Hey guys i was thinking about doing a few things with comrades and i wanted your opinion!

Guard squads are typically 10 men, so i think that the number of comrades should be 10- the number of PCs. comrades are allocated one to a player, and the rest are given to the sergeant.

comrades can also apply their buffs to anyone. not sure if this was a rule but it should be. so 3 comrades can support one player in firing giving a +15BS. the logic behind this was it captures one of the main things in only war: you are only human, you are rubbish, but with you squad supporting you, you can do great things! I'm not a fan of characters being that good, IMO one of the main stand out points of this game is that all your opponents are better than you, and this means that technically the squad is achieving stuff together but the PCs roll the dice and take the credit.

This also means that the squad can be quite powerful as long as the comrades all survive! Players have a motivation to keep them alive as they may not be able to win fights if all the comrades are dead, and they also remember to use their comrades. on the flip side more comrades means the GM can kill them off easier to represent the high turnover of bodies that the guard has. GMs, if your 10 man IG squad survives anything other than light skirmishes without losing men you are not being faithful to the guard IMO! this was partly in response to my group who constantly forgot their comrades and didn't care when they died.

let me know what you think!

I'm not enough of a design guy to comment on what you came up with, but Hammer of the Emperor already has rules for multiple comrades, though only for the Commander Advanced Speciality. They get access to an advance called Born Leader that they can take up to four times and each purchase gives them an extra Comrade. A sidebar on the same page also says that they can only give the Ranged Volley Order and Close Quarters Order to a single Comrade per-turn.

Guard squads are typically 10 men, so i think that the number of comrades should be 10- the number of PCs. comrades are allocated one to a player, and the rest are given to the sergeant.

I know of a group that had very few PCs, so they used to formation rules from Enemies of the Imperium to fill out the squad.

That said (well, written), what ShadowFighter88 wrote is good and worth reading twice.

The trouble with that sidebar is only that the talent Lasgun Volley from the same book (and one or two others, iirc) mention having multiple comrades participate in a Ranged Volley.

I think it might mean that you issue the order to one comrade; getting +5 to BS, but can have others participate for various extra bonuses (like the +1-+3 damage from Lasgun Volley).
On the other hand, it might also mean that they intended to have the sidebar count, but then thought better of it...

I've emailed support, but haven't heard anything.

Actually, Hammer of the Emperor specifically explains how multiple comrades assisting a person works.

For example, in "Back them up:"

If doing "ranged volley" each additional comrade after the first one give +5BS, if doing "close quarters" each additional comrade after the first one gives +5WS (These go on top of what the first comrade participating already gives to the character.)

It has similar explanation to the other orders the commander has. In fact, those orders are the only ones where multiple comrades can participate.

"A Player Character who has multiple Comrades can issue Orders to each one, but can only give the Ranged Volley Order
and Close Quarters Order (see page 270–271 of the Only War Core Rulebook) to one Comrade each Turn. Further, he
can only issue each Order relating to one of his Specialities or Advanced Specialities (past or present) to one Comrade
each Turn. If a Player Character has been temporarily assigned a Comrade for any reason, then he can only issue Generic
Orders to that Comrade (see page 270–271 of the Only War Core Rulebook)."

So the techpriest with two additional comrades for example can't have the other two comrades use the field repairs order to repair three vehicles at the same time. He can only give that order to ONE comrade. And unless the Commander uses "Back them up" those additional comrades do not help the other characters in ranged volley.

That requires a particular talent or suchlike, no?

Oh ok, So what i'm suggesting isn't that far off what is already in place? fantastic.

Thats some good advice i'd need to look at the specialty comrade abilities and take account of that when adding more comrades.

and the plan was to add more comrades, meaning the Gm could increase the enemies without making the players better.

so the next rule i came up with was that if a character takes a hit that would kill them (sounds a bit vague but we all know what im talking about) instead of burning fate one comrade within cohesion is killed. Now initially it seems i'm just giving the players a much bigger health bar but considering with more comrades comes harder enemies losing comrades really starts to hurt. if you do this 4 times yes YOU'VE survived but how are you gonna take on the boss at the end without any buffs? it means players will be glad they're alive, but won't throw themselves into stupid situations knowing that they can take hits with no consequences

Are the multiple comrades all given the various comrade perks you have bought? Say I play Medic and, between guiding my allies how NOT to get hurt, and my positive drive to not want them to die needlessly, we decide that he should grab Commander. Does that mean that all 4 of my comrades get Curate, or whatever? Not sure how well, if at all, some of the abilities would stack, if I assigned them to someone, or used them as a "triage team", but just wondering; do you have to buy these talents for each "slot" you have to fill a Comrade with, or do they all carry to each?

Like with just one comrade if you lose one and get a new one those comrade perks that you've already bought are automatically known by the new comrade as well (no need to buy them again for an exp cost.) Likewise if your medic/commander loses the "original" comrade but already has another one then that comrade can use those same perks immediately. Or if you've lost your comrade and another character who is playing a commander "borrows" you a comrade that comrade can use the comrade perks of your class.

BUT. And this is important. You cannot use those perks SIMULTANEOUSLY with several comrades. So you can't have all 5 of your comrades fixing up allies during the same turn. Only ONE of them can do that, though I don't see a particular rule saying that you can't alternate which of those comrades uses those skills.

I guess it's like the character is guiding that one comrade to do his task and can't divide his attention enough to guide all 5 and do his own task at the same time.

Thinking too hard about the multiple comrades and skills makes it seem illogical but they are balancing this with the fact that IF those perks apply only to the original comrade then they die with him as well. And being forced to pay 200-300 exp per perk everytime you lose a comrade would be quite punishing.

So i was going for a 'slot' strategy where you buy talents for a comrade, and when he dies his slot is filled by someone else who acquires the skill.

I'd have to look at the talents in turn and decided whether they stack or not on an individual basis, but most wouldn't stack.

any thoughts on the 'avoiding death' rule?