Wednesday 25 June 2014

Deathwatch: the Siege of Mersadie Hive, 08

The Siege of Mersadie Hive was a custom scenario lovingly crafted by Arthur. As such, unless your GM is planning to borrow the scenario by hacking together what they hear on this episode and the notes on Arthur's blog, there's really no spoilers to worry about.

As always, be aware that the podcast is not really family-friendly, and features some background noise, if that sort of thing bothers you.

Link to Episode 08.

The Episode

"Ambient level of ork" is my new favourite phrase.

This is, possibly, the first of many occasions when I try to use Wrathful Descent when not fighting hordes. For some reason it just feels like it should work against everything, and I find the hordes-only thing really hard to remember.

I'm a bit sad we didn't see more of the weirdboy, because I'd have liked to see a bit more of how ork psychics work, but enemies really don't stick around much in the brutal combat system in play here. When they do - see diablodon - it generally means they're annoying.

The gargant navigation section was a little more detailed than you'll hear here. When we defeated the weirdboy and got to the two-way junction, Arthur actually outlined what the different sections looked and sounded like, giving some indication of what lay that way even without rolling skills. Unfortunately, just at that point the recorder was assailed both by someone rummaging through, selecting and opening a bag of crisps (hence the munching noises) and by a passing ambulance, and I felt it wasn't really salvageable. This was not a unique event, so we lost a couple of explanatory bits. Recently I've tried to get munchies into bowls instead, but this is an early recording. Also, I'm gaming in someone else house and we're there to game rather than to record, so getting all naggy about foodstuffs is more likely to put an end to recordings than increase the quality.

I was pretty pleased with Nikolai in this game. He doesn't exactly wreak havoc, but he does make a certain amount of mess, and more importantly he plays like I feel an assault marine should - taking point and getting in people's faces. Unfortunately, it's a pretty risky approach because most things that are formidable in melee are extremely nasty in melee. Here we see an excellent demonstration as Nikolai gets his head bashed in by an ork warboss who catches him off-guard. I really need to get used to the idea that advancing on any kind of boss other than with the utmost caution is likely to get you killed.

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