After playing in the Deathwatch demo last weekend, I was struck by how easy the mass combat rules were to play, and how they kept the focus on the players.

While Rogue Trader has two sets of mass combat rules, I'm thinking of using the DW horde rules for my campaign.

The RT Simple rules are very abstract, and don't allow the players to be involved in normal combat. I've used these, and had to add a trick or boss fight at the end to give the players a feeling that they were there. But there only so many times you can say "all your troops flee in terror and you are left standing there, face to face, with the Big Nasty."

The RT Complex rules are much more about running large numbers of small units around. They would put my non-wargamer players to sleep.

The DW Horde rules rocked in the demo. You got to pick up PDF hordes as allies, and could "spend" them to tie down one enemy horde. You could do that with your Rogue Trader troops. The horde vs. a single unit could do a bunch of damage, so I do worry about scaling it so as not to overwhelm RT characters, who are not Space Marines, but I think by keeping the magnitude of the horde down, it's doable.

I do have questions about using them with minis: How big is a horde? Do you get attack modifiers based on the size?

Looks like FFG is selling me a copy of DW, even if I'm running RT. Well played, FFG.

After running an mutany onboard my Rogue Trader's ship, which ended up with the Arch-Militant (who might as well be a Space Marine) fighting two dozen badly armed scum, the Horde rules were what I was most looking forward to stealing out of the entire Deathwatch. I would have much rather made them a magnitude (X) Horde then delt with rolling 24 shotgun blasts.

I agree about the idea of spending a PDF Horde to tie up a Rebel Horde and the other tactical uses as well, it seems like a nice balance between giveing the characters control, and not turning it into a stratagy game. The concept of magnitude also allows for some great combination rules, such as making "Rally" Command Checks to increase the magnitude of a loyal Horde, or making Intimidate checks to reduce magnitude without fireing a shot.

From the calculations and stuff I've seen on the Deathwatch forums, people seem to be leaning at about 3-6 scum/conscripts per point of magnitude. Of course, the more powerful the troop, the less people-per-magnitude they're going to have. Gretian might be 10 per magnitude, Stormtroopers might be only 2 per point. Stormtroopers accompanied by a Commisar in an intrenchenced position after a rousing speach by a priest might actualy have more magnitude then people just to repersent their superior position, morale, equipment etc.

I would personaly try to work backwords when building Hordes. Decide about how many beings you want the Horde to repersent and how danagerous you think that many of these in this condition should be, and assign it a magnitude accordingly.

Probably the biggest thing to keep in mind is that Horde damage in DW scales pretty high.

Each magnitude of 10 for a horde gives them:

+1 ranged attack per round

+1d10 damage with all weapons

So, a Magnitude 30 Horde will get 3 ranged attacks, and do (weapon damage) + 3d10 with each of those attacks ... plus those attacks cannot be parried nor dodged. They automatically get 1 melee attack per enemy in melee, and can perform both melee and their ranged attacks in the same round.

Also, it was clarified in the DW forums (and I completely forgot) that a Horde is typically a size of Enormous (+20 to be hit, essentially).

A Horde vs RT PCs might need to either be kept to minimum sized magnitudes, or else adjust the bonuses. Say, make it +1d10 damage and attack for every 20 magnitude, or something. Or, even drop the +1d10 damage and just give them the extra attacks. Since RT PCs don't normally have power armor, nor unnatural toughness, and relatively low starting wounds (compared to DW), so even a single +1d10 additional damage is pretty huge.

dvang said:

You seem to be assuming that the hordes will be used against the PCs alone and the PCs should stand a chance of winning. If so, I disagree. If the PCs go up against someone else's army I expect them to lose, unless they brought along a suitable army of their own.

1 horde counters 1 enemy horde might work for Deathwatch, but in Rogue Trader we need a system that takes into account the gear. Sending a horde up against another horde should work, once the following are worked out:

- A relationship between the scale factor and the horde magnitude.

- Some rules for non-damaging things like a PC with a fear rating, hallucination grenade, etc.

1 horde counters 1 enemy horde might work for Deathwatch

I assume more complex rules will be published in Deathwatch. It's been flat-out said several times in the scenario that "for the scenario, we consider every horde to be of size X, have Y attacks, etc". I could see a lot more traits like Disciplined and Overwhelming to come into play in the core book.

dvang said:

Incorrect, the highest modifier for damage from Horde Magnitude is +2d10, as stated on page 17 of Final Sanction, so it's not that bad.

dvang said:

What a cheater!

MILLANDSON said:

< shrug > Umm... RT characters won't handle 3d10+X attacks very easily. Heck, 2d10+X attacks will be *very* dangerous. Keep in mind that RT PCs don't have the unnatural Toughness, the Power Armor, nor the Starting Wounds.

DW SM: To Bonus of 8, Power Armor of 8 = -16 to damage. Avg starting wounds seem to be about 21.

RT PC: To Bonus of 4 (maybe), Carapace Armor of 6 (maybe) = -10 to damage. Avg Starting Wounds are 2x To + 1d5 + (0-2). So, could be anywhere from 7-15, with an average of around 11.

So, SM reduce damage about 6 more per hit, and have about 10 more wounds than RT characters.

dvang said:

For a starting character, yes, it might be a bit of an overkill. But as the campaign unfolds, Profit Factor raises and equipment gets better, it's manageable.

Plus, sometimes you want the enemy to be overwhelming to the point where there's no chance of winning. This is where horde rules come in very handy, because sometimes you don't want a single enemy or an elite squad to drive the players away, for various reasons.

Keep in mind that you do not have to copy the rules completely. So, you are afraid that the rules for ranged and/or melee attacks of a horde are to much for an RT character.

Well, do not use them! Keep in mind that it even makes sense that an RT character will not attract that much of enemy fire. There is a difference between a regular human with good equipment and a 2,50m tall super human clad in an even more impressive space marine servo armour. Add all the myth about the "warriors of the emporer" and guess who is the fire magnet

My advise: take the horde rules (if you are so found of them!) but as long as any other unit (horde) is around, simply assume that all an RT char will attract are a number of 1d5-2 hits. Not attacks. Hits. No matter what the size of the "horde". If it comes to melee, play out combat like normal, and let them face of a number of opponents suiting the outnumbering you choose to be true behind the "magnitue". After they win their combat, assume their "horde" was ass successfull and role for moral of the enemy horde.

If it really comes down to "your RT and his trusted officers against 40 foreigners" forget about rolling attacks altogether! Simply assume how many hits/successfull melee attacks they have to face and use damage calculation "stolen" from DW against horde. Only this time, a "hit" is a killed fodder-npc and not a point of "magnitude". Unless, the "fodder" is an ogryn or something

I'm thinking big mob of orks getting fairly shooty and stabby, as they do but I'm also thinking that if I stuck a weirdboy in that mess he'd get quite excited being around that much orkyness, with some extra dice as they do being around their 'friends' and really snap mork's foot off in someones arse...

I like the Horde rules, don't get me wrong, and I think they'll work in RT too. I was just suggesting being cautious of the damage output that Hordes can produce, because its geared around dealing damage to SM, not frail humans.

Well, the easy first step to to keep the Magnatudes under 20 unless the attackers have primitive weapons. As noted, Rogue Traders arn't Space Marines - they should be taking on squads of little guys, not the Armies that a Deathwatch Kill Team might engage. It's worth remembering that cover still works against these groups, so if you keep down, you're still fairly safe, at least for a little while.

Question:

Hordes and Rogue Trader Ships

If a rogue trader were to dip into military forces on his ship, how many hordes and what magnitude of hordes could he deploy?

Magnitude is entirely abstract... a single point can represent any number of guys.

So... however many the GM wants it to, depending on the quality, time, equipment of the people from the ship and the enemy they are facing.

Perhaps more to the point, I think you have to first be able to answer the question, how many personel can a Rogue Trader deploy? What's their Morale, equipment, training, position, etc. like? What are the logical points of devision for this group? After you've answered all those questions, then you can consider what magnatude those particular groups might count as.

Of course, there's also nothing wrong with keeping the DW rules intact when you are running a RT game.

After all, would you really expect a Rogue Trader to bring NO ONE to a mass shoot-out? If anything, the Rogue Trader has 25,000 crew members that could easily be organized into Hordes of strength 30, etc so that the Rogue Trader is on equal footing.

Yes, I would shy away from making the Rogue Trader party fight Hordes without some Hordes of their own. Otherwise, I would keep the rules the same for simplicities sake.