Black Crusade (WH40k RPG)

[Ritterin Sophia]

So they recently announced the newest 40k RPG and I thought some people on here play Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, and Death Watch might be interested.

It's called Black Crusade, the focus if you haven't read the link yet is Chaos.

Two things stand out. The first being the statement that you can play Chaos Marines or Cultists, which begs the question is this going to be a codex with different sections for each individual level of play or will it be multiple books that spend most of the book telling me all the rules I already know from the other RPGs?

The other is the promise of possibly attaining Daemonhood, which makes me wonder if this is going to segue into another new level of play that would include Ordo Malleus Grey Knights as PCs?

I really enjoy the 40k RPGs so it should be interesting.

[HMS Sophia]

Someone posted a link on our local club forum, and it looks pretty interesting
However, I am sick of shelling out forty-odd quid for a book that is mostly rules I already know. I understand the reasoning, but it's damned annoying, and this will really have to draw me in if it wants a sale. For a start I'm not interested in chaos marines, so that a point against

[DPDarkPrimus]

Honestly their tagline about it being the ultimate resource for creating compelling villains for the other 40kRP games is the main reason I'm interested in it - that and the copious amounts of fluff they put in the books.

[Imperial Overlord]

Two things stand out. The first being the statement that you can play Chaos Marines or Cultists, which begs the question is this going to be a codex with different sections for each individual level of play or will it be multiple books that spend most of the book telling me all the rules I already know from the other RPGs?

The head bad guys in the Eisenhorn/Ravenor books would be classified as "cultists" and they weren't shmucks. Enough sorcery/resources/social skills/chaos gifts will balance the scales with the brute power of Chaos Marines. Or, in Rogue Trader terms, the Arch-Militant can outfight the Seneshal but the classes play on the same power just in different niches.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Eh, I don't think so, though obviously you're welcome to disagree. Remember each of this RPGs is supposed to be compliant with rules from the ones that came prior. In Dark Heresy a Rogue Trader character starts out at the equivalent of Rank 5 and a Death Watch character at Rank 8. Then there's the matter of the fluff, whilst you do indeed get powerful cultists of the Chaos Space Marines only the Alpha Legion treat them as anything other than slaves, even then it's never as a peer. Of course that also brings into the matter that each of the RPGs has their own flavour, between Dark Heresy and Death Watch it's simple enough to admit that one is certainly more intrigue based and the other deals more with combat. From a marketing perspective it's also incompatible, when you tell your fans that they can play as cultist and rise through the ranks I don't think starting off as one of the most powerful cultists in the Galaxy is going to mesh well when you've already shown you can make a fun experience with significantly more 'mortal' characters.

From my perspective, though, I'd feel pretty cheated if my character just started off a campaign as equal to a CSM.

[Sinewmire]

Then there's the matter of the fluff, whilst you do indeed get powerful cultists of the Chaos Space Marines only the Alpha Legion treat them as anything other than slaves, even then it's never as a peer.

Whilst the Alpha Legion treat their low-level cultists as worms beneath contempt, in order to crush their self-worth and have them desperate for the bully's friendship, the Alpha Legion also have the best spy, communications and covert operations of any of the traitor legions. This means, as some point, they require a certain amount of trust in the cultists and certainly a few favoured, proven loyal, proven capable agents who form the crucial points of the web. A guerrila can only remain hidden if he has the support of the people around him.

As a cultist, just because they call you scum doesn't mean you have to be a fawning lackey without ambitions of your own. In Eisenhorn, we have examples of people standing up to Chaos Space Marines.
Spoiler

Dazzo is such a potent psyker that he stands up to Mandragore in a direct confrontation.
Lord Oberon Glaw clearly believes himself to be Mandragore's superior (presumably part of his high status and upbringing as a noble).
Mandragore himself is not there as a leader, but as a representative of the Emperor's Children who are sponsoring house Glaw.
Right there we have a basic three-man party. A Psyker, a Noble/Rogue Trader, and a Chaos Space Marine.

[Imperial Overlord]

It's just one book. They aren't going to have three different power levels of play. They don't have the space for that. If players are going to be assembling armies and provoking revolutions they aren't going to be starting at Dark Heresy power level.

[Feil]

This is the first book in the Dark Heresy line that I'm completely uninterested in. I have no intention of ever playing or DMing a pro-Chaos game, and I ignore the rules too much for the ability to craft antagonists from the ground up to be any kind of lure.

I'm also pretty tired of the newer entrants to the DH line in general. The rules seem to fall apart at higher power levels, requiring more and more that you game the rules to make things happen, rather than just playing the game. And the whole line is bizarrely tilted away from some of the iconic elements of the setting, like fighting with a sword and a pistol, charging the enemy while firing away with your gun(s), and vehicular combat (although I hear that a recent Rogue Trader book *finally* added vehicles to the game).

[Serafina]

Feil, vehicle rules have been around for ages - first as a free supplement for Dark Heresy, then in a Rogue Trader sourcebook and now some more in a Deathwatch rule book.
All the iconic elements you are naming are right in the game - sword&pistol is not always the perfect fighting style, but generally quite efficient for more experienced characters. Firing on the movement is also possible, even more so for Space Marines - and vehicular combat a well, see above.

Higher power levels CAN be problematic, yes. IMO, the main problems are the following two:
- Space Marines outshine everyone else in combat almost automatically.
- The Ascension careers for Dark Heresy are poorly balanced against each others and some are quite broken (tough that brokeness is easily fixable). Not too much of a problem tough, given that it is hardly entirely about combat.

If i have one complaint about this game line, it's that the intercompatability is far lower than i wish it would be. You CAN have a mixed group of Rogue Trader, Dark Heresy and Deathwatch characters. But the Rogue Trader characters will be generally underpowered except for their exclusive specialities (navigators, spaceship handling) and won't be able to advance into the higher experience regions. The Deathwatch characters will outshine everyone else in combat - so much that you can't savely take any other characters into any combat that challenges them. Meanwhile, a high-experience, Ascension Dark Heresy character will outshine everyone else as far as skills go.
Now i'm fine with the characters being better at each specific thing, it's no different than using different classes. Dark Heresy characters being the investigative ones, Rogue Trader characters being good at large-scale manipulation and as leaders and Deathwatch Space Marines at combat is fine and fitting. The problem is just that the discrepancies are too large.

In order to fix that, the following would be good:
-Give Rogue Trader characters a way to advance their careers beyond 35.000 XPs - all others can already go up to 50.000
-Slightly adjust the cost of advances in the higher ranks of Dark Heresy careers.
-Give Rogue Trader and Dark Heresy-characters a way to be at least somewhat competetive in combat when compared to Deathwatch-characters. Adjusting plasma and melta weapons would be a way to do that - but more importantly, they would have to be able to gain SOME survivability. Giving them the ability to lead hordes and use them as shields would be one flavorfull option to do that.

[DPDarkPrimus]

This is the first book in the Dark Heresy line that I'm completely uninterested in.

There's your mistake right there. It's not part of the line of Dark Heresy books. It is a separate Warhammer 40,000 Role-playing Game, just as Rogue Trader and Deathwatch are separate.

[Feil]

How exactly do you fire on the move in 40krp (without the aid of house rules)? As I read it, you can take a burst action while standing still, or a single shot action and move your base movement, or double your base movement if you have a special talent. Have they added rules for moving and firing?

[Imperial Overlord]

-Give Rogue Trader characters a way to advance their careers beyond 35.000 XPs - all others can already go up to 50.000

Really not a priority. It takes a long time to get to anything close to 35K.

-Give Rogue Trader and Dark Heresy-characters a way to be at least somewhat competetive in combat when compared to Deathwatch-characters. Adjusting plasma and melta weapons would be a way to do that - but more importantly, they would have to be able to gain SOME survivability. Giving them the ability to lead hordes and use them as shields would be one flavorfull option to do that.

They already are. Vindicare Assassins are the ridiculously lethal when compared to Deathwatch Marines. There are already psychic powers that do more than enough damage to kill marines and a host of high powered weaponry.

How exactly do you fire on the move in 40krp (without the aid of house rules)? As I read it, you can take a burst action while standing still, or a single shot action and move your base movement, or double your base movement if you have a special talent. Have they added rules for moving and firing?

Deathwatch added rules for moving and firing. Essentially you fire at a penalty if you combine a move action with a semi or full auto attack.

[Feil]

That's a nice change, then
Thanks.

[Serafina]

How exactly do you fire on the move in 40krp (without the aid of house rules)? As I read it, you can take a burst action while standing still, or a single shot action and move your base movement, or double your base movement if you have a special talent. Have they added rules for moving and firing?

The rules for "Full Auto Burst" and "Semi-Auto Burst" in Rogue Trader and Deathwatch state the following:

A character using this Action with a Pistol- or Basic-class weapon may also move up to his Agility Bonus in metres. However, if he does so, he gains no bonus to his Ballistic Skill Test.

So essentially, you can fire on the move with ever pistol or rifle that is not single-shot only, but you won't hit as well.

When you are playing Deathwatch, your Space Marines can also use the "Bolter Assault" squad offensive power and get to make a charge action and can make a single attack with a pistol or basic ranged weapon at the same time, or throw a grenade. "Fire for Effect" also allows them to fire their weapons (single shot) as a reaction, and "Squad Advance" allows them to make a Tactical Advance as a reaction - both allow combinations of shooting and moving.

Really not a priority. It takes a long time to get to anything close to 35K.

You know, not ever group plays their characters from the ground up.
Also, when playing a combination of all three, you'll start at 14.000 XP (the minimum for Deathwatch) anyway, and XP-gain is quite rapid at those levels.

They already are. Vindicare Assassins are the ridiculously lethal when compared to Deathwatch Marines. There are already psychic powers that do more than enough damage to kill marines and a host of high powered weaponry.

Both are also known to be pretty damn broken.
The Vindicare is only comparable because he can automatically dodge at least 8 attacks per round. Which means that NO ONE can hit him in melee - you would have to surround him with at least three characters who all have at least three attack to even scratch him in melee.
The psy-powers are similary broken, and unless you break them they won't do much against Marines. Besides, the objective of balance is not "can my character kill your character", but "can my character compete with your character against our enemies". And any non-psyker, non-vindicare will get utterly annihilated in a Deathwatch combat environment.
As for "high-powered weapons", outside of melee weapons, Space Marine weapons are always better. A standard Space Marine Bolt pistol does more damage than a non-astartes heavy bolter.

I'm fine with Space Marines being better in combat. The main problem is that it is very hard to have, say, an Inquisitor accompany some Space Marines into battle. A toughness bonus of 5, 9 points of armor and ~20 wounds are not that much when standard enemies can dish out undodgeable 3D10+2 damage, not to mention nasty stuff like Genestealers.
Blood of Martyrs has taken a good step by introducing a couple of ways for non-astartes characters to get unnatural toughness, but i don't think it's good enough yet.

[Serafina]

Oh, and psionics - the Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader/Deathwatch rules are not actually incompatible, but it's really annoying that they use a completely different system.


Well, right now i am occassionally playing in a 40K-roleplaying group that includes characters from all three systems. We started at around 20.000 XP and are now at about 35.000 (yes, it's a high-powered campaign).
We just had to house-rule a lot of things in order to make it work properly:
- DH-psykers are using the Rogue Trader powers, and acquire their powers in a similar way (buy with XP depending on the power). Pyrokinetics and Biomancy were re-written in order to fit that, Telepathy/Divination/Telekinetics were just replaced with their Rogue Trader equivalents.
- Rogue Trader characters above their XP-limit will get free access to alternate careers and can choose an ascended career from whom they can take advances, in order to keep up with DH-careers.
- Non-Astartes can take astartes weapon craftmanships (+1 damage at exceptional, +2 at master) and we adjusted the statistics of meltas and plasma guns to astartes-level.
-We changed some of the Ascension-carrers. The Vindicare-assasin only get's one dodge reactions whom he can use against attacks he could not normally dodge, instead of more than half a dozen extra reactions. The Crusader can parry ranged attacks with his shield and get's Stalwart Defense as an advance option (from Deathwatch). The Death Cult Assassin special abilities were improved. The Hierophant is using the faith powers from Blood of Martyrs and get's free fate points to spend on faith powers each encounter. He can also extend faith powers to others characters. The Storm Trooper can now use any Hellgun as an accurate weapon, can get felling on it's hellgun later on and get's extra boni with special weapons such as plasma guns.
-A lot of equipment was changed in order to resolve contradictions between the versions.
- Ascended characters (including Rogue Traders) get a refund when they take an ascended skill or talent which replaces skills or talents they already have (it never made sense that an Inquisitor who has no forbidden knowledge skilsl can get forbidden lore mastery for the same XP as one who already has mastered most of them).
-Ascended psy powers can no longer get their cost reduced by sacrificing old powers, but got a general cost reduction in exchange.
-Non-astartes characters can lead friendly hordes. Effectivelly, they can only be targeted in melee, with sniper weapons and get randomly hit by explosives, and they can make command checks in order to make their horde perform better. Some talents also grant boni to their horde, mostly on morale and such.
-Inquisiton-characters get personal retinues (such as a Storm Trooper squad for a Storm Trooper character) where appropriate, while Rogue Trader characters get personal bodyguards of their choosing and get access to vehicles and larger forces where possible.
- Inquisition characters stick with their Influence, Rogue Traders with their Profit and Space Marines are stuck with their Requisition system. Trading of equipment amongst each other is somewhat limited (tough not by strict rules).

Now what does all of that accomplish?
-Rogue Trader and Dark Heresy characters are roughly comparable to each other. They are still not prime combatants on their own, but they are good for their skills and such.
-They can survive in combat alongside Space Mariness as long as they can lead other troops. It's flavorful and it works.
-A lot of bugs in the system were fixed.

By the way, due to the change in psionics, i am actually playing one of the characters that can keep up with Space Marines to an limited extend. I am basically using precognition in order to boost my weapon skill and i rely on parrying enemy melee attacks in order to relaliate with a force sword. I still can't keep up with Space Marines in any other combat situation than one-on-one duels.

[Imperial Overlord]

Also, when playing a combination of all three, you'll start at 14.000 XP (the minimum for Deathwatch) anyway, and XP-gain is quite rapid at those levels.

No it isn't. Both RT and DW use a 500xp for a full session. Even starting over 10K it's a long, long time at that rate to reach 35K. It's not a priority for RT's designers that they design 35K+ career advances for people who have decided to start their characters near the end of the chain.

The Vindicare is only comparable because he can automatically dodge at least 8 attacks per round. Which means that NO ONE can hit him in melee - you would have to surround him with at least three characters who all have at least three attack to even scratch him in melee.
The psy-powers are similary broken, and unless you break them they won't do much against Marines. Besides, the objective of balance is not "can my character kill your character", but "can my character compete with your character against our enemies". And any non-psyker, non-vindicare will get utterly annihilated in a Deathwatch combat environment.

Plenty of psi powers work effectively at the Marine combat environment. Yes some of them scale ridiculously and the Vindicare is hideously broken, but Ascension level group will start the game with more Dodge, (and frequently more dodges) and more force fields than a Deathwatch group.

As for "high-powered weapons", outside of melee weapons, Space Marine weapons are always better. A standard Space Marine Bolt pistol does more damage than a non-astartes heavy bolter.

Of course Marine weapons are mostly better than conventional weapons. That's not a problem for guys armed with xeno and Imperial uber tech, which happens to include Inquisition and Rogue Trader groups. And that's without the options for legions of troops which come with Ascension and RT games.

Blood of Martyrs has taken a good step by introducing a couple of ways for non-astartes characters to get unnatural toughness, but i don't think it's good enough yet.

No, that's actually a bad idea. Unnatural Toughness is fairly broken on non Daemonic critters. It allows naked Space Marines to laugh off most lasgun fire and even with the Black Carapace that's not what should be occurring. The system is stuck with it but spreading it around to PCs who aren't Space Marines is a bad idea.

[Zinegata]

New previews are out. There will be no careers in Black Crusade - you can go into any skill or talent you wish as long as you have the prereqs.

Looks kinda cool.

[Serafina]

Eh, since this thread is up again anyway...

New previews are out. There will be no careers in Black Crusade - you can go into any skill or talent you wish as long as you have the prereqs.

Looks kinda cool.

Yes, it's a good idea. I actually like how they vary their career system:
-trees that split up in Dark Heresy (choose one of several paths)
-Ascension-paths in Ascension (progress to a new career path)
-Alternate Career Ranks in both Rogue Trader and Dark Heresy (replace one rank with alternate options)
-The ability to select from multiple lists (two general ones, one chapter, one career) in Deathwatch
-Cell-directives that add rank-independent purchase options in Dark Heresy
-A similar system in Deathwatch - spend a lot of XP, get new abilities and new purchase options



Anyway, to answer a couple of points:

No it isn't. Both RT and DW use a 500xp for a full session. Even starting over 10K it's a long, long time at that rate to reach 35K. It's not a priority for RT's designers that they design 35K+ career advances for people who have decided to start their characters near the end of the chain.

You're forgetting that you can earn more than that if your GM isn't just using the simple method.

Plenty of psi powers work effectively at the Marine combat environment. Yes some of them scale ridiculously and the Vindicare is hideously broken, but Ascension level group will start the game with more Dodge, (and frequently more dodges) and more force fields than a Deathwatch group.

Have you ever actually played it? Damage evasion (dodge/forcefields), damage reduction (armor/toughness) and wounds are three different things and NOT interchangable. Evasion is not reliable enough, most Ascension-characters will get pulverized by a single hit from a DW-horde if they get hit. Sure, you might be able to avoid 75% of all hits - that still means that you can die from the first hit in battle against a mediocre horde which Marines could slaughter utterly.
You could rely heavily on cover, but that is not an option against melee enemies.

Of course Marine weapons are mostly better than conventional weapons. That's not a problem for guys armed with xeno and Imperial uber tech, which happens to include Inquisition and Rogue Trader groups. And that's without the options for legions of troops which come with Ascension and RT games.

Xeno-tech is NOT an option for everyone - some people do NOT want to play borderline-heretics. Archeotech suffers many drawbacks such as range, ammo capacity, recharge or other negative qualties. Even then, you'll be barely on par with Space Marines, especially since their Bolt-weapons can take good alternate ammo.

No, that's actually a bad idea. Unnatural Toughness is fairly broken on non Daemonic critters. It allows naked Space Marines to laugh off most lasgun fire and even with the Black Carapace that's not what should be occurring. The system is stuck with it but spreading it around to PCs who aren't Space Marines is a bad idea.

A standard Space Marine has a Toughness bonus of 8. Most will upgrade this to 10. A basic lasgun does 1D10+3 damage in the hands of a basic grunt. Yes, this means that the Marine will shrug of most shots, but in large volumes he is hardly immune. This is even more true when you use the Horde-rules from Deathwatch.

Blood of Martyrs has a nice piece of equipment that grants' Unnatural Toughness x2. We've given it to every appropriate character, especially since most of them are respected members of the Ecclesiarchy anyway. There are also other options to get it, and they're really doing wonders for survivability - it's no longer "oh, bad forcefield roll, i'll lie on the ground bleeding for the rest of combat".
Again, damage soaking (armor, toughness, wounds) and evasion (dodge, parry, fields) are two different things and not interchangable. Without some modifications, most non-Marine characters do not have enough of the former which means that a bad roll can ruin their day, even when facing a below-average Deathwatch threat.

[Imperial Overlord]

No it isn't. Both RT and DW use a 500xp for a full session. Even starting over 10K it's a long, long time at that rate to reach 35K. It's not a priority for RT's designers that they design 35K+ career advances for people who have decided to start their characters near the end of the chain.

You're forgetting that you can earn more than that if your GM isn't just using the simple method.

500 is the rough amount. If your GM gives away far more than the average amount per session and starts you well into your careers, you're not playing anything close to a standard game. That's fine, but there's no reason for FFG to prioritize servicing nonstandard games. It takes a huge amount of time to max out careers under the standard system and there are plenty of other things for FFG to work on.

Have you ever actually played it? Damage evasion (dodge/forcefields), damage reduction (armor/toughness) and wounds are three different things and NOT interchangable. Evasion is not reliable enough, most Ascension-characters will get pulverized by a single hit from a DW-horde if they get hit. Sure, you might be able to avoid 75% of all hits - that still means that you can die from the first hit in battle against a mediocre horde which Marines could slaughter utterly.
You could rely heavily on cover, but that is not an option against melee enemies.

I've run all three games. Armor, dodge, cover and force fields are all different ways to mitigate damage, but they are all damage mitigation methods. Total parity is not the goal. Two weeks ago I had an NPC Explorator tank damage far more effectively than most Deathwatch Marines could. A Chaos Space Marine is going to be the king of personal combat and that's fine. What's required is that he doesn't grossly outperform other characters and make the combats ludicrous. The tools to prevent that already exist.

Xeno-tech is NOT an option for everyone - some people do NOT want to play borderline-heretics. Archeotech suffers many drawbacks such as range, ammo capacity, recharge or other negative qualties. Even then, you'll be barely on par with Space Marines, especially since their Bolt-weapons can take good alternate ammo.

It's not a problem for Radicals, Rogue Traders, and guys with Imperial Hypertech. It's also not a problem for Chaos scum who will use daemonic weaponry and dark tech in a heart beat. Anyone who plays a mixed game with Space Marines needs to deal with the fact that brute strength and toughness is the Marines bag and that a gigantic post human with pimped out power armour is going to be carrying more conventional firepower than anyone else.

A standard Space Marine has a Toughness bonus of 8. Most will upgrade this to 10. A basic lasgun does 1D10+3 damage in the hands of a basic grunt. Yes, this means that the Marine will shrug of most shots, but in large volumes he is hardly immune. This is even more true when you use the Horde-rules from Deathwatch.

This doesn't address or refute my point. Horde rules exist to in part correct those deficiencies. Also, my experience from Deathwatch is that Marines will jack up their Toughness to the stratosphere and yes, will be pretty much immune to non horde lasguns while naked.

Blood of Martyrs has a nice piece of equipment that grants' Unnatural Toughness x2. We've given it to every appropriate character, especially since most of them are respected members of the Ecclesiarchy anyway. There are also other options to get it, and they're really doing wonders for survivability - it's no longer "oh, bad forcefield roll, i'll lie on the ground bleeding for the rest of combat".
Again, damage soaking (armor, toughness, wounds) and evasion (dodge, parry, fields) are two different things and not interchangable. Without some modifications, most non-Marine characters do not have enough of the former which means that a bad roll can ruin their day, even when facing a below-average Deathwatch threat.

You don't need to further wreck the game with more Unnatural Toughness because some fool wants a cross over game. Armour and toughness will mean that they can take some damage that isn't blocked by dodge, cover, and force fields and that's all that's required.

[Serafina]

You are aware that those games are somewhat meant to be cross-compatible? So far every book after Dark Herersy has contained a section in order to do so.

Also, you apear to be unaware of the fact that Horde damage is both undodgeable and unparryable. Force fields still work, but they only work about 50% of the time if you have good ones.
The main problem is not that Space Marines are combat specialists. The main problem is that it is near-suicidal to take non-Marine characters on a Deathwatch mission without them getting blown to shreds.

Your slightly-below-average Space Marine will be able to take about 6 hits from an magnitude-30 lasgun-equipped horde before he gets critical damage. If he is in cover, that number almost triples due to the way damage reduction scales.
A very tough Ascension-level character (based on a Guardsman or Battlesister) in good armor can only take about 4 hits from such a horde, and about 6 with an affordable force field (because yes, good ones are actually hard to get). However, that number only doubles due to scaling issues when in cover.
A non-combat character will only be able to take 2 or three such hits.
This only gets worse as the game progresses. A Marine can easily double the numbers above, more if he gets a force field on his own or Terminator armor. Non-Marines can't add that much more to it, especially those who are not combat specialists.

That's only for an easy horde. Other enemies are much worse, and we weren't even talking about a lucky series of good damage rolls here (two good hits from a horde will kill almost any non-Marine character while a Marine can take 3-4).
The issue is simply that characters without Unnatural Toughness will die to quickly in a Deathwatch-environment. Its is near-suicidal for them to accompany them on their missions.
Therefore, Deathwatch is not really compatible with the other 40K-RPGs. Unless you hand out Unnatural Toughness, that is.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

The main problem is that it is near-suicidal to take non-Marine characters on a Deathwatch mission without them getting blown to shreds.

That's... that's the idea.

Or at least, that's the idea behind the iconic "OH SWEET CHRIST IN HELL, Space Marine Squad Nubhumpers, you are the only four dudes standing between the DEATH-LEGIONS OF KALZOX IV and the TOTAL ANNIHILATION OF ALL LIFE IN THE GALAXY" type of mission. Of course anything less than an elite Deathwatch Space Marine is going to be gibbed faster than you can say "holy balls of the Emperor". And that's the way it should be.

If you're going to do a crossover game, you need an intelligent GM who knows how to handle the attendant game design. In other words, rather than slapping some silly game mechanics on the other characters to make them de facto Space Marines, the GM needs to very carefully craft an adventure or campaign where all the players can contribute and (potentially) thrive. Throwing non-Space Marine characters into a generic Deathwatch meatgrinder just absolutely reeks of total creative bankruptcy.

Some fun ideas off the top of my head:

The dudes need to escort a high-profile Inquisitor discreetly, because she's been targeted for assassination by a rival Inquisitor.
The dudes' ship crash-lands on an unforgiving Death World, and it's up to the dudes to survive its hostile environment and find a way home.
The dudes stand between the pivotal "swing-vote" of a Blood Axes warband and a huge WAAAGH! If the Blood Axes can be reasoned with or manipulated, the Orks may very well just kill each other instead.

And so on and so forth. None of those ideas require murder-Hordes to inflict over 9000 damage on the players every 2 minutes, nor are the Space Marines able to outshine the regular dudes.

[Imperial Overlord]

The quote function is giving me some weirdness so I'll hope you'll forgive the lack of quote bars.

1) I'm quite aware of that conventional horde attacks (as opposed to heavy and special weapon teams) are undodgeable and unparryable. Cover, force fields, and armor still applies as do psychic powers, faith abilities, Vindicare Assassin super dodge, The Flesh is Weak etcetera. Of course that just covers Horde basic attacks. If you're going to be crossing over a game with Deathwatch and doing kill team level opponents, then the Rogue Traders and Inquisitors and their right hand men (and women) should be wearing their 80 point rated power field generators, 70 rated Eldar Force Fields, best quality power armour, and so forth. Deathwatch is by far the most combat heavy version (as well as highest xp starting level) of the three games and any cross over that mixes games should expect very well equipped Explorers and Throne Agents. If you're having issues along these lines I suggest you pick up Into the Storm for Rogue Trader. There's no shortage of high end gear in that book and that's not counting the xenotech.

That will give them some survivability against Horde mass weapon fire spam. The rest should come from them realizing they aren't Space Marines and playing reasonably intelligently. Unless they're geared to the absolute gills or they're properly kitted out Tech Priests they're not as tough but have a broader array of skills and powers. They should play that way. No Astartes is going to match a Void Master Master of Small Craft when it comes to combat flying.

And the squishiness is relative. Space Marines are much better able to take mass lasgun spam but aren't as good at handling threats were a good dodge score or a good force field is better than a Unnatural Toughness (like heavy weapons fire).