I was reading my MotX book, and I just want to make sure I am interpreting something right.

So, for my example, Commander Flamewing (DW: MotX, p.14) is flying along at the head of his Hunter Cadre, escorted by three Shas'Vre Crisis Suits. Below them, a ways ahead of the rest of the Fire Warriors, is a Mag 30 Termagant Horde. When he fires his AB Frag Launcher, will he do 9 Mag damage?

Hits/Does Damage (1) + Explosive type damage (1) + Blast [5] (5) + Devastating [2] (2) = 9 Hits, so 9 Mag lost. I don't believe any of his other stuff Space Marine's it up for him, letting him kill the whole swarm, but with three other Crisis Suits, each sporting missile pods, and probably able to do another 4 damage (2 missiles each, Exp dt, so 2 each missile) each (12), they could probably bust up that little horde quick, yes?

venkelos said:

So Flamewing rolls to hit, scores. Then it depends on if you read current RAW or the rules clarification due in the 'upcoming errata.'

RAW says you calculate the hits first, which is 5 from blast, 1 from explosive, for 6 hits. You then roll damage for each of the hits, 1d10+5 pen 4. They're termagants so they all wound, which means you've just done 6 mag damage to the horde. Then you add in devestating of 2, for a total of 8 instead of 9. Remember based on RAW 1 hit != 1 mag damage, it means a hit that you roll damage for. Some people HR and do an 'all or nothing' damage approach, where they roll to hit, roll damage, and if they damage they get the no. hits in mag damage.

I do not think that you add the initial 'hit' from blast weapons, as the wording on blast weapons is " a blast weapon that hits a horde hits a number of times equal to its Blast value" , then describes a grenade with blast (4) doing 4 hits.

His assistants fire semi-auto at the horde, and say score 2 full DoS to hit, that means they hit once with the base, then hit again for the two full DoS from semi-auto. Two missle hits + 1 from Explosive (explosive per RAW is added to the attack, not per hit), for 3 hits. So 3 from each assistant (3 of them) for 9 mag damage, + the 8 from the boss would be 17. When the Horde goes it has to check WP (with all applicable bonuses/penalties) or route.

If you use the pending (and unofficial) rules change, things may change, as explosive now inflicts an extra mag damage per hit. How this combines with blast we don't know yet, but in theory if that's the only rule change we may have just discovered that explosive blast weapons effectively do double damage to hordes. Meaning that the blast of 5 is 5 hits on the horde, and explosive adds an extra mag per hit, so that would be 10, then add in devestating for 12. Blech, IMO.

I have similar feelings about the pending changes to how X interacts with hordes, but it's really not THAT bad. A devastator is going to get max +9 magnitude damage with an unerrata'd heavy bolter. If 9 more per round makes or breaks your horde, I mean, there are ways to keep the challenge going. Hordes aren't meant to be truly scary after all (though vespid scare the hell out of my players!) There are scary ways to use them sure but generally one giant horde is not the most menacing thing for a squad to face, especially if they're kitted for it. 9 more damage might finish off a damaged big horde or really waste a smaller one but that's why multiple hordes of different capabilities are so much fun to use.

As an aside, Unrelenting Devastation and its errata are really confusing me on my umpteenth rereading of them.

Could someone check my math and tell me if this is this the correct damage formula for an Unrelenting Devastation-spec Devastator shooting a Horde with a Metal Storm-loaded heavy bolter (assuming all hits inflict damage in excess of the Horde's TB + AP)?

Total Magnitude damage per attack = 1 [X-type ammo] + 1 [attack roll success] + 1 per additional DoS on attack roll + (2 x total hits) [Metal Storm ammo] + 1d5 [unrelenting Devastation]

So with, say, 6 DoS on the attack roll, you have a maximum of 25 Magnitude damage [1 + 1 + 6 + 12 + 5]?

And, assuming the proposed errata is released as-is, that initial bit with X turns into 1 per hit instead of a flat 1 per attack ? (With 6 DoS that'd make it 30 Magnitude damage [6 + 1 + 6 + 12 + 5])?

Kshatriya said:

Based on the RAW + Errata, unrelenting devestation is a +1d5 at the end of everything else, it's per attack, not per hit. So a shot with lascannon would do 1 from the hit + 1d5 from Urelenting Devestation, or with a base Heavy Bolter scoring 6 hits, would do 6 hits +1d5 mag damage.

With full auto you inflict one additional hit per DoS, but the number of hits is still limited to the RoF of the weapon, using the alternate stats this is 6
(X) damage type adds an additinoal hit per Attack, so in this case, 1 additional hit
Metal Storm rounds give each hit inflicted the blast (2) quality
Unrelenting devestation adds 1d5 mag damage.

So if you rolled to hit a horde and to 10 degrees of success to hit, you would hit 6 (RoF of HB) + 1 (explosive damage type) = 7 with the blast 2 quality, for a total of 14. You'd roll damage for each of those, add up the ones that do at least 1 damage beyond armor and toughness. Once you have that number, add 1d5 to the end total.

I think.

You could probably try and interpret the full auto to be able to add +1 based on the wording, but I personally rule the rate of fire is the rate of fire is the rate of fire and can't be exceeded that way.

With the proposed errata, explosive damage adds per hit, meaning in this example you'd do 6 hits with blast 2 explosive + 1 per hit (total +6), which means you'd do 18, then + d5.

Where this goes sideways for me is if it increases damage per hit, it means a frag missle can do 11 mag damage (blast 5 gives 5 hits, which would garner a +5 mag damage, then + 1 for devestating- I think my prior calc was off by one) but a storm bolter with a reasonable shot could do 16 mag damage with standard rounds (4 hits from Rate of Fire x 2 for Storm = 8, +8 explosive = 16), or 32 with Metal Storm, or 64 with Metal Storm + Storm of Iron. MS *IS* expensive, and SoI *IS* high level, but 64 mag damage seems a little much to me, especially in comparison with other weapons.

My group insists that the wording of how full-auto works means that total hits can exceed listed RoF since the entry for Semi- and Full-Auto fire say " f successful, the attack scores a hit normally. Furthermore, each Degree of Success scores an extra hit.The number of extra hits scored in this manner cannot exceed the weapon’s fully automatic Rate of Fire" (in the case of a full-auto attack).

So rolling 6 DoS with a heavy bolter means 7 hits: the initial hit (straight success) + 6 "extra" hits (1 per DoS, up to 6 total DoS). Honestly this drives me nuts but it appears to be the RAW (clearly not the RAI) unless I'm missing some errata that's not in the actual errata document (like in BC, which I haven't perused deeply yet). I should adopt the "RoF is RoF is RoF," especially since my group whines to the high heavens every time I even mentioning using errata weapons (despite my own distaste for some of them) or BC's rules for automatic fire/multiple melee hits (which seems like it makes meleeists better than they were in some ways but worse in others, i.e. vs. hordes).

Typically the dev's base damage with penetration exceeds most hordes' TB + AP just on its own (i.e. the dev could never roll below their TB + AP) and if that's the case I see no point in rolling out all those damage rolls; it's not like Righteous Fury does anything to hordes (or if it does, I haven't found the rule stating what exactly it does).

Also I didn't know that the +1 hit from X was doubled by Blast, though it makes sense I guess. It's a pretty confusing formula. The Storm of Iron stuff doesn't bother me much; at that level, for a horde to really be dangerous it has to be infinite and more of a plot point than a true threat, IMO.

Can you work out your storm bolter calculations a little more, I think I'm missing how you got +8 for X.

@Kshatriya, your group is twisting the rules on you. Take the standard bolter. Semi-auto 4 using the optional rules. You fire four shots. You can't hit a target five times with four shots. That's not exactly a RAW oversight so much as slightly unclear wording.

Kshatriya said:

I agree with Gaire here- it's kind of unclear wording, and you could make the argument, but to me it really sounds like your group is just looking for an extra edge

As for the alt weapon stats, as a GM I find them much easier to balance encounters and the like for, as they produce more consistent results. It also prevents the old one-shotting of enormous enemies and dispatching 100s of people with a single spray.

Kshatriya said:

This is very true if the hordes are out in the open, but if you put them behid cover the min damage + pen may not do that single point of damage. Simply adding flakboard to the scenario gives you +8 to AP, bumping an 'average' guardsmen's damage capacity to 15. The downside of course is it can make fighting hordes take a long time, so a blance must be struck based on the weapons your group has.

Kshatriya said:

Yes, as the description for blast is that you inflict a number of hits equal to the number in parens, so in theory the proposed errata would also double it. The trick with the proposition is that we have no idea what else would be contained in the errata. If they include the new BC autofire rules, which I ehar gimp autofire quite effectively, then the +1 per hit may not be as annoying as people like me predict. That's the trouble with people like me commenting on things like this, we don't have all the info to make real educated decisions or comments.

As for SoI, while yes, the characters should be very good and be able to cut through hordes at that level, but to me it's not how much damage you do so much as it is how does the weapon perform in comparison to other weapons. I would expect something like an Assault Cannon, to do more to a horde than a Storm Bolter.

Kshatriya said:

Using the alt weapon rules the Storm Bolter is S/4/-, and has the Storm quality. Storm doubles the number of hits you inflict. Meaning if you get a standard success to hit a horde, you've inflicted two hits + explosive. When you get 2 DoS you hit twice, but inflict 4 hits + explosive. If you roll good and hit 4 times, that doubles to 8, then plus explosive.

No doubt, the equations get pretty complicated, and when exactly you add versus multiply can have an impact.

Gaire said:

You're right and I finally laid down the law, but I'm not currently using the errata weapon stats; I'm not a fan of bolters being semi-auto only, for one thing, and I think the heavy bolter nerf was too heavy-handed in RoF, where some other weapons (heh, plasma) could have been appropriatelly buffed to compensate in some ways. I prefer some of my houserule buffs of other weapons to the errata honestly, but I told my group I'm thinking of running a quick mission to test out new rules, i.e. BC autofire and the like, just to see how it is. I imagine the Dev will gripe a lot.

The current mission is actually testing homebrew Cohesion rules a player and I came up with, after I was very unsatisfied for the lack of a cap to temporary Cohesion and the notion that rolling 1d10 under Cohesion meant that the squad could never fail a Cohesion Challenge. Everyone spending Fate to boost Cohesion at game day end left a really bad taste in my mouth, and even imposing a Cohesion cap of double base left them with 12-14 they were carting around and saving up, bleh.

Kshatriya said:

H.B.M.C. said:

Any member of the KT can spend a Fate Point to have the squad gain a point of Cohesion. It's never said that this may only be done in combat...or at least not to my knowledge.

Starting Cohesion is not maximum Cohesion. Maximum Cohesion is never actually listed, except to say that it can exceed starting Cohesion. See the errata, which states, “Points of Cohesion recovered by the Kill-Team during a Mission can exceed the number of Cohesion Points generated at the start of the Mission (this may represent the Kill-team learning to work together to accomplish goals).”

Without a maximum Cohesion value, Cohesion Challenges of the 1d10 sort become impossible to fail, there's resource-hoarding that makes encounters less enjoyable for everyone, etc.

Kshatriya said:

Do they have Rally Cry? That'll really irritate you as they replenish their whole supply in one go of the ability, then they'll start spending all their fate at the end of the night to heal their wounds that the Apothecary missed. The length of time combat encounters take means you might get 2 good ones in during a reasonable session, and every one of them I swear my team is at full cohesion- that lets them burn through abilities and get free action after free action.

However rather than creating a custom system I'm just looking for ways to create better encounters that more fully anticipate the use of their abilities. As a GM I have an unlimited supply of bad guys, supplies, and literally get to design the terrain where players will walk, so I'll figure something out.

They don't have an Ultramarine, but they're a Kill-Team of 6 so they have plenty of Fate to throw around. They kept forgetting they could spend Fate to heal and asked if they could do so "between" sessions using leftover Fate from the previous session...my response was that if they didn't remember to do so before we broke for the night, anything spent would count against their total for next session. it was just too absurd otherwise and I had no sympathy for them forgetting something given how many rules I have to juggle - only 2 players have run FFG WH40kRPG so they're the onyl ones who really appreciate how many rules the GM has to juggle. And we play on MapTools, so 2 good fights is pushing it as everything moves slower online than IRL. We hit a good stride for a few weeks, but I'm rusty again with the holidays so it'll take a little time to get back into the groove

Re: homebrew Cohesion rules - they were in a weird place of stockpiling Cohesion. My main issue was that, as a KT, they're still pretty fractious but my prompting of Cohesion Challenges was such that they could never roll under their Cohesion, and I have a problem with automatic success in the 40k system. I will say that the most frenetic battle--and the one in which they blasted through all their Cohesion--was fighting a number of genestealer solos, and they really loved it even though they were all bloody by the end of it.

After that mission, a player expressed dissatisfaction with the system - he thought they were in some ways too good, and asked if he could design a fix. I allowed it and we're playtesting but it definitely needs work. I think he skewed too far the other way - Cohesion starts at a certain level and generates more round-to-round, but as DW combat is usually over in a few rounds, there's not really the chance to build much of it, let alone to use a couple abilities and regenerate it.

If they RP the group as being fractured, you might consider imposing penalties on them. Despite the leader having a fellowship of 70, if he can't roleplay out trying to keep the team together give the character a penalty. If it's really bad and the team is at each other's throats (which, btw, doesn't make for a bad game IMO, just a different one), consider increasing the cohesion costs of abilities similar to one of the optional rules in RoB for using other chapter abilities. If Bolter Assault suddenly costs 6 instead of 3 because the team doesn't like to take orders from each other their fate will run out a little faster.

On top of that you might consider using the 'always fail' rule- I use the weapon jam rule (96-00) on all skills, if I had the cohesion issues you mention I might apply a jam rule of '0' on that- you roll a 10 you always fail, regardless of your cohesion. Could be excessive, but seems to make sense if the group isn't playing the 'well oiled machine.'

I know about spending Fate to get Cohesion and that there’s no max cohesion, but from the sounds of things you’re letting your players get away with way too much:

1. Why are they needing to spend Fate to heal between missions? Wouldn’t they naturally heal between missions? Don’t they ever go ‘back to base’, or have some form of ‘down time’ between each mission?
2. You mentioned them spending Fate to bump up their Cohesion at the end of a session. This, and please correct me if I’m wrong, sounds like you’ve got single missions that are spanning multiple sessions and the players are gaming the system by spending whatever Fate they haven’t used to get more Cohesion because their Fate Points will ‘reset’ the next time you sit down. If that isn’t going against the spirit of the rules then I don’t know what is…

I’m far more strict with Fate Points. I tend to give them their Fate Points for the mission, with Fate Points ‘resetting’ only at certain milestones. For example, if their Objectives were to land on an enemy held world, move through enemy territory to the space port, commandeer a vessel of some sort, and then use that vessel to board and capture the enemy flagship in orbit, I’d probably reset their fate points only once they had the vessel, or had boarded the enemy flagship. I wouldn’t reset them if we just took a long time during the first bit and had to call it a day.

BYE

1. I meant healing between sessions, not between missions. They have ample time between actual missions to heal critical damage, for example. Or at least they have in the past - the next couple missions they're going on will be quite literally back-to-back, so if they're deep in crits they may not be fully out of them by the time the next mission rolls around.

2. Yes, each mission typically takes more than 1 session. We play online in 4-5 hour sessions. Playing online slows things down quite a bit, but I'd be surprised if every mission could be completed in a single IRL gaming session of normal length (e.g. 5ish hours), especially the longer modules, and especially given how much time combat takes.

By the RAW of Fate Points, they reset to full at the beginning of the next gaming session; they're not like Shadowrun's Edge, which replenishes only at the end of a run, even if the run lasts multiple sessions (by contrast, Edge can be increased quite a bit - it maxes at 7 for humans and 6 for everyone else, and can be improved by spending XP, whereas Fate caps at 5 (6 with the right armor history, but that point is truly 1/mission) and is based on a die roll and GM fiat to raise, not XP expenditure). Yeah, I shut the "we didn't spend much Fate this session so we'll put it all towards Cohesion" thing down pretty quick with limits on when Fate can be spent towards it and caps on max Cohesion. But in my opinion, those are things that should have been considered by the game designers, and not require me to houserule a fix for a system that's ripe for abuse.

As to the spend-Fate-to-heal thing, that's a standard thing across FFG games, though it's not really as necessary in DW given how much damage an Apothecary can heal. I've seen it mostly used for in-combat healing.

I respect the way you run Fate Points, but it's not strictly by the RAW. The book says that " pent Fate Points are restored at the beginning of the next gaming session, or possibly under special circumstances in the middle of a game session that the GM deems appropriate." Obviously you follow the latter rule, which is fine if it works for you; it seems like the former clause is the general rule, with the latter being for special circumstances only, i.e. defeating a very powerful foe or completing a Primary Objective or whatnot. It might be something worth trying out.

Charmander said:

Very good ideas here.

To get back to the OP there is a math error in that Devastating is extra mag damage per hit.

so current damage to a horde with blast 5 X damage Dev 2 would be (5+1)x3 =18 (assuming all 6 damage)

The Frag Missle already does 12 with Eratta stats and 18 if you're not using them. (though you probably need to roll damage for all 6/9 hits with it.)

Nathiel said:

My understanding of devestating was that it was attack based, not per hit. I don't have my book handy, would it be possible for you to provide a citation?

P. 142 Last sentence of Devastating (X) "If the target is a Horde, It reduces it's magnitude by a number equal to the number in parentheses every time it is hit by the weapon."

hmmm. So you don't even have to damage them with the frag missle to reduce the horde, just hit them.

Nathiel said:

Yeah, just read that- thanks! Holy balls that's a huge difference. Though it does make the lowly frag missle's 10m diameter explosion more reasonable, IMO. Always felt firing a missle would do a little more than 5 mag damage. It also makes the AC a much better value for the cost.

I'm not sure I like that last bit, the whole mag damage without even wounding them...I'll have to chew on that one.

So what does that translate into for damage? It inflicts the Devastating amount on every hit, not every attack?

I can see "damaging without doing damage" both ways. It's very strong but weapons with Devastating are relatively rare and supposed to be really nasty against groups/squads/swarms. It would boost damage with successful damaging hits but even a glancing hit is going to kill some members and reduce Magnitude.

Kshatriya said:

A Frag Missle with Blast (5), Devastating (1), of damage type X would work this way in (on a horde):
-5 Hits from Blast (5)
-1 Hit from Damage (X)
-6 Mag Damage from Devastating (1) (because you have a total of 6 hits- 5 from blast and one from explosive)

Roll for damage of your 6 hits, then add the 6 mag damage on top of it.

An Assault Cannon with Devastating (1) would work this way
-Determine number of hits and record that number
-Roll damage for all of your hits, and for each that penetrates (so close to all of them) record that number

Add the two together, which would create a max of 20 mag damage (without talents/traits to boost)

The only issue that concerns me, honestly, is cover. A horde is in heavy cover, peeking out of gunslits or the like. AP of cover (say 20) + Flak (4) + Toughness (say 3) is 27. A frag missle, per the errata, does 2d10 pen 4. So 27 - 4 leaves 23, impossible to wound without RF. Now that horde, regardless of how good their cover, armor, or hiding place is, will take a minimum of 6 mag damage. If there was one individual, a single guardsman, as per the rules, that guardsman would be protected from the blast by the cover.

I'm not completely in disagreement with it, and for the most part am growing to like it, but it seems...off somehow. Probably thinking too much about it, to be honest. Per the current rules, for the most part, this seems to be an appropriate rule.

Thanks for the math lesson =)

Re: Devastating and cover: yeah I can see how that's just logically weird and in some ways unsatisfying. Maybe part of it was to give players something that actually worked in the situation you presented - damaging hordes in heavy cover that's not going to get pierced without RF?

Though it seems to create almost an ideal solution that in some ways cheapens the challenge of enemies holding in good cover: just hammer them with frag missiles or other multiple-hit Devastating weapons and they'll go down regardless of said cover. Whereas I (as a player) would rather charge the bunker and break it with a krak grenade or power fist or something, because that sounds more fun to me than standing back and hammering the bunker with frags.

It's not necessarily a bad rule per the RAW, but it very well might be have been bad word choice when writing the Quality and against the author's RAI. This would be a great thing for official clarification.

Yeah, it's wierd, but I really think I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill. I can't think that realistically that would really come up in a game or significantly alter a mission's difficulty. If players learn it's a 'cheap' way to damage a horde what's the worst that happens? At best the players can exploit it once, and this kind of oddity simply slides back nto the 'well, as a GM, you have to be prepared and know the system.'