I have some issues with the Regiment Creation that I haven’t seen anyone else bring up, so I decided to sign up and make my voice heard. Feedback is welcome.

Fortress World
Bred for War: Fortress worlders possess an entirely justified siege mentality, a natural result of daily lives shaped by the need for perpetual vigilance against an enemy that could strike at any time, and the discipline required to respond to that threat swiftly and effectively. Fortress worlders are loyal almost to a fault, and reluctant to disobey orders even with good reason, lacking personal initiative, and becoming inflexible as a result. A fortress worlder must attempt a Challenging (+0) Willpower Test in order to go against the rules and regulations of the Imperial Guard.

This trait doesn’t really match up with my experience of Cadians, the quintessential Fortress Worlders, especially from the book Cadian Blood. Personal traits like “reluctant to disobey orders even with good reason, lacking personal initiative, and becoming inflexible as a result” are not things I would expect from one of the finest fighting forces in the galaxy. Someone else summed it up with the hypothetical dialogue: “Your uniform is dirty, soldier.” “Yes sir, but my rifle is clean.”

How exactly would you determine what qualifies as “go against the rules and regulations of the Imperial Guard”? It’s pretty ambiguous and I think an opportunity for roleplaying was missed by changing the Fortress World drawback from Rogue Trader’s “penalty on Social Interaction Tests regarding non-combat topics”. It might just be my personal opinion, but I like the idea of Fortress Worlders being socially cut off from the vast civilian masses of the Imperium they’ve spent their entire lives protecting.

Demolitions (Cost: 3 points)
Destruction is the unit's calling, and they are equipped and trained to follow that calling, with access to a variety of explosive munitions.
Standard Regimental Kit: The regiment gains a +10 bonus on all Logistics Tests made to obtain grenades, missiles, explosives, and special tank ammunition.

“Equipped and trained” suggests that this doctrine should also include Tech-Use as a starting skill. I found this issue when I attempted to recreate the Canopus Heavy Foot regiment from Dark Heresy: The Chaos Commandment (which starts with Demolitions, now folded into Tech-Use), but failed because the only Tech-Use in Regiment Creation is Siege Infantry, which the Heavy Foot isn’t.

(Penitent (3), Phlegmatic (1), Line Infantry (2), Iron Discipline (3), Demolitions (3), in case you were wondering. Canopus is a Hive World, but the Penitent origin fits better with their stats from DH: The Chaos Commandment. Maybe switch out Iron Discipline for something else if you think that Penitent is enough to showcase their famed ability to stay calm under pressure.)

Hardened Fighters (Cost: 2 points)
Characteristics: + 2 Weapon Skill
Starting Talents: Street Fighting
The regiment may replace its standard melee weapon with either a Low-Tech Weapon of Common Availability or better, or it may apply the mono upgrade to its standard melee weapons.
Warrior Weapons (Cost: 3 points)
Starting Skills: Parry
Standard Regimental Kit: The regiment exchanges their Main Weapon for a Low-Tech weapon of Common or better Availability and a laspistol and two charge packs.

Is it just me, or is Hardened Fighters vastly superior to Warrior Weapons, despite being the cheaper Doctrine? Why would a regiment starting with Lasguns or Lascarbines choose to drop their Main Weapon to a Laspistol just for a Common Low-Tech Weapon when they can exactly the same result and a talent instead of a skill (which saves them xp since Talents are more expensive than Skills) by choosing a different, cheaper doctrine? And most of the Regiments that do start with a Laspistol usually have a vehicle and would want to avoid melee combat. I would change Warrior Weapons so that it instead said something like:

Warrior Weapons (Cost: 4 points)
Starting Aptitude: Weapon Skill
Starting Skills: Parry
Standard Regimental Kit: The regiment exchanges their Main Weapon for a Low-Tech Melee weapon with an availability no higher than Average, with the Mono upgrade.

That seems more fitting for regiments “ill-suited to serve on firing lines, their savage demeanour making them a poor choice to wield a lasgun” that instead “serve the Imperial Guard in other ways, armed with swords, axes, and mauls, to cut the enemy apart in close quarters.” It might make for a radically different style of play compared to normal regiments, but at least it would make for an interesting choice instead of something that already exists, but slightly worse and more expensive.

Also, since I expect this to come up: I understand the need to limit the Availability so that the players can’t select the more esoteric and powerful Primitive/Primary weapons from earlier game lines, but I see no reason to deny them Axes, Shields, Bastard Swords, Batons, Side-handle Batons, Falchions, Lacusta Hammers (I’m sure you’ll include mounted regiments in a later book) and Armored Gauntlets, especially since Warrior Weapons include Axes as an example of weapons used.

The only potential problem I can see are the Naval Shields (Naval Shield - Melee - 1d5+2 I - 0 Pen - Defensive, Primitive - 9kg - 75 – Average, can be used as cover worth 8AP) from the Inquisitor’s Handbook, but I don’t think they would see much use due to their prohibitive weight. Maybe Siege Infantry would be interested in reinforcing their sandbags, but I doubt most other regiments would want to carry around “a huge solid plate of plasteel” simply for the advantage of cover, which can usually be found in the environment.

The Well-Provisioned equipment doctrine grants 2 extra clips for the regiment’s main ranged weapon.
Can you change the Main Weapon if you select something better from Table 2-6: Additional Standard Kit items table? For example, if a Reconnaissance Regiment (Main Weapon: Laspistol) picked a Sniper Rifle for 10 points (Scarce availability), could they choose to count that Sniper Rifle as their Main Weapon?
Another problem that appears in that situation is that such a regiment would start with both a Las weapon and a SP weapon, but only the Weapon Training to use one of those weapons. There are a couple of examples in Table 2-6 where you can replace a weapon with a different one, but the options available consist mostly of upgrading Las Weapons, not switching them out for an equivalent SP weapon. FFG fixed the lack of SP Weapon Training in the Week 2 Beta Update, but they haven’t changed Table 2-6 to accommodate the change yet.

Favoured Weapons gives a +10 bonus on all Logictics Tests to obtain those weapons and ammunition for the Favoured Weapon.
Does that include Logistics Tests for Special Ammunition, or just standard? If a Grenade Launcher is chosen as a Favoured Basic Weapon, would the squad receive a +10 bonus on all Logictics Tests to acquire grenades, potentially stacking with the +10 from the Demolitions Doctrine?

This just makes me think that folding Demolitions into Tech-Use was a mistake. I'm all for skill consolidation, but that one gets in the way…

It worked in BC to fold demolitions into tech use, and I imagine it would work equally well in DH and RT. For Derp Watch and Only War I feel that it should be a seperate skill, as it will see much greater use in these more military oriented games. Tech Use allready sees a lot of love at the gaming table

Hygric said:

Exactly this. I also don't feel that Tech-use and Security and clearly divided enough - the Security skill should cover all aspects of breaking and entering, including technological ones, and Tech-use shouldn't without a penalty.

To me, the Fortress World background makes sense, if you go by GW fluff. Even for Cadians. You can't expect people being raised in an environment that prepares them for military life from childhood on and at the same time have them retain a high degree of individuality. From where I stand, that's just somewhat unlikely. Obviously, exceptions might always exist, but they do not necessarily have to be catered to in regimental backgrounds, lest you would find an exception to just about any of the backgrounds.

Going by Codex material, Cadian children supposedly learn to field-strip a lasgun before learning how to field-strip their lasguns before they learn to read or write, and then go on to join the Youth Army to serve as Whiteshields. The Cadian code embodies the principles of discipline and self-sacrifice.

You still have a point regarding the change made in comparison to Rogue Trader, but I suppose the drawbacks are different because the games are different. The RT penalty just wouldn't come up all that often and have zero impact on standard gameplay, unlike what the devs are going for right now.

Still, of course it is all a matter of interpretations - as Gav Thorpe said: "Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 exist as tens of thousands of overlapping realities in the imaginations of games developers, writers, readers and gamers. None of those interpretations is wrong." Thus, since it is a pen&paper game, you could easily change this background to your version for the purpose of using it in your games, even if it remains unchanged in the published book.

Also, good point regarding the Hardened Fighters / Warrior Weapons doctrines. Personally, I'd rather lean towards making Warrior Weapons a 1-point doctrine, though - I recall someone was asking for doctrines worth a single point, and this would lend itself nicely.

Some further thoughts.

Additional Equipment (page 33): Replace the last two sentences of the first paragraph of Additional Equipment with the following: “This allocation is 26 points, with an additional 2 points added for each unused Regiment Creation point left over, and can be further increased by certain doctrines and other options. These points may be spent in a number of different ways, as described below.”

2 points for each unused Regiment Creation point is worthless. Going by doctrines like Chameleoline (3 RC points for something with Rare availability which would cost 15 AE points) and Combat Drugs (an injector and five doses of Stimm cost 2 RC points while one injector and a single dose of Stimm costs 8 points as Additional Equipment), Regiment Creation points are worth 5 Additional Equipment points.

Penal Colony Regiments should be able to equip their Grunt specializations (and Psykers) with Explosive Collars with their commanding officers or Commissars holding the trigger, either as an Equipment Doctrine or as Additional Equipment.

Explosive Collar (Dark Heresy Core, page 147)
These unpleasant devices are most often seen attached to penal legionnaires to serve as an additional incentive in fighting for the Emperor. Collars usually come with a remote trigger that can be used to detonate the collar up to, and sometimes over, ranges of 1,000 metres. When the collar explodes it instantly kills the wearer and inflicts 1d10 Explosive Damage on anyone within three metres. The remote trigger can also be used to remove the collar. Removing the collar without the trigger requires a Hard (–20) Tech-Use Test. A serious or worse failure indicates that the collar explodes.

The Additional Equipment table should include rules for switching out the M36 Lasgun for different patterns, such as the Triplex Pattern, the Long Las, the Sollex Pattern-IX "Death Light" Lasgun (Inquisitor's Handbook), or the Merovech-pattern Assault Lasgun (Rogue Trader: Into the Storm), the cost in AE points dependent on the rarity of the weapon they're getting. At the moment, the only way to get any of those weapons is to flat-out buy them using AE points, which would leave the Guardsmen with several different Lasguns.

Do the Purity Seals that Penitent regiments can pick for 8 AE points have any mechanical effect?

Plushy said:

Hygric said:

Kasatka said:

I agree with these points as well, I'm not convinced that every single Tech-priest should be trained in Demolitions and Breaking and Entering.

Lynata said:

Maybe I'm overestimating how much interaction Player Characters are going to have with civilians. I can easily imagine friction between Fortress Worlders and the less militarily inclined population of other planets. "Why doesn't this hab have a bomb shelter? Do the lives of your wife and children mean nothing to you!?"

In general, I think I would prefer it if the Home Worlds/Origins had a greater mechanical effect, it seems to me that they've been somewhat streamlined compared to Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader.

Oh yeah, one thing I forgot.

“Fluency: While Death Worlders have learned to speak Low Gothic, they do not have time in their violent lives to learn how to read or write the universal language of the Imperium. Because of this, Death Worlders do not start with the Linguistics (Low Gothic) Skill at creation. However they are still capable of engaging in any verbal communication in Low Gothic that does not require a Skill Test.”

“Fluency: While Highborn characters have learned to speak Low Gothic, they have no reason to learn to read and write the language of the lowly masses. Because of this, Highborn characters do not start with the Linguistics (Low Gothic) Skill at creation. However they are still capable of engaging in any verbal communication in Low Gothic that does not require a Skill Test.”

I don't think those two rules should apply to some of the Support Specialists, especially when it comes to Commissars, Ministorum Priests, and Tech-priest Enginseers. Probably not Sanctioned Psykers or Stormtroopers either. Under the Rules As Written, a Ministorum Priest or a Commissar attached to a Death World Regiment would be illiterate.

Emperor Castaigne said:

Personally, I allow my Commisar and Storm Trooper players to pick their Homeworld as Schola Progenium instead of the regimental homewolrd, further setting them appart and isolating them from the regular guardman. I'd do the same for Techpriests if there was such a thing as a Forge World origin, but alas, that is probably the stuff of future supplements. Regardless, both priests, psykers and even techpriests can be both illiterate and competent in their jobs. Psykers and Priests would have learned their trade through pure oral tradition, and a techpriest would have learned its rites through blunt rote memorization and MIU communion, instead of poring over ancient data-slates.

I started a similar topic and also see most things your way, so this has already been discussed to some extend, but there were not that many opinions and no changes for now in the updates. I hope they will make at least some tweaks, but we will see. The topic was this one: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=306&efcid=3&efidt=678779

JuankiMan said:

I was mostly thinking of Commissars and Priests, literacy should be far less important for the rest of the specialists. Good point about priests/oral tradition and tech-periests/MIU communion, but I think that Commissars should be able to read and write Low Gothic even if they're made using the Death World or Highborn origin and not the Schola one.

Luther Engelsnot said:

To be honest, I'm a little surprised that there's been so few changes to Regiment Creation in the Weekly Updates. It seems to me that something so fundamental should have a higher priority.

Actually im hoping that there is a lot of rewriting and testing for regiment creation in the backround. Which will be in one of the next erratas as a big change.

There are some other tings which seem not completly right.

Like Chameloine 3 Points is absolute overpriced i my opinion ( maybe if there is the stealth skill added to the cloak it would be mor ballanced or should be lowered to 1 or maybe 2 pointa.)

Well Provisioned should give a modifier to all logistcs and commerce tests to aquire additional equipment (+5 or so)

Demolitions should add 2 additional grenades per type to the standart kit or the tech-use skill to use them maybe with a limitation to demolitions.

boooh said:

Perhaps you're a real stickler for RAW, but the chameoline cloak does give a +20 bonus to stealth (assuming of course, visual stealth). I'll grant that 3 might be a bit much (especially given the new point exchange rules), but its still highly effective. Also note, the -30 to hit them is constant and requires no test. That is a highly effective bonus.

KommissarK said:

In fact, I've never really understood how exactly camaleonine works. Do you need to remain perfectly still to earn the enemy range penalty benefit (as in Frodo and Sam when they hide barely ten feet away from the Easterling column) or you get it by just not performing move actions? If it's the latter Camaleonine is an absolute monster upgrade and in almost any firefight, the side with camaleonine will be essentially invincible.

We always played it as only granting the bonus if you were stationary during your turn. I thought that's how it worked and it seems to work just fine.

WittyDroog said:

I know it only works when stationary. The item description told me that. What I ask is how stationary, as in completely stationary or stationary as in just not moving from the spot but firing back and such. A -30 to everyone shooting at you makes you almost invincible in a firefight if you can return fire. Go prone and even sharpshooters will find hitting you almost impossible.

Hunter-Killer and Recon Regiments

while it makes sense that the regiments hanging out inside a tank wouldn't get better armour or weapons, with the hunter-killer and recon regiment types, you're often going to have most of the squad walking beside the vehicle (except in the case of recon regiments in a Chimera). Shouldn't they get some kind of better armour and better standard weapon? And how is the rest of the squad supposed to keep up with the vehicle in the hunter-killer regiment, anyways. I assume they're going to be going fast for those hunter-killer missions?

JuankiMan said:

Stationary would probably be not using your move action that turn.

JuankiMan said:

I see what you're asking now. We say as long as you don't take a move action you're fine. So a dude hiding in a cloak could totally play the sniper shooting at everyone. Yes you're difficult to hit, snipers tended to be very hard to hit in any conflict which is why they go through the trouble of minimizing their target size and using camo. That said there are many solutions to this issue if you're concerned as a GM that a player will get a fine shooting position. Being stationary, at least in my games, was quite a gamble to take.

WittyDroog said:

Yes, if the sniper wears camaleonine he'll be harder to hit. But this is Only War. Pick the Camaleonine doctrine or spend the points in the Regimental Kit and everyone gets the bonus. The heavy bolter, the plasma gun, the guy with the hellgun… everyone. Also, you don't even need to be in cover, just stationary. Against foes like orks, wild beasts and other melee-centric foes it is not that big a benefit, but against traitor guard, tau and esentially any ranged threat the whole squad is invincible unless you literally bend over backwards to come up with ways to force them to move. And you have to do this in every single firefight or else there's no challenge at all.

They should have kept the errata'd version from Dark Heresy, which simply increased the distance by one bracket (short becomes normal, normal becomes long, etc). Still very good but not as overpowered.

Hunter-Killer regiments really should be the following: One Tauros per squad or one Sentinel per squad member.

And so what if the whole group has fancy camo armor? They have to be stationary to use it properly which, as I've said before, is a gamble in many of the games I've played in. It'll serve you no good against melee targets that engage you, or indiscriminate artillery and blast weapons, and a skilled shooter can still hit you despite the penalties if properly trained and equipped. All the option does is change how the regiment fights (opting for a stealthy and stationary approach) and how the GM will deal with it. Its hardly a game breaker, just means some tactics will be harder.

And I'm still not keen on the entire squad getting Sentinels for reasons I've said before in the thread.

Disregard my last comment, I thought I made my sentinel argument here but it was in another thread.

WittyDroog said:

As I already mentioned, it is true that it isn't that great against melee foes, but the problem is that only a skilled shooter with superior training and equipment has any kind of chance to hit them. Enemy guardsmen? Useless. Ork shootas? Their accuracy was atrocius before, now their chance to hit is zero. Tau fire warriors? Even making standard attacks they are as accurate as orks.

And it goes the other way too. If the squad faces a foe wearing camaleonine, their only tactical option is to try and rush into melee (and it has to be melee, camaleonine inflicts -30 to hit even at point-blank), hoping that they can deflect enemy bullets with the bullets already lodged in their face. The players usually won't have indiscriminate artillery on hand and blast weapons are bound to miss and scatter harmlessly.

I think camaleonine is indeed a game breaker because it kills any challenge a firefight might have for the side that has it, and punctuating every firefight with an artillery bombardment that forces the players to move their butt will stop being serious quite quickly. Also the players will start to wonder if every single ranged enemy suddenly sports a telescopic sight or has the Marksman talent, the only two reliable ranged counters I can think of.

My retort is that if you, GM or Player, are allowing your opponent to remain stationary while they shoot you then you need to rethink your strategy. I'm not sure about your games, but its not like mine have six rounds of guys standing across the hall from each other just shooting until the other team dies.