I am pretty sure the terror cats are too tough.45 WS, 64m charge, stealth, 1D10+6 dmg, 20 wounds 2 armor and 8 TB? And as many as there are squadmembers? 2 cats almost obliterated my group of 4. how should a starting character survive that encounter? Ok they can't dodge and parry which makes them attack with all out attacks boosting their WS to 75.

If the get the drop on the characters (which the probably will) they are able to kill the whole squad in the surprise round. Infact they are tougher and scarier then Big Mek.

well we had a combat knife each… not too shaby lol

Note that the encounter description (Dark Hunters) says they'll be looking for an easy meal and will flee as soon as one of them is downed. Essentially, this encounter comes down to one question: Can you free your heavy gunner (or operator) from melee so he can take a shot at the kitties? If a ratling sniper, a meltagun weapon specialist or a heavy gunner (or the Operator if he's still in the chimera) make the Awareness test at the start of the encounter, they've got good chances of severely wounding at least one of them during the first round. The cats are not too agile, meaning their initiative sucks unless they have their surprise round.

I'd say the encounter is hard, but quite survivable, especially if the characters are death-worlders themselves or at least have the good sense to listen to the locals about the dos and don'ts. Like "Don't exit your vehicle for any reason whatsoever - bring a bucket if you have to!"

That being said: The adventure says to make an Ordinary (+10) Opposed Stealth check against the characters. This would give the cats a score of 50. Does this take into account their size (Hulking, -10) and the possibility of player characters being suspicious and alert (-10) as most intelligent (=currently breathing) deathworlders would be?

Cifer said:

I would assume since the Stealth check is referring specifically to the cats, the Ordinary difficulty takes their size into account.

If the players were Deathworld in regiment origin, as a GM I would probably given them a bonus to noticing the animals. Likewise, if they have certain traits or abilities (such as Paranoia) or are explicitly mentioning they are doing something above-and-beyond in terms of being prepared (making regular checks on an auspex for large creatures, for instance), I would likewise probably give them a small bonus. However, that may be more my GMing style than anything else.

Our 273rd Malfian Armoured Fist Squad and its dealing with "Terror Cats"

Our specialist lost most of his face before the HG could bring his heavy bolter to bear, but I approve of the fact that the Terror Cats made the Orks a more favourable enemy. At least an Ork is interested in a stand-up fight and is unlikely to try sneaking up on you. On another occasion we where attacked escorting an injured pilot to our Chimera and had to double and triple team the stupid cat to shove it away enough for the Storm Trooper to shoot him with a long las and the Operator to open up with the Chimera's heavy bolter.

Tough, but not impossible. The hard part was not blowing one up so we could get it taxidermied and mounted on the turret

Three things make the fight much easier than you may otherwise think.

1. The cats have natural weapons. Natural weapons count as primitive (7) weapons unless stated otherwise so they can only deal a maximum of 13 points of damage. The average guardsman is going to have 3TB and at least 4 armor so even a hit for maximum damage will only deal 6 points of damage.

2. The cats have the bestial trait so they need to pass a +0 WP test whenever they are wounded or that cat flees.

3. According to the encounter if any of the cats dies all of them flee.

Overall it should be a pretty easy encounter and unless the PC's roll horribly they should do just fine.