Deathwatch Field Test: Psychic Powers, Ambushes, and more

[PensacolaWarhammer]

My group sat down and did a small field test of Deathwatch this weekend. I have the full story up on Pensacola Warhammer. The quick and dirty of it is that it didn't go so well. Everybody came away with the feeling that something was wrong. I created a simple search and rescue mission in a small section of city. Between me and some of the people playing we had miniatures and a board to play everything out. I went with a 1 inch equals 1 meter scale. I tried my hand at creating an ambush situation. When combat came around that's where things devolved quickly. A Mag. 30 Hormaguant horde and a Shrike where in the buildings across the street and were on top of the kill team before they could do anything. We botched the rules for damaging a horde particularly with a Librarian, so the horde killed a player character and was challenging the others before it was destroyed. The Shrike alone almost killed the rest of the team.

I ran the scenario again last night but did a 1 centimeter to 1 meter scale. I also factored in the rules for harming a horde with bolters and a psychic flame attack. The encounter was much easier: almost too easy. A single player character only suffered 6 wounds and 1 point of Insanity.

My questions to the community:
1. How do you handle/simulate ambushes on a kill team squad?
2.If you play with miniatures, what scale do you use?
3. Our Librarian is a level 3. If she uses a pushed Avenger on a horde, does it count as 6 hits on the horde along with 1d5+8 hits that a flame weapon does to a horde?

I would love to here suggestions.

[blackoption]

Deathwatch games are supposed to be challenging. That being said, clever use of terrain and tactics can turn the tide in any battle

 

1. Ambushes are usually the means of which I try to engage my players. But I usually give them a chance to spot an ambush if they cleverly use either tactics or spot checks.

 

2.  I normally run 1 inch/square equals 5 meters. But that is just my personal preferrance.

 

3. If I remember correctly, Avenger uses has the Flame Special rule.  If that is so, you need to determine the max distance for his attack and that distance is what is used to determine horde damage.  The Push in this case only helps with the increase of damage i believe, but I will need to pull out my books and double check.

 

Also remember, when facing hordes, Explosive damage is your friend (Explosive damage causes an additional hit per attack. Coupled with storm quality weapons, I've seen storm bolters clear hordes as if it were nobody's business.) Also, certain talents are also very useful (storm of iron, whirl wind of death, ect). Usually, the best way for a group of players to deal with a horde is let the devastator with the heavy bolter chew through it. Conversly, Melta/Lascannon/plasma are not as useful against hordes as bolters and grenades are. Now, if you really hate your players.... send them against an elite horde.

[PensacolaWarhammer]

Thanks for the pointers. I ran the same game last night by myself. A round or so of concentrated bolter fire from one player character took the horde down enough that the Librarian had little trouble flaming the rest.

 

I'm wanting to use ambushes and traps the same way, but don't really know how to handle them. What do I do to set one up? When looking for an ambush, how far can the squad see? What happens when they don't spot the ambush? and so on.

 

My learning curve is reaching the point of trying to strike a balance between difficulty and entertaining, which is the eternal struggle. We are setting up to do another practice run this weekend.

[Jareddm]

Avenger is a psychic power and so will always deal magnitude equal to the psy rating being used.  The fact that it happens to work like a flamer doesn't apply against hordes.  However it does affect an area so it would deal 6+1d10 points of magnitude damage.

 

For Ambushes, you'd really want something actually capable of hiding.  A horde of hormagaunts isn't really going to work.  Units listed as Elites, such as the genestealers are significantly better at performing ambushes.  Though there's a good chance they'll also rip your party to shreds.

 

Also, were you making sure that the horde got fewer attacks as it took damage?  

 

Most importantly, above all else, make sure you're using the errata.  There have been major changes including completely revamped weapon stats that make a fairly big impact on the game.

[Cmdr Shepard]

I don't have DW yet but I have both Rogue Trader and Black Crusader so I can give you a small suggestion on the ambush issue.

 

Usually a good way to play ambushes is to make use of the concealment/silent move skills. They can be played as a opposed test with the PCs awareness/scrutiny (depending on the system you are playing) if the PCs didn't win the test the count as surprised. Just an option. :)

 

About the scale: it's all up to you and it depends on how large you want your battlefield to be. Rulebooks suggest 1 inch "square" equals a meter, so if you are not using squared maps 1" on your tape measure equals to 1 meter. Keep in mind this will create a rather close quarter battle styled encounter and the characters will often get the bonus for being at half range.

You may alter the scale according to your own needs and you can even use different scales for each encounter :)

[blackoption]

Thanks for the correction about avenger and flame special rule... i'd forgotten that.

 

And I have to reiterate what Jareddem said about the errant.

[PensacolaWarhammer]

I have the errata, and have gone over it a couple of times. However, like any new game, there is a lot of information to sort through and remember. Our experience, I believe, was a huge mixture of inexperience, poor rolling, scale, and forgetting rules. The 1:1 scale did make for a very close quarter encounter, but we where fighting on a city street. I don't exactly classify that as close quarter. Although, I'll certainly make more of an effort to remember and apply modifiers.  As for ambushes, I was looking for a way to handle them as they are not really covered in the book.

 

My current plan is to make a player's handbook. That way the players can look over what actions they can take, what each piece of wargear does, how much each piece of equipment is, etc. That way we're not taking most of our time flipping back and forth in the rule book.

 

@Jareddm

Thanks for the clarification on Avenger. I wasn't clear on whether the bonus magnitude damage from a flame attack was added or not.

Edited June 12, 2013 by PensacolaWarhammer