Unusualsuspect said:

This would have the funny side-effect that 2 Eldar are easier to hit than 8 Orks, though - at least if you use the rules as they are written and do not modify them for the occasion.

Thanks for pointing out that numbers don't equal magnitude, though - after re-reading the rules I noticed that a single short sentence does indeed say this, even if the rules lack any sort of clarification as to how this should be applied and other problems crop up when deviating from how the rules seem to be intended to use (crowd control for low-end enemies, as vandimar77 said, and how it is also noted in the rules itself). But I like the idea of a greater magnitude effectively giving the individual enemies "hitpoints", though this does result in some more paperwork to track all of it.

Unusualsuspect said:

In this we agree.

Generally, I am sceptical to the idea of Horde rules "distorting" weapon damage in any way. 10 lasguns when employed without Horde rules have no chance whatsoever to harm a Marine, but as soon as you group them they are suddenly treated like a single weapon with greater damage? In a way, this is just an extension of the example given in the book about how Horde rules should not be employed, if you recall the little paragraph with the 50 snakes - it turns something into a threat which would not be one without this special game mechanic.

Either Marines are too strong or all the weapons (save for those specifically introduced for Deathwatch in the respective book) are too weak. It's probably a mixture of both, but given that combat generally works fine in DH (and weapons are always a little less lethal in all games) I put the blame on Unnatural TB once more.

Horde rules are still a useful mechanic for the more legendary/epic style of play Deathwatch is prone towards (especially when dealing with what really IS best represented by giant blobs of death, like cannonfodder cultists, IG squads, Gaunts, and Ork Boyz, but I really would have like to see something akin to Horde Lite, in which eilite individuals can still be treated as individuals, but those elite teams working together might gain something along the lines of a "focus fire" or "dual shot" mechanic.

I must say, Lynata, I'm pretty much in total agreement with you - I feel Horde mechanics are an insufficient and wonky bandaid for the real issue with interbook balance, they're just a lot easier than revamping the entirety of the non-DW enemies or revamping DW's mechanics itself.

Lasguns can in bulk be made dangerous to marines simply by giving NPCs Righteous Fury, which should have been done in the first place, and there is no need for horde rules (other than not having to make a billion die rolls) and no mystery. A dozen lasguns firing at semiauto is 36 shots. Let's say half of them hit (assuming a BS of 35 and semiauto fire and short range, this isn't unlikely). That's 18 shots. Statistically, one of those is going to get a 55% chance for Righteous Fury; very possibly two will. Doing the math in my head, statistically speaking you are going to have about a 60% chance for Righteous Fury being triggered per volley, a volley being five seconds. Average damage for a Righteous Furied lasgun shot is about 18 Wounds, which is about the point where a marine gets hurt. After about half a minute of this a marine is going to be in pain.

EDIT: I have a hunch that might or might not be born out by the math that if you did the calculations here for a minute or two of firing (assuming this to be a TT turn), you would get TTish results in terms of marine casualties.

Unusualsuspect said:

What you are really disagreeing with is the epic level that Marines represent in DW. You are probably looking more for tabletop marines than novel marines. When you play novel marines, you need hordes. A single Ork or a small group of them will be no problem to kill for a novel marine. My Crimson Fists Rank 1 Devastator killed 3 Orks with his Gladius without even taking a scratch. Just once he got hit but it didn't cause any damage.

The power level of these marines is so epic that without hordes you'd not have enough enemies to fight. You need to have a mechanic of 1 against 100. Otherwise only the fights against a handful of elite and master tier enemies will be a challenge. And don't forget that Tau Fire Warriors are a horde in DW too. 5 or 8 Fire Warriors pose no significant threat to a DW kill-team - they'd get eliminated in no short order.

And in FFG's defense: if they hadn't take the Marines to such epic levels, it would have become all the more apparent why the existence of 1,000 chapters wouldn't make much of a difference in the vastness of space (and men and ressources, etc). Personally I like the epic power level.

@Inquisitor sapiens potensque: Yes but the Space Marine will

a) seek cover, skewing your claculation
b) eliminate the whole squad in less than 30 seconds
c) charge the whole squad

An imperial guard squad isn't supposed to defeat a Space Marine in 40K Roleplay, except by incredibly legendary luck. But hey, with RF even a long Guradsman can kill a Space Marine. How many 10s does it take? 4 of them? That is 1 in 10,000 Guardsmen might kill an unwounded Space Marine with a lucky shot by his lasgun immediately. Sounds in line with the epic design of Deathwatch marines.

Alex

I thought I was pretty clear that I was aware Hordes were necessary to 'properly' represent the epic/legendaryness of Space Marines, above and beyond reason. That, I have no problem with - there's plenty of satisfaction for my Rune Priest when he charges headlong into a group of traitor guard and sends chunks of traitor flesh flying in all directions

My complaint is that foes that ARE actual matches in fluff, even for the most epic of Space Marines, are mechanically incapable of more than painful mosquito bite equivelents without resorting to a mechanic that doesn't make sense for multiple individuals each capable of seriously hurting, if not killing, a Space Marine. That same Rune Priest should actually be worried when he ends up surrounded by 2-3 Eldar or Dark Eldar, not capable of laughing in their faces and doing some light reading until he's bored enough to just kill 'em off.

Dark Eldar and Eldar, while not as tough individually, are capable of cutting down even veterans in single combat - luckily, if individual, more easily in groups of 2+.

But I'm saying they're not epic (in some capital-E sense in which they can take on armies). They are special ops guys who come in and take out localized pockets of resistance and are very good at doing that, which is as it should be. If they try to play WWII Trench Warfare in Space and charge a platoon of lasgun-wielding guys across an open field, they will die, which is as it should be.

EDIT: In the fluff I'm pretty sure an average Eldar or Dark Eldar, even a soldier (e.g. a Guardian or Kabalite Warrior) is nowhere near a match for a marine. Things like Banshees are.

ak-73 said:

In the same vein we can ask ourselves why those 1.000 Chapters have not already invaded the Eye of Terror, crushed the Tau Empire and terminated the Tyranids if all of them really work with "novel Marine efficiency" and simply use Horde rules on everything.

Don't misunderstand me, novel epicness is fine - I do understand its appeal and feel tempted to try DW some day, too. I just have a problem with all the different branches of this RPG originally having been meant to be directly compatible to each other - but now you have (semi-)realistic DH/RT on one end and novel Marines on the other, which doesn't really fit together as soon as you mix the different games. And to make matters worse, some people take this epic scale as realistic, or even think Marines are still underpowered. Naturally, it's also a bit of jealousy on my part because DH/RT characters cannot do the "epic novel stuff", too (and yes, there actually are "epic" novels about characters other than Marines, too).

tl;dr: In Tabletop terms, it feels as if we have "Movie Marines" fielded on a game where all other armies work by their standard rules.

When I speak of Eldar and Dark Eldar, I'm not referring as much to the Guardian civilian mooks (who should be somewhere between an IG and a Fire Warrior in effectiveness, but still probably require a horde), but rather Aspect Warriors like Dire Avengers, Banshees, Striking Scorpions, etc. Dire Avengers have been statted out, as have Dark Eldar raiders and even a Haemonculus.

As is, a space marine is immune to every attack a Dire Avenger can make unless there's an exarch with a diresword somewhere. Dire Avengers shouldn't be such pushovers, nor should 3-4 need an exarch to take out a single marine. They're as much an elite as a Tactical Marine is, though faster rather than stronger/tougher.

Lynata said:

1000 Chapters would be overwhelmed by numbers. A squad of marines cannot stand up against an army platoon.

I agree about the Aspect Warriors issue. Indeed I have always thought that the Dark Eldar Warriors in PtU were ridiculously understatted. They don't even have Dodge. I think FFG probably wanted to include iconic Xenos in an adventure and tailored their stats to the expected PCs.

Oh, Nobs are understatted in CA too.

Interesting. I always assumed that righteous fury applied to all attacks in Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader and Deathwatch, whether Player or NPC made. I may have assumed wrong then? It kind of makes sense to me that it should.

Inquisitor sapiens potensque said:

Unless they're Space Wolves (seriously, have you read "Road to Gathalamor"?).

Or Deathwatch characters.

vandimar77 said:

The book suggests allowing RF for bosses or otherwise very important opponents - but for nameless opponents, yeah, it does not apply as per the RAW. I always took Righteous Fury to be one of those typical "player bonuses" that make it a bit easier for player characters to overwhelm their enemies and let them stand out as "special". Not unlike the Horde rules.

Lynata said:

No I haven't read RtG I've read precious little Black Library in fact,

But Deathwatch characters cannot stand up against an army. Cumulative Righteous Fury will get them eventually. When 100 shots are flying at you a round, that "eventually" is going to be very soon.

Assuming everybody gets Righteous Fury.

vandimar77 said:

I get the feeling that originally it was intended to apply to all characters, bur somewhere along the way the designers changed their minds.

Inquisitor sapiens potensque said:

Other way around. The oldest versions of Dark Heresy - using a completely different system, of which very little actually made the transition into what we have now - made a fairly significant distinction between PCs/Major NPCs and everyone else, elements of which lingered when 95% of that ruleset was scrapped.

Inquisitor sapiens potensque said:

That was Codex fluff, actually.

Some time in M36, a warp storm had cut off and isolated the Imperial Segmentae from each other and a Cardinal Bucharis took this as an opportunity to establish himself as leader of his part of the galaxy. He managed to subdue every world in the region still accessible to him - save for Fenris. He sent millions upon millions of Guardsmen there and had a huge fleet bombarding the planet for three years, and still the Wolves were able to hold the world. But the best part is that these were just the boys which were left home, as after three years the larger part of the Chapter gets home and kicks Bucharis and the entire Segmentum Pacificus Navy out of the system.

Sheesh.

Inquisitor sapiens potensque said:

If the NPCs get Righteous Fury, which as per the RAW they don't. Also, Righteous Fury doesn't automatically equal a wound - there's still some more dice-rolling involved, making the chance even smaller.

Also, a platoon is about 20-50 people, and a squad of Marines armed with boltguns is able to take down up to 40 Guardsmen per round (5 Marines x4 bolt rounds from autofire x2 kills due to explosive ammo). Using Deathwatch rules, the Guard platoon will break or simply get eradicated within 2-3 rounds.

Lynata said:

A platoon isn't an army, definitely not by Imperial Guard standards.

Sure, a squad of marines should wipe out 20-50 Guardsmen. Not the 50,000 more in back of them.

Well you did say army platoon back there.

And I'm not sure if Guardsmen should really be that worthless that an entire company can get wiped out in seconds. And in all fairness, if we'd turn it around and apply Horde rules to Space Marines, this is when things start to get really funny (just to show that Horde rules are a two-edged sword).

>>>I'm not sure if Guardsmen should really be that worthless<<<

They totally should.

Marines are shock troopers. In tiny numbers they assault the strongest part of the line. If they can't sweep aside a few rifle divisions, how are they going to deal with the attached lascannon batteries, massed tank armies, saturation bombing, deathstrike cruise missiles and related stuff.

The individual guardsman with his lasgun is beneath the notice of the Emperors angels of death.

I don't even know why I'm going to bother, given your proptensity for abjectly dismissing reason and sensible answers to your arguements, but here we go...

Sieges are long and brutal affairs that are almost always garaunteed to take a higher toll on the attacker than the defender. And that's what the Apostate Cardinal's forces were doing for the most part, laying siege to The Fang. In Winter, which is hardly kind on Fenris. And as a Fortress Monastary, bedecked with automated weaponry, designed to be nigh-on impregnible, and manned by Space Marines, it's not beyond my suspension of disbelief to say that the Space Wolves kicked their ass. Guerilla tactics waged by their scouts, and even regular marines, to ambush the flanks of the army. Plant explosives in ammo dumps (as indirect as it may seem, tonnes of high explosive going up could cause massive casualties), and slaughter whole battallions as they sleep in their barracks. And as I said, there's the terrain to consider, not only the extreme cold, but the fact that there's nothing to forage off of, all supplies must be shipped in. And who likes to wake up to find a tank-sized bear rummaging through the mess hall because it smelled food, or even Fenrisian Wolves?

But what you're doing Lynata, is acting like all the Marines on the planet marched out to meet the Cardinal's millions of soldiers on the field of battle. Or that the space bombardment was some kind of constant affair, akin to WW1 artillery barrages that lasted for days, and were more frequent than not. The Space Wolves had fleet assets of their own in system as well, there to harass supply convoys and troop transports, and even duke it out with smaller flotillas, because while Astartes vessels are designed for planetary assault, Bombarment Cannons can crack a ship's hull as well as a planet's crust. And, of course, The Fang has orbital defences of its own, it doesn't take too much, just blast a few cruisers out of the void, and suddenly noone is as eagre to hover around on station, trading lance blasts in the hope that you'll still be flying around when the fight is done. Sure, his ships could bombard The Fang to rubble, it's just that noone wants to end up being on one of the few dozen ships that get turned in to Fenris' new chain of moons that are made out of molten slag.

God, I'm suddenly remembering how long it took to hammer home the point that the mooks in Disciples of the Dark Gods, the honour guard of the Temple Tendency, were not examples of what the Frateris Templar were like. And getting the urge to just throw up my hands and give up...

AluminiumWolf said:

Generally, they don't - that's what the Imperial Guard is there for. Marines are meant for surgical strikes (often in cooperation with the aforementioned troops), not prolonged warfare. And "a few divisions" meaning tens of thousands of men generally don't get swept aside just like that. Which is precisely why Marines do the aforementioned surgical strikes instead of taking the enemy head on and punching through his defenses perimeter by perimeter, death zone by death zone. Because even the almighty Astartes would not and should not have a very high survivability rate there. The Guard, however? No-one except their next of kin will miss a few hundred thousand normal people getting lost between the trenches.

Blood Pact said:

Then don't? I'm still waiting for you to back up your earlier claims. Just because you seem to find certain facts inconvenient they don't become any less true. And frankly, I tire of your hostility and onesided argumentation.

Blood Pact said:

"Massive siege guns pounded day and night, the dark skies illuminated with a thousand flares and the coruscating energies of void shields. Explosions shook the mountains of Asaheim, causing more avalanches and destruction. Salvoes from orbiting ships gouged chasms into the steep slopes, and yet the armoured walls of the Fang endured. "

No, I'm not at all acting like the Marines marched out to meet the troops on the field of battle, I am merely criticizing the extreme amount of fanboiism that went into this particular piece of writing, for you'd think with such resources at his disposal Bucharis would have inflicted some more permanent damage. Or any damage at all. As it stands it reads as if the Wolves have lost a couple mountains in the scenery surrounding their keep and that's it. Hilariously one-sided and overhyped - if all Marines were truly like that, the Imperium wouldn't be in its current state.

Blood Pact said:

Not a discussion I was part of.

Lynata said:

You're missing something on the abstraction of the horde- the magnitude of the horde is an arbitrary marker. You're taking a group of enemies and treating them as one creature, giving it essentially more wounds and attacks. A Mag 30 Horde is not Equal to 30 Guardsman, it's equal to however big of a threat you want the guardsman to be. *I* tend to do guardsman on a one for one basis, but that's because I like to see marines blow up guardsmen (and FWIW I played a guardsman in DH, play them in TT, and am really looking forward to Only War because I love them probably more than I like Marines so this isn't coming from a perspective like Aluminum Wolf's ).

The next thing I think you're missing is that the horde, or platoon, doesn't have to sit in an open field and advance like a bunch of Napoleonic era troopers. You can put them in cover, you can give them heavy weapon support, you can give them a clever commander (or in the case of a platoon 4 commanders or so- 3 sergeants and an Lt, in the case of a company you can give them 12 or more commanders). If you take the horde element out, then you're right, the standard troopers aren't going to have much of a chance at all to hurt those marines, but the ones packing special weapons or heavy weapons will be able to work some damage.

And buy the way, a lasgun without a horde doesn't hurt a regular DH character with PA and a good toughness either (toughness 50+). You can find plenty of threads here in the DH section about what to do to lasguns not really being all that great per RAW.

Charmander said:

All true - but they will still break, as per the RAW the Test depends on the Magnitude, not the actual number of troops. So the problem persists - and you have the funny side-effect that more elite or tougher troops would seemingly break easier than a Horde of the same Magnitude with weaker/more adversaries.

Perhaps the Horde rules can be refined with some finetuning and a more detailed distinction between Magnitutude and size - as I said, generally I really like their idea, they just don't fit for every kind of enemy ... yet. If they do make another appearance in Only War (which would be cool) I'd be curious to see if they were changed in any way to compensate for these small flaws.

Charmander said:

You mean in addition to the Horde? Yes, that would make such an encounter more interesting, but in essence the Guardsmen still become meatshields in the true sense of the word. Or "extras" to explode in shreds of gore and blood in the background (though I think that's the purpose of Horde rules anyways). Plus, those Officers and NCOs will still need non-standard weaponry.

Charmander said:

That is correct ... you know, this is another flaw that would be eliminated if "mortal" TB would be made Primitive, and Unnatural Toughness simply makes the TB apply against all weapons. I'm beginning to like that idea more and more (and can't even remember who suggested it, **** it).

Speaking of "mortal" - it's ironic how this term is another example of distorted comparisons. Contrary to what some other posters in this thread seem to believe, Marines are not "immortal". In fact, their very own Codex calls them mortals, too. Oh well, still better as calling everything non-Astartes "civilian", I suppose.

If you ever do a Deathwatch game via IRC consider me interested, though. Don't let it be said that I'm not willing to give it a try - and it's not like (despite my nigh-constant criticism towards certain design decisions) I have any less curiosity about it. Not after having read the book, anyways. And you do seem like someone who'd be fun to play with.

Lynata said:

Heh, I did read just replying to this line only:

That's the point of Movie Marines, it seems. Movie Space Marines are supposed to defeat small groups of other races' standard troops easily? (Especially Deathwatch marines btw.) The eldars you have mentioned can only hope to dance and dodge around long enough for some of them to score RF in melee a few times. Otherwise the movie space marines will break the Eldar Guardians in half. With ease as it has been pointed out. Send in some Harlequins instead.

Alex

ak-73 said:

It is indeed. I'm just pointing out we have Movie Marines but not Movie Guardsmen, Movie Sisters, Movie Assassins*, etc...

It is fun when you stay within the confined scope of each game (and there's nothing inherently wrong with it), but gets wonky when you do "crossovers" - or otherwise try to compare rules, characters and equipment between the games.

On the other hand I can understand FFG being between a rock and a hard place on this one, trying to remain on a somewhat gritty level with DH/RT but on the other hand feeling the pressure to deliver that epic experience with DW.

(*: okay, Movie Assassins maybe - at least I've heard a lot of things about the Vindicare in Ascension; I'm relying completely on hearsay on this one though)

Lynata said:

Well, Only War seems to be around the corner and it is possible to build Movie Guardsmen with the 3 Core Rulebooks. Just give them all kinds of shooting talents, for example. Mighty Shot, Eye of Vengeance, etc. And did you notice that while the common Lasgun might be not much more than a flashlight to a movie marine an equally low hunting rifle has the potential to become a real threat (heighten it with use of hyper-density rounds)? Accurate basic weapons are the way to take down movie marines for mortals in 40K Roleplay. A Nomad with mighty shot and hyper-density rounds really hurts even a movie marine.

It can be done but it shouldn't be easy to pose a real threat - other than due to dumb luck.

Alex

PS There are no Movie X because in 40 RP the Space Marines are supposed to stand out, I believe.