@Kage

As the point I'm going to answer was best expressed in another reply of yours, I'll answer that one.

And that's partially the point. If the DH engine fails to allow lasguns to bypass a Marine in power armour, i.e. the weapon is not capable of penetrating the armour, then 20 people firing the same weapon aren't going to have the same effect unless the armour itself is being damaged. If your whittling away at the armour it's a completely different story since, in the long run massed fire will have an impact. I was, however, not aware that power armour was treated as if it had some form of "Wounds" on its own.

But there is an allowance for lasguns bypassing Marine Power Armour: it's called Righteous Fury. There is that minuscule chance that it happens, and that it's strong enough to bypass both Armour and Toughness. So are you going to roll 40 NPCs to see if one of them makes it or are you going to use a simpler mechanic which has about the same chance of dealing the same damage to a marine?

I'm intrigued. Why is it ever been a problem before unless you (the generic you) wanted it to be?

Because there are a lot of systems where the PCs can encounter foes that are only a danger due to their numbers. And those same systems usually treat every single combatant as an entity with its own set of actions per round, similar to a PC. What results from this? If we assume combat turn length to be proportional to number of participants, then when the five PCs fight fourtyfive instead of five enemies, combat becomes five times as long - which turns it rather tedious.

The only exception I've seen was 7th Sea, where fighting huge numbers of mooks is a genre staple so equivalent mechanics (brute squads have one set of actions each) are implemented. 

Cifer said >>>

As the point I'm going to answer was best expressed in another reply of yours, I'll answer that one.

A shame.  I think that I covered your response in the previous post as you seem to have broadly repeated the "English Longbow" argument.  Suffice to say that I believe it is less elegant to scale damage up collectively than it is to improve the probability of scaring a "chink in the armour," that probability could be encompassed by "horde skill" rather than collective damage which has numerous problems as expressed.

Cifer said >>>

But there is an allowance for lasguns bypassing Marine Power Armour: it's called Righteous Fury.

Which I mention in the previous post, similarly pointing out that it doesn't really come down to anything more than treating the "horde" as little more than an chap that is firing an automatic rifle or high-RoF weapon.  Again, a little bit more elegant without the problematic interpretations.  YMMV, though.

Again, though, this is just based upon the commentary being made, with final criticisms only being made when the product is seen.  I'm not sure how "hordes" interplay with Single Mode and Team Awesome Mode or any of a number of other cinematic options that might be there to "speed up game play."  Just judged solely on how it is described?  I think that there is avenue for discussion, but no real definitive statements by anyone, whether they are pro- or con-horde as described.

Cifer said >>>

If we assume combat turn length to be proportional to number of participants, then when the five PCs fight fourtyfive instead of five enemies, combat becomes five times as long - which turns it rather tedious.

Ah, that will be why then.  I wasn't really making that assumptions, nor implying that the solution was entirely systemic.  Apologies, though, the question really didn't make that clear.

As mentioned in the previous post, however, if "horde" is more of a Team Awesome Mode (i.e. pertaining specifically to the operation of unit-level operations) then while I would still probably have done for another mechanic (probability of scoring a "armour chink" rather than multiplying damage to make it statistically more likely in any given round) then it might serve its function.  On a Single Mode game I merely point out that the rule becomes inherently more problematic.

Again, though, we don't know how the different modes blend together, relate to the simply use of "horde" mechanics (as presented) and any number of other different variables.  (It's hard to even comment on the information as presented in the Free RPG adventure/scenario...)

Kage

 Was it even specified that damage was straight-out multiplied? I think it will be best to put this debate on hiatus for the few days until Final Sanction is published and we can read for ourselves exactly what horde mechanics do.

Cifer said:

Indeed, hence one of the reasons that I said something akin to "... as presented."  If it acts as a force multiplier as presented by dvang, which is what the contention was about, then, yeah.  More elegant ways of doing it.  Even with access to the document, one imagines that there will more caveats and extra juicy crunch (errr...) in the main rulebook that might go some way to explaining or otherwise justifying the rule.  Again, not saying that it was bad, just that as presented there might have been some more elegant solutions or "fixes."  Waayyy too early to say that definitively.

Anyway, even that's fairly moot since I'm going to be buying it again.  Seeing how they handled the whole "Marine equipment" angle is going to be worth it if nothing else (and that I would doubt).

Thanks for taking this as a discussion and not an argument, Cifer.  Mucho appreciated. 

Kage

Kage2020 said:

Well, I'm not a huge fan of realism as a game design-concept, so I guess we have quite different viewpoints here. The number one reason why I think realism is a quite bad concept to discuss is that it's so very easy to argue points. What someone feels is realistic might feel unrealistic to another and so on.

To me it's way more realistic that there exists chunks in the armor and way for a even a lowly knifetoting cultist to damage a space marine than making the marines completely invulnerable to anything that cannot penetrate their armor. This is not for cinematic reasons, I just don't think 100% success rates in anything is very realistic (even less so in a sci-fi/fantasy setting). I also quite enjoy good abstractions of rules where you can avoid getting bogged down in detailed combat for hours (which I still think is one of the main points in having the horde rules). Granted, you're of course correct in that this could be done in some other way (that might be more realistic).

The single cultist has a chance of damaging the space marine by RF, what the horde rules seems to do is just to scale up the chance of extra damage occuring without having to do 100 dice rolls.

My insect example were perhaps not very relevant, I'm perfectly aware that the "damage multipliers" aren't really that simple in those cases :). My point was exactly the "English Longbow" effect, so just disregard my silly example.

Kage2020 said:

You're interpreting it wrong.

A knife wound does injure a Space Marine, it's just a minor injury that is easily ignored, just like a wasp sting- enough of them are going to start doing damage. The mechanics of the game treat it as though it does no damage, because that's the mechanics of the game, not because it's being realistic. You are arguing that you find one facet of the rules unrealistic  but ignoring the fact that the vast majority of the rules are equally unrealistic to allow them to support a game.

gruntl said >>>

Well, I'm not a huge fan of realism as a game design-concept, so I guess we have quite different viewpoints here.

Indeed.  And that's not a bad thing.  This is one of the reasons that I have multiply stated this as being the case-just because I'm not liking it doesn't mean that it doesn't work.  It's one of the reasons that I've suggested that, on the face of things, turning the "horde" into a big machine gun would seem to be a more elegant solution.  Again, though, as per my previous post, there is just wild speculation.  Any fuller criticism requires access to more detailed mechanics.  Another example would be the "Deathwatch Training" thing that basically gives them automatic Righteous Fury (if they roll the 10, that is).  That has me suspicious at the moment, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't work or that it is a bad mechanic.

The above is one of the reasons that I'm liking this thread at the moment.  It has been, for the most part, open discussion with very little sense that people are taking my comments as an attack on the product (which they are not) or it is felt that there should be a knee-jerk defense of the product.  It's just a bunch of nerds chatting about games and realising that preference shades into quite a lot of this discussion and that's fine.

gruntl said >>>

The number one reason why I think realism is a quite bad concept to discuss is that it's so very easy to argue points. What someone feels is realistic might feel unrealistic to another and so on.

I'm not sure that I agree with that, but fair enough if that is how you see it.  I respect both that and the honesty.

gruntl said >>>

To me it's way more realistic that there exists chunks in the armor and way for a even a lowly knifetoting cultist to damage a space marine than making the marines completely invulnerable to anything that cannot penetrate their armor.

Please don't misunderstand.  I too believe that power armour as "chinks" in it that can be exploited.  After all, we know about "bendium" from Gav Thorpe's Angels of Darkness.  All I have been suggesting boils down to a number of points: 

1. Scaling weapon damage in the "horde" to make them more of a threat strikes me, based on the information that we were given with the thread, as less elegant than treating it as little more than a machine gun and, for the sake of simplicity, just use a variation of automatic fire rules.  Then "skill" of the horde could determine the probability of "hitting the weak spot" in the armour.  (This is something that I feel that we're going to see in the full rules.  I doubt that the free adventure was dealing with, say, hordes of Eldar or Ork.)
2. Should we really feel afraid of making someone redundant?  Are a horde of knife-wielding lunatics really going to take out a tank?  Or people armed with 45's?

Perhaps this is my bias showing up once again.  I just don't see that it is necessary to make a "horde" of 5 year old children a serious threat to a Marine (I know, I know, it's a silly example).  That just seems too much of a tabletop wargame convention to me.  YMMV and the mileage is great wherever you're coming from, though.

gruntl said >>>

I also quite enjoy good abstractions of rules where you can avoid getting bogged down in detailed combat for hours (which I still think is one of the main points in having the horde rules). Granted, you're of course correct in that this could be done in some other way (that might be more realistic). 

I agree with regards to abstracted combat.  Please don't mistake the thrust of my discussion to be wanting more crunch, or to actually roll "40 times" for a horde.  Perish the thought.  I'm talking about the nature or elegance of the abstraction itself, something that once again we're probably not really going to be able to get to grips with until they release the full rules.

gruntl said >>>

The single cultist has a chance of damaging the space marine by RF, what the horde rules seems to do is just to scale up the chance of extra damage occuring without having to do 100 dice rolls.

Which is, if you recall, what I've been essentially saying.  Simply increasing damage by size of the "horde" is less elegant than increasing the probability of shots actually hitting that weakness in the armour and exploiting it.  Perhaps the game designers actually calculated all the statistics and the increased damage is based upon the average number of hits that go into Righteous Fury and the average damage done by Righteous Fury.  I'll be good with that, but at the same time I would stand by the points, above.

gruntl said >>>

My point was exactly the "English Longbow" effect, so just disregard my silly example.

Which is once again why I'm talking about treating the horde as a "machine gun" based upon what has been presented.

Evilgm said >>>

You're interpreting it wrong.

I thought that I was interpreting it in the context of my argument, which was ultimately that when dealing with Space Marines that scaling damage might not be as elegant as other approaches that are also supported in the rules.  I'm all for having a crunchy set of rules, but I don't see the need of creating new rules where it isn't really necessary.

Evilgm said >>>

You are arguing that you find one facet of the rules unrealistic but ignoring the fact that the vast majority of the rules are equally unrealistic to allow them to support a game.

Hmmmnn... If a rule breaks ones suspension of disbelief, does not that mean you should change the rule or ignore it?  You're right, though.  This is just one rule amongst many of the same kind, none of which make it less of a fun game.  

Kage

FYI, since the demo has been run... off the top of my head, the basic rules for Hordes are:

Hordes:

= 1 ranged attack per magitude multiple of 10. So, a magnitude 30 Horde makes 3 ranged attacks for example

= 1 attack against each opponent in melee

= +1d10 damage per magnitude multiple of 10. So, a Magnitude 30 horde will do (weapon damage) + 3d10, for example

= Attacks from a Horde cannot be dodged or parried

= A Horde must make a WP roll if they suffer 25% casualties in a single round, or else break and flee (except for Disciplined Hordes)

= A Horde suffers a -10 to WP rolls once they get below 50 (except for Disciplined Hordes)

= A Horde auto breaks when they get below 25% magnitude.

Thanks for posting the update, dvang.  As far as I can see, that pretty much confirms what I was saying, at least in my mind.  Still doesn't make it a bad rule for speeding up combat, though, as stated numerously. 

Kage

dvang said:

This has a maximum of +2d10.

dvang said:

This only applies to melee attacks - a character can dodge or parry ranged attacks from hordes as normal.

dvang said:

Other way around. A Disciplined Horde (that is, any Horde given the Disciplined trait) ignores the -10 WP for being below half strength and is not automatically routed when below 25% in total - they still take the WP test if they suffer 25% casualties in one round.

Thanks for the quick summary dvang.

To me, those rules sound quite good. The +1d10 per 10 magnitude (max 2d10) essentially gives you a couple of free Righteous fury rolls for being a horde (1d10 per 10 seems to match the 10% chance of getting RF normally, although the fact that damage is capped and no confirmation roll necessary makes it tricky to compare directly) . I think think this is a smooth way of averaging out the damage received from 30-60 attacks, instead of having to make all those rolls.

Just doing some back-of-the-envelope calculations (mainly for my own sake, please ignore it if you find such things boring).

No horde rules:

30 enemies with knifes, each with SB:+3 and WS 30. One attack per enemy.
Damage roll: 1d5+3 (RF on 10)
Mean damage per attack: 5.78 (no RF), 10.78 (1 RF), 15.78 (2 RF), 20.78 (3 RF)
(.78 rather than .5 due to 1d5 being rolled with a d10, 9 not being RF)

Total soak for a space marine: 16 (from the extra characters). To third order in RF,
=> 30*(0.3*(0.97*(5.78-16)+0.029*(10.78-16)+0.00087*(15.78-16)+0.00003*(20.78-16)+...))= [damage cannot be negative]=
=0.001

No threat at all, you'd have be to extremely unlucky to get injured.

With horde rules (as interpreted by dvangs post above):

30 enemies with knifes, a magnitude 30 horde. Still WS 30 and SB3. One attack for all of them (melee vs one opponent).
Damage roll: 1d5+3+2d10 (can you get RF on the 2d10?, assuming no, the expression becomes so cumbersome if I have to include that ;) )
Mean damage: 16.78 (no RF), 21.78 (1 RF), 26.78 (2 RF), 31.78 (3 RF)

Total soak is still 16,
=> 0.3*(0.97*(16.78-16)+0.029*(21.78-16)+0.00087*(26.78-16)+0.00003*(31.78-16)+...)=
=0.28

Damage is up by a factor of 300 by using the horde rules (even more when considering dodge/parries). It's still not a lot of damage though, a space marine will not be hindered at all by such a horde unless being very unlucky.

Doing the same with better equipped cultists, using mono-swords (1d10+SB, 2pen), same WS

No horde rules:
Total damage:
30*(0.3*(0.97*(8.5-14)+0.029*(18.5-14)+0.00087*(28.5-14)+0.00003*(38.5-14)+...))= 1.29

With horde rules (as interpreted by dvangs post above):
Total damage:
0.3*(0.97*(19.5-14)+0.029*(29.5-14)+0.00087*(39.5-14)+0.00003*(49.5-14)+...)= 1.74

assuming they have ranged weapons with manstopper ammo (1d10+3, 2 pen).
BS 30.

No horde rules:
Total damage:
30*(0.3*(0.97*(8.5-14)+0.029*(18.5-14)+0.00087*(28.5-14)+0.00003*(38.5-14)+...))= 1.29

With horde rules (as interpreted by dvangs post above):
Total damage:
3*0.3*(0.97*(19.5-14)+0.029*(29.5-14)+0.00087*(39.5-14)+0.00003*(49.5-14)+...)= 5.23

The horde rules seem to affect the total damage a fair bit. The breaking of hordes will of course make them a bit weaker, but still it's quite clear that the horde ruleset makes individual enemies stronger by allowing them to form hordes. I personally don't see a problem with this, but I guess this is an issue which some might find problematic. Please point out if I've made any errors in my calculation, I'm not very surprised if I have.

edit: corrected some of those error already

I am not going to go into the Maths, I read the rules and adventure last night and I like the horde rules. I like the fact that a SM walking slowly towards a Horde of PDF can get shredded. I would have loved to have used these rules in some of the Purge the Unclean adventures that call for the PC's to be mobbed. Back to the wall mowing down dozens while the ammo starts to run out. I think it will make for the dramatic moments and artwork that I associate with WH40K.

The adventure itself I think is OK, My worry is that the adventures could become quite samey. I will probably use Deathwatch as an interlude to some of my DH games. The players like to be able to just walk in and kick a** once in a while.

Thomas

gruntl said:

Your calculations seem to assume that 1 NPC means 1 magnitude for the horde. Could you calculate an approximate number of NPCs per magnitude to get the damage roughly equal between a horde and rolling for each NPC ?

Knowing the magnitude to NPC count ratio will be helpful for dealing with army vs army combat in Rogue Trader.

Oh that's right of course, one magnitude is not necessarily one enemy. But it's pretty easy to rescale, just multiply the resulting damage from the non-horde calculations by the number of NPC's that go into one magnitude. E.g., if 5 cultists make one magnitude the total damage for a magnitude 30 horde should be calculated by doing 150 attacks instead of 30. The final damage for the mono-sword cultists then go from 1.3 to 6.5.

The exact number of npcs/mag needed to get the same total damage out depends on the equipment of course. Just divide the value for total damage for the horde rules with the damage from the non-horde rules to get a number. E.g., for the mono-sword cultists above, the figure is 1.34*(number of people in melee with the horde). For the ranged horde, the figure is 4.1. For the knife-horde the figure is ~300*(number of people in melee with the horde).

So yeah, my comparison is a bit pointless. Depending on how large a horde is in real numbers you can get whatever figures you want out. But it seems that worries that the horde rules will make weak enemies scale up too strongly is quite unfounded. They get a bit stronger if you assume 1 mag=1 NPC, but the rules say that one magnitude "may represent tens, scores or even hundreds".

I don't think it matters that much. It's an intentional abstraction, so use it to make abstract whatever you want. It's there so low-level enemies can threaten tough player characters, and it succeeds in that design goal quite well.

BYE