Simple question: can a horde dodge and parry, including the ability to avoid a flamer? Please provide a page quote.

Thanks,

Dan.

CptCaine said:

"A horde should be treated by the Games Master as a single vast creature." (page 359)

That means per default it can dodge and parry unless a rule says it can't.

Alex

Surely that sentence is not intended as you are stating; it can't be all that encompassing. I read that rule in a manner such that hordes are played as a single creature for ease of simplifying combat, not that the horde acts a single creature in every manner. Only for concerns such as stats and movement. ect; there is "one" pseudo creature; but how does 50-100 soldiers dodge or parry an attack all at the same time.

Furthermore, if a horde is treated as a single creature in every aspect why does Smite specify that it "must be targeted at a single creature"?

I also can't except that a SM is unable to parry a horde's melee attack, but the entire horde is able to parry the SM's attack. That puts a big penalty on the players, especially melee oriented players.

Dan.

The chances of a successful dodge and parry are quite low for most horde creatures. This is going to be less than 15% of the time. Now- this doesn't meant that a space marine doesn't parry at all in the combat. It's the mere fact that at least 10 horde members are constantly bashing him with their weapons. Most of these attacks do nothing, and it's only under repeated attacks that they manage to deal damage. Yes, a horde can attempt to dodge a shot, or parry a melee attack and this may seem like it underwhelms a melee character but remember-

A melee character is going to get a +20-60 bonus to attack hordes of significant threat. With this bonus, a space marine deals an extra HIT with every 2 degrees of success. So, an assault marine, using swift attacks is going to attack up to 2 times, 3 if he has two weapon wielder talents. On each of these attacks, getting a +20-60 modifier, he has a large chance of scoring extra hits. This is going to end up with the character getting 0-10 extra hits, 0-15 if he is using 3 weapons. The horde can try to parry one of these attacks (remember, ~15% chance on most hordes, excluding all those with natural weapons who can't parry. Even if a horde manages to find itself with the trained dodge skill this is about a 30% chance to dodge one attack).

CptCaine said:

I think it means it acts as a single creature in every regard unless specified otherwise .

Also I think one should imagine such an attack in an abstract manner - a Devastator levels its Heavy Bolter at a horde and rebels are jumping into trenches, behind walls, etc. and thereby avert getting hit by the worst.

CptCaine said:

It only means that you must "place the center of the template on an enemy base" - just as in 40K.

CptCaine said:

The player cannot parry because he's been attacked from all sides at the same time. The horde parrying represents the horde successfully averting significant casualties. If the parry succeeds, maybe one or two horde members get slain on the spot. If the parry fails and the Marine does some higher magnitude damage, he might be cutting his path through the horde, taking down foes left and right.

Alex

AK-73 might be onto something with this... Just because an attack against a horde "misses" doesn't mean that narritively, it didn't hit/kill any horde members. Just that the attack had no meaningful effect on morale.

A missed/dodged/parried melee attack could very well be described as slicing one traitor in half, while the other back away. Or perhaps they "parried" by shoving their friend at the attack.

KommissarK said:

That's not a bad idea. Maybe a horde parry/dodge could work like Dodge vs Full Auto fire, removing 1 hit per DoS. Thus, even if they successfully Dodge it still represents your attack doing some damage. This is mostly relevant for single shots that do multiple hits (all bolters, either via Metal storm, Hellfire, or the 1 for X), melee attacks, blast weapons, and flamers.

KommissarK said:

Even then, a successful dodge or parry from a Horde doesn't require that every creature in the Horde dodges or parries... only those directly in the line of fire. An Assault Marine's chainsword might be blocked by a single Ork in that horde of 50, while that burst of fire into a squad of Eldar Guardians may cause several of them to duck, dive for cover or leap out of the way to avoid shots that might otherwise have hit.

Radomo said:

Good idea. I just dislike the idea that a melee character is hosed vs hordes in melee (he can't dodge/parry, but the horde can). It's bad enough all ready that ranged characters easily out damage their melee compatriots, no reason to increase the gap by letting a horde completely negate a melee attack.

Why would you want to grant players the ability to doge the only attack a melee horde has? They don't get bonus attacks like a ranged horde. Most hordes also don't have trained dodge, making their dodge's pure luck. Melee against hordes are already going to score multiple hits (for each 2 degree of success), ontop of any multiple attacks they already have (swift/lightning attacks, spending reaction to attack etc.). The horde can only dodge, at max 1 attack, and any horde with high enough WS usually has natural weapons, thus they can't even parry at all.

The horde can parry/dodge 1 melee atttack out of the ~3-18 a melee character (who is rank 1, yes a rank 1 character with good rolls is going to score up to 18 hits) is going to get. They're going to be doing this dodge at 15%, maybe parry one attack at a 30% chance.

The horde can try to dodge ranged full auto- usually scoring 4-10 hits. This dodge is going to be at a 15%. There is no way they will be able to dodge multiple hits unless they roll insanely low- in which in a cinematic fashion, plenty still get torn down, some in the line of fire manage to find cover while the horde continues to function.

Honestly, only the devestator is going to be kicking the crap out of a horde compared to most ranged/melee characters. In fact, most melee characters are going to get more hits on hordes especially later in the game compared to a normal bolter, even using Metalstorm rounds.

ak-73 said:

Why do you mention a template for Smite; there is no template?

CptCaine said:

It was only an analogy to the tabletop.

Alex

Just musing over the house-ruled idea of Combat Master as a talent letting a character with it in melee with against a horde, be able to parry or dodge their attack(s). Simply by the description that they're not affected by being outnumbered for the enemies to-hit bonus.

Okay, double checking everything everyone posted as well as the book. I'm caught up on the topic.

I guess I just have one issue with the whole thing and I think it was brought up but not real clearly talked about.

I am fine with the horde using dodge or parry, because they have almost no chance to succeed and an assault marine in melee will indeed kick the crap out of a horde for the most part without issue.

Has anyone had the issue pop up where an assault marine can't dodge a hordes attack, but they dodge his and therefore he is not only useless in that particular engagement, but is taking damage he cannot avoid either.

And before we get onto the whole rules behind this and cinematic morale loss not being taken by a horde so on. Let me be real clear, I am just trying to illistrate that this particular situation might ruin an entire session for one player. Even the example chaos heretic horde hits for 3d10 + 5 in melee (more than enough to kill a marine in rank 1 as the previous example for 10 hits was used for an assault marine).

I understand the likely-hood of the situation happening is almost nil but is there any real way around players feeling penalized up the ass on that ruling?

That is why I'd rule that a Horde dodge/parry dodges only part of the hits from a particular swing, removing hits per DoS.

Ex.

Rank 1 Assault Marine has two attacks due to Swift Attack. He attacks twice getting 4 and 6 DoS, respectively. That is a total of 7 (2 hits + 5 from DoS) hits on the Horde. The horde has WS 25 and knives. They roll an amazing parry of 01, giving 2 DoS. They parry 2 of the hits and take 5 hits.

CptCaine said:

This is somthing I would like to know, too.

If a SM with a heavy Flamer incinerates the Ground held by a horde he may hit it 30/4=7,5 round up to 8 plus 1d5 times.

How can the Horde defend against that?

A) Is it just it?

B) Does it roll Ag once to negate all hits?

C) Does it roll Ag once and negates one hit per success?

D) Does it roll once per hit?

Umbranus said:

So let's muddy up the water a little more. According to this email, Hordes can't normally dodge or parry. Anybody else receive an answer similar to this? Or is this discussed in the FAQ thread?

Thanks,

Dan.

To me as stated earlier a horde being unable to dodge a marines attacks while the marine being also unable to dodge a hordes attacks makes much more sense than one being stacked in favor of dodging and the other being unable to dodge.

I really appreciate you sending this one to Ross. I was starting to wonder if hordes were supposed to be boss like in nature while other solo creatures were simply chaff.

But it didn't answer my question wether the horde gets to roll Ag to Avoid flamer hits.

And if it may roll how many hits it can avoid.

If they can't dodge, they shouldn't be able to avoid the flamer.

Delahunt said:

The "avoid the flamer" is just a different mechanic for the "to-hit roll". It doesn't count as a reaction for all purposes, it's just a different form of resolving the attack.

Alex

ak-73 said:

In that line of thinking one could say that the horde would have to get a malus to the Ag test similar to the to hit bonus another battle-brother gets when shooting at it with his bolter. That could easily be explained with the members of the horde impeding each other in getting away from the blast.

Umbranus said:

You will have to take note though that the AG test isn't even a Reaction but totally for free. It's just a test used to determine which of the eligible targets in the area that a flamer can cover will be hit. I guess they preferred a characteristic over a blank percent chance - which leads to some bafflement apparently.

Alex

Just let them avoid 1 hit for successful Ag test + 1 hit per degrees of success.

CptCaine said:

Maybe not dodge a flamer, but maybe the horde has a shield they can raise to block. All things written in the book need to be looked at as a guidline you the GM make the final rule, if you think they can jump into a ditch at the last min or block the flame then thats your call I would have to see the issue in its context to make a ruleing myself.