I've Gamesmastered Dark Heresy for a number of sessions now, but I am never able to make a fight enough of a challenge for my PC's, and they always butcher the opposition.
There are 6 PC's and they are all level 3-ish with no weapons that are much better than lasguns.

I am sending them through a Hive next mission infested with cultists, and nobility that does not nesacerilly like the Inquisition snooping around next session, how would you challenge them in combat?

Any and all replies are helpful, thanks.

Maybe you could send a kill-squad after them? A dedicated unit of professional soldiers (household guards, enforcer SWAT-team or underworld bounty-hunters) that work together as a team, support each other with different weapons (covering fire from a heavy stubber or sniper, specialist with a grenade launcher to drive your acolytes out of cover), preferably trying to take out the PCs either by ambush or in a surprise assault on their base of operations.

Of course you really need to give your PCs a fair chance to uncover the ambush/assault just in time so it will become a fierce shootout, not a massacre.

If you search, you will find many old threads about this topic. You are not alone

It's a lot of work being the GM, but you have to play the opposition as intelligent fighters, not as cannon fodders. Let the opposition use all the tactics and combat actions available to the PCs. Some tips and reminders

1. Suppressive fire. Have a guy with a heavy stubber lay down continous suppressive fire from a position well behind/to the side (out of immediate melee/grenade range), and he would obviously be lying down (prone, -10 to be hit) and have a position with good Cover.
2. Cover. Nobody stands around in the open in a firefight. Take cover. This is super important. Cover will turn lots of "hits" into "misses", and also provides a bonus to dodgeing those last ones that still hit.
3. Flank'em. While the suppressive fire keeps them pinned, have others run around the sides. Their cover does not protect from sides or rear, so line up those shots from there! Throw grenades and flamers into the mix. Flamers ignore cover, grenades come in many and interesting flavors. Gas and halucogen are fun
4. Your team have heavy weapon operators? Tie them up with melee! Use dogs, they're great! With the Quadraped trait they are FAST. Hard to hit as they sprint towards their target, and the bite & grapple keeping the heavy from using his weapon. And they are cheap and easy to train in large numbers. Everyone should have a pack of attack dogs
5. Cover. I realize I already mentioned it, but it so important (and easy to forget) that I thought it worth mentioning twice.
6. Tie'em up and lock'em down. Use funky tools as webbers to keep those pesky acolytes helplessly rolling on the ground. Check out the bonuses for attacking Helpless targets, and the extra damage dealt

Everything Darthsmeg said, and if you feel particularly nasty throw in some cultist psykers. With that power variety psyker can be a real pain to deal with.

If the PCs are fighting low-end 'grunts' (gangers, cultists, etc), overwhelming numbers are the way to go. When my players hit 4th level, I found that a ratio of 3-to-1 was necessary to 'get their attention'. They are now 6th level, and I have to use 4-to-1 to make them struggle.

For 'Boss Monsters', high armour or Unnatural Toughness are huge. If your party includes a Psyker, you will also need to fortify the leader-types against things like Psychic Scream- there is nothing more frustrating to a GM than having the Big Baddie knocked out on Round 1. Resistance:Psychic is pretty much manditory for major villians.

I find that the presence of a Heavy Stubber has a de facto Fear Rating of its own! Just knowing that the bad guys might have one causes my players to take encounters much more seriously.

And don't hesitate to turn your players' tactics against them. Weapon Jinx or Flamers aren't just good for the goose...

As everyone mentioned before me with the higher numbers, tougher bosses, and tactics....only i use all 3...ill max the bosses and henchmen wounds number..give higher than avg toughness ( usually around 40 ) and give them decent armours ( like guard flak etc ) to help shrug off alot of the avg hits from ranged gunfire..as well as adding some devious talents for the enemy to take full advantage of ( like resistance psyker , dual shot, marksman, etc..) in addition to usually ( for the chaos cultists...baddies ) throwing in a few mutants ( normally with hulking size bulging biceps and a few extra mutations thrown in ( like toxic for those nasty melee hits ) Works great on the PCs and knocks their confidence down a few notches first time they take a hit from one and get flung several meters back AND take toxic damage afterwards as well..potentially leading to septic shock if the toxins are virulent enough soon after the wound if they dont get treament...First time your PCs loose an arm or leg due to necrotic warp infused toxins from a hulking mutant cultist...they will take things more seriously and try better tactics next time...

You can also use the called shots option for melee fighters that can be interesting....( I use the mutation tables for both DH and RT ( RTs are a simple combo of the two tables found in DH + a few extras well worth the effort to find ) First time they face off against a cultist mutant blademaster that moves with unnatural speed and can totally ignore all normal attacks ( ranged and melee ) simply by phasing then speeding up into melee and using their blades to destroy the groups ranged weaponry with deft lightning fast strikes rending the weapons in twain....they will garner a serious respect for the enemy and future encounters ( that type is only harmed by psykers or holy weaponry when phased....its called Shadowkin..when paired with an assassin for hire, and talents of blademaster, lightning reflexes, lightning strike, etc...) you can see how it would be a very potent combination...an assassin like that could easily have a supreme ego and for first encounter only want to "shake up" the group by wading into their midst and targeting only their heavy weapons and leaving them unharmed as a means to "rattle them" for the next encounter. Intentionally doing so to give them that helpless feeling and slow them down giving the assassins erstwhile masters a chance to complete whatever it is they wish to do...

Of course an assassin like that would be in the employ of a house noble to deal with the group...BUT..an assassin of such skill would likely not take well to being told when and where to kill ( reguardless of how good the pay was ) and could easily wind up turning on their employer and killing the noble house and its retinue if the noble got angered and lost control of their mouth for the assassins "playing" with the marks..instead of simply killing them off..thereby runing the assassins sport AND trying to dictate the terms of his contract as well..not likely to go over too well in most cases..and would be a cute way to confuse the PCs if the assassin has 1-3 run ins with the PCs and once they learn the house that has hired him...he simply kills the employer and the better part of the house due to annoyance with the nobles and/or to block the PCs from being able to find out who exactly the assassin is...

Just a few ideas anyway..but i do love the idea ( and have used similar in past ) of a Adeptus Arbites Kill team sent in under pressure from one or more of the corrupt noble house families and perhaps some connection to the arbites leadership for that area as well..to cover their own tracks....then the PCs would have to face off aginst "innocent" arbite pawns that have a decent level of skill AND gear to constitute a serious threat to the PCs..you could further compound that issue by making the PCs aware of the reasoning for the kill team before it gets there so the PCs know they will be killing good law enforcement officers due to corrupt orders they are unaware of....ergo...Insanity points via moral dilemma

Thanks guys, this is all helpful, any other ideas? Anything and everything is useful, even the more unusual things if you can think of anything, with a justification as to why it is targetting them.

Just yesterday, I ended up with this problem. As we stumbled trough the game, my players really enjoyed the traps the Villains had been setting for them- but, have made it clear that they became disappointed when the villains turned comically ineffectual during combat after they confronted them.

For the final encounter, they were supposed to fight five guardsmen with custom laz-weapons, One tech-priest with a custom Laz-cannon, one Ship Captain with a Shock sword and one Ashen Tear assassin with an enhanced neural whip (Yay Tech-heresy!)

Now, on paper, the fight was really hard: the Ashen Tear Assassin was built to take on these players. I gave him a Neural Whip, which is an exotic weapon- it has a reach of 3, to keep those nasty guns from firing by engaging them into Melee several steps away. I gave him a power-blade to be able to parry my player's great weapon and shatter it. I gave him Wall of Steel and Step Aside to make sure he wouldn't get caught off guard by using up all of his reactions.

The only thing I didn't give him, or anyone else for that matter, was Intelligence. Granted, it was 6:00 AM and we'd been playing for a good 10 hours, so I was tired- I placed by troops without any real consideration for strategy. After the game, my players [DnD Veterans] gave me advice on how I Could have made the fight much harder.

For example- when the two melee characters rushed into the Bridge by themselves, the Tech-priest should have sealed the bridge and locked them in.

The tech-priest, who had a ranged weapon, should not have went into melee with anyone, instead the captain should have moved in to defend him while taking full defensive actions or Guarded attacks.

The Assassin, instead of waiting besides the Tech-priest, should have been waiting on the side of the door- like any self respecting assassin, striking at the acolytes as they entered the room. Furthermore, once all of the targets were accounted for, he should have went for the Mushier players. The PC tech-priest for example, who can't dodge if his life depended on it- or the Psyker, who has the least hit points out of the lot, instead of wasting his time trying to strike at the stronger "tank" characters.

Furthermore, make full use of ALL Of the actions presented- Knockdown and Feint are KILLERS. Especially feint. I learned that the session before this one, but still I learned it only AFTER the players had beaten my monster (A Corrupted Brass armor with very high WS who could have probably killed a few players if it had feigned attacks instead of trying to swift attack all the time.)

But probably the biggest piece of advice I can give is to make at least one fight every couple of fights interesting and unique and not very straightforward. Give the monsters special abilities, or a twist on an old ability- but don't tell them what, and let them puzzle it out. So far, its the fights with a twist that my players have enjoyed the most. This isn't to say give them an "I Win" Button- You can play around with the abilities, and how your players unique talents and backgrounds could contribute to winning the fight. For example, in my game they fought an Astral specter that had a tweaked version of Distort Vision, and could use it after attacking. Once they figured that part out, it was only a matter of positioning the Untouchable near the specter to keep him from using the power.

Later on, I am planning on having them fight a "Security System"- a monstrous machine with several advantages that's going to appear overwhelming (and rightfully so) until they figure out that, by breaking several generators around the room, they force it to shut-down some of its functions in favor of others (Not enough power to fire that massive laser, or keep the shields up). Furthermore, breaking the Generators opens up the nearest containment unit, of which several scattered around the room which release a mutated and experimented upon human (previously captured Inquisition Agents)- these guys don't have weapons or anything, their only purpose will be to grapple and horrify.

In conclusion, and apologies for the long post- I have a bad habit of writing them- I am going to say to get a good grasp of the combat, its a good idea to ask someone with more experience from around your gaming table, they might be able to give you tips that we on the net won't be able to. Furthermore, don't be scared of backstabbing the players. Refuse to explain your NPC's powers (If the players are being attacked in the smoke by a guy and they attack him back but are outraged when they hit nothing, don't tell them he was using a 3 meter whip to strike: simply get them to deal with it.)

Also, if the players are using Photovisors to see in the dark, throw smoke grenades. If they start using Infra-red, give some enemies that suit that makes them invisible to infrared. Keep em guessing And master your combat options. Feint, knockdown & disarm are your best friends.

Know your combat options, aye. Another great one is Grapple. Why is it great, you ask? Well, if you happen to be Grappled by someone (and anyone can grapple! Dogs, little girls, big muties, anyone!) you can not do anything at all, except trying to free yourself.

Now your ninja-assassin wil wriggle out, and your guardsman will break out, but he has still spent most of his time escaping grapple instead of fighting, and he is still considered In Melee (meaning no shooting big heavy weapons, only pistols, only single shots). Next round, grapple him again! Gang up! 4 dogs grappling one guy is brutal.

I had a blast doing this to our super-tank Tech priest. One guy grabs him in a grapple, the other attaches a Melta-bomb to his shiny metal ass, then they kick/push him down the stairs .... and run! Boom!

Darth Smeg said:

Is it fine if I use this in my signiture?

Thanks guys, this is all helping, already getting some ideas.

Based on Saldre's suggestions, you could also try o change the setting for a fight from the rather normal back-alley, abandoned warehouse or underworld bar to an environment that poses challenges (and opportunities) itself.Two examples:

A laundry complex: A genestealer has based his cult in the vast halls of an imperial prisons laundry complex. The whole area is divided by pipes and walkways, leading to and from large kettles where the laundry is being washed. Sight is severely limited due to insufficient lighting, hot steam and piles of clothing lying around on the floor or in wheelcarts. The pipes and walkways provide a three-dimensional maze with lots of cover and hiding places. Cultists and genestealers could attack from nearly anywhere, including the sewage system under the floor. The sound of vast machinery and eerie echoes will also work towards disorienting acolytes.

A crowded highway: Every good action movie has a car chase or helicopter scene. Try working those into your games. The acolytes might either be in pursuit of fugitive heretics or be attacked themselves while travelling from one place to another. You will obviously need a 'driver' (who will have enough to do avoiding collisions with the traffic all around), but the other characters will be free to do anything to eliminate the opposition - which might prove difficult if said opposition is a flying beside the highway in a well armed valkyrie, peppering them with bolter fire.

I also suggest throwing in the odd 'escalating battle'. When the acolytes are assaulting the enemy base of operations (say an abandoned warehouse where the local Kasballica is keeping its drugs) they might be confronted with a gang of thugs guarding the place. If they don't eliminate them rather quick, one of them might be able to call in reinforcements (or those might have been alerted by the gunfire anyway). These reinforcement might be better armed, better trained and well aware of the acolytes' assault. The acolytes' on the other hand, could receive some reinforcements as well after a given time, for example an enforcer patrol or a platoon of PDF whose service they secured earlier.

stickman_kenobi said:

Haha, knock yourself out

Here are a few suggestions i've encountered or thought up over the years:

Environmental challenges - things like a fist fight on top of a moving train, with occasional tunnels that necessitate the characters ducking to avoid decapitation. Drive by shootings or even vehicle to vehicle combat whilst moving at breakneck speed down a busy highway. Ladders are always a good way to tie up a character by forcing them to commit to their movement by sacrificing their combat ability. Also a lot of people overlook simple things like streams or pools of liquids - they slow you down, prevent certain action types, can be noisy or even damaging.

Quantity/quality - Quite often i see that GMs will just dump a high number of low-threat adversaries at the players, but unless those are backed up by a Master enemy they will be crushed. A cunning melee enemy that uses hordes of gunmen to cover his advance, or perhaps a rogue psyker who uses mutant grapplers to keep foes at bay. Combined arms are better than quality or quantity on its own.

Further suggestions:

Equipment - Nothing means you have to give your NPCs equipment with identical stats to your players. A wealthy noble may have gene-locked weaponry that counts as Best craftsmanship when wielded by his minions, yet Poor when wielded by anyone else (players included). Also think of unique upgrades or ammo types you could give them. Pesky psyker player giving your minions trouble? Have their benefactor outfit a few of them with rifles equipped with Psy-Block rounds. These could force the psyker to take an immediate WP test at -10 per round hit with or suffer a psychic phenomena roll. Just think outside the box a little and your NPC mooks will be less mooky and more meefy.

Howdy!

DH has a very lethal combat system and just in the real and reel life you have to be smart use terrain, planning, and surprise to rout your opponent.

The bad guys can do this as well. All the previous tactics work to challenge them, but it is not tabletop if they have plan, play smart, and are a little lucky they should ome out ahead.

I am a huge fan of grenades, and flame weapons.....they end fights, and the humble fire bomb is cheap and does both.

So I is okay if a great team does great and if the are stupid light them on fire.