The RAW were confusing to me. Does a space marine ONLY suffer a penalty to Willpower tests when fighting a scary monster, or does he ever cower or scream and run?

He only suffers a penalty to WP (or cohesion damage) when he fails a Fear test. If he succeeds, there is no effect at all. They never cower and scream.

Yup, there was a long set of posts on this as well;

Essentially you make a WP check, and if you fail you get a -10 to future WP checks per level of fear (fear rating 1 does nothing, so the -10 starts at fear 2, then -20, 30, and so on) in solo mode. In squad mode you take the fear rating of he creature in cohesion damage to the squad when you fail your check. None of the other fear mechanics apply.

Some people interpreted the RAW as you're simply minus to WP right out of the gate and then suffer no effects, but I'm 5-9s positive the rule is that everyone makes their WP check for fear before anything else happens and penalties are applied only after failing the roll. Marines also never get insanity from fear.

Willpower checks are only made in solo mode correct? Only cohesion damage is done if the squad leader fails their roll?

I guess it's important if the marine switches from squad into solo mode.

Tidomann said:

If they loose cohesion points and are forced out of, or voluntary switch from, squad mode do they need to test or fear again, even the leader that just failed a test, or are they automatically effected by the WP reduction for fear, or do they suffer no more effects?

Face Eater said:

I think the least painful way (for the GM) is to apply effects based on in which mode a PC has been when exposed to the source of fear.

Alex

The way I read it I agree with Alex here- the effects would hit you once, and stay with you regardless of what mode you're in.

No matter where you are, you make a WP check. "When a PC is confronted by such a frightening event or adversary, he must take a Fear Test"

And yes, based on the way the paragraph is written, you only lose cohesion only if the leader fails the roll. Though now that I read it again, it seems that if a single battle brother fails the fear test, the leader has to make a willpoer check, even if he alread rolled: "If the Battle-Brother is in Squad Mode, the Kill-team suffers a point of Cohesion Damage for every Degree of Fear the creature posesses unless the Kill-Team Leader passes a Willpower Test." Makes sense when you think about it- any person in the squad goes scard, the leader has to check to maintain control of the squad.