So, I'm about to start a deathwatch campaign...and I have 7 people who want to play. Full house, I know, but they're friends of mine, and I can't have one person feeling left out. I have a few ideas on how to make this all work, but I'd like a little feedback on what people think of these ideas, and I have a few questions.

So, i'm going to be running them through the final sanction starter mission, and yes, they have player made characters. To adjust for this, i'm gonna be increasing horde size by about 20 for each pack, I figure since I don't have multiple devastators, that'll be a big enough boost to keep things dangerous, and special enemy characters with the exception of the big guy at the end are gonna be doubled. I'm giving each player 60 req to buy some toys for the mission, and going with the rule of three for ammo; they get enough ammo to fill each gun they carry plus three reloads (exception being the dev with his backpack) , anything extra they gotta buy. As far as classes go, we have one of each, with an extra tac as the 7th player.

Now a few questions...

I'm gonna get a chess clock to keep the game moving with such a large group. Each player will have 2-3 (haven't decided) minutes to make their move in the game, an extension will be given if the other players agree that the player needs or deserves more time for whatever their character is doing. Thoughts on this, or has anyone else done something similar?

As a general question, how do you deal with large groups and confined spaces. With all the coridors that seem popular in DW missions, you wind up with only 2 battle brothers (front and rear) and the rest are sandwiched and unable to do anything. I'm particularly worried about the refinery pipes in final sanction, as well as some of the locations in the tyranid bio-ship in the sequel mission. This is especially a problem if the scenario calls for them to get into trouble at the end of said hallway, as being shot at can really discourage a group from wanting to leave the cover of the hallway.

I've got a space wolf player, an assault marine. And you guessed it...he keeps trying to raid the liquor cabinet at watch-fortress Enrioch. How do you deal with players who constantly derail the story by trying to "Act in character" at every chance they get, regardless of if it's a good idea or not at the time, and with no appreciable reward for such action?

On the subject of assault marines...how do you keep things fun for them? Seeing as bolters have a 100m range, the target is half dead by the time the assault gets into melee, and if he gets into melee before him, he either gets chopped up by the full strength horde, or the team is forced to stop shooting for fear of hitting their battle brother.

I appreciate any advice.

That first mission is brutal, and probably doesn't need much in the way of up-statting. Remember that it was written as a one-off, rather than a campaign-starter.

3 reloads each is almost certainly not enough ammunition for the mission.

Chess clock is good. You can then bring the time down. A turn really shouldn't take longer than a minute with experienced players. That's 10 minutes a round, which is plenty enough. 3 minutes would result in nearly 30 mins a combat round for a large group.

Acting in character is fine. It's not to be confused with 'acting like a jerk' though. Remind your players that they are highly disciplined warriors, complete with hypno-conditioning. Rebellious streaks get beaten out of recruits in fairly short order. If you get 50 push-ups every time you step outta line, you learn to either shut up, or out; and Marines don't get the option of dropping out. Also remind your players and a lot to get through. Jerking around will impact everyone's fun. That said: If everyone is getting into the roleplaying and taking part: Good!

In my experience, assault marines get plenty of fun. They can go and cause mayhem with their jetpack, scout rooftops, keep the rest of the party alive in close quarters, act as point-men, etc etc

Bowoodstock said:

In my personal experience, 7 players can work, it's just more work on your part to keep them 'in line' - good luck!

Bowoodstock said:

As Siranui says, FS is pretty brutal. As you get used to the rules and the play style, I'd stick with the adventure the way it was written for the first couple of encounters, then as the team (and you) figure out the capabilities of their characters and the like you can start to feel free to increase the mag, or my personal favorite, add more hordes.

As for reloads, I gave my group 3 or 4 mags for their 'main' weapon, and 2/3 for their backup (if they had a backup). The HB got one backpack full of ammo. I then had one reload (the same amount that they came down with again) in the Imperial Stores. At the end (though I shortcutted a couple of encoutners) they were down to their last set of magazines and the Dev had about 3 rounds worth of shooting from the HB.

Bowoodstock said:

Not a bad way to motivate players- I don't tend to enforce the clock thing, but when dealing with large groups I make sure to go around the table to ask what people want to do, making sure everyone gets their turn and shot. When a particular player (and there is always one) takes too much time to reach a decision I simply tell them to start hurring up, and typically the other players start to glare at them.

Bowoodstock said:

Battle Brothers are trained to work together, more than perhaps other Imperial forces, so I could allow multiple 'ranks' to fire, the deeper behind you are then I may impose targeting penalties, depending on the feel. As for the pipes in FS, I would consider making them more maze like and less long and straight, that way you can attack the center of the group as well as the front/rear.

Bowoodstock said:

As Siranui says- playing a character, with an appreciable reward or not, can really lend to the setting. But people who constantly use their 'character' to derail the story can be a pain in the neck- again in my experience this is usually the guy that's just being a jerk, or is simply an attention hog- if their behavior is disruptive in the game world I have game world consequences; such as the watch captain scolding the character, or perhaps while he's busy doing stuff like raiding the kitchen, something interesting happens to the rest of the team that he misses out on. If it's just distruptive around the table, have a chat with him.

As for the AM, use terrain, cover, etc. to take some of the range away from the shoters, and/or have the enemy actually close in to engage the PCs in hth. I usually have enough enemies on the table that the AM isn't constantly getting in the way (the team typically doesn't dillute their fire enough to shoot at all 3 or 4 hordes I throw at them at once).

Thanks for the quick responses. The wolf assault marine has yet to be a fairly major problem, I've just had players in the past who have been much worse. As for the ammo...I let players buy ammo for requisition...1 req gets them 4 pistol mags, 2 basic mags, or 1 heavy mag, standard. I've watched this scenario run before btw, and the dev usually annihilates 20 points off of hordes each turn. Considering that the hordes in final sanction are in the 30-50 range, and there's usually one or two rounds of auto fire from the other marines, AND bolters fire explosive damage, doing double magnitude damage, you quickly get to the point where horde just can't get past even the armor and toughness of a SM. I like the suggestion of making the pipes more maze like.

Bowoodstock said:

Explosive damage adds a single hit onto the end of the attack, it doesn't double the number of hits you do.

Also, play the hordes smart- put them in cover, defensive positions, etc. But overall I would recomend easing your players into the ruleset first (of course disregard that last part if they're already used to it)

Wait...it was my understanding that every hit that causes a wound on a horde causes one point of magnitude. An explosive weapon adds one more. Thus:

Bollter on automatic: 4 potential hits

Explosive bonus added to each hit = 8 magnitude damage = double 4.

Or would the explosive modifier make it 5 hits, with the extra just tacked onto the end?

Bowoodstock said:

This is the correct way of applying the extra hit from an explosive weapon (assuming that the DoS and RoF allowed for 4 hits). This is also how you apply the added hit for using a power weapon in melee with a Horde.

Ah, okay, that makes things a little clearer