The Golden Aegis Affair - Potential Gaming Day

[Radu Lykan]

Still the 11th, the "friendliness" should be fun with some quicker turns if we only have one guy each to worry about

[MarcoSkoll]

I'll admit to not yet having rung WHW, for the reasons mentioned before (it'd be easier if our tables were together), but if we're still short, I am prepared to ring up and beg.

(Otherwise, I'm kind of hoping that we might be able to beg an extra table on the day, because someone hasn't turned up or something).

[Cortez]

We'll be fine. There's nearly always unused tables and people who haven't turned up.

Biggest problem will be snagging a table for lunch in Bugman's!

[MarcoSkoll]

Just as a heads-up, it's possible I'll be slightly late. I've got a tight connection to make at Tamworth, so if my first train is running late, I may miss the change and have to take a later service.

If I'm on time, I'll get to Nottingham station at 0928 (if anyone wants to wait and walk together - or taxi, dependent on weather). If I'm late, it'll be 1003.

[Radu Lykan]

Lord borak, his mate, my brother in law and I are aiming to get there for 10, I am driving so bar any mad traffic we'll be on time

[Cortez]

I'm using my car this time. Hopefully there won't be any major holdups.

[mcjomar]

I'm driving and staying at my parents up in north notts, so tomorrow's drive should be easier.
I should be there.

[MarcoSkoll]

I have to say, despite having been a bit sceptical about a Marine heavy event with single characters, I very much enjoyed myself today.

I hadn't brought my NPC Guard (although they would have been more useful than the Rhino that I did bring), so we didn't really have enough bad guys to run two tables even after we begged a second one from the staff, so we eventually all ended up just playing the Marine campaign as a big group.

Though I didn't have a proper marine ready, my fake (namely Sister Rhian) managed to not be completely useless. (I was fairly happy with her tweaked faith points rules - while not enough to keep up with the Marines, she did still manage a few reasonable feats).

It also helped that it's probably the easiest journey I've yet had, so I'll probably be switching over to today's choice of trains wherever possible.

[Cortez]

It turned out to be a very enjoyable day yesterday. Like Marco I was sceptical about an all Marine event (and I also lacked a marine, so used an upgraded Inquisitor Cortez), but it worked quite well, although the games had a very different feel to the normal Inquisitor games, more like a large scale version of kill team.

The scenario itself was interesting, although we did all feel that the environmental penalties (-30% to shooting and only 4 actions per turn) were far too strong, especially considering the large numbers of cultists we were facing. The cultists were also surprisingly hard to kill with 5 injury levels, (although that might have been our lacklustre dice rolling) I think a slight modification such as system shock tests for 2 or more levels from one injury would help, as did adding in being knocked prone and stunned results for more serious injuries.

We modified the 3rd scenario slightly to make it more of an endgame mission as we wouldn't have time for the 4th scenario, so decided to use a Chaos Marine as the cult leader. He looked impressive until he got ganked by Banus and Cypher.

[MarcoSkoll]

although the games had a very different feel to the normal Inquisitor games, more like a large scale version of kill team.

It was quite different. What I find particularly interesting is how games like that can end up with an invisible GM, where everyone and no-one is really in charge of it.

although we did all feel that the environmental penalties (-30% to shooting and only 4 actions per turn) were far too strong, especially considering the large numbers of cultists we were facing.

The large numbers of cultists was because you rolled a 6 on the D6 every. dang. time.

But yes, as we discovered during the first game, the penalties were enough to make shooting fairly useless compared to just getting half a tonne of power armoured Marine into close combat, at which point the Marines were generally rolling things like 2D10+9 damage against opponents who had nothing better in response than trying to smack them with lasgun butts. (Although one did manage to smack Cypher in the head, his secondary heart meant he effectively ignored it).

Quite often, the Marines were capable of doing all five necessary injury levels with one hit in melee, something that was all but impossible with a bolter.

I think it worked better after we figured that the melee probably needed balancing more than shooting, dropped the BS penalty (which was largely putting Cortez and Rhian out of the game, with their lower BS and inability to resort to bone-shattering strength values in melee) and instead upgraded the soldiers/cultists to assume they actually had weapons with some chance of getting through power armour in melee.

He looked impressive until he got ganked by Banus and Cypher.

He probably could have done with a rather meaner profile if he was expected to be able to take on several marines at once. Still, Banus caving his skull in with a power maul made for a fitting end for the day.

[Cortez]

It was quite different. What I find particularly interesting is how games like that can end up with an invisible GM, where everyone and no-one is really in charge of it.

That's the advantage of having a written scenario to work from. I've observed this before when playing some of Gav's other campaigns such as the Lachesis affair. All you need is someone to take care of the turn order and everyone being willing to look after their own section of the tabletop (for such things as npc attacks etc.), which speeds things up considerably.

One thing that the event definitely inspired in me is a desire to create my own space marine character, something which hasn't really interested me before.

[mcjomar]

For my part I really enjoyed it although I do agree that it was a bit killteam-ey. In a good way though.
But after I'm done making new Cypher and the ultramarines I think I'm going to build some more appropriate marines maybe.
Certainly a little less quick than cypher although using pistols in combat felt as if it made cypher a little less lethal than a normal melee weapon which would have benefited from that strength bonus. But his speed certainly helped compensate for my curious ability to roll low numbers on my action dice. Although even when we bumped up to full speed I still managed to roll the occasional single action for a turn.

[Lord Borak]

Aye, Bannus took the Marines skull! Super happy with that. Although, yeah, that Chaos Marine needed to be harder. He was Speed 6, WS84 and str150+ after armour......... He just got unlucky. Bannus Managing to smash apart both his Chainswords in short order didn't help Matters. Poor Arkus of the Black Legion has been killed in both his outings lol. I think I AM going to make his combat squad for next time. It will be challenge of epic proportions the next time we do an all marine game.

I did think the Marines were going to stop everything but the first game they were blunted by what can only be described as a crack unit of hardened veterans defending a building with TripleX lasguns and a Meltagun. I also don't think any of us had used Marines much before so were perhaps overly cautious of getting shot up. However when we did get into combat and ripped peoples heads off we all kinda got how to use Marines (run in, kill things).

On the way back we (Me, Gary and Jamie) were saying that perhaps we should have had one Marine issuing orders and mini-quests for each marine to accomplish. Yesterday everyone basically did what they wanted. If we actually had someone issuing orders it might have felt more like a kill team.



Regardless, Pictures.

1st game.......... apparently I only took 1 photo of the first game


Second game...








Third game...








Poor Marine (I forget his name) is getting surrounded. Or is he bravely drawing the forces of the arch enemy to him in order for his brothers to accomplish their mission? More Cultists are on their way and they never seem to stop coming no matter how many he kills (STOP ROLLING 6's STEVE!!!)

.....He gave up and sacrificed himself by pulling the pins of two grenades and jumping into the midst of the Cultist and Guard horde.




More pics to follow.

[greenstuff_gav]

glad to hear the main aims of the campaign worked; the plan would have been for each marine to have their own mini missions inside sceanrios and the choose-your-own-adventure style scenario structure and penalties for winning / losing removing the need for a GM
of course, my ability to write narrative is always a hindrance but offset by you need something lighter at events to stop getting bogged down

with the absolute powerhouse marines are i struggled how to balance the NPCs; shame they were a bit harsh!

[MarcoSkoll]

I've observed this before when playing some of Gav's other campaigns such as the Lachesis affair.

The Lachesis Affair as it was run at Dark Sphere is a bit more complex than that, as I'd done some modifications to Gav's original notes.
(I condensed the original four rounds down to three, and tweaked things a bit so I had different variations of the scenarios for variety).

That said, I suppose the low dependence on a GM during games was effectively in there from the start (although I had gutted out the original plot read-outs and turned them into things like the evidence cards and such).

One thing that the event definitely inspired in me is a desire to create my own space marine character, something which hasn't really interested me before.

It's got me considering hold of another Marine model so that rather than deciding whether my single model should become a Salamander or Astral Jackal, I could do both.

But after I'm done making new Cypher and the ultramarines I think I'm going to build some more appropriate marines maybe.

Cypher didn't actually feel particularly overpowered as Marines go. Although I'm not really a fan of using canonical characters in Inquisitor, Cypher's mysterious good/bad guy nature is oddly suitable.

He gave up and sacrificed himself by pulling the pins of two grenades and jumping into the midst of the Cultist and Guard horde.

I wouldn't say "sacrificed himself", I'd say "slightly scuffed his armour".

The name was Lycus, by the way*.
* I'd like to pretend I remembered this myself, but I actually just looked it up on the left-over turn order cards.

with the absolute powerhouse marines are i struggled how to balance the NPCs; shame they were a bit harsh!

I think we generally figured it out towards the end of the day - doing more damage, but taking less. Seeing as they're able to respawn pretty quickly anyway, it doesn't really matter too much if the Marines make short work of them, but they do need a chance to do some hurt.

~~~~~

I too failed to take many photos, and some of them were total rubbish, so here's some of the ones I could vaguely rescue:

Game 1- Cypher leaps onto the roof:


Cypher would later claim that the guardsman on the left committed suicide when he saw him coming. Sort of true - he rolled badly to dodge and fell off the roof:


Back to back badassery:


Game 2 - Arriving on the scene. (Although this was the only even half-salvageable photo from this game, it does nicely convey the size difference between an Astartes and a Sororitas):


Game 3 will just be a montage I call "Arkus' bad day":