Greetings fellow Battle-Brothers,

today we played a little bit with the game mechanics and tried a horde.

In the corebook is written that a horde can use the same abilities as the base creature like swift attack. We asked us if a horde can make the same attack actions like an all out attack in melee? 

Best regards,

TechVoid. 

Yep, it can. Hordes can carry out any combat action a single person can.

MILLANDSON said:

Except aim, the rulebook mentions.

Thank you so far.

My next question contains Blast Weapons ( page 359 ):

I wonder about the given example: "So a grenade with Blast (4) will automatically hit four times if successfully lobbed into the Horde." 

What do they mean with successfully lobbed? A successfull BF test? Or just the possibility to throw it into the Horde like being able to overcome the distance, no hindrance and so on?

I tend to not require a BF test based on the following:

What happens if you miss? You have to roll on the miss table and the grenade goes off course 1d5 meters. Thats all?

Let's take a full-auto burst. You can hit different targets standing no more than 2 meters apart. Oh thats nearly the average of 1d5 meters. And by taking the full-auto burst no one cares where exactly every enemy in the horde is standing? You just reduce the magnitude by one plus degree of success.

So why should anyone care where exactly an enemy is standing when you throw a grenade? The grenade just explodes and there just "will be four enemys standing within the blast radius".

What do you mean?

Best regards,

Tech Void.

What about reducing the damage incurred on the horde's magnitude by the result of the scatter roll?  That way if you roll miserable on the scatter, it bounces clear of the horde, but if you roll close to accurate, it still hits.

The problem I have with no skill check is that hitting a horde is already easier than hitting anything else due to the huge to hit bonuses you get.  To me, if you're that unlucky, or you're that far away that the bonuses and penaltes make you, then, well, you miss.

Here is a question, is +60 still the highest bonus you can get in combat?  And do other people work out the bonuses and penalties before capping at 60 like I do?  (for example, you hvae a +100 to hit due to crazy circumstances, but it's windy and wet, so say you get a -20, the total then would be +80, then reduced to 60 due to the max cap.  Rather than reducing the bonus to 60 and *then* reducing the 20 from bad weather).

TechVoid said:

Well, I would suppose that you might actually need to declare where you are lobbing the grenade, within the horde. If you have a large enough horde, and you lob it directly into their center, it might be the case that you can't miss the horde, even with scatter. 

On the other hand, you might have a horde which is swirling around your battle brothers. You might want to throw the grenade onto the edge of the horde, where it has little or no chance of scattering onto your allies. Then, the scatter, or the dodge movement, of the members of the horde, might allow them to get out of the way of the blast. If the blast scatters so that only 1 meter of the horde overlaps one meter of the blast, then a dodge roll could protect them entirely. 

I would agree that in most ideal cases for using a grenade (where the horde is clearly defined, and there are no friendlies or targets which need to be protected in the horde, you probably will be able to automatically hit the horde. However, this is the Deathwatch. When are things ever ideal?

Charmander said:

Seconded. I've been wondering this. I assumed it is the final modification - but clarity would be nice!

TechVoid said:

I read that to mean that if you throw a grenade and when it gose off if it damages the horde you get the extra damage so if you throw a grenade in and you do no damage no extra damage