First off, new to the forum and RPG in general. Thought I'd check in here and crowdsource some info.

I suppose this is similar to the "Check my math?" post, but I would just like a play by play of a specific example combat scenario.

I'm about to (thinking of) running the Final Sanction scenario to a group of RPG newbs (myself included). Before I go off half cooked and get the basics wrong, I'd prefer to be set straight here.

I'll lay out some stats from FS, then the scenario im thinking of.

Brother Elyas - (WS 44 ) (BS 46) (STR 47 [10]) (T 44 [8])

Genestealer - (WS 65) (BS -) (STR 60 [12]) (T 60 [6]) AP= 6 Wounds= 20

Rebel Horde - (WS 25) (BS 25) (STR 30) (T 30) (WP 30) AP= 0 Magnitude= 30

So Brother Elyas spots a Genestealer in a nearby (not point blank) sewer entrance, the Genestealer moves to close the distance. Brother Elyas pulls his Bolt Pistol and fires. (Using the errata'd pistol stats (1 D10 + 9) )

A) As a standard attack, Elyas has no test bonuses to worry about.

He rolls a 29. Which is a Hit. (with 1 DOS...not important atm). To resolve the damage, he rolls a 2, bringing the shot damage to (2 + 9) = 11

The Genestealer has a TB of 6, and AP of 6, so despite hitting the shot does -1 damage...thus none. (11 - (6+6))

B) Brother Elyas readies himself and fires upon the Genestealer with a semi-auto burst from his pistol.

Again, he rolls a 29. But as he has a +10 BS for semi-auto he scores an extra hit (for every 2 DOS score and extra hit).

For damage, he rolls a 10, 13 and 18. Doing -2, 1, and 6 damage agains the Genestealer, taking it to 13 wounds.

C) Elyas unleashes his erratad Heavy Bolter into a Rebel Horde.

He rolls a 45. Being Full-Auto he gets a +20 Bonus. So he scores 2DOS, an extra 2 hits!

Damage (1 D10 + 12) he rolls 13, 20, 15, 14, 22, 20. And 17, 19 for the extra hits.

Given that this is against a Horde with no AP (as in Final Sanction, AP=0 TB=3) every hit does magnitude damage. Taking the overall Mag damage to 8.

This has caused over 25% Magnitude damage, requiring a WP test to break/flee.

The horde rolls a 90, and crumbles in a heap, scattering into nearby cover and fleeing through the city as fast as their rebel stumps can take them.

Now the question, am I missing anything...doing something wrong? I dont really want to consider different ammo types or skill multipliers until I get this down pat.

I dont see much wrong with (A) the single shot scenario, but with (B) and © I cant help but wonder that there is just something I'm not getting...like how can I produce more hits than projectiles fired??

I have a feeling that I have to do a BS test for every 'shot' that is fired when in Semi/Full; which while potentially making sense, just adds to the minutia and will likely drive my players batty??

dave9au said:

Where are you getting this idea?

Kshatriya said:

I assumed that the semi-auto burst from the Bolt Pistol fired 2 shots (S/2/-), and that with the additional DOS it added +1. Therefore 3.

You're right about RAW, that it would imply that you get an additional hit, which is where I am getting it from.

If I automatically 'hit' with every round fired in an attack, be it semi or full-auto, what use are extra DOS hits then?

This is how I got to the train of thought that that I would have to roll a BS test for every round fired, therefore introducing the possibility for rounds fired missing.....making the DOS bonus usefull in making up for those potentilly 'stray' shots.

Ok. Some clarification.

After re-reading the rules after doing a 'what the', it appears that for the semi/full options there was something I miseed.

I roll a BS test. If that test is sucessfull, I have acheived ONLY 1 hit. Furthermore, for every DOS (2 for Semi) I gain an additional hit.

So in this (B) scenario, I fire semi-auto at the Genestealer. Hit. Because I rolled 2 DOS, I also get another hit. Total of 2 hits.

For scenario © I hit with the first Full-Auto shot, then because I rolled 2 DOS I get another 2 hits. Taking the total to 3 hits.

It all starts to make more sense.......baby steps

You don't automatically hit a number of times equal to RoF. Straight success on the BS roll is one hit regardless of single shot or auto fire (e.g. BS 50 and you roll a 48). The other shots miss. Additional DoS on the BS roll turn into additional hits (the number of DoS required for another hit changes depending on type of auto fire) , with a maximum number of hits equaling RoF under the sane reading.

Say I have effective BS 72 (after all modifiers such as auto fire or enemy size or equipment) in the following scenarios:

Single shot, I roll a 1. That's 7 DoS. It's 1 hit. Period. The end.

Semi auto, I roll a 1. That's 7 DoS. It's 4 hits (1 for straight success + 1 for every 2 DoS). If your semiauto RoF is under 4, that's instead the number of hits you get and cap out at.

Full auto, I roll a 1. That's 7 DoS. It's 8 hits (1 for straight success +1 for every DoS). If your full auto RoF is under 8, that's instead the number of hits you get and cap out at.

Make sense?

dave9au said:

Glad to hear it. It's a complex system. Don't feel bad if it takes some time. The GM screen has a lot of combat actions/rules condensed on the back. It can be a very useful quick reference tool.

Gotcha.

So in the case of the Heavy against the horde, I score 3 hits. Doing 3 magnitude damage, 10% of the overall total. As you eluded to in your first post, combine this with ammo varieties and skills the magnitude damage increases.

I suppose, coming at this from a devils-advocate newb player perspective (and GM), without the prior knowledge that ammo types grant significant bonuses it could drastically change the way the encounter plays out...potentially making it a LOT tougher.

Thanks for taking the time to put me on the right path. Much appreceated!

As per RAW if you hit a horde 3 times, you roll damage for those 3 hits. For each hit that does 1+ points beyond toughness and armor will inflict a magnitude of damage (and in most cases with a Heavy Bolter this roll would be impossible to fail). If you inflict 3 damage to a mag 30 horde, you would in fact have done 10% damage with a single attack.

Special ammo, talents, and squad/solo mode abilities can combine together and make incredibly quick work of hordes. There are a number of older threads on 'how to use hordes effectively' in some old parts of the forum, but it comes down to a basic rule of "more mag != more powerful horde beyond a reasonable limit" and "make sure your hordes don't charge across an open field to engage entrenched space marines."

Charmander said:

Cool. Thanks for the tips.

In addition to my scenario, in the RAW there is a "Size to hit" modifier (Table 13-1), for a Mag 30 horde that modifier is +30. So, my Heavy Bolter would have acheived 5 DOS, taking the number of hits to 6...the full clip size of the HB.

Think I'm starting to get the basics. Throw in ammo/talents/squad modes etc I'm sure I'll be back

Since everybody seems to be doing a good job of jumping on the BS issues, I'll jump on the Damage issue; in your given examples, most of the hits are bouncing off the 'Stealer because you have applied the Penetration (read: Armour Piercing) characteristic of weapons. With errata'd Bolt Pistols this is 4, and reduces the target's Armour Points (AP only, doesn't effect Toughness Bonus) by the same amount.

So in sequence A), 11 dmg Pen 4 vs 6 TB 6 AP = 11- (6+(6-4) ) = 3 Wounds caused. Other ammo types alter this of course, but the basic Bolt ammo is still very effective against armoured opponents, including 'Natural' armoured 'Nids.

Plasmafest said:

Brilliant, that was my next question. I was flicking thru the RAW for Pen but couldn't quickly find what it actually did. I assumed it was somehting like that.

Once again, thanks for the help!

I like the RAW, certainly plenty of information there, but I would have liked a few demo scenarios....which is what I'm trying to get at here

A small side note, don't forget the range bonus and penalties.

Short range grants a +10 to hit when you are within half the range of the weapon. So a pistol with a range of 30 grants a +10 to hit when the target is less than 15 meters away.

The 40K rpg system is built around a bonus/penalty system. These situational modifiers are key to the games playability.

Charmander said:

I'll piggy-back on this and just point out that nearly every ammo, talen, or special rule that affects hordes does so by increasing the number of HITS only. There are very few rules in game (3 if I remember correctly Assault/Dev special ability and Death is Joy) that actually does straight magnitude damage without the need to roll damage.

herichimo said:

That's true, but there's still literally no reason to roll out damage hits if the weapon's minimum base damage exceeds the Horde's AP+TB. To me that just seems like a waste of time.

E.g. the heavy bolter in the errata does 1d10+12 damage at Penetration 5. A Horde with AP 10, TB 5 is still going to take a minimum of 3 damage before damage is converted to Magnitude from even the weakest hit scored with the heavy bolter (minimum damage of 13 - 5 TB - 5 post-Pen AP = 3). The only way that Horde can't be injured by the heavy bolter's minimum damage is if it's under cover.

TL;DR: rolling out all those hits that you know will wound no matter what the roll is is pretty much pointless.

Kshatriya said:

Yes, but it is still an important distinction in the rules because it's not 100%; failing to remember that little bit means that when that horde IS in a bunker with AP 36 and Toughness 3 the HB is still doing 7 mag damage a turn.

@herichimo: based on a discussion in another thread, the reading of "Devastating" weapon quality seems to do mag damage without rolling as well, which came as a surprise to me.

Just to nitpick, but you forgot the penetration values of your weapons in your calculations. Just so you know, your very first shot with the bolter pistol (the one with 11 damage) did do damage if you take the penetration into account.

Watch-Captain Albus said:

Nitpicking is precisely what I'm after!

So, if I look back at the original scenario, how does the Explosive (X) trait for Bolt weapons factor into this?

I assume that it has no effect on the Standard Attack ie. cannot generate an additional hit from a single shot. Is this correct? Can you generate more 'hits' in an attack that the ROF of the weapon, once you take the damage T ype into account?

How does that apply to the Heavy Bolter, where I achieved 5 DOS.

Damage type only matters for crit effects and vs Hordes, where X inflicts an additional automatic point of damage per attack.

There may be a couple other places where damage type matters but they're very fringe.

Kshatriya said:

So for encounters with Single targets Damage Type should not be taken into account (unless for Critical Hits).

For attacks vs Hordes, in the case of my Heavy Bolter, it would deal one additional point of damage per hit, each hit*? Taking my 6 hits from the initial 6 Mag Damage to 12 Mag. Damage? .Which is 40% of the Horde Magnitude, forcing it to take a WP Test to Break

*Using Eratta 1.2 from this thread - http://warhammerinvasion.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=212&efcid=3&efidt=578792&efpag=0

"One clarification, the Errata for Explosive damage will be having its wording changed slightly in Errata 1.2 to say "Weapons that inflict Explosive Damage (X) gain a bonus against Hordes, and count as having inflicted one additional point of damage to Horde's Magnitude per hit."

Alternatively using Errata 1.1 the quote is “Weapons that inflict Explosive Damage (X) gain a bonus against
Hordes, and count as having inflicted one additional Hit per Attack after all other Hits have been applied.” thus, would do 7 Mag Damage, and NOT force the WP Test.

I recommend not taking errata 1.2 as true til it officially launches. Until then 1.1 is the official ruling which you of course are free to ignore at your table if you so choose.

1.1 has it as additional damage per attack (e.g. One auto fire burst is one attack).

Seems like the point of 1.2 is to make bolters king of anti horde again even with their nerf in the weapon errata which primarily effects their damage on solos.

Kshatriya said:

I'm happy to run with the 1.1 until 1.2 is officially in the wild...and even then may stick with it.

Even WITH 1.1, this would generate more HITS than the HB ROF, is this possible?

dave9au said:

I'm pretty sure this is a general rule, but ther emay be exceptions. I'm sure there is a xenos out there that takes half damage from energy based attacks, but I can't think of what it would be off hand.

dave9au said:

Yes. I think we may be seeing this out of context. If this is the only combat change, I'll be annoyed. It would be even more annoying with the core rulebook published weapon rates of fire. If they adopt some other rules like BC autofire, it might be neccesary to keep bolt weapons viable anti-horde weapons. The combinatiosn with talents, etc., makes me uncomfortable.

dave9au said:

Overall you are correct. Just remember a hit from a weapon does not automatically translate into mag damage. You may not need to roll if min damage beats AP/Toughness of the target, but in some cases you'll need to confirm that your hits actually do damage. A good example of this is the frag grenade. Based on the errata weapon stats, it does 2d10+2. On average it will wound a horde of guardsmen in flak armor in the open, however if you roll crap their flak armor will absorb the blast. Meaning as per RAW, you would need to roll 2d10+2 5 times to confirm damage from your hits (grenade is a single attack that gives you 4 hits on a horde from blast 5, thus the additional 1 from explosive).

dave9au said:

Yes, explosive adds one hit irrespective of weapon Rate of Fire as per 1.1 errata.

Charmander said:

Is it a hit? I thought it was a flat point of Magnitude damage.