I have just finished reading Andy Hoare's novel Savage Scars. Nice to see the following paragraph which I think has become the a big part of playing Rogue Trader.

This is why he was trailing an insane inquisitor through the bowels of an Imperial warship.

Because he had to, because honor and duty demanded nothing less. Korvane had always assumed that being at or near the head of a rogue trader dynasty should remove one from the action, with legions of underlings to get the dirty work done. He now knew that the reverse was true. He could understand exactly why his father had desired to participate in the ground war, and it was nothing so prosaic as ego.

Some things you just had to do yourself.

Savage Scars p.384

What do people think about this? Its almost post-modern in my opinion. I might be wrong but it could be that rules of thumb for justifying gameplay has affected how narrative of a story is told, rather than the fluff affecting what happens on the tabletop which is what usually happens. I know the author hangs about these boards and I wonder if he was inspired to write this because of the reams of threads explaining how in order to play rogue trader you can't leave it to just the minions to sort out.

Also I noticed the book was billed as a "white scars novel" rather than the third installment of the Rogue Trader Trilogy notwithstanding the protagonists being Veteran Sergeant Sarik and Rogue Trader Lucius.. Is there more coming on the Arcardius line? Overall all I have enjoyed the books (the siblings still are a bit underdevelopped) and would love to see Rogue Traders have a bit more of the limelight.

Anybody for an anthology of weird tales from the Kornus Expanse (a bit like the tales of the ten tailed cat from warhammer Monthly?)

I do indeed hang out here ;-)

The ideas expressed there are just how I've always felt about the whole genre, I never really get it when people say Rogue Traders taking part in boarding actions is like the captain of a 21st fleet carrier going ashore with the SBS team.

So does this book actually serve as part three following Rogue Star and Star of Damocles? Or is it completely White Scars?

Peacekeeper_b said:

I finished it a week or so ago - it's frequently moves between the characters established in Rogue Star/Star of Damocles and the White Scars, with an extra helping of Crusade politics, an Imperial Guard regiment who are clearly meant to be Ghurkas, and Imperium vs Tau violence.

It works as part three, but as its been a while since Star of Damocles its written in such a way that you don't *have* to have read the first two.

It would have been a boring story if 100 ratings had just killed the crazy Inquisitor wouldn't it? The sentence at the end of the quotation shouldn't read "Some things you just have to do yourself", it should be "Some things you have to do yourself because the plot demands it".

Fortinbras said:

Spoilsport!

I think it was meant to describe how a rogue trader scion finally comes to realise why his father went down to the surface to fight a ground war. Somewhere at the start of the novel Lucien simply want the glory and have his name written down in the annals, so that he can have some of the measure of fame as one of his predecessor. But also korvane is a 'hero' (a spoilt aristocratic morphine addicted snob at that, but still a hero) In plots the evil villains are quite happy to send wave upon wave of hapless minions/goons/henchmen to do their bidding.

Not sure if that is on the good/evil spectrum, but apparently a measure of a good leader is that they dont send minions to do jobs they wouldn't do themselves.

Captain Harlock said:

Good. I always did prefer Korvane over his annoying sister.

Agreed with Fortinabras; this is specifically why I rarely use my army in my own solo campaign at the moment. Sure, I have hundreds of soldiers at my command with which I can do things.

... why would I want to? I don't want Master and Commander to see a bunch of guys just fire cannons. I don't watch Pirates of the Caribbean to see a bunch of pirates and navies fighting. Thats all the set piece. The action you're focusing on is the Explorers (be they Jack Sparrow, William Turner, Captain Barbossa) either cutting down currs by the handful, with a plasma pistol in one hand and a power cutlass in the other.

Besides, those who've played the tabletop know. Lysander, Calgar, Prince Eldred? These are the guys that do things interesting. The rest serve as extra Wounds. ;D

Peacekeeper_b said:

I dunno, Brielle was a far more likeable (and fleshed out) character than Korvane back in Rogue Star. Korvane didn't really get much in the way of interesting plot threads (IMO, so YMMV) until the very end of the novel/start of Star of Damocles, and you'll be glad to hear that even though he spends much of Savage Scars behind the scenes (I think Brielle's page time tops his again), the trend of Korvane being the subtle political badass continues, culminating in the section quoted above.

All that said, I was very much enthralled (once more- kudos, Andy, this seems to be something of a knack for you) by the void-combat sequences near the beginning of the novel. It's not often that I can read a sequence like that and hold the positions of all the combatants/"terrain" in my head and visualise the scene on the bridge.

Alasseo said:

I dont know. I always felt that it was too forced with having to like Brielle. It almost felt like the writer (Andy) wanted you to like her more just because that is what he wanted and he never really gave her any emphasis for truly liking her other then "she felt smarter then her brother but also felt her brother was the favored child boo hoo". I need to read the short story in the Xenos anthology and then read this new entry.

After finishing The Emperor's Finest. And a whole stack of other novels.

Peacekeeper_b said:

I don't know...I rather thought they idea of the two siblings was nice, particulary the inversion of roles. Too often it's the female which is the sophisticated manipulator while the male is the unsubtle knuckledragger, while here we have a slick male manipulator and a female rough and ready hothead. I think that perhaps Andy was trying to squeeze too many good ideas but with the siblings being underdevelopped. Now in a huge epic like LOTR even a cardboard cut out character (and that books has many) can get by without having having the character depth of a puddle because the story is event led. But in smaller series sometimes the action makes you forget the characters so much so that when they appear it almost seems like a cameo part. Even Inquisitor Grand seemed to have more depth at times (or at least it seemed to me) and heaven knows what HIS twisted point of view was. It's a shame really because Lucien Gerrit was well written as a blustering patriarch who is desperate to get his clan back on track and in Savage Scars you really feel that he wants to live up to ancestors heritage and glory. Of course Veteran Sergeant Sarrik gets most of the action and nicely juxtaposed with the political macinations - hes a Astartes and one from a chapter which is obessesed with the hunt and proving ones mettle and severly annoyed with the macinations that complicate the matters of war whiich he does not want to get involved in.

I was thinking that Andy would Lucien order Korvane to shadow the bloodthirsty Barbarian and learn why its necessary to muck in the Trenches and seing that his sister comes from the same Astartes homeworld, would learn a measure of understanding of what makes her tick, while Brielle would learn the pressures of the political game that his brother is under by acting as a diplomat for the Tau, learning why sometimes its better not to shoot first.

Instead we get the siblings still at each others throat at the end.

Captain Harlock said:

Korvane as a slick manipulator muyst be a new direction added in this novel. I do not recall that at all in the original two novels. Still, looking forward to reading this. While I think the previous two had massive issues, I did overall enjoy them. Course, I also enjoyed the Kal Jerico novels, for what they were.