As far as I can tell at the start of the game the Kill-team determines their available Cohesion points and that is the total they have for the Entire Mission. I know that they can gain some back due to members spending Fate Points and by acomplishing mission objectives. That still seems like an awfully small number of points for an entire mission. Questions:

1) When a Squad-Mode ability ends or is no longer sustained, are those Cohesion points returned to the pool or are they expended?

2) Does this mean that if a mission takes several days (in-game) or several play sessions, that they still only get the initial allotment (plus any they gain through Fate Points, accomplishing objectives, etc.)?

Edsel62 said:

Cohesion is a finite resource. It is generated at the beginning of the mission (pg. 211). Whenever you activate a squad ability, you "spend" Cohesion (amount depends on the ability). This means that you have to choose carefully! You can recover Cohesion through various means (detailed on pg. 212).

You don't get much, so make it count!

It does seem like a pretty small number, but it's actually fairly easy to get a decent amount- for example, a brand new Tactical Marine with a Fellowship in the 40's will have 7 cohesion points using the Oath of the Astartes without making any effort to accumulate more. Other Oaths give less, but have passive abilities that often rival a Squad ability in power. Additionally, many of the squad abilities are quite cheap and can be sustained more or less indefinitely without a need to re-invoke them. The small number of cohesion points encourages judicious use- it's pretty easy to maintain something like Tactical Spacing for an entire mission at a very minimal/nonexistant practical cost, but you need to be pretty careful on the timing of Bolter Assaults or the like. While I can see the other side of it, and initially thought the cohesion numbers seemed low, I think it works pretty well in practice. It lets the expensive Squad abilities be impressively powerful because they are unlikely to be in constant use, and the cohesion regeneration mechanism generally allows their use to scale with the length of a scenario.

If you build an ultramarine tactical marine with max fellowship. You can fairly quickly get to 70 fellowship, +20 command, and Exemplar of Honor. (3300 xp total)

You can now start with 9 cohesion, gain 7 cohesion anytime you spend a fate point, and once per a game session use rally cry to regain another 7 for free.

And the Exemplar of Honor Talent grants full points per Fate Point.

Back banners are your friend. Easy way to spend off extra requisition.

Bunad said:

More than that, actually. At Rank 1, an Ultramarines Tactical marine with maximum Fellowship (75) and Command +20 produces 11 Cohesion (7 basic, +3 for Command +20, +1 for the Favoured Son ability). By Rank 7, this has increased to 14 (+2 for being Rank 6+, and Favoured Son increases its Cohesion bonus to +2 at Rank 7).

On a related note, Exemplar of Honour, by the wording, appears to require a specific expenditure of Fate Points to restore Cohesion - that is, you spend a Fate Point specifically to activate that talent - rather than granting it as a bonus effect whenever you spend a Fate Point.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

One of my players has an Ultra Tac, Rank 1 with Fel 50, Command +10 and Lead From the Front PA (for an additional Cohesion point) and Cingulum Trapping. He's good at leading brothers.

Alex

Be interesting to see a variation of the Medicae rule, but using Command instead.