Peacekeeper_b said:

Eh, I always thought the Tau or the Eldar made better ninjas.  *shrugs*  That works too although to be fair, REAL ninjas never picked up a katana while they were working; that was something that westerns applied to them.  They also never wore black most of the time either, better a peasent's dress then the stage hand's garb we usually associate them with.   So... I guess you could say the Inquistors themselves are ninjas.

Barl said:

I could never get into the minis either to be honest.  There's this one guy in our gamers club named Rob who owns a Imperial Fleet (Battlefleet Gothic) and half a chapter's worth of Space Marines WITH Guard auxilieries.  Figure he gave us for how much it cost... $2000 dollars.  Yeah.

I can see Eldar (Dark Eldar) Ninjas, but Tau? With their crappy close combat skills?

Now give a kroot a pulse rifle shoulder mount and a stealth suit, and you have instant 40K predators!

Peacekeeper_b said:

Heh, why not considering they imported the Xenomorphs from Aliens already?

Imperial Assassins are ninjae

Dezmond said:

Yes, I guess more or less they are Ninjas, but they usually lack all that mystical ninja magic mumbo jumbo and faux-asian fluff.

And Vindicare really are not Ninjas, being snipers and all.

But they are pretty close.

My problem is, in order to model on of these elite assassins in DH/RT would take like a gazilllions talents and skills and traits and you have to remember not only that you have them all but what they do.

After many encounters I find myself looking at the villains stats and going, oh yeah, forgot he could do that.

Sometimes, I just wish the talents were more streamlined or even removed. Sometimes I just wish these abilities were just represented by stats.

Sometimes. But not always LOL.

+++++Yes, I guess more or less they are Ninjas, but they usually lack all that mystical ninja magic mumbo jumbo and faux-asian fluff.+++++

I dunno. They do hang out in temples.

 (Yknow, looking at these movies it does seem that, even at risk of further feat bloat, a ninja needs a talent for 'missile surfing'.)

While I admit I was largely kidding, it's nice to know the system DH and RT uses is THAT flexible.

Peacekeeper_b said:

That I can see.  The first time I saw a 20,000-odd character my brain just gave up trying to keep pace of all those Talents, etc.  

Kage

I view WH40k RPG as a nebulous thing.  To me, RT IS support for DH.  DH is just INQ with a different rules set.  I still use a lot of stuff'n'fluff from INQ.  Why wouldn't you?!? The background fluff from INQ was awesome, especially the Thorian Sourcebook.

I guess, to me...DH is merely a Campaign setting where the players work for the Inquisition.  RT is another campaign setting where (generally) the players are pirates with a charter... 

It's all good and I just can't satiate my lust for WH40k RPG materials.

Did Dezmond just have two posts without mentioning how cool Space Marines are?

Congrats Dez!  :)

To jump back and agree with the OP, I love what Fantasy Flight are doing with Dark Heresy and looking forward to Rogue Trader with great anticipation! Sure, there are flaws and quirks to the rules system as well as the gaming universe, to be honest, but IMHO there aren't many games out there where the subject has been approached with the same skill,enthusiasm and respect for the source material that FFG have put into DH, effortlessly (or so it seems) continuing a game I've wanted to play for decades. My fav rules are often fast, easily handled with some crunch to them, but more importantly "built" for tweaking and actual roleplay. I've harboured misgivings about WHFRP since its first incarnation, way back, but somehow DH does the same thing, but slightly better, and suddenly it all comes together. I can do pretty much what I want with the published material, which continues to inspire me. The books are so crammed with juicy stuff I don't bother to read them all at once, saving bits for later, when I need a fresh injection of ideas.

Boy, that sure came off as total fanboy adoration. Well, I'm not sure I am one. But hell yes, I'm completely sold on DH.

Thanks, guys! Rogue Trader will be a blast.

Xenos PCs... Later... after Deathwatch, I think... a grand campaign that unites the Imperium, the Tau and the Eldar in a desperate struggle against the forces of the Great Enemy or perhaps the Tyranids or Necrons. (Or as DH has taught us, new foes...)

Players can be any of the previous products career paths (DH Acolytes, RT Explorers and DW Marines)  plus new ones designed specifically for each xenos race.  Yes, this flies in the face of a lot of fluff, but players are screaming for it. I say FFG should let us have it. 

The character interaction would be amazing.  The bickering over tactica between the Space Marine and the Dire Avenger as they scout the enemy positions, the Hrud trying to out-scum the Scum while the Tau Medic complains that she can't find a human heart beat while trying to save the Arch-militant's life... it would be the stuff of legends. 

I know that this looks a lot like some kind of fanboy raving, because that what it is. I'm a fanboy, and I'm raving.

The whole line would consist of 2 books.  One for players with all the career path and gear, and one for GMs with the actual bad guys and the timeline of the campaign.  When it was all over, the PCs would all be grudging friends, but still enemies because of racial tensions in the galaxy. With the big threat destroyed, the galaxy goes back to mutual destruction.   

It's like Enemy Mine, but on a grander scale.  

Jephkay said:

Great movie!  And yes, great comparison.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Can't say I look forward to Deathwatch at all. An RPG where the only thing you can play is a power armoured superman whose only purose in life is killing things? No thank you. We get enough dice rolling with the combat happening in Dark Heresy already, and if you're going to have whole campaigns that only concerns warring Space Marines then the game won't consist of much else than dice rolling and looking at stats.

Space Marines are great as NPC's though. They can be extremely scary opponents or they can be much needed back-up for normal human PC's. They are so inhuman in thought and action which makes them mysterious and interesting. But as player characters? I can only see ridiculous power wanking in that scenario.

Hopefully FFG will realize this and concentrate their efforts in releasing loads of source materials and adventures for Rouge Trader and Dark Heresy, instead of doing a Space Marine RPG.

Space Marines already have games that cater to them: table-top battle games and board games. They wouldn't fill any function what so ever in an RPG. I mean the Adepta Sororitas can BARELY provide interesting roleplaying possibilities in Dark Heresy in spite of being so restricted in thought and character. A space marine would provide nothing. All they do is kill things and feel happy about killing things. They are too simple minded to be interesting. Like the "human" variant of Orks. Why would anyone (besides people obsessed with dice rolling) want to play an Ork campaign, where all you do is fight, fight and fight? The same thing would be true for Space Marine campaigns. Fighting, fighting and more fighting...

Varnias Tybalt said:

I disagree. I think Space Marines would be full of RP opportunities. SM are more then just killers. Read some SM novels and comics. And besides, its all based on the chapter of the marines.

They are already divided into "classes" with Scout Marines, Tactical Marines, TechMarines, Chaplains, Apothecaries, Librarians, Officers, Pilots and so forth. They have a natural built in Enemy with Chaos Space Marines. Some of them, like the Ultramarines, actually have cultures of art, history, music, literature, government and inheritn reponsibility to a given world.

While the mass purpose of space marines is combat, expansion, crusade and conquest, its also to protect, lead, inspire and provide hope. In Deathwatch they will be taking on a inquisitorial role. To seek out and destroy the xenos, solve the chaos plagues and investigate heresy.

Truth be told, I will still prefer Dark Heresy (which I also prefer over Rogue Trader) but Im looking forward to Deathwatch just to see another aspect of the 40K universe.