Okay, so something that's been bugging me since I started looking at Only War is that it seems really hard for Commissars to get fellowship advances. They don't get either the Social or Fellowship aptitude from their career, so unless they get it as part of their regiment, Fellowship ends up being one of there most expensive advances.

Considering that they get +5 Fellowship as part of their career, and they're meant to be charismatic individuals (not necessarily likeable, but certainly good leaders), lacking these aptitudes makes it really hard to be good at commanding…

Anything I'm missing here? Is there some other source of aptitudes? Or do FF just think Commissars should be grumpy unlikeable gits?

Storm Troopers have this problem with Ballistic Skill….

It could really use Finesse Ballistic Skill

Most commisars are beyond grumpy, unlikable gits. Their jobs are to execute soldiers for the failing of being human; and they can do this to anyone within the regiment, no matter rank. But, yeah, I think they should have the Fellowship aptitude; medium Fellowship characteristic advance, cheap Command skill advance. I've typically thought of Commisar being better trained to lead than necessarily having raw ability. The question is what to trade, as they already have 7 aptitudes; as do the Ministorum Priest, and Ratling. The Tech-Priest Enginseer has 8 , while everyone else has 6.

Storm trooper might trade either Weapon Skill or Offence for Finesse aptitude. Of course, then they would have cheap advances in both Agility and Ballistic Skill; which I am kind of alright with. My recommendation, if you feel it should be changed, swap the Weapon Skill aptitude for Finesse. This will give you the following advancement scheme for characteristics:

• Weapon Skill - Medium
• Ballistic Skill - Cheap
• Strength - Medium
• Toughness - Medium
• Agility - Cheap
• Intelligence - Expensive
• Perception - Medium
• Willpower - Expensive
• Fellowship - Expensive

This is baring any Doctines which might give additional aptitudes. Though, I could see giving the Storm Trooper Willpower without trading something in. Maybe someone is getting Imperial Stormtroopers mixed up with Imperial Storm Troopers.

-=Brother Praetus=-

I don't think Commissars necessarily need high fellowship. Their job is only to step in when regular command falters and then to rally the squad. That requires Air of Authority (for the numbers) and Iron Discipline (to allow a reroll). Actually leading people is generally left to the Sergeant.

Cifer said:

Excactly; Commissars like Gaunt are the exception, not the norm. Heck, even Cain defers to Kasteen and Broklaw for tactical stuff. A Commissar's meant to scare, not inspire troops- he's the bad cop. Lehe Sergeant, Priest or ratling (as the regimental clown) be the social butterflies; the Commissar's there to put the fear of the Emperor into the troops.

Fellowship doesn't make you a social butterfly, or even nice; it makes you persuasive . Plenty of DH charcters with ridiculous FEL are absolute sociopaths and no one likes them, but they listen. Command requires fellowship to function within game rules and that's what needs to happen. Commissars lead men, tactical or not, and inspire them to greatness through encouragement and fear.

Obviously, I'm aware Commissars aren't all heroic awesome friends of the average soldier, but they are political officers, they are trained to give rousing speeches and threaten verbosely and with great aptitude. While I agree people don't like them, they couldn't do their job by just striding around, executing people at random and yelling "Moar fighting!". I think Fellowship being their most expensive upgrade is slightly ridiculous.

Sergeants don't get the Social aptitude either. They only get fellowship, so they are at the middle cost for the fellowship advance.

The only specialty I know of that gets the Social aptitude is priest, which means that the only one getting Fellowship for cheap cheap is the Priest.

I'm going to guess that FFG's concept with this is that Commissars and Sergeants get Leadership cheaper than any one else and use that to boost their chances with commanding people rather than increasing fellowship to do it.

SwornEagleFeather said:

The problem is that you can't use Leadership to get a discount on stats increases or to make rolls. Having only the Leadership aptitude lets you buy skills like Command or talents like Inspire Wraith at medium cost. But having only Leadership is worthless because in order give a Command or Inspire Wraith, you need to pass a Felllowship roll which is max cost of Commissars to increase. There is no way to increase or roll with secondary stats like Leadership, Defense, or Finesse.

Get the Mastery command talent and watch your fate points cry?

Observation:

They don't get cheap fellowship, although they do get tolerable-cost command skill. They do, however, get mid-cost strength and mid-cost intimidate, which is arguably more suitable for a commissar than a command boost