So I have been asked to run another game of Only War for a group of people who are unfamiliar with the system and rules. I have come up with an Idea to make a sort of "basic training" RP to get them started on learning the system but also not taking away from gameplay. This will be a 2 hour session length mission that will take players through the basics of how to do basic actions and combat. This will also feature a little bit of narrative with them needing to have all their equipment for inspection or maybe trying to persuade the quartermaster for some extra gear that got lost or stolen. Just a fun thing to teach people the game while not just sitting and explaining rules to them, it also might teach them some outside the box thinking for when they are actually doing the campaign.

I haven't started writing it yet but I will soon and maybe if it is good enough I will use it for my other groups as well. It will be split into sections

I- Obstacle course

- Basic Movement

- Climbing

- Swimming

- Running

- Fatigue

- Players use learned skills to race on course

II- Weapon + Armor training

-Types of weapons

-Firing a weapon (S/R/A)

-Combat actions

-Damage

-Types of armor

-Armor Damage Reduction

-Players do combat training by unarmed fighting (or using nonlethal weapons)

III- Vehicles

-Types of vehicles

-Driving a vehicle (not necessarily something that players need to know how to do but useful)

-Vehicle Combat

-Attacking a vehicle

-Attacking with a vehicle

-Armor and Structural integrity

This is what I have so far, if anyone has anymore Ideas let me know. I'm thinking of also including XP for completing the training (not much but enough to show narratively that they might have learned a new skill or something), probably something like 50xp per section. Hopefully this will help reinforce mechanics for GMs and people who have played before and be a fun way to learn the rules for new players.

I will post more as I write but with finals coming up I probably wont be working on this for a few weeks. if anyone has anything they want to include feel free to add to it or give me ideas.

I think it is a great idea for a number of reasons above table and in game. This might also be a great way to introduce a number of NPCs, have players start building relationships with drill instructors, officers, other specialists, and so on, and then seeing how those relationships change when they are all deployed to the war zone together. Maybe the rifle instructor who was never satisfied with how one PC handled her weapon finds that she saves him in a desperate gunfight, or a sneering tough-talking commissar who did nothing but talk down to the PCs during training finds himself terrified during actual combat and relying on the PCs to guide him back to base.

Boot camp! What a way to go! If you want to go this route I recommend giving it a "Starship Troopers" type feel to set the mood of 40k. IRL infantry training recruits are actually taught to fight with padded staves (To simulate Rifles) and Faux knives. Also Bayonet drills (Charging and striking against a hanging and potentially swinging bag.). Just some thoughts.. Looks good!

To be honest Starship Troopers is what primarily inspired this idea.

I don't recall where I read this, someone told this to me once, but keeping with the Starship Troopers idea make them feel like they can and will kill anything with their lasguns like it was the greatest weapon in the galaxy; make them shoot a few scared/confused gretchins/squigs (calling them 'Greenskins' of course) so when they meet Orks for the first time and they don't fall as easy with a couple of shot..well, welcome to the Imperial Guard.

Of course, the players need to feel as though they are the finest soldiers in the galaxy by the end of training before landing on a planet and getting half their regiment massacred out the drop ship doors.

Ok so we have Unarmed combat training, use of heavy propaganda (and some misinformation), and setting up Narratives with NPCs in the regiment. Keep it up with the Ideas, these are some good ones.

I plan to have the majority of the training take place in an unused cargo bay on a troopship. If anyone here has read the black library book Fifteen Hours, something like that training scene. For those of you who haven't read the book they are basically practicing in a cargo bay/ large unused room on the ship and they are practicing breaching and clearing a building that is just lines drawn on the floor to represent walls.

Since it is the imperial guard expect violent punishments for those who make a mistake. For example in the book a guardsman forgot to pretend to pull the pin on an imaginary grenade he was throwing during a training exercise, he was then beaten for this mistake.

Anyway I will be posting it in sections as I write it, keep up the good ideas.

Perhaps also setting up the 'darken' side of Regiment life, i.e black market; bookie taking bets on anything and anyone; Lho contraband, the Sarge that just so happen can get you that armsec or something extra on the side..more narratives, but at least the PCs can see that social skills can be of use even in a 'war' game

You could also have some mess hall scenes where the PCs can talk out what they have gone through and also get to overhear some chatter from other guardsmen about the enemy, other regiments, etc. Conversations from more 'veteran' guardsmen could drop real hints or outright falsehoods. "I hear we're deploying with the Golsavian 23rd, buncha thieves and liars the whole lot. Wouldn't turn my back on 'em for a blink." Then you could flip some of those stereotypes on their head by having them encounter noble of troops of suchandsuch regiment, or seeing suchandsuch tanks and they aren't pristine, in fact they look like junk heaps, and so on.

I'd also subject them to a 4 hour lecture from the Departmento Munitorum on the correct way to requisition new items. This of course should be utterly incomprehensible and packed full of unexplained abbreviations and suspiciously similar form codes.

"Now we only accept form IGM/435/Ia if your CO has countersigned section 24 or indeed if your Commissar has signed in his place as marked on subsection 2:4 with your CO's signed consent. Now this is not to be confused with form IGM/435/1a which of course needs your Commissar to countersign section 23...." to be read in the dullest monotone you can manage.

If you have access to a copy of The Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer or indeed the Imperial Munitorum Manual it helps as they have already made some of the forms for you.

Of course you don't need to RP the full lecture but just to give them a flavour and to prepare them for when they try to acquire extra kit.

I can include a little segment about requisitioning supplies and the chain of command (aka the chain the commissars beat them with until they follow commands).

also I already have the uplifting primer and Munitorum manual (actually I have a few), in past campaigns I loan the players a copy to reference and occasionally in-game there will be a surprise inspection by a commissar. I also give them a +5 bonus to tests if they say the correct prayer while making a test.

Great idea. Combat against gretchin as a final test sounds like a great idea. Depending on how mean you are, you could award a +3 bs to the best scoring soldier and a -3bs for the worst performing soldier. Players like rewards and this shows who mastered thrir weapons or not.....

I would also add target practice on criminals or servitors to show the brutal nature of 40k and life in the IG.

And add some religious indoctrination or a interview with a priest.....

And a rival training squad, always out to make them look bad with the honour of leading the final parade or first attack at stake.

A rival squad would also be great! Plus you can make a few scenes during the real fighting where they're in trouble, and then it's a matter of the PC being about 'Humanity vs them' or being selfish and "let's 'em die!"

Currently writing now that my exams are over. I will each section when it is done so people can go over it and edit it. This will be a short campaign designed to only take a few hours and take place entirely on a troopship. There really wont be any xenos because it is unlikely you will find any to fight en-route to the battlefield. Since this is supposed to be used for more than one campaign I am hesitant to include a lot of narrative and backstory sections with squad rivalry within the regiment, there will be some sections but the details will be up to the GM to determine. If GMs want to make it the beginning of a larger story feel free to do so but the way it is written will be so that anyone can just play this and incorporate it into the story.

As for a rival squad my plan was for the combat section to have the final part be a mess hall brawl between some of the squads.

Just a note: You might want to play this intitial game using DH (1 or 2b) since these characters are actually Conscripts at first level. That way when they reach 2000xp they could 'Graduate' into one of the OW guardsman roles. (and the players would actually understand how they got there! )

Remember: OW guardsmen are supposed to be veterans so playing them in "Boot camp" might not be appropriate.

Not necessarily, they are trained guardsmen but even trained guardsmen go through training in transit to the warzone. Again, this is designed to teach people the rules for Only War, not as part of some larger campaign that I am running. Using DH rules wouldn't really make sense since they are supposed to be learning Only War.

Also I think the system is well enough established to say that newly rolled characters are on about the same level as conscripts.