Do you actually use miniatures for combat in Deathwatch, or does your group rely more on visual descriptions?

I want to start using them, but I'm a bit concerned about scenarios in both enclosed spaces and wide-open ones that might necessitate lots of scenery. Also, how do you represent a horde?

In addition, some weapons have such long range that a huge battlemat would be required, while the Dev with the lascannon trades shots with a Broadside far fae away and everyone else just jogs and tries to find something to do.

We use them but it took some getting used to on the part of my players. They had never played in a tabletop RPG (online only previously) but were all 40k vets and initially treated the game as a minis game with exact measurements (like 6" on the table = 30 meters). I kept stressing to them that an 80's style/feel RPG system like DW doesn't lend itself well to exact measurement RPG combat like D&D 3/3.5/pathfinder/4e and the point was definitely proven to them over two games. We generally play at the FLGS so I use the store terrain quite liberally to illustrate the setting/scenario in addition to verbal descriptions and find using minis and terrain a valuable addition to the experience. Stress to them that the distances aren't exact and that they're just an approximation of relative distances and you'll be fine. Generally, I've found an almost logarithmic scale works best. For the scenario you mentioned with super long range broadsides maybe supporting some close combat krootox, I'd describe the broadsides at whatever range you want them (500m for instance) and simply put them at the very end of the table with the party on the other end, with movement by the broadside being 25m per inch. As the action gets closer to the players, the scale gets progressively bigger with movement more like 5m per inch. Basically, verbally describe it so they know its not exact and use the tabletop to approximate it.

As for the horde, I just use squads of the appropriate model and take off a fig for every X number of horde damage. For a small horde of mag 10, I might do 1 for 1. For a larger ork horde of 30, I might still put down the same 10 figs but remove 1 fig per 3 horde damage. This is obviously dependent on what figs you own. As long as you're relatively consistent in the scale within the encounter (so you don't have both of the above scales for two hordes in the same battle), we've never found it confusing.

My group uses miniatures with maps and grids, and so far it works out okay for us. What we do is we say that a 1-inch square equates to 5 meters square, but only for determining distances on ranged attacks and blasts on area attacks (because 5 meters is pretty far away for melee combat). So for example close range on a bolt pistol (30m) is equivalent to 6 squares.

Additionally, instead of having your agility bonus determine your movement in meters, it determines your movement in squares. So a character with an Agility Bonus of 5 moves 5 squares rather than 1. Yeah, it's not the most consistent system, but it works out okay.

As far as Hordes go it's gonna depend on how many minis you have available. I generally represent Hordes with one mini equaling Magnitude 15, because most of my Hordes start as multiples of 15 and I don't have all that many minis.

It works either way, and mostly just comes down to wether or not the players already collected minis before DW. I love the visual element, and already had a bunch of terrain for 40k , Necromunda , and Mordheim , so I almost always use them. If you decide to use them, I recommend you use a smaller scale than the standard 1" = 1 meter- that makes it too easy for encounters to spill off the table. I go with 1/2" = 1 meter. For really big combats, 1cm = 1 meter might be a better option, and, of course, for long-range shooting you'll probably just want to stick to graph paper.

Also, with Hordes, what I do is cut templates out of cardboard (about the size of a CD) and set a number of minis on it equal to the '10s' digit of the Hordes' magintude- much easier than trying to manipulate giant handfulls of minis...

If I think the fight is only going to take 10-15 minutes, then I generally don't bother, but for anything longer than that I find it very useful to have miniatures as it helps everyone visualise what is going on. As above, we generally change the scale too to cover the different situations so 1:1 for indoor stuff up to 1:20 for tank battles e.t.c.

Adding in necromunda or 40k terrain also works well as shots for cover and being on higher ground becomes easier to work out.

We use miniatures for pretty much everything. Over the past year and a bit I've expanded my collection of maps and tilesets to the point where I've got stuff from all over the joint (DOOM boardgame tiles, Space Hulk, D&D tiles, Gale Force 9 D&D maps, Paizo Flipmats, Maps of Mystery/Armoured Cartographers - even some Star Ship Troopers RPG maps!), plus all my 40K terrain.

It's also good that I've been a 40K player for years, and have loads of Necromunda and regular 40K stuff, including a Deathwatch army.

BYE

My play group uses minis too. So happened that my gaming friends and I managed to scounge up some of our extra old sprues, paint and fully custom our own marines.

We use minis as it helps to put things into perspective. My GM uses grid paper for marching distance, firing distance etc. So we don't do it like the TT which requires measuring tape.