I'm running the compact in the back of the rulebook for some friends next sunday, and I've restricted PCs to humans, partially for balance purposes, partially because I plan to take the campaign in a direction that would make CSMs a liability, and partially because I want my players to make characters that can't solve every problem by punching things.

One of the players already bailed out because he didn't want to play a "weak" human, so good riddance to that, I suppose.

Are there any tips or tricks for running this adventure from people who have already done so? I'm going to be making a mock-up party based on what my players want to play to do so testing, but it would be nice to know where to look for snags going in.

The party will consist of:

A Slaaneshi Psyker with some melee capability.

A stereotypical Khornite, Renegade.

A spec-ops/hitman/assassin/sniper of Nurgle, also Renegade.

My own character, a (very quiet) Heretek who specializes in medicae, of Tzeentch.

I haven't checked out the adventure in the back yet, but my general advice would be to drop you own character from the group if you're also the Gm. Gm controlled characters tends to intterupt the natural group dynamic imo. I suspect you included the character for the healing abilities, but the players should overcome obstacles and lack of such abilities on their own. That might force them to make som interresting role playing deicisons in order to heal from damage (make a deal with a sady doctor type, promise to return the favour to a corrupt magos biologis etc).

Let you players succeed or fail by their own actions. They will learn from their mistakes and take that much more pride when they win that way.

Thanks for the advice, I'll run the initial session sans the heretek and see if they make it like that, my primary reason for including him is that I'm simply not sure the adventures are properly balanced for a group of only 3 characters.

Start with only light opposition and increase if needed. It shouldn't take too long to get a feeling for how much trouble the players can handle.

I'm currently in the process of creating a mock-up party (using the concepts they've come up with so far) so i can run some tests before the game and don't have to fly by the seat of my pants.