First, can anything be a horde? if I have a team of of 5-6 marines on the verge of maxing their xp, would it be too crazy to have, say, a Horde of Chaos Marines?

Second, why the hulabaloo about not being able to roleplay a marine? Has no one played Dungeons and Dragons and played a paladin? Holy Avenger? HOLY BOLTER! You can have a personality and still be a zealot in service to the Emperor. No one whines about assassins who are basically mindwiped iirc, or preachers who sound like they eat, breathe, and crap the teachings of the Imperial cult.

No dramatic tension? Try running through a collapsing building firing a bolter one handed because you have a 6 year old girl cradled in one arm, protecting her from the slugga shells bouncing off your back! Do you deposit her somewhere and turn to meet the Orcs, who are certainly mocking you for running, or do you make sure she's safe at the cost of your pride?

As the CSM Codex and Horus Rising say: Marines are larger than life, in every aspect, physical, and mental. Huge muscles, bigger personalities. Think your co-worker gets pissed when you get a lighter workload, a Space Wolf is gonna fight you tooth and nail to achieve more glory? Imagine the verbal dueling a farseer and a Dark Angel Librarian could get into as they clash swords, talk about secrets!

I think people are having trouble getting out of tabletop mindsets, not because it's hard to, but because they don't think they CAN!

Doubt begets failure

HAVE FAITH IN THE EMPEROR!

1. There's nothing stopping you making any individual enemy into a horde besides if it makes sense in game (horde of hive tyrants? not a chance) and if you think your players can survive it. It does make the individual enemies less awesome since a horde can be mown down a lot faster than the same mass of individual enemies (it's a lot easier to cause a wounding hit than to knock off all wounds and plough into critical damage).

If you're going down the route of hordes of chaos space marines, I recommend a suitably epic objective. Say to take down a 10,000 year old chaos warlord - with his entire army deployed on a planet.

2. It's definately possible to roleplay as a Space Marine. The novels and background stories give ample examples of SMs with differing views and goals. And epic should be the point of the game. SMs are not just "dudes with guns". They are the blessed sons of the Emperor, warrior-monks and near-deified by Imperial citizens.

Fenrisnorth said:

Not I. I haven't played the tabletop wargame since the late 80s or very early 90s.

As to the question of the psychology of Space Marines? A video and Deathwatch are not going to change the minds of some and, to be fair, why should it?

Kage

To the OP, Here here!

yes, you can absolutely do a horde of chaos marines (and the value will be most likely inverse of what your PCs are used to, instead of 1 magnitude of horde equalling a dozen hormagaunts, it'll be just like wounding one of the many chaos marines in the squad).

to Kage: A video and Deathwatch? There's far more than that that give Marines a personality, dozens of novels (not all of which are good mind you... even though I've read them and I think some of them are brain poison... **** you james swallow... ) Dawn of War II does a very nice job as well of characterization for the player's companions (running very similar to old school Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale as opposed to Dawn of War 1). heck, even the Ultras captain in Fire Warrior had a distinct personality, and you only got a touch of that in half a dozen cut scenes.

BrotherHostower said:

Forgive me, I jumped over a huge amount of argument in what was otherwise a throw-away comment. I was referencing the age-'ole debate of "(controlled) psycopathic killer" vs. the "noble knight" approach, which despite the influx of the newer novels, particularly the Horus Heresy ones, is going to continue to go on. Merrett's video speech was... well, it probably didn't quite achieve what he thought it did.

Anyway, that was all.

On, and incidentally, it wasn't a reference to an absence of personality though that is a common argument that is made. I will, however, leave such topics for other forums.

Kage

1) Sure. Although it would de-value a lot as regards to the dramatic tension. Traitor marines are a hated foe, dirt hard, and should be memorable. I think using them as a horde drastically sells them short and is a waste of talent.

2) You're preaching to the choir there. We wouldn't be here if we didn't like the game or the characters.

Also: MAXXED OUT on XP? How much have you guys been playing?!

Yeah, I just got the book, I haven't even found a group yet mesosad!

The maxed out XP is more of a what is scenario, and I see now that hordes really mookifies what you use it on, CSM are too badass, especially since they have plenty of wounds. I will just end up advancing their stats if I ever find/run a game.

IMO GW really did themselves a disservice by releasing that "A Day in the Life of a Space Marine" thing back in the 90s. it really makes them out to be near servitors, which saddens me. I am happy that Abnett and McNeal are cramming life back into those suits of powered armor.

Heresy is the reward for complacence.

HAVE FAITH IN THE EMPEROR!

Personally, I wouldn't use a horde of chaos space marines, on the basis that such a horde would require a very high magnitude have properly "tough" CSMs (so like a mag 30 horde may very well be only 2-3 CSMs, where a mag 60-120 may be only 5-10 CSMs), but as horde size increases, they become far easier to hit. And saying a 10 man group = +60 to hit, well, that just strikes me as slightly odd. +60 from horde size really should be reserved for things like the green tide.

Unless you want to say CSMs = paper thin armour and no good TB. But I just don't think that strikes me as a good way to handle it.

Or alter horde rules to require more than one point of damage, but then things start to get a bit shaky. Perhaps add a new horde trait, call it like, Hardened(x), where x = number of hits it must take before it reduces mag damage by 1 point. So Hardened(4) means that 12 hits = 3 mag damage. Its simple enough to be implementable, but allows for "tougher" hordes, without forcing horde magnitude to be inflated (and then easier to hit hordes). One other issue there is that many of the rules somewhat interchangably use the wording of "hit" and "magnitude damage," and such a hose rule might not hold up too well under too much scrutiny.

But as others have said, certainly, yes, anything can be used as a horde, just make sure the magnitude is high enough (I would say at least as high as the wounds of the base creature).