peterstepon said:

Im also rather fondly waiting for this too, since my campaign has largely been focused around the players mucking about in Ragged Helix and its going to be rather interesting to see how much the "official" description of the place differs from mine :P

Many awesome moments have been had in the area and it proved especially good way of broadening the players mindset of "we aint in Kansas/realspace anymore" to be able to walk from one planetoid to another through space and having habitation planetoids which have multiple layers inside so the neighbour above you is walking upside down on the outer crust while your "down" neighbour is doing the same thing, Australia style :P

I'm so psyked for this (pun intended.)

May as well throw out some predictions too. I'm thinking it's going to be Word Bearers in this one, and the obvious Emperor's Children. In Nurgle's tome, I'm guessing Death Guard and Iron Warriors. The whole "breaking things down slowly in siege warfare" might line up more with Nurgle, and the Black Legion is basically vanilla Chaos Marines.

I am quite excited at the prospect of more material for Black Crusade, especially the more subtle ways of the Darkling Prince. As far as predictions go, here are thoughts on the Iron Warriors vs. Word Bearers debate, because it could go either way -- it's all in how you prioritize.

The Iron Warriors could go Slaanesh because their initial sin was pride. Pride brought about their corruption and downfall. Pride drove them to value themselves over the Imperium at large. Pride drove Perturabo to scorn his brother-Primarchs. When Horus sought to win the Iron Warriors to his side, he played on the many, many affronts to their pride -- the anonymity in which they labored, their existence in the shadow of Dorn and his Fists, the revolt on Olympia. The breaking of the Imperial Palace was, for the other elements of the Warmaster's Host, an obstacle on the way to their objective -- but to the Iron Warriors, the breaking of the Imperial Palace was a victory in and of itself: That which you build, we can destroy. After years of being watching Rogal Dorn receive all the honor and the glory for his talents, his skills, and his accomplishments, Perturabo could send no clearer message of his supremacy than to tear down Dorn's masterpiece. In short: Anything you can do, I can do better. Pride is their sin, and pride is a very Slaaneshi sort of sin.

The Iron Warriors could go Nurgle because their method of warfare is the slow, steady deconstruction of siege warfare: a grinding, inexorable, inevitable nightmare, from which there can be neither escape nor mercy. They are entropy. They are the breakers of all things. They are the twilight of the most basic elements of civilization -- the wall, the city, the community. They will come and all shall be dust.

The Word Bearers could go Slaanesh because their method of corruption is the whisper, the word, the lie. They preach and they entice and they draw you in, your ruinous reward a blackened soul as a slave of the Pantheon. They twist reason from depravity and logic from madness. They draw out the worst in Men and bind it to the best in Daemons. It is the way of the Slaanesh to convince and cajole, and it is the way of the Word Bearers to kill with venomous words…

The Word Bearers could go Nurgle because their initial sin was despair. They sought a God, and when He refused their worship, they turned their devotion to the pale and malevolent shadows of the Warp. In their sorrow, they forgot that their Emperor, whom they believed to be a god, was the purpose of their veneration -- that worship for the sake of worship is hollow and self-serving. Had they taken refuge in the value of their work, in the wisdom of their God-as-Emperor and their Emperor-as-God, they might have ignored his denials of deism as the humble signs of a worthy god. Their crisis of faith was their undoing, because they gave in to despair, preferring the sham of worship over the substance of faith.

So you see, depending on the priorities of the authors, we might find either the Iron Warriors or the Word Bearers as the unaligned Legion in the Tome of Excess. Neither would be strictly wrong -- indeed, one of the best things about including the unaligned Legions in the Tomes is to provide a different perspective on the corruptive and all-intrusive nature of Chaos. The Night Lords scorn the Warp, but still their penchent for murder serves Khorne. The Alpha Legion schemes on behalf of a long-abandoned Emperor, but all such plots are the purview of Tzeentch. Chaos can be subtle, its influence unseen. I look forward to learning how Fantasy Flight will prioritize their inclusion of the last of the Fallen Legions.

-- Vyker

I'm really curious to see how the social attacks vs. PCs is going to work. I've seen 'social combat' done so poorly that it's thrown aside like AD&D 1e's unarmed combat and psionics rules. I've also seen players that refuse to play in games where their characters can be manipulated by NPCs, so I'm wondering how this will pan out both here on the forums and also in my group.

Asoral said:

You don't need Mindscourge for Labyrinthine Conundrum to be obscene. That power is just… silly. It's pretty much a guaranteed stunlock until helplessness, and any GM who allows it in its curent state is asking for trouble. ^^ Hell, it doesn't even have Attack as a subtype so you can shoot someone else with your other Half Action in the same turn. Whoever wrote that power must have been high or something. :P

I am expecting a blademaster as an archetype, Slaneesh is perfection and a true blade master is not a blood craving frenzied monster but a calculating and cunning oponent.

Like Lucious the Eternal.

BrotharTearer said:

To be frank, the one time I played that combo on my players the player shrugged off the Conundrum without Logic skill and intelligence of around 30 on the first turn. He did turn into (even more of a) blithering moron after a few rounds of Mindscourge so my mission was complete :D Ah, havent notice that it doesnt have the Attack subtype, that is indeed a little bit strange. But then again, its not really attacking when you just want to give someone something deep and meaningful to think ;)

Chop chop FFG.  Isn't it time for another preview?

I hope that this serves as a proper boost to social characters. One of the least fun things about Black Crusade is how little is in the books for them. Even the Investigation rules in Tome of Fate didn't really introduce anything new and were more of a "how-to". So I hope that we get good social combat, a system to handle cults and the different kinds of cults, new things to do with lore checks and other skills, and some items/new talents for those who fill such roles. But I understand that FFG has to print what the majority of people want. 

Which from this thread I'm expecting to be lots of new weapons, psyker powers, descriptions of areas, history of Slaanesh, and possibly a small 5-10 page section on social combat/seduction.