Howdy!

I love the horde rules.

A tip to speed things up.

We take the WFB movement trays (or coasters) and use them to represent the hordes.

Then put 1 representative minature in the tray for every tens digit of the horde and represent the ones with d10 dice.

This way every one sees the enemy "as is" and you roll 1 attack for each minature in the tray, and you record damage by removing minatures and changing the d10

See its easy!

What about when the Horde is one that is surrounding you, and so isn't all in one clump? Or split up in some way? You can't really represent an abstract concept like a Horde with one regiment tray, all clumped together, in my opinion anyway. It just seems easier to run Horde combat without models to me.

I always saw the horde rules as a simple way of abstracting out large battles, specifically so we could have a game where the players fight hundreds of enemies, but those enemies don't really need to be tracked on a map. Heck, an encounter against hordes can probably be conducted without a map at all. Just describe generally available cover, maybe a few things the players could possible use in the environment to mix things up, and then have a horde across the area for them to fight.

Howdy!

Yes we have run lots of horde combat with out maps, but I have found that by moving to straregic scale , using old Epic40K buildings and the movement tray hordes it reallt encourages more role playing, use of terrain, tactics, and strategy.

That is a pretty good idea.

Are the hordes rules from Deathwatch compatible with Rogue Trader and Dark Heresy?

Thanks ^..^

Are the hordes rules from Deathwatch compatible with Rogue Trader and Dark Heresy?

Well... purely from a system perspective, they are. However, the Deathwatch system assumes that every single succesful attack a Marine makes would either kill or maim at least one opponent and probably lead several others to flee. For Rogue Trader and Dark Heresy, you might either put into place a minimum damage the character has to inflict in order to deduct a point of magnitude or grant the horde virtual magnitude, where every x points of virtual magnitude deduction by small arms (say, everything below a boltgun for weak enemies) lead to one point of real magnitude stripped away.

Cifer said:

Not to mention that a successful hit by a horde against a young Acolyte... well, let's just say that Space Marines are sufficiently trained and equipped to take on hordes without going into gory details.

Alex

ak-73 said:

This is where, for me, it gets into a problem of the Hordes as mechanically presented. While conceptually they are a fantastic idea of speeding up and otherwise streamlining combat, especially when coupled with the idea of Turning Points and jumping between it and tactical combat (basically a mechanically formalised system that many have used for a while... good stuff FFG). Unfortunately, if you want to use the same kind of simplification in one of the earlier systems you run into the problem that damage is increased to get by Marine armour rather than using probability to do the same.

It's a minor distinction but obviously on that is going to have an impact on cross-fertilisation between the systems. Perhaps it is one of those things that can only be used for "Ascension"-level games or, in RT, for post-level 4 characters?

Kage

Kage2020 said:

In Final Sanction, the Marines fight against a horde of a couple of hundreds PDF rebels, just to get warm. Just 10 of those would put a Rank1 Acolyte band in serious trouble (fighting them without horde rules). The only hordes that young Acolytes are meant to fight are hordes of snotlings. ;-)

Alex

Errr, that's what I broadly said, pointing out that the damage inflation is more a product of getting through Marine armour than anything else. It's a matter of scale thing. Again, didn't say that it was a bad mechanic, nor did I mention whether it was pertaining to "young" acolytes or not, and certainly I didn't want to assume that by "young" you meant "level 1." Furthermore, it is my understanding that Horde mechanics are about aggregating opponents into "chunks," so I wouldn't want to assume or otherwise misrepresent that their use would necessarily translate over to "several hundred PDF." Rather, it is an abstract measure of power/determination, so can be used to represent 1 "thing" or any number up from that. While standard tactical combat might be the norm, there are obvious times when for the flavour and pacing of a particularly style of combat that the Horde rules would be equally applicable. A particularly diffuse enemy that cannot be defeated, but can be driven away until such time as their power locus can be dealt with, etc.

That still doesn't really change the comment about "Marine armour," though perhaps it does illustrate that despite my comment about such that they can be used but such use might have to be specialised rather than applied as is. On the other hand, higher level characters working against a gang of "thugs?" Perhaps a different matter.

Kage

Kage2020 said:

Err... This is what happens when you're talking about different survey techniques when you are also sneakily typing a response on FFG. A pox on the person who thought that a longer-term edit function was a bad idea.

I guess what I was trying to say here was that despite the seeming intent of the design of the Horde rules to get by Marine armour, and that their cross-fertilisation/application to other game system in the product line is possible if potentially specialised. With that said, against higher level characters it really just recreates the premise of "Mooks" in the rules.

Kage

"Unfortunately, if you want to use the same kind of simplification in one of the earlier systems you run into the problem that damage is increased to get by Marine armour rather than using probability to do the same.

It's a minor distinction but obviously on that is going to have an impact on cross-fertilisation between the systems. Perhaps it is one of those things that can only be used for "Ascension"-level games or, in RT, for post-level 4 characters?"

So where's the problem? If Acolytes fight the kind of hordes that marines do, they get killed. "Outside the chapel, the 600 men of the 117th Lordsholm
PDF under Captain Ascote, are under assault from a large contingent of rebels, easily in the thousands."

Perhaps you should first clarify how you seek to employ the hordes rules in... Dark Heresy, for example. Which Acolytes would want to be able to pit against what horde of enemies? And which difficulties would arise using the given system then?

Alex

Hordes of Snotlings?

I think that was an 80's hair band.

I have a great idea for a snotling world that needs to be cleansed...

Sorry, but I could not resist.

ak-73 said:

Okay, I'll bullet-point some of the things mentioned in my previous post:

• Hordes as designed seem geared towards getting through Marine armour. This speeds up combat (which is good), but can lead to some wobbly abstractions (which is only bad if you think it is).
• Hordes are abstract, so that while there is a nominal idea of a direct relationship between size and Magnitude, this is stated as not being the case.
• A regiment can, indeed, by represented by a Horde. So can a company, platoon, squad, binom, or even a single individual or whatever. Magnitude represents its "power" and and the other thing, for want of a better term, its Cohesion/leadership/likelihood of routing.
• Horde's can therefore be used to represent a single individual/entity, such as a diffuse one (e.g. a "Horde" of killer bees, ants, or whatever). It can also represent a single powerful creature, e.g. the regenerating gribbly that is required to return to a "power source" to regenerate and you don't want to bother with the tactical combat rules.
• Horde's can also be used to abstract "street gangs" in certain campaigns (power levels) where characters are twinked out with all those "civilian" plasma guns, melta guns, and other mil-spec civilian weaponry ( ).

Thought that was pretty clear from before, but there we go. They might require more specialist circumstances, but they seem to be usable since, again, it's an abstract concept. In fact, you can amusingly argue that Horde might work really well in non-DW campaigns if treated as abstract entities, or used as a basis for Mook rules, etc. At least there it doesn't seem to be able damage scaling.

YMMV and, as normal, YMOV.

Kage

Kage2020 said:

I haven't inquired for any of that. You said:

"Unfortunately, if you want to use the same kind of simplification in one of the earlier systems you run into the problem that damage is increased to get by Marine armour rather than using probability to do the same."

*I* fail to see where that would cause problems or be unrealistic. And so I was curious for where you saw any problems with one of the earlier systems ?

Alex

ak-73 said:

I can see this is going down the other thread once again. *sighs*

Kage2020 said >>>

Hordes as designed seem geared towards getting through Marine armour.

First bullet point. Thus as written they can be problematic without special consideration given you've got scaling damage over other options (RoF). With judicious consider they can be used (illustrated above).

And I'm going to bow out of this right now rather than go through this rigmarole once again since it seems you might be trying to pick an argument. You pointed out in a previous post that you wouldn't want to use Hordes against "level 1 acolytes," I merely point out that you can despite the fact that Hordes as written seem geared specific to buff damage to get past Marines. And thus I'll chalk this up to another thread not to check back in on.

///Kage

Kage2020 said:

As you wish. I'd like to point though that you made a claim that there was a problem and I was merely asking for an example under which circumstances this problem would manifest as I didn't see it. You didn't choose to elaborate what you meant and instead I am getting this kind of response.

Okay. Your choice.

Alex

So - can you tell me how I might use the Deathwatch Hordes rules in Rogue Trader (let's say for example, an Arch-Militant PC with a heavy bolter is defending his ship's landing ramp against hordes of screaming, tribal, primitive warriors) given the fact that they are meant to be used by Space Marines?

Thanks!

Well, the main problem with using hordes against Rogue trader characters would be if they took damage from the horde, they're going to be in trouble if the horde is of a magnitude of 20 or more (given the extra dice of damage and the RT Char's lack of TB8 and astartes power armour), if you want a horde of primitive natives this is reasonably easy to resolve, the natives have no effective ranged weapons perhaps, so have to close to melee in order to attack the party, and thus it becomes about killing them off before they reach, and overwhelm the party (given you can't parry/didge horde melee attacks, a rogue trader group isn't going to last that long in melee either if the horde is of reasonable magnitude.

It's also worth considering that the magnitude as presented in the FS rules is a measure more about effectiveness/lethality, than numbers, so a very large horde of natives might have a quite a small magnitude, reducing the damage it does, as well as the amount of damage needed to inflict on it before it runs (another thing to consider if your group are using full auto weapons, the horde is likely to break before they get to the ship and run away screaming about the gods striking them down with magic thunder...or something)

It's perfectly possilbe to use the rules for RT and DH, so long as you don't just overwhelm your players it seems, full auto weapons are a good look, so I would suggest providing some if they don't carry them, perhaps turrets on a landed guncutter they can control or similar.

As for the melee problem (say the horde manages to get close enough) you could save your player bacon by having them raise the ramp, or retreat up it to bottleneck the horde of natives (I would represent this in game by saying that for a few rounbds they can parry attacks, as they're not yet surrounded by hordes of natives with spears).

For the other games in the series, the Horde rules would most likely end up to lethal. However if you do have a crazy desire to utilise Hordes in the other games I would consider the following change.

For every Magnitude of 10 hordes allow another attack rather then an extra d10 to damage, (max of 3). Remember that you cannot dodge horde attacks so a hit for 3d10 +3 against a standard armoured oponent of normal toughness is a 1 way ticket to blowing fate points.

Really, so long as the Hordes arn't using particularly powerful weaponry, the Rogue Traders, while in danager, are not likely to get offed instantly. Nearly any weapon with the 'Primitive' trait (including primitive firearms) as well as low end basic las and auto weapons. This is also easier if you keep the Magniatude in the teens or twenties, rather then 30+.

Also worth noting, in a situation like presented above (defending a boarding ramp), the Rogue Trader group should have no shortage hard cover with which to increase their effective Armor value. A Rogue Trader group is also far more likely to have additional support with them, rather then just their own rifles & a heavy weapon. Said lander being defended might have heavy bolters or even bigger weapons of it's own, the Trader might have 10 or 20 of their own troops to help put out fire or take bullets for them.

The Hordes arn't going to be used to the same extent, nor in the same way for Rogue Trader as they are for Deathwatch, but their not unusable by any means. Particularly if you keep in mind your players capabilities when you build the group.

Yeah, a good use of the horde rule would be to represent the crew/troops of the rogue trader crew, in one of our games we ended up with a regiment of imperial guard that was rather hard to represent on the table top with the RT rules...