While this book itself does look interesting, I am interested to read it is the first of four support books for BC. One for each chaos power, with new archetypes for each no doubt, all of which sounds very cool.

I can't wait to see what's in store for the others!

Excellent! I love the mythology of Chaos for warhammer and warhammer 40K and was enthralled since Realm of Chaos, slaves to darkness came out many years ago.

Plague for the Plague god! vomit for the vomit throne!

This is going to be a brilliant series of supplements, not only for Black Crusade, but for the entire 40K game line. Very much looking forward to this.

I hope they have an actual Thousand Sons legion space marine archetype in here. I was disappointed that there were no archetypes akin to this in the main rule book, and my hope was that they'd cover it in something like this.

How would one play an automaton 1KSons Marine exactly?

BYE

Obviously I'm talking about one of the sorcerers who survived not the Rubrik automatons. I probably should have specified that but I assumed people would get what I'm talking about.

The larger and really the more important point is that it would be great to see some Legion archetypes in these supplements.

Honestly an Archetype is so unlike a homeworld or specialty (or equivalent) that I'm having trouble deciding whether it's more likely they'll do each of the Legions as an Archetype, or as some sort of modification to an existing piece of rules. As the Archetypes are your 'class' afterall, and there's no reason why a member of the Alpha Legion couldn't be any of the 4 Archetypes we have now.

Indeed, the popular impression that people have of an Alpha Legionaire is something that would be more accurately descriped as a stereotype. And making an Archetype that basically says "this is how to be X" could be as limiting as it is new (IE: choosing the AL Archetype means you don't necessarily get to be an AL Champion...

Hmm... thoughts, thoughts...

I'm amused the blurb states the book contains new psychic powers for all four alignments. lol!

Blood Pact said:

As the system is completely free-form and class-less i'd imagine (and would be happy to see) a bunch of new talents that allow you to play a legionnaire of a specific Heresy era legion. Talents with zero-XP cost, with huge requirements and downsides, and fluff would be cool.

This does look very interesting and I kind of agree that it will also be interesting to see what will crop up for the other three gods of Chaos. To be honest I was a bit suprised that they took it this way but in another way I suppose it was kind of the most expected way to expand, or at least start to expand, the line.

In regards to the Legions I also think that an archetype for each would do more damage than aid in playing them. Most likely there might perhaps come some form of background package or something that you can add to get a Legion flavor to your character. Also if you want to play a stereotypical Legionnaire I think that most can be fitted into the existing archetypes even if imperfectly:

Champion: Black Legionnaires, Word Bearers

Chosen: Iron Warriors, Death Guards,

Forsaken: Emperor's Children, World Eaters, Night Lords, Alpha Legionnaire

Sorcerer: Thousand Sons

What I do however think will be interesting is to see what new archetypes that we will get. I kind of assume there will be something like 2 mortals and 2 Astartes, and I really hope there will be some nice info about Thousand Sons activity and presence in the Vortex, because I thought they were pretty united on the Planet of Sorcerers with the exception of Ahriman's bunch being told to hit the road but I guess I'm wrong on this one.

Anyway idle speculation makes me think that there will be some kind of scholarly archetype coming up and perhaps also some kind of Warp-seer/prophet. What it will be for the Astartes I have no idea but I suspect that these new archetypes will be alot more narrow than the previous ones in the Black Crusade core.

Gurkhal said:

Sort of. They are still united as a legion (unlike say the World Eaters) but there are still going to be warbands operating independantly, and scheming plots against each other, and rivalries. They are, after all, in service of the God of Trickery and Lies. It'd be suspicious if they weren't plotting!

Gurkhal said:

Dunno. Something like that. Scholar is an obvious one, because there isn't really one at the moment; heretek can be one, and I suppose a renegade taking Adroit (Intelligence) sort of works, but neither is quite right for the scholar of the arcane type.

Warp-Seer is a nice second. Also makes for a nice starting archetype for a traitor navigator.

Marine - obviously a sorceror, but what might work is a Rubric Sorceror - i.e. one whose special ability is access to Rubric Marines as minions from the get-go, and abilities to complement commanding them. Sort of a necromancer equivalent.

For the fourth, it would be nice, actually, to have a new race and have Daemon Archetypes. You'd have different strengths and weaknesses being of daemonic nature (such as needing to acquire a body to occupy when heading out of the vortex!), and have different rules for alignment (suggest that you can never spend XP in a way that would cause you to change your alignment, but if you are aligned you get the mark straight away) and corruption (because you're going from a lesser herald to a greater daemon, not a mortal to a daemon prince).

I know I wouldn't mind seeing an actual, literal sorcerer, that is someone who is not and never was a psyker... but is still tapping in to the power of the warp. But mechanically, I can't see any way of really differentiating that from either of the archetypes we have now, and those don't necessarily rule out that kind of story for a character either.

Overall, I don't think we'll see too much Legion specific stuff in any of the books, because it's an inherently limited option. But I think we'll see some stuff nonetheless.

I think we'll get some kind of manipulative architect Archetype, a Xanatos expert seems perfectly in line with Tzeentch, but for the rest I can't really begin to think of what we might get.

nikink said:

@Axabrax

I hope they have an actual Thousand Sons legion space marine archetype in here. I was disappointed that there were no archetypes akin to this in the main rule book, and my hope was that they'd cover it in something like this.

The Collector's Edition of the core book contains a Thousand Son example character built from a normal CSM Sorcerer archetype. I didn't notice anything lacking. Precisely what do you need a new archetype for?

In fact, I'm not quite sure whether there are any further archetypes that need to be developed. A pure knowledge character, perhaps, but then again, anything that hybridizes knowledge with any non-theoretical field (like tech, psy, combat or social) can be built pretty well with the existing ones. Just buy lots of Lore skills and Adroitify (if you happen to be a Renegade) Intelligence.

H.B.M.C. said:

You'd probably know the facts better than any of us HMBC (if you worked on the book, anyway), but I imagine it means that the powers will be usable by anyone, and not just someone aligned with Tzeentch. Though I still imagine there will be some alignment exclusive powers too.

The hilarity comes from the suggestion that there will be Khorne aligned Psyker powers. That would be quite a surprise! (And a tease, and a waste of space... )

I've always considered "Unaligned" to be an alignment, myself.

I consider unaligned to be its own alignment, but not everyone else does.

And no, I can't say anything about what the psychic powers are until FFG does. Sorry!

BYE

For me Unaligned is different from unaligned. Most Word Bearers are Unaligned. They make a choice to worship the entire Chaos pantheon and elect to balance between them. OTOH, most Night Lords are unaligned. They don't really give two ***** about the Chaos powers and largely view those that pay fealty to them as weak-willed fools. One version is very much its own alignment while the other is not.

HappyDaze said:

I consider choice to be irrelevant in the matter - both of those examples are unaligned, be it through equal devotion or contempt. The gods may equally dole out their favour because they have been equally worshipped (as in Word Bearers) or their goals are furthered regardless of intent (as in Night Lords).

Truly being Unaligned with a capital U has always been about gaining the respect and fear of all factions chaos, be that in the form of Warmaster Horus and late Abaddon, or in warhammer fantasy with the likes of Archaeon the Everchosen. As far as i know, such champions have actually received ALL marks of chaos, thus setting them apart from those who either have contempt for or refuse to align with just a single God.

Yay! Some Tzeentch loving!

I'm a Tzeentchian Sorcerer before there was Black Crusade.

HappyDaze said:

I think you're onto something here. There's falling to the Chaos Gods, and there's FALLING to the Chaos Gods. Like you say, the Night Lords are vaguely aligned with the Chaos Gods, the Word Bearers are wholeheartedly aligned with them. They're both damned, but the Wordbearers embrace their damnation...for the Night Lords it's rather a side effect of their agenda/history.

I wonder how to express this distinction in game system terms, though? It strikes me that the "unaligned with a small u" type of chaos follower might be more prone to random "Slaves to Darkness" style, old school chaos mutations, whereas the "Unaligned with a capital U" chaos worshipper would be more inclined to the type of heavyweight warp-sorcery, possession and dark magickal effects we see the among chaos worshippers in the Dan Abnett books. That's just a personal interpretation, though...

HappyDaze said:

Brilliant. I love it.

To me, Unaligned is a great fanatical represenation of Chaos that does not get any attention in Black Crusade. The alignment system as is currently stands is more for unaligned characters. If you have a character that falls "unaligned" every time they check alignment, it just means they are not interesting enough to get cheap advancements and cool rewards. In a way, it kind of penalizes creativity, but it is actually a very accurate way to represent your standard Night Lords, Alpha Legion, Red Corsairs, and such...

As a GM, I would consider conducting some experiments for Unaligned characters. There needs to be some recognition by the Chaos Pantheon for fanatical worshippers. For these types of characters, I would consider using Infamy in creative ways. Maybe when they check alignment, there could be random things that happen (very Chaosy). Maybe a GM might ask a Word Bearer's character who is Unaligned at a "check alignment" interval to make a Infamy test. Maybe if that character passes the test they can temporarily "count as" being aligned to a God of choice for the purposes of purchasing advancements. I dunno, it just seems like there are lots of creative ways for GMs to integrate the concept of fanatical Unalignment vs "meh" unalignment.

I agree, Dryad, that's a good idea. As another thought, perhaps an Unaligned character who wholeheartedly worships all of the Chaos Gods as a unified pantheon would be able to draw powers/abilities/benefits/mutations/blessings/curses appropriate to different gods depending upon specific acts of worship...a bit like the blessing stones in Skyrim. (er...I'm playing a lot of Skyrim at the moment!)

So an Unaligned PC embarking upon a battle would pray to Khorne. If he was plotting something he'd pray to Tzeentch. And so on. Blessings or curses would flow according to the success of the mission. If one seeks the blessings of Khorne, for example, and fail to collect any skulls for the skull throne, then Khorne would curse the character with a chaotic mutation appropriate to Khorne. Conversely, if the same PC later prays to Tzeetch for his blessing in carrying out a devious plot, he might receive a boon of Tzeentch if the plot works out as planned.

So from this perspective, being Unaligned offers a lot of chances for characterful and flexible advancement.