Love it or hate it, Warhammer 40K has made a mark in the world of RPGs. When I roll through the local gaming store I see New World of Darkness and I see Dungeons and Dragons. There really aren’t any other big hitters in the RPG world right now. There are a few other players in the pool, I know, but these two lines have become the juggernauts of the gaming world. In the last few years there are a few game lines that are starting to get around, and of this Dark Heresy (and the rest of the 40k line) are getting a lot of attention. The line has a powerful back history, created and worked by the fine folks of Games Workshop, and they put as many paperbacks as Dragonlance did at the height of their popularity. It has a built in fan base, even folks such as myself (who are predominantly focused on rpgs and not on the miniature war games) have heard of the setting. Folks who own armies, especially Imperial armies, even have miniatures and experience painting for their friends. And I can see that the fan following is growing…
Because I believe Bias is important to note, a little about me: I started gaming in the late 80s with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, mostly because my mom would not buy me D&D, at age 15. I grew up in an age of fear that Dungeons and Dragons would have me worshiping demons. But I loved the creativity required to be a part of the hobby and persevered and have become quite the fan of the industry. I have run just about every game that has rolled out. I enjoy more narrative games, games like New Wold of Darkness which encourage a more freeform approach or games like Savage Worlds with simple mechanics that fade into the background. For the most part Fantasy Flight has been on par with my vision, using fairly simple rules with just enough tweaking for customization to keep things interesting and some rich background to season the books to perfection.
But enough about me, let’s talk Ascension!
So, the time has come. We have maxed our characters out, reached rank 8 with our Adepts, Psykers, and Tech Priests, and now these luminaries sit in our folders waiting for the next step in their development. We wait, wondering when we can play the Interrogators and Inquisitors. We wonder when we can make our own Eisenhorn or Ravenor and reshape quadrants of space. With Ascension that time has come!
Ascension is the newest book in the Warhammer 40K RPG line for inquisitors retinue, Dark Heresy. With the main book we got to meet the raw recruits to the Inquisition, cat paws to be used when trying to flush out mutants and heretics. Up until now we have been the agents of the masters, troubleshooters and investigators wandering the shattered stars and haunted habitation hives looking for the signs of the great enemies of the Imperium of Man: The Heretic, The Xenos, and the Deamon. Up until now we have served the will of the Inquistor, gone where demanded and investigated based on what they thought was important. Ascension aims to change all that, now we get to be in charge and decide where we go and what we do. Now we will become the spiders in the center of a web of influence.
This is a book that many of us have been waiting for, the chance to play as the Inquisitor themselves and have the adventures that Eisenhorn or Ravenor had in the novels. It brings the characters up to the full expression of their careers, to be true luminaries in their chosen paths. This is where we go from some cleric serving inscrutable masters to the priest all the nobles avoid eye contact with when he attends the functions they are required to invite him to because of the immeasurable power he holds among his peers.
Let’s look at it chapter by chapter and see if the promises are kept…
First up is the introduction. Here we go over what to expect from the book overall and what to find in each chapter. There is also an interesting note- the Ascension book assumes that someone is going to want to be either an inquisitor or an interrogator (inquisitor in training). It’s a fair assumption but in my experience there will eventually be some who go against the grain. It is nice to see this being addressed right out of the gate.
Chapter one covers some basic new rules. First off, the players are no longer being referred to as Acolytes, they are now Throne Agents. This is a nice distinction as Throne Agents are much more respected and feared than your standard Acolyte, no matter who they are and what they have done. An Acolyte who helped take down a space marine may be whispered of with grudging respect but a Throne Agent who gives you a sidelong glance makes Planetary Governors shiver no matter what they have done. We also get introduced to how Fate Points work on this scale, including new ways to spend them, and expanded rules on the upcoming new experience charts such as negative advances, optional maximums for wounds and new ways to manage insanity and corruption. Negative advances work about like you would expect, they are borderline flaws that give you flavor with complications. For example, you can now buy an enemy which will haunt you as you continue about your business. This is obviously a great way to tailor your own story by giving your GM the keys to a custom foe, and you get exp for it! Good times! Maximum wounds are exactly what it sounds like, an optional system that allows the GM to limit how many wounds any given character can have. The corruption and insanity rules give the player more ways to manage such traits such as trading one for another or giving up permanent stat points to reduce one or the other. Fate points get a lot of new options, such as spending one to add two degrees of success to a roll or rerolling a poor damage result.
The big news here is the Influence system. Very similar to the Profit factor system presented in Rouge Trader, Throne agents start running their own networks of spies and informers. As they progress down their new careers in Ascension they will be increasing this value and using it to procure new gear and weapons. Like profit factor this is a feature shared among the party and used by everyone equally, but the rules are clearly focused on being a tool to make things happen. As the cell grows in power this becomes more effective when called on to make people do what you want or to get what you need from their peers in the Inquisition. An interesting note, however, is that many of these specialty items are expected to be returned when the agents are done with them. As this is not a measure of profit but influence many of the acquisitions made are expected back in the future.
Chapter two covers the transition from Acolytes to Throne Agents in brief and covers some new character creation options to start a game at the Ascension level. Some suggestions are made for each of the careers up to this point for the next step, such as having the Assassin look to moving into the Death Cultist or Vindicare careers. An interesting note is that every career, except the tech priest, can transition into the Interrogator or the Inquisitor careers. In addition to this some options are presented to make rank 9 characters from scratch for immediate Ascension level play. The first is the bottom down approach, which is you start with a rank one Dark Heresy character and spend xp up to the Ascension level. The second option is a top down approach, you start by picking a career and then buy what you want with slightly altered prices. The result is supposed to be about the same and the bottom up but I have not yet had a chance to roll one up with this system.
Chapter three is the meat and potatoes; here are the new careers and how to move into the Ascension level of play. Step one, pick your new career! As mentioned in chapter two, each career has a few options for the next step, including Interrogator and Inquisitor, to choose from. The next step is the transition package. This awards the character with some new features and gives a story for their evolution. For example, you’re rolling a Psyker up to the Ascension level of play. After much consideration you decide that a Primaris Psyker is the way to go. Poking around the book you decide to go with the transition package of Tempered by Fire. Your inquisitor sent you off to serve with the Imperial Guard for a time. When they collect their tool they have ascended to new levels of psyker power and become powerful enough to be called a Primaris Psyker or Psyker Lord as they are sometimes called.
After choosing your transition package you get a refresh of fate points if you’re low. Then it’s off to your new career chart to chose your Ascended trait and spend some xp. The Ascended careers are: Inquisitor, Interrogator, Judge, Magos, Primaris Psyker, Sage, Crusader, Death Cult Assassin, Desperado, Hierophant, Storm Trooper, and Vindicare Assassin. Many of the lore junkies, or nerds if you prefer, will note that Interrogators are Inquisitor trainees. The transition package is used to push the character through their Interrogator phase and straight to the Inquisitor phase so they can get to the good stuff. You can transition from Interrogator to Inquisitor in play if you want and the rules for this process is presented. Each career comes with one ascended trait that anyone in the career gets and then they choose one of two other ascended traits to specialize their approach. Each career’s charts are then presented, like Rouge Trader and unlike Dark Heresy, there are no forking paths, it’s the same chart for every Magos or Storm Trooper.
Chapter four is all about the new skill rules and new talent rules. Ascended characters use Mastered skills, when purchased you get 3 skills with a +20 to use in general situations. The new Mastered class allows a player to pick up a large number of general skills quickly, and they can choose to specialize further by reselecting a sub skill in the Mastered skill. When this is done they will always be considered 1 degree of success higher than they actually rolled. For example: A Death Cultist takes a specialization for their Mastered skill of Stealth. It costs 100xp, can be taken at any time (but it does not count for their advancement, remember that only abilities and traits in their tree count towards advancement) and they choose Shadowing. Now when they make a Shadowing skill check with Agility, let’s say it is around 55, they have to roll under a 75 with a challenging test and if it succeeds the degree of success increases by one. Now this would be rare, your average Throne Agent Death Cultist is not going to be doing something that would require a Challenging roll. They would be trying to shadow a Farseer on an Eldar ship with a -30 to -40 penalty but you get the idea.
The Talents section starts offering the more broad packages that were presented in Rouge Trader. So now you can take Basic Weapon Expertise and have all the Basic Weapon trainings in the game. If you have them all already then you remove them and put the new Basic Weapon Expertise on your sheet at no additional cost, but it does not count as a normal advance (and therefore it does not count for being purchased). There are some nice package deals here for folks who are looking for an iconic build but never got the talents for one reason or another, such as Blade Dancer (which grants Assassins strike, Blade Master, Combat Master, Counter Attack, and Wall of Steel), such as if one of the talents were not part of your initial career path.
Influence Talents is a new category of abilities that augment the Influence checks. It also gives the rules for Peers (buddies) and enemies (foes) in organizations. For example, an enemy of the Administratim will make life hard when you need to interact with them to get something done (-10 on those fellowship tests) but a peer will grease the wheels for you (+10 with the organization) when you need something. Reputation talents allow you to bend folks with your Influence rolls by playing to your rep, for example a Judge may be able to sway a crowd because, you know, that’s Judge Dread! (I so wanted to drop that!) Often times it lets you re-roll failed checks even! The chapter wraps up with some normal (but powerful) talents such as Favored by Fate (the talent gives you an extra fate point) that fill out the Career paths in chapter three.
Chapter Five is Ascended Psychic Powers! Just so you know, my own character is a Psyker of the Temple named Red so this chapter was one of my first visits! Anyone who reads Rogue Trader knows that the fine folks at Fantasy Flight are flirting with an alternate psychic powers system. Why is this important? It all relates back to the table top war game. In that game Psychics (and in the fantasy version the wizards, which shares MANY parallels) are balanced in power by the fact that they will randomly lose control, fielding them can be a great boon if it goes well for you and the dice or disastrous if fate is not with you. If you roll badly then you, at best, have wasted significant resources on a unit that will never live up to its potential and at worse may destroy itself and other nearby units in a suitably horrific manner. The mechanics of Dark Heresy were based off the mechanics of Games Workshop’s other RPG, the Warhammer Fantasy game. When they migrated the material over, they converted the magic system to the 40K universe and called it psychic. (I am oversimplifying it, but that’s the essence of it) The problem is that while this system bears out in the fantasy setting, where magic is wild and uncontrollable, it’s not AS wild in the 40k setting. It’s still wild, and you can easily lose yourself to the warp, but the 40K universe is about psykers being flawed by their talents but unable to escape them and the Fantasy settings Wizards are flirting with alien powers they should not be in pride or hubris. So in the fiction for 40K the psykers hear tormenting voices and risk madness when they go all out, but little things are no big deal. The standard Dark Heresy rules treated all psychic actitivity as incredibly dangerous. If you roll a 9 when rolling for manifestation you roll to see what warp effect comes your way. If you’re lucky then it’s only a minor twist, like frost all around you. If you roll above a certain number then it’s off to perils of the Warp. And that’s bad.
A starting guardsman and a starting Psyker are trying to run down a punk. The guardsman shoots, scores a hit, and the punk takes a few points of damage. No big deal. The Psyker calls his las pistol from his room with his mind and …. Turns into an unbound deamonhost! He proceeds to use his former friend as a meat coat. That, by the way, is a minor power and has happened at tables.
Rogue Trader presented a new system allowing the psyker to take a penalty to ensure that the power manifests safe and stable, normally with the standard chance of perils, or pushing their limits making them more powerful at the expense of greatly increasing the chance that the warp will interfere. At first I was on the fence about this. It felt like the trade off was that psykers would be more powerful overall and start to overshadow the other players. After playing a few games of Rogue Trader I have come to realize that it fits more with the themes of the 40K universe overall, by rewarding players for pushing the limits even though it might mean certain doom while allowing psykers to contribute much more. Red, my aforementioned character, almost never used his powers. They were too dangerous in most cases and my flamer did not care what my Ballistics Skill was. When the fit hit the fan, though, I was capable of shocking damage and effectiveness but I sort of sucked that most of the time I was of less use than even the Adept. The new system allows me to contribute more often with my powers, and if I need to go to eleven then the warp is waiting for me.
Needless to say, the system has now been integrated into the Dark Heresy system and the dangers are still as present as always…unless you fetter your power. This makes me, and Red, happy.
The rest of the chapter discusses the new sick house of the Psychic powers: Ascended powers! Talk about eleven! A Primoris Psyker will only get four of these powers, but they are worth every precious exp! You can whip up holocausts that will melt hives, use your bare hands to tear apart a tank, or project yourself free of your body and hunt heretics completely invisibly! Good times!
Each new power is broken down into three steps, each “power” purchase lets you increase one tree a step or lets you add a new tree. If you go all the way to the third step you will be capable of the pinnicle of that power and the starting of another. Or you can buy both the second rank. Or one at two and have the starter of two others. Or…you get the idea. I was really impressed with both their power and flavor, for example Burning Apocalypse is what is says: Fiery death for everyone! The first rank gives you a wreath of flames that protects you from energy attacks in general and negates fire damage. The second lets you fill an area with soot and ash, no one can see what’s going on except you (the smoke does not obscure your vision at all). The third rank is the firestorm that can melt hives, but if you lose control then you die too! Nice balance, even fettered the awesome destructive might of the power is tempered by ongoing tests to ensure that the psyker is not losing control to kill themselves.
Chapter Six is about armory, new gear for everyone! The chapter introduces Sanctified (holy), Twin Linked (double barrels with a +20% increase, 2 raises on the shot means another hit), Storm (Doubles the number of hits on an automatic or semi-automatic action), and the rules for Combi-weapons (weapons that combine ranged weapons, like a bolter and a plasma gun, into one weapon like a grenade launcher attached to a machine gun). This is followed by some signature weapons and special guns, such as the Vindicare rifle. This is followed by special melee weapons, special armor, force fields, and other new special toys. They are all very cool, and very special, but I have yet to be really disappointed with the new toys presented in these books.
Chapter Seven is everything you ever wanted to know about the Inquisition but were afraid they would exterminatus you for if you asked. This is a really good overview of how the inquisition operates and how to properly play as a free thinking agent of one of the most powerful organizations in the Imperium of Man. Major factions are reviewed, thoughts on how to wield power and a thoughtful discussion of how they police themselves to keep the institution strong (sort of…) in the face of internal corruption.
Chapter Eight is for the GM what chapter seven is for the players. It reviews how to handle an Inquisitor and their Cadre as they pursue their goals. Again I found this chapter to be both helpful and informative, but I knew prior to reading either of these chapters much of what was related. I do like the fact that it is in the book but I would have liked this in the main book. Not much of criticism, though, since I find the original Dark Heresy book to be a light of information in an age of not as complete main books.
Chapter Nine is the Antagonists section. This about what I expected with some nice foes from each of the major credos, a handful of heretics, Xenos, and Demons to keep the players scrambling. I like how many of them defy common solutions, such as the Planetary Officer who hold the loyalty of the people while he spouts heresy and the Demon who plots and uses cells of Mutants as his pawns.
The last chapter, Ten, is an adventure for the newly Ascended characters. It seems to be well constructed, some of the past adventures tend to railroad the players into a course of action they may or may not have pursed on their own. This one seems to have a good hook and allows for the players to pursue the plots at their own pace for the most part. I will be running it in the future, for sure, and I will put out a play test review if the results are very different from what I expect but I expect this one will be one of the smoother adventures.
My overall evaluation is that this is an invaluable book for the 40K line. Its most useful to you if your decide to run up to rank 9 and beyond but even if you are not using this to expand beyond rank 8 for your characters the armory is a good addition to Rogue Trader. If that’s all your going to use I hesitate to call it a buy when I am sure that these rules will appear in a future supplement for that game line, but I really liked the discussions on the Inquisition in general. I have a feeling that this book covers the scope of Deathwatch’s rank scale meaning this is the last “high level” book for Dark Heresy, but that’s my conclusion and has no basis in any facts I have seen or heard aside from my own instincts. Your mileage may vary, but my players are really excited at the options presented here. It’s a book like this that reminds me of why I get such a hollow feeling reading Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition, the flavor here really ratchets the game up to the next level.
If you play Dark Heresy, buy it. If you never reach this level at least it will inspire you to try!
Review Summary