Dark Heresy

Feral Guardsman Mir and Reverend Leonidas Smiley

Other than the sample game of Dark Heresy we played at Ruchtcon, I haven't done much with it since it came out, and I've got a Black Library edition too. Well that all changed Wednesday night and we finally jumped in to a game. Hopefully it will make a regular appearance at the table, making for a somewhat regular campaign.


The excellently painted version of Andy's Guardsman character

Excuse these pics, grr, camera phone! Anyway, due to one player's unfortunate personal issue, and another's complete lack of checking emails, it ended up being just two of us. The good news is that with Dark Heresy, two players are enough to get by just fine. Hopefully we'll have more peeps around the table next week though.

It was pretty humbling being first level and needing fairly low rolls for successes, a complaint I've seen a couple of times about the system. Thing is though, you can get tons of synergy bonuses in-game, you just have to know how to get them, when, and where. As far as gameplay went, it rolled along rather smoothly and was quite enjoyable. If you are not familiar with the 40k universe in general though, I can see someone becoming quickly lost and not having as much fun as they could merely because it takes too long to explain every single nuance. It is sci-fi, sure, but 40k has it's own unique take and feel of sci-fi.

The game often has (accurately) been described as being a cross between Call of Cthulhu and Aliens. The acolytes work for an above-the-law Inquisitor and definitely take a "means justify the ends" approach to protecting an ignorant, xenophobic, galaxy strewn humanity from the witch, the mutant, the cultist, and the alien.

Our game was a blast, we have gone incognito to investigate a mysterious death of a blue collar worker who had been implanted with highly illegal and foreign bio-organ grafts. Soon after hitting the streets ala pulp noir, we were attacked by highly augmented, mindless thugs who gave us a good run for our money. After dispatching them we sent back word of what we've encountered and hopefully reinforcements are en route.