I have a question. How do you other GMs approach combat senerios with such long range weaponry, and expansive terrain?

---Do you always have the enemy sneak up on the PCs in an ambush senerio?

--- Or only attack in dense areas, such as Urban or Jungle?

With how far a space marine can see and the range of a bolter, I am having trouble getting a horde into hand to hand while they are still something to be scared of. The elites do not fair much better.

Any suggestions?

It's easy enough to vary the type of encounters. Most sentient enemies are bright enough to make some use of cover. On using cover for hordes, I've seen suggestions for reducing the effective magnitude of the horde for purposes of shooting (it's implausible to be easily able to mow down a unit of soldiers in a bunker).

Some enemies (e.g. Tau stealth suits) are designed to sneak up on targets and ambushes are certainly not limited to specialists. Rough terrain, foliage, weird environmental conditions to mess with autosenses, all are valid options to challenge SMs. Not every battle is fought in a clear field on a bright day.

In any case, best of luck with your campaign.

40k Junkie said:

What race is this hand to hand horde? Orks? Maybe use hordes of ranged enemies to distract the group while the melee folks close the distance. Or use vehicles to shield the infantry from the long range fire. Tau? Take up covered/shielded positions and use your better range to rake the marines while they try to close the distance with you, then ambush them with hand to hand troops.

Try to think like the enemy commander when setting up your encounters- you know you have some hard charging marines waiting for you- what do you use to your advantage to get into a position where you can hurt them? How would YOU advance on a group of space marines, and what would you wish were there to help your advance- then toss it in. If you're tyrannid, you would approach this differently than say tau or eldar. Also spice up the landscape- while a farmstead may initially seem like an open field, throw in some 'farm stuff' that makes the terrain more complex such as vehicles, partially harvested plants/crops, out buildings, topography pieces like hills and gullies, animal corpses, groves/orchards, weather conditions such as fog, rain, snow, sleet, etc.

Do not just charge across an open plain at a pack of SMs armed with ranged weapons unless you're in a horde of something like 500, or you're going to die. Pick your avenues of advance, use other partner squads to help you, exploit the weaknesses in the position of the marines.

Just use more hordes. Instead of 2 mag 50 hordes, put 4-5 mag 20-30 hordes at 200 meters. Unless the players have multiple Devastator marines they will not be able to kill off all of the hordes before they close to melee.

Or be a bit clever about it. Put a horde with heavy weapons in cover and force the players to focus fire on that hardpoint. The 2-3 mag 30 melee hordes may then not seem to be the most dangerous threat (until they have closed in).

Give melee hordes some transportation, put them in jeeps (halv move to exit) with higher movement.

One word:

TANK.

Crazy Aido said:

Perhaps that is an idea deserving more than one word.

40k Junkie said:

Tanks are great?

Take your average Leman Russ battle tank, put one together using the bits from Into the storm, or whatever the second most recent rogue trader release was.

Most of the weaponry in the space marine armoury will have serious trouble cracking it. Even a Lascannon is touch and go and very few kill teams are likely to take a Lascannon. A superkrak missle might cause some damage. A multimelta needs to be up close. The tank on the other hand...

I would imagine a battle cannon is 3D10+8 damage with Pen 8. Not to mention that it has sponson weaponry, all of which would be auto-stabilised. Even space marines can't go toe to toe with that. They need to take cover, or close distance to use meltabombs and krak grenades. Probably both. But then, that's where your horde is. Waiting for them.

Job done?

If you think a battle cannon would only be 3d10 you're... I dunno what to say just teasing, honestly a battle cannon is (if I've done the math right and no variation by random FFG numbers) 5d10+5-10 pen 8-10 with a 10-20 meter radius (FFG has started to vary stuff from their readable TT to RPG formula with DW and Into the Storm).

Tanks (transports) are a good idea for protection, multiple smaller hordes are good too. Mix the hordes up as well, dont' use all melee (even orks have shoota boyz). A large horde (something like, mag 50-80) of shooting to cover several smaller (mag 30-40) melee hordes will give your marines something to think about, especially with intervening terrain. 200 Meters of open grounds is... a very, very big space. Two football fields long. Even in a Tabletop game, that much open terrain is DEATH to a close combat army vs a shooting army (just ask any Ork player). You'll also find, even over a HUGE distance, that you'll run your devestators out of ammo (or force them to reload) by using smaller hordes. Sure our rank 4 Dev can (and usually will) hit for 40 to 50 magnitude damage per burst, but he's got 25 of those before he needs to take 2 rounds to reload (assuming you let him keep a spare backpack for 25 more bursts or just make him man up with boxammo of 60 rounds). He uses the same 10 round burst on a magnitude 50 horde as he does a magnitude 20 or 30 horde. A mix of hordes, elites, and dangerous solo troops is also a way to go and forces each PC to really decide how to deal with the situation.

Quick example - 2 mag 40 hordes of Hormagaunts, 1 mag 30 horde of termagaunts, 1 broodlord, 3 genestealers. The PCs have to decide what needs to die first. At a range of... 100 meters, SOMETHING is going to get through, at 60 Meters, More than one thing is getting into melee and is really going to make something feel alot of hurt.

You want to really scare your PCs? give the Hormagaunts sprint 60 meter run with a -20 to be hit will make them sit up and notice as the distance between them gets eaten wicked fast

BrotherHostower said:

They had Earthshaker's doing 5d10 E + Knockdown in O.E. with a 20m radius, but that seemed weak to me given that a lascannon did a ful l1d10+10 more with pen 10. I'd make a battle cannon right aroung thte 5d10, + 8ish, pen right around 8, with a 20m radius. I'd up the earthshaker to 6d10, give it pen 5 or 6 + knockdown. You can live if the dice go your way, otherwise you're toast.

/tangent

P.S. I cna't even imagine how long a combat would last where the dev got off all 25 shots. That seems like it would last the whole night or more

You could have two blast radiuses for cannon shells, one with huge damage for a direct hit and a much larger one with lesser damage for indirect hits (say that 5d10 over 20m).

Tanks, you say...

Leman Russ Battle Tank
Type: Ground Vehicle
Tactical Speed: 10 m Cruising Speed: 35 kph
Manoeuvrability: +0 Structural Integrity: 28
Size: Massive (+30) Armour: Front 40, Side 35, Rear 20
Crew: Commander, Driver, Loader, 2 Sponson Gunners. Carrying Capacity: 0

Weapons
One Turret-mounted (Facing: All) weapon from the following list:
• Phaeton pattern Battle Cannon and 40 shells
• Stygies pattern Vanquisher Cannon and 40 shells
• Mars pattern Exterminator Autocannon and 10 ammunition drums
• Gryphonne pattern Conqueror Cannon and 40 shells
• Kantrael pattern Eradicator Nova Cannon and 40 shells

One Hull-mounted (Facing Front) weapon from the following list:
• Triplex Phall pattern Lascannon
• Mars pattern Heavy Bolter
• Voss pattern Heavy Flamer

Two Sponson-mounted (Front/Left and Front/Right) weapons from the following list; the weapons must be the same:
• Mars pattern Heavy Bolter
• Voss pattern Heavy Flamer
• Mars pattern Multi-Melta
• Ryza pattern Plasma Cannon

Special Rules
Ground Vehicle: This vehicle follows all rules for ground vehicles.
Availability: Rare
Reinforced Hull: When a vehicle with a Reinforced Hull receives a Critical Hit, halve the result, rounding up. This quality does not affect rolls on the Critical Hit chart generated by Righteous Fury.

Leman Russ Close Support Tank
Type: Ground Vehicle
Tactical Speed: 9 m Cruising Speed: 30 kph
Manoeuvrability: +0 Structural Integrity: 30
Size: Massive (+30) Armour: Front 40, Side 35, Rear 25
Crew: Commander, Driver, Loader, 2 Sponson Gunners. Carrying Capacity: 0

Weapons
One Turret-mounted (Facing: All) weapon from the following list:
• Phaeton pattern Demolisher Cannon and 26 shells
• Lucius pattern Punisher Cannon and 4 ammunition drums
• Ryza pattern Executioner Plasma Cannon and 10 fuel cells

One Hull-mounted (Facing Front) weapon from the following list:
• Triplex Phall pattern Lascannon
• Mars pattern Heavy Bolter
• Voss pattern Heavy Flamer

Two Sponson-mounted (Front/Left and Front/Right) weapons from the following list; the weapons must be the same:
• Mars pattern Heavy Bolter
• Voss pattern Heavy Flamer
• Mars pattern Multi-Melta
• Ryza pattern Plasma Cannon

Special Rules
Ground Vehicle: This vehicle follows all rules for ground vehicles.
Availability: Very Rare
Reinforced Hull: When a vehicle with a Reinforced Hull receives a Critical Hit, halve the result, rounding up. This quality does not affect rolls on the Critical Hit chart generated by Righteous Fury.

Sorry if the text on the vehicle weapons table is a bit small; if the picture doesn't fit fully in the message, right-click and "View Image" or equivalent. The weapon stats are a little out-of-date, as I've not adjusted them since Deathwatch came out, so there are weapon qualities that I should add which I haven't yet.

What, no Annihilator turret? geeze, man.

Serious though, that does look scary. Kudos

Fenrisnorth said:

Annihilator Twin Lascannon: 300m; S/-/-; 5d10+15 E; Pen 10; Clip 2000; Rld - ; Twin-Linked

As an aside; the 2000 shot clip for the Triplex-Phall Lascannon and the Annihilator Twin Lascannon aren't actual clip sizes - Lascannons mounted on heavy vehicles (such as tanks) draw power from a generator instead of charge packs, giving them theoretically limitless ammunition. However, the barrels must be replaced after 2000 firings as per approved maintenance doctrines.

Ok you are awesome for responding, how about the Executioner, the Plasma Destroyer turret? <3 u!

Another thing to remember about hordes is that though you may be able to mow them down, but you are going to use up a lot of ammo.

I don't actually recommend playing the whole fight of the SM held up in their defensive position for hours as they are assaulted by a never ending wave of Hormaguants. It would likely require some pretty creative GM-ing, but if you can pull it off it could be a blast to play through.

Decessor said:

Ooh, nice, I've been trying to work out a solution for cover with hordes, and I like that one. Thanks for mentioning it

AkumaKorgar said:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=179&efcid=3&efidt=404441&efpag=0#405579

Part of a thread that is labled in a way that may make it hard to find, but it discusses a number of options for how to deal with hordes in cover or inside buildings, etc.

Charmander said:

And don't forget about Tactical Advance. Well trained opponents will use that instead charging blindly.

The same cannot be said about dem Orkz though.

Alex

AkumaKorgar said:

Glad to be of assistance, but it wasn't my idea.

Looks like someone posted the thread it came from, handy.

ak-73 said:

Which if you've been running in open fields allowing your KT to mow down the enemy before they can so much as get off a shot, this will surely have them soiling their armor.

And da boyz have enough manpower (orkpower?) to throw at them they don't need to take cover.

Charmander said:

Lol, da boy in front is da cover.

Alex