Hi all. Experienced DM/new Dark Heresy GM here asking for advice.

I like to run big, flashy, over-the-top campaigns. So far I've given my players that, and they love it. I hope to continue this trend next session by putting them in a fight with a Chaos Space Marine. One of the ones from the Deathwatch book.

Now, don't get me wrong: I heartily expect them to avoid fighting this thing. Well, maybe not some of the newbie players, but I'll be playing up all the arrogance and pride of the Space Marine. He doesn't go for killing blows: he attempts to scare and torture the players. But this posturing will (hopefully) be his downfall. Perhaps literally.

I'm trying to design a series of traps that the players can trigger that end up defeating the Space Marine. Exploding barrels, collapsing rocks, the ground giving way beneath the Marine (they're in a mine). That sort of stuff. My players definitely like to improvise with what's available to them, so I think this will be a fun encounter for them, but I'm not 100% on the idea. Not because I don't want to do it, but because I've tried these sorts of things in the past and I want to make sure my players bite correctly.

It helps that the first thing that I wrote in was what would happen if they attempted to run. A chase scene is also doable.

Tricky given just how touch a space marine is. I mean ridicolously insanely tough.

What I would do is instead of traps....have the players go after the space marine's equipment. Maybe a series of mini encounters which may have traps etc wherein the space marine loses one of its bits of gear, such as the iconic bolter, or the power armor. Even then it might still be quite hazardous - just because of how over the top a space marine is. However without the equipment they normally have well they are not nearly as dangerous.

If you still wish to go with traps, something the space marine cannot just physically go through would be best, such as a wall that collapses on him or something to that effect.

Hmmm...that'd be a fun, video-gamey way to do the fight. Also stretch it out for a while. Not sure how they'd feel about that.

Also becomes more and more tense as time goes on, rather than less tense: As the Space Marine loses equipment, he'll be getting irritated, possibly to the point where he's willing to just end the chase.

So many ideas...slurry machines, wrecking equipment, trash compactors...huge magnets, collapsing caverns, explosive barrles/vehicles. Glad to see this wasn't a totally ridiculous idea, though. I'm not one of those GMs who gets kicks out of throwing players into unfair situations, but I think this will provide plenty of fun moments.

Glad it was able to help.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=101&efcid=3&efidt=445539 came from me likewise wishing to put the players in odd situations. One of my players has near cheating luck at times (Seriously 3 1's in a ROW???!?!?!?) and thus to try and counteract that, and a few other players great knowledge of 40K Ive been homebrewing up antagonists such as them there crystals, and using them situationally. For that case our arbiter almost at rank 4 decided to close down and investigate a mine, I made her roll for it and well....everyone got cleared out, heance the crystals. (Not to overly toot my own horn there)

Likewise for situations, it can really help bring out the group when danger is involved sufficent to make them take a minute and think as opposed to just charging in. If you need to ramp up the danger, if you have creatures anathema there are if I recall correctly some minor demons in the book to spice things up.

Also if you just want to be unfair....after my players get out of them crystal mines, well....Xenos need to be purged. And the guard loves its Artillery ^^ especially....Earthshaker rounds guranteed to close a mine down right fast. So situational aspects like that can really add to the difficulty or provide chllanage that is different than scoot and shoot.

Sometimes you make a mistake and you have to fudge rolls or be kind to your players. That happened when I sent them up against the Broodlord from the Emperor Protects. They're all Rank 8 Acolytes, and that thing was just too much for them. They eventually got it, but I was kind to them, choosing to do hit and runs with Assassins Strike rather than tear them apart in a single round with Lightning Attack + Multiple Arms.

Encounter balance is hard, and when you screw up (we all do), you have to make the choice between ruining the fun of your players by TPK'ing all of them, or admitting the mistake and letting them win.

BYE

Hazards in a mine:

High pressure liquids. Many mines have to be drained (once or regularly) to function. The pumping systems with their hoses, moving pieces and machinery are very suitable for sabotage and major booby traps.

Even more so in the case of the boilers to power the pumps, or whatever the case might be.

Although the chaos marine might not need the air to breathe, having several thousand tons of water rip him down a mine shaft is still likely to seriously screw up his day...and it certainly makes for a tense scenario standing ankle deep in foaming water tinkering with a valve while some Khornate berserker is storming down the tunnel towards you...

And with water comes electricity: perhaps the PCs or the CSM can kick-start some old generator, giving some partial light..and all those loose (now live) wires in the shafts can make for impossible-to-pass corridors, or the old' "fire at the electrical wire, see it fall in the pool of water the CSM is just standing in' scenario.

Ooooh, braddoc, that's downright sexy. Hadn't thought of that.

Fortunately still haven't run the combat yet. So I can keep thinking up new stuff. I'll let ya'll know the final encounter layout and how the session goes.

Big **** Hero said:

Sexy? Now that's a new adjective for my ideas, shorter than 'sensual and alluring'

But yeah- keep us informed, I want to know how it went:

Okay, so it ended up being a two-stage fight, and 7 of my 9 players were available (I try not to run with all of them at the same time, but I foolishly gave them an open invite so they almost all showed up). Two guardsmen, two assassins, a tech-priest, a psyker and an arbiter.

Stage 1 took place outside the entrance to a gemstone mine. The various toys I gave to my players were:

• A wrecking ball
• Industrial-strength lasercutter
• Giant drill
• Trash compactor
• Crates upon crates of mining charges
• Plenty of cover

It started off pretty well. My players were immediately scared to death (forgot to make them actually roll for fear, but as players they were well aware of the danger). Their first plan is to manoeuvre the marine to a pile of explosives, then shoot the explosives.

Obviously this didn't pan out.

However, they moved the explosives close enough to the marine and then shot them up. At this point the marine was playing with them (I made him a member of the Thousand Sons, so he was grandiose and monologuing and stuff). Then a bunch of mining charges exploded next to him. He was shaken a bit, but not too bothered. Still, he started spraying bolts at the snipers. Tore up their cover, almost killed the psyker and one of the guardsmen who was sniping.

One of the assassins slapped a mining charge on the marine's back and left leg, which pissed him off more than anything, but the players knew it was progress. While this was happening, the tech-priest was activating the giant drill, one of the guardsmen was trying to work the wrecking ball and one of the assassins was trying to turn on the lasercutter.

The tech-priest gets the drill working and slams into the marine's arm, effectively killing it (no more left arm for him, basically). The psyker pulled off a bunch of powers that screwed with the marine, like Spasm and Touch of Madness. Was pretty fun. So the marine's lying on the ground when the mines go off. But he's mostly still fine. So he gets up and hammers the drill with bolter shots. The tech-priest gets out with some burns and shrapnel wounds, but is still out of critical wound territory.

At this point the marine is very unhappy, due to a combination of psyker provocation and being exploded. So he fires at the psyker, causes blood loss.

But the tech-priest is powering up the lasercutter. The guardsman and arbiter have given up operating the wrecking ball, and are harassing the marine from cover. The marine jams and manages to unjam right before the tech-priest fires the laser at him, knocking him into a pile of rock and dirt.

That's when I told the party that the marine was dead...

They split up. Half the party heads into the mine to chase the "real" badguy, and the other half secures an escape vehicle. When the guys with the vehicle show back up, they realize that the space marine is not where they left him.

The two assassins, one of the other psykers (another player who showed up after the first stage) and the tech-priest are investigating the mines and they find a warp artifact. They don't know what it does, and start planting mining charges to take care of it. But then the space marine shows up, walking heavily and brandishing an astartes power sword. They throw mining charges at him for a bit before running around him to escape, but he grapples one before he can get out.

The chaos artifact, though, has been talking to him during the encounter, and he's within arm's reach of it. So he touches it and the space marine is disintegrated at the cost of a hefty Corruption Increase for the assassin.

Despite the chaotic nature of the session (8 players by the end and a "puzzle" fight rather than a conventional combat) everybody had fun.

In my campaign (The Awakening) I had a quite low level party (around Rank 3) tackle a a fully armed and armored marine of the Flawless Host. To make the matters worse they engaged him in his home turf so he had set a few traps around...

To balance the things out I gave the players 3 melta-bombs and a detachment of 12 Inquisitorial Stormtroopers (in carapace armor and wielding hellguns) and a shuttle (with lascannon on the prow).

They barely got him down and in the end we had several badly wounded acolytes and lots of used fate points. The final "kill-shot" was when one of the characters threw a melta-bomb at the marine. The throw went long by a few meters but the partys Assassin used a fate point to shoot the melta-bomb as it was passing by the marine... With several wounds missing from earlier lascannon shot he was stunned when the bomb blew up on his face and the shuttle could line up to deliver a coup de grace with a second lascannon shot.

Yeah, my party was low too, the Tech-Priest was the only one ranked 3, the rest were 2. Sounds like you had a fun fight.