Hi, I have some questions for ya. I'm starting a game, and I am... not sure how these Horde damage rules work when weapon qualities get stacked.

Can you tell me if my math is right here?

Example 1. Heavy bolter hits Horde 6 times. Number of hits is 6 (number of hits ) + 1 (X damage) = 7.

OK that seems right, not complicated.

Now:

Example 2. Heavy bolter with with Hellfire rounds. It hits only once. Number of hits is (3 for the Blast Quality + 1 for Explosive) x 2 (Hellfire rounds) = 8.

Is that right?

Example 3. Frag grenade. Goes 4 for Blast Quality + 1 for Explosive = 5 hits.

Finally, what is really bugging me:

Example 4. Bolter with Metal Storm rounds hits Horde three times. Damage is 2 for Blast Quality + 2 for the extra hits + 1 for Explosive = 5. OR is it 3 hits, each with Blast (2) (effectively doubling number of hits), +1 for Explosive = 7? The second variant doesn't seem right, because for grenades with Blast you get hits equal to the Blast quality, not one hit from the grenade itself + hits from the Blast quality. BUT I have seen nothing about how Blast interacts with semi or autofire for attacking Hordes.

???

Thanks!

bogi_khaosa said:

3 step process:

1. Calculate effective # of hits.
2. Translate hits into mag damage.
3. Appy mag damage modifiers.

Unfortunately different improvements apply at different stages. Let's see here.

1. 6 hits + 1 hit for X at the end = 7 hits.
2. Translates into 7 mag damage.
3. No modifier so final mag damage is 7.

Easy.

bogi_khaosa said:

3 step process:

1. 3 hits + 1 additional hit for explosive = 4 hits.
2. 4 hits translate into 4+4 = 8 mag damage thanks to Hellfire.
3. Stays 8 mag damage.

bogi_khaosa said:

3 step process:

1. 4 hits + 1 additional hit for explosive = 5 hits.
2. 5 hits translate into 5 mag damage.
3. Stays 5 mag damage.

bogi_khaosa said:

3 step process:

1. 3 hits with a Blast(2) weapon causes 6 hits to be generated. +1 hit for X at the end on top of it. Total 7 hits.
2. 7 hits translate into 7 mag damage.
3. Stays 7 mag damage.

Basically you treat the attacks as if 3 grenades with Blast(2) had been lobbed into the horde at once, except the whole thing counts as 1 attack and therefore the X bonus only applies once.

Alex

Thanks. So if yoiu have a Cyclone Missile Launcher (S/2/-) firing frag missiles and both hit, it will do -- I don't have the stats in front of me, but let's say it's Explosive Damage Blast(8) Devastating(1), which I think is right --

8 for the first hit + 8 for the second = 16

2 for Devastating being applied twice = 2

1 for the Explosive damage = 1

Total 19. Not 20, since Explosive is only applied once after all hits and this counts as 1 attack. Correct?

Also, Dragonfire shells. Do these count as Flame weapons with a range of 2 (the blast radius), in which case they should do 1d5+1 hits, or what?

bogi_khaosa said:

1. 8 hits + 8 hits + 1hit = 17 effective hits.
2. Devastating(1) applies here in step #2: 17 hits translate into 17 mag damage plus another 17 for Devastating(1) = 34 mag damage.
3. No modifier so final mag damage is 34.

Nasty, eh? As you can see with each buff you need to consider the wording to find out at which step it applies. Storm of Iron applies at step#3 for example.
Yeah, it's poor design. I expect a revision that translates hits into mag damage and then only modifies the mag damage. Or sth like that.

Dragonfire: no idea, use the Rules Questions link below and post the reply here please.

Alex

The way devastating works is probably why the errata stats for the freg missle drop it down to blast 5 instead of 8.

With frag grenades and missles the part about making sure each hit bypasses the armour and toughness becomes rather important. It is also a pain to roll 17 damage rolls (in the above example) so I'd either roll once for each missle, or just look at the odds of doing damage and go with that. so if the missles were being fired at a horde of fire warriors (TB3 and AP6 total 9) with 2d10 pen0 just over half would do damage. I'd just say 9 of the 17 do damage. the kicker is that devastating is just hits, not damaging hits, so you still get +17 from that. So yes, devastating weapons are rather good against hordes.

You can roll damage for hits in arbitrary batches. Let's say an attack scores 14 hits, then you can have your player make 4 damage rolls with the first for 4 and then for 4, 4 and 2 hits, then total how many come through.

Alex

ak-73 said:

Man that is brutal. This would also apply for the Power Claymore (Devastating(1)), effectively doubling mag damage?

I see I was confusing increasing hits and increasing mag damage,

I guess so. Even at Blast(5) the CML is still cruel: (5+5+1)x2=22. Let's say you let your player again roll 4 times for to-wound: 6, 6, 5 and 5 hits each. Even if he fails one roll, at least 16 mag damage to come through.

Alex

Seeing as many of the abilities which had similar effects (i.e. +1 hit per hit or +1 mag per hit) were clarified to +1 hit/damage per attack I'm not certain if the above examples should be correct. If it is, these weapons would make hordes even more of a joke, instead of a decent threat.

I have sent an E-mail to the rules guys to clarify. I'd estimate there is a 10% chance they will answer the question, but if they do I'll post it here.

Well, devestating does work on a per hit basis. At least per the rules guy who actually replied to my question. (2 answered out of 15 asked...)

Here is the E-mail:

"The second scenario is the correct one. As a weapon with the Blast Quality inflicts a number of hits to a horde equal to its Blast value and a Weapon with the Devastating Quality reduces the Magnitude of a horde on a "per hit" basis, they do stack. Therefore a Blast (5) weapon which also has Devastating (2) would reduce the Magnitude of a horde by 15 points (5 for the Blast rating, and an additional 10 for Devastating)

Thank you for your question and happy gaming!
--
Tim Flanders
Associate RPG Producer
Fantasy Flight Games"

[sic]

So there you go, at least until the next errata ;-).

Just be sure to keep any friendly hordes away from battle cannons.

It's not called Devastating for nothing, I guess. Now we know why. :-)

Alex