Hey fellow battlebrothers,

I have a short question. I know there are threats about this, but as far as I've read, they have a different focus. Well, to make this short:

Our tier 3 devastor does 28 magnitudedamage, our assault about 80. Is this right, or are we misinterpreting the rules?

A bit longer:

As far as we understand the rules, the maximum amount of damage a devastor marine can achieve is

(((6 (Max. Hits Heavy Bolter) +1 Explosive Damage) x2 (Metal Storm Rounds)) x2 Storm of Iron ) = 28

The Assault Marine on the other hand:

1 Attack with Mainhand

1 Attack with Offhand

1 Attack with Swift Attack

1 Attack with Lightning Attack

1 Attack instead of Reaction

Horde Magnitude Bonus +60

Weapon Skill 70

+20 against Xenos

for a total of 150.

With an avarage dice throw of 50, that's 10 DoS, resulting in 1+5 magnitudedamage.

If we add Whirlwind of Death, thats 12 magnitudedamage per Hit, for an avarage total of 60 magnitudedamage, to a maximum of 80.

Where is our mistake, what are we doing wrong? Please help, our GM is attacking us with complete swarmfleets to get us down ... at least thats what it feels like. There must be something wrong.

Greetings,

Tirnithil

Edith: Fixed some errors in the formula

The devastator math is off a bit.

All addative modifiers are included after multiplication. And for X and Power Field they apply ONLY ONCE per BS or WS use.

With metal storm rounds every hit vs. hordes becomes 2 hits from blast.

Storm of Iron doubles magnitude damage, thus you need to first calculate all magnitude damage done (exception to addative modifier rules due to specificity of rules)

So, a perfect attack (6 DoS) would do 12 hits base.

Add 1 for X. 12 + 1 = 13

Roll all damage (if necessary).

Doulbe all Magnitude damage (Assuming all hits deal damage) 13 x 2 = 26

Your melee statistics are way off though.

1st: Size ONLY applies to ranged attacks.

FFG clarification:

"As per the rules on page 249 or the Deathwatch Core Rulebook, size is only a factor when making ranged attacks.

Thanks for your question,

Tim"

2nd: Where are you getting the +20 vs. xenos from? Going to ignore this, untill you can give me that info.

So we have a WS 70 marine with Lightning Attack, Two Weapon Wielder (assuming he has all the required talents), Furious Assault and 2 power weapons.

The Assault marine makes 5 attacks (3 with main hand, 1 with off hand +1 from furious assault) all at -10 to hit (TWW penalty)

Assuming every attack roll was exactly 50:

3 hits with Main hand +3 from Power Field bonus. Only 1 DoS so no extra hits.

1 hit with Off Hand +1 from Power Field. Only 1 DoS so no extra hits.

1 hit from Furious Assault +1 from Power Field. TWW penalty still applies so no extra hits.

Total base hits = 10

Roll damage for each hit (if necessary, assuming all deal damage).

Whirlwind of Death doubles magnitude damage exactly like Storm of Iron so we double all damage dealt.

10 x 2 = 20 (only 10 hits if he didn't have any power weapons!)

Using a rando dice generator for a little more variety:

Hit

1: 50+10 = 60 Hit + 0 (1 DoS) +1(PF) Total: 2

2: 06+10 = 16 Hit + 2 (5 DoS) +1(PF) Total: 4

3: 20+10 = 32 Hit + 1 (3 DoS) +1(PF) Total: 3

4: 58+10 = 68 Hit + 0 (0 DoS) +1(PF) Total: 2

5: 98+10 = 108 Miss Total: 0

Total hits = 11

Roll damage (assuming all do damage)

Multiply magnitude damage by 2: 11 x 2 = 22

22 Total hits.

All of these numbers, of course, ignore all the other talents, traits, armor histories, and speciality special abilities which also modify the amount of hits/mag damage done to hordes.

If in squad mode you're devastator likely has an extra d5 to add per turn to a horde unless he actually took that other power.

The +20 to hit comes from Hunter of Aliens + Hatred.
This nets another hit on each attack.

That sums up to 5 extra hits, so following your example there would be (10+5)x2 = 30 Hits.

That assumes an average roll. An average melee attack beats a full hitting autofiring bolter by miles, counting good circumstances for both. Yeah the devastator could take the extra horde dmg as a squad mode ability (this one didnt), but so could the assault marine with "Wrathful Descent" (just once, i admit, but double the damage and he could just argue he charges another part of the horde. With the right talents he would keep full attacks (he have them btw))

The fat part is what worries us. We cant see Range Combat catching up, and Melee wont lose to single target encounters either. We could revert to the non-errata bolters for 10 Hits on the Heavy, that would net 8 more hits following the example above, but balancing a game by stepping backwards is kind of...awkward.

So what to do? Its not like the play is not functioning, we have a lot of fun. But every time we encounter a horde, we just let the assault marine loose, the devastor is allowed to have some shots too, and thats it. As a GM i encounter the same problem: You either swarm the players massivley, but than characteres like an apothecarius will like bite the dust, or you just have no thread for them at all. I myself nowadays tend to build only ranged hordes in elevated positions with cover. The close-and-personal space is reserved for either ambush or toe-to-toe melee foes. But i'm not nice when im gm'ing, so maybe i dont count

I usually find it can work out to use multiple small hordes instead of one big one. Usually 5-8 separate mobs works out well at a magnitude of 30-50. But I let the mobs freely gang beat a player. So instead of rolling once with a charge from a 90 mob and getting only the one damage hit with two extra dice...hit him with three 30 mobs and hit him three times each with the plus two. Then have weaker mobs link up with each other to reinforce their deadliness.

Don't forget that hordes can grapple while in melee making it a very dangerous place to be if you don't kill it on the charge.

Hey folks,

first hand, thank you for your replies. Lets talk some details:

@Ryutaru: Thank you for adding some details, guess I forgot to explain some things.

@herichimo: As Ryu mentioned, the +20 is calculated by +10 against Xenos and various hatred talents. Some of your calculations are very good, could you tell where you got

All addative modifiers are included after multiplication. And for X and Power Field they apply ONLY ONCE per BS or WS use.

this from? Are we blind, or did we translate something wrong? English is not our first language

As far as i understood, and asuming you are completly right, i get the following forumulas:

Ranged Damage: Max. 6 Hits per Heavy Bolter x2 through Blast(2), adding 1 for Explosive, multiplied by 2 for Storm of Iron, for a total of 26.

((6x2)+1)x2 = 26

Melee Damage: 5 Attacks +5 Powerfieldbonus + Additional Hits through DoS, multiplied by 2 for whirlwind of death, for a total of (10+DoS)x2. Assuming WS70 + 20 against Xenos (as mentioned above), and rolls between 0-100), thats 20 to 60 Damage.

If this is correct, Melee does a lot more damage to hordes, than ranged.

@Kamikazzijoe: He took the other Talent, so no +d5 for him on this. You are right, we could add that to the formula, but that doesn't make a difference, does it?

Hatred is specific to species. Hatred:Xenos is not a thing. Hatred:orks, Hatred:tau, Hatred:eldar are examples but each one requires an additional advance purchase.

For instance Hatred:Heretic is not the same as Hatred:Chaos Space Marines. Hatred:renegades isn't the same as Hatred:Heretic or Hatred:Chaos Space Marines. A Heretic is a human who turns from the Imperial cult, Chaos Space Marines are self explanatory, and Renegades are Space Marines who turn from their duty of protecting the Imperium but haven't turned to Chaos.

Devastator + unrelenting devastation + Bolter Drill + Storm of Iron

(Assuming all Hit and do damage)

Normal bolter

+7 normal hits (w/bolter drill)

+7 hits (unrelenting devastation)

+1 hit from X

15 Hits x 2 (storm of Iron)

30

W/metal storm rounds

+14 normal hits (w/bolter drill)
+5 hits (1d5 from unrelenting devastation)

+1 hit from X

20 Hits x 2 (storm of iron)

40

The addition of X at the end is specified in errat page 6:

"Damaging a Horde (page 359): The sentence “Weapons that inflict Explosive Damage (X) gain a bonus against Hordes, and count as having inflicted one additional Hit” should be changed to “Weapons that inflict Explosive Damage (X) gain a bonus against Hordes, and count as having inflicted one additional Hit per Attack after all other Hits have been applied .”

Hatred is specific to species. Hatred:Xenos is not a thing. Hatred:orks, Hatred:tau, Hatred:eldar are examples but each one requires an additional advance purchase.

You just calculated a perfect setup for a devastor for us, thank you. But the fact remains - if you calculate perfectly for an assault marine too he is going to deal around 60 Magnitude Damage (Tirnithil did the math). Thats a whooping 20 Damage difference.

The grapple point convinced me a little bit. Thats scary. But other than that? I cant see why you would want to range attack a Horde anymore. Does no one else feel this is a problem?

You just calculated a perfect setup for a devastor for us, thank you. But the fact remains - if you calculate perfectly for an assault marine too he is going to deal around 60 Magnitude Damage (Tirnithil did the math). Thats a whooping 20 Damage difference.

The randomness of dice (and lgenerally lower bonuses of melee) will not always give the assault marine a lot of damage. Besides wrathful descent, your example includes about every last option for a melee character to do maximum damage to hordes. While the devastator has many options.

A soundstrike w/frag missile under the same example above does up to 44 magnitude damage.

Blast - 5 hits

UD - 1d5

X - 1

Devastating +1mag damage/hit - 11 mag damage (no need to roll)

Double mag damage 11 hits + 11 mag damage x 2 -44

All from 1 shot up to 1km away.

Meanwhile the assault marine gives up his reaction and suffers -10 to hit to get 5 hits on a horde. The horde can still use defensive fighting (another -10 to attacks), though they cannot benefit from the additional reaction. A horde has all the same rules and options as a single character, excepting the specific exceptions for being a horde.

You could adopt the Only War rules for swift and lightning attack, which would get rid of bonus hits/2 DoS and limit the bonus hit from power weapons to only one +1 (since you're only making a single WS attack). You would have to adopt the OW dodge rules as well. I am leaning towards suggesting you not do so, since I have personal misgivings about how such rules change affects the game dynamics.

So basically you are saying, that the rules are balanced on taking the right talents and taking a lot of circumstances into account, that may or may not benefit certain builds?

That would be ok with me, if I could see the balance in this. I will take some time and build 6 characters, one starting (13.000xp) and one endgame (50.000xp) character for each class (devastor, assault marine and apothecary), each with the focus on killing hordes, despite roleplay, single target usabillity or whatever.

I would have loved to skip this, but as far as I can see there is not much we did wrong, only some minor mistakes that don't solve the problem of misbalancing. Perhaps this is a perception error, and we have build our chars wrong.

I will report my calculations when they are done.

So far, thanks for your replies

Other options include putting elite enemies inside the horde. Throw a warrior or two (or three) hiding in that horde.

Attacks to and from the non-horde character can be dodged/parried.

Characters shooting at the horde have to choose to attack the horde or the Elites.

GMs should always put in a penalty to shoot elites hiding in hordes. I've seen GMs simply say you can't see them at all until engaged, but that penalizes the characters more than the challenge is worth (cannot plan ahead, its all just a crap-shoot). I think a -10 per magnitude of horde is a good way to go.

This way the assault marine charges the horde and chooses to do all his 5 attacks and wipe out the horde, the elites are still there and start biting his face while the marine cannot dodge.

Or have a few ravenors or ranged warriors near the hordes. The assault marine goes up and kills a horde, then gets riddled with shots while he has no dodge.

Have the tyranids set up overwatch for any enemy charging near their gaunts. As the assault marine charges in, the other ranged tyranids pepper him with fire (even the horde being charged can do this if the assault marine meets the overwatch conditions). The assault marine gets hit and either uses his dodge (and thus loses the extra furious assault attack) or takes a nasty hit.

Throw in a carnifex with dorsal chimneys, or a vonomthrope which makes getting close to the targets undesirable. There's all sorts of things you can, reasonably (what you'd expect the nids to do), to mitigate enemies charging into them.

Yes, maximum theoretical damage from melee far exceeds that of ranged weapons for damage to hordes, this is a correct statement.

WS: max 50 +5 from chapter characteristic modifiers +3 from deeds +10 for armour history +20 fury of sanguinus +20 from advances +10 from hatred +10 for hunter of aliens (or equivalent, depending on foe), +10 for master crafted weapon, +10 for sig. wargear bonus with their weapon, +10 attacking from higher ground, +30 attacking surprised enemies +10 oath of knowledge +10 frenzy +20 berserk charge -10 two weapon wielding (total 218)

Attacks: 3 (Lightning Attack) + 1 (Second Weapon) + d5+1 Unarmed attacks (Thunder Charge), max 10

The unarmed attacks do not have the +10 MC weapon or +10 sig. wargear bonuses, nor the -10 TWF penalty, and are thus testing against 208 If all tests are 8 or under, that's 20 degrees of success per attack (21 for weapon attacks), dealing a total possible magnitude damage of:

((11 (based on degrees of success) + 1 (armour history) x6) + (11 (degrees of success) +1 (armour history) +1 (power weapon) x4) + 10 (Wrathful descent)) x2 (whirlwind of death)) = 248

Now, I don't know about you, but I'd be pretty happy doing 248 damage to a horde. For what it's worth, with "average" rolls the damage is still 212, but as this already requires being from a Storm Wardens successor chapter, and your Blood Angels battle brother popping fury of sanguinus, while you sneak attack a magnitude 200+ horde of your chosen foe, it didn't really feel like "average" circumstances ;-)

Still, though, that can be improved.

Let's drop the pathetic Blood Angels battle brother and replace him with a Black Templar Battle Brother. Let's have him pop Holy Vengeance, and instead of charging them, let's move into position with normal movement, and make a standard attack with one weapon. We lose 30 WS (No Berserk Charge, no Fury of Sanguinus, no TWF penalty), so we're testing with a less impressive 188. We also lose the Thunder Charge bonuses, and wrathful descent. And yet. Max Agility 50+20 = 70, +10 for Corvus Armour, with a dilation field (granting unnatural agility) that's 15 agility. As we're testing against 188, all attacks hit, so that's 15 attacks.

((10 (degrees of success) +1 (armour history) +1 (power weapon) +1 (Devastating, power claymore) x15) x2 (Whirlwind of death) = 390 magnitude damage. With "average" rolls it's 300 damage.

Still, though, that can be improved.

Let's stop being the stupid chapter with a WS bonus, or even an assault marine, and instead be a Space Wolf Techmarine, who has taken the Saga of the Warrior Born for this mission. Note that we stopped having to be an Assault Marine when we stopped charging, and though other classes or chapters may not have frenzy, that does not affect the results with average rolls at all. A Devastator could do max 360 damage to a horde in melee with a power claymore using a dilation field with black templar backup during a surprise attack. Which is obviously more than he could do using ranged weapons.

This next bit, though, is a bit cheesy.

The Techmarine uses Logis implant with borrowed reaction from defensive spacing, then moves up and makes the standard attack, dealing let's say just the average 300 damage. Then uses his reaction to make what is specifically a "standard attack" with his power weapon (of any type) mounted on his servo-arm, which is obviously master crafted but not signature wargear. Also lacks devastating, so it deals a paltry 240 magnitude damage. On or before his next turn, he uses a borrowed reaction to use Logis Implant again (because we can, not because it's necessary), and triggers his saga of the warrior born.

As he dealt 540 magnitude damage last turn, that's a bonus of 540 to his WS. The enemy is not surprised anymore, so that's -30 (to be fair, I think they would still be surprised at this juncture ;-) just not for the purposes of in-game mechanics). If you're not insane, you'll rule that Saga of the Warrior Born must be applied to each standard attack made, which means out of the 15, it's only being applied to 8 of them.

((6 (degrees of success) + 1 (armour history) + 1 (power weapon) + 1 (devastating) x7) + (33 (degrees of success) + 1 (armour history) + 1 (power weapon) + 1 (devastating) x8) = 702 magnitude damage. This turn, its power waned, the Servo Arm does a pathetic 210 magnitude damage. So, across 2 rounds with a horde large enough, the techmarine does a total of 1452 magnitude damage, assuming average rolls. Which is more than can be done with a ranged weapon in the same time period.

So, what's the point of all this? The Techmarine is broken? The dilation field is broken? Holy Vengeance is broken? Not at all, though that last one is borderline, and those last two might want to be avoided in combination. We did gross things with Space Wolfs, Blood Angels, Storm Wardens, Black Templar, Assault Marines, Tech Marines, and if we wanted to, Devastators. If you ignore the ridiculous numbers, you'll see from previous posts of the max damage of devastators we're not competing against much here.

Ultimately, Melee has the ability to be much, much, *much* more devastating to hordes than ranged combat, and so long as a Black Templar is around, that's true even for classes who are solely focused on ranged combat. It's quite deliberately that way (though I don't think they quite intended for an average magnitude damage of almost 750/round to be possible across 2 rounds), as the average damage to hordes is exactly 0 for melee characters at any range beyond melee.

At ranks other than 8, which is to say, the majority of the campaign, and for many groups, the entirety of the campaign, melee classes normally get exactly 1 attack on the turn they charge in. After they attack, being adjacent to the horde, if it's not gone, they are at *much* higher risk of damage than their ranged counterparts. And, once the horde is dead, unless another one walked in on them, they must then fly off to another enemy, meaning more turns of having either 0 or 1 attacks and doing minimal to no damage.

So, a class that does 0 damage for turns not engaged in melee, 1 attack on their first turn in melee, then, after suffering counterattacks, having given up cover, and generally being much more prone to being dead than their ranged counterparts, actually gets a payout? There is a reward for this risk, in, on subsequent turns while engaged in melee, they do more damage than their ranged counterparts? I don't see an issue with this. If they're doing double the magnitude damage (which again, at ranks other than 8, without Whirlwind of Death, I don't see happening too often) or less of the Devastator, I don't see it as being a problem.

If you play exclusively at rank 8, or if your players are extreme munchkins and have twinked it to where the assault marine deals more than double the damage of the devastator on a regular basis, and he's feeling useless, then it seems that you would want to talk to him, and tone down his character a bit, or have the enemies realize what a threat this guy is, and emphasise the "risk" in his risk vs reward style of play ;-) Really, though, your "issue" with the Assault Marine doing "crazy" damage compared to the devastator seems solely like one theorycrafted while relying on the impact of Whirlwind of Death, rather than something that is likely to come up during regular play.

In your example of Tier 3, the Assault marine would do, on his "good" turns, where he actually gets to use lightning attack, and assuming he's not feeling like he's in the way of the people continuing to rampantly mow down enemies, testing against about 110 (70 + hatred and hunter of aliens, assuming he has the correct talents for whomever he's fighting, + signature wargear master and master crafted weapon) 4(dos)+1(power field) x3 is 15 magnitude damage. The loss of multiple attacks but the inclusion of wrathful descent gives comparable damage on a charge. TWF, armor history, psychic powers, etc can all add to that much better than they can ranged attacks, which is good, because if your devastator is doing 28 magnitude damage each and every turn as you say, the assault marine would feel pretty useless doing 15 when he's at his best. See the following link for an example of how it is more likely to play out in a real campaign.

http://librarians-and-leviathans.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-loneliness-of-melee-distance-fighter.html

(Edit, because it's not long enough already, right? FWIW the Max theoretical damage is done with the same setup, with the Space Wolf in question being a Librarian instead of a Tech Marine, wielding a Rune Staff and using it to channel Thunderclap at push level into each and every hit, while being backed up by a team of other psykers, including at minimum a White Scar and Raven Guard. I won't bore you with the math, but it ends up being 4488 magnitude damage over 2 rounds. Didn't feel the need to use that in particular, because I felt the point was already driven home, and we all know psykers are OP and broken anyway)

Yes, maximum theoretical damage from melee far exceeds that of ranged weapons for damage to hordes, this is a correct statement.

WS: max 50 +5 from chapter characteristic modifiers +3 from deeds +10 for armour history +20 fury of sanguinus +20 from advances +10 from hatred +10 for hunter of aliens (or equivalent, depending on foe), +10 for master crafted weapon, +10 for sig. wargear bonus with their weapon, +10 attacking from higher ground, +30 attacking surprised enemies +10 oath of knowledge +10 frenzy +20 berserk charge -10 two weapon wielding (total 218)

You are always maxed at +/- 60 there is a maximum limit to munchkining.

That's all well and good, but remember, there is a difference between a modifier to the characteristic and a modifier to the characteristic test . Of the items listed above, Chapter Characteristic Modifiers, Deeds, Armour History, Advances, Frenzy, and Fury of Sanguinus all add directly to the characteristic itself. Which means you are testing against a base WS of 118. After modifiers, then, he's testing against 178. However, you are very correct. I had previously taken that part of the rules to be discussing caps on situational modifiers like surprise etc, however rereading it I realize I had been wrong. Thanks for bringing that to my attention, it certainly does make for a more balanced game!

However, though It does affect the numbers, it does not do so enough to prevent you from hitting hundreds of magnitude damage per turn in melee. In the first example I provide, the total ends up being 208, not 248, but really, the actual number itself was never the point. At some point I'll go back and properly edit the post with true and updated numbers, just not now, as the points remains valid regardless.

Dr. Quinn ...

... your calculations made my entire weekend

The example Dr. Quinn has given, reflects a very high level character with bonuses, situations practically never to be encountered concurently, and with characters tailor made to fight said specific enemy.

If you drop 10,000s of XP into your ASTARTES character, I kind of expect him to be a beast.

BUT

This is an RPG. Now take those munchkined characters, and ask them to pass a Forbiden Lore: Warp of Forbidden Lore: Demonology test. We had a lvl 6 librarian who couldn't, because he built himself up via theorycraft and never built his character for his rol (i.e. knowledge spec. the warp). But boy, could he smite a guy.

Sure you can beat up on a bunch of no-bodies, but can you disarm that nova cannon warhead before it vaporises half the continent (and you with it)?

Can you convince the Imperial Admiral your tiny ship isn't a renegade or chaos vessel and keep the 12 Imperial cruisers from spacing you?

The game is about more than simply puting fists to faces.

The example Dr. Quinn has given, reflects a very high level character with bonuses, situations practically never to be encountered concurently, and with characters tailor made to fight said specific enemy.

If you drop 10,000s of XP into your ASTARTES character, I kind of expect him to be a beast.

BUT

This is an RPG. Now take those munchkined characters, and ask them to pass a Forbiden Lore: Warp of Forbidden Lore: Demonology test. We had a lvl 6 librarian who couldn't, because he built himself up via theorycraft and never built his character for his rol (i.e. knowledge spec. the warp). But boy, could he smite a guy.

Sure you can beat up on a bunch of no-bodies, but can you disarm that nova cannon warhead before it vaporises half the continent (and you with it)?

Can you convince the Imperial Admiral your tiny ship isn't a renegade or chaos vessel and keep the 12 Imperial cruisers from spacing you?

The game is about more than simply puting fists to faces.

Tell me about it!!! Thank god for the Tech Priest in my groups party...half of their missions would have ended in failure because they kill everyone who knows anything...then the techpriest steps in and reads their personal logs...I am merciful...

The example Dr. Quinn has given, reflects a very high level character with bonuses, situations practically never to be encountered concurently, and with characters tailor made to fight said specific enemy.

If you drop 10,000s of XP into your ASTARTES character, I kind of expect him to be a beast.

BUT

This is an RPG. Now take those munchkined characters, and ask them to pass a Forbiden Lore: Warp of Forbidden Lore: Demonology test. We had a lvl 6 librarian who couldn't, because he built himself up via theorycraft and never built his character for his rol (i.e. knowledge spec. the warp). But boy, could he smite a guy.

Sure you can beat up on a bunch of no-bodies, but can you disarm that nova cannon warhead before it vaporises half the continent (and you with it)?

Can you convince the Imperial Admiral your tiny ship isn't a renegade or chaos vessel and keep the 12 Imperial cruisers from spacing you?

The game is about more than simply puting fists to faces.

Tell me about it!!! Thank god for the Tech Priest in my groups party...half of their missions would have ended in failure because they kill everyone who knows anything...then the techpriest steps in and reads their personal logs...I am merciful...

I love the fact your bad guys carry personal logs with them.

'Dear diary

Day 4591 of the Masterplan. Have gained the forbidden knowledge of Chthurnarl and have re-constituted the soul-forge. The Day of Ever Night is upon us!

Remember the code to disarm Soul-Forge is 32A1.

Only thing that can stop me now is a psychopathic group of heavily armoured space knights inducted into a secret fraternity of alien hunters . HA! What would be the chances of them showing up on this backward planet?

Seriously though, hope I don't meet any.

P.S Remember to cancel Netflix subsciption before 'Day of Ever Night'

LOL! True enough, I sort of look at it as a combination of data records, mission reports, power armor combat logs...that sort of thing