Finding FTL for Trazyn

The meeting
'''We approach C137, a planet that we’ve been set to meet at, a year late. Holstein and Captain Kristoff are waiting for some weird meeting that we’ve been kept in the dark about. We’re meeting Highdown for final briefing.'''

'''We hear Highdown making weird noises in his office. Storm in to find him dead, surrounded by rat-people. After a tense standoff it transpires that Highdown was trying to connect his mind to the warp reactor or somesuch. It also transpires that Highdown is just a fake identity - a scam lasting centuries. And now I’m the new Highdown.'''

Turns out that the purpose of the meet is to negotiate with a necron lord alongside the other two rogue traders.

'''Holstein’s vessel is huge while Kristoff’s is more understated. There’s also two Space Marine vessels. We get hailed and exaggerate our problems in the warp - say that we need a couple of days to check that everything is in order. They say they’re sending over a unit of Sisters of Battle to ensure our continued purity'''

The mission
Trazyn wants FTL and will pay handsomely for it.

Option 1: Inquisitor meddling with genetics, find details of Tyranid Naultili for FTL travel from him

Option 2: Tau jump prediction tech

Option 3: Necron warp tech - Endless King has returned 

Visit to Eden

'''The fleet restocks and refuels at Eden. Cornelius makes some contacts but gets attacked by an Eldar assassin, who gets murdered by Deathmaster Snitch but destroys their soulstone. We think the assassin was sent by Ordo Xenos Inquisitor'''

Genestealer station

'''We blunder into a space station that turns out to be filled with a nightmarish Genestealer cult. Cornelius vents it to space, killing the more human cultists, and Alaya slaughters a bunch of genestealers.'''

'''Station is old, attached to research stations in planets, around the gas giant. Not a major station but went dark 500 years ago. The automated logs of the machine spirit gives a record of multiple ships, one unidentifiable, and a transport ship The station is an almost exact replica of a historical station that was overrun by first Tyranid hive fleet. It belongs to Trazyn. We return it to him and also contact Inquisitor Harlocke about it. Seems that it was being run by the crazy Ordo Xenos inquisitor.'''

Warp voyage

'''We get becalmed for a while and initially miss the system. Then we get boarded by daemons and attacked by a void kraken. Once we finally arrive we find that Von Holstein has been at the rendezvous point for a month and killed some Tau vessels. Idiot.'''

First tau system
Q2 M100.M42

Benevolent Intelligent Noncombative Kind-hearted Yeoman - BINKY

Jokaero trade lord!

Daath - awesome trading world with tau and imperial culture

'''We bought a bunch of ship components and other rare stuff from BINKY - the Jokaero hivemind that seems to run the black market trade in the system, and is tolerated by the Tau. '''

'''The planet of Daath is mostly dense jungle with a few trading posts. The markets are thick with activity and very cosmopolitan.'''

'''The main BINKY nearly dies due to warpstone dust he got while investigating Niko. Fortunately Niko cures him. We do a cultural exchange - one skaven stays with them, one Jokaero comes with us.'''

'''Commander Tsing So Halah - tau commander of the system. Loyal, by the book, suspicious but generally imperial friendly. All about the defensive philosophy, served with the earth caste. Replacement for our contact.'''

'''Hoa Longfin is in another system. We make up with Commander Tsing and agree that the Emperor’s Zeal will stay in their system. '''

That damn sword

'''Skavetech sword with a soulstone in it swallowed a daemon. Oops.'''

Alaya finds out after mind-probing Cornelius, gets super pissed and there’s a tense showdown.

After some testing we decide that the daemon sword is okay for now but we’ll keep an eye o it.

BANEBLADE - 25/01/18
Cornelius chats with Kristoff - he’s nearly done with repairs and gives us the services of a motherfucking BANEBLAAAADE

We prep to meet with Holstein
 * Alaya mindfucks some minor officers from Holstein’s ship and provides intensive psychic defence training; I get Resistance (Psychic Techniques)
 * Niko provides shitloads of military knowledge - Holstein only needs ¼ of his troop strength to defend the ship effectively
 * Koll gives me lectures on how to detect psychic abilities - tests to do so can’t be harder than Challenging (0)

Koll and I go meet Holstein on his ship

I roll 9 successes charming the Seneschal, he loves me

I go straight to the point with Holstein and ask for materiel

'''Willowy woman in silk dress attends him, but Seneschal isn’t backing him up. The woman is ageless and weird but not psychic… something’s not entirely right with what Koll is sensing'''

Negotiations go well, we get spess mehreens and tankz

Castellan _ of the Black Templars is at our disposal

Koll sees weird warp effects around Holstein

'''Weird woman is some kind of null maybe? But doesn’t give same gut reaction...'''

'''We go to warp, the omens say no. The delay fucks with the weird skaven tech, so Niko goes to sort it out. He sorts it out but loads of skaven die.'''

We plan to make servitors out of skaven corpses to provide plausible deniability for anyone seeing real skaven

'''Cornelius delivers a speech, we unguent/incense the shit out of everything. The auguries are good and we prepare to translate.'''

'''Initial sailing goes well - Koll overcomes a Daemon’s charms. But then we encounter a warp shoal, damaging the ship but with minimal loss of life thanks to Niko’s skills. Then we blunder into another fucking warp storm. Because our pilot sucks donkey balls. The engines take a nasty blow. Niko shoots the pilot in the head and I give his son a pep talk to finish the journey competently.'''

'''We finally translate out of the warp and into the system. Shit is going down - looks like a Farsight flotilla is being counter-attacked by a fleet of Tau loyalists. The station we’re meant to be protecting is giving off weird Imperial-cultish signals. Game’s on.'''

700xp!

The Tau fleet battle - 07/2/18
Tau vessels

Extra info

Planet 1 has the Commander Longfin fleet in orbit
 * Explorer Class Battleship
 * 2 Protector Cruisers
 * 6 Defender Escorts

There’s a rebellion underway on the Tau-controlled planet, instigated by pro-Imperial secessionists led by a mysterious green and white agitator who’s probably Cypher!

Longfin wants us to help maintain Tau control

'''Planet 2 is lifeless but has a research space station in orbit. The station belongs to the loyalist Tau but has been taken over by the Farsight forces. We want to raid it as it’s been doing FTL research.'''

Farsight fleet is arranged in an aggressive posture, facing off against the loyalist forces.

Crew rating 50
 * 3 Farsight Merchant cruisers
 * 2 Orca Escorts
 * 1 Defender Frigate (bulbous field generators)

Can fire port/starboard weapons to rear too

Dorsal weapon replaced with ion cannon on cruisers

Longfin suspects that two Farsight commanders of note - Torchlight and Oblatai - are involved, with Torchlight in command of the fleet and Oblatai controlling the research station.

'''We do amazing at scanning the system and, with help from Tau recon buoys, get all the info. Notably, while the Farsight vessels are older and based on lower tech than the Loyalist ones, they’ve got some super advanced weapon tech and shields, and are able to fire their port/starboard weapons to the rear and front'''

'''We draw up a plan - the Allure will sneak round above Planet 2, avoiding the Farsight scanners. The other ships will rendezvous with the fleet above planet 1. Instigate a fight so the Farsight fleet gets hit by the full weight of the Tau fleet, plus the Astartes strike cruiser and Kristoff’s frigate.'''

'''It seems that the Farsight fleet is spooling up for an in-system warp jump with their modified Imperial warp drives, all jumping in tandem as part of a shared field array. We interrupt this nonsense with a sniper shot from the Skaven lance, taking out the vulnerable vent system on the ship carrying the field array.'''

'''The Farsight fleet jumps and Koll judges where they’re going to jump back in. The Loyalist fleet rearranges and only three ships come through - the bulbous frigate, a cruiser and a destroyer. They’re out of formation so the massive field array on the frigate is only affecting one side of the cruiser. The other three ships seem to be temporarily lost in the warp.'''

Skaven guns - lance batteries/single lance stealth shot

Range 13

Stealth mode: crit 2, 1d10+5, str 1, doesn’t alert enemy to position

Normal mode: crit 3, 1d10+3, str 3

Warp value 7

Assaulting the station
'''The Allure is in orbit around the research station - currently controlled by the Farsight forces. It was previously controlled by the loyalist Tau, specifically Commander Hoa Longfin, although our augur scans indicate that it’s some kind of archaeotech vessel, quite possibly pre-Imperium, that has been added to over the millennia, most recently by the Tau.'''

'''Niko, Cornelius, and Alea prep for a teleport assault on the station. We mount up with a couple of techie skaven, Queek and his stormvermin, a load of assassins with Snitch, plus three fire teams of veterans and Mackie, an old veteran sniper.'''

'''We teleport into the weapon control room and eviscerate everyone in pretty short order - plenty of fire warriors, some stealth suits, and turrets. Niko hooks into the control systems. One of the skaven stormvermin lose an arm; Niko grafts on a Stealth Suit plasma blaster ad-hoc'''

'''Niko engages in a digital battle with the station’s machine spirit, which seems to be some kind of gestalt between the original machine spirit and the an AI based on a mind imprint of Commander Oblatai. The entity is strong but Niko manages to turn most of the turrets in the station to our side, and shut down the Tau-installed weapon batteries'''

'''Niko and the veterans lock down the area while Cornelius and the assassins move out to scout the route to the central core. Although they’re trying to be stealthy, the lights turn on and the creepy voice of the machine spirit entity booms out. They hunker down and request backup from the troops and Niko, who arrive just in time to engage in battle with hordes of androids. Between the skaven ripper pistols, the bolters, and Alea’s Eldar '''

'''The androids are being rapidly manufactured by some kind of manufactories throughout the ship, that are capable of producing short-lived designs. We manage to beat back the androids and temporarily disable the production. Then we seal off the AI core, locking down three of its four entrances, the fourth going to the research core.'''

'''We advance on the research core, forming a firing position in front of the entrance and getting extra murder servitors ready. Once we’ve hacked two of the four turret sections, we breach and storm in.'''

'''The core is a walkway around a central platform, where the scientists are huddling and there’s a weird gate, and the platform is defended by an energy field that reflects energy weapons. The area has eight Crisis battlesuits, thirty or so fire warriors, a dozen stealth suits, and some androids. We storm in, murder servitors flanking, turrets firing, and fire teams laying down covering fire. Alea mind-controls one of the Crisis suits, causing lots of damage; Niko hacks the turrets; and Cornelius snipes key targets.'''

'''We sweep through our enemies and the day seems ours, until the gate flares into life and two broadside battlesuits plus a railgun come out. Fortunately our response is quick and lethal, and they retreat in short order. Our losses are pretty minimal - five Assassins and about a dozen murder servitors are lost beyond recovery.'''

'''Niko manages to separate the ship’s gestalt machine spirit and the Oblatai mind-state AI goes crazy, trying to shut down everything and vent us into space. We teleport the scientists out and Niko keeps things under control, but the research archives are mostly destroyed, with only some being recovered.'''

'''After 15 mins or so, a white flag pokes out of the portal and motherfuckin’ Cypher steps out. '''

Niko manages to split the AI from the machine spirit

Ancient archaeotech

Janky webway gate to Skaven homeworld; Tau have taken it over

The databanks are deleted but Niko recovers lots of data

We get the scientists out

Cypher turns up “nice to see one’s creation come to fruition”

“We must be quick, I have a feeling we’re about to be interrupted by my brothers”

Full invasion of the station took 2 hours

We have control of it

Planning on doing a short range warp jump somewhere nearby so Niko can outfit it with more reliable warp systems (possibly using the group jump tech scavenged from Farsight ships)

1,050 xp!

Loot:
 * Loads of pulse carbines
 * Some pulse rifles + pulse pistols?
 * Maaaybe a couple of the rarer ones - longshot pulse rifle, rail rifle, ion rifle
 * Battlesuits


 * 10+ XV25 stealth suits


 * One is minimally damaged thanks to headshot from Mackie
 * ~5 XV8 Crisis suits


 * One is minimally damaged thanks to headshot from Cornelius
 * One is almost completely undamaged - was mind controlled (and later mind-fucked) by Alea
 * Tau station weapon systems


 * Internal turrets
 * External batteries
 * Research station archaeotech


 * (damaged) external weapon systems
 * Cogitators
 * Materials
 * Rapid fabrication facilities
 * 40 Tau Empire scientists
 * 10 Farsight Enclave scientists


 * 3 tau scientists
 * 1 undamaged crisis suit
 * 4 damaged crisis suits
 * 10 damaged stealth suits

A chat with Cypher
GOALS for conversation with Cypher
 * Take the station without Longfin knowing it was us
 * Defuse situation on planet and take the rebels as population
 * Longfin is happy
 * We leave each other alone
 * Don’t get involved with angry dark angels
 * Farsight Bulbous frigate
 * A farsight cruiser

Cypher and cornelius engage in verbal combat

He’s acting as negotiator between us and the Farsight forces.

They aren’t interested in the station, but they want the system.

We say this could be arranged…

We plan to backstab Longfin, cede the system to Farsight

'''Dark angels turn up! The damaged Farsight cruiser turns up and smashes three of their nine ships'''

Cypher disappears, taking Queek with him!

'''We send over Snitch (sneakily), a techpriest, remembrancer, and a few misc people to the other side of the portal. They take a warpstone communicator (near-instantaneous comms between cornelius and snitch)'''

'''Order farsight forces to withdraw, apparently retreating. Our vessels bugger off too'''

Command loyalist tau to form up in a weak defensive line against the dark angels; one of the crippled farsight vessels suicide rams the loyalist tau

'''Niko builds the impromptu warp drive and gellar field on the research station using the hard light manufactory. Warp drive is good to go and gellar field is great but the station is over-taxed'''

Fezzig bursts away from Niko and glows blue then green; he is now one with the machine spirit

'''We jump! Short jump, Alea jinks us out of the way of a warp storm'''

Koll has a psychic encounter, finding himself in a world of his kinsmen

We reenter in the middle of the deep void six days later

Send Kristoff back to the system to check for dark angels presence

'''Niko speaks with the Master skaven, who is somewhat more healthy but irate over Queek being taken by Cypher. Niko manages to calm him somewhat and promises to get Queek back'''

'''Dark Angels left a beacon in the system: “You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting. You are Marked”'''

'''We spend some time in the station, emptying it of Farsight shit, rallying with all our vessels, doing archaeology on the station, and preparing to jump. Then we jump to Trazyn meeting point. Takes three months total.'''

Info from Snitch - the portal goes into a webway like dimension that is really close to the chaos realm

In the absence of Queek, Fezzig has taken over the elite stormvermin cadre

Ship machine spirit is Himselfs

'''On the station, Niko gains a lot of control and info, and finds a creepy room where machine spirits are sucked into the station. Potentially Niko could become the station'''

Cornelius establishes a private backdoor comm connection between Highdown and Von Holstein, and uses it to manipulate Holstein

Receiving our Just Reward
We rock up to Trazyn’s system, we get invitations to his ship

We meet him - Highdown, Holstein, and Kristoff plus senior staff (all PCs)

He’s happy, it seems

We all get to pick an Imperial battle from lore and have a look around it

Each player can find something in the lore, ideally featured in a specific battle, and try to get it

TRAZYN HAS A PRIMARCH - Omegon in stasis

He has many, many miniaturised voidships

Our Profit Factor increases by 5, plus 1 for Cornelius’ Hard Bargain talent - up to 26!

Cornelius wants a Raven Guard destroyer from the escape after the dropsite massacre at Isstvan V during the Horus Heresy

From Trazyn:
 * Cornelius:


 * Stealthship


 * Inc. 5 virus torpedoes, shadowhawk & darkwing (x2 each)
 * Archaeotech Raven Guard personal weapons
 * Niko:


 * Horus Heresy Era Iron Hands Cataphractii Tactical Dreadnought Armour
 * Archaeotech Omnissian axe
 * Alea:


 * Eldar awesomeship
 * Owes Trazyn a favour
 * Koll:


 * Sweet ass staff