Hello All!

I'm going to be running an Only War game (my first 40k rpg experience) set during the Great Crusade. My research into that time frame uncovered Volkite Weapons, a Forgeworld invention for their Horus Heresy line. From my (limited) understanding they have shorter range then bolt weapons, penetration/damage like meltas(but longer range), and set targets they hit on fire. I was thinking using the stats/rules for bolt and melta weapons to cobble something together:

range between bolt and melta

damage and pentration of melta and extend the double penetration effect to mid range

Deflagurate: targets hit are treated as though hit with a weapon with the flame quality

Any thoughts, ideas, or suggestions are much appreciated.

They have the same AP as bolters, so give it bolter Pen.

The don't have the melta rule. They are devastating against flesh not metal.

Damage is similar to Heavy Bolters.

Definately damage type E.

I would also give it Tearing and Proven.

These things are nasty. A single hit will reduce a guardsman to ash and kill his buddy behind him.

Thanks Tygre! That helps a lot, I couldn't find any tabletop stats for comparison. I was just going off of (dubious) fluff descriptions.

Also be aware that they are not widely available for Space Marines let alone lowly troopers. Might be a good weapon for a master level boss though.

I think they should be like Pulse weapons in terms of Damage and Penetration (maybe Pen should be a little bit lower) and have the Flame, Vengeful (or how they call it, the special quality that gives you Righteous Fury on damage rolls of 9 too) and Destructive (if you play Hordes) special qualities.

Also, during the Great Crusade, Volkite weapons were almost as common as bolt weapons but they phased out as the Legions picked the bolt weapons as their standard small arms of choice.

Something like this:

Damage could also be 2d10+2 E depending on flavour

It's funny you ask this as about a year ago I had a Deathwatch group uncover some of these nasty little weapons cause I liked the fluff so much. I ended up making them WAY too powerful, but in case you're interested here are the Astartes-level stats I gave the bastards. I based my version of the Deflagrate rule on the tabletop (if they inflict a Wound they have a chance to deal another Wound, etc.)

Volkite Serpenta (Pistol, 20m, S/-/-, 1d10+12E, Pen 4, Clip 10, Rld Full, Deflagrate, Devastating (1), Tearing)

Volkite Charger (Basic, 60m, S/3/-, 1d10+12E, Pen 4, Clip 24, Rld Full, Deflagrate, Devastating (1), Tearing)

Volkite Caliver (Basic, 120m, -/-/5, 1d10+14E, Pen 4, Clip 40, Rld 2Full, Deflagrate, Devastating (2), Overheats, Recharge, Tearing)

Volkite Culverin (Heavy, 100m, S/4/-, 2d10+10E, Pen 4, Clip 40, Rld 3Full, Blast (1), Deflagrate, Devastating (1), Tearing)

Deflagrate: This weapon melts flesh like butter, carving organic targets apart with horrifying ease. When a hit against an organic target (no creatures with the Daemonic, Necron or Machine 4+ Trait, or others at GM discretion (i.e. Wraithguard)) deals 10X damage AFTER Armour and Toughness, it deals Xd10 extra damage where X is an integer (so if a shot dealt 20 damage, an extra 2d10 damage would be dealt). This cannot be triggered by extra damage from Righteous Fury or Deflagrate itself, and does not stack with additional hits. Each Attack can only trigger Deflagrate once (so if the first hit of a Semi-Auto Burst deals 11 damage after armour and toughness, but the second deals 21, Deflagrate is only triggered by the first hit).

To be fair to the overpowered Deflagrate rule, this was in a campaign where they had to fight three Hierophants at once at one point. I also came up with some special ammunition a la bolter ammo because I'm nice to my players.

Ion Dust: By using a powdered form of the metal blocks that normally act as a Volkite weapon’s ammunition, the Volkite weapon becomes a powerful and dangerous short range weapon with anti-tech capabilities. Halve the weapon’s range. It loses any rapid-fire capabilities. It gains the Haywire (0), Scatter and Devastating (+1) qualities.

Useable with: Volkite Serpenta, Volkite Charger

Pulsed Phase Crystals: Less of an ammo and more a change in weapon design, this allows the Volkite Caliver to overcome some of its issues and increase its penetration – at a price. The Caliver gains the Razor Sharp and Devastating (3) qualities, and loses Deflagrate, Overheats and Recharge. It reduces its base damage to 1d10+8E, but increases its base Pen by 2.

Useable with: Volkite Caliver

Super-Heavy Dark Metal Slugs: Super powerful rays are produced by these blocks of metal. Of course such powerful attacks have disadvantages. The weapon increases its range by 50%. It loses any rapid-fire capabilities. The Pen increases by +3, and the weapon gains the Felling (1), Overheats, Proven (4), Recharge and Unreliable qualities. The weapon reduces its clip size to 5.

Useable with: Volkite Charger, Volkite Culverin

There, that's all I came up with. Obviously you'd have to human scale them (in general Astartes gear deals +4 damage more than standard human), but I'd recommend getting hold of the HH TT books and reverse engineering the weapons to suit your campaign.

Sorry for reviving a dead post, but based off of the great ideas here I made a pdf version. I altered the rules a bit to be in line with the additional lore on Volkites that has come out in the last few years. These rules should also be a bit tidier.

Volkite Weaponry.pdf

On 9/19/2017 at 10:46 AM, Green Squad Leader said:

Sorry for reviving a dead post, but based off of the great ideas here I made a pdf version. I altered the rules a bit to be in line with the additional lore on Volkites that has come out in the last few years. These rules should also be a bit tidier.

Volkite Weaponry.pdf

I'm trying to download your Volkite Weaponry pdf and it says unavailable