Darq said:

I recently played a bit Lone Wolf series on the Project Aon site and combat against the hordes reminded me a bit of this number crunch. The problem is that it turns down easily into a who-can-bring-the-other-down-to-0-first crunch.

Does the rulebook provide any rule for charging in the flank or rear of a horde? Also it should make a difference whether a horde can surround me in cc on open terrain or in close quarters where I can put my back against a wall.

So what I am saying is that I don't dispute the basic idea; I'm saying that it requires proper implementation. If you say "These mobs are background fluff for the story and shouldn't bog down the game.", I might as well tell my players without rolling any dice, "Without further ado you turn these rebels into mincemeat."

Since dice-rolling is involved, it can be assumed that the hordes are to provide a challenge if not to dispatch them without getting wounded.

That being so, it begs the question: do I really want it to be straight numbers attrition battle or do I want to have situational modifiers (as you have when not fighting hordes) which allows for tactical maneuvering.

As such, I have to say that the concept might be good (even if not novel ) but it's the implementation that matters.

Alex

@ak

I don't disagree with you about the fact that combat should be tactical. However, I am disagreeing about everything making a difference for the sake of making a difference. I'm not going to grant a horde a bonus if they use a tissue paper as cover - and when it comes to Marine Boltguns, quite a lot of things are equivalent to the tissue paper.

When it comes to well-equipped troops in heavy cover (I believe rockcrete and the like were around AP 16 and higher), cover will make a difference because a boltgun can't just fire through it and harm the guy behind it. Before that, it doesn't need to make a difference.

I guess some people consider it fun when they play-see everything, hear-everything, can-do-everything guys, just as some people think a Temple Assassin can never be caught by surprise. Personally, I prefer a more moderate interpretation of even the heroes of Imperium. :-)

I consider it fun when a character doesn't get weaker because I play it. I consider it fun when the character behaves in the game as he does in the fluff. I'm not happy when the GM dumbs down an enemy that is known to have certain capabilities just so it can be beaten, in the same way that I'm not happy when a book comes out that essentially says "Play the inhumanely tough, acid-spitting, foe-tossing heroes of the Imperium - of course, without the tough, the spitting and the tossing parts because you're player characters and we can't let you get uppitiy". That's something every 40k system has studiously avoided - as soon as you're someone who should be powerful by the canon, you are . There were quite a few people fearing that Rogue Trader would let you play the lackeys of a true RT in some dinky ship. Well. it hasn't happened.

So what I am saying is that I don't dispute the basic idea; I'm saying that it requires proper implementation. If you say "These mobs are background fluff for the story and shouldn't bog down the game.", I might as well tell my players without rolling any dice, "Without further ado you turn these rebels into mincemeat."

When there's nothing else important about that combat - meaning the rebels have no special weapons, there's no time limit involved, noone to protect - that's exactly what I'd do.

All the current rules take is some quick ballpark math. Stuff that can mostly be puzzled out before the fight starts

"Ok, firewarriors... toughness bonus 3... AV6 armor. 9 soak."

Boltguns have 5 pen, 2d10+5, 7 minimum damage, tearing makes minimum damage very unlikely, so unless those Firewarriors find cover, don't bother rolling damage.

Heavy Bolter is 5 Pen 2d10+10, 12 minimum damage, tearing makes minimum damage very unlikely, so unless that cover is, like, thick metal don't bother rolling damage.

Cifer said:

- Well, if the rebels were to hide in a whole town of tissue paper, then yes I would reduce the to-hit roll accordingly. :-)

- As for power level, please note that I am not dumbing down a single PC or NPC to make playable. Instead I am avoiding making living human beings, even if highly trained and genetically modified, into unrealistically perfect beings, regardless of what the official Canon says or not. In short, I prefer a more down-to-earth interpretation of the 40K universe. Which means that the Space Marines are good, even very good, at what they are doing, but they are humans, not gods, nor demi.gods. I am aware that other people's interpretation makes them come close to being demi-gods but it's not my cup of tea.

- Right but that's not the way the hordes in FS, for example, employed. The hordes in FS effectively soften up the Marines which makes it for a more difficult boss fight. And in these fights, where it's not the question of who will win but in which condition the PCs will emerge... in these fights I'd like to see some tactical options and not some mindless number attrition. That gets old quickly. And to that end, I'm going to use this more useful house rule of making cover modify size not add to AP.

The latter rule is only for consistency and I would not expect to change that as it's apparent that they prefer simplicity in that regard. Me, for my rounds, I prefer this tactical option of cover. Vs being caught in the open.

Alex

Cifer said:

Yes, this was also the point I was trying to make with the sports car analogy.

- As for power level, please note that I am not dumbing down a single PC or NPC to make playable. Instead I am avoiding making living human beings, even if highly trained and genetically modified, into unrealistically perfect beings, regardless of what the official Canon says or not. In short, I prefer a more down-to-earth interpretation of the 40K universe. Which means that the Space Marines are good, even very good, at what they are doing, but they are humans, not gods, nor demi.gods. I am aware that other people's interpretation makes them come close to being demi-gods but it's not my cup of tea.

Well, if you don't think the Imperium can create essentially superhuman beings when they pour in the technology of several thousand years, I'm probably not going to convince you otherwise. I prefer the current canon of superhuman beings fighting equally devastating foes - I had enough gang battles in the lower levels of Dark Heresy.

- Right but that's not the way the hordes in FS, for example, employed.

It's not? Going through the fights...

-The chapel fight has four turning points strewn in.

-The Space Port has the two hidden genestealers, introducing them to the players

-The PDF base has the siege guns

-The imperial stores have the cramped tunnels

-The Thorsholt manor has the characters hopefully protect the Governour

-The House of Echoes first has the Hollow Guard (possibly loyalist enemies) and then the frantic fighting to protect the Astropath

-The Rag Markets finally are a large slugfest indeed, but by that point, the characters should be willing to spend a few acquired PDF units unless they're trying to sneak the rest of the way

-The Blind Saint has the gimmick of the pdf within

-The Pit of Filth is all-out-assault with three strong single targets

-The Promethium Bridge screams "AVOID ME!" anyway, but has the time limit

-The other combats don't feature hordes anymore

Cifer said:

Sure but why does it have to go over the top? Do marines really have to see every movement on the battlefied with auto-senses? Can even the best Temple Assassins not slip up once? Why do hold some characters up to heights that not even DC's Superman could have lived up to? Personally, I prefer Spidey with his imperfections and glitches.

Larger-than-life is good enough for me. It doesn't have to be larger-than-larger-than-life.

But then again, there's no accounting for taste.

Cifer said:

Your work here has been unnecessary though as it goes beside the point, I'm afraid. Hordes in FS are not meant to be employed in the following manner:

'If you say "These mobs are background fluff for the story and shouldn't bog down the game.", I might as well tell my players without rolling any dice, "Without further ado you turn these rebels into mincemeat."'

Instead they are employed in the manner I described - to soften up the players for a more narrow boss fight.

And what I was saying is that if hordes are used for that I don't want the fights to deteriorate into number crunch for the most part. The way to avoid that is to give both the PCs as well as the hordes tactical options. One of the tactical options rebel hordes have with me is taking cover and it actually helping them to some degree (well, not that much). Another thought occured to me is that fighting close combat in confined spaces should help the PCs. Maybe a horde would only get one extra damage dice at most in such a case in melee. Sure, a house rule, but it makes sense to make combat more varied, more realistic and less of the Lone Wolf (see my remarks above) kind.

Alex

Sure but why does it have to go over the top? Do marines really have to see every movement on the battlefied with auto-senses? Can even the best Temple Assassins not slip up once? Why do hold some characters up to heights that not even DC's Superman could have lived up to? Personally, I prefer Spidey with his imperfections and glitches.

I, on the other hand side, prefer technological development that could be considered half-way realistic. I mean... consider the 18th century. If you told someone then you were writing about a global communication net which could easily exchange text, picture and sound between people sitting on other sides of the globe almost in real-time, they'd probably have told you to tone it down as it's ridiculous.
We're not trying to go for a mere three centuries here. Until the beginning of the Age of Strife, Terra had nearly unbroken 22 millenia (that's about 5 times the time it took us to get from pyramids to PCs) of progress - and the Emperor was there all along watching it happen. In M30, when He created his Space Marines, He used the knowledge gained in all this time. Now what would you expect to happen?

Cifer said:

What I would expect is a vast slow down in the innovation curve. More like f(x) = epsilon - 1/x.

And if you want to talk "realism", the Imperium has regressed on many fronts in comparison to out modern times. In fact, in many regards it's a mixture of Middle Ages and fascism.

But then again it's your interpretation of the universe and none of my business.

Alex