Siranui said:

I'm using N0-1_H3r3's stats for Orks modified to be on a Hulk that has been taken over by...well I won't spoil it in case my players find this thread. Suffice to say I find his write up for Orks and Eldar to be excellent and well balanced/though out, so I will continue to use them until something from FFG comes along (and perhaps after if I think his are better).

Got this a couple of days ago and it is absolutely excellent! It seems to have largely avoided the ‘Curse of Fantasy Flight’, the only obvious errors are that some of the orks weapons don’t have clip sizes listed.

It has a major write up for Tau and Tyranids, covering almost everything of both sides that wasn’t in the main book (with the odd exception). They are well-balanced and look like they could give Kill-teams a proper challenge (especially with the new weapon statistics). The Tau section includes write-ups for just about every type of Kroot.

There are a bunch of new ‘solo’ aliens also.

The Heretics and forces of chaos sections are both quite short by comparison; the heretics one has a couple of named characters and a bunch of nasty Samech constructions and the Chaos one has stats for greater and lesser demons and for specialist chaos marines (beserkers, sorcerers and noise marines).

The final chapter contains a series of new horde traits, and a short system for running mass battles.

Calonnau said:

Awesome. I assume they didn't reprint any weapons for Tau but rather just told us to look to the main book.

Calonnau said:

These both sound excellent, I'm glad the chaos sections are relatively short and confined mostly to the relevant Chaos Forge World in the Jericho Reach.

Calonnau said:

I suppose it could be argued that the Ork weapons just continue to fire as long as the Orks believe they should...

Other than that do the weapons stats look in line with the core book or the 1.1 errata?

Well the "astartes" weapons that the chaos marines carry seem to be in line with the original rulebook rather than the errata. You could hand-wave it aside and claim they're heresy-era weapons but really since they're the same type of weapons (bolter,chainsword, pistol etc) the KT carry anyway it shouldn't be too hard to avoid confusion.

Hi all,

I picked up MotX on Wednesday and have had a pretty thorough read at it since then. Overall I really like the book, I think it is well produced and adds a lot of new material (particularly much needed fluff) to the game. My comments/criticisms would be:

1) There are the usual errors and mistakes, particularly common is for enemies with both the Daemonic and Unnatural Toughness traits to have only one of them applied to their TB in the stat line. Not a big deal, but just watch out for it.

2) It seems aimed at the RAW weapons rules, given the Chaos Marine weapon stats (as pointed out by a previous poster).

3) Overall the book presents a pretty diverse array of opponents, there are quite a few repeats in there (Obliterators, Diablodon, etc.) though which are curious, but I can see why they would do this as not everyone will buy TEP, some also have updated rules.

4) The "other" aliens aren't particularly exciting, some will be good in particular kinds of adventure, but seem better suited to a Dark Heresey or Rogue Trader level campaigns. I'm sure they will come in handy now and again for a change though.

5) The Tyranid section seems pretty thorough, lots of good detail, although some more information on command structures, hive ships and the like would have been useful. The Carnifex doesn't seem that tough, it has a lot of wounds but much less armour than a Dreadnought for instance. Maybe this is a better way to model it, I'll need to wait till I get a chance to try it out to know for sure. The purestrain Genestealers here are significantly worse than the Aurum Genestealers from TEP, whether that is a reflection of the life enhancing power of Aurum or just a retcon is up to you!

6) Greater Daemons feel totally half-baked. I know they've been heavily streamlined rules-wise in the table-top game, but I'd have expected FFG to re-introduce some of the flavour and colour to them. In most previous RPG incarnations Greater Daemons have had tons of specific special rules reflecting their uniqueness and awesome power, now in a game where PCs have a vast range of special abilities and strategic options the GDs get around 2-3 special rules each. Also, surely it is a mistake that Bloodthirsters don't have Lightning Attack. I'd actually expect them to be able to make more than 3-4 attacks per round but having Swift Attack and being dual wielders doesn't do them justice in my opinion.

7) Chaos Marines just don't seem designed to stack up against DW characters as they advance. They are probably fine opposition for ranks 1-3 but will start to become cannon fodder after that. I'd have liked to see more of a range of options for CMs, maybe including different ranks, specialities and the likes to vary the opposition a little more.

Overall though a solid purchase which will come in very handy.

As for the Eldar debate, I'll say no more than this. FFG have made their choices undoubtedly based on economics, strategy and their vision for the product range, you are free to agree or disagree with them but it is clearly not wrong of them to do so.

I've seen SotS arguing in many a topic around here and it seems to me that he cannot be persuaded around to any point of view other than his own. Furthermore he prolongs every argument indefinitely and seems to take delight in frustrating those he is debating with through repitition and stubborness. If that is how he wishes to conduct himself I say fair play, but I don't see the point in engaging with him for the rest of us.

As much as I like the new weapon stats, I admit it would be odd if they used any stats besides the ones in the core, because the ones in the errata are considered optional.

Shaun said:

Surely that's true of every enemy stat block.

The game needs some way to help the GM advance the adversaries in line with the players' own otherwise things will just get silly.

signoftheserpent said:

This is true in my experience. I had a tactical marine beat a CSM to death with his fist...Rank 3. Good rolling maybe but it was ridiculous!

The Russian said:

The stats in the Core Rulebook are merely Rank 1 "Tactical" CSM though. It's up to the GM level them up as needed.

Alex

Good point. But I think FFG could do the game a blessing by coming up with an adversary leveling outline. So CSMs aren't glass marines with cardboard armor like they eventually seem to be.

The Russian said:

At best, I think that would equate to a really, really, REALLY rough guideline. This isn't DnD where enemies gain HD and their Attack, HP, etc. increase at a steady rate. Your baseline CM can increase his stats to be more Devastator or Assault or whatever he wants to be. Tyranids have their different biomorphs to provide different challenges. The game really is all about presenting the GM with some toys to customize and use as he or she sees fit.

Balodek they didn’t reprint any, but there are a ton of new ones. And the weapons are in line with the original damage totals. As for the Ork weapons I’m lucky enough to own a print copy of Creatures Anaethama so I figured that since most of the stats are similar I’d just use those (18 for a slugga, 30 for a shoota, and maybe 60 for a double shoota used by the meganobz).

Calonnau said:

If you would ever experience your orks running out of ammo in a clip, I'd say that the Deathwatch team is doing something horribly wrong!

Brand said:

No problem, just the fact that most people don't need such detailed guidelines. Provide a basic "mold" (like the standard CSM) and most people can easily derive their specific enemies from that.

Like pushing WS and/or toughness if you want to employ some kind of elite melee combatants. And increasing BS for ranged specialists. Pretty simple actually, since most adversaries usually have but one job - they die by the hands of the PCs after putting up a more or less tough fight.

So in fact I think coming up with really detailed advancement tables for adversaries would be a waste time for the developers and a waste of space in a publication. They should instead focus on releasing new adventures or subsector descriptions or new enemies etc.

signoftheserpent said:

The biggest issue here is that Player Characters in any of the 40kRP games don't level up in a predictable, uniform manner. 1000xp can be spent on a wide variety of different things depending on the speciality/career path and current rank of the character. It's not like D&D where characters of the same class are all essentially the same except for the attacks they possess, with easily predictable values for attack rolls, approximate damage dealt, armour class and hit points.

Damned board software.

It's not hard to modify some stats, add a few more Talents and up their wound count, so balancing things against higher level Kill-Team's isn't that hard.



Calonnau said:

Can anyone post the Sonic Weapon stats? I'm dying to see what they are and my book won't be here for another week at least.

BYE

Hate to be the shoulda police but it might have been nice to have the a stat line for Chosen as the other end of the scale, with their special rules etc.

With Ork shoota's it's story of two halfs. I always thought hey seemed a bit low damage previously (if they are the same as CA). Not really going to be an issue most of the time as they will mostly be arming hordes (where even the clip size isn't factor) but they are also the standard armament for Meganobz and Warbosses. Obviously both are going to want to use other weapons in preference anyway but it might be an issue, they probably should be a good deal better than the ones used by rank and file, near unique really.

My copy arrived today from the excellent service of Infinity Games, UK.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

It won't matter how the PC spends his XP because that isn't what determines rank, just how much XP he's spent. Therefore it should be entirely possible to build monsters and enemies in the same way. MoX just provides static blocks of characteristics and lists of abilities with no apparent provision as to how to change, improve or alter those to match the PC's as they themselves rank up.

Yet the thing is, you can buy skills with XP, and these generally don't help with combat...

So the thing is a bit more complicated than D&D, where usually your XP benefits can only improve your combat capability. That's where the example is relevant.

But I agree nonetheless, a little help as to how to "upgrade" enemies would be cool. Even only some kind of way to know how much more you have to field to oppose higher ranking PCs.

signoftheserpent said:

No, it has bearing. Trust me on this. There is no guarantee that a Deathwatch character at any given rank will have X number of additional wounds or Y number of advances to WS or BS - he could as easily have spent them on Lore skills or other advances that have exactly no bearing on a character's ability to kill, while the experience spent to purchase those advances apply equally to the character's rank whatever they are. As a result, it is essentially impossible to accurately predict what a "Rank 4 Tactical Marine" will look like, and thus essentially impossible to try and design a system that balances NPCs against those characters. D&D is relevant because it does the opposite - characters of a particular level are assumed to have capabilities within a narrowly-defined range, with monsters mathematically-balanced against that range of abilities, with strict and clearly-defined guidelines for how to advance those monsters (ie, exactly what you're asking for) to face higher-level characters.

As for "spending XP to purchase talents and traits" for a monster... well, I don't build NPCs like that, whether for my own campaigns or for official material. I employ experience, familiarity with the system and with the setting, and common sense, to determine how powerful an enemy is.

signoftheserpent said:

This is true. But what you seem oblivious to is the fact that Rank has almost no bearing on a character's combat ability (it determines the potency of a few abilities, and what advances he is allowed to purchase, but doesn't tell you anything more than that), and thus no bearing on how powerful an enemy he can reliably overcome. Rank is thus virtually useless as a means of determining how powerful a group's adversaries should be.

Lot of fun stuff in the book; I feel they managed a good spread of "classic" enemies as well as throwing in a few good new ones. I like the new ideas for hordes and mass combat.

Few quibbles:

As others have said, some stat errors and omissions.

Some random reprints (Obliterators, Lictors, more Genestealers, Diablodon, Kroot); give me as many new shinies as possible, darn it!

Why no Thousand Sons? They have the other three....

Chaos Sorceror has two psychic powers? At Psy Rating 5??

Where are the regular Crisis Suits?

While it's nice that they include some material on the idea of Turning Points in combat, I wish they had fleshed it out a little more.

Overall, I quite like it, and eagerly look forward to challenging my PCs with some new playmates.

H.B.M.C. said:

I'm not sure how strict they are about posting material on the forums, but I'll do my best:

Blastmaster: two ways of shooting, the first is a single, high-powered shot (dice damage a bit stronger than vanilla AC, Kraken penetration) with a big explosion that's quite devastating, if you catch my drift. Second is multiple, weaker shots that are not quite as devastating but bring to mind stormy weather.

Doom Siren: flamer that has damage and pen almost identical to post-errata power claymore (doesn't actually set things on fire, of course)

Sonic Blaster: basically a post-errata Godwyn bolter that has pre-errata ROF.

Hope this helps!

How are the weapon stats compared to the new errata? Do chaos bolters have the same stats as the ones in the rulebook or the ones in the errata?