AtoMaki said:

Hm, you're right. Into the Storm just ignored the 3rd dimension. There's a few things missing in the Into The Storm rules that are present in OW (critical hit tables for different facings) and some moreadvanced repairing but that's about it.

Even if the Valkyrie is Imperial Navy, they are involved in IG actions quite frequently. Add in that hostile flyers are in use by Orks and (especially) Eldar of all varieties, and they would do well to put out the flyer expansion sooner rather than later.

Also, some flyer love would give the Operate (Aeronautica) Skill some credit too. Because nobody likes useless skills (I'm looking at you, Operate (Voidships)).

Would love to see a Navy book further down the line. The Imperial fliers are some of my favorite vehicles in 40k, and the potential for fun with a party of pilots would be amazing.

I hope we get the Valkyrie further down the line, although in a game they would likely be plot transport of a save-the-day gunship. If the latter, they're… two Heavy Bolters, an Autocannon, and some missiles, right?

Really hope the Tauros is in Hammer of the Emperor. It just isn't right to have Elysians without them.

Not terribly related, but are there Penitent Engine stats anywhere?

Plushy said:

I do hope we see a book covering Naval assets (both vehicles and character options) that operate with the IG. A modified Operator that can be used either to fly aeronautica or to call in air strikes or fire support from orbital assets would be awesome.

Speaking of that, did I miss rules in the main book for calling in regular tube or rocket artillery?

HappyDaze said:

Check the Indirect weapon quality. It says that if an artillery weapon has spotters, then its crew may fire it with better accuracy.

AtoMaki said:

Do the spotters need any special Skills/Talents, or is it (incorrectly) assumed that anyone can spot and call in fire?

HappyDaze said:

The spotter needs Tech-Use to operate the Vox-Caster and probably Awareness/Scrutiny to give exact coordinates but the latter is only handwaved in the description.

AtoMaki said:

Taking a page out of DW. The spotter must succeed on a challenging tech use test to operate the Vox and then make a ballistic skill test (Modified by +10 [i think] if the spotter has a rangefinding device such as an auspex). If successful, The strike lands on target. If not it scatters as specified in the weapon description (Which for orbital strikes is alot!).

My first reaction was: holy crap my gaming group will totally become the feral space mongols that burns and loot their way through my campaigns…

The second one was; what the heck does the 1st and Only have to do with Calixian Sector?

Luis Mittelsmann said:

The same thing that the Tallarns, Catachans, and a couple other regiments have to do with the Calixian sector, they're popular and the fans demand them.

Psion said:

Okay, but there are five bazillion regiments of Tallarns/Catachans/DKoK out there. One could end up in the Calixian sector. But there is only one Tanith regiment what is quite busy with this Sabbath crusade thing on the opposite side of the galaxy. Though, I must admit, in the Warhammer 40k universe this isn't a huge problem - Warp travel could have some funny side effects…

AtoMaki said:

Whenever faced between the rule of coolism and realism, coolism always applies in 40k. That and maybe GW retconned the Sabbath crusade like they do everything else.

Edit: Only War could also be set in a different chunk of the timeline.

DrNo172000 said:

The Sabbath crusade is the product of Den Abnett and not GW's. So I don't think that they could retcon it that easily (and just because an RPG rulebook expansion).

DrNo172000 said:

Won't work. The Tanith First and Only is in the Sabbath crusade from the beginning to the end. It is their big Destiny Warzone, so to say. The only way I can see their appearance is that they pull out an Al'rahem (Tallarn officer who was technically "cloned" by the warp).

Luis Mittelsmann said:

Nothing, but we don't all play in the Calixis Sector. Just because it's the default setting for the game doesn't mean it's the only setting available.

Haha I was just joking about the retcon though GW once told me a model a they had for mail order at one time never existed, so seems they can even Retcon things out of real life existence.

I guess the rule of coolism applies to the the Tanith then. Of course you could always run your game in the Sabbat Crusade as stated above.

AtoMaki said:

H.B.M.C. said:

Oh, I meant that he is a "real" author and not "just" a fluff/codex-writer, like, he still writes Gaunt's Ghost books, so if GW messes up the Tanith fluff, then they will mess up the whole Gaunt's Ghost line. And that's a big thing, not an oldcrons-newcrons case. And doing it just because FFG wants them in its expansion book is kinda' silly.

AtoMaki said:

This is kinda ironic really, given how much Abnett retcons and contradicts the rest of the 40k fluff just for his books.

Ultimately, GW can do, or authorise anyone to do, whatever they want with any part of the fluff, and that includes the Tanith.

AtoMaki said:

I always find this an odd view, given the amount of modern 40K canon Abnett has created. All you have to do is look at the Armory chapter to see his influence. Words like vox, augmetics, lho sticks, obsurca… all Abnett. I know a lot people don't like Abnett because his take on the 40K universe don't jib with the old Rogue Trader and 2nd edition days, but the simple, obvious truth is that due to his popularity as an author, Abnett is the new canon.

LuciusT said:

Not entirely - he was the one who used to, and still does, sometimes, seem to think that a couple of dozen people can crew a frigate (from Ravenor), and many other things that are flat out incorrect in every other source of 40k info.

He has influence, but he's by no means the largest contributor to the fluff.

While he definitely takes liberties with the setting, Abnett (and maybe Sandy Mitchell) is the only Black Library author who has even come close to making it feel lived in. His characters, while maybe not the most original, are interesting and instantly relatable. His approach to technology and eveyday life in the Imperium makes it seem more believable. Before Abnett the constant hyperbolic nonsense of this setting was an indecipherable braindead mess.

I prefer Sandy Mitchell's stuff - given it contradicts less of the fluff from other sources, I see it as the superior 40k fiction (I prefer him to Abnett in general too, though I do like Abnett's stuff, but I think it being good fiction, and it being good 40k fiction, are two different things).

Once again agreed. Once Mitchell got it into his head that tech-priest robes are red, red, RED (yes, by the time of The Emperor's Finest, they really are), I haven't yet seen him break canon. He especially respects humanity's place among the least scary 40k denizens who often manage to pull through, but never take that for granted.

(And it's kind of funny how one of the most humoristic takes on the 40k universe manages to stay true to it most often)

Anyway, more importantly, many of us don't care at all about using the default setting. These books have rules that work for just about any time from shortly after the Horus Heresy to far past the current tabletop timeline. So people want rules for cool stuff.

Just like the Deathwatch series (particularly Honour the Chapter) has rules for tons of chapters that aren't likely to be in the Deathwatch at all, or in whatever sector they made up for DW. (I for one appreciate that it has most of the chapters required to run a Badab War campaign, for example.)