WatchCaptainAzrael

The raising of initiates is its own reward. ;)

Damn it man! Stop doing silly things like marrying and getting on with life, we need moar stories! (nonetheless, have my wishes of lots of chapter relics and little initiates for the both of ya)

Now I wish Space Marine had Ogryn heretics to take down. Thanks Spaced Hulk, I don't ponder enough on the may-have-beens lately. :P

I'm unsure of specifics actually.

It is not just a reference sheet! It is the curtain that keeps your players blindsided to your every plot! it is the mask of Fate with which you arbitrate the roll of the dice! It is the screen that keeps those pesky metagamers from taking a peek at your notes! Oh, and it comes with a booklet with extra goodies.

Damn, this is gonna be my first honestly useful post in the new board... First of all, don't mind the characteristics bonuses too much for now. The ones you really need to care about are Strength and Toughness as they'll be the ones you'll apply to 1) boost your -melee damage-, 2) mitigate the damage inflicted upon you. Whenever you need to use the characteristic bonuses, the rules will prompt you. As you guessed correctly, that's the tens digit in your -characteristics-. Also, having an unnatural characteristics trait doubles that bonus. All marines start with Unnatural Strength and Unnatural Toughness. So say you have 40 strength. Your strength bonus will be 4x2= 8. Whenever you take a -skill test-, you roll against your -characteristic score-, not the bonus. Basic skills can be rolled against without having trained in the skill, at a characteristic/2 penalty. So say you want to roll dodge, but you haven't bought the dodge skill. You have 50 agility, but to actually dodge you need to roll a 1d100 under 25. Serves you right for being a ballerina! Oh, and download the errata from the FFG web site. Believe me, you'll want it as a GM for the sake of balance.

Good sir, can I persuade you to embark on a quest to become a contributor of official 40K fluff with an emphasis on the Unforgiven? :D I really like how you built up to this final "revelation" in this thread. You really made an example for prospective chapter article writers to aspire to here.

They're not bastards as in the sword, they're bastards because of lineage uncertainties. :)

I might as well use this as motivation for my "Bastard Swords".. Beginning with giving them a proper name. xD

I said "say NO only if you have a very good reason", not "say NO because you don't like what they like". ;) Being uncomfortable with rules mixing-up is a perfectly valid reason, of course.

Something you should always keep in mind is to avoid saying "no" to your players without a very good reason. When they perform an action that you feel might blow up in their faces, give them warning of the possible consequences and let them decide for themselves what to do. Likewise, retconning their previous feats for the sake of plot continuity is something to avoid; don't become too attached to a particular villain they end up slaying prematurely. Once I ran into all of these in the same session, and then some... My will to play vanished before the end. If you're unsure about the minutiae of a certain rule, use your better judgement to resolve the issue, and then double check the rulebook. If you're playing with friends that don't have a lascannon firmly planted up their rectum, they won't demand your scalp for not knowing the exact details of a ruling they're not familiar with either. Also make sure that you accept their corrections to a particular ruling if they're right. If you're in doubt, ask them to point it out for you. Deathwatch can become a bit dull if you don't go beyond "rollplay". Use miniatures and markers to build up impromptu tactical scenarios, describe the actions and deeds of each character vividly, pull out unexpected surprises beyond a mere roll to see how many bad guys pop up that turn. You're not limited to the NPCs indicated in the adventure either. My group's Extraction mission once had a whole session dedicated to dealing with a Lictor that had nested in an elevator shaft that provided a shortcut to the objective... And was hunting down a group of guardsmen barricaded inside the refinery. These little tertiary goals are a good source of fun and XP/renown rewards, don't shy of coming up with "subquests"! Oh, and have a look at the errata if you haven't yet. Very important if you have a Devastator with a Heavy Bolter on the team. :)