Hi, I'm preparing to GM Final Sanction with some friends (the scenario looks awesome), and there are a couple things I would like to try from the beginning as the core rules do not convince me in some aspects.

As I am new to Deathwatch (not to the basic system as I have played WFRP 2nd edition and Dark Heresy), please let me know if you like these proposals or see something obviously wrong with them.

1. Pinning Hordes.

i) Instead of giving a Horde a bonus equal to their Magnitude in their pinning test, it conducts the test as normal. If they fail the test, the value by which they failed is the Magnitude number that will be pinned; the rest of the Magnitude won't be pinned. This means you'll end up with two Hordes of different magnitudes, one pinned and the other not pinned.

ii) Subsequent pinning effects on a Horde are not cumulative, just take the maximum effect.

iii) When attacking, the unpinned section of the Horde adds its second Magnitude digit to the pinned section.

Example : Brother Elyas uses Suppressive Fire on a Rebels Horde of Magnitude 40. The Horde rolls a 45 in their Pinning check, thus missing by 25 (Willpower of the Horde is 40, with -20 for the Pinning roll). Now you have two Hordes, one of Magnitude 15 that is not pinned, and the other with Magnitude 25 that is pinned.

Brother Sepheran then uses Suppressive Fire on the same Horde, the Horde rolls 30 in their Pinning roll, thus missing by 10; the Horde remains in the same condition (25 pinned; 15 not pinned).

Later, the Rebels fire at Brother Skold, who is moving to flank them. The GM carries out 3 attacks with pinned characteristics (25 pinned +5 from the unpinned equals 30, so 3 attacks) and 1 attack with unpinned characteristics.

2. Cover.

In order to create more tactical possibilities, my plan will be that Cover will always protect the target (not just the legs and body). This will mean that flanking the enemy to deny them cover should be the main aim of an attacking force (as in real combat). Also, Righteous Fury gives the chance of dealing a lot of damage, thus somehow simulating the possibility of being hit just as you are peeking out of cover.

Finally, I'll keep posting ideas as they come, and I'll let you know when I run the game how they fared (I am starting to prepare the scenario, so it will take some time). I'm also creating some notes on how to actually implement each scene of the module (checks, tactical maps, timing, etc.), so I will also share it in the future (I'm not good at drawing maps, I plan on using miniatures and scenery from miniature games to run the scenarios, but I can draw some basic schematics to show the field of battle and tactical possibilities).

Hordes have been designed to keep larger battles abstract and fast. Unless the Horde has a large magnitude or consists of particurally nasty creatures, you'll notice most player groups can kill a Horde in one or two rounds. You may find adding additional complexity to Hordes may just slow the game down without actually adding much depth.
If you don't like the idea of having a large magnitude group all Pinned at once, you could consider splitting the Horde up into a few smaller ones?

Maybe you are right. It is not that I don't like having the Horde pinned all at once (or not).

It is that it does not feel very realistic (what is realistic anyway?) to have an all-or-nothing result. In my group we prefer having some intermediate results.

As for the Hordes being killed in one or two rounds, I have also read similar posts, but I don't understand the exact reason... Is it that the Hordes are not using Cover?

Redemption NL said:

While preparing the Final Sanction scenario, I have been thinking about your suggestion, and I think it could work much better than my original proposal. Actually, it would also play very well with the use of miniatures and tactical battles (again, I'm planning on using miniatures and scenery from my club for the scenarios).

I will create a different posts for the actual house rules for Hordes, but basically I'll do as you propose and split each Horde into a few smaller ones.

I will propose to see if my DM/GM may be interested in running this 'improvisation'. Will let you know if the results work.

I agree with Redemption NL, the use of the hordes base is meant to streamline fighting a horde of enemies. The idea of splitting a horde seem to contradict the whole idea of speeding up the process. Though you make it realistic, it may make battles clunky.