Hi Guys,

Well I finally took the plunge and purchased the Core Rulebook for Dark Heresy, as well as the DM screen and the Inquisitors Handbook. I figured that this would be a good start from what I have read. I have been lurking in the background just surfing the forums but decided to make an appearance. So a small intro, well I have been wargaming for over 15 years I started with Warhammer then moved onto 40K.

Then after that I branched out into more Historical paths. In terms of RPGs well started with AD&D way back, took a break and after chatting with a mate I thought to myself. I thought that I saw a Warhammer 40k RPG book. A little search later I stumbled onto here.

What I would like to know really is where to start, what supplement books are good, which ones are bad if any.

Can anyone tell me about The Haarlocks Legacy books? Are they worth the money as they seem quite expensive for only 64 pages. Are they a good start for scenarios ect?

Are there plans for future books like this?

Same question on the Creatures Anathema

Also since I don't do too much reading (Well novels) but would like to do more what novels would you recommend which I could draw inspiration from as a DM and as a player?

If you were in my shoes, what would be your next purchase after what I would call the "Essentials"

Thanks in advance and I look forward to posting more

For novels: Eisenhorn, Ravenor, Scourge the Heretic, Innocence Proves Nothing. In that order.

I have found the adventure books to be useful and fun, but if you are on a tight budget you can probably hold off for a while on them. There are several pre-written adventures available for download from FFG.

I have yet to buy a suplement for DH that I have been displeased by. I have a bit of an issue with some of the Skill Mastery bundles in Ascention but it is still a good book. Again, if you are on a budget you can hold off on Ascention for a while. It will probably take about a year for your players to get close to needing it. Creatures Anathema, Disciples of the Dark Gods and Radical's Handbook are all great GM tools.

Edge of Darkness (free download) and Illumination (in the core book) are both pretty good "low level" missions. I seem to remember there being a halfway decent "intro" level mission posted on Dark Reign, though I don't remember the title offhand. Involves a simple drug investigation that leads into a series of murdered suspects. FFG has about 8 adventures posted for free download, so that should give you a good start before you need to pick up one of the adventure books or start writing your own. Shattered Hope is painfully linear, but it was intended to be a true "intro" module... It came out before the core book did as a teaser/how to play: It is rather lacking in story detail, but it does accomplish it's primary objective... Teaching the GM and players how the game mechanics work.

As I am fond of saying: "Welcome to your new addiction!"

Next thing i'd say is utmost for you to get will be the Errata. it changes a LOT of stuff..

After that, well, it's all gravy really.

I can happily run games with only the Core, Screen & Inq Guide and none of the other books.

They're nice extras on my book shelves but other than reading through, cover to cover for ideas, i've not used them.

I might use radicals later on to provide a Nemesis for the group (even though the groups starting to go a touch radical themselves)

Same with Rogue Trader, it's nice to get ideas from but thats about it.

As for the published adventures, i've found them to be very hit or miss for sections of them so none of the groups i've not run them nor really used them for game ideas.

Core, Screen and IH is what I consider to be the main 'must have' books. Creatures is nice, and is good for your own adventures and scenarios, and Disciples/Radicals/Ascension are not 'must-haves' but certainly can add additional elements to the games. I don't own any of the scenario books beyond Purge the Unclean, so I can't comment on those.

My biggest piece of advice for a new GM brimming with campaign ideas is don't use your best ideas first . I had the idea for a massive 5-act campaign (that we're about to hit Act III of), but before I threw them into my grand sweeping story I wrote a bunch of introductory 'prologue' scenarios to get everyone used to the rules, get everyone used to their characters, to teach myself what the whole 'GMing' thing was about and so that by the time we started the campaign proper, all the basics and early mistakes were worked out.

Even then I still ran Shattered Hope (the original introductory scenario) as the first 'Act' (changed to fit my story accordingly), just to make 100% certain that we got rid of all the kinks before we hit Act II.

And it's worked well so far.

BYE

Hi there and WELCOME

My two cents about things:

(Rules) Supplements:
I haven´t come across one that I would have HATED outright, but "Inquisitors Handbook" (IH) is a little ERRATA-Heavy to me. But you can save quit a buck if you are into PDF-downloads (have a look at DriveThruRPG for official PDF copies of FFG DH products). But it has a lot of character options and background for you. Not to mention tons and loads of Equipment.

"Adventures":
In my opinione, DO NOT BUY THE FIRST PART OF THE HARLOCK TRIOLOGY! I disliked it severly. The second part (Damned Cities) is much much better so AND gives you vey nice background on Sinophia which is really worth the reading. I am not -THAT- found of "Purge the Unclean", either. It is "quiet alright", but if you have to save money, save this one until you run out of others ideas. Check "DarkReign" and FFG Support section for free dowload adventures. And check the "Gamemaster" Section of this one. Sometimes, nice things pop up.

Other Sources:
If you are in desperate ideas for planets, I recommend "100plantes" from PostMortem-Productions (DriveThruRPG; PDF-Download). If you would like to have some deck plans for System vessels or guncutters, try those from "Future Armada" (DriveThruRPG; PDF-Download).

Warhammer Fantasy RPG 2nd Edition (!mind you!) has some good rules about Illnesses and other stuff, so if you are into "scavenging rules" and some-one offers you a used copy for a fair price, one should not say "no".

Creatures Anathema is a great book, not as good as the Old World Beastiary for WFRPv2 or Creatures of the Dreamseed for Engel, but its still a **** good monster book with a lot of good nasties in it. Disciples of the Dark God's really good as well and you should think about picking it up as well.

Besides being a dungeon crawl the intro scenario is really good fun and so is the mini scenario in the core book, the two lead into each other nicely and from there Haarlock (DotDG has House of Ash which is the prequel for them), you may want to play some intro games with each of your players, little mini sessions about how their characters ended up in the service of the holy ordos.

If you like to write your own adventures, Disciples of the Dark Gods includes a lot of stuff you will want to use. You can do without but it is the book I've been more happy with so far in the DH line.

Edge of Darkness is a great intro adventure and is free. Shattered Hope is... well, not so great.

Expanding on Gregorius' last statement, anouther source if you need info on planets would be an old archive of Black Inustries site where more of the Calixis planets had a write-up attached to them. You can find that HERE .

Graver said:

@Graver
That is also on the FFG support page under the gaming aids; here .

@Rusty
I recommend checking out both BI's and FFG's and picking which ever format you prefer for your referencing.

Personally, I plugged it all into a Word document which I use for referencing in my games. Makes my life a little easier when I am someplace that I cannot get online.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the welcome, and the advise about the different books. Interesting thoughts about Shattered Hope, when I picked it up and read through it a little bit back I found it interesting.

Just downloaded the Errata so that is one less thing to worry about, I think that I will run with the two books for now and then once I get my head around things I will then look at other books. I am definetly looking forward to Deathwatch.

I am sure that when I get my book I will have a whole lot more questions but since I am waiting for the postie, can anyone tell me what sort of creatures / races / deamons are included in the book. I am particulary interested to see if Orks, Tyranids, Mutants, Deamons.

When you are running your games what is the most common encounter?

Once again thanks in advance

Talking "most common encounter" :

In both of my group, the type of "encounter" is clearly dominated by their surrounding. "Group One" is currently on Dusk, so they tend to run into all kinds of strange, nightmarish creatures. That is, as long as they are into combat. On the "social interaction" part, they had to deal with the local village authorities quiet often which tended to be backwater and otherwise ranged from "rather pious and afraid" over "bold henchman of an expanding warlord" to "dogmatic villiage priest following a strange version of the imperial creed, hindering their mission".

My other group started with "Edge of Darkness", when through a self made sequal based on Razorbys "Gateway 17" (see the darkreign website for it) and are currently in the final of "Rejoice". Naturally, their combat encounters are against other human being. Half of the time, they have been up against Scum, Skulkers and Heavies, the other time they where up against well trained and equipped agents and mercenaries.
Socially, they tended to had to deal with both the noble elite and recidivists alike.

If you like to sample some of the things my group encountered, please see the following (downloadable pdf)

http://rapidshare.com/files/357446201/Rejoice-RevV02.pdf
http://rapidshare.com/files/359005833/BrutalLament_AddesGuests.pdf
http://rapidshare.com/files/362548138/CrimsonDarkness.pdf
http://rapidshare.com/files/365155226/SlagHagsV01.pdf

Brother Praetus said:

Actualy, it's not on the support page in its entierty. In the archived link I put up, all the planits that had info writen about them, whether in the main book or as a part of BI's fan development of the Calixis Sector (which, to one degree or anouther FFG seems to be honoring), are a link to that info. A lot of the info that the planets are linked to can be found no where else, such as the write-up on Belacane (Lightbringers work I think...) and Hilarion. Just have a look at the info the planets are linked to. Lots of good stuf that should not be forgotten ;-) Though, when looking at the info, be warned that sometimes various design elements have been stripped and you might end up with just a black page. The text is still there, just black as well. "Select All" and you'll be able to read it.

Edit; I was just going back through some of the planetary write-ups and while some of it has been modified through the years since it was written (Tranch) there's still a LOT of good info even for planets that have extensive info on them in the various books such as common currencies used on the planets and planetary populations that actually seem in line with the size of the hives (somewhere along the way, three zeros seems to have fallen off of all the planetary population numbers...)

Disciples of the Dark Gods is very useful for a GM, I've not been in this roleplaying lark for long either and I found that book the most useful for getting a story off the ground.

As to the encounters, well, I've found that kicking off the story with a quick fight against some unrelated or neutral enemies works quite well to get people into the game. Creatures Anathema has plenty of such stuff - forgotten mutants, local fauna and flora etc, but really, even just throwing in some dinosaurs statted out to specifically challenge the PCs seems to work just as well

ZillaPrime said:

I would also add the Shira Calpurnia novels (Crossfire, Legacy, Blind - and I hear an Omnibus is coming out, if it hasn't yet) to that list. These books add a good deal of setting detail that I hadn't seen done quite so well in either Eisenhorn or Ravenor. (It helps that the Calpurnia books are written from the perspective of someone more down to earth - as it were - than an Inquisitor)

Jack of Tears said:

The list I provided above was deliberately rather short. I made the criteria for inclusion to be "well written and directly related to Inquisitorial investigations". Thankfully Black Library for the most part has high standards for their products so they are actually very good books! Such a refreshing difference from the more usual game line support novels that are prone to excessive suckage. My only recurring grumble is Sandy Mitchell insists on putting his Techpriests in white robes...

There are likewise several short stories in the various compilation books that focus on some minor functionary going about their life in the big-bad Imperium.

I think the most interesting supplements you can buy after having the basic game and the Inquisitor's handbook (which by the way, could have been labeled as "player's background book", if you don't have it, make one of your players buy it if they wanna buy something) are the Creatures Anathema and Disciples of the Dark Gods (the Radical's handbook can wait, and Ascension can wait even more).

Of those two, which one you will use more will depend on the style of your games: if you wanna make them hunt for chaos, play in cities, hunt forbidden items, etc..., then buy Disciples of the Dark Gods.

If, on the other hand, you prefer to make them to explore worlds without much civilization (and one of your players bought Rogue Trader), then the Creatures Anathema is the choice to make. Aside from several creatures, some death worlds, and some info about techno-heresy (that means tech priests being bad boys), it also includes some info about the chaos (and some demon stadistics, like the Juggernaut of Khorne or the flamers of Tzeentch), and info on various Xenos races (eldar, orks and genestealers & lictors). I think unless you wanna make your plays to run into cities this is a little more complete option, but as I stated earlier it's more focused in the "outside of civilization" theme.

ZillaPrime said:

Seemed odd to me too. There's a reason you don't see mechanics wearing white at work, after all.

Novices wear white. The more experienced a Techpriest is, the more darker is the tunic. That's because you NEVER wash the tunic, my friend. And all that grease, smoke, dirt...

That is nasty! Could you imagine how those tunics smell?

Hell, my GM has found me... ^^

Velvetears said:

Thanks for the advise on getting the Errata down, I must say though I am a little shocked to see it 15 pages long. Was there that much stuff that they really needed to change?

How do you handle changing the book? How does one best use the Errata do you just print it out and have in next to the book, as I remember the days where you were able to print it out and paste if needed.

I could just see it being fiddly if you have to refer to the Errata every few minutes.

Kyorou said:

Thanks, was looking at that book today it was actually one I was leaning towards buying.

@ Brother Praetus

Thanks for the advise on the background info, looks like I will be copy and pasting later tonight and filter through while I still wait for my book to arrive. I think that the FFG stuff is easier to navigate, but have saved both of the links posted.

Argus Van Het said:

It's interesting that you say that about the Inquisitor's Handbook that was how I looked at it, however I believe it is important to have the options for the players (and personally I like having the Adepta Sororitas career path) - So when someone else is GM'ing I will be taking that role. Unfortunatelly as were starting out I drew the short straw and decided to buy the core books to get the guys into it.

The two books I am looking at are the Creatures Anathema and Disciples of the Dark Gods. I like how you have described how each of the books run. This will take a bit of thought, at least in the meantime I have around 700 pages to read.

At the end of the day I will probably be buying both of them at some point.

I´m Argus´GM and I can tell you that those books have been more usefull to me.