As title implies, I am a first timer, so kindly go easy on my lack of knowledge and finesse.

I just had a few questions from the Final Sanction pdf, so a couple of friends and I can run a game. Mostly the following:

1) Do marines have the Unnatural Toughness/Strenght as a universal trait? I presume that is the reason why it is not on any given character sheet.

2) Weapon Skill and Ballistic skill are both noted as that you need to roll under or equal to your WS or BS skill respectively. So, for example, on D100 you must roll 44 or under to hit in melee as Brother Elyas. My confusion lies in the actions, such as All Out Attack giving a +20 Bonus. Does this mean that his effective WS becomes 64? Or that it is deducted and he musty roll 24 or under? I am assuming the former, but I'm asking you gents purely because this is my first time.

WGXH said:

1 - Probably, but we can't be sure until Deathwatch is released.

2 - If your WS is 44 and you use All Out Attack, you hit on a 64 or less.

Cheers muchly. Be giving it a quick run later on this week, and am eagerly awaiting the full release.

Yeah, Space Marines have genetic enhancements which grant them the Unnatural Strength/Toughness. So it's assumed they all have it.

If the stat block for the Strength attribute shows 49 (10), you may be a bit confused at how they arrive at this number for strength bonus. Normally, the tens digit will give you your bonus. But since they have Unnatural Strength, it effectively doubles that bonus. But it doesn't just stop at 8, since they are also wearing power armor, which grants them a +2 bonus as well. This is apparently added on after the US bonus, so (4x2)+2 gives us a total of 10 bonus.

Aye, I follow you.

On a similar note, I have another question regarding damage.

This is the impression I have, correct me if I am wrong, or even right, anywhere.

(Kraken Rounds Bolter example)

Roll to hit. Single Shot is a single roll to hit. Semi-Auto is a single roll to hit, with an additional roll to hit if successful. Fully-Auto is same but up to 3 extra shots.

If you hit, each shell deals 2D10+5 damage. Each roll of a 10 on a 2D10 allows an additional roll to hit, which can go on indefinatly).

The grand total of all of the above damage is accumulated, then compared against the foe's toughness score and armour.

For a play, we'll say that 2d10 rolled a 6 and a 3, leading to 9, +5 to make 14. Used against a Rebel Horde, which is Toughness 30, this is not enough to deal any damage at all.

If this is the case, how are the Marines meant to deal any meaningful damage?

Equally, I ask with regards to how melee combat deals damage.

I understand that Brother Elyas has a Power Fist, tripling his strength as stated, making his score 141, so a bonus of 14. His power fist deals 2d10 damage.

So if Elyas was to charge, he would do 1 attack with +10 Weapon Skills, dealing 2d10+14 damage. If in melee already, he could use 2 normal attacks, for (2d10+14)x2? or for (2d10)x2+14?

Sorry if this is confusing, but that's what it's doing to me.

Regards

Jim

There is some confusion about the following statement...

pg.16 Final Sanction
Damaging a Horde
"Each hit that causes any amount of damage reduces a Horde's magnitude by one. Therefore, an attack that, after accounting for armor and Toughness Bonus, causes 15 points of damage reduces the Horde Magnitude by 1."

So, wait a minute, the first statement sounds like they're saying, any shot that deals damage, regardless of how many wounds dealt, deals one Magnitude in damage.

Looking up the Rebel Horde stats, it seems their Toughness Bonus is 3, and they have no armor. So really, shouldn't any shot dealing more than 4 damage deal one Magnitude damage?

Then we read the second sentence, where they throw the number 15 in there, seemingly arbitrarily. Where is this 15 number coming from?

WGXH said:

Aye, I follow you.

On a similar note, I have another question regarding damage.

This is the impression I have, correct me if I am wrong, or even right, anywhere.

(Kraken Rounds Bolter example)

Roll to hit. Single Shot is a single roll to hit. Semi-Auto is a single roll to hit, with an additional roll to hit if successful. Fully-Auto is same but up to 3 extra shots.

A normal bolter has a rate of S/2/4.
Single shot means a single shot so roll once and if succesful roll for damage
Semi and full auto fire works a bit differently, roll once after bonusses are added (+10/+20).
On semi automatic you roll once, score a hit on a succes and one more if you beat the BS by 20 or more (and so on but this isn't the order isnce it only fires two shells on semi auto.
Full auto works the same, a hit on succes and an additional for every 10 you beat you BS

So if your marine has a BS of 51, and fires his boltgun on full auto he has an effective BS of 71, if he would roll a 69 he would hit once, if he would roll a 34 he would score 4 hits, 1 for succes, 1 at 61, 1 at 51 and 1 at 41.

Kraken Bolts add 3 to penetration, not additional hits.

If you hit, each shell deals 2D10+5 damage. Each roll of a 10 on a 2D10 allows an additional roll to hit, which can go on indefinatly).

Correct

The grand total of all of the above damage is accumulated, then compared against the foe's toughness score and armour.

For a play, we'll say that 2d10 rolled a 6 and a 3, leading to 9, +5 to make 14. Used against a Rebel Horde, which is Toughness 30, this is not enough to deal any damage at all.

Incorrect, you substract Toughness Bonus (3 in this case) so assuming the guards wear Flak Armour you would deal 11 damage which is on average a dead Guardsman.
If the Guardsman was wearing StormTrooper Carapace he would have had 6 Armour points and would have received 10 points of damage.

If this is the case, how are the Marines meant to deal any meaningful damage?

See above answer

Equally, I ask with regards to how melee combat deals damage.

I understand that Brother Elyas has a Power Fist, tripling his strength as stated, making his score 141, so a bonus of 14. His power fist deals 2d10 damage.

So if Elyas was to charge, he would do 1 attack with +10 Weapon Skills, dealing 2d10+14 damage. If in melee already, he could use 2 normal attacks, for (2d10+14)x2? or for (2d10)x2+14?

Elyas would do 2d10+(SB x3) +2 = 2d10+14 penetration 9

Elyas has a Strength of 47, you take the first digit which is 4, this is his Strength Bonus.
You double his SB for Unnatural Strength (x2) and the Powerfist makes the Strength (Bonus) mulitplier 3
His Power Armour provides +20 to Strength which means +2 SB which added at the end.

So it would be 2d10+ (4 x 3) +2 = 14...

Melee damage is resolved the same way as ranged damage.

Sorry if this is confusing, but that's what it's doing to me.

Regards

Jim

(Kraken Rounds Bolter example)

Roll to hit. Single Shot is a single roll to hit. Semi-Auto is a single roll to hit, with an additional roll to hit if successful. Fully-Auto is same but up to 3 extra shots.

Not quite. If you're using Semi of Full Auto, you still only make one roll to hit, although with a bonus (+10/+20). However, when you're firing semi-auto and manage to roll 20 points under your (modified) BS, you score an additional hit. Full Auto is the same, only that you get one additional hit for every 10 points you stay below the BS.

If you hit, each shell deals 2D10+5 damage. Each roll of a 10 on a 2D10 allows an additional roll to hit, which can go on indefinatly).

The grand total of all of the above damage is accumulated, then compared against the foe's toughness score and armour.

For a play, we'll say that 2d10 rolled a 6 and a 3, leading to 9, +5 to make 14. Used against a Rebel Horde, which is Toughness 30, this is not enough to deal any damage at all.

If this is the case, how are the Marines meant to deal any meaningful damage?

You're mistaking Toughness for Toughness Bonus - which is only the tenth digit of the toughness. So it's actually impossible for a marine not to do any damage to a puny rebel horde.

Each roll of a 10 on a 2D10 allows an additional roll to hit, which can go on indefinatly).

Not quite. If you roll one or several 10s, you roll to hit one more time (unless you're up against an alien, in which case the Death Watch trait kicks in and you automatically move on to the next step). If that succeeds, you roll a single D10 and add it to the damage. If that D10 comes up 10, you roll another D10 and directly add it - and so on until no more 10s come.

I understand that Brother Elyas has a Power Fist, tripling his strength as stated, making his score 141, so a bonus of 14. His power fist deals 2d10 damage.

So if Elyas was to charge, he would do 1 attack with +10 Weapon Skills, dealing 2d10+14 damage. If in melee already, he could use 2 normal attacks, for (2d10+14)x2? or for (2d10)x2+14?

Firstly, Unnatural Strength and the trait of the Power Fist that acts like it only affects the strength bonus, so the Marine's strength bonus of 4 becomes 12.

Secondly, Elyas can't use two normal attacks in combat - you can use every half action only once per round.

And finally, the Power Fist is a rather odd case - it affects the marine's strength bonus, presumably including that deriving from his armour. Thus, by my reading his normal strength bonus would get tripled (from Unnatural Strength and the Powerfist) and his suit bonus would get doubled (from the powerfist). Thus, we arrive at an effective strength bonus of unholy 16. Ouch.

@J-Tech

Then we read the second sentence, where they throw the number 15 in there, seemingly arbitrarily. Where is this 15 number coming from?

It's coming from the fact that Marines are far more likely to deal 15 points of damage than 4. It's meant as an example.

Cifer said:

@Santiago

I know. However, when one thinks about it, shouldn't the armour's bonus be affected by the fist's multiplier as well?

No, in all the examples they add these bonuses at the end.
With powerfist it would make sense but it would be complicated...


Space Marine Balthasar has a strength of 51, so a SB of 10 (Unnatural x2)
He wears a MkVII Power Armour +20 Strength and uses a powerfist.

So if you would use logic you would count the power armour for the power fist multiplier but not for the unnatural strength multiplier...

SB 10 is normal +2 from Power Armour = 12
Now add powerfist for 5+2 is 7
12+7 = 19

Using the normal rules it would be 5x3 = 15 + 2 = 17

I prefere to keep it simple....SB x3 + 2