Reading these forums I am always surprised to see how almost low powered some of the marines actions sound.

In the game I play we are veritable warrior gods that stride the land laying low hundreds of the foes of man. In the last session (almost as a aside) we destroyed a full company of Stigmartus just because we thought the imperials defending a bastion could do with a hand.

How "hard" do your marine feel when you play?

They feel pretty fragile.

I don't know how you're playing the game but, if it is true that my player get sometime heroic gesture, most of the time they work as well as they can to avoid fire.

Yes SM are pretty capable to endure a lot of pain but they are only 4 and the ennemy too many.

What was your stigmartus has as weapon and or support, witch horde magnituide did they get.

Sure if 1000 stigmartus is a 40 horde in your game then my player could also kill them.

If you are playing opposition as me a regiment of stigmartus would have been between 4 or 5 30 magnitude horde and will have 4 to 5 chimera by horde, plus 4 or 5 15 magnitude horde with heavy weapons and like 12 to 15 elites and 1master. And maybe some leman russ to escort and provide support.

Then after fighting such a battle like berserker my player would be dead. But after playing like "soldier" using cover, hills and valley, flank attack and fast retreat, luring some part of the regiment there and an other part there, attacking small part before withdrawal and so on they will defeat their ennemy.

Have some heroic action is fine but don't play ennemy like stupid bad ass not knowing an iota of tactic and war.

Good job exposing your Kill-team's presence to both the enemy and the Guardsmen in that battle.

Now go try to fight some Auram Genestealers.

Nicely said herichimo, I was forgetting about that.

Indeed reveal DW activity will not be a fact easely taken by the player. Most of the time you will have to pass between allies and ennemy.

I was just focusing around the battle part but, yes, made your presence known is a bad thing to do.

I've never really read anything about the Deathwatch's presence needing to be kept secret at all times. We have been liasing with Imperial commands from the get go of this campaign, and other Astartes chapters are present during the campaign.

Also it wasn't a regiment, it was a company. 3 x mag 40 hordes, and 1 x mag 30 heavy weapons horde.

Anyway I wasn't trying to get into some a "badwrongfun" discussion, I just wanted to hear about how different groups felt about the power of their characters. After all the best way to play the game, is the way your group prefers.

I find Deathwatch marines incredibly potent but they will get mangled every so often. Both are emphasised in melee.

But that fits with the representations of astartes in the background.

Our group, mostly in the beginning, got mangled a lot, but lately are getting better and better at avoiding damage as much as we can. Holding a krak grenade next to a chaos space marines head becuase he just HAD to die that round and I couldn't kill him any other way, felt pretty badass though of course with the RF I would have died if it wasn't for a burnt fate point.

Besides that I've managed to get hit by a tau commander with all his weapons + two of his bodyguards and still managed to stand (pure luck really, inches away from dying from each hit but got lucky this time) until a small group of fire warriors shot my leg off. I managed to kill the commander though so very worth it.

It comes down to luck many times, and careful planning other times, but all in all I think we are pretty badass though we can still get more or less one shoted if we do something stupid and luck isn't with us. Lots of burnt fate in the group

First of all sorry if my behavior was unnecessary hostile.

Second, you are right the game is what you and your friend want it to be.

Third Bad ass Tech marine grapple a broodlord for the apothecary can make a live tissue sample. Trying not to kill the creature before examination cost the techmarine one arm, a leg and an eye…. He already got one arm, one leg and a cyberleg… Now only the torso is made of flesh… This Space wolf should have been Iron hand.

I was running a game where the Blood Angel Apothecary killed a Tervigon is close combat. There was a 4 man team on a Hive Ship and they ran into the Tervigon. The Stormwarden Librarian was soon knee deep in Termaguants with the Ultramarine Devastator lending fire support. That left the Apothecary and the Raven Guard Assault Marine. Both the Librarian and Devastator had one initial shot at the Tervigon and did a bit of damage. The Assault Marine attached a meltabomb to the back of the Tervigon, but the Apothecary literally shredded the thing with a whopping 70+ damage after armor and toughness using a chainsword. He was in frenzy and used his solo mode ability. It was truly epic though. the fight ended very suddenly and he was covered in viscera and panting basically after his epic tearing of the monster. It was awesome. The Stormwarden and the Ultramarine were slack jawed in awe while the Raven Guard moved on to the objective. The Blood Angel just cleaned his shiny blond hair and went with him. The UM and Warden who had a nice rivalry going decided to join forces so to speak so they didn't look bad.

My group dishes out big damage, but they can't really shrug off same. Frankly, I have no real problem with that dynamic: bad-ass enough to kill almost anything- if it doesn't kill them first…

Typically in the books 1 Magnitude equals 3 or so individuals. So a Mag 40 Horde is about 12 or 13 people.

If 1 magnitude is 3 people then 40 magnitute is 120, but that aside the space marines are pretty badass in general, just compare towards a regular guardsman and consider how insanely powerful they are

.113 said:

Where did you get that number from. Horde magnitude I thought were basically what the GM wanted them it be. The numbers are relative.

No, I meant 3 Mag is one person, give or take.

Sure it's what the GM says it is, but generally in the few instances in which a number is given in the books it is done in this way.

A Mag 10 Horde of 10 Guardsmen would make no sense, since it is considerably weaker than 10 Guardsmen.

eh?

What can ten individual guardsmen do against a marine? They cant even damage him.

I think 1 guard = 1 mag is perfectly fine.

FailTruck said:

Yeah, that's what I use: 1 Mag = 1 'standard' (by Imperial standards) trooper; more elite forces (like Eldar) have fewer individuals per Magnitude, while less competent combatants (like grots) have far more individuals per Magnitude.

FailTruck said:

OK, If you give them Righteous Fury, 10 guardsmen are much more powerful than a Mag 10 Horde of Guardsmen (and will take much longer to put down).

Just game-mechanicaly, 1 Mag cannot be 1 person in most instances, because TB + AP is much less than the amount of damage required to take out an individual, or even critically wound him.

I would find examples in the books if I weren't too lazy.

Adeptus-B said:

That's how I roll as well. I certainly helps to make things a bit easier, at least for me, when describing what's going on.

someone else gave a magnitude example of 1 enemy being around 3 magnitude so a group of 40 would be around 12-13. I just corrected the math since 40x3 is 120. where the numbers came from I don't know

FWIW, Final Sanction says:-

+++++A Horde is a vast number of one type of enemy or creature attacking in large numbers. The abstract number of enemies making up such a Horde are reflected in the Horde’s Magnitude. This represents the Horde’s determination and numbers as an abstract value: one point of magnitude does not equal one individual enemy or creature but may represent tens, scores or even hundreds.+++++

bogi_khaosa said:

Why would guardsmen HAVE Righteous Fury? Does every guardsman secretly have Touched by the Fates? No? Then they can't RF. Read the core rulebook - it's fairly clear that the only bad guys to have RF are the ones with Touched by the Fates.

And yes, for the most part 1 mag =/= one guy. It depends on what the horde is of, like Adeptus-B said. Grots, obviously 1 Mag can be tens of the things, ditto Rippers. Fire warriors - maybe 2 mag a guy, cause they're kinda badass. CSMs (though why would any GM Horde them, unless the team is using non-errata weapon stats and the players are high rank), 10 mag a guy, maybe more.

In response to the original question - they are very badass-capable. For example, our Librarian killed a Hive Tyrant by attaching a Seismic Escalation Detonator to it. And our Techmarine sniped out a squad of Broadside Battlesuits. And his Servitor kicked a Daemon Prince's ass (which was as funny as hell).

But they get hurt pretty easily. They feel like a glass cannon. Which makes sense, in a way. Weapons technology is almost always a little in advance of defence, and as they're going up against guys who don't mind innovation…

On a similar note, heroic sacrifices were a genius addition to the game. It means that dying astartes can go out with a bang. My assault marine lost his last fate point during the defense of watch station Midael. His response? Charged the chaos terminator in charge of the assault, and once done with him started chopping up his minions. He accounted for most of the Iron Warriors in that wave before finally succumbing.

AlphariusOmegon7 said:

Wow, that in itself is bad ass.

How did the Hive Tyrant no notice a machine attached to it thats about the size of a normal human?

How did you manage to get such a massive machine to a live Hive Tyrant in the first place?

How did you attach it to something that wasn't solid ground?

How did you keep the Hive Tyrant from knocking it off for 40 rounds until it ramped up enough to bypass the Tyrant's TB?

herichimo said:

It did notice - the guy pinned the Hive Tyrant's head to the ground with it. He had to make a (-40) WS test to do it, after an Agility check to get up its back to make the blow. It says in RoB its got a huge spike on it - that's what Ignus, Librarian of the Salamanders used. And the Hive Tyrant did eventually knock it off, but it had been damaged a fair bit, and while Ignus lost his leg, lots of Avengers and a guy with Thy Strength be Legend and upgraded strength (his effective strength in armour was 86…) falcon punched the Tyrant having peppered it with bolter rounds. He then ate some of its dead body, because he's like that.