Landing party

A couple more of the Rogue Trader crew reporting for duty. The pilot is one of Forge World's event-only miniatures, and the cyclops mutant adventuress is from Reaper (with a weapon swap) - I assume she's a tribute to Leela from Futurama! The shuttle is from Forge World too.

Pirates off the Starboard bow!

Well its nice to finally produce some finished miniatures, and to be honest these Orc Pirates by Black Scorpion were a joy. They have enough detail to be interesting without being overloaded and distracting. So here are some of the Piratical Orc crew that will be terrorising some unfortunates in the near future!

The Red Corsair Kaptin Kindly

Lt Pores

Able Seaman Flashwit

The Heavies

Old School gaming - my take

Thanks to Porky over on the Porky’s Expanse blog, there’s been a fair bit of chat recently about ‘old school gaming’, in particular as it relates to 40k, in the form of Rogue Trader. As someone who likes to mess around with this type of gaming, I thought I’d set down what it means to me.

Just to clarify, this is my own view of things, and not necessarily that of the other guys in the group who contribute to this blog. I’m sure they’ll be happy to chip in with their own views too. I’d also like to ensure anyone who cares that I play all manner of games, including the most recent editions of Warhammer and the likes, so I’m not preaching or trying to convert anyone away from their favourite game!

What I regard as ‘old school’ isn’t primarily about rules, miniatures or background setting, though these undoubtedly come into things with the type of game we play. To me, ‘old school’ is all about freedom and entertainment. It’s treating a game as a cooperative, story-driven activity, though one person is still actively trying to ‘win’ (because the characters represented by his miniatures are often fighting for their lives!). It isn’t competitive and it certainly needs no FAQs – the rules are just there to provide structure, not to confine the action.

I’d actually go a bit further, and make something of a leftfield suggestion. I’d say that we live in an increasingly technical, specialised society, and as such those who think primarily with the left hemisphere of their brains (that dealing with logic, reason etc) dominate many aspects of our world. ‘Old school’ harks back to a time before the rise of the ‘left brain thinking’, technological society, when the right hemisphere (that dealing with creativity and intuition) was more important than it is now. I’d back this up by observing how people fixate over the wording of rules, rather than over the possibilities they present, and how some people are always saying that ‘they’ understand the rule, but that ‘someone else’ may not.

So, to yank the steering wheel back and haul the juggernaut of nonsense back onto the hardpan, Rogue Trader is, for me, representative of everything I want from gaming. As a rules set, its all over the place, but that’s fine with me. It’s far from the most sophisticated of sets in content or execution, but its built in such a way that GMs and players can easily get under the hood and tinker to their heart’s content. Furthermore, the setting is incredibly open, relying as it does on familiar and well-loved archetypes, meaning that almost any cultural motif can be riffed off of, plumbing untold depths of creativity in us all.

For me though, the best thing about it is the way the rules continuously refer to this nigh-extinct being known as a ‘games master’ – a player who, because he actually wants to do so, sets aside his participation as a belligerent (for want of a better word) and assumes the role of ring master, entertainer, referee and conductor (as well as host and sometimes griddle cook!).

I’m a GM far more than I am a player, and I love nothing more hobby-wise than creating the whole set up for my mates to enjoy, including the table, miniatures, story and special rules. Fortunately, I have a small group of friends (and more on the interwebs) who feel the same. Other people struggle to convert their mates to this type of gaming, which is understandable, but worth pursuing. If you succeed, you’ll find this type of game is at once incredibly ‘grown up’, but at its source entirely childish, as you’re effectively entertaining, even channelling, the child within.

I may have strayed in preaching then, for which I apologise! Anyone have any thoughts on this issue?

New additions to the bridge crew!

 An Andromadan Bounty Huntress, from Reaper Miniatures.

 The ship's Arch-Militant -the 2004 'Chick Challenge' special edition miniature, sculpted by Steve Buddle, (slightly converted).

An action shot, just for the fun of it!

Rogue Trader conversion

Just finished up a 'Privateer Godwin' from Hasslefree Miniatures, which following a headswap with a plastic Space Wolves Wolf Scout is a Rogue Trader. I hid the neck join using the smallest eagle from the Forge World Imperial Eagles etched brass set, and overall I'm pretty pleased with him! I'm currently working up a retinue of odd characters, including several from Reaper's Chronoscope line, so hopefully they'll make an appearance in a battle report soon.

Pictures and new stuff...

Here are some pictures of the APC that featured in our last game. It's my first attempt at using the (then) new weathering powders that I have had hanging around in my place for ages. I think it's come out fairly well, there are areas that could be improved but at least I have around 10 of these vehicles in various guises to mess about with.



I also have some teasers for the next style of game we are going to be trying. We are going to be trying out Cutlass from Black Scorpion games, and having read the rulebook briefly I really like the the system behind the game. So here are some teasers as to which crew I will be painting up.


Finally heres a trio of minis that I will be working on in the near future.


Only a brief shot, but there is more to come as soon as I can get my hands around a brush for a reasonable amount of time!

Urban Uprising - Rogue Trader Battle Report

For this game, we used the Rogue Trader rules pretty much ‘out of the box’, (though both players decided to use Overwatch a few turns in, which isn’t technically from the core rules as this rule appeared later on in the White Dwarf Compilation. In addition, we used the vehicle rules from the Warhammer 40,000 Compendium.

The field of battle

The game was handled almost exactly as Rogue Trader was designed to play, with the GM (me) designing both sides, providing the miniatures, briefing the players and the likes. I made up each side to around 300 points, then allowed the players to add additional equipment to take the total up to 500 points each. Both choose make up a vehicle.

 

Civilians going about their business

 Giovanni Clemp's cunning hiding place

The idea of the scenario was that the Adeptus Arbites have recently established a Bastion-Precinct on Jeriko Reach. Local anti-Imperium elements aren’t happy about this, and set up an ambush. The Arbites are tipped off that the wanted rabid interplanetary bankrobber Giovanni Clemp is hiding out the settlement, and in response they initiate a house-to-house search. At this point, the rebels, with xenos mercenary hired-help, launch their attack.

The Arbites player was briefed in secret that his objective (Giovanni Clemp) is hiding inside one building on the tabletop, and he must locate him and get him back to the Bastion-Precinct to win. The player could set up his Arbites anywhere on the table he wanted.

The rebel player was briefed in secret that he could place his Smoggers (the xenos mercs) inside one building, and they would be Hidden until revealed. His rebels could enter play later on by any table edge. To win, he had to wipe out or seriously defeat the patrol.

The Arbites deployed more or less in the open, in a single group supported by their tank. The Smoggers were hidden in the building right in front of them, so it was clear things were going to kick off straight away.
 

The Smoggers unleash their ambush on the Adeptus Arbites patrol

As the Arbites advanced through the settlement, the Smoggers revealed themselves and threw their rad grenades into the street. One judge and a civilian were killed in the opening salvo, and fortunately the rest made it clear in their turn. The strength and range of rad grenades is kept secret in Rogue Trader (unless a character has a rad counter) and so the GM took charge of their effects.

The techno-savages infiltrate the settlement

Battle is joined

A firefight broke out in the centre, and several of the Smoggers were gunned down. Their Shaman decided that discretion was the better part of valour and used his Teleport psychic power to redeploy to the top of the Bastion-Precinct.

Flamed

Meanwhile, the rebels started to deploy, coming on in three small groups on three sides of the table. One rebel was attacked by a Imperial civilian (a nun no less) though the rebel made short work of her...

A nun gives a rebel a piece of her mind

Most of the Smoggers had been wiped out by the guns of the Arbites tank, and so the rebels decided they had to deal with the vehicle. They had only one weapon that could deal with it, and this was a (one use) vortex grenade! This was thrown, and missed the target, but the scatter brought it back to clip the tank’s front. Though just a glancing hit, the damage was sufficient to wreck the vehicle’s drive train and flip it over, taking it out of the battle. In the next turn, the vortex grenade expanded to three times its initial size, then disappeared, leaving a smoking crater behind.

Tank vs vortex grenade

Meanwhile, the rebels’ flamer was causing havoc, but was eventually silenced by the Arbites Psyker agent using her Jinx power to snarl its mechanism. She went on to do the same with several more rad grenades thrown by the surviving Smoggers, though she took several wounds in the process.

Arbites robo-hound vs tecno-savages

Battle across the roof tops

In the centre of the settlement, a major scrap broke out, which lasted throughout the battle and saw several of both sides fall. The Arbites just about had the edge.

 

The final confrontation

The battle was ultimately decided when the Arbites Psyker agent saw the rebel leader swaggering into town like he owned the place. Using her Teleport psychic power to charge right across the table, she engaged the leader in close combat. The rebel leader was fresh to the fight however, while the psyker agent had already taken two wounds during the fight, and she was struck down. At that point, the last couple of remaining Arbites disengaged, and the rebels swept into town.

All in all, everyone seemed to enjoy the game. As a GM, I failed the Arbites player a bit, in that his mission was really impractical with the small, elite force he had. So at the end of the game Giovanno Clemp the rabid interplanetary bankrobber was still cowering in his hiding place and the rebel techno-savages had driven the Arbites from town. Plenty of ideas for the next game there…