#wrathandglory

So it’s well past the time when I should sleep anyway but the upstairs neighbours decided to be loud, hence I decided to finally start making my own posts on this blog, for the whole 2 or something people following me. And what else could I post about than my 40k RPG campaign and my experience with Wrath and Glory?

For context: my player group and I have been playing 40k RPGs for nearly 4 years now. The main campaign was Black Crusade, and I occasionally GM’d a few sessions of Deathwatch when our main GM was too busy or when he needed a break. Recently - with Wrath and Glory coming out - I decided to make a soft reboot of the campaign, with the players forming a new killteam, years after the events pertaining to their first characters. 

HOWEVER, since the two campaigns are linked thematically and in their content, I will use the first few posts to summarise the events of the very first kill-team, dubbed Hyperion. Later, I will switch to the current campaign with the Wrath and Glory system, and make roughly weekly updates of the campaign once I have caught up to the current day.

Killteam Hyperion was made up of six members: Tactical Marine Jarl Tyr of the Space Wolves, Apothecary Hales of the Hammers of Dorn, Assault Marine Venaraptus of the Flesh Tearers, Librarian Seraphiel of the Exorcists, Devastator Kadai of the Salamanders, and finally Techmarine Gregorius of the Imperial Fists.

During the closing days of the M41 - before the return of the hallowed Primarch Guilliman - Killteam Hyperion’s first mission was to travel to a long abandoned Watch-Station to retrieve any Marines stationed and any valuable artefacts stored therein. The Station, which had been mostly used as a surveillance based in the Jericho Reach, was running the risk of being discovered by other Imperial forces as the Achilus Crusade made its way through the sector, and the Deathwatch did not want to jeopardise its contents

To reach their destination, the Kill-Team had to travel aboard the ship of Inquisitor Karl-Gustav, a known Puritan and critic of the Adeptus Astartes. After a rather unpleasant journey during which they were barely tolerated by both the Inquisitor and his crew, they landed on the ice-encased moon of a dead world.

There, they found the Deathwatch station, embedded in the glaciers. They also found that all Marines stationed there had died long ago defending it from encroaching Chaos warbands, except for a lonely dreadnought calling himself Brother Skold.

The battle-brothers relieved tired, old Skold from his duty and retrieved a single artefact from the Watch-station’s vaults: a single artefact, a giant soulstone containing numerous souls of dead Eldar, called the Last Memory of Yrnathos.

Having gotten what they came for, Killteam Hyperion returned to the Inquisitor’s ship. They had barely boarded it however, that the forces of Chaos boarded their vessel, drawn like moths to the flame by the now unchained psychic treasure they held.

In the long, drawn-out battle that ensued, the Imperial forces gained the assistance of a group of Aeldari, under the condition that the lost souls of their brethren be returned to them. Begrudgingly, the Marines accepted this offer and with the help of the Xenos, they were able to repel the Heretic assaulting them.

During the fight, some important things happened: the ship’s main armoury blew up. Inquisitor Karl-Gustav was saved numerous times by the Killteam. The Aeldari got their artefact back. And lastly, the Marines failed to slay a Heretek by the name of Merliok, who teleported away after betraying the warband’s leader.

The fighting done, the Astartes returned to Watch-Fortress Erioch, where they were chastised for having lost the artefact, but praised for saving the Inquisitor and brother Skold while still somewhat making the best out of a bad Situation.

As they finished their debrief, the Omega-Vault, held within the depths of the Watch-Fortress, began to open, and out of its depths, the Players retrieved a lead lever with a white knob, bearing a single Orkish rune on it...

So yeah, that was the very first mission of the first Deathwatch kill-team. Next up will be their mission to destroy a new menace in the Jericho Reach: An Ork construct of colossal size, dubbed “Da Planit Krakker”.

At long last, we have reached the point of the reboot. Now is the time to introduce our new kill-team, filled with intrepid heroes, destined to die a gruesome death at some point in the campaign.

The new kill-team, still dubbed “Hyperion” for picking up where their predecessors left off, is made up of the following 5 Space Marines Scouts:

From the Iron Hands, we have Nikolaos Michail. He was sent to the Deathwatch after the rest of his team died on a mission. In a typical Iron Hands fashion, the elders decided that he failed his squadmates and sergeant because he was weak, and so they sent him to the Deathwatch to either toughen up or die. No point in keeping the weak around. Nikolaos is already espousing the character of his legion: he is bitter, full of cold rage and despises weakness. He has a knack for the medical arts and serves as the team’s field-medic for now, though his preference for amputation and later augmentation is worrying some of his new team-mates.

Representing the fellas in robes we have Neophyte Azrael (named by his parents after the Supreme Grand Master of the Dark Angels). He is a sombre recruit, with a tendency for the overly dramatic and ceremonious. He has been sent to the Deathwatch because his inquisitive nature unsettled some of his superiors, who wanted him seconded to the Deathwatch while they figured out what to do with him. The pride of being sent to such an elite organisation has gone to the young Marine’s head however, and he keeps trying to take on the roll of team leader, to the annoyance of some of his squad-mates. Though not having the necessary training yet, young Azrael has developed an obsession with wanting to wield two bolt-pistols at once. Parallels to a certain other canon character are currently being contemplated by the higher-ups.

Hailing from the Chapter of the Blood Ravens, we have Neophyte Balthazar. This one volunteered to be seconded to the Deathwatch because he wanted to distance himself from the rest of his chapter after the events pertaining to the heresy of Azariah Kyras. Internal purges followed in the wake of those events, and the still young Balthazar relished the occasion of being sent away from the whole mess. He is highly intelligent, calm and collected, but with the penchant of his chapter for “securing” relics from those who do not know how to handle them. Furthermore - unbeknownst to Balthazar himself - he has potential psychic powers, which are slowly starting to awaken as this story starts. What he will make of them remains to be seen...

Sent to the Deathwatch by the Raptors, we have young O’reo (I prevented the player from naming him O’reo Biskuit). O’reo was sent to the Deathwatch by his Chapter Master after having been commended by an Inquisitor named Wirsulus, though why the Inquisitor put his name forward of all people is a mystery to the Scout. All he knows is that his former scouts-squad operated in cooperation with the Inquisitor’s retinue during a lengthy campaign against Chaos forces, though why he of all people was chosen, and why he is being sent to the Deathwatch remains a mystery... for now.

And last but certainly not least, we have the Astartes from the the recently founded chapter of the Steel Ghosts: Betarium Psyrius. Unbeknownst by the rest of the Deathwatch, Betarium is a deep operative for the Alpha Legion (hence the less than subtle name, though it was so on-the-nose that the other players haven’t doubted his loyalty yet), who was recruited into the Steel Ghosts in an attempt to sabotage the Chapter from the inside. After a series of “unfortunate events” and “accidents” which saw Betarium as the sole survivor of his Scout team several times, he was sent to the Deathwatch for his exceptional luck (some say to keep him away from anymore brothers of the chapter, but that’s just rumours). He is now acting along nicely, waiting for an opportune moment to betray his new comrades and to deal as much damage to the Deathwatch as possible (yes, full-on evil, no secretly loyal shenanigans).

This newly formed Kill-Team is now tasked with playing body-guards for Inquisitor Karl-Gustav  (the one from the #1 summary) who needs to get information from the Crucible Resolviate (a branch of the Mechanicus tasked with reverse-engineering and sanctifying Xenos technology). This is not the Inquisitor’s first visit at the Crucible’s, but so far his attempts at getting the information he wants were in vain. Wanting to make it clear to the Tech-priests that his patience is running out, he has requested a Kill-Team from the Deathwatch to accompany him. However, because of his strenuous relationship with the Astartes in the past and because the Watch-Master hardly considers this a priority for the Deathwatch, he was only granted a retinue of newly arrived scouts, who just happen to be our PCs. 

Tl;dr Tier 2 campaign with 5 scouts using the Wrath & Gory rules but backed with the story and feel of Deathwatch. First mission is to accompany a thankless Inquisitor on a fetch-quest of seemingly little import.