ak-73 said:

Well, I'm sure you've read my little calculation in the other thread - in the end, of course, it all depends on your personal interpretation of the setting, but Eldar employing IG-style wave tactics and granting a to-hit bonus due to the size of their "mob" instead of having at least a chance to dodge and evade incoming attacks just doesn't seem very fitting to me.

In fact, I do not think Horde rules fit well to anything other than Orks, 'nids and bands of cultists, as they forego any advanced tactics usually employed by more disciplined troops. They work well enough for epic firefights against the aforementioned groups, though, but of course that doesn't adress the real issue.

To be honest, maybe you should just do to weapons like Splinter Rifles what the designers did to the bolters and grant them +1d10 in damage for the purpose of Deathwatch games. Just scale everything up equally, this should preserve the challenge.

It'd still be nice to have a proper Xenos book with all sorts of adversaries and their equipment nicely sorted by species, of course. One chapter for the Eldar, one for the Tau (and their allies!), one for the 'nids, etc ...

Because of the nature of hordes, you could make a mag 30 horde represent 10 Eldar. As for tactics they only leave them out when the GM wants them to- it's not exceptionally difficult to have them behave in a smart way and use things like cover, manuvering, etc. Hordes aren't static chunks of soldiers, they're whatever you want them to be.

Some of the Eldar weapon I agree desereves a damage buff, but I felt that way prior to DW. Perhaps we'll see some new info in Mark of the Xenos

oberonzero said:

And sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Not everything has to be some C'tan plan, not to mention, sometimes the goodguys get to win. 40K does allow you to punch Cthulhu in the face.

Blood Pact said:

Never did before. Now it detracts from the grim darkness of the setting.

SubtleCadaver said:

Sometimes characters get to win, other times they get wasted. Unless your grim darkness involves losing all the time and fighting a hopeless battle then there is still plenty of grim and plenty of dark to go around.

And I kind of like oberonzero's theory, it'll be interesting to see how the designers develop the whole thing.

Charmander said:

Just not to the extent of the current Ward Codices. Calgar falcon punching the Avatar, the Sanguinor killing Bloodthirsters with ease, and now Draigo walking around in the Warp, all Daemons too scared to attack him. It's ridiculous.

Lynata said:

You are a bit quick to ditch the entire system instead of making the system work though. :-)

1. Hordes can have specific horde traits and you could apply them here. Invent a new trait that allows a horde to decrease the number of enemy hits by DoS of a Dodge roll. For each and every attack. That will make them hard to kill.

2. There are no hard and fast rules between horde magnitude and to-hit modifier. The table in DW is just guidelines, I assume for Guard equivalents.

So you can have an Eldar squad with mag 30 (that represents its combat effectiveness rather than numbers). As a GM you have an idea of how many Eldars it should represent (let's say 20) and assign a to-hit modifier based on that (let's say a modifier of +20 which goes down in steps of 10 as their numbers go down).

Also I house rule that hordes in cover rather decrease the to-hit modifier than make use of cover rules. The main purpose of cover here is to obscure visibility, limiting the amount of damage an attack can do.

Lynata said:

You haven't really looked into horde rules and how they can be made to work, I can tell.

Take a look at the Fire Warrior hordes in DW. They work quite okay too. Also have a look at this thread here and feel free to make amendments:

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

Alex

ak-73 said:

You're probably right about that, and I like the ideas you mentioned - I've merely judged the rules as they appear in the book.

Generally, I'm beginning to think they can be made to work, they're just not quite there yet. I'd love to see an improved system in Only War, as I like the basic idea behind it all. I'm just still sceptical about them being able to portray most of the more advanced/disciplined armies, as Horde rules undoubtedly render virtually everything (including Space Marine squads, if you'd apply the rules to them) easy kills - let's not forget that this system does not exist just to ease up on the dice-rolling, after all. The challenge will be to make them not-quite -as-easy, I guess.

And it would likely be very situational. Eldar - and many other opponents that don't quite owe up to their reputation in a direct encounter with DW rules and stats - still don't "deserve" to be cut down in large swathes, but rather treated as individual opponents just like the player characters. It might be okay to have some sort of "final epic showdown" with waves of Horde Eldar attacking whilst the player characters form up around an objective they have to defend, though, but I'd be very careful with such encounters and have some NPC Marines and other allies die (Horde vs Horde?) just to make the battle appear even more bloody and legendary - with the player characters ideally being the "last men standing" on a pile of corpses and shells, barrels smoking from countless spent bolter rounds (cue Starship Troopers soundtrack).
But for regular combat? Nah, this would diminish their rep too much...

Lynata said:

Not that magnitude damage does not equal kills. It's an abstract number subject to GM interpretation. With the rebel hordes and hormagaunt hordes used in Final Sanction and Oblivion's Edge I equaled one point of magnitude damage to about 2 kills.

If you want to portray Eldar Guardian as less pushover, than make it so that 20 of them form a magnitude 50 horde. It gives +20 to hit initially and for each 4 points of magnitude damage another Guardian has been killed (description-wise), everything else is just wounding some squad member to whatever degree. Magnitude isn't just numbers it's also morale. So when the magnitude reaches 0, you can rule that the rest try to withdraw from the fight, their squad being totally broken. If the PCs don't want let that happen, let them make some kind of test to see if they let any escape. They main idea is that the fighting is over when they reach mag 0 (and don't flee before that anyway) and they no longer form an effective fighting force of any kind. That and that magnitude doesn't equal numbers, not even by a fixed factor.

The whole system is just an abstraction and needs a GM who can creatively interpret the numbers for the players, deriving interesting descriptions of the combat from it. Example: hordes should need to take a morale test if the player succeed in flanking them. Nothing gets a soldier as quick to panic as an enemy to the side or rear, especially if it an Astartes. Form sub-hordes for heavy weapon teams or run them as regular NPCs. Mix and match. The main problem with the hordes rules is that it can turn into a boring numbers crunch too easily (especially when the enemy knows no tactics other than to charge, not taking any cover, etc). The players should never know what to expect when fighting hordes.

In short the magnitude stat allows for creative interpretation with the result that you have enormous ease in determining scale as GM. A squad of 20 Eldar Guardian may be mag 20 or mag 50. It's up the GM to decide, just stay consistent as GM and make sure that your players have a rough estimate of the threat level they are facing.

Alex

Lynata said:

Really? Try using several smaller hordes -each one representing a squad or fireteam- and break open the suppressive fire rules. Staple on a few custom horde traits, and you're there. You don't need to be able to make dodge checks. The system is there for speed, and extra dice rolls diminish that. Simply rule that the Eldar ARE dodging most of the fire, and increase the size of the horde to take it into account.

eg: 30mag horde = 5 eldar. It's just that 50% of the PCs shots are going wide because of the eldar's agility, and this is being abstractly represented by giving them 100% more magnitude than it would otherwise be.

Now you're advertising the system as better as it currently is, though. These rules are not (just) meant for speed, they are meant to provide epic encounters with huge masses of weak enemies (to whom the Marines would otherwise be invincible to) descending upon the players, and it outright says so in the book. Unless you houserule the crap out of the rules as they are written, your "Horde" of 5 Eldar will break after the players manage to kill one of them - by diminishing the Magnitude by 8 in a round, which shouldn't be too hard given that they get a +20 to BS and every successfully tested bolter attack - despite how you narrate it - still counts for x2 hits.

As I already admitted, they can probably be made to work better for other scenarios with a few tweaks here and there and some additional modifiers, but they are not there yet and every GM has to work around this by ignoring parts of the rules or assigning arbitrary modifiers. Also, when you get to "Hordes" of just 5 enemies, why bother with Horde rules anyways and not make it a real fight where the individual adversaries also act independently and allow different tactics / pose a greater challenge? I really don't think Horde rules were meant to be used for any amount of enemies greater than 1.

Lynata said:

You're wrong here. First, you don't get 2x hits from explosive damage. You get one hit added to the end of your hit calculations. In addition, you can use cover, which means your hits could very well do jack. Next, you can give the horde traits that make it much harder for them to break, such as disciplined, or a high WP (which makes a ton of sense for eldar). None of this changes the rules, you just change how you build the horde.

A lot of your complaints seem to stem from a lack of undersdanting or a misunderstanding of the rules. Please, I entreat you to give it a shot, then complain about it rather that complaining the system is broken without actually trying it fully.

As for 'real fight' a fight with a horde is a real fight, it's just that you're treating the enemies as a single organism for efficiency. I'm not sure where you get the idea that the horde can't act independantly or allow different tactics and pose a greater challenge. I really don't get it at all. If you want 5 elite guys that can challenge astartes creature to man rather than due to their numbers, then USE 5 Elites (as in the defined tier of elite enemy). If your attacking them with friggin guardians (the crappiest of the eldar) then use a hord.

Take your horde of 5 Eldar foot soldiers. Give them a magnitude of 50. That is a threat to the kill team. The Eldar takes damage and breaks. Never ones to be stupid, the Eldar “break” by withdrawing from combat to regroup and come back at the team from a different angle. Maybe one is dead, maybe a few are injured. Magnitude damage doesn’t mean dead bodies.

You could have the Eldar horde reduced to magnitude 10 from 50 and still say all 5 Eldar are up and fighting, they are just being very, very cautious and sticking to heavy cover.

This is a perfectly viable way to run Hordes and is in no way a house rule.

If you don't like it and want to spend 5 times longer running a combat by having 5 independent enemies running around, go for it.

Lynata said:

That's not true at all. 1 horde magnitude does not equate to one creature. It can, but it can be a lot more, or a lot less. It specifically states that. It really doesn't require any houseruling to work. Sure: The obvious way to use them is to have a massive single horde for the players to chop through representing dozens of foes... but it doesn't have to be. Remember the system is abstract and abstract does not have to scale in the way you assume it to.

And it is certainly well worth using them to represent single squads, because nobody said that you only put one such horde against the party. Multiple small hordes are the way to fly in many situations.

ItsUncertainWho said:

And oddly enough, dpoing this makes those 5 eldar much easier to hit and somehow allows them to put out way more firepower. I like the Horde rules, but I don't think this is an appropriate way of modeling small groups of medium-high competency opponents. I'd rather fight them as low-end Elites.

As I said I don't equate Magnitude loss to dead bodies in every instance. For me, it can just as easily be used as a way to judge how soon an elite squad will pull back after testing the enemies firepower, as a means for an elite group to harass the KT, or the magnitude loss can be used to represent pinned opponents who can no longer add fire to the group.

I find the Horde mechanic to be very flexible in application.

Charmander said:

Lynata said:

The system is made for speed.

Well, the system isn't made for simulating 5 Eldar. You can simulate such a combat the normal way. The horde mechanic is for use when the normal way would break down because simulating 100 traitor guards individually would take too long. And simulating 100 traitor guards in some way becomes a necessity due to the epic level of DW.

So for simulating 5 Eldar, don't use horde rules. Use horde rules when the enemies you want to pit against the PCs are so many that you don't want to roll individually.

And if you had picked up on my above suggestion of assigning a custom horde trait that allows Eldar hordes to reduce hits through a successful dodge test, it would become more difficult to break a mag 30 Eldar horde (they might even pass the morale test), no matter how many Eldar this should represent.

And it's true - it's an additional hit. But it's nonetheless easy for a KT to inflict 8 mag damage. A single Devastator can do that for you.

Alex

SubtleCadaver said:

Memory lane time...

There's an old bit of fluff concerning the siege of the Imperial Palace on Terra (it's probably been overruled by the Horus Heresy novels by now) where Sanguinius, after days of fighting, bloody and tired, holds off a Bloodthirster at the inner gates of the Palace, fighting it hand to hand until finally he raises it above his head and snaps its spine over his knee.

So yeah, the good guys get to kick loads of ass. Because that's what Space Marines are created to do, and sometimes that Galaxy need to be reminded of just why they should be scared to death of them.

ak-73 said:

And yeah, I've found that they haven't really got that good of a grasp concerning any of the rules for Deathwatch, and that their primary reasons to look at the system are to find reasons to ***** about how Space Marines overshadow Soriritas.

But it's hard to tell because whatever Lynata " means " seems to be whatever makes her seem the most right at the present moment.

Why I just gave up with arguing and decided to depart the forums for a while, which I shall be doing again shortly.

It wasn't Calgar who Donkey-punched an Avatar, it was Fulgrim. and he did it from the FRONT, cuz that's how he rolls.

Blood Pact said:

Blood Pact said:

Sanguinius, even exhausted from multiple days of endless fighting, is still a Primarch, with all that entails. Calgar? Sanguinor? Draigo? Badass as the 'best of' of an already elite force should be, those same 'best of' at the pinnacle of their ability shouldn't be able to hold a candle to even an exhausted Primarch.

Those 'best of' folks can still be heroic badasses - Calgar is the leader of THE most respected Space Marine chapter (in fluff, at least - no one in tabletop respects the most generic of SM, aka Smurfs) and could very well have been instrumental in the defeat of an Avatar, properly supported and, in proper Grimdark, perhaps losing an arm or leg in the process. The Sanguinor? Why need there be multiple Bloodthirsters slaughtered? Is 1 nigh-unstoppable demigod of warp and hate not enough? Draigo? Taking on a Daemon Prince alone (and barely succeeding... it was a DP, right?) is already pushing the badass envelope, given that Primarchs gained in power/strength/ability upon elevation to that rank. Nothing (except a large band of warp-tainted werewolves, aka the 13th Space Wolf company, or at best a Primarch) should be able to survive more than a few weeks in the warp unless the Chaos powers wanted a permanent plaything, I don't care how pure your piddly psychic flames are.

Blood Pact said:

I enjoy good debates, even when heated, if they don't get too personal. Charmander and Lynata have proven that they can do that, others have not.

Alex

Going back to the original post, I would love for the book to contain rules for Nocturnal Warriors of Hrud, Tarellian Dog-Soldiers, Kroot, Kroot Hounds, Krootox, Necrons, Harlequins, Slann (not the Old Slann/Old Ones, the Aztec frog-like humanoids), and Noise Marines.

Jutlander said:

Good calls, but there is so much more, hyper-violent Barghesi, Khrave mind-eaters, Donorian Clawed Fiends, Tlexian Elite, Nicassar, Umbra, dozens of different Stealer hybrids...

TorogTarkdacil said:

All good suggestions. I certainly would like to see a more diverse catalog of filthy xeno's to hunt down. More xeno's equals more mission types and more unerving of players when they don't know what they are up against.

On the other hand, they do need to expand out the lists of the existing, and main, xeno army forces. Carnifex's, gargoyles, lictors, defilers, obliterators, kroot etc. You don't need as much room to add a lot more with the existing xeno forces so decent sized section should give you what you need, plus an expanded armoury (with biomorphs for stealers) should give you a world of options for the space of a one page table.