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About RonFarster

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  1. Managing to horde that many grenades might earn him the eye of the commissar (could possibly be a sign of heretic activity) Throwing a single grenade is an attack option, so he can only throw 1 per turn? i guess throwing 2 counts as a two handed attack and incurs the relevant penalties. strapping multiples together might be an option. it might incur a slight minus to hit because it would be unwieldy (grenades are shaped for accuracy) and they wouldnt all go off at once, but that wouldnt be a massive difference. also, having that many grenades wont really unbalance the game: once they're gone their gone haha, just throw more enemies at the PCs
  2. im my campaign the players are the command squad of a platoon, but no one plays the Liutenant. I find it to be the perfect setting for OW as it explains how a squad can have for example an ogryn, a flamer a plasma gunner and a psyker all in the same squad. it also means the PCs aren't sent on super mundane or super suicide missions so i can give them exciting things to do, but at the same time does not make them 'super team that does all the work' which would ruin the feel of only war. as long as one of them isnt the lt. (or if you have a responsible, balanced player as the lt.) then they actually have no authority over the average trooper unless you give it to them, though they may get respect.
  3. all seems reasonable, however for fluff reasons i would expect 40k weapons to be heavier than real world equivalent because everything in the imperium is blocky and heavy and oppressive to look at haha. i think they would have done weapon weights based off it working within the rules rather than for realism, e.g. 'well we have to make a lascannon heavier than the standard guardsman's carrying capacity cos we dont want anyone sprinting around with a lascannon...'
  4. An issue with 'only war encounters' is that players are much more squishy in only war than D&D. this means you either need to boost the players with kit (which defeats the whole point of only war: you're meant to be terrible), or limit the enemies you throw at them.
  5. So i totally second random generators and having players lead the session. if your players aren't proative then it will never work because you'll be frying your brain trying to come up with the next thing, when you could outsource that to the other 3-4 brains in the room and they'll be extra invested in the story to boot. to play only war the way i do it is almost impossible with no prep time. this is because i player only war on a large scale, with very military engagements, you know like city maps. these things are very hard to plan in advance because its hard to keep track of them. also when you have no prep time its very hard to come up with decent NPCs, and really the only good NPCs to come out of a no prep game are accidents (beautiful accidents, but you cant rely on them). i you're playing only war where the PCs are doing things on their own and there's little other guard involved (which i call "super squad") then you'll be fine, but IMO thats totally not the way you should play only war. but then, if you're having fun it doesn't matter what i think haha
  6. The current system is so "fine, fine, fine, dead." especially because of dodge, many hits don't do anything. The divide system could need a bit of work, it means that increasing toughness bonus provides a BIG bonus, because maths. Both good i think
  7. I have a priest player whose done it twice, dived onto a troop transport, cut it open and ****** up everyone inside haha
  8. yeah man the scale sounds good. the tricky part is communicating this scale to your players. i had my friend GM and we were on a ship kilometres wide and another giant ship crashed into ours and i really got a sense of the holy **** that was happening, but i've done some large scale battles and got a really small response from my group. i think the key is pace: don't just say "there are lots and lots and lots of men!!!!", embellish it a bit, but at the same time don't drag it out, you don't want players to feel like ants who have no control over the giant kid coming to fry them with a magnifying glass. take time to hit home the scale, but not too much time you
  9. Yeah, Genestealer-human hybrids are an actual thing, so i think it would be better than the technpriest knows this, intentionally creates a genestealer cult but keeps them in stasis in an effort to control them, but obviously gets in over his head and fails to keep it in check I think unless the players are on top form with exterminating the Orks, the 'nids get there during the Ork invasion, would make for a very chaotic campaign, with the guard trying to evacuate the planet's population as the whole planet goes to absolute ****. Generally most tyranid invasions end in complete destruction of the planet. If you have a group who are cocky and think they can't lose this might be a great time to put the fear in them. As the above poster mentioned, local Orks stealing and repurposing agriworld tech sounds ****** awesome. but yeah have the players meet the (soon to be) heretek, you want the players to become slightly attached to him rather than you dropping the reveal "techpriest steelus was making a genestealer cult all along! and they brought the tyranids right to you!" and then have you players be like "who??? wait who cares TYRANIDS" sorry for the disordered reply i was just writing whatever came into my head
  10. Lynata you da best I just assumed that when someone serves in the guard their family is set up but they are paid nothing I'm skirting this issue in my campaign: my campaign the city is basically in ruins and most citizens have been 'conscripted' into the guard, not as soldiers but as orderlies: large amounts of the population has been moved into the camp, the women wash uniforms the men dig trenches or are trained for the pdf (the imperium be sexist..) the children are messengers and such. but scrips sound like a really good idea.
  11. I think you need to capture the scale of this; though the players are the ones who might deal the final blow to the boss, have THOUSANDS of men attack his castle. literally, have hundres of tanks on each side and god knows how many men. one of the many things that sets 40k apart from other settings i think is the scale, so have like 10 strike teams all try different ways into the castle and have the PCs be the only/ one of the only strike teams that makes it in. use narrative to capture the idea that a whole army is going in: the PCs aren't doing the whole thing: that doesn't fit the spirit of only war. but the players might be the one strike team that gets through: clambouring over the bodies of thousands of men to get to this boss. scale my friend. that will make the end of this campaign a big one. also, remember the imperium has orbital weapons that can destroy all life on a planet, use that. have multiple strike teams (the PCs included) set up relays around teh city that together can punch a whole in the shield protecting his castle. in terms of defenders: this guy could have a personal guard of like 50 storm troopers ? the players would have to use their wits, plus support from other squads, to evade/pick off squads to get there
  12. also, re: movement. its kinda scaled anyway: weapon range is much lower than it would actually be in the real world: lasgun's effective range is up to 200m whereas most rifles today are effective up to 350-400, and most combat encounters take place at up to this distance, whereas in only war this is not the case (well certainly not my firefights haha). so if movement was increased so would gun ranges, and you would be no different to where you started except having giant battlefields which would be awkward for a gm
  13. while i agree that larger combats can be a bit clunky, sending your group up against a formation is a bit sketchy, you run the risk of losing the spirit of only war. unless your characters are VERY good, you shouldn't be able to dispatch 12 boys a trukk and a nob at all, let alone easily. i think unless you have formations on both sides, you shouldn't group the enemies into formation, but instead just come up with some simplifying house rules and some time saving tips "goon" level enemies die instantly on a righteous fury, die at 0 wounds too. if an enemy is essentially taken out of combat (e.g. stunned for 4 rounds AND on 2 wounds) just kill them if a player hits them to save time. have flash-cards for status effects, or just translate them into extra wounds on "goon" level enemies also you can simplify enemy damage by just using an average. e.g. someone fires a lasgun at the players D10+3 you just assume 8/9 damage.
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