True, the Unnatural abilities are not necessarily the best idea. I'll agree with you. It's not a flaw specific to Deathwatch, but a flaw to the entire 40k RPG system. They're honestly kind of stuck with it, though, ever since DH.

As pointed out by others, it really does represent that the sheer volume of attacks is allowing a chance that a small amount of damage will be done. It's not that an individual knife does more damage, but that the greater number of attacks allows the possibility that one strike will hit the ***** in the armor, or that the multitudinous repeated blows at a single location might cause some bruising/damage or weak spot, etc.

"Average" folks *can* be enemies/opponents of a PC team. Why not? Say there's a rebellion on a planet that the killteam is on. A hundred men with autoguns are a threat that needs to be eliminated/taken care of. Now, they probably aren't as much of a threat as a lascannon or two ... and they won't be with the Horde rules either, but they could cause some minor damage to the SM if left unchecked.

From what I can tell, DW will tend to have a mix of enemies:
Horde "minions" or troops, and single dangerous opponents.

Single dangerous opponents would vary from Orks to Genestealers to Named NPCs. Horde minions, in various sizes, are the troops at their disposal. Whether this is PDF troopers, a ragtag mob of urchins, a pack of wolves, or a bunch of termagaunts, etc.

Yes, Hordes are probably for the most part used as obstacles to slow or wear away at the SM, rather than primary enemies. You might, however, encounter a situation where 4 or 5 Hordes accompany 1 or 2 single enemies (their leaders, for example).

I totally agree that this is mostly opinion, and you are perfectly allowed/reasonable to be cautious. I'm not saying you're wrong or anything like that. I just wanted to point out what I thought about the Horde rules as I understand them (from the brief snippet in the free RPG book), to try to alleviate your (and anyone elses) concerns. As a GM, it seems to me it will make larger-scale combats easier, while also allowing for the GM to throw less exotic foes against the SM and still have them provide some sort of threat and ability to delay the PCs.

The Horde rules seem to be a reasonable method to keep the high-powered/epic feel of SM while allowing the use of more 'average' foes as a credible threat (in sufficient size).

One thing I didn't mention, and to keep in mind, is that a Horde is (usually) somewhat fragile and its morale can Break due to casualties, and causing it to run away. So, your SM can wade into a mob, slaying dozens, and the mob might eventually run in fear from your uber-ness. Epic.

Cifer said:

Given that I playtested this a couple of months ago, this was basically my reason for liking it too. The increased damage from massed attacks isn't really anything to do with damage, but all to do with, when 30-40 people are shooting at you, there's a greater chance of one or more of them hitting a weak spot.

It basically works in the same way as massed fire in the tabletop games does, and in the case of Deathwatch, I don't think that's a bad thing.

Hell, I've been waiting for Final Sanction to come out so I could start using the Horde mechanic for all games I run without breaking the NDA, rather than just using it for my playtest sessions.

Hell, I've been waiting for Final Sanction to come out so I could start using the Horde mechanic for all games I run without breaking the NDA, rather than just using it for my playtest sessions.

Ouch. Knowing there's an elegant solution to a problem that's bugged quite a few RPGs for years but not being allowed to use it has got to suck...

Cifer said:

Yep, especially when the RT game I'm a player in came to the point where a swarm of 30 termagaunts burst out of a ghost ship....

That was a LONG night.

Ok, done reading through the adventure for the 3rd time (yay for nearby indep retailer actually having it on hand today to give out), I think I can point out a couple of things some folks might have missed:

1) Hordes: They're there, mechanically, they seem to work as long as you remember Horde is just a name and not a description. There are two "examples" of traits you can give different styles of horde to make them fit your "wild and bloodthirsty" or "disciplined and steady". The damage, the inability to avoid them, etc, all seems very solid. 30 guys with autoguns WILL hit a space marine enough to hurt him, possibly badly (sit down, do the math rolling it out and see how many times you fury someone with it sometime). All that firepower, yeah, you MIGHT find weak spots and get lucky... even with the additional damage from getting lambasted by a full horde is no guarantee you'll hurt a marine. Also, damaging and dispersing a horde seems easier than most folks seem to be worried about. 1 Marine facing 100 men is probably going to have a bad day and be out of ammo and hip deep in blood by the end, but you're not 1 marine facing 100 guys in a duel at high noon. You're spec ops at its finest, you fight smart, use terrain, use lighting, etc, and have a day. The opposite can also be true, enfilading overlapping field of fire Blood Pact troops can group up, also use terrain, etc to fight back.

2) Ammo: It actually doesn't list clips BUT, the description under bolter & bolt pistol in the equip section of the demo claims that all DW bolters/pistols are fire selectored, if they didn't change that rule, that means that the gun itself holds 3 clips.

3) To the poster who used Tabletop MathHammer, remember most enemies wont' get an armor save at all against a marine bolter in this game (unlike the TT wargame where everyone and their mother is wearing armor that can shrug off a small nuclear projectile).

Connection issues, so haven't been around to respond to this. I will once again reiterate that it is clearly a case of just how "realistic" vs. how "cinematic" you want the game. Rules that are highly cinematic but work for genre convention are different than those that present the simulated reality of a universe. What I'm getting shades of here is "realism be damned, just make it cool to play." That's great for those that want it, not so great for those that don't.

All I can do is present my thoughts based upon the information that I'm seeing and the individual preferences that come attached to it. It's not aggressive since any discussion is just that-a way of presenting and sharing ideas.

Just so you know that's how I tend to approach these things.

gruntl said >>>

So wasps aren't dangerous to humans at all? One wasp sting might not kill you (disregarding allergies), but 1000 stings will most likely do just that. You will probably not even notice one mosquito, but spend an entire evening naked by a lake in mosquito-country and see how fit-for-fight you are after suffering thousands of stings.

I'm not quite sure that is even a relevant example. While I understand you're trying to suggest a simple multiplier we're talking about cumulative effects of minute quantities of toxin that can and do effect the human in question. In the case of the Marine, they're not going to be damaged by a knife regardless of whether it is wielded by 1 person or whether it is wielded by 10. (Or if one were going to take your example literally, which I do so here tongue-in-cheek, the 1,000 wasps isn't going to do much damage to a Marine anyway. )

You might suggest, as has been done, that it is the case of the "English Longbow." Again, while I can get the analogy in this case it smacks soundly of the "Stormtrooper Principle," or the idea that Stormtroopers in advanced armour are going to be taking damage from a bunch of Ewoks just because they happen to be a horde. The Ewoks should not have been able to penetrate advanced armour (admittedly, depending on the type of armour) using light rocks and lithic projectile points just because their "horde" was essentially "Tribe(s)." The weapons are going to bounce of the armour and the Stormtroopers are going to be immune to that damage unless someone does get lucky (either through Dark Heresy 's Righteous Fury were a paring knife could possibly cut a planet in two, even if that is a ridiculous example or some other "Lucky Shot") mechanic.

Quite simply my point is that there is a difference between an increase in damage applied and the probability that damage might be caused in some exceptional scenarios. If one were to bring in "realism" again, that horde of Ewoks now using lithic knives? How many of them are actually going to be able to effectively close with the advanced armoured warrior to multiply the damage in such a way?

As a gamist/cinematic mechanic to attempt to redress the balance created by the damage mechanics in the Dark Heresy engine? As one to keep the cinematic pace going in the game? Fair enough. Given the game engine in question, it might even be the sole plausible ways in which the problems of damage/armour/toughness bonus can be addressed without recourse to the crunchy Righteous Fury since that is based on individual skill/luck rather than force multipliers.

Hmmn... For another example, it would be similar to saying, "Okay, this automatic rifle fires 20 shots in a combat round, so I'm going to multiply the overall damage that the weapon does since this will allow me to more effectively bypass the armour of that lightly armoured vehicle," rather than the idea that you saturate the area and improve the odds of one or more rounds hitting said vehicle, even if each has a limited probability of penetrating the armour.

Again, don't get me wrong-I'm not suggesting that it might not be an effective mechanic, I'm merely suggesting that as it is being presented it conflates absolutely damage with the probability of damage, which might be "right effect, wrong implication." As someone that prefers "realism" this is obviously going to strike me wrong, but that doesn't make it a bad mechanic or a bad rule. It just makes it, perhaps, a rule that is not for me nor are the justifications really striking home given how it is being represented.

gruntl said >>>

To me it sounds that the horde rules makes it possible to recreate battles against huge forces of enemies, while still keeping the battles pretty quick. In my opinion rules like this is a must for a space marine game.

Mass Combat system. That's not quite what I get the impression of here, but rather a way of turning ineffectual attacks into something that can be a "threat" to a Marine character so that it can interplay with the Single and Team Awesome modes.

Cifer said >>>

In DH, this lucky shot is represented by the Righteous fury rule, so now you have two options: Either roll for fourty people and hope your players don't get bored or devise an alternative mechanic. Fortunately, it seems the latter method was used here.

And, hence, the idea of how gamist and cinematic you wanted to be versus simultanionist and "realistic." Neither are a bad approach in terms of effectiveness of the mechanic, but in terms of justification of the mechanic...? Different thing.

It's a moot point. Things aren't going to change because I happen to find the equation "numbers = damage multiplier" not to my liking. I'm merely pointing out that "probability of damage for appropriate weapons = force multiplier = / = damage multiplier." In the DH engine? Perhaps not so much.

Aajav-Khan said >>>

Without some kind of rule mechanism for mass volume of fire* the marine can basically just stand and laugh while the Guardsman empty their clips at him at point blank range.

And that's partially the point. If the DH engine fails to allow lasguns to bypass a Marine in power armour, i.e. the weapon is not capable of penetrating the armour, then 20 people firing the same weapon aren't going to have the same effect unless the armour itself is being damaged. If your whittling away at the armour it's a completely different story since, in the long run massed fire will have an impact. I was, however, not aware that power armour was treated as if it had some form of "Wounds" on its own.

pyttman said >>>

Anyway, my opinion is that the plot is more important than the munition count. But is just my opinion.

I would personally agree, it's just one of the reasons that this one struck off the disbelief klaxon. That's why I would either use pure Mass Combat rules that encompassed player actions (Team Awesome Mode?) or not even bother with it if they are in Single Mode. In the first they're acting as a cohesive unit and are represented by their own "character," while the horde is represented by its own "character." Team Awesome Combat Powers can act as force multipliers, etc.

As it strikes me now.

For Single Mode? Who cares how many people are on the enemy side or how many bolts the Marine has? At the end of the day it's who is on the business end of their weapons, how many mooks are bounding ignobly off their armour with crunching of bones, and that individual "champion" that is designed to be a threat.

If you're wanting mooks to be a threat, make sure that they're armed with appropriate weaponry, and then have a mechanic that works like RoF and talks about the probability of the hit as determined by the mass volley, then have that work as a version of Righteous Fury.

Again, they're not going to change it (obviously), I'm just discussing perspectives.

dvang said >>>

I totally agree that this is mostly opinion, and you are perfectly allowed/reasonable to be cautious. I'm not saying you're wrong or anything like that. I just wanted to point out what I thought about the Horde rules as I understand them (from the brief snippet in the free RPG book), to try to alleviate your (and anyone elses) concerns.

Much appreciated. Hopefully the expanded justification explains where I was personally coming from.

dvang said >>>

One thing I didn't mention, and to keep in mind, is that a Horde is (usually) somewhat fragile and its morale can Break due to casualties, and causing it to run away. So, your SM can wade into a mob, slaying dozens, and the mob might eventually run in fear from your uber-ness. Epic.

Including morale into that does make the "horde" seem more interesting. On my part it's getting more towards the Mass Combat rules and that whole difference between Single Mode and Team Awesome Mode.

Cifer said >>>

Ouch. Knowing there's an elegant solution to a problem that's bugged quite a few RPGs for years but not being allowed to use it has got to suck...

I'm intrigued. Why is it ever been a problem before unless you (the generic you) wanted it to be?

YMMV.

Kage

@Kage

As the point I'm going to answer was best expressed in another reply of yours, I'll answer that one.

And that's partially the point. If the DH engine fails to allow lasguns to bypass a Marine in power armour, i.e. the weapon is not capable of penetrating the armour, then 20 people firing the same weapon aren't going to have the same effect unless the armour itself is being damaged. If your whittling away at the armour it's a completely different story since, in the long run massed fire will have an impact. I was, however, not aware that power armour was treated as if it had some form of "Wounds" on its own.

But there is an allowance for lasguns bypassing Marine Power Armour: it's called Righteous Fury. There is that minuscule chance that it happens, and that it's strong enough to bypass both Armour and Toughness. So are you going to roll 40 NPCs to see if one of them makes it or are you going to use a simpler mechanic which has about the same chance of dealing the same damage to a marine?

I'm intrigued. Why is it ever been a problem before unless you (the generic you) wanted it to be?

Because there are a lot of systems where the PCs can encounter foes that are only a danger due to their numbers. And those same systems usually treat every single combatant as an entity with its own set of actions per round, similar to a PC. What results from this? If we assume combat turn length to be proportional to number of participants, then when the five PCs fight fourtyfive instead of five enemies, combat becomes five times as long - which turns it rather tedious.

The only exception I've seen was 7th Sea, where fighting huge numbers of mooks is a genre staple so equivalent mechanics (brute squads have one set of actions each) are implemented.

Cifer said >>>

As the point I'm going to answer was best expressed in another reply of yours, I'll answer that one.

A shame. I think that I covered your response in the previous post as you seem to have broadly repeated the "English Longbow" argument. Suffice to say that I believe it is less elegant to scale damage up collectively than it is to improve the probability of scaring a "***** in the armour," that probability could be encompassed by "horde skill" rather than collective damage which has numerous problems as expressed.

Cifer said >>>

But there is an allowance for lasguns bypassing Marine Power Armour: it's called Righteous Fury.

Which I mention in the previous post, similarly pointing out that it doesn't really come down to anything more than treating the "horde" as little more than an chap that is firing an automatic rifle or high-RoF weapon. Again, a little bit more elegant without the problematic interpretations. YMMV, though.

Again, though, this is just based upon the commentary being made, with final criticisms only being made when the product is seen. I'm not sure how "hordes" interplay with Single Mode and Team Awesome Mode or any of a number of other cinematic options that might be there to "speed up game play." Just judged solely on how it is described? I think that there is avenue for discussion, but no real definitive statements by anyone, whether they are pro- or con-horde as described.

Cifer said >>>

If we assume combat turn length to be proportional to number of participants, then when the five PCs fight fourtyfive instead of five enemies, combat becomes five times as long - which turns it rather tedious.

Ah, that will be why then. I wasn't really making that assumptions, nor implying that the solution was entirely systemic. Apologies, though, the question really didn't make that clear.

As mentioned in the previous post, however, if "horde" is more of a Team Awesome Mode (i.e. pertaining specifically to the operation of unit-level operations) then while I would still probably have done for another mechanic (probability of scoring a "armour *****" rather than multiplying damage to make it statistically more likely in any given round) then it might serve its function. On a Single Mode game I merely point out that the rule becomes inherently more problematic.

Again, though, we don't know how the different modes blend together, relate to the simply use of "horde" mechanics (as presented) and any number of other different variables. (It's hard to even comment on the information as presented in the Free RPG adventure/scenario...)

Kage

Was it even specified that damage was straight-out multiplied? I think it will be best to put this debate on hiatus for the few days until Final Sanction is published and we can read for ourselves exactly what horde mechanics do.

Cifer said:

Indeed, hence one of the reasons that I said something akin to "... as presented." If it acts as a force multiplier as presented by dvang, which is what the contention was about, then, yeah. More elegant ways of doing it. Even with access to the document, one imagines that there will more caveats and extra juicy crunch (errr...) in the main rulebook that might go some way to explaining or otherwise justifying the rule. Again, not saying that it was bad, just that as presented there might have been some more elegant solutions or "fixes." Waayyy too early to say that definitively.

Anyway, even that's fairly moot since I'm going to be buying it again. Seeing how they handled the whole "Marine equipment" angle is going to be worth it if nothing else (and that I would doubt).

Thanks for taking this as a discussion and not an argument, Cifer. Mucho appreciated.

Kage

Kage2020 said:

Well, I'm not a huge fan of realism as a game design-concept, so I guess we have quite different viewpoints here. The number one reason why I think realism is a quite bad concept to discuss is that it's so very easy to argue points. What someone feels is realistic might feel unrealistic to another and so on.

To me it's way more realistic that there exists chunks in the armor and way for a even a lowly knifetoting cultist to damage a space marine than making the marines completely invulnerable to anything that cannot penetrate their armor. This is not for cinematic reasons, I just don't think 100% success rates in anything is very realistic (even less so in a sci-fi/fantasy setting). I also quite enjoy good abstractions of rules where you can avoid getting bogged down in detailed combat for hours (which I still think is one of the main points in having the horde rules). Granted, you're of course correct in that this could be done in some other way (that might be more realistic).

The single cultist has a chance of damaging the space marine by RF, what the horde rules seems to do is just to scale up the chance of extra damage occuring without having to do 100 dice rolls.

My insect example were perhaps not very relevant, I'm perfectly aware that the "damage multipliers" aren't really that simple in those cases . My point was exactly the "English Longbow" effect, so just disregard my silly example.

Kage2020 said:

You're interpreting it wrong.

A knife wound does injure a Space Marine, it's just a minor injury that is easily ignored, just like a wasp sting- enough of them are going to start doing damage. The mechanics of the game treat it as though it does no damage, because that's the mechanics of the game, not because it's being realistic. You are arguing that you find one facet of the rules unrealistic but ignoring the fact that the vast majority of the rules are equally unrealistic to allow them to support a game.

gruntl said >>>

Well, I'm not a huge fan of realism as a game design-concept, so I guess we have quite different viewpoints here.

Indeed. And that's not a bad thing. This is one of the reasons that I have multiply stated this as being the case-just because I'm not liking it doesn't mean that it doesn't work. It's one of the reasons that I've suggested that, on the face of things, turning the "horde" into a big machine gun would seem to be a more elegant solution. Again, though, as per my previous post, there is just wild speculation. Any fuller criticism requires access to more detailed mechanics. Another example would be the "Deathwatch Training" thing that basically gives them automatic Righteous Fury (if they roll the 10, that is). That has me suspicious at the moment, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't work or that it is a bad mechanic.

The above is one of the reasons that I'm liking this thread at the moment. It has been, for the most part, open discussion with very little sense that people are taking my comments as an attack on the product (which they are not) or it is felt that there should be a knee-jerk defense of the product. It's just a bunch of nerds chatting about games and realising that preference shades into quite a lot of this discussion and that's fine .

gruntl said >>>

The number one reason why I think realism is a quite bad concept to discuss is that it's so very easy to argue points. What someone feels is realistic might feel unrealistic to another and so on.

I'm not sure that I agree with that, but fair enough if that is how you see it. I respect both that and the honesty.

gruntl said >>>

To me it's way more realistic that there exists chunks in the armor and way for a even a lowly knifetoting cultist to damage a space marine than making the marines completely invulnerable to anything that cannot penetrate their armor.

Please don't misunderstand. I too believe that power armour as "chinks" in it that can be exploited. After all, we know about "bendium" from Gav Thorpe's Angels of Darkness . All I have been suggesting boils down to a number of points:

1. Scaling weapon damage in the "horde" to make them more of a threat strikes me, based on the information that we were given with the thread, as less elegant than treating it as little more than a machine gun and, for the sake of simplicity, just use a variation of automatic fire rules. Then "skill" of the horde could determine the probability of "hitting the weak spot" in the armour. (This is something that I feel that we're going to see in the full rules. I doubt that the free adventure was dealing with, say, hordes of Eldar or Ork.)
2. Should we really feel afraid of making someone redundant? Are a horde of knife-wielding lunatics really going to take out a tank? Or people armed with 45's?

Perhaps this is my bias showing up once again. I just don't see that it is necessary to make a "horde" of 5 year old children a serious threat to a Marine (I know, I know, it's a silly example). That just seems too much of a tabletop wargame convention to me. YMMV and the mileage is great wherever you're coming from, though.

gruntl said >>>

I also quite enjoy good abstractions of rules where you can avoid getting bogged down in detailed combat for hours (which I still think is one of the main points in having the horde rules). Granted, you're of course correct in that this could be done in some other way (that might be more realistic).

I agree with regards to abstracted combat. Please don't mistake the thrust of my discussion to be wanting more crunch, or to actually roll "40 times" for a horde. Perish the thought. I'm talking about the nature or elegance of the abstraction itself, something that once again we're probably not really going to be able to get to grips with until they release the full rules.

gruntl said >>>

The single cultist has a chance of damaging the space marine by RF, what the horde rules seems to do is just to scale up the chance of extra damage occuring without having to do 100 dice rolls.

Which is, if you recall, what I've been essentially saying. Simply increasing damage by size of the "horde" is less elegant than increasing the probability of shots actually hitting that weakness in the armour and exploiting it. Perhaps the game designers actually calculated all the statistics and the increased damage is based upon the average number of hits that go into Righteous Fury and the average damage done by Righteous Fury. I'll be good with that, but at the same time I would stand by the points, above.

gruntl said >>>

My point was exactly the "English Longbow" effect, so just disregard my silly example.

Which is once again why I'm talking about treating the horde as a "machine gun" based upon what has been presented.

Evilgm said >>>

You're interpreting it wrong.

I thought that I was interpreting it in the context of my argument, which was ultimately that when dealing with Space Marines that scaling damage might not be as elegant as other approaches that are also supported in the rules. I'm all for having a crunchy set of rules, but I don't see the need of creating new rules where it isn't really necessary.

Evilgm said >>>

You are arguing that you find one facet of the rules unrealistic but ignoring the fact that the vast majority of the rules are equally unrealistic to allow them to support a game.

Hmmmnn... If a rule breaks ones suspension of disbelief, does not that mean you should change the rule or ignore it? You're right, though. This is just one rule amongst many of the same kind, none of which make it less of a fun game.

Kage

FYI, since the demo has been run... off the top of my head, the basic rules for Hordes are:

Hordes:

= 1 ranged attack per magitude multiple of 10. So, a magnitude 30 Horde makes 3 ranged attacks for example

= 1 attack against each opponent in melee

= +1d10 damage per magnitude multiple of 10. So, a Magnitude 30 horde will do (weapon damage) + 3d10, for example

= Attacks from a Horde cannot be dodged or parried

= A Horde must make a WP roll if they suffer 25% casualties in a single round, or else break and flee (except for Disciplined Hordes)

= A Horde suffers a -10 to WP rolls once they get below 50 (except for Disciplined Hordes)

= A Horde auto breaks when they get below 25% magnitude.

Thanks for posting the update, dvang. As far as I can see, that pretty much confirms what I was saying, at least in my mind. Still doesn't make it a bad rule for speeding up combat, though, as stated numerously.

Kage

dvang said:

This has a maximum of +2d10.

dvang said:

This only applies to melee attacks - a character can dodge or parry ranged attacks from hordes as normal.

dvang said:

Other way around. A Disciplined Horde (that is, any Horde given the Disciplined trait) ignores the -10 WP for being below half strength and is not automatically routed when below 25% in total - they still take the WP test if they suffer 25% casualties in one round.

Thanks for the quick summary dvang.

To me, those rules sound quite good. The +1d10 per 10 magnitude (max 2d10) essentially gives you a couple of free Righteous fury rolls for being a horde (1d10 per 10 seems to match the 10% chance of getting RF normally, although the fact that damage is capped and no confirmation roll necessary makes it tricky to compare directly) . I think think this is a smooth way of averaging out the damage received from 30-60 attacks, instead of having to make all those rolls.

Just doing some back-of-the-envelope calculations (mainly for my own sake, please ignore it if you find such things boring).

No horde rules:

30 enemies with knifes, each with SB:+3 and WS 30. One attack per enemy.
Damage roll: 1d5+3 (RF on 10)
Mean damage per attack: 5.78 (no RF), 10.78 (1 RF), 15.78 (2 RF), 20.78 (3 RF)
(.78 rather than .5 due to 1d5 being rolled with a d10, 9 not being RF)

Total soak for a space marine: 16 (from the extra characters). To third order in RF,
=> 30*(0.3*(0.97*(5.78-16)+0.029*(10.78-16)+0.00087*(15.78-16)+0.00003*(20.78-16)+...))= [damage cannot be negative]=
=0.001

No threat at all, you'd have be to extremely unlucky to get injured.

With horde rules (as interpreted by dvangs post above):

30 enemies with knifes, a magnitude 30 horde. Still WS 30 and SB3. One attack for all of them (melee vs one opponent).
Damage roll: 1d5+3+2d10 (can you get RF on the 2d10?, assuming no, the expression becomes so cumbersome if I have to include that )
Mean damage: 16.78 (no RF), 21.78 (1 RF), 26.78 (2 RF), 31.78 (3 RF)

Total soak is still 16,
=> 0.3*(0.97*(16.78-16)+0.029*(21.78-16)+0.00087*(26.78-16)+0.00003*(31.78-16)+...)=
=0.28

Damage is up by a factor of 300 by using the horde rules (even more when considering dodge/parries). It's still not a lot of damage though, a space marine will not be hindered at all by such a horde unless being very unlucky.

Doing the same with better equipped cultists, using mono-swords (1d10+SB, 2pen), same WS

No horde rules:
Total damage:
30*(0.3*(0.97*(8.5-14)+0.029*(18.5-14)+0.00087*(28.5-14)+0.00003*(38.5-14)+...))= 1.29

With horde rules (as interpreted by dvangs post above):
Total damage:
0.3*(0.97*(19.5-14)+0.029*(29.5-14)+0.00087*(39.5-14)+0.00003*(49.5-14)+...)= 1.74

assuming they have ranged weapons with manstopper ammo (1d10+3, 2 pen).
BS 30.

No horde rules:
Total damage:
30*(0.3*(0.97*(8.5-14)+0.029*(18.5-14)+0.00087*(28.5-14)+0.00003*(38.5-14)+...))= 1.29

With horde rules (as interpreted by dvangs post above):
Total damage:
3*0.3*(0.97*(19.5-14)+0.029*(29.5-14)+0.00087*(39.5-14)+0.00003*(49.5-14)+...)= 5.23

The horde rules seem to affect the total damage a fair bit. The breaking of hordes will of course make them a bit weaker, but still it's quite clear that the horde ruleset makes individual enemies stronger by allowing them to form hordes. I personally don't see a problem with this, but I guess this is an issue which some might find problematic. Please point out if I've made any errors in my calculation, I'm not very surprised if I have.

edit: corrected some of those error already

I am not going to go into the Maths, I read the rules and adventure last night and I like the horde rules. I like the fact that a SM walking slowly towards a Horde of PDF can get shredded. I would have loved to have used these rules in some of the Purge the Unclean adventures that call for the PC's to be mobbed. Back to the wall mowing down dozens while the ammo starts to run out. I think it will make for the dramatic moments and artwork that I associate with WH40K.

The adventure itself I think is OK, My worry is that the adventures could become quite samey. I will probably use Deathwatch as an interlude to some of my DH games. The players like to be able to just walk in and kick a** once in a while.

Thomas

gruntl said:

Your calculations seem to assume that 1 NPC means 1 magnitude for the horde. Could you calculate an approximate number of NPCs per magnitude to get the damage roughly equal between a horde and rolling for each NPC ?

Knowing the magnitude to NPC count ratio will be helpful for dealing with army vs army combat in Rogue Trader.

Oh that's right of course, one magnitude is not necessarily one enemy. But it's pretty easy to rescale, just multiply the resulting damage from the non-horde calculations by the number of NPC's that go into one magnitude. E.g., if 5 cultists make one magnitude the total damage for a magnitude 30 horde should be calculated by doing 150 attacks instead of 30. The final damage for the mono-sword cultists then go from 1.3 to 6.5.

The exact number of npcs/mag needed to get the same total damage out depends on the equipment of course. Just divide the value for total damage for the horde rules with the damage from the non-horde rules to get a number. E.g., for the mono-sword cultists above, the figure is 1.34*(number of people in melee with the horde). For the ranged horde, the figure is 4.1. For the knife-horde the figure is ~300*(number of people in melee with the horde).

So yeah, my comparison is a bit pointless. Depending on how large a horde is in real numbers you can get whatever figures you want out. But it seems that worries that the horde rules will make weak enemies scale up too strongly is quite unfounded. They get a bit stronger if you assume 1 mag=1 NPC, but the rules say that one magnitude "may represent tens, scores or even hundreds".

I don't think it matters that much. It's an intentional abstraction, so use it to make abstract whatever you want. It's there so low-level enemies can threaten tough player characters, and it succeeds in that design goal quite well.

BYE

I agree totally, I don't think the horde rules really need to be interpreted this literally. I did the calculations mostly to satisfy my curiousity. The rules seem really good to me as they are, without worrying how many enemies you're really fighting and so on.

Santiago said:

Depends a whole lot on country and service. As for the services I know something off the standard loadout of front-line infantry (using 30 round magazines) varies from 6 to 12. However, the most limiting thing is that you can't really fit that many mags into your webbing without it being a royal pain so while you might have "only" 6 mags on your body, you might also have 300 round (worth 10 extra mags) stashed in the vehicle nearby. All in all, its worth mentioning that in real world combat people shoot a hell of lot of rounds without ever really attempting to hit with them. The ammunition consumption of a modern infantry squad on breaking contact might easily exceed 300 rounds in few seconds with not a single one of those rounds hitting an enemy. This is simply because soldiers are taught to automatically suppress enemy by pouring fire in their general direction, thus forcing the enemy to keep their heads down and preventing them from firing back.

gruntl said:

I'm sure that the rules game out quite well. I haven't yet seen a persuasive enough argument other than, "They're the rules, they work quite well" to suggest that feeling that upping the damage is the "better" solution to the problem of massed fire/attacks against a Marine. Again, though, the caveat that we still don't know how this is going to interact with the different Modes of Marine-ness...

Kage

Have to say that I've had a read through the adventure and, with no offence meant to the creators, I'm struggling to see where all the praise is coming from. It basically boils down to "You land on the planet and fight a group of foes. Move to this location and fight some foes, then move here and fight more foes, then move here and fight even more foes, stop this being destroyed by fighting some foes, reach the end and fight lots of foes. Then end". Hell, even I could have written that one and my adventure writing skills leave little to be desired.

Considering this game has been stated as being more than combat I think the introductory adventure for it is a very poor example of just how different and versatile marines can be, and I hope to christ that the main rule book has more to offer in the missions department.

Just my opinion.