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My Warband WHAT IS INQUISITOR?
An Introduction to the New Game
LARGE SCALE
Unless you've spent the last few weeks with your eyes closed (or on the moon) you will have probably noticed that the miniatures used for Inquisitor are bigger than you have seen before. Almost twice the size, in fact. The Inquisitor Citadel Miniatures range is 54mm scale (wheras Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer are roughly 28-30mm scale), which is a first for Games Workshop. The best Citadel designers have been working on the range of exotic and dramatic characters used in the game, and I'm sure you'll agree that the results are fantastic. Regardless of whether you play Inquisitor or not, I suspect that most Warhammer 40,000 players are going to want to paint at least one of the beautiful masterpieces, if only to sit it on the shelf and look cool. There's a wide range of alternate parts which will become available through Games Workshop Mail Order allowing for immense conversion possibilities. Creating characters is an important part of Inquisitor, and modelling them is central to the Inquisitor hobby. For one thing, I am really looking forward to there being Inquisitor entries at this year's Golden Demon awards - I'm sure there will be some truly jaw-dropping models! As you'd expect, there are many pages of the book devoted to painting and converting Inquisitor characters who will be available from Games Workshop, but also numerous characters modelled and converted by participants in our own Inquisitor campaign, as well as examples from expert painters such as the 'Eavy Metal team and Golden Demon winners.
NARRATIVE
There is a story telling element to all wargames, but with Inquisitor it is a narrative style of gaming, rather than competitive, that drives it along. Unlike Warhammer or Warhammer 40,000, Inquisitor has a Gamesmaster - usually an additional player - who is responsible for helping the players design their characters, creating a scenario and running a game. Inquisitor is about the different sorts of strange and interesting characters who exist in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, and the heroic and dreadful things that they do. More than any other game, Inquisitor is about creating diverse characters, bizarre settings and detailed plots and storylines to link these elements together. You Inquisitor characters are like the stars of a film, or the heroes of a comic or story, and you play out their adventures and quests on the tabletop. There are no army lists in Inquisitor - you don't sit down and pick a force to a pre-agreed points value. Instead, the GM and players create a warrior band of characters who will take part in the fight, choosing their skills and powers, equipping them from the large Armoury section of the book. Here also the modelling aspect of Inquisitor plays its part, as your characters need to be represented by suitable miniatures. The idea is not to create the most potent, unkillable character you can (which is easily possible) but to bring to life a person with strengths and weaknesses, motivations and goals who'll add flavour and diversity to your scenarios and campaigns. There are fifteen such characters who will make up the Inquisitor miniatures range. These are just the start though, as we hope to release even more in the future, and the only real limit is your imagination and modelling bits box! Each game of Inquisitor is a specially written scenario, which is devised by the GM. The scenario sets up the scene, and explains why the player's warrior bands have come into conflict. There are far too many types of scenario to mention here, but rest assured that the Inquisitor book contains many scenario concepts which GMs can use as a basis, as well as a complete scenario and advice on writing and running games. An obvious step is to start linking your scenarios together into a narrative campaign, and there's a section of inquisitor devoted to doing just this, penned by the venerable Jervis Johnson, whose pearls of wisdom helped considerably when we started up our campaign in the studio. We hope to produce more campaign rules over the coming months.
SKIRMISH
Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 are what are known as 'battle' games - that is they allow players to fight battles with large armies which contain many different types of units. Inquisitor is a 'skirmish' game and concentrates on just a few individuals in a bitter struggle with each other. Those of you who have played Mordheim or Necromunda will understand what a skirmish game is like, although Inquisitor goes into even more detail than these games. Inquisitor is very detailed, because as a player only has to worry about a handful of characters, the amount of information for each character can be that much more intricate. For example, each character has nine different characteristics which show their physical and mental capabilities, rnaging from their Weapon Skill, which most of you will be familiar with, to factors such as their Nerve (how cool under fire they are) and Sagacity (how intelligent and educated the character is). Added to this are a wide range of special abilities. Thes include Talents such as being ambidextrous or the ability to fast draw, Psychic powers (of which there are 37 detailed in the book) and Exotic abilities, such as a spit acid attack or even being possessed or daemonic! On top of the characteristics and abilities, a character also has their wargear. An extensive (though by no means exhaustive - look out for additions in future White Dwarfs) Armoury section includes details of over 150 types of weapon, armour, scanners, bionics, force fields, combat drugs, psyber-eagles, servo-skulls and all manner of other kit. Characters' guns don't have unlimited ammo, the player must keep track of the number of bullets or shots left. Special ammunition types must be recorded, the effects of certain bionics and combat stimulants will adjust the character's capabilities, and so on. Also, Inquisitor has a location-based injury system. Characters can be hit in the arm, the abdomen, even the groin! Varying levels of injury will affect their performance and the players have to keep track of this too. At first all of this detail can seem quite daunting and complicated, but I've tried to include a lot of this complexity while maintaining fairly smooth, flowing gameplay. Obviously, I think the balance is just right, but players and Gamesmasters should feel free to simplify or complicate the rules as they desire. The basic Inquisitor rules system is based upon actions. In Inquisitor players do not take turns one after each other (called 'I-go, U-go' sometimes!), instead there is an 'integrated' turn system (sometimes called 'initiative-based' turn sequence, for those of you who care about such things). Every character has a Speed value, which shows how quick to act they are, and how much they can try to do in a turn. A character with a higher Speed has a chance of acting before one with a lower Speed, although it also gives them the option of waiting to see what the enemy is up to. During a character's turn, they can attempt a number of actions equal to their Speed. Actions cover everything you might want a character to do, fairly straightforward actions include different types of movement (walking, crawling, sprinting, etc), firing a gun, aiming, priming a grenade, making a close combat attack, etc. It can also be something more out of the ordinary, such as swinging on a rope, diving through a window, leaving a booby trap, picking a lock, disarming a bomb. The list is endless. The player nominates what their character is attempting to do at the start of the character's turn. The key word here is 'attempting'. To make sure there's an edge of uncertainty, some tension and suspense, a character does not automatically perform every nominated action. For each point of Speed the character has, they roll a D6. Each 4+ roll allows one action to be performed, in the order they were declared. My thanks to Jervis for suggesting this nifty little system! This encourages players to think hard about what their characters are trying to do. There's nothing like declaring a headlong charge down the street towards the enemy, only to find your Inquisitor has hesitated and is now in plain view of his adversary's guns. There are also risky actions, which represent such unpredictable situations as firing a plasma gun, throwing a grenade, sprinting over difficult ground, and so on. If the player rolls more 1s than 6s on their action roll, the risky action goes wrong. The result of this varies depending upon the action, so, for example, a plasma gun might overheat, a grenade might go off in the character's hand, etc.
SO IT'S A ROLEPLAY GAME THEN?
Well, yes and no. There are certainly many roleplay-based elements in Inquisitor. The character creation, scenario-driven gaming and narrative style are similar to roleplaying games. However, Inquisitor is a miniatures-based game which focuses on conflict and combat. There's no hanging around in shady taverns waiting for suspicious old men with long beards and pointy hats to ask you to quest for a magical chair. In essence, some of you may like to think of Inquisitor as a roleplay combat system, with the additional advantages that come from knowing you have miniatures to use. I'm sure some of you will use the Inquisitor rules as a basis for a Warhammer 40,000 roleplay combat system and I certainly wouldn't argue against it. However, although Inquisitor relies a lot on players' imaginations, like roleplaying, there is also the whole painting and modelling side to the hobby as well, which gives players and Gamesmasters alike plenty to do, even when they aren't playing games.
MORE BACKGROUND
As well as the Inquisitor rules themselves, the book contains lots of extra background about the Imperium and Warhammer 40,000 universe. Many new, exotic character types are introduced (some of which may find their way into the games at a later date), as well as more information on that shadowy organisation - the Inquisition. Combined with the wealth of character types, weaponry and psychic powers, this all means that Inquisitor is actually one of those great volumes for browsing through as well, and I hope will serve as inspiration for anyone interested in the Warhammer 40,000 universe - including players of Warhammer 40,000, Necromunda and other games.
CAV
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