awesome consept. so it gonna be how to play chaos in dark heresy and deathwatch?

It's been called a stand alone game, so you shouldn't need DH or DW to play it.

How they'll handle the differing power levels will be interesting, as initially this seems like 2 RPGs in one; one for regular chaos worshippers DH level characters and one for chaos space marine DW level characters

I'm personally only interested in DW-level heretical actions, but I could see having fun with DH-level characters.

Regardless, this is gonna be one hell of a game.

Could be very intriguing. I am just fear a Palladium esque line of games though. A bunch of core books, few real sourcebooks.

It is theoretically conceivable that path advancement options may exist to take a character from a lowly cultist to a chaos champion of some sort. Adaptation of the existing 40k rules to enable such in a single book is certainly not impossible after all. I do wonder how much expansion material may be possible for this game line. Looking forward to seeing what all will be included in the core book before I speculate overmuch on expansion stuff however.
 

My guess is things like Sorcerors, Marines, and some sort of Acolytes or noblemen that go crazy and apostates will be the different classes; with each having skills to make it somehow comparable to the next.  This is pretty interesting; I'm always wary of running evil campaigns but this looks like a must have either way. 

Looking forward to it!

Can't wait.

Been thinking about working up a campaign using the DW books wherein we play renegade marines with a ship, cruising around the galaxy all piratical-like. Looks like I may just need to wait a bit and get this instead.

Yeah a while back I had worked up a plan to run a game using DW rules, where each player would be the member of a squad of Chosen attached to a warband. This opens so many more possibilities.

Heh, actually I'd be more interested in playing a more DH level game with Chaos nuts if anything.  Manipulating things from behind the scenes, making Inquisitors frantically pull their hair out looking for me. :P

pumpkin said:

Or  in the beginning you could be some mutant/cultist/whatever and later they could release Ascension-like expansion, where you can become CSM, Sorcerer, or maybe even a daemon?

 I had 20+ pages of homebrew for playing  Chaos Space Marines in Deathwatch, I was trying to refine it to a point I could post it up in these forums: seems somewhat redundant now! please please please let them do a Hours Heresy-era sourcebook for it!

CaptainSabutai said:

Ross and Sam, in interviews they've done with Dark Reign in the past, have said that they aren't allowed to use areas of the 40k fluff that already have lots written about them, and that included settings (which included, as part of the example, the Eisenhorn and Ravenor settings).

That pretty much rules out a Horus Heresy sourcebook, sadly, though they might always get GW to change their minds if they figure out how to make pigs fly.

 That pretty much rules out a Horus Heresy sourcebook, sadly, though they might always get GW to change their minds if they figure out how to make pigs fly.

So... more warpstone?

Easy - just stick jets on their trotters!  Voila - crispy bacon.

I am really hoping this game concept can work - playing the bad guys has never worked as successfully - but in this case, where these guys are pretty evil, by their own reckoning they are the 'rightful' inheritors of the galaxy (admittedly after seeing it burn first) - and want to supplant the maggot emperor.  It has certainly come as a complete surprise.  Many years ago I remember talking to someone from BI - just before the release of Dark Heresy, at Games Day in Birmingham, and he said that the original plan was to make three RPGs, one for the Inquisition, one for Rogue Traders and one for Space Marines.  It looks like FFG have not only surpassed this, but could conceivably continue releasing more 40K RPGs on this system.  I can certainly see myself buying anything that they release on the strength of the quality of everything else, even if it's 'Ratling Snipers' of the Guard RPG!

You are, of course, assuming that Chaos are the bad guys. As you can see from the Horus Heresy books, they think they are fighting to save Humanity and give it a better leader that cares about them, rather than an absent father figure "Emperor" who sits in his labratories trying to reach divinity.

As you can tell from the current setting, he succeeded, which just proves how the forces that followed Horus were right to carry out their war against the Emperor.

There are so many ways you can run those who follow Chaos that you will run into just as many cultists who believe they are doing the right thing and are fighting for freedom from a corrupt, fascistic theocratic dictatorship as you will people who are doing it for their own selfish benefit and fully know and intend for how evil they are.

My Black Crusade group currently is pretty split between the two, which makes for some interesting in-game conflict

So yea, I wouldn't worry about it being all about "playing the bad guy".

Well, if you want to get technical, the game does brush lightly up against the setting of Eisenhorn and Ravenor. Since the Scarus Sector is relatively nearby.

I'm curious as to where this vortex that Black Crusade is set in is located.