D: The Wolf Time

An examination of The Book of the Astronomicon campaign for Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader. Beware, spoilers!

WH40K's first expansion The Book of the Astronomicon dedicates 38 pages to a four part campaign.

The voyages of the Spacewolves' five-year mission to uncover new worlds and cleanse them of the Emperor's enemies would provide sufficient material for a TV series, if not several high-budget feature films. But suffice it to say, the Marines did their duty. By the year 987.M41 the Spacewolf Armada was approaching its final target - the planet Xit.

☠ Campaign

This campaign is tangentially related to the previous two scenarios. Some of the Arch-Arsonist of Charadon's forces led by Kulo Kargash got lost on their way to Rynn's World and conquered Xit instead. Commander Enoch of the Space Wolves must liberate Xit.

The Wolf Time is a series of four skirmishes. The first three battles ostensibly take place simultaneously and the Space Wolf player has to split their forces before uniting the survivors for the final battle.

This scenario added time limits to the preliminary battles (6 turns) to create a sense of urgency. Space Marines could take longer to achieve their objectives but might be delayed for the final assault. Each skirmish had unique terrain and special environmental rules. The final battle in Kulo's Castle took place using special multi-level dungeon maps.

☠ Xits

Space Marines

The jet-cycle was a precursor to the later jetbikes.

Station One Orks

Station Two Orks

Station Three Orks

Kulo's Castle Orks

Orks

This table rationalises the Orks required across the four battles.

☠ Terrain

Temple Mountain

Large temple; 2 long huts; 5 rubbish piles; statue; temple interior; 6" gate.

The Pit

Generator building with look-out post; 2 long huts; walls; 4 release valves; scattered rocks.

Trembling Teeth

2 generator buildings with look-out posts; 2 long huts; 2 small huts; scattered rocks.

Kulo's Castle

4 pages worth of interior maps representing two levels of a fortress.

☠ Comments

I have never played this campaign, but I see flaws. The book does say this campaign is for expert GMs. Maybe I'm not expert enough.

☠ The Sense of Urgency

A section of the GM's brief is titled The Sense of Urgency.

The Marines have a secret time limit of 6 turns in which to achieve their objectives in each of the generating station battles. None of the players should be aware of this limit.

You cannot create a sense of urgency by hiding the time limit. The Space Marine player at least should be aware that the clock is ticking.

☠ The Plan of Attack

Before deciding upon your strategy, read the target reports that follow. You must decide how to divide your forces against the individual targets.

This is a cool way to set up a campaign.

The Space Marine player has three targets but knows only two must be destroyed. The campaign is automatically lost if two targets cannot be destroyed. I think it is a mistake to cut the campaign dead like that. Taking out all three has additional benefits the Space Marine player is unaware of.

☠ The Generator Stations

The three generator station battles each come with their own layouts and environmental hazards and I don't have much to say about them.

It's useful that they reuse some of the same terrain in different layouts. The buildings assume interior access which I would dispense with for the sake of convenience and game flow. Ruins or open-top fortifications might serve better.

☠ The Castle

To represent the Castle's layout you may find that copies of the following Games Workshop floorplan sets are invaluable: Dungeon Floor Plans 1, Dungeon Rooms and Citi-Block.

The one time I tried it I found a Rogue Trader dungeon crawl less fun than it appeared on paper. More shuffling squads down corridors than entertaining firefights.

Dungeon crawls are more fun with a small model count. Things need to be dense enough that you get some action every turn. GW has board games designed around this concept and I would just go play those instead.

I would replace this battle with an assault on a fortified position. This is the approach Cyril Perret took when adapting The Wolf Time for 40K 3rd edition in Citadel Journal 46, but I would go further.

The fort would get three defence mechanisms, each powered by a generator station. This opens up tactical choices for the Space Marines and even allows them to make a (possibly suicidal) attack in the case where they don't take out any generators.

Also, can you fly jet-cycles indoors?

☠ Model Counts

By early Rogue Trader standards these are large battles. To my mind this scenario sets unrealistic expectations. Ork forces require 95 models. You can cut this number down using proxies or reducing WYSIWYG requirements but the final battle still assumes 62 Orks.

Space Marines were mostly covered with the RTB1 box supplying 30 miniatures but Orks had an entirely metal range. RTB13 was released years later.

I think the model count should be inversely proportional to the complexity of the scenario. If there's too much going on you risk getting bogged down in detail and running out of play time.

☠ Sub-Plots

The sub-plots section allows the addition of more models at the GM's discretion - primitive humans and/or wild animals. I think enough is going on that this should be avoided.

☠ Bad Doc

One of the interesting things in this scenario is Doc 'Bits' Spleenripper. Described as a major hero he had a minor hero profile.

Spleenripper foreshadows some of the madness that Orks would undergo in the Rogue Trader era. He has a bionic arm that can randomly attack nearby models or the doc himself. This kind of thing is fun in small doses.

• How to Run Games of Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader

• The Battle at the Farm

• Skirmish on Rynn's World

• The Wolf Time

• Greasy Kim's Bar and Diner

• Designing Your Own Scenarios

• Alaitoc Craftworld vs the Blood Angels