I posted it, and that is the official rule. It makes flamers very nice against hordes, arguably better than blast weapons

MILLANDSON said:

Unless it's a Devastator lobbing grenades... Per the full write up of their Unrelenting Devastation they score extra hits with blast weapons; least per the sample presented in the DD. But then, a heavy flamer would be a niceness as well. Lot's of variety I'm noticing, and I've not yet scored a copy of my own to peruse.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Brother Praetus said:

Unrelenting Devastation is heavy weapons only, if memory serves.

Still, a Devastator in Terminator armour with a Cyclone Missile Launcher (S/2/- on a missile launcher) firing Frag Missiles (Blast (8)) and that ability... 18+1d5 magnitude damage so long as you get 2+ degrees of success (8 per missile, +1 each for dealing Explosive damage, 1d5 from Unrelenting Devastation)...

...though, by comparison, each scored hit from a Heavy Bolter ends up being worth 3 from the same character - 1 from the actual hit, one from being explosive damage, one from Unrelenting Devastation... which ranks up magnitude damage really piles up.

Any rules for nuking a space marine by breaching his fusion reactor? The temperatures inside the backpack alone should be enough to crispy fry a space marine.

It's the one tactic I've always thought best when facing marines - aim for the backpack. Even if you only shoot the radiation vents off, that'll cause heat build up which will make him sweat in his suit and we all know how debilitating sweat in a suit can be.

Hellebore

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Ooh! Something we may already need to ask for clarification on? I could definitely see it being intended that way, but its wording lacks some clarity of definition. Quoted here, seeings as it is content available for free in the DD;

• Unrelenting Devistation: When firing a heavy weapon, the Devastator Marine inflicts 1 extra point to a Horde's Magnitude per hit. If using a [heavy] weapon with the Blast Quality , he instead inflicts 1d5 extra points of damage to a Horde's Magnitude (after all other hits have been applied). This ability only functions in squad mode.

Per the exact wording, it would seem to work with grenades as well as missile launchers, plasma cannons and the like. If not, then the simple inclusion of the bracketed and bolded [heavy] would be all that is needed for clarification. Also, looks like a missile launcher firing a frag would inflict r(adius)+1d5 damage, and not r+1d5+1 if I am reading this right.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Is the extra hit to Magnitude for explosives that you've been including in your above examples mentioned in the complete rules for Hordes? Otherwise, I haven't seen anything about explosives without the Blast quality (i.e. Bolt Weapons) doing anymore then any other hit.

-=Brother Praetus=-

MILLANDSON said:

I posted it, and that is the official rule. It makes flamers very nice against hordes, arguably better than blast weapons

H.B.M.C. said:

I think, from what I have seen of the rules, that you would roll damage to see if the horde is effected, and then roll to determine the hits to magnitude from the flamer.

As to blast weapons, I would think you roll damage once; just like any other grenade or missile attack. If the rolled damage is enough to hurt, then you apply the hits (blast radius plus anything special) to the magnitude.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Hellebore said:

Damaging the back-pack is covered, but it doesn't nuke the Marine. When damaged, the back-pack shuts down the damaged areas, meaning that medium damage will slow down the Space Marine, and the suit will deactivate the parts that increase the Strength of the Marine in order to keep other systems functional. If you get enough damage though, the backpack will, sensing the extent of the damage, shut down entirely, leaving the armour entirely unpowered.

MILLANDSON said:

They have a fusion reactor that can shut down its fusion reaction?! Now that's some fancy technology.

That seems a little too 'have your cake and eat it too' for me. You can't strap a fusion reaction on your back and not have the risk of it being breached all over you. Fusion reactions can't just be turned off, they generally need to run out of fuel...

If the containment chamber for the reaction is breached then you can't just turn it off and stop the huge amount of energy being released from spilling out. The energy needs to go somewhere.

I think I'll have to redo that piece so that it actually does some damage.

Hellebore

H.B.M.C. said:

MILLANDSON said:

I posted it, and that is the official rule. It makes flamers very nice against hordes, arguably better than blast weapons

And just to clarify further, say you rolled 5 hits would you:

A). Roll damage once, and if successful reduce the Magnitude of the Horde by 5.
-OR-
B). Roll damage 5 times (once for each hit), and each one that causes any damage would reduce the Magnitude by 1 (so if 3 of them caused damage, the Magnitude goes down by 3).

This question applies to Blast Weapons as well.

BYE

Good question. I would say that B) is totally impractical (although the wording in FS would imply B)). Sounds like a possible item for an errata.

Alex

Hellebore said:

They have a fusion reactor that can shut down its fusion reaction?! Now that's some fancy technology.

That seems a little too 'have your cake and eat it too' for me. You can't strap a fusion reaction on your back and not have the risk of it being breached all over you. Fusion reactions can't just be turned off, they generally need to run out of fuel...

If the containment chamber for the reaction is breached then you can't just turn it off and stop the huge amount of energy being released from spilling out. The energy needs to go somewhere.

I think I'll have to redo that piece so that it actually does some damage.

Hellebore

...Are you confusing fusion with fission? Because "fusion reactions can't just be turned off" is the opposite of true. It is, in fact, too easy to turn off a fusion reaction, which has prevented fusion power from becoming commercially viable for the last 60 years. Properly insulated, fusion reactors are pretty safe.

That sounds to me that there are many more special rules for PA in the final product than in final sanction?

Can you give a few examples?

The question being kicked around is can you use Unrelenting Devistation with grenades? I don't have a copy of the Deathwatch Core Rules yet so I decided to use Rogue Trader material as a reference as the systems/armoury are fundamentally the same.

1) I've highlighted the keyword below for the ability. So to me it reads that a ability is targeted for someone who is using a weapon which is Classified as Heavy. Looking at the Rogue Trader armoury Weapons which are classified as Heavy are as follows: Various patterns of missle launchers, las cannon, heavy stubber, naval shotcannon, heavy bolter, thermal lance, multi-melta, plasma cannon and heavy flamer.

2) The reasoning behind why grenades (thrown or launched) can't take advantage of this is that they are either listed with a weapons class of Basic or Thrown. So from the abilities description below do not fall in a category that can be used with Unrelenting Devistation by definition.

• Unrelenting Devistation : When firing a [HEAVY ] weapon, the Devastator Marine inflicts 1 extra point to a Horde's Magnitude per hit. If using a [HEAVY] weapon with the Blast Quality, he instead inflicts 1d5 extra points of damage to a Horde's Magnitude (after all other hits have been applied). This ability only functions in squad mode.

I know the last thing we need to try and do is justify a RPG rule set to real-world scenerios but I think this one might fit. Unrelenting devistation represents the training a Heavy Weapon specialist receives that teachs them how to maximize the effectiveness of a high cyclic weapon when supporting a combat team or how to place a blast weapon with a large amount of kenetic energy where it will do the most damage. Grendates do not have the same amount of kenetic energy a Krak or Frag missle would have, and while yes it would do a large amount of damage if thrown into a mass group of people, its effectiveness could be easily reduced say if someone threw themselves on top of it.

On the other hand, If you developed a house rule for a weapon similar to the MK-19, an Heavy Weapon class grenade launcher, that is a belt feed 40mm grenade launcher with a RoF of approximately 300 rnds/minute ( or in game terms (RoF S / - / 4 ) then you could blanket an area with all kinds of grenade goodness and I feel that type of weapon would fall under the Heavy category. It would have to be a two manned crewed weapons system (full round to setup) or mounted on a vehicle.

In short, unless the Deathwatch Rules reclassify grenades and grenade launchers from Thrown and Basic to weapon class Heavy weapons, then they can not take advantage of the Unrelenting Devistation ability.

I look forward to you comments on my interpretation of the rules.

Brother Praetus said:

It's part of the full rules in the rulebook - weapons that deal explosive damage deal an extra hit. Weapons with the Blast Quality deal a number of hits equal to their Blast value... so weapons that deal Explosive damage with the Blast Quality (frag grenades, for example) deal Blast Value +1 hits.

@Ishmael

The interesting point is, the second [Heavy] isn't part of the rules. Considering it makes quite a lot of sense that Devastators would be efficient against hordes with all their special weapons, I don't think that's going to be errataed.

Could somebody with the rulebook, perhaps give an example of a starting package for a Librarian ?

How do Force Weapons work ?

Does Narthecium differ from the advanced medikit ?

I am trying to run Final Sanction with custom characters, so both me and my players would greatly appreciate some input.

I would suspect Force Weapons work halfway like they do in the Inquisitor's Handbook.

A mono weapon that that add's the wielder's Psy Rating to Damage and Pen. As for how the killing blow part works, I'm not sure since DH uses a different system to activate psychic powers than Rogue Trader and (apparently) Deathwatch.

Personally, I think DH had the better system, or at least they've entirely failed to factor in the widely varying Threshold ratings for DH powers when talking about how to convert them to RT.

On Force Weapons:

Pretty much verbatim DH. Make an invocation test, and then follow the DH rules. As to starting stats, they get PSI Rating 3, Psyniscience, and 3 powers from a fairly short list.

MR Innes said:

I believe he is, which is why your statement is correct. They use a miniature fusion reactor, which is fairly safe, and wouldn't just blow up if breached, it'd just stop working, as the book states it will.

Is there any indication given just how large the crusade in to the Jericho Reach actually is?

There is a list of the forces that were there at the beginning of the Crusade. However, that was 35 years ago, there's no knowing how accurate that list is now. From that list though, it appears to be a relatively small Crusade, no where near the size of the Sabbat Worlds Crusade or others of that size.

What forces? The Space Wolves and Storm Wardens are mentioned as having particpated in the Crusade, but from my understanding Marines rarely stay on one assignment for too long. As an example, during the Bedab war, a dozen Astartes Chapters rotated in and out, replacing eachother as time went on.

Well, I'd rather not write out the entire list, if that's alright with you? It does include about 40 regiments of Imperial Guard, with a total of about 8 Companies of Space Marines (with a Special Detachment from the Relictors, and a few squads from various other Chapters which act as a Crusader Company that guard the Holy Crusade Banner). One of those Companies is a Space Wolves Battle Company, and that doesn't include 7 Companies from the Storm Wardens (though given they are originally from the Calixis Sector, that they would go in force is no surprise). There are then a few groups of Adepta Sororitas, and some Ad Mech forces and one Rogue Trader and their fleet.

Whether all of those SM Companies were fighting at the same time, or whether some were acting in a garrison/advisory capacity is unknown. Same goes for all the other forces.

But the size of the Imperial Guard contingent doesn't sound nearly as big as ones for other Crusades (such as the Sabbat Worlds).

Oh, sorry, I didn't mean a laundry list of units. Just an overview like you gave. Sorry for the lack of clarity, and thank you for the answer.

7 Warden Companies huh? Quite impressive.

The Relictors make for a nice set of plot hooks too, given their fondness of chaos weapons.

40 regiments guard? That doesn't sound much...