Hi, Deathwatch fans!
I'm very familiar with the WH40k universe, but I have never played any pen & paper rpg (well, 2 sessions of Call of Cthulhu 10 years ago, and even then I wasn't the GM). I intend to run a session with some friends that have some experience playing rpg games but are not familiar at all with the WH40k universe. I will be the GM (I've read the rulebook 2 times and I'm good at storytelling). I plan to roleplay the demo adventure here on the webpage, Final Sanction. Any tips, things that I should aware of, etc.?

Also, I have 2 questions:

1. When I look at the pre-generated characters for Final Sanction, I notice that all of them have Strengh 4*, but their SB is always 10. Unnatural Str should get the bonus up to 8, but I don't understand where those extra 2 points come from. Is it from the bonus of wearing Astartes Armour? If so, why the 20 extra Str aren't applied also to the Str characteristic?

2. If I have understood correctly, once you roll damage for the attack, you substract the defender armor + toughness bonus values, and then you check if the attack dealt damage to the target. So, if a Space Marine has 8 amor + 10 toughness (=18), how in the world is it supposed to be hit by the Rebel Horde in Final Sanction? Here are the numbers for the basic weapons of the Rebel Horde:

Crude melee weapons (1d10+3 R; Pen 0); Stub Rifle (100m; S/—/—; 1d10+3 I; Pen 0).

If I'm doing my maths correctly, they can add just up to 13 points of damage, that means they will never hit a marine, even if they roll a 0 on the dice! (they didn't have the Righteous Fury trait… Even adding their str bonus to the melee weapons (+3), they can't roll more than 16, very far from the 18 armor value of the marines!). I'm sure I'm missing something, what is it?

Thanks in advance for your answers and tips!

Hey there,

BS 10 comes from +2SB from the armor.

The hordes become dangerous as they *should* add extra d10s due to horde size (I think one d10 per ten magnitude) to represent that he isn't just getting hit once but many times.

A horde using a weapon making 1d10 damage will do:

- 2d10 if horde magnitude = 10 -19

- 3d10 if horde magnitude is 20+

So even if on a one on o,ne basis the damage will be weak when lots of them come to you they will hurt you.

Thanks for the replies! So what I missed were the rules for the Horde… Anyways, a horde of 10-19 rebels will hardly scratch the marines: the GM would need a roll of 16+ on 2d10 just to deal 1 damage point with the rifles… Alright, I got it. Thanks again!

Freeman said:

Yep! This is because marines are Badass.

So, would it make sense that after the Kill Team reduces the number of the horde down to 10, the GM switches to narrative time, telling them that they managed to defeat the horde (maybe spending some more bullets), or should I roleplay the whole encounter, risking be boring and repetitive?

Freeman said:

That's a good idea but also look up Breaking a Horde, p360. Only fearless Hordes survive going below 25% magnitude (which is when I normally narrate).