Hi there.

I'm new to the game and was trying out Extraction using only 1 marine, just to learn the game mechanic with a friend. When generating tyranids, we noticed that termagaunts seemed very innefective against the space marine.

When doing the calculations, we realised that Termagaunts can't actually hurt the space marine, as their maximum damage output (including the 3 for penetration) is 18, which is the same as the damage a space marine can absorb with no harm (10 Power armour, 8 for unnatural toughness).

Is this correct, or are we doing something wrong?

A single termagant is no match for a Marine; even an unarmoured Marine could almost certainly kill a termagant with his bare hands. The same is true of hormagaunts (which might be a little tougher to kill individually, but not a lot).

Termagants (and hormagaunts) are meant to be used in hordes, where their massed strength makes them a far more serious threat. A good-sized horde of termagants will gain up to a +2d10 in damage, which definitely gives them the ability to harm armoured Astartes.

Thanks for the fast reply.

When the random generation table brings 2d5 termagaunts to ambush, I'm guessing its pretty much to waste the marines time?

Thanks for clarifying this, I thought we might be missing another damage modifier in combat.

Svorlrik said:

These termagants and hormagaunts are no thread for the PCs. If they travel alone, feel free to either tell the players how easily they crush these xenos (there are thousands and thousands of them to arrive soon though) or play through the fight once to demonstrate their level of power to them.

If they don't travel alone, they better make sure they don't get ambushed for while the Marines are invulnerable more or less, their company probably isn't. So they need to avoid being ambushed and if ambushed terminate all xenos before they can harm someone. Especially if it's the magos.

Alex

Svorlrik said:

Time and ammo... even if an enemy poses no physical threat to the player characters, each foe is still a potential drain on what may be finite resources such as time or ammunition.