Your summary? I would say that Deathwatch has changed the way marines are being looked at - for the better. It also has further cemented a more movie marine interpretation of Space Marines. Furthermore we now have mortal and Astartes grade weaponry which is new and not to everyone's liking. FFG isn't blame here though but it has to be placed at BI's feet for underpowering DH's bolt weaponry. Personally I think it makes sense if marine weapons have a bit more buck than what a mortal can fire and that most bolt weapons are cheap knock-offs. But the bolt weapons of Inquisitors and SoBs should have some bang.

That much debated issue aside, we have been getting a nice, detailed look at specialties and chapters. RoBs has done a good, if partially inadequate (because too brief), job here.

More things can be said but overall I think the biggest impact of this game on the 40K world is the change in perception of marines. To a lot of gamers marines were they-are-all-the-same guys before DW. I think that has changed.

And the concept of playing marines works. Even if I'd like to see more about the sociology of a Deathwatch Space Marine's life beyond endless training and meditation. What are the rituals on Erioch (upon initiation/death/etc)? (I am waiting for an Erioch sourcebook anyway.) Do they get on patrol? Do they have standing contacts on various planets? How does interaction with the present Inquisitors work in detail?

Alex

I don't know, I have incredibly mixed feelings. I'm not even sure I'm hitting on the topic of what you're asking for either.

When I bought the books and sifted through them eager to tell some story and send players on some grand adventure, I feel I got jipped. Though it's not all FFG's fault, but they didn't help in the matter either. My players were min maxers and everything was trivial to them. They were going through spread sheets making the most efficient and rediculous killing machines they could. Things, that I couldn't compete with unless I cheated.

They then really destroyed the book with a bucket load of Erratta. Eratta that was much needed, but Eratta that soured the taste for the game with my players. Suddenly they went from a state of awesome to a state of not so awesome and didn't like it at all. They fell away. I was happy with the new changes, they were not, and I didn't know how to rectify it.

Also, their book and presentation of the game is horrible. It's hard to read and get the picture of how one is suppose to play. I found when I was looking for rules mid game to reference, I couldn't find them when I needed them. They didn't exist where I thought they should have, or indexes lead to references that lead to other references. True to the Games Workshop style, their book is cumbersome and hard to navigate.

There are still issues, and while I have a new group now that is more "RP" and more fun in that regard, the issues still rear their heads at times and we all chuckle and groan, before moving along. I cringe at the fact I should probably buy "The Black Crusade" and adapt the rules into the Deathwatch rules. I don't want to do this, it will only cause problems in my eyes. I want a solid game.

I've said it once before, but I really wish they'd made a "core 40k rule book" and then created attachments to that core book like, "Deathwatch," "Dark Heresy," "Rogue Trader." rather than what they have now. For those of you who play between all the books, I don't know how you keep it straight in your head. That's a whole different issue though.

Now with all that said...

It is awesome for a lot of the reasons you stated. Finally, people can see that Marines aren't just clear cut soldiers that are all the same. They can get into and experience the story behind the guys they choose to be, and this has been a lot of fun. Those people who said "Marines are good soldiers that never deviate from their ways!" have found themselves stuck in horrible situations where they want to make one choice, but know that they should make the other, and the decision is actually tough. For honor? Or because my Codex told me so? All situations that happen in the books all the time. It's been a real blast and they've told me quite up front "Wow, marines aren't as clear cut as I thought they were."

The latest books that have come out have given me so much more to work with too, and it's been a real blast. I too, am looking forward to a book entirely on Erioch full of NPC's with story ideas I can build off of. It'll be an instant buy if it ever shows up =)

Needs more adventures/scenarios.

And I'd like to see some art-lead material. Get a concept artist to doodle some er, concept art and then work backwards from that instead of doing the writing first and the illustration from that.

I'd be surprised if Deathwatch has had any concept art done for it.

Personally, I'm really enjoying running Deathwatch, and my group seems to be having a great time as well. In fact, we've all pretty much agreed that DW, and the 40k games in general, have the best combat system any of us have ever played. Well done FFG!

The errata was a godsend though, the Astartes weapons were way OP before, now they seem just about right, with a few exceptions *cough* Thunder Hammer *cough*. For all the whiners from RT and DH who complain about Astartes weapons being better: Tough. The 40k setting fluff supports that idea, and FFG has stayed true to it. I'm very happy with FFG's commitment to improving their system through errata. Too many game companies produce broken systems and never bother fixing them.

My players and I also think that Space Marines are uber cool to play. I for one, have never understood all the "Marines are boring combat monsters" crap I keep hearing. If anything, DH characters strike me as far more dull to play than Marines. Who the hell wants to play some screaming bible-thumping zealot? That's not awesome at all, I see a dozen lunatics like that every day out on the street. In fact, when I described all of the different games in the 40k line to my group, DH was the only one that the group showed zero interest in. Space Marines are where it's at, with RT coming in second.

I really do agree that more published adventures are needed, and I'm sure FFG realizes that as well. It's just that DW is much newer than DH and RT, but when I see the number of published adventures for those systems, I can't help but think that DW will get that same treatment too.

I actually think that for the most part, the core book is very well organized. I have a very easy time looking up rules on the fly when I GM. If you wanna see a really poorly written and organized rulebook, try the last game my group played: Pathfinder. Christ it was nearly impossible to find specific rules in that book when you needed to.

I have been very impressed with the consistently high quality of the DW products, I loved the Achilus Assault, and am very much looking forward to First Founding. Thank you FFG!

Got 3 copies of it which got played for about 2 months and then no one wanted to run it for various reasons (limited/niche roleplaying scope, boring starting careers, not many pre-written adventures, weapon damage/mechanic was f**king stupid... etc) then went back to RT and DH. With BC on the up with a nice open system, marines there fitting in better with normal humans as a roleplaying option, it will be likely to stay on the shelf.

As a GM, I did try and kick start it along as a parallel adventure to a 3yr long DH game, the players are using some heavily house ruled marine scouts based on DW rules and I'll periodically steal ideas out of the MRB and some the supplements we've bought.

deathwatch is hands down my favorite of the four systems, the characters in my group are quit developed and varied. its a mix of whats iconic and epic in 40k and our group knows that marines aren't "cookie cutter". dark heresy was fun but it, for me, was only a diversion 'til deathwatch came out. my party never got into rogue trader and we haven't played black crusade, yet, though i've read through and look forward to playing

i've been playing an assault space wolf who does not use a jump pack. we just recently found an ork mech factory deep within a mine and brought the house down.

I seem to find Deathwatch quite a solid game. I agree with the opinions with what the other posters have stated.

It obviously has improved how we view the SM chapters. Not only do they add flavour to the chapters but also to each individual marine (ala every rpg where players change the world they are in).

Rules wise, I believe that the rules were poorly organised. Have read threads on players trying to find the auto miss rule. Grappling rules are broken into two sections. Weapons were not properly planned out before the game hit the shelves. After RoB, much needed errata was put into motion. Flavour wise pretty standard of Black Library fluff, just reorganised information for players.

I guess majority of what I'm experiencing in my play group revolves around the storyline by GW. We do not have a 'complete' Codex Astartes' to quote from. We generally theorise, deduce and logically process information sources like source books and fluff in order to understand the tactical treatise of Rouboute Gulliman.

Support wise, I tend to agree. While other games seem to enjoy more support for missions and campaign materials, Deathwatch seems a little lacking as compared to the other FFG products (Other than Final Sanction, Oblivion's Edge, The Emperor Protects and the sample scenario in the core book, practically very little campaigns). MotX gives plot hooks but does not seem sufficient to flesh out an adventure. Leaving much imagination to the GM. Both good and bad points. Again mixed reactions from my group here. FFG please release some support materials for us please.

as GM i must admit that i loved DW idea for an RPG system. Sadly it could not live to my/my group expectations. Boring and broken D&D style of rules (witch is great insult), great number of bugs, organization of rulebook, and many many others mentioned by previous posters. I dont remember any system that i have played for longer time that needed so many house rules to just be playable. Great idea for and niche RPG, bad way of making it.

Right now when we play DW, and we are doing it quite often, we use old 3rd rev edition of GURPS.

boruta666 said:

I GM Rifts and Shadowrun 2E and DW is quite tame compared to that. Perhaps one of the bigger problems is the do-or-die combat. I mean it's okay but once in a while you want more drawn out battles. A mortal with an Infernus Pistol can kill an Astartes if he has Init or surprise and hits and the Astartes doesn't dodge. He will be easily killed next turn though.

In DH, every situation offers suspense for players with low level characters because they are so fragile. Marines can feel fairly safe until they get thrown into the heart of the enemy - most of the enemies that are lethal to DH characters are no more than a nuisance.

Rescuing worlds is abstract, rescuing actual people is more personal. Further development of the game (including pre-gen missions) need to address this in a sensible way.

I can't complain about the organozation of the rulebook. Most of the rules are in my head and for those I have to look up, I have a very good idea where to look.
It's not the bugs, editing glitches and other minor inconsistencies that pose a problem. Fixing those, house-ruling those, is not much work. It's the larger issues (such as well-scaling ascension through ranks) that are more problematic.

Bottom line though is that I am quite satisfied with DW. It's an elegant system whether in DH, RT or DW. One has to revision the whole thing top down though and fix some of these issues without giving up some of the trademarks . I have no problem with DW leaning towards quicker do-or-die combat situations when master-tiers are involved. The system needs to provide for different combats too though. Enemies that don't kill marines with one hit and that can take 12 HB Kraken shells to the chest without collapsing. Maybe they should have given the master-tiers a bit less damage and a bit more Wound Points. Just a bit. Just some random thoughts of mine.

Alex

Deathwatch is an interesting beast to me.

Before Deathwatch came about our only real experience with the 40K RPG system was Dark Heresy. We hadn't played Rogue Trader, but had our Dark Heresy campaign that had been going on for a year maybe? Something along those lines. Anyway, I always had Deathwatch at the back of my mind because I remembered BI talking about the three games, the last one in the roster being Deathwatch, and when the changeover to FFG was made I never doubted that we'd get a Deathwatch book. You could say that it was the one I was looking forward to the most - hell I even went out and built an entire Deathwatch army for 40K (DW Terminator Pads are hard to come by...).

When it did arrive we actually didn't play it for a while. We were happy with our DH campaign and didn't have the time to really start a new campaign at the same time. We still went over and it and kept up to date with releases and whatnot, but it was a thing on the periphery. Eventually, at the start of this year, we became involved in play-testing, and I've lost count of the amount of Deathwatch games we've played since then. We haven't played our DH campaign in a while as it happens, as every single game we've played has been a Deathwatch game (with the odd DH or Black Crusade game thrown in as play-testing dictates). The thing I was struck by most after all this is how I preferred playing Deathwatch over running it. I've had more fun playing as a Marine than being the GM, which is the complete opposite to how I feel about Dark Heresy.

There are problems with the game - chief among them the power of Astartes Bolt Weapons - but thankfully I found myself in a position where I could have a tiny bit of influence over the game and while I can't go into specifics due to NDA's, I was lucky enough to work on the current errata. Without going into development processes, I will say that I thought "Change the Bolt Weapons to be less powerful!" was going to be a real big fight, and I was ready to argue my case as to why they needed to be change. Luckily I never had to argue it as it turns out I wasn't the lone voice in the dark on this issue, and now we have the amended stats that we have today.

Of course, if I had my way the errata would be three times as long, but hey - maybe next time, right?


Overall I am happy with Deathwatch (post-errata weapon stats). We really enjoyed our early games, but eventually we stopped playing because the game ceased being any fun. The Heavy Bolter - and we never said 'The Devastator', because the Devastator lost all his identity in the shadow of the ever-present Heavy Bolter - broke that game, and made any encounter a complete waste of time. We watched Hive Tyrants with Tyrant Guard vanish in a single volley, we saw Mephidast the Plagueriver go *pop* in two rounds of shooting, we watched the Heavy Bolter reduce Hordes to non-combative in a single round. Playing the game was a waste of time, and we even stopped during a game because of this problem. The errata changed all that, and now combat is a challenge again. There's a reason to take something other than Heavy Bolters and Storm Bolters and the game has, in my mind, now reached the level it was always meant to be at.

As someone who always creates their own scenarios rather than use pre-made ones, I've never understood why people complain when a game doesn't have too many of them (especially when you consider that all people ever do is complain about the pre-made scenarios that are out). But to those people all I have to say is be patient. Deathwatch hasn't been around that long, and we've only got its Core Rulebook, it's GM Kit, it's Inquisitor's Handbook, it's Creatures Anathema, it's Purge the Unclean and it's Disciples of the Dark Gods. We're about to get it's version of the Radical's Handbook in First Founding (or what should be it's Radical's Handbook... but that's a discussion for another day) and it only gets better from there. I'm sure we'll eventually get what the other two games have - a three-part adventure series - but in the meantime be patient and come up with your own scenarios. it's fun!

BYE

(NB: I don't actually know anything about an adventure series, I'm simply making a deduction based upon the mirrored release schedules of the other two games and how they all seem to follow a predictable pattern for the most part)

There are problems with the game - chief among them the power of Astartes Bolt Weapons - but thankfully I found myself in a position where I could have a tiny bit of influence over the game and while I can't go into specifics due to NDA's, I was lucky enough to work on the current errata. Without going into development processes, I will say that I thought "Change the Bolt Weapons to be less powerful!" was going to be a real big fight, and I was ready to argue my case as to why they needed to be change. Luckily I never had to argue it as it turns out I wasn't the lone voice in the dark on this issue, and now we have the amended stats that we have today.

My Hero! As far as I know following the content of other DW-releases the new weapon stats aren't official, and most people I know and hear about didn't use them as they are. The damage stats are quiet o.k. but everyone changed back to the old ROF or houseruled some new ROF-Rules, something which schould have be done from the start instead of giving us the "gift" of absolutley stupid ROF stats. Semi-Auto is the Semi-Auto and Full-Auto is Full-Auto and Astartes Bolter usually have a 4-Shot-Burst-Setting which should work like Full-Auto. Seriously this is something I wouldn't be to proud of!

@Kain: I would qualify 4 round bursts as Semi-Auto Fire. From a simulationist POV it makes sense. Otoh, you shoot 4 mini grenades. For cineastic purposes I strongly recommend keeping bolters Full-Auto. Bolters are supposed to mean Dakka. But I realize that is rather a matter of preference/taste. I just think Boltguns got nerfed too hard with the ROF change on top. And I don't think it's coincidence that a lot of people choose to use the old ROF stats.

I think I have the time this week to continue to develop my TT weapon stats; they should get properly scaled against vehicles too.

H.B.M.C. said:

H.B.M.C. said:

LOL, which reminds me how Charmander had begun teasing me because every second post of mine was a complaint about the HB here. I am still concerned about issues mentioned in my previous post though. Storytelling-wise TEP has been quite good, especially the Price of Hubris but I don't think Andrea Gausman had been fully entrenched in the crunch (nor do I think Andy Hoare has been when he wrote the Imperial Fists but that's another issue). I hope upcoming products will see more informed authors or authors that listen to the advice of play-testers who are more rooted in the system.

Signs for encounters not working would be 2 Genestealers harder to kill than a mag 20 horde. A small horde of Genestealers would have needed more magnitude. Another balancing problem would be throwing a 6 Genestealer ambush at the Marines in Final Sanction.
Or very typical for DW: the battle with Drahj on page 68 of TEP. How is that supposed to work out? Against the average kill-team, Drahj will be dead immediately and his bodyboards will then die quickly too after having fought ineffectively against the players with pea shooters.
Or the Kroot carnivores at the beginning of Shadow of Madness. One Mag 35 horde? ORLY?

Pre-gens have had some serious balancing issues.

H.B.M.C. said:

There is no reason why they didn't stage a mission contest yet though which would have given us at least some donwloadable missions on the support page. Also they should have releases the new release schedule by now. We want to know the road ahead.

Alex

Chioxin said:

As far as Space Marine bolters: Personally I was looking at the possibility of looking at returning all bolters to doing 2d10 damage, Space Marine or not. Apparently this was the original idea during play testing for Dark Heresy, but there was a change towards the end for "normal" bolters, probably so they fit in the progression of Las/Autguns to Plasma/Meltaguns better. I was also looking at "quality" level for bolt rounds which would alter these stats a little, and Space Marines would get a little boost (especially in the reliability area) but so there wouldn't be a difference between Space Marine weapons and others at their core.

The change to bolters' RoF was needed from a game point of view, rather than a simulationist one. For one, Deathwatch breaks similutionism everywhere anyway. The original Bolters were more powerful even than established Space Marine bolters for no reason other than reliability (as even 2d10 Tearing can be unreliable), and damage needed to be reliable for Hordes to really work. Squad modes make no Simulationist sense ("Yeah! I can teleport forwards several metres just because we were Space Marines!), but gave a way for a squad of Space Marines to perform more effectively by working as a team, which the rules didn't otherwise provide for (Concentrating fire aside). As much as the background supports full-auto bolters for Space Marines, it just meant hordes were pointless, as even your generic Marine tore through them like they didn't exist ("Ok, thats 5 magnitude damage each from 3 players... ok, the horde runs away."). Same goes in reverse for autoguns background wise they should have full-auto (they are "auto"guns after all), but with hordes shooting several times a turn and getting the damage boost they just became deadly. Semi-auto (and only of 3) works quite well in making these unimpressive weapons less of a party killer.

borithan said:

borithan said:

The core design choice was obviously that Melta/Plasma shouldn't necessarily one-shot PCs. A flawed decision in my view and one that has caused scaling issues for DW design.

borithan said:

Quite to the contrary, the thing that I like about Frag Grenades is that they have a chance to not wound. The whole horde mechanic has been imperfectly designed in that it is too predictable:

A. You almost always hit with your Bolter a sufficiently large horde.
B. You always wound it.
C. The actual damage you do only depends on how many rounds hit and that is even more predictable with low ROF and Semi-Auto.

Bad design. Bolters need 4 shots per burst, damage based on 2d10 for Righteous Fury heroism and there being a small chance of not wounding sufficiently armoured (or tough) hordes.

borithan said:

The worst parts are where a marine can get a cover bonus but he can't transfer it to anyone else. Or where you can magically share damage across the team. Perhaps they didn't have the time to study actually special ops tactics and think of something more plausible and less gamey back then?

borithan said:

Either increase horde size or run multiple hordes. I have no problem with that Epic Marines are scary and lethal as hell. Plus you might house rule morale check and make them easier to pass.

borithan said:

Yeah but that's realistic and a solid game mechanic. It's called torrent of fire and is something every 40K player who has ever battled (foot) Imperial Guard understands. That much lead in the air is bound to dent and weaken your armour or strike a vulnerable spot.

The fix to that problem is wrong and it comes from a gamey approach to horde mechanics. Suppose you run Final Sanction and the hordes surrounding the chapel at the start have plenty of autoguns. So the marines start to fire back. Now will all hordes in the vicinity all fire with all their guns full-auto at the marines.

How much ammo do these people have? Doesn't any of them cover their rear or hold their fire for an jump-packed marine going at them? What is needed is the mechanic for a GM to declare a certain magnitude of a horde performing a Delayed Action or being on Overwatch. The horde acts still as one entity (important for morale check threshold) but can react to events. This has the side effect of making this stuff more manageable for the players and the GM can actually scale the threat level behind the scenes: the team is already pretty good shot up? Lots of reserving fire. The team has been steam-rolling through the mission? Set your phasers to lethal, Mr.Spock.

Nobody will understand why autoguns aren't full-auto. That is a head-scratcher and best avoided.

Alex

ak-73 said:

Also, being reliable damage wise makes less dice rolls: You are meant to roll damage for every hit (so a full 3 shots from a bolter would result in 4 hits, rolling damage 4 times. A heavy bolter just gets worse). If you automatically hurt them that is a whole bunch of rolls got rid of that would really slow the game down. Hordes are meant to be a threat, but fairly easy to counter if you concentrate fire.

Study special ops tactics? How was that going to help? The rules do not make an accurate representation of the real world, and there are very few ways you can get benefit from working together as a team, aside from concentrating fire on targets, and trying to time your actions to make best use of them. This is available for everyone, not just Space Marines, so doesn't serve as a way to show their awesomeness and amazing team work. Giving them the squad modes is an absract way of doing this (rather than simulationist). Regroup allows them to show them giving each oither covering fire so they can get into a stronger position without much threat from the enemy. The sharing damage presumably is meant to sort of represent them drawing fire from their comrades (but yes, it ends up working in a more than slightly odd way, but then it isn't simulationist).

Epic Marines are kind of represented purely by there being a horde mechanic in the first place. We do run multiple hordes, and we have had increased sizes. THe letter doesn't really work that well in my mind, as it just makes hordes rather more boring (a problem they suffer from). They don't become more interesting the larger they are: they can just absorb more fire, and make more ranged attacks. The attacks mount up so that they become a real problem for the marines (not really demonstrating Marine's epicness there) and something absorbing loads of damage to little effect kind of invalidates marines' actions. Size 30 seems to be about best, and yes, not just one (unless you are really just having an easy encounter).

Autoguns are not full auto for the sake of game balance. Simple. They are still full auto in Black Crusade, they were originally in Deathwatch, and they are in RT and DH. They were changed for the errata for the sake of 1) bringing it in line with most full auto weapons (the assualt shotgun really needs to be hit with a nerfbat soon... totally out of line of everything else) which had been reduced to semi-auto, 2) to reduce the sheer number of damage rolls you could have had to do ("Ok, that's 3 shots at full auto from that horde.... on, lets start with the 9 damage rolls") and 3) related to that to increase party survivability. Hordes are nasty enough (well, biazrrely random enough) without even a fairly normally sized one dealing possibly 15 3d10+3 hits in one turn. The "torrent of fire" is represented by the fact that it gets those bonus 2 dice damage. It was a gamey solution to horde mechanics? Horde Mechanics are a gamey solution in the first place. They are there so that 1) weak things can be made the threat that they should be in large numbers, but the rules don't allow for (due to the way the damage mechanics work) and 2) to reduce the sheer number of individual entities the GM has to keep track of, speeding up the game and the GM's workload. A simulationist would have them all separately, all with a very small chance of doing something, which due to the sheer number of people would eventually happen. However, that would be the most utter pain in the arse to run.

borithan said:

Ah yes, you're not using the cover reduces chances to-hit house rule as I do. Anyway Semi-Auto makes things more predictable because 2 DoS per hits decreases the variance. Ensure that firing at hordes is regularly less than a 95% for marines and you do have variance.

Also you are missing the point: while being able to skip the to-wound rule almost always speedens things up it is in combination with the easy to-hit (and the damger of regularly maxing out hits) that things become predictable. If Boltguns are 2d10+2 or 2d10+3, at least well-armoured human hordes have a chance. Or tough critters.

borithan said:

Yeah, hordes caught out in the open by full-auto fire shoudl expect maximum sentence. Which is why negative to-hit modifiers for hordes are a very desirable mechanic.

borithan said:

Based on what I have read here, the player base is voting differently.

borithan said:

1. Proper research is being called professionalism.
2. Gaining inspiration for better (=less gamey) squad mode abilities.

borithan said:

Which doesn't mean that you can ignore the issue of suspension of disbelief.

borithan said:

Or for example a squad mode in which the team gets Awareness bonuses while advancing through hostile terrain due to effectively covering all angles. Just as one example. The question is whether there are such few ways or if some people just lack knowledge and /or inspiration. And whether gamey squad mode mechanics are the result of having to deliver under time pressure and thus not having the time to do more extensive research and coming up with better mechanics.

borithan said:

Abstractions is good and fine but there is a point where you abstract so much due to lack of better inspiration that the resulting mechanics become a turn-off.

borithan said:

That's not how Regroup gets used in play. In PrimarchX's online round we were trapped in a walled town that the Tau threatened to destroy. The way Regroup would be used here was to break the Overwatch of Tau forces which included broadsides outside. You move out of cover with Regroup and then take out all major threats with your regular action. Perhaps the squad mode should have included the limitation that only enemy models that could be fired on when the ability gets triggered can't trigger their overwatch. As it stands it rather gets used to jump out of full cover and kill, among other things to storm into a room and free hostages. If covering fire was the intention, you might have considered another ability which supports Marines making coordinated attacks into a room.

borithan said:

I have adressed this on the forum in that past. Horde size isn't the problem. Magnitude is a horde's hitpoints and battling high HP critters in other systems (dragons?) isn't boring either.

What hordes lack is special rules. As it stands the system runs down to old school d&d number cruncing. Reducing numbers. In individual combat in DW you have all kinds of talents that provide special rules. You have talents like double team which might influence your choice of tactics. Or you have squad mode abilities. And the enemies also have talents and their traits.

Horde fighting needs more of that and it needs special rules. For example if a horde can manage to entirely surround a marine in melee that should make life more difficult for him. If he can find a good fighting positions such as stairs (omg marines and stairs! let's assume massive stone stairs) or whatever that might make things easier for him. Another prime example is flanking. Hordes should hate (as in morale checks) receiving automatic fire from the flanks.

I can tell you the effects of full auto fire in the ww2 simulationist franchise of Combat Mission is one of devastation of fighting morale. Horde combat needs to avoid to dumb down to merely rolling some dice and seeing whose numbers drop down to 0 or less first. It needs to be about maneuvering, exploiting good firing positions (and breaking morale because you rarely have to shoot down a unit to the last man - those fanatical units are dangerous because of that).

borithan said:

You complained about hordes breaking after 3 bolter shots, I gave you an option. I add the suggestion of cover making hordes harder to-hit. I add the option of a horde trait that makes hordes take morale tests after they lost 50% or 75% magnitude. One can organize that trait in levels if you want.

borithan said:

Oh yeah and this game balance driven thinking has already worked wonders with the DH designers and the Boltgun.
It's not the right way to approach. You formulate a vision what you want an autogun to be in your interpretation of 40K. And then you derive rules to make your vision fit.

borithan said:

Yeah. I take it from your approach that this isn't the end of overhaul of the weapon stats. That would be the best news I have heard on this forum in months because it is a core issue.

borithan said:

Honestly? I don't mind that provided I employ autogun hordes sparringly. The amount of damage rolls conveys to the players the torrent of fire their PCs get subjected to very well. Psychologically it is beneficial. You just have to be skillful and sparingly in use so that it doesn't become too much of a bore.

But sparingly used I can see players not being bored but sitting on the edge of their seats because the sheer volume of fire is really threatening.

borithan said:

I don't think that is in dispute. Consider the suggestion I have made here, including the ability for hordes to reserve fire, hug cover to reduce PCs to-hit rolls and situational bonuses (perhaps in combination with or due to special abilities). Hordes with autoguns that can and do reserve fire are much less scary. As it should be. And I think it's do-able for a GM to remember or note down which horde employs how much magnitude for what in a given turn. Sorry them are the burdens of being the boss.

Alex

First things first: I absolutely hate the way this forum works. I have no idea how to make multiple quotes. Why couldn't they just use a normal forum system?

ak-73 said:

1) There aren't official rules for hordes in cover getting bonuses. In fact, if I remember correctly they explicitly don't, barring gm ruling, of course . Not that I have a problem with it. I have not GMed yet for Deathwatch, but when I am going to I will have hordes in cover, and them getting some kind of bonus for it (either harder to hit, or some sort of penalty to damage dealt to them. However, barring really bizarre situations, generally there aren't going to be penalties when fighting hordes. Range? Ok, if they are a long distance away, but then at most it counteracts the minimum bonus granted for shooting at a horde. What does that leave? Visibility really. Unless fighting on some fog world that won't usually be an issue, except for lighting, and that will likely be a problem only some of the time.

I also disagree on Semi-Auto. I find it increases the variance, as you will get the full number of hits far less frequently. The roll that would get you maximum hits on full auto gets you two hits on semi-auto, so there is greater room for getting better hits (and the chances of no hits , or just 1 hit is increased). We were getting 4 hits almost every time without improving our BS. Now, it becomes slightly more useful for horde fighting, and if you have Bolter Drill you have even more reason to increase your BS.

Tough humans should probably be done as individual models. If you are giving your guys carapace armour and TB 4+ just put give them weapons that stand some chance of hurting the Space Marines, maybe some decent talents (Might Shot or similar) and run them individually. They will still go down quick (something like that deserves 15 wounds or so), but they will be able to take a hit (maybe 2, or even 3 if your players are unlucky with the damage rolls). Guardsman with lasguns (or similar) should really just go down. About the toughest thing that should be done in hordes is just straight up Ork Boyz.

2) I see some have been using full auto bolters, yes. Truthfully the group I am playing with think almost all the changes were for the better, and of the few we thought were a bit dubious, not having full-auto wasn't one of them (besides loosing the option for suppressing fire, but if you use Black Crusade as an example you could let semi-auto weapons do it, or just rule that they can use suppressing fire (which we have done).

3) Proper research for Space Marines isn't really to look as the SAS. That's for Stormtroopers. Space Marines are something different entirely. And I cannot think of how they could have done decent squad modes that were going to be less gamey. The rules system simply did not allow it. And in fact, it does kind of give SM the kind of advantage really professional soldiers have: speed of decision and action. Inexperienced, poorly led, or poorly trained troops will often take longer to get themselves together and react to things. It is gamey, but many squad modes give that feeling that Space Marines are simply acting far more quickly than anyone else around them can, which would be near impossible to represent any other way .

4) Awareness bonus? Really? My Apothecary has an effective awareness of 85. OK, I have the highest in the group, I have a Mark 6 Helm (which was very important to me. I like my Beakies), and it is one of my character's things. Ok, that was just an example you were gving, but truthfully all "realistic" squad modes would be similar. They might give a bonus to initiative, or some bonus to a skill roll. And they would be dull. They wouldn't give any sense of making your Marines a step up even better than their stats suggest. They wouldn't give you interesting little tricks to try out at that crucial moment. The rule set simply does not provide for something as significant as Squad Modes without breaking the rules at least slightly.

5) Oh, I know, it was just one example of how to rationalise/explain it. We used it to burst through a narrow gap covered by about 20 Tau, or to cover ground more effectively (Frankly it was one of the squad modes we have used the most, though truthfully we often forget them anyway).

6) Generally batting high HP is rather dull. Or at least in my experience. If the enemy is has something else for it that makes them interesting then maybe, but generally high hit point things are dull. You hit them every turn, they hit you, you hit them, and so it goes on until one of you is dead (Game of D&D once where we were fighting a bear at about level 7. It took about 2 hours. Dull as hell). Much more interesting is usually more weaker things. As they tend to go down quickly you have some sort of sense of actually doing something, and you do directly effect the enemy's effectiveness (fewer of them, so they get to hit you less), and at the same time, as there are more of them they tend to be able to do more interesting things as well (move to a more advantageous position, gang up on certain character etc) which then the players have the choice whether they react or not. That's why 30 Strength hordes are probably best. With concentrated fire they can quickly have their effectiveness reduced (loose bonus damage dice etc), and at the same time you will probably have more of them, allowing them to do more things.

7) The effect of fully auomatic fire on Hordes is represented by the way horde damage works. Much of what is represented by a horde's magnitude is the morale of the unit. That's why Devastating weapons do more damage, that's why some epxlosive weapons do more damage (bolter shells are not big enough to kill more than one person... however, the mess it makes of people will have a morale effect on the target horde). It's why some of the special traits reduce the damage for being fanatical, and a leader can "rally" magnitude back into existence.

8) I don't find massive random damage keeps players on their seat. It tends to promote apathy as 1) they can't do anything about it (like not being able to parry hordes) and they haven't really got anyway of mitigating damage. They just don't know if they will be fine or suddenly take a massive hit and go down in one turn. Small, regular amounts of damage are usually better (high pen, low damage weapons are good for this), as they can usually dodge and things, and they can get the sense of "If we don't deal with this we will eventually be taken down, but if we start beating the enemy the amount of damage we will take goes down." Basically it means the players have more input. Random, possible massive damage, doesn't tend to do this.

borithan said:

I guess at the time of buying it it was relatively cheap and looking great. Now they are locked into it for the time being. Multiple quotes only functioning by copy-paste; it's relatively fast after the first time, you because you only need to copy one unquote-quote block and then del what you wrote between.

borithan said:

Dispersion. Hordes packed tightly are subject to more damage in a shorter amount of time than forces spread thin. You could model that through a cap on damage per attack . Or whatever floats your boat.

borithan said:

Well, increasing the number of DoS needed to gain additional hits does decrease the variance. You are right about the cap. But we are debating this in the context of "hordes getting hit automatically is boring". If you make hordes a bit harder to hit, the hit cap gets hit less frequently. So the combination of both works for me.

borithan said:

Hordifying is a matter of easing the job for the GM, right? We've even had a horde of Genestealers so far. Anyway when it comes to tough humans, I'll refer you to the Stormtrooper detachment in Oblivion's Edge.

borithan said:

Personally I maintain that the squad modes seem like they have been put together under time pressure. Space Marines are a mixture of paladins and special forces soldiers. I think some research, even if it is just for inspiration, would have been good.

Dispersed Advance: enemy ambushers can't place full-auto hits on more or two PCs. Similar with blast weapons.

I will concede that it is easy to be armchair quarterbacking here; as long as I don't come up with a better system myself, the assumption has to be that one can't make it less gamey. I'll give you that. Still... I am not convinced.

borithan said:

Understandably so, bonuses aside.

borithan said:

Okay, that is a very valid point. In a Rifts game I ran a few years ago, I included a major demon. The players were not supposed to fight it, they tried with bad results. One of his rules was that he always went first with init, even before a juicer who had rolled a natural 20.

Anyway my major gripe is with stuff that leaves you head scratching (not that acting out of init or whatever): finding good cover that can't be used by others. I was the first (I believe) to complain on this forum that Wolf Senses stopped working in Squad Mode, which later got fixed in RoB. Or take Soak Fire - how does that work? How does the damage of a single shot (at higher ranks) get split even over battle-brothers? Perfectly even? You know, this is where disbelief starts. That is actually what I meant in my initial criticism of the system being game-y. Which apparently had spread in the meantime on /tg/ on elsewhere. Funny how such things go with the original intention being lost.

To return to the issue: yes, Marines being able to do things that other people can't is right on the money. That's well-designed. The stuff that breaks immersion due to disbelieve isn't. It mustn't be so abstract that you have trouble imagining what is plausibly happening. Ever. It's a design sin. Stuff happens though, nobody's perfect.

borithan said:

I recommend an errata of regroup. Go To Ground specifies that you must seek cover. Regroup doesn't specify anything in particular and as such allows for a wide-range of uses. You could for example specify that marines in full cover (no LOS) may only move into a different full cover location. And marines in partial cover can only use it to go into full or partial cover. Or whatever else. As it stands it's quite powerful. Errating could also allow one to make another squad mode ability that allows one to go over the top and publish that in a later publication. (wink, wink)

borithan said:

I partially agree. The most epic fights tend to be more drawn out affairs though; grueling battles until the beast's head finally crushes to the ground and splinters.

borithan said:

Large hordes or dragons with many hit points are important weapons in the arsenal of GMs. I think they aspects here are offering variety and thus remaining less predictable. I think players don't mind the occasional slog and they don't mind having to work hard (as players in real life) to accomplish something with their PCs. That's when it starts to feel epic.

borithan said:

Why don't weapons from the side count as Devastating(1) and from the side as Devastating(2)? Okay, this is just a not-really-thought-through suggestion. The point is that such rules allow for tactics: suddenly the horde needs to avoid getting flanked. Suddenly the players will love getting to the flanks. Suddenly big hordes will perish quickly if you can outmaneuver them.

That's what I am saying: horde fighting needs more tactics. To be used against the hordes and to be used by the hordes against PCs. Say you're in Avalos and fighting the rebels there. They have blocked the streets with entrenched heavy weapons (= more difficult to hit and hurt when they hit the PCs). Now the players need to flank these positions which means breaking over a small park area into some buildings. In that buildings some light infantry will have to be dealt with but once that break-through has been made, the heavy infantry cannot maintain their entrenched position anymore and will likely have to retreat. Or die standing there.

borithan said:

Two different issues: random damage increases the variance and lack of predictability increases suspense. That is why we roll dice in rpgs. Not being able to parry does decrease variance because you have one random factor less. What to do? How about specifying that in certain situations player can parry hordes, for example, when fighting a horde in melee while walking backwards up some stairs? You get my drift, I guess.

borithan said:

Except Stalwart Defence perhaps. Techmarines at least can dedicate their reaction to attack. You see... I am fine with all that. Horde fighting works differently. But in its place something else must go, thus my advocating these situational things or tactics or strategies. It just has to be something that doesn't work everytime. You can't flank every horde. There isn't always a narrow corridor in which you can parry a hordes attacks. There isn't always clear space that allows a horde to surround a PC easily and deal extra damage.

borithan said:

Random, possibly massive damage has a different psychological effect: we need to kill these people asap; it's just a matter of time before one of them has a lucky roll.

Anyway I have no preference: GMing is about maintaing a certain amount of unpredictability. Which means all kinds of challenges need to be thrown at the players. And from a game designer's viewpoint I would say one should provide customers (GMs) an arsenal of different challenges to choose from, each according to their playing style.

Personally I like the 2d10 range of weapons. I also still allow for multiple RF dice, which was originally just a fix to the first DW RF rules. I want a player with a heavy weapon to feel like he has got a chance of killing a master-class enemy with one very luck shot. Which would be an epic feat and showered with decorations.

Deathwatch is a game of find-glory-or-die-trying.

Alex

ak-73 said:

Yes, Hordes are meant to make life easier for the GM, and yes, I guess they did have Stormtrooper hordes. I guess it probably partly has to do with my preference for 1) a less "heroic" presentation of Space Marines, and so gunning down numerous Stormtroopers in one go doesn't appeal to me and 2) many weaker opponents rather than one big one. Also from what others have told be about Emperor Protects becoming a horde actually made Genestealers (and so by extension probably many similar lower level elites) less scary (simple damage output aside). It was easier to deal with them as a horde than as multiple individual attackers.

Oh, Squad Mode as a whole did feel very rushed when reading (Still not sure I have the mechanics down after reading it god knows how many times). And I have to say, when I initially read it I did feel "Ok, this has gone down a more "gamey" approach" and they have made it more abstract. I guess I have gradually come to accept that, and as long as it isn't used alongside any of the other game lines (as I do not accept that they are really compatible) I am fine with the more abstract system. And yes, the Wolf Senses thing did amuse me when I noticed it. When I looked at it though I realised it felt quite "board gamey", and so felt I understood why FFG were willing to do such abstract and slightly weird stuff (primarily being a board-game company and all). Now, I certainly think it was a good idea that they changed that, as it did just stretch it a bit far for my liking ("Wait... working with others means their sense of smell gets blocked?") and it wasn't like it was a bizarre abstraction that provided any benefits in any way (unlike the Squad Modes, which are an important way of doing the whole "Greater than the sum of its parts" thing for Space Marines).

Soak fire is one of the most... iffy, at least when dealing with big single shots. Truthfully we haven't used it yet, and maybe with playing it would irritate me more. On the other hand I don't actually think I would want to errata Regroup. I know it is labelled as a "Defensive" mode, and the name doesn't really suggest offensive action, but I think its universality means it can represent all sorts of things, ranging from an extra burst of speed in a rush across ground, "bursting through" an entry point, or, as its naming suggests, a quick re-organisation in response to changing situations.

Ok, yes big hit point lumps have their place. I guess my problem with them is that they really need work to make them interesting, which often doesn't happen (Elites and Solos in at least early d&d 4th edition, for example, whose main defining feature was just that they had more hit points than their equivalent, and were consequently just twice as dull as the originating monster).

I don't think the horde rules were intended to be as in depth as to cover things such as being flanked, at least as standard rules. I suspect most GMs and players probably wouldn't use those rules even if they existed. How do you define the front of the "horde"? I think outflanking a horde and the like is simply up to the GM to give bonuses for if they feel appropriate. It also doesn't favour the "We iz awsum" model for marines that FFG seems to prefer where they just stand and take hordes of guys in the front and massacre their way through.

Yes, we have dice to introduce an element of randomness, but I feel taking options away from players (which hordes tend to do) tends to make the randomness more arbitrary. OK, yes, if they choose to parry an enemy and they fail, that is random (being decided by a dice roll) but by choosing to parry their actions have reduced the likelihood of being hit (even if in the end they are). As with hordes they have many of their options removed, and they have few-to-no ways of altering the probabilities, it feels like they have had control taken away from them. They also are less involved in the game as they have fewer choices to make (ok, you are limited to one reaction a turn normally but you have to make a choice, weighing up if you think there are more important things to use your reaction for). Partly for this exact reason we introduced a general rule allowing parries and dodges (at a penalty) against hordes (ie, not just in special circumstances).

Not sure what you mean by multiple RF dice? Do you mean the original rules for Righteous Fury from Deathwatch, before the errata? I think we dropped those even before starting the first session. In fact, we hadn't even noticed the change in Rogue Trader, and had just been playing with the original Dark Heresy rules (as they are now). The change (which was less of a change than we thought) just seemed down right daft to us.

ak-73 said:

Where in RoB did you find this? I know there is the Wolf-Helm but it only allows you to use your Wolf Senses Solo Mode ability even if you are wearing this helmet. I've never read something about using the Wolf Senses in Squad Mode. If you got any other information on this please let me Know, maybe I've overread this.

Page 225.

Alex

Hmm. Although I think Deathwatch has at its core, a great representation of Space Marines, it runs into severe balance problems very quickly. Too many things add up to mean that almost all combat encounters are trival.

For example, my current rank four Kill Team is going through the Emperor's Protects. Last session, they killed 8 Obliterators in three rounds with barely a scatch.

I attribute this to:

Three of the characters are toting heavy weapons (the Techmarine Forge Master built himself an assault cannon, the Devastator has an autocannon and the Librarian is walking around with a multimelta) is one. In addition, the Librarian's Force Dome gives the group +20 armour against ranged attacks (when he pushes), the Techmarine can for one round boost his damage and pen on all attacks by his intelligence bonus, which combined with the Assault Cannon = meat pate.

Also, three of the characters have invested in mastercrafted Storm Shields. The party includes a Blood Angels Assault Marine and a Flesh Tearer Apothecary, who can use the absurdly overpowered Blood Frenzy special ability (which I've nerfed substantially, but is still still frickking hardcore). It was even more retarded when the Librarian was allowed compel and Machine Curse. A good chunk of the attackers would start beating on the other half and anyone with remotely nasty equipment would have to fight with it disabled.

The Apothecary and the Ravenguard Tactical marine are toting Storm Bolters and the latest mission has given every marine 28 vengeance rounds.

Oh and the party's favourite use of cohesion is the Strongpoint ability, which gives them +20 to hit a designated target and allows them to reroll damage against it. The target can be changed with the use of a free action.

And this game is supposed to be viable all the way up to Rank 8....

Lucifer216 said:

And Force Dome? How far apart where they from the enemy? As you increase the power the radius increases, making it totally irrelevant at anything but massive ranges. Still a nice power (a unfettered version saved our bacon in one recent fight), but it does have its foibles that make it relatively situational (at least as higher power levels).

ak-73 said:

Oops, I really managed to overlook this important change all this time. Our Space Wolf will be glad to hear this, thanks.