I find the reinforcements rules very disappointing and as they stand I would never, ever use them in my games.

The basic philosophy of any game I have ever run is "the PCs are the heroes of the story." They might not be the most skilled or powerful people in the story, but they are the heroes. The whole concept behind the Reinforcements rules throws that out. It is little more than a player initiated Deus Ex Machina, completely removing the PCs from the adventure and handing things over to some super powerful NPC who swings in an saves the day. The fact that the NPC happens to be controlled by one of the PCs doesn't change in fundamental insult of it one bit, IMO.

Now, when I first heard of there would be something called Reinforcements in DH2, I loved my (mistaken) idea of what it would be. My thought was "a Battlefleet Scarus fleet action." For those not up on their Eisenhorn, the quote refers to the sudden arrival - at an Inquisitors request - of a small army of Imperial Guard, Naval troops and (IIRC) orbital support from a Navy Frigate... all guided and directed by a main character. To my mind, that's what the Reinforcements should be... the application of Inquistorial authority to requisition assets from loyal Imperial agencies. It should be the ability call in an Arbites riot team, or a Battle Sister purification squad... up to and including orbital support from Imperial Navy ships... but the PCs remain the main characters, the leaders and controlling force behind these powerful assets. Not the players, the PCs.

I agree with this sentiment. When I first read about it I thought, oh, cool we'll get to order PDF squads and raid warehouses with heavy backup. Instead we get to play as a character that is not the player character. Fun.

A PC shouldn't ever sit on the bench while the cool kids do the heavy lifting. They had the right idea, bringing the Inquisition's authority into focus, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. "Let them play a high level character for one scene" is really kind of boring.

Agreed. I'd much rather have rules for bringing in something like an Arbite squad, a Guard platoon, or an airstrike.

I disagree. If you wanted to run reinforcements as "Kill markers" (Like DW) you certainly could. You could also treat a high level armed incursion (Such as an IG regiment) as a complete campaign change to a different game (In this case OW).

But the other side of this is, If the players have made a primarily academic and investigative party whose total firepower involves sidearms; It might be nice to have the option to swap in a "Kill team" (Various types) to deal with a major assault. I do not feel that this detracts from the characters at all! Quite the opposite in fact! It allows players to build the more Non-combatant investigator type parties and not be punished for it every time they actually NEED bigger guns! After all, It was still the PC's that hunted down and found the heretics in the first place!

There are improvements I would make to the reinforcement system though. They are as follows:

1.) Fix the math! The influence requirements for a given asset as given in the examples are wrong! For example: A mk. 1 mod. 0 DW marine is a 13000xp character. This would require an influence of 130 to call and 13 spent to deploy. That's a LOT more than what is listed!

2.) Add an influence roll to confirm availability of a given asset. You DW kill team may be off playing "Stomp the yard" with some other Xenos filth!

3.) Clarify what a given asset means! One of the examples given is a Sororita Canoness! Really?! Does this mean you deploy the entire convent in a purge? She sure as hell wouldn't be coming alone! BTW; I wouldn't want to be a bunch of acolytes undercover when a SoB purge comes through! They are so well known for their reluctance to cause collateral damage you know! Yeah! I feel safer and reinforced already!

Agreed. I'd much rather have rules for bringing in something like an Arbite squad, a Guard platoon, or an airstrike.

I agree. A andful of regular supporters would be a great thing and much more useful.

Agreed. I'd much rather have rules for bringing in something like an Arbite squad, a Guard platoon, or an airstrike.

I agree. A andful of regular supporters would be a great thing and much more useful.

If you read how Reinforcements work; A squad of arbites or Stormtroopers is certainly a possibility! Some examples would be nice though!

That was what I meant. I'd like to have 2-3 example stats for support squads that are not as over-the-top as a eversor assassin or a grey knight.

I agree that there's no shame in having the PCs be able to say "Uh, you know, Space Steve really isn't built to fight a Great Unclean One. He's faithful enough to help investigate it, but charging in with his peashooter is only going to make him a red smear. He'd totally want to stay home" and then play as a different character for the duration of the climactic battle scene

I agree that there's no shame in having the PCs be able to say "Uh, you know, Space Steve really isn't built to fight a Great Unclean One. He's faithful enough to help investigate it, but charging in with his peashooter is only going to make him a red smear. He'd totally want to stay home" and then play as a different character for the duration of the climactic battle scene

And in this case, about the only thing that WOULD do is a Squad of Grey Knights! Thats why it has to be an option! Albeit, a VERY expensive one!

Yes, it should of course be an option.

But it should be only one option of many, and it should rather be at the very upper limit of the options.

I find the reinforcements rules very disappointing and as they stand I would never, ever use them in my games.

...

Now, when I first heard of there would be something called Reinforcements in DH2, I loved my (mistaken) idea of what it would be. My thought was "a Battlefleet Scarus fleet action." For those not up on their Eisenhorn, the quote refers to the sudden arrival - at an Inquisitors request - of a small army of Imperial Guard, Naval troops and (IIRC) orbital support from a Navy Frigate... all guided and directed by a main character. To my mind, that's what the Reinforcements should be... the application of Inquistorial authority to requisition assets from loyal Imperial agencies. It should be the ability call in an Arbites riot team, or a Battle Sister purification squad... up to and including orbital support from Imperial Navy ships... but the PCs remain the main characters, the leaders and controlling force behind these powerful assets. Not the players, the PCs.

Exactly this! This is what the reinforcements rules need to be. If they truly feel the need to add Astartes, Battle Sisters and Temple Assassins to the game they can introduce them in a later supplement.

I agree that there's no shame in having the PCs be able to say "Uh, you know, Space Steve really isn't built to fight a Great Unclean One. He's faithful enough to help investigate it, but charging in with his peashooter is only going to make him a red smear. He'd totally want to stay home" and then play as a different character for the duration of the climactic battle scene

I think cases like this fall to the GM to make things interesting. Since Space Steve decided to play a physically weak and presumably knowledgeable or social character, he's signalling to the GM that he wants to do less hands-on combat things.

So when raiding the lair of the Great Unclean one, maybe there's a library that needs his special touch right now . Maybe the party can send him in advance to infiltrate the cult and commit some act of sabotage. Maybe during the battle instead of taking potshots with his crappy stub he can maneuver into position to change the terms of the engagement in favor of the PC party.

The Reinforcements system, as it stands, takes the player out of their character and puts the success of what happens on the temporary character. So now Steve is less attached to his character, because that character stayed home for all the cool, flashy moments of the campaign and he remembers all the cool stuff he did as some other character that is explicitly not his character.

So now Steve is less attached to his character, because that character stayed home for all the cool, flashy moments of the campaign and he remembers all the cool stuff he did as some other character that is explicitly not his character.

Well, that assumes that Steve found everything else Space Steve did boring just because it didn't involve combat (and if he thought combat was the most fun, why'd be make a noncom?)

So when raiding the lair of the Great Unclean one, maybe there's a library that needs his special touch right now . Maybe the party can send him in advance to infiltrate the cult and commit some act of sabotage. Maybe during the battle instead of taking potshots with his crappy stub he can maneuver into position to change the terms of the engagement in favor of the PC party.

Yeah he should infiltrate the cult in advance and help sabotage stuff. That's part of the pre-raid process though. Having broken a generator last week doesn't give him more to do during the fight.

The other suggestion- That Space Steve be doing something else during the fight simply can't solve the problem. As a GM, I only have one face, which means there's a limited number of words that can go in and out of it at any given time. Running an important fight and an important investigation at the same time is going to have serious ramifications for pacing. Either I run one and then the other, in which case Steve essentially sits out for an hour and then gets an hour all to himself, or I jump back and forth between the two, which inevitably means that each group gets to sit and wait for ten or fifteen minutes while I deal with the other: exactly enough time to get distracted or forget important details.

So now Steve is less attached to his character, because that character stayed home for all the cool, flashy moments of the campaign and he remembers all the cool stuff he did as some other character that is explicitly not his character.

Well, that assumes that Steve found everything else Space Steve did boring just because it didn't involve combat (and if he thought combat was the most fun, why'd be make a noncom?)

So when raiding the lair of the Great Unclean one, maybe there's a library that needs his special touch right now . Maybe the party can send him in advance to infiltrate the cult and commit some act of sabotage. Maybe during the battle instead of taking potshots with his crappy stub he can maneuver into position to change the terms of the engagement in favor of the PC party.

Yeah he should infiltrate the cult in advance and help sabotage stuff. That's part of the pre-raid process though. Having broken a generator last week doesn't give him more to do during the fight.

The other suggestion- That Space Steve be doing something else during the fight simply can't solve the problem. As a GM, I only have one face, which means there's a limited number of words that can go in and out of it at any given time. Running an important fight and an important investigation at the same time is going to have serious ramifications for pacing. Either I run one and then the other, in which case Steve essentially sits out for an hour and then gets an hour all to himself, or I jump back and forth between the two, which inevitably means that each group gets to sit and wait for ten or fifteen minutes while I deal with the other: exactly enough time to get distracted or forget important details.

I'm sorry to be blunt but if the adventure scenarios you design as a GM are such that a player either needs a different character or needs to sit in the corner for an hour then you are just a bad GM.

I'm sorry to be blunt but if the adventure scenarios you design as a GM are such that a player either needs a different character or needs to sit in the corner for an hour then you are just a bad GM.

We should continue this conversation in PMs, but I'd be really interested in your GMing advice, then. I've long been mystified by how to simultaneously please combat and noncombat oriented characters.

I ran a sci-fi game for many, many years which every once in a while would involve the PC's spending the session conducting an investigation which culminated in them discovering something too big to handle by themselves. At such times, they would report their findings to the appropriate authorities and 'the cavalry' (in whatever form was appropriate) would be sent in. I never got a single complaint about this. The PC's never felt sidelined because they had done their part. In a setting like 40K where everything is so incomprehensibly vast, I think situations like this would be even more common; so I think the reinforcement system was a good idea in general.

That said, I'm not crazy about its implementation. First of all, and I might just be in the minority on this, but I don't at all like the idea of the players taking full control of NPC's in lieu of (or in addition to) their own characters. Maybe it's just because I run a very character-centric game; but I've never allowed players to have full control of familiars, hirelings, or any other such individuals in any game I've ever run.

Secondly, if the PC's are up against something so overwhelmingly big that they feel the need to call for backup, I really don't see the addition of one flipping space marine making that much of a difference. I think it would be much more interesting to be able to pull in greater numbers. Maybe I'm thinking of this too much in wargame terms; but I think anything with a minimum unit size in the wargame should be available in at least that number in the RPG, and I don't think any leader type of HQ choice should be available unless they're being brought in along with other NPC's to command them. Of the examples they gave in the beta, the assassin was the only one who made any sense to me to be brought in as an individual. I just can't rationalize a Cannoness being pulled away from her entire battle group or a single space marine being plucked from his squad.

Now to those who would argue that such vast numbers would marginalize the PC's even more, that's really a matter of how you handle it. It's not that difficult to create a 'fight within a fight' in which the PC's are squaring off against an appropriately-scaled group of bad guys (probably the leadership) while the reinforcements and the lesser bad guys duke it out in a massive battle swirling all around them.

I'm sorry to be blunt but if the adventure scenarios you design as a GM are such that a player either needs a different character or needs to sit in the corner for an hour then you are just a bad GM.

We should continue this conversation in PMs, but I'd be really interested in your GMing advice, then. I've long been mystified by how to simultaneously please combat and noncombat oriented characters.

Could I have some of these PMs as well please?

I think instead of examples , there should be some sort of build/cost table of what should cost what.

Eg:

Novice guardsmen would be cheaper than a specialized unit of Arbites accompanied by kill servitors. A way to customize the reinforcements further.

I don't think the players should play the NPC. It should be left entirely to the GM.