Hello All!

This is my first post as a user on this forum, but I've been following all the 40k forums for about 4 and 1/2 years now. I've read pretty much every FFG 40k book cover to cover, but only in the past few months managed to find a group of people interested in playing. Since we're all new to the system, I'm planning on running two or three one-shot adventures to get people familiar with the system and the "flavour" my 40k universe is going to have. To that end I've come up with an adventure that will be mostly combat.

The players will all be Guardsmen in the PDF for Fenksworld (this is set in Nova Castillia, not Volg or Magnagorsk). The group will breach a warehouse with the rest of their company, follow a tunnel with a couple more fights, and end up in a cavern. This will (hopefully) be the first 3/4 of the adventure, and should be a fairly straight "dungeon crawl." The goal for this section is to build up the players' confidence in and familiarity with their combat abilities.

When they reach the cavern they are going to find it filled with Genestealer Hybrids, (I'm going to use the Mutant profile in the Core Rulebook) which have torn the rest of their platoon to shreds. Their sergeant will then sacrifice himself to give them a chance to get back to the rest of the company, and get cut down by a purestrain Genestealer (using Creatures Anathema). From this point on the adventure will transition to a horror style, with the players getting pursued by the genestealer back up the tunnel. The adventure will culminate in a showdown between the players and the Genestealer back in the warehouse.

With that in mind, I have a few questions about the adventure I've laid out

1. I'm planning on having the group (3-4 players) play Rank 2 Guardsmen. The enemies will be at most 6 or 7 at any one time, using mostly the cultists profiles. Is this about the right amount of enemies?
2. I'm hoping to teach my players in addition to just the mechanics that using cover is a good idea, and that sometimes the best option is to run. Do you think I've done a good job with that?
3. Any other considerations and thoughts that I might not have thought of?

This is pretty much just a synopsis of the adventure, I have the whole thing written out, and could attach it if you guys would like to see it. I'm planning on doing as much as I can to conceal what group is actually at play here, so that instead of knowing what they're up against ahead of time when the Genestealer pops out it'll be a real "oh, crap" moment.

Thanks guys, I've had a lot of fun reading this forum in the past, and look forward to hearing from you!

First thing you need to bear in mind is that you're using a rulebook that's not designed for extensive combat. Combat is meant to be potentially deadly. If you do the rules correctly, the party could easily wipe in the first fight

A guardsman with proper guard wargear and the element of surprise should be able to fight twice his number of thugs with stub-guns, so that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

The 'stealer will be more of an issue, though. Expect some idiot to try and hold their ground. Have no compunction about having the stealer gut him too. It is, after all, a one-shot. Equally, don't forget fear . Early Dark Heresy player characters have poor willpower for a reason - the closest they will have ever come to a purestrain is the stupid little drawing in the Uplifting Primer, so the reality should cause utter terror and one or two to soil themselves. Especially since there boys are PDF.

Note that I agree with using the mutant or mutant monstrosity profile. Mention claws and misshapen or even extra limbs, but don't say anything about 'hybrids'. Unless they have Forbidden Lore (Xenos) - which they won't, they're guard grunts - then a genestealer hybrid is just another sort of mutant. Until they actually see Corporaptor Primus in its chitinous, lethal glory, they won't realise there's actually a xenos threat - and even then, they won't know what it is, they'll just know it's not human. Especially when it starts dodging semi-automatic lasfire. Describe the genestealer without using the word 'genestealer'. See how long it is before someone realises (out of character) what it is.

. Equally, a genestealer cult allows some of the rest of the company to potentially be infected - they'll look normal but be secretly mind-controlled by the brood. Which might lead to an equally scary situation where they (whilst running from the stealer) meet up with another bunch of 'survivors'.

Thanks for getting back to me, I appreciate the feedback.

Pixels - Believe me, I'm well aware of how dangerous combat can be. I've actually set up the first combat such that I can figure out a good combat balance early on- If I want more enemies I can have more focus on the players, and if they are having a very hard time I can have other squad members assist them.

Grendel - I'm actually working with a fairly genre-savvy group of players, so I expect that things will go pretty well. I'm planning on playing up how many hybrids are there, and have them see a full-strength squad get torn apart when they arrive. I'm definitely going to be playing down the hybrid nature as much as possible, ideally they'll arrive at the cavern still thinking it's a chaos or mutant cult. I'm also pretty sure that as soon as I mention "four arms" the jig's going to be up.

I like the idea of running into another bunch of "survivors," I'm just not sure whether I want to use it. If things are starting to get stale I'll probably throw it in, but I also like the idea of fostering the sense of being alone and over their heads. I'll definitely think on it before I make a final decision.

How long has this genestealer cult been there? I mean, if there's a purestrain knocking about then it's likely at least one full life-cycle, in which case there could even be a Magus or two to vary things up. Introduce them to the dangers of facing psykers.

And you can have the hybrids have 2-4 arms each. Varying it up might throw them off the scent of "genestealer" if they don't all fit the bill.

And if it's not terrifying enough, you can always throw in a Lictor to really **** them up