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.