Hi guys,

I'm a fairly experienced GM, but new to GMing in the 40K universe. I'm having an issue around combat and how lethal it is. Most of my players are fairly well versed in 40K but not all of them. They're used to my GMing style being fairly lenient, I've only killed (i think) one PC in 12+ years of gaming. I'm running this game as much as I can RAW, and I've noticed that most elite enemies can kill a space marine outright in a single hit if they're in the wrong place.

Last week they were going up against a carnifex, and the assault marine decided to charge it's face. I then had to greatly tone down the enemy because it would have quite easily killed him three times over that round.

How do I convey to my players that most enemies in this game have to be approached a particular way or they'll be able to kill you in one hit, without just flat out saying "hey don't just charge this guy or you'll be rolling up a character next round"? Do most GMs have the players take some sort of knowledge checks or research before going up against an enemy like this?

Don't tone it down. Let them reroll.

Space Marines rarely understand just because they're better than all humans doesn't mean they're better than everything in the galaxy. You want them to learn stuff kills even you? Kill them, they have fate points for a reason no?

If they get themselves fully killed then they reroll. They'll have learned.

As deadly as things are, it is hard to kill someone on their first mistake. Getting to zero wounds is easy. Cranking the crit table is hard with damage being halved on top their armor and toughness bonuses. Then they still get to burn a fate point to live.

So let the assault marine get knocked out, burn a fate point sit out the rest of the encounter and come back again with his new cybernetics.

Haha so I guess the general consensus is kill them if they do something stupid! I often forget about the existence of fate points I guess, it's new as far as systems I've run go.

Thanks guys, I'll have them hunting down a Trygon in some tunnels beneath a hive city tonight, I'll see if I can bring myself to genuinely punish mistakes this time round

Don't be afraid to kill characters if they do something stupid.

Don't pull punches/weaken opponents just because the players aren't taking a winning approach to the fight. That tells players that you're going to bend the rules to keep them from dying, and so they'll keep doing the same kind of stupid things or escalate their stupidity.

The only way to train players to not do stupid things - things that in-universe their characters would know are stupid - is to let them think you're not going to save them from themselves - for this you don't have to go out of your way to kill them, but you definitely don't save them (and maybe you change things later on to reflect that they're being stupid and the enemy notices it and makes plans to take advantage of it).

View all of the above. It's for their own good. If you really are unnerved by the idea. Let them take some skill tests. Lore tests or even easy logic tests. (Even an untrained, non-Deathwatch marine/guardsman/anybody knows not to charge the living battle tank.

Yeah protecting players from stupidity is a big problem as they start to get complacent and may eventually realise you'll bail them out of everything. Best answer if someone wants to do something daft like charge a carnifex head on is:

"You can, but there may be consequences".

I've seen those seven words cause more fear on a players face than a dozen Hive Tyrants.

If, despite all your warnings, the player doesn't think tactically and is stupid then bring the hammer down. In fact if you really want to be nice and harsh one house rule I saw was that the GM would only allow players to burn fate points if their death was in certain circumstances which were not deemed foolishly unnecessary risks. Being shot down in a heavy gunfight while moving tactically from cover to cover, yes. Running through an open battlefield straight towards an enemy tank (without any reasoned effort to dodge) in plain sight firing at you, no.

Kill them. You aren't doing them any favor by letting them live. That's not being lenient, it's simply not letting them learn the game, which means they'll never be good at it, even if they think they are.

They have fate points. Kill them. Kill them all. Make them burn a fate point and remind them that those are limited. Let them all wake up in the apothecarium with the Chief Apothecary lecturing them about their lack of battle wisdom. Have every marine in the joint look down at them for being rookies and acting the part.

They'll learn to be better players this way. And you'll learn from it, too.

I have to say, in the few games I've been able to play in it bothers me when the GM doesn't know the rules well. I walk on their bad guys and their response is to gimp my character and equipment. It's not my fault they didn't learn the rules well enough to play the villains. Don't gimp me. Learn the rules.

I was going to suggest doing some test rolls to demonstrate just how deadly certain things are... Then inform them of the results.

But the above works too.

I`m curious, how would the carnifex be killing anyone three times over? It has terrible weapon skill and against an assault marine, any hits that do land should be parried.

In fact, even a starting assault marine should regularly be ploughing right into the largest enemy force or taking on the biggest enemy there is, up close, because they do that exceedingly well.

Right from the moment they hit the table, the kill-team should be able to mangle almost any opponent, often before that opponent even gets a shot off if they are using their cohesion points properly and have the right ammunition. I`ve often seen deathwatch compared to "300 the movie", because the marines will regularly be doing super awesome things to the point that you have to go out of your way to kill them. If you are toning things down, you are doing it wrong.

The only thing that will threaten a kill team is attrition. One big bad monster, one army, none of that matters, but after a string of combats or encounters, marines fare very poorly. They are built to overwhelm and alpha strike, so when their cohesion is gone and surprise is not on their side, then it becomes a dangerous situation for them. The real test as a gm is not to make a single, dangerous encounter, but to make a realistic campaign of encounters that make the party consider their resources and priorities.

You can't really convey the lethality of the systhem/setting if you keep yoning down the monsters.

Just let the action unfold. Asault marine going solo on a carnifex isn't the smartest thing* to do, but it is certainly brave and something a space marine would do. Yell "for the Emperor!" trust in His devine protection and swing at the 'fex's face!

* nothing else you can do as a assault marine, he can hardly say "i stay back and shoot it with my lascannon i don't have", now can he?

I`m curious, how would the carnifex be killing anyone three times over? It has terrible weapon skill and against an assault marine, any hits that do land should be parried.

In fact, even a starting assault marine should regularly be ploughing right into the largest enemy force or taking on the biggest enemy there is, up close, because they do that exceedingly well.

Right from the moment they hit the table, the kill-team should be able to mangle almost any opponent, often before that opponent even gets a shot off if they are using their cohesion points properly and have the right ammunition. I`ve often seen deathwatch compared to "300 the movie", because the marines will regularly be doing super awesome things to the point that you have to go out of your way to kill them. If you are toning things down, you are doing it wrong.

The only thing that will threaten a kill team is attrition. One big bad monster, one army, none of that matters, but after a string of combats or encounters, marines fare very poorly. They are built to overwhelm and alpha strike, so when their cohesion is gone and surprise is not on their side, then it becomes a dangerous situation for them. The real test as a gm is not to make a single, dangerous encounter, but to make a realistic campaign of encounters that make the party consider their resources and priorities.

Sir, I do declare I disagree with your comments most fervently.

I never liked that parry should immediately negate any hit which lands no matter how furious. If a carnifex smashes into you with the force of someone wielding a cruise liner but with more bile then you will not exactly be able to parry that blow away effortlessly with just a chain/power sword as if it were just nothing. It's just physics, the momentum of the blow still carries through, it doesn't just stop and it will make you move when it hits you. You aren't parrying a blow from a heretic with a sword, this is something much bigger.

Poor parry rules aside though, if a carnifex hits you it's doing on average 30 damage (give or take) with a pen of 3. Assuming bog standard armour and a toughness bonus total of around 8 then that means around 17 wounds are going to be inflicted to a marine. That can take a marine into the crits in a single hit or far into it if they have already taken a few blows. This is also before you take into account that it has swift attack. Also it's weapon skill isn't that poor when it has berserk charge for an extra bonus on that charge plus with concussive on that charge. If it gets one or even two of those hits in then you'll be in for a lot of pain. That is quite dangerous enough, their job is to be an organic battering ram although yes once the initial momentum of the charge is dissipated then they lose a lot of their melee capabilities and thus struggle slightly, which is why they would need to be supported against such eventualities with spore mines or general gaunts.

An assault marines job is not to be thrown in against the biggest thing there is as that is foolish and tactically unwise as some of those big things are just as strong, fast and will cut your marine in half without them even raising their Imperial branded swords (EG hive tyrant with its high WS and sometimes bone swords). While they can sometimes tie up big things in melee this is not always the case and their most valuable job is to tie up the heavy weapons teams that threaten your squads advance (that or respond to enemy counter attacks or sneak attacks very quickly), take out the enemies in entrenched positions as they are likely unprepared to handle a melee counter attack so quickly. It is their job then to jump forward and sack the enemy auto-cannon/heavy bolter/las cannon point which is suppressing your squad and allow your team to move forward. It is not their job to throw their lives away wrecklessly to tie down a big object single handedly. That is where the devastators, tactical marines and everything else come into play. Big targets need concentrated focus fire to bring down.

A kill team marine is good but they are not indestructible despite what Games Workshop fluff would have you believe. You don't need massive armies to take them down and grind them up as they run out of ammunition and tactics and a crack team of specialists can easily gib your entire force. I have seen this in many an occasion where an exceptionally well trained force of Tau XV-8 crisis suits, with their good mobility and roughly equivalent weaponry can make light work over a team, who will find themselves being shot from multiple angles as the suits redeploy faster and put down punishing fire on their position. If they get into melee a suit can hold its own for a while as their strengths are roughly comparable. If they are also Farsight enclave then you can see the likes of Fusion Blades and Onager Gauntlets to add some extra capability to them. Otherwise if you haven't got that then just blow them away with some XV-88 Broadsides coupled with pathfinders and markerlights. Their armour is good but it can't hold up against 3D10+30, Pen 15 railgun shots. Saying that one big encounter or an army is meaningless is incorrect. Every encounter could be their last and they need to realise this very quickly.

I've killed kill team equivalents (BC space marines) with bog standard imperial guard (and only ten of them, at that...) . It's not hard, simply entirely situational.

Yep, at the end of the day, as much as I *hate* to say it as a player, if at the end of a mission no one was brought into crit, then that means either the apothecary must have been doing one heck of a job, or the player's tactics and execution must have been 100% flawless, or you were holding back and need to ramp up the lethality, number, or intelligence of the enemies. Mistakes should result in damage, possibly lots of damage, and for most space marines, getting into crit is roughly half health for them, so it just means combat has gotten serious, not that it's over. Not to mention that walking away unscathed from every single battle is kinda boring, and requires no gaining of skill (in or out of game).

Try to think like your enemies, too- if the Tyranids aren't even really harming the enemies (which if no one is going into crit, they're not), they'll just throw more bodies at it until their goals are accomplished. If the Tau are not, they'll employ better tactics and positioning, and focus fire on whatever is preventing them from taking down their foes. If the Traitor Legions are not, they'll either call in support from allies of their dieties, or manipulate the situation to give them a tactical advantage heading into the battle with dirty tricks behind the scene, like poisons or betrayal.

In terms of the players doing very stupid things, things that their character should know better about doing, I'm a big fan of dropping the not so subtle hint of confirming their action. Just asking "are you sure?" and allowing them that second thought about it should allow many players to pick up on the fact their actions might be foolish or unwise, and if it does not, well, fate points exist for a reason. Not to mention, if charging headlong into a carnifex *doesn't* result in death, it encourages them to just charge in foolishly against everything, and then when you inevitably stop pulling punches, they'll feel like you cheated them by killing them with whatever finally does the trick ("No way! I charged singlehandedly into that Hive Tyrant with dual boneswords, and that horde of 30 warriors, and that pack of Genestealers, what do you mean that Bloodthirster killed me in a single round?!?")

I've killed kill team equivalents (BC space marines) with bog standard imperial guard (and only ten of them, at that...) . It's not hard, simply entirely situational.

Ten imperial guard are no threat to a kill team whatsoever and shouldn't be and this isn't black crusade. A kill team should be full capable of ploughing into an entire legion of guardsmen and coming out the other side, having killed a bucket load of them with each and every swing. Lasgun rounds should be bouncing off their armour like rain.

Because if that doesn't happen, then marines simply wouldn't exist by now and god help anyone who even dares look sideways at a hive fleet.

Marines are the only people around who can take on things like hive tyrants reliably in personal combat. They`ll be jumping on their heads, emptying hellfire rounds in their faces and ripping off their limbs with their bare hands. That's the whole point. They are the only people the imperium has that can stand on equal footing with these things and live to tell the tale. A squad of them can turn the tide of an entire war.

I think some of the posters here have been playing "only war" too much and are too in love with guardsmen to see the whole point of deathwatch. The kill team are the elite among even marines and to say they cant parry things like a carnifex is missing the fact that they are themselves incredibly strong, frightening fast and supremely skilled. The rules of common sense seldom apply to them because they are out of that league. These are men who can hack their way through tanks, demons and the largest orcs, only to then ask for more.

And to be frank, what else are they going to do? If you are an assault marine and a carnifex is in charge range, the only other alternative is to let it get the charge in. No miracles will occur, it wont die of old age, someone needs to kill it and unless the emperor turns up or a baneblade is round the corner, one of the marines is going to have to put it down, most likely all of them while the assault marine keeps it busy. If he dies, then so be it, he died well and a heroes death. That's the point and with fate points, they can die and still be back for seconds once the beast is dead.

Deathwatch is not only war, or black crusade, it is a game for massive levels of heroic badassery and damned be the consequences.

I hate to break it to you, but if your marines can just shrug off las fire from an entire regiment (which apparently is in complete ignorance of the existence of heavy weapons teams, psykers, tanks and artillery...), your Gm is nerfing the imperial guard and ignoring both crunch and fluff. Basically, congratulations, you beat the imperial guard played with kid gloves on. That's neither badass, nor a special achievement. Some of us prefer things a bit more challenging.

I hate to break it to you, but if your marines can just shrug off las fire from an entire regiment (which apparently is in complete ignorance of the existence of heavy weapons teams, psykers, tanks and artillery...), your Gm is nerfing the imperial guard and ignoring both crunch and fluff. Basically, congratulations, you beat the imperial guard played with kid gloves on. That's neither badass, nor a special achievement. Some of us prefer things a bit more challenging.

This. Your kill team beat a legion? Well good job because they've 20 more to go through. Even then they can't shrug off 100s of shots at once which is what they'd be getting. This isn't Dynasty Warriors. I mean it works in that because that's just how it's made.

Because if that doesn't happen, then marines simply wouldn't exist by now and god help anyone who even dares look sideways at a hive fleet.

Though Games Workshop delivered their own answer to this when codex fluff made it clear that the Imperial Guard is indeed more important than the Space Marines...

But you still have a point. Both the badassery and the role/importance of the Marines differ heavily depending on the sources you look at, and I would say that Deathwatch aims to deliver "Movie Marines" levels of epicness, given the many weird talents (see the "One on One vs a Bloodthirster" thread) and special traits that make this incarnation quite a bit more powerful than their counterparts in, say, Black Crusade, let alone GW's own games. The comparison to movies like 300 is quite apt, and I believe was even brought up in an official interview once in regards to additional media to get the players into the right mood!

Bottom line: Everyone is right , and DW is obviously already operating on a different power, so I would suggest that everyone simply makes use of their privilege as GM and group and alter the game to conform to their own preferences, be it in terms of fluff or crunch. My own group rewrote parts of DW as well to make it feel closer to our vision of the 41st millennium, and there is no reason why you shouldn't do so yourself. Just make sure that everyone in your group is onboard.

I've killed kill team equivalents (BC space marines) with bog standard imperial guard (and only ten of them, at that...) . It's not hard, simply entirely situational.

Ten imperial guard are no threat to a kill team whatsoever and shouldn't be and this isn't black crusade. A kill team should be full capable of ploughing into an entire legion of guardsmen and coming out the other side, having killed a bucket load of them with each and every swing. Lasgun rounds should be bouncing off their armour like rain.

Because if that doesn't happen, then marines simply wouldn't exist by now and god help anyone who even dares look sideways at a hive fleet.

Marines are the only people around who can take on things like hive tyrants reliably in personal combat. They`ll be jumping on their heads, emptying hellfire rounds in their faces and ripping off their limbs with their bare hands. That's the whole point. They are the only people the imperium has that can stand on equal footing with these things and live to tell the tale. A squad of them can turn the tide of an entire war.

I think some of the posters here have been playing "only war" too much and are too in love with guardsmen to see the whole point of deathwatch. The kill team are the elite among even marines and to say they cant parry things like a carnifex is missing the fact that they are themselves incredibly strong, frightening fast and supremely skilled. The rules of common sense seldom apply to them because they are out of that league. These are men who can hack their way through tanks, demons and the largest orcs, only to then ask for more.

And to be frank, what else are they going to do? If you are an assault marine and a carnifex is in charge range, the only other alternative is to let it get the charge in. No miracles will occur, it wont die of old age, someone needs to kill it and unless the emperor turns up or a baneblade is round the corner, one of the marines is going to have to put it down, most likely all of them while the assault marine keeps it busy. If he dies, then so be it, he died well and a heroes death. That's the point and with fate points, they can die and still be back for seconds once the beast is dead.

Deathwatch is not only war, or black crusade, it is a game for massive levels of heroic badassery and damned be the consequences.

You have clearly never dealt with the Adeptus Sororitas. They get miracles all the time as it is in their very concept with acts of faith such as banishing the most foul daemon with prayer and chant, the avatar of St Celestine emerging onto the field to bring about flame and retribution. A group of humans without augmentation with marine equivalent (or not far off it) gear and driven to fight with holy zeal and fury so much so that it can defy space marines. This was proven during the Age of Apostasy when a comparatively small number of the sisterhood managed to hold their own against space marine companies in the midst of Terra, Adeptus Mechanicus...the works. It took the Custodes intervention to handle things. Humans are more than capable of fighting whatever challenges the galaxy can throw.

Marines are not being sent against generic rabble all the time. Yes if you threw them in against guardsmen and heretics then they would be fine as las guns and stubbers are unlikely to cause them too much of a threat but here's a reality check for you, they aren't going against those enemies. They are going against Tyranid bio weaponry which writhes and squirmes and can eat through your armour, Necron gauss cannons to flay the skin from bone and can vaporise armour, Chaos infused shots causing who knows what malignancies and madness or even the powerful psychic might of an Eldar as it unleashes the fury of the warp itself. These are sometimes the best that the galaxy has to offer, marines answer and sometimes even their call isn't enough. Even with the best kit in the world there are times when the odds are too great, the numbers and the threat are too much and even the Inquisition has to accept that it cannot beat that opponent. Why else do they have Exterminatus? That is the ultimate escalation point, when even the marines are out of their depth.

Every marine is a carefully grown asset. This isn't the Imperial guard assembly line, kill one and a dozen more exist to take their place. A marine has to be carefully produced, harvested, adapted and altered. As a result each one has time and effort invested in it, too much for them to simply throw their lives away without a tactical gain. Charging a carnifex head on is a tactically unwise move as proven as your death without slaying the beast is a waste. He did not die a heroes death if he did not bring the beast lo nor act as a diversion to allow many of his colleagues to escape. As a result for such marine to be used in this way is disrespectful to the Emperors sacrifice for mankind. Yes they do badass things but only when they feel the odds of success are either in their favour or that in their death it will be tactically beneficial to the progress of the conflict. Now if he'd have lept at the tyranid's face knowing it would be his end but instead armed with a melta bomb to ram and hold down its throat then maybe...

Two points to bare in mind.

1) The PCs have fate points. Don't worry about 'killing them' and forcing them to burn one. A fate point idealy should actually save the marine from that monster, but it doesn't mean it can't incapacitate them for the remainder of the encounter. In other words if the assault marine charges the Carnifex it might stomp the Astartes leaving him a mangled ruin (fate point burned) however it shouldn't finish the job, instead it will plow into the rest of the marines allowing him to be rescued later.

2) Space Marines are almost inevitably going to die in battle. That is the best and possibly only outcome for them. There is no retirement plan, no white picket fence, no yacht. Therefore it doesn't actually matter if the PC gets killed on screen during the game or off screen after the campaign has ended. In other words I think Deathwatch falls into those games like CofC or Paranoia where you should expect the PCs to be killed off.

Thanks for all the replies guys, this has been an interesting read.

Last thursday's session had them going up against a trygon in underground tunnels (plus a few hormagaunt hordes to slow them down) but they actually took the fight seriously after I told them I would stop going easy on them, and they managed to kill the beast with explosives and collapsing tunnels without actually taking a single hit from it (our wolf scout was almost incapacitated by a hormagaunt horde though). I'm sure I didn't quite use the beast to it's full potential but I at least got them genuinely scared this time!

Starting Ark Of Lost Souls this Thursday, curious to see how it goes!

See the problem fixed itself. That's always good.