Thinking about this, I almost would prefer just fixing the sizes to the unit size, instead of worring about how many troops are in the full strength unit

Have the unit sizes just be platoon, company, batallion, regiment, ect.. Have each size be approximately three times the size of the previous, and dont worry so much about the actual numbers.

Then have the different unit types have different bonuses from the medium infantry baseline, like armour is good on attack, but really penalized in terrain. Stuff like that.

Then tweak the numbers so that a feral regiment gets wasted by an Imperial tech level platoon (or maybe company).

Just some ideas..

Curse you, Amazon! I want Battlefleet Koronus! I pre ordered it! Then you screw up putting the thing on the website and I don't get the thing when it's released!

MILLANDSON said:

That works pretty well. Only problem is coming up with a way of knowing how many support staff would be in a given unit. It could easily be assumed that a company of tanks with support staff makes up the same amount of soldiers as a company of infantry, but then I have to ask why don't an infantry company's support staff count as well?

I'd almost prefer it if the unit sizes were made a bit more concrete, and a company/battallion/regiment had a set Unit Strength... I'll have to give this one some more thought.

Most importantly though, how would unit size for tanks and aircraft affect Acquisition rolls? After all, the vehicle rules in Into the Storm specify that you don't get an Acquisition bonus for "only buying one" of any given vehicle, but if you were to use the Scale modifiers for Unit Size as written, it'd be easier to purchase a squadron of tanks than a single Aquila Lander. Unless I'm reading it wrong...

As far as unit sizes for tank and other heavy units, why not just use the same sizes you'd use for any other unit? Since you're supposed to include support staff it seems that may have been the intention as far as determining unit strength for vehicle units.

So a company of infantry and a company of tanks has roughly the same number of people. Not accurate, but this is the 40k universe and the rules for it that we're discussing.

Woohoo, I got it and for the parts I have read so far, it does contain some good stuff. I hope that the mass combat rules work out nicely though. Because sooner orlater my PC's will get into the role of commander.

I was also interested in learning what exactly Battlefleet Koronos was doing within Koronos. Glad to read that they mostly make sure that no baddies enter the Calixis or Jericho sectors.

There is also an issue with the Acq. modifiers on the warfare scale:. What you get for -10 Acq. mod varies wildly. For instance, going from infantry to armour is only -10, and gives +3 Power. Switching between light/normal/heavy is -10 for +2, Going up a step on the technology scale is also -10, but only gives 1 power. And troop quality gives none (though it does give morale and skill check).

Going up in troop size, by the RT Core rules, is about -10 for a factor 3. (Note that that's a logarithmic scale, meaning buying hp's becomes relatively cheaper at the large end, though hitting very hard Acq. tests is of course hard).

In order to balance units in both damage, armour, hp and cost, you'd have to probably rewrite the majority of these tables. Especially because there isn't much of a downside to Armour at the moment (Apart from the line that heavy armour cannot be deployed everywhere).

Not sure if this was discussed elsewhere, but I'm wondering if Master of Gunnery allows rerolls on the torpedo Ballistic Test.

SanderJK said:

And to add to this: Can a Rogue Trader use his "exceptional leader" ability on the torpedo gunner? I would guess "yes" as it is not a component bonus or an extended action (but rather a free action).

George Labour said:

Not a bad solution George Labour and I think it would work well enough. Im looking at doing this for my pc's forces unless something else turns up.

Its also worth noting that armoured forces do get higher power values so they are slighly more powerful that infantry.

The problem with any set of rules for ground combat is that unless your going to write a whole book on the subject your going to compromise on 'make believe realism' and have to come up with what works with your vision of ground combat. Some people love tanks and think they are the 'bomb' but other people believe that infantry and the way ahead or what about mechanised infantry, the best of worst of both worlds.

i.e. Do you give cavalry a minus for attacking in forest/woodland? What happens if they are light troops? Are the cavalry actually mounted infantry that fight from foot? How about defending in forest/woodland?

Someone more have noted the seemed between the Rak gol (on their ideals and ships) and the Collectors from Mass Effect 2?

Are there any new Ship Backround Packages?

My post went the other way around actually: There's no reason to not take armour, unless the GM makes an effort to make large parts of the map offlimits to it. I'm currently toying with the following ruleset (many ideas "borrowed"):

Make every -10 upgrade "worth" somewhere between 2 and 3 power.

Attack die rolls are based on Technology: 1d10 - 1d10+3 -2d10 - 2d10+3 -3d10. Those are damage increase only, not Power. The modifier from Technology is then only used for Armour calculation, not extra damage.

Make Squad/Platoon sizes more or less abstract, and based on a "x3" multiplier. Every size above the first progresses with the same scale as technology, again on damage only. HP based on size by the book, abstracted for non infantry. A unit, if it can take the morale hit, stays functional until it loses more then 60% of it hp, then it starts to function as a unit of 1 size lower for damage calculation.

Light/Normal/Heavy: Change to -2/0/3, but add movement modifiers: Light x2, Normal 1, Heavy /2. I also plan to make some general rules for which vehicles can't enter where, and what slows down. Mechanised Infantry/Armour can only achieve their listed speeds on roads. A dense forest or a swamp may be impossible to cross in heavy terrain, crossing a river with no bridges requires a serious effort (Probably a flashpoint or many rounds of engineering).

Troop Quality: Add +1 Power / level.

Then, something probably needs to be done to make cavalry worthwhile. Probably give them morale devastation bonuses versus infantry. Maybe add a rule such as Critical Penetration to them.

Apart from those (Which are more or less designed to work together), i'm also consider three more rules:

1) Give Righteous fury to the armies. Rerolling 10's means that in the most exceptional of circumstances, a bunch of farmers can take out a tank squad. But don't count on it.

2) When attacking each other, there is no initiative. Unless one side is surprised, both damage each other at the same time.

3) Degrading Cover/Armour. Every round a unit is fired on in combat, it's Cover and Armour degrade by 1 point, to a minimum of 0.This is to make sieges and getting people out of dug out position possible, and simulate attrition, tiredness, lucky shots. (This is the one that takes the most tracking.)

Are there any rules for fatigue? It makes sense that infantry vs tanks would wear out quicker. Sounds like things are royally screwed up. If infantry are nearly identical to tanks in power only slightly weaker is that assuming all infantry are equipped with anti-tank rockets? Are there primitive troop types? like a horse mounted archers? Wouldn't their attacks count as primitive and do jack all to a tank?

bobh,

I wouldnt be so shocked to see infantry outlast armour, granted its all situation dependant but sheer wear and tear on armour can cause all manner of breakdowns etc. Although not entirely accurate the film the beast of war gives a good feel for how tanks can operate but what happens when they are low on supplies and isolated.

You have a tech modifer so the primitive troop types have a lower power rating and then attack and armour rating. Mounted horse archers could be primitive light/medium cavalry but I dont have the book to hand to work out values, off the top of my head they shouldnt be that good but if reasonable lucky could hurt an armoured unit. With regards to effectiveness it would depend very much on the situation but I wouldnt put my money on the cavalry.

The RAW is pretty bad, mostly at damage calculation (Which does not significantly change depending on size, era, type, or quality). That's what I'm toying around to fix. A "primitive" rule could apply to any combat with at least 2 levels of technological difference between them, though logical it may be a bit too harsh combat wise (It creates "useless" troops, which then probably shouldn't appear unless you want to clog guns with bodyparts so they can't reach somewhere else).

Tanks are a lot better then infantry already due to their armour rating, don't worry about that. By RAW, you'd probably not field infantry at all if you had the choice. All the above corrections are to counter that to bring them somewhat close together. The cavalry described is modern army, clone vatted beasts with heavily armed "knights", Space Wolves on actual wolves etcet. (Don't have the book here atm). By RAW cavalry suffers few advantages and are hard to acquire, so I was looking for something to make them "viable."

There's no fatigue rule, though there is Morale, which is dependant on troop quality. Lose to much morality, and a unit performance drops, or may break/dissolve/flee. It's mostly of influence for larger armies though. (Small armies will suffer hp damage faster).

I'm also thinking about redoing the timescale: Split it into 20 minute rounds. The reason for that is that the 4 hour block suggested makes the battlefield absurdly large, and with this running it on a 1km2 / square scale should be possible. With my adjusted movement rules (I'm thinking about light = 1.5x now instead of 2), it'd work out like this:

(Light/Medium/Heavy)

Infantry 3/2/1 km / round

Armour 15/10/5km / round

Mechanised Infantry 30/20/10km / round

Aircraft 60/40/20km / round

Again no book and can't recall the RAW, but I'm thinking about having 10 turns of combat in one round. (So 1 turn = 2 minutes of fighting). If during one of those 10 turns, an army moves, it's combat is over for the round. This way you can have reinforcements etcet.

You would have thought theyd have broken it down into the same time blocks as space combat, 30 minutes, so you can have ships fighting in orbit and still be able to effectively gauge when that lance strike will land. I think tanks should be awesome but they can't go into buildings and clear them out one by one, securing an area for its new masters. Destroy the town? Okay but take it and hold against infantry with anti-tank weapons without infantry backing up the tanks to clear the town? Ouch.

As I see, there are no rules for the Zaith Macrocannons, so I have had this idea: Zaith Macrocannons, This components works with special auto loaders, so could still working if this components is despresurised

I like this book, yet I found it the most boring read of any of the supplements for the 40kl RPG line.

Don't get me wrong, there is a plenty of good stuff for my campaign here. However we get mostly crunch and little spirit. Not close to being the sleep-aid a 4E book is, but compare and contrast with Blood of Martyrs.

Chapter one, The Weapons of War is 25 pages of solid crunch. Every weapon has it's own unique rules. By the time I got to the fun bits in the middle chapters I had to prop my eyes open. Thank the Emperor for the artwork!

If you are a storyteller type of player or GM, I'd say skip chapter one. Read chapters two (The Imperium's Shield, very Master and Commander) and three (Enemies of Humanity) first. Then dive into the others when you want rules to use the fun stuff you've just read about.

TorogTarkdacil said:

No, just as there are no added Machine Spirit Oddities or Past Histories, there are no added Ship Background Packages. I'm disappointed by this.

Einbauschrank said:

I allow both the Master of Gunnery re-roll and the Exceptional Leader bonus on torpedo attacks. The Exceptional Leader one is a bit odd in that it is granted one turn but then applies sometime after (unless the torpedoes are launched close enough to impact immediately).

I did a rewrite of the Ground War rules. If anyone is interested, they are located at docs.google.com/document/d/1ItRtCwMpMc3xkbzwcVQDuWEkZZ5oRIu96IQMhI8w9NI/edit

I made a thread to discuss them in the House Rule forums, as to not further clutter this thread: fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp . Comments and ideas much appreciated!

HappyDaze said:

Awww, this makes me disappointed as well. I was really hoping to see them expanded.

Hi all,

Played a session with the mass combat rules last night.

I changed a number of the rules before the game and these are as follows....

1 - No rolling for initiative - It slows the game down and is fairly pointless in my opinion as the pc's are all on the same side and im acting as the enemy so know what they would do.

2 - Damage was scaled as per Mill's recommendations but I reduced a unit's damage capability as it took losses (My scale go from 1d10-6d10).

3 - All fighting was simultaneous as its meant to represent mass combat.

The situation was that some pikey/mad max/travellers had taken over an island 4km by 4km and refused to move and the dynasty had agreed to shift them while causing minimal damage. The dynasty initially decided not to use any armour or orbital support and sent 3 battalions of fresh infantry in the first wave and to keep a battlion of experienced troops in reserve, also a flight of gun cutters were given ground attack orders.

The travellers had dug in 3 battalions of infantry into 2 seperate ruins and they had 3 companies of light infantry waited in ambush in wooded areas.

The initial landing placed 2 of the dynasty battalions in contact with the hidden companies and they opened up on the troops leaving the transports. The ambush meant that 1 of the dynasty battalions took fairly heavily losses but a triarge flashpoint allowed the tech-priest to get the unit back in the fight. The supporting fire of the guncutters and the inability of the ambushing companies to disengage meant the companies were destroyed within 3 turns. I also played another flashpoint and had the pc voidsman make an attack run in his fury interceptor against a fortified heavy machine gun post that was keeping the battalion that had taken heavy losses pinned down. The interceptor screamed in low and managed to hit with at least 7 lascannon shots and 1 missle, so bye bye machine gun.

2 of the battalions decided to head towards the ruins where 1 of the enemy battalions were waiting and after a few turns of trading fire and failing to flank the enemy and coming the worse off for the fire fight 1 of the battalions led by the rogue trader pushed through the enemy positions and forced them out of the defences and cover. This battalion took very heavy losses and lost 50% of their FULL strength in 1 turn but due to the leadership of the rogue trader stood firm. The 2nd battalion in the attack now decided to try and take the fire off the battered battlion and advanced into the enemy battalions square and the combined fire of them and the guncutters strafing the enemy as they were pushed out of the ruins convinced them to surrender.

The dynasties forces having taken losses to all battalions but having one at approx 30% strength and another at approx 66% decided to send the first officer to parlay with the remaining 2 known enemy battalions in the other ruins. In the meantime they had the 2 basilisk company's land and begin to set up positions overlooking the ruins.

After some good rolls from the pc's the enemy decided to call a ceasefire and leave the island.

Overall - The system seemed to work well enough with the changes but it did require a fair amount of freestyling on the gm's behalf, I personally dont mind doing this as its in my gm style but those who like to play the rules hard and fast might find some elements of the system a bit wish washy. The combat took approx 2 hours to resolve and the players enjoyed running the characters and units around the map I had created. Its also worth noting that a lucky roll from the gm can seriously ruin the players day

from france

i agree with peacekeeper . i would have apreciate more stuff on lives in a ship. if you have to find those informatiosn in several book of several game where is the interest. most of us can't afford to by all the books. well byond that and the facts that i don't see the points of ground combat as it is written i like the book.

i agree it is somewhat dry to read but being a imperial bfg player i like it.

my concern is about the differents weapons espically lance and macro batteries. it seem but i may be wrong that between same class of weapons there is not much differences. dont have the book with me so i can't be more precise my appologies for that.

i hope there would be a chapter about "build your own ship" like take a bare hull and creat a new designs.

two ships the smallest and the biggest atract my attentions. the smalest "the viper"seems perfect for small groups with small retinues and adventure with small cargoes and high values.

for the biggest the "univers mass conveyor". is ideal for a floating world. espically if you base your campagne around it like colonisation. but i was wondering if some launch bay coul be add to it in order to better protect it. like partially convert it in a super sized carrier.

the 8 spider said:

As I read the launch bay rules, yes you can attach these to the Universe class, though not too many of them, as they weaken the hull.