Inquisitor Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Introduction
  • What is a Narrative Wargame?
  • What is a Gamesmaster?
  • How to Use This Book
  • What You Need
  • Dice Rolls
  • Scatter Dice
  • Re-rolls
  • Other Conventions
  • A Sample Inquisitor Turn
• Characters
  • Character Profiles
    • Physical Characteristics
    • Mental Characteristics
  • Characteristic Tests
  • Other Details
  • Sample Profile
• Actions
  • The Turn Sequence
  • Between Turns
  • Action Rolls
  • Risky Actions
  • Drawing & Changing Weapons
  • Combined Actions
  • Pause for Breath
  • Changing Actions
• Movement
  • Stance
  • Facing
  • Declaring Movement Actions
  • Movement Rates
    • Movement Rates Summary
  • Terrain
  • Combined Actions with Movement
  • Movement Summary
• Shooting
  • Weapon Profiles
  • Line of Sight
  • Arc of Vision and Facing
  • Movement and Shooting
  • Hitting the Target
  • Automatic Hits and Misses
  • To Hit Modifiers
    • Weapon Accuracy
    • Range
    • Movement (of the target)
    • Aiming
    • Covering Fire / Overwatch
• Close Combat
  • Weapon Profiles
  • Initiating Close Combat
  • Attack
  • Circle
  • Advance and Attack
  • Step Back
  • Fire Pistol
  • Break Off
  • Facing and Positioning
  • Example Close Combat Actions
  • Making Close Combat Attacks
    • Automatic Hits and Misses
• Injuries & Recovery
  • Armour
    • Sample Armour Values
  • Hit Location
    • Close Combat Hit Location
    • Hit Location Table
  • Damage Rolls
    • Damage from Close Combat & Thrown Weapons
  • Force Fields
    • Example Force Field Values
  • Cover
    • Covered Locations
• Awareness
  • Vision
    • Helmets & Awareness
  • Other Senses
    • Hearing
    • Hearing Ranges
    • Other Types of Awareness
  • Backstabbing
• Special Abilities
  • Talents
  • Psychic Abilities
    • Using Psychic Powers
    • Concentration
    • Ranged
    • Line of Sight
    • Difficulty Rating
    • Psychic Test Modifiers Summary
    • Automatic Success & Failure
    • Psychic Overloads
    • Risky Action
    • Psychic Bolts
• Exotic Abilities
  • Daemonic Possession
  • Fearsome
  • Frenzy
  • Regeneration
  • Spit Acid
  • Terrifying
  • Wyrd
  • Vampirism
  • Word of the Emperor
  • Mixing Special Abilities
• Armoury
  • Special Ammunition
  • Ranged Weapons
    • Las Weapons
    • Standard Projectile Weapons
    • Special Ammunition (Projectile Weapons)
    • Shotgun Ammunition
    • Bolt Weapons
    • Special Bolt Ammunition
    • Melta Weapons
    • Plasma Weapons
    • Flamer Weapons
    • Throwing Weapons

Introduction

What is a Narrative Wargame?

Many of you reading this book will have played a tabletop game before, but you should be warned that Inquisitor is quite unlike any Games Workshop game you may have played previously. This is because Inquisitor is a narrative wargame, and works considerably differently to games such as Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000. While in Inquisitor players do have objectives to achieve and there can be winners and losers, the main aim of the players is to use the rules and miniatures to create characters and a story on the tabletop.

You will not find any army lists or points values in Inquisitor, because with Inquisitor it is the task of one of the players to choose the forces and work out what they are trying to achieve in the game. This player is responsible for devising a scenario for everyone to play using the Inquisitor rules. There are hundreds of possible scenarios and countless different characters, some examples of which are given later. The Inquisitor rules allow the characters in the game to try to do just about anything, and one player adjudicates how these are resolved. As you can imagine, this player has a lot of power and responsibility, and is known as the Gamesmaster.

If you attempt to play Inquisitor from just a competitive standpoint, you will find that much of the enjoyment of playing the game will be lost. With Inquisitor it is possible to make all-conquering heroes who cannot be destroyed, and warrior bands which are far superior to anything they might meet. But that is not the point of playing Inquisitor. Where is the fun in a comic or movie character who is invincible? Even Superman is susceptible to kryptonite. Do we not enjoy seeing our action heroes on the brink of defeat, broken and battered, only to rise against the odds and win through! This is because the challenge of Inquisitor is to create this kind of exciting story, not to win the game simply by designing the hardest characters possible.

What is a Gamesmaster?

Put simply, the Gamesmaster is the player who runs the game. Sometimes the Gamesmaster (or GM for short) has characters to control in the game but, more often than not, he will be an additional player, like an impartial referee. As noted above, the GM writes the scenario and helps create the characters the players will be using, and ensures that the game they have created runs smoothly. There are whole sections dedicated to creating characters and devising scenarios later in this book, which will hopefully provide some guidance and ideas for budding GMs.

Most importantly, the GM is an adjudicator and umpire. He decides the chances of success and failure of a character's actions, and makes sure that the players keep up with the record-keeping necessary for the game. Being a GM is more than being an administrator though. The GM may control hidden creatures and forces, and is always aware of what is going on even when the other players may not be. He is the narrator in a way, guiding the players through the story that unfolds as they move and fight with their characters on the tabletop. Throughout these rules, you will find references to the GM making decisions about various rules, alerting the players to different options or hazards and so on. It may seem scary to be the GM at first; it carries a lot of responsibility, but it is highly rewarding and this book will provide you with all the help you need to get started.

How to Use This Book

The Inquisitor rulebook is divided into several distinct sections. The first part is the Core Rules which details the basic mechanics of playing a game of Inquisitor. As part of the core rules there are also rules for various special abilities and psychic powers your characters may possess. The Armoury section is next, with rules for over a hundred different weapons and pieces of equipment, from the humble lasgun to extravagant psychic-familiars such as the psyber-eagle.

A large part of this book is given over to showing a selection of the strange and wondrous characters of the 41st Millennium. Included in this section are fifteen characters we have created which you may like to use in your games, or to serve as inspiration for characters of your own devising. Throughout the book are short sections dedicated to helping budding players and GMs get started, with advice on creating characters and writing scenarios, running campaigns and so on. To get you going, there is also a scenario, High Noons, which uses a selection of characters included in this book. Perhaps most importantly, at the back of this volume is an extensive index and reference section, which will prove invaluable during play and when looking up weapons and abilities. There is also a character reference sheet we have prepared, which you can photocopy and fill in with details of your own Inquisitor and his warrior band.

Note: the sections on characters, the Gamesmaster, the appendix and the index described above are in the printed book's Part 2, which is not contained in the source file. They are not transcribed here.

What You Need

For a start, you will need two or more players, with a selection of miniatures to represent their characters. You will also need a battlefield to fight over. Any firm, level surface will do, such as a tabletop or an area of floor – most kitchen tables will do fine! It's a good idea to use an old sheet or blanket to protect the table from scratches and chips. Some players make a special gaming board from chipboard or some similar material, which they can place on top of a table to extend their playing area. On this surface you place the terrain around which the battle is fought, such as hills, fences, ruined buildings and vegetation. You can find out more about characters and the battlefield in the Painting and Modelling section later on.

As well as players, characters and a battlefield there are a few other things you will need. These include at least one measuring device (such as a retractable tape measure or ruler). You will also need some ordinary six-sided dice and some ten-sided dice, and you will find Games Workshop's special Scatter dice useful for determining random directions. Each character in the game needs a character sheet to be filled in (see the section on Creating Characters later on) and you'll need a pen (or preferably a pencil and eraser) to make notes during the game. There is also quite a bit of maths involved with Inquisitor, so you may find a calculator handy.

Dice Rolls

Inquisitor uses two types of dice, which are rolled frequently throughout the game to determine the success of a player's actions, random events, etc. These are a normal six-sided dice and a ten-sided dice (referred to as a D6 and a D10 respectively). A D10 is usually marked with a '0' on one face, and when rolled as a D10 this counts as a score of 10. As most of the Inquisitor game system is based on percentage chances, players will often need to roll a percentage dice as well (a D100). You don't need a 100-sided dice though! To roll a D100, you need two D10s of different colours, or one marked 00, 10, 20, etc. One is the 'tens' dice and the other is the 'units' dice, and when rolled together they will give you a score between 1 and 100. For example, a roll of a 5 (or 50) on the 'tens' dice and a roll of a 7 on the 'units' dice gives a score of 57, while rolls of 0 and 9 respectively will give a score of 9. A roll of two zeroes is a score of 100 when rolling a D100.

Sometimes you will need to modify the result of the dice roll. This is noted as D6 or D10 plus or minus a number, such as D6+1 or D10-2. Roll the dice and add or subtract the number to the score to get the final result. For example, D6+2 means roll a six-sided dice and add 2 to the score, giving a total between 3 and 8. You may also be told to roll a number of dice together, which is written as 2D6, 3D10 and so on. Roll the indicated number of dice and add the scores together, so that with a 2D6 roll, two dice are rolled and are added together for a score of between 2 and 12, 3D10 adds together the scores of three dice for a total of 3 to 30, and so on. For example, a 2D6 roll of a 5 and a 3 are added together to score 8. Another method sometimes used is to multiply the score of a dice by a certain amount. Therefore, D6x5 means roll a dice and multiply the score by 5, giving a range of between 5 to 30.

Sometimes a combination of these methods may be used, such as 2D6+5 giving a score between 7 and 17, or 3D6-3 which will total 0 to 15.

In a few rare circumstances you may be told to roll a D3. Since there's no such thing as a three-sided dice, use the following method for determining a score between 1 and 3. Roll a D6 and halve the score, rounding up. Thus, a 1 or 2 = 1, a 3 or 4 = 2 and a 5 or 6 = 3.

Scatter Dice

A few weapons are fairly random in their accuracy and require you to roll the Scatter dice to determine where they land. The Scatter dice is marked on four sides with an arrow, and on two sides with a special 'Hit' symbol. Simply roll the Scatter dice near the target point, the arrow shows in which direction the shot has deviated. Also note that there is a small arrow on the Hit side to determine the direction.

Although we recommend a Scatter dice as the best way for determining random direction, you can achieve a similar result with a D6. Place the scatter diagram next to where the shot was supposed to land and roll a D6, the shot scatters in the direction indicated by the clock face. This method isn't quite as random as a Scatter dice but will suffice in most circumstances.

Scatter Diagram (as printed): a circle with the D6 results placed around it. 1 is at the top, 2 on the right, 3 at the bottom and 4 on the left, with 5-6 (HIT) in the centre.

Re-rolls

In some situations the rules allow you a 're-roll' of the dice. This is exactly as it sounds – pick up the dice you wish to re-roll and roll them again. The second score counts with a re-roll, even if it means a worse result than the first, and no single dice can be re-rolled more than once, regardless of the source of the re-roll.

Other Conventions

Throughout this book, a number of basic conventions are used:

Fractions: All fractions are mathematically rounded off. This means that fractions of less than half are rounded down to the nearest whole number, while fractions of half or more are rounded up.

Distances: All distances in Inquisitor are given in yards, and players can adopt whichever ground scale they feel suitable. The games we play generally use a ground scale of 1 inch equalling 1 yard. We also feel it is convenient to measure all fractions of distance to the nearest yard or half yard.

Applying Modifiers: Unless specifically stated otherwise, when applying modifiers of any kind, multiplying or divisional modifiers are applied before additions or subtractions. For example, a player has a +10 modifier to a dice roll, but all their dice rolls are halved. If they roll a 60 on a D100, this means that the final score is actually 40 (60 halved is 30, then add the 10), rather than 35 (60+10 before being halved).

A Sample Inquisitor Turn

GM Graham has written a scenario for Rowland and Phil. Rowland's warrior band, consisting of the characters Witch Hunter Tyrus, Sergeant Stone, Devotee Malicant and Enforcer Barbaretta, are hunting down Phil's characters in a forge-mine on the world of Karis Cephalon. Phil's Inquisitor, Lichtenstein, with his followers Magos Dimitri, Servitor-Warrior Gryx and the Daemonhost Ghaustos are attempting to commune with an ancient daemon trapped beneath the planet's surface. We join them as Malicant has fired on Dimitri while Sergeant Stone has just bounced a couple of shots off of Lichtenstein.

Graham: Lichtenstein is the fastest character. What's he up to, Phil?

Phil: I'm tempted to leave him chanting, ignoring the bullets whizzing past in a cool manner, but I think I'd better do something about the guy who just blasted at him. Lichtenstein's allowed five actions, so he'll turn on the spot, aim at Sergeant Stone and then fire his stubber on semi auto as many times as he can.

Graham: That's one action to turn, one to aim, leaving you three shooting actions. Make your Action rolls. [Phil rolls some D6s].

Phil: Okay I've made three passes. That gives me the turn, aim, and then two shots for semi auto. I don't suffer any negative modifiers for that because Lichtenstein has Rock Steady Aim. [He turns the character around to face toward the target].

Graham: Make your first roll to hit then. [Graham measures the range to the target, while Phil looks up some details on Lichtenstein's character sheet].

[Phil rolls to hit with each shot, determining that Lichtenstein has hit his target in the chest and right leg. He does enough damage to take Sergeant Stone out of action].

Phil: Good shooting!

Graham: Okay, Tyrus is next, what do you want him to do, Rolly?

Rowland: I guess he doesn't know what's going on outside yet, so he'll just continue walking up through the rooms leading towards Lichtenstein and the Daemonhost. [Rowland rolls some more dice and Tyrus ends his turn just behind one of the doors to the outside].

Graham: Barbaretta has the next highest Speed, so she can go now.

Rowland: Ghaustos is going to kill her with his psychic powers unless she does something real quick. She'll aim her combat shotgun at him for one action and then spend three actions firing. [Rowland makes his action rolls]. She's only got one action this turn.

Graham: She's slowed down from the Bloodfreeze attack last turn I suspect, so she only manages to aim at her foe this time around. The aim bonus will carry over to next turn if Ghaustos stays in sight though. It's Magos Dimitri next, I believe.

[Phil resolves some shooting from the Adeptus Mechanicus character, who fails to hit his target, Devotee Malicant].

Rowland: Malicant wants to get over there and chop them up with his Eviscerator! Bawling 'For the Emperor! On wings of fire I fly!' he legs it along the gantry and then tries to leap over to where the Magos and Inquisitor are. [Rowland rolls his dice and in the event Malicant cannot jump far enough to cover the distance, which sends him crashing to the floor beneath, knocking him out].

Phil: That's a bit unheroic…

Graham: I think, spurred with such fiery zeal, Malicant would make a bit of extra effort. Let's say that he just about makes the jump, but has to let go of his pistol and is clinging precariously to the railing. He's still in the fight for now, but he's hanging around in the open, and is a bit of an easy target.

Rowland: Where'd his laspistol end up?

[Graham determines a random direction and tells them the laspistol preceded Devotee Malicant through the railings and skittered along the gantry behind Dimitri].

Graham: Right, who's next?

Caption from the printed page: Phil tries to use telepathy to convince Graham and Rowland that he did manage to roll a 6.

Characters

The miniatures which we use in a game of Inquisitor each represent an individual character. These vary from mighty inquisitors of the Imperium to scabrous mutants dedicated to overthrowing Mankind's rule.

Every character is slightly different, with their own strengths and special talents. These unique qualities are represented in two ways: by the character's profile and his special abilities.

A character's profile shows such things as how good at shooting he is or how brave he can be. Every character in the game has a profile, and a basic knowledge of what the various numbers represent is necessary to understand the Inquisitor game system.

Special abilities, on the other hand, are tricks and talents that a character may have which makes him slightly different to another character who, on the face of it, looks the same. Special abilities sometimes allow a character to bend the rules in certain ways, so they are examined at the end of the Core Rules section (page 54) but for now we will concentrate on profiles.

Character Profiles

Each of our characters has a physical and mental profile which shows their ability to perform various tasks, withstand damage, etc. A profile is made up of five physical and four mental characteristics. Between them, these define a character's prowess in various areas. All characteristics are normally rated with a score between 1 and 100, with 1 being the worst and 100 being the best. These show the limits of a human character, and so it is possible for characters who are not human or who have superhuman capabilities to exceed this.

The nine characteristics are as described below (frequently they are abbreviated to the letters shown in brackets).

Physical Characteristics

Weapon Skill (WS): The character's ability when fighting at close quarters with an enemy. A competent human's WS would be between 50 and 60, while an expert swordsman may have a WS of 80 or more.

Ballistic Skill (BS): This is the character's innate skill when firing a ranged weapon. Most humans would have a BS of between 30 and 40, though a dedicated marksman might well have a BS twice this.

Strength (S): This shows how physically strong a character is. It affects how much damage is done when using certain weapons such as swords and fists, as well as a character's chances of smashing down a door, etc. Particularly hefty weapons require a minimum Strength to use effectively, and if a character is not strong enough, his chances of hitting will be reduced. A fit human (such as a soldier) would be Strength 50, whilst a biologically enhanced Arco-flagellant may have up to Strength 200!

Toughness (T): This is the character's ability to withstand damage, including his capacity to ignore pain as well as his physical hardiness. A normal human might have a Toughness of 40 to 50, while a Space Marine would have a Toughness of well over 100.

Initiative (I): Initiative is probably the most important characteristic in Inquisitor. It is a combination of many factors, including the character's reaction time, his observational abilities and general dexterity and agility. It is used to determine how quickly a character can act, and how much he can do. It is also used for determining if he can react to a sudden threat and how nimble he is at performing physical activities, such as jumping and dodging. Initiative is a measure of a character's general ability to perform any physical activity. A normal human would have an Initiative of 30 to 40, a trained soldier 50 to 60, whilst a super-fast assassin might have an Initiative of 100 or more.

Mental Characteristics

Willpower (Wp): This is the character's strength of mind. It is mostly used to unleash and resist psychic powers, but is occasionally called into play when trying to intimidate an enemy, etc. An ordinary Imperial citizen would have a Willpower of around 35 (fairly weak-willed), while a hardened leader would have a Willpower of 80 or more. A powerful Inquisitor would most likely have a Willpower even higher than this.

Sagacity (Sg): This is the character's intelligence, education and powers of problem-solving. When faced with a lock code to decipher, or an unfamiliar weapon, it is the character's Sagacity that will be used. Most educated humans of the 41st millennium (who are quite few and far between!) would have a Sagacity of 50 to 60. A Tech-adept or military commander might have a Sagacity of 80 or more.

Nerve (Nv): Nerve is the character's ability to keep calm in stressful situations. It is used when a character wishes to ignore danger and continue with a task, or to test to see if he ducks behind cover when shot at. Most ordinary folks would have a Nerve of 20 or less, a trained Imperial Guardsman would be in the 40 to 60 range, whilst a character in a chemically-induced frenzy has a Nerve value of 120 or more.

Leadership (Ld): Leadership serves a two-fold purpose. Firstly, it represents a character's own discipline, and therefore his ability to follow orders, stay in a fight, etc. In essence, when a character's Nerve fails, his Leadership comes into effect. It also shows the character's ability to command others. An average Imperial soldier would have a Leadership of about 70, while a Space Marine Captain might have a Leadership of up to 100.

Characteristic Tests

Quite often a player will be called upon to make a characteristic test for one of their characters. To make this test, the player rolls a D100 and compares it to the characteristic being tested. If the roll is equal to or lower than the characteristic score then the test is passed; if it is higher, the test is failed.

Other Details

The characteristics show the basic make-up of a character, but there are a couple of other factors that need to be known about a character.

Speed: Each character has a Speed value, which determines when they can act in a turn and how quickly. Speed is equal to the character's Initiative divided by 20, plus 1. For example a character with Initiative 76 has Speed 5 (76/20=4+1=5). A character's speed can change quite a lot during a game; most usually it goes down due to injuries.

Handedness: Most characters will be right or left handed. It is important to know which hand your character favours, as any actions he tries to perform with his off-hand will be a little bit harder (try writing with your off-hand and you'll see what a difference it makes!).

For each character you also need to keep track of things such as their weapons and equipment (including ammunition left and what type/s of armour they are wearing), the injuries they have received, and any special skills or psychic powers they may have. A character sheet is given later for you to photocopy and use for your games (see page 181).

Sample Profile

Shyloque

WS	BS	S	T	I	Wp	Sg	Nv	Ld
76	80	55	62	70	81	86	80	85

From his profile we can see that Shyloque is a fairly versatile and powerful character. He is good in close combat and quite an exceptional shot. He is not as strong and tough as say, a Space Marine, but can certainly endure worse injuries than a normal human. Mentally, he is very strong, as you might expect from one of the Imperium's hidden guardians. He is very brave and intelligent, though lacks the discipline of a more highly ranked Inquisitor.

As he has an Initiative of 70, this gives Shyloque a Speed of 5 – (70/20)+1.

Actions

The following sections deal with the basic rules systems and mechanics that enable you to play a game of Inquisitor. Here you will find out how characters move around the battlefield, shoot at each other, get injured and perform all the other actions that might happen in bitter close-quarter combat.

The Turn Sequence

In a real-life combat a lot can happen in a short space of time, much of it almost simultaneously. However, to try and play a game like this would be extremely difficult. For this reason a game of Inquisitor is broken down into turns during which the characters move and fight. Each turn represents roughly ten seconds of 'real time'. Once every character has had the opportunity to move and fight then the turn ends.

When it comes to a character's chance to act, he can perform a number of actions. This could be walking a certain distance, firing a weapon, leaping over a wall, climbing a ladder or hundreds of other things. Within the ten or so seconds a turn takes, some characters will spend a lot of the time working out what to do, hesitating and changing their mind, while others will react instantly and quickly. The characters' differing Speeds reflect this. A character with a high Speed acts quickly and decisively and so can do quite a lot during the turn, while slower Speed characters will dither around and perform proportionately fewer actions.

Although much of a combat appears to happen at the same time, much of it is actions and reactions that happen in a sequence. Characters who are quicker on the uptake and physically faster can do more in a turn than a slower adversary. To represent this, each character has a Speed value, which shows how soon they can act and how much they can do. During the turn, the players count down the Speed values of the characters, from highest to lowest. When a character's Speed or lower is called out, he can act (a character can choose to delay his actions until a lower Speed value is called out). If opposing players wish for two or more characters to act at the same time, the characters act in order of their Initiative, from highest to lowest (roll a D6 each if there is still a tie, the highest scoring player can go first).

Once a character has completed his actions, continue with the other characters who can act at that Speed and then move on to the next Speed down. Once you declare Speed 1, this is the last chance for any character to act that turn. A character can only be 'activated' once per turn. Once every character has had the opportunity to act, then proceed to the between turns segment and then the next turn starts, starting with the highest Speed character and working down again. It's a good idea for the GM to check at the end of the turn to ensure that all the characters have had the opportunity to act, starting with the highest Speed character.

Example: Inquisitor Shyloque, with Initiative 70, can perform his actions any time after Speed 5 is called. He may want to act as soon as possible, or he could wait until later in the turn to see what happens. If another character wishes to act at the same time as him, he will go after a character with Initiative 71 or higher, while characters with Initiative of 69 or lower will take their turn after him.

Turn Sequence summary (as printed in the sidebar):

1. Characters act in order of Speed value.
2. Characters with same Speed value act in order of Initiative.
3. Characters with the same Initiative value roll a dice to see who acts first.
4. A character can opt to delay his actions until a lower Speed.
5. Declare the actions you want your character to perform that turn (maximum number of actions is equal to Speed, to a maximum of 6).
6. Make an Action roll. Roll a number of D6s equal to the character's Speed value. Each score of 4 or more means one of the declared actions may be performed in the order they were declared.
7. Pause for breath: making a pause for breath action allows you to delay declaring what actions the character is going to do until all preceding actions have been resolved.

Between Turns

There is a tidying up period at the end of every turn for things such as recovering from injuries, working out additional damage on burning characters, etc. Once these 'between turn' events are resolved the next turn starts. In the reference section at the back of this book is a list of things that you should work out between turns.

Action Rolls

The number of actions a character may attempt to perform is equal to his current Speed, so that higher Speed characters can attempt to do more in a turn than lower Speed characters. However, a character cannot attempt more than six actions in a turn, regardless of what his Speed is.

In this book are many, many examples of the different actions a character will want to attempt in the course of a game. However, players are inventive people and are bound to want their characters to do things not covered here, in which case it is the task of the Gamesmaster to adjudicate how many actions it will take. In these rules, it is assumed that each action is two or three seconds of activity, which is a good guide for how many actions a particular activity will take.

The player declares all of the actions the character wants to attempt that turn, in the order they will be performed. The player then rolls a number of D6 equal to the character's current Speed. This is called an Action roll. For each D6 score of 4 or more, the character performs one of the declared actions, in the order they were declared. The required Action roll may be modified up or down due to a character's special abilities and other factors. Even if the player fails all of his action rolls (ie all D6 rolls are 3 or below) he is allowed a minimum of one action per turn.

Note that the player rolls a number of dice equal to the character's Speed, not the number of actions attempted. This means that although characters with a Speed of 7 or higher can still only perform six actions per turn, they are rolling more dice and so are more likely to succeed.

Example: Shyloque may perform five actions when it is his turn. The player declares that Shyloque is going to open a door and move through it (one action), close the door behind him (one action), ready his bolt pistol (one action) and then cover a window on the other side of the street (one aiming action). He does not use his final action. As Shyloque is Speed 5, the player rolls five D6 and scores 2, 3, 4, 4 and 6. This is three successful actions, so Shyloque manages to go through & close the door and ready his bolt pistol. However, he doesn't have time to start aiming towards the window this turn.

Risky Actions

Some actions are more likely to go disastrously wrong than others, certain weapons use highly unstable energy sources which might explode, and so on. Performing such an action or using such an item carries an element of risk, and so is known, obviously enough, as a Risky action. If the player rolls more 1s than he does 6s when a character is attempting to perform a Risky action, then the character has fouled up. It is up to the Gamesmaster to point out if a character is attempting a Risky action. Some examples include:

• Sprinting across rubble, debris, slippery ice, etc. The character falls flat on his face! The character is prone and stunned for the rest of the turn.
• Firing a plasma weapon. The weapon catastrophically misfires. Roll a D6:
  • 1-2 – Explodes! The character counts as shooting himself in the firing arm. Resolve damage and injuries in the normal way. The plasma weapon is destroyed.
  • 3-4 – Critical overheat. The character drops the weapon and takes 2D6 damage to his firing arm. The weapon is too hot to be picked up for D10 turns.
  • 5-6 – Overheat. The character drops the weapon.
• Throwing a grenade. The grenade goes off prematurely! Roll a D6:
  • 1-2 – Explodes in hand. The grenade explodes in the character's hand. Resolve its effects centred on the character.
  • 3-4 – Dropped. The character drops the grenade. It scatters D10 yards in a random direction from the character before exploding.
  • 5-6 – Dud. The grenade is a dud and does not explode.

Other things may happen such as a character burning out the circuits on an electronic lock he is trying to break, or a character stumbling whilst jumping through a window is perhaps stuck as he jumps through, and so forth.

If a character is performing normal actions before the Risky action (such as moving before firing a plasma weapon) then these actions are completed successfully before the Risky action fails (in this instance the character would move before the plasma gun explodes). If the player doesn't pass enough Action rolls to reach the Risky action (eg, they succeed with two Action rolls, but their Risky action is the third action) there is no additional downside – the character simply performs the number of normal actions allowed.

Drawing & Changing Weapons

Normally a character has two hands (some aliens may have more, while wounded characters may have less). Generally a character can carry something in each hand, which you should note on the character's playsheet. Some items listed later in the Armoury require both hands to hold, or use to full effect, and this is noted in the description of the item.

It normally takes one action to change what the character is holding or using. Some particular weapons or wargear may require more than this, as noted in their description. A character can swap which weapons are in which hand as part of this action.

Example: Shyloque is holding a plasma pistol in his right hand, which needs to spend the next four turns recharging. He draws his bolt pistol with his left hand, but as he is right-handed, he would prefer to have the bolt pistol in his right hand. He is allowed to swap the pistols as part of the same draw action, so that he ends up with his bolt pistol in his right hand and his plasma pistol in his left hand. If Shyloque later wanted to swap the pistols back again, this would take one complete action to do. Alternatively, as a single action Shyloque could holster the plasma pistol and draw both his bolt pistol and his power sword, and is free to decide which weapon is being held in which hand.

Combined Actions

It is quite possible for a character to combine actions together, such as shooting and jumping, or opening a door whilst sending a telepathic message. Performing another action whilst moving is dealt with in the next section.

If a character is combining an action which requires some kind of test, his chances of success are halved if he tries it whilst performing another action. Obviously only certain actions can be combined together, for example, a character using his hands to climb a ladder cannot reload a gun at the same time. As usual, the GM should adjudicate whether a character would be physically capable of performing the combined action.

Example: Shyloque is trying to use his choke psychic power on an enemy, which normally would have a 76% chance of success. However, he is trying to do this whilst climbing up a wobbling ladder, which requires much of his concentration. His chance of using the choke power is halved to 38%.

Pause for Breath

Pause for breath is a special type of action that represents the character pausing for a moment to look around and take stock of what is going on before proceeding. Each pause for breath allows the player to suspend nominating any remaining actions for that turn. The player does not need to declare any actions that the character will perform after the pause for breath, until all of the preceding actions have been resolved.

Example: Shyloque is facing a renegade Space Marine charging towards him with a vicious chain-axe. He wants to shoot him with his plasma pistol, but if that fails to stop the brute, he wants to leave his options open. The player decides to shoot the plasma pistol and then pause for breath. This will allow him to decide Shyloque's other actions after finding out what effect the plasma pistol shot had. In the event, Shyloque misses with the plasma pistol and then pauses for breath. The player opts for Shyloque to run away, drawing his power sword as he does so.

A character can pause for breath as many times as they like, in effect using a pause for breath action to declare a subsequent action as a pause for breath. A character could therefore perform an action, pause for breath, perform another action, pause for breath again and then execute another action, and so on.

No matter how many actions are declared, the player still makes the Action roll with one dice per point of the character's Speed to determine how many actions will be available that turn. Obviously, pausing for breath is most useful for higher Speed characters who are likely to have the spare actions at the end of their turn.

Changing Actions

Sometimes things won't happen as a character expected – their gun jams, their grenade goes off next to them, their target is knocked out of sight, etc. On occasion it will be ridiculous for a character to carry on with their declared actions – for example, if he declares all of his actions shooting a particular target, which is then knocked out of sight. In these circumstances the GM may allow the character to change his actions. The character must pass an Initiative test and, if successful, he can re-declare any actions not yet spent this turn, but must spend his next action as a pause for breath action. If it is failed, then the sudden turn of events flummoxes him and his turn ends. GMs should be wary about letting players change their characters' actions too often; the players should learn to plan for the consequences of their actions rather than rely on the goodwill of the GM!

Movement

In Inquisitor, our characters are likely to move around quite a lot, trying to get a good shot at the enemy, charging into close combat or leaping from roof to roof in a daring chase. In this section are the rules for regulating how our characters move across the battlefield.

Stance

A character can be in one of three positions: standing, kneeling/crouching or prone. It takes one action to change stance, and this may be freely performed as part of a combined action with no penalty to the chances of the other action. This means that normally a character can decide what stance his character is in at the end of each action.

For example, if a player declares that his character is going to sprint to a wall and dive to the ground, the character will end up prone at the end of the action. The next turn the character could stand up and shoot, or some other combination.

Caption from the printed page: this character is sprinting to a wall and crouching down. If he has insufficient actions to reach the wall he would still be standing (A), otherwise he can crouch (B).

Facing

A character can obviously only face in one direction at a time. If a character moves, he will end up facing in the direction he moves in unless the player specifically states that he is going to stop at the end of the action and turn around.

Similarly, a character shooting at someone will face in the direction he fired towards unless the player specifically states otherwise.

Declaring Movement Actions

The dynamically posed Inquisitor miniatures we use to represent our characters are not capable of the full range of movement of that a real person has – they cannot duck behind walls, lean out of a window, jump down from a ledge, etc. However, just because the miniatures cannot do this, this does not prevent our characters doing so!

Movement actions work slightly differently to other actions, because the player declares where he wants the character to move to, and how fast, rather than how many actions he will spend performing the movement. For example, you may declare that a character is going to sprint to the corner of a particular building, or run across a room, rather than saying he will walk for two actions. Once the character's actions have been declared and the Action roll made, measure how far it is to the specified destination and, using the movement rates given opposite, work out how many of the character's actions the movement has used up. The character then continues with any other declared actions, up to the number of actions allowed by his Action roll.

Example 1: The player declares that Shyloque is going to run to the corner of a building further up the street, and then fire his bolt pistol as many times as possible at an enemy around the corner. After making Shyloque's Action roll, the player finds that Shyloque can perform four actions. The distance to the corner of the building is 11 yards, so Shyloque must run for two actions to reach it (each running action covers 6 yards). He then has two actions remaining in which to shoot at his foe.

Example 2: If Shyloque had declared he was running to the corner, firing twice and then ducking back, his four actions would be to move to the corner of the building (two actions) and fire twice (two actions). He wouldn't be able to duck back.

Movement Rates

Below are the distances covered in one action of various types of movement.

Sneaking: A character can try and move quietly, to avoid detection by the enemy and maximise the available cover. A sneaking character takes one action to cover every 2 yards. Sneaking is a Risky action and if the action is failed, the character will be heard and seen as if walking normally. Sneaking around is dealt with in more detail in the Awareness section later (page 52).

Crawling: The character gets down on his belly and wriggles like a snake! Crawling is very slow, but the character can make the most use of whatever cover is around, and presents a difficult target even when in the open. It takes one action to crawl 2 yards.

Walking: The normal method of moving, the character proceeds at a reasonable pace, and is very aware of his surroundings. Note the character will make use of available cover – he is not out for a pleasant evening stroll! A character takes one action to walk 4 yards.

Evading (dodging and weaving): A character evades to avoid incoming shots, ducking and jinking to throw off the enemy's aim. He is aware of his immediate surroundings, looking for useful cover and enemies, but is concentrating on being a hard target rather than what else is happening around him. It costs one action to move 5 yards when evading.

Running: Somewhere between walking and sprinting, a character who is running can cross the ground quickly, and still remain reasonably aware of what's going on. A running character uses one action for 6 yards covered.

Sprinting: The character puts his head down and legs it! A character who is sprinting is only really aware of what's directly in front of him, and makes little use of cover along the way. A sprinting character moves 10 yards per action and cannot combine this movement with any other action (see combined actions later).

Movement Rates Summary

Movement	Distance per action
Sneaking	2 yards
Crawling	2 yards
Walking	4 yards
Evading	5 yards
Running	6 yards
Sprinting	10 yards

Jumping: A character can jump horizontally a number of yards equal to his Strength divided by 20. Add 50% if the action before the jump was spent sprinting. For example, a Strength 80 character who spends an action sprinting before the jump can therefore go 4+2= 6 yards. Jumping is a Risky action and if it is fumbled the character only jumps a distance equal to a percentage roll of the maximum distance they could achieve. Following the previous example, if the character messed up the jump and then rolled 48% on a D100, he would only jump 3 yards instead of 6 yards (potentially very dangerous when trying to jump over a deep drop!).

For details of jumping up onto and off of things, see the Terrain section overleaf.

Dragging: A character can drag a prone character or heavy object 1 yard per action. If two or more characters are dragging the same object, then all the characters move in each character's turn. Normally a maximum of three characters can drag an object at any one time.

Example: Two characters are dragging a stunned comrade. In the first character's turn, the character gets three successful actions, and all three of them move 3 yards. In the second character's turn, the character gets two successful actions and so the whole group moves a further 2 yards that turn.

The GM may want to increase or decrease the distance an object can be dragged depending on its size and weight (dragging a stunned Space Marine in his power armour is a lot harder than pulling a robed adept into cover, for example). Also the character's own position will be important, so characters who are trying to drag an object whilst prone (crawling, in other words) can only move 1/2 yard per action. A character who is dragging something along the ground will obviously be bent over or crouched, and so may not be seen (or be able to see) if behind a wall or other obstacle.

Terrain

Combats don't normally take place over flat featureless plains, and so your Inquisitor battlefield is likely to be littered with all kinds of obstacles and terrain. Terrain can seriously affect movement, but provides cover and, when used well, will greatly extend the life expectancy of your character. There are all sorts of pieces of terrain, the most common examples of which are covered below. As you might expect, it is the GM who must decide what different effects the terrain has on movement, and must ensure that the players are aware of this at the start of the game.

Difficult Ground: Difficult ground is a term which covers all kinds of rough terrain that may slow movement. This includes scrub, rocky scree, steep slopes, woods and undergrowth. With the exception of crawling, reduce all movement rates by 1 yard per action when a character is moving through difficult terrain. Also, remember that sprinting across or through difficult terrain is a Risky action and the character will fall over if they bodge it.

Slopes and Cliffs: Shallow slopes present no difficulty or danger to characters moving up or down them, but steep slopes are another matter entirely. As a rough guide, a slope at a 30° angle or steeper is considered to be steep. A steep slope halves all movement rates going up the slope, except crawling. If a character attempts to move down a steep slope at any faster than a walk, this is considered to be a Risky action. If he messes up the Risky action, he falls over and rolls to the bottom of the slope. A character who falls down a slope is stunned for one turn, and an additional turn for every full 5 yards he tumbled. Steps and stairways are treated as steep slopes unless particularly shallow.

A slope that is getting close to vertical (about 80° or so) is considered to be an obstacle.

Obstacles: Distinct vertical features such as walls, fences, rock faces, and wrecks are known as obstacles. It takes one action to jump over a low obstacle (up to 2 yards high). It takes two actions to jump over a high obstacle (up to 4 yards tall) – one action to get on top of the obstacle and another to drop down. Crossing these sorts of obstacles are Risky actions and the character will fall prone on the side they started from if they mess it up.

A character may jump down a maximum of 4 yards. This is a Risky action. If completed successfully then the character lands on his feet and takes no damage. If the Risky action is messed up then the character must test for falling damage as if he had been knocked off. Jumping down further than this will cause damage – see the Injuries section on page 46.

Obstacles over 4 yards high must be climbed, at a rate of 2 yards per action. A character who is climbing anything without proper rungs, or a rope, is taking a Risky action and will fall if he fumbles his Action roll (or may not climb at all that turn if starting the action on the ground).

A character who is pinned whilst climbing cannot move, but must still spend his next available action recovering (see the Shooting section on page 37 for details of pinning). A character who suffers knockback or is stunned whilst climbing will fall and suffer damage as normal.

Doors & Other Structural Features: Moving through a doorway takes no additional time unless it is closed or the character wishes to close the door after he has moved through. If this is the case, it takes one action to open or close a door. Climbing through a window counts as moving across an obstacle, and similarly will take an extra action if the character needs to open or close it. In the case of locked doors, gates and windows, there are two options available – force the lock or attempt to pick/decode it. Forcing a lock requires a Strength test. The sturdiness of a lock and the door or gate is represented by a negative modifier to the Strength test. For example, an ordinary deadlock would be -10 or -15, a barred door -25 to -35, while a reinforced bunker door would be up in the -60 to -80 range! Forcing open such a feature is a Risky action and if failed the character is stunned for the rest of that turn. Of course, the character could try to attack the door itself, using rules given later in the Grenades and Explosives section on page 82.

Similarly, picking a lock requires a Sagacity test, with appropriate modifiers for the complexity of the lock. A straightforward key lock would be -20 or so, while a complex keypad would tax the hardest brains and would be -80.

A character can jump through a closed window as a Risky action. If messed up, the character will end up prone on the other side of the window and be stunned for D3 turns (he may also suffer damage from falling depending on how far up the window is!).

Water: Water can have a whole gamut of effects on characters, depending on how deep it is, whether it is flowing (like a river) or still (like a pool), and so on. Water which is no deeper than half a yard is treated just like difficult ground. Water that is up to chest height (about a yard and a half) can be waded across at a rate of 2 yards for each successful action, or it may be swum. Water deeper than this must be swum across. A swimming character moves 3 yards per action. However, swimming is a Risky action and if failed means that the character flounders around for the turn and does nothing.

A character who is pinned whilst swimming or wading is not knocked prone, but must spend his next action recovering as normal. A character stunned whilst wading or swimming flounders around on the spot but suffers no additional ill effects. A character who falls unconscious whilst in water is assumed to float, but see the panel on drowning below. A stunned or unconscious character can be fished out of the water using the normal rules for dragging other characters. A character cannot be knocked back whilst swimming, and will halve any knockback distances if wading.

This assumes that the character is swimming across a pool or lake. A stream or river (or sewer effluent outflow pipe perhaps!) with a strong current will move a swimming character D3 yards downstream at the start of every turn (or D6 yards for rapids and other raging torrents). A character wading across such a feature must pass a Strength test or he loses his footing and must swim, drifting as described (take the test before declaring actions for the character). He can spend actions attempting to right himself, in which case he must pass another Strength test to be successful.

Drowning: Drowning isn't a very heroic way to go, and so I'd recommend that GMs don't worry about it. However, for those GMs who like such niggly details, a character who is stunned or unconscious whilst in water must pass a Toughness test at the end of every turn or drown.

Combined Actions with Movement

A character can often perform some other type of action whilst moving, such as firing a weapon, loading a weapon, unsheathing a sword, talking on a comm-link, and so forth. If the character is trying to move other than at a sneak, walk or run, (eg, trying to crawl, jump, evade or perform some other movement action) then the normal rules for combined actions apply – that is, all percentage chances of performing the other action are halved. If the character is sneaking, walking or running, then rather than being halved, the chances of performing the combined action are reduced by 2% for every yard already moved this turn. Note that this is based on the total distance moved this turn, not just during the same action, so a character who spent one action walking and then another action walking and using a psychic power would suffer -16% (8 yards moved) to his action.

Example: Inquisitor Shyloque is leaping over the gap between two gantries and firing his bolt pistol at a cultist beneath him. Standing still, his chance of hitting the cultist would normally be 70%, but this is halved to 35% for being a combined action.

Movement Summary

The printed movement summary panel reads:

• Stance: a character can stand, kneel/crouch or lie prone. Changing stance may be performed free with an action with no penalty.
• Jumping over obstacles: one action to jump over a low obstacle (up to 2 yards high); two actions over a high obstacle (up to 4 yards high), a Risky action (character falls prone if failed). One action to jump down up to 4 yards, a Risky action (character falls if failed).
• Climbing: obstacles over 4 yards must be climbed at 2 yards per action. Climbing anything without rungs, rope, etc. is a Risky action (character falls if failed). If pinned whilst climbing, the character cannot move. If knocked back or stunned whilst climbing, the character falls.
• Declaring movement: the player declares where the character is moving to. Once actions have been declared and an Action roll made, measure the distance moved and work out how many actions it took, depending on the movement rates.
• Sneaking and crawling: 2 yards; walking: 4 yards; evading: 5 yards; running: 6 yards; sprinting: 10 yards.
• Water: water no deeper than half a yard counts as difficult ground. Water up to chest height can be waded across (2 yards per action) or swum. Deeper water must be swum across (3 yards per action), a Risky action (character flounders if failed). A pinned swimmer is not knocked prone but must spend the next action recovering. A character stunned while swimming flounders. A character who falls unconscious simply floats. A character cannot be knocked back whilst swimming and halves knockback distances if wading.
• Jumping: yards equal to Strength/20, plus 50% if the action before the jump was spent sprinting. A Risky action; if failed, the character only jumps a distance equal to a percentage roll of the maximum distance.
• Dragging: a prone character or heavy object can be dragged 1 yard per action.
• Terrain: difficult ground reduces all movement (except crawling) by 1 yard per action; sprinting across difficult ground is a Risky action (character falls over if failed). Steep slopes halve all movement rates going up, except crawling. Moving down a steep slope faster than a walk is a Risky action (character falls over and is stunned for one turn plus one turn for every 5 yards tumbled).
• Combined actions with movement: if sneaking, walking or running, the chance of performing a combined action other than shooting is reduced by 2% per yard already moved this turn. For any other type of move, the chance of performing the other action is halved.

Shooting

In this section, we'll look at how our characters can shoot at one another with rifles, pistols, grenades, rocket launchers and other ranged weapons.

Weapon Profiles

Some weapons have a higher rate of fire than normal, others are more accurate at long range, while some need to be reloaded frequently. Just as with characters, these individual traits and characteristics are listed in a weapon's profile. The profile is broken down into:

Type: There are three types of ranged weapon: pistol, basic and heavy. Pistol weapons are fired in one hand and may be used in close combat. Basic weapons are normally fired two-handed but can be fired one-handed usually with less chance of hitting. Heavy weapons weigh so much they require two hands to fire.

Range Type: Each weapon has a range type, used to determine how accurate it is when firing at a distance. Different range types have varying characteristics, so that certain weapons may suffer a consistent loss of accuracy while others have a dramatic drop in effectiveness past a certain range. Some, such as sniper rifles and heavy weapons, can actually be more accurate over long distances than close up. Certain weapons have a maximum range, in which case this is given in brackets after the range type.

Firing Mode: This is either single shot, semi-automatic or fully automatic.

• A single shot weapon fires once per shooting action.
• A semi-automatic shot fires the number of times given in the brackets in its description. Some semi-auto weapons have two numbers, divided by a slash (eg, 2/6) which indicates the minimum and maximum number of shots available when firing semi-auto.
• Fully automatic shots are resolved slightly differently to normal shooting and is dealt with in the Special Weapon Types rules at the end of this section.

Some weapons have multiple firing modes, and the player must state which mode is selected when declaring the character's actions for the turn (on some weapons it may require an action to change the setting, as noted in the individual descriptions). For each shot fired, remember to mark off a shot from the weapon's loaded ammunition.

Accuracy: This is the weapon's innate accuracy and will improve or reduce the character's chance of hitting the target.

Damage: This is the number of Damage dice rolled if the target is hit (see the Injuries section later).

Shots: This is the number of shots the weapon can fire before it needs reloading. For example, a bow has one shot, while a bolter may have a magazine of 20 shots.

Reload: This is the number of actions that must be spent reloading the weapon. If the number is in brackets, this is the number of shots that may be reloaded per action (a character can reload two combat shotgun shells per action, for example). If the number is underlined, then it needs to recharge, in which case the number is the number of turns that the weapon cannot be used for. However, recharging normally happens automatically and so does not require any of the character's actions to complete.

Reloading actions can be split over a number of turns. For example, most weapons require two actions to reload – one to remove the magazine/power pack and one more to insert a new one. Therefore it is possible to spend one action in one turn reloading, and then finish the reload at a later point if necessary. Where this is impossible, it is noted in the weapon's description. If a weapon cannot be reloaded, an X is given in this characteristic.

Weight: This is how heavy a weapon is. If a weapon's weight is higher than the character's Strength, his chances of hitting with it are reduced.

In addition to this basic profile, a weapon may have a number of special rules. For example, some weapons may suffer no penalties to their chances of hitting due to the character moving, while others may use the Special Weapon Types rules on page 37.

Line of Sight

The most basic principle of shooting is that you need to be able to see your target to shoot at it! Actually, some weapons don't, but they're an exception. Being able to see your target is called having a line of sight. If a character does not have a line of sight to his target, then he cannot shoot at it! Line of sight is fairly simple to work out – draw an imaginary line from the character to the target. If there's anything blocking this line, then the target cannot be seen! Much of the time it will be obvious if a target can be seen, though sometimes it'll be necessary to get down and have a 'model's eye' view to see if it has a line of sight. If you can see only a small part of the enemy, such as the tip of a weapon, or a foot poking around a building, then this isn't really enough for a line of sight. If you can see at least the whole of one hit location (see the Injuries section on page 46 for details of hit locations), or more than one hit location, then the character has line of sight, but the target will be harder to hit (see Cover on page 47).

Caption from the printed page: the Inquisitor in this photo can't really be seen – he's unlikely to wave his sword around if he was hiding behind a wall! A second caption reads: here the Inquisitor can clearly be seen.

Some terrain may obscure line of sight but not block it completely. The most common terrain of this type are trees and bushes which, although individually might not cover up a character, may completely hide a character from view if he is deep enough within a cluster of bushes or a wood. Basically, such terrain can be broken down into three types of density: light, medium and heavy. Light density terrain can be seen into up to 8 yards; medium density terrain blocks line of sight after 6 yards; heavy density terrain blocks line of sight after 4 yards.

Remember, though, that since the miniatures we use in Inquisitor are not capable of the same range of movement as the characters, a degree of imagination and interpretation is required. For example, it may be clear that a line can be drawn to a character over an intervening wall, but if the character is supposed to be crouching, there's a good chance he won't be seen. Similarly, a character can look around the corner of a building, through a window and so on without exposing himself fully. On page 47 in the Injuries section are a collection of diagrams which show how much of a character can be seen whilst doing common actions, and you should use these as a guide for determining line of sight. As always, the GM is the final arbiter of any decisions regarding line of sight or a lack thereof.

Other types of terrain will normally either block line of sight totally or provide some kind of cover to the character, as discussed later. For more details about what characters can and can't see, see the section on Awareness on page 52.

Arc of Vision and Facing

Our Inquisitor characters don't have eyes in the back of their heads (well, not many do!) and so are restricted in what they can see and shoot at by the direction they are looking in. This arc of vision extends out 45° in the direction the character is facing, and any targets must lie within this arc. A character can turn and fire as part of the same action without penalty.

Movement and Shooting

When firing as part of a combined action with movement, for each yard the firing character has walked, sneaked or ran this action, there is a -5% to hit penalty. For example, a character who walks 4 yards as they are shooting will suffer a -20% chance of hitting. If the character evaded or moved in any other way, then follow the normal rules for combined actions – the chance of the shot hitting is halved, regardless of the type of movement. This modifier is doubled if the character is firing a heavy weapon.

Hitting the Target

Being able to see a target doesn't necessarily mean you'll hit it! If a character wants to shoot another character, he must make a successful To Hit roll. A character's BS gives the basic percentage chance of hitting a target at range. This chance is modified as detailed below. Once the modified To Hit roll has been worked out, you must roll equal to or less than this score on a D100 to hit. If the roll is over the required score, the shot misses.

Salvoes of Fire: The results of a single firing action are taken to happen almost simultaneously, and so any effects from firing (such as injury or knockback) are applied at the end of the action. This means that any hits from a character firing on full auto or semi-auto can all potentially hit the target, even if the target is subsequently knocked out of sight or otherwise becomes an ineligible target.

Automatic Hits and Misses

In some cases, blind luck will help more than any amount of aiming and preparation, on the other hand, there is no such thing as a sure shot. To represent this, any unmodified To Hit roll of 01-05 always hits the target, regardless of the required score. Similarly, any unmodified roll of 96-100 will always miss the target.

To Hit Modifiers

When shooting, read through the following list and apply all relevant modifiers to your BS. All penalties and bonuses are cumulative.

Weapon Accuracy

Add or deduct the Accuracy modifier as shown in the weapon's profile.

Range

Measure the distance between the character and the target – this is the range. Cross-reference the range with the Range type, given in the weapon's profile, on the Range Modifiers chart (see page 36). The result is the modifier to your To Hit roll.

Movement (of the target)

The target's movement also affects the chances of hitting. The modifier is determined by the target's last action. If he did not move at all or only crawled in his last action, then there is no modifier. If he walked, the firer suffers a -8% chance of hitting him, if he ran or sprinted there is a -12% modifier to hit him and a -20% penalty if the target evaded. If the target moved in some other fashion (he jumped for example) then the modifier is equal to -2% for every yard the target moved in his last action.

Aiming

The firing procedure opposite shows a character loosing off a shot with his weapon without taking any particular time to aim it. This sort of shooting is often referred to as a snap shot, and is not very accurate but can be done quickly. A character can, however, take more time over his shot, to increase his chances of hitting. This is done by spending actions aiming before taking a shot. The number of actions spent aiming represents varying degrees of preparedness on the part of the character.

One aiming action shows the character raising his weapon to eye level before shooting (as opposed to firing 'from the hip'). Two aiming actions represents the character bringing his weapon up and then spending a couple of seconds aiming at the target. Three or more aiming actions shows that the character is tracking the target over quite a period of time (in combat conditions, even ten seconds is a long time!).

Aiming gives a character a +20% bonus to his To Hit roll. This is cumulative, so if a character aims twice before shooting he gains a +40% bonus to his to hit chance, and so on. Aiming bonuses do carry over from turn to turn.

If there is a closer enemy character within 5 yards, and the character is not aiming at that character, he must pass a Nerve test to aim (with a -10% modifier for each additional enemy character within 5 yards). If the test is failed, the character immediately fires at the closest enemy in sight, counting it as a snap shot.

Covering Fire / Overwatch

As well as aiming at a target in sight, a character can also choose to cover an area of the battlefield, waiting for an enemy to present himself. This is often referred to as overwatch. The character must specify which area within his line of sight he is aiming at. This area could be anything, such as a window, a gap between two buildings, even the space around a friendly character, but shouldn't be more than about 4 yards across. If covering an area, the character may take a shot as soon as a target appears in the area he is aiming at. This shot is treated in all respects as a snap shot, so the aiming does not grant any positive modifier to the shot, and the chances of a placed shot are not increased (see Placed Shots on page 37).

Rested Weapon

A character may spend one action resting his weapon against a suitable surface. Note that this may be a horizontal surface such as a window sill or crate, but can easily be a vertical edge as well, such as a doorway or the corner of a building. A character with his weapon rested gains a +10% chance to hit. If the character moves at all, changes weapon or fires anything other than a single shot, then his weapon no longer counts as being rested at the end of the action. The benefits of resting a weapon can be combined with aiming.

Target Size

Obviously, shooting a barn door is easier than trying to pick off a fly, and the size of the target will affect a character's chances of hitting. Target modifiers for specific creatures or other things the characters will want to shoot should be decided by the GM. As a rule of thumb, if the target is roughly 10-50% of the size of a human, there should be a -30% to hit modifier. Conversely, targets over 50% bigger than a human are easier to hit with a +30% modifier. Targets bigger or smaller than this should be adjudicated by the GM. Note that this does not mean a character can attempt to aim at a specific location on an enemy character and suffer the small target modifier!

Losing Your Aim

As soon as the aiming character moves, or fails a Nerve test, is hit by an enemy or shot, or does anything other than aim or fire a single shot at the target, any aiming bonuses are lost. Note that as long as the target does not spend more than one action out of view, aiming is not lost due to enemy movement (although any movement will incur the usual to hit penalties for the distance moved). If the target spends more than one action outside the aiming character's view, the benefits of aiming are lost.

Secret Aiming

When covering an area or tracking a distant target, it is sometimes worthwhile writing down or telling the GM who or where is being aimed at rather than declaring this out loud. If possible, you can also make the Action roll in secret, under the GM's scrutiny.

This ensures that the other player(s) do not know for sure where your characters are aiming, or if at all, and helps them resist the temptation to make their characters act in response to information they don't have – this avoids characters walking the long way out of a building, for example, rather than coming out of a doorway being covered by an enemy character. If this isn't possible (you don't have an independent GM, for example), then players must remember that their characters may not be aware of where the enemy is aiming or if they are being targeted. This is covered in more detail in the Awareness section later on.

Other Modifiers

The burst of fire from a semi-automatic shot can produce a lot of recoil, and so is less accurate than a single, well-placed shot. However, this is often more than made up for by the weight of fire! A semi-auto shot suffers a to hit modifier equal to -10% for every shot taken. For example, when firing semi-auto (4), all four shots suffer a -40% chance of hitting.

If the character is firing with their off-hand, they suffer a -20% chance of hitting.

A character can fire a weapon in each hand as part of a single action. However, if they do so, they suffer an additional -20% chance of hitting with both weapons.

A weapon's weight can also affect the accuracy of a shot. Compare its weight with the Strength of the character. If the weight is higher, the character suffers -1% for each additional point of weight. When firing with one hand, halve the character's Strength when working out this modifier (as you will see, weapons intended to be used in both hands can be quite heavy).

To Hit Modifiers Summary

Printed summary panel (as in the source):

Weapon's Accuracy: +/-%

Range modifier: see the Range Modifiers chart below (-?%)

Firer movement modifiers:

• Each yard firing character walked or ran as part of combined action: -5%
• Firing character performs some other combined shooting action: halved (after all other modifiers)

Target movement modifiers:

• Target walked last action: -8%
• Target ran or sprinted last action: -12%
• Target evaded last action: -20%
• For every yard moved if other type of movement except crawling: -2%

Stability modifiers:

• Each successful action spent aiming: +20%
• Weapon is rested: +10%
• Per shot on semi-auto: -10%

Target size modifiers:

• Large target (50% bigger than human size): +30%
• Small target (less than 50% of human size): -30%
• Other targets at GM's discretion: -??%

Other modifiers:

• Firing with off-hand: -20%
• Firing with two weapons as one action: -20%
• Character Strength less than weight of weapon (half Strength if firing one-handed): -1% per point difference

Range Modifiers Chart

Find the weapon's Type (A to J) on the chart and cross-reference it with the range in yards to get the To Hit modifier.

Type	1-5	6-10	11-15	16-20	21-25	26-30	31-35	36-40	41-45	46-50	51-55	56-60	61-65	66-70	71+
A	0	-10	-20	-30	-40	-50	-60	-70	-80	-90	-100	-110	-120	-130

Placed Shots

There is a chance that a character lands a hit just where they wanted it. This is called a placed shot. A character scores a placed shot if his To Hit roll was equal to or less than one tenth of the To Hit number required. For example, if a character has a 66% chance of hitting, any To Hit roll of 7% or less is a placed shot (66/10=7). When a character scores a placed shot the player may add or deduct up to 20% from the Hit Location roll (see page 46 in the Injuries section). They may decide how much to add or deduct after they have made the Hit Location roll and found out where the shot landed (this is very useful for hitting characters behind lots of cover!). Note that a character who can only hit with the minimum 5% chance detailed above (because normally he would need less than 5%) cannot make placed shots.

In addition, a character's odds of making a placed shot after aiming is greatly increased. Instead of 1/10th of the To Hit number being a placed shot, when the character has aimed at least once at his target before shooting, this chance is increased. The chances of a placed shot then becomes the To Hit number required minus the range to the target. For example, if the target is 25 yards away, and the To Hit number is 75%, then any roll of 50% or less (75-25) indicates a placed shot.

Pinning

Every time a character is fired at by enemy shooting, he must pass a Nerve test or be pinned. If the shot failed to hit the character (was blocked by cover for example, or simply missed), there is a +20% modifier to their Nerve value for the test. The Pinning test is taken after the effects of the hit have been resolved. A character who is pinned will dive D6 yards towards the nearest cover (if in the open) and fall prone. Note that the character is pinned on his character sheet. Pinned characters must spend their next successful action recovering from pinning, and this cannot be combined with any other action. Later actions in the turn they recover must be declared at the start as normal. Note that there is no automatic failure for Pinning tests, so characters with a Nerve value of 100 or more will never be pinned unless other modifiers apply.

A player can normally opt for a character to automatically fail a Pinning test, in which case they will act as if they had failed their Nerve test, although characters under the influence of certain psychic powers and psychological effects may be not be allowed this option. This is noted in the relevant descriptions.

Special Weapon Types

The shooting rules presented up until now have been for fairly standard weapons that fire a single shot. The following rules cover weapons with a higher rate of fire, that fire explosive munitions or shoot in some other exotic manner. Some of these weapon types alter the way that shooting is resolved.

Semi-auto

Semi-automatic weapons allow the character to fire a burst of shots in rapid succession, laying down a hail of fire. The recoil from such shooting is harder to compensate for, and so individual semi-automatic shots are less accurate than a single shot, but overall the massed effect can be more effective at close range. When firing on semi-automatic, the weapon fires a number of times equal to the semi-auto value. If the weapon has a spread of semi-auto rates, the player must declare how many shots are fired when it comes to the shooting action (they don't have to declare the exact number at the start of the character's turn). Each shot suffers a -10% to hit penalty for every shot fired (so a semi-auto (3) weapon suffers a -30% chance of hitting). A character can aim before firing on semi-auto, but any aiming bonuses are lost after the first semi-automatic shooting action. The rules for placed shots apply to semi-auto aimed and snap shots as normal.

Full Auto

Firing on full auto means squeezing the trigger and letting rip in a pretty random fashion. This works in a very different way to normal firing, to represent its particular advantages and disadvantages. To fire on full auto, nominate a target group. All characters in a target group must be within 5 yards of at least one other character in the target group, and they must all be within the character's arc of fire. If you wish, you may elect to fire at 'spaces', in which case the empty space counts as another character in the target group. Obviously the if the 'space' is hit as an end result of firing, the shots are wasted. This can be seen in the diagram below:

Diagram (as printed): characters A, B and C and an empty SPACE are placed in a group, with A to B 5 yards, B to SPACE 5 yards and SPACE to C 5 yards. Caption: If a full auto (10) weapon were fired at this group, characters A and B would be fired at three times each, while the space and character C would be shot at twice each.

Once the target group is established, you must determine your basic to hit roll. This is the character's BS, modified by Range (but no other modifiers) to the furthest target in the group. This to hit roll is then divided by the number of shots being fired in the burst of fire. The final to hit roll is calculated by multiplying this number by the number of targets in the group.

For example: A character needs 63 or less (after range modifications) and is firing 10 shots at 5 characters. The calculation is therefore (63/10) x 5 = 31 – only round off the final to hit number, not in the intervening stages.

The character then makes a to hit roll for each shot fired. These are not shots at specific targets, but rather an indication of the general accuracy of the burst. Once the number of hits has been determined, each is randomly allocated against a potential target. Note that it is entirely possible for one target to be hit several times while others remain unscathed – being hit doesn't prevent a character from being hit again in the same burst of fire.

All targets in the target group, whether hit or not, must take a pinning test at their basic Nv (in other words, no +20% for not being hit as is usually the case).

Randomise hit location and calculate damage as normal for each shot. Note that full auto can never make placed shots.

Flame Weapons

Some weapons, instead of firing a projectile or bolt of energy, spray a fountain of liquid over an area. The most common examples of these are flamers, which gout burning incendiary fuel, though some rarer ones may fire clouds of acid, gas or other substances. Due to their nature, it is highly inadvisable to fire flame weapons whilst moving quickly, and so they may only be fired as part of a combined action if the character is walking or stationary.

Flame weapons are fired at a target group in the same way as full auto weapons, and the same method is used to determine potential targets. The to hit procedure works slightly differently – static targets are generally easier to hit and take more damage than fast-moving ones.

Use the following method to calculate the chances of hitting each target. The basic chance of hitting is the firer's BS. This is divided by the number of targets in the group – the wider the fire is spread, the less chance of hitting any one particular target. You then roll to hit each target in turn. The number of times a target can potentially be hit is shown on the chart below:

Target is moving at	Number of to hit rolls made
No movement	D6+1
Crawl	D6
Walk	D3+1
Run	D3
Sprint (or faster)	1

Roll to hit the target the number of times indicated; work out location and damage, burning effects and so on as normal. All targets in the target group, whether hit or not, must take a pinning test at their basic Nv (in other words, no +20% for not being hit as is usually the case).

Blast Weapons

Some weapons fire explosive shots, such as grenades and rocket launchers. These work in a slightly different fashion from normal firing, as it's more important to know where an exploding shell has landed if it missed its target! Designate the target point the character is aiming for with a counter, coin or some other marker. This target point can be a character, a terrain piece or even an area of empty ground. Roll to hit as normal. If the weapon hits, the blast explodes centred on the target point. If it fails, it scatters in a random direction D10 yards, plus 1 yard for every 10%, or part of 10%, that the character failed their To Hit roll by. The blast cannot scatter by more than one quarter of the range to the target point.

Example: If the character had a 45% chance of hitting and rolled 78, this is a difference of 33%, or D10+4 yards scatter. If the character was firing at a point 30 yards away, the shot could not scatter by more than 7½ yards (one quarter of the total range).

Blast weapons have two additional characteristics: area and blast value. These show how big and devastating an explosion they make. The area is the distance from the aiming point that the grenade's blast extends. Any character within the blast area automatically suffers a number of hits equal to the blast value, minus the character's distance from the centre of the blast. So, a character 3 yards from the centre of an explosion with a blast value of 6 would suffer 6-3=3 hits. The total number of hits is halved if the character is prone. Roll location and damage for each hit as normal. All characters within the area of effect of a blast weapon are automatically pinned, regardless of their Nerve value or any other special rules – they are thrown to the ground so violently, being brave doesn't come into it!

Throwing Knives, Axes, Stars & Other Objects

Although the 41st millennium has given rise to many awesome weapons of destruction, often a well placed throwing axe can end a deviant's heresy as surely as a plasma gun! Thrown weapons are resolved exactly like other shooting with the exception that a character can draw and throw such weapons with a free hand as part of a single action. In addition, thrown weapons have a maximum range equal to half of the character's Strength minus the weapon's weight, (A weapon with Weight 10 thrown by a character with Strength 50 would therefore have a maximum range of 50/2-10=15 yards). This is the range at which they have a reasonable chance at hitting; at further ranges the attack automatically misses. If characters wish to throw other things (chairs, barrels, small alien mammals) then the GM should give them a weight characteristic and probably a hefty accuracy penalty and a poor Range characteristic (such as an A, E or J).

GMs may want characters to be able to pick up a thrown weapon and use it themselves, or they can be recovered by their original owner. If this is the case, a thrown weapon which hits is assumed to be lying next to (or in!) the target. If it misses, mark a spot D6 yards away in a random direction to show where it has ended up.

Throwing Grenades & Other Explosives

Grenades, demolition charges and similar weapons are a variant of blast weapons, known as thrown blast weapons. Characters equipped with these may throw them a distance up to no more than half their Strength minus the grenade's weight in yards. It takes one action to draw and prime a grenade, and one action to throw it. Throwing a grenade is a Risky action. If the Risky action is failed, the grenade goes off prematurely! Roll a D6:

• 1-2: The grenade explodes in the character's hand. Resolve its effects centred on the character.
• 3-4: The character drops the grenade. It scatters D10 yards in a random direction from the character before exploding.
• 5-6: The grenade is a dud and does not explode.

Assuming that the character doesn't blow himself sky-high with his own grenade, mark the target point which the character is aiming for as you would with other blast weapons, then measure the range. If this is greater than the character's maximum range with the grenade (half his Strength minus the grenade's Weight), the throw automatically misses. In this case, move the aiming point directly back towards the throwing character until it is in range. The grenade then scatters 2D10 yards from this point. Assuming the target point is in range, follow the normal to hit procedure for blast weapons given above.

Indirect Fire

Some weapons can be fired or lobbed at a trajectory that takes them over intervening terrain, allowing the character to fire at points outside their line of sight. Such weapons are said to be capable of indirect fire. Indirect fire is resolved as normal blast weapon fire (or thrown blast weapon fire), except that the shot automatically scatters D10 yards. Add +1 to the D10 roll for every 10% or part that the To Hit roll is failed by, and deduct -1 from the D10 roll for every 10% or part that the To Hit roll is passed by. For example, if you need a 76% to hit and roll a 54, this is a difference of 22, so the shot only scatters D10-3 yards. Treat totals of less than zero as no scatter.

Scattering Restrictions

The GM should be prepared to use a bit of judgement and common sense when calculating scatter for blast and thrown weapons. For example, generally it is assumed that such attacks won't scatter out of line of sight of the firer – grenades don't pass magically through walls. In this circumstance, move the centre of the blast back towards the aiming point until the firing character can see it.

With indirect fire, this isn't necessary, although you should look out for other obstructions to such plunging fire, for example, walkways, bridges, etc. It is possible that scattering indirect fire will land on these instead of the ground (or vice versa if aiming at a character on a roof, for example).

Shooting Summary

The printed summary reads:

• Line of Sight: A character must have line of sight to shoot at a target. Terrain: light density terrain 8 yards; medium density terrain 6 yards; heavy density terrain 4 yards. Facing: characters have a 45º arc of vision and can turn and fire as part of the same action.
• Hitting the Target: Make a To Hit roll. Roll equal to or less than the character's BS after modifications to hit. An unmodified roll of 01-05 always hits; an unmodified roll of 96-100 always misses.
• To Hit Modifiers: Weapon accuracy (see the weapon's profile). Range: cross-reference the range with the weapon's Range code on the Range Modifiers chart. Movement: each yard the character walked, sneaked or ran this turn incurs a -5% penalty if firing as a combined action; if performing any other type of move, the chance of hitting with the weapon is halved, and this is doubled if the character is firing a heavy weapon. Aiming: +20% to the To Hit roll, cumulative; if there is a closer enemy within 5 yards, the character must make a Nerve test (-10% per extra enemy within 5 yards) if he wants to aim at another target. If he fails, he immediately fires a snap shot at the closest enemy instead. Overwatch: the character may specify an area to aim at, not more than 4 yards across, and may take a snap shot as soon as an enemy enters the area. Rested weapon: +10%. Target size: less than half size of human -30%; more than 50% bigger than human +30%. Semi-automatic: -10% per shot taken. Firing off-hand: -20%. Firing weapon in both hands: -20% to hit with both weapons. Weapon's weight higher than character's Strength: -1% for each additional point of weight.
• Placed Shots: If the To Hit roll is equal to or less than one tenth of the hit number required, the player may add or deduct up to 20% from the Hit Location roll. An aiming character scores a placed shot if his To Hit roll is equal to or less than the hit number required minus the range to the target.
• Pinning: Each time a character is fired at he must make a Nerve test or be pinned. If the shot failed to hit the character, add +20% to his Nerve for the test. A pinned character dives D6 yards towards the nearest cover if in the open and falls prone. His next successful action must be spent recovering.

Close Combat

Though the warriors of the 41st millennium can wield highly destructive ranged weapons, a battle will often be resolved by a bitter face-to-face struggle with swords, chain-axes and pistols. This section deals with such close combat.

Weapon Profiles

When two characters are within 1 yard of each other, they are said to be in close combat. Once a character is engaged in close combat, the action sequence is altered slightly.

As with guns and grenades, close combat weapons are rated by a series of characteristics:

Reach: This is an indication of how long the weapon is, or from how far away the character can make its attack. The longer a weapon's reach, the harder it is for an enemy with a shorter weapon to defend against it. Weapons with Reach 4 or more may be used to attack when the combatants are at arm's length (see Step Back later for details of fighting at arm's length).

Damage: This is the number and type of Damage dice rolled if the target is hit.

Parry penalty: Some weapons are better designed for blocking enemy attacks and launching a counter-attack. The parry penalty of a weapon reduces a character's chances of parrying a successful enemy attack and launching a counter-attack.

Initiating Close Combat

Warriors don't just wander into close combat with each other, one of them will purposefully initiate the fighting. In Inquisitor, a character can elect to make a special charge action, in order to initiate a close combat. A character who is charging makes run actions until they are within range of the declared enemy, and then makes one close combat attack as part of the last run action. A character who is armed with a weapon of Reach 4 or greater can stop once they are within 3 yards of their enemy and fight at arm's length (see Step Back opposite). Characters without such a weapon must get within 1 yard of their enemy.

Note that this is like any other run action and the character is treated as running in all respects, even if they only start a couple of yards away from their target. During a charge, the 'free' attack suffers no penalty for being a combined action, and in fact gains a +10% chance of hitting, as noted below.

A character can change weapons as part of a charge action (drawing a sword for example) but if he does so he loses the +10% charge bonus.

A character which is in close combat does not have to declare all of his actions at the start of his turn, instead he may declare an action after the last action has been resolved. This means that a character who declares a charge as an action while partway through a turn does not have to declare any other actions for that turn just yet.

At the start of a turn in which a character is already in close combat, roll the character's Action dice as normal to see how many actions he can perform that turn. Then declare his first action and resolve it, then the second and resolve its effects, and so on.

In close combat, there are far fewer options available to a character. The most common are listed below, though a player may devise something new and interesting which he would like to attempt, which the GM should adjudicate as normal. The character who is taking his actions is known as the attacker, while the other character is the defender.

Attack

The most straightforward close combat action – the character simply attempts to hit his opponent! If a character is carrying a close combat weapon in each hand, he may attack with both as part of one action, though his chances of hitting are reduced as explained in the section on to hit modifiers. A character who is at arm's length may only make attacks with weapons with Reach 4 or more.

Circle

The character sidesteps quickly to attack the exposed side or rear of their enemy. A character who circles may be moved up to 2 yards to their left or right, but may not move further away from or closer to his enemy. It is easier to hit the enemy when attacking from the side or rear, as shown in the To Hit modifiers given later. Note that the attack must be made as another action, you do not get to attack as part of a circle action.

Advance and Attack

A character who is at arm's length can bound forward to get within striking range. When he advances and attacks, the character closes in 2 yards on the defender and may make another attack as part of a single action with no penalty. The combatants are no longer at arm's length.

Step Back

The character takes a couple of steps back to put a little more distance between him and his adversary. This is usually prior to firing a pistol or trying to break from combat. When a character elects to step back, he is moved 2 yards directly away from the defender. Also, a character may dodge when being attacked, in which case the combatants will end up more than 1 yard apart. In this situation, the characters are still engaged in close combat, but are too far apart to attack each other except with pistols and very long weapons. They are said to be fighting 'at arm's length'.

Stepping back doesn't finish a close combat – the only way to end close combat is to make a specific break from combat action, as described later. You cannot simply step back and then step back again.

If the characters are at arm's length, the attacker may either break from combat, circle, fire a pistol, attack with a weapon of Reach 4 or more, or advance and attack.

Fire Pistol

Pistols may only be fired at the enemy in close combat when the combatants are at arm's length. Firing a pistol in such close confines requires a cool head more than accuracy, and so the attacker rolls to hit using his WS rather than BS. Other than this, there are no modifiers. The defender may only parry using a dodge, and he moves 2 yards to the left or right (chosen by the defending player) instead of away from the attacker (because they are already at arm's length). The defender gains the +20% dodge bonus to his parry (see page 43), but no other modifiers are applied for weapons, higher ground, etc. There are no placed shots when firing a pistol in close combat.

Break Off

A character may spend an action breaking off from combat. To do this he must pass an Initiative test and adds +20% to his Initiative if the combatants are at arm's length. If the character passes, he makes one run action out of the combat, in a direction nominated by the attacking player but not taking him past his foes unless this is otherwise impossible.

If this break off move is used to take the character within 1 yard of another enemy (or 3 yards if armed with a Reach 4 or greater weapon), it is treated as a charge and he may make an attack against this fresh foe just as if he had charged.

If the test is failed, the character fails to find an opportunity to get away and the action is wasted. In addition, breaking from combat can sometimes invite disaster. If the character scores more than double his Initiative for the test, he fails as described and the enemy gets a free action, just as if he had made a counter-attack. A defender can always elect to allow the attacker to break from combat without a test once the opposing player has announced their intentions.

Caption from the printed page: 'Slick' can break off past his foe as he has no other route. A second caption reads: 'Slick' cannot break off past his foe.

Facing and Positioning

The attacker can automatically turn to face his opponent as part of an action, without any penalty. A defender will turn to face the character who last attacked him, after the attack To Hit roll is made. A character who is prone must spend an action getting to his feet before he can make any attacks. A character who is prone at arm's length may still fire a pistol.

Example Close Combat Actions

Shyloque elects to fire his pistol at his enemy and then charge into close combat. Since he is initiating close combat there is no need to declare any further actions.

On rolling the Action dice, the player manages to score three actions, so Shyloque fires his pistol and then charges. He does not have to declare the final action as he is entering close combat.

Shyloque runs to within 1 yard of the enemy and makes an attack. Assuming the target survives, Shyloque can now declare and make his third action.

In their next turn, both players simply roll their Action dice at the start of their character's turn and nominate each of their actions as and when they perform them.

Making Close Combat Attacks

A character may make one close combat attack for each action he spends. He can only make attacks within the 45° arc of vision to his front. A character holding a close combat weapon in each hand can make one attack with each weapon as part of a single attack action, with the penalty noted below. The basic percentage chance of a close combat attack hitting is equal to the character's WS. This to hit chance is modified as shown below. If the attacker rolls equal or less than the required score he has scored a hit.

Automatic Hits and Misses

As with shooting, there's always some luck involved in hitting your enemy in close combat, regardless of how skilled you are. Any unmodified close combat To Hit roll of 01-05 always hits, regardless of the score needed, and one of 96-100 always misses.

Charging

The shock and sheer impetus gained when charging into an enemy allows a character to literally bowl his enemy over, giving him a distinct advantage. A character's chance to hit is improved by 10% if the attack is part of a charge action and he did not draw a weapon as part of his charge action.

Weapon Reach

It is easier to hit your enemy if the weapon you are using is longer than theirs. For every point of Reach which the attacker's weapon has over the defender, he gains a +10% chance to hitting, or, for every point lower, he suffers a -10% to hit penalty. For example, a weapon with Reach 2 against a weapon with Reach 3 suffers a -10% to hit modifier.

Positioning

Being higher than your adversary is a distinct advantage in close combat, especially if your opponent is lying on the ground. If the defender is prone, the attacking character gains a +20% bonus to his to hit chance. A character who is at least 1/2 yard higher up than the defender benefits from a +10% to hit modifier.

Note that a character does not also gain the higher ground advantage against a prone opponent. Remember, unless he has a Reach 4 weapon, a character cannot attack from a distance more than 1 yard away.

Two Weapons & Off-Handed Attacks

Only the most skilled fighters can fight effectively with two weapons, or with a weapon in their off-hand. To represent this, a character attacking with his off-hand suffers a -20% chance of hitting, and suffers a -20% hit modifier if he attacks with more than one weapon as part of a single attack action.

Enemy Size

As you can imagine, the larger your enemy is, the easier it is to put a sword into him. Similarly, smaller foes are harder to strike. Target modifiers for specific creatures or other things the characters will want to hit should be decided on by the GM. As a rule of thumb, if the target is roughly 10-50% of the size of a human, there should be a -30% to hit modifier. Conversely, targets over 50% bigger than a human are easier to hit, with a +30% modifier. Targets bigger or smaller than this should be adjudicated by the GM. Note that this does not mean a character can attempt to aim at a specific location on an enemy character and suffer the small target modifier!

Critical Hits

There is a chance that a close combat attack will strike home with particularly deadly force, and this is known as a critical hit. The chance of a critical hit is one tenth of the attacker's required To Hit number. For example, if a character has a 55% chance of hitting, any To Hit roll of 6% or less inflicts a critical hit. Critical hits do double damage, doubled after any dice are rolled and modifications for Strength and weapon are made, but before any deductions for armour, etc. Characters that can only score hits with the minimum 5% chance cannot inflict critical hits.

Close Combat Modifiers Summary

Modifier	Value
Reach: each point of weapon Reach difference	+/-10%
Charging: character charged this action (without drawing a weapon)	+10%
Positioning: defender is prone	+20%
Positioning: attacker is on higher ground	+10%
Target size: large target (50% bigger than human size)	+30%
Target size: small target (10%-50% of human size)	-30%
Target size: other sizes	GM's discretion
Other: attacking with off-hand	-20%
Other: attacking with two weapons	-20%

Parrying

A fighter doesn't stand idly by while a frothing berserker attempts to lop his limbs off with a chain-axe! To represent this, a character hit by a close combat attack has a chance to parry it. The chance of parrying an attack is equal to the defender's WS for the first parry in a turn. The defender's basic WS is then halved again for each successive parry in one turn, so that the second parry is at half his WS, the third is at a quarter of his WS, and so on. This is further modified as shown below. If the defender rolls equal to or less than the required number then the close combat attack is parried and has no effect.

Automatic Parries and Misses

Any unmodified parry roll of 01-05 always stops the attack, regardless of the required score. Any unmodified roll of 96-100 always fails to stop the attack.

Parry Penalty

Some weapons are intrinsically better or worse for parrying with. For example, the long, balanced blade of a sword is excellent for warding off enemy blows, while a heavy, clumsy axe is much more difficult to wield defensively. To represent this, all weapons have a parry penalty which is applied to all attempts to parry with the weapon.

Reach (parrying)

As with hitting the enemy, a character attempting to parry gains or loses 10% for every point of difference between the Reach value of his weapon and that of the attacker's.

Positioning (parrying)

A character who is at least 1/2 yard higher up than his attacker gains +10% to his chance of parrying. A defending character who is prone suffers -20% to his chance of parrying.

Side and Rear Attacks

A character who has to turn before parrying is at a severe disadvantage, and will be hard-pressed to stop a surprise blow. A character who is attacked outside of an arc 90° to his front must turn to face his attacker if he wishes to parry. If the character has to turn, he suffers a -20% chance of parrying, while if he has to turn over 90°, he suffers an additional -20% chance, for a total parry modifier of -40%.

Off-Hand (parrying)

A character attempting to parry with a weapon in his off-hand suffers a -20% chance of doing so.

Dodging

A character can elect to dodge as part of a parry, in which case the procedure for parrying is followed as normal except that the defender does not use the parry penalty of his weapon and gets a +20% modifier to his chance of success.

A character who dodges is moved 2 yards directly away from his attacker and may not make a counter-attack. If the defender is prone, he rolls 1 yard to the left or right, (controlling player's choice). If a character dodges while at arm's length (see above) he is moved 2 yards to the left or right instead, but must remain within 3 yards of the attacker.

This movement takes place whether the defender avoids the attack or not. If a character successfully dodges, he does not count as parrying the attack (for example, against power weapons which can destroy weapons which parry them).

Parrying with Two Weapons

A character with two close combat weapons has a choice of different ways to parry. He may parry with both at the same time, in which case roll to parry once, but with a +20% chance of parrying. Use the best reach and parry penalty for determining the parry chance, and the best counter-attack chance (see overleaf for details of counter-attacking). Alternatively, the character may use one weapon at a time, in which case he makes a normal parry. However, in this case, you count the number of parries made by each weapon in the turn, rather than the character, to determine what proportion of the defender's WS is used. For example, a character with a sword and short sword who parries with the short sword can still use his full WS to parry the next attack with the sword. The second parry with each weapon would be at half WS, and so on.

If a character elects to parry with one weapon against one attack, and both weapons against the next attack, both weapons count as being used the same number of times that turn, using the highest number of times. Following the above example, if the character parried with the short sword and then with two weapons, both the short sword and the sword count as having already been used once that turn.

Parry Modifiers Summary

Modifier	Value
Reach	+/-10% per point of Reach difference
Weapon's parry penalty	-?%
Defender on higher ground	+10%
Defender prone	-20%
Turned to parry	-20%
Turned over 90° to parry	-20%
Parrying with two weapons	+20%
Parrying with off-hand	-20%
Dodging	+20% (no weapon penalties)

Counter-Attacks

It is possible that a character will parry so well that he makes an opening for a counter-attack. The chance of a counter-attack is equal to the Parry roll which is required minus the weapon's parry penalty. For example, a character armed with an axe (parry penalty -15%), who has a 55% chance of parrying, will counter-attack if he rolls 40% or less on his parry roll (55-15=40).

A counter-attack is worked out just like an ordinary close combat action, so you can attack, fire a pistol (if at arms' length), advance and attack, step back, break from combat, and so on. If you elect to attack, roll to hit as normal, the enemy gets a chance to parry, has a chance to counter-attack himself, and so on. A counter-attack, just like a parry, is a free action and does not use up any of the character's actions that turn and can be done even if the character has already used all of their actions for that turn. The counter-attack does not have to be with the same weapon that made the parry. For example, a character could parry with a sword in one hand and attack with an axe in the other as a counter-attack. Note that a character who can only parry with the minimum 5% chance detailed above (because normally he would need less than 5%) cannot make counter-attacks.

Ending a Combat

There are two ways in which a close combat will end: a character breaks from combat, or a character is defeated. When a combat ends and a character has actions left that turn, the character's next action must be spent as a pause for breath action. This then allows him to declare any other unused actions for the turn, as described earlier. At the start of the next turn, a character can declare and perform actions as normal.

Shooting into Close Combat

Firing into a close combat is a risky business, as the characters fighting dodge back and forth and get mixed up with each other. If a character fires into a close combat and hits, randomise which of the combatants have actually been struck. When the characters are at close quarters (within 1 yard of each other) there is an even chance for every character involved. For example, if there are two characters fighting roll a D6. On a 1-3: the other character is hit, on a 4-6: the target takes the shot. If one of the characters were prone there is less chance of hitting him so this roll becomes 1-2: the prone character is hit, 3-6: the other character is struck.

This can be adjusted in a number of ways depending on how many characters are fighting and how close they are to the target. So, with three combatants all at close quarters, on the roll of a 1-2 the target is hit; on a 3-4 enemy 1 is hit; on a 5-6, enemy 2 is hit. If fighting at arm's length there is only a one-in-three chance of the wrong target being hit, so a roll of 1-4 means that the target is hit; on a 5-6, their adversary. If fighting more than one opponent at arms' length, randomise which opponent is hit on a roll of 5 or 6.

There are no placed shots when firing into close combat.

Additionally, if the combatants end up more than 3 yards apart (because of knockback for example), the attacker has a choice. He can either end the combat as described above, or he can use his next action to charge, following the normal rules for charging.

Unarmed Attacks & Improvised Weapons

Unless specially trained, a character not armed with a dedicated close combat weapon can be at a real disadvantage against a properly armed opponent. A character who is not holding any kind of weapon, or just a pistol, is considered to be unarmed. All unarmed attacks have Reach 0. Unarmed characters can only parry armed attacks (including improvised attacks) with a dodge.

A character who is carrying a basic weapon or other similarly solid object has an improvised weapon – he can attack with the butt of his rifle, hit the enemy with a chair, etc. Similarly, a character with a weapon of Reach 4 or higher who is not fighting at arm's length and this is not the first round of a combat counts as having an improvised weapon (they can only use the spear haft, etc). A character with an improvised weapon has a Reach of 1 and a -30% parry penalty.

Example: Close combat. Shyloque (WS 76) is fighting with his power sword against an ex-Imperial Guard Sergeant armed with a halberd, who is following a rival Inquisitor. The Sergeant charges him and has one extra action left. As part of his charge, the Sergeant makes his attack. He has a WS of 63, is charging and has a longer reach weapon. This takes his total to hit chance to 83 (63+10+10). Unsurprisingly, the Sergeant hits Shyloque.

As this is his first parry, Shyloque uses his full WS of 76. The parry penalty for a power sword is -15, and he has a shorter weapon. This gives him a parry chance of 51% (76-15-10), and a counter-attack chance of 36% (51 minus a further 15). Shyloque gets lucky and rolls under his counter-attack chance, and will hit the Guardsman on a roll of 66 or less (WS 76-10 for shorter reach). He hits and the Guardsman must parry. The Guardsman's parry chance is his full WS minus the halberd's parry penalty, plus the bonus for having a longer Reach. This gives him a total of 58 (63-15+10) and a counter-attack chance of 48. Rolling a 50, the Guardsman parries the counter-attack but does not get to counter-attack himself.

The Sergeant still has one action left and decides to attack again. This time he has no charging bonus, so he simply has +10% to his To Hit roll for his longer weapon, giving him a 73% chance of a hit, which he duly makes. This is Shyloque's second parry this turn so he starts with only half of his WS (38) before applying any modifiers. This takes his parry chance to 13% (38-15-10) with no chance of a counter-attack. As you might expect, Shyloque fails to parry this time and is hit.

Multiple Combats

Life would be a lot more simple for the GM if all of the characters in a game squared off one-against-one, but unfortunately, a canny player will probably want to jump on an enemy with more than one character at a time. When more than two characters are fighting each other, this is known as a multiple combat. Multiple combats can get quite mixed up, but if you follow the guidelines below, things should hopefully go smoothly.

As you might expect, a degree of improvisation or interpretation on the part of the GM may be necessary now and then.

The easiest way of dealing with a multiple combat is to view it as a set of ordinary close combats happening in the same place. A character who is attacking can divide his actions between any of the other combatants, and so might choose to attack one enemy with his first action and then another with the second, and so on.

To count as being at arm's length, a character must be more than 1 yard away from all the enemies he is fighting. However, he can attack an enemy at arm's length with a weapon of Reach 4 or more even if he is within 1 yard of another opponent. It is important to remember that an attacker faces towards the character he last attacked.

Similarly, when being attacked by more than one character, a defender follows all of the normal rules. This means that he can only parry or counter-attack if he is the target. It also means that he counts the number of parries that turn for working out his parry chance, not the number of parries against a particular opponent.

This means that it is possible to swamp an enemy who would otherwise be very hard for your characters to hit in close combat.

Close Combat Summary

The printed summary reads:

• Initiating close combat: Make a Charge action. A character with a weapon with Reach 4 or more can stop within 3 yards of the enemy and fight at arm's length. Other characters must stop within 1 yard of the enemy. A character in close combat declares actions one at a time. Roll the Action dice to see how many actions he can perform that turn.
• Actions that can be performed in combat: Attack (a character at arm's length may only make attacks with weapons with Reach 4 or greater). Circle (move 2 yards to his left or right, but not further away from or closer to his enemy). Advance and attack (a character at arm's length closes in 2 yards and makes another attack; combatants are no longer at arm's length). Step back (move 2 yards away from the enemy; combatants are now at arm's length). Fire pistol (may only be fired at arm's length; attacker rolls using WS rather than BS; defender may only parry by using a dodge and moves 2 yards left or right instead of away from the attacker). Break off (character must pass an Initiative test, +20% if at arm's length; if he passes, he makes one run action out of combat; if he rolls more than double Initiative, the enemy gets a free action).
• Facing and positioning: The attacker can automatically turn to face his opponent as part of an action. A prone character must spend an action getting to his feet before he attacks. A prone character at arm's length may fire a pistol.
• Making close combat attacks: One attack per action. Attacks may be made only against enemies 45º to the front of a character. Must roll equal to or less than WS after modifiers to score a hit. Unmodified roll of 01-05 always hits. Unmodified roll of 96-100 always misses.
• Modifiers: Charging +10%. Weapon reach: +10% per point of Reach over the defender, -10% per point lower. Positioning: defender prone +20%; attacker a yard higher +10%. Two weapons and off-hand attacks: -20% each. Enemy size: less than half human size -30%; more than 50% bigger than human +30%.
• Critical hits: Scored if the roll is one tenth of the attacker's required To Hit number. Critical hits do double damage, doubled after dice are rolled and modifiers added, but before deductions for armour.

Injuries & Recovery

A character hit by a bullet or sword may only suffer a scratch or might be seriously incapacitated. In this section we look at how the results of being injured affect the characters.

Armour

Few warriors go into battle without some form of protection. Armour offers some measure of this to a location that it covers, and the protection it offers is represented by its value. The higher the Armour value on a location, the less damage will be suffered if that location is hit. Once the amount of damage has been rolled, deduct the Armour value of the location from this to find out the number of Damage points that have actually penetrated through the armour to hit the character.

Example: A character has a carapace breastplate, which has an Armour value of 6. If he suffers a hit to his chest, doing 13 Damage points, this is reduced by 6, so that only 7 points of damage actually go through and hits the character in his chest.

Sample Armour Values

Armour	Value
Robes, heavy coat, etc	2
Flak	3
Carapace	6
Powered	10
Shield	4
Open helmet	5
Closed helmet	6

Hit Location

Being shot in the arm and being shot in the head are two very different things, and it can mean the difference between life and death! When a target is hit you must determine where they have been hit and what damage they have suffered. To determine the hit location, roll a D100 and consult the Hit Location table below.

Close Combat Hit Location

A character that strikes his opponent in close combat has a better chance of hitting him in the upper body or head, and so may add 10% to the roll but must declare if he is doing this before he rolls the dice. If the defender is at a lower level, add a further 10% to the dice roll. If the defender is at a higher level, make the roll without modification.

Hit Location Table

D100	Location
1-30	Leg
31-35	Groin
36-65	Arm
66-80	Abdomen
81-95	Chest
96-100	Head

If an arm or leg has been hit then it is the closest to the opponent; if this is unclear then the GM must decide.

Damage Rolls

A blow may only inflict a glancing hit or it may be a solid impact which causes considerable damage. Inquisitor represents these vagaries by giving weapons a random Damage value, specified in their profile as a number of dice to roll. Once you have determined where the target has been hit, roll the number of dice indicated to determine how much damage has been inflicted on the character.

Damage from Close Combat & Thrown Weapons

Most close combat weapons have a Damage value such as guns. However, unless otherwise noted, an additional point of damage is done for every full 10 points of Strength over 50 the character has. Ie, a Strength 80 character would do an amount of damage equal to the weapon's damage value plus 3.

Unarmed close combat attacks inflict D3+1 plus damage for additional Strength as noted above. Improvised weapons do D3+2 damage, plus the Strength bonus.

Thrown weapons such as daggers and spears also gain this Strength bonus.

Force Fields

Not all armour uses physical means with which to protect its wearer. Some characters are protected by special wards, psychic shields and other energy defences, all categorised as force fields.

These are treated exactly like armour, but have a random value which is generated for every hit. Simply roll the indicated number of dice every time the location takes a hit. Force fields usually extend several feet from the character's body, and so provide no protection in close combat unless the characters are at arm's length.

Example Force Field Values

Force field	Value
Refractor field	D10
Conversion field	2D6

Cover

If the location hit is behind some form of cover, then the shot may be blocked or deflected by the intervening feature. What locations are covered depends upon the character's position and pose. The most common situations are shown in the diagrams below, and the GM should decide which locations are covered if necessary. Cover is essentially another layer of armour, and works in exactly the same way. Some examples include:

Type of cover	Armour value
Wooden fence	2
Crate	3
Barrel	5
Brick/stone wall	8
Rockrete	10
Plasteel	12
Armaplas	15

Covered Locations

The printed diagrams show which parts of a character are exposed or hidden in each position. The captions read:

• Looking over cover – head exposed.
• Looking around corner – head exposed.
• Standing behind cover – groin and legs hidden.
• Firing around corner – chest, head and arm exposed.
• Standing in window – abdomen, one arm, chest and head exposed.
• Crouched behind cover – abdomen, groin and legs hidden.
• Firing prone – one leg and groin hidden.
• Crouched in window – abdomen, groin, and legs hidden.

Effects of Injury

Being injured has a number of different effects on a character. These are split into two main types: location injury and injury total. While injury total represents his overall state of health, blood loss, pain and other general discomfort, location injury is representative of the amount of physical trauma suffered by each of the character's hit locations.

Location Injury

A character can sustain a certain amount of injury to a location before his abilities are impaired. The amount of damage he can withstand is based upon his Toughness, and is known as his Base Injury value. This value is equal to the character's Toughness divided by 10, so a character with Toughness 76 has a Base Injury value of 8.

In addition, each location has a number of injury levels which may be inflicted: Light, Heavy, Serious, Acute and Crippled (Note: the head and groin do not have a Serious injury level). If a hit inflicts damage up to the character's Base Injury value it does one level of damage, if it inflicts damage up to twice their Base Injury value it does two levels of damage, and so on.

Example: Shyloque has Toughness 62, and so has a Base Injury value of 6. A bolter hit does 13 Damage points to his chest. The first 6 points of damage inflict a light wound whilst the second 6 Damage points take this up to a heavy wound and the remaining 1 Damage point knocks this over into a serious wound.

Injury levels are calculated from Damage points inflicted from individual hits. Therefore it is only the injury level which needs to be recorded on a location, not the individual Damage points inflicted.

Example: To follow on from the first example above, Shyloque now has a serious wound to the chest. It doesn't make any difference whether he has 13 Damage points or 18 Damage points in his chest, only that he is seriously wounded. If Shyloque was later hit in the chest again, up to 6 Damage points would take him up to an acute injury and 7 or over would elevate his injury to crippled.

Immediate & Persistent Injury Effects

The effects of location injury are split into immediate and persistent effects.

Immediate effects are applied as soon as the injury is inflicted but, once applied, are not applied again.

Persistent effects continue to affect the character for the rest of the game, unless the injury is recovered from (see Recovery later). Note that only the persistent effects from the current injury level are applied, although in some cases the specific location may state that there is a cumulative effect on top of any lesser injury results.

Stunning

Some injuries or attacks may stun a character. A stunned character immediately falls prone. He misses the indicated number of turns (if he has not yet acted this turn, then this turn counts as the first turn missed). During this time he may perform no actions at all but may defend himself in close combat, When defending, he is at half his normal WS and may parry and dodge as normal but may not make counter-attacks. Stunned characters do not take Pinning tests (unfortunately for them sometimes).

Bleeding

Some injury results indicate that the character is bleeding. In fact, the character was probably bleeding a long time ago, but this represents heavy bleeding that could eventually kill the character if allowed to carry on unchecked. A bleeding character adds an additional D3 Damage points to his injury total at the end of every turn, after rolls for recovery are made (see Recovery later). Note that this does not do additional damage to the location, but the character will receive D3 damage from each and every location that is bleeding at the end of every turn.

Injury Total

So what happens to all those Damage points? Well, every character has an injury total, where you record all of the Damage points suffered by the character. This represents his overall pain and disablement.

Other Effects of Injuries

As well as the effects given on the Location Injury tables, there are three other ways for injury to affect a character:

System Shock: More often than not, a character suffering a lot of damage will fall unconscious from instant pain and shock. This is known as system shock and is the most likely cause of a character falling casualty. Divide the character's Toughness by 5. The result is his System Shock value. If he suffers a number of Damage points from one hit equal to or greater than his System Shock value, he must pass a Toughness test or be taken out of action for the remainder of the game. Note that this is damage which is added to his injury total, after deductions for armour, etc. It is possible for a character to test for system shock several times in the same turn, due to receiving multiple hits or injury results.

Consciousness: Even if he does not succumb to system shock, sooner or later pain and loss of blood will cause a character to black out if he continues to be injured. A character's Consciousness value is equal to half his Toughness value. If the character's injury total exceeds his Consciousness value, then he passes out and is taken out of action.

Instant Death: Sometimes, a character will suffer so much injury that he will simply die – his mangled corpse a testimony to his stubbornness to give in, if nothing else! If a character's injury total is ever greater than his Toughness then he is dead, with no chance of recovery at all!

Going Out of Action

When a character falls casualty he is said to be out of action. This can happen in a number of ways – by failing a System Shock test, by falling unconscious or by suffering automatic system shock because of a location injury. A character who is out of action cannot normally recover and plays no further part in the game, although his position may be pertinent and so the miniature should be left lying in place where the character fell. A character who is out of action is at the mercy of other characters, and can be captured, executed or otherwise suffer immense mischief at the hands of the enemy, so be careful. Remember that sometimes it is better to run away and fight another day!

A character who is out of action can be dragged away as noted in the Movement section. A character out of action who is attacked in close combat is hit automatically in a location chosen by the attacker, counting every hit as a critical hit.

Recovery

Although a character may be injured, some effects may be temporary, or he may receive medical treatment to aid him. To represent this, characters get a chance to recover from their injuries. At the end of every turn, an injured character may take a Toughness test. This test represents the character's raw fortitude and determination – disregarding his suffering to get on with the fighting! If he passes this Recovery test, D3 Damage points are removed from his injury total. Add +1 to this score for every full 10 points his Toughness value is over 50 (a character with a Toughness value between 60-69 recovers D3+1 Damage points, a character with a Toughness value between 70-79 removes D3+2 points, and so on). This automatic recovery has no effect on location injury effects.

A character may also spend actions endeavouring to recover, representing him using improvised bandaging, tying a tourniquet with a belt, or just gritting his teeth and ignoring the pain! You must specify a location he is trying to recover first and then make a Toughness test. If this test is passed, the character recovers damage from his injury total as detailed above. In addition, the specified location is healed back one injury level. A character cannot normally reduce a location's injury level by more than two from the worst injury suffered to that location so far during the game. For instance, once a location has been injured to Acute level, the best it'll ever get in that game is a Heavy wound.

Other characters may help an injured character to recover by spending actions as above.

Unless otherwise noted, a character can always attempt to recover at the end of the turn, even if stunned or otherwise unable to perform any actions. An out of action character does not normally get to recover – when a character's down, he stays down!

Applying Injury Effects from Recovery

When a character recovers an injury level from a damaged location he does not suffer any immediate effects again, and his level of persistent effects drops to that given for the injury level he has recovered to. For example, if a character recovers from a Serious arm injury to a Heavy arm injury, he does not have to test for dropping his weapon. In the same vein, a character who is recovering to a light head wound would not be immediately stunned for D3 turns.

What Do the Injury Levels Mean?

The different injury levels represent various amounts of damage. Of course the exact type of damage depends on the location hit and the weapon being used.

• Light: fairly minor cuts, abrasions and bruising, nothing that will bother a hardened warrior much.
• Heavy: nastier, representing a serious cut, sprains and torn muscle.
• Serious: injuries include damage to bone, internal organs and so on, and may well include heavy bleeding.
• Acute: injuries are those which render the character almost incapable, and may well be serious fractures, dislocations, vicious exit wounds and extensive muscle damage.
• Crippled: injuries are just that – crippling! A character who suffers a crippling injury is likely to become a casualty, and in some cases will die immediately. The limb or internal organs are so seriously damaged they cease to work, and the character will be severely stunned from the shock, even if he manages to hold on to consciousness.

Damage Tables

Head Damage Table

Any character that is hit in the head, regardless of the damage actually inflicted, must pass a Toughness test or is stunned for one turn.

Injury	Effects
Light	Immediate – Character is stunned for D3 turns.
Heavy	Immediate – As Light plus character adds D6 to his injury total. Persistent – Character suffers -1 Speed.
Acute	Immediate – Character automatically suffers system shock.
Crippled	Immediate – Character is dead, dead, dead!

Chest Damage Table

Injury	Effects
Light	Immediate – Character falls prone.
Heavy	Immediate – As Light. Persistent – Character is at -1 Speed.
Serious	Immediate – As Light. Character stunned for D3 turns and adds D3 to his injury total. Persistent – As Heavy.
Acute	Immediate – As Serious. Persistent – As Serious plus character is bleeding.
Critical	Immediate – Character automatically suffers system shock.

The source prints the top chest injury level as "Critical" (not "Crippled" as in the other tables). It is transcribed as printed.

Groin Damage Table

Injury	Effects
Light	Immediate – Character falls prone.
Heavy	Immediate – As Light plus the character is stunned for D3 turns. Persistent – Character suffers -1 Speed.
Acute	Immediate – As Heavy. Persistent – As Heavy. Character adds D3 to his injury total and is bleeding.
Crippled	Immediate – Character automatically suffers system shock.

Abdomen Damage Table

Injury	Effects
Light	Immediate – Character adds D3 to injury total.
Heavy	Immediate – As Light plus character falls prone. Persistent – Character is at -1 Speed.
Serious	Immediate – As Heavy. Persistent – As Heavy & character is bleeding.
Acute	Immediate – As Heavy plus character is stunned for D3 turns. Persistent – As Serious.
Crippled	Immediate – As Acute. Persistent – As Serious & character is knocked prone and may only crawl.

Arm Damage Table

Injury	Effects
Light	'Tis nothing! – Character suffers from no additional effects.
Heavy	Immediate – Character must immediately pass a Strength test or drop any object held. If it is only held in this hand, halve his Strength for the test.
Serious	Immediate – As Heavy. Persistent – Character's WS and BS are halved when using the injured arm (either on its own or with the other arm. Also add +D3 damage to his injury total. His Strength for this arm is halved, which means that when using both hands, the character's Strength is three quarters of its normal value, and when using this arm only, it is one quarter (rather than half).
Acute	Immediate – Character automatically drops anything held. Persistent – Character's arm cannot be used and is also bleeding.
Crippled	Immediate – Character must test for system shock. Persistent – As Acute.

Leg Damage Table

Injury	Effects
Light	Just a scratch! – Character suffers from no additional effects.
Heavy	Persistent – Character reduces Speed by -1.
Serious	Immediate – Character falls prone and adds +D3 to his injury total. Persistent – As Heavy plus the character has all his movement rates halved.
Acute	Persistent – As Serious & character may only crawl. Character's leg is bleeding.
Crippled	Immediate – Character must test immediately for system shock. Persistent – As Acute.

Injuries & Recovery Summary

The printed summary panel reads:

• Hit location: When a target is hit roll D100 and consult the Hit Location table. In close combat the attacker may add +10% to the roll. If the defender is at a lower level add a further +10% to the dice roll.
• Damage rolls: Roll the number of dice indicated on the weapon's profile to determine how much damage has been caused.
• Stunned: A stunned character must miss the indicated number of turns. He may only defend himself in close combat, at half normal WS, and may not counter-attack. Stunned characters cannot be pinned.
• Bleeding: Add D3 Damage points to a character's injury total at the end of every turn for each bleeding wound.
• System shock: System shock value is Toughness divided by 5. If a character suffers Damage points from one hit equal to or greater than this value he must pass a Toughness test or is taken out of action.
• Injury total: Record all Damage points suffered by the character.
• An additional point of damage in close combat is done for every full 10 points of Strength over 50 a character has. Thrown weapons also gain this bonus.
• Consciousness: If injury total is equal to half a character's Toughness then he is out of action.
• Unarmed attacks do D3+1 plus damage. Improvised do D3+2 damage.
• Instant death: If injury total is greater than a character's Toughness then he dies.
• Deduct the Armour value of the location hit from the Damage roll to determine how much damage has penetrated through any armour or force fields. Force fields cannot be used in close combat. If location hit is behind cover, the cover counts as another layer of armour.

Awareness

As well as charging about with guns blazing, your characters may want to sneak around, trying not to be seen or heard. This section deals with how characters can be aware of each other's presence, or not…

Awareness is one of the most difficult things to write rules for. In essence, a person can only react to things which he is aware of. However, a gamer is omniscient and omnipresent – able to see everything that is going on all across the tabletop. The principle behind these awareness rules is that players should not move and perform actions with their characters which draws upon their knowledge as a player rather than what the character would reasonably know. Good intentions are the best start, but it is still easy to get carried away in the heat of battle and start reacting as a player rather than from a character's point of view. In this respect, the GM must be strict about how players perform actions with their characters.

The most common aspect of awareness that players forget about is the most basic one – does this character know where anyone else is? For example, a player may know that an enemy berserker is charging around a hill to the right, but does the character know? Is it reasonable that he would decide to go on overwatch just in case a mad berserker comes charging around the corner? Probably not. On the other hand, if he heard someone scuttling across a slate roof, or pounding over rockrete, he would have reason to be suspicious.

Overall, a character shouldn't do anything concerning other characters unless he is aware of them and what they are doing. Note that this applies to friendly characters as well as enemies.

Vision

A character will be aware of everything in the open and that he has a line of sight to, unless he is shooting, aiming, fighting in close combat or otherwise engaged in some activity which would require all of his attention.

a) A character may be aware of a character that is within line of sight, but who is not in the open, depending on how much the other character is moving and whether he is specifically looking around. A character can spend one or more actions specifically looking around, in which case he can take an Initiative test. A character is automatically assumed to do this as part of a pause for breath action. If the Initiative test is passed, he will be aware of characters in cover nearby and so forth. He may see some characters and not others – for example, a character who is crouched still behind a crate would be harder to see than a character running through thin woods. The more actions the character spends looking, the more likely he is to see someone.

b) The amount of cover a character is in will determine how easy he is to spot. A good rule of thumb is to apply a -5% modifier to the enemy's Initiative test for every location a character has hidden behind cover. For example, a character crouching down behind a wall is hiding his legs (-10%), groin (-5%) and abdomen (-5%) for a total modifier of -20% to spot him. If only his head were poking over the wall this would become a total of -35% to spot him (2 x arms, 2 x legs, groin, chest and abdomen).

c) The speed a character is moving at will make him more or less visible – movement catches the eye more than anything else. Add 2% to a character's chance of spotting someone for every yard the other character moved this turn (or last turn if he hasn't acted yet this turn).

d) The range to a character will also affect how easily he can be seen. For every full 10 yards over 20 yards, apply a -5% modifier to the chance of spotting a character.

e) A character looking in a specific direction or into a certain piece of terrain has more chance of spotting someone hidden there. GMs should be careful with this though, so that players have a good reason for their characters searching somewhere particular, avoiding the 'my character's going to look closely into those woods with the Inquisitor in' routine. A character looking at a particular feature has an additional +20% chance of spotting anyone inside or behind it.

f) Looking around can be combined like other actions, but remember that his chances of seeing anyone will be halved because it is a combined action (or reduced by 2% for every yard moved if walking, sneaking or running).

g) Distances at which other characters can be seen vary according to conditions, and should be outlined by the GM at the start of the game – eg, if set at night, during heavy rain, in a badly lit underground catacomb, etc. Some example effects are:

• Night time: All line of sight is reduced to one tenth of the character's Initiative.
• Weather: Depending on the severity of weather conditions, range modifiers can be doubled, tripled or even quadrupled. Ie, light rain is double range, heavy rain triple range, and a raging thunderstorm quadruple.

h) A character who is aiming is only aware of things between him and his target or within 2 yards of his target.

i) Characters in close combat are only aware of their opponent(s).

j) A character immediately becomes aware of any character who fires within his line of sight, unless the firer is firing a weapon fitted with a flash suppressor or similar device.

Helmets & Awareness

Although they offer added protection to the most vital area on the body, helmets do have their downsides too. They restrict a character's field of vision, making it harder to spot foes, as well as muffling sound so that enemies out of sight cannot be heard. For these reasons, many characters forego the protection of a helmet in favour of being more able to respond to the movements of the enemy.

In game terms, helmets have the following effects on a character's abilities:

• A character in an open helm suffers an additional -15% to any vision-based awareness tests. If they are wearing a closed helm this increases to -25% to any vision-based awareness tests.
• A character in an open helm suffers -25% to all hearing-based awareness tests. This is increased to -35% for characters with closed helms.
• Also, deduct one quarter (rounding to the nearest half yard) to all hearing distances. This is the same for both closed and open helms. For example, a character with a helmet on will only hear a pistol shot up to 75 yards away rather than 100 yards.

Other Senses

Hearing

A character can hear other characters up to certain ranges. This is the range at which he can determine the approximate location of the noise's origin. He may well be able to hear this noise at longer ranges, but will be unable to determine from which direction it came from.

As with vision, hearing is affected by other factors – a character firing a gun on full auto is unlikely to hear someone running behind him, a thunderstorm will halve all of these ranges, and so on. Similarly, a character running across metal decking will make more noise than one sneaking through a snow drift. As with looking around, a character can spend actions listening, in which case he takes an Initiative test. If passed, the range at which he can hear something is increased by 50%.

Hearing Ranges

Sound	Range
Pistol shot	100 yards
Basic weapon shot	150 yards
Heavy weapon shot	200 yards
Character sneaking	1 yard
Character walking/crawling	5 yards
Character jogging	10 yards
Character sprinting/evading	15 yards
Smashing glass	50 yards
Door banging	30 yards
Shouting heard	30 yards
Shouting understood	20 yards
Conversation

Characters may also smell or feel other characters (an Ork upwind is very distinctive!) but this is unlikely to be used very often. The GM should adjudicate when such circumstances are appropriate.

Other Types of Awareness

Characters can call to one another (or use a comm-link or similar device), in which case they can make other characters aware of things that they can see and hear. Each action spent communicating in such a fashion would allow the character about two to three seconds of speech. For example, one action might allow "There's one up on the tower!", while it would require two actions to say "There's a cultist with a missile launcher climbing up the ladder to the third storey of the tower."

Backstabbing

Normally a character can only initiate a close combat with a charge action. However, there is one other way to attack a character in close combat and that is to backstab. Because the only way a character can get within 1 yard of the enemy without them becoming aware is to sneak, a character can only backstab an enemy by sneaking into close combat with them from outside their arc of vision. If the sneak action is successful and the enemy remains unaware, the character can make a special backstab attack. Roll to hit using the attacker's WS as normal, but with no modifiers. If the roll is missed, the character still hits, with normal rolls for damage, and so on. If the attacker successfully hits, they automatically inflict a critical hit (double damage) and can add or deduct up to 20% from their Hit Location roll, just as with a placed shot in shooting (in addition to any other modifiers).

Backstab attacks cannot be parried! If the defender survives the backstab and is still standing (lucky them!) they immediately turn to face their attacker and normal close combat ensues.

Special Abilities

Special abilities show innate talents, learnt skills and other capabilities a character may possess which cannot be reflected in his profile. This section includes many examples of different special abilities, but GMs should feel free to invent their own for characters they have created for a scenario.

There are three basic categories of special abilities. Talents are skills which the character may have been born with, or has learned through experience and training. Psychic abilities are special powers of the mind which a character can use. Exotic abilities are innate gifts or strange mutations possessed by the character which are truly amazing and bizarre!

Talents

Acrobatic: The character is highly agile and is able to leap a startlingly far distance, performing somersaults and other astounding feats. An acrobatic character adds another D6 yards when jumping, and may jump over other characters. The character can leap directly upwards D3+3 yards and reduces the percentage chance of an action combined with a jump by a quarter rather than by half. A character with this talent may also jump over his opponent as a close combat action (like an extravagant circle move) – place him on the opposite side of his opponent, 2 yards away. Your opponent may make an Initiative test; if he passes he may make a 90 degree turn towards the acrobatic character.

Ambidextrous: The character can use his left and right hands with equal effectiveness and so suffers no extra penalty for performing an action with his off-hand (in fact, he doesn't have an off-hand he's so good!).

Blademaster: The character has superb knife-fighting skills, able to do things with a blade that make it deadlier than a sword. A blademaster can dart in and out of combat with astounding speed, cutting deep gouges into the enemy. If a character with this talent is attacking or parrying with knives (not Power Knives, just normal mundane blades) he counts as having a Reach 4 weapon and all hits count as critical hits.

Catfall: A character who can catfall is adept at twisting and turning to land on his feet, or is able to roll to reduce damage when he hits the ground. A character with catfall rolls a D100 when he takes falling damage, the result as a percentage is the amount of damage actually taken (eg, if he rolls 50 then he only takes half damage). In addition, the character has a percentage chance of landing on his feet, rather than prone, equal to his Initiative characteristic. A character who lands on his feet is not stunned.

Deadeye Shot: The character is an expert with firearms, and is able to fire a shot with startling precision, picking out enemies from behind cover or targeting weak points in their armour. A deadeye shot can always add or deduct up to 10% from a shooting Hit Location roll. If the character succeeds in making a placed shot this is cumulative, so he may add or deduct up to 30% from the Hit Location roll.

Deflect Shot: The character uses his extremely fast reflexes to deflect incoming fire with a parry from his weapon. A character can only use deflect shot when armed with a power weapon or force weapon. If the character is hit by enemy shooting, he can try to deflect it. If he can roll under the enemy's To Hit roll on a D100, the shot is deflected and has no effect. For example, if the opposing player rolls 56 to hit, a roll of 55 or less will deflect the shot. If the deflecting character can roll 1/10th or less of the enemy's To Hit roll, the shot is rebounded straight back at the firer who is hit instead! To follow the previous example, any Deflect roll of 6 or less will rebound the shot. A character can attempt to deflect a number of shooting hits per turn equal to his Speed. A character cannot deflect a deflected shot! Deflect shot may be used against pistol shots in close combat instead of dodging, but not against shooting hits from outside the close combat.

Dodge: The character can throw himself out of the path of laser bolts and bullets. He may attempt to dodge one enemy shooting action per turn (all of the shots from a single action). If the character can pass an Initiative test, the amount he passes by is a further negative modifier to the firer's chances of hitting. Declare that the character is trying to dodge before the enemy makes a shooting To Hit roll. A character who has both dodge and deflect shot must use one ability or the other; he cannot try to use both against the same shot.

Fast Draw: This character's hand moves as a rapid blur, slipping a pistol from his holster and loosing off a shot in the blinking of an eye. A character who is able to fast draw may ready and fire a pistol as one action.

Feint: The character has perfected the art of deceiving his opponent in close combat, with a mixture of body language and fake strikes. Once per turn the character may make a feint instead of another close combat action. The character rolls to hit as normal, and if the feint hits it is successful. No damage is done but a successful feint means that the enemy counts as having attempted two additional parries that turn. A feint may not be parried or dodged. If the feint is missed then the opponent may make an immediate Counter Attack.

First Strike: A character with first strike can draw and strike with a blade in one smooth attack. He may ready and attack with a close combat weapon as one action, and still gains the +10% to hit bonus for charging even if he changed weapons during the charge.

Force of Will: The character is stubborn and determined, able to face down foes and creatures that would turn normal men insane or fleeing in terror. A character with force of will is immune to the effects caused by fearsome and terrifying opponents (see pages 62 and 63 in the Exotic abilities section) and automatically passes any such tests required.

Furious Assault: The character can launch himself into close combat with startling speed and ferocity, unleashing a storm of wild blows upon the enemy. A character with ferocious assault can make two attacks in close combat for every attack he could normally make when he charges. If he does this he loses the normal +10% To Hit bonus.

Gunfighter: A character who is a gunfighter has great coordination and reflexes. He may fire two weapons at once without penalty, one in each hand, although normal modifiers for using a weapon in his off-hand still apply. Both weapons must be fired at the same target. If combined with fast draw, the character may draw and fire two pistols as one action.

Heroic: The character is a natural hero, willing to brave tasks that would leave normal mortals quivering in fear. A heroic character may re-roll a single '1' rolled on his Action dice. For example, if the character rolls two 1s and a 6, the first 1 may be re-rolled. The result of the re-roll, even if it is another 1, is the final score.

Hipshooting: The character is adept at firing on the move, able to draw a bead to his target with unerring accuracy. A character with hipshooting does not suffer any shooting to hit penalties for moving during a combined movement and shooting action.

Leader: The character is able to inspire courage in those around him, urging them on with brilliant speeches, good advice or outright threats. Any other friendly character within 6 yards of a Leader may use the Leader's Leadership value instead of their own Nerve characteristic when taking Pinning and similar Nerve based tests. Similarly, any friendly character within 6 yards of a Leader counts as having a Leadership equal to the Leader's. A Leader must use their own Nerve characteristic for Pinning and other Nerve tests.

Lightning Reflexes: A character with lightning reflexes thinks on his feet with outstanding speed, able to assess a combat situation and come up with the best course of action in moments. A character with lightning reflexes gets a free pause for breath action every turn, in addition to his normal actions. He must still declare when he'll be using this free action at the start of the turn, but, as with other pause for breath actions, he can wait until that point during the turn before declaring any subsequent actions.

Medic: The character is wise in the ways of first aid and healing. If the character attempts a recovery action on another character, the character may add +10 to his Toughness for the test.

Nerves of Steel: The character is completely unperturbed by danger, free of thoughts concerning his personal safety. A character with nerves of steel will never take a Pinning test.

Quickload: This character can pluck a magazine or fuel cell from a gun, take one from his belt and slam it into place in one easy action. A character with quickload takes half as many actions as normal to reload a weapon. With weapons that load a certain number of shots per action (like a shotgun) the character may load twice as many shots per action than normal. Obviously, this skill has no effect on weapons which need to recharge.

Rock Steady Aim: The character can keep a careful aim, even in the most intense and dangerous situations. A character with rock steady aim can keep his weapon aimed and still move at a walk (no faster and no jumping or crawling). If he uses this skill, he is assumed to only have a maximum of one 'level' of aiming (ie, a +20% to hit) regardless of how many actions he spent aiming before moving. He also does not lose his aim for firing on semi-auto but the above limit of +20% to hit applies. He will still lose his aim if any of the other situations listed in the Shooting section arise (failing a Nerve test, for example).

True Grit: A character with true grit has enormous reserves of courage and an indomitable constitution, which means he will battle to his last breath. A character with true grit can attempt to recover even after going out of action. If he passes out due to his injury total passing his Consciousness level, then roll for recovery at the end of each turn as normal. If his injury total passes below his Consciousness level then he regains consciousness and can carry on from the start of the next turn. If he went out of action due to system shock, then make a Recovery test as normal, except that on a successful test he does not regain any points from his injury total. Instead he recovers his wits and may act normally from the following turn. All other injury results and effects remain the same.

Psychic Abilities

There is a class of special abilities called psychic abilities, or psychic powers. These represent the many and varied powers of the mind which a character can use by tapping into the power of warpspace. The powers available to a particular character are specified as part of the scenario – even the most powerful psykers won't know all of the following psychic powers.

Using Psychic Powers

A character can spend one or more actions using a psychic power. Such a power requires one action to use, unless otherwise stated in the individual descriptions that follow. A character can spend additional actions previous to using an ability to concentrate, improving his chances of using the power successfully (like aiming before taking a shot).

As with shooting and close combat, a test is required to successfully employ a psychic ability. The basic percentage chance of an ability working is based upon the character's Willpower. This chance is increased and decreased as follows. Many psychic abilities have additional modifiers, as noted in their individual descriptions.

Concentration

Characters can concentrate before using a psychic power, much like aiming before a shooting action. Each action spent concentrating adds +10% to the character's chance of success. A character can concentrate for several actions, even from turn to turn, but his concentration is lost as soon as he performs any other action, is pinned or stunned, or does anything else other than concentrate.

Ranged

Most psychic powers can work over a distance, but the further from a target the character is, the harder the psychic power is to unleash accurately. Powers which are described as ranged suffer a -1% penalty for every yard between the psyker and the target.

Line of Sight

It is easier to target a psychic power at an enemy you can actually see. If a character has line of sight to his target, he has an extra 20% chance of using the power successfully. If the ability has to be at a target within line of sight, this modifier does not apply.

Difficulty Rating

Some powers require more energy from the warp, are harder to channel or difficult to control once summoned. This is represented by the psychic power having a difficulty rating. Some have a rating of 0, in which case there is no modifier, otherwise deduct the difficulty of the power from the chances of success.

Psychic Test Modifiers Summary

Modifier	Value
Each action spent concentrating	+10%
Ranged power: per yard between psyker and target	-1%
Target in line of sight (only for abilities that do not require line of sight)	+20%
Difficulty rating	-?%

Automatic Success & Failure

Any unmodified roll of 01-05 always succeeds, regardless of the psyker's Willpower and modifications, while a natural roll of 96-100 always fails.

Psychic Overloads

If a psyker fails a test, there is a chance that he will suffer mental damage from the powers unleashed in his mind. For every full 10% that a psyker fails a Psychic test by, he loses D10 from his Willpower characteristic.

Risky Action

Using any psychic power is a Risky action, as detailed in the Actions section earlier. If a psychic power is not achieved, the psychic power automatically fails and the psyker immediately loses 2D10 Willpower.

Psychic Bolts

Psychic bolts are a special type of shooting attack. All of the normal shooting rules apply to a psychic bolt, unless otherwise stated in the individual description.

Nullification

Psychic abilities can be nullified – thwarted by the mental energies of another psyker. An enemy psyker may attempt to nullify the power if he is directly affected by that psychic power. This is a free action and so does not stop the enemy character from taking any further actions that turn and can be done even if the psyker has already used up all of his actions for the turn. The other player must declare that he is attempting to nullify the power when you declare that your psyker is using the psychic ability. The nullifying psyker takes a Willpower test. The amount he passes the test by is a negative modifier to the psyker's chances of using his power. For example, if a psyker with a Willpower of 75 rolls 56, this is a negative modifier of -19 to the enemy psyker's Willpower roll. Nullifying a power has the same risk of psychic overload (see above) as using a psychic power.

Persistent Abilities

Some psychic abilities are described as persistent. These have a continuing effect from turn to turn, rather than being resolved instantaneously. At the start of every subsequent turn, the psyker must pass an unmodified Willpower test to keep the ability working. If the test is failed then the power's effects end immediately. This test does not use up the psyker's actions in any way, and the psyker is free to perform any other actions during the turn.

As soon as a psyker is taken out of action, any persistent powers which he currently has in effect are automatically ended immediately.

An enemy psyker may spend actions attempting to nullify persistent powers which are currently in effect. He takes a Willpower test and, if he is successful, the ability immediately ceases to function.

Psychic Disciplines

Although the powers of psykers are many and varied, they usually fall into one of several disciplines. Psykers usually specialise in one type, but can learn powers from other categories as well. The GM should bear this in mind when creating a character for a scenario, but shouldn't be bound by it – the disciplines help to theme a character's psychic abilities and shouldn't be seen as constraints if you want to create a more mixed character.

Sidebar (printed): Untouchables are psychic blanks, with little or no registering presence in warpspace, rendering them virtually immune to psychic powers. But similarly they are soulless individuals whose presence gives those nearby a disturbed feeling. The most extreme Untouchables are the Pariahs, who have a negative presence in the warp, absorbing psychic energy. They cause fear and revulsion in all who meet them and are used by the Culexus Temple of the Officio Assassinorum to annihilate enemy psykers.

Miscellaneous Powers

Not all psychic abilities can be placed within a single discipline, some are commonly found amongst psykers of all different backgrounds and skill.

Detection – Difficulty: 0. The character scans his surroundings for the mental signature of his enemies. The character is immediately aware of everyone within 2D6 yards. This can be increased, adding +5 to the Difficulty level for every extra D6 yards the characters wishes Detection to cover.

Gaze of Death – Difficulty: 10. Dark bolts of energy spring from the psyker's eyes, scything through the enemy. Gaze of Death is a psychic bolt with the following profile:

Type	Rng	Mode	Acc	Dam	Shots	Reload	Weight
Gaze of Death	Special	5 semi (5)	–	2D6+3	–	–	–

Biomancy

Biomancers specialise in manipulating biological energy and processes with the power of their mind. This allows them to change or influence the physical form of themselves or their enemies.

Blood Boil – Difficulty: 1/2 target's Toughness. The psyker reaches into his enemy's body with his mind, rapidly accelerating the target's pulse and pushing his blood pressure to near lethal levels. In the most spectacular successes, the victim's heart and brain explodes! This is a ranged ability. Pick an enemy character who is within sight of the psyker. The victim suffers injury to the head and chest equal to one level on the Damage tables for every 20% or part that the test is passed by. For example, if the psyker passes by 32%, this would be level two on the Head and Chest damage tables – Heavy wound to the chest and an Heavy wound to the head!

Armour and force fields have no effect on blood boil.

Choke – Difficulty: 1/2 target's Toughness. With a simple gesture, the psyker reaches out with his powers and pinches tight on the enemy's windpipe, choking him of breath. This is a ranged power. The victim is stunned for D6 turns. If the number of turns rolled is greater than the victim's Toughness divided by 10 then he falls unconscious for the remainder of the battle.

Enfeeble – Difficulty: 1/2 target's Toughness. The Biomancer drains the vigour from his victim, making him feel weak and incapable. This is a ranged and persistent power. The amount the psyker passes his Psychic test by is the amount deducted from the victim's Strength while the power affects him. For example, if the Biomancer passed by 33%, the victim is at -33 Strength until the power is nullified. Characters reduced to Strength 0 or less collapse unconscious immediately.

Hammerhand – Difficulty: 5. The character uses his innate knowledge to harden the flesh and skin of his fist, strengthening the tendons and muscles in his arms. A character may only use this persistent power on himself. When the character makes an unarmed attack, he counts as using an improvised weapon and his Strength is doubled.

Regenerate – Difficulty: 20. Reaching into the very cells of the recipient, the psyker knits together flesh and binds wounds with his mental power. The psyker must touch the character he wishes to cast regenerate on, and so must be within 1 yard (or use it on himself). If this is used successfully, the recipient counts as having just made a successful recovery action (ie, one location healed one level and D3 from his Injury total).

Storm of Lightning – Difficulty: 5. Bolts of bio-electrical energy leap from the psyker's fingertips, jumping from enemy to enemy. Storm of lightning is a psychic bolt with the following profile:

Type	Rng	Mode	Acc	Dam	Shots	Reload	Weight
Storm of Lightning	Special	10 full auto (8)	–	2D6+4	–	–	–

Warp Strength – Difficulty: 5. The psyker invigorates the target with psychic energy, letting the power of the warp flow through muscles, tendons and bones, giving him amazing strength. This is a persistent power. If used successfully, the recipient increases his Strength by a value equal to the amount the Psychic test was passed by. For example, if the test was passed by 12%, the recipient increases his Strength by 12 whilst the power lasts.

Telepathy

Telepaths are psykers whose expertise lies with influencing the minds of others. They can send psychic messages, create emotion in their targets or read the thoughts of their adversaries.

Demoralise – Difficulty: 0. Using his incredible empathic abilities, the psyker reaches into the mind of his victim and fills him with thoughts of panic and fear. This is a ranged power. The victim must pass a Nerve test or be pinned, just as if he had been hit with a shooting attack, with an additional negative modifier to his Nerve value equal to the amount the Psychic test was passed by.

Distraction – Difficulty: 10. The psyker interferes with his target's perceptions, causing him to see something in the shadows and distracting him from the battle. The victim counts as being stunned for one turn, but does not fall prone.

Embolden – Difficulty: 15. The psyker bolsters the courage of a nearby character by instilling images of heroic action into his mind. This is a persistent and ranged ability. Pick a friendly character. This character adds +50 to its Nerve characteristic. The psyker may not declare himself as the target for this power.

Enforce Will – Difficulty: 1/2 target's Willpower. The psyker uses mental prompting to force an enemy to perform a simple action against his will. This is a ranged power. Choose an enemy character, if the Psychic test is successful the psyker may force the enemy character to immediately perform one action. This forced action cannot be something that would directly kill or injure the target character, such as shooting himself or stepping off a cliff, but it could force him to fire on his comrades, step into view or drop his weapon.

Mesmerism – Difficulty: 20. The psyker reaches into the mind of the victim, using his mental powers to entrance the enemy. This power is a ranged and persistent ability which can be used on one enemy character within line of sight of the psyker. Whilst the power is in effect, the targeted character may do nothing at all and counts as being stunned (he does not fall prone). He may attempt to break free of the psyker's control at the start of every subsequent turn and will succeed if he can pass a Willpower test.

Mind Scan – Difficulty: 10. The psyker reaches into the enemy's thoughts, discovering his intended course of action. This power is used on a single enemy character and is a ranged ability. The psyker counts as having the dodge special ability against any shooting attacks made by the target, until the end of the next turn. In addition, the psyker doubles his chances of parrying close combat attacks by the character until the end of the next turn. In some scenarios a successful mind scan may reveal information relevant to the psyker's objective, such as revealing the holding place of a prisoner, location of a secret entrance to the enemy camp, etc.

Psychic Shriek – Difficulty: 5. The psyker musters the power of his mind and then launches it into the enemy's brain, overloading his senses and nervous system. Psychic shriek is a ranged power. The enemy must take a Willpower test. If he fails, he is stunned for one turn for every 10% (or part) that he fails by. If he rolls more than double his Willpower then he collapses and become a casualty.

Psi-Track – Difficulty: 15. The character can use his mental powers to trace the minds of others nearby. When psi-track is used, the character immediately becomes aware of all the characters currently on the table, including those who are hidden, tracking down one in particular. This is a persistent power and the player must nominate one character for the psi-tracker to focus on. Whilst the power lasts, the psi-tracker is constantly aware of the targeted character's location and actions, and also becomes aware of any actions performed previously (ie, he'll know where he has been and what he has done). He loses contact with other characters immediately (ie, he'll be unaware of any actions performed subsequent to using the power). Note that it can only detect creatures with a living mind, and will also tell him if the character is daemonic, a psyker or has psychic equipment (such as a force weapon or daemonblade).

Puppet Master – Difficulty: 20. Reaching out with his mind, the psyker tries to manipulate the actions of his victim. Puppet master is a persistent power, in addition the psyker may do nothing else whilst using puppet master. The victim must take a Willpower test, and if he fails he is partially taken over by the psyker. He may attempt to break free of the psyker's control at the start of every subsequent turn and will succeed if he can pass a Willpower test. Whilst under the psyker's control, the victim counts as being on the same side as the psyker. However, the control is not complete and the controlled character deducts 1 from his Speed and has an additional -25% from any rolls required to perform actions whilst under the influence of the psyker.

Telepathy – Difficulty: 5. The psyker can place messages directly into the minds of those around him. There are two ways to use telepathy – placed sending and broadcasting. When using placed sending, the telepath picks out an individual and transmits his mental message to him and him alone. A placed sending is a ranged ability and if successful, the psyker may communicate a message he would normally be able to say in a single action (see the Awareness section for suggestions of how much can be said in an action). When broadcasting, the psyker sends out a general signal that can be picked up by everyone within range. When broadcasting, the range of the message is a number of yards equal to the amount the test was passed by – eg, if the Willpower test was passed by 38, everyone within 38 yards would 'hear' the message. The player may specify a maximum range before the test is taken, but this incurs an additional -10% modifier to the test.

Terrify – Difficulty: 10. The psyker places images of the target's worst nightmare into his mind, causing him to flee in terror. This is a ranged ability. The target must take a Nerve test immediately as if he was confronted by a terrifying character (see the Exotic abilities section, page 63), with a negative modifier equal to the success of the test.

Astrotelepaths

Astrotelepaths are capable of using the warp to communicate over long distances. They are physically blind but possess a sixth sense more accurate than eyesight.

Telekinesis

Psykers who are adept at telekinesis are able to manipulate the material universe, breaking the laws of physics to move themselves and other objects around. The powers of telekinetic psykers vary tremendously, from those who can hurl vehicles about, to psykers who have the focus and control to jam gun triggers and other small mechanical parts.

Telekinesis – Difficulty: Object's weight. The character can move physical objects around with the power of his mind, moving them aside or hurling them at opponents. This is a ranged ability. The GM must decide how much the object to be picked up weighs, as this affects how difficult it is to move. Inquisitor uses an abstract Weight value for weapons, but the Weight for other objects can be found by comparing them with weapons of an equivalent size, so a pistol-weighted object would be around about 10 to 15, an object the size of a rifle, anything between 20 and 50, and so on. The weight of the item is the Difficulty level for modifier purposes. The object can be moved a distance up to a number of yards equal to the psyker's Willpower divided by 10. Alternatively, the object can be hurled through the air, in which case use the rules for thrown weapons in the Shooting section on page 39, using the starting point of the object and the psyker's Willpower instead of his Strength. Such an object that hits someone does damage equal to its weight on the chart below, with a Strength damage bonus using his Willpower (+1 for every full 10 points over 50).

For example, if someone with a Willpower of 88 hits someone with a thrown crate, which the GM rules to weigh 60, it does 2D6+3 damage.

Telekinesis Damage Table

Weight	Damage caused
1-15	D3
16-25	D6
26-45	D10
46-70	2D6
71-90	3D6
91+	2D10

Machine Empathy – Difficulty: 5. A psychic power often associated with the machina-mentors of the Adeptus Mechanicus, Machine empathy allows the psyker to use his mind to tamper with mechanical, electrical and electronic systems. The most common use is to cause enemies' weapons to malfunction. Machine empathy is a ranged power. Pick a weapon or piece of equipment as the target. For every 10% or part that the Psychic test is passed, the target object is rendered totally useless for that many turns. If the psyker's Willpower test is 1/10th or less than the required score, the target is permanently affected. Machine empathy can also be used to open or lock mechanical doors, operate machinery and fire emplaced weapons, and so on, at the GM's discretion. The more complex the activity attempted, the greater the difficulty modifier the GM should impose on the Psychic test.

Psychic Impel – Difficulty: 0. The psyker uses a powerful telekinetic push to fling the enemy to the ground. This is a ranged attack that can be used on a single enemy character within line of sight. The target suffers 2D10 yards of knockback and falls prone (see the Additional Rules section on page 180 for details of how knockback works).

Psychic Shield – Difficulty: 15. The psyker summons a corona of psychic power to ward away any incoming shots and blows. This is a persistent power. The psyker counts as having an extra 1D10 force field armour on all hit locations.

Psychic Ward – Difficulty: 10. The psyker shields himself in a psychic aura that deflects the enemy's attacks. This is a persistent power. The psyker counts as having an extra 1D6 force field armour on all locations.

Pyromancy

A pyromancer is a master of fire and flame, able to create infernos out of thin air. Pyromancy is one of the most common and spectacular forms of psychic ability, although its uses are fairly limited.

Blinding Flash – Difficulty: 0. The psyker summons up his mental energy and releases it in a blaze of power, blinding anyone unfortunate enough to be looking at him. Pick a point anywhere within line of sight of the psyker as the source of the blinding flash. This is a ranged ability. Any character, friend or foe, who has a line of sight to the blinding flash (not including the psyker) must pass an Initiative test to cover their eyes or be stunned for D3 turns (note that he is not knocked prone).

Burning Fist – Difficulty: 0. The character's hands are wreathed in spitting flames, which can cause targets they hit to catch fire. This is a persistent power. Any unarmed close combat attacks made by the psyker while he has burning fists can set fire to his target using the rules for a flamer on page 70.

Fireball – Difficulty: 5. The psyker's hands are engulfed with writhing flames, which he can hurl at the enemy. Fireball is a psychic bolt and has the following profile:

Type	Rng	Mode	Acc	Dam	Shots	Reload	Weight
Fireball	Special	C single	–	3D6+4	–	–	–

Firestorm – Difficulty: 10. This is a more spectacular form of Fireball, causing a raging inferno to explode around the target. This is a psychic bolt with Area: 4 and Blast: 5 and has the following profile:

Type	Rng	Mode	Acc	Dam	Shots	Reload	Weight
Firestorm	Special	B single	–	D10	–	–	–

Sidebar (printed): A Warp Seer is a prophet who uses the time-distortion of the warp to foretell the future, in co-ordination with the Emperor's tarot. They have an annoying habit of telling people when and how they are going to die.

Daemonology

Daemonologists study all things to do with Chaos and the warp. They are masters at manipulating the interactions between warpspace and realspace, allowing them to do amazing feats such as teleportation. However, daemonology is the most difficult discipline to master, and many who have tried have perished or been driven insane.

Banishment – Difficulty: 20. The daemonologist opens up a temporary portal to the warp which will draw power from psykers and banish daemonic beasts back to the stuff of chaos they sprang from. Banishment is a ranged ability. If successfully used, it has the following affects on the target. Daemonic creatures must pass a Willpower test, with a negative modifier equal to the amount the Psychic test was passed by. If failed, the daemonic character automatically adds D3 to his injury total for every 10 points or part he failed the test by. If he scores more than double the roll required he is banished back to the warp instantly. Against a psyker there is a chance, equal to the amount the test was passed by, of the target losing a random psychic ability.

Instability – Difficulty: 20. The psyker can 'phase' the molecules of his body slightly into warpspace, enabling him to pass through solid objects. This is a persistent power. Whilst unstable, the psyker does not interact with the physical world in any way at all. He may move through objects, even other characters, and cannot be hit by shooting or any other normal attacks. Psychic attacks and weapons (such as psycannons) affect the unstable psyker as normal. However, he is also totally unable to attack himself, operate machinery or communicate with other characters. The unstable psyker cannot use any other psychic abilities whilst unstable, as the resultant back-flows of warp energy would tear him apart. An unstable psyker glows slightly, adding +20% to the chances of any character spotting him.

Sanctuary – Difficulty: 10. The psyker creates a zone of power around him which can repel daemonic creatures. Sanctuary is a persistent power. If successfully invoked, it creates an area around the psyker with a radius equal to the psyker's Willpower divided by 10. Any Daemonic creature inside the zone or trying to enter it must pass a Willpower test. If failed, he immediately adds D3 to his injury total, is knocked to the outside edge of the zone away from the caster and stunned for the rest of the turn. Any daemonic creature within the range of Sanctuary at the end of a turn suffers D3 additional points to its injury total.

Teleportation – Difficulty 20. The psyker uses the power of the warp to displace himself or another person (or an inanimate object up to man-sized in weight and volume) to another part of the battlefield. This is a ranged ability. In addition, deduct 1 from the chance of success for every half yard the character wants to move the target. However, if the test is failed, the target is teleported in a random direction from his current position, for a distance of 1 yard for every 10%, or part of, by which the test was missed. If this would result in the target finishing in impassable terrain (such as inside a solid object) it is destroyed outright.

Vortex of Chaos – Difficulty: 25. The psyker opens up a gateway between the real world and warp space, creating a swirling vortex that sucks in everything in the surrounding area. Vortex of Chaos is a ranged power. Mark the target point, the vortex extends D3+1 yards out from that point. Any character even partially within the area of effect must pass a Strength test (rolls of 96+ automatically fail) or be sucked in. A character trapped by the Vortex of Chaos has a 10% chance of being ripped apart and destroyed, otherwise he is deposited back onto the tabletop 2D10 yards away in a random direction, and is stunned for D6 turns.

Exotic Abilities

Exotic abilities are innate gifts or strange mutations possessed by the character which are truly amazing and bizarre. The abilities below are listed as printed.

Daemonic Possession

Daemons are creatures of the warp, not the material realm, and are bound to the flow and flux of Chaos. They are fantastical beasts which do not adhere to the normal laws of physics and nature. Similarly, individuals possessed by a daemon gain some of their powers, and some of their weaknesses.

Some characters gain this ability by being possessed by an entity of Chaos. If they are no longer possessed for any reason (such as the daemon being banished) the character is stunned for D6 turns and permanently loses any associated abilities.

Daemonic characters have one or more daemonic attributes, some examples of which are given below.

Familiar: The character has a psychic-symbiote called a familiar, which often takes the form of an animal, bird of prey or cybernetically augmented or mechanical creature. The character is mentally linked with the familiar, and so can command it, see and hear through its senses and use its powers. Some examples of these are given in the Armoury section later. The controlling character must spend one action every turn ordering the familiar, otherwise it does nothing that turn. The master is aware of everything the familiar is, and vice versa. If the familiar is injured, psychic feedback will hurt the master as well. Every time the familiar suffers damage, add +D3 to the main character's Injury total.

Invulnerable: The character is almost impervious to harm except from blows to the heart or head. The character counts double Toughness when working out damage to any location other than the chest or head. However, his Toughness is halved when working out damage to these locations.

Shadow: The character is not wholly corporeal, being partly present in the warp and realspace at the same time. The character counts as having D6 force field armour on every location except when against psychic attacks. All psychic attacks do double damage, after any deductions for armour, etc.

Impervious: The character is highly resistant to normal attacks, but very vulnerable to attacks from silver and/or holy weapons. Except against silver and/or holy attacks, the character can never suffer more than one level of damage from any one hit, and never has more than +10 points added to their injury total from a single hit. However, silver and/or blessed attacks always do an extra level of location injury and an additional D10 points are added to the character's injury total.

Cloak of Darkness: The character is surrounded by a swirling miasma of power, frequently referred to by Inquisitors as a cloak of darkness. A character with a cloak of darkness is near impossible to spot in dark conditions, and even in ordinary light all enemy are at half chance to see him. However, sunlight harms him, so at the end of every turn that the character is in direct daylight, he adds D6 points to his injury total. Photon flash flares count as frag grenades against characters with this ability.

Void-chill: Some daemonic creatures possess a characteristic which has been described as 'the icy chill of the void'. Their blood is frozen in their veins, and the air is misty and freezing nearby. Such creatures do not show up on heat-detection auspexes and sights, and any character fighting them in close combat must past a Toughness test at the end of every turn or add D6 to his injury total from frostbite. These daemonically cold creatures, as might be expected, are easily hurt by heat-based weaponry such as flamers, plasma and melta weapons, and pyromancy psychic attacks. Such attacks do an extra D10 damage to the creature.

Sidebar (printed, Familiar panel): the infiltrator has been adapted by mind-scrub technology, so that his brain is a blank, and can be psychically implanted with the thoughts and memories of another. Until a pre-designated trigger, such as a keyword, psychic message or event, he will believe that he is the personality implanted, and no amount of psychic probing or interrogation can prove otherwise. When the trigger is given, he will single-mindedly seek to complete the mission objective that has been imprinted on his subconscious, usually sabotage, assassination or returning to his masters with the information he has learned.

Fearsome

The character is immensely fearsome to fight against, either from his hideous appearance, a psychic projection or the sheer aura of dangerous menace that surrounds him. An enemy character who wishes to charge a fearsome character must pass a Nerve test to do so. If he fails, he stands rooted to the spot for the rest of his turn. Characters charged by a fearsome adversary, or fighting against one at the start of a turn, must pass a Nerve test. If they fail, they reduce their WS by 20 for the remainder of the turn. A character who is fearsome is immune to the effects of other fearsome characters, and treats terrifying characters (see below) as if they were fearsome.

Frenzy

Frenzy is not so much a special ability as a psychological effect, which a character may suffer from for a variety of reasons, such as combat drugs, psychic attack or mental conditioning. A character with frenzy must always move as rapidly as possible towards the closest visible enemy and attack him in close combat. He can only attack in close combat (or step forward and attack if necessary) and must continue to fight until his opponent has been taken out of action. If there are no enemies within sight, a frenzied character will act at half Speed until an enemy can be seen.

Regeneration

The character can heal wounds and injuries that would leave ordinary mortals crippled and dying. His flesh and bones can knit themselves together, sealing gaping cuts and restoring mangled limbs. A character with regenerate gets a free location recovery action at the end of every turn he is still conscious (see Recovery in the Injuries section on page 49). Also, a character with regenerate is not limited to healing himself to a maximum of two injury levels below the worst injury on a location – it is possible for a location to go from being crippled to undamaged!

Spit Acid

The character produces toxic and corrosive saliva, which can be used to attack opponents. A character with spit acid can use this skill as a close combat action. Roll to hit as normal, counting the spit as having a Reach of 4 (so it can be used at arm's length). It can be dodged but not parried. Roll for hit location in the same way as other close combat attacks. The attack does an amount of damage equal to D6, plus the character's Strength divided by 20. (ie, a Strength 80 character does D6+4 damage).

Terrifying

A terrifying character is the embodiment of your worst nightmares. They are peril incarnate, exuding an almost tangible aura of death and destruction. All characters with the terrifying ability follow the rules for fearsome characters except that all Nerve tests are taken with an additional -40% modifier. Any character who rolls double their modified Nerve value or more will immediately begin to flee. Starting with his next action, he must attempt to get away from the terrifying character as quickly as he can, including breaking from combat if necessary. Characters fleeing in this way can stop themselves by passing a Nerve test taken at the end of every turn. A terrifying character is immune to the effects of other terrifying or fearsome characters.

Wyrd

A Wyrd is a character who has an innate psychic power that they can use almost at will. You must specify which psychic power(s) the Wyrd benefits from. For example, a character may have Wyrd-Telepathy. Wyrd powers function just as normal psychic powers except that the Wyrd always counts as having a Willpower of 100. Using a Wyrd power is not a Risky action and the Wyrd cannot suffer psychic overloads.

Vampirism

The character can leech power from his enemies by drinking their blood, absorbing their psychic aura or otherwise drawing energy from them. This can only be done by physical contact. To use this skill, the victim must be stunned or out of action. If only stunned, the character must make a successful unarmed close combat attack to touch his opponent. A successful vampirism attack adds D6 to the victim's Injury total (with no deductions for armour or other defences) and deducts the same from the Vampire's Injury total. This doesn't allow the Vampire to have an Injury total below 0 and has no effect on location injuries.

Word of the Emperor

The character is well versed in all the blessings and liturgies of the Emperor, and speaks as if with his voice. The character may spend actions preaching the word of the Emperor, filled with fiery zeal and dedication. Any enemy character within earshot must pass a Nerve test or spend their next successful action recovering from their nervousness. Daemonic creatures which hear the Word of the Emperor must pass a Willpower check or they are stunned for D3 turns.

Mixing Special Abilities

Different special abilities can be combined in interesting ways to create new powers, particularly exotic abilities. For example, a character may have vampirism and regeneration. However, he can only use his regeneration ability at the end of a turn in which he has made a successful vampirism attack. Another idea is for a character with a familiar to become subject to frenzy should his familiar be destroyed, or vice versa.

Additional bonuses and caveats can be placed on special abilities, such as a leader whose ability extends to 12 yards, or a character which has ferocious assault but only when he is fighting with axes.

Other abilities are open to some interpretation by the GM, such as whether a character with first strike and feint can draw a weapon and make a feint action, or whether he can only attack as part of his first strike skill.

Even without modification, certain combinations of abilities can be used to create very skilled characters, such as giving a gunslinging bounty hunter hipshooting, fast draw, gunfighter and ambidextrous. More examples can be found in the Characters section later.

Armoury

In this part of Inquisitor you will find the rules and profiles for a great many weapons and items of wargear used in the galaxy of the 41st Millennium. Although the following descriptions of weapons and equipment are extensive, they are in no way exhaustive. GMs should feel free to invent new weapon variants, wargear and armour types for specific scenarios and characters.

Weapon profile columns (as used in the armoury tables): Type (Pistol, Basic or Heavy); Range (the range type code A to J, see the Range Modifiers chart); Mode (single shot, semi-automatic with the shots in brackets, or full auto); Acc (accuracy modifier); Dam (damage dice); Shots (shots before reload); Rld (reload actions, or the figure in brackets for shots reloaded per action; "X" if it cannot be reloaded); Wt (weight).

Special Ammunition

Some weapons can be loaded with special ammunition variants for certain circumstances or targets. Special ammunition is normally taken on a round-by-round basis rather than as complete reloads. There are three ways in which special ammunition can be used. Firstly, individual special rounds can be loaded as a normal reload action and the special ammunition is fired with the next shot. Secondly, they can be pre-loaded into a magazine, in which case the player needs to note down which shots in a magazine are special ammunition so they will be fired when they are reached. For example, a character with a combat shotgun may note that the third and fifth rounds in the chamber are Executioner rounds. A character can remove or move the position of a special round as a reload action. Thirdly, a few Rare weapons may have multiple magazines and a shot selector, in which case it takes one action to use the shot selector and the player declares what type of ammunition from those loaded will be fired next.

Ranged Weapons

Las Weapons

Las weapons are the most common type of weaponry found in the Imperium, as they are cheap to manufacture and easy to maintain. They also benefit from being easy to recharge, and ammunition shortage is rarely a problem. Las weapons work by firing a blast of highly charged light which transforms into heat and kinetic energy upon impact, causing tissue damage and burning.

Weapon	Type	Range	Mode	Acc	Dam	Shots	Rld	Wt
Laspistol	Pistol	E	single	–	2D6	30	2	15
Lasgun (MP)	Basic	C	single	–	2D6	60	2	25
Lasgun (NP)	Basic	E	single/semi (2/3)

MP – Mars Pattern. NP – Necromunda Pattern. TP – Triplex Pattern.

* Triplex pattern lasguns have different energy settings. You may increase the damage to 2D6+3 but the shot counts as two shots of ammo, or up to 2D6+5 at the cost of four shots of energy per shot fired. This is the maximum damage a Triplex pattern lasgun can do. It takes one action to change the energy setting.

Standard Projectile Weapons

After las weapons, bullet or shell-firing weapons are the most popular sidearm of choice amongst Imperial servants and outlaws alike. Some put up with the higher cost of ammunition and maintenance difficulties for the psychological effect caused by the roar of battle they make when fired!

Weapon	Type	Range	Mode	Acc	Dam	Shots	Rld	Wt
Autopistol	Pistol	A	single/semi (4)	–	2D6	20	2	20
Autogun	Basic	C	single/semi (4)/full (10)	–	2D6+2	30	2	30
Revolver	Pistol	E	single

* A Naval pistol is very solid and can be used as an improvised weapon in close combat.

** Double-barrelled shotguns can fire at semi (2), have shots: 2 and reload: (2).

Special Ammunition (Projectile Weapons)

Flechette: Upon firing, flechette rounds fragment into jagged shards that splinter across the target. Flechette rounds hit D3 locations and do D6 damage.

Dumdum: These bullets are designed to shatter inside the victim, causing terrible damage. Any location wounded by a dumdum round automatically starts bleeding as well (see page 48 of the Injuries section).

Man-stopper: Shaped to provide maximum penetration, these bullets are often made from denser materials than normal bullets. A man-stopper round does an additional D6 damage but has an extra -5% accuracy modifier.

Shotgun Ammunition

Scatter: A standard shotgun ammunition variant, scatter shells spray a wide area with small pieces of shot. A character hit by a scatter shot takes damage to D3 locations. Maximum range is 25 yards, accuracy goes down by -5, damage is D6+3.

Executioner: Executioner rounds are most commonly used by agents of the Adeptus Arbites. They contain a tiny artificial guidance system that allows them to home in on their target, but it takes a moment for them to acquire their target and so are more accurate at longer ranges. Executioner rounds have Range: H and 3D6 damage.

Hellfire: These bullets contain a small phial of acidic toxins that burn the flesh and affect the victim's nervous system. Hellfire ammunition does an extra D6 damage if not stopped by armour, cover, etc.

Inferno: Containing a phosphorous gel that ignites on contact, Inferno shells may set a character on fire, using the same rules for a hand flamer (see page 70).

Bolt Weapons

Bolt weapons launch a projectile with a mass-reactive warhead. Each bolt is rocket-propelled and explodes inside the target, causing considerable damage with its distinctive cracking detonation. Almost exclusively used by the shock troops of the Legiones Astartes, bolters can occasionally be found in the hands of other Imperial servants. Bolt ammunition is fairly rare, and only a criminal with good connections would be able to maintain a bolter or bolt pistol.

Special Bolt Ammunition

Kraken Penetrator round: Containing a solid adamantium tip, penetrator rounds are designed to punch through even the toughest armour with ease. Halve the Armour value of any location hit by a kraken shell, before making deductions from the damage inflicted.

Metal Storm frag shell: Rather than exploding inside its target, the frag shell detonates a few yards from impact, showering the target with shrapnel. A metal storm round hits D3 locations on the target, and does D10 damage.

Inferno shell: Inferno shells ignite on detonation, and targets hit may catch fire just as with a flamer hit (see page 70). Inferno shells do 2D10 damage.

Hellfire shell: Hellfire is the name for a variety of toxic acids that can cause horrendous tissue damage. Hellfire bolt rounds do an extra D10 damage if not stopped by armour, cover, etc. Hellfire shells do 2D10 damage.

Stalker silenced shell: Stalker shells replace their explosive charge with a gas-powered ignition, making them silent and removing any muzzle flare. Stalker shells do 2D10 damage, but do not reveal the firer's location (see the section on Awareness, pages 52-53).

Weapon	Type	Range	Mode	Acc	Dam	Shots	Rld	Wt
Bolter (Mk II straight mag)	Basic	D	single/semi (2)	–	2D10+4	15	2	40
Bolter (Mk III belt feed)*	Basic	F	single/semi (2/4)	–	2D10+4	30	4	40
Bolter (Mk IV sickle mag)	Basic	F	single/semi (2)

* Firing a drum-fed or belt feed bolter is a Risky action. If failed, the bolter jams – the shot is wasted and it takes two actions to clear.

Melta Weapons

These weapons use a magnetic containment beam to create microwave agitation which vapourises the target in a blast of intense heat. They are inaccurate, get few shots and are difficult to reload, but are immensely destructive at short range. Melta weapons lose 1D10 of damage for every full 10 yards to the target. For example, a meltagun does 5D10 damage. At 32 yards it loses 3D10, and therefore does 2D10 damage.

Weapon	Type	Range	Mode	Acc	Dam	Shots	Rld	Wt
Meltagun	Basic	J	single	-5	5D10	5	6	45
Inferno pistol	Pistol	E	single	-10	4D10	3	4	25
Multi-melta	Heavy	A	single

Plasma Weapons

Plasma weapons store highly unstable energised photohydrogen, which is unleashed with a devastating blast of energy. They are difficult to manufacture, arduous to maintain and frequently malfunction. Even if the weapon doesn't explode, cooling vents are built in to evacuate excess heated gases, which can cause considerable damage to an unarmoured user.

Plasma weapons can be fired on a sustained setting. In this case they fire at semi (2) and have Shots: 2, but do D10 less damage. It takes one action to change the setting.

Weapon	Type	Range	Mode	Acc	Dam	Shots	Rld	Wt
Plasma gun	Basic	D	single	-10	3D10+5	1	3	55
Plasma pistol	Pistol	A	single	-15	3D10	1	4	25
Plasma blaster	Basic	B	single

Firing a plasma weapon is a Risky action. If it goes wrong, roll a D6 and consult the table below.

D6	Result
1-2	Explodes! The character counts as shooting himself in his firing arm. Resolve damage and injuries in the normal way. The plasma weapon is destroyed.
3-4	Critical overheat. The character drops the weapon and takes 2D6 damage to his firing arm. The weapon is too hot to be picked up for D10 turns.
5-6	Overheat. The character drops the weapon.

Flamer Weapons

Flamers gout a burning incendiary fuel, dousing their targets in white-hot flames. They are useful for flushing enemies out of cover, and the liquid chemical they fire can adhere to the target, setting it alight.

Flamers are a flame weapon. In addition, each location hit by a flamer weapon has a 50% chance of being set on fire. If a force field absorbs all the damage from a flamer weapon, there is no chance of the target catching fire.

At the end of every turn, there is a 25% chance that the location stops burning (roll before recovery). If it does not, then the location suffers damage again (use the Damage value of the weapon that set them alight), with the usual deductions for armour (but not force fields). In addition, there is a 25% chance that the fire spreads to another random location (it can be imagined that the fire can leap across the body as the character flails around).

A burning character may do nothing else except put the fire out. Each action spent putting the fire out has a 25% chance of succeeding. Specify the location the character is trying to smother before rolling any dice for the success of the action. Other characters within 1 yard may also spend actions to help the burning character, and they too have a 25% chance of putting each fire out.

Weapon	Type	Range	Mode	Acc	Dam	Shots	Rld	Wt
Hand flamer	Pistol	(15)	flame	–	2D6	4	6	25
Flamer	Basic	(25)	flame	–	2D6+4	6	8	40
Heavy flamer	Heavy	(35)	flame

* An exterminator must be fitted to a basic weapon and adds +10 to its weight; ie, a Necromunda Pattern lasgun with an attached exterminator becomes Weight 40.

Throwing Weapons

Sophisticated weapons such as plasma guns and melta weapons are not always available and are hard to maintain, and when caught in a tight spot a well-thrown knife can be just as effective. Such weapons arouse little suspicion on many Imperial worlds and so are frequently carried by individuals who must on occasion operate without attracting the authorities' attention.

Weapon	Type	Range	Mode	Acc	Dam	Shots	Rld	Wt
Throwing axe (1)	Thrown	E	single	-10	D10	–	–	15
Throwing knife (1)	Thrown	E	single	-5	D6	–	–	10
Throwing star (1)(2)	Thrown	E	single/semi (2)

Primitive Weapons

On many worlds of the Imperium, technology has almost been completely lost. In these places, the lasgun is replaced by the bow, and the crossbow replaces the bolter. As crude as they may seem, these weapons can still be dangerous in the right hands.

Weapon	Type	Range	Mode	Acc	Dam	Shots	Rld	Wt
Bow (5)	Basic	F	single	-5	2D3	1	1	15
Crossbow (6)	Basic	B	single	-5	2D3+2	1	2	25
Musket	Basic	A	single

Notes to the throwing and primitive weapons tables:

1. Throwing axes, knives and stars can be used in close combat as improvised weapons.
2. A character may throw up to two throwing stars per action following the rules for semi-automatic shooting.
3. Javelins used in close combat count as short spears.
4. If a bolas hits, it has a 75% chance of entangling the location. If it entangles the legs, the target is knocked prone. If it entangles an arm, that arm cannot be used. If the head is entangled, the bolas causes an additional D6 damage at the end of every turn (before recovery) due to choking. This damage ignores up to 4 points of armour. Other locations are not entangled, although they take damage as normal from the hit. It takes one action to disentangle a bolas.
5. A bow can never be fired one-handed!
6. A crossbow can either be hand drawn or cranked. It takes one action to draw the string and another to load the bolt. For hand drawn crossbows the character must pass a Strength test to successfully set the string, otherwise he must try again with subsequent actions until the string is drawn.
7. Slings suffer triple the normal penalties for moving and shooting as a combined action.

Exotic Weapons

The following are a selection of miscellaneous weapons which can occasionally be found in the hands of Inquisition agents and their enemies.

Weapon	Type	Range	Mode	Acc	Dam	Shots	Rld	Wt
Needle rifle	Basic	I	single	+5	2D6	6	4	30
Needle pistol	Pistol	E	single	–	2D6	6	4	15
Graviton gun	Basic	C	single

Needle Weapons

These weapons are the preferred choice of snipers, as they are silent and give off no muzzle flash whatsoever. Instead needle weapons fire a crystalline sliver into the target which delivers a paralysing or lethal toxin, rendering the victim paralysed or dead in a matter of seconds.

Needle ammunition contains a toxin or viral agent. If a target suffers any Damage points from a needle shot (ie, after deductions for armour and so forth), then he must test to see if he is affected by the toxin, in addition to any normal injury effects. See the section on gases and toxins on page 89.

Graviton Gun

Using sophisticated field technology to create a localised anomaly in the gravity field, a graviton gun pins the firer's target to the ground. These weapons are highly unreliable though, and many prefer the surety of a definite kill to this weapon's unpredictable effects.

A character hit by a graviton gun suffers no damage. However, he counts as being stunned for a number of turns equal to 3D10 minus one-tenth of his Strength, to a minimum of one turn. For example, a Strength 75 character who rolls 12 on 3D10 is stunned for four turns (12-8=4).

Web Guns

Web guns (or stranglers as they are known in some regions) fire a mass of sticky filaments that rapidly expand to entangle their target. The more the victim struggles, the more the filaments contract, tightening their grip.

Any arm or leg that is hit by a webber or web pistol has a 75% chance of becoming entangled and rendered useless (treat as crippled, except that the character will not lose any additional Damage points, won't bleed and doesn't have to test for system shock). This is reduced to 25% if the character has any type of force field on the location.

Hits to the head, chest, abdomen and groin can cause additional damage from asphyxiation and constriction. At the end of every turn, each such webbed location has a 50% chance of suffering D6 damage, which ignores up to 4 points of armour.

A character can spend actions in an attempt to tear the web off, in which case he must pass a Strength test with a -25 modifier (rolls of 01-05 always succeed, 96-100 always fail). If this test is failed, the webbing reacts and does D6 damage to the location, ignoring up to 4 points of armour. Other characters may also spend actions trying to pull webbing free, using the same rules as above.

Handbow

A form of small crossbow, the handbow is favoured by many assassins because it is easy to conceal as separate components before being assembled. Quite often a handbow will fire poisonous or explosive-tipped quarrels.

Bolas Launcher

Frequently used by law enforcement agents and bounty hunters alike, a bolas launcher enables the firer to take an enemy in alive for questioning, ransom or reward.

If a bolas hits its target, it has a 75% chance of entangling the location. If it entangles the legs, the target is knocked prone. If it entangles an arm, that arm cannot be used. If the head is entangled, the bolas causes an additional D6 damage at the end of every turn (before recovery) due to choking. This damage ignores up to 4 points of armour. Other locations are not entangled, although they take damage as normal from the hit.

It takes one action to disentangle a bolas.

Neural Shredder

Sometimes called a neuro-disruptor, the neural shredder projects a resonant wave of electromagnetism that is pitched to scramble the electrical signals of the target's brain, incapacitating or even killing him outright.

A target that is hit by a neural shredder must pass a Willpower test for every hit taken. If failed (rolls of 96+ always fail) the target loses 4D10 Willpower and Sagacity (roll separately for each) and 2D10 Initiative (remember that this may reduce his Speed). A target who is reduced to 0 Willpower or less is rendered unconscious.

Armour has no effect on a neural shredder, but the amount rolled for force fields acts as a bonus to the character's Willpower. If a target is hit more than once by a single shot (because it is a flame weapon), the tests are taken sequentially – in other words, if the target loses Willpower, his reduced Willpower is used for subsequent tests from the same shot.

Psycannon

Using modified bolter technology, a psycannon is named after its special ammunition. Much like psyk-out grenades, a psycannon uses an anti-psychic substance (some say it is a by-product of the Golden Throne that sustains the Emperor) to cause serious injury to targets of a psychic disposition. It is almost a badge of office for the daemon-hunting Ordo Malleus, who make the widest use of this weapon.

A psycannon causes triple damage against daemonic creatures, and double damage against psykers, after deductions for armour, etc.

Alien Weapons

Some agents within the Ordo Xenos acquire weapons which are of non-human origin and are prepared to use them. Also, some aliens are willing to trade their armaments with humans who care more about survival than legalities.

Weapon	Type	Range	Mode	Acc	Dam	Shots	Rld	Wt
Hrud fusil	Basic	D	single	-10	2D10+5	1	3 (recharge)	45
Kroot long rifle	Basic	C	single	–	3D6	1	2	35
Necrontyr gauss flayer	Basic	F	single

The Rld entries underlined in the source (Hrud fusil and Necrontyr gauss flayer) are recharge times in turns, as described in the Weapon Profiles section.

Hrud fusil: The Hrud are a mysterious, nocturnal race who use a warp-plasma based weapon known as a fusil. The Hrud fusil follows the same rules as are given for a plasma weapon (see page 69).

Kroot long rifle: An entire race of mercenaries, the Kroot employ a range of basic but effective weaponry, using a laser-based charge to deliver a powerful punch. Kroot long rifles are fitted with combat blades which means that they can be wielded in close combat just like a halberd (see page 76).

Necrontyr gauss flayer: Little is known about the ancient race of the Necrontyr except that they are highly advanced. The gauss flayer appears to operate by atomic disintegration, stripping away armour and flesh in molecule-thick layers until the target is wholly atomised. A gauss flayer causes permanent and irreversible damage. The first points of damage inflicted on a location will remove points of armour, as if it were ablative armour (see page 84 of the Armour section). Any location injury, and Damage points on a character's injury total caused by a gauss flayer cannot be recovered or healed except by characters who can regenerate.

Xenarch death-arc: The Imperium has had little contact with the shadowy Xenarch of the Northern Rim, but their electrical weapons are highly prized, utilising charge cells and capacitors far beyond anything that the Adeptus Mechanicus can manufacture. All of the hits on a character from a death-arc combine their damage together against a single location – roll once for location, roll all of the damage and then make deductions (ie, 3 hits causes 3D10 damage against a single location).

Eldar shuriken catapult: The ancient Eldar race are masters of many forms of technology. One of the more common Eldar sidearms to turn up in the hands of an arms dealer is the shuriken catapult. It fires a rapid hail of razor-sharp discs that slice through flesh, its magazine containing solid core ammunition, good for several bursts of fire.

Digital Weapons

Digital weapons, or digi-weapons as they are commonly known, are miniaturised guns which are so advanced that they can be worn on the finger like a large ring, yet pack the punch of a pistol. The most compact are those manufactured by the brightly-haired, ape-like aliens known as Jokaero, whose creations are sought after across the Imperium.

You can get digi-versions of hand flamers, inferno pistols, las pistols and needle pistols. However, their Shots characteristics are halved and they cannot be reloaded.

A character can wear up to one digi-weapon per finger (not thumbs), and they can be fired even if the character is holding something else in the same hand. The Weight is equal to 4 for every digi-weapon on that hand, plus anything else being carried. For example, a character with three digi-weapons and a bolt pistol would fire any of the weapons with a Weight of 37 (25+4+4+4). A character may only fire one digi-weapon per action. Other than this, they follow all of the normal rules for pistols and so can be used in close combat, etc.

Close Combat Weapons

Standard Weapons

Blades and bludgeoning weapons are common all across the Imperium, and many conflicts are resolved using three feet of well-placed steel.

Weapon	Reach	Damage	Parry penalty
Knife	1	D6	-25%
Short sword	2	D10	-15%
Sword	3	2D6	-10%
Axe	2	2D6+2	-15%
Flail (1)	2	D6+1	-40%
Spear (2)	4	D10	-15%
Staff (2)	4

Chain Weapons

Chain weapons have a set of motorised biting teeth that saw and slash through the enemy, and a blow can cause terrible damage.

Weapon	Reach	Damage	Parry penalty
Chainsword	3	2D10	-15%
Chain-axe	2	2D10+2	-20%
Eviscerator (5)	3	2D10+2	-20%

Close Combat Weapon Notes

1. A flail causes D3 hits for every blow landed (roll location for each hit separately).
2. Spears and staffs only add Strength bonuses to their damage when wielded in both hands.
3. Count double damage from hammers for the purposes of knockback (see page 180).
4. If a character with a Strength of less than 75 wields a Great axe, Great hammer or falchion, it does half damage and is at a further -15% to hit and parry. Halve the Strength of characters using such weapons in one hand. Great hammers count double damage for the purposes of knockback.
5. If a character with a Strength of less than 75 wields an eviscerator, it does half damage and is at a further -15% to hit and parry. A character wielding an eviscerator one-handed halves their Strength.

Power Weapons

These weapons are surrounded by a disruptive force field that allows the user to slice through the thickest armour and lop off limbs with a single blow. They are highly prized, and are often a badge of office for senior Imperial servants.

If a power weapon is parried, or successfully makes a parry, there is a 75% chance that the opponent's weapon is destroyed. Power, shock, Daemon, or force weapons cannot be destroyed in this way. Note that this does not apply if the target dodged.

Weapon	Reach	Damage	Parry penalty
Power sword	3	3D10	-15%
Power axe	2	3D10+4	-20%
Power fist (1)	1	2D10+5	-25%
Chainfist (2)	1	2D10+4	-25%
Power halberd	4	4D10	-20%
Power hammer (3)	2	2D10+4	-25%
Power knife

Power Weapon Notes

1. A character that is armed with a power fist has the option of grabbing their opponent and crushing them. If he opts to do this, there is a further -20% chance to hit. However, if the blow hits (and is not parried) the power fist's Damage value goes up to 4D10! If not used to grab, a power fist counts double damage for the purposes of knockback.
2. Against immobile targets, a Chainfist does an extra 3D6 damage.
3. Power hammers count double damage for the purposes of knockback.
4. The profile shown is for a frost blade wielded double-handed. It can be wielded single-handed with the profile of a normal power sword.

Shock Weapons

Charged with electrical energy these cause severe burns on impact and can disrupt the nervous system.

All hits from shock weapons stun the target for one turn unless he passes a Toughness test (rolls of 96+ always fail). This is regardless of armour, but does not occur if all of the damage is stopped by a force field. Note that a target is only stunned once per turn in this way, regardless of number of hits inflicted, though this can be prolonged indefinitely if the character continues to be hit in subsequent turns.

Weapon	Reach	Damage	Parry penalty
Shock maul	2	D6+3	-20%
Neural whip (5)	4	2D6	-50%
Electro-flail (6)	2	2D6	-40%

5. There is an extra -20% modifier for attempts to parry against a neural whip.
6. An electro-flail does D3 hits for every hit that lands (roll location for each hit).

Daemon Weapons

Daemon weapons, as one might suspect, have the spirit of a daemon bound into them. They are treated as a standard weapon of their type (ie, you don't get daemonic power weapons, for example) and have one or more of the following properties. As a guide, a weapon with a daemonic beast enslaved to it will have one property; one with a daemonic servant or lesser daemon will have two properties; one with a daemon prince will have four or five properties; one with a greater daemon will have up to six properties. Daemonic weapons also have their own Willpower value. This is 50+D10 for daemonic beasts, 70+2D10 for daemonic servants and lesser daemons, and 80+4D10 for greater daemons and daemon princes. If ever the wielder's Willpower drops below that of the bound daemon, he must pass a Willpower test at the start of every turn or succumb to the daemon. The GM should control daemon-influenced characters, who will act in a suitably self-sacrificing and chaotic fashion (see the psychic power Enforce Will on page 58 as a guide of what a character will and won't do under daemonic influence).

Daemonic Properties

Bound: The weapon is psychically bound to the character and cannot be parted from them. It can be called to the wielder's hand by a thought and the character may draw the weapon at any time without using up any of their actions (it jumps from its scabbard into the character's hand). If the weapon is dropped, lost, etc, the character can command it to fly back to his hand for the cost of one action. For each turn the character is separated from his weapon, he must pass a Willpower test or add +D6 to his Injury total.

Breathe: The scaled blade and ether-shark hilt allow the wielder to breathe anywhere, even in a vacuum. The wielder cannot be affected by any type of gas weapon, cannot drown, etc.

Brain Leech: Seared in the flames from a hundred burning books of forbidden lore, this weapon seeks out knowledge and steals it. If an enemy is wounded by the Brain Leech (after any deductions for armour, etc) he loses 4D10 from his Sagacity.

Corrupter: Quenched in the bile of a daemon and consecrated on an altar of plague victims, this daemon weapon spreads contagion with every blow. Any character taking damage from this (after deductions for armour, etc) must make a note that he is infected. He must pass a Resistance test at the start of every subsequent turn (see the section on toxins & gases on page 89 for Resistance tests) otherwise he adds +D3 to his injury total. For each additional corrupting hit suffered, there is a -5% modifier to the Resistance test.

Daemonbane: The daemon within the weapon is extremely jealous and will attempt to banish any other daemons it comes into contact with. If a daemonic character takes any damage from the weapon (after deductions for armour, etc) the daemon inside the blade will immediately attempt to use the Banishment psychic ability on them, following all of the rules given on page 60 in the Psychic Powers section, and using its own Willpower value. Daemonbane weapons cannot be wielded by daemonic characters.

Deathlust: The wielder is filled with a terrible hunger for battle, charging into the enemy with no concern for his own survival. The character gains the special abilities Furious Assault and Frenzy (see pages 55 and 62 respectively). This only affects him while the weapon is held. Once drawn, the character must pass a Willpower test, with a negative modifier equal to half the daemon's Willpower, to sheathe the weapon again (rolls of 01-05 succeed, rolls of 96+ always fail).

Deflection: The weapon feels lighter than air, and can be wielded with incredible speed. When holding the weapon, the wielder may use Deflect Shot and counts as Speed 6 for working out how many times it can be used per turn.

Enfeeble: The weapon draws the life force from those it strikes. Any character who takes one or more points of damage it (after deductions for armour, etc) loses D10 Toughness for each point of damage taken (ie, 4D10 Toughness are lost if 4 points of damage are inflicted), as if afflicted with the Enfeeble psychic power (see page 57). This penalty lasts until the end of the next turn. If a character inflicts a critical hit with the weapon, then half of the Toughness reduction lasts for the rest of the game.

Entrance: The glimmering weapon catches the eye, stealing thought from those who look upon it. Any enemy fighting in close combat with the character with the Entrance blade must pass a Willpower test at the start of the combat and the start of every subsequent turn. If failed, then his WS is reduced by an amount equal to half the daemon's Willpower (to a minimum of 10) for the rest of that turn (or until the close combat has ended if this is sooner).

Fiery Blast: The weapon draws upon energy from the warp and unleashes it as a sheet of flame. Once per turn the weapon may be used as a hand flamer (see page 70).

Flight: The weapon can be hurled through the air, flying after its target, before returning back to the wielder's hand. The weapon can be thrown like a throwing axe (see page 71), except that it retains its own Damage value. It automatically returns to the character at the end of the next action (ie, it can't be used in the next action).

Gnawing: The daemon hungers for flesh, and rips and rends those which it strikes with thousands of ethereal fangs. Any character taking damage from this weapon (after deductions for armour, etc) takes an additional D6 damage to the location.

Lashing: The weapon writhes like a living snake, able to strike out at enemies from several yards away. A character with a lashing weapon may use it to attack an enemy at arm's length, and counts as Reach 4 when used in this way.

Magic Absorption: The weapon is a channel into the warp, drawing away harmful psychic energies. Any psychic ability (from a friend or a foe) cast on the character while the weapon is drawn has a 90% chance of being instantly nullified with no effect at all.

Magical Force: The daemon trapped within the weapon can use its magical powers to inflict more damage. The weapon counts as a force weapon of its type (see page 80), but uses the daemon's Willpower rather than the character's.

Mind Stealer: The weapon was doused in a thousand starving souls so that it thirsts for the spirits of those it strikes. Any character who receives damage from the weapon (after deductions for armour, etc) must pass a Willpower test (rolls of 01-05 succeed, rolls of 96+ always fail) or lose D10 from all of his mental characteristics (roll once for all). Test each time he takes damage. If any characteristic is reduced to 0 or less, the character falls unconscious.

Resurrection: The daemon draws energy from the warp to invigorate the bearer. The character gains the True Grit and Regenerate special abilities (see pages 55 and 62 respectively) whilst holding the weapon.

Screaming: When unsheathed the weapon shrieks and clamours with unnatural joy. A character wielding a drawn Screaming weapon counts as having the Fearsome ability (see page 62). Note however that they do not ignore Fearsome characters themselves, or treat Terrifying characters as Fearsome.

Warpflame: The daemon weapon is surrounded by a flickering corona of unnatural fire. Any target hit by the weapon may be set on fire as if hit by a flamer (see page 70).

Vampyre: Imbued with a craving for fresh blood, this weapon drinks deep from its victims each time it strikes. In addition to other injuries, a character who takes Damage points from this weapon (after deductions for armour, etc) adds a further D10 to his Injury total (not to location injury).

Alien Close Combat Weapons

Weapon	Reach	Damage	Parry penalty
Agoniser	1	4D6	-25%
Venom talon	2	2D6	-20%
Lacerator	1	2D6+5	-25%

Dark Eldar agoniser: Agonisers are employed by the alien pirates commonly called Dark Eldar. They overload the nervous system with shocks of energy, causing physical trauma and unbearable pain. Agonisers are a type of shock weapon (see page 77).

Scythian venom talon: The Scythians are a race of warrior-monks, dedicated to a peculiar form of armed martial arts. The dagger-like venom talon is one of the more basic weapons they use, able to incapacitate a foe with the slightest scratch. A venom talon is loaded with a toxin or viral agent. Any character taking damage (after deductions for armour, etc) must test to see if they are affected. See the section on toxins and gases for details (page 89).

Galthite lacerator: Resembling a fist, a lacerator from the Galthite race of the Oenorian Inner Systems is festooned with many razor-sharp blades that slice through flesh with ease. Any location hit by a lacerator actually takes D3 hits.

Combat Accessories

Bayonets and other combat attachments are frequently used by the Imperium's military forces, and are quite often found elsewhere.

Accessory	Reach	Damage	Parry penalty
Bayonet (use only when charging)	Varies	D6	-20%
Chainblade	Varies	2D6	-20%

A combat accessory adds +10 to the weight of the weapon. The accessory's reach is dependant on the length of the weapon (the miniature is the best guide for this) but a good benchmark is: Pistol – Reach 2; Basic – Reach 3; Heavy – Reach 3 or 4.

Force Weapons

Force weapons channel the mental energies of the wielder, and can only be used by psykers. If used by a non-psychic character they count as an ordinary weapon of their type. A psyker may choose to use the weapon in this way when the attack action is declared. If the target is hit by a force weapon the psyker may take a Willpower test. If the test is passed, the weapon does an additional D10 damage. Force weapons do double damage against daemonic characters (after deductions for armour).

Force rods and force staffs allow a psyker to channel his powers through them, so that ranged attacks can be directed with better accuracy. Halve any range penalties for psychic powers if the character has a force rod or staff.

Weapon	Reach	Damage	Parry penalty
Force sword	3	2D6+2	-15%
Force axe	2	2D6+4	-20%
Force rod (1)	2	D6	-30%
Force staff	4	D10	-10%
Force halberd	4	D10+2	-15%
Force hammer (2)	2	D6+4	-25%
Nemesis force halberd

1. When not used by a psyker, a force rod is an improvised weapon.
2. Force hammers count double damage for the purposes of knockback.
3. Rune weapons do an additional 2D6 damage on a successful Willpower test, rather than D10.

Grenades & Explosives

In this section we break down the weapons into two parts – the way the ammunition is delivered and what effect it has. If the character has a grenade, use the profile for the grenade type. If he is firing a rocket or using a grenade launcher then the Range, Mode and Accuracy of the launcher apply, rather than that of the grenade.

Launchers, Grenades, Missiles and Rockets

The most common type of launcher is the grenade launcher, used to lob grenades further and higher than they can be thrown. Rocket and missile launchers fire more directly, and can often fire ammunition with a more devastating effect than grenades.

In the 41st Millennium, grenades and missiles don't necessarily just explode and shower shrapnel over the target. Some contain small field generators, while others contain gases and toxins to disable the enemy.

Launcher	Type	Range	Mode	Acc	Dam	Shots	Rld	Wt
Grenade launcher (1) – single shot	Basic	J	single	-10	*	–	(1)	25
Grenade launcher (1) – drum mag	Basic	J	single/semi (2)	-10	*	6	5	30
Auxiliary grenade launcher (2)	X	E	single

1. Grenade launchers may fire indirectly.
2. An auxiliary grenade launcher can be fitted to any basic weapon and adds +10 to its weight. It may be used to fire indirectly. * Special: see description of grenade for details.

Grenade / missile	Type	Range	Area	Blast	Dam	Shots	Rld	Wt
Frag	Grenade	E	3yds	4	D10	**	**	5
Super-frag (3)	Blast	X	6yds	7	2D6	**	**	8
Plasma	Grenade	E	2yds

3. Super-frag and super-krak can only be fitted into rockets and missiles. * Special: see description of grenade for details. ** See description of launcher for details.

Anti-Plant

These destroy all vegetation within their area of effect. They have no effect at all against non-plant targets.

Gas

There are many different kinds of toxic gases used in the 41st Millennium, refer to page 89 for specific effects.

Any character within a gas cloud when it is released, or within its area of effect at the start of a subsequent turn, must take a Resistance test.

The gas disperses at the end of every turn, adding a +10% Resistance modifier each time (ie, in the third turn characters have +20% to their Toughness test, and so on) until it reaches +50%. Gas may disperse more quickly or slowly in certain conditions, at the GM's discretion.

Smoke

Any character firing through smoke suffers an additional -50% to hit and can't make placed shots. The smoke disperses at the end of every turn, reducing this modifier by 10% each time (ie, in the second turn it is a -40% to hit and so on) until it has no effect. Smoke may disperse more quickly or more slowly in certain conditions, at the GM's discretion.

Grenade Effects

Blind: Line of sight cannot be traced through the area of a blind grenade. The grenade's area of effect shrinks by 1 yard at the end of every turn.

Tanglefoot: Any character caught in a tanglefoot field immediately falls prone. The tanglefoot field has a 50% chance of cutting out at the end of every turn, otherwise characters inside the field will be knocked prone and can't stand up (they can crawl, shoot, etc).

Stasis: A stasis grenade has two areas of effect. Characters in the smaller of the two fields can do nothing at all. Neither can any outside forces interact within them – they cannot be shot, attacked, targeted by psychic powers or anything else. Characters in the larger of the two fields are reduced to being Speed 1 whilst in the outer field. A stasis grenade has a 25% chance of reducing its areas of effect by 1 yard at the end of every turn (so after two reductions, the inner field disappears).

Haywire: Haywire grenades affect any item of electrical equipment within their area of effect, including all energy weapons, power and shock weapons, suppression shields, force fields, etc. This also includes bionics, scanners, targeters and other pieces of equipment. Such items simply cease to function within the haywire field. Powered armour is also affected, reducing the wearer to Speed 1 whilst in the field.

Note that non-energy weapons, such as autoguns, bolters and crossbows are unaffected by the field. The haywire field has a 25% chance of dissipating at the end of every turn.

Photon Flash: Any character, friend or foe, who has a line of sight to the grenade's detonation point (not including the thrower) must pass an Initiative test to cover their eyes or be stunned for D3 turns (note that they are not knocked prone).

Psyk-out: Any daemonic character caught within the area of effect of a psyk-out grenade immediately adds 2D10 to its Injury total (not location injury). For each 'hit' a psyker suffers from the grenade, he must pass a Willpower test or forget a randomly determined psychic power for the rest of the game. All rolls of 96+ automatically fail.

Explosives

Demolition charge: The maximum range a demolition charge can be thrown is equal to a quarter of the character's Strength.

Melta bomb: Melta bombs cannot be thrown. They must be attached to their target (taking one action). They can only be attached to inanimate objects. Melta bombs have no blast area and do one hit on their target with the Damage value shown.

Explosive	Type	Range	Area	Blast	Dam	Shots	Rld	Wt
Blind	Grenade	E	4yds	*	*	**	**	5
Tanglefoot	Grenade	E	2yds	*	*	**	**	12
Stasis	Grenade	E	2yds/3yds

The Range entry "2" for the demolition charge is printed as shown in the source and is not one of the A to J range codes.

Setting Timers

Occasionally a character will wish to set a delayed explosion. Many explosives have a set fuse and cannot be adjusted, so the GM must decide which grenades and explosives have variable timers as part of writing the scenario. They must also specify the minimum and maximum time that the explosive can be set at.

It takes one action to set a timer. Declare (or write down) how long you want to set the fuse for. This is specified in game turns, starting with the beginning of the next game turn. So, a one turn fuse explodes at the start of the next turn, a two turn fuse explodes at the start of the turn after next, and so on.

At the start of the relevant turn, work out the explosion as normal. Remember to mark the point where the explosive is situated – you may want to inform only the GM where it is if your character is trying to leave a booby trap.

Blowing Things Up!

A character may wish to blow up something other than an opposing character, ie, breaching a wall or destroying a communications relay. Most objects are too sturdy to be damaged by casual fire or thrown grenades, although some lightweight materials, such as a wooden fence, might be breached with these weapons. To work out how damaged the object is, use the following method:

Look up the object's Armour rating (some examples are given in the Injuries section, see page 46). To destroy the object you must score more than double this value.

For walls and similar obstacles, this is enough to open a hole large enough for a man-sized creature to crawl through. If the attack scores more damage than triple the object's Armour value, it opens a hole large enough for a man-sized creature to walk through.

Getting It Wrong!

Throwing a grenade is a Risky action. If the character fails to throw the grenade, roll a D6 and consult the table below.

D6	Result
1-2	The grenade explodes whilst in the character's hand. Resolve its effects centred on the character.
3-4	The character drops the grenade. It scatters D10 yards in a random direction from the character before exploding.
5-6	The grenade is a dud and does not explode.

Armour & Force Fields

Armour is divided up by location, and it is possible for a character to have different types, or no armour at all, on different body locations.

All armour has a basic Armour value which is deducted from the Damage rolls to that location, as described in the Injuries section on page 46. In addition, some types of armour have extra effects or benefits.

Special Armour Types

Ceramite: This is a ceramic-based armour which is made to absorb and reflect heat. Armour with a ceramite coating counts as being D6 higher against the following weapon types: plasma, melta and flamer (roll for each time the location is hit).

Reflective: Often called reflec armour, this contains micro-crystals which help to redirect and dissipate laser bolts, lessening the intensity of their impact. Such armour counts as being D6 higher against las weapons (rolled each time a location is hit).

Ablative: Usually layered on top of other armour, this shatters or burns easily, dissipating the energy of a blow or shot. Ablative armour points are taken from the Damage roll against that location like normal armour, but each ablative point only works once, and Armour points deducted from Damage rolls are taken off the location's Armour value. Eg, a location has 6 pts of armour, 3 pts of which are ablative. It takes 7 pts of damage, allowing 1 pt through. The ablative armour is destroyed and the location now only has 3 pts of armour.

Bonded: It is possible to have armour that combines the effects of more than one special armour type (eg, reflective & ceramite). In this case all additional effects are used. The extra properties of bonded ablative armour are lost when its last Armour point is destroyed.

Armour Types

Flak armour – Armour value: 3. This consists of layers of padded and reinforced material. Primarily designed to protect against shrapnel and ricochets, it provides only minimal defence against a direct hit.

Carapace armour – Armour value: 6. Carapace armour is made up from a solid outer layer on top of a flexible underskin. These plates are constructed from metal, high-density plastics or more exotic substances such as ceramite and plasteel.

Power armour – Armour value: 10. Having an endo-skeletal array of actuators and muscle-like fibre bundles, power armour not only enables the wearer to be protected by heavy armour plating, but actually boosts their strength. Power armour increases a character's Strength by a fifth (this has no effect on bionic arms).

Mesh armour – Armour value: 4. Uncommon within the Imperium, this armour is made up of lots of small rings or scales, each interconnected so that the impact of a shot or blow is spread over a wider area to absorb and dissipate damage.

Helmets

Helmet designs vary all over the Imperium, from the crude metal pot helmets of feudal worlds, to the visored plasteel helms of the Adeptus Arbites.

• Open helmet – Armour value: 5.
• Closed helmet – Armour value: 6.

Shields

Shield protection: Characters carrying a shield gain additional armour on certain locations. This is always the carrying arm. In addition, unless the player specifies otherwise, the shield will also cover the character's chest and abdomen. If a character wishes, he can protect two other locations instead (such as the chest and other arm) but this must be declared beforehand. Obviously the locations covered must be adjacent to each other – you can't protect your head and legs at the same time, and a character who protects his head won't be able to see very much.

Common armour values for shields are:

• Wooden/plastic: 2 Armour points
• Reinforced wooden/plastic: 3 Armour points
• Metal or armaplas: 4 Armour points

Like other types of armour, shields may have extra properties as listed below.

Shield bash attacks: Characters with a shield can make a special shield bash attack in close combat. It is resolved as any other attack except that it cannot be parried, only dodged. The target takes the amount of damage shown and is automatically knocked back D3 yards.

Buckler: Reach: 1. Dam: D3. Parry: *. First parry uses full WS, second uses 3/4 WS, third uses 1/2 WS, fourth and subsequent parries use 1/4 WS. For counter-attack chances, bucklers count as having a -10% parry penalty. A buckler only protects the carrying arm.

Shield: Reach: 1. Dam: D6. Parry: *. First parry uses full WS, second uses 9/10ths WS, third uses 8/10ths WS, fourth uses 7/10ths WS and so on, down to a minimum of half WS. For counter-attack chances, shields count as having a -5% parry penalty.

Some types of shields have additional properties:

Suppression shield: Suppression shields are a type of shock weapon – a character hit is stunned for one turn, in addition to any other effects. As a shock weapon, a suppression shield cannot be damaged by parrying power weapons.

Mirror shield: A mirror shield gives the character the Deflect Shot ability against all types of energy weapon (see page 54).

Storm shield: A storm shield generates a 2D10 force field over the protected locations and can be used to parry power weapons without risk.

Force Fields

As noted in the Injuries section (see page 47), force fields have a random Armour value which is rolled each time the location is hit. Note that force fields normally cover all locations, but it is possible to have small force field generators that only cover a few body parts, or perhaps even just one. Since the field is at some distance from the wearer, it does not protect from attacks made in hand-to-hand combat.

Refractor field: Refractor fields give D10 protection. A refractor field glows slightly and so doubles the chances of any character seeing the wearer.

Conversion field: A conversion field gives 2D6 protection against all types of hits. If the amount of damage absorbed by the field is 8 points or more, its reaction is equivalent to a photon flash flare going off, centred on the target character (note that they are immune themselves). See page 82 in the section on grenades for details of photon flash flares.

Displacer field: Displacer fields work slightly differently from other force fields in that they will either activate and take the character out of harm's way, or they won't have any effect at all. The more powerful a hit, the more likely the field is to detect the attack and activate. The field has a basic 50% chance of activating, with a bonus to this chance equal to the damage rolled. If the field activates, the wearer is teleported D10 yards in a random direction and the attack has no effect. If it does not activate, the field has no effect whatsoever and the injury is resolved as normal. The displacer field will not teleport the wearer to a place it is impossible for them to enter and survive (such as solid cliff face, into empty space or another character's position) and will stop them 1 yard short if this would be the case. They may however pass through terrain and other characters before materialising again.

Pentagrammic wards: These are a special type of psychic field, sometimes known as a Shield of Faith, which protects the wearer from daemons. Any daemonic character halves all of their characteristics whilst within 5 yards of pentagrammic wards.

Hexagrammic wards: These wards protect against psychic attack. A psyker that is targeting a character with hexagrammic wards halves his Willpower for his Psychic test. The wards also count as D10 force field armour against psychic bolt attacks.

Bionics & Implants

Some characters may have artificial limbs and organs to replace diseased or damaged parts, or simply to improve their abilities. Bionics include partial and full replacements of body parts, brain implants, cybernetic weaponry and other devices. Bionics is not an exact science in the Imperium, and many are clumsy and inefficient machines, while the best can replicate or even improve upon the performance of the original limb or organ. For the sake of space, where this makes a difference the bionic is rated as crude, average or advanced. Of course, some bionics may be crude in one respect and advanced in others, and so on, so GMs creating characters should feel free to mix and match abilities. For example, a bionic leg may well add +1 to a character's armour in that location but may also cause him to suffer -1 yard to his Movement rates.

Bionic Parts

Although bionic parts are not living as such, many of them do use the user's bloodstream, their nerve endings, etc. This means that they suffer injuries just like their flesh and blood versions.

Single leg

• Crude: Reduce all Movement rates except crawling and climbing by 1 yard.
• Average: +1 armour.
• Advanced: Add 1 yard to all Movement rates, except crawling and climbing, and +2 to the leg's Armour value.

Pair of legs

• Crude: No effect.
• Average: +1 armour and add 1 yard to all Movement rates except crawling and climbing.
• Advanced: +2 armour and add 2 yards to all Movement rates except crawling and climbing.

Arm: Normally the Strength of one arm is equal to half a character's Strength value, but a bionic arm has its own Strength. The character's Strength in his other arm is therefore equal to his total Strength minus the Strength of the bionic arm. In campaigns, a character who has an arm replaced with a bionic arm will therefore have a Strength equal to half his original Strength plus the bionic arm's Strength.

• Crude: Strength 20-30 and reduces WS and BS by 10.
• Average: Strength 30-60 and +1 armour.
• Advanced: Strength 70+, +2 armour and may be used to parry when unarmed.

Head: A bionic head is really just an armoured head unless the character also has implants in his brain, dealt with separately. Bionic heads should be rated in terms of additional armour on the head location, ranging from +1 for a head partially covered in crude bionics, to +5 for a head totally covered in advanced bionics.

Bionic Organs

Lungs

• Crude: +5% resistance to gas weapons.
• Average: +20% resistance to gas weapons.
• Advanced: +40% resistance to gas weapons.

Heart

• Crude: Character suffers -1 Speed and -10% Toughness.
• Average: No effect.
• Advanced: Character has +20% to all gas and toxin Resistance rolls.

Brain

• Crude: Character suffers -1 Speed, and -20 from all mental characteristics, WS and BS.
• Average: 10% chance of a glitch at the start of every turn. If this happens the character suffers the penalties for a crude bionic brain for the whole of that turn.
• Advanced: 1% chance of a malfunction, as above.
• Highly advanced: The character's Speed is increased by 1 and his Sagacity by +30%.

Bionic Senses

Characters may have bionic ears, eyes, noses and even touch and taste. This will affect their awareness with that particular sense.

• Crude: The character is partially deaf, blind, etc. All tests for detection using that sense are at -30% chance of success.
• Average: The character suffers no penalties but gains no benefits.
• Advanced: The character has +20% to any relevant Detection tests. The character adds +20% to his chances of avoiding being blinded by photon flash flares and similar attacks if he has bionic eyes.

Average and advanced bionic eyes may also incorporate any of the gunsights listed later, or multiple types of gunsight. However, unlike a gunsight the character does not have to aim to use a bionic eye. Average and advanced bionic eyes may also include one or more auspex types as well. Some bionic eyes also have built-in weapons, so an advanced bionic eye may include the equivalent of a single digi-weapon.

Auto senses: Any or all bionic senses can be incorporated into a helmet as auto-senses. This is lost if the helmet is not worn or is destroyed.

Implants

Psi-booster: A psi-booster increases activity in the part of the brain responsible for controlling psychic powers. A character with a psi-booster halves the range to his target when calculating the modifiers for a Psychic test.

MIU: A Mind Impulse Unit, or MIU, is a neural link-up between a character and a piece of equipment, allowing him to operate the machine with thought alone. MIUs are used in some types of vehicle, particularly the gigantic Titans of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and are rarely used elsewhere. Of these other uses, the shoulder-mount weapon is one of the most practical applications, allowing the character to fire a weapon whilst keeping both hands free. The shoulder mount weapon is fired exactly as normal. An MIU can also be used to control a familiar. Each MIU only performs one operation.

Implant weaponry: Any pistol, basic or one-handed close combat weapon can be implanted to replace a character's hand. The weapon functions exactly as normal, although the GM may decide that certain implant weapons can't be reloaded during the course of a normal game. Obviously, the character has no hand and this will limit him with some actions. Also, a character may still use their other hand to help support the weapon, and does not always have to fire one-handed (assuming they have another hand!).

Mechadendrites: Mechadendrites is a catch-all name that covers a variety of tendril-like prosthetics used by the Adeptus Mechanicus to aid them in construction, maintenance and research. They have small motors and actuators within their armoured tentacles and wave about the Techpriest almost with a life of their own. A character with mechadendrites adds +20% to tests taken when trying to interact with machinery, such as fixing something, picking locks, etc. The character also gains a free improvised close combat attack action once a turn.

Combat Stimms, Gases, Toxins & Viruses

Combat Stimms

Known colloquially as stimms, stimmers or just combat drugs, combat stimulants are developed to improve a character's physical or mental performance. Unfortunately, such stimms are rarely without a side effect and must be administered carefully to make best use of them. There are several ways of introducing combat stimms into a character's body, as discussed below, as well as a variety of drugs which have differing benefits and shortcomings.

Dispensers

Inhaler: One deep breath is all it takes! Announce at the start of the turn that the inhaler is used. The effects of the stimm come into effect immediately but only last for that turn.

Injector implant: An injector normally takes one action to activate and will continue to have an effect until it is turned off with another action. The amount of a combat stimm in an injector is measured in terms of turns worth of use.

Gland: A character with a stimm gland is permanently affected by the combat drug. It cannot be turned off and will last for the entire game. Characters with glands have counteractive stabilisers and decontaminants in their bloodstream to stave off the many debilitating effects associated with combat stimms. A character with a gland dispenser will avoid any negative side effects of their combat stimms if they pass a Toughness test at the end of every turn.

Common Stimm Types

'Slaught (Dispenser types: Inhaler, injector): Short for Onslaught, this is the name given to a variety of stimms that work on the neural paths of the brain, inducing heightened awareness and reaction time. 'Slaught adds +D3 Speed but reduces all mental characteristics by D10 (roll each separately) for the rest of game. In campaigns, at the end of the game, take a Toughness test against the character's starting Toughness value. Each reduced characteristic regains an amount equal to the difference the Toughness test was passed by (up to its starting value). Any remaining loss is permanent.

Psychon (Dispenser types: Inhaler, gland): Stimulating the instinctual centres of the brain stem, Psychon works by boosting strength through sudden adrenal rushes. However, it drastically reduces one's ability to make rational decisions. A character which is under the influence of Psychon adds +2D10S and +2D10T, but is also subject to frenzy (see page 62).

Reflex (Dispenser types: Inhaler, injector, gland): This, like 'Slaught, targets the user's reaction times, speeding up their mental processes, unfortunately it also renders them highly susceptible to suggestion and psychic attack. A character using this gains the skill Lightning Reflexes but halves their Willpower.

Barrage (Dispenser types: Injector): A particularly nasty stimm generally not used on a voluntary basis because of its horrendous side effects. It works by bombarding the user with a cocktail of chemicals that power muscle strength, pain resistance and sensory acuity, but at the same time these functions are slowly destroyed by the drugs. A character on Barrage doubles their WS, S, T and I. However, every turn it is used, he must deduct -10 from all of his characteristics (including those affected by the drugs). This is a permanent loss and cannot be recovered.

Spook (Dispenser types: Injector, inhaler): This is used to give a short-term boost to an individual's psychic potential. A character under the influence of this is treated as though he were a psyker with one psychic power, determined by rolling on the table below (roll each turn Spook is used). A character who loses Willpower whilst on Spook doubles the amount lost.

D6 roll	Power
1	Detection
2	Choke
3	Psychic Shriek
4	Psychic Ward
5	Gaze of Death
6	Fireball

Spur (Dispenser types: Injector, gland): The character is suffused with energy and gains +40 to one of the following random characteristics – 1-2=WS, 3-4=S or 5-6=I. He must also take a Toughness test each turn while under the influence of Spur or suffer +D6 to his Injury total.

Gases, Toxins & Viral Agents

In the 41st Millennium, unpleasant bio-alchemical weaponry is used by a variety of individuals – generally those with few scruples or little concern about the uncontrollable nature of such weapons.

Resistance tests: Any character exposed to a gas, toxin or virus must take a Resistance test to see if he succumbs to its effects. A Resistance test is a Toughness test, with other modifiers as appropriate from the character's equipment (unmodified rolls of 96+ always mean the character is affected). If the test is failed, then the character suffers the effects as described below. If the test is passed the attack has had no effect.

Some examples of the effects of these types of weapons are given below. Some gas, toxin or viral weapons may combine the effects of several types.

Bloodfire: Until he can pass a Toughness test in the Recovery phase, the character is stunned and suffers an additional +D6 to his Injury total in every subsequent Recovery phase.

Choke: The character is stunned for the rest of the turn and must pass another Resistance test at the start of each subsequent turn until the test is passed. If the test is failed he is stunned for that turn as well. If the character fails for five turns in succession, he falls unconscious.

Hallucinogen: Persons affected by hallucinogen undergo a dramatic hallucination and sense of displacement, often making them a danger to themselves or those nearby. Roll a D10 on the Hallucinogen Effects table below.

Stun: The character is stunned for one turn for every 10% (or part of) that he fails his Resistance test by.

Hallucinogen Effects Table

D10	Effect
1	Bugsbugsbugsbugs! The character drops to the floor, flailing and screaming as he tries to sweep off imaginary insects. He counts as being stunned.
2	My hands… The character thinks that his hands have turned to tentacles, or perhaps the flesh is slowly stripping off them in bloody lumps. Whatever his particular nightmare, the character immediately drops everything he is carrying in his hands.
3	They're coming through the walls! The character suddenly sees gruesome aliens bursting through the walls/ceiling/floor/bushes and opens fire. The character must spend the whole of his next turn using all of his actions to fire at a random piece of terrain in his line of sight. If a character is caught in this line of fire, resolve the shooting against him as normal.
4	Nobody can see me! The character believes he is invisible and for the next turn wanders aimlessly, pulling faces at other characters. He must spend all of his next actions walking; generate a random direction for each action.
5	I can fly! The sky looks so big and inviting, that the character flaps his arms trying to imitate a ptera-squirrel. He may do nothing in his next turn as he jumps up and down on the spot. If he is standing above ground level, he will throw himself off in a random direction – roll for falling damage as normal.

Sidebar (printed): A Bombardier is an expert in grenades and other explosives, setting booby traps and such like. He carries a rapid firing grenade/rocket launcher and demolition charges.

Anti-Gas and Virus Equipment

There are a number of anti-gas and anti-toxin devices available, giving a greater or lesser degree of protection. This protection is given as a bonus to the character's Toughness for Resistance rolls.

• Filtration plugs: These simple devices, sometimes called flugs, fit into the nostrils and filter the air inhaled. They are fairly effective against breathable toxins as long as the character remembers to keep his mouth shut, but have no effect on skin-absorbed poisons. Gas Resistance bonus: +5%.
• Gas mask: The mask covers the entire face and detoxifies the air passing into the lungs. Gas Resistance bonus: +15%.
• Re-breather: A re-breather contains its own air supply and allows a person to survive in the most hostile conditions. However, this supply is limited and prolonged use can prove just as dangerous. Gas Resistance bonus: +25%.
• Synskin: This is an artificial layer which is sprayed across a person's skin, forming a protective barrier between his body and the elements. It provides almost complete protection from all airborne toxins, and is available in a wide variety of colours, black being the most popular of all. Gas Resistance bonus: +40%.
• De-tox: This is a type of combat stimm and can be used in any of the Dispensers noted above. Each dose of de-tox adds +20% to a single Resistance roll against any gas or toxin.

Other Equipment

Gunsights

A character only gains the benefits from a gunsight if he has aimed first.

• Range finder: This sight accurately displays the distance to the target, allowing the firer to shoot at the right trajectory. A character with a range finder halves the range to his target when working out penalties To Hit for shooting.
• Infrascope: An infrascope allows the user to see the heat auras given off by other people, detecting them in the darkness or through barriers. When aiming with an infrascope, the character suffers no penalties to detect or to hit other characters due to poor light and in similar conditions. A character using an infrascope can also 'see' a target within 2 yards of the other side of a wall, or similar obstruction.
• Laser sight: A laser sight uses a low-powered beam to project a dot onto the target, enabling for more accurate placement of shots. A character with a laser sight increases his chances of making a placed shot by +10%.
• Motion predictor: This sophisticated gun sight has an internal metriculator which calculates the direction and movement of the target and enables the character to compensate for this. A character with a motion predictor suffers no reductions to his To Hit chance due to the speed the target is moving.

Cyber and Psyber Creatures

Servo-skulls: A servo-skull is a drone-like device created by the Adeptus Mechanicus from the skulls of pious Imperial servants, so that they may continue to labour in the Emperor's cause, even after death. They are fitted with small anti-gravity engines which enable them to float, and each is designed to perform a specific task. Servo-skulls always remain within 2 yards of the character and will move with him. They are able to fly over obstacles, and can keep pace regardless of how fast the character moves. They count as having Speed 1 (Initiative 10) but always get one action, without having to roll. They can be shot and attacked separately (they cannot parry), and are small targets (-30% to hit). They have an Armour value of 8 but are destroyed if they take any damage. A servo-skull only has a mechanical brain, it has no mind as such, which renders it immune to many kinds of psychic powers, gases and toxins, and so on. A servo-skull performs a single function, some examples of which are:

• Gun-skull: The servo-skull is fitted with a small weapon, equivalent to one of the pistol types listed earlier. It can always make one shooting action. It has a BS of 50 and will always target the closest enemy character it can see.
• Med-skull: These are servo-skulls fitted with drug-filled syringes and small manipulative appendages for stitching and cauterising. The Med-skull can perform one healing action on the character as if it had a medi-pak.
• Combat-skull: The combat-skull's whirling blades and lacerating knives allow it to dart forward and slash at the character's enemies. The combat-skull can make a close combat attack action against enemies in contact with the character or at arm's length. It counts as being armed with a chainblade combat accessory with Reach 1 and WS 50.
• Hunter-skull: The skull is fitted with a battery of detectors to locate the character's enemies. The skull has one or more of the auspexes detailed below, and uses them once per turn as its action (it is always active, never passive) – the character is aware of anything that the servo-skull is aware of.

Psyber-eagles: A psyber-eagle is a genetically and cybernetically enhanced familiar, used by psykers to extend and channel their powers. The psyber-eagle is a familiar (see the Exotic abilities section on page 62) and must remain within 10 yards of the character. When commanded, the psyber-eagle can fly to any other point on the tabletop that is within 10 yards of the master character.

When using a psychic power, the character may use the psyber-eagle's position for the purposes of range, line of sight, etc. However, there is a -10% Willpower modifier when channelling through the psyber-eagle in this way.

The psyber-eagle can be targeted separately and is a small target (-20% to hit in this case). The psyber-eagle has a Toughness of 50 and has the following injury results:

Injury	Effect
Superficial	No effect
Heavy	The Willpower modifier is increased to -15%.
Serious	As heavy, plus psyber-eagle must remain within 5 yards of character.
Crippled	Psyber-eagle is destroyed.

Cyber-mastiffs: Cyber-mastiff is a generic term given to a number of different artificial attack-constructs. They are also commonly known as kill-dogs, razorfangs and rending rovers. They have an in-built hunting and attack instinct, and can only respond to the simplest of commands. The character may spend an action issuing a command to the cyber-mastiff. The possible commands are:

• Fetch: The cyber-mastiff becomes frenzied.
• Heel: The existing command is countermanded and the cyber-mastiff will return to within 2 yards of the character and stay this close if possible. They will charge any character other than their master within 10 yards.
• Stay: The cyber-mastiff will not move from where it is except to charge any character other than their master within 10 yards.

Cyber-mastiffs have the following profile:

WS	BS	S	T	I	Wp	Sg	N	Ld
60	0	80	70	40	–	–	200	–

Cyber-mastiffs have 5 points of armour and the following damage results:

Injury	Effect
Superficial	No effect
Heavy	Immediate: Cyber-mastiff is stunned for one turn. Persistent: -10 S and T
Serious	Immediate: Cyber-mastiff is stunned for D3 turns. Persistent: As heavy, plus -10 Initiative
Crippled	Destroyed.

Cyber-mastiffs make improvised attacks in close combat. They can be fitted with additional sensors as detailed in the auspex rules below, which are always used on passive.

Miscellaneous Equipment

Auspexes: There are a variety of scanners and detectors in use across the Imperium, which are known by the collective title of auspexes. These can be given two settings: active and passive. If on active, the character uses an action to activate the auspex and makes a Detection roll straight away. If on passive, the auspex makes a Detection roll at the start of every turn, but reduces its chances of detection by -30%. An auspex may be able to perform one or more of the following functions:

• Bio-scanner: The auspex detects the life signs of biological creatures. It can detect any living creature, but cannot detect any non-organic object. Roll a D100 for the bio-scanner when you make a Detection test. This is the range in yards that it can detect any human-sized life forms. Reduce or increase this range according to the relative size of other creatures (ie, half range for smaller animals, double range for large monstrosities). Characters close to a lot of bio mass (hiding in a tree, for example) are only detected on a further 50% chance (again, adjust this according to the amount of cover, etc).
• Motion tracker: As you might expect, a motion tracker detects movement, and the faster a character is moving, the more likely they are to be detected. To make a Detection roll for the motion tracker, there is a percentage chance of detecting any character or creature moving within 50 yards. The chance of detection is equal to 50%, minus the range, but plus the following modifiers:
  • Target is climbing, crawling, sneaking, etc: +5%
  • Target is walking: +10%
  • Target is running: +25%
  • Target is sprinting: +40%
• Psi-tracker: This is a very arcane device that can read shifts in warpspace, essentially detecting the souls of those nearby. A psi-tracker has the psi-track psychic power (see page 58), and counts as having a Willpower of 75 for the Psychic test (which is how it makes its Detection test).

Medi-pak: A medi-pak (usually referred to in the Imperium as a pharmacopoeia or narthecium) contains drugs, bandages and other first aid equipment. A character with a medi-pak attempting a recovery action on themselves or another character may re-roll the Toughness test if it is failed the first time.

Web solvent: Web solvent is used to disintegrate the sticky, constricting mass fired by webbers. Each 'dose' of web solvent is enough to free one location. It takes one action per location to use web solvent.

Psychic hood: A psychic hood uses a complex psycho-crystalline array to boost the psychic powers of the wearer. A character wearing this may re-roll any attempts to use a psychic power or nullify an opponent's psychic powers. Obviously this is of use only to psykers!