do you get a bonus to hit hordes. It seems to imply you do but i cant find the rules

dean said:

The bonus depends on horde size, see page 359. Note that the table is just a suggestion. A mag 20 horde of carnifexes should have a higher bonus than a mag 20 horde of rippers.

Alex

ak-73 said:

I don't think that is correct. It's just like saying a tonne of bricks is heavier than a tonne of feathers, because feathers are lighter than bricks.

Magnitude is an abstract used to determine the overall stregth of a group of enemies for the purposes of combat, the exact number of enemies in the horde is only important for narrative purposes. Thus, a magnitude 20 horde of Carnifexes (really?) might consist of four individuals, while a magnitude 20 horde of Rippers has 400, but the bonus to hit them is the same.

harlokin said:

I wouldn't even go that far. I'd say a Magnitude 20 Horde of Carnifexes would be more like...1 Carnifex (and thus not a Horde). It seems kind of strange if the team is taking out a Carnifex with each Frag Grenade thrown.

Otherwise your point is right on. The Horde rules can't be perfect, but they're about as good as I've seen so far for mass combat in an RPG. The bonuses equal out to be the same because it's just a general guideline. If the rules called for modifications to the bonuses based on the base creature's size, it would just make things needlessly complicated.

Creature size does modify a horde's to hit size modifier.

Can't seem to find specific rules outlining how, so I assume you just combine the modifiers.

A Magnatude 60 horde of sting-flies (miniscule, made em up so what, they're about the size of dragonflies) would add +40 and -30 together for a to hit modifier of +10.

Obviously a large number of really large enemies (carnifexes hehe) would be nearly impossible to miss.

Although If someone actually horded a couple of carnifexes (or even miniscule enemies) I think there needs to be made some rules to balance them out. I don't think a blast (5) grenade is probly not going to hit 5 other carnifexes (carnies as hordes is kinda wierd in its own right though)... and is likely to hit more than 5 of the puny flies. Just make sure if you put the big tough guys into hordes you make your players roll damage for their extra hits. Nor are things like wrathful descent likely to kill even one carnie, much less 1D10 (straight magnatude damage).... Maybe have these things cause additional damage to one or more big toughies in this situation?

herichimo said:

Do you have a source for that? Page 359 of the main book under "Attacking a Horde" specifically says that the bonus is based on the Horde's Magnitude.

"Characters must still roll to hit a Horde, but the appropriate size bonus should apply to these tests based on the Horde's Magnitude."

There's nothing about the base creature's size having an effect, only the bonus that comes from the Horde's Magnitude (which is actually a mixture of power, training, numbers, etc).

That's why the Horde rules are all abstractions and damage doesn't necessarily equal dead enemies. 5 damage to a Magnitude 50 Horde (say, 5 Genestealers maybe) wouldn't actually kill anything. It just represents damage, morale loss, and other effects that lead to a Horde breaking up. Whereas 5 damage to a Magnitude 50 Horde of a hundred or more heretics would cause some casualties. Plus, there's the fact that it should be easier to hit a hundred enemies rather than just 5, but that would call for an even more complicated rules system.

I think you'll add the size modifiers because they're totally independant from the Horde mechanism.

Although using a Horde of 'Stealers or 'Fexes is asking for it

And don't remember, to damage a Horde, you have to do real damage (i.e. get over the armor + toughness bonus). Are you sure a frag grenade actually hurts a 'Fex?

And Wrathful Descent...Yeah, it becomes a bit silly against a Horde of Carnifexes, but as has already been said, here it's the usage of the Horde mechanism which creates a strange situation

A frag grenade isn't going to do the job anyway, because it's not going to wound the horde!

Siranui said:

It depends on the target. A Carnifex? No. But an Auran Genestealer has a total protection of 12. A frag grenade (errata damage 2d10 + 2) has a decent chance of getting through that, meaning Magnitude loss/dead Genestealers. And said Genestealer is a whole lot more dangerous than the number of hormagaunts it would take to match its size (both are medium, I believe, but 3 hormagaunts does not equal 3 genestealers).

Adding in the size modifier of the creature just doesn't make sense. Going back to the example above, why should it be harder to hit an immense Horde of those flies (+10, sure they're small but there are a LOT of them) than it is to shoot a single Tyranid Warrior (+20)? That just doesn't make sense. Sure, the TW is big, but not nearly as big as that swarm of flies.

That's why I assign modifiers based on what seems to be more realistic. The group doesn't know Horde X has 60 Magnitude; they just know what I describe to them and the modifiers I give. Magnitude 60 Hormagaunts will give a bigger bonus than Magnitude 60 Genestealers because there will be more of them and there's no significant size difference between the two.

I meant the Carnifexes. Not that they should be in hordes...

I also tend to adjust horde 'to hit' numbers not only by the horde size but by a fudge number that represents terrain and horde composition/type.

Siranui said:

Oh, I agree. I don't even like putting Elite-level enemies in Hordes, much less Master (I'm assuming the Carnifex is a Master-level opponent).

Yeah, the book provides a decent guideline, but a little common sense makes it much more sensible.

This is for the "automatic" hits the grenade does. Most of the time these are considered automatic magnitude loss by our group, mainly because the weapons simply do enough minimum damage to actually take off a mag point. Against larger/tougher enemies in a horde the grenade may not cause enough damage to cause mag loss, and even if it did do 1 point of damage, should that 1 point destroy a whole carnifex?

In essence, when you have tougher enemies in a horde you have to make sure to actually roll out the damage for the extra "automatic hits". And if someone does actually roll with carnies in a horde new rules are needed to prevent that 1 point of damage from slaying a carnifex. For little guys the rules make some sense, the attacks that cause magnatude damage or the 1 damage for mag damage is all abstract. The Assault marine lands on several guys, breaking their backs, and causes several others to go flying. But it wouldn't do as great against a tougher enemy (and hardly anything against the unbelievable carnifex horde).

Caveat: Obviously I don't think carnifexes should roll in a horde, or elite/masters for that matter. I'm just stating if someone wanted to do so, he'd need some special rules to cover the bases of such tough enemies.

You guys have to remeber that "damaging" a Horde does NOT actually mean you have Killed a thing... A horde of Carnifexes would only have 2 of them and have a magnitude of 100.. each Carnie has wounds of 100 so if you play with some math.... say just halve the wounds for Majoris to 1/10th wounds for minimals... there is the actual number of creatures in a horde.... therefore if you do 1 magnitude of damage you only wounded one for a point or two.

Ok guys put the horde of carnefexes down your making them angry

Elites cant be used to form hordes and neither can masters. Its in the back of the book somewhere. If there are GMs out there doing this and getting away with it then I salute you. I think my players would cry and go home if I hit them with a mag 20 horde that could only be hurt by tank busting weapons. (A Fex has an average damage reduction of 25-30).

I tend to only use small things as hordes and geneally make sure that all hits will cause damage. otherwise you spend all night calculatin the damage of each shot and the applying magnitude damage. This can get very slllloooowwww. Especially when every battle brother is on full frakkin auto at all times!!!!! I usually give a bonus to hit equal to the 10's digit of the hordes mag. Its easy to remember. Havent come accross a situation where any other size mods become important. Remember to stack these bonuses with any from the Kill Teams talents and special kit.

Victris said:

Check out the first adventure of TEP. When the Kill-team is investigating the Genestealer-infested town, the adventure says to group Genestealers together into a Horde once there are more than 15 active (the box on pg 34). Granted, I don't plan on following the book's advice since I think a Horde of 16 Genestealers should have a Magnitude much greater than 10; the idea that the team can wipe out 8 Genestealers with a single Frag Grenade just seems silly to me, but that's the official take.

You're right in that I prefer to only use weaker enemies in Hordes. It saves a lot of dice-rolling, and most of the bigger/stronger enemies are deadly enough that a Horde of them would crush your average KT.

It's all rule of thumb. Guys, don't forget about the nature of the hordes mechanism: its sole purpose is allowing you to handle monster numbers that would be a drag to play with the standard mechanisms. You switch from standard to hordes whenever you as a GM feel you need to unburden yourself.

And you play the modifiers that are most sound to you. Size of the creatures involved of course does matter indirectly - it influences the size of the horde. It's not always as easy as combining the modifiers (see the cloud of flies example). Otoh, you can't say that size of the basic creature makes no difference. The horde magnitude namely is no function of the horde's overall size but more of their dangerousness.

Alex