Put the Pedal to the Metal

by Graham McNeill

Car chases and heroic battles atop speeding vehicles have always been a staple of action movies, and it seemed only fitting that a game like Inquisitor should be able to do somthing like this. Graham McNeill takes a look at how you can use vehicles in your games of Inquisitor.
With the amount of model trucks and similar kits available, its always going to be fun to include them in a game of Inquisitor. Rules for vehicles arent difficult to come up with if all you want them to do is go in a straight line or just be scenery. But if you want your players to be able to interact with them, drive them and do all manner of heroic leaps from them, then that requires a bit more detail. Thankfully, the scope of the Inquisitor rules lend themselves to this level of detail. So buckle up and lets see how to use vehicles in your games.

Vehicles Profiles
For all intents and purposes, vehicles are treated like characters in their own right, in that they have stats, speed and injury (damage) just like characters do. The Toughness stat is unique to the vehicle while the others relate to the driver of the vehicle. A sample vehicle profile looks like this: (Dont worry, the odd looking bits will be explained as we go along).

Arbites Heavy Patrol Tank, driven by Arbites Enforcer

WS N/A BS 65 S N/A T* 120 I 66 WP 74 Sg 69 Nv 72 Ld 75 Speed 4

Base Damage Value: 12 Destruction Value: 60 D100 roll 01-65 66-75 76-85 86-00 Location Hull Main Guns Side Sponsons Engines Armour Value 10 8 8 10 Check boxes Light/Moderate/Heavy Light/Moderate/Heavy Light/Moderate/Heavy Light/Moderate/Heavy

Armament: Hull mounted autocannon and multi-laser (fired by driver) Sponson mounted lascannons (2) fired by gunners (BS 60)
Notes: N/A: This characteristic has no relevance to a vehicle. * This is dependent on the vehicle itself, and sample values will be given later. The Toughness of a vehicle is used for working out ramming and is a measure of its durability and resistance to damage in the same way as for a normal character. The shaded characteristics of the profile are those of the character driving it.

Actions
The driver of a vehicle must declare his actions as normal before rolling his Action dice to see how many he manages to successfully perform. Note that vehicle actions cannot be combined with any another action except talking or shouting to another character, ie, you cant shoot your bolter while simultaneously driving as part of the same action. If you want to do this kind of thing it requires a separate action. When driving a vehicle, actions are divided into three types:

Moving
A vehicle can move at three speeds: Slow 4 yards, Combat - 8 yards or Fast - 12 yards. Declare where the vehicle is moving to and at what rate as normal. For example, Inquisitor Kessel driving a stolen ground car declares hes driving to the corner of an abandoned warehouse at Combat speed. He manages to get three actions on his dice roll and can therefore move the ground car up to 24 towards his destination. Moving over difficult ground at any speed is considered a Risky action and failure means the vehicle has crashed. See Crashing for details.

Ram
A vehicle may attempt to ram either another vehicle or run over a character. Declare that the vehicle is attempting this and see if enough movement actions are completed to allow the vehicle to impact on its target. Another vehicle may NOT avoid this attack, but a character may attempt to dodge out of the way by rolling equal to or lower than their Initiative value, with a modifier to their Initiative based on the vehicles current speed. Slow: +20% Combat: No modifier Fast: -20% Success allows the character to make a free Dodge action, moving 2 yards to either the left or right of the vehicle. Characters who successfully dodge out of the way may attempt to jump aboard the vehicle (see later). Failure means they have been struck by the vehicle and suffer damage as follows: A character or vehicle rammed will suffer one hit to a random location. For every 10 points or part thereof of difference between the attacking vehicles Toughness and the targets Toughness, the target will suffer D6 Damage points. This is again modified by the speed of the vehicle: Slow: -1 per dice Combat: No modifier Fast: +1 per dice Normal armour, psychic and field saves will reduce this as normal. Any character taking damage equal to their Knockback value by a moving vehicle will be knocked prone and be stunned for one turn. This is in addition to any effects suffered due to the impact.

Shooting
Each successful action represents the driver shooting one weapon mounted on the vehicle or ordering a gunner (should there be one) to fire it. He may also fire his own weapon should the vehicle not be equipped with any using actions as normal. He may fire any gun more than once if he has enough actions. If guns are controlled by separate people on board the vehicle, then as many weapons as actions were successfully completed by the driver may be fired. Each gun fires at the shooters BS with all the normal modifiers. Weapons mounted on vehicles may be aimed as normal, but cannot count as rested. People riding shotgun (ie, in the passenger seat, back of a pick-up, etc) on vehicles may also shoot, declaring their actions separately from the driver as normal. Shots fired from a moving vehicle in this way may not be aimed or rested, and suffer a -5% penalty for every yard moved by the vehicle.

Example: Hired killer, Jon Stamper is escaping from arms deal gone wrong, and is being pursued by some angry gangsters hes double-crossed. One of the pursuing gangsters is driving a pick-up truck (see the end of this article for its stats) and drives into the fleeing Jon at Fast speed. Rolling the dice, Jon takes a hit to the abdomen. His Toughness is 54 and the trucks is 80, a difference of 26. Therefore, Jon takes 3D6 points of damage. But since the vehicle is travelling at fast speed, each dice has a +1 modifier making a total of 3D6+3 damage points! The damage roll with modifiers comes to 14 points of damage, but since Jon is wearing Carapace armour this is reduced to 8. His Base Injury Value is 6, so Jon checks two injury boxes on his character sheet. In addition to the damage to his abdomen, since Jons Knockback value is 7, he is knocked prone and stunned for a turn. Jon is in trouble now
Note: Being hit by a speeding vehicle is extremely painful (as it should be) and characters should be encouraged to avoid them at all costs!

Collateral damage
Vehicles dont get it all their own way. When ramming another vehicle whose Toughness is equal or lower to its own, they will also suffer damage from the ram. It will suffer half the damage points caused to its own hull/bodywork location. For example, a vehicle that causes 10 points of Damage to its target, will itself suffer 5 Damage points to its hull/bodywork. Should this be enough to penetrate its armour, it will suffer further damage as described later. Vehicles never take damage from ramming characters, with the exception of those characters wearing power armour or Terminator armour. These characters are substantial enough to cause considerable damage to a vehicle and cause collateral damage to them in the same way as other vehicles.

Death and/or Glory!

Should the ramming vehicles Toughness be lower than its target it will suffer the full effects of the ram as noted earlier as though it were the target (even from an attempted ram against characters though this is unlikely unless youre driving a rickety gocart and hitting a Pit Fighter). The rammed vehicle will suffer half the effects of this as noted opposite in the section on collateral damage. In order to make such a Death or Glory attack, the driver of the weaker vehicle must pass a Nerve test or else will swerve aside at the last moment. This means that although an enemy vehicle may be larger and more heavily armoured than your own, as a last resort it may be worthwhile ramming it.

Crashing and going out of control

It may happen that through injury, psychic attack or damage to the vehicle that it either crashes or goes out of control. This is represented by the following rules:

Out of Control
If for any reason, a character cannot control the vehicles movement or there is no-one left on board a vehicle to control it, it will move at the last speed it moved at last in a random direction. Roll a D6 to determine its direction. On a roll of 1-2, the vehicle turns 45 to the left, 3-4 it moves directly forward, 5-6 it turns 45 to the right. In Turns following this, it will move at the next slowest rate, again in a random direction, and so on each turn until it comes to a halt or crashes. If a character is able to (and wishes to) keep his foot on the gas while out of control he may do so, keeping the speed constant, or even accelerating! If this is the case, roll for a possible change of direction at the end of each actions movement. is the wheels/tracks location. In this case, the vehicle ends its movement for the turn on the difficult terrain, but if the driver is still alive, it may continue onwards in future turns. Remember that when the vehicle moves off it still counts as moving through difficult terrain, which is a Risky action, and if more 1s than 6s are rolled in the drivers next action roll, it will crash again. If the vehicle has crashed head on into a building or something equally solid, it will, of course, stop moving completely. However, if a vehicle has merely sideswiped or glanced a building, it can continue moving, assuming any damage hasnt put it out of action. The GM will adjudicate where necessary.

Crashing
If a vehicle crashes, it will suffer damage if the Armour value of what it has hit is greater than its own. Compare the Armour value of what the vehicle has hit with the location of the vehicle that struck it. For each Armour point greater than the Armour value of the location it impacts on, a vehicle suffers D10+3 Damage points to that location. Crashing as a result of moving through difficult terrain is counted as hitting an obstacle with an armour value of D6+5 where the location hit

Arbites Heavy Patrol Tank

Shooting at vehicles
All shots directed at vehicles are at +30% to hit due to their size. Each vehicle has a hit location table in the same way as characters, though it will have different parts on it obviously. Youll need to assign hit locations and armour values to your vehicles, remembering to weight each location on how big and how well armoured it appears on the model. For the Arbites Heavy Patrol Vehicle we gave it the following locations and armour values: When working out hit locations, shooters may add or deduct up to 20% to their roll to reflect the greater ease of selecting a target. This is in addition to any modifiers applied for placed shots. Damage is worked out as normal. This is a sample set of hit locations and armour values for the Arbites Heavy Patrol Tank.

D100 roll 01-65 66-75 76-85 86-00

Location Hull / Bodywork Main Gun Side Sponsons Engines

Armour Value 10 8 8 10

Check boxes Light/Moderate/Heavy Light/Moderate/Heavy Light/Moderate/Heavy Light/Moderate/Heavy

A vehicle has a Base Damage value, which is its equivalent of a characters Base Injury value and is worked out based on its Toughness in the same way. This will generally be a good bit higher than a characters to represent the more robust construction of vehicles. The Arbites Heavy Patrol vehicle has a Toughness of 120, giving it a Base Damage value of 12. Combined with its high Armour values, this makes it an extremely hard target to damage. Bear in mind though that this is a very heavily armoured tank and most vehicles will have much lower Toughness and armour values than this, such as the city car, which has

a toughness of 65. A vehicle also has a Destruction value, which like the Consciousness value of a character, represents when they have simply taken too much damage to continue. This value is worked out in the same way as a characters consciousness value (T/2). When a vehicles damage points total EXCEEDS its destruction value, it is out of action and will come to an immediate halt. Any weapons mounted on the vehicle are also considered to be out of action and may not be used. Sample values for common vehicle types are given at the end of this article.

Damage to vehicles
Damage tables for vehicles are tricky in that vehicles can vary wildly from one to the other. For convenience sake they may be divided into five categories: Hull/bodywork Light: Scratches the paintwork and puts a dent in the bodywork. The Armour value of this location is reduced by 2 points, but the impact has no further effect. Moderate: A spark ignites the vehicles fuel and starts a fire inside. Every character in the vehicle takes one hit as though from a flamer. The fire in the vehicle finishes in the Recovery phase, though characters may continue to burn as normal (see p.70 of the Inquisitor rulebook). If the driver takes damage, the vehicle goes out of control in his following turn. Heavy: The main body of the vehicle is smashed beyond recognition by an explosion that sends it out of control. Any character within the vehicle takes a hit to a random location as though from a demolition charge. Armour will reduce this as normal. The vehicle then makes one last move directly forward at Slow speed and comes to a permanent halt. Main weapon Light: The weapons barrel is knocked off centre and may not be fired next turn. Any further shots with this weapon are at -20%. Moderate: The weapon is blown off the vehicle and the backblast affects the Hull location as though the weapon has shot and impacted it. Roll for damage and apply the effects to the vehicle immediately. Heavy: The weapon is destroyed and the weapons magazine detonates, blowing the vehicle to bits. Apply the Heavy damage to the Hull result of the vehicle immediately. Additional weapons Light: The weapon is damaged and only has a 50% chance of firing each action. All shots that are fired suffer a -20% modifier.

Moderate: The weapon is destroyed and anyone manning the gun takes a hit to their chest as it blows up, suffering damage as though they had just been shot by it. Heavy: As above, but the damage suffered is the maximum damage possible for that weapon type. Engines Light: The engine splutters and coughs out fumes as its gears crash. The vehicle may only now move at its current speed. It may not slow down or speed up and the only way to halt it is to destroy it or crash into an immovable object such as a building. Moderate: A spark ignites the engine and it bursts into flames. The vehicle makes an immediate Out of Control move and everyone on board takes a hit as though from a flamer. The vehicle will come to an immediate halt after the drivers next turn, but in his turn he may control it normally (assuming hes not on fire!), getting one last breath of life from the vehicle. Heavy: The vehicles engine explodes spectacularly, wrecking it and engulfing its crew in burning fuel. Everyone on board takes a hit as though from a heavy flamer and the vehicle must make an Out of Control move at Fast speed before coming to a permanent halt.

Wheels/tracks/locomotion Light: A tyre blows out or a track buckles and the vehicle lurches out of control for the next two turns. Moderate: The vehicle immediately makes an Out of Control move at Fast speed and tips over onto its side, crashing and flipping over. The vehicle is halted (unsurprisingly) and everyone on board takes D3 hits to random locations, suffering D6+2 Damage points on each location. In later turns the vehicle may be righted by characters whose combined strength is equal to twice the vehicles Toughness. Heavy: The vehicle overturns and crashes to the ground in a spectacular fashion, landing in a mangled heap D10 yards in a random direction and flipping onto its roof, causing damage to all on board as noted above. Anyone underneath the wreck may be hit and are counted as being attacked by a ramming vehicle moving at a speed equal to how far the vehicle flipped on the D10. This may be dodged with an unmodified Initiative test. The vehicle may not be righted in later turns. There is a 25% chance that a stray spark may ignite the fuel tank. Should this occur, the vehicle will explode on landing as noted in the Heavy damage section for the Engine.

Close Combat against vehicles

Vehicles do not fight as such and have no WS characteristic. Attacking a moving vehicle is a Risky action and failure means the character has been run over by the vehicle as though it rammed him at its last moved speed. If a character charges into combat with a vehicle he gains the usual +10% modifier to his WS, but may suffer negative modifiers depending on how fast the vehicle was moving. Stationary: Hits automatically Slow: No modifier Combat: -10% Fast: -20% When working out hit locations, characters may add or deduct up to 30% to their roll to reflect the greater ease of selecting a target. Damage is worked out as normal. In subsequent turns, both the vehicle and the character are free to move off without penalty (assuming they can!) and no roll is required to break from combat. If a character fails his to hit roll against a moving vehicle with a roll of 01-05, then he has fumbled the attack and been hit by the vehicle, suffering damage as though he had been run over at its last moved speed.

Carrying Passengers
Some vehicles are capable of carrying people, either inside or on flatbed pick ups, etc. To cover the various eventualities, it is convenient to say that if you can fit the character on top or inside your vehicles then you can carry them on the vehicle. For characters within vehicles (where the model doesnt allow you to place them inside), a degree of common sense and GMs discretion may be required and this will depend a lot on what models you have available. It takes an action to open a crew door and get out (or in). From there, characters may move and act as normal.

Jumping onto, between and from moving vehicles

Jumping off
This is a particularly heroic thing to be doing, although it is kind of dangerous To jump off a vehicle requires one action and counts as falling from a height equal to the vehicles speed that action, ie, Slow (4 yards), Combat (8 yards) or Fast (12 yards). So if a character jumps from a vehicle that moved at Fast speed that action, he would suffer damage as though he had fallen from a height of 12 yards (three hits to random locations, doing D6+12 damage to each location). In addition, the character rolls D10 yards in the direction of travel of the vehicle and is stunned for a number of turns equal to half the speed of the vehicle minus a D3 for a minimum of one turn. So continuing the previous example, the character would be stunned for 6-D3 turns. The skill Catfall can reduce this damage as normal. Success means the character has jumped onto running boards, the bonnet, roof, etc, and is considered on board and will be carried along with the vehicle when it moves. If the test is failed, the character must take another Initiative test to avoid being hit by the vehicle as it passes. If he is hit, he suffers damage as though he had been run over by the vehicle, is knocked prone and is stunned for D3 turns. If he manages to avoid being hit, then he falls prone, but is not stunned.

Jumping from one vehicle to another:

Sometimes it may be necessary for characters to leap heroically from one vehicle to another. This is a risky action and if the player rolls more 1s than 6s, the character has fallen between the vehicles and takes damage as described for jumping off a vehicle. The difficulty of jumping from one vehicle to another is dependent on the relative speeds of the vehicles to one another. To make the jump, the vehicles must be no further away than the character could normally jump (Strength divided by 20. Note that characters never gain the +50% modifier for sprinting beforehand). A character must make a successful Initiative test in order to leap across, with the following modifiers:

Jumping on
Equally heroic and equally as dangerous To jump onto a vehicle a character must move into contact with a vehicle, or have just dodged out of the way. It requires an action to jump aboard a moving vehicle and to be successful a character must roll equal to or lower than his Initiative value with the following modifiers (stationary vehicles may be climbed aboard without a test): Slow: No modifier Combat: -30% Fast: -50% Speed of vehicle leapt from Stationary

Slow

Combat

Fast

Speed of vehicle leaping to Stationary Slow Combat Fast Stationary Slow Combat Fast Stationary Slow Combat Fast Stationary Slow Combat Fast

Modifier: A normal Jump action -10% -25% -50% -10% 0% -10% -25% -25% -10% 0% -10% -50% -25% -10% 0%

A failed roll means the character has fallen from the vehicle as described above. Note: The speed is at the time of the jump, ie, what speed the characters vehicle moved at in its last action.

Dragging
Sometimes a character may be dragged along behind a vehicle. Should this occur, the character must take a Strength test for every 6 yards the vehicle moves in order to keep hold of it or they will be forced to let go, suffering damage as though they had fallen from the vehicle (halving its speed when working out the damage suffered since its not as bad as actually falling from a vehicle). For every 6 yards a character is dragged, he must take a Toughness test or suffer D3+1 damage to a randomly determined leg. A character being dragged may use an action to climb aboard the vehicle, requiring a successful Strength test to manage this feat or else continue to be dragged.

Knockback, Pinning and Nerve Tests

Drivers never need to test for pinning and do not suffer from Knockback. They are secure in their protected environment and fear not pedestrians! In addition, any character attacked by psychic powers receives a +25% to any test they are required to make due to the protection offered by the vehicles superstructure and difficulty of picking out a target within a vehicle.

Repairing vehicles
While it may be convenient to assume that vehicles cannot be repaired in-game, it doesnt really fit with a few character types, such as Adeptus Mechanicus characters or those who have a background in this area. For convenience sake, well assume that any Adeptus Mechanicus, or character who has had a background in mechanics, tinkering, etc or one with the Machine Empathy psychic power can effect repairs to vehicles. They can heal the vehicle in the same way they would a character though the test is made against their Sagacity. Success will reduce the vehicles Damage points total by D3 (+1 for every full 10 points of Sagacity above 60). In the same way as characters, a specific area may be targeted for repair, though no more than one Damage level may ever be repaired (ie, a vehicle at Heavy damage could only ever be repaired back to Moderate). Vehicles that have gone out of action by having their Destruction value exceeded may be brought back into service should a mechanic successfully repair them to a level where their Damage points are equal or below the Destruction value.

Sample Stats
Sample Stats for common vehicles (It is assumed that the drivers of these vehicles will have their own character sheets. The stats shown here are for guidance only. The last stat table has been blank for you to use):

Pick-up truck, driven by human renegade

WS N/A BS 54 S N/A T 80 I 68 WP 59 Sg 56 Nv 65 Ld 68 Speed 5

Base Damage Value: 8 Destruction Value: 40 D100 roll 01-55 56-65 66-90 91-00 Location Bodywork Main Gun Engines Wheels Armour Value 7 4 7 4 Check boxes Light/Moderate/Heavy Light/Moderate/Heavy Light/Moderate/Heavy Light/Moderate/Heavy

Armament: Hood mounted heavy stubber (fired by driver)

Ground car, driven by human

WS N/A BS 45 S N/A T 65 I 56 WP 66 Sg 58 Nv 44 Ld 49 Speed 4

Base Damage Value: 7 Destruction Value: 33 D100 roll 01-55 56-75 76-00 Armament: None Location Bodywork Engines Wheels Armour Value 6 4 7 Check boxes Light/Moderate/Heavy Light/Moderate/Heavy Light/Moderate/Heavy

Armoured car, driven by Arbites Enforcer

WS N/A BS 62 S N/A T 90 I 74 WP 77 Sg 67 Nv 74 Ld 88 Speed 5

Base Damage Value: 9 Destruction Value: 45 D100 roll 01-55 56-65 66-90 91-00 Location Bodywork Main Gun Engines Wheels Armour Value 9 5 8 6 Check boxes Light/Moderate/Heavy Light/Moderate/Heavy Light/Moderate/Heavy Light/Moderate/Heavy

Armament: Turret mounted Auto cannon (fired by driver)

WS

BS

WP

Sg

Nv

Ld

Speed

D100 roll

Location

Armour Value

Check boxes Light/Moderate/Heavy Light/Moderate/Heavy Light/Moderate/Heavy Light/Moderate/Heavy

Armament:

Permission to photocopy

Base Damage Value: Destruction Value: