I'm asking for some general advice on how to keep the game simple. This may be a big vague, but I want to give my players the ability to make tactical decisions about their characters without bogging it down. I've done miniatures combat with systems before but I'm wondering how viable it is to make a horde on a playmat. How will Tactics rolls and Squad Modes come into play? How have you done this to avoid bogging players down in endless combats? How do you setup the Hordes properly?

In most systems, I'm sure many of you have noticed that lore/knowledge/ type skills and craft/trade skills get left on the shelf in favor of almost anything else (though in DW, I can see this happening with many tactic skills too). I've thought about rewarding small amounts of XP for successful use of knowledge skills as well as certain uses of trade skills that do not benefit combat directly. I'm thinking about 20-30 for a standard success with an additional 10 per degree of success. I'm sure players would bite if there was a chance for more XP, but I don't want to break the system either.

I use a battlemap when I play Deathwatch (and most other RPG's), since I have a lot of miniatures (been a wargamer for 10+ years) and my friends are avid wargamers as well we have a lot of minis to choose from. When representing hordes I use one mini for every magnitude of the horde and just pile them up around the pc's minis. For each magnitude of damage the horde takes I remove one mini.

My players frequently use knowledge skills espescially forbidden lore Xenos and Chaos when they want to see what weaknesses their foes have. I have yet to see any of my Space marine players use a trade skill, but I don't quite see Space marines doing normal jobs anyway so I'm Ok with that.

In my campaigns, Forbidden Lores tend to be quite valuable. Knowledge is power in 40k and I encourage seperation of player and character knowledge about the universe. Trades can be an interesting character quirk but they shouldn't be the main focus of a space marine. The likeliest exceptions being a techmarine obsessed with forging new arms and an apotechary developing new toxins.

I guess I should also mention the Perform skills too. I want my player to be able to do more than just shoot and bash things. I'm imagining skill challenges like those in 4th Ed D&D (something I do think 4th got right by making it somewhat more explicit and rewarding such action with both knowledge and XP). I'm imagining stuff like during down time, a Space Wolf (who are known for their Sagas) rolling Perform: Storyteller to tell a great tale of Space Wolf exploits to his NPC Battle Brothers. Depending on how often he does it and how many degrees he succeeds by, he may earn some extra XP and maybe a few extra Renown points. I just figure it would be a way to encourage players to flesh out their Marines a bit. Other examples might include a

@mortagon: How do you differentiate the Horde size? How much magnitude does one miniature equal? How have you allowed players to hit horde leaders (whether accidentally or purposely)?

@Decessor: I agree, but I think it would allow a character to be more than just 'Space Marine #(very large number)'