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[DW] Blackthorn and Swordhand: OOC Thread

Commissar Molotov

By Commissar Molotov
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Reyner Venerable Brother

Reyner

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Cheers Reyner, you're playing into my hands er, a good part too. :)

 

Contemplating the response....

 

Decisions, decisions.

 

MR.

It seemed like how this was going to play out glad to be one of the ones pushing him into it :D

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Commissar Molotov Venerable Brother

Commissar Molotov

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Well, we are finally here!

 

In January 2018 I started the recruitment process for a Deathwatch game. It was a rules-set I wasn’t 100% familiar with, and had never truly played before. I could never have anticipated that three years later, it would have grown and grown to become such a behemoth!

 

Between the OOC and IC threads, you guys have wracked up almost 8000 posts. Our player characters have:

 

  • ...fought bloody battles to defend an Imperial Navy cruiser from Tyranid invaders, only to have to escape the vessel aboard an shuttle craft… which was then hit by orbital defenses and crashed to the surface of the planet. Definitely not the “hot drop” you guys expected!
  • ...defended an Imperial cathedral from a fully-fledged Genestealer Cult uprising - including Abominations and even repurposed Combine-Harvesters!
  • ...protected the Governor’s Manse from purestrain Genestealers smashing through the ceiling - only for the Broodlord to confront Greysight and steal his psychically-charged sulde.
  • ...Installed a new Planetary Governor to protect Syndalla.
  • ...discovered a mysterious painting of the Dark Lantern.
  • ...leapt into action to defend PDF barracks from armoured assault. (I still remember Varvost ping-ponging between heavy weapons teams!)
  • ...assaulted an abbatoir that was the cult’s base of operations, proceeding through underground tunnels to the enemy’s profane sanctum!
  • ... killed the Tyranid Broodlord and mourned the grievous injuries sustained by Watch-Sergeant Vaidan.
  • ...united two disparate Kill-Teams into one unified fighting force!
  • ...formed militia forces to protect the city (and killed civilians)
  • ... engaged in politicking between the disparate Imperial factions involved in Syndalla’s defence.
  • ...deployed a unique Thermobaric Shield that could delay the Tyranid invaders.
  • ...been caught in a suicide bomb set by the last desperate vestiges of the Cult.
  • ...engaged in void war above Syndalla
  • …fought in desperate hand-to-hand against a Lictor assassin-beast amidst burning fields of crops.
  • ... followed the trail of the mysterious Interrogator Ryken and seen first-hand the devastation wrought by the Tyranid species, fighting Harridans and the so-called “Shroudmistress of Vinov.”
  • ... poisoned a Tyranid digestion pool and weakened the Bio-ship.
  • ...destroyed a hydroelectric dam
  • ...recovered the fallen Brother Thorvald and discovered evidence that Interrogator Ryken brought the Deathwatch to Syndalla on false pretences.
  • ...executed an Imperial Navy captain and prevented the decimation of the defenders of Syndalla.
  • ...deployed via boarding torpedo into the heart of the bio-ship.
  • ...watched helplessly as the mysterious Dark Lantern entered Syndallan space, unleashing a withering fusilade of firepower against the Bio-ship.
  • ...navigated through capillary-corridors and sphincter-portals, reaching the digestive tracts and finding the shattered ruins of the Voice of Thunder.
  • ...battled across the shattered wreck, finding a Teleportarium within the vessel and using it to reach further within the vessel.
  • ...fought a titanic combat for the Synapse Chamber, facing down the Tyranid Warrior-clade and the fearsome Tyrant Overlord.
  • ...enjoyed a parade in your honour.
  • ...discovered a Rogue Trader in league with the perfidious Aeldari.
  • ...discovered the dark truths of the Badab War.
  • ...lost one of your brothers, potentially forever?

Not too bad! (Just another day in the office, really!)

 

Episode I: A City Aflame

The first episode of Kill-Team Blackthorn (as it was then) was based on Final Sanction, the introductory adventure released by FFG. The adventures are relatively bare-bones, so I added quite a bit in order to provide some challenges for the players.

 

Feel free to check the adventure out here: FINAL SANCTION

 

Part I was largely the same, although I had players fight to defend the Voice of Thunder rather than starting the mission with its destruction. When the players fought to defend the cathedral, I kept the character of Captain Ascote (or Captain Haltreme, as I renamed him) - but in this case he wasn’t a hidden Callidus Assassin, as I thought that added a complication I would have to deal with throughout the mission.

 

Part II dealt with the players having to locate the Genestealer cult. I used parts of the adventure - particularly the Thorsholt Manor (Governor’s Mansion), the House of Echoes (Astropathic Tower) and the PDF barracks. Nineswords was amazing helping me to create a map for the city of Beregar, which was based on the old map of Vogen, from GW’s old Cities of Death campaign - though I used the names of the districts from the FFG adventure.

 

Part III was the fight against the Broodlord - but I moved the Broodlord’s lair from a Promethium works to an Abbatoir - which I thought fit an agri-world better and allowed for some cool set-pieces, such as Tyber fighting in a room of frozen grox-corpses, and Akkad dominating an alpha bull-grox!

 

 

Episode II: Belly of the Beast

 

When it came to planning Episode II of the game, I looked at FFG’s sequel to Final Sanction, Oblivion’s Edge. As an adventure it’s heavily combat-based (but then this is Deathwatch, after all) but it needed some tweaking in order to make it useful. Bringing new players into the game necessitated a new Kill-Team, which led to the story expanding to include Swordhand and the Strike Cruiser Xenocide, along with the concept of the Deathwatch trying to redeem their honour in an assault on the Strike Cruiser.

 

I also used the Rogue Trader adventure Frozen Reaches, the first part of the Warpstorm Adventure trilogy. This has the crew of a Rogue Trader vessel overseeing the defense of a planet against an Ork adventure. I cribbed a lot of detail from here - the triumvirate of a Rogue Trader, PDF General and Imperial Navy Captain were taken from here. I had planned to run the whole campaign to defend the world using crunchy rules from this game, but it was something incredibly time-consuming and something that I think would work far better around a table with an in-person gaming group.

 

Part I of Oblivion’s Edge is a no-holds barred retreat from the planet, as the Tyranids attempt to destroy the planet. I wanted to convey something more akin to Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s Helsreach - so I used much of the first part of Frozen Reaches. I did plan on incorporating more elements of Frozen Reaches - my original plan was for General Wrex to be dissatisfied with Lord Vortis’s governance and to try to carry out an armed coup. He was going to attempt to seek the support of the Deathwatch to take control - and if not, I had even planned to use the Only War adventure Eleventh Hour to have Wrex strand the Deathwatch in an area of Syndalla that was due to be hit with an orbital strike. The Deathwatch would have to escape and then get their revenge…

 

The Rogue Trader Desiato is a character I’ve had knocking around for a while (named for Hotblack Desiato in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) - I had always thought that the players would come to like him, and he would become an erstwhile ally to the Deathwatch. Unfortunately, almost from the start you guys were quite hostile to him!

In Post #1144, I tried to hint to you all that Desiato was aware of the Badab War, and the fall of the Astral Claws:

 

"We all have our secrets," Captain Desiato nods, considering the Dragon's words - and apparently heedless of the threat, "wouldn't you agree, Brother Akkad?" There is a buzzing weight to his words, as though some news of great import rests beneath them.

My hope was that Akkad would learn of his status as a traitor, and have to fight against the Tyranids with the weight of that knowledge upon him - alas, it was not to be! When Montesa and Ghent boarded Desiato’s ship they were suspicious of a strange presence upon the ship, but were not able to divine the situation. My intention here was that Desiato had an Eldar outcast upon his ship. This was particularly going to be interesting for Ghent, whose homeworld had been destroyed by the Eldar. The plan was for the Deathwatch to receive greater hints about the Dark Lantern and what awaits in Episode III. Luckily, Noctus was able to pick up that plot thread at the end of the episode, so I was able to get elements of it into the plot.

 

I had even planned that the void-war for Syndalla would be conducted using Rogue Trader rules, but I had to scrap that as being a bit too over-ambitious even for me!

 

The side-mission to Vinov was conceived as a way in which to show the stark consequences of the Tyranids. This was largely taken from Fall into Darkness, an adventure from The Jericho Reach. I took bits and bobs from that mission, chopping and changing to suit what I needed. Interrogator Ryken was a little nebulous and it took me some time to transform him from the lily-livered fop at the start of the game to something perhaps a little more sinister by the end!

 

When it came to the assault on the bio-ship, this was primarily taken from Oblivion’s Edge, though the opportunity to tie back to the Voice of Thunder was too good to pass up! The adventure suggests running battles through the vessel, with the opportunity to encounter human survivors. (indeed, the adventure has human Storm Troopers alongside the Deathwatch.) Unfortunately the “unprecedented times” of 2020 meant that I let that section drag on too long and I felt it was important to get us on to the finale. (Especially with my plans for Episode III!)

 

 

Fantastic Players

Without a cast of players, this becomes nothing more than glorified fan-fiction, as opposed to a living, breathing adventure. You have definitely kept me on my toes!

 

A huge, heartfelt thank you to Dosjetka, Slips, Mazer Rackham, Steel Company, A.T., Nineswords, Xin Ceithan, Noctus Cornix, Morovir, Reyner and Apologist for helping me make this into something truly special, and a highlight of my hobby!

 

I can't wait to show you guys what we've got in store for Episode III!

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Mazer Rackham Venerable Brother

Mazer Rackham

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Thanks very much to Commisar Molotov for GM'ing , it was great to finally play, and at a well run and interesting table full of twists and turns, making full use of some fantastic material and original, fresh layers of paint! :smile.:

 

Congratulations too to the other players, who put their talents of storytelling and drama to superb use.

 

MR.

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Commissar Molotov Venerable Brother

Commissar Molotov

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Do we have any XP to spend after killing the boss? I can't remember seeing it, I'll need help picking skills if we do :)

All the current Blackthorn and Swordhand players have an additional 2000XP, which should take them all to 9500XP. I will need to check that I've put the most up-to-date purchase history sheet on your character sheets, though.

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