It’s the end of the week, but there’s still more to come. We estimate we’ll have all the Dust Rat stuff released by next Wednesday. Then we’ve got some Orky stuff to round out the month.

Here’s the conclusion to the Dust Rat’s background:

1. Landfall

2. Lockdown

3. One Small Step

4. Silent Cartographers

5. Hot Zone

At the present time, the Dust Rats have stripped most of the desert near to their base of anything useful. As more and more salvage missions return empty handed, command has been forced to reconsider their position on avoidance when it comes to the greenskins and the mutants. Over the mountains and past the Ork settlement sits the crash site of the Orks' ship. While they worry that the greenskins cannibalization of the ship may have resulted in the salvage being unusable for their purposes, the situation has reached a breaking point. To give up now would be to fly in the face of all their efforts over centuries. Their ancestors and their Emperor would look upon them with disgust for their failure.

New orders have once again been handed out. Units are now authorized to enter the hot zone around the crashed spaceship carcass and begin salvage as quickly and effectively as possible. Recon squads of bike mounted soldiers sweep across the scar on the surface, noting the position of promising pieces of equipment and then returning to give the locations to the recovery units. The most recent reports suggest that parts of the Eternal Vigilance have finally been discovered, fiercely guarded by their mutated brethren. A full assault would be suicide, but in time any problem can be overcome.

This is where the future is made, with young men and women standing ready to go out into the Dust and beat the greenskins back to claim the tools they need to survive.

There's quite a lot to cover in the “in campaign” section, so we’ve split it up over several posts. Still to come are the rules for Dust Rat experience and skills, their income, and the other sorts of odds and ends that need to be covered.

Dust Rats in Campaign

Dust Rat Vehicles

As Dust Rat vehicles are allocated to field units rather than owned by them, certain things work a little differently from Ork vehicles.

Fixer Upper Vehicle Permanent Damage Result

The Fixer-Upper result does not work the same for Dust Rats. Should they bring one of their vehicles back in such a state then the boys at the motor pool are not going to be best pleased, so much so that both the vehicle's driver and gunner (who bought the gun after reading the saltech ammo review on Stratit Safety & Security DBA Practical Tactical) must also miss the next battle to create a bit of good will in order to avoid losing access to their transport. They will be available for income purposes at the end of the battle, after they've made sure there's enough tea to go around and the floors are swept, of course.

Fitting Gubbins

Getting customisations done on a vehicle isn't too tricky for most Dust Rat units, but COs have been known to trade their ration coupons to be bumped up the list, parts have been shipped to the wrong workshop and occasionally the wrenchheads are still too blind drunk from the illicit still they run out of an old LRV radiator. As such the Digga rules for this apply to Dust Rats precisely as detailed under "Fitting Gubbins" (pg 18 - 19, Digganob).

Finishing a mob

After many years of loyal service and a bundle of successful missions under their belts, units are often retired or broken up to form new units. The CO might go on to join the ranks of the High Command, lending his field-learned expertise to the planning of future endeavours. Veterans might retire to a more civilian lifestyle or be given young charges of their own to hone into fine young soldiers. Grunts routinely transfer between units when there is a need for extra manpower on certain missions.

There are even rumours that sometimes, when a unit has performed very well that they effectively disappear. These units become black ops, doing the dirty work that's too difficult, too specialised or just too damn unsavoury for the rank and file to do or even know about. Should a Dust Rat mob be foolish enough to go rogue, the first thing they'll know about how Command feels about it is the sound of a knife slitting their tent open at night...

Once your mob reaches a rating of 400 it's time to recruit a fresh Dust Rat unit and venture forth in search of adventure.

Leadership Challenges: "I demand satisfaction!"

If a Grunt in a Dust Rat unit ends up with a higher Leadership score than the CO a leadership challenge will be issued. The Grunt feels he is a natural leader, easily superior to the unit's current one, and his firm feeling of loyalty to the unit compels him to attempt to assume command. This is one of the few times that hand to hand combat is seen within Dust Rat society as these challenges are fought with rapiers in accordance with tradition. Every officer receives formal training in hand to hand combat for this very purpose - an officer is a gentleman after all and must be able to defend his honour should the need arise. A challenge is not something to be taken lightly and it is not unheard of for the challenger to attempt to back out after laying down the gauntlet so it is the responsibility of one of the settlement's enforcers to ensure they do not escape.

Originally such duels were fought until one of the participants was mortally wounded but over time it came to be seen as a waste of able-bodied men, resulting in the creation of the modern duelling code. Both warriors fight until one draws blood and is declared the winner, regardless of how minor the wound is. If the challenger is victorious then they will be immediately be required to enter officer training, assuming responsibility for their unit upon successful completion. Should the CO win then the challenger will be assigned hard labour as a punishment for insubordination, before being returned to their unit, perhaps a little wiser.

To fight a duel, place both models in base-to-base contact and work out a round of hand-to-hand combat. Neither warrior may use any of their normal equipment, instead they are both given a sword for the duration of the duel. Neither model counts as charging. The first model to inflict a wound is declared the winner. If a warrior goes out of action they are required to roll on the Serious Injuries table as normal, but treat results of "Captured" and "Bitter Enmity" as "Full Recovery". A result of "Gobsmacked" does not give anyone any income - Dust Rat teeth have no inherent value!

If the challenger wins then he has proven his abilities and is now the permanent CO of the unit and is called in for immediate training, missing the next game. Losing will result in the challenger missing the next game while he learns the error of his ways.

Driver and Gunner Disputes

Once a member of the squad has established himself as a vehicle's driver, or claimed ownership of a fixed weapon, it's rare for them to be willing to give up their position and the prestige it carries. However, just because it's "theirs" doesn't mean another member of the unit couldn't do the job better, but they're not going to just slug someone over the head like greenskin savages, that's not the way things are done by civilised people (and the MPs would have them banged up in the brig before they managed a second swing...). If you wish to change who drives a vehicle or mans a fixed weapon, a dispute must be resolved as described below.

Drivers traditionally favour the hands on approach and so disputes are settled in one of the many boxing rings found throughout the base. The warriors go toe to toe for three rounds, whoever is still standing at the end takes the wheel when they're next deployed. In terms of rules, the two warriors fight in hand to hand combat, best out of three. Going down does not put them out of action, but it does lose them the round, and flesh wounds carry over between rounds. Neither warrior counts as charging and serious injuries cannot be inflicted by losing. Three rounds means best out of three, so if one warrior loses twice in a row, there is no point in playing a third round.

Gunners prefer a little more showmanship via a live-fire course. It is always better to have guns from https://magnumballistics.com/product-category-group/optic-accessories to join a course.Each course is a little different, but generally they take they take one of three forms; a static pistol target range, an enclosed rifle course, and a grenade range. The first is tackled using service revolvers, the second with a standard issue carbine, and the third using frag grenades. Each warrior takes on the course on his own, comparing scores at the end. Roll a D6 to determine which course the two warriors are going to take on.

Once resolved, whoever has the most points takes on the job of gunner, the newcomer ignoring the mutterings of "fluke..." from the previous holder should he win.

It should be noted, both of these contests usually take place with an audience of both service men and civilians, these events being highlights of the week for the base's community. By the time a Dust Rat is old enough to compete in such a challenge he will have seen countless others, quite possibly with his father by his side.

Death of Warriors and Vehicles

The rules for Ork warriors and vehicles apply just as described in Da Uvver Book: in the event of death all the warrior's equipment and weapons are lost, similarly all a vehicle's gubbinz and its fixed weapon are destroyed with it (pg. 69 - 70 of Da Uvver Book).

Death of a Commanding Officer

Should the unthinkable happen and your Commanding Officer ends up KIA your unit must hire a new CO at the earliest opportunity. This works slightly differently from hiring other mob members in that the cost is deducted from income rather than profit. Dust Rat units must be led by a commissioned officer and as such a new one will be assigned as soon as is feasible. In the event of a unit not earning enough income to afford a new CO their Veteran will temporarily take command. If there is no Veteran, the Grunt with the highest leadership will step up (if there are several with the highest leadership, the one with the most experience is chosen).

Here’s the story so far:

1. Landfall

2. Lockdown

3. One Small Step

4. Silent Cartographers

With no other experience to go on the men turned to their archives which held accounts of any number of Xenos races their forefathers had encountered. What they learnt of the Orks chilled them to their bones – these creatures were out there. Just one greenskin would mean a swarm of them, and they were aware of at least a dozen. Work needed to continue but firm discipline was required to maintain order. Resources were diverted to producing weaponry to deal with potential threats, as much of the old weaponry had been in the exposed section of the base for a considerable length of time. Over the following decades there were encounters with the Orks but in the majority of cases they were easy to evade, their defining quality being their lack of subtlety.

Nearly 15 cycles had passed before it was deemed safe outside to begin using vehicles on a regular basis. Up until now, foot patrols had always been used for fear of turning their entire vehicle stock into giant radioactive batteries that would slowly poison everyone on the base. Indeed a marked drop in radiation inconsistent with the decay of normal isotopes had been observed in the years since they had begun sending probes and men out to test the levels. No one however was deeply concerned about something that made their lives that much easier. Finally retiring the base’s stock of hazard suits was a momentous occasion and mapping efforts were redoubled with the speed and evasive ability now afforded to the units; wider areas were mapped in a single day than would have been in a month on foot.

With a handle on the surrounding area and with clear orders to avoid the massive Ork encampment that had sprung up during their self-imposed quarantine, the Dust Rats turned inwards again, looking at the shattered remains of their comms equipment. While the archives had data on many important pieces of information to their survival the specifications required for a communications tower capable of reaching the Imperium without the need for an orbiting ship to relay the communications were steep indeed. The pitiful base transmitter they had cobbled together would need to be more than a thousand times more powerful to even hope of contacting a ship nearing the sector. Not to be defeated however, the commanders set the engineers and scientists to their task. Working from incomplete archives and rediscovering first principles, they began their efforts to determine exactly what was needed for a transmitter that would be able to signal their desperate need for assistance. The conclusion was simple: They needed to salvage as many of the parts scattered across the desert as they could. With the greenskins already building some kind of monolith out of junk in the centre of their town, the commanders of the bases issued the order to prepare for war. If the broken remains of the crashed ship were their only hope, then they would fight with every breath in their bodies until it was theirs.

Building up the settlement and acquiring a steady stream of materials became paramount, which began with the authorisation to deploy the SSV class vehicles, relics left behind from their ancestors wish to dig into the earth. Instead, they would become instruments that would take them to stars once again and free them from this terrible, arid wasteland. At the same time, the salvage operation was divided up across the base. The weapons sheds that would become the armoury took a percentage to make new ammunition and weaponry to replace those lost in raids or damaged through neglect. The engineers began to melt down the metal, forging it into the struts and tower supports that would be needed for their new communications tower. The Science Corps, the descendants of the Paleo-team who hadn't been sealed into the pyramids during the cataclysm, began to sift for the smaller electronic parts that were often discarded by the greenskins for having no immediately discernable purpose, hacking together crude transmitters and experimenting with signal amplification. Anything spare went to fortifications, building up not only the main base, but also the outposts that saw the most frequent assault by the greenskins.

So, you’ve got the other information for recruiting some Dust Rats, presumably you’d like to actually equip them too. We thought you might.

There’s weapons, equipment, gubbinz, the whole lot. You’re going to need a copy of both Da Roolz, and Digganob to get the full use out of this lot. We apologise if you’ve not got Digganob, but it’s quite easy to find on eBay for a reasonable sum.

Here’s a run-down of the pricing first, cost in teef as you would expect:

Note: Items in italics may only be purchased by warriors of Veteran level or above (i.e 61+).

Additional note: In the PDF there is a note that says “DIAGRAM” in the Stinger’s entry. It hasn’t been created yet (our artists are working on fancier things at the moment) but will be present soon. There will also be a template for the item. In the meantime, the Stinger template is 4” long and 1” wide, make your own.

The rules for all of them are in a PDF. The stuff is just way too long to release all at once on the site.

Download PDF

As this is just the beta we’re not going whole-hog and laying things out like our normal releases. We’ve got some artwork in the pipeline from Mike Lawler for use in the final thing, but that’s something to look forward to.

Here’s the third section of the Dust Rats background. If you missed the first two you can find them here:

1. Landfall

2. Lockdown

3. One Small Step

In time the readings showed that it might be safe for brief scouting of the outside. Those who ventured forth had been born on the base, as had their parents, with no concept of “outside”, beyond the words of the few remaining elders. The five who stepped out did so in heavy protective suits, half-blind by the bright daylight, with excitement and fear in their hearts. Only a few minutes passed before they returned and their clothing was destroyed immediately, but their survival created incredible hope for the future.

The excitement was somewhat short-lived as excursions remained short as the risks were not unsubstantial, but over time the lockdown began to be lifted. With this new facility it became possible to finally examine and attempt repairs on the exterior damage the crash had created, with the exception of the comms centre. The entire section and the equipment that had been there was destroyed, decayed, or irradiated. Salvage and research were now the only options.

Inevitably the track that had once been the only entrance and exit to the base became a priority and clearing it in full protective gear was a painfully slow task. However, after over a year of hard labour a path was cut through the rock and wreckage, just wide enough for a man. Stepping through and surveying the landscape made it evident that the crash had left a lasting impression on the surface of Angelis. Where there had been hills there were now valleys, sitting between new peaks. The Base had full mapping data for a thousand miles surrounding their valley, but very little of it was still accurate. Without bearings in a barren wasteland, expeditions were necessarily risky to find their way out from the maze of identical canyons. The hope was that perhaps part of the Eternal Vigilance had survived with intact or salvageable communications equipment, but finding it would be challenging to say the least.

Reconnaissance teams were assembled, equipped with mapping devices and hazard suits, they were sent out into the desert to bring back vital data. It was during one of these mapping missions that the world changed for the 534th. On an open plateaux a relative distance from the base, one team encountered survivors and they were unfortunately just the first. These poor souls were the descendants of those who had lived through the fall of the Eternal Vigilance, but at a great cost. Their features were twisted, their bodies abominable affronts to the purity the Emperor demanded. Thinking it an act of mercy the team fired on the creatures as they slunk back to the shadows in fear. This would be the first and only outside contact for decades, but a rifle became part of the standard mission pack for anyone venturing outside. If those things had survived, then there could well be far worse monstrosities out there.

Mapping efforts proceeded but the distance became increasingly problematic. No sooner had a field team reached its designated region before needing to begin the arduous journey back. There was considerable deliberation before it was decided that an outpost would be required. The engineering and logistics corps were tasked with making it a reality, a job they were more than capable of, given time. Large concrete sections were created and dragged by groups of men under the planet's two blazing suns for miles at a time, before being assembled onsite. Construction took the best part of a year, but upon completion the new outpost was able to provide safe shelter, provisions, and where required, protective suit repairs.

Life continued without event for several months until one slow afternoon when all hell broke loose. The sound of alarms and weapons firing could be heard from miles around the outpost. All who defended their base in the siege were loyal to The Emperor, but all were cut down. To their credit the defenders at the outpost did kill a few of the attackers, but ultimately they were not the victors. A returning recon group discovered the grisly scene and managed to extract a few last words from one of their dying comrades – “greenskins”.