I'm hoping that someone from FFG might clear up a couple of my questions. I've ran our first Deathwatch adventure yesterday and a number of rather sticky questions came up that the book does not address.

1) Unrelenting Devastation + Heavy Bolter + Metal Storm rounds. The Unrelenting Devastation states: "When firing a Heavy weapon, the Devastator Marine inflicts 1 extra point of damage to a Horde's Magnitude for every hit. If using a 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)." A Heavy Bolter with Metal Storm rounds is considered both a Heavy weapon and a weapon with Blast (2) Quality, so which is applied in the case of Unrelenting Devastation (since it says "instead")? The Heavy quality (1 extra damage per hit), or Blast Quality (1d5 extra damage after all other hits)? If both are applied, the Heavy bolter with Metal Storm rounds is absurdly broken against Hordes with Unrelenting Devastation, as it both doubles the Magnitude damage due to hits scored, and adds 1d5 extra damage!

2) Can a Space Marine parry an armed attack while unarmed and in power armour? My answer was no, but the player presented a compelling case that due to Space Marines starting with Unarmed Master Talent (unarmed attacks are not primitive anymore), having really high Strength and Strength Bonus while in power armour, and power armour being a non-primitive armour, a Space Marine ought to be able to parry (deflect and redirect the blow) with his unarmed attacks. Parry (page 232) states that the character must be wielding a melee weapon. The Unarmed Combat rule (page 245) does not say that an unarmed character can parry, nor is an unarmed character considered to be wielding a melee weapon, but it doesn't say he can't parry either. The Unarmed Warrior talent (a prereq for Unarmed Master) states that the the character "does not count as Unarmed, as defined on page 245, when making attacks against armed opponents." Note, that it does not say that he is specifically armed, just that he doesn't suffer the usual penalties against armed opponents when being unarmed (-20 Weapon Skill). The Unarmed Master Talent also does not state that the character is now considered armed, just that his attacks are no longer primitive (and deal more damage). Interestingly enough, even a creature with Natural Weapons (page 133) cannot parry, nor can a creature with Improved Natural Weapons (page 132). That means that even a Carnifex, who has higher armour and Toughness than a Space Marine cannot parry with his claws. Am I right in my reasoning? If so, while it makes sense rules-wise, it is really sad that Joe Blow with a rusty knife can parry because he's wielding a melee weapon, but a power-armour-clad super-human warrior who can punch through concrete, or a 20 foot alien monstrosity with diamond-hard claws can't. It's also weird, because if two unarmed characters fight, neither of them can parry the other's attacks because neither are considered armed with a melee weapon. Is there a rule out there that contradicts my reasoning, or an existing errata for either DH or RT that clarifies this? I certainly hope to be proven wrong!

Thanks in advance!

While I'm not going to attempt to touch the rules question (I'm not yet experienced enough in the game), I think that "parrying with your arm encased in armour" is basically the same as "being hit in the arm and the armour doing its job" - in other words, parrying (deflecting a blow so it doesn't hit you) is not possible via a method that is essentially causing the attack to hit you. See what I mean? Anyway, pay me no heed - I'm just rambling!

Razorboy said:

I'd say it's correct though. 1D5 + 2 Horde damage per hit. A Heavy Bolter with Metal-Storm is like artillery.

Alex

ak-73 said:

Consider adding in storm of iron and it gets really scary for hordes.

Basically, hordes are trash, meant to add the notion that the marines are in fact killing things on their way from point A to point B.

The character also has the power armour history that adds additional +1 damage per hit vs. hordes. You can start to see where stacking Unrelenting Devastation + Heavy Bolter + Metal Storm rounds + armour quality pretty much mean that the group's devastator marine can usually reduce a Magnitude 30 or 40 Horde to 50% or less in a single round, and given that Hordes are generally incapable of sneaking up on Space Marines, the Devastator would almost always have enough range to kill off a Horde. However, the wording in Unrelenting Devastation does not say that Heavy and Blast qualities could be combined, because of that single "instead". I am assuming that the proofreaders and game testers did not catch on that Unrelenting Devastation does not take into account that Heavy Bolter with Metal Storm rounds is both Heavy and Blast. But if these stack, then I guess all my Hordes are going to be dressed in flak armour (doubles AP vs. Blast damage) from now on.

Razorboy said:

Just reread this since you mentioned the wording:

If the marine has unrelenting devastation, if they have a full auto weapon, it is +1 magnitude damage per hit. If they have a blast weapon, it is 1d5 magnitude damage after the hit. If they have a full auto weapon with blast, it deals 1d5 magnitude damage (for all hits). I read the "instead" in the rules as forcing a full auto blast weapon to use the 1d5 damage over the +1 per hit. Overall, this actually means it isn't too bad.

Assume a heavy bolter, rolling a perfect hit (10 hits on full auto, 11 with bolter drill, and lets assume storm of iron)

11 (base) + 11 (explosive damage) + 5 (unrelenting dev max damage) + 22 (11 hits with a blast(2) weapon) = 49 * 2 (storm of iron) = 98

So in absoultely perfect conditions, a heavy bolter could potentially deal 98 magnitude damage.

KommissarK said:

Not quite. The base hits have to be taken out of your calculation, due to the fact that under horde rules, Blast damage is not in addition to the initial hit, but rather supersedes it as far as I can tell. Therefore, assuming 11 hits: 11 (explosive damage) + 22 (11 hits with blast (2) weapon) +5 (1d5 unrelenting devastation max damage). On the other hand, if I could stack Unrelenting Devastation's Heavy weapon bonus with the Blast Quality bonus, it would instead be: 11 (explosive damage) + 22 (11 hits with blast (2) weapon) +11 (unrelenting devastation's +1 magnitude damage per hit inflicted by Heavy weapon) +5 (1d5 unrelenting devastation max damage). This is a pretty big difference.

And that raises yet another question: under "Damaging a Horde" section on page 359, it says: "Weapons that inflict Explosive Damage (X) gain a bonus against Hordes, and count as having inflicted one additional hit." IMO, this is very ambiguous wording when it comes to automatic fire. For example, if I hit a horde 3 times with a bolter (explosive damage), and assuming I dealt damage with every hit, do I deal 6 points of magnitude damage (2 damage per hit * 3 hits), or do I deal 4 points of magnitude damage (1 damage per hit + 1 extra hit because of Explosive Damage)? The Explosive Damage subsection doesn't say that weapons with (X) inflict one additional Hit per hit, or whether they inflict one additional Hit in total, regardless of how many Explosive Damage shots hit.

P.S. The more I keep re-reading the rules in Deathwatch, the more I am convinced that either playtesters or proofreaders didn't do enough. There is so much ambiguity in Deathwatch, especially when it comes to the new Horde rules, Solo and Squad mode rules.

Well, in my games I'm going to rule that unrelenting devastation only gives one of the effects (+1 per hit, or 1d5, but not both). I really take that "instead" as being key. If they have a full auto weapon, it is +1 per hit. If the weapon has blast, it instead gets 1d5 magnitude hit.

But yeah, definately a bit wary of the proofreading. Overall I don't think its bad, but we're gonna need some errata for alot of this stuff. OF course, I'd say its partly our job to find this sorta stuff

I think that is a reasonable solution KommissarK, and that is indeed how I am houseruling, until we get an errata or official clarification on it. Which I certainly hope is coming soon, because figuring out the magnitude damage with Unrelenting Devastation+Heavy Bolter+Metal Storm bogged down the game, and I generally abhor anything that slows down my games.