It's that time once again, folks, Heavy Metal Chivalry is back. What is it? A weekly (Schedules permitting) game using the Only War Warhammer 40k RPG system to play Imperial Knights, AKA big fucking stompy robots and chivalry set to a heavy metal soundtrack.
The storyline is stupidly simple. The players are Freeblades recruited by various important and wealthy individuals in a homebrew sector to go find an expy for the Holy Grail and the main military might of the expedition to find it. A lot of shit has gone down since our last storytime, so let's get to telling you guys all about it.
>>46264682
You've got my attention OP.
Last I remember you guys had just gotten recruited by the Inquisitor for a mystical quest or some shit after kicking a bunch of ork ass.
>>46264682
Our story so far, up to session 3:
Session 4:
Picking up immediately from where we left off, we'd found a Knight-sized power sword held by a statue in an artificial lake, in an ancient treasure vault held by filthy pirates. We claimed the treasure and the sword, and a brief but fierce argument about who should have the holy blade was settled when the Magos-Explorator informed us that we were all being fucking dipshits and that the sword would choose its wielder.
Nika bowed out, due to being the ranged Knight, and that left myself and Morgaine. Things were settled by a quick roll-off in the interests of speed and fairness, and Maksimov happened to roll the highest, and traded out one of his gauntlets for the sanctified blade. We retired to our rooms to prepare for combat and pray, with Maksimov sealing his private chambers to meditate on the Emperor and his House's holy grudges. He also had the name of the blade revealed to him in his meditations, the holy blade Galatine.
This was rudely interrupted by Tertius, the oily servant, informing us that our presence was requested on the Prydwen's bridge. The news was grim, a warp signature on system edge had been detected, presumably the pirates coming back to reclaim their station, corroborated by the fact that no ships had actually been detected entering the system. The obvious conclusion was that they were using stealth systems to sneak up on us. Our obvious plan, to hit the planet and retrieve the next starmap using the Caliburn Tacitus, was unfortunately derailed by a further interruption.
Out of fucking nowhere, a howling gale ripped through the bridge, throwing papers everywhere as every skull on the bridge screamed in utter horror. Words appeared in thin air, carved from flame by an invisible hand, "Mene mene tekel upharsin". Everyone present had to immediately roll against Fear 1.
>>46264722
Of the three of us, Morgaine was the least affected, treating the sudden horror as a minor annoyance. Maksimov narrowly failed his Fear test and promptly started to quietly shake before downing his entire flask of gyn in an attempt to cope with this shit, and Nika faring the worst by collapsing to the floor sobbing and clawing at his own face and ears in an attempt to make it stop, suffering 3 IP and 1 CP from the experience. The intrusion stopped within a minute, but had utterly disrupted the meeting and sent several people, including Nika, to their quarters to cry and drink the nightmares away.
For those of us remaining, turns out this was even worse news than it seemed on first glance. Those words were the calling cards of the local Chaos Empire of Zaith, and confirmed that they or their agents were here and likely after the star map too. We made haste to repair our Knights and dropped onto the world below.
This world, Afallon, is monoclime, a single planet-wide swamp full of macrofauna, aggressive plant life, and techno-barbarians, and less than a half hour after landing, everyone wanted to go home, with Nika being dispirited enough to attempt to call for an evac in sheer sulk before being dissuaded, angering his ancestors in the process. We pushed towards the coordinates, but suddenly the sky turned stormy and began to rain blood, turning the treacherous mire even worse and more nightmarish, and slowing our advance to a crawl. We finally made camp in a massive hollowed-out tree and slept for the night before rising to reach the target zone.
Our first barrier was a massive village slash city of techno-barbarians, who took some quick talking by Nika to not attack us. Once placated and promised technology and medicine in return for their help, they told us about a ruined city in the general area of our target, holding a maiden guarded by a giant that no one could defeat. We told them we were great warriors and would slay the giant, and pushed on.
>>46264744
The city was guarded by an ancient, massive gate, and according to the villagers, only the destined warriors could pass the gate. Feeling destined and confident, we went in alone, and almost instantly, the gate slammed shut behind us and sealed off our view of anything outside the city walls, along with all external comms. With no choice, we moved to explore the city.
The city was truly ancient and overgrown, covered in vines and greenery, but what little we could see of the buildings told us more than enough: They were apparently made of semi-crystalline bone, looking grown rather than built, and the statues of pointy-eared fuckers in robes confirmed it. This was an Eldar city.
Before we got any further, a booming voice demanded our reasons for entering the city, and when we told it, it laughed and told us its name, Bercilak, the guardian of the city. It was massive Wraithknight, with the ability to phase at will between material and immaterial, and a ludicrous amount of weapon skill. It attacked Nika and heavily damaged him, and managed to parry one of Maksimov's best blows in return before vanishing again, damaged but not dead. It reappeared only to finish off Nika's Knight, taking him out of the fight and allowing him to focus on Maksimov and Morgaine. A flurry of attacks took out Maksimov's hull integrity and put him into crit, and a last desperate assault buried Galatine into the wraithknight's chest, destroying it and forcing the damned ghost to leave the armor, dead at last.
Even as it expired, it laughed at us, telling us that we knew nothing of what we were doing, nor what we would unleash. Typical Eldar lies. With it dead, the gate opened once more and allowed the rest of the group in, including the Magos. A quick check on Nika revealed him to be severely wounded but thankfully not dead, and he and his Knight were prepared for evac.
>>46264754
With the Eldar's veil over the city finally lifted, we noted many wrecked machines we hadn't been able to see before. Other lost Knight Engines, holy war machines of the Imperium, strange xenos engines of death, and cursed things that we couldn't even ID. We found the spot the Tacitus had revealed and activated it, getting the next part of the star map and allowing us to leave...hopefully.
And then things really went to shit as the sky caught fire from incoming assault craft, and the burning streaks of Zaithite landers burned apart the storm clouds, and with our Knights still heavily damaged and one not even functional. We are so fucked, but by the God-Emperor, we will die gloriously.
End Session 4, cue mad GM laughter.
>>46264778
Session 5 was something of an explosion of shit. Nika, heavily wounded and delirious, descended into madness and heresy, and was called to by an ancient Knight Atropos who tried to lure him into taking up its power and reins. Nika, exhausted and tired of everything and everyone on this planet, threw a grenade into its Throne Mechanicum, which sparked a massive argument between the group as Maksimov tried to talk him down, Nika wanted to be left alone, and Morgaine wanted Nika whipped for heresy. It ended with Nika stomping off into the jungle to likely join the techno-barbarians or be eaten by macropedes.
This incident led Maksimov to a simple yet massively important revelation: He’s clearly been too tolerant and soft, putting up with his friend’s borderline heresy simply because of comradeship. If he’d been harsher, perhaps Nika would still be with them. Therefore, for much of the beginning of the session, Maksimov was meditating on hatred and purity and reciting litanies of grudges handed down by Caernev scions for generations.
While this was going on, the Imperial transport ship the Duchess was carrying a new Knight PC and his entourage through the warp. Sir Moraunt is a longtime freeblade that has served alongside the Dark Angels and has accumulated a mass of war orphans, servants, and one hunchbacked freak called Monfroy he uses as a manservant. I forsee Tertius and Monfroy getting into creepiness contests soon.
Anyway, the ship hits warp turbulence, leading to a disastrous forced re-translation into reality...within a planet’s gravity well. Evacuation occurs, as Moraunt’s armor is hastily re-equipped with jets to carry it to the surface, and all he has to do to land safely is to stay awake. Predictably, he’s brained by flying debris within the first third of his literally meteoric descent and is knocked completely unconscious.
>>46264823
Correction, Maksimov. Disciples of Caliban I served alongside.
>>46264823
Meanwhile, in the camp, everyone is quietly brooding and pissy, until our sensors detect the ship entering atmosphere and breaking up. Maksimov immediately jumps to the conclusion that the ship is clearly an enemy vessel struck down by the Emperor’s wrath and thus needs to be looted and murderized in the name of the God Emperor. Morgaine yanks his leash a bit to calm his escalating bloodthirst and they head out.
Pretty soon they find Moraunt, heavily damaged and blackened by his re-entry into atmosphere. Maksimov, operating under the assumption that he was dealing with a wounded enemy or a failure of an ally, opened with insults and swearing, Moraunt replied in kind, and the two nearly came to blows before Morgaine stepped in to play mediator. Yes. Morgaine playing mediator, that’s how bad shit has gotten. She basically told us to whip them out or shut up and get to work, and we both grumpily acquiesced.
Then came the biggest shitstorm yet, as the Magos voxed us to get back to base right the fuck now. Turns out the Zaith Empire forces, including six black Knights, have arrived and wanted to parlay. Maksimov immediately advances the plan of walking out under a white flag and staining it red with their blood, but given our relative strength levels, this was quickly amended to ‘listen to them and stall them while the evac flier gets here, then run like little bitches’. Not the most heroic of plans, I admit, but it's the only one that made any logical sense in the circumstances.
>>46264868
The enemy forces are a motley collection of lunatics and war criminals, with their leader in Cerastus armor, including a Gallant with twin Thunderstrikes, a Crusader with twin battlecannons launching phospex, an Errant with with a battle cannon and Knight Power Axe, a Paladin with some kind of volkite cannon, a Paladin with rad-guns, a shit ton of mutants, and a handful of Chaos Space Marines.
The Zaithites’ terms were pretty simple: Give them the Tacitus and live our lives in the swamp, join them in Chaos, or die. We kept them talking by threatening to destroy the Tacitus, but they didn’t buy that, and things fairly quickly degenerated with their leader psychically forcing Moraunt to kneel before him. But then things got really clusterfucky and launched into open warfare as Bercilak somehow reappeared, summoning a macropede the size of a small hive tower, Phospex Knight launched a shell at the macropede,, and Morgaine started throwing out Infernus rounds like candy.
In response, Moraunt attacked the lead enemy Knight and Maksimov spotted the enemy Gallant using twin Thunderstrikes and charged it, screaming obscenities gleefully. He did massive damage, but didn’t quite kill it. Meanwhile, one of the CSM jumped on top of Maksimov’s armor, melta bomb in hand, the Macropede started eating everything in sight, and Morgaine called for a retreat, pumping out every Infernus round she had into the enemy lines.
>>46264981
The retreat was complicated somewhat by the Marine blowing up Maksimov's armor's hatch and throwing him out, at which point Maksimov got the same visions that drove Nika to insanity. Not being Nika, he swore at it and woke up, climbed back into his armor, and started to withdraw, warning Moraunt that the Marine was going to jump on his armor next. Moraunt turned the Marine into a greasy smear on Maksimov's armor and followed the retreat as we climbed into our lander and ran like hell from the clusterfuck below. One of the last things we saw as we left was Bercilak finishing off the Gallant from behind like the Eldar bitch he was.
Back on the Prydwen, Moraunt got the good news that his entourage's shuttle had been picked up and were safely aboard, including the hunchback. The rest of us were somewhat somber, given that we'd lost a Scion down there and our armors were beat to hell and back, and we hadn't really won that engagement down there. End Session 5.
samefag ITT.
I'm glad you have enough decency not to pollute 40k rpg general with your very funny game.
>>46265261
You lot have enough fun stewing in your own juices as it is, yes.
>>46264981
>Maksimov spotted the enemy Gallant using twin Thunderstrikes and charged it, screaming obscenities gleefully. He did massive damage, but didn’t quite kill it. Meanwhile, one of the CSM jumped on top of Maksimov’s armor, melta bomb in hand
You mixed up the chain of events. The renegade Marine was already on top of Maksimovs Armour when Maksimov charged the Gallant, because that was more worthy of his attention rather than the super-human madman with a melta-charge.
>>46265441
The unique poster count before my post was 5.
After my post, it will be 6. OP is most likely 2, posting from a phone.
And I agree with >>46265261. Nobody cares about stupid fucking meme-games. It's not cool. It's not interesting. It's not even close to realistic. It's just masturbation.
>>46266047
Define meme-game.
If you could make a single pic of your campaign every time you post this thread I would be so happy. Enjoying the story so far, keep going op!
>>46266192
"All-X Game"
Heavy use of homebrew
Use of a system to do something it wasn't meant or intended to do
Ignoring a system's themes that are supposed to be represented
>>46266337
Pic related is exactly what you're saying.
>>46266271
There should be one in the second or third post and I try to update it with every thread we make.
>>46266543
pls use tomorrow style, my eyes are screaming from the shine
>>46268390
Don't you want to be blessed by the Emperor's light and become an Astropath, anon?
>>46268390
Only a heretic fears the Emperor's light, anon.
>>46264744
>Maksimov narrowly failed his Fear test and promptly started to quietly shake before downing his entire flask of gyn in an attempt to cope with this shit
>>46264722
>every skull on the bridge screamed in utter horror.
>Every skull screamed
>On the bridge of an Imperial ship
Can you imagine how much fucking noise that would make?
>>46264823
So did Nika just fail a bunch of tests and have to roll a new charater? Or did the player actually leave and you picked up a new guy?
>>46274549
The latter.
>>46275366
sorry to hear that.
>>46275366
I would have loved to play a Knight game, but I don't like the chivalry ruleset.
>>46276931
What don't you like about it?
>>46282932
The damage that they do is just way too damn high, and their stats just seem so inflated. Any fight would devolve into rocket tag between knights or even other vehicles. It's hard to establish drama when every fight is "Oh, I hit, and it's dead with minimum damage."
>>46283084
You'd be surprised, honestly. Other superheavies tend to be able to tank a couple Destroyer hits or so, and parrying helps survivability a lot. In play, it's been quite fluid and dramatic.
>>46283270
I'm just saying. When you have a melee weapon that does 4d10+30 pen 20, and add 20 from strength bonus because the Knight is a clunky armor-vehicle hybrid in that pdf instead of a pure vehicle, you get a vehicle that's doing about 70-80 damage a hit with a pen of 20. It one-shots anything but a baneblade or equivalent.
>>46283330
You don't add your strength bonus to the damage, strength bonuses from the Knight are already included.
>>46283366
Nowhere in the PDF is that stated. Maybe it was explained during your game but it definitely wasn't written down.
That damage is paltry, though, in comparison to the extra damage you get from the Destroyer quality. Most things a knight would fight are Monumental or around that size. It's REALLY easy to reach the maximum WS bonus and just score ridiculous Destroyer damage die up to the max.
>>46283426
>Nowhere in the PDF is that stated. Maybe it was explained during your game but it definitely wasn't written down.
You're right, that does need to be explained better in the PDF
>That damage is paltry, though, in comparison to the extra damage you get from the Destroyer quality. Most things a knight would fight are Monumental or around that size. It's REALLY easy to reach the maximum WS bonus and just score ridiculous Destroyer damage die up to the max.
Also an obvious rules patch that got left out of the rules PDF for whatever reason. We don't get Size bonuses to hit from anything our size or smaller, on the basis of what you just cited. It's incredibly easy to get a TN of over 100 using size bonuses as RAW.
That said, yes, destroyer weapons are bullshit and deal ludicrous amounts of damage. That's why getting into melee is a pain and over-relying on them will get your ass shot off fairly quickly. It's high-risk, high reward, basically.
>>46275712
His player might be coming back in a week or two, it's hard to say for sure right now.
>>46283470
That just seems kind of roundabout, having to change core mechanics to make a homebrew work.
Still, I think I prefer a happy medium - I much prefer the Knight rules from The Fringe Is Yours, but with the Throne Mechanicum tables and careers from Chivalry Intensifies to give it a 40k bent rather than the 30k focus the former has.
>>46283617
The rules exist to give a mechanical correspondence to an abstraction. Two Knights are roughly the same size, so why should they get bonuses? By that logic, two mutant fighting cockroaches would never be able to land a blow on each other on account of their tiny size, by RAW.
Guys, where can I find the Pdf for this?
![[Chivalry Intensifies] 1.2.1.pdf](https://4chanarchives.com/image/image-404.png "[Chivalry Intensifies] 1.2.1.pdf")
>>46288172
Here you go.
>>46264823
>Moraunt
What kind of loadout is Moraunt using? Fire support like Nika?
>>46291380
I'm currently the privileged master of a Cerastus Castigator chassis. Thus, I bear a Cerastus Tempest Warblade and a Castigator Boltcannon.
Anyone complaining about this game is a troll or jealous. This sounds like the best game ever.
