Anyone know how Iron Armour is affected by hordes? Iron Armour has 6 AV on all rear locations and when in melee with Hordes you are normally surrounded. Do you take hits on the rear armour, or only when you are unable to move for some reason? Obviously its a lot easier to work out in small fights, 1 on 1 etc.

Thanks in advance Brothers!

A good question! I would rule that the front armour applies until the horde has had a chance to surround the battle brother. Then they can split what attacks they have between the two sides. This is assuming that the brother was facing his enemy and they didn't sneak up behind him, the latter being possible for small hordes of stealthy foes.

Thanks for the reply!

I was thinking of something along those lines, though its weird that it doesn't come up in the rules for normal marines fighting hordes, with regards to crits against the power-backpack.

A 'quick and dirty' way to determine the facing could be to look at the degrees of success of the attack. If the horde's attack succeeds by X degrees, the strike comes from an unexpected direction and the Marine is not able to move quickly enough to bring his full defenses to bear. (Alternately, you could have the Marine make some sort of test to see if he can swing the bulky armor around in time, but that adds an extra dice roll.) This does, of course, assume that the Marine is surrounded.

It's not a perfect or elegant solution, but it would do until something better comes along.

Nice idea, thanks!