Hi!

I'll probably get to run First Sanction over the weekend and I've got a question: the kill-team seems get to fight against horde after horde, especially if they decide to take the full tour around town. It seems as if these fights can get repetitive pretty quickly as little individual tactical decision seems to be involved and it rather seems to come down to slugging it out. (Not to mention that the horde rules seem to be more or less a re-hash of the old swarms and nothing revolutionary in and of itself...)

For those who have run the scenario before - how do you keep that from getting too repetitive?

Thanks,

Alex

One thing to consider is that the war and battles should be more or less a backto the player vs player interaction and player vs npc interaction.

When I ran it, the combats were quickish, and I utilised turning points for players to have "their moment". Also bare in mind that as the players progress they should aquire PDF forces which can be used to reduce hordes they face.

I utilised the map kindly designed and linked on these forums, and indicated where they have dropped, the Palace, the imp base and the space dock.

Once they ahd landed and were informed of the situation, the players proceeded to wipe out the hordes at the chapel, then proceeded to sucure the governor.

There was some real RP opportunity for the players at this point to get in the palace grounds - it was under siege, and the PCs needed to effectively break in. They chose a direct route scattering the hordesand marched to the gates.

To keep the pace remind the players time is against them, but allow some time for planning. It is important the palyers tactics and overall strategy comes from themselves.

How they progress should completely be in their hands - though there may be times prompts become useful - especially if they are not familiar to the W40K universe.

Finally Adeptus Astartes are gods - and the NPCs should recognise that. Don't get to worried if the players feel it's too easy etc, because you know the final encounters are going to be very tough, and will cost fate to complete. Overconfidence is your friend.

My inquiry was more after how to run the fight against rebel hordes themselves. Turning points, sure. I just don't see too much tactics involved in fighting hordes.

Alex

ak-73 said:

One thing that you might want to consider is getting all "fighting fantasy" on the arse of Horde combat. Well sort of.

What I mean by this is that you plan out the encounter rather than throwing random Turning Points at them. Thus, the combat starts at "Point A," then the players determine the tactics to use (call 'em Tactic 1, Tactic 2, and Tactic 3). Tactic 1 leads to Point B, 2 to C, and 3 to D. At Point B, C, and D, the conflict (and Horde) have different situations that depended on the resolution of the appropriate Tactic. If, for example, Tactic 1 was "Rush 'Em, Guns Blazing" then situation B might have the Horde reduced, but "dug in" giving them a bonus to the defense rolls. On the other hand, if Tactic 2 was "Flank Attack," Point C might involve a reduction in Horde (since that's the general way it goes) and a "Enemy Confused" result, or the idea that they're going to get negative modifiers to, say, their attack roll (where do I shoot!?).

Creating a flow chart might at first help, but players being players they're going to break that pretty quickly. Still might be useful to do since ultimately it represents the flow of combat in the mind of you, the narrator.

Of course, it might be more effective if it was less "Marines vs. The World" and more "Marines Lead Troops," but the kind of thing will get you in trouble round these there parts.

Kage

Kage2020 said:

But what if players choose a completety different tactic? :-)

Kage2020 said:

Might be worth the effort for more crucial battles but for each average fight against a rebel horde?

Alex

ak-73 said:

A lot depends on how the players respond. Sure you can just say there are lots of enemies, roll the dice to see how many you kill.

Alternatively you can layout the scene;

"Rain is pouring from the sky, visibilty is difficult, and the crumbling buildings make it difficult to easily spot enemies from the general decay of the city."

awareness/perception checks

"You spot movement from the left and ahead, it looks like the hordes are trying to pin you down, or maybe force you back or to the right. There are vehicles across the road ahead, some crude attempt at a road block, though you haven't identified any targets in that vicinity, this would provide cover from the front hordes, but leave you open from the hordes on the left. Also the building to the left have a lee which would give good cover from the hordes to the left, and as long as they don't make it to the road block, looks good tactically."

Etc etc

Again though a lot depends on how the players play their characters.

throw in a few extra rocket launcher and see this become more a coordinated effort since they have to protect one another.

Your hordes are not mindless well some may not be. Use this accordingly, a horde could be a cover for a wall crawling genestealer that is flanking the players.

A horde with a demo charge is hard to stop from cutting a very important bridge

Except a few exceptions, the players should not tackle normal hordes without a reason good enough not to have the PDF do it instead. Your are the elite must be used accordingly.

ak-73 said >>>

But what if players choose a completety different tactic? :-)

As I mentioned in my previous post, I consider this a likely point. However, as both the narrator/GM and the person that likely knows the players, you can pretty much know how the players are going to react. One might argue that this is more likely with Deathwatch , but much remains to be seen about the game.

ak-73 said >>>

Might be worth the effort for more crucial battles but for each average fight against a rebel horde?

With the caveat that I'm not particularly inspired by the Horde mechanics in the first place, or at least what I've seen of them, I would imagine that the goal is to make as many of the combats as unique and flavoursome as possible. Otherwise it's just dice rolling and rockin' out on full auto until the Magnitude dips below a value and they rout.

Again, though, it was just a suggestion. I feel that the use of a "flow chart" might have been helpful in the example adventure as well, to illustrate the process if nothing else. As we have both said, though, it's essentially like a battle plan coming into contact with the enemy or even reality. Thus, as with any game, it depends on how you want to approach it. My own approach would depend on what I was trying to achieve with the conflict. Would I use "Mass Combat" rules, or would I just wing it to create a sense of the blurring of combat... Time will tell, but then again I wouldn't be using Horde mechanics anyway.

Kage

Kage2020 said:

@crisaron Sure all that can be done but please read my regards wrt D&D below too.

@Kage Horde mechanics are merely FFG's answer to the question: "Where do we get suitable enemies for the kill-team from?" But players generally don't want abstraction in combat; they want detail (thus the critical hit charts and all). Which means I have to insertthe detail into the abstraction myself (to break the flow of monotonous rule dynamics) by means of special incidents/situations/challenges to solve. Which means work for me as a GM.

Which means in turn that it's something that in commercial scenarios I would expect FFG to come up with for me.

Otherwise fighting hordes will be like D&D 1st Ed, it all coming down to reducing the enemies HP/Magnitude. Sure you can add flavour to it as a GM and flesh it out. But rulewise we'd end up where we started with.

Alex

ak-73 said >>>

Horde mechanics are merely FFG's answer to the question: "Where do we get suitable enemies for the kill-team from?"

Or perhaps, "How the heck do we get through all that armour and toughness bonus with fairly normal enemies?"

ak-73 said >>>

But players generally don't want abstraction in combat; they want detail (thus the critical hit charts and all).

I think that's a very "your mileage my vary" situation, since I know people from both sides of that spectrum as well as in between. (Notwithstanding that game mechanics are in and of themselves abstractions...)

ak-73 said >>>

Which means I have to insertthe detail into the abstraction myself (to break the flow of monotonous rule dynamics) by means of special incidents/situations/challenges to solve. Which means work for me as a GM.

Perhaps you could better illustrate what you're talking about? As it stands, I'm sure that many people would respond with something along the lines of, "That's the GM's job in the first place." While I'm all for crafting appropriate rules, I'm not quite sure that you can create a rules set that does everything for you. Well, unless it's a video game and even then you have a player.

ak-73 said >>>

Which means in turn that it's something that in commercial scenarios I would expect FFG to come up with for me.

Well, you've got one suggestion, above, like it or not. On my own behalf, I would personally just create "unit statistics" and turn it into a mass combat. Marines would just be a component of that, but that's a story for another time.

ak-73 said >>>

Otherwise fighting hordes will be like D&D 1st Ed, it all coming down to reducing the enemies HP/Magnitude. Sure you can add flavour to it as a GM and flesh it out. But rulewise we'd end up where we started with.

Well, that's all they are, essentially. Again, though, if you could illustrate sort of what you're after then that would be very helpful for the purposes of discussion.

Kage

In the game I run, I asked the players to describe the scenes of carnage the caused with their rolls.

You can sit there and roll stuff and look it up on tables, and it is good, particularly in key fights, but for every horde? Why would you? You would be spending hours on each fight.

Example; in Alien (the film) it was all about 1 Alien, and it was tough, wiped out everyone.

In Aliens (the sequel) the marines are wasting them by the bucketload before they are overwhelmed, and finally you have the beast at the end.

The horde mechanics are like that - smashing them all to oblivion, but then when it counts, the whole game becomes more dramatic.

You can sit all night doing 1 combat against 3 magnitudes, or allow players somewhat free reign, and as long there is a semblance of tactics they can procceed apace.

When all is going well, chuck in a turning point, a hidden genestealer that gets surprise on the kill team. Suddenly, it steps up to dramatic.

Works in hundreds of films. Minions get slaughtered, bosses have a more dramatic feel - Indiana Jones at the airbase. he shoots loads of germans and is going great guns, then a huge pilot steps out and it's down to fisticuffs. Any action film has the same premise.

The main feel I was going for was moral ambiguation on choices;

do they shoot through citizens to kill genestealers.

They know the horde has hostages - do they chuck grenades anyway.

A couple of survivors from a really tough fight getting kudos from fellow PDF, but one of the Astartes thinks they may have been too lucky to be true - did they get infected from a Ovipositor?

There are thousands of other choices that can be given, and the question is do you want to spend all night rolling dice and reducing some numbers, or get the true dark reality of the W40K universe?

Kage2020 said:

Kage2020 said:

@Kage

There's a reason why there is the critical hit charts: to break up the number crunching. So some kind of critical hit rule for Hordes would help, even if it would a bit differently than with individuals.

Secondly to break number crunching, you have to invent special situations, like turning points. Saving a mother caught between the the trenches, cutting off a group of rebels with fairly heavy weaponry trying to get into your rear, etc.

Thirdly, you need more tactical options for the players themselves and that might call for squad actions. Perhaps not even a flow chart is necessary. Just squad actions, squad maneuvering and squad tactics and opportunities (good firing positions, etc).

I don't see Space Marines have as many tactical options in a fight against a Horde as a group of experienced Acolytes against a bunch of thugs. Plus for the player's it easy to predict the capabilities of the rebel hordes after the first 2 or 3. Conversely when Acolytes meet a bunch of thugs, they will be unsure if one of them has some dirty trick up their sleeve, so again invention is needed to break up.

I guess what I am trying to say in short is that making fights against Hordes requires more work than creating an interesting fight for some low rank Acolytes.

Roll up a some thugs and give one a poisoned knife and another a grenade.

@FatPob

It all gets old and repetitve with relative ease unless you're doing what you mentioned further below your post: create situations, incidents and challenges yourself. Other than that it's mostly numbers crunching.

Alex

There are a couple of things you can do:

Though the MECHANICs of fighting Horde 1, Horde 2 and Horde 3 may be the same - the narrative description is up to you. Descriptions of the horde itself and narrative of the combat. Describe specific instances during the combat :

additional detail about a specific member of the Horde ("An unnaturally bulky Hybrid with a missing claw, wearing the shredded remnants of a rich merchanter's garb bears down on you hissing as it strikes".

additional information about the combat interaction (The Hybrids claw glances off the plastron of your armor, leaving scratches deep in the adamantite, where it scrabbles for purchase - you reverse the grip on your chain sword and bury it deep in the hybrid's abdomen - it screams as its steaming entrails empty onto the tarmac in front of you!"

Another thing to consider is picking out a specific target interaction and doing a regular (Non-Horde style) combat round against them every couple rounds of Horde combat - this is for dramatic effect and so shouldn't count against the turning point, round criteria (a free round so to speak) nor would it impact the results - unless say it was a particularly brilliant role-play.

Some thoughts.

ak-73 said >>>

There's a reason why there is the critical hit charts: to break up the number crunching. So some kind of critical hit rule for Hordes would help, even if it would a bit differently than with individuals.

First, please remember that I'm not a fan of what I've seen of the Horde rules thus far, feeling that there are a number of improvements that can be made. Before I can comment more fully on that, though, I'm going to have to wait until the full rules are out so that I can see what I hope is a fully-fleshed out set of rules on the definition, creation, and use of Hordes.

As before, I'm going to call a "YMMV" on this since I've never really liked critical damage charts. The times that I have used them (as a player) they've been amusing at first, but fast become rather tiresome. The two systems that spring readily to mind for this are WFRP and Rolemaster . On the other hand, I've known people that giggle with glee every time they get to roll on a critical damage chart. So, yes, certainly YMMV.

ak-73 said >>>

Secondly to break number crunching, you have to invent special situations, like turning points. Saving a mother caught between the the trenches, cutting off a group of rebels with fairly heavy weaponry trying to get into your rear, etc.

I'm well aware of the facility of "turning points" and their application to combat, or even just the narrative in general. I personally wouldn't want to see a random chart of "combat encounters," though I'm not trying to imply that you are suggesting this.

ak-73 said >>>

Thirdly, you need more tactical options for the players themselves and that might call for squad actions. Perhaps not even a flow chart is necessary. Just squad actions, squad maneuvering and squad tactics and opportunities (good firing positions, etc).

Don't forget that Deathwatch has the "Team Awesome Mode" (Squad Mode), or the idea of squad-level tactical options that utilises the Cohesion resource. Ye gadz! I almost feel like someone that is hyping the game, but it should probably also be remembered that as a demo game it is quite possible that it was devoid of all the tactical/strategic options available in the full system. (I certainly hope so.)

Perhaps, though, my difficulty comes from not using the Dark Heresy system and thus not being aware of all the options (or the limitations). I'm sure that one of the users might be able to help you out there. On my own behalf I'm just going, "Got that... And that... Yeah, that's how it is..." etc. Thus when you say, "I don't see Space Marines have as many tactical options in a fight against a Horde as a group of experienced Acolytes against a bunch of thugs," in my mind I'm not seeing them as having any less or more options that that group of acolytes.

Again, I might be missing your point so please treat with kid gloves here...

ak-73 said >>>

Plus for the player's it easy to predict the capabilities of the rebel hordes after the first 2 or 3. Conversely when Acolytes meet a bunch of thugs, they will be unsure if one of them has some dirty trick up their sleeve, so again invention is needed to break up.

I can certainly see how this could be the case, but once again I'm forced to reserve judgement until I see the complete rules set. My original first-blush response to the Horde rules was that it was (a) a way of getting past Marine armour with an inelegant mechanic, (b) a way of making Marines seem more awesome at the expense of the "enemy," and © might not gel very well with all this Solo and Team Mode business (which again seemed all to be about buffing the Marines). Unfortunately, first-blush thoughts can often be misleading.

ak-73 said >>>

I guess what I am trying to say in short is that making fights against Hordes requires more work than creating an interesting fight for some low rank Acolytes.

Roll up a some thugs and give one a poisoned knife and another a grenade.

Not quite agreeing with you on this one, but again note the aforementioned bias/caveat. For me there really is little difference between creating an interesting combat between a group of player characters and a given number of combatants, or where the players are just a component of a much larger military force. Ultimately you're still doing with a number of "elements." It's just in the former case it is a single individual, and in the latter case a group of individuals that are just aggregated.

Kage

@Darq: Well, that what you had to do with D&D, 1st Ed. too. Flesh out the number crunching. In DH however, you have for example various forms of attack and defense, which by name convey what is going on. What's the analogon for Disarm or a Called Shot (Head) [to avoid some chest armour, for example] against Hordes? Such options do convey a visual idea of what's going on and they provide tactical choices.

Kage2020 said:

YMMV for everything. :-) Anyway, Rolemaster had more variation, you didn't have the same crit as often as in Warhammer.

Kage2020 said:

I would be suggesting this, if we weren't talking about a generic combat encounter chart but a scenario specific one.

Kage2020 said:

I think you got (b) wrong. It's not trying to make SM seem more awesome. It's just that Marines are that awesome according to the tabletop. You need somehow do the existing power levels justice. And you need to find adequate opponents (as I had said). A few Rebels don't do the trick, they offer a boring fight. Playing out 50 lightly armed Rebels in standard fashion is prolonged and not too much fun either (waiting for the lucky shot?).

So the Hordes/Swarms mechanic is logical and an old tool. But it's not without pitfalls.

Kage2020 said:

We have to agree to disagree then. Part of the fun for many gamers is find out who is better mano-a-mano: a barbarian from the northern wastelands with its raw power or an Elf with a rapier with its agility and speed. Wrestler vs karateka. 5 Thugs or a low-level assassin.

A group of 4 SM vs an undefined number of lightly armed and untrained mass of faceless rebels is less fascinating for many, I believe. It's easy to give an individual or two a face. It's more work to do that for a number of faceless rebel hordes in an introductory adventure.

Alex

ak-73 said >>>

I would be suggesting this, if we weren't talking about a generic combat encounter chart but a scenario specific one.

Another thing that we're going to have to disagree on, then. Such things are, for me, illustrative and not something that I tend to give serious attention to when it comes to describing a combat encounter. It just feels too... artificial. (Despite the ebb/flow of combat and the occasional randomness of it!)

ak-73 said >>>

I think you got (b) wrong. It's not trying to make SM seem more awesome. It's just that Marines are that awesome according to the tabletop.

Not if you listen to the wargamers they're not. As I don't play the wargame I wouldn't know otherwise, since the only time I've ever really played against a Marine force was when I did play the wargame (back in the late 80s and in this one case the Eldar trounced the Marines quite readily). So, yeah. With that said, though, I shall stick by point (b) because that was my impression as I read through them. To me it does potentially seem that the inter-operation of Horde mechanics with Squad Mode might be there to make the Marines look and feel awesome. Until I check out the full rules, though, I won't be able to say for sure, though. (Obviously.)

ak-73 said >>>

And you need to find adequate opponents (as I had said). A few Rebels don't do the trick, they offer a boring fight. Playing out 50 lightly armed Rebels in standard fashion is prolonged and not too much fun either (waiting for the lucky shot?).

I think I more clearly state my point in Polaria's thread about weapon damage, and have previously noted that I find the "damage multiplication" to be a somewhat inelegant solution to Horde damage.

ak-73 said >>>

So the Hordes/Swarms mechanic is logical and an old tool. But it's not without pitfalls.

Several pitfalls. Of course, these may be addressed in the main rulebook. Indeed, it will be interesting to see how much of it mimics general advice about running military campaigns that we seen in other RPGs that deal with this theme.

ak-73 said >>>

It's more work to do that for a number of faceless rebel hordes in an introductory adventure.

As I mentioned, I have a number of biases/caveats in place here. The primary one is that I don't use the Dark Heresy engine, so will not be using (if I ever get around to it) the Deathwatch engine either, though I will pilfer the bits that I feel add to the quality of a game (to my own definition of "quality," of course). Thus, for me, there is little difference to running a small combat and a large combat. I have the tools to do either. Want to emphasise the individual nature of combat? Just run it like a standard narrative combat. Want to deal with a larger conflict? Just use mass combat rules. Both involve the description of what different tactical/strategic elements are doing and have a means of determining the effects of combat, it's just in one the tactical element is an individual and in the other its a unit... or company... or whatever size group you're dealing with.

If, on the other hand, your comment about "putting a face" on each and every individual then, by your definition, this is obviously going to be more of a challenge. We seem to be talking about two different things, though, so no worries.

Kage