OI...

So I got my acolytes into mess of a trench war. They need to survive at least a week on a frontline. They are under cover as Chimera crew lookin for heretic cells . Any ideas on what can happen on a frontline ? Here is some Ideas I came up.

1. Barrage - 10 - shell hits trench directly rending few nearby soldiers into bloody mist. and slashing chimera Track ( Tech -Use +10 to repair it) on 20 - shell hits close forseing Ag test to duck behind cover if not.... somebody will get a pice of shrapnel into face. And Ofc scratching the paint job on a Chimera. 30 + will be **** close but with no effect and fear rating of 1.

2. Advance - enemy press forward - just a lot of shooting from acolytes part with maybe some close combat if heretics make it to the trench.

3. Gas attack - nothing bad for acolytes .....not counting fear test for watching unfortunate guardsmen, who didnt put there masks in time.

4. They(Acolytes) are Ordered to counter the flanking manuver (They will be supported by few other squads). Some intence combat in open ground with long range shots.

5. Convoy. As our PCs are crew of a Chimera they will be called to escort / transport supplys to frontline. And we all know how fun it is to ambush convoys. =)

Well thats all for me but I feel I have too many combat situations .... maybe you can advice some none combat events?

Horrors of the front:
Men are dying and left and right to you, make a Average (+0) WP (Fear) test unless you have the Jaded talent.

Overrun:
The position the acolytes are stationed is overrun by the enemy, orders tell them to stay, staying equals suicide.

Desertion:
The acolytes spot a small group of soldiers venturing off the line, what do they do.

Betrayal:
Someone is relaying coordinates to the enemy, who is the spy/heretic

Sabotage:
Several of the mortars have been sabotaged, who did it.

Kommissar:
A kommissar who stepped out of the wrong side of the bed comes to inspect the troops and decides he doesn't like one of the acolytes

Outbreak:
There is an outbreak of some "natural" disease (Cholerae, Typhus), the platoon is quarantined near the front.

Friendly Fire (Isn't):
Allied artillery has zoomed in on you position, casualties are mounting and radio is down.

I like the idea of Desertion .... leaves some options for PCs. I want to underline that they are here not to win a war , and they are not realy supposed to be on a fronline as they arrive with fresh IG regement and heretics simply didn't had time to plant there seeds in new regement . I need events to enrich the frontline experiance and at the same time not have PC running around solveing small problems . They need to survive this week on a frontline so they can go back to the base and actualy start there investigation.

Let's not forget the worst horrors of being in the trenches... rats, disease, horrible food (or no food apart from the aforementioned rats) and of course, long periods of boredom waiting for the next attack.

For a more "fun" bit of flavor try this (based on a "true" WWI story): Somewhere in the trenches, shells have partially unearthed a corpse... a rotting, skeletal hand and arm sticks out from the wall. Ever man who passes the arm on the way out to the line must shake the hand... for luck.

from france

in addition to lucius t.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWI

read nothing glorious in that just **** and death

First impression I got from the thread title was: "Wait...my pets will have access to flea and tick treatments in the 41st Millenium? SWEET!"

I ran a a story arc involving a Tyrannid (stated almost all Tyrannid units save elites) invasion, in which the Acolyte team was injected into an Imperial Guard firebase. I had a trench combat at the beginning of every session at first to try and gauge success or failure of the conflict. Basically each combat had heavy weapons emplacements that needed to be protected. Loss of too many of the emplacements meant that the front lines had to fall back etc etc.

Other than that i did two side stories. The first was about an NPC cleric and his young boy assistant. During the mass onslaught the Priest was dragged off by the Nids, and the young boy went chasing him. Well a squad of particularly faithful Guardsman decided they were going to go out and get him, and decided they were going to do this contrary to the fact that they were forbidden. The Cleric pc (one of my favorites) decided **** this he's going with them. The Arbitor decided he was going to rat them out to a Kommisar. Turns into a big RP conflict at the gate, and thanks to some impressive arguing and nice Fellowship tests, The Kommisar lets them go and face judgement when they return (I was just going to have him shoot them all but the cleric stepped in). The cleric and the assassin in the party go out while the tech-priest (to hurt to go) and the arbitor (just a jerk) stayed. Over the adventure the two players got chummy with the squad captain and others, after some combat they find a few wounded guardsmen and they find the boy assistant standing over the dead priest (chainsword in hand) defending his masters corpse from several tyrannid gaunts. The day gets saved hurray, they all come back The Cleric expecting a heroes welcome. When they arrive the Kommisar is waiting, surprised they made it back and with survivors. The captains steps forward takes full responsibility for his squads actions, and is (not surprisingly) summarily executed. The player behind the Cleric was freaking outraged.

The other good one was oriented around a missing Chimera patrol. I used this event to introduce my newly stated Ravener's. The party goes out and searches for the missing patrol, when they find it they find that huge holes have been ripped into the sides of the Chimera's and that not a single body or blood spatter remains. What they do find are a number of little rippers consuming human pieces and parts inside of one of the Chimera's, Also they find large circles of disturbed earth toward the tree lines. The dig down and find nothing of course. They do find some human tracks leading off to the west but by now its already nightfall and they wimp out and camp inside the chimera's for the night. Toward midnight the hear gunfire breaking out to west. So in the middle of the night they make a mad dash toward the fire fight, and i have Ravener's ambush them. I wrote a special ability for the raveners allowing them to burst out of the ground as part of a charge. So with the a Ravener i would have them burst out of the ground attack. Next round they would asssassin strike, take their movement, and burrow down.

Hope thats useful for generating some ideas.

Lithium

Hi Kapelan,

if you want to have non-combat encounters, then how about some info about the non-combat-core of your mission: the heresy the acolythes have been sent after.

What is your plot here? Is there any heresy going on among the troops or is it just rumours and the acolythes spend days of "regular live-risking frontline service"?

A summery what already happened ..... apart my Acolytes been legendary THICK . There task is infiltrate Imperial Guard regement and investigate it undercover . The homeworld of the regement was recently purged of the major chaos cult. And the conclave is concerned about the fate of the campain in witch this regement is takin part. ( war VS Renegade planet )

Now to the tick part I gave them information ( data-slate) with FULL info on the cult . They asked only for 2- things 1st.- Wich classes of people were favored by cult. - Criminal elements was the answer......No follow up " Why?" .... 2-nd What was The sign of the cult..... I drawed it for them. Thats it....No more questions.

OK now what already happened. They were dedicated to the regement as Chimera crew. The regement itsef is one of the Mobile Infantry type. And as tradition all new replacements are ordered directly into the trenches . Our Acolytes avoided all the major horros of the trench warfare hideing in there chimera wich were entranced as fire point. After some fire fights and Furious hand to hand combat and even Gas attacks some soldiers deside to desert. Our Loyal to the bone Acolytes gun every single one of them , only one survived and insted of iteragateing him personaly they called Commisar.... 1 bolt round and 3 player's face-palms later they returned to there Chimera. By the way after 1 scary as F*** artilery barrage all acolytes got there 1st 10 insanity points ..... Tech - Priset was obsessed by cleanin his chimera , Scum was jumpy as hell , and Guardsman was calm ... ( son of a B passed his WP test) . After they complited there frontline rotation cook-ratling offered chimera driver a side job.... he needed somebody to pick up the package from ruins.

Now the plot turns and twists. Cult is fueled by drugs wich gives the "User" the ability to thin the line between warp and real world ..... and drugs as general =)). Now the structure - "The Prophet " is at the head of the cult - he is not a regular person more the one who is possesed by daemon. So they dont become fully blown demonhosts I think that as the effect of the drug wears off the demon losses his grasp in the real world. Now this drug is rare and of XENOS origins ( I plan on doing the next campain forceing our boys to trace it). Enough of a side track - So "Illuminated" this guys are the "elite" of the cult they are the ones who have asses to the "Drug". "Light" The fanatical mass of the cult wich can no longeg funtion in "norma" humman society . This guys are sure that they are The LIGHT of the gods ..... just f***ed up on other drugs and brain wased by whispers of "The Prophet". "The Blind" Major mass of the cult who just like to smoke / inject and generaly escape the opression of the imperium. They are not aware of "The prophet" and think thats whispers are just another effect of the drugs.

But it all WAS .... now inside the regement There are 2 Illuminated who are Officers in 1 platoon . Colonel Hoxton and Sergant Mazzete.

Local City provides the lesser drugs in mass.(now: Effect of drugs in the regement becomes visual )They finaly made contact with there Xeno friends so they can reconstruct there cult(2days from NOW: some wierd stuff starts to happen.The Cult is now have a fixed location in ruins. ) Hoxton learns about the Dark Pacts from the deamon wich possesed him (1week from NOW: Signs of dark rituals start to pop now and then smoldering pile of skulls, dec of cards with all 9s in it, trenches start to rot and so on.Alarming casualties on Commisars part.) . Mazzete want to manufacture "The Drug" in abandoned chemical plant. He already have his man hooksed on some stuff and brainwased so they are fanaticly loyal to him, some even call him "father". Guess what will go wrong preety soon. ( If Acolytes wont stop him in time... hell or even find him. Ill give them 2 weeks.) Chemical Plant becomes a bleeding wound in material world. Lesser daemons start to show up......time to call Malleus. Acolytes have the meens to relay a disstress they will need to survive for 5 days with some of the Imperial guard or to become chopped up by daemons.