Okay, you go get a P90, I'll get a long sword. You see if you can parry my attack.

I'll say again (and again and again and again it seems) a parry is not a block. Blocking is increadibly stupid. You have to have something like 3 to 4 times the strength of the attacker to block things. This is because momentum, weight, and other considerations make the incoming attack stronger than the standing still force the attacker can apply.

A parry is a deflection, striking a weapon in a specific manner where it is moved out of the path of the body of the person parrying into (hopefully) empty space. This is why a parry attack is simply just a basic WS test and not an opposed WS test. How skilled your opponant is does not affect your ability to hit a thin blade moving at high speed.

Now you want to tell me a tiny bullpup (bout 6-8" of effective area) is going to reasonably deflect that 3 foot blade? Yeah not buying it.

I'll just leave this here.

Okay, you go get a P90, I'll get a long sword. You see if you can parry my attack.

stuff about what parrying means and why parrying with a bullpup is a terrible idea

Well, I wouldn't use a P90 to parry (and when I say parry I mean parry, not block, because a block is a bad parry where you get your weapon broke) because it's not a longarm. It is also of much lighter construction than a boltgun, or even a bolt pistol.

A bullpup weapon is actually just about the worst possible weapon to try to parry with, as far as I imagine, based on where the grip is relative to the weight. How about we try it with an M1 Garand instead, or even a Desert Eagle? The Garand has the advantage of superior leverage while the Desert Eagle has the advantage of reaction speed, so they'd both give me better chances. They wouldn't be as effective as parrying with a balanced longsword (or even a parrying dagger, but only because no hilt), but turns out there's a penalty in game already. So there you go.

All of this is irrelevant to my mind, because "You go get a combat blade (a short sword or long knife by all accounts) and I'll go get a Hive Tyrant and we'll see if you can parry my attack." This is Deathwatch, and A) it's not a perfect simulation of combat and B) Space Marines get away with all kinds of things that anyone else would consider ridiculous.

You're wearing powered armour- you can just parry with your hands anyway. You have the Unarmed Master talent, and I don't believe there is anything in the rules preventing you from doing that, so if Brother Blowhard of the Ultramarines can parry a genestealers attacks with his hands, why can't he parry them with a gun?

You must be "wielding a melee weapon capable of Parrying" (DWCore p.242) in order to parry.

Unarmed Warrior makes a character, "...not count as Unarmed, as defined on page 245, when making attacks against armed opponents ," (DWCore, p.129). This means ONLY the penalty for attacking a character with a melee weapon is negated, it does NOT turn your fists into weapons.

Unarmed Master only negates the Primative quality on unarmed melee attacks, it also does not turn your fists into bonafied melee weapons. (DWCore, p.128)

Even the Natural Weapons trait (DWCore, p.133) does not allow a creature to parry with unarmed attacks.

Therefore, even with those talents and power armor, you MAY NOT parry without, "a melee weapon capable of Parrying."

If you are going to parry with a combat knife, that's fine. It's one of those things a combat knife is for.

Meh. I'd allow people to parry bare-handed, with a penalty and don't screw it up, anyway- but that's just me. There are techniques for parrying sword strikes with bare hands, much less hands covered in ceramite war-plate. I'd probably just treat them as more improvised weapons for the purpose of parries.

But I'll concede the point there- I'd be allowing something beyond the scope of the rules in order to have some rule-of-cool in there. My point about parrying a Hive Tyrant with a combat knife stands- in my opinion, it's just as ridiculous as parrying a Hive Tyrant, Genestealer or what-have-you with a bolter or plasgun. The fact that it's allowed RAW is just a matter of mediocre simulation, just like how Criticals work (you mean after the heavy bolter has knocked the wounds out and dealth minor critical damage, I can make the Hive Tyrants head explode by punching it?), or how suffering Wounds doesn't matter until you take critical damage, so on and so forth.

So yeah. Do what you want, I'd allow it. DW (along with the rest of WH40kRP) is an imperfect simulation, so I treat it as such. I won't require my players to understand the basics of parrying technique or martial arts, but the fact that several of them train in Jeet Kun Do on the side and a few others partake in various dress-up-and-beat-each-other-with-things events means that they do know these things- if they want to flavour things realistically, that's up to them.

Realistic simulation only goes so far in a setting with superhumans, bugs, space elves and mind magic. I prefer verisimilitude, thank you.

Edit: added an important qualifier. Statements of opinion should not be presented as statements of fact. It's in bold.

Hmmh. It may not be supported by the system - but I would allow "Parrying" with one's arm ... with the caveat that you don't actually deflect the hit, but take it in said arm as opposed to a different body location. Which might actually come in handy if, say, you really don't want an incoming chain axe to hit your unhelmeted head.

It seems suitably heroic without breaking realism/immersion.

That's fair, or even say that just barely failing means you get hit in the arm, but a severe failure means you suffer the arm critical as well as the normal critical, as the genestealer batters down your guard to tear at your face/belly/leg.

Your point concerning parrying large melee weapons with "rediculously small ones" is very valid. This is where the Common Sense Rule comes into play. Some things are simply impossible, and it is up to the GM to determine what those things are. Should a combat blade be able to parry a titan melee attack (heck no), should it parry a melee attack from a defiler (probably not), from a Tyranid Warrior (absolutely).

But speaking to the combat blade, lets not be disingenuous to the actual weapon (in support of the Common Sense Rule). Combat blades aren't tiny little things. They are, on average, longer than a space marine's shin. An average space marine is usually between 7 and 8 feet tall. Therefore a typical combat blade is actually 2 to 3 feet long, easily the size of a short to medium length sword for a human being. It just appears smaller since its being weilded by a giant.

All that asside, please move house rules discussion to the house rules section. Let us not confuse people looking for actual rules mechanics.

Space Marine melee sidearms (DW's combat blades) in Black Library materials are frequently referred to as ' gladius ' - that is, a bona fide shortsword. If you introduce the weapon describing it as a sturdy shortsword instead of a flimsy-looking knife, it might help immersion. It admittedly won't change the rules, but every little help counts.

You must be "wielding a melee weapon capable of Parrying" (DWCore p.242) in order to parry.

Unarmed Warrior makes a character, "...not count as Unarmed, as defined on page 245, when making attacks against armed opponents ," (DWCore, p.129). This means ONLY the penalty for attacking a character with a melee weapon is negated, it does NOT turn your fists into weapons.

Unarmed Master only negates the Primative quality on unarmed melee attacks, it also does not turn your fists into bonafied melee weapons. (DWCore, p.128)

Even the Natural Weapons trait (DWCore, p.133) does not allow a creature to parry with unarmed attacks.

Therefore, even with those talents and power armor, you MAY NOT parry without, "a melee weapon capable of Parrying."

If you are going to parry with a combat knife, that's fine. It's one of those things a combat knife is for.

Yeah - but that would also mean that you can't parry a punch or a kick, right? I don't believe that is RAI.

House rule: By default unarmed can't parry melee weapon attacks. Unarmed Warrior can with -20 and Unarmed Master can with -10. If you want epic, go -10/+0 instead. You can parry with a Storm Bolter but it counts as improvised weapon (-20) and will make the Techmarine very angry. Don't try to parry in TDA, either destroy the enemy through aggressive melee first or do a Disengage and let your battle-brothers shoot the enemy to shreds. Alternatively, you can do a Defensive Stance to at least reduce your chances of getting hit while the others punch your melee opponent.

Alex

Your point concerning parrying large melee weapons with " ridiculously small ones" is very valid. This is where the Common Sense Rule comes into play. Some things are simply impossible, and it is up to the GM to determine what those things are. Should a combat blade be able to parry a titan melee attack (heck no), should it parry a melee attack from a defiler (probably not), from a Tyranid Warrior (absolutely).

But speaking to the combat blade, lets not be disingenuous to the actual weapon (in support of the Common Sense Rule). Combat blades aren't tiny little things. They are, on average, longer than a space marine's shin. An average space marine is usually between 7 and 8 feet tall. Therefore a typical combat blade is actually 2 to 3 feet long, easily the size of a short to medium length sword for a human being. It just appears smaller since its being wielded by a giant.

All that aside , please move house rules discussion to the house rules section. Let us not confuse people looking for actual rules mechanics.

Words in Bold edited by me, because I actually had trouble reading some of the (likely) emotional context there because of misspellings- not your problem, just me being anal retentive and reading too much into things. You do make a good point: Let's get back on topic:

Yes, Terminators have to soak hits, carry a not-unwieldy melee weapon, or have a GM that will allow you to treat a ranged weapon as an improvised melee weapon. On that last note, clearly some GMs will (like me) and others won't. Convincing them one way or the other?

That's on you.

Emotion doesn't enter into it. This forum is about the official rules, not house rules. If you want to know how the official rules interact with a specific situation that is fine. If you want to suggest changes to the official rules or house rules, do it in the forum sections dedicated for that.

The rules are quite clear, even to the point of allowing GM fiat. Through the Common Sense rule to allow, or disallow situations at his discretion. This is the answer supported by official rules. If you wish to allow a character to use a rifle as an improvised weapon, though you probably shouldn't via common sense, to parry as a GM you may.

ak-73,

Page 245 states you may parry an unarmed attack.

Technically you are correct, you may not parry without a melee weapon capable of doing so. It would have been nice for the Unarmed Combat section to include a rule allowing an unarmed opponent to parry another unarmed opponent. Let me see if I can get an official ruling for this from FFG.

Okay, you go get a P90, I'll get a long sword. You see if you can parry my attack.

I'll say again (and again and again and again it seems) a parry is not a block. Blocking is increadibly stupid. You have to have something like 3 to 4 times the strength of the attacker to block things. This is because momentum, weight, and other considerations make the incoming attack stronger than the standing still force the attacker can apply.

A parry is a deflection, striking a weapon in a specific manner where it is moved out of the path of the body of the person parrying into (hopefully) empty space. This is why a parry attack is simply just a basic WS test and not an opposed WS test. How skilled your opponant is does not affect your ability to hit a thin blade moving at high speed.

Now you want to tell me a tiny bullpup (bout 6-8" of effective area) is going to reasonably deflect that 3 foot blade? Yeah not buying it.

Yeah blocks totally happen. Like, it doesn't require that much to stop someone's momentum. If they swing a two handed glaive at your face, you're going to have a hard time blocking that, but if someone one hands a sword against your one handed sword, you'd be surprised. It doesn't take much to stop forward momentum.

But if you take that and put that into the realm of the Space Marines? Ya know, the kind that can toss terminator suited chaos marines 187 something meters and kill them? They're ridiculously strong. Realistically speaking they could carry a giant pipe and baseball bat every genestealer in existence they're so incredibly over poweredly strong. So strength isn't an issue for them.

That being said, I personally wont allow my players to parry melee attacks with ranged weapons. It's the tri-force of weaponry coming into play. If I close on someone who's run out of ammunition and I have a flipping long sword, they may catch the first hit, they may catch the second hit, but they are going to go down. That whole Legolas nailing people with his bow and arrow when they get close is absurd. No one who has a ranged weapon is going to stand a chance against someone who has a melee weapon when he or she runs out of ammunition. So for that reason, common sense applies, and I wont even allow them to duel a melee user with a ranged weapon. It's ridiculous and I have literally never seen it work.