BaronIveagh said:

You sent 30 Necron Pariahs against a group of players and explorers weren't wiped out in first round? then something is seriously wrong.

Pariahs are the ultimate necron troops (fluff-wise, their TT performance can be discusssed) they carve parthes through terminator squads and a small qroup (ca. 5) should be able to handle any group of Rogue Trader explorers with no more trouple than an Astartes Terminater squad would have in doing the same. warscythes bypass all protection from armour to force fields and can slice cleanly through the best power weapons. the pariahs should have a ridiculessly high fear-rating and ignore such things as fearless and Into the Jaws of Hell ect.

sorry got a bit carryed away but going up against Necrons pariahs should be like going up against Space Marine terminators or Tyranid broodlords there is simply no way a group of explorers should be able to handle that in a fight that is what Deathwatch is there for and even they should have a hell of a fight against even a small group.

Oh and a sidenote: Pariahs, as the only kind necron, does not teleport, at least not in the same way that the "real" necrons do.

BaronIveagh said:

...What kind of monster ship did you let the players have that this is a surprise? A Necron vessel should run rings around anything available to Imperial fleets; they make Eldar vessels look like they're transport barges, can self-repair, can phase entirely out of existence on a whim, can launch multiple hit and run attacks, and has guns that can completely ignore void shields.

Acernis Taine said:

Errant said:

Well, other then they have killed, in the past, CSM termies and multiple nid broodlords...

And Pariahs do teleport. When they board a starship, since Necrons don't have aboats or boarding torps...

I should explain the setup: the Hell party's GC is built to disable. They usually travel with other ships too, but I managed to engineer a situation where it was alone. Thier usual trick is to lead off with a teleportarium + murder servitors or blow the target down with thier best quality best turbo disruption macrobattery broadsides. They then either board, using the GCs huge crew, or ram with the armored prow + power ram.

The problem with necron ships is that, at least in BFG, they have fairly short range, so it did have to come within range of the GC. And despite me halving the number of criticals the shroud took and imposing some steep penalties to hit, they still managed four crits on it the second it came in range, one of which took out the dorsal lightening arc. They argued for real damage, as necron hulls are composed of nanomachines, but I shot that down.

So, in order to escape (because I did NOT want these guys disassembling a necron ship (or even trying to) to try and get either more widgets or in any better with the admech) I teleported 30 pariahs right onto the ships bridge. In the first round of shooting, everyone but the voidsman and the NPC members of the crew either managed to get to cover or made a power field save (ince, IIRC, invlunerable saves still count). At this point anyone who was left alive was in power armor, so they switched their fire selectors to 'tempest' and opened up with a tau rail rifle, bolters, and a five kilo demo charge, and promptly blew out the bulkhead between them and space, obliterating most of the necrons in the process, as well as heavily damaging the bridge.

I should point out that the party has not gone anywhere without a full weapon loadout since the 'Slannesh's House of Whores' incident.

I did not apply the fear rating as fluff implies that pariah fear auras are negated by the presence of a blank, which one of the party is.

On the up side, the Shroud then slipped away. And I finally managed to kill one, even though it had a sort of 'rocks fall' feel to it.

BaronIveagh said:

Why would a Pariah's fear aura be negated by the presence of a Blank? Pariahs are blanks, and their fear aura is a direct result of that... having a psychic blank shouldn't in any way protect you from the effects of other, more powerful psychic blanks.

BaronIveagh said:

Okay I can see where you are coming from but I would still like to get a few things in order

First things first; Pariahs do not teleport, the only necrons ever to board enemy vessels are warriors (and scarabs), pariahs are only deployed groundside and then only on the command of a Gold Lord as the most lethal of weapons or bodyguarding a Gold or higher ranking lord.

Secondly necrons vessels are not made of nanobots they are made of living metal which is the material also used in the construciton of warscythes, phase blades and swords and the physical bodies of the C'tans themselves, no one knows what living metal actually is.

And lastly blanks does not negate the fear coursing auras of Pariahs as pariahs are blanks or untouchables as they are also known turned into necrons. what you are mentioning is in the Commissar Cain novel "caves of ice" where the untouchable jurgen are not effected by a group of pariahs and Inquisitor Veil who comments on Cain's writings speculates that perhaps the Pariah abilities are psychic in nature (which we know they are not) and as such a blank would block them. While I do agree that the untouchable would not be effected everyone else would, and any psykers/navigators would feel the effects tenfold.

*Edit*

Oh beaten on the draw on that last part.

I agree with what those two said - I don't think you played up what Pariah's are like nearly enough.

Even if you are taking into account that the Fear Rating should have applied, and you didn't let it... if you'd done that properly, the whole group should be dead.

MILLANDSON said:

*sigh* Five kilo demo charge. That's 15d10+10 damage. AOE 25m. The party was in cover, the pariahs were not. The room was wrecked, but the Pariahs took 85-115 damage each. I'd only given them 45 wounds, and never really considered the idea of Fate points...

There was not time to play them up as much of anything. They all took enough damage to kill a krootox on the party's first round.

On living metal: It's been strongly hinted in the past that 'living metal' is, in fact, a form of nanotechnology, in fluff. While it has not been outright said, it's a fair assumption based on what happens to both Sgt Lysane and Ferrus Manus.

BaronIveagh said:

I am not here to tell you how to play your game, sorry if it sounded that way. but i would like to get the other things strait, hinted heavily where in the fluff?

I must admit cannot recall who/where Sergeant Lysane is but what happened to Ferrus Manus is not indication of Necron living metal being made of nanobots. he takes a worm that we have no idea is even of necron construct, the skin of which is a a nearly unbreakable metal. Whhich he then holds down in a river of lava only to have his hands covered in a silvery substance that is very hard and strong when he pulls them up, I do not exactly see have that proves necron living metal to be of nanobots.

the only thing we know of living metal is that it is sentient and that it has amazing adaptable and regenerative capabilities.

While I am not too rigid to swollow my pride and admt that nanobots is one possibility I highly doupt it and think it is more likely that the necrons have created (or discovered?) a metal or alloy that is sentient and able to resist more than any material any other race has ever created, from having warriors who can walk through lava to ships that can resist just about any celestial phenomena up to and included being unnaturally close to a sun. and even when completely vaporished by melta weapony or simmilar can recreate itself if there is a ressurection orb nearby.

Honestly, it sounds like some parties take "epic" to an entirely new level.

I'm not being critical of a flotilla of ships, lead by a grand cruiser stuffed full of best quality components and abusing some of the most broken weapons in the game atm. Or of players with the personal killing power of an Imperial Assassin or an SM Chapter Master. That's entirely up to your group and how you roll.

But its only fair to point out that you are very much out of sync with the "average" power level expected, even for RT.

Bladehate said:

There's a reason I call them the Hell Party. They are not powerful, they just have the Batman approach. You don't have to be Superman to beat Superman. And any party can pull the trick they used if someone has the demo skill. It's not a even a rare item.

And other then the rail rifle and some ship components, they got everything, including the GC, from published adventures. They dumped 15 points of profit to into raising and repairing the Righteous Path, and came up with a clever way to get it off the rock it was wrecked on. They used the logs and location of the Light of Terra as leverage to get a weapon upgrade from the Navy. Two of the 'flotilla' are the two raiders that you meet in the intro adventure that try to ambush you, and instead they turned the ambush around on.The other is the Sword they started out with.

Though, yes, by the point I got tired of them ****** published adventuires for everything they could steal and sent them to the Jericho Reach, they did have a very impressive flagship.

I understand, and in some ways I even think its cool that you have players like that. They are most likely people that would thrive if ever they had the chance to be actual Rogue Traders in real life. The ability to seize every advantage and create opportunities where none exist is one of the defining characteristics of successful RTs.

The ability of your group to find the most effective tools in the game mechanics (disruption cannon, demo charges, etc) or milk pre-made adventures for maximum advantage isn't really related to the meta-mystery or arch-foes of the Koronus expanse. The ability of your players to power-game the system and milk your adventures for profit is specific to your game, but not indicative of the setting as a whole.

My point is that while its interesting to hear how your players have dealt with foes and situations, it doesn't change the intended function or role of those foes. Its clear that the Rak'gol are intended to be scary and bestial. Necrons are supposed to be otherworldly and relentless. Whether your players can out-auspex Rak'gol ambushers or demo-charge Necron Pariah's doesn't change the nature of the threat they pose on a meta-game level, even if your players can trivialize them in your game.

What's interesting to speculate about is the nature of the meta threat and what role it will play in RT, if any. In DW, Necrons make a great nemesis, as do the Tyranids. These foes occupy the same niche though in my opinion, in that they are relentless alien foes. If I were ever to run a DW game, I think the Tau would make for a more interesting arch-nemesis. Primarily because the Tau are a much more nuanced foe and because the real danger posed by the Tau is their ideology rather then their soldiers or battle suits. It makes for a more interesting foe when the player's can't overcome them purely with bolter and chain sword.

For the same reason its interesting to speculate about what threat the Koronus expanse has to offer.

I think its interesting that Koronus so far has had no Slaugth presence reported...

Firstly thank you for getting us back on track.

well the Slaught suppossedly has their planet/empire or what not, located coreward of Calixis nearer to the Hazaroth Abyss than the Koronous Expanse, but the timeline that mentioned Coneanid or whatever the green star is called always make me think of them all with the "dark worms beneath the green-eyed star" thing.

LOL I hold the ultimate horror of the koronus expanse are the players, however....

It's possible that the Slaugth are not much of a presence in the expanse due ot the relative lack of large scale wars (aside from one).

You know, maybe we're looking at this the wrong way. So far we have strange biology and technological horror, and we keep thinking Necrons and yuvath and rak'gol (oh my!).

What about the Adranti?

Before the Macharian Crusade crushed thier core worlds, they had expanded all the way to the Calixis sector. What if we're looking at an Adranti Remnant? It would certainly fit the profile. Bioengineering, high technology, psychotropic weapons...

The Adranti are also a possibility. They also have very little actual information released about them.

But from what I recall, they were actually a human star empire that had crossed the line into forbidden technologies altering the sacred human form. That and the rumors that they possessed several STC fragments pretty much doomed them as the AdMech wanted their tech and their empire in ashes. It wouldn't surprise me too much if the AdMech support for the crusade was purchased with the price of crushing the Adranti as part of the deal.

But the reason I don't think its too likely is the unholy green light/warp craft aspects of the Koronus hints. If it is the Adranti, they would need to have changed their focus from tech to warpcraft. Which is possible, but unlikely as there haven't really been any hints in any books that I recall about them.

I do find the Adranti interesting, especially since they managed to slow the crusade for a time, indicating some heavy resistance. It would be interesting to know what form that resistance actually took...

Bladehate said:

Well, leftovers of the Adranti are a serious problem in the Calyxis sector, at least as far as bioconstructs go. Other then a few obvious things liek a serpent made of blood and glass, things like the vast 'sea creature' ship might actually be technological in nature. Though it should be pointed out that the two blurr somewhat in 40k as well...

What sourcebooks or adventures offer more information on the Adranti and their presence in Calixis? I don't recall anything off hand that offers actual information on them or their activities, since the crusade supposedly ended them. If there is any official information that I missed or have forgotten I would love to know about it.

Well, it seems that the references to trees weeping blood and a pale cataclysmic horror is referring to an ancient, lost Eldar craft world, according to the description of the third Warpstorm trilogy.

I did not see that one coming. But it does explain the Crow Spirits, who don't seem to fall into any of the previously seen Eldar cultural types.

... maybe my knowlege of Crat Worlds is tied too closely to BFG, but a 'small' craftworld is on par with a 'large' space hulk, and anything above small is in the 'That's no Moon...' spectrum of ship vessel.

Is this going to be another of those adventures like Whispers on the Storm where the party's ship has to be godly or that they have several ships?

Depends on how you're supposed to take it on, I guess. Seems like there's going to be a showdown between the forces of Karrad Vall, the players and the Crow Spirits, given the events of Frozen Reaches. Fighting over the relic mcguffin or something.

BaronIveagh said:

Considering that Frozen Reaches starts you out with a small fleet of ships, I would think it is pretty likely that you will have to have a godly ship or several ships.

On the other hand, if it is a lost, haunted craflworld, 'godly' is probably far more a function of faith than macrobatteries.

I'd find it rather unrealistic if the great big threat to an entire sector in a rogue trader game didn't mean you'd need several ships to take it down. Players can't get battlebarges yet, so any epic space battle will involve a fleet of ships. Any RT of a high enough lvl to tackle such a threat will have it imo.

If it's a threat to an entire sector, that means that head on, it's probably the equal of 80+ ships, or the average IN sector fleet.