How do you guys deal with hordes that contain different weapons amongst its different individuals?

Ex: A traitor guard squad, mostly armed with lasguns, but one or two may be operating a missile launcher or a heavy stubber.

Jackal_Strain said:

Either two seperate hordes or the mechanics used for the Stormtroopers in Oblivion's Edge.

Ale

You could also simply split the horde's attacks (assuming it's mag 20+). For something like that, I'd say 1 attack with a missle launcher, and the rest with lasguns. That being said, a horde with missle launchers is friggin scary

@BrotherHostower

But you really do want a slightly more "codified" way of doing it. What if they have a few more heavy weapons, to justify more than one attack?

The separate hordes idea isn't bad, and Oblivion's Edge method is alright (but doesn't work too well with heavy weapons, its more for grenade/plasa/melta strength weapons).

If you do separate hordes, you might want to force the players to make perception checks to pick it out from the other hordes (especially if they haven't even started shooting at the PCs), as pointing at the models and saying one is regular infantry, and the other is a heavy weapons team = quick way for a broken heavy weapons team.

I added missile launchers to a couple of hordes the first time I ran Final Sanction. Basically, I traded out normal ranged attacks on a 1:1 basis, replacing them with single, unmodified attacks from heavy weapons.

For example, a Magnitude 40 Imperial Guard squad has 4 ranged attacks normally, each with lasguns dealing 3d10+3 after the Horde bonus. Adding a Heavy Bolter team to that changes that to 3 attacks with lasguns, and 1 attack with a Heavy Bolter; the heavy bolter doesn't benefit from the horde's magnitude.

If that doesn't provide enough damage, try counting the heavy weapon's single attack as if it's part of a Magnitude 10 horde (+1d10 damage), while all the remaining attacks use the horde's full size to calculate damage.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

In the latter case, you might as well run it as a Magnitude 10 horde (see Final Sanction and the water-cooled heavy stubber teams).

If there are not enough special/heavy weapons around to qualify as a small horde or they are only small spots among a much larger horde, adapt the mechanic from OE.

Alex

I use different methods depending on what I'm trying to accomplish.

I use No-1's method when I want a horde to contain a heavy weapon for harassment purposes and I want that heavy weapon to live a long time. I usually use weaker weapons (like the stubber) in these scenarios. I 'sacrifice' one attack from the horde and apply it to the heavy.

I also will use separate hordes when I want the marines to have to worry about picking your targets, or creating a 'we gotta take out that mg nest!' moments. I usually take the smaller mag 10 horde and slide them under some heavy cover with a good field of fire. These hordes are where I'll stick my heavier weapons. That way this particular piece of the puzzle is about how to get to the heavy and how to take it out.

I tried the OE rules for enemey storm troopers and they work in a limited context, but somehow the feel with heavy weapons it's not 'right.' Somehow to me it feels too simplistc, like I just tossed a heavy weapon in there to get a bonus d10 to damage. It also makes me scratch my head and wonder why the heavy would do more damage when it's part of a bigger horde. That's just me trying to make a cinematic style or strategic encounters I suppose, and I use the heavies as circumstance modifiers.

Now I've not had any truly gargantuan hordes with heavy weapons, my hordes have been smaller in nature, but I can definitely see the potential of the OE rules working better when the scale is shifted up.

We're on the same page though. The mechanic established in OE is that one attack can be used as a special/heavy weapons attack. I was rather referring to that mechanic. How exactly that special attack works is another matter, especially considering that the Stormtroopers are allies and not adversaries where accuracy/simulationism counts less, imho.

Alex

Thank the Emperor the Marines aren't charging an entrenchment (not the way they do battle usually) the thought of a Horde of heavy bolters or stubbers is just freaking me out.

Fenrisnorth said:

You're thinking too small there. Imagine an entrenched horde of autocannons or missile launchers. Ouch!

-=Brother Praetus=-

N0-1_H3r3 said:

I thought of something like this myself. I'll try this out in tonights game and give my thoughts on how it'll work out after.

Thanks for all the replies folks!