Hello all. I will be starting my first Dark Heresy game in the near future & have not yet played the game. I am an experienced GM & have been a die-hard 40K fan since 1988, so I am confident that it will be fun for my players. What I'd like some advice on is rating challenges vrs. the PCs. The rulebooks present various enemies, but it's not very clear to me how tough an enemy will be for the group to defeat. In practice, I like to be able to classify encounters from "simple" to "extreme" in difficulty. Thank you in advance for your insights in this area.

I am not exactly sure what the level they used to base the enemy classifcations off, but i'd assume it would be in comparison to a rank 1 or 2 player character with their starting gear.

Humans are generally going to be the easiest to classify. Their characteristics won't be too far from the players, it will only be in the skills/talents/gear department that will change it from a fairly straight forward outcome to a challenging "we might not make it out of this one". A small group of players can usually take out a street gang. More experienced opponents like assassin teams, or specialized soldiers/armed and well equiped, will be more troublesome.

Xenos and mutants are the next ones. They can generally go either way. Usually they will need heftier firepower or better weapons to be taken down. The main thing is that these opponents generally have fear levels, which will make it quite hard for low ranked players, and usually have superior/advanced weaponry, or unnatural abilities/natural weapons that does nasty things to players without proper gear or with low wounds.

Demons and the Maggotmen are probably the toughest. They'll need relatively rare/expensive weapons and armour to take them down. Multiple fear levels will devastate a party with low willpower, and they usually require either extremely powerful heavy or force weapons to even damage them.

Psyker opponents are tricky as well. players with strong WP/resist psyker power abilities will come out better. They usually have powers that weaken/disrupt the players, with a nasty direct damage type spell. Not to mention the Psychic Phenomenon results.

was that along the lines of what you were looking for?

Remember, the threat ratings are assigned compared to how dangerous they are to the imperium, not a single acolyte (or a cell for that matter)

For example, in Creatures Anathema the Flamer of Tzeentch has a rating of "Malleus Minoris". This means that while it could easily tear a low-ranking cell apart with psychic powers, fear 3 and its unnatural toughness, it poses little threat to a city or planet.

Meanwhile a normal Witch, which is not nearly as dangerous as the Flamer, has Hereticus Majoris, because it might form cults or invite daemonic possession, thus being a larger threat to the imperium, despite being easier to handle.

That said, you should know that most things are dangerous to low-ranking acolytes, and even small battles can be lethal (a couple sessions back, the scum in my cell lost his arm to a few lasgun shots). This is how it's supposed to be, however, and you should not pull the punches. Acolytes aren't supposed to do battle all the time. Still, i recommend starting out with human opponents, the cults they discover can always lead to bigger bads, such as slaugth or daemons

This combat system is pretty unforgiving, I would start out with a few encounters where the acolytes outnumber some thugs just for you and your players to learn the ropes.

Alpha Chaos 13 said:

No easy challenge rating system here I'm afraid.

The best is to look at the enemys' ability to deal damage (including weapons used and WS/BS) and their ability to sustain damage (Toughness bonus, armor and Wounds).

Genereally, the acolytes should be able to take on small groups of thugs if they have inferior weapons. For example, the Guardsman in Guard Flak and with a Lasgun +the Scum with his poor armor but high-damage capable Autogun should be able to take on a couple of "Scum" from the GM section.

These Scum with average TB, wounds and no armor can be dispatched fairly easily, and their Stub Automatics, while potentially dangerous is not comparable to Autogun-wielding ones.

The tricky part is of course what situation you expect. If the Scum can ambush the party at point-blank range they might easily take down or kill a party member or two even before they can shoot back.

A good idea could be to look at some official adventures. For example, in Illumination (Core rulesbook) the starting acolytes are attacked by thugs (2 more than party, thus usually 6 vs 4 acolyles), but the enemy has underhwelming stats, low attack skills, and fairly low damage weapons. Although the PCs are not so tough at this point, they have usually better WS or BS, possibly better gear (varies alot), and most importantly the great equalizer: Fate Points. A "Simple" encounter. However due to the unpredictable nature of DH combat, even such an enemy group can pose a serious threat, but a TPK is unlikely. The single creature that attacks them later is also a good example of a fairly simple encounter. Primitve weapons makes a huge impact.

A Medium difficulty creature is one with higher resiliency and attack ability. The Skae-thing is a good example because of Daemonic trait, Fear, number of attacks (2), high Wounds and Regeneration. The only thing that keeps it from overpowering a starting cell is it's Special Weakness (requires some thinking by the acolytes, and no, the right answer is not PAIN ), and the fact that it's weapons (hands) are primitive means a Guardsman could, with some help, successfully tank it (been there, done that). It's still a very challenging encounter to a starting cell, and it is not meant for the acolytes to win without solving the puzzle of it's weakness or talking to Aristarchus.

However send the Skae-Thing against a rank 8 cell and I can guarantee they will win easily, probably unscathed. A mid-level cell will have a good chance of defeating it in honest combat too, my rank 3 guardsman armed with a mono-greatsword and Swift attack took it down in a few rounds.

Does that help?

That you all for the valuable feedback. My problem is that I didn't want to accidently kill & maim them right off the bat. I'm not looking to pull punches, but don't want to discourage my players either. As the only 40K nut in the group, I don't want them to regret letting me talk them in to trying something new & turning them off to such a wonderfully detailed setting (who knows, they could even start collecting miniatures). Collectively, you have all given me some good insights & I truly appreciate your time. Have fun!

Quite a bit, thanks!