So, i'm sending my group through a Space Hulk for halloween (and revenge) and I need some good enemies besides Genestealers to throw at my group. Any ideas from people?

How about some Chaos Orks, they could be fun.

DrgnScorpion said:

Nothing says nightmares and twisted fairy-tales like the Dark Eldar...

Failing that, the Necrons, if handled correctly, make for very good horror villains

If you don't want a straight hack n' slash mission, put in some Imperial survivors, to give the Kill-Team something to interact with by other means than blowing up. If you want you can turn them into enemies later by adding subtle hints that they've started praying to the Genestealers (or your enemies of choice) to survive.

i have just written a mission for my group set on a haunted and drifting imperial battleship , powers of warp moving doors , spooky sounds, ilusions / images of crew (eg ghost images) and some survivors who arent all they seem

I just ran a recent mission where a space hulk (full of orks) materialised from the warp along with a black ship and sends a message to the ship the Kill Team is aboard.

here is the overview and starter for 10:

Orks Drift

A distress signal received in the warp from a Blackship Vitualamen. The Ship is being pulled into a Space Hulk.

The Hulk itself is of originally of Orkish creation, though it’s time in the warp has changed much of it’s structure.
The Team have no chance to stop the orkish assault, and the Hulk itself rips into the blackship, causing it to fuse to the Space Hulk.

The Marines are aboard the Thunder’s Fury along with 2 squads of Space Marines bound for Service in the Castobel system.

Allowing an orkish hulk to continue is a priority mission, and the Ship Captain believes he can bring the ship out of warp in a dangerous manoeuvre to exit warp real close to the Hulk. This will give the marines a chance to board the hulk and disable it, whilst the captain can call in other forces to finish it off entirely.

The Ship has 4 key levels each tied to specific objectives
Level 1 objective is to secure a working perimeter to allow the team to plan further descent into the hulk.
Level 2 is the hunt for the Ork Nob and key targets of his warband
Level 3 is the engines and power units that will stop the ship from further movement
Level 4 is an opportunity to rescue key personnel from the ship Vitualamen.

Back Story
The Ork Hulk launched for Waaaargh over two centuries ago, and has been misplaced in time via a violent Warp storm which has catapulted it into the Jericho Reach. The Orks have no knowledge of this passing of time, nor care, they want Waaargh.

The hulk itself has been tainted by the warp, and they have acquired dark agents of Chaos on the lower level (Level 4) an area the Orks avoid at all costs. They know dark things exist and are rightfully fearful of it. However a warband eventually gets brave enough to enter the area and it’s is believed whichever Ork destroys the forces there will be have a right to challenge the current Ork Nob.

The Vitualamen was/is a Blackship that traversed the Jericho Sector before the warp storms closed off the paths from Ultramar. It went to close to the Hadox anomaly and was dragged into an eternal warp storm for several millennia, being released only now into the grasp of the Ork Hulk.
Pushed on by the high devoted of Father Nurgle, the Ork Hulk has been boarded by two Chaos Marines from the Death Guard Chapter who turned to chaos, Morbus and Ciades and a collection of blessed followers. The warp storms having released the ship into the path of the Vitualamen is part of the greater plan of Father Nurgle, and their intentions are to release the psykers from the pens of the blackship, and with this force attack a Death Watch Fortress.

Through dark powers they intend to direct the Hulk to the fortress and allow the Orks to take on the Bulk of the enemy, whilst they use the dark teleporter technology to get behind the enemy lines and strike at the heart of the fortress. Once their Morbus and Ciades will plunder the vaults and flee back to the warp taking the precious artefacts back for use by their masters.
The Thunder’s Fury is the Imperiums only possible opportunity to stop this from happening, and uncannily fortuitous that they have been “guided” here.

Players Overview
The Thunder’s Fury have picked up a distress signal via the Astropathic Choir from a ship under assault from a Space Hulk. The ship is able to intervene.
As they make to intercept the ship is identified as the Black Ship Vitualamen. The hulk makes a collision course with the Vitualamen and dark tendrils wrap around it, absorbing much of the vessel into it’s huge bulk.
The Thunder’s Fury’s captain and navigator believe they can bring the hulk out of warp by exiting close enough to the hulk to force it into real space, a dangerous and reckless manoeuvre.
Once in real space the Kill Team helped out by a squad of Ultramarines and a squad of Dark Angels can board the Hulk and complete their Objectives.
Key Information the Players can discover

The Black Ship Vitualamen used to travel the Ultramar straights into the Jericho Sector Millennia ago, before the storms closed off the pathways from Ultramar.

The Navigator states the chances of picking up the distress call in any time to do anything is infinitesimally small. The Chief Astropath believes he has been touched by the Emperor, and His hand guided them to intervention.
The Navigator claims the warp paths where the hulk is discovered has a taint of the Anomaly to it, anything from their is indeed likely to be tainted.

The Chief Astropath states there is an evil aboard ship, beyond the evil of mere Orks.

The Hulk

The hulk is of Orkish construction, and consists of ships salvaged and smashed together, in itself a remarkable feat of orkish ingenuity. However its time in the empyrean has corrupted much of the exterior as well as increased it’s size.

Now over fourteen kilometres from end to end, and half as deep and across, it is a monstrous city of orks in space.
Holding well over a million orks within it’s confines, it is indeed a huge additional threat to the Jericho Reach.
The Orks exist in many, many smaller warbands, tenuously ruled by the current Ork Nob Agrash and his cadre of officers. As the hulk has expanded so has the Ork population, and more and more the orks are fighting amongst each other.

Black Ship Vitualamen

The black ship traversed the edges of Ultramar through to the Jericho Sector, but disappeared in a warp storm thousands of years ago.
Captained by Jenna Octia, along with Inquistor Hevelock, the ship was caught within the Hadox Anomaly whilst on a return to Terra with a full hold of psykers, the ship has effectively been in suspended animation.

Once released the ship was pulled towards the Hulk. The ship has a contingent of Adepta Sororitas for use in battle.

Once the ship is dragged within the hulk, Octia, Hevelock and the sisters are battling for survival to escape the Hulk. The Inquisitor is aware of the evil, and can identify it is the workings of Nurgle. To what purpose though he is at a loss.

Once they become aware of the marines, they will make way to join.

The psykers that were held within the blackship have mostly escaped. Died or are already corrupted and will join up with the chaos marines.
The vast majority of the crew are also fodder for the orks as well as the forces of chaos. The hulk is large enough for these to fight on until the fleet comes and decisions are made.

Mission Objectives
Primary Objective. Shutdown the ships power and engine sources. Though this won’t stop the systems from being rerouted, it should give the Imperium long enough to bring in reinforcements and annihilate the hulk.

Primary Objective . Kill the current Ork Nob. In doing so it will create a civil war amongst the orks whilst a new leader battles to take charge. Again this is a stalling tactic.
Secondary Objective . Determine the nature of the evil within the hulk. If possible remove it.
Secondary Objective . Identify where the hulk originated from. This will allow the DW to strike at the homeworld.
Tertiary Objective. Rescue any survivors from the Black Ship Virtualamen.

Take old favourites and give them a 40K twist. Instead of ghosts, you have tormented soul-spectres from the warp. Instead of mummies, you have dessicated corpses reanimated by some terrible xenos device. Instead of ghouls, you have flesh-hungry hullghasts. And don't forget the ever popular skeleton in a space suit!

Or, if you want something even bigger scale and more horrible, go rent "Deep Rising", then substitute a space hulk for the Argonautica, and the kill-team for the salvagers. You'll have a great payoff when they realize that they're not fighting giant worms or serpents, but an entire colossal organism within the hulk.

I love the ideas. So far my hulk is named the "Emperor's Light". It is a massive conglmaration of ships from Eldar to Astartes vessels. And there is a signal from an Imperial Vessel. In actuality its an Astartes Cruiser from the Heresy era and the signal is the go ahead to attack for the Thousand Sons, Word Bearers, and Night Lord Legions against Space Wolves, Ultramarines, and Storm Wardens. Pretty much the players get their parent chapters attacked by chaos.

If I may make a suggestion... space hulks are usually given ominous or menacing code names, like "Sin of Damnation", "Devourer of Stars", or "Desolation of Virtue". You might want to choose a name that sounds less like an Imperial cruiser and more like a terrifying conglomeration of floating shipwrecks and monsters in space.

DrgnScorpion said:

Broodlords?

Nah, for a halloween scenario I'd go with daemons or plague zombies, or a mix of the two. Or you can even go as far as taking a Warpvampire from the old Rouge Trader days.

Old "Slaves To Darkness" sourcebook - severely mutated Chaos Renegades with Chaos Weapons. Multiple of them.

Alex

How about a heretofore unknown xenos lifeform? Mould something unpleasant for your players to face off against - they are Deathwatch marines after all - I personally liked the idea that the creature is so massive it basically inhabits the entire ship - something that can reanimate corpses with part of its essence or physical form and operate them like puppets or marionettes?

I may be borrowing the idea from elsewhere here, but there is never anything more dependable than a zombie fest. The only thing better than this is getting all the players to turn on each other in that hulk, in the true spirit of Halloween horror finales.

Leogun_91 said:

I like plague zombies. I had great fun dropping my Rogue Trader players onto 'St Evangeline's Mercy', a Sister Hospitaller ship where the crew had been wiped out by the Vile Savants (Disciples of the Dark Gods). I had the players reach the bridge and the ships logs first, without meeting any zombies, just plenty of eerie scenery. There they found details of the 'secret cargo' the ship was carrying, several warheads containg the Life Eater virus.......which, unbeknowst to the crew, had been warped tainted, and was the source of the zombies. Not knowing of the taint, the party tried to recover the warheads.....but in doing so unleashed the huge hordes of zombies present on the sealed decks. And then the tainted Life-eater started spawning plague bearers.

Also, the look on one players face when the 'dead' sister he was trying to search grabbed his ankle was priceless.

Jokaero!!

Driven mad by Warp corruption and embarked upon a mission to 'remake' the space hulk into a massive series of booby traps.

And then a Mechanicus heretek cult trying to learn from the Jokaero.

And the original crew(s) gone cannibal akin the crew on Pandorum (film).

And 'nids of course because no space hulk is complete without a few 'nids...

And an insane squat. Heresy!!!

I know its a bit late, but i think that the Psychneuien from the Dark Heresy core book would be a scary and dangerous foe.

and it the creatures get upon an inhabited world it could spell disaster, which is more than enough reason for a Xeno kill team to get involved.

Chaos mutants, Tyranid Zoamathropes, Orc mega nobs, Chaos beserkers,

Witchs, evil pyskers, Blood letters. MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I may not know the rules very much, but im a real fluff nut

I believe I saw someone posting about an Imperial Blackship. I am going to steal this idea. A ship full of psykers who have been lost in the warp and have gone insane and are manifesting their worst nightmares.

Not to mention the evil demons who might be jumping in.