I am curious how you all regulate the frequency with which the medicine skill can be used. Unless I am missing something, RAW is whenever you want as many tikes as you want. But I've found so far that I usually don't get players down below half health before the apothecary heals them back to full. And even when I do, they spend a fare point to heal to the point where the apothecary can heal to max. I also know in the errata stuff that there are "treated" wounds but I still have trouble creating a sense of danger/death

Any thoughts?

Don't be shy, drop your squad into critical. Especially if you have an apothecary. Most people think that critical is "I'm going to die soon", but in fact critical damages are lethal near 7-8, which represent 14-16 damage for a SM.

BTW, when are they healing ? After combat ? If so, then you just have to "balance" your combats. It can be tricky, but don't be afraid to add anti-heavy-infantry weapon like meltas, it should scare your players. If you can drop them to 0-5 HP, the apothecary will likely not heal them back to full, and this is really where your players start to 'fear' for there life. It worked for me at least, my players being at 7-12 HP ("Full", with treated wounds) and a bit stressed 'cause they still have to face the big bad guy.

Oh and remember, sometimes your players don't take damage/heavy damge because they fought very well, it can happen !

Are remembering the treated wounds rules?

If the medic doesn't heal the team all the way to full any left over wounds are now treated and can not be cured by medicae. They have to use FP or time.

Also don't be afraid to push up the punishment. Its actually rather hard to kill a player since first you have to get them to 0 wounds, then get them through the crit table, then get them to burn a FP. Only after that do they finally die.

Thanks for the advise! I think I have been hesitant to really throw nasty stuff at them but I will have to discard that notion. Right now, my favorite thing to do is set them on fire!

Even if first aid can't be applied to treated wounds again, there is still long time care, which means that they heal additional points at the end of each day(except for crit, than it's the end of the week). Heavy damaged doesn't matter most of the time in our games, thanks to the nartecium and a high TB.

So even if you get your players down to 0, they can be back at full health quite fast. It's a dark age, so don't hesitate to turn down the light for your players

I am "happy" to report that I found out how to make the players think twice... Enemy armor.

In the campaign I am running, the players got to choose between competing objectives - one of which was to we sure an astartes armory. They chose instead to secure a bridge. Long story short, I threw a killa kan at the players and its klaw did some major damage before being taken out.

About half the party is below half health - and two are heavily damaged; one has 6 points of critical.

And they are just beginning the mission...

Remember, Those not heavily damage will be healing every 24 hours via natural healing.

Also, if they have an apo around with a nartecium, heavy damaged is TBx3 instead of x2.

Negative, Avdm. The Netharcium only modifies the Marine's threshold for First Aid actions made with the Netharcium. Natural healing uses the character's normal wound thresholds for light/heavy damage.

Think of it as the difference between a doctor attempting to fix a broken bone by eye and touch vs. an x-ray. Once the doc sets the bone though, that X-ray doesn't help it [the bone] heal any faster.

Whoops, you're right. I guess we might have to consider that in our next session.

Besides, if the doctor sets your bone by eye and touch and doesn't fix it in the best position, your long term healing will definitly be affected, so I guess this could be houseruled without bending logic.