, landing one astartes bolt shell on each bodyguard, killing each outright with the 1D10+12 Tearing damage of the legacy combi-bolter, and a fourth on the officer, causing serious wounds and knocking her prone with a critical to the leg.
    • For his first round action, he moved over to the surviving vox consoles, intending to broadcast the officer's gory and painful death throughout the ship, but failed the tech-use test due to the damage his wild firing had caused (and was unable to reroll it due to his nurglesque alignment).
    • The Mistress of Etherics, who was still in the fight, responded by drawing a plasma pistol of her own and shooting the Lord Corruptor with it. Fortunately, he dodged, because - as he put it, " it would have been terribly embarrassing for a Night Lord to be shot in the back by a mere human ".
    • He decided to stop messing around and moved up to the prone officer, unloading forty bolter shells from Dark King and Corpse Bearer at point blank range. What was left afterwards was scarcely recognisable as having ever been human.
  • Given the Naval Security's success, Catarena got the nastiest pivotal event; a defended barricade with no less than 3 thirty-strong hordes of naval security stormtroopers with chainswords and shotguns protecting them. The time for command skill and finess had passed; either the barricade came down or the Crimson Blades' assault would devolve into a shattered mess.
    • There was a hiss of injectors and a roar of rage as she gave herself fully to the fury of Khorne; wings unfolded from her back and the daemonic aspect of her face tore through her skin.
    • Faced with a Fear (4) adversary charging down on them, two of the hordes - even with a +15 WP from their magnitude - simply collapsed, one breaking and running whilst the bulk of the other collapsed in terror, vomiting and voiding themselves.
    • Spending an infamy point for an initiative roll of '10', she moved first, and with Flyer (8) and the Skull totem in hand, swooped up the corridor in a single charge action. Eight of the defenders were butchered in that round.
    • The counter-attack by the defenders did no small amount of damage - the horde's chainswords hacking at her wings took off a third of her wounds in a single round, which would have been worse had it not been for the toughness bonus from Frenzy and Briseis Toxins. She used an infamy point to recover about half of that (limited in the wounds recoved by her Khornate alignment).
    • Now in amongst the horde, she unleashed a Lightning Attack, which combined with Whirlwind of Death, slaughtered all but five of the remaining defenders. With the security platoon reduced to nothing but the command squad, they broke and ran, and the Crimson Blades poured across the barricade into the bridge decks after their commander.
• A second round of mass combat was then run to represent the overall counterattack.
  • With the fortified strongpoints defending the command deck gone (even with the choke points still there) and the momentum from Catarena's pivotal event, this time there was no contest and the Crimson Blades tore the counterattack to pieces.
  • The Armsmen led by the Lord Deceiver and Lord Purgator on the lower decks took longer to fend off the attacks, but the result was no less emphatic.
• At this point, the Unyielding Saint was declared captured.
  • Lacking the manpower to provide more than a skeleton crew (the Triumph 5 carried 26,000 men, barely a quarter of a battlecruiser's complement), Unyielding Saint was not allowed to participate in the wider conflict this round
  • Given the casualties taken by the Bezerkers, and the specific task they'd been used on, it was ruled that that they were not available for the conflict either.
• The wider conflict was then rolled for.
  • The naval conflict was very one-sided. With a +10 bonus to the Black Crusade Fleet for the Haarlock Banner-Captains' leadership, and a -10 to the defenders for the Alpha Legion Saboteurs, the result was never really in doubt given that the Black Fleet also massed a conflict strength of 110 (four fleets and three landing fleets) to the Pandarus Blockade Fleet's strength of 45, but more importantly, they won with sufficient degrees of success (just) to wipe out the blockade fleet in its entirety.
    • With so many degrees of success, the Haarlock Banner-Captains would have become discontent, were it not for Haarlock's action last campaign turn.
  • The path to the surfaces of the system's worlds clear, the ground forces of the Black Crusade hit the system like the hammer of the gods. With everything added together, even with the Night Lords and Crimson Blades absent, the crusade forces under the command of Fortress-master Hnefltafl dropped ten host's worth of astartes, monsters, war engines and mortal troops, with naval superiority and three landing fleets providing orbital fire. It should come as not surprise that not a single imperial soldier survived more than a week after the invasion - and given that the Black Crusade forces' roll for the opposed conflict strength was a '01', probably not even that long....
    • With so many degrees of success, Fortress-Master Hnefltafl would have become discontent, were it not for Catarena's action last campaign turn.
  • The Night Lords hunted down and destroyed the 4 Conflict Strength tempestus force loose in Briseis.
    • Whether the single point force assigned as 'reinforcements' represented a true reinforcement or merely the last dregs of survivors from the massacre is largely academic.
• With the system conquered and not merely contested, and the Alpha Legion raising cults beforehand, the Lord Purgator passed the corruption test and Pandarus became the Black Crusade's first corrupted territory seized by force, and assigned to the Lord Purgator's dominion.
  • As previously noted, so long as this remained the case, no further reinforcements will be rolled for Briseis.
• Orders for the next campaign turn were discussed and agreed.
  • The plunder from Briseis (now 3) would be used to raise a new host - more Crimson Blades, this time a warband of Terminator Chosen assigned to the Lord Ravager's command.
  • A slave crew would be drafted for the Unyielding Saint - inevitably renamed Yielding Sinner and placed at the Lord Purgator's command - sufficient to see it safely to Briseis, where a more competent Clanfleet crew would be raised, and it would, once refitted, carry the Night Lords and newly raised Crimson Blade Terminator Chosen to the battlefront once the surviving tempestus have been destroyed.
  • It was agreed that the crusade forces should divide and secure the Agenor sub-sector in its entirety before moving on the stronger resistance expected in Dolon and Antenor. The Lord Deciever and Lord Corruptor would hit Danaan before readying an assault on the Knight World of Chevaliance, whilst the Lords Ravager and Purgator would move on Antenor itself and attempt to cut off the warp route into the subsector from Truvia.

Maps of the 'agriworlds' of Agenor and Dolon:

Session 5

Campaign turn 3.

With the Black Crusade splitting its forces and attempting to secure the remains of the subsector. With three chosen boarding semi-derelict spacecraft, I broke out Ark of Lost Souls to generate a 5 threat 'hulk mission' for each of them:

• Danaan
  • The Lord Deceiver elected to try and use the warp disturbance around Danaan I to corrupt the star system, by carrying out the Rite of Sundering to further weaken the veil of the warp, then summon and unleash a Greater Daemon of Tzeench by the Rite of Terror Untold.
    • In preparation for the first ritual, he used Forbidden Lore (Daemonology) to identify an appropriate location, and then co-opted the Warlord Titan Cadavaris Perdita as an impromptu ritual altar, carrying out the ceremony on the back of the titan whilst it used its weapons to scar a vast Symbol of Tzeench into the ruins of the unfortunate city selected as the ritual site.
      • This experience couldn't be good for the mental state of the crew, but since (using the Black Legion table of names in the Kill Team rulebook) we rolled up a name for Cadavaris Perdita's Princeps of 'Thygrus The Mad', it's unlikely anyone will notice the difference...
    • Having both Forbidden Lore (Psykers) and Forbidden Lore (Warp) as well as the benefits from his Psy Rating 7, and the warp turbulence around the world, the Rite of Sundering was almost a formality, with a region some 14 kilometres across suffering the effects of a lesser warp breach almost immediately.
    • The Rite of Terror Untold was a rather more difficult proposition, but with the bonus from the Rite of Sundering, plus the bonus for the Mark Of Tzeench now he was explicitly summoning a tzeenchian daemon, meant that he succeeded, and the daemon tore its way into reality after two hours of the ritual (and several rolls to resist additional corruption from the Rite of Sundering)
    • Using a random name generator , we determined that the Greater Daemon he had summoned was a Chi'Kami'Tzann Tsu'Noi (Lord Of Change) glorying in the name of Fondlemaggot.
    • Before he could attempt to bind the Greater Daemon, though, the two Perils of the Warp rolls resolved
      • Firstly, both the Lord Deceiver and Thygrus took several painful but non-crippling wounds from immaterial blades which sliced into their flesh from somewhere beyond reality.
      • Then, following up, a bloodletter clawed its way out of the breach and lept at Adjo Gahiji with helblade bared.
        • It missed its first swing, and didn't get a second. Falling back (and evading a half-hearted backswing from the khornate daemon), the sorcerer unleashed a pushed Force Bolt - which, with the effects of the Rite Of Sundering, hit the lesser daemon at Psy Rating 12 and basically vaporised it, chunks of it (including its hellblade) being knocked clean off the top of the titan and landing on hapless defenders several tens or metres away.
      • In the intervening time, the Lord of change attempted to use dominion and its Fear 4 to seize control of the titan itself.
        • Unfortunately for Fondlemaggot, Thygrus may be catastrophically insane, but - like all Legio Mortis Princeps - has a willpower you can bend adamantium around, and in an opposed willpower check, with Thygrus' Resistance (Psychic Powers) and Orthoproxy going some way to balancing out the Lord Of Change's Psy Rating and daemonic presence, Fondlemaggot's psychic assault was temporarily held at bay. The Greater Daemon's fear rating was something of a non-entity when a fear check was made; apparently the sight of a unleashed Lord Of Change is no more sanity-warping than things Thygrus sees on a daily basis (whether they're actually there or not...)
      • Given a chance to actually match wills and try to bind the daemon, Adjo Gahiji was close (given the ritual bonuses) to a straight opposed willpower check. Whilst the Greater Daemon had a slightly higher willpower, Adjo Gahiji had the benefit of Unnatural Willpower from the Mark of Tzeench adding an extra two degrees of success. In the end, both used a point of Infamy to add D5 degrees of success and it came down to a roll off between the two, which the sorcerer won.
        • He gained no small amount of both Infamy and Corruption for carrying out the rituals, and issued a simple command to the Lord Of Change: "Burn This World For The Glory Of Tzeench".
    • Passing the unmodified corruption test by several degrees of success, Fondlemaggot drew vast swathes of warp energy from the storm into reality, corrupting Danaan I and, swiftly afterwards, the rest of the star system.
  • The Lord Corruptor chose to reduce the defender strength by personally leading a boarding action against the Ceres Agri-Facility.
    • The vast hulks of the converted mass conveyors were boarded by the Bringers Of Decay , waves of dreadclaw assault boats smashing into the ancient hulks and disgorging squad after squad of plague marines. The Lord Corruptor and his squad breached in the lower decks, in what turned out to be decks immediately below a vast chem-storage facility.
      • This required a series of strength tests for the Lord Corruptor to force his way through the tidal wave of liquid rushing through the breached decks, and deal with the corrosive effects, which managed to burn a point of armour from his helmet (fortunately doing no damage to him as thanks to the Mark of Nurgle he could ignore the toxic trait)
    • After passing these checks, he was confronted with a series of sealed auto-bulkheads separating him from the habitable decks. He was able to force these open as well with strength tests, despite an attack by a horde of armsmen (guardsmen with assault shotguns)
    • Once the breach was forced, he and his squad were able to join the main battle; with the Lord Corruptor personally facing off against another horde and an officer (using the bounty hunter).
      • Switching to his legion power sword (and confirming that he could use melee weapons without endangering his legacy, just not other ranged weapons), he charged the officer, who got one shot off at him before being sliced in half with a single particularly vicious blow.
      • Several turns of exchanged fire from a safe point in the dark (and now protected by his cameleoline cloak) and he was able to break the horde, but not before the ammo belt of Corpse Bearer ran dry.
      • He responded by disengaging and fleeing into the shadows with his jump pack, discarding a smoke grenade to cover his escape.
      • The horde of troops charged to point blank range, hammering him with close range shotgun fire and doing several wounds.
      • With what is becoming tiresome inevitability, Dark King jammed solid again the second time it was fired (belt fed combi-bolters are devastating but combining unreliable with Nurgle's inability to reroll dice does have its downsides..)
    • Finally, he located a concealed vault, marked with Inquisitorial emblems.
      • A tech-use test to open the vault was made much easier and passed by using the demolitions special use of tech-use and expending his meltabomb.
      • Inside he located tomes of lore making it clear that a Xanthite inquisitorial faction had located and secreted a chaos-tainted relic here.
      • The relic turned out to be a segmented chainblade not entirely unlike nunchaku, corrupted by the Blood God ( Stars Of Iniquity , Relic Razorchain, Cursed: Bloodlust).
        • Upon picking it up to examine, the Lord Corruptor instantly frenzied, and - given the rather unpleasant rules for Bloodlust in Stars Of Iniquity, was unable to 'un-frenzy' until he had killed someone. This took a while - as the only target present was a plague marine from his squad - but the Tearing trait granted by bloodlust allowed him to roll a generic-NPC-killing Zealous Hatred in a reasonable timeframe.
        • As a melee weapon with a 5m range, and 1D5+6, Pen 6, Tearing, Flexible, Balanced, it's an interesting weapon - if the rather sharp downsides of using it can be mitigated...
  • Command of the wider invasion was delegated to the Lord Corruptor's Lieutenant, Ssefthe The Creeping Deat   h.
    • With four hosts of troops and the bonus for a lieutenant, the Black Crusade forces mustered an impressive conflict strength of 90. However, the roll of exactly 90 (and The Great Manipulator Interferes event preventing a reroll for the Cabal of Dark Mechanicus Daemonologists) meant that the Danaan PDF is holding for now. Fortunately the Black Crusade will not lose any hosts, but the only damage inflicted on the defenders is 10 points of conflict strength destroyed by the Lord Corruptor's action, leaving it with a standing defender strength of 34 before the reinforcements phase
• Agenor
  • The Lord Ravager and Lord Purgator decided to co-operate in boarding and ransacking a newly-emerged space hulk, delegating command of the Agenor Battlefront to Fortress-master Hnefltafl
    • With seven hosts of troops and three landing fleets at his disposal (over four times the defender's strength) the Fortress-master wiped out the defenders in short order (indeed a force twice the size of the Agenor PDF would have been massacred in a single round)
    • Fortress-master Hnefltafl will become discontent if not appeased with plunder during the 'recruit new crusade forces' step.
    • Spending an Infamy point for a +10 bonus (and another for a reroll) the Lord Ravager passed the corruption check to corrupt the system.
  • The boarding action consisted of assorted reaver crew, Lord Ravager Catarena, Lord Purgator Haarlock and (inevitably) the Lord Purgator's cadre of Minstrels.
    • Their breach point in the hull of a derelict raider turned out to be an effluent sump filled with toxic waste, which needed to be vented before (a) it killed them and (b) the crew could risk igniting las-cutters to breach the inner decks of the hulk
      • Trade (Voidfarer) tests on the venting systems took several rounds, during which time both Chosen suffered a handful of wounds (4 for the Lord Purgator, 1 for the Lord Ravager), and two of Haarlock's minstrels fatally succumbed to the poisonous environment.
    • After escaping the sump, they were passing through a labyrinth of wreckage from the raider into the hull of an elderly Mechanicus Frigate when they were attacked by a wave of Ork Wreckas from deeper into the hulk.
      • Catarena decided to frenzy; without any soldiers of her own present, subtlety and tactical command was not required and the wreckage left no space for manoeuvre.
        • Thanks to their magnitude bonus, the orks were unimpressed by her fear rating, and kept charging
      • Haarlock hefted Soul Reaper and Chaos Drinker , killing two orks with clean headshots - but making little or no impact on the charging wave of orks
      • The orks charged towards the Chosen but failed to reach them.
      • Haarlock's minstrels aimed and fired their sonic weapons (they have noxious discharge laser sight howler rifles - essentially making them a walking sound, light and smoke show), and managed to do as well as their boss, killing two.
      • Catarena charged, gutting 7 orks with Catena .
      • Haarlock didn't do a great deal - his pistols were recharging and he was surrounded by a massive smoke cloud from his minion's weapons.
      • The Orks attacked Catarena, wounding her, and also attacked Haarlock, doing massive damage that would have seriously risked killing him had one of the minstrels not used Fanatic to leap selflessly into the way of the Buzz-saws
      • Attacking the minstels proper, another was killed by the orks - the smoke cloud's penalty to hit meaning little when attacking another horde.
      • Haarlock fired Soul Reaper and Chaos Drinker again, killing two more Orks, and Catena butchered enough with a Lightning Attack to leave the survivors broken and running.
      • The leader of the orks, a wierdboy (from Navis Primer ), charged them out of cover, using the Powa Burst technique and becoming frenzied from Warpath.
      • This was one of the shortest Waaaggh! charges in history as he reached Catarena, missed his attack, and had his head instantly removed with a called shot from her already blood-spattered chainsword.
    • They passed deeper into the Mechanicus ship and encountered a remarkable sight on the gun deck.
      • The area beyond was in hard vacuum - meaning the minstrels were left behind.
      • In the space, the Lord Ravager and Lord Purgator found a still functioning archeotech void shield generator - a compact projector only a few metres across that had been used to secure a breach into the void.
      • Both were fully aware how valuable this artefact could be, but there was a problem - its power cells were full (and hence it was still functioning) because a power conduit on this deck was still more-or-less working. Which resulted in a continuous rain of lighting discharges earthing themselves against the far side of the void shield barrier. Deactivate the shield, and the deck would be scoured with electrical bolts, either killing them directly or detonating one of the handful of surviving macro-shells in the storage racks.
      • The Lord Purgator came up with a creative plan - much to the concern of his fellow Chosen - to create a feedback loop in the power conduit, which would allow them a couple of minutes before the emergency insulation burned through and arcing restarted. This wouldn't be enough to allow them to escape on foot through the labyrinth of wreckage after deactivating and removing the generator, but - if they grabbed the generator and void-jumped out of the breach into the open void, they might well free-fall far enough away to be safe from the inevitable macro-ordnance explosion.
        • The Lord Ravager thought this was a probably suicidal idea, but agreed nevertheless on the grounds that whatever she said, Haarlock would probably do it anyway the moment her back was turned.
        • The minstrels were dispatched back to the breach point, whilst Haarlock and Catarena repaired breaches in their armour to make it void-tight. Two more minstrels were killed passing back through the wreckage and toxic sump.
        • The feedback loop was duly established by Haarlock with a Traid (Voidfarer) check, and he yelled "Shut down the generator!", rushing back to help heft it for the jump.
        • Catarena passed a Forbidden Lore (Archeotech) check to disconnect the generator, and the two lept into the void, aiming - as best they could - at the glittering shape of the kilometres-distant Insatiable and a cluster of small craft dispatched to catch them.
        • All was going well for a couple of minutes before the conduit became white-hot and the arcs tore through the gun deck. Several shells detonated in what swiftly became a rolling wall of secondary detonations and it became apparent that the Chosen hadn't rolled anywhere near well enough on their Athletics tests to jump fast enough to avoid the wave of shrapnel and fire now closing rapidly on them from behind.
        • "Switch it back on!!!!!!!" yelled Haarlock. The generator's power cells were not extensive, but a second Forbidden Lore (Archeotech) test was sufficient to create a directional barricade that spared them the worst of the blast - although the Insatiable's lighter was caught in the blast and Haarlock had to wait for a (considerably less dignified) rescue by a halo barge.
  • Returning to the Insatiable to celebrate, Haarlock immediately headed to the Sensorium to blow off some steam. Catarena instead chose to unload some pent-up aggresson on Haarlock's minstels - killing another seven of them in a single Whirlwind of Death despite the Pirate Lord's protests.
  • The relic void shield projector would be integrated into the Insatiable's own repulsor void shields. Since two chosen cooperating in a Key event would reduce blockade strength by 10, it was agreed that the next time the Insatiable and Haarlock are present for a naval battle, the shield would be good for a 10-point reduction in the blockade fleet's conflict strength before burning out and becoming useless.
• The Wider Black Crusade
  • Yielding Sinner arrived in Briseis, in time for Anok Sabe to lead the Sellsword Night Lord Raptor Talons and the Crimson Blade Terminator Chosen to complete what can only be described as the brutal overkill of the surviving Tempestus Scions.
  • Drawing a full strength crew and loading the Astartes contingents, the battlecruiser will begin the return journey to the battlefront during the next campaign turn.
  • The campaign event is Pay Tribute To The Prince Of Pleasure - if a territory can be corrupted during turn 4, the Chosen will receive 1D5 infamy
  • Reinforcements
    • The following reinforcements were received by the Imperium
      • Agenor
        • Danaan 7, Including Knight Lance
          • (That should be interesting....)
      • Dolon
        • Xanthus 3
        • Dolon 6
        • Chyryses 10
        • Thersites 10
      • Priam
        • Priam 9
      • Antenor
        • Chevaliance 4
    • The following Plunder is gathered
      • Briesis - 2
      • Pandarus - 2 (total of 4)
      • Danaan - 2
      • Agenor - 2

An updated roster of the crusade forces:

• Lord Ravager Catarina
  • Fortress-Master Hnefltafl (Lieutenant) - Agenor
    • Discontent
  • The Strike Cruiser Katana And Escorts (Landing Fleet) - Agenor
  • Battalion Of Renegade Khorne Bezerkers (Host) - Agenor
    • Crimson Blades
    • Commander: Skarregor (Deceased)
  • War Freighter Flotilla (Landing Fleet) - Agenor
  • Vast Hordes Of Feral Briseis Mutants (Host) - Agenor
  • Packs Of Giant Khornate War-Beasts (Host) - Agenor
  • Regiments Of Briseis Fortress-Garrison Troopers (Host) - Agenor
  • Terminator Chosen Warband (Host) - Aboard Yielding Sinner
    • Crimson Blades
• Lord Deceiver Adjo Gahiji
  • Exalted Sorceror Anok Sabe (Lieutenant) - Aboard Yielding Sinner
  • Alpha Legion Saboteurs (Cult) - Chevaliance
  • The Heavy Cruiser Will Of Tzeench (Fleet) - Danaan
  • Rubricae Thrallband (Host) - Danaan
    • Sons Of The Cyclops
  • Hellforge Light Cruiser Squadron (Fleet) - Danaan
    • Notable Ships: Damnation's Anvil , Magos Ektashik
  • Dark Mechanicus Daemonologists (Cabal) - Danaan
  • Legio Mortis Warlord Cadavaris Perdita (Host) - Danaan
    • Princeps: Thygrus The Mad
• Lord Purgator Robarte Morgayne Haarlock
  • Haarlock Bloodline Banner-Captains (Lieutenant) - Agenor
  • Luxillian Pleasure Guild (Cult) - Dolon
  • The Battlecruiser Yielding Sinner (Fleet) - Briseis, en route to Pandarus
    • Formerly Unyielding Saint
  • Clanfleet Raider Flotilla (Fleet) - Agenor
    • Notable Raider Captains: Ferias Gelt
    • Notable Ships: Black Deed , Tobias Vayne, Viper's Kiss , Bawarji Shoon (Deceased)
  • Slave Transport Flotilla (Landing Fleet) - Agenor
  • Regiments Of Flamboyant Grenadiers (Host) - Agenor
  • Brigades Of Raider Corsairs (Host) - Agenor
  • Vast Hordes Of Colourful Fanatics (Host) - Agenor
• Lord Corruptor
  • Ssefthe The Creeping Death, Herald Of Nurgle (Lieutenant) - Danaan
  • Poxwalker Infestation (Cult)
  • Hellbringer-Class Light Cruiser Squadron (Fleet) - Danaan
    • Notable Ships: Blade In The Ribs
  • Battalion of Plague Marines (Host) - Danaan
    • Bringers Of Decay
  • Vast Hordes Of Nurgle Cultists (Host) - Danaan
  • Sellsword Raptor Talons (Host) - Aboard Yielding Sinner
    • Night Lords
  • Sellsword Sorcerors (Cabal) - Aboard Yielding Sinner
    • Night Lords
    • Commander: Dreccor (Deceased)

Since we're likely to be seeing a move on Theristes, I should perhaps put a bit of background on the world up so it's available when required in game.

An Extract from 'Exotic Game Of The Thersites System: A Primer', by Tobias Quatermain

" Thersites V is – despite the pseudo-jungle which covers most of the world – not a planet friendly to life. The world is cold, the upper soil layers are largely toxic and barren, and the winds too fierce to face unsheltered. It is the Stonewood trees of Primus which are primarily responsible for the continent's complex, thriving ecosystem being possible. These massive trees have root networks reaching over a quarter of a kilometre into the soil, below the tainted layer of earth to more nutrient-rich soil below.

Growing dozens of metres in height, Stonewood trees have layers of bark containing naturally deposited metallic fibres – giving them properties not dissimilar to a naturally occuring ceramite (and sometimes used as such by the world’s inhabitants), and can withstand the storms on the surface. Nestled within Stonewood forests, other forms of life – flora and primitive reptilian and amphibian species can survive.

Creepers wind around the Stonewood trunks, roots forcing their way into gaps between otherwise impenetrable plates of bark. Their blooms contain extremely valuably pharmacopaiea, and exploiting this bounty is the main reason for settling Thersites V.

Tiny, swarming frogs, which fill the niche occupied by insects on most worlds, eat the creeper flowers and leaves.

Small lizards eat the frogs, and bigger lizards eat the smaller lizards.

Some especially large frogs eat the bigger lizards, and get eaten in turn by some especially nasty carnivorous versions of the creepers.

Then, at the top of the heap, are the Megasaurs. They eat whatever the feth they like.

This is because Megasaur Theristes Imperator , despite being solitary, is at least as smart as the pack-hunting Macroscorpions which terrorise the feral population of neighbouring Thersites IV, is surprisingly quick for its size, has chameleonic properties in its thick ceramite-analogue hide, and above all because is the largest known species within either the Ilium or Truvia Sectors, with a shoulder height that is roughly comparable to a Mars-pattern Warhound Titan.

When planning to hunt one of these magnificent brutes, whatever you plan to use, use a lot of it."

Okay.....

Session 6

A "planning session"

The Lord Purgator came up with an idea to corrupt Theristes.

He presented the following summary of 'the plan':

To this end, he has obtained:

• A team of veteran 'big game hunters' capable of tracking theristes megasaurs
• 100 good-quality slaves
• Sufficient drugs to dose each slave simultaneously with Spook, delayed-action (using the Soul Reaver rules) Mortis and Blue Fire.
• A team of medicae
• A cabal of daemonologists trained in the Ritual of Wild Fury and the Rite of Possession.

His view:

Well I have to give him credit for an interesting plan

9 hours ago, Angel of Death said:

Well I have to give him credit for an interesting plan

The Lord Ravager has agreed the plan is interesting but has politely declined to participate, on the grounds that " creating a stampeding herd of daemonically possessed psychic Godzillas " apparently seems like a bad idea.

More importantly, the Lord Deceiver has also (less politely) declined to participate, which is why he's using hireling daemonologists rather than the Chosen's more competent sorcerer PC. Which obviously improves the odds of things going "well".

I've returned from some RL issues and now starts to read all unread content. Comments will follow.

Session 7

Campaign turn 4.

• The crusade forces all stayed stationary; the Lord Deceiver and Lord Corruptor facing an imperial counterattack at Danaan, whilst the Lord Purgator and Lord Ravager both carried out operations 'ahead' of their forces.
• Everyone except the Lord Ravager received a briefing from their various cult spies.
  • The Lord Ravager complained that she was excluded from this. It was pointed out that:
    1. She didn't have any 'Cult' crusade assets to do any spying for her
    2. The last time anyone under her command showed any independence or initiative, she decapitated them.
• The counterattack (Imperial Reinforcements Deployed To Danaan last turn) was announced by the following message, which somewhat set the cat amongst the pigeons once they got through to point (27):

1. PRIORITY PRIMUS BINARIC VOX-CAST
2. ORIGIN MASTER OF ETHERICS HELLWROUGHT
3. TERMINUS SHIPMASTER DAMNATIONS ANVIL
4. TERMINI ADDITIONAL SHIPMASTER WILL OF TZEENCH
5. TERMINI ADDITIONAL LORDS CHOSEN COUNCIL
6. MESSAGE BEGINS
7. AT THIS TRANSMISSION MINUS 1.1 HOURS MASTER OF AUGURY HELLWROUGHT DETECTED ENERGY SPIKE CONSISTANT WITH CAPITAL SHIP MANOUVRING BURN.
8. AT THIS TRANSMISSION MINUS 0.97 HOURS SHIPMASTER HELLWROUGHT ORDERED FULL ACTIVE AUGURY.
9. AT THIS TRANSMISSION MINUS 0.80 HOURS MASTER OF AUGURY HELLWROUGHT DETECTED ENEMY CETACEUS-CLASS TRANSPORTER ENTERING DANAAN I UNDER SILENT RUNNING
10. ENEMY CETACEUS-CLASS TRANSPORTER DESIGNATED INIMICUS ONE.
11. AT THIS TRANSMISSION MINUS 0.66 HOURS SHIPMASTER HELLWROUGHT ORDERED HELLWROUGHT STRIKE CRAFT LAUNCHED AND MACROBATTERIES READIED.
12. AT THIS TRANSMISSION MINUS 0.55 HOURS INIMICUS ONE DETACHED TWENTY-SEVEN HEAVY PARASITE CRAFT TOWARDS DANAAN ONE AND BEGAN FLANK SPEED MANOEUVRING.
13. ENEMY HEAVY PARASITE CRAFT DESIGNATED INIMICUS TWO THROUGH TWENTY-EIGHT
14. AT THIS TRANSMISSION MINUS 0.50 HOURS MASTER OF SMALL CRAFT HELLWROUGHT LAUNCHED THIRTY DOOMFIRE BOMBERS TO INTERCEPT INIMICUS TWO THROUGH TWENTY-EIGHT.
15. AT THIS TRANSMISSION MINUS 0.42 HOURS MASTER OF ORDNANCE HELLWROUGHT OPENED FIRE on INIMICUS ONE WITH PROW MACROBATTERY.
16. INIMICUS ONE TENTATIVLY IDENTIFIED AS BATTLEFLEET ILIUM TRANSPORT GLORIOUS RESOLVE
17. AT THIS TRANSMISSION MINUS 0.28 HOURS HELLWROUGHT STRIKE CRAFT ENGAGED INIMICUS TWO THROUGH TWENTY-EIGHT
18. INIMICUS TWO THROUGH TWENTY-EIGHT IDENTIFIED AS DEVOURER-CLASS HEAVY DROPSHIPS DESIGNATION UNKNOWN
19. INITIAL EVALUATION INIMICUS TWO THROUGH TWENTY-EIGHT MILITARUM REGIMENTAL-LEVEL assault DROP
20. AT THIS TRANSMISSION MINUS 0.22 HOURS INIMICUS TWENTY-EIGHT DESTROYED
21. AT THIS TRANSMISSION MINUS 0.2 HOURS HELLWROUGHT STRIKE CRAFT REPORTED ANOMALOUS SIGNAL TRAFFIC ORIGIN INIMICUS TWELVE THROUGH EIGHTEEN
22. AT THIS TRANSMISSION MINUS 0.15 HOURS INIMICUS TWENTY-SEVEN DESTROYED
23. AT THIS TRANSMISSION MINUS 0.11 HOURS RANGE TO INIMICUS ONE APPROACHING MAXIMUM ACCURATE MACROBATTERY RANGE.
24. AT THIS TRANSMISSION MINUS 0.10 HOURS SHIPMASTER HELLWROUGHT ORDERED FLANK SPEED TO PURSUE INIMICUS ONE
25. FLANK SPEED MANOUVRES WILL EXTEND ENGAGEMENT WINDOW 2.3 HOURS BUT MAXIMUM RANGE FIRE WITH POOR AUSPEX SOLUTION IS UNLIKELY TO DESTROY INIMICUS ONE WITHOUT ADDITIONAL SUPPORT
26. AT THIS TRANSMISSION MINUS 0.08 HOURS INIMICUS TWENTY-SIX DESTROYED
27. AT THIS TRANSMISSION MINUS 0.06 HOURS MASTER OF ETHERICS HELLWROUGHT IDENTIFIED ANOMALOUS SIGNAL TRAFFIC ORIGIN INIMICUS TWELVE THROUGH EIGHTEEN AS SYSTEMS CHATTER BETWEEN ENEMY NOOSPHERIC-ENABLED UNITS
28. RE-EVALUATION INIMICUS TWO THROUGH TWENTY-FIVE MILITARUM BATTALION-LEVEL assault DROP SUPPORTED BY MULTIPLE-LANCE QUAESTORIS FORCE
29. AT THIS TRANSMISSION MINUS 0.05 HOURS INIMICUS TWENTY-FIVE DESTROYED
30. AT THIS TRANSMISSION MINUS 0.03 HOURS INIMICUS TWO THROUGH TWENTY-FOUR ENTERED DANAAN I ATMOSPHERE AND SURVIVING HELLWROUGHT STRIKE CRAFT FORCED TO BREAK OFF
31. HELLWROUGHT STRIKE CRAFT ELEVEN COMBAT-EFFECTIVE DOOMFIRE BOMBERS REMAINING
32. MASTER OF AUGURY HELLWROUGHT REPORTS THAT INIMICUS TWO THROUGH TWENTY-FOUR FINAL RECORDED TRAJECTORY IMPLIES DISPERSED LANDING ZONES SOUTHERN ENEMY DEFENSIVE PERIMETER DANAAN CITY
33. SHIPMASTER HELLWROUGHT REQUESTS SHIPMASTER DAMNATIONS ANVIL MANOUVRE TO SUPPORT PURSUIT OF INIMICUS TWO
34. SHIPMASTER HELLWROUGHT REQUESTS SHIPMASTER WILL OF TZEENCH DEPLOY ATMOSPHERIC STRIKE CRAFT TO INTERDICT INIMICUS TWO THROUGH TWENTY-FOUR
35. MESSAGE ENDS
    

• The official response to this by the Lord Corruptor was 'Oh Bugger' .
• The Lord Deceiver, however, has come up with a plan to try and corrupt Chevaliance (or at least obtain a renegade knight household as a host). Which - in fairness - is less insane than the Lord Purgator's stampeding herd of daemonically possessed psychic Godzillas scheme.
  • This involved the rapid requisition of 50 skilled demolitions experts and "one metric tonne of poor-craftsmanship demolition charges" (there's a phrase to concern people).
  • Passing a navigate (surface) test to locate a suitable gulley, and a command test to isolate a lance of knights from the main force and lure them through it.
  • The job of holding off the rest of the Knight household, the Astra Militarum reinforcements and the surviving Danaan PDF was left to the Lord Corruptor. Who does, in fairness, have two battalions of Astartes and Cadavaris Perdita to do it with.
  • Each of the 5 knights got the same treatment; a team of 10 demolitionists setting 200kg of demo in the cliff face. We resolved the results for one knight and assumed it would reflect how the battle went for all the others.
  • We agreed on a Tech-Use (Demolitions) test, with a +60 for the mass assistance (covering a -10 for the poor quality charges) to create a landslip which would pin the knights in place as if hit by a weapon with the Snare (X) trait with a value for X of half the degrees of success on the test.
  • The Lord Deceiver would then have to take out the lead knight (hopefully before it got free!) whilst his minions swarmed over the boxed-in remains of the lance and cut the scions out of their armour.
  • For the sake of ease, I used the statline for the Skull Reaper daemon engine from the Tome Of Blood for the knight errant - massive chain-axe, turbo-melta cannon, AV24, T9 and 160 wounds. I dropped Runes Of The Blood God (that's neither appropriate for an imperial knight nor fair when it's a sorcerer trying to engage one solo!) and changed Daemon Engine (9) to a refractor field (which I should point out did absolutely nothing).
  • The demolitionists did their job spectacularly, hitting the knight with snare (9), which it failed to dodge.
  • The knight won initiative, but failed a strength test to pull free (at -60 on the test, even with strength 94 it was stuck pretty fast)
  • Adjo Gahiji then proceeded to hit it with an unfettered bolt of change, causing a concerningly ineffectual 3 damage.
  • The knight failed to pull free again, despite spending an infamy point on a reroll
  • The Lord Deceiver was aware this wasn't going to last too long, and decided to use Mind Over Matter to try and rip free hozes and power lines to take the melta cannon offline before it could be bought to bear. Passing the focused power check, and an opposed Willpower vs Strength test against the knight, I let him roll for a critical and he indeed managed to get the 'weapon destroyed' value, which stuck with a damage control roll of '4' on the part of the knight.
  • This was probably a good thing as the following round, spending an infamy point for a +10 and another for a reroll, the knight hauled itself out of the rubble.
  • Adjo Gahiji had officially 'stopped messing around' - a war engine with a titan-scale close combat weapon was coming to kill him - and he responded by reaching for his 'in case of emergency break reality' option of Warp Conduit/Pushed Bolt Of Change. The first one - at a terrifying Psy Rating 15 - took over 50 wounds off the knight, whilst ethereal winds threatened to knock him into the gully along with it.
  • The knight started to charge - it would take two full moves plus a charge move to reach the sorcerer, whilst he - in increasing desperation - poured infamy points and risked repeated perils of the warp (his Favoured By The Warp and the thousand sons archetype ability saving his neck twice) into pummelling it with warpfire.
  • Fortunately for the Lord Deceiver, literally the turn before it reached him, a bolt of change caused a weapon critical, taking off the chainblade. A Strength Bonus 18 improvised weapon was no laughing matter, but at least it was survivable....provided he regained consciousness in time, as the Perils of the Warp rendered him unconscious for a round.
  • The knight - even targeting a prone character - missed - and he regained consciousness to see the quaestoris engine's foot descending for another try. It took a couple of turns (and some dodging!) to get free - having to fall back without disengaging (and risk the free attack) to get a final Bolt Of Change off which split the knight's atomantic reactor in two.....and would have hit him with a 5D10+10 E hit, too, had the lucky so-and-so not rolled Chronological Inconsistency as his perils of the war result.
  • Ten combat rounds later, he popped back into reality, steaming slightly, in the centre of a gently burning crater.
• The Lord Ravager, meanwhile was busy being covert and diplomatic.
  • This is not an approach which comes naturally to a khornate general, so well done to her.
  • Essentially, having discovered that the Dolon Merchant guilds were hiring many mercenary cadres, the idea was to corrupt them and start some fighting in Dolon ahead of the crusade's advance. This would (narratively) make corrupting and taking Theristes easier and in rules terms would also cut the flow of forces into Dolon down significantly (since Dolon would be 'contested' for as long as that one host lasted, so the subsector would only be rolling 1D10 per system for reinforcements, not 2D10).
  • She was smuggled into the system by one of the Haarlock's banner-captains, 'Black Jack' Morgayne.
  • As a former battle sister, with Common Lore (Ecclesiarchy), Common Lore (Imperial Creed) and a sacred relic in the form of the skull of Saint Jerome (just don't point out sacred to whom....), she was able to pretend to be a ministorum preacher (keeping her wings and daemonic form held well inside her skin and avoiding any actual consecrated ground!).
  • Making a loyalty test to the Lord Purgator's instructions, his Gulanan and Luxillian cloister minions accompanied her, providing funds, discreet contacts and...other means of influence to get her access to the more corruptible mercenary commanders.
  • Inquiry, Deceive and Charm tests located a suitably corruptible mercenary company called the Frateris Janissaries (appealingly enough for the Lord Ravager, so named because they had been hired to reinforce the Dolon PDF but were being paid out of the Ecclesiarchy's funds).
  • We used the seduction rules from the Tome of Excess, using a generic Guard Officer from Only War.
  • Fortunately for the Lord Ravager, whilst Khornate heretics get a -10 to seduction, (a) she had a sizeable infamy advantage (we used a value of 20, suggested for a mercenary captain in the list of examples) even with the infamy penalty when being subtle on imperial worlds, and (b) khornate heretics use the command skill for seduction tests.
  • The Janissaries pretty soon fell into line, giving her her own secret military cult at the heart of dolon.
  • She decided for the remainder of the 'turn' to provide them with some extra firepower - acquiring (with the help of the Gulanan's excessive wealth talent and Commerce +30!) several hundred heavy stubbers and a stock of hallucinogen grenades - ideal for causing as much chaos as possible when the fighting kicks off....