Hello,

When you put a strong ennemy, the PC party focus on it and it go down pretty fast. When you throw 10 minions around the strong ennemy, the GM job become complicated with all the health point to keep in mind, abilities and the fight last way too long.

I dont like the mob rule in Rogue Trader. I tried the Quicksilver Mook rule he exposed on this forum but my players rejected it so badly I wish to try something else.

I want to try the horde rule. I borrowed a DW book and it seems cool (even if the RT player already ask me to low down the extra damage a horde can put).

I understand why a PC cannot dodge Horde attack (rain of iron and fire), how the energy shiel is taken in account ? It can negate the attack ? the damage can be lowered ?

Do you have some advice for me ? to introduce the horde rules in good conditions ?

Horde rules can be .. problematic, due to how their damage stacks based on Magnitude. Even if you arm them with rocks , the additional d10s might one-shot your players. It's been problematic even for Marine characters, and that says a lot with their rules in FFG's books.

I imagine this was the reason for why Black Crusade has introduced "two-tiered" Horde rules which work differently depending on whether you're an Astartes or "just" a Human Heretic (and where Humans can actually dodge Horde attacks), so instead of DW you may be better off looking at BC's Tome of Blood supplement if you want to add them to an RT game.

Alternatively, you could give this a look, as I've still been looking for people to playtest it .. *cough* *shamelessplug*

That said, since you already tried one fanmade ruleset and it didn't turn out too well, I'd recommend asking for a group consensus on whether they're actually willing to try further experiments.

Only War also has rules on combat with squads of enemies, even if the squad has a mixed composition.

Horde rules can be .. problematic, due to how their damage stacks based on Magnitude. Even if you arm them with rocks , the additional d10s might one-shot your players. It's been problematic even for Marine characters, and that says a lot with their rules in FFG's books.

I imagine this was the reason for why Black Crusade has introduced "two-tiered" Horde rules which work differently depending on whether you're an Astartes or "just" a Human Heretic (and where Humans can actually dodge Horde attacks), so instead of DW you may be better off looking at BC's Tome of Blood supplement if you want to add them to an RT game.

Alternatively, you could give this a look, as I've still been looking for people to playtest it .. *cough* *shamelessplug*

That said, since you already tried one fanmade ruleset and it didn't turn out too well, I'd recommend asking for a group consensus on whether they're actually willing to try further experiments.

What game in particular?

What game in particular?

I'm sorry, what was that referring to?

Thank you all for the input.

I ll try to check the horde rules on BC but now I am also interrested in these squad rules.

About your House Rule Lynata, at first I thought it was complicated... but it is not. I should give it a try... minus the "Look out Sir" because I dont like it, there is too much comic materials in it.

How do you do when one your squad shoot on another squad ? One roll to hit, the ones digit point at a squaddie , 1D5 hit on him ? Maybe some other rolls are required...

Do you have tested it ? 5HP for a squaddie is enough ?

About your House Rule Lynata, at first I thought it was complicated... but it is not. I should give it a try... minus the "Look out Sir" because I dont like it, there is too much comic materials in it.

Cool! Please let me know how you thought it works in practice. I did some rolling experiments, but have yet to see it embedded in an actual game, and how well it "synchs" with the players and their characters.

First impressions are important, so I plan on creating a proper PDF some time down the road. As you say, the basic mechanics are pretty simple, but I'm sure I can do better when it comes to presentation.

As for Look Out Sir, you could also "rework" it by limiting its use to once per encounter (come to think of it, I may do the same; you have a point about the comic material ... good feedback already!), or even making it automatic rather than the players choosing to make use of it. The latter would enable you to narrate it in a way that the squaddie was hit accidentally, rather than being suicidal.

How do you do when one your squad shoot on another squad ? One roll to hit, the ones digit point at a squaddie , 1D5 hit on him ? Maybe some other rolls are required...

Squads attacking Squads would be a mixture of the Attack and Being Attacked rules as mentioned in the link:

The attacking Squad rolls 1d100 and checks its BS column, determining the number of hits. The ones digit determines which of the target Squad's members gets hit. Damage per hit is a fixed number that depends on the Squad profile as mentioned in the Equipment section, with exception of special and heavy weapons which are still rolled independently.

Primarily, the Squad system is supposed to work either against individual PCs or NPCs (be them friendly or enemy), to support either the player group facing an enemy platoon, or attacking a single high profile target with support of an NPC Squad. In the case of Squads attacking Squads, the mechanic would currently result only in a higher chance of hitting and killing a single enemy trooper, if there are no other targets in proximity that the additional hits could be allocated to.

I could easily add a sub-rule about multiple hits affecting multiple squaddies, though. How about each additional hit going into the squaddie that is next in the list, working downwards in the table? This has the added benefit of smaller squads being slightly less likely to incur casualties as there are literally fewer targets that could be shot.

This rule could also be extended to Blast weapons, with the number in parenthesis indicating how many squaddies are hit in total, again starting from the one nominated by the ones digit.

I want to avoid rolling additional dice as much as possible to maintain combat fluidity. The ideal would be to roll a single die and then be able to say "this happens". For this reason I've made weapons damage fixed and based on averages.

Question: do you think I should flip the WS/BS characteristics? Right now it's more representative of the individual trooper (with a single soldier's WS/BS in the 1st column), but it may be more intuitive to the standard mechanics if the single trooper starts with the highest accepted roll for a single hit, and the WS/BS counter then goes down as more hits are added, so that a lower result is always better, exactly how it works for normal characters.

Also, I just noticed that I probably need to up the fixed damage number of Squads a little, as currently the lasgun is unable to penetrate even normal IG flak + TB. **** you, Toughness Bonus, you strike again!

5HP for a squaddie is enough ?

It should be more than enough due to all the soak in the game's basic mechanics. The intended effect is actually for squaddies to have a high chance of being slain immediately, but also have a chance of maybe surviving 1-2 hits from less powerful weapons if they're lucky.

I might include a small textbox about alternate recommended numbers depending on how "gritty" a GM wants their game to be, meaning how easily squaddies are supposed to die.

Just in the time it took me to write up this post, I already had some interesting ideas I want to add to the rules, so .. thanks for inspiring me with your interest.

Question: do you think I should flip the WS/BS characteristics? Right now it's more representative of the individual trooper (with a single soldier's WS/BS in the 1st column), but it may be more intuitive to the standard mechanics if the single trooper starts with the highest accepted roll for a single hit, and the WS/BS counter then goes down as more hits are added, so that a lower result is always better, exactly how it works for normal characters.

Oh ! you should, because I didn't understand how many hit your squad can land before this question, or maybe you should explicit that in the text.

So, with your veteran exemple, if I roll a 68 (Michael shot with his lasgun), my squad do 1 hit, if I roll a 32 , my squad land 4 shot on target. Plus, the heavy bolter guy is triggered so the squad land 3 lasgun hit and 1D5 heavy bolter hit. Am I correct ?

I could easily add a sub-rule about multiple hits affecting multiple squaddies, though. How about each additional hit going into the squaddie that is next in the list, working downwards in the table? This has the added benefit of smaller squads being slightly less likely to incur casualties as there are literally fewer targets that could be shot.

This rule could also be extended to Blast weapons, with the number in parenthesis indicating how many squaddies are hit in total, again starting from the one nominated by the ones digit.

Sounds good to me. What I understand is that if I throw a grenade (with blast 3) on squaddie #3, the squaddie #4 et #5 will get hit too. But if squaddie #4 is alreday dead, only #3 and #5 will take injuries.

Oh ! you should, because I didn't understand how many hit your squad can land before this question, or maybe you should explicit that in the text.

So, with your veteran exemple, if I roll a 68 (Michael shot with his lasgun), my squad do 1 hit, if I roll a 32 , my squad land 4 shot on target. Plus, the heavy bolter guy is triggered so the squad land 3 lasgun hit and 1D5 heavy bolter hit. Am I correct ?

A 32 on the other hand means 1 hit + 3 DoS to 70 (32, 42, 52, 62), so 4 Lasgun hits, plus Maxim's Heavy Bolter with a salvo of 1d5 shots on a single target. Ouch!

Sounds good to me. What I understand is that if I throw a grenade (with blast 3) on squaddie #3, the squaddie #4 et #5 will get hit too. But if squaddie #4 is alreday dead, only #3 and #5 will take injuries.

Exactly! Sounds intuitive enough and is a good approximation of what would happen on a battlefield.