I honestly do not understand why the Tyranid Warrior has as many wound points as it does. With its UT and AP it should be able to shrug off most attacks that Initiates can throw. Unfortunately, I almost had a party wipe because the team couldn't overcome 5 Shrikes. I had a Tac, Dev, Tech, and Apo, but no luck. Doc went down first, then the Tech. At that point, they retreated and retrieved the bodies later (more than -15 wounds on each). Part of this is because the players are new to the game, but the other part is that they should have been able to kill at least one before 2 Battle-Brothers bit it. What gives with the high amount of wounds, especially compared to other creatures/antagonists of Elite status?

Elite creatures are not something you can deploy en masse against low level characters, but anyway, if the player's tactics where just to charge, then they got what they deserved.

Outmaneuvering the enemy, using grenades, protectig the frigging apothecary (who, by the way, can heal wounds during a fight, it just takes actions from both him and the healed character), using special ammo (Kraken rounds, or Hellfire rounds), concentrating fire on the same target... Having the gear selected with careful detail helps a lot, of course, not to mention the Oaths and using of Squad and Solo tactics.

Frankly, I GM'ed The Emperor Protect's first adventure, and the assault marine was quite frustrated because few things lasted enough to reach melee. The apothecary was little more than a healer, and the Dev, Techmarine and the party leader (a tactical marine) were making kills like tossing coins. Of course, the techmarine was a Raven Guard one who was quite good at silent move and concealment (and carried a camaleonine cloack, stummers, and a stalker-pattern rifle, plus the usual bolter rifle and a mechanicus-pattern energy axe), and the players spent more time preparing a combat than actually playing it (map drawings, movement lines, that kind of stuff).

Yeah, all of that would have been nice, except that they were all rank 1, they chose the Dev to be the leader; he has no Command and only 32 Fellowship. When they got ambushed by the Shrikes dropping from the sky, their Fear rating destroyed any Cohesion to be had. It wasn't pretty. No Cohesion = no Squad mode; no Squad mode = death, destruction, mayhem. On top of that, they succeeded at maybe 25% of the rolls, if that.

Regardless of any of those factors, they could have succeeded if they didn't have to wear down enemies with 48 Wounds and a soak of 18. It was a bad time all around. I am an advocate for my players, but I also believe in letting my players do as they see fit. I want to see that they succeed. This is my problem. The high damage threshold combined with the maneuverability and damage output is problematic, especially for new players. Maybe I ran the scenario wrong. I don't know, but I would like a legitimate answer to the question of the high amount of wounds. I don't especially care how your group fared in the situation.

Benjimus Prime said:

No, that is the normal level of Elite tier. Please have another look at page 358. An equal number of Elite tiers is supposed to be a deadly challenge, which is what your players experienced. Don't worry I made a similar experience as a GM, only on a smaller scale (1 Assault againt 1 Nid Warrior).

If other elite tiers do not provide a similar challenge level, they are too weak. But Chaos Marines should be pretty much as bad (especially if one of them has a Heavy Bolter or the like) and Tau Stealth suits are very lethal if they can spring an ambush. In straight-forward combat, they'll probably die in melee against any Deathwatch PC.

Alex

Okay, I see your point. Still, with their Biomorph descriptor (which makes them far deadlier than the stat entry) they seem to have a great deal of disparity in comparison to other Elite-tier enemies.

Benjimus Prime said:

I see it like this:

Master: requires the whole KT to defeat
Elite: requires roundabout 1 Marine to defeat
Hordes: requires 1 Marine to defeat zoggin' lots of 'em.

For those cases that go inbetween, round to nearest.

Alex

Remember that those are just guidelines and situational factors play a huge role in how deadly enemies can be. A Genestealer or Tyranid Warrior (Elite) skulking up on the team from a shadowy corridor is more of a threat than a Hive Tyrant (Master) trying to charge the KT from 400 meters over open ground.

To go back to your original scenario, 4 Shrikes swooping down from the open sky is entirely appropriate to 4 SMs. They probably should have seen the enemy coming and gotten off a few rounds (possibly killing one or two) before the Shrikes were upon them. If the Shrikes managed to take them by surprise and quickly get into striking range, then you've got a serious fight on your hands and the advantage swings into the Shrikes' favor.

Ok, the game says any of the players can be the team leader. However, unless none of them has Command, marines without that skill shouldn't be chosen for the post.

As for the cohesion, please remember Fear only "burns" cohesion if the marines are in Squad Mode. If they are in Single Mode, is just -10 to Willpower for each level of Fear (mind you, I'd like more detail on the issue, since a Broodlord can reduce a kill-team to crying babies easily the way I understood the Fear rules).

Against flying enemies, you go get cover (trees, for example) and if they are armed only with melee weapons, then the players have a little advantage. I must say, however, that flying enemies for a beginners combat is quite a masochistic option xD

Fear imposes up to a -30 on Willpower tests and can kill cohesion, but that's all it does to them. I took it easy on them. I allowed them to enter squad mode before the Shrikes landed . My players should be grateful for that, but they had no idea what they were doing. This was the first time that any of them played in a WH40k game. If an enemy possessed of the same fear rating had attacked them in DH, it would have been much worse. As it stands, I take the blame for this. I assumed my players read the book at least a little. There's the rub...assumption. I did not want to "lead them by the nose" so to speak, so I let them handle the situation as best they could. At least, I thought they could handle it. Live and learn. Apparently, I should be more proactive in my role as a GM.

As to the flying enemies bit, I was running Extraction , the module from the back of the book. I used the guidelines and the chart on pp 384-385. That's all. It could have been much worse. The problem was that they got surrounded and slipped into D&D mode. They still have the mindset of party as opposed to team . Unfortunately for them, they were in the middle of an open area with no cover or concealment.

Benjimus Prime said:

Do they have a Space Wolf among them? The key is to not get ambushed, so take off your helmet and use Wulf Senses then.

Alex

Well, those nids are heafty opponants, the same size catagory as a sentinel (if that means any thing to you), and generally (where ever i've seen them) come in squads of three (even Space Marines squad in 10s) and their durability reflects that.

I've had no problems with it! I had 3 warriors and a Horde (30) of Hormagaunts assault my players and they minced them. Perhaps sending 5 against newbies wasn't such a good idea... Quite overkill in fact! Without an understanding of the game mechanics, things get tough.

In my first adventure, a servitor bashed a Tactical marine pretty good only because we didn't realise all our options. After that, not much survived =P