The way I imagine it, Chain Hammer is just a bunch of chain axes strapped to each other to make a larger biting side. Can't really think of any other way to make it work, and you gotta agree that such a weapon is indeed extra Khorne-y

My prediction:

-Deathgaurd paired with Iron warriors. Patience and toughness, both will work at you till they win, no matter how long it takes. Siege and Decay hand in hand.

-Emperor's Children paired with the Fallen Angels. While unaligned, the fallen angels tend to opperate inside imperial territory and are extremely adept at deception and that just fits the slaanesh theme in my mind. That and they keep secrets… dark secrets… and the slaaneshi greater deamon is named the keeper of secrets.

-Black Legion and Word Bearers paired in the chaos undivided book (assuming there is one), the two legions who regularly unite the powers of the different chaos gods under one banner. One focusing on the legions and cultists, the other focusing on the hosts of deamons and other warp spawned baddies, with back ground packages introduced here for the other major chaos marine groups that are not actual legions, like the red corsairs.

Further predictions:

-Nurgle book will have rules for deamon princes or some other simular thing.

-Slaaneshi book will have rules for turning the masses to the dark side.

-Chaos undivided book will have full rules for unleashing your black crusade upon the imperium.

As to the accusation that the black legion is nothing but failures: I believe someone pointed out that most of the black crusades abadon led achieved thier objectives. Their goals were not to wipe out the imperium in one fell swoop. I would say instead that the black legion is generic, and as the deathwatch book included the ultramarines, the epitome of generic-ness, I doubt they will leave out the black legion.

Speculation is fun. It's even more fun when you already know the answers.



But Fallen Angels? Interesting guess. I've always thought of the Fallen as less of an organisation and more of scattered individuals or bands. They're probably too few in number to include as an Archetype though. In your opinion, how would they work?

BYE

H.B.M.C. said:

I'm partial to making a Forsaken and using my starting acquisitions on a Plasma Pistol and broken Power Sword

-Deathgaurd paired with Iron warriors. Patience and toughness, both will work at you till they win, no matter how long it takes. Siege and Decay hand in hand.

That is super clever, I like that. I donno about the Fallen in Slaanesh, I'd like to see a Fallen archtype though, it's one of the cool "lore" things. I think the Fallen would be a better fit with Black Legion in the maybe never to happen Undivided. Deamonhosts or the possessed would be pretty cool.

I'd also like to agree that the Black Crusades were goal oriented or at least seem to be. I'd like to think Abaddon is the heir to Horus and not some hack cobbeling together the forces of ruin to run around a bit raising Cain. But the truth is it could just as easily him getting out played and grabbing a niffty toy and fleeing back to the Eye saying "Yeah getting this giant space weapon and my Planet Killer shot down were the goals." I tend to lean more towards the "This was one small step in my plan" just because I choose to.

I was wondering what special abilitys of the new archtypes.

H.B.M.C. said:

As I believe thier defining characteristic is operating within the imperium, thier specials would be based on that. I'm not sure how exactly though. If FFG were to ever make an archetype intended to be used in a crossover game they could use these guys. I agree that the fallen are less of an oraganization, but so are the players in black crusade. That Thousand Sons Sorceror you rolled, well he left his legion to seek his own fame and fortune. The fallen are all that way, but so are most player characters, regardless of origin, so thematically they would fit in just fine. As for few in number, I'm not so sure. Didn't something like half the legion fall? My impression was that there are enough fallen angels out there to out number most individual space marine chapters, they are just all scattered everywhere and you never run into more than a handful at a time max.

It seems to me though that your question was really "Fallen Angels are small fries compared to the Chaos Legions, so why would FFG ever even consider them for an archetype?" Because they are significant to the lore, and because it could bring the systems closer together. I am a fan of crossover games, and even multi level games where the players are playing two opposed groups. The Idea of a dark angels deathwatch hero, hunting the same player's black crusade fallen angel is just awesome.

The real reason I would say they might not, is that the fallen angels would have less reason to hang out in the screaming vortex, and more inclenation to move throughout the imperium itself. In my opinion anyway.

PS: While reading this through before posting I had an Idea for thier special: Start with Peer (Adeptus Arbites)(Astra Telepathica)(Adeptus Mechanicus)(administratum)(Imperial Guard)(Imperial Navy)(Rogue Trader)(Planetary Defense Forces)(Planetary Governors) and Enemy 2 (Dark Angels). Any time they call in a favor from any peer, after the favor is used they must make a challenging +0 infamy check. If they fail, A Dark angel Interogator chaplain has tracked them to that contact and "disappeared" them. Each time this happens the next check is at a cumulative -10, and the level of the peer is reduced by 1(if it gets to 0 the peer trait is lost as all your contacts within the organization are dead), and this counts as a failing. When the penalty exceeds your infamy, the interogator chaplain catches them during their next compact, in addition to any other complications that may arise. Killing the Interogator chaplain and escaping counts as completing the primary and secondary objectives of a compact in regards to gaining infamy, and it resets the penalty to this infamy check, although it does not restore lost peer traits.

An idea for the Unaligned book: a Chaos sect with a black and white skull heraldry and a sacred number of 11, whose mighty champions terrorise the aligned servants of the 4 Chaos gods. Maybe they even rescue an Eldar goddess from the other Chaos gods. ; )

Now about this Tome of Blood book, how much of it is fluff related to Khornate cults and factions? I'm dreading page after page of magic weapons and yet another new and completely unnecessary weapon trait/quality to remember.

guest469 said:

I really hope we get an Unaligned book with Word Bearers and Black Legion. Adding in something for Malal/Malice would be really unexpected and cool. Also hoping we get more races down the line (Daemonhosts or Loxatl would both be neat.)

Any idea when we'll see Tome of Blood on Drive-Thru RPG or the like?

I reckon that the Word Bearers would be in the Slaanesh book with the Emperor's Children - the idea of beauty, purity of action, etc, could be seen to apply to the Word Bearers and the purity of their belief in the Chaos Gods.

I always got the impression that the Black Legion were the "generic marines", that wouldn't really see their own release.

SgtColbert42 said:

It's usually a month or two between the book release and the PDF release, so I'd say end of January, probably around the same time as Only War.

Available now on DriveThru and I'll be getting it later today - my early Christmas present to me

DW

Does the berserkers seem like a good class to you guys. I am not sure he is worth the experience points, his special abilities require the expanture of a fate point and only last one round, what do you guys think?

What are the Legacy weapon rules like?

@Haroon

The abilities seem fine to me. Avatars of Slaughter means you'll likely get that single round of running that you need to close to melee, which will be the point where the Berzerker is most vulnerable. I know we've had that little problem in a Imperial Guard game (DH rules) - one feral world guardsman mistakes himself for a Khornate, charges from cover and tries to cross two rounds worth of featureless no-mans-land while under fire. Suffice to say that Fate Points were burned.

With the trait and some enhancements, however… hoo, boy.

-Run for a -20 penalty to ranged attacks
-Hard Target for another -20
-Avatars of Slaughter for yet another -20

Combine that with Sprint and by the end of your second turn you can be in melee with an enemy 72 metres away from where you started, assuming a 4 AB. Add on Preternatural Speed (and the necessary 50 agility) and you upgrade that distance to 108 metres.

In many cases, Avatars of Slaughter is overkill considering the -40 you already get with Hard Target. But then again, when you go up against your first Tau regiment, you'll thank Khorne for it. Essentially, the trait mitigates your one worst weakness.

Unstoppable Wrath, on the other hand, is just overkill. The opposed strength test to negate a Parry is nice enough against Eldar and the like (and read technically, without a successful parry, your chain axe is safe against that pesky Power Field as well!), but the second use is the more powerful here: Once per combat, you can ignore a Critical result of Death . Others have to burn Infamy for this, you just spend a single point. Can I get a "Hell, yeah!" please?

@OJTheJuice

They're pretty nice. Essentially, your signature weapon "levels" with you (measured by infamy and corruption). The more powerful the weapon already is (measured by traits like melta, felling, warp weapon and the like), the harder it gets to turn it into a legacy weapon and daemon weapons are right out, although it is possible to turn a legacy weapon into a daemon weapon (though that makes it even harder to control).
Legacy weapons evolve their own traits, which are a little like the daemon weapon traits.

The negative here is that the character must rely on that weapon and that weapon only. Whenever you use another weapon, there's a chance you lose the legacy weapon traits and have to work to reacquire them, although it's acceptable to dual-wield the legacy weapon with a regular one.

They're divided in to melee and ranged though. So if you have a Legacy melee weapon, you won't get dinged if you shoot at something. Though the GM is encouraged to levy penalties or bonuses to the roll, depending on extremely mitigating circumstances (like your Legacy weapon can't hurt the target, you don't have it, etc.).

I can honestly see the Legacy Weapon rules being of popular use in the other games, no matter what people feel about crossover. Because of what it says right in the book, about how one of the great things about them is you're not always running around, trading up for the next better weapon to come along. Though obviously it would need some/alot of house ruling, to work in a way that wasn't inherintly Chaotic.

And as for Malal, wasn't the Dreadaxe one of his daemon weapons, way back?

Blood Pact said:

Maybe way way back 20 plus years ago, yes, but Malal no longer exists in 40k canon for legal reasons.

Something that I really don't like about Legacy Weapons is them only reducing the sundering chance from power weapons to 10% instead of eliminating it outright. 10% still means that after about ten parries from either side, the weapon is destroyed and you have to reforge it, which likely isn't possible during the mission. The alternative is to switch to a weapon that can't be sundered, though that may destroy your connection to the legacy weapon as well. Either way, if you're up against an enemy with a power weapon, you're pretty much screwed.

The funny thing is that this applies to exactly those who use the Legacy Weapons as intended: Martial champions (likely aligned to Khorne, so Parry rather than Dodge) who prefer their old faithful low-tech weapons (aka chainaxes) to the newest nifty toy.

You could always install a power field on your weapon if you are concerned. Could make it an epic upgrade quest of doom. Or you could spend one of your starting acquisitions on a power weapon and then elevate it.

The part that irritates me, and is getting house ruled, is that, in the system that finally gave us the sidearm talent, and in the universe that makes the sword and pistol pretty iconic, legacy weapon sets can not be a one handed ranged weapon paired with a one handed melee weapon… makes no sense at all to me, and as I said in my games I'm house ruling it.

It seems to me that it's because Legacy weapons are quite powerful, and outside of a matched set you can only have one at a time, ever.

A sword and pistol, no matter how thematic for 40K, is not a matched set.

I disagree. Infact thier example of a set of legacy pistols are two different weapons. In my opinion the legacy weapon rules are meant to bring life to the idea of the signature weapon. A person should be allowed to make whatever thier signature weapons are into a legacy weapon. It makes no sense at all to say no you cant do that, you can only do two pistols or two swords. At least it makes no sense to me. I doubt anyone will ever convince me otherwise either, but I am content house ruling it for my own games.

Honestly I dont see a problem with it either. Its not like Im suggesting that someone be able elevate the entire contents of thier arms coffer, just the weapon set that they normally wield.

You could always install a power field on your weapon if you are concerned. Could make it an epic upgrade quest of doom. Or you could spend one of your starting acquisitions on a power weapon and then elevate it.

Yup. But then we wouldn't have the iconic Khorne Berzerker who likes his chain axe much better than any fancy-shmancy power weapon. As I said, the point of a legacy weapon is to keep a low-level weapon competitive during the later stages of the game.

The part that irritates me, and is getting house ruled, is that, in the system that finally gave us the sidearm talent, and in the universe that makes the sword and pistol pretty iconic, legacy weapon sets can not be a one handed ranged weapon paired with a one handed melee weapon… makes no sense at all to me, and as I said in my games I'm house ruling it.

Agreed. Sword&pistol is quite iconic to 40k, especially for the kind of characters that are embodied by PCs. I previously thought that the "Legacy Weapons and Two Weapon Wielding" box would make exactly this possible, but you're right that it says both weapons have to come from the same category. Duly noted and ignored.

For those of you worried about Legacy Weapons without power fields breaking, there's always the option to get the 'shattering' option under Bellicose.

Or the alternative is to not worry about what is otherwise a minor mechanical crunch issue and concentrate on what Legacy Weapons are meant to be and what they represent to your character.

BYE