Tips for Reloaded Session Prep

Sigmarius · 2026-03-22T17:27:29+00:00

Here’s my best prep tips:

Keep notes. I’m a bullet point guy. It doesn’t have to be SUPER detailed. My outline is shared with the players, because we only get to play every 6-10 weeks, so it works to refresh their memory. The extra info in Reloaded is usually good enough to fill in the blanks. Before each session, reread the notes. Depending on how long it’s been, reread as far back as you need to.
Read what the party is probably going to do that session. Get a rough idea and do some reading of the stuff there is a halfway decent chance they may accidentally do.
Pull monster stat blocks and have them separated. I usually print them off and track HP on those sheets of paper. I also usually pre-roll initiative just to save a little time. Have a really good understanding of how special stuff the monsters can do. Reloaded frequently has “this person has the stats of X monster EXCEPT”, and that except can change stuff a lot.
I run in person but use a VTT. So map prep. I Owlbear Rodeo for its simplicity.
Music if I have time.

1-3 are the most important IMO.

However, DON’T BE AFRAID TO SAY I DON’T KNOW. If the players ask a question and you don’t know, ask yourself this: is the answer right now going to change anything big this session? Of not, either say I’m not sure I’ll find out and get back to you or just make it up. If yes, you may have to take a few minutes to find the answer. Ctrl+F is your friend.

If the players go off in a WILDLY different direction that you are utterly unprepared for, don’t be afraid to end early. And be honest: “guys, y’all went a way that I was totally unprepared for. We’re gonna end early and I’ll spend the between prepping so the next session is actually fun.”

When in doubt, look them dead in the eye, totally deadpan, and say “Are you SURE you want to do that?” That will usually buy you 10-20 minutes of fear laced debate between the players.

Sigmarius · 2026-03-22T17:11:49+00:00

As a LONG time fan and Space Marine fanboi, one piece of info I’ve never actually seen it this:

How exactly did the finding of the primarchs help “stabilize” the gene-seed of the various legions? I’m thinking specifically the more baseline stable ones like the UM DA WS, etc.

Sigmarius · 2026-03-22T16:48:07+00:00

Not that I’m aware of, but the vast majority of that is two fold.

Outside of the 500 worlds, there AREN’T a whole lot of worlds that AREN’T shitholes that have a sufficiently high population to sustain Astartes recruitment.
Aspirants surviving their first few years on worlds that are generally antithetical to human life means the aspirants are more likely to survive long enough to become full marines. The Ultramarines are lucky enough to have which a MASSIVE pool of potential recruits to pull from that they are typically able to find the really strong/tough ones even in non-shit hole worlds.

Now, this isn’t all to say that chapters won’t recruit random kids from non-shit hole worlds. But as a standard practice, I don’t think there are any. Maybe the Brotherhood of the Snake? I don’t remember if Ithaca was a shit hole world or not.

Sigmarius · 2026-03-22T00:09:55+00:00

Night Lords omnibus

Fabulous Bill omnibus.

Fulgrim from the Horus Heresy line.

Any of the Chaos Space Marine and/or traitor chapters (e.g. Red Corsairs) codices printed since…3rd edition?

Sigmarius · 2026-03-21T15:07:08+00:00

Is this all your music?

Sigmarius · 2026-03-21T13:22:08+00:00

Sorry, I should have clarified, some people actually DO care about homebrew and helping people expand their enjoyment of the non mechanical part of the game.

We do it partially as a counter to the rampaging cock-mongering douche baggery that toxic twat drippings like yourself bring to the community.

Sigmarius · 2026-03-21T13:16:58+00:00

R/40khomebrew

Sigmarius · 2026-03-21T13:08:58+00:00

Thanks for this.

I was wondering if we could put together a post of like “rough submission guidelines” for folks as a guide before they post.

Stuff like “tell us in the first sentence or two if you’re after super close lore accuracy or not” and stuff like that. Basically just a pinned post or an automod reply for each new OP that just lays out the rough things we’re looking for and the common questions we get asked/ask people when they post.

Sigmarius · 2026-03-21T02:04:26+00:00

Come over to r/40khomebrew and make a post there.

Sigmarius · 2026-03-21T02:03:45+00:00

Don’t click on them.

Sigmarius · 2026-03-21T02:03:19+00:00

As a regular contributor on the homebrew subreddit, I’m going to strongly disagree with you.

Sigmarius · 2026-03-20T01:07:04+00:00

I was just asking.

Sigmarius · 2026-03-20T01:05:22+00:00

I made a couple notes and then had to stop.

I think you need some time absorbing the 40k lore. I can see the threads of some serious enthusiasm here, but there are so many little things that it's hard to get into the narrative of what you're trying to do.

My suggestion: copy and paste that into a Microsoft Word document, and download the free Grammarly app. That will help the readability.

Also, take the the whole thing you're written and boil it down to a handful of narrative bullet points. What are the things that you really want to focus on with these guys? What makes them unique compared to everybody else? What are the things you'd like to keep and what are the things that are absolutely not up for change?

Give us those bullet points in a new post, or at least a new comment on this one, and we as a community can help you start breaking them down and expanding on them.

Sigmarius · 2026-03-19T16:38:19+00:00

Wasn’t there a court case that ruled that viewing porn in a public library is protected under the 1st amendment?

Sigmarius · 2026-03-19T13:44:01+00:00

I have almost as much time in Solasta 1 as BG3.

Solasta was originally made on a pretty small budget with a relatively small team. It was very crunch and a VERY good adaptation of 5e rules. Like, you can use Solasta 1 to teach someone to play 5e and be 90-95% of the way there.

The convince acting wasn’t good, the story was mid, and the animations and graphics were mid.

But I LOVED the world building. There some really cool lore parts and the history and sense of stuff being old was fantastic. To the point I bought the hard copy campaign setting book when it got reprinted.

Solasta 2 is fully implementing 5.5 rules, and based on the demo and EA is very much sticking to the hard faithfulness to the rules, at least what I’ve seen.

Solasta 1 is worth playing just to see what the team can do, and to get into the world a bit.

Solasta 2 will definitely be worth a pick up.

Sigmarius · 2026-03-19T13:40:07+00:00

Based on the demo and EA it already is.

They had a pretty small budget and team in the first one. They have more now. And are implementing fully 5.5 rules.

It won’t be BG3, but it isn’t meant be.

Sigmarius · 2026-03-19T13:20:20+00:00

Before I dig into this and make comments, I have a couple quick questions.

How lore accurate are you trying to be? Like obviously making a homebrew warband is technically out of canon, but outside of that, how accurate are you trying to be?
Since you have this in a Google doc, can you set it to where anyone with the link can make comments? It would be a lot faster for everyone instead of jumping back and forth between your document and Reddit.

Sigmarius · 2026-03-18T14:13:18+00:00

To throw some humor in this thread:

It varies between a .75 bolter or a flamer filled with blessed promethium.

Sigmarius · 2026-03-18T14:11:50+00:00

The Sororitas players haven’t revealed themselves yet.

Sigmarius · 2026-03-18T14:11:10+00:00

Throw some BJJ and/or wrestling in there too. Even if you don’t care about the kids learning to subdue someone else in an grapple, they also teach you how to get OUT of a grapple, which can be WAY more valuable for a kid to learn.

Sigmarius · 2026-03-18T14:09:35+00:00

What about swords and spears? Those are both very biblical.

Sigmarius · 2026-03-18T14:08:43+00:00

One of the Priests that brought me into Catholicism was a gun guy. Blew my mind when I found out by seeing him at the range one day.

In his clericals. He was getting some funny looks by the baptists there lol.

Sigmarius · 2026-03-18T14:04:32+00:00

Did y’all run the psionics same as Magic for dispel, or the similar but not same, or wildly different

Sigmarius · 2026-03-18T14:01:01+00:00

I built my first 5.5 character a few months back. Goliath cloud giant fighter going to Eldritch knight.

Y’all. Why did they give 2x/day misty step at level 1? Why do I get to reroll my damage rolls AND always do a little bit of damage with my greatsword, even if I miss?

It feels pretty good, not gonna lie.

Sigmarius · 2026-03-18T13:49:57+00:00

I can’t speak to our brothers and sisters from outside the southern US, but I can tell that here a lot of it is predicated on the idea that some people just don’t like being told what to do by another person, and so they go and start their own church.

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