Oblivion's Edge Using FATE

It seems like its been forever since we all sat around the table en masse to play a game. Well we fixed that this weekend, still had a couple of players MIA but we had five ready to throw down in the name of the Emperor. We had played the Free RPG Day Deathwatch starter Final Sanction, and since the folks at Fantasy Flight were cool enough to put out a second free module, we picked up where the action left off.

As fine of a game that's been whipped up, which is now finally in stores after forever, this evening's Deathwatch game would be with a different rule-set altogether. The FATE system's been garnering a lot of attention as of late, and we decided to use those rules for Deathwatch, specifically the Starblazer Adventures book. FATE is a very nice system, and we've got a good deal of experience a while back while playing (and thorughly enjoying) Spirit of the Century.

Unlike a tabletop game, it's considerably harder to give a game report of an RPG. We did have fun with some miniatures though along the way, and fought all kinds Tyranid hordes from Hive Fleet Dagon. The adventure picks up within hours of where the first one stopped, so the characters are still right in the middle of the action, and a huge devourer fleet is about to land and eat the freaking planet!


FATE uses "zones" for the action, moving from one zone to another will cost the character certain successes when the commit actions. It's also a nice way to compartmentalize the action into separate theaters. Above, the central rectangle is a landing pad at the starport. Surrounding it are the other zones. The heavy bolter armed Blood Angel, as well as the Storm Warden tactical cover the eastern flank. PDF forces with their Chimeras guard against the southern direction (and subsequently will get eaten later), a fuel truck and fuel canisters are rigged to explode on the western flank, and the Ultramarine Apothecary and my character, a Sons of Minos assault marine guard the northern approach. The team is trying to hole up and secure the landing port for an incoming shuttle to get them out of there. An Eversor Assassin was also on her her way to the landing pad.

That was one change up I was happy about. I made my Dark Angels assault marine for the game, because that's what one of the sample characters were (and I happened to just have a Dark Angels army). In a sense you're kind of limited overall however since the main rule book only has six of a thousand chapters represented in it.

Using the FATE rules on the other hand you can use ANY space marine chapter you want, be it a standard one, an esoteric one, or a made up one. I had the go ahead to make my Deathwatch character from my DIY chapter, the Sons of Minos, so I was mega thrilled. The pic of him is at the top of this post on top of the poker chips. I whipped him together at the last minute out of spare bits during the pre-game chit chat and "what's for dinner" small talk. I'm happy with him, he's been primered black already and I'll get to painting him this week.

A Tyranid warrior and Genestealers rush across the maglev runway

"Get to the choppa!" Marines race to their shuttle EVAC

A Genestealer is about to get fisted, make that POWER fisted

A flying troupe of Tyranid Gargoyles