The Orks is Comin'!

Well, for the big battle, I made up a bunch of stats for ork vehicles as well. I didn't use most of them, because...well, you'll see later...but I made them up anyway.

Not using stats that I make up is not bad by any means. There are always opportunities down the road for these things to show up.

One thing that I tried to do was to keep it close to the 40k stats as I possibly could. Simply because it was a design challenge and because the Warhammer 40,000 rules have fantastic flavor. And if I could capture some of that flavor in my own stats, it would have been a victory for me.

Ork Blasta Tank

Type: Ground Vehicle Tactical Speed: 10m
Cruising Speed: 50 kph Manuoeverability: -5
Structural Integrity: 25 Size: Enormous (+20 to hit -20 to conceal)
Armour: Front 40, Side 30, Rear 20 Special: Unreliable – 20 to repair
Crew: Driver, Gunner, Crew Chief

Weapons:
Position: Gunner
Great Big Shoota (Front); Range: 300 to 700 m (1d5+2 AUs), Heavy, RoF: S/-/-; Damage: see special; Clip: ?, Reload Full; Special: Random Fire – Roll 1d5 to determine what kind of shell is fired.
1) Boom Shell 3d10+20, Pen 20
2) Tank Hamma Shell 8d10, Pen 0
3) Burna Shell - vehicle catches fire, 1d10 to structural integrity until put out
4) Scrap Shell – 3d10, Pen 0, Vehicle takes a 1d5 crit hit
5) Dud

Ork Fighta Bomma

Type: Craft Tactical Speed: 20m / 22 AUs
Cruising Speed: 1,600 kph / 5 VU Manuoeverability: -5
Structural Integrity: 25 Size: Massive (+30 to hit -30 to conceal)
Armour: Front 25, Side 25, Rear 20
Crew: Pilot, Crew Chief/Bomma, Forward Gunner, Rear Gunner

Weapons:
Position: Forward Gunner
Twin-Linked Big Shoota x1 (Front); Range: 600m (6 AUs), Heavy; RoF: S/-/-, Damage: 5d10+10 I, Pen 10; Clip: -; Reload -; Special: Twin-linked (+20 to hit, 2 shots fired)

Position: Rear Gunner
Auto Cannons x2 (Sides); Range: 300m (3 AUs), Heavy; RoF: S/2/5, Damage: 4d10+5 I, Pen 4; Clip: 60, Reload 2 Full; Special: None

Position: Bomma
Big Boms: Range: 0; RoF: -; Damage: 3d10+20 X, Pen 20; Clip: -; Reload 2 Full; Special: Blast (10)

Ork Stompa


Type: Walker Tactical Speed: 5 m
Cruising Speed: 30 kph / 1 AU Manuoeverability: -20
Structural Integrity: 65 Size: Massive (+30 to hit -30 to conceal)
Armour: Front 35, Side 35, Rear 30
Crew: 2 Drivers

Weapons:
Position: ?
Twin-Linked Big Shoota x1 (Front); Range: 600m (6 AUs), Heavy; RoF: S/-/-, Damage: 5d10+10 I, Pen 10; Clip: -; Reload -; Special: Twin-linked (+20 to hit, 2 shots fired)

Position: ?
Deth Kannon x1 (Front, Sides); Range: 600 m (6 AUs), Heavy, RoF: S/-/-; Damage: 4d10+20 E, Pen 15; Clip: 250, Reload -; Special: Inaccurate (No bonus for aiming)

Supa Skorcha x1 (Front, Sides); Range: 30 m (0 AUs), Heavy, RoF: S/-/-; Damage: Special; Clip: -, Reload 2 Full; Special: catches enemy on fire, 1d10 to structural integrity until put out
>

Making Up Stats for the Big Fight

So I knew that I wanted to stage a really epic and momentous battle in the Undred-Undred Teef. I So, as I did with the Battle at Footfall, I started sketching out set-pieces. One of the set-pieces I started arranging was a big vehicle battle.

Some time ago, towards the beginning of the campaign, even, the Explorers had discovered a Reaver Titan and believe me, they never let me forget it. And on top of that, one of my players went out and bought a large quantity of epic scale miniatures. Including a titan mini! No, not that Titan mini. No one in my group has that kind of money lying around. In any case, such an opportunity cannot be missed.

Look at the cornucopia of minis Nick bought for the campaign! There are troops on bases, here, mostly. As well as some tanks (grey-colored on the right). The Reaver Titan is prominent, of course.

Here is a close-up of the Titan and some tanks. I painted the Titan.

I went about making up a large scale vehicle battle using the Into the Storm rules. The only problem was that there were only a few stats for vehicles in Into the Storm. I had to make a lot of them up. Luckily, there was still the Dark Heresy apocrypha, which contains stats for vehicles. But those stats were incomplete compared to the Into the Storm write ups.

So, I had to make a number of the vehicles up. Particularly the Reaver Titan, of course.

I thought I would share them here, and perhaps save some fellow GM the trouble of having to do it. No doubt people will see something wrong in these. No problem at all. It may at least give others a starting point.

As I were, I only needed to make up three stats for the good-guy team. The Leman Russ, the Reaver Titan, and some rules for their mysterious Scylla flyer. The team bought Calixis-pattern Fury Interceptors and the Into the Storm book already had rules for those.

Rogue Trader Vehicles

Leman Russ Tank

Type: Ground Vehicle Tactical Speed: 10m

Cruising Speed: 50 kph Manuoeverability: -5

Structural Integrity: 35 Size: Enormous (+20 to hit -20 to conceal)

Armour: Front 40, Side 30, Rear 20 Special:

Crew: Driver, Gunner, Crew Chief

Weapons:

Position: Gunner

Twin-Linked Autocannon x1 (Front); Range: 300 m, Heavy, RoF: S/4/10; Damage: 4d10+5, Pen 4; Clip: 40, Reload: 2 Full; Special: Twin-Linked (+20 to hit)

Turrent-Mounted Lascannon x1 (Front, Sides, Back); Range: 300 m, Heavy; RoF: S/-/-; Damage: 5d10+10, Pen 10; Clip: 10; Reload: 2 Full; Special: Twin-Linked (+20 to hit, Fires 2 shots)

Reaver Titan

Type: Walker Tactical Speed: 5 m

Cruising Speed: 45 kph / 1 AU Manuoeverability: -20

Structural Integrity: 65 Size: Massive (+30 to hit -30 to conceal)

Armour: Front 40, Side 45, Rear 40 Void Shields: 40%

Crew: 1 Drivers, 1 Tech Priest, 2 Servitors

Weapons:

Position: Tech-Priest

Carapace Mounted Rocket Launcher (Front/Left/Right); Range: 75km (750 AUs), Heavy; RoF: S/4/8, Damage: 3d10+20 X, Pen 15; Clip: 24; Reload -; Special: Burst and Auto Fire

Position: Pilot

Arm Mounted Turbo Laser Battery x2 (Front); Range: 700 m (7 AUs), Heavy, RoF: S/-/-; Damage: 8d10 E, Pen 10; Clip: 1, Reload 2 Full; Special: Blast (10)

I'll put the ork vehicles I made up in the next post.

There's Always Room for More Figgity Bits!

Long ago, I learned that players love manipulatives. Cards, hand-outs, etc. One can go over-board, of course. No one wants to read your 50+ page of fake world history for your home-brew world. (Okay, there are some people like that. But few.)

However, just a little card or token can be a pretty neat thing to hand over to a player. That's why I came up with this:

It's a large card that I gave a colored border to and filled with text, describing an innovation that the Explorator recently came up with. It's a sort of "ion grenade" which makes technology go amuck by messing with the machine spirits. I guess I could have just emailed him this info or wrote it down in my notebook, but what I'm learning in this campaign is that that stuff often gets lost. You forget about it. We've all been there, right? Ten sessions later, the GM or the player perks up and says, "Hey! Remember my thingamajigger?" This helps as a sort of reminder. A placeholder that says: "Hey there, I have this now."

What's interesting is that in the campaign, out in the depths of space, the Explorator can do these sorts of things. In a Dark Heresy or Deathwatch game, innovating or inventing would be strictly prohibited. That said, I suppose that a tech-priest could always "rediscover" old technology.

So here's what he came up with:

Gear Shriek

Class: Thrown; Range: SBx3; Damage: Special; Pen: 0; Special: Blast (2)

Upon detonating near a technological device, roll 1d10

Roll

1 grenade fails, no effect

2-3 machine spirits confused - device is unreliable/operates erratically

4-5 machine spirits panicked - device operates continuously on current settings for 5-10 rounds

6-7 machine spirits frightened - device very difficult to use or control, -20 to -40 on rolls

8 machine spirits scared - device locks and will not activate for 5-10 rounds - this is the *intended* result

9 machine spirits maddened – device continuously one and rate/speed of operation increases and at the end of operation, the device is damaged or destroyed; machine spirit may be permanently affected (GM's discretion)

10 spectacular/bizarre event, GM's discretion