Vulture Warriors from Dimension X meet plenty of cheerful Orks with plasma cannon!

 

Vulture Warrriors Meet Plenty Orks was the best and funniest Rogue Trader scenario for White Dwarf.

It was a 40K / Paranoia crossover from by Ken Rolston in WD 112. You could either play it as a Paranioa RPG adventure or a WH40K wargame. Anyway, time-travelling Trouble-shooters from Alpha Complex, materialise in a backwater, Space Ork garrison base, on an algae planet. The trobleshooters are unwitting volunteers for a Research and Development test of a Transdimentional-colapsitron which zaps them into other times and space. This is Brave New World meets the Time Tunnel.

Meanwhile ,some of the space orks are out shooting the algae on flight packs. Back at base the boy'z are watching wrestling videos, breaking wind in hammocks, or bickering about the galley menu. Then the intruder alarm goes off and battle is joined. But who would want to steal an algae planet from some bored space orks?

"Bweeet...bweeet...bweeet" The space ork guards begin to investigate the vehicle bay

Its not great for the Alpha Complexians either. They have to hang around until the transdimentional calapsition recharges. They're are inside a filthy, smelly, dump of base and here come some angry heavily armed aliens. And if they go outside there's no roof (arrrrgh) They quite can't shoot the orks and the algae - the colour is of a higher security clearance (green..arrrgh.) Some of their heavy weapons are supplied by R&D (what...experimental weapons???...Oh no!) Well, at least they can send in the Warbot on point and er...the Doc-bot is expendable. 

"Citizens, there's no roof and green and yellow everywhere....arrrrrgh." 
Blue Security Troopers use the lifts to try a sneaky flank move under the base. 

If this doesn't sound barking mad wait till you hear the terrain set up. The small base can me made from three A4 game box lids. Each supported by four Styrofoam cups - which represents four supports,  with built in auto doors and lifts. Obviously the doors go "whoosh" when they open. The author, Ken Rolston suggests you could spray the building dark grey and paint on tinted windows etc. Another option was to use GW's Citi Block floor plans. The games cloth is green felt but scattered with autumn lichen, green red orange yellow.

Space Ork patrol in sealed suits and flight packs return from 'shooting up algae'  (LE:1's from 1986)

This article is a tribute as I wish I'd played this scenario at the time. It was a blast to read and artwork was cool as well. The goofy Paranoia figures by Ally Morrison cracked me up. And the citizens names too: Wee-B-Bad, Moe-B- Dick, Nevr-U-Mynd. The problem was the Paranoia miniatures were old stock (1986) so Ken Rolston suggested you bulk out your Trouble-shooters with the plastic Imperial Guard (this was 1989) 

Crikey, these haven't been out the box since 1994. Plastic Imperial guard substitutes for Red Security

The other thing, the scenario was a double blind. Both sides did not see each others force or movements until they entered the central vehicle bay. This may initially require a GM to shuttle forth between the players checking their movements. Or give each player a photocopied enlargement of the map and some counters.

If you want a break from the the 40K meat grinder you could look this scenario up online. 

The Troubleshooters and security could be cheaply assembled from EM4 plastic miniatures (Gangers = trouble shooters, Security = Vulture warriors, plus Robots would give a scary Warbot)

A rough set up of the base. The troubleshooter's have materialised and the orks respond to the alarm

Paranoia Roleplaying Game

This was an absolute blast. The antidote to roleplaying if you'd got uppity players. Or your group was bored and stuck in its ways. I only played a couple of games and my first clone didn't make it pass the mission briefing, He was arrested for suspicious knowledge of Space Marines. Well, you cannot have red level characters with knowledge of other dimensions. That's white level clearance! A friend of mine ran a campaign with a helpful NPC who had memory problems. So he was always forgetting passwords, map directions and how weapons and equipment worked (hah!) 

For GMs the beauty of Paranoia is you were allowed to fudge the rules (and even dice roles) if they enhanced the plot. Or gave a darkly humorous twist to the session. Like Judge Dredd RPG, robots could turn up as NPCs and could be helpful, annoying or a downright nuisance (think - sentient/ talking bombs from the film Dark Star.) The omnipresent, omnipotent Computer sometimes malfunctioned due to software glitches or programming errors. Think HAL from Space Odyssey: "I'm sorry Dave, that information is unavailable." We enjoyed thinking up names for characters Salt-N-Pep'r, Jack-N-Jill, Blo-N-Dee, Whi-P-Lash and the obvious ones: Toys-R-Us or Peter-O-Tool a mechanic. Reading the rules was fun because they were interspersed with many humous cartoons. The best is a troubleshooter threatening a bewildered security guard with an ancient weapon - a hoover.

"Heads up citizens"

"Happiness is mandatory"

Right, I'm off for a nutritious bowl of "hot and cold fun"....fresh from the food vats.