Attacks by hordes can't normally be dodged or parried, which makes sense considering the sheer number of individuals attacks in that one "horde attack". But if anyone could dodge or parry horde attacks, Temple Assassins seem like a prime candidate. In the background, wargame and Dark Heresy: Ascension they are consistently noted as being able to dodge insane numbers of attacks.

So a few options come to mind for Temple Assassin PCs in Deathwatch (or any other 40krpg game where Hordes are being used):

1. Don't allow Temple Assassins any dodges or parries versus horde attacks. The default and doesn't sit right with me for the reasons I stated above.

2. Allow Temple Assassins one dodge or parry versus every horde attack. Seems a bit strong but not utterly implausible. Also has the advantage of simplicity.

3. Allow Temple Assassins one dodge or parry versus a horde attack in exchange for a number of reactions they would normally have under Ascension rules (say five for the sake of argument). Possibly fairer, but more complex.

Does else anyone have thoughts on these options?

I'd say that for every reaction made against a horde, a temple assassin has to spend 1/5 of that horde's magnitude in reactions.

How about:

Any character with the Temple Assassin trait can dodge an attack from a Horde but it uses 1d5 of their reactions for that round. If, after rolling for the number of reactions used, this number is greater than the number of reactions the Temple Assassin has left for the round all further reactions for the round are lost and the Temple assassin is hit by the Horde attack.

I'm not sure if I would allow a parry vs a Horde, even for a Temple assassin.

Decessor said:

It should be noted that on page 17 of Final Sanction , a Hordes Melee attacks cannot be dodged or parried; I see a lot of people here on the boards that get this one mixed up. Therefore, their ranged attacks can still be dodged as normal.

@Cifer and ItsUncertainWho: Quite doable. I'd consider allowing parry against horde attacks because of the sheer number of available reactions and the likely very high WS of said Temple Assassin.

@SpawnoChaos: Ah! Well spotted. I'll bear that in mind, thanks.

SpawnoChaos said:

Normally that would be true, but we are talking about Temple Assassins. They get to ignore a lot of rules.

Weel the templ assassin trait allows them to dodge (it doesn't mention parry) attacks that can't normally be avoided at GM's discretion. I'd certainly allow it, I think that the dodge is more appropriate as they can avoid multiple attacks at once rather than having to parry all of the hordes weapons and I can't see that temple assassin is going to have particularly better parry chance than his dodge.

I like the idea of it using multiple reactions though, i'd need to see the rules properly to decide what to go with though.

One thing to note is that we have an incomplete view of the ruleset. In Rogue Trader several talents from Dark Heresy were upgraded with extra bells and whistles applying to the starship rules eg Iron Discipline.

I hope we see similar for the horde rules in Deathwatch - I imagine that the Combat master talent might allow you to parry horde melee attacks for example.

Face Eater said:

I'd leave it to GM discretion. An assassin accosted by a horde of foes is in a bad situation and there's a reason you don't just go hacking into them with a chainsword without a plan or support. The whole "Temple Assassins are immune to physics" thing wears thin after a while, especially to me as a GM. And why should Temple Assassin's special rules trump Hoard special rules?

An assassin or even a highly trained operative would indeed have serious problems fending off a horde. However temple assassins are by background trained to be effectively one person killing machines with a specialty on top. So if anyone can dodge horde attacks imho it would make sense they could.

Anyway do hordes get the outnumbering bonus in close combat?

Alex

ak-73 said:

Good question. Additionally, if Hordes do get the outnumbering bonus to their melee attacks, would the Combat Master talent apply against them?

-=Brother Praetus=-

At the absolute minimum, combat master should still neutralise a ganging up bonus if hordes are getting one.

It'll be good to have a copy of the finished rules. Then we can get to the real business of asking for errata.

From what I've read, Hordes don't get the outnumbering bonus. The mass of numbers is taken into account with the increased chance of damage from ranged/melee attacks.

Fair enough. Thanks for that.

An assassin or even a highly trained operative would indeed have serious problems fending off a horde.

Unless of course he'd simply slip out of sight, get to a sniping position, take out the horde's leader and watch as it crumbles.

Which reminds me to ask a certain someone...

I have to say that I would allow Imperial Assassins to dodge close combat attacks from Hordes for the simple reason that, if they were in normal hand to hand, only so many enemies can get into close combat with them at any one time anyway and in this situation they would have more than enough dodges to go around so, yeah, why the hell not eh?

Space Monkey said:

Because if they are surrounded, any attempt at dodging a melee attack has a high chance of failure because there is a horde member in the way.

I'm not really as good as coming up with on the spot rules as others might be, but I figure dodging ALL of the attacks sounds a little too impossible, even for a temple assassin. At the same time, taking the full 3d10 damage isn't something they can really survive as well as a Marine can either, so you can offer to allow them to the damage by a d10 on a successful dodge roll. Or something.

We are talking about people who can and do dodge the blast a of a Leman Russ battlecannon or an Orbital Strike. Temple Assassins really are that good despite how implausible it sounds. This skill in table top is as good as being protected by a Rosarius. Temple Assassins aren't remotely human anymore at least physically and quite likely they aren't mentally human anymore either.

andrewm9 said:

Which leaves the question if you like this kind of over-the-top manga action or whether you prefer to tone it down for your game.

Alex

All I know is that the last time I looked at the Eversor Assassin detailed in Ascension ... well.. I shuddered... and wept a single tear for anyone foolish enough to get in their way.

Something else to consider; while assassins can/usually dodge any number of mundane attacks (and some extraordinary) what says that they have to? If I were an Eversor assassin and a horde or two was in my way and blocking the path to the mark... well... then I'd just kill them all. Whether that was by melta bomb or my bare hands doesn't really matter.