Okay,

Lets put this topic where its supposed to be:

How does Horde Damage work?

Melee:
1 per hit + 1 per two DoS
Additional +1 if you are using a power weapon


Ranged:
1 per hit, +1 if you are using an Explosive (X) Weapon
1 magnitude damage per Blast (X) rating


But how do we apply certain talents and special abilities:

Unrelenting Devastation:
Double Damage per hit or when using Blast (X) weapons just add 1d5 after all other hits have been resolved


Storm of Iron:
Doubles Magnitude Damage (When do we apply this?)

Metal Storm Bolt Shells:
Bolt Gun gains the blast (2) special quality


So how do these 3 powers work in concert?



The Question:
Morgan, a Storm Warden Devastator Marine fires his Heavy Bolter at a horde of Tau Fire Warriors, he scores a tremedous 10 hits, to make sure he cuts the horde down to size he uses Metal Storm Bolt Shells

2d10+8, Pen 4, Tearing Blast (2)

My solution:

Since he is using a (X) based weapon he receive a bonus hit so he hits 11 times (we assume he wounds).

He is using a weapon with Blast (2) so that is 2 damage per hit makes 22 Magnitude damage

Now all hits have been resolved and we add +1d5 magnitude damage for Unrelenting Devastation (we rolled a 9, so +5)

Now Morgan causes 27 Magnitude Damage....but we are not finished yet...
Morgan is a ery experienced Storm Warden and has recently bought the Storm of Iron Talent which doubles Magnitude Damage

27 x 2 = 54 Magnitude Damage in Total...

I think you're right on the money- the explosive weapon adds additional hits , blast does damage to a hordes magnitude equal to its radius in parens per hit, and becaues you're using a weapon with the blast quality you add 1d5 damage at the end rather than doubling each hit (as it reads specifically "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."), then he uses Storm of Iron which says if you do damage to a horde's magnitude, you double that damage.

One could argue that you would do 11x2 for blast = 22, x2 for Storm of Iron = 44, then add the 5 from Unrelenting Devestation for a total of 49, but really the difference is only 5, and when you're doing 40-50 (or in the some cases 100) magnitude damage, is 5 really a big deal?

Santiago said:

The rest I am uncertain of myself.

You are right, X deals one extra hit as I used in the formula in the lower part of the post.

Unrelenting Devastation adds +1 magnitude damage per hit (effectively doubling it in this case (x2))

Allright, sorry, I was just making sure. I had to argue with a friend who kept swearing up and down its "double damage".

Alright basic question here:

The above specifies the number of hits. To determine if a hit reduces magnitude by the rules it needs to inflict any damage past armor and toughness.

Does this mean that you roll damage individually for each hit (up to maybe 54 times as in the example)? Just curious as me personally RAW a hit doesn't equal -1 magnitude without rolling damage over armor and toughness.

Suijin said:

Yes, you'd roll individually for each hit inflicted... but that's before modifiers that apply specifically to hordes - for example, a character with a Heavy Bolter and Unrelenting Devastation scores 4 degrees of success on an attack, scoring 5 hits. He then needs to roll for damage for each of those 5 hits, dealing 1 Magnitude damage for each hit, which is then modified for Unrelenting Devastation and Explosive damage, etc.

Though immediately rolling for damage might not always be needed.

Heavy Bolter does 2d10+10X, Pen 6 damage, so 12 pen 6 at the least.
This means from the book all horde type enemies are automatically wounded thus dead...

Bolt Gun 2d10+5X, Pen 5, so 7 pen 5 at least
This means from the book all horde type enemies are automatically wounded thus dead...

Flame Weapon 2d10+2, Pen 3, so 4 pen 3 at least
This weapon you might want to roll for except with: Termagent and Hormagount otherwise you'll have to roll above minimu to wound

Heavy Flamer: See Bolt Weapons...

Damage against a horde is not rolled. Instead, hits subtract directly from the Horde's Magnitude in accordance with the rules specific to each type of attack. I believe the reference to a hit doing 15 damage is intended to reflect the idea that you cannot reduce a horde's magnitude with a weapon that woulx be incapable of damaging a given member of the horde.

Xenoviel said:

Which is why you roll - if a hit doesn't get past toughness bonus and armour (an impossibility with some, but not all weapons, depending on the target), then it can't reduce magnitude. A frag grenade (2d10 damage) against an Ork (TB8, AP2, based on their profile in Creatures Anathema) has to roll 11+ in order to deal any damage, so why would that not also be the case against a horde of Orks (one damage roll for each point of Blast quality, so Blast (5) means 5 hits to roll for)?

Page 359

Attacking Hordes:

Each Hit that causes any amount of damage reduces the Hordes magnitude by one

So yes,roll for damage per HIT


Another Question:

You can't dodge or parry Horde Melee Attacks but can / will they dodge or parry yours?

Yep, they can carry out dodges and parries. Given that many of the Tyranids have the Dodge skill trained, it'd be silly to not allow them to use it.

Also, can hordes catch on fire from flamers? Or is it wrapped in there through the figured loss of magnitude ( I guess thinking about it I would say it is already wrapped in there)?

I would say yes, 1d5 magnitude damage per turn...

Santiago said:

Would the D10 fire damage would have to beat their toughness though..

That is how I've been ruling it - the 1d10 from fire must deal damage (though it ignores Armour as normal per Fire rules on page 260), and if it does damage, it deals 1d5 Magnitude damage. Hordes actually have an easier time to continue taking actions while on fire due to Magnitude bonus to Willpower.

MILLANDSON said:

At first glance this seems totally bizzare to allow a seething mass of Tyranids to all jump out of the way of your bolter fire, though with autofire it works a little better (with DoS eliminating hits, not dodging 100%), but for flamers and blast weapons, how would that work? You spout a 30m long, something like 19m wide cone of fire at a undulating mass of enemies, and they all just move to the side to avoid being hit? Or you chuck a grenade in the middle of them and they all scatter out of the way? It seems like with a dodge of that varitey they could take half damage or something, but removing the damage entirely seems odd to me.

Charmander said:

It does seem off to use the rules like that. You could just always use a dodge or parry like dodging autofire and reducing the magnitude damage by 1 per success.

Face Eater said:

Keep in mind that an Astartes flamer does an extra 4 damage when on fire, so 1d10 + 4.

Should be fairly easy to beat toughness

Where does it say that?

Santiago said:

page 148, last paragraph of Flame Weapons

Flamers just seem to get better and better, don't they?

so if i understand well a ful auto burst of heavy bolter that puts all 10 his bolts in the horde scores at least 20 magnitude damage?

this makes a horde pretty useless,it's difficult that 80 hormagants will get close to a team without being noticed...

and if that h.b. has metal storm rounds it scores 40 hits,right?

cpt.catarro said:

No. Metal storm rounds give 2 hits per shot for Blast(2). However, the Unrelenting Devastation gives 1d5 extra hits for Blast weapons instead of doubling the hits. So, 10 shots of Metal storm give 20 hits + 1 (for X) + 1d5 (Unrelenting Devastation/Blast). Basically, Metal storm is a stand in for those Devs that don't take Unrelenting Devastation or a small bump for those that do.

AFAIK, the question whether explosive damage inflicts one additional magnitude damage per attack or per hit is still open. I've asked Ross (well, I asked him a lot of things in that mail...), but he didn't answer yet.

So yes, it's possible that you can inflict 40+ points of damage with Metal Storm rounds. Or perhaps not.

this makes a horde pretty useless,it's difficult that 80 hormagants will get close to a team without being noticed...

Firstly, there are some 'nids that can bury. Secondly, terrain is your friend. The Devastator rules as long as the battlefield is one endless flat plane of land - there's a reason 40k TT battlefields should be at least half full of terrain pieces.

And thirdly... who says there are only 80 hormagaunts around?

I can't really see the confusion about explosive damage. Reading the rule properly definitely points to it being one extra hit per weapon, ie in total, rather than per hit (and the fact it uses "one" rather than "an" further suggests to me that it is per weapon).

Have to say I didn't realise until now that you have to roll for damage for every successful hit... I thought you rolled once, and then if it was enough to damage then you worked how much magnitude was reduced... that's going to increase how long heavy bolters take to resolve.