Spectre Cell 17 - Damned Cities

By Luthor Harkon, in Dark Heresy Gamemasters

Hi all,

My (5) players are about to start Damend Cities (SPOILER APPROACHING...) and as they are almost rank 6 (and for background reasons) I intend to include the optional encounter: Spectre Cell 17.

Has anyone made any experience with the Spectre Cell or how/when they could best approach/attack the PCs (especially so that it is clear they are dead hard professionals)? The female Assassin will certainly be deployed on a rooftop and I thought about dropping the Templar Calyx (directly into melee) from a rooftop either with the use of the float (or maybe wall walk) power. The Guardsman’s role could be more or less to draw fire onto himself while the Arbitrator could pick out any straggler and bind him into melee. I am not sure how to deploy the latter two at the beginning of such a fight/encounter though. One could also let the group be approached by the Arbitrator for a chat while being covered by the Assassin from the rooftop.

Any ideas/experiences? Thanks in advance.

I didn't use them when I ran Damned Cities. I thought it was too early in the Haarlock Legacy campaign (ran DC as the first adventure) to insert Inquisitorial infighting and intrigue.

Moreover, be prepared that this group of dead-hard professionals, in an ambush situation, with knowledge of the PCs' investigation while being unknown themselves, with their Rank and equipment and abilities, will probably skewer your pcs's in no time.

I agree with The Laughing God on the potentially destrucitve abilities of Spectre Cell 17. In an ambush, these elite cadre of acolytes might wipe out a group of similar strength quite easily.

The trick when using Spectre Cell 17 imho is to make them a shadowy and mysterious menace, a force whose motivation and alignment remains uncertain for the bigger part of the adventure, only to be revealed when working towards the confrontation with the demon in the mirror.

In my campaign, I tried to work towards this by introducing Cell 17 as somewhat arrogant professionals who made first contact with the acolytes by themselves. The impression of superiority was established by having Cell 17 hacking into the group's comm-link. Our humble acolytes were in for quite a surprise when they suddenly heard a female voice cutting into their vox traffic, telling them about their current movements and playing all along the lines of 'I can see you, you brave fools. Go running home and nobody will get hurt, but don't event think about meddling with our mission any longer.'

They later met Arkadia and Hellos in person, surrendering one of the mirror shards to them, but refusing to leave the planet. The group later teamed up with Cell 17 for the final confrontation despite their initial conflicts.

Another advice would be to have Cell 17 be somewhat ambivalent in their behaviour towards the acolytes. Being equipped with the Inquisiton's authority themselves, I see their role more in making things more difficult for the acolytes by working against (or towards) them behind the scenes. The Spectre Cell is another faction to deal with whose biggest potential shouldn't be their martial ablities, but their influence on the local power structure. They could take a hand in the Enforcers' reaction to the acolytes' investigations or even in changing opinion in the Quorum. They might also help the acolytes out of eventual captivity, declaring that they 'don't want the resources of one of their master's colleagues going to waste'.

Thanks for the replies so far.

@TLG: Well, I am always surprised by the resourcefulness of my PCs, so I expect that they are somehow able to skewer Spectre Cell 17 without breaking a sweat. An ambush situation is indeed deadly as hell (though the PCs all have high Awareness) and while I expect one of the PCs going down by the sniping Spectre Cell Assassin rather fast, the PC Assassin normally one-shots opponents as well and the PC Psyker’s Psychic Scream will most probably knock out all opposition in the vicinity in round one.
But as you said, the Spectre Cell has knowledge of the PC’s investigation and thus most probably also of the PC’s abilities. For that reason alone the Spectre Cell’s Assassin should target the PC Psyker first and the Spectre Cell’s Templar Calyx should engage the PC Assassin initially to lock him in close combat.

@Avenger: You are absolutely right in my opinion that Spectre Cell 17’s biggest potential is not being just another combat encounter, but more their abilities to influence others and work as an enigmatic shadowy force in the background. But they are still a kill-team of the Tenebrae Collegium after all and should act in that way sooner or later, especially since part of their mission is to eradicate the PC acolytes (and the focus of their abilities lies in killing stuff if you check their stats/skills/talents).
Have they not tried to kill the PCs in your campaign in the end? Have they simply left the planet after the final confrontation? Did your players realize what they were up to and/or by whom they were sent? I would really appreciate it to hear more of your experience in regard to any PC vs. Spectre Cell interaction throughout the scenario (and maybe beyond).

While I have no experience with the Spectre Cell, the "Psychic Scream" is a power with limited range. If the Cell-17 knows about the players cell.. .and had oppurtunity to learn about one of them being a Psyker... shoot him first. happy.gif

@Luthor Harkon:

I'll try to explain the most necessary details first before commenting on Spectre Cell 17 in particular... My acolytes are servants of Astrid Skane, the former arbitrator who's a member of the Tyrantine Cabal. In my interpretation of that NPC, Astrid Skane isn't an enemy of the Tenebrae Collegium as a secret inner circle of the Cabal, but merely a young and rather inexperienced inquisitor who hasn't been inducted into their elevated ranks yet. Even though she neither knows who is a meber of the Collegium nor how far its power extends, she is very well aware of the fact that the Collegium is indeed very powerful and will obey its commands when given.

The acolytes were sent to Sinophia by Skane to conduct an investigation concerning the ritual murders reported by arbitrator Constantine. They came there under the impression that Skane wanted them to do 'regular' inquisition word rather than continue their most extraordinary service to Inquisitor Marr, to whom the acolytes had been loaned in an agreement made between Marr and Skane some time before. As Marr displayed little regard to the safetyof her acolytes, Skane withdrew the group and is now quite determined to keep them away from Marr, who especially wants to gain permanent mastership of the scion of Haarlock, the group's most unlucky gunslinger.

Marr, however, has been contacting the gunslinger in secret and given him both some mysterious hints about the true nature of the events on Sinophia as well as one of the mirror shards that had happened to come into his posession.

How does that relate to Spectre Cell 17? Well, I drew the conclusion that since in the original adventure the acolytes are acting on Marr's direct order and Spectre Cell 17 is out to kill them, Marr must be seen as an enemy of the Collegium - while Skane, as I stated earlier, isn't. Spectre Cell 17, through their far better channels of information, is aware of Marr's involvement. They contact the acolytes, trying to scare them away and ordering them to return to their rigthful mistress if they want to live through the matter. In responce to the objections made by the acolytes that their mistress ordered them to investigate the murders, Hellos told them to just answer to her with the single word "Tenebrae", implying that she would be able to make enough sense of that not to be disappointed by her acolytes' failure.

The acolytes gave the impression of cooperating, even handing out the mirror shard to Cell 17, but secretly continued their investigation on Sinophia.When things really went downhill and the unrest on Sinophia turned to civil war while both groups had figured out that the mirror had to be located in the Folly, they teamed up and confronted Skarmen together. After defeating the demon, they were caught in some kind of stand-off, with two members of Cell 17 dead, two members of the acolytes' cell critically wounded and the rest of them debating on what to do with the shattered mirror. They agreed upon splitting the parts between them, as the acolytes made clear that theywould hand them over to their mistress, who in turn would give them to the Collegium when ordered so. It was kind of a forced agreement, but both groups were in no condition to fight over the mirror parts anymore.

Cool story, Avenger.

I do wonder, though - how did Helos and the rest of the C-17 gang countenance the fact that the PC Acolytes ignore their order to return to Skane? How did that play out?

I must admit that I somewhat forced a peaceful agreement between the cells to keep my already weakened and wounded acolytes in the adventure. The group's militant tech-priest had ben severely wounded in the events of the massacre in the Clockwork Court and had lost a leg when fighting against two of the Risen.

The group's gunslinger did not play a part in the events and had been paying a visit to the rag-queen Hesul while the massacre was taking place. Because he had appeared earlier as an inquistorial acolyte in the presence of General Khan, he was captured by theEnforcers when the surviving members of the Quorum put Sinophia under martial law on Khan's request.

He awoke from unconsciousness after being exposed to choke gas, finding himself in one of the torture chambers in the basement of the Enforcer's headquarters. Him being the scion of Haarlock, I granted him a dream sequence while being unconscious, revealing a little more about Haarlock's story and having him experience one of Haarlock's happier moments in life - meeting his future wife at a ball on Scintilla, but also confronting him with Mathias Haarlock as well as a suspicious looking young Inquisitor, who the gunslinger was later able to identify as Silas Marr from his own memory.

The events in the torture room turned out much less plesant than the dream. Effectively, Khan threatened to kill the 'dangerous double agent', only turning down a little when Hellos stepped into the room and revealed that he had ensured the loyalty of the Enforcers to Spectre Cell 17, yet that he was unable to free the gunslinger from captivity. He was all: "I'm really sorry, but you and your friends have made this mistake all by yourself. We warned you twice. Now you will experience the consequences."

Khan had one of his Enforcer's bring in a bucket with something vicious inside. It soon turned out to be a Sinophian Boreworm, whrithing and snapping when held before the gunslinger's eyes by a enthusiastic torturer. Hellos once more stepped in, declaring: "I won't get you out of here, but I can tell them to stop this and spare your life. Tell me everything you know about the Haarlock matter. And better tell me quick."

The gunslinger gave up all relevant information and was placed in Khan's custody. When Khan later mounted a command Chimera to 'take the fight to the gutter scum', he took the blindfolded gunslinger with him. Khan's column of armoured vehicles then was attacked by Risen and resurrected Arbites, who killed Khand and stole the last mirror shard. Cell 17 freed the gunslinger from the wrecked Chimera in an intense fight with the undead arbitrators, taking him with them as they figured that his Haarlock blood might prove worthy against the creatures that were now confirmed to hail from the Folly.

After that, it was just the two cells rushing to confront Skarmen and the demon. Nobody complained about this outcome, so I figure it was quite allright to set it up like this.

Avenger said:

@Luthor Harkon:

I'll try to explain the most necessary details first before commenting on Spectre Cell 17 in particular...

Thanks a lot for elaborating on your experiences with Spectre Cell 17. It definitely helps to see how it worked out for other GMs, though in my campaign the Spectre Cell has to have a more aggressive attitude and will try to kill the PCs sooner or later. I like that you used Hellos a lot for contacting the PCs anyway, as he seems the most viable one of the Cell for some sort of more social (instead of combative) interaction.

My acolytes are servants of Vownus Kaede, who recently survived an assassination attempt on him (by the Libricar, though he does not know) within the Tricorn in my campaign. Since then, Kaede keeps a low profile and is considered officially dead (only Marr, Ahmazzi and his acolytes and interrogators know of his survival). He became more withdrawn and austere and less jovial because of the attack on him and the acolytes already wonder whether something is wrong with him. They furthermore start to realize that the Inq is more heterogeneous than they always assumed and that it is not one nice big family. Kaede in turn does not know of the Tenebrae Collegium, which is subverted by the Phaenonites in my campaign and wants to use the Tyrant Star for their own vile ends. For that reason alone I have to play the Spectre Cell rather sinister and according to their role as a conditioned badass kill-team.

Kaede still has a lot of respect for Silas Marr, but was initially not interested in the Haarlock Legacy. Only when he rather recently realized that it has connections to the Hereticus Tenebrae, he became interested and intrigued by the role of Erasmus Haarlock. Silas Marr in turn knew early on that the PC assassin is a scion of Haarlock through divination of the Occularians and for this reason requisitioned the PCs for the endeavour at the House of Dust and Ash.

Could you elaborate even a little more on what happened in your campaign after Damned Cities, whether your PCs told Skane the word “Tenebrae”, how she reacted and whether the Spectre Cell or the Collegium Tenebrae made a further appearance in your campaign afterwards. I still highly appreciate the retelling and detailed description of your campaign and how it gained its own dynamics beyond the initial adventure. aplauso.gif

Luthor Harkon said:

My acolytes are servants of Vownus Kaede, who recently survived an assassination attempt on him (by the Libricar, though he does not know) within the Tricorn in my campaign. Since then, Kaede keeps a low profile and is considered officially dead (only Marr, Ahmazzi and his acolytes and interrogators know of his survival). He became more withdrawn and austere and less jovial because of the attack on him and the acolytes already wonder whether something is wrong with him. They furthermore start to realize that the Inq is more heterogeneous than they always assumed and that it is not one nice big family. Kaede in turn does not know of the Tenebrae Collegium, which is subverted by the Phaenonites in my campaign and wants to use the Tyrant Star for their own vile ends.

I really like that storyline nad would also like to know how this will turn out over the course of your campaign.

In my campaign, I've drawn a line between the Collegium as a conservative (not exactly puritan) force on the one hand and Marr and his associates as obsessed outsiders on the other hand. The acolytes' original Inquisitor Astrid Skane has been caught up in the middle of this without knowing what she gt herself into when she contacted Marr before "The House of Dust and Ash" and put her acolytes under his command temporarily as a favour in exchange for valuable information on the Serrated Query.

Since then, Marr has used the acolytes to further his own agenda, endangering and nearly killing them twice. Skane rushed in to save her servants after "Tattered Fates", getting into an argument with Marr over the inevitability of fate ("You can't keep them away from their destiny, stupid girl!"). She is trying to protect her acolytes from Marr's influence and has sought the advice of other Inquisitors in the meantime.

Our last session of play contained the finale and aftermath of Damned Cities. After defeating the demon and splitting the 13 shards between themselves and Cell 17, the acolytes were picked up by Skane and taken aboard a ship that took them to an unknown location. When informing Skane about the Collegium's involvement by the mentioning of "Tenebrae", the acolytes found their ever courageous and fearless mistress to become pale with shock and trembling with fear for them.

Skane now wanted them as isolated from the events as possible. She introduced them to Inquisitor Thaddeus Hakk (from Deathwatch's "Mark of the Xenos") whom I decided to be a former associate of Marr and now, after his splitting up with the Ocularians, one of Marr's many enemies. He shared some (possibly false) information with Skane and the acolytes, denouncing Marr as a madman and dangerous renegade.

The acolytes were taken to a paradise world whose name and exact location remained unknown to them. They were made to stay in a hotel-like facility - from which they were extracted by a force of mercenaries under Marr's personal command a couple of weeks later. Marr took them with him to "meet their destiny" once more.

The next session will see them being taken to Maccabeus, where they will meet Inquisitor Bray and gather information on Haarlock as one of the seven devils of Calixis. Marr and Bray will then send them to explore Lythea Haarlock's tomb, where they will obtain the information needed to guide them to Mara and the Blind Tesseract in "Dead Stars". There, they will meet the Collegium, embodied by Inquisitor Herrod and his retinue (and posibly the surviving members of Cell 17) once more.

Damned Cities was my group's first Acended mission and certain parts of the adventure required a bit of a threat-tweak to make the story and pacing more interesting. Some of the named NPCs and villains got a buff and I made the Risen a bit more tough and sinister. Because the story pacing really needed a solid punch and it was a perfect opportunity to start wallowing in Inquisition politics I simply could NOT pass up the opportunity to use Spectre Cell 17 in an antagonist role.

I started off by having the Cell's activities discreet, but with little table-scraps of evidence. I had already established the Mandato as an ever-present shadowy organization and the more perceptive agents managed to spot Mandato operatives watching them from shadowy alcoves, rain-soaked rooftops and so on. At one point our assassin and techpriest decided to chase down and question a Mandato agent, but as things developed the agent's attempt to flee his sudden pursuit had the misfortune of compromising SC17's hiding spot, so Hellos ambushed the Mandato agent with a single powersword thrust through the heart, then pulled a vanishing act of his own. A very surprised assassin and techpriest round the corner only to find their quarry dead with a mysterious wound. Many inquiries as to who might posess a powersword on Sinophia led to a rather generic "nobles" or simply pointing at their own Inquisitor (who was wearing a powersword on her hip). The techpriest also picked up on attempts to tap their vox-net, which he successfully blocked.

I upgraded the members of Spectre Cell 17 to the equivalent of rank 7 acolytes and upgraded their gear a bit, plus I added two more members to their team: Father Ramirez (an aggressive priest decked out in light power armour, gauntlet mount bolt pistol, eviscerator and exterminator. Assorted litanies of faith and hatred poured nonstop from his vox-grille once combat is joined.) and "Chastity" (a hive-ganger decked out very similar to Jonas Dray). Hellos and Arkadia were also equipped with teleport homers (a tease for Dead Stars) and Hellos added a voxcaster, auspex servoskull, boltpistol servoskull and a MIU plasma pistol to his kit.

After the attack on Khan's convoy I had SC17 make contact with some of the Enforcer troopers deployed for martial law enforcement details, flashed their Inquisition credentials and then warned them of "dangerous heretics" operating in their city, describing the player characters. They then moved to a rearby location in an abandoned storefront along a canal and set up their ambush. Meanwhile the PCs were investigating Khan's wrecked convoy and ultimately decided to repurpose two of the still operable Chimaera APCs to get across the rioting city faster. This is when the Enforcer weapon teams dropped the "Emperor's vengeance" on the "filthy heretics" by hammering the APCs with krak missiles, disabling them (right in front of the abandoned storefront, how coincidental!). The PCs all dismounted from their stricken transports and immediately fanned out into a security perimeter and a repair team. This is when SC17 launched their ambush!

Having been pre-briefed on the PC's abilities, Arkadia had been issued special ammunition (one Psycannon bolt and one Tempest shell). The original plan was to target the wytch first (biomancer!), then the Magos, then the Inquisitor. After reloading, targets of opportunity was the order. Due to some very high profile antics of the Neo variety, the kill order was altered by Hellos to be 1) Magos, 2) wytch, 3) Inquisitor. The ambush began with a Tempest bolt shell to the Magos' head (crits but alive, and he regenerates...), immediately followed by the sound of breaking glass and a roar of gunfire and vox-amplified Litany of Detestation. The storefront wall had been reinforced with flakboard and armour plating while leaving the glass panel-windows completely alone, so that when broken they had a ready-made urban bunker. With covering fire coming from the storefront and a sniper on a rooftop on the other side of the canal SC17's templar and priest immediately rushed in for the kill, while Hellos was positioned to support his shooters or melee fighters as needed.

As you might expect, the fight was painful and messy for both sides. When SC17 was forced to retreat (voxcaster call, 1D5 turn delay then teleport out) they did so with Father Ramirez and Jonas Dray dead and their psyker minus his right arm and in Inquisitor Van Eisen's hands. Van Eisen's team had a battered and bloody cleric (lots of bolter wounds chipping through light PA), the adept was in criticals from a bolter inflicted gut-wound and wisely playing dead, the psyker burned a fate point when Arkadia's psycannon bolt had predictable results, the assault-guardsman was lucky beyond words and had lots of carbon scoring to show for his efforts (5 plasma hits and I could not roll higher than a 2 on the damage die!!!). The Magos was slowly regrowing his own head and was covered with a mix of his own purple blood and plenty of the crimson variety. The Inquisitor had a damaged carapace helmet, a nice bloody wound on her scalp and a generally bad attitude due to a partially botched sniper shot (Astartes ammo, but no bonus damage from accuracy). The psyker's burnt fate point turned the "head vapourized" result into "superficial headwound and knocked unconscious until the fight ends". It was frantic, dangerous, desperate and exciting, and for the most part this was my players' favourite part of the entire mission! Some of the more astute players/characters also picked up alot of clues from this encounter and the later interrogation of their prisoner allowed me to seed future adventures and drive the plot forward a bit. The specially modified ship Venator Tenebre then stealthfully broke orbit with the retrieval of the remnants of SC17 via it's ancient Teleportarium as Inquisitorial relief assets began arriving in system.

If someone needs my modified stats for SC17 let me know and I will try to find a compact way to post them.

ZillaPrime said:

If someone needs my modified stats for SC17 let me know and I will try to find a compact way to post them.

Please! You can e-mail them to me at tarald at online . no

I should be able to send them later today. My scanner is acting up so I will have to just type their info out for you.

ZillaPrime said:

*SNIP*

Great report, thanks for posting. Can you elaborate a little in regard to the “little table-scrabs of evidence”?

My PCs also finally arrived on Sinophia Magna and after some discussion with Adept Charon and a brief vox exchange with the Arbites Precinct, they hired a motor skiff and moved towards the inner city and Haarlock’s Folly.

On their trek they encountered the shoot-out between the crew of a cargo barque and their assailants. They were a little reluctant at first to get involved, but when the first motorboat headed for them with crank cannon spluttering bullets in their direction and snipers from the manufactora started firing at them, the drew weapons and retaliated. Retaliation normally means total annihilation for my group. So, the Guardsman and the Assassin picked of the snipers with their rifles, while the Psyker made sure that no one was pinned by using the Psychic Power Inspire and the Arbitrator and Tech-Priest made short work of the attacking boats successively. In the end they sunk all enemy boats except one and interrogated the lone remaining and wounded ganger on it, before the jaded Psyker dropped a Fire Bomb on him and jumped off the boat onto their own skiff. Such a bad-ass; but I will let them reencounter this heavily burned ganger (he fell into the channel burning and screaming) all too soon. That will teach them…

The appearing Enforcers thanked them reluctantly and let them pass, when the Arbitrator PC drew his Arbites credentials even though it was from off-world. So, they already came to the attention of the local Enforcers. Constantine welcomed them at the Folly and (after a short briefing) they set out to the latest crime scene (i.e. Bal Grey). Then the Arbitrator PC asked Constantine who first reported the killing and how did the Arbites got involved. Good question… The GM (i.e. me) didn’t really know the answer nor had a logical conclusion for this answer (is there one?), so gave a weird explanation that it was mentioned in the local emergency vox-net (as if anyone in the Sinks would make an emergency call to the Arbites or the Enforcers…).

Anyway, the PCs got about all clues, except anything from the witnesses, as the Psyker and Arbitrator both failed their Command and Inquiry skill tests miserably (in case of the Psyker it were more than three degrees, thus some bystanders even started snickering out of his view). They even saw the Mandato-Enforcer on the rooftop and tried to chase him. The Tech-Priest’s servo-skull was most successful in keeping track of him and gave a life vid to the Tech-Priest on the ground. Then the head of the target suddenly exploded (as he was sniped unseen by Arkadia) and his body dropped from the roof. The PCs collected all corpses and drove back to the Folly.

Interestingly, my players heard of the Empty Men incident from Constantine and jumped to the conclusion the Logicians (who they hate with a passion) are behind it all and the dead Risen is in fact some sort of creature similar to the Body Snatchers from the Coscarla incident (i.e. Edge of Darkness). I love it when my players are on the wrong track…makes for bigger surprises later on…

Luthor Harkon said:

Then the Arbitrator PC asked Constantine who first reported the killing and how did the Arbites got involved. Good question… The GM (i.e. me) didn’t really know the answer nor had a logical conclusion for this answer (is there one?), so gave a weird explanation that it was mentioned in the local emergency vox-net (as if anyone in the Sinks would make an emergency call to the Arbites or the Enforcers…).


A really good question. I think my approach would be the following (to justify why the Arbs are suddenly caring for "mere murder")

Constantine already saw the strangenness in the killings. It reeked of trouble, enough to make him actually place a call with the Inquisition. Thereby, it is safe to assume that the suspects the killing to be an inccident in concurrance to a possible danger to at leat the imperial rulership of the world and/or a possible crime committet in the name of some heresy (like the empty man or a daemon cult or a rogue psyker or...). Enter the Arbits:

Regarding "who called you?" I would assume that somebody placed an anonmyous call with the enforcers. AND would be quick to explain that this happen often when "regular Sinophian citizens" find a crime scene, have already plundered what they dared to take and simply want somebody to clean up the mess. As long as nobody steps forth as a wittness, the rag-barones do not mess with anybody.

The Enforcer in turn knew that the Arbs are after "strange murders" and quickly called them in. After all, this sparse them from having to clean up the mess....

The "table scraps of evidence" reference I made was reffering to little discreet and subtle evidence of SC17, but nothing that was really stand-alone obvious. The main idea here was to make the eventual revelation of a rival Inquisition team more integrated into the story as a whole. A shadow that is discreetly observing the team (probably dismissed as a Mandato agent), a stray burst of static or click on the team's vox link, stuff like that. When the entire picture is assembled it will make SC17 look all that more respectable as professional rivals. I like portraying skilled professional NPCs as being clever or at least perseverant at their tasks, the mundanes to be generally competent but a little lax around the edges and the incompetent to be... incompetent! Once again, this is another GM's clue for alert players.

Darth Smeg: Do you have an alternate email address? The one you provided came back with the dreaded

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

[email protected]

Technical details of permanent failure:
Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned was: 550 550 5.1.1 <[email protected]>... User unknown (state 14).

I got the level 7 version all typed up, so it will be a waste if it never gets to you.

It's TArald, not TErald. Or you could try tmhr77 @ gmail . com.

Thanks on advance :)

Just fired off the info to BOTH of your email addies, Darth, so you should have them any moment. Hope they prove to be helpful for you.

Thank you! I was about to do the same exercise myself, so you just saved me some time :)

Okay, my PCs finally had their encounter with the Spectre Cell.

Coming from a meeting with Enforcer General Khan, they were ambushed by a Mandato strike team within the Shadow Manses district after being deliberately delayed at an Enforcer roadblock beforehand. The Mandato team (6 agents) attacked them in their quadwheeler from all sides with stub autos (man-stopper), while the Tech-Priest (aka Mir-Lug) fumbled from the driver’s cabin with a ward-assessor to get through a street gate. The PCs dispatched the strike team rather fast, only suffering from a few minor injuries, mainly due to the formidable driving skills of the mentioned Mir-Lug. A single agent fled into a near alleyway with the groups Psyker (aka Mordeci) hot on his heels firing his Hellpistol. The other PCs checked the area and the Guardsman (aka Grak) deposited an unconscious Mandato agent into the car’s rear trunk. The Arbitrator (aka Serghar) followed Mordeci slowly.

In the alleyway all heard a shot and Mordeci saw a coated figure wearing a wide-brimmed hat (aka Hellos) shooting the fleeing Mandato agent in the head and bending over him to quickly sift through his pockets. Mordeci quickly drew his force sword and used Distort Vision on himself, but Hellos simply approached him displaying an Inq symbol on a chain. Hellos asked what they are doing here and Mordeci gave quite a lot away in regard to the latest ongoings. Hellos mentioned they are here because of the Propheticum Hereticus Tenebrae (Mordeci only slightly remembered what this is due to his Forbidden Lore (Inq) skill) and asked whether the PCs know of any association with it and the Haarlock Legacy. Moreci told him a lot about their recent activities regarding the Haarlock Legacy, despite Serghar voxing him not to do.

Mir Lug and the groups Assassin (aka Dakka) scanned the surroundings, while standing next to their quadwheeler. Dakka rolled a 01 on his Per-test and thus saw a reflection on a nearby roof for a second (i.e. Arkadia in sniping position) and after a short contemplation decided to pick the lock of the door of a nearby house.

After talking for about a minute, Hellos said to Mordeci (and into his micro-bead): “Best regards from the Tenebrae Collegium.” And Arkadia in turn made a Called Shot to the head of Mordeci (i.e. 16 damage with pen 5 to the head -3 TB = 13 wounds) resulting in Mordeci’s exploding skull (had no Fate Points left). After a short out-of-game discussion regarding the possibility to dodge or not, I decided he could have made an Awareness check to have seen the muzzle flash, as he indeed said in his turn just beforehand he turns around checking the vicinity while talking. He made his Awareness test and thus I allowed him to make a Dodge test which he luckily made as well. So the head was still on his shoulder (such a kind GM...) and the bolt round exploded next to him on the wall.

Hellos then shot semi-auto with his Bolt Pistol at Mordeci and blew off 5 fingers of his right hand and shattered the arm and then ran into the nearby building. Dakka entered the other mentioned building through the lock-picked door, Serghar ducked into the cover of a nearby house entrance, Mir-Lug drove the quadwheeler near a house wall, Grak drew his Thollos checking for targets and the heavily wounded Mordeci activated his See Me Not psychic power (Hellos failed his WP-test) and crouched.

Arkadias next shot was dodged by Serghar, who ran over the street desperately seeking to reach a blind angle of the unseen sniper. Dakka ran up a staircase with the aim to reach the roof somehow. Lo Tan dropped from the opposite building (above where Serghar lay in hiding in a house entry only moments before) with the help of his Float power (like in one of these china movies) and ran straight 30 m into the building Dakka had entered last round. Dray punched open the shutters in the ground floor of again another building and opened up with his Bolter on Serghar, who narrowly dodged both shots. Grak fired his Thollos unsuccessfully at Dray and Mir-Lug let loose with Suppressing Fire from his Fury (nomen est...) while ducking behind the car door, thereby hitting him once and even wounding him slightly due to Righteous Fury (...omen), but not pinning him successfully. Mordeci in turn followed Hellos into the building (what a bad move by Hellos to go out of Arkadia's killing field...).

Dakka still ran up the staircase with Lo Tan in hot pursuit (without the former aware of that yet), while Serghar ran behind the quadwheeler into cover Tranter in hand. Dray fired at Mir-Lug hiding in the quadwheeler but missed, while Grak ran after Lo Tan into the building. Mir-Lug again returned fire in form of Supressing Fire, this time unable to wound Dray but instead pinning him despite the Nerves of Steel reroll. Mordeci now charged Hellos, who was still unable to perceive the assailant, but I gave him a -30 Dodge test, which he successfully made. His return strikes with Power Sword and return shots with his Bolt Pistol where at -30 unsuccessful as well.

When Dakka reached the uppermost floor, he got the vox signal from Grak that he was followed. He turned around at the end of the stair going into Overwatch with his two Fate Bringer in hands. Grak, after voxing Dakka, pulled out his Eviscerator and walked further upwards. Lo Tan activated Distort Vision and, ran into Dakka’s area of Overwatch, but easily dodged the incoming bullet. Dray had left the window and Mir-Lug left the quadwheeler running over the street into the direction of Mordeci, thereby getting into the shooting arc of Arkadia, but dodging the bolt round by using a Fate Point re-roll. Serghar entered the building Grak had just entered last round. (One must say Serghar was hit the most by the Mandato assault earlier and was rather low on wounds, not as much as Mordeci though, who made the high five with Hellos’ bolt round earlier).

Apropos Mordeci, he again attacked Hellos with his Fore Sword breaking his leg and tried to channel psychic force through the blade. While he reached the threshold, he also rolled a 9 and rolled on the Psychic Phenomena table a 84, thus triggering Perils of the Warp and rolling something like a 42 (Psychic Mirror (how fitting in Damned Cities…)). The effect was that he channelled the psychic force into himself…

…the opposed WP-test against himself was really bad for him and he suffered 4D10 damage (something like 25 without deduction from TB or AP), burning him to a crisp thereby. Now, we have some sort of house rule, that a player may pay XP (he still has in reserve) for a Skill or Talent or characteristic advance in the moment he needs it (quasi on the run). E.g. Dakka later on paid for a WS advance to successfully parry an incoming attack. So, Mordeci purchased Favoured of the Warp, thereby being allowed to roll a second time on the Psychic Phenomena table (getting a minor result). Thus he cheated death the second time in one session with zero Fate Points (too kind GM again…).

Hellos in turn was again unable to hit Mordeci. Dakka though was charged by Lo Tan, but dodged the whirling Force Sword successfully. Grak slowly came in behind and Serghar stayed downstairs. Dakka dropped a Fate Bringer and used Quick Draw to pull out his Power Blade to use Lightning Attack against Lo Tan, but was unable to hit the Templar Calyx. Mir-Lug saw Dray entering the building where Mordeci and Hellos were locked in their uneven melee and followed close by. Dray fired a single shot at Mordeci, who again dodged successfully. Mordeci again stroke Hellos at the leg, amputating it thereby and leaving him in a pool of blood.

Dakka was still unable to harm Lo Tan in combat, but in return was hit by the Force Sword, damaging his Mesh Coat and cutting slightly into the abdomen. The channelling by Lo Tan was successful, but Dakka won the opposed WP-test well enough. Lo Tan used Quick Draw to pull out his Power Blade before being charged by Grak with his Eviscerator from behind, who missed though. Mir-Lug pulled out his Chain Axe and charged Dray, scoring some modest injury upon the chest despite the heavy armour. Dray dropped his Boltgun, pulled out his Chainsword and hit Mir-Lug, who in turn parried it with his Chain Axe. Then Mordeci “High Five” Kayser tried to charge Dray as well, but slipped due to a failed Ag-test on the blood left by Hellos arteria femoris.

In the last round of the session (4 hours later…) Dakka failed to hit Lo Tan, though parried the return strike (by investing in the mentioned +5 WS advance). Lo Tan in turn parried a successful hit by Graks Eviscerator with his Power Blade and destroying it thereby. Mir Lug hit Dray on his sword arm cutting to the bone, so that he dropped his Chainsword. Dray then simply pulled the pin of one of his Frag Grenades and dropped it to his feet. In the ensuing explosion Mordeci dodged far enough by rolling through Hellos’ blood on the floor, while Mir Lug was caught in the blast without suffering any damage, as was Dray himself.

I am looking forward to the next session next week...

Luthor Harkon said:

After a short out-of-game discussion regarding the possibility to dodge or not, I decided he could have made an Awareness check to have seen the muzzle flash, as he indeed said in his turn just beforehand he turns around checking the vicinity while talking. He made his Awareness test and thus I allowed him to make a Dodge test which he luckily made as well. So the head was still on his shoulder (such a kind GM...)

Much too kind! :)

Rant:

If you can see the muzzle flash, it is far too late to dodge. The rules are clear, he must be aware of an attack in order to dodge. (Noticing the bullet hitting you does not count) This would have required him to see/hear the assassin before the shot was made, ala what Dakka did earlier.

But remember, even Very Hard tests are passed regularly by super-munchkin players, which is why these tests are always Opposed. Your PCs roll their Awareness, with appropriate modifiers for talents like Heightened Senses, being distracted by talking to a dangerous fella, the foggy rain that is always obscuring sightlines on Sinophia, etc etc.

But the stealthy Assassin on the rooftop get to oppose that roll with her Concealment, with appropriate bonuses from her gear (Cameleoline cloak +30, Synskin +10), Cover and distance (+20) to her formidable base score of 64.

Even with a roll of 01, chances are good he still didn't get more successes than Arkadia if she made a decent sorta roll. If you stick to the rules about maximum modifiers to a test of +/-30, then Arkadia would be rolling against 94, meaning 4 DoS on Average, with the possibility of as much as 9.

I don't know what sorta stats your PCs have, but I'd rule that rain, distraction with talking etc give sufficient penalties to cancel bonuses from keen eyesight and then some, resulting in a Awareness -10 or -20. Even with a high Awareness (say 60), this still means that Arkadia would win the opposed test with an average roll even if the player DID roll a 01.

Some things just won't be seen. Turn it around, if the Sniper was a PC, would he not feel a little cheated if all his Mad Skillz and gear did not matter to his victim?

If you pull the punches with the stealth/ambush types, it just means that the only threat the PCs have to worry about is a "fair fight", but that just reduces the tools you get to play with. And if you "cheat" to save your Pcs when they've run out of Fate Points, then you just reduce the value of those Points.

Having said all that, I understand why you did it, and I might have done something similar.

But I would have hated myself for it afterwards :)

Darth Smeg said:

Luthor Harkon said:

After a short out-of-game discussion regarding the possibility to dodge or not, I decided he could have made an Awareness check to have seen the muzzle flash, as he indeed said in his turn just beforehand he turns around checking the vicinity while talking. He made his Awareness test and thus I allowed him to make a Dodge test which he luckily made as well. So the head was still on his shoulder (such a kind GM...)

Much too kind! :)

Mea culpa... preocupado.gif

Darth Smeg said:

Rant:

If you can see the muzzle flash, it is far too late to dodge. The rules are clear, he must be aware of an attack in order to dodge. (Noticing the bullet hitting you does not count) This would have required him to see/hear the assassin before the shot was made, ala what Dakka did earlier.

Dodging bullets in itself seems a little weird after all and in my defence I must say that Dakka mentioned something is on the roof through his micro-bead (the PCs do not leave house without their micro-bead).

Darth Smeg said:

But remember, even Very Hard tests are passed regularly by super-munchkin players, which is why these tests are always Opposed. Your PCs roll their Awareness, with appropriate modifiers for talents like Heightened Senses, being distracted by talking to a dangerous fella, the foggy rain that is always obscuring sightlines on Sinophia, etc etc.

But the stealthy Assassin on the rooftop get to oppose that roll with her Concealment, with appropriate bonuses from her gear (Cameleoline cloak +30, Synskin +10), Cover and distance (+20) to her formidable base score of 64.

Even with a roll of 01, chances are good he still didn't get more successes than Arkadia if she made a decent sorta roll. If you stick to the rules about maximum modifiers to a test of +/-30, then Arkadia would be rolling against 94, meaning 4 DoS on Average, with the possibility of as much as 9.

I don't know what sorta stats your PCs have, but I'd rule that rain, distraction with talking etc give sufficient penalties to cancel bonuses from keen eyesight and then some, resulting in a Awareness -10 or -20. Even with a high Awareness (say 60), this still means that Arkadia would win the opposed test with an average roll even if the player DID roll a 01.

I wanted to give him a chance as I though getting the head blown of the shoulders in the first round (or even before) of combat is a bit dissatisfying. And again in my defence I must say that he did not see Arkadia herself, but just a muzzle flash. Dakka before him has a rather high Awarenss score (Per about 40 with Awareness about +20).

Darth Smeg said:

Some things just won't be seen. Turn it around, if the Sniper was a PC, would he not feel a little cheated if all his Mad Skillz and gear did not matter to his victim?

Absolutely, but you know they are the hero...erm...well...the ones with Fate Points (or not for that matter...).

Darth Smeg said:

If you pull the punches with the stealth/ambush types, it just means that the only threat the PCs have to worry about is a "fair fight", but that just reduces the tools you get to play with. And if you "cheat" to save your Pcs when they've run out of Fate Points, then you just reduce the value of those Points.

Having said all that, I understand why you did it, and I might have done something similar.

But I would have hated myself for it afterwards :)

I sort of did, be sure of it. serio.gif