First - I know some of my players frequent this forum, and I would ask them to please stay out of this thread, to spare yourselves spoilers.

Now that's out of the way, onto the post. I'll be requesting advice for this mission, but first, some background.

My group has just started their last mission as a Deathwatch Kill-Team. We'll be moving on to Black Crusade after this mission has completed. My players are all Rank 7~ with 80+ Renown and all kinds of gear (I awarded 200 points of Requisition for this final mission). Their previous mission saw them board a Chaos Space Hulk with the intent of retrieving a Dark Angels relic, with the result that they became trapped in the Warp for over 70 years (this becomes important later).

Alphus III was, until recently, an Imperial-held world. Representatives of the Tau managed to brainwash the people into accepting their rule with their message of 'the greater good'. The Tau have so far managed to beat back what Imperial forces remain, as well as blockade the planet against further incursions. The Kill-Team's mission is twofold - assassinate the Ethereal leading the Tau troops (bonus points for doing it in a particularly demoralizing manner), and 'purify' the world's inhabitants - by whatever means they deem necessary.

To accomplish their mission, they were instructed to work with a puritan Inquisitor in the area, who was deeply suspicious of the Kill-Team (based on their prior 'associations with Chaos'). The Inquisitor's secretive nature, coupled with his inherent mistrust of the Kill-Team, caused the team to become angry with him. They have taken over command from him, much to his displeasure.

Under the Kill-Team's command, the Imperial Guard managed to break the Tau blockade and land many of their reinforcements. They used the Imperial Guard forces as a distraction while the Kill-Team infiltrated the Tau-held city and began to take out their AA (Anti-Aircraft) batteries. However, after the Kill-Team managed to destroy a pair of the batteries, they noticed movement among the night sky - Ork dropships. The Kill-Team made the decision to cease-fire against the Tau until the Ork menace was dealt with, negotiating the 'truce' with Commander Shas'El'Vrai.

Now that the plot exposition is out of the way, we get to the meat of this post. We'll be shortly seeing Tyranids, Eldar, and Necrons dropping into this scene. Additionally, I want to grant the Kill-Team reinforcements in the form of a Space Marine company - possibly even a Titan (just for the sheer badassery of it).

So - questions:

1) I'm pretty new to running 'freeform' missions. Any tips?

2) If I give them a Titan, what can pose a credible threat to it, given the xenos I've outlined here? Would prefer Ork, 'Nid, or 'Cron threats, as I'm planning for a pretty light force of Eldar.

3) Where can I find some Eldar or Necron stats? If possible, would prefer stats that are compatible with the 'new' Necrons, as I love all the new options.

4) How should I handle the Tyranid 'Shadow in the Warp'?

Any and all advice is appreciated!

1) Only bit of advise I really have is to provide the Kill-Team with a support staff to offer suggestions- don't tell them what to do, but, say, have a forward outpost or orbital scanning or Thunderhawk flyovers. The Kill-Team can call on that support staff for information and possible targets of opportunity, as well as possibly guiding them if they get lost. Have ideas of what the Team needs to accomplish- basically objectives- but don't tell your team.

2) I don't have stats for any of these, but possible threats to Titans: Ork Gargants and Stompas, Necron Monoliths, and Tyranid Bio-Titans. Plus, if you want to have Eldar threats against the Titan, they have their own Titans.

3) Necron stats, I'd suggest Black Crusade or poking about on, say, Dark Reign. Eldar, I'd use Nathan's stats at www.n01h3r3.com

4) Well, it's going to be impossible to get messages out from the planet proper to other systems by astropathic means. Vox (ship to ship, ship to surface, and surface forces to surface forces) is unaffected. In a large-scale Tyranid invasion, most psykers- including Librarians- are going to be taking at least low level penalties- perhaps a persistent -10 with the standard -20 when actually up against a Tyranid creature with Shadow in the Warp.

PrinceOfMadness said:

Sounds like you guys are having a blast. Keep it working that way! I will however throw in some advice to the game.

1. My experience is that you should have a pretty good idea about what's going on and all that so that you know what any given action is likely to result in. You could of course improvise but I prefer to plan things out as well as I possibly can.

2. I think this has been mentioned but various giant Xenos constructions and monstrosities should be able to give it a challange. And of course you shouldn't understimate what massed air attacks and concentrated artillery barrages can do as the Titan is probably a rather easy target to hit.

3. This is probably your best bet for some Eldar stats for Deathwatch. http://www.n01h3r3.com/ - see the Children of Isha article for some goodies.

4. Probably by making contact with and from the planet become harder and harder untill its impossible and I would imagine that use of psychic powers on the planet will become more difficult as well.

5. I personally think that you might be going into a bit of an overkill with all these guys showing up at the same time. At the very least I would probably skip the Necrons as I think that having the Tyranids should be enough for abominational Xenos bent on the destruction of all life, and you probably have the stats you need and so won't be forced to seek out various stats in a dozen different books. But that's just my view on it of course.

Keep in mind, with the forces you've selected: The 'Nids will probably focus on the Orks, the Necrons will be after the 'Nids, and the Eldar will be after the 'Crons. Don't get me wrong, they'll fight anyone and anything, but 'Nids want biomass, 'Crons hate all living things- and what's more alive than 'Nids?- and the Eldar have that hate-on for the 'Crons.

Gaire said:

To be honest, the Necrons are quite likely to focus on the Eldar - afterall, the Eldar are an ancient foe of the Necrons, while everything else is just a lesser species in need of extermination. War against an old enemy should take precedence over something which is less warfare and more pest-control.

Fair point. I had thought about that, but the whole 'Tyranids avoid tomb-worlds' made me think that maybe the 'Crons would worry about the 'Nids. Plus, I'm not sure how he's planning to use the Eldar. If they've got a full battlefield presence, then the Necrons would probably ignore the Tyranids in favor of fighting the old knife-ears. If they're playing it stealthy-like, I'd put my money on biomass versus necrodermis.

Thanks, guys! Given the feedback I've gotten here, and some personal reflection on my own, I think I will be swapping out the Tyranids with a Chaos Space Marine warband, packing their own Titan. Makes things simpler, and avoids troublesome astrographical and story issues that kept cropping up.

EDIT: Any thoughts on how Chaos scrap code would affect Tau/Necron tech?

All that I ask is that one of your players has a fist fight with a chaos lord on the back of a Manta that is begining a strafing run on a chaos titan as the titan is firing superheavy rounds above, below and to either side of the manta with the Air caste pilot jinking from side to side, occasionally dislodging the fighters on the back who discover their otherwise stable fisticuffs platform has become a fisticuffs climbing wall temporarily.

All I ask.

Don't forget that smaller titans such as warhounds tend to be used in pairs because they are the fastest and alone cannot compare to the larger ones. They also have better stategies if you use them this way. just something to keep in mind.

p.s. If you have 2 one the field you can have one get destroyed in some epic manner.

Primarch of the second legion said:

I request it is destroyed in the way that after the Space Marine has punched the Chaos Lord off the Tau Mantra, he jumps from the Xenos vehicle down on the titan, bunch in the glass to the cockpit, throw out the traitor pilot, throw in a bunch of melta's into the cockpit, and then jump back on the Mantra as it flies past and just before the explosion goes off.

Shameless bump.

I've made an executive decision to remove the Eldar from this campaign. I'm not familiar enough with how Eldar operate to do them proper justice (an anomaly that I've noticed a couple of times with the Tau and Orks - I make mistakes because I don't know enough of their fluff).

After a couple more sessions, here's what has transpired:

Soon after the unexpected emergence of the Ork Waaaaaagh!, the Inquisitor fled, hijacking the Kill-Team's Thunderhawk and flying south. With the help of the Guard, the Kill-Team swiftly located the vessel, grounded and apparently empty in a forest clearing. Braddimus, Assault Marine of the Ultramarines, soon noticed some tracks leaving the clearing and went to investigate. Konrad, Apothecary/Chaplain of the Black Templars, opted to search the vessel, while Rourke, Tech-Marine of the Iron Hands, kept lookout for trouble. Konrad narrowly escaped the fury of a melta bomb booby trap by virtue of his Rosarius. In the meantime, Braddimus located the bodies of the Thunderhawk's crew - 4 Deathwatch Space Marines. The bodies were all seemingly killed by bolt rounds to the back of the head. No tracks led from the area. The Inquisitor had vanished.

Meanwhile, Alyxander, a Watch Captain Tactical Marine of the Steel Guard, and Cadmus, a Dark Angels Librarian, had their own difficulties. The Guard and the Tau were forced to work together to repel the Waaaaaagh!. The newly promoted Lord General Tellius and Commander Shas'El'Vrai swiftly set up a defensive line about the city, under the direction of Alyxander. While Alyxander and Cadmus tried to convince the Ethereal to show his face, the Ethereal declined, stating his talents lay in other areas than war. Alyxander then hatched a plan. With the help of Stormtrooper Sergeant Cid, with whom the Kill-Team had worked before, Alyxander arranged for various explosive devices to be placed at key Tau installations, crippling the ability of the Tau to fight back when the time came for their demise.

At this point, the Kill-Team reformed and took the fight to the Orks. With the addition of Space Wolves Assault Marine/Chaplain Waatariel, they rained death upon the abominable greenskins. Responding to the distress call of a nearby Guard regiment, they worked together to eliminate an Ork Weirdboy devastating the Guard forces. While the Weirdboy's power was great (Aside: I homebrewed a psychic power here - Foot of Mork. Stomped a Land Raider. Twice. Made my day), they managed to triumph.

Barely had they time to celebrate their victory, however, when the Tau forces began to withdraw from the battlefield. Apparently, a melta bomb had gone off in the city, nearly killing the Tau Ethereal. A swift search of the city by the Tau turned up most of the Kill-Team's recently planted explosives. The Kill-Team immediately blamed the rogue Inquisitor, realizing he had stolen two of the Kill-Team's own explosives. After pleading their case, the Tau commander, while deeply mistrustful of the Kill-Team, granted them a Kroot battallion for use against the Ork Warboss.

Almost before the vox link went still, however, the Master of the Fleet contacted the Kill-Team - an Imperial Fists Battle-Barge with support vessels had entered the system, ferrying a trio of Titans (two Warhounds and a Warlord) and a full Company of Space Marines. After brief introductions, the Imperial Fists agreed to assist the Deathwatch in exterminating the xenos. While the Fists began to rain down upon the Orks, the Kill-Team launched a daring raid into the Tau-held city, with the intent of sabotaging their shield generators. They split into three teams so as to strike more quickly. Waatariel and Braddimus quickly destroyed the northern generator, while Alyxander and Cadmus were only a little slower in dispatching their own. Konrad and Rourke, however, ran into big trouble at the central pylon, as Commander Shas'El'Vrai waited with a pair of Broadsides and a cadre of Fire Warriors and Kroot. Konrad nearly lost an arm to the Tau railguns (Aside: He had to burn a Fate Point. Yeeeeeeah!) while Rourke had great difficulty getting his fusillade of bolter and atomizer cannon fire past the Tau shield drones. Eventually, however, they were successful. The Tau shield generators were destroyed.

The order was given to raze the city. A storm of fire from orbit reduced the city to slag and glass, killing thousands of Tau and millions of innocent civilians. While some Tau escaped to orbit, their reprieve was short-lived. With the fate of the Ethereal still unknown, Alyxander ordered the fleet to stop the Tau from escaping at all costs. Caught between the hammer of the Imperium and the anvil of the Orks, the Tau ships were crushed. Several of the Tau dropships made it back down to Alphus III, however - the fate of the Ethereal is yet to be discovered.

So that's where we're at right now. I still need to introduce Chaos and the Necrons. I know Chaos will need to come soon, if only so the Orks don't get stomped too quickly. Yes, they have Gargants with them, but between the trio of Titans and the Company of Imperial Fists (and the not-inconsiderable power of the Kill-Team) I think the Orks are in a bad place.

Something to point out - I'm coming up with 99% of this on the spot, so my long-term plans are somewhat shot to pieces, but I had an awesome idea on how to make the Inquisitor play out. Looking for input on how to make this work:

The Inquisitor is actually a Necron Overlord. In addition, he has been masquerading as the Tau Ethereal (who the Kill-Team have never encountered face-to-face). His goal is to swiftly exterminate as many life-forms near Alphus III as he can, all in order to feed his pet C'Tan Shard - and because exterminating squishies is fun in its own right. Once the time is right, he will unleash the C'Tan upon the forces battling on the planet's surface - I'm thinking this should come right after the death of the Chaos Lord and Ork Warboss. Thoughts?

VEry nice! I got no problem with yer big-bad (but, i am not familiar with the new direction the necrons are now taking, so, as far as I know, it sounds perfectly cromulent!)

And i wouldn't worry about eldar fluff if i were you....just make your eldar of a craftworld you've designed yerself - that way, the fluff is predominantly your own! ANd Lexicanum on the internet is a useful ally...and if you've not found them, check the signature of No-1 h3r3 (that's probly not how he spells his handle on here, but it's close: he has statted eldar of his own free will, and the stats are useful)

Cheers!