Has anyone taken a try at this?

Especially with the increasing commonality of PCs in multiple vehicles, turning enemies into Hordes makes sense to me.

Plushy said:

Well, one of the gaming groups in my club did, with hilarious results. It was either "Horde destroys Vehicle" or "Vehicle destroys Horde". No middle ground. Keep in mind that OW PCs are powerless against Hordes, so once their vehicle is out of action, the PCs are dead. On the other hand, a Leman Russ can mow through Hordes without problem, so you either condemn the players to die/burn Fate (if they ride a Chimera or equivalent) or it will be business as always (for Leman Russes). And that's a little bit… unfair.

AtoMaki said:

i was considering using the rule with a Heavy Recon regiment, so everyone is in their own Sentinel.

Plushy said:

A Sentinel is hardly a difficult opponent for non-Horde stuff, so I guess pitting it against Hordes is a pretty bad idea . Unless there are 5 Sentinels with Heavy Flamers against a close-combat-only Horde.

I'm not sure about the best way to use hordes against vehicles but as far as using them against non space marines I found removing the bonus damage dice and keeping all their other rules works pretty well.

I think DOW lends itself to squad-level combat, where Hordes aren't very a propos. Even if they are part of a huge battle, the focus should always be on THEIR part of the battle, moving house by house, trench by trench, which the overall battle providing only color (this is a game about guard squads, not Generals commanding armies). Opponents should be at a similar level.

Hordes againse Sentinels…the Sentinel will be destroyed, which defeats the purpose, which is to allow weak units to pose a threat against strong ones en masse. (Not to mention that lhe logical tactic to use against Sentinels from the POV of an opponent armed with small arms is to Called Shot the operator or krak grenade the legs if this can be done, not overwhelm it with mass firepower).

Hordes against Chimeras also results in dead Chimera, unless it is attacking the front armour. I'm not a military guy, but I don't think any number of people shooting with rifles at the front of a n APC is going to damage it, barring occasional hits against sensors and so forth mounted outside (which is impossible by OW rules). What unsupported infantry without heavy weapons should do against vehicles is run and hide. In fact, even if they have heavy weapons and are supported they should run and hide. RPG attacks against vehicles are made from positions of hiding if preferable, not out in the open. Not to mention that they should disperse , not stand there in one big group so the vehicle can shoot at them all.

***

I haven't run this, but I think a squad of 10 or so people (standard Guardsmen equivalents) comptently run should be a threat to a Sentinel, assuming it is unenclosed. They should all move in different directions, hide, pop up from cover to take called shots, etc. If it is fully enclosed, they shouldn't be fighting it at all unless they have krak grenades and can somehow sneak up on it (part of the benefit of moving in all directions).

I'm thinking as I type, but it seems to me that these kind of combats should be run with combined enemy arms. E.g., a squad of infantrymen acting as described above, plus an entrenched heavy bolter, say, in a fortified window, forcing the vehicle to deal with multiple targets.

Standard infantry shouldn't be a threat to a Chimera, much less a Leman Rus, period. Being impervious to large numbers of infantry is what tanks were invented for. That's why they exist. What infantry faced with such a thing should do is Disperse, Run, and Hide. If they have heavy weapons they should use them only after having DRH,while the vehicle isdistracted and looking in the other direction so that it can't tell what from what window or behind which tree, pile of ruin, or whatever the shot came from.. And that is only in extremis. What they SHOULD be doing if they can is DRH and either relaying the position of the enemy armor to indirect heavy weapons emplacements or other armored units or luring it into the field of fire of direct heavy weapons emplacements or other armored units, preferably several at once.

Infantry shouldn't be fightin g armor in the open at all. That means they're dead.

I agree with AtoMaki's comment that any Horde big enough to destroy an armoured vehicle will be auto-death to an OW PC. It sounds like what is needed is some kind of new Talent that allows groups of combatants to mass their attacks for extra Armour Pen, rather than extra damage.

Adeptus-B said:

That's always been what's needed. The Horde rules have always been a horrible implementation of the use of massed troops against hardened targets (whether vehicles or power-armoured marines).

Actually, now that I think about it, it should really be a standard combat manouver available to anyone (like Grappling or Called Shots), and not a specific Talent.

Adeptus-B said:

Destroy Mountain with Ball of Twine?

Adeptus-B said:

"Concentrate Fire" maybe?

*edit* Sorry, I don't know how to edit so I'm doing this:

"Concentrate Fire" maybe multiply the pen of the weapon by the number of people firing the same weapon?

Arkangilos said:

You still get stupid outcomes where the Penetration gets so high that laspistols are pentrating tank armour. A better solution - one that doesn't increase maximum damage like the current Horde rules - would be to add extra "Tearing dice" (extra rolled dice then drop the lowest rollers back to the amount of dice the weapon normally inflicts). This means that concentrated fire is more likely to produce the maximum output of the weapon (and even some critical hits), but it prevents melting tanks/dreadnoughts/chaos terminators with a volley of laspistols like the current Horde rules.

Get rid of the extra damage dice and just add several normal enemies with anti-armour weapons to the combat. The Horde can always provide cover for those enemies as well.

The major problems with hordes are just the extra damage dice. Lose that and they work rather well. I know the next book out for OW is supposed to have some sort of squad based combat rules in it. I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with it.

It's a bit soft to to claim that a a horde, and not justt a couple but 10's of individuals, can only do as much as the most a single guy throw out. Especially as badguy's don't do Rightous Fury. Why would a hundred guys with the same weapons not be able to harm a guy in powerarmour that a player character just needs to luck out on an RF roll a 10th of the time?

Of course, weapon damage, armour and unnatural charactistics are all all different from DW so it isn't going to balance by porting the rules directly either.

Face Eater said:

Of course, bad guys now do RF, so the argument is going to shift somewhat.

Basides, how many infantrymen firing M-4s from 100 metres does it take to destroy an M-1 battle tank (assume that they are firing from the front)? I think the answer is going to show that it's just not going to happen. A lucky shot might take out some compontent (sight, commander's MG, etc.), but it's not punching through the front armour or turret. With Horde rules, such things can happen way too easily.

Arkangilos said:

Isn't this already there, in the Get Them! Sweeping Order? If you overload your lasguns, you now have 1d10+9 AP 2 attacks.

HappyDaze said:

Those are all good points.

Badguys doing RF changes the game as they have to be able to physically harm the vehicle.

And yes, no amount of assault rifle is going to harm a MBT, but then even with horde rules standard lasguns can't hurt front or even side armour of medium vehicles with the maximum magnitude damage bonus. Should they be able to pen rear armour or the light armoured vehicles, probably not, I doubt any amount of assualt rifle fire will go take out a apc at any angle but it'll chew up a humvee eventually. And of course bullets physically bounce off armour if they don't pen but energy and corrosive weapons will be eating through the armour with each hit. If high energy physics has taught us anything it that's with enough lasers your can disintergrate anything.

In short the horde rules in Deathwatch were a clumsy fix but it mostly seemed to work. I don't know what to do with it for OW but I feel that there is some benefit to having something similar for some game types.

Surely the RF minimum 1 damage, might eventually lead a 'horde' to break into an armoured vehicle if they manage to get on top of the vehicle and not just run over by it. Wouldn't they also come up with a way of harming it. Exploding energy clips, setting it on fire etc.

Solar Fox said:

There is no RF minimum 1 damage when it comes to vehicles. RF only activates if the attack has already done damage.

Anyway, I stand by my previous point: small arms fire should be unable to damage tanks, period. Being invulnerable to massed small-arms fire is why they were invented.

bogi_khaosa said:

I totally agree.

I also feel that even high-end personal armours (power armour, mega-armour, terminator armour) should be much more resistant to massed small arms than the current Horde rules allow - dozens of autopistol shots from a horde of gretchin should still be less dangerous to a guy in terminator armour than a single shot from a meltagun.

Indeed, as things stand, thrown knives and fists are as exactly as dangerous to Terminator armor as a lasgun shot.

This is one reason I'm not with those who think the rules changes in BC/OW were a 100% improvement.

I am using horde rules in my BC camping atm. The main problem there, is that horde range attacks are absolute overkill against the human party members. I think we are on the way so solve this problem - hordes focus their range attacks always on the biggest thread which are the marines. So the humans have time to find cover till the marines are in melee. As soon as they are in cover they add a lot of AP to their relevant body parts.

I am thinking about using the vehicle rules of OW for future combats. Reading this thread I fail somehow to see a problem when hordes fight armored vehicles. For example: A typical horde of troopers is armed with low pen pistol & basic weapons for ranged combat. Even if they add the maximum of 2d10 they are with 3d10+3 far from being able to be a hazard for tanks with front and side amor between 40/30 (front/side leeman) or 30/20 (chimera). Maybe they can do something from the rear side but then they need a lot of luck to survive long enough.

Sharp said:

vs. 20 side armour (I think it's 22 really) 3d10+3 means a critical hit 33% of the time each time they exceed the AP, which will be about 40% of the time. Due to size of tank and horde rules for number of attacks they will hit a lot with multiple hits if firing SA or FA..

From the rear (which is where a smart Horde would be attacking if possible), a Chimera will be destroyed in about 5 rounds I think on average by a large horde of lasguns firing semi-auto, doing fuzzy math in my head. Autoguns will do it twice as fast due to FA.

bogi_khaosa said:

I don't have my books with me at the moment but I believe to remember, that hordes cannot inflict Zealous Hatred/Righteous Furry, so if i understood the vehicle rules right, no crits before they reduced structure to zero.