So i figured we should have a thread where people can post what is currently going on in their Only War games, any interesting things that have happened to maybe give other people Ideas for missions or funny moments in a campaign or maybe just update people on you progress though a campaign.

In my campaign so far the group played a small campaign I wrote for the Tanith 1st. So far during the campaign the players have been sent out as flank scouts for a convoy of tanith troops marching to the capitol city of the planet. The players had to brave trecherous mountain terrain and thick jungles in order to protect the convoy from blood pact. Notable actions so far is the elimination of a Blood pact ambush and an enemy convoy. Also the players accidently called in an artillary bombardment on a camp of refugees that were fleeing the blood pact (awarded medals for braveyr because they told their commanding officers that it was a large enemy camp). Next they will be headed into the city.

so what has been going on in your Only War groups.

We started with the Against the Savages adventure and are still playing a campaign in the jungle world of Skyrinne. Main enemies are Orks, although the PCs had an encounter with some misterious combined human forces (autochtons and deserters from their own regiment). They suspect that these human forces are allied with the Orks, but High Command told them to dismiss those ideas.

They've also encountered an old subterranean astartes command post (with a land speeder!). In that base they found the coordinates of the tomb of one Space Marine captain that's emplaced in Ork territory… the PCs are eager to find that tomb and its treasures…

Because of this discoveries and the fact that none of the squad members have died in 3 months of activity, they are starting to be seen as heroes by some other soldiers and hated by their Liutenant. A Comissar has been sent to accompany them from now on…

Future plans are to attack the main Ork base (if the PCs want to, try to find the SM tomb also) and then move forward to another planet/campaign.

Currently we play a special "High Threat Tactical Assault Team" (codename: Zulu Squad) what means that everyone in the Squad has carapace armour instead of flak and ripper guns instead of lasguns. All characters have Bulging Biceps and various "durability" Talents (like Iron Jaw). The Squad has 1 Operator (squad leader/tech specialist), 1 Medic (me), 1 Heavy Gunner (with a Lascannon) and 2 Storm Troopers.

We started with the Final Testament campaign, but we had to abandon the adventure, because we broke it (we did a perfect crash landing and managed to capture the Ordinatus at the very beginning - and no, the campaign cannot handle unusual Squads, so if you want to start it with one, then your GM will have some hard times with it!).

So for now, we are on the Fortress World of Mrish, trying to purge an all-female Nurgle cult. But stuff is getting weird around there. Originally, Mrish was big with "fertility enhancing" methods to maintain a steady population, and the cult sprung from the victims (roughly 90% of the women on the planet), but lately we've encountered some pretty interesting stuff, like weird superhumans fighting alongside the cultists and some sort of greater daemon who looks exactly like a human woman in the late stages of pregnancy with the compulsory Nurgle-y horns. And we also miss the usual Nurgle things, like diseases and rot - but every women in our regiment became pregnant as soon as we made planetfall. To make things worse, we also have a Radical Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor who - guess what - a woman .

AtoMaki said:

Im not sure the GM was playing it correctly, in the book it says there are literally tens of thousands of orks between you and the ordinatus when you crash land. How did you fight your way to the ordinatus?

Robomummy said:

And also, in theory the Ordinatus is not yet prepared to move/fire…

Robomummy said:

Actually, there are only 20+1 Orks plus a few hundred Gretchins. Everyone else (the Speed Freaks in the camp, the reinforcements from the tunnels) will scramble after the characters make their move. If the Squad acts quickly and can pack enough firepower, then they can make a run for it. Since our Squad is specialized to high threat/high resistance/high risk assaults anyway, we could do it. And if the PCs can reach the Ordinatus, then the campaign is good as won: they can just set the Ordinatus to self-destruct, fight their way through the chaos, escape, and watch the mushroom cloud rising from a safe distance (or not-so-safe if they set the timer too short).

So, overall, it has just happenned. The 20 Lootas were smoked before they could do any damage, the Nob was instagibed, and the Squad's four Ripper Guns just did what Ripper Guns are supposed to do: one-shot Orks. The patience of our GM finally ran out when he discovered that there are no normal instructions for a case like ours. So he decided that the victory is ours, but in exchange, we will hop to another adventure and forget that this "Ordinatus Incident" ever happened .

That management of the scene is wrong (for me) in so may ways…

But if its OK to your group, no problem. Your new campaign sounds awesome, with that Hive world filled with nurgle preggos, I'm sure will be having fun!

whoseyes said:

Let's be honest, the crash landing scene is the weakest part of the book. There are just so many opportunities for the PCs to go haywire and so little information for the GM to handle these odd situations (example: the PCs decide that they will escape the cavern through the impact hole of the dropship… ) that it is just asks for all sorts of mistakes. But hey, we (the PCs) had fun (the GM didn't though ), and shooting stuff with Ripper Guns turned out to be an experience everyone should have, so it was pretty cool overall.

AtoMaki said:

oh thats why I dont allow ratlings or Ogryns in my campaign.

It's not broken, even for your type of squad, I'd say your GM just misinterpreted a few things (I made a long post at first about which parts but then again, doesn't matter really as long as you had fun).

Let's just say it can handle unusual squads as well as regular ones.

Also note that it in the crash section mentions that it doesn't have to crash through the surface and end up with a big hole for the PC's to run out of, it can crash just partially through the surface down into the caverns. Which would leave you with quite a few hours of lascutting to get out of the hull of the dropship.

.113 said:

And this is my point. Yeah, the scene would work with an average Squad with average equipment and character builds. But as soon as something goes awry (the players don't want to cooperate with the scene in one way or another) the whole thing falls apart unless the GM employs some plot events what in turn could ruin later events, the fun of the players, the feel of the scene or will just worsen the situation. We talked about this later, and made the conclusion that killing all the officers/commissars was a bad idea on the part of the creators: the CO could give the order to break out, and the Squad complies… No sidetracking, no jumping into weird situations just breaking out as the CO said it.

Oh, and our Squad works differently than you think: for example, Ripper Guns are part of our standard kit (the regimental heavy is the lascannon and the special is the grenade launcher) .

AtoMaki said:

That's true of any published adventure (and honestly is the reason I tend not run published adventures). Though, it sounds to me like the problem is not in your stars.

But breaking out is the point, and going through the upper hull of the dropship isn't something any regular group could do, at least not in just a few seconds or even minutes. You're supposed to be overwhelmed. The original idea is that the regiment is Light infantry, but it says it should work for most other types of infantry though you should change the necessary parts to present the proper challenges (this includes a solution for tank squads who would have an easy time dealing with the initial threat unmodified). Of course you have to make a few modifications to things if you don't take the intended role, just like if I decide to send a group of space marines or even a group of primarchs newly resurrected on this mission. Still, I don't think there should be much needed for even your group.

It doesn't mention the dropship leaving a big gaping hole for you to climb out of, and even if it did, does your group bring ladders, jetpacks or grapnels? Even if they do, the caverns are sometimes mentioned to be able to have titans walk in them, how did you plan to use your grapnel to climb out?

The whole point of the start of the mission IS to flee, regroup or something, then take the ordinatus back, or perhaps just survive. The first part remains the same. If your group thinks it ruins the fun to have to flee, or even die at times, then perhaps playing a game of Imperial Guard isn't such a good idea. Guardsmen die a lot.

As for the ripper guns part, the book mentions that the place you sit when you crash barely has enough space for normal standard regimental gear, if the kit is changed somehow, especially with something bulky, it's gonna be a problem. Ripper guns are heavy weapons, heavy weapons are stored in the designated areas of the ship.

There's no official way of changing your lasguns into ripper guns as main weapons, though there are possibilities to ADD a ripper gun to your standard gear. This is how I figured you had done. However this means your ripperguns are in the other designated areas and your lasgun is next to your seat in the dropship.

The book then mentions having enough lasguns to be happy and enough for a single heavy and basic favored weapon/squad + ammo. By following simply what is written, none of you would have a rippergun considering it's not a favored weapon, but that seems a bit rash to be honest still, limiting the amount of still working ripper guns your squad and the others have access to after the crash isn't unreasonable. Also the need to move towards another part of the dropship to get them should make the ork threat bigger (As the more time you take, the more gather).

Still it would have been possible for the rest of the squad to pick one up from a fallen soldier in the initial attack without any big fuss so it doesn't matter too much.

Then again, fighting the orks, even if just initially 20 of them (or 21) is supposed to feel like a bad idea as more and more of the endless orks DO gather. Even if you somehow quickly made your way to the ordinatus immediatly, you wouldn't be able to blow it up, can't use it yourself and the orks would gather by the hundreds until you eventually ran out of ammo, food or other supplies and simply died before aid could reach you.

As for the ordinatus, it is mentioned later in the book that you CAN blow it up, but doing it isn't just clicking a self destruct button. You need to gather enough explosives from the surrounding areas and such that you have enough to blow it up, if you just break it a bit you can survive but blowing it up completely is described as basically suicide for many reasons.

So, sorry, but not even your group would succeed if going by the books.

Ripper Guns? Really? According to the tabletop, the average ripper gun is about on par in size terms with a guardsman. I know there aren't any specific rules that say you CAN'T wield one, but the recoil would knock a normal person on thier squishy flesh coloured behind, it's a SHOTGUN DESIGNED FOR OGRYNS. Does nobody in your group realise that an ogryn Is basically a pink Ork? I have one ogryn in my team, and even he thinks the ripper gun is a tad OTT. How a full squad of admittedly specialist guardsmen can wield them without minuses is beyond me. Any trooper built big enough to wield one would have to be an extremely veteran Heavy gunner, or gene-bulked to the point where he is basically an Ogryn anyway.

Had our first game last Wednesday.

Group is in the Barracks of the Lunar Class Cruiser 'Lux Aeterna' (belonging to their Rogue Trader group), on their way to battle.

Began with the group (except for the Commissar) in their quarters which they share with another squad, playing Poker for Lho Sticks with an NSC from their Platoon's Grenadier Squad and the Comrade of one of the players (with the unlucky demeanour, which explains why people liked playing with them). They are interrupted by the Sergeant of yet another squad, who waves Ortwin Ober, the PC sergeant, aside.

Turns out, thanks to some confusion with guard duties among the Rogue Trader's House Guard, one of the IG has been able to steal a crate of high quality Amasec from the Lord Captain's personal stock. Now they want to organize a tournament where Troopers have rats they caught on board the Cruiser fight each other. The owner of each winning rat would get one of the bottles. The only thing they needed now was for the PCs' Squad to find a way of distracting Commisar Vigilis (the other PC), who happened to be responsible for the area of the Barracks in which the tournament was to happen. The PCs also got the tip that one of the Enginseers with a reputation for her Poker skills had been able to get into a Poker round with some high ups in the Rogue Trader's retinue and was looking for one more player. As incentive, the PCs would get one of the Amasec bottles in addition to any the Weapon Specialist's pet rat might win.

The PCs instantly agreed, and decided to go looking for the Enginseer. Because they didn't want to risk being caught outside their quarters without good reason they made sure to have some damaged stuff with them, which they could give to the Enginseer for repair. Naturally, Darrien Alba, the comrade of the Heavy Weapon specialist with the Unlucky Demeanour, had something. A simple dataslate with a crack in the screen.

They found the Enginseer talking with the Regiments 2nd youngest Commisar, Parax Patrias, not looking too happy. Interrupting one of the meanest and most choleric Commisars they knew didn't seem like a good idea, so the PCs waited around nearby. Turns out, bringing the damaged items was a good idea, as Parax instantly noticed that they were farther from their quarters than they should be, but accepted their reasons for wanting to see the Enginseer. Leaving them a bit shaken, he departed at a brisk pace.

Taking a deep breath they approached the Enginseer. Who, it turns out, wasn't really what they were expecting. A young woman, of the lowest rank of the Mechanicus that get their trademak Implants, pretty, with very little augmentation and perfectly willing to say some very true and shocking things that would make most sailors blush about not very dear Commisar Parax Patrias. When she followed that up with telling the PCs with a dry smile that the Dataslate they handed her for repair was one created for pornographic material that would probably get them shot if found on their person, Sergeant Ober made a decision. While Weapon specialist Pallas grabbed the Dataslate from the Enginseer for "save disposal", Ober told the Enginseer the truth about the tournament. Supplementing that with some high praise of their Commisar's poker skills did the trick, and a deal was struck. In exchange for giving her part of the Amasec the group was due she would try her best to recruit the Commisar.

Scenechange to Commissar Vigilis quarters, some while later. Vigilis sitting at his desk, drinking a glass of cheap Amasec, where there is a knock at the door. In comes a heavily armoured form, introducing himself as Judge Taylor, one of the highest ranking Arbites on board the cruiser. Chatting with Vigilis under the pretense of wanting to improve communications between his Arbites and the IG on board, he in truth wants to check out if the Commissar is as suited for the Poker group as Enginseer Arcos told him. The chat goes well and Vigilis finds himself invited to the game that night.

Some hours later, with Vigilis safely distracted, the PCs enter the ratfighting tournament with Pallas' rat Pete. In a clever move, Pallas is able to bribe the medic responsible for checking the rats with a dataslate filled with pornographic material and secure some more serious combat drugs for Pete.

The first fight goes well, with Pete coming out on top without too much damage. Heartened by their victory and hoping for another easy win, they drop Pete into one more match. But an easy win is not what they get. The Pionieers from squad 1-5-3 drop a giant beast of a rat, so heavily mutated that it has grown horns and come through two matches already without so much as a scratch, named Smasher.

What follows is the most intense and fun combat we have had in months, the course of which will live on in the memory of the 150 guardsmen present and that will probably become Regimental legend (the kind the Commissars' never get to hear). Over the course of a long and grueling fight that sees all three PCs that are present spend every single Fatepoint they have on behalf of Pete, Smasher gets wittled down bit by bit and finally disembowled. In the end, even Smasher's caretakers from 1-5-3 gratulate the PCs on Pete's victory, the seemingly impossible win of small and normal Pete over the dirty mutant seen as a good Omen for the Regiment's future fate.

Meanwhile, quite some way away, Vigilis has a fun evening getting very drunk on fine Amasec and playing Poker with Judge Taylor, Enginseer Arcos and the Master of Weaponry of one of the Cruiser's Macrocannon Batteries. He ends up second, with Enginseer Arcos taking most of the wins by a large margin (rolled a 01). Though Vigilis doesn't mind his loss that much, especially after spending the rest of the night in the Enginseer's quarters.

But everything good comes to an end, and when Vigilis returns to his own quarters he finds Commissar Patrias waiting for him. The regiment's companies are policed by individual Commissar based on informal agreements between them, with the younger ones taking less and the older, experienced ones taking care of 3-4. Now, Commissar Feindt, the regiment's oldest Commissar has decided to give one of „his“ companies to one of the younger Commissars and it is up to Vigilis and Patrias to decide who of them get the responsibility. Patrias, the opposite of Vigilis in nearly every way, hates the other's style of motivating his troops, what with not being based on shooting as many soldiers as possible in the head or flogging them publicly until they looked like they had been thrown into a shredder.

They end up agreeing on a training exercise between the squads that were assigned to them. Each commissar has one squad that has the job of protecting him and helping him on the battlefield. The PCs' squad in the case of Vigilis. Whoever's squad wins obviously has the better style of Commissaring the troops and get responsibility for Company 5.

Here endeth the session.

End result: The PC Guardsmen got Amasec, lots connections and reknown, and a place in Regiment legend. The PC Commissa got some very good social connections, laid, and an enemy. Lots of fun where had

And the adventure on the cursed fortress world of Mrish continued!

The first part was hi-la-ri-o-us. As I mentioned above, all guardswomen in the rgeiment got knocked up as soon as they disembarked from the dropship, and as it turned out, the regimental commissar couldn't take this well. I think when you end up with 340 pregnant women who are supposed to be infertile (because of the chemical treatment they got when they joined the Guard), your mind inevitably wanders to odd conclusions. In our case, the regimental commissar framed the medical department and random guardsmen with fabricating an extensive conspiracy to impregnate the guardswomen, and this whole "The cult did it!" is just a retarded excuse to cover their ass.

Since our characters were combat specialists, not a single point of experience was wasted on things like Deceive and the best Fellowship in the group was a striking 31 (the Heavy Gunner, LOL). So when the investigation reached us, the Squad gave only fuel to the commissar's theory with stuff like one of the Storm Troopers had a massive f*cking spree (he had sexual intercourse with at least 30 women during 2 weeks) while the troopship approached the planet, my Medic couldn't remember if the senior medical officer allocated the proper orders and equipment to do the month's anti-fertility treatment and so on.

After we threw some sh*t into the fan, we decided that maybe we should dust off before the news reach the commissar, so we geared up, borrowed a Trojan full with explosives and told our commander that we are going to destroy a cultist stronghold, so we will be unavailable for the next few days.

We picked some sort of forum building to be the victim of our wrath. we had solid intel that the cultists used it as a rally point and weapons depot, and it had a maglev station right under the main hall what we wanted to use as an access point. We loaded a maglev carriage full with the borrowed explosives annd set it to go to the forum's station while we used another carriage to approach a nearby service station.

So yeah, the battle at the forum vented off most of our steam, as we could finally take revenge on the source of our frustration. On this note, we realized that Ripper Guns at Common availability are OP. They should be at least Rare. And if you fight against Ripper Guns avoid Point-Blank range at all costs!

Also, as we houseruled Comrades to be rip-offs of the BC Minions, there were some epic Comrade moments too: one of them charged a superhuman to save the Operator's life only to fight an impressive 9 Rounds long grapple-battle where they did nothing else but took controll over the grapple . But the Man of the Battle was my Comrade who managed to suppress 19 cultists and killed 2 other with a single Action.

After we butchered everyone in and around the forum, we intercepted a message that the Inquisitor's household storm troopers are busy besieging an rbital command hub, and they requested reinforcements. Luckily, we found a maglev ride so we are now en-rout to save some inquisitorial ST butt.

so we finished the campaign I created for the Tanith 1st. Breifly recapping events the Tanith forces moved into the city of Polaris to retake it from the Blood pact troops. after heavy fighting in the city the imperial forces cleared it out for the most part within a week and prepared to make their assault on the governor's palace where it is believed the enemy commander was hiding out.

Well it turns out after heavy room to room fighting through the palace that the commander had left the planet in secret when he found out that Imperial forces were set to take over the city, however it turns out he left a nasty surprise for the Imperial forces. As soon as the Imperial forces enterd the palace the void shileds lit up, trapping a signifigant number of imperial forces (including the players) inside. A ritual that would open a warp portal was being conducted and when the players failed to stop it daemons poured through into realspace to slaughter those left in the palace.

In a last desperate act of heroism the tech-preist of the party ran to overload the plasma generators in the basement of the building, however he got cut down before he could make it there and the players were left to figure out how to overload the system (which they did by placing melta bombs everywhere inside the room where the generator was held).

With the room rigged to blow the generators, the party decided it was time to leave when Blood pact soldiers began pouring into the hallway that lead to the generator room. The players quickly bar the doors and look around for an escape. Squad notices air venelation ducts and decide to escape through there and crawl their way to freedom (with the generators going critical there is no power to the void shields and they collapse). The Blood pact are close to hammering down the door and the squad sniper (a weapon specialist with an insanely high ballistic skill) decides to stay behind and buy them time to get out. After goodbyes are said they remainder of the group leaves through the ventelation ducts. the sniper takes down 15 blood pact soldiers before bleeding out from his wounds.

Now the players navagate through the twisting passages of the ventelation ducts and eventually arrive in the grand dining hall, just a few rooms away from the entrance. they battle their way through daemons and Blood pact in order to reach the exit but they make it and rush outside, right into the imperial lines who almost kill them thinking that they are blood pact soldiers. after reporting the situation to Gaunt himself, gaunt orders a full retreat to clear the blast radius of the overloading reacors, many do not make it in time.

After the battle the regiment mostly deals with clearing out the remaining Blood pact resistance. The players are detained by commissar Hark and questioned about why they retreated in the face of the enemy. There is a trial and the players are sentanced to penal servitude for cowardice, however this is inturrupted when a robed figure enters the court chamber. The figure announces himself to be an imperial inquisitor who had been conducting operations in the sector. He declares the players innocent of all charges and puts them under his direct command as part of his retinue.

Both the Sniper and the Techpriest are posthumously awarded the ribbon intrinsic along with the remainder of the squad for their brave actions to halt the daemons from taking over the city.