Hi,

I have a couple of rules questions.I'm notplaying BC, but I am going to use the BC rules for my Deathwatch game. With the possible exception of a couple of things that seem… strange.

First, in the description of Swift Attack, it says that if you have a Talent that lets you attack with two weapons, only one of them can be a Lightning Attack. However, the ruleson wielding two weapons in the combat section seem to say otherwise.

Second, multiple attacks against hordes. The horde rules say that you score 1 hit per 2 degrees of success. In the other 40KRP lines, this is fine since SA and LA work differently. In BC, does this mean that you can't make multiple melee attacks on a Horde, or that the hits form degrees of success stack with the extra hits from the attack (so that 3 degrees of success with LA gives you 4 hits)?

I am befuddled and bemused.

Where does it state you can only do one in the swift or lightning attack descriptions? Not seeing it in BC at least.

With two weapons, you can either fire one, or the other, in single-weapon style, normally. OR, you can use two-weapon-fighting, where each attack takes a -20 to both attacks, and an additional -20 to the secondary weapon [whichever you use second, really].

If you're ambidextrous, the additional -20 penalty dissapears, and the -20 to both is lowered to -10. You're still limited to a single attack action using one or both, but having the talents is equivalent to installing semi or full-auto fire on your melee weapons, rather than "making multiple attacks". Choosing to use "single", "semi" or "full" with each weapon becomes little more than a setting for each weapon.

For Hordes, Instead of going full-tilt into a single target, you're already doing so with multiple opponents. I'd like some clarification as well, but best guess is that you do a standard attack, and the target being a horde means that, for free, you get bonus hits. Note they're not limited by WS either, and Power Weapons get +1 [you'd think a massive electrified steel cable might as well, but oh well]. This is particularly nice compared to the standard swift/lightning, as the single-attack bonus and that horde's magnitude can easily add some DoS.

Kiton said:

Description of Swift Attack, pg.132. Although for some reason it mentions Lightning Attack rather than Swift.

EDIT: So you think the interpretation is that you cannot swift or lightning attack a horde? If so I'm not going to import this into Deathwatch, as it gimps assault marines.

Actually that entire section [entire description] was errata'd out and replaced with "you can do a swift attack as described…"

Not sure it hurts assault too terribly. Unlike ranged weapons you're not limited by RoF, and you're usually dual-wielding and the horde attack is equivalent to Swift Attack with +10WS as far as I can tell. You use a standard attack and STILL get extra hits as if using swift, but without the WSb limit on max hits. And if dual-wielding power-weapons, your second standard attack is ALSO getting these bonuses.

at 50WS against a +30-to-hit magnitude, you'd do at least two as soon as you roll 80 or better, with each of your two weapons. Better quality melee weapons could increase this yet further.

If you rolled a pair of 10s, that would give 7 DoS, that's 3 extra hits, per weapon, plus the initial two[thanks to power-weapon]. Ten hits, which are very unlikely to fail to tear out that much magnitude…

That's more than a heavy bolter could manage, as you can't dual-wield those.

Doesn't seem too bad to me

Does this imply that you cannot use All-Out Attack/Furious Assault either?

For two-weapon fighting+multiple hit attacks, repeated developer questions and the more comprehensive two-weapon fighting section in the combat section both make it clear you can do both. In short, you take the penalties for both multiple hit attacks (+0 for swift, -10 for lighting) and the ones for two-weapon fighting. In return, you can as a half-action make two separate swift/lightning attacks, resolved separately. More, if you have multiple limbs. Some people disagree on how this works out, and there's an appropriate thread on the subject, but that's the rules as written and apparently intended.

For hordes and multiple hits/attacks, I seem to recall developer comment saying that yes, the two do indeed. stack. So every DoS generates on hit on a horde for it being a horde, and another if you're lightning attack, essentially counting twice.

Is there a point in making a Standard Attack against a Horde?

You can't Dodge or Parry anyway,so it seems that your options are always going to be All-Out Attack or some form of multiple attack. (?)

All-out or the Khorne-Weapon explosive charge seem like your best bets. Aiming could help too: I'd certainly see no reason to use Swift instead of Standard against a horde, however, but it doesn't really look to me like you're allowed to use a Lightning attack against it…

Kiton said:

Wait. Why? Shouldn't it follow the logic laid out by reverend mort?

My reasoning here is the explanation under the "melee" header for attacking hordes. To me, that reads both as an improved version of Swift Attack being given out for free, AND "the only" way meleeing a horde functions.

I'd like to see the developper explanation myself, as seems to me that Lightning Attack + Horde Bonus x number of attacks you actually can do [two weapon wielding, extra arms, etc] would mean one guy in melee dual-wielding could easily double what a heavy weapon on full-auto could hope to achieve, and with less required DoS. For example, using the Storm-capable Echon-Pattern Assault Stubber, With DoS 6, you get 12 hits, 13 if using fyceline ammunition for Type-X.

With Lighting Attack dual-wielding power-weapons, you can equal that at WS 40+ by 4 DoS: 4 lightning attack hits + 2 horde freebies +1 power weapon freebie x2: 14 hits total already, rarely of damage as low as the stubber thanks to Strength Bonus. And it could easily go much higher from there.

There is a point in standard attacking a horde - if you have 2 weapons, and if there is a possibility you can use both. You can't use 2 weapons with an all-out attack. 2 attacks means 2 rolls, so twice the DoS. Anyway, i have a nasty rule-lawyer in my BC team, so i sent a rules question. Ill post any answer i can get

Kiton - that's of course nothing compared to a gretchin lesser minion throwing a Photon Flash granade at a horde. He can't miss - max scatter is 5m, Granade has Blast (10) so 10 meters, and Blast(10) equals 10 hits on a horde.

Of course if you're shotting a large horde you could just use a 2 weapon wielding renegade with recoil gloves and 2 autoguns firing on full auto. (s/3/10) Heavy guns are usable agains tanks not hordes

If you're going to go that far: a dude with two-weapon and power weapons:

WS 60 Lightning Attack, 6 DoS: 1 hit + 1 Power hit + 6 hits + 3 hits = 11 x2. Toss in Extra Arms and he's at 33 already.

Your minion can also be melee this way [with Unnatural WS to compensate for the lack of the actual score when it actually hits].

Either way it'll be far more effective than trying to get 9 DoS on two Autoguns. The main worry with the guns is that 1d10+3 Pen 0 might actually fail to get through the horde's averaged AP+Tb, whereas odds are any good melee weapon is going to guarantee a higher minimum. Have I mentioned never to Micro a Catalytic Mass-Driver if you like actually dealing damage with a weapon?

Kinda sad that frag missiles are less effective than flash grenades, though [although won't it do nothing as the horde gets to have its AP and Tb and the flash actually deals no wounds?]

Flash grenades could rather reduce horde for the sake of ir's hit chances and damage dealt by it (because part of a horde isn't atacking this round) for some time rather than permanently.

OK, I've been doing the math, and for the life of me I cannot understand why they made these changes to Multiple Attack and Two-Weapon Fighting. They don't work. They're awful.

I do not understand why they felt the need to make these changes; the previous system works fine. The problem with WH40KRP combat was with ranged combat -- with single shot vs. multiple shots. The only thing they had to do was to add +10 to melee attacks in order to make the to-hit chance correspond to that of ranged attacks (otherwise you would be better of shooting in melee than using a melee weapon).

I know I'm coming off as abrasive, but I'm really frustrated. I really like the changes to ranged combat, and want to use the whole combat system, and I hate just taking part of a system for fear of messing up balance inadvertently somewhere along the way..

Maybe I'm missing something.

Well, if you just treat melee attempts against hordes as "standard attack only", but as per the attacking horde in melee rule you get an extra hit per two DoS, you get pretty decent numbers. I use 6 here because with all the bonuses vs a horde its a slightly above average, but not spectacular result:

DoS 6 gets the power-weapon melee character 1 base hit, +3 bonus hits and finally one bonus hit from using a power weapon [similar to using explosive ranged weapons]. The odds of the Horde shrugging off any of those blows are almost non-existent, as power weapons with even a modicum of strength behind them hit like trucks. He could use a second weapon, let's say that drops the DoS to 5, but happens twice. 8 kills? decent enough.

Using a Heavy Stubber, since its Full Auto, that same roll would probably be 5 DoS… Sure there's a -20 vs standard attacks, but you could have a motion predictor or targeter quite easy anyways. The standard BC model would be getting 6 hits, and against most non-daemonic things you find in hordes, its probably 6 kills, though less guaranteed than tearing into things with power-weapons.

You're not gonna dual-wield a heavy weapon though unless you've got enough mutation in there that the other guy would probably be quadra-wielding his power weapons [he'd be up to 12 hits then].

But overall, that still has melee keeping up somewhat decently with unloading a heavy assault weapon at the oncoming group, doesn't it? Pretty balanced for both sides.

bogi_khaosa said:

In what way do they not work? I'm not following you when you talk about giving melee +10 so ranged weapons aren't a better choice in melee. I have been playing DW with BC Rules for a while now. A couple of things I noticed:

1. Like with DW, (and any of these games) find and use the Errata.

2. What the big changes do is make it so a relatively unskilled person (WS/BS 30-40) will make one good attack. For multiple attack actions in both ranged and melee you have to have either a good base skill or a lot of other bonuses to use them effectively. Your 'Average' SM will have 40+ WS or BS. at this point the math comes out nearly even slightly in favor of the single attacks. at 50+ Multiple attacks get better. By 70+ (which isn't that hard really) It becomes a slaughterfest.

3. The stacking DoS hits for SA/LA and generic Horde fighting only slightly increases the damage the Assault marine does to hordes. Now you do it in two rolls instead of four.

We did make a house rule limiting the hits on SA/LA to 3 and 4 respectively. This put the AM to only mostly better at killing things instead of the no contest situation it was before. Even before we adopted the BC rules he was a monster though.

Nathiel said:

I mean that --

The reason that the ranged combat bonusses are the way they are (+10/+0/-10) is to preserve the old DH/RT/DW pattern (0/+10/+20), but flipped around; with the addition of Half-Action Aim, it becomes +20/+10/+0, the exact opposite of the old pattern.

If they had simply retained the old melee rules, this would have resulted in melee weapons being inherently less accurate than ranged weapons -- including in melee. Hence a +10 had to be applied to melee Standard Attacks as well. (Then to preserve the hierarchy within melee attacks, All-Out Attack had to become +30 and so forth -- ah ripple effects).

They should have simply done that, and left melee combat otherwise alone, IMO.

Anyway the broader issue is that was borked in the other systems was ranged combat, not melee. There was no point in changing it other than a desire to bring melee and ranged into the same model for the hell of it. BTW these ranged issues don't matter at all in Deathwatch, at least post-errata, since almost nothing has full auto anyway. And Orks and the Defiler will never, ever hit, practically.

On the Flipping: I'm no dev, but I can at least take a stab at the numbers, that could give a bit of reasoning.

When we first had Dark Heresy, ranged combat depended entirely on aimed shots and full-auto to achieve its edge over melee. It, however, had a definite one, partly thanks to the far greater number of upgrades and talents you could bring a gun. Pretty much the only boost melee had was that non-power-weapons could improve their AP by 2, and the quality upgrade affecting it directly.They really needed to improve melee, and they DID.

Since then, the numbers have changed greatly. Base went up from 20 to 25, or even 30 on many characters. Equipment and talents at both ends got improved, so that melee or range is more of a personal choice now, so long as you can find the guns you need to keep up on the damage front. But always, ALWAYS, you were better off with full auto weapon of good damage than a piddly "accurate" rifle, or even just using a Heavy Weapon. Semi-Auto on an Autocannon was better than a Long-Las that's for sure.

Now doing single-shot plus half action aim on an accurate weapon means a BS 25 guardsman hits 55% of the time before any other modifiers such as range, target size, equipment bonuses and all that. OR, using a normal lasgun's semi-auto, a 35% chance to hit [20% of once, 15% of twice]. With Full Auto on an otherwise identical lasgun variant? 25% of connecting, giving us 10% one hit, 10% two hits, 5% three hits. Weapon Quality still hasn't caught up for humans in the Ranged Category, even though they fixed it for the Orks and Space marines but that's a different complaint of mine.

What really dropped though, is that, so long as you're not counting the price per shot, you're exchanging a very small amount of per-shot accuracy [instead of IMPROVING IT] to gain a much higher average number of hits per action in the long run. With a Base BS or WS of 35 instead of 25, you're already coming out a good deal ahead, getting significantly more hits per volley in your overall average, RoF willing, than single shots. In other words its still a significant damage upgrade if you do it right. The higher your chance to hit, the greater the advantage. Eventually you just toss your long-las, grab yourself a Multilaser, and go to bloody town.

But those that do want to stick to single shot are a whole lot less screwed for it this way. Being viable's a good thing.

Blah Blah Blah….

I asked a question and devs finnaly answered. wow. You can literally slay a mag 30 horde in a single round. Answer from (Tim Huckelbery, RPG Producer).

> Rule Question:
> Hi
> I have few questions about Melee vs. Horde combat Attacking a horde:
> There is a lot of misunderstanding about hand to hand combat against Hordes:
> In "Attacking a Horde (p. 349)" paragraph you say, you can damage a horde by shooting or attacking it in melee. You can shoot using semi or full auto fire and score additional hits. Do this apply also to melee equivalents swift/lightning attacks, which allow you to score additional hits against a single opponent?

Yes, but all hits must be applied to the Horde just like multiple ranged weapon hits from semi or full auto.

> 1. Which of the attack actions can be used against a horde ( standard? all-out attack? Swift? Lightning?) or is attacking a horde another type of attack with a TO Hit modifier based only on its magnitude ( so no +10/+30/+0/-10 for actions)

All of those attack types can be used

> If you can use a +30 all out attack, then standard +10 attack probably would be us eless, because you can parry/dodge anyway (unless fighting with 2 weapons, later).
>
> Example 1: A 60WS Berserker does an All-Out Attack (+30) to a 30 Magnitude Horde (+30 to hit), and rolling 25 (10 DoS) would score 5 hits ( horde combat rule)?

Correct!

>
> 2. If you can use a swift or lightning attack, which score extra hits based on number of DoS, do you score even more hits for extra DoS on a hit roll for participating in a combat against a Horde? I mean:
> The horde rules say that you score 1 hit per 2 degrees of success
> SA lets you score 1 hit for 1 DoS, and 1more/2extra DoS
> LA lets you score 1 hit for 1 DoS, and 1more/1extra DoS

Yes, they would combine.

>
> Example 2: A 60WS Berserker SA a 30 (+0) Magnitude Horde (+30 to hit), and rolling 25 (7 DoS) would score 1+3 hits (SA) and another 3 hits ( horde combat rule) for a total of 7 hits, or if they don't stack just 4 (SA) or just 3 ?

The former.

> Example 3: A 60WS Berserker LA a 30 Magnitude Horde (+30 to hit), and rolling 25 (6 DoS) would score 1+6 (max 6) hits (LA) and another 3 hits ( horde combat rule) for a total of 9 hits, or if they don't stack just 6 (LA) or just 3 ?

The former.

>
> 3. Another thing is you can u possibly use 2 weapons against a horde for extra hits (2 weapon wielder melee, empowered with other talents)?
> So if yes you have two attack rolls and DoS from Both give you Bonus hits against a Horde?

Yes, if you have the correct Talent to do so.

>
> Example 4: A 60WS Berserker with 2 swords ( Two Weapon Wielder Melee, Ambidexterity, so a -10/-10) Standard Attack (+10/+10) a 30 Magnitude Horde (+30 to hit), and rolling 25 and a 45 (7+5 DoS) would score 3+2 hits ( horde combat rule) for a total of 5 hits
>
> 4. And how would fighting with 2 power swords with a Horde look like each Standard Attack would be a +2 hits for 2 Power field Weapons

Each weapon would give one extra hit, worked out after all additional hits were calculated.

> How would it look if all of these were true?:
>
> Example 5: A frenzied ( + 10 WS) 60WS Berserker with 2 power swords ( Two Weapon Wielder Melee, Ambidexterity, Blade Dancer(so a -0 /-0), Whirlwind of Death) LA (-10/-10) a 30 Magnitude Horde (+30 to hit), and rolling 15 and 35 (8+6 DoS) would score 1+7 +1+5(second arm)(max 7+7) hits (LA), 2 hits for two Power field weapons, 4 (70 WS, 7 WS bonus, half=3,5=4) hits WoD and another 4 + 3 hits ( horde combat rule) for a total of 26 hits?
> Which would be more than 75%, that mean he could destroy that horde in a single round? Overpowerd? I don't think so. imagine same Berserker attacking squad of 10 Space marines - they would possibly last another turn. A Berserker like that could possibly even destroy a dreadnought (rear armour) in one or two rounds.
> Or maybe It should be done another way I just can't imagine?

A Berzkerer of that nature should indeed roar through a Horde, so yes he could!

>
> 5. I have one more overpowered anti-Horde Combat question. Photon-Flash Granades. Imagine we have the Magnitude 30 horde of Imperial Guard. A group of heretics throws 3 Photon Flash Grenades. Horde annihilated? I mean you can't possibly miss a horde - max Scatter range is 5 meters, so a Blast(10) weapon will always hit. Page 349 says, that for Blast Weapons number of hits is equal to Blast value, there is nothing about being able to do damage or not. Am I right? Or is this a little overpowered and maybe should it be changed in a FAQ/Errata.

Yes, it should be rather difficult not to hit a Horde with grenades that have the Blast quality - big crowds of foes are ideal for frag grenades after all. It would depend on the Horde though if flash grenades would be a good idea, the blindness test isn't that hard to pass. Like you noted, you just get lots of hits, not automatic Damage.

> I would also Like to ask you if you could put clarified Melee vs horde combat rules in a FAQ, because from what I have seen in the Boards, there is a lot of misunderstanding about it.

Great suggestion and I'll add this to our plans for the next round of Errata, thanks!

… wow. Didn't think they'd go for the max combined potential being as intended there.

One dual-wielder in melee can kill more people in five seconds than an Integrated Astartes Assault Cannon using Fyceline rounds with 9 degrees of success [storm, +1 for explosive, RoF maxed: 21 hits].

I guess technically if slayer limbs allowed you to dual-wield the things, you could potentially technically get 42, but with that many extra arms instead the berserker would probably have more than caught up again.

Imagine same berserker fighting ordinary space marines - could kill 4-5 a round - numbers seem to be ok as far as I see. It's WH 40K if hand to hand combat weren't better then shooting no one would carry a power sword, am I right?

And there is still the "Tail" special extra attack for extra hits

More like "how are so many just *helping* you by tossing their buddies onto your axe?" You can't really have thirty men directly around you unless they were piling on [in the grapple sense], without so much as having to expend for movement. Its like the 40 Assault marines you're facing instantly transformed themselves into power-weapon moths.

Personally though, always felt the overwhelming melee advantage of the tabletop was just a result of bad scaling. Your enemies cannot be more than about four feet away [if we use the lasgun to translate that into range, 200m] but usually start closer, and travel at least 6" [50m] in the time it takes to fire one burst from your lasgun, usually twice that for those interested in melee. Even from "sniping" or "artillery" ranges things run so fast they're through the barrage and in your face in barely a few decaseconds.