Astulae RPG in New Year Sales!

Astulae, the roleplaying game of alternate realities megadungeon, is now on sale at DriveThruRPG and RPGNow.com until 12/Jan/2015.

Here's what one reviewer said:
I found this game to be very intriguing and the concepts contained within to be new and fresh. The idea of parallel dimensions is not a new one, but there are enough unique aspects of this RPG to make this feel new, in particular the effect of magic and technology between the dimensions. The book itself has a huge amount of information for a GM to create some awesome adventures for their players. I like the fact that it does not tie a GM down to any particular play scheme, however there will inevitably be some work for a GM to do in mapping across thing such as player classes etc, to the classes described in the book. This would be no small undertaking for any GM, although in the appendix it does give an example game system to use. However I feel that this is also it's greatest strength and will allow great flexibility for adventuring.

This is the cheapest it'll be for some time, and an expansion has already been penned and will be released in a few weeks time! Hope you enjoy!

Horus Heresy Review: Night Raptor Squad

This is where the Night Lords come in to their own with one of their iconic signature units. These jet-pack marines are more than likely to be chosen by the Night Lords player in preference to the assault squads as they have some really nice options and abilities. Sadly, I just don't think they're worth the points cost - even though they fit in gloriously well with the Legion's play style.

As with other Night Lords units, we want the night raptors to be as large as possible to take advantage of the legions special rules. So go large or not at all -- this means at least 10 members, but 15 is entirely do-able if you're not thinking about deep-striking (with 15 members, the squad's footprint gets worryingly large). It gets rather pricey as well compared to regular Legion assault squads (and they're not troops either!). But they are fluffy!

The only negative thing here is no power fist for the Huntmaster. So, we've got to think about lightning claws, or power axes. The other choices for the unit are power weapons all around, and some special weapons to taste.

Here are a few build ideas.

Night Raptor Squad (10 members), 5 power axes, Huntmaster with artificer armour (410 points)

This is a squad to deep-strike in to play. Very expensive here, and strictly better to take terminators. But, this is Night Lords Raptors! Enjoy.

Night Raptor Squad (15 members), 3 melta guns, Huntmaster with artificer armour (405 points)

A kind-of tank hunting, base line squad. Out priced by other units that can do the job more effectively though.

Night Raptor Squad (15 members), 3 flamers, 5 power axes, 10 lightning claws, hunt master with artificer armour (590 points)

All kitted out. Seriously: not worth the points though. Uber coolness factor however!

Night Raptor Squad (5 members), all with pairs of lightning claws, Huntmaster with artificer armour (260 points)

This is a squad that ignores my above advice, but could potentially be built using the chaos space marine plastic raptors miniatures. 

Horus Heresy Review: Terror Squad

Flayers and torturers, the Terror Squad members epitomise the (very negative and monstrous) element of the Night Lords legion, taking fear and terror as a knife edge all to themselves.

Given they infiltrate and cause fear, the tactic here is to get them up close to the enemy and outnumber them in close combat as soon as possible (recall the Talent for Murder legion rule for the Night Lords here). They're also wanting to face off against other legion troops (not vehicles, or anything else: infantry only to take advantage of their preferred enemies). 

Secondly, since we want to outnumber the enemy, we want a large sized unit whenever possible. So, its 10 members or not at all here!

The main issue here is they are an elites selection. Hence they're competing for slots against other (more decisive) units like terminators and dreadnoughts. The only way to have them as troops is by the legion's rite of war. Hence I think they're only going to see significant competitive play when employing that rite.

Here are a few build ideas.

Terror Squad (10 members), Headsman with power fist and artificer armour (225 points)

I regard this as the baseline unit. Nothing less than this is going to do its job as well. Some players might like smaller squads for focussed fear causing, but it goes against the Talent for Murder rule.

Terror Squad (10 members), 9 with volkite chargers, 1 flamer, Headsman with power fist and artificer armour (280 points)

This is the kitted out version, at significantly more points (feel free to add a melta bomb to taste just in case you get charged by a dreadnought). The volkites are there because they're good in large numbers at close range, and the infiltrate rule is going to help there immensely. 

Horus Heresy Review: Night Lords Legion Rules

Fear and terror tactics honed to razor's edge. Monsters, even when counted as loyal (and even if you adhere to the viewpoint that they were only punishing the guilty). The Night Lords are a most reprehensible legion built upon the recruitment of the murderous (and worse) scum of the Galaxy from Nostramo.

The rules for this legion are a good reflection of the character and narrative of the marines that form a part of it.

Firstly, we have A Talent for Murder. In origin, it feels like a 3rd or 4th edition rule for how to resolve combat. But it is not. Instead, it provides the Night Lords with a bonus to wound if they outnumber their prey (ahem) opponents. The bit that reminds me of previous editions is the way that outnumbering is computed, with bulky models counting as more than one. This rule, tactically, therefore calls for maximum sized Night Lord assault units whenever possible. And it is a strong rule that cannot be understated - it is just as powerful as the Sons of Horus merciless fighters rule in its own way. Perhaps more so as it effectively means a bonus to S (or penalty to opponent's T characteristic). Therefore its on par with the Iron Hands legion rules -- with the caveat that it only counts inside of close combat. Therefore the second inference here is that the legion wants to be in close combat as soon and as often as possible. Hence we're already favouring large, swift moving units (yeah: you should be thinking jet pack equipped marines already). Really: this is a great rule that I think many players will underestimate.

The second rule is a counter-balance to this bonus. The Notraman Blood rule means a fall back distance further than other legions, on average. But on top of this, they can volunteer to fail pinning tests and flee instead. This can be used to great effect -- falling back, and then re-grouping at normal Ld values on the next turn as required. Heck, it could even help manoeuvre the squads in to better positions. Hence this might be more of a bonus than a detriment, to be perfectly honest.

Night Vision does what it does and is characteristic of the legion's home world that is bathed in darkness all the time. Little wonder these marines are pallid skinned. Combining with this, the legion Rite of War (Terror Assault) can force opponents to fight under darkness for up to the first three turns of the battle.

From the Shadows provides a cover save on the first turn of the game as an added bonus. But this is not terrific and unlikely to generate too much extra survival. Overall, it just a nice balance addition.

Finally, and significantly, is the uber-counter-weight: Seeds of Dissent. Noted for their unruly behaviour and only respecting authority (read: Night Haunter) out of fear, this rule means that when the warlord is slain they might all just say "so long and thanks for the all the fish" and turn tail to save their own hides. Very fluffy, and very annoying. The key here is to keep the commander alive as far as possible. Given that the opponent is usually needing to slay the commander, this is going to happen more frequently than not. The only way to avoid it is to ensure you kill the opponent before they do the same to you. Hence we're looking at a close combat alpha strike where possible.

The Legion has a few extra bits and pieces. Firstly, the Chainglaive (as wielded by, e.g., Sevatar) can be purchased by characters or independent characters for a small fee. An AP3 rending weapon that increases strength and goes at initiative is excellent. That said, the proliferation of 2+ armour saves on squad sergeants means that this will hardly ever be useful for challenges and the like. Hence, its probably better to ignore it and stick to a power fist or power axe all round. Only take it for fluff reasons!

The Teleportation Transponder means that terminator squads can be used with deep-strike. This sets the unit apart from other terminator units fielded by other legions. And as above, in large numbers, can cause real harm in melee.

Finally, the Trophies of Judgement mean that units can cause fear. In 40k games, fear is a bit of a non-entity as there are so many fearless units and ATSKNF rules. In 30k, fear is more significant as space marines can and do flee much more regularly. Hence, an amping up of fear across the legion can be a viable way to play a Night Lords legion detachment. Particularly in synergy with the Night Haunter.

Pretorian "Termos" Shoulder Pads from puppetswar

The Pretorian "Termos" pattern shoulder pads are retailed by puppetswar (puppetswar.eu). The clue is in the name really: all of their termos pattern shoulder pads will fit terminator style miniatures. I purchased these pads along with a few other items for use with my growing Alpha Legion warriors.

The image shows they fresh out of the packaging.

Although there are a number of resin tubes attached to the pads, they're very easy to trim off. The insides of the shoulders (see top right) are nicely curved to fit plastic terminator shoulders, but some of them do need attention to remove flash and excess resin here and there.

The quality is okay. As can be seen, there are a few issues with air bubbles (see for instance the upper left pad where one of the drapes does not come to a fine point at its terminus -- there are several like this). I can easily correct this with greenstuff, or pretend its battle damage, so not much work for me. But for less experienced hobby enthusiasts, perhaps not.

I'll be using these with the terminator sergeant I posted yesterday. With these, I hope to somewhat cure (or at least alleviate) the hunched look on the model due to the arms being positioned a bit high in comparison to the torso.

Tartaros Pattern Terminator Sergeant

One of the units in my growing 30k era army will be a terminator squad. This is the first terminator, partially built, that I thought I'd display. 

The torso is from the tartaros terminator pattern armour that was unboxed earlier. To this, I've decided to not bother with the regular arms for this terminator and just go for the regular 40k era shoulders. The right arm is a converted thunder hammer that has one of the chaos gargoyles at its head. The left arm is from the Dark Angels range, and the gaze of the head follows the (drilled) barrels of the gun as if aiming. This was about the only left handed storm bolter arm that I could locate - almost every terminator weapon is right handed, hence pairing it up with a thunder hammer is very tough without doing moderate conversion work. 

I'm not quite happy with the placing of the arms though -- in relation to the head, they make the sergeant look like he's hunching his shoulder upward which feels like an odd pose. But the curvature of the torso makes sensible placement (and indeed: pinning) of the arms a little bit tougher than it should be. Not withstanding that, I'm happy with this miniature and it has the bonus of following my maxim of "no model left unconverted".

Now, the one remaining problem is the legs. If my miniatures in this army are going to be something like "true scale", then I need to deduce a way to make this terminator true scale as well. I think the solution is not to do anything too drastic - a simple spacer between the legs and the torso might do the trick very nicely without the need to re-model the legs. I'll have to have more of a deep cogitate about this first though!