Thunder Charge: 1d5+1 attacks when charging a Horde.

Wrathful Descent: 1d10 extra damage to a Horde after a successful melee attack when charging a Horde.

Does this mean that each of the attacks granted by Thunder Charge will gain the extra damage from Wrathful Descent?

I would just add the 1d10 after all other attack are resolved, so only once

RAW seems to support this.

This could potentially put the infamous devastator+unrelenting devastation to shame when it comes to killing hordes.

Santiago said:

Don't have my book with me, but those extra attacks thunder charge provokes are not charge attacks, correct? Therefore, wrathful descent only applies once, to the initial charge attack.

KommissarK said:

Well, the power is called Thunder Charge so I guess it would have to count as charge attacks, technically. However it gets absurd when combined with Whirlwind of Death and Prenatural Speed.

Reflecting on it, I'd say that anything but a one-time pay off on the first attack of the charge that hits is overpowered.

Alex

No. They wouldn't stack.

Thunder charge clearly gives extra unarmed attacks when charging.

Wrathful decent clearly gives and extra 1d10 damage to a horde when charging. That's not 'when attacking', 'when making a charge attack' or 'with each charge attack'. It's just 'when Charging'. The character is only charging once in the turn: He's not charging +1d5 times. As such it does not stack with anything else, and is added on afterwards.

Looking at it, I can see why some might argue that it's 'per attack', based on the 'following a successful melee attack during a charge...' sentence. however, it clearly states 'a' successful attack, not 'each' nor 'every'. Liguistically speaking there's no way that this would stack with the Thunder Charge. Or indeed preternatural speed.

I would say it can only trigger once per charge anyway, by that wording. I would probably allow preternatural speed trigger it if the initial charge attack missed (or can preternatural speed not be used on a miss?). I still would not allow thunder charge to trigger wrathful descent.

I did a thread on this before, or it was a part of it, and it seems most do a common sense ruling of it and only allow it to be one 1d10. But reading the rules, it would seem to support it. But yeah.. that's would be just so insane. I'm waiting for the errata on it, myself.

KommissarK said:

Yes. Preternatural speed and the Thunder Charge both essentially give more chances for the 1d10 extra damage to be triggered. It's still a flat total of 1d10 though; regardless of the number of attacks that hit.

TBH, it doesn't really need a errata to my mind. You'd have to have the munchkin hat and rose tinted glasses on to read it the '+1d10 per attack' way.

They have errata'd less ambiguous stuff such as the "Pen 3" entry in the nids weapon table. I think it's in order.

Alex

By RAW yes, it works, and it evens up the Assault Marine with the devestator early on (until the Dev can get storm of iron), and then pulls ahead at Rank 8 when he can get whirlwind & pret... that's at end game when your marines are super heroes and can take on Hive Tyrants solo (if they're not doing it beforehand).

Thunderous Charge gives melee attacks on the charge, Wrathful Descent gives 1d10 pts of damage after a melee attack. This is supported by the errata they gave to power weapons, the extra hit from a power weapon is per attack, not once only. and honestly, for 1000xp, and the fact that if you don't wipe out that horde he's going to get pummelled with return attacks that he can do nothing about except take, it's pretty balanced, added to the fact that only one chapter gets the talent, and you have to be in squadmode, and have to have chosen assault marine, and have to have chosen wrathful descent. This is no more broken than a devestator, with a heavy bolter, with storm of iron, with unrelenting devestation, with bolter drill, which any devestator of any chapter can do.

BrotherHostower said:

I've not seen the actual numbers to back this up, but this point is definitely my gut feeling here. You can't exactly do all of the wrathful decent +++ damage until you're up in level, and allowing an assault marine to compete with the devestator doesn't seem all that terrible to me, at lest in comparison with other systems.

BrotherHostower said:

I agree with you on this, and ya for 1k exp +1d5 damage to a horde not so OP.

Nimon said:

Except that, if you agree with him, that's 1d5+1 extra attacks, each of which gets +1d10 magnitude damage. That's pretty **** powerful, but not really any more than what the heavy bolter-toting devastator can do.

HappyDaze said:

Yes, exactly no more then aheavy bolter-toting devastator, or well placed demo, or cleanse and purify+heavy flamer. or librarian and vortex of doom...

BrotherHostower said:

Err... I really disagree with that, speaking as someone who writes English for a living! By RAW and with correct use of the English language, it does not work. By poor interpretation of the English used you can make it work, but only if you are trying too hard.

'A' melee attack is not 'every' or 'all'.

cf: Would you like a cigarette? Why are you taking the whole pack, I said 'a' cigarette? If you eat a biscuit, you can have a glass of water. That doesn't mean that you can eat ten biscuits and have ten glasses of water..

Again, it's RAW + the errata. The same wording is used for the extra hit for power weapons & explosive weapons, the errata/faq blatantly says it's per attack. Thank you for the sarcastic English lesson though

BrotherHostower said:

Ya thats how I interpreted it also I was just about to make a simular response. I am not an english major either, but have taken basic college english.

After looking at Thunder Charge again, the final line makes me believe that if you use this to Charge a Horde, then you only get the d5+1 unarmed attacks (still pretty nasty) - you don't get these in addition to a strike with your weapon like you do against non-Horde opponents. Is this how others read it?

If correct, then this limits the abuse when mixing with Preternatural Speed since you'd have to choose either it or Thunder Charge. At low levels, Thunder Charge combined with Wrathful Descent gives the Storm Wardens Assault Marine the ability to smash through a Horde, but once you have Preternatural Speed you need to make a choice (usually Preternatural Speed for 3 attacks with a Master-Crafted Power weapon is going to be better).

As a test, I used a Rank 3 (21,000 xp) Storm Wardens Assault Marine and charged a Horde of Termagants with Magnitude 60. He has WS 58 and is using Thunder Charge. With the size modifier and the Charge modifer, the character's attack Tests will be against a target of 108. The Thunder Charge roll comes up a 3, for a total of 4 unarmed attacks.

The first attack rolls a 09, giving 5 hits. Each automatically causes a point of Magnitude damage, and Wrafthful Descent adds 9 for a total of 14 Magnitude damage.

The second attack rolls a 69, giving 2 hits. Each automatically causes a point of Magnitude damage, and Wrafthful Descent adds 8 for a total of 10 Magnitude damage.

The third attack rolls a 05, giving 6 hits. Each automatically causes a point of Magnitude damage, and Wrafthful Descent adds 1 for a total of 7 Magnitude damage.

The fourth attack rolls a 51, giving 3 hits. Each automatically causes a point of Magnitude damage, and Wrafthful Descent adds 4 for a total of 7 Magnitude damage.

The end result of this is a total of 38 Magnitude damage to the Horde.

That doesn't really seem too bad to me.